#sucking him six ways to Wednesday . who said that. guys someone's in my house

[muttmurdock]

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

The King Of Character Actors

CHAPTER SEVEN: Poker Night: Part One

Featuring Charles Durning, Ed Asner, Rod Steiger, George Segal and Norby Walters.

I was invited to a weekly game held at the Hollywood home of the former sports agent Norby Walters by Charles Durning after we became friends while filming Home for the Holidays in 1995. As he was explaining to me, "it’s a diverse group of every actor in Hollywood” for low-limit stud poker. The minimum bet is just $1 and some of the regulars might consist of Alec Baldwin, Robert Downey Jr., Angie Dickinson, Sid Caesar or Sharon Stone. They all played until 10:45 before spending the next 15 minutes telling Frank Sinatra stories with everything ending by 11:00 pm.

Each Wednesday night, the veteran music agent welcomed nine boldface names to his Wilshire corridor high rise for three hours of poker. But tonight, thanks to some last minute cancellations, only a total of five men besides Charlie and me sat around the table. The lure of poker was stronger for these guys. Football, baseball, boxing and the business were popular topics of conversation. I was introduced to each and was greeted with a strong handshake from each man. I sat down among the members and started to study those who were already studying me.

Starting with our host Norby Walters, a short, nerdy fellow with nary a thing to say. He sat sipping his drink and worrying about the time. He was barefoot and wearing slacks with a short-sleeved cabana shirt, the top buttons unfastened to reveal a scar from heart surgery.

Charles Durning (72) was the elder statesman of the group. Short with a roly-poly build, his chest seemed to strain the limits of his shirt buttons. When he speaks, his voice is that of a Marine drill sergeant - people listen and obey. Self-educated, he’s been working since he was in knee pants; what he knows, he learned the hard way. He was my sure bet of the night. The one I was going to have sex with.

To Charlie's right was actor, George Segal (61). He was in his early sixties, my guess, around maybe six foot with a strong, but receding hairline. His dark hair was almost transparent on top. He was wearing shorts and a tank top. Chest hairs poked enticingly out from the top of the sleeveless top.

Next, was actor, Rod Steiger (70). At seventy something, Steiger was a stocky, shaved-headed, bull-necked man with piercing eyes, a brooding presence, but funny as hell. He wore long pants, a black button up shirt and an old style roadster beret topping his bald head. He smiled as our eyes met, then returned to his conversation with the man to his right.

Last was Ed Asner (66). Beautiful features, great build and incredibly handsome. His chest hairs nearly exploded from the top of his shirt. His fur lined forearms stuck out of the rolled up sleeves like carpeted appendages of some nineteen fifties goon. As a young adult, no one turned me on more than this man. My first impression was that Ed was funny, nice and sort of a big lush. He had three drinks and got sort of loud, but not in a bad way, it was after all a party.  

These were Charlie's poker pals. I’ll admit I was a little nervous playing against these guys. Each talked to the other while I darted in and out of their conversations. All except Ed. He was different. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew he was different. I lost the first few hands. Badly. But then my luck changed and I won every hand for the next hour.  

“Read ‘em and weep boys, read and weep. I win again.” I said in a taunting voice.  

“Keep it up kid. You’ll get yours.” Ed said.

“Come on Mr. Asner. None of you have won in an hour. Hell, I’ll suck your dick if you win just one of the next five hands. I’m so confident, if any of you win in the next five hands. I’ll suck all of your cocks.” I boasted.

“Ok boys, let’s keep it clean.” Norby said.

“No. He’s been running his mouth all night. OK you’re on. I win one of the next five hands and you’ll suck all of our cock.”

“Deal.” I readily answered.

It was my turn to deal again, I had learned a lot from other card players about hiding cards and dealing from the bottom of the deck. Norby, Ed, Rod and George were unaware that they were being set up. Mr. Durning however, was somewhat aware of my intentions since I was sucking his cock since Home for the Holidays wrapped up months ago. After shuffling the cards, I made sure Ed got the best hand.  

“Aces and deuces. Full house. Can you beat that kid?” He said.  

“No.” Was all I had to say.

"That didn’t take long, you lost on the first hand.”

“Then it looks like you have to suck everyone’s cock.”

“Come on guys, you’re not going through with that bet are you?” Norby questioned.  

“Hey, the kid made the bet. It’s up to him if he is going to live up to it.”  

“I never go back on a bet.” I said as I got up, found an empty bedroom and waited for my first client.

Our host, Norby wasted little time joining me in the bedroom, telling me that I didn't need to do this. I could tell that despite his outward chivalry, the bulge in the front of his pants signaled his true feelings. Seeing my determination, he allowed me to unclasp the top of his pants and unbuttoned his shirt. As I slipped the shorts down past his knees, his cock was peeking out of the front of his boxer shorts. I tugged on his boxers, slowly, teasing him before they finally passed his cock, springing out freely away from his body.

I excitedly leaned over to grasp his firm uncut cock. I love to peel the protective skin back with my tongue and lips, exposing the sensitive head. My actions were greeted with the usual response as Norby moaned audibly. Not wanting to remain standing, he sat down on the edge of the bed and then fell back, legs splayed apart for my easy access. I attacked his groin with the fervor of a long neglected lover. My cock was pressing against the edge of the bed in a vain attempt to attract some attention for itself.

Norby grasped the bed covers tightly as my head bobbed rapidly on his tool. Grunting and groaning, Norby writhed beneath my attack. His entire body seemed to tense and then with an upward thrust of his hips, he climaxed. Manly fluids flowed into my hungry mouth. As I squeezed the last of his cum from his cock, his whole body relaxed as his breathing started to slow and his eyes slowly opened.

"Thank you." Norby said as I slumped back into the small chair next to the bed and watched him get dressed before rejoining the card game.

I didn't have to wait long as I heard someone getting up from the table and heading down the hall. I thought it would be Charlie, but to my surprise, it was George. Without speaking, he opened his pants to reveal his cock. As if responding to his inaudible command, I leaned forward and took his tool offered and placed it in my mouth. It easily fit. The nicely cut cock quickly hardened between my lips.

As the turgor pressure reached the maximum within his five inch cock, I felt his hands firmly grasp my head. His hips began to rhythmically thrust in synchrony with my lips. As quickly as it started, it ended. I heard a couple grunts, tasted something slightly salty on my tongue and the next I knew, he was withdrawing his cock. I finally looked up at my guest face. He quietly mouthed 'Thank you' and then shuffled back to the table.

The others at the table said nothing and acted as if he was there all along. George picked up his cards and continued on playing as if nothing had occurred. It wasn't long before I heard someone politely excused himself from the table, ostensibly to use the john, I was soon confronted with Rod standing in front of me, unzipping his pants.

He unbuttoned his pants, pulled the waistband of his underwear down to allow his already half hard cock to flop out. Using both his hands to hold his pants and underwear, Rod thrust his hips forward causing his manhood to lightly tap my lips. I quickly opened my mouth to let his cock slide in. As his tool grew, I knew that unlike my last visitor, I'd have a problem accommodating this man's growing cock.

On a couple of occasions I had to limit his thrusts because I was nearly choking. I wrapped my hand around his shaft, allowing his shaft to slide in and out of my mouth through my moistened palm as Rod became more vocal. His grunts and my slurping noises were loud enough that everyone in the house could hear. It didn't matter to me and obviously didn't matter to Rod.

"Oh my God!" Rod said as he began to let loose.

As the first spurt hit my tongue, Rod grabbed his dick with his right hand and started to almost violently jack his cock. His knees slightly bent, the moans and grunts continued as he rapidly jacked the rest of his man fluid into my waiting mouth. I relaxed and allowed Rod to finish his release as his right hand switched from a rapid jacking motion to a careful milking motion. Each drop of his cum was carefully deposited upon my tongue.

As Rod's breathing slowly returned to normal, he slowly pulled his pants and underwear back up to their proper position. He smiled down at me as I exercised my stretched jaw muscles. Rod beamed with pride recognizing that it was his endowment that caused my minor discomfort. With a tip of his hat, Rod turned and moved back to the table. He sat quietly next to the other players. Picking up his hand of cards, he smiled as if he got dealt an inside straight.

George wasted little time joining me in the bedroom, standing proudly in front of me. The bulge in the front of his shorts signal his readiness as I unclasp the top of his shorts. As I slipped his shorts down past his knees, his cock sprang out from his body. I excitedly grasp his firm cock as he sat down on the edge of the bed and the fell back, legs splayed apart for easy access. I attacked his groin with the fervor of a long neglected lover. With active hands, tongue and lips I worked on his perfect pink tool. I was enjoying it almost as much as George. My cock was pressing against the edge of the bed in a vain attempt to attract some attention for itself.

George grasped the bed covers tightly as I worked. He move further up on the bed, finding ourselves in plain view of the other occupants in the other room. My head bobbed rapidly on his tool, as George grunted and groan, writhing beneath my attack.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the guys watching, especially Charlie. He watched over the top of this cards, not concerned about who was winning the current hand. Next to him, Ed tried not act nonchalant, but his intent gaze was not focused on the cards. Suddenly George tensed up and then with an upward thrust of his hips, he came. Manly fluids flowed into my hungry mouth.

As I squeezed the last of his energy from his cock, his whole body relaxed. Slumping back into the small chair next to the bed, I watched George slipped his shorts back on. Sipping on a glass of scotch he brought in, I watched as he rejoined the card game. I wondered who would be next. Ed or Charlie? It wasn't long before I got my answer.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[savysavannah]

Practice Challenge one: Part One

Beginnings: 

“Fuck!” I yelled and slammed my hands against the steering wheel. This wasn’t the first time I’d had a total mental breakdown in the dim lighting of the courthouse parking lot, and it sure wasn’t gonna be the last. This case was rigged from the get-go, Mr. Dean esquire was always there against me, swaying the jury with his charismatic personality and his masculine gender. Not to mention it was a jury which he decided to leave fully as white men, his fellow groupies against my defendant, a woman of color who defended herself against her abuser who came at her with a gun. 

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Opening them I saw Dean sashaying to his car. I considered putting my own in reverse and waiting until he just walked by, then bye bye Dean. Deciding that it wouldn’t be worth the cost of defending myself I waited until after he’d passed to pull out and start to drive to Illean Private University. I was an attorney coach for a Mock Trial team and of course, had to encourage these kiddos that law was the best career and it would really be fulfilling to help people. Driving past the Greek life houses I couldn’t help but smile thinking of happier times. Chugging shitty beer, dressed like a total slut and not giving one single fuck. 

After an hour or two of bullshitting some kids and reminding them to object when someone playing a witness says “well I heard the defendant say he was mad at the victim so he must have killed her.” I drove on my way home. 

“Incoming call from Uncle Dipshit'' said my car, continuing the never ending day that is my life. 

“What?” 

“Hey little Savy-Hannah, I’m in a bit of a bind and need some help.” 

“What was it? Cocaine? Meth? Or did you finally snap and get caught with heroin.” 

“Come on, Savannah, why would you just assume that, can’t I call my one and only niece because I wanna talk to her?” 

“At 11pm? Friday night? Bullshit.” 

“.......fine Sav-” 

“Fuck you, I’m not doing probono work for you anymore. Get your shit together or get the fuck out of our lives.” 

Taking a turn away from my apartment I started to head for Lux, my old usual club. I hadn’t gone in awhile but right now I needed to get absolutely shitfaced. 8 shots and 2 waters later I was grinding up against some strangers to Kesha’s “Die Young”, a classic. Suddenly I heard an all too familiar voice, “Savannah!” 

My brother. Specifically, my oldest brother, Dan. He danced his way over to me of course being in this scene and grabbed my wrist. “Wha-u wan dan?” I slurred and kept jumping to the song. 

“I was worried about you, Ricky called and said you were acting weird.”

“Weird!" I laughed throwing my head back "Because I wouldn’t clean up his shit for once!” I screamed over the music before he pulled me out of the club by the wrist. As soon as the cool air hit my cheeks I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky. 

“I wish I was a star." I mumbled seeing the shimmering lights above us before suddenly leaning forward and hurling all over the cement. Probably a usual occurrence for Lux but I still felt bad. Dan rolled down the windows of my car as he drove me home, I stuck my head out of it for the breeze to feel the air in my lungs. 

“How’d you find me?” I mumbled, still not fully back to myself. 

“We all have eachothers phone locations, remember? You insisted on it like a year ago after you interned on that kidnapping case.” He sighed as we drove up the familiar road home. 

“You’re really a mess you know that?” He asked. It's not like he was much better….well, he was but it's not like I'm our brother Danny. At least I made something of myself. Didn't get handed my career and a wife on a silver platter. Or like Daniel who was still so far back into the closet that we really aren't sure if he'll ever come out, even though our family would be more than accepting of him. 

I was tempted to defend myself but stopped, “I know, I just need a win."

The next morning Dan was sleeping on my couch and I was on the living room floor. “You couldn’t have carried me to bed?” I mumbled through a yawn. 

“You’re the dumbass who got white girl wasted and said you were too tired to walk to your room.” 

“What time is it?” I mumbled and went to find my phone despite the world swaying as I crawled to my purse.

He lifted his arm up to look at his watch, “Like 8:00am chill out.” He groaned. 

“HOLY FUCK 8?” I flinched at the loudness of my own voice. I was normally up at six, two hours slept in, what’s today it’s a wednesday. ‘What was I supposed to do today? No clients in court today, so that’s good. Okay so I suppose I have to? Paperwork?’

I sighed, “You’re fucking lucky I didn’t have court today.” Stumbling up I ran to my room to change out of yesterday's clothes, splash some water on my face and get on the move.  

"Lucky? I'm the one who got your ass home at all!" He yelled back from the living room as I slipped into a different skirt. Shirt could stay the same, just a plain white shell no one would notice. But skirt absolutely not. I grabbed a pair of earrings and a bag of makeup wipes and rushed past Dan. 

"Fine sorry love ya. Family dinner on saturday right?" I hurried as I slung a purse over my shoulder. 

"You got it." He replied. 

"Uh, stay awhile have breakfast if you want. I've got bagels and eggs. Just lock up when you leave." I remembered finally to be polite as he stretched getting up from the sofa.

The office was busy and loud as usual. I tried to smile and act like I wasn't hungover as holy hell while I walked to my desk. 

There was someone new taking a desk near me too. Lanky guy probably straight out of law school too. I sized him up for a moment before nearly catching his eye but going back to my work. 

It wasn't till lunch that I had to actually deal with another human when I ran into Mr. Asshole-dean. 

"Ms. Mars?" He said as he tapped my shoulder in line at the starbucks near the courthouse. 

I turned but knew his voice right away, "Mr. Dean?" I replied wondering why he was bothering me. He seemed to catch my cold tone. 

"What, rough night? Does suck the night you lose the case but don't worry. You'll get better at losing, can't win em all." 

I would like to get an extra extra hot- you know what make it just a cup of fucking lava to poor on this jackass. I smiled, "Thanks! I'm sure it didn't take you long to get used to it." I gave a passive aggressive smile and looked down to my watch. 

"Listen, Mars, I know we're opposing counsel but I don't mean any harm by it. I think we could be great friends if you'd give it a shot. I mean I'm sure we both hate our jo-"

"Hi I'd like a venti mocha!" I ordered cutting him off the scurried back to my car. 

I had a few hours before I actually had a meeting. It was just to speak with a judge over a custody case between a homophobic mother and two "really good friends" one of who was the father of the child in question. There was a chance it could turn into a serious case, the mom was wealthy and if she got too displeased she could probably turn it into a civil suit on the grounds of the father being gay. But it wasn't likely she'd take the time. She was only really fighting for custody to use their kid as a weapon in the divorce. 

I drove home with my coffee deciding I wanted to Pad Thai leftovers I had as comfort/hangover/please-god-dont-make-me-live-another-day food. 

Daniel was sitting on my couch when I walked in. "Can you not just walk into my house? Dan may have forgotten to lock it but that's no reason for you to just waltz in here!" I yelled as I dropped my purse and walked up to him. 

"Is that my mail?" I huffed and snatched my letters from him. It was just junk mail but he still had no right to be so intrusive. 

He looked up at me with a slight glare, "I know what you did and I'm gonna get you back for it." And as quickly as he came he scurried out. 

Ringing up Dan I tapped my foot on the ground, "You forgot to lock the door!" I yelled into the phone. 

"Oh shit my bad. You okay?" He asked. 

"Yes, but Daniel was just here. All pissed over something." I grumbled and walked to the fridge to get out my leftovers. 

"Any idea of what?" He asked. 

"No clue." I answered. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“No, don’t call anyone. Listen, they record everything but our conversations for confidentiality, if you call someone it’s possible that they might somehow be involved and we don’t want prosecution to get that- understand?” I hated explaining the basics to my clients, but those dumbassses would sign their own sentences if they didn’t know any better.

I walked up to the courthouse, in one hand I had my phone, the other a black coffee from the starbucks across the street, my work back slung over my shoulder and threatened to slide lower onto my arm. As I turned the corner I was suddenly burning with hot coffee against my chest and a stranger staring down at me as I had run right into him, 

“FUCK!” I yelled as I stepped back. My heel slipped in a crack on the sidewalk, the top of it snapping it too causing me to fall back, my head hitting the hard concrete.   

When I opened my eyes again he was standing over me. It was the new guy who sat across from me. "Don't worry I called an ambulance." He assured. I was going to sit up but as I pieced the situation together I realized I was no longer wearing a shirt. Instead I had his blazer placed over my top. I assume because of the burning coffee which would have been sitting on my torso had he not. 

He rode in the ambulance to the hospital. We sat in awkward silence as I tried to figure out his angle. Was he afraid I'd sue. I was the one who bumped into him. Did he wanna ask me questions about our workplace. It'd been a month or so since he'd arrived though so that wouldn't make sense. 

He sat next to me at the hospital and was still there when the doctor told me it was a light concussion and a small burn. He sighed, finally not seeming like a stiff board for a moment. Maybe he was scared I'd sue. I turned to him in the hospital bed when we had a moment alone. 

"Why are you here?" I asked. 

He blushed and looked down mumbling a bit as he said "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I wouldn't be able to work anyways till I knew." My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

"Why? I'm the one that bumped into you?" I asked. 

He was about to respond when the brigade of brothers came in. He seemed startled at all the sudden male energy in the room. "Ah, these are my brothers Dan, Danny, and Daniel. Daniel is a family name." I added the common addition when introducing them to anyone. 

He stood up and shook Dan's hand firmly "Nicholas Lamia." He said. I realized then that I also didn't know his name. Danny started to get suspicious as he looked at him with antagonizing eyes. 

"How do you know our sister?" He asked. Nicholas flushed again and tried to find words for a moment. 

"We work together. He's the one who called the ambulance." Daniel set a balloon down next to me that he'd gotten at the gift shop. 

We hadn't really spoken since his home break in. I still don't know what that was about. But he's been suspicious since. Once they released me Nicholas went on his way and the Mars siblings stood on the sidewalk and considered where to go. 

"Should we get sushi? It's been a moment since we hung out without mom and dad." Dan suggested leading the conversation. 

"Hmm, works for me. Samantha's out of town for work." Danny chimed in. 

I sighed thinking about all the work I still had to do. But it had been a minute since we hung out for fun, and cucumber rolls wouldn't be too bad right about now. "Sure I'm in." I replied. 

"You?" Danny asked Daniel.

He mumbled for a moment with the same guilty look, "no, I don't th-" 

Suddenly Danny got him in a headlock, "come on even Savy agreed and she'd rather eat shit than waste time." He joked. I rolled my eyes and we all piled into Dan's car. 

The waitress led us up to a small booth towards the back. At first I was going to sit next to Daniel but the blaring TV would send me down a spiral. There was a government program on and as soon as that shit for an heir came on I'd be fuming about how we're leaving the lives of multiple disadvantaged people to a boy who did body shots off a Delta Nu on a thursday night. I wasn’t exactly sure if that story was true, but it wouldn’t surprise me based off of what I’d seen from more credible sources than Lucy in the room down that hall at the sorority house who was gushing about how she wished it could be her. Prince Eaton went to the University of Labrador with us and she was hopeful that he would do it but sadly, no. 

Dan saw my eyes lingering on the TV and switched sides of the booth with me. We were just about finished and considering desert when I began to notice the glances and smirks. I wiped with a napkin thinking maybe I had some rice on my face, but they continued nonetheless. It wasn’t like creepy guys smirking either, it was everyone. The air felt different and Daniel looked like he was going to be sick. “What?” I asked as he opened his mouth. 

It looked like he was about to say something but couldn’t find the words. Dan opened to speak too, “Savannah, we didn’t think you’d ge-” 

“Oh my gosh congratulations on being selected! Would you like a desert? Everything is on the house of course!” The waitress smiled. 

I looked up at her as if she were speaking German. “Congratulations on what?” I asked. 

“On being selected! They were just announced, are you so excited? Could I also get a photo by any chance! The next queen of Illea could be sitting at my booth!” She cheered.

The world slowed as my mind raced selected? Like The selection selected? I didn’t apply? I didn’t want to apply? How did I even get entered? What did Daniel want to tell me? Did Daniel do this? Was this his revenge for what? 

I snapped out of it as Dan called my name. “I’m sorry. I have to step out for a moment.” I said and grabbed my purse running out of the restaurant, feeling everyone watching me. I walked to the side of the building and pressed my back against the cold brick panting. I crumbled inwards as my brothers ran over to me. I took a deep breath in, 

“I don’t” 

another breath

“understand.” 

Suddenly a man with a long lens camera appeared. How did that happen so fast? How did he know what she looked like? Stupid your Savannah Mars it’s not like you’re a nobody your grandpa runs the largest candy company in the world. 

“Can you back off?” I heard Dan ask him. 

He kept ignoring Dan entirely, that is till Dan pushed his camera out of focus. “What the fuck man? Chill.” The creep said and went to shove Dan. Level headed Dan of course responded by punching him in the face. 

We all piled into his car and drove to my house. I sat in the car ride silent and waited for someone to speak. No one did but Daniel still looked like he was going to throw up. We all sat on the sofa in continued silence. Only Dan spoke to offer everyone water. 

No one said yes to it but a cup appeared in front of each of us anyways, always the responsible older brother. 

I inhaled then finally said, “I’m not mad. I just want to know why?” and looked at Daniel. It was clear by now that he was the culprit. 

He sat there in silence, his lip whimpering like he wanted to cry. Like he wanted to cry? If anyone’s going to cry it should be me. Suddenly I lunged at him to get in a hit. Only Danny’s arm stopped mine from smashing into his face. 

“Why?” I yelled. 

“I thought you made a gay dating profile for me.” He whimpered. 

“What?” I asked, even more confused than before. 

Dan spoke up, “Danny made a gay dating profile for him to try and give him a little push. When he got mad he said it was you who did it.” 

“I just saw the letter sitting there and it seemed like the perfect way to get back at you for meddling in my love life. I was just gonna taunt you with submitting it, then Dan told me it was Danny but he said you wouldn’t get in and you’d just never know.” Daniel explained. 

“Well, statistically speaking you shouldn’t have.” He defended. My anger shifted to the brother holding me back. If Danny had teased Daniel about his sexuality none of this would have happened. But I couldn’t do anything with him still holding my wrist. 

I stood from the sofa and the brothers stood as well. “I’m going to go get changed.” The second they relaxed I turned and charged at Danny. “You fucking bitch!” I yelled and started to pull at his hair. He didn’t fight back but Daniel panicked and Dan rushed over. I was yanked off of him before I could make any real damage but he did look hurt enough. 

“How could you! Just minding your own fucking business could have avoided this whole thing! And Daniel!” I yelled and turned. “Don’t fucking get vengeance especially not without communicating!” 

The phone started to ring. It was probably about the selection. I huffed over ready to say, “Hi, yes this is Savannah Mars. No, I would not like to participate, please pull someone else.” But as I picked up the phone I realized something. Daniel would have had to forge my signature. In order to apply for me he had to sign a contract. If I say I want out I would have to prove I didn’t agree to begin with. That would mean proving the false signature. Which is by the way, illegal. 

I sighed, held the phone to my ear. “Yes this is she. I’m so excited to be selected and am more than happy to discuss a time for you to send your people over.”

[solli]

“i sent a selfie of myself to the wrong number but you responded and you’re really hot” AU (x)

mentions of smexy pictures and suggestive imagery. also I now have a drabble spree collection on ao3

Blaine is about to die.

He would like not to, but he can see the life he yet has to live slipping right through the fingers of his cold, clammy hands.

“Fuck.” he mutters under his breath. He’s surprised he still has breath to waste.

“What’s wrong, Blainey Day?” Tina asks from the other side of the breakfast table.

“Fuck.” he says again.

He has no idea how he’ll say anything different ever again.

“Blaine?” Tina asks, more worried, looking up from her own phone.

He shuts down his phone and shoots on his feet.

“I forgot I had a capoeira lesson.”

“You have those on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

Fuck Tina and her obsessive knowledge of his schedule.

“I have an extra one. It’s a seminar. That’s why I forgot.”

She doesn’t seem particularly convinced, but he doesn’t wait around to answer any question. He picks up his messanger bag and runs out of the apartment. He has no idea were to go, he just knows that he should probably avoid river banks.

He ends up holing himself away in a Starbucks, because nothing says millenial misery like crying over a missent selfie in a coffeehouse chain.

He can’t bear the thought of taking his phone out of his pocket.

His thigh buzzes. Then again.

He’s supposed to tell his mother how many of his friends he’s bringing to the housewarming of their new vacation house by the lake.

He tentitevely takes out his phone.

He’s got a text from his mother and two more for the stranger he sent a photo of himself kneeling on a bed. Thank God he had underwear on. White boxer briefs he was pulling down on one side so low that some hair that shouldn’t be seen were in fact showing, but still. At least he isn’t butt naked.

Curse the day he decided that there wasn’t much difference between a bathing suit and underwear anyway.

He’s terrified of opening that chat. How did he even think that sending Eli a selfie was a good icebreaker to go from instagram DMs to texting he has no idea.

Okay, he has a few. Thank God he didn’t send a back pic, he tends to take those naked. Tended. Past tense. He isn’t sending another risque pic in his life.

He takes a deep breath. It’s better to just rip the bandaind off. He knows it’s pics already, he’s looked at them long enough to realize it surely wasn’t Eli he texted.

All of his blood rushes to his dick. He doesn’t feel his feet anymore, nor he has enough circulation in his brain to think. He can just stare.

One of the photos is a bird’s-eye view of a lean, pale guy lying on white sheets, hips up, white skin scattered with freckles and beauty marks. He’s got a hand just above his bully button, at least six rings stacked on three fingers, and God those are abs, just defined enough that Blaine could lick through the ridges.

All of which he takes in in the corner of his eyes because nested next to it is a shot clearly taken balancing the phone of said lickable abs, framing black briefs pulled down on one side (smartass), a rather snug buldge, and very very long legs, one raised to show a lean slim thight that Blaine just bets would feel incredibly firm if he was to, say, dig his fingers into it as sucked him off.

Whomever he was.

The dick hasn’t included a face pic. Which is extremely unfair since Blaine’s is completely visible- which might have been a grave mistake but it wasn’t like his mirror selfie was that bad. He wasn’t tecnically showing nothing.

He’s aware of the extreme irony of this trail of thoughts, but he can’t help shifting on his chair and reading the texts below the pics.

It occured to me that my spontaneous photoshoot might have contribuited to the growing archive of a ring of nudes trading and not, as I originally thought, to give something back to a misguided hot guy who happened to have a wrong number.

In that case, I’d like to retire my application.

He snorts. He types back before he knows he’s doing it.

What if it is really was a misguided hot guy who typed in the wrong number because he has two brain cells to budget and he likes to waste it all on photography and stage lighting?

Well. It depends. Has the misguided hot guy enjoyed what he saw?

He might be half hard in a Starbucks

Who hasn’t been at least once.

But how can I be sure you’re not catfishing me?

Blaine bites his lips. Oh, hell. He already has a picture of his face. He snaps a selfie, cute smile with a hint of embarassed wrapped in a photogenic smize.

Fuck, you’re pretty.

Blaine blushes.

Would like to say the same but I only know you have a ring fetish :/

:/

A pic comes in a few seconds later, and Blaine thinks he might have just fallen in love.

He’s gorgeous. Wild hair, pale skin, red thingreengreyblue eyes, even more freckles, even more beauty marks. He’s resting his cheek against his hand and he’s indeed making a :/ face.

Oh

Another pic immedietely comes through. It’s him smirking in a knowing way, and he had to have already took it before Blaine even responded.

He’s tempted to snap another fic but he’s a splotchy blusher and he would hate to ruin the surprise for him.

So, you’ve got a NY number.

:)

I was about to ask you your whereabouts but that was profoundly unsexy.

Almost as much as your full stops

I find them very sexy, I like to finish things off properly.

Smooth

.

It doesn’t work like that. You either put it at the end of the sentence or you don’t.

I was planning to send you another selfie after finishing things off properly later tonight but if that’s what you think

:(

You have to know the rules before you can break them 

.

Blaine laughs and ignores his face burning hot on the hand he’s leaning his cheek against.

I do am in NY by the way. Tisch

Columbia.

Of course

What does that mean?

Hot, gorgeous, witty and smart. Where’s the catch?

You tell me. I’m still not convinced you’re a sleazy sixty something balding men trying to find escape from an heterosexual marriage.

Tell me your name.

Only because you put a full stop. It’s Sebastian.

He does sound like a Sebastian. Blaine writes it with a pen on the side of his coffee cup, adding an “Hi, Sebastian, I’m” over the black marker “Blaine”, and a “:)” right after.

Hi, Blaine. Hope you’re not being held hostage.

Why don’t you come and check on me?

He attaches his position. The Starbucks is crowded enough that it doesn’t feel like a complete idiocy.

Give me 20 minutes.

He ends up giving him 31 minutes and one more coffee. He’s scrolling through instagram when someone crashes with grace on the seat in front of him, coiffed hair, a deep red t-shirt and a cheeks reddened by the early summer sun.

”So?” Sebastian asks in a scruffy drawl, ”Where’s the catch?”

Blaine is way more flustered that he thought he’d be, considering he basically told Sebastian he was going to jerk off to his pictures later in the night.

Sebastian checks him out and Blaine is glad he knows how to play his cards, if the way Sebastian’s eyes linger around the height of his flushing cheekbones tells him something.

”I think we both have an entire coffee date to find that out.” he smiles leaning over to rest his temple on his hand.

Sebastian smiles back, and Blaine might have to text his mother he’s bringing one more guest to the housewarming party.

[rainbow-sides]

A Hand to Hold: Chapter Seven

Summary: Patton befriends an isolated boy at his high school and soon develops feelings for him that aren’t just friendship. Navigating a relationship of any kind with Logan Barry isn’t easy, but it sure is worth it!

Pairings: romantic Logicality, possible background Prinxiety but I haven’t decided yet

Word Count: 1,739

Warnings: talk about bullying, ableism from a parent, very brief mention of Deceit, mentions of abusive therapy (implied ABA), food mention, mild spoilers for Doctor Who, anxiety, school stress,

Notes: ATTENTION I am no longer using a taglist. Instead, please follow and click notifications for the blog @rainbow-sides-fics. I’ll be reblogging all of my old fics there as well as any new ones I’ll be posting. Alternatively, A Hand to Hold is now available on AO3. Love you guys! <3 ~Martin

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

___________________________________

“GCAT PUPY PUPY,” Virgil chanted, his palms pressed to his temples. “Guanine and adenine are purines, cytosine and thymine are pyrimidines. Right?”

Logan nodded. “Correct. Well remembered.”

“Thank God for mnemonics.” Virgil popped a chip into his mouth. “Okay. Okay. What else is on the study guide?”

“It says to understand 5’ and 3’ directionality, decoding amino acid sequencing, and be able to explain the process of DNA replication as well as translation from DNA to proteins,” Logan said, summarizing the study guide for what was probably the fourth or fifth time. Although he knew that Virgil obviously knew the material, he got anxious during tests. He had asked Logan to help study with him so he felt more prepared.

“I feel like I know all of that, but there's got to be a catch, right? I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna fail.” He started to breathe too quickly.

Chex, who had been resting on the floor next to Virgil's chair, sat up. She nudged Virgil's leg with her nose and let out a soft whine.

Virgil buried his hand in the fur on the back of the dog's neck and took a deep breath. “No, I'm probably not going to fail. I've never failed a test in this class before, and I've been doing all the work.”

“I don't believe that you will fail,” Logan agreed. He twisted the ring on his finger, not sure what else to say. 

He wanted to help Virgil, but anxiety was complicated and Logan wasn't great at complicated emotions. Logan figured it was probably best to leave that to Patton. And Chex, of course. The sweet black lab was so in tune with Virgil's anxiety that she could tell even before he started to have an attack and would remind him to redirect his energy into more productive avenues.

“Would you like to keep studying?” asked Logan. “I have vocabulary cards for the whole unit, and there is always a vocabulary section on the test.”

Virgil nodded. “Sure, vocab practice sounds good. Hey, um, thanks again for coming over to study with me. It's nice to have a friend in that class now, I'm less stressed about it.”

Logan thought that Virgil still seemed very stressed. He didn't voice that opinion. “Codon,” he said, holding up the first vocabulary card.

“Uhh, uh, it's any series of three nitrogen bases that code for a specific amino acid, right?”

“Correct. Peptide bond.”

Virgil looked up at the ceiling. “It's...uh, well, peptide is referring to proteins, so...bonds between proteins?”

“Bonds between amino acids,” Logan corrected. “Okasaki fragments.”

“Oh shit,” Virgil muttered. “Um, something about the leading strand?”

“Lagging strand. Okazaki fragments are the stretches of DNA that are copied piece by piece on the lagging strand,” said Logan. He spun the ring on his finger again. He hoped that Virgil wouldn't get worried that he wasn't getting all of the vocabulary right.

“Right! I remember now.”

“Operon.”

“Oh, hey, I know this one. A group of genes that are functionally related,” Virgil said.

“Correct. Intron.”

They kept going until all of the vocabulary cards had been discussed. Logan put aside the ones that Virgil had struggled on so he could keep looking at them later.

“Seriously, thank you so much for coming and helping me out,” Virgil said. “I feel much better about the test on Thursday.”

Logan flicked his hand up near the side of his face. “You're welcome,” he said.

“I don't think I'm going to be able to cram much more into my brain right now, I need a break. Hey, how's the Doctor Who marathon with Patton going?” Virgil wondered.

With a slight bounce in his seat, Logan replied, “We watched Boom Town this weekend! On Wednesday afternoon, he is coming to my house to watch Bad Wolf and The Parting of Ways!”

Virgil leaned forward. “Oh, man, you're already almost to Nine's regeneration? Does Patton know it's coming?”

“Yes, and he says that he will miss Eccleston, but that he's seen David Tennant in other things and is looking forward to meeting Ten,” Logan said happily. He hummed to himself for a second before adding, “I am looking forward to reaching Ten's episodes, he is my favorite modern Doctor.”

“I gotta say, I like Capaldi. He's grumpier. More my style. Though Tennant at the end of his run is cool, he gets dark and edgy.” Virgil grinned. “The new season with Jodie Whittaker was freaking fantastic, too.”

“Much agreed,” Logan said. “I appreciate having a larger group of companions again, and the diversity has improved recently.”

Virgil scratched Chex behind the ears. “Yeah, big team TARDIS's are fun. One of my favorites was at the end of Journey's End was when they were all flying the TARDIS like she's supposed to be flown.”

Logan nodded. “May I ask you a question?” he said suddenly.

“Yeah, course.”

“What does it feel like to you when you are excited about something? Such as when you are talking about or watching Doctor Who, or listening to the music you like?” Logan asked.

There was a long pause as Virgil thought about that. “It makes me happy, I guess.”

“How does it physically feel?” Logan pressed.

“Oh, jeez, I'm not sure. It almost makes me feel peaceful? Like, um, listening to my music makes my mind slow down for just a little while. My body feels more relaxed afterwards. Same with watching something I like. It's a comfort, almost.” Virgil tapped his fingers against the table. “This is a tough question, dude.”

Logan leaned back in his chair. “I apologize.”

“No, it's okay. Really, I just need to think for a minute. Um...it feels warm in my chest sometimes. I guess that's about it. Well, starting a new episode almost feels like anxiety for me. But then again, most emotions turn into anxiety for me. That's just how anxiety works,” Virgil said. Then he asked, “What does it feel like for you?”

Putting his hands on his chest, Logan says, “I'm not sure. I have alexithymia, so I have a difficult time labeling emotions. I can sometimes describe it in physical sensations, though. And my excitement about my special interests feels like my heart and my lungs and my stomach are all on fire, if being on fire felt good and didn't hurt.”

“Sounds intense.”

“It is.” Logan looked down as Chex put her head against his leg. Her sweet brown eyes blinked up at him, and a soft warmth spread through his chest. “Hello,” he said. “Hello, Chex. Your ears are very soft.” He stroked her head.

“She wants to make sure that you're okay,” Virgil said. “She...she can hear changes in people's voices and checks up on them, even if it isn't me.”

“I'm alright. I don't have excellent volume control, or tone control. I never know what I sound like, exactly.” He couldn't tear his eyes away from the beautiful dog. “But I suppose that talking about my experiences with emotion do cause me some distress, which could have emerged in my voice without my noticing.”

Virgil stood up and walked over to the living room. “Want to come sit over here, Lo?” he offered.

“Um, alright.” Logan went over to join him. Chex followed him, and all three of them sat down on the ground. “Why?”

“Why does talking about your emotions distress you?” Virgil asked.

Logan froze up. “Because they are difficult,” he said slowly. “And I do not understand them. I do not like talking to people about things I do not understand.”

“Are you worried that someone might tell you that your emotions are wrong?”

A confused, bad feeling swirled around inside him. Chex laid her head and front paws in his lap, and he felt calmer. “Perhaps, but I'm not sure that I understand the question,” Logan admitted, running his hands down the dog's fur. It was almost as soothing as a full-body stim, and the pressure of her weight against his legs added to that effect.

“I mean, do you think that someone will come along and tell you that the way you are labeling your emotions is wrong? That the words you use to describe your experiences are incorrect?” Virgil tried to clarify.

“Yes, that is what happens.” It had happened many times before. The way he tried to describe what he was feeling to his mother or to his therapists had often been misinterpreted or simply ignored because it didn't make sense. Logan had learned to keep quiet about what he was feeling.

“But you're talking to me about it, even though it...scares you?” Virgil checked. “Is that right?”

Logan shifted. “Yes.”

Virgil smiled. “I think that means you trust me. Thank you.”

“I do trust you,” Logan said. “And I have learned that you and Patton and Roman are worthy of my trust. You've never once tried to make me act normally, or made fun of me.”

“It sucks that the bar is so low,” sighed Virgil.

Logan kept petting Chex. “I don't know that that means, exactly, in this context.”

“Um, it means that I don't think that somebody not laughing at you or trying to change you into something you're not should be the bar, the threshold or limit, for whether or not you can trust them. I mean...I guess what I really mean is that it sucks that you don't get that from everyone. In a perfect world, nobody would make fun of anyone or try to change them,” Virgil explained.

“But we do not live in a perfect world,” Logan reminded him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know that very well.”

Chex whined softly and raised her head to look at Virgil. Her tail thumped a few times against the floor, and he scooted closer to put his hand on her back. He closed his eyes. Logan didn't say anything. They sat there petting Chex in silence for a while, and it was a soothing silence. Logan felt much calmer and less bad by the time his mother arrived to pick him up and take him home. 

He sat in the living room and watched Ian flutter around his plants as the afternoon trailed on. His mother chatted to him as she cleaned and prepared dinner, but he wasn't listening. He was off in his own head, trying to imagine a perfect world.

___________________________________

Sorry for the long wait and the fairly short chapter! I’m working on the next one. But also I’m going back to work next week, and school starts a couple weeks after that, so who knows when I’m going to have time to write? Ah, well. I’ll do what I can.

And hey, check out Time and Time’s Turning if you like my writing! It’s a fairy AU with eventual Royality and Analogical. Also, it has art!!!!! <3 ~Martin

[gohyuck]

King of Hearts - LJN. 01.

detective!jeno 

word count: 3.8k

part of a series?: yes, this is the 1st installment

warnings: kidnapping, mentions of murder, usage of weapons commonly attributed to law enforcement

notes: everyone’s aged up, obviously (setting their birth years back by a solid amount), detective!00/01/02 and captain!mark, captain’s secretary!reader, pay attention to timestamps. draws pretty heavily from brooklyn 99 but is a lot less funny and a lot more angsty

tell me if i should continue this with a part 2!

[Wednesday, September 25, 2019 at 10:22 P.M.]

“An abandoned warehouse,” Jaemin murmurs disdainfully, adjusting his bulletproof vest. He pulls his gun from its holster, checking the safety before relaxing into his hold. “When did criminals get so cliché?”  

“That is so not important right now,” Renjun hisses in response, shooting a quick, worried glance at Jeno, who’s standing as still as a statue some yards away, features balanced between being angry, afraid, and determined. “You should go check on him, dude.” He turns back to Jaemin, gesturing towards their friend with a slight tilt of his head. Jaemin rolls his eyes, though not before nodding in agreement. Before he can even think about approaching his best friend, though, Jeno moves to walk up to the side entrance they’re all gathered around. 

Everyone waits for him to speak with bated breath. They all notice the King of Hearts stuck to the top of the door, though nobody mentions it. 

“I can shoulder through,” Jeno finally whispers after appraising the state of the rotting, wooden door they’re faced with. “Renjun on my right, Hyuck can take left. Jaemin, with me - we’ll go straight to the hostage. Chenle, with Renjun. Jisung, go with Hyuck. All of you - if anything happens, radio back to me and then call Mark. The other squad is already inside on the other end, so we’ll probably end up meeting them somewhere in the middle.”

“What about calling for back-up?” Jisung asks, ignoring the air of finality that comes with Jeno’s words. The elder chews on his lower lip for a moment. 

“The less people there are involved in this, the better.” He decides, and Jisung and Chenle share a glance before nodding an affirmation of their understanding. With this, everyone gets in position, their vests properly strapped on, guns in hand, and their sense of duty at ready. 

“On 3,” Jeno whispers, looking around at his team once more to steady himself. “One… two…” Jeno solidifies his stance, leaning towards the door. Everyone else inches closer, shoulders tightening and eyes filling with resolve. “Three.” Jeno says after what feels like aeons, and, in what feels eerily as if its in slow motion to everyone else, subsequently breaks the door clean off its hinges with all of the power in his body. 

The six of them file in, and Donghyuck and Renjun split off as they’re supposed to, taking their partners with them. Jaemin comes up behind Jeno, shooting his friend a - hopefully - reassuring smile before they start to make their way straight through the maze of boxes that awaits them. 

There’s nothing - no creaks, no footsteps, no hushed whispers - as the two of them walk through towards the center. The moonlight filters in through the small windows at the top of the building, illuminating the warehouse well enough to avoid using flashlights. Jeno and Jaemin remain careful, taking in everything and filing small things they notice away in the back of their minds for later. It isn’t until they reach the clearing in what they believe to be the middle of the whole warehouse that anything substantial really happens. 

“Might’ve been a bad tip,” Jaemin finally sighs, lowering his gun ever-so-slightly. Jeno says nothing, his face stony. “I’m sorry, man, but (Name) isn’t here -”

“Jeno?”

Both officers whirl around, Jaemin cocking his gun on instinct. When he sees that it’s you, he lowers it, straightening up onto his feet and furrowing his brows as he does. 

“(Name)?” Jeno speaks, your name falling, breathy, off of his lips. You look entirely different from how you’d been just days ago - your eyes look empty, and there’s fear replacing your usual teasing manner. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Jeno, it’s dangerous -” When you speak again your words are rushed, your weariness and terror evident in your inflection. Your voice rises in pitch and volume before being interrupted by Jeno.

“I’m a cop -”

“Guys -” Jaemin cuts in, though he barely gets out a word before being stopped himself.

“I see you’ve found your precious witness,” A voice interrupts the detective, and Jeno pulls you into his hold on instinct. He ignores how you’re shaking, knowing that if he dwells on it he’ll be too angry to do his job. The three of you turn around - albeit slowly - and find yourselves face-to-face with a figure in all black, mask and all. 

They pull a deck of cards from what seems to be out of thin air and sits down, patting the floor next to it. Jeno and Jaemin, pulling themselves out of their dumbfoundedness, both pull out their guns, pointing it at the silhouette. 

The figure laughs. 

“See this right here?” They ask, drawing forth what seems to be a small remote. “You make any move to shoot, I’ll press the button. It has a ten second count-down, and then the bomb in this building will explode. It’s in one of the boxes in this place - I doubt you’ll find it, no matter how hard you look. Instead, how about you all sit.” They gesture for all of you to sit down again, taking the cards out of their box as they do so. You sit down, and Jeno, his eyes trained on you, follows. Jaemin does so as well, his gaze never leaving the criminal before the three of you. 

The masked figure laughs, the kind of laugh that feels like nails dragging across a chalkboard. Jeno pulls you closer, and you find yourself clutching at the fabric of his pants to root yourself. The figure begins shuffling the cards, and the three of you wait anxiously for your kidnapper to speak.

You all know what will be said, but their words strike fear through your hearts anyways.  

“How about… we all play a game together?” 

[Friday, September 6, 2019 at 5:16 A.M.]

“You know how I said that the night shift sucks?” Mark asks, receiving a chorus of stifled yawns and “Amen”s in response. The grin he sends back reflects nothing of his subordinates’ feelings. 

“I was wrong.” His smile stretches even wider as he hops off of the desk at the front of the briefing room, throwing a case file down onto the space he’d previously occupied. “We have a serial killer on our hands.” 

“Wait, for real?” Donghyuck perks up immediately, all traces of exhaustion magically gone from his face. Even Jisung looks slightly more awake after their Captain’s declaration, and that’s truly saying something.

“Right? But, wait!” Mark exclaims as if he’s a commentator from an as-seen-on-TV ad, spreading his hands out. “There’s more.”

Nobody says anything at this, though pretty much everyone noticeably leans forward. Mark leans towards them too, building suspense, before turning around and turning the TV on. A smattering of different years shows up on-screen, seven dates from between 1994 and 2019.

Everyone waits. The Captain glances at his team expectantly, excitement glimmering almost maniacally in his sleep-deprived eyes.

“Mark,” You finally break the pregnant pause, figuring that it’s you doing your due diligence as secretary to the Captain. “You have a call incoming at 6 from HQ. It’s best to just get into it.”

“Right,” Mark nods, wincing at your reminder. There’s nothing he loves more than some good suspense, and nothing he hates more than imminent tongue-lashings from his higher-ups. “Anyways, guys, these are the years that this specific killer has struck. It’s a 25 year old case!”

A low whistle follows immediately, courtesy of Jaemin. Chenle raises one eyebrow while Jisung raises the other. 

“Totally unsolved?” Jeno questions from the back, and Mark nods. 

“Yeah - but there’s still more to come. Just wait until you see their modus operandi.” The Captain clicks through to the next slide, revealing a picture of a blood-stained carpet. A leg of what must be a coffee table is barely noticeable in one corner of the image, and a pale hand clutching a shattered wine glass fills a quarter of the frame. The true focus, however, lies on what’s dead center in the photograph - a white King of Hearts playing card, tinged red with blood at its edges. 

Nobody notices the color draining from your face, and not one person sees the way you step back and clutch the table behind you to steady yourself. You let out a small, shaky breath before doing your best to compose yourself. Meanwhile, Mark has moved on with the briefing.

“- all have gunshot wounds to the chest, everything suggests from a point blank range. Different gun every time, but that’s likely just to throw us off. No finger-prints anywhere, no working security cameras for half of the murders. If there were any, they were all redirected somehow throughout the duration of each crime - all we have is this short clip of someone dressed in all black entering from the 2002 house.”

Your breath hitches yet again, and, this time, you fathom your oncoming panic attack. Setting your clipboard and files down onto the tables you’re leaning against, you wait until Mark’s back is turned and everyone else is talking amongst themselves to slip out of the briefing room. If anyone notices, they’ll chalk it off to a bathroom break or something of the sort - you’re sure of this. They might be detectives, but they generally don’t find things they aren’t searching for.

Armed with this knowledge, you make it out of the room smoothly, managing to rush into the nearest bathroom before your panic sets in. As you’d expected, only one person notices your departure.

Jeno sees your hands shaking and registers the way you’re chewing on your bottom lip. It’s something you do when you’re worried, or nervous, or afraid, or all of the above. You’ve done it without knowing about it for years, now. He does his best not to stare at you as you rush out, though he can’t keep his own perturbation hidden nearly as well as he wishes he could.

“Eyes on the board, lover boy,” Jaemin leans in, whispering almost conspiratorially in his partner’s ear. “You can stare at (Name) all you want later. It’s murder time now.”  

Jeno furrows his brows at his best friend’s wording, but shoots him a sheepish smile anyways. He shakes off the unease that’s settled on his shoulders, though he makes a note of seeing how you’re doing before you both get off shift. 

[Friday, September 6, 2019 at 7:04 A.M.]

“(Name)!” You turn around to see your boyfriend barrelling towards you outside your precinct’s office, and you can’t help the smile that overtakes your features upon seeing him. Before you can respond, he catches up to you, lacing your fingers in his. 

“We should get breakfast,” Jeno says, and he sounds so excited about the prospect that you feel even worse than before when you shake your head in disagreement, pulling him closer as you do. Both of you ignore how your smile falls quicker than it ever has before.

“I think I should just get back to my apartment, Jen,” His nickname falls from your lips easily as you sigh a response, mustering as bright a grin as you can when you look up at him. “Today sucked the soul out of me.”

“The night shift sucks ass,” He agrees, not questioning you. Jeno’s always been understanding, even if he isn’t aware of it. He withdraws his hand from your grip, opting instead to wrap his arm around your waist and pull you into his side. “I hope we’ll get back to our regular scheduling soon.”

You snort at this. 

“Not fucking likely, babe. Chief Lee walked in on Mark mimicking his dance from this year’s Captains’ Fourth of July party, remember? Lee also heard Doyoung say, and I quote, ‘it’s like that one video of that little green alien dancing to, like, super funky background music except the alien actually had talent’.” 

Jeno lets out a loud, snorting laugh - the kind that makes his eyes draw themselves into crescent moons and his nose scrunch up in happiness. If you had to pick one sound to hear for the rest of your life, it would be this - Jeno’s genuine laugh, the one he reserves for you and others who love him. You take note of how he hasn’t asked you about how you’d left the briefing earlier, finding yourself hoping that he hadn’t noticed at all. 

He hasn’t questioned you about it, so you assume he hadn’t. One bullet dodged there, at least. You’ve never been good at keeping your hardships away from your boyfriend - he insists on shouldering your burdens on top of his. You don’t let yourself dwell on this, shoving the serial killer case on hand out of your mind from the time being, no matter how difficult you find it. Rather, for the rest of the walk down to the subway, you focus on talking and laughing with Jeno. 

Once you both reach your platform - he’d insisted on walking you to it right after buying you a coffee from an on-the-way Starbucks - you give Jeno a quick, chaste kiss before turning towards the train that’s pulling in. Before he leaves to find his own platform, he leans close to peck your cheek. Right before he steps back, and right as the doors to your train open, he moves his lips to dwell by your ear. 

“When you’re ready to tell me what’s bothering you, I’m here. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you!” 

You whirl around to respond, eyes wider than you’d like them to be. Jeno, however, is already halfway up the staircase. He shoots you a bright smile before motioning you backwards as if to tell you to get on your train. Then, as quickly as he’d managed to walk away from you, he’s gone, too far aboveground for you to see him. 

The doors close right behind you, and the metal pole you hold on to for stability as the train jolts back to life feels colder than usual.

Maybe Jeno’s observation is a force to be reckoned with. 

[Saturday, September 7, 2019 at 8:02 P.M.]

“We could’ve just stayed in, you know.” You tease, your words soft and lilting against Jeno’s muttered swears. The man in question dabs haphazardly at his lap with a napkin, and you cover your mouth with your hands while you chuckle so as not to agitate him even more. He manages to get most of the sauce off of his slacks, though it does leave an oddly shaped stain - as you turn your head, you realize that it almost looks like Australia. 

You tell him so.

“You suck,” Your boyfriend throws back at you, brows furrowed. He isn’t angry - the softness in his eyes gives this away. Rather than respond, you raise your wine glass in a toast and Jeno, though with confusion scrawled across his face, raises his in return. 

“To slacks with sauce and nights with…” You pause, and Jeno raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. A thought strikes you, and you have to bite down on your lower lip to keep from laughing. “...with Nono.” 

Before he can react, you knock your glass lightly against Jeno’s, leaning back in your chair before downing half of the wine you have. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, sets his glass down, dumbfounded, before placing his face in his hands and groaning. 

“That’s literally the dumbest nickname - you’ve been hanging out with Jaemin too much, haven’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say too much,” You grin, leaning close to set your own glass down. Wrapping your hands around his wrists, you pull them gently away from his face. You’re pleased to see a soft blush spreading across his otherwise sharp features - not everyone can fluster a bigshot detective, after all. You almost feel as if you have a super power. 

“Yeah?” Jeno asks, his voice less inquisitive than it is teasing, playful. He leans in, too, and as his blush dies down yours only grows. “What do you two talk about?” 

The corners of your mouth twitch upwards at this - Jeno, unknowingly, has thrown the ball back in your court. All you have to do now is hit an ace.

“Nothing too interesting, you know,” You say, voice equally light. One of your fingers finds the rim of your glass, idly tracing it as you speak. “Just about the fifth grade adventures of Nana and Nono.” 

Jeno groans again, pushing his chair back enough to rest his forehead against the table. Across from him, you burst into quiet laughter before taking another sip of wine. Ragging on Jeno is your favorite pastime, and you’re sure he knows it. 

“I’ll kick Jaemin’s -” A siren blasting from outside interrupts Jeno, and, before he can continue, two more - now, three more - join it. Before either of you can react, your boyfriend gets a text. He reads it quickly, his jaw tightening as he skims the message. 

“Jeno?” You find it in yourself to ask, receiving a heavy sigh in return. He sets his phone down and stands up to pull out his wallet, taking his Visa credit card from it before reaching his hand out to give it to you. You take it, letting it dangle between two fingers. 

“Dinner’s on me, darling,” He musters a small smile before leaning in to press his lips to your forehead. “Give it back to me tomorrow, or something.”

Jeno’s gone before you can badger him further, the only proof of him having been there at all resting between your index and middle fingers and on one of his pant legs. You find that you aren’t in the mood to finish eating your meal, opting instead to wave over the closest server you can so you can get the bill, all while ignoring the pitying glances from everyone at surrounding tables. 

Once the check comes out, you slide Jeno’s card into your wallet, pulling out your own to pay with.

The wincing sympathy in the air around you amplifies. You continue to ignore it. 

[Monday, September 9, 2019 at 11:03 P.M.]

A short but resounding thud in front of you draws your attention away from poring over Mark’s schedule. You look up to see Jeno, armed with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand and a sheepish smile. He’d put your order down on your desk, resulting in the sound you’d just heard, but hadn’t taken his hand off of it. 

You don’t take it from him - instead, you pull your wallet out of your purse, rifling through it quickly before finding Jeno’s credit card and putting your hand out towards him. Jeno doesn’t take it. Rather, he lets go of your cup, pulling out his own wallet with his now-free hand and giving it to you so you can do the honors. 

“Didn’t seem to get charged for dinner,” He mentions casually as he shoves his wallet back into the back pocket of his work slacks. You nod, confirming his unasked question before turning back to your computer. For some reason, your eyes can’t focus as they had been before. You minimize Mark’s schedule, leaving you staring at your background - a picture of Jeno you’d snuck during your first date together. He’s staring out the window of a cafe in it, white sweater sleeves pulled up around his hands that are, in turn, cradling a cup of coffee. The smallest, but most genuine, of smiles graces his lips, and his cheekbones are highlighted by the light filtering in beside him. He looks angelic and too good to be true in it.

Maybe he is.

“You can’t seriously be mad at me,” He tries again, and you look up at him again. Warmth lingers in his demeanor, but an annoyance is starting to overpower it. You find yourself ticked off, too, and roll your eyes rather than deigning to talk to him. 

“(Name).”

“Do you need an appointment with the Captain?” 

“I was just doing my job, darling -” 

“I’m not mad at you for stranding me, Jen,” You finally speak, your eyes finally meeting his. He blinks as he registers the hurt in yours, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he does. “I just -” You begin, before sighing and shaking your head. You aren’t sure how to word your feelings. 

“Sweetheart?”

“You left without telling me why, and then you didn’t text me back until almost 24 hours later. I was on edge, wondering if anything had happened to you, and you didn’t even think to check in with me! And when you did, it wasn’t about why you’d left or what had happened, it was to ask me about if I’d seen some random movie trailer!” You take a deep breath, doing your best not to raise your voice in your workplace. Swallowing to calm your dry throat, you start again, whispering this time. “I was worried sick, and you didn’t even think about my feelings long enough to register that.”

“You could’ve texted first -” 

“I did! You never responded.”

“I never got a text from you,” Confusion spreads across Jeno’s features as he pulls his phone out to show you. You take it nimbly from his hand, scrolling quickly through his conversation with you to confirm that he hadn’t, in fact, gotten any texts from you until he had texted you. 

“I didn’t tell you why I’d left because it was classified at the time, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging for too long,” Jeno explains further, but you only barely listen to him, focusing instead on finding your conversation in your own phone. Your boyfriend, recognizing this, speaks no further as he takes his phone back and slips it into one of his pockets. He watches you, intrigue barely concealed within his features. 

Suddenly, your face pales, and you let your phone drop face-up onto the counter in front of you. Jeno’s eyes widen as he reaches across to grab one of your trembling hands, his worry greater than his confusion. 

“(Name)?” 

“It - he -” You manage to speak out before giving a shaky sigh and pausing to swallow the bile that has risen in your throat. “I- I need to tell you something.” You finally gasp out, pointing towards your phone. Jeno glances at it before letting out a noise of shock, his fingers tightening around your own. 

Panic burns in his veins as his mind works overtime to work out the meaning of what he’s witnessing . Rather than seeing your texts as he’d hoped, Jeno finds a black screen staring back up at him. There is just one thing adorning it. 

Dead center is a King of Hearts playing card, the words ‘found you.’ in blood red letters underneath it. It is mocking you, telling you that you are out of time. 

It is telling you that you have lost.

[shawnpetermuffins]

No Prior Engagement

(The outfits in the photo are not what's described in the story, but I liked the picture.)

A/n: To make this easier to write, I'm just going to use places that pertain to me - make it less confusing when I'm writing and while you're reading. You can find the "next part" in my March Mendes Madness Masterlist under 03.25

Summary: this is what happened before Shawn's minor slip up at an awards show.

***

My phone buzzes on my desk and I sigh, looking up from my study guide. 2:32 a.m. my phone read.

Bubba 💞

"Shawn, it's late. Are you okay?"

"Let's get married," he says out of the blue.

"What? Are you drunk?"

"No," he answers seriously. "I just don't want to wait anymore. Why should we have to? We're in love, right?"

"Well, yes. But-"

"I want to marry you. Right now. I want a house with you. I want kids with you. I want us to make grocery lists together. And I was just laying here in bed and I realized how much it fucking sucks falling asleep without you. And I know that I can't be anymore in love with you than I am right now. I want to marry you," he says and takes in a deep breath.

I didn't know what to think. We've talked about this, sure, but it always for when I got out of school.

"What do you say, pumpkin?"

"I want all of that, too," I start. "But I'm still in school. We can't let our first year and a half basically be long distance - even more so than usual, it would seem."

He sighs, "I thought you'd say that. Which is why I should tell you... I bought us a house in San Angelo. It's on the lake, like you've always told me you wanted. I'm ready to move down there with yoh if you tell me that you'll marry me."

My eyes burn with tears, maybe because it was so late and I was running on a total of three hours of sleep, or maybe it was because of the craziness of his request. "You're sure about this?" I take in a sputtery breath. "Like you really want to marry me? You want to spend the rest of your life with me of all people?"

"I do. And I already asked your dad. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of us doing this so young, but I promised it wouldn't interfere with your studies and that we'd stay here until you've graduated. He said that as long as you said yes, then so did he. So? What do you say, y/n? Will you marry me?"

I giggle - this time I know, for a fact, it's because of the absurdity of the situation. I'm talking to my boyfriend of three years at 2:30 in the morning, and he's asking me to marry him. I have an exam in two days that I should be studying for, but my guide sits abandoned on my desk while I pace the room back and forth. "This is absolutely insane. You know that right?"

"Is this your way of saying yes?" He asks, his voice hopeful.

I bite back the smile that transforms my face, "yes," I whisper.

His laugh is so soft and happy, and I blush because I made that laugh happen. "I'll make all the arrangements. Come Saturday afternoon, you will be my wife."

"Whoa. That fast?"

"Yes," I know he nodded on the other side. "I told you I didn't want to wait anymore. Now go get some sleep, you can study in the morning. Right now, though, I want my fiancé to be well rested."

I shake my head, "I love you," I say in pure bliss.

"Good night, future wife. I love you more."

"Good night, future husband. I love you most."

---

"You're sure you're okay with not having a huge wedding?" Shawn asked outside the courthouse.

I look down at my outfit, black shirt, cream skater like skirt - the bottom hem littered with flowers - And black stilettos that I was already ready to slip out of. I'd always imagined a big flowy white gown, but when I look over at Shawn - dressed in a white button up, a few buttons naturally undone, and signature black jeans and Chelsea boots. He looked perfectly content just like that and I couldn't ask for more. I didn't need the big fancy wedding as long as I had the man of my dreams standing next to me.

"I'm okay," I say finally, taking his hand in mine. "I just want to marry you already. I don't care how."

He caresses my knuckles and leans in to press a sweet kiss to my lips. I hum in acknowledgement and kiss back, placing my free hand behind his neck. "Then let's go do this."

---

Everyone we want it here. Our parents, siblings, Andrew, the band, my aunt and uncle, my two best friends, Josiah, and Brian. This is all I needed.

"Shawn, if you would..."

My beautiful boy clears his throat, "y/f/n y/m/n, I may not have known you my whole life, but it definitely feels as if I have. In these three years we've been together, I've watched you grow into this beautiful, confident young woman who I am so lucky to have by my side through my crazy, fast paced life." He clears his throat, shaking his head with a soft smile. "I never thought the day would come when I met someone who's soul matched mind. You're my other half, pumpkin. I know a million little things about you and I can't wait to learn a million more. I love you more than should be humanly possible. The way you do your nails every Sunday afternoon, like clockwork. How you scrunch up your face when you're annoyed. The way your laugh, when it's completely real, fills up a room with nothing but brightness."

I giggle through the threatening tears. Shawn wipes away the one straggler tear. "The way you'd probably rather do anything but watch Harry Potter for the hundredth time, but you sit through it anyway because you know it's my favorite. I'm just... I'm so in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life proving that I am. You are my forever person and I wouldn't have it any other way."

He catches a couple more of my fallen tears and I melt at the soft gesture.

"Y/n?"

I take in a shuddery breath, "I don't know entirely what to say. I tried writing down how I felt about you a billion times. I tried writing these vows the second we got off the phone the other night. There are not enough words in the English language to tell you how I feel. But I know that my entire being is on fire with just the brush of your hand against mine. Shawn, I fell in love with you when all you were to me was an international pop star, who had no idea u even existed. I was about sixteen then. And then god put you in my path when I was seventeen and I haven't turned back since. When we met, I didn't meet Shawn Mendes: superstar. I just met Shawn: a regular guy just living his life. There was never this moment of celebrity to fan; it was instantly friend to friend."

He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear and I can't help but smile. "You make it entirely too easy to love you. And I do. More than anyone else in the world. I can't believe how lucky I was to find my other half at only seventeen, and to be standing here, three years later, completely giving myself to you. I love you more than you will ever know, bubba, and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you."

---

"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

"Finally," Shawn mumbles, pulling me against his hard chest. His large hands rest on my cheeks and kisses me with so much love and passion. I laugh into the kiss and pull away. "You're my world, Mrs. Mendes," he whispers into my hair, holding me tight.

I bury my head into his chest, "I have never loved my name more than I do in this moment."

He hums, "I love you so much."

---

Shawn stands up, holding his wine glass. "I would like to propose a toast to my beautiful wife," he stops and smiles for a second. "Guys, I get to say that for the rest of my life. That's- wow, that's the greatest gift I could ever receive." The whole table awes, the women, of course placing their hands over their heart. "I just want to say that I am so lucky to have found you when I did. And even more lucky that you agreed to marry me. I fall more and more in love with you every day. Y/n, baby you are my biggest blessing, and I could not be more grateful for our time together. Now, let's go change your name to Mendes on everything."

We all laugh, but he I know he's serious. Bevause I've been thinking the same thing since I said 'I do.'

He leans down and pecks my lips gently. I hum and pull away as he sits back down. "You're the perfect human being," I whisper, taking his hand in mine. I bring it to my lips and smile at the single silver band that now decorates his left ring finger.

Brian stands next. "Well, I too would like to say a few kind words about the happy couple."

"Oh no," Shawn and I say in unison.

"Y/n, when you guys first met, I knew that Shawn had met his soul mate. It was undeniable, the chemistry between you two. Everyone thought you were moving too fast, and I hate to admit that for a second there, I thought so too. But then I realized, there was no other pace for you guys to go. And you couldn't be moving that fast, when it took six months for you guys to say 'I love you.'" I laugh at that. "Your relationship began at such an awkward time for the both of you. But you shoved any doubt that anyone had away and you powered through. And now here you are, three years down the road, married. I'm so proud to be able to call you both my best friends."

Everyone takes turns toasting us, and it's all beautiful, but I just really wanted to be alone with my husband.

A couple more hours pass before we're back in my car, Shawn takes my hand and just stares at it for a while.

"What are you doing, bubba?"

He looks up at my through cloudy eyes, "You're my wife," he says, barely above a whisper. "God, I'm so lucky."

"Shawn, are you crying?" I reach for his face with my free hand. His eyes are red as he stares at me. "Why are you crying, hon?"

"Because we're married. I'm married to the love of my life. I don't- I don't think I could ever be any happier than I am today. Today was better than any show I've ever played, any award I've ever won, and place I've ever been. Today is the absolute greatest day of my life."

***

I hope you enjoyed this fluff. Next and final part will be up on Wednesday!

Like, reblog, and leave feedback!!

[jjpmoans]

Broken - Part 3

Summary:

Love, as crazy as it sounds, really blinds people. You can see people blindly falling in love, ignoring those who really love them, falling for someone whom, they have sworn they will never fall for. Love, for Jinyoung is to watch his girl happy, even if it means it’s not him. Even if means it’s not Jinyoung who get to whisper sweet things. It’s not Jinyoung who can hold her hands. It’s not Jinyoung who’ll be laying down with her on her bed, talking countless of things. It’s not him that she’ll wake up to. It’s not him, who has her heart.

Genre: angst / romance

Inspired song : Heartbreak Girl by 5 Seconds of Summer

Character : Park Jinyoung x female reader

Word counts : 1k+ words

[A/N]

If you’ve seen the announcement, you’ll know that this is basically my first GOT7 fanfic which was posted on Amino. I apologise for the cringiness and all. I hope you enjoy the content! This is totally unedited (except for the grammar) but I’ll edit the Epilogue because that one was kind of bad. Anyways, enjoy!

Broken will be posted every Wednesday at 8pm MYT starting 21st August.

[Masterlist]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 [Final] |

____________________________________________

I bite my tongue but I wanna scream out You could be with me now But I end up telling you what you wanna hear, But you're not ready and it's so frustrating He treats you so bad and I'm so good to you it's not fair.

____________________________________________ "He just—" she sobs loudly and that makes Jinyoung's fifth motive to kill the Jin guy. "It's not funny Jinyoung. He just leave me there." she cries in halt to show that she is really hurt. It's another phone call right after this afternoon where she was so happy and ready to reconcile with the shithead. Jinyoung could not find any more reasonable name to call him. Maybe a brainless would be better. "What did he do?" he asks. He doesn't even have to ask to be honest. Jinyoung knows exactly how a brainless people like Jin treats girls. They dump them on the spot to make the girls feel horrible and never want to get back again. "He brought me to the cafe where we always go to. And his friends were there too. I thought it's going to be okay again." she says slowly, breaking his heart. The girl he loves does not talk this slow, this heartbreaking. It takes one Jin to turn her into this person he is talking to. "You mean, all six?" "Yeah. We arrived there and they start dissing me. Saying bad things about me." she hiccups. "And Jin doesn't even stop them." Jinyoung just sighs into the speaker, he wants her to know he's disappointed too— or in other name, furious. "He just brought me to the restaurant to embarrass me in front of his friends. They are all boys and they were laughing at me." she hiccups. "I look like a clown Jinyoung. I was so embarrassed." "And Jin—" she stops, taking a shaky breath which later turns to a chest falling cry. "He says he just bring me there because I don't stop pestering him about getting back." "I am the desperate one." she cries. "Jinyoung..." she calls out his name, somehow to give her strength to cry, knowing there is one person that has his back for her. "You know I can always run to you now. Please let me go to you." Jinyoung says. He has his car keys in his hand for quite some time now because he is that close to drive to her house but as always, she stops him before he can even move. "No. I don't want you to see me like this." she refuses. Jinyoung sighs for the nth time because that's not his concern right now. All he knows is he want to hug her and make her feel better. "You think I'd care how you look? I've seen you worse." "No Jinyoung. I'm serious." "Okay." he says. "Tell me more about what happened." She continues narrating about her lunch date to Jinyoung. He hold his breath everytime the girl burst into tears, whether it is because her stupidity or because of the Jin guy. "I don't understand where is my fault. He said he is done with me." she says. "I had never did anything to make him mad. Why does he even want to break up?" Jinyoung listens to her rant with his mind searching for ways to kill Jin— maybe a sudden death. He inhales and start to talk when she finally calms down. "You know, he treats you so bad." and I'm so good to you, he continues in his mind. "It's not fair. You should stop torturing yourself." Jinyoung says. "But I love him. I love him Jinyoung. How can I stop doing this?" she says. Her words make Jinyoung feel the urge to scream. To tell her that the love she felt is unreal. He is so bad to her and doesn't deserve her love. She could be with him now rather than crying over a stupid boy. "If you don't want to stop—" he bites his tongue, afraid that what he's going to say might make her mad. "Then you'll keep on running back to him like a desperate girl. Who doesn't understand that he no longer loves you." "He's not the right one for you. You should stop being so blindly in love with him. I know this is not what you want to hear, but I'm telling you this because I don't want you to cry your eyes for a stupid boy." he explains. "You worth someone better. Someone who doesn't change his girlfriend like he changes his clothes. Someone who makes you laugh instead of crying. Someone—" "—like you?" she cuts him. Jinyoung's heart stops. She hits bull eyes without even knowing. "There's no one like me. I'm limited edition." he replies. His instant reply receive a laugh from her, making him smile instead. He really loves her laugh. He hates her tears. "Of course you are. You never fail to amaze me Jinyoung." she says. It warms his heart to know she is still the one he loves. She still knows how to laugh and smile. She is still her. "You already have me but you still choose that stupid dumbass. I don't know anymore. You are losing a limited edition friend. Gotta be rich to do that you know." he replies. Her laughs sound like a music to his ears, something he would trade everything for. His heart, his sanity, his love. 

______________________________________ And when the phone call finally ends You say, "I'll call you tomorrow at 10, " And I'm stuck in the friend zone again and again

______________________________________ "It's getting late." she says. Jinyoung flips his phone to check the time and it's already three in the morning. "Tell me what you think before you go to bed. I'm not hanging up until you're okay." Jinyoung knows her well, she cannot sleep if the problem still lingers in her mind. "I'm better, Jinyoung. Although I hope you would say something like 'Jin still loves me' but I know, you care about me. I would be very stupid if I can't see how he pushes me away—" "You are really stupid though." he replies deadpans. She giggles and continue to speak, "I can try. I can try to move on. I have you right?" she asks. The moment she asks him the question, he smiles, then immediately cough, "Sorry, I didn't sign up to be a love doctor." "Whatt!? Oh no. What to do. You're stuck with me. Suck it up." she giggles again. By the time she giggle too much, Jinyoung is assured that she is all better and probably will be walking straight tomorrow. "I'll call you tomorrow at 10." she says. He rounds his eyes at the announcement. "Why?" "Because I think I'm going to talk to Jin about this— maturely. And if anything happens, I'll call you. Or if nothing happens, I'll call you too." she answers softly. "I'll accompany you." he immediately offers. When the two of them are alone, something is bound to happen. On top of that, Jinyoung is not keen to pick up a crying phonecall again. "No. I know you hate him. If I bring you, you might have his head chopped or something—" "He deserves it." "That's not nice Jinyoung. But I'll be okay. I'll bring Youngjae with me." she says. "I'd rather you bring Jaebum with you. Or Yugyeom." "They will be kicking his ass too, Jinyoung. Don't act like I don't know you guys." He huffs but agree to her. "Fine. Just, give me a call after you meet him okay? 10 o'clock call is reserved too— but call me right after you meet him." "Yeah whatever. Anyways. Thank you Jinyoung. Good night." she announces. Jinyoung smiles, eyes twinkling while he stares at his phone, mouthing a soft goodnight to the wallpaper of them cuddling few years ago. He then sighs, remembering that he is currently stuck in the friend zone, again and again.

____________________________________________

[Masterlist]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 [Final] |

All rights reserved © jinyoungmoans

Posted on 11th September 2019, 9.00 pm MYT

[solange-lol]

not so typical love song - ch. 6/13

Chapter Title: Oogum Boogum Song

Words: 1,711

Art by @lizzybizzyo! <3

[ one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight (coming soon)]

read on ao3

—

The moment Nico got home from school that Wednesday, finally ready to be off for the long weekend for Thanksgiving, he could tell something was different.

For one thing, his father was actually home (per his car in the driveway.) And there were actually voices coming from the kitchen that greeted him, rather than the typical cold, empty silence.

Which could only mean one thing…

Nico’s eyes lit up the moment he stepped into the kitchen. “Bianca!”

His sister looked up from the conversation she was having with their father and Persephone. She immediately jumped up from the table, and Nico dropped his bag, practically running over to greet her.

The moment they hugged Nico realized how much he missed her. Life had been hectic, and as much as Blue may provide some sort of sense to his world, it felt amazing to have physical comfort again,

It almost made Nico want to tell Bianca about all he’s been through.

He stored that thought away for later, instead focusing on being here in the moment with his sister.

“I can’t believe you’re home,” he mumbled into her shoulder. (It wasn’t fair that she was 5’9 while he was stuck at 5'4.)

Bianca pulled back. “You didn’t really think I’d miss Thanksgiving, did you?”

“No! I’m just surprised you’re home so early! I thought you would be flying in the morning of.”

“Nope,” Bianca smiled, leading him over to the dining table where their parents still sat. “I got done with classes yesterday, so I took the day to get my stuff together, and then took a train this morning.”

“You took the train?” Nico asked, bewildered. “But that’s like… an eight hour trip”

Bianca shrugged. “Airline security during the holidays from now until the New Year is horrible. I didn’t really feel like waiting hours in line, so I thought I would just suck it up and make it easier on myself.” She paused before changing the subject. “Now, where’s that sister of ours?”

Nico smiled. “Probably getting a ride home from Frank.”

Bianca raised an eyebrow, a matching smile spreading across her face. “Ah, yes. The infamous Frank.” Nico and Bianca tried to call each other once a week whenever Bianca was free to talk, and during those calls, Nico did his best to catch her up on what was going on at home. “Will I ever get to meet this boy?”

Nico shrugged. “Dunno. None of us have met him yet. Maybe you’ll be our lucky charm.”

As if on cue, they heard the door shut, and Hazel walked in. “Bianca!”

A near-identical greeting to Nico’s ensued, and soon the five of them were sitting in the family room, drinking hot chocolate together as they caught Bianca up on everything Nico had missed during their phone calls. 

“So tell me about this Frank,” Bianca smiled, crossing her legs and giving Hazel a look over the top of her mug as she took another sip. 

Hazel immediately flushed, curls bouncing as she shook her head. “I told you guys, he’s just a friend. But, um, we are going to the homecoming dance together,” she said, more to her mug than to her family. 

Bianca smiled calmly. She opened her mouth to say something, but Nico cut her off.

“What?”

When Hazel and Bianca both gave him a warning look, he took a deep breath and tried again. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeah, because I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of it!” Hazel retorted, causing Bianca to giggle while Nico huffed. Persephone and just watched amusedly from the side, and even their father had the hint of a smile on his face.

“Speaking of homecoming, who are you bringing, Neeks?” Bianca asked, elbowing him with a sly smile.

“Oh, um. Nobody, I don’t think. I mean, I’m going with friends but not, like, with a date.” 

He wasn’t lying; he really did only plan on going with friends. It was tradition by that point for his group to go to the dance together unless somebody got asked, and even then they usually just included their date in the group. Plus, even if Nico did have a date, he doubted he would really fit Bianca’s expectations. 

What she said next just confirmed his suspicion. “Why not? Are girls not lining up to ask you out? I thought people were into the whole edgy and mysterious thing nowadays.”

Nico scuffed his toe on the carpet. “Haha, uh, yeah. Not exactly,” he said, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Because I’m gay. GAY!

Maybe coming out to Bianca this week wasn’t the best idea…

—

Nico excused himself to his room later that night after a game of monopoly, despite his sister’s many attempts.

“We could watch Titanic?”  Hazel offered, but Nico just shook his head. While it was one of their shared favorite movies, (especially Nico’s), he wasn't exactly in the mood. 

Also, he didn’t really feel like explaining tonight that the reason he loved it so much was because of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

He wanted to ask Blue how the coming out process with his family was going, maybe even get a few pointers. However, when he opened his laptop that night, Nico was surprised to see an email already waiting for him. And judging by the subject line, Nico wasn’t sure what he was supposed to expect as he clicked on it.  

From:  blue0919@gmail.com

To: bettertoburn@gmail.com

Date: Nov 27 at 5:41 PM

Subject: This might be a lot to take in

I’ve had such a weird day. So much happened I can’t even tell if it's real, and what’s good or bad about it. 

When I got home from school yesterday, both of my parents were there. As in, my mom and my actual birth father. I haven’t seen my dad since I was 4 years old. He stopped sending me birthday money when I was about 10. I sort of assumed he was dead.

Apparently, he’s not dead, though, and he and my mom were just sitting there like he hasn’t been ignoring us for the past 12 years of my life. 

And get this: there were two other kids there. Apparently, I have siblings (and the worst part is, my mom told me later that I might have more. I could have 10 siblings and I wouldn’t even know. My father is a manwhore, apparently.)

The room was dead silent and I just had to sit there awkwardly with these two other kids and listen to them explain the situation. Apparently, my mom is adopting them because my father isn’t fit to take care of them. He essentially guilted her into it because he’s a deadbeat and my mom is the kindest person you’ll ever meet. 

Anyway, after an excruciating hour of small talk, they excused us. Except my house is small and it’s quiet, and when they started arguing we just sat silently on the staircase. They didn’t even last a whole minute before they were screaming at each other. We could hear every word. 

Imagine being stuck with two people you’ve never met but are apparently related to. I felt trapped at the top of this staircase, just sitting between the wall and the railing as they watched me. I honestly felt like banging my head on the wall a few hundred times until it broke through, but they both already seemed so scared. 

Anyway, they’re moving in a little before the holiday break, which means I need to get to know them well enough soon so I can get them gifts for Hannukah. (If they grew up celebrating Christmas… well I don’t know what to do then).  My half-sister (that’s so weird to say) is a freshman, and my half-brother is a sophomore. I don’t know a thing about either of them but after the holiday break, they’re coming to CHS. I’m being completely honest here, Angel, I don’t know how I feel about it yet. 

My dad wants to take me out to dinner or something before he disappears forever, and I honestly don’t know what to do. I wasn’t expecting any of this. 

I’m so lost, Angel. If anyone can find some sort of humor in this, it’s you. Or just distract me. You’re good at that too.

Love,

Blue

Nico felt like he was looking at a weird, distorted mirror, like something you would find in a funhouse. Who knew Blue would have such a similar situation to something Nico had dealt with years prior?

He knew that this would have come out sooner or later the more they went in detail about their lives, so biting the bullet, he started to type.

From: bettertoburn@gmail.com

To: blue0919@gmail.com

Date: Nov 27 at 7:45 PM

Subject: Re: This might be a lot to take in

You probably won’t believe this, Blue, but I’ve been through something similar. 

Remember when I mentioned my half-sister and how it wasn’t a long story I was interested in getting into? Yeah, apparently when my mom died (I was maybe two years old at the time) my dad had some interesting coping mechanisms. And 12 years later after her mom died, suddenly I’m being told that I have another sister. Not exactly something you’d expect to hear at 13 years old.

But, I learned to love her. She’s my sister through and through.

You know me, Blue. I’m not one for pep talks, and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. It wasn’t for me. Nor will I say I understand, because frankly, there’s no way I can understand what you’re feeling completely. You’re not crazy for feeling the way you do.

I’m here to support you. If anyone can get through this, it’s you.

(That’s really cheesy and unhelpful) (But also true)

Love,

Angel

Nico let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding once he sent it. It was sort of scary how much he was willing to risk just to comfort Blue, but it felt worth it. 

He would do anything for Blue.

Now if only they could work up the courage to reveal their identities before someone did it for them.

[wholesome-holland]

Back To December

Hey guys! This imagine is loosely based off of the song “Back To December” by Taylor Swift. I hope you like it! ( @tyrus-is-endgame-fight-me )

Word Count: 3143 (wHOOPS)

——————

It was the beautiful and chilly month of February in Shadyside.

The sidewalks were lined with long grasses and colorful flowers all around, the sun out and beaming with the clouds occasionally blocking it from the town.

It was around 23° on this fine Wednesday, around 6 or 7 p.m.

TJ Kippen was strolling around town, no specific reason. He just wanted to go for a walk. He stuck his earbuds in, clicked on Pandora and that was that.

TJ found himself in the neighborhood of his ex-boyfriend, Cyrus Goodman. He decided he'd hold his breath, and continue his walk.

With every passing minute he came closer and closer to passing Cyrus' house. He felt himself going slower as he passed the house, coming to an almost complete stop.

He looked over the house, just observing and remembering. He even saw the silhouettes of Leslie and Todd in the living room.

TJ simply smiled softly to himself, he couldn't help but wonder how they're doing. He always loved being at Cyrus' house and being around his folks. All four of them. They were so kind and funny, they treated him like part of the family even before he and Cyrus were together. 

TJ blinked back small tears and continued with his walk before he got home, and went directly to bed.

The following day at school, TJ was exiting the gym and getting ready to head to his last period when his body came to a halt.

He saw Buffy and Cyrus talking at Cyrus' locker. "Hey Cy, I haven't seen you much today." Buffy spoke.

"Yeah, sorry. I've been kinda dodging everyone today." Cyrus said, sounding gloomy. TJ wished he could fix whatever was wrong.

He listened to Buffy and Cyrus talk. It was nothing major, he shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but he couldn't help himself. Buffy and Cyrus took off, or so he thought. As he was walking and not paying attention, he came in contact with someone else's smaller frame.

"Sorry, I—" TJ's breath hitched when he recognized Cyrus' voice. "Oh, hi TJ." He said. "Hey Cyrus." TJ replied. They stood in silence for a few seconds. "How are you?" Cyrus asked.

"I'm okay, I—I guess. You?" He stammered nervously over his words. Cyrus shrugged, a semi blank yet painful look on his face. "I've been alright." His voice hardened, but not too harshly. Cyrus was visibly tense, so TJ sighed and pushed past him, mumbling a quick "sorry" as he left.

TJ didn't even go to class. He went to an empty classroom where he would most likely not get caught. He knew he wouldn't. This wasn't the first time he'd gone there, and it surely wouldn't be the last.

He sat on the floor in a corner, fidgeting with his fingers and staring off. His mind was racing with different thoughts. Everyone being about Cyrus.

He understood why Cyrus was so, what was the word? Cautious? Careful? Guarded? All of those. They hadn't spoken in months, and their last conversation wasn't exactly one he was proud of.

•

"Hey Teej!" Cyrus said excitedly, approaching the swings they frequently visited together.

TJ took a deep breathe, muttering a quick "hey" as Cyrus swiped the snow onto the ground and took a seat on his usual swing.

Cyrus almost instantly furrowed his brows together in confusion, a look of concern crossing his features. "Hey, what's wrong?" He asked, reaching over to grab one of TJ's hands.

TJ snagged his hand away and crossed his arms, his body facing away from his boyfriend.

Cyrus decided to pretend that didn't hurt his feelings, and kept trying to see what was wrong with TJ.

"TJ," Cyrus said softly. "What happened? Talk to me." Cyrus pried.

TJ wouldn't even look at him. He couldn't, he knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to go through with this.

TJ tried to blink away the tears forming in his eyes, turning even further form Cyrus. "We need to break up."

Cyrus just about jumped. He surely had to have heard TJ wrong, right? TJ didn't say that.

"What? I'm sorry I think I heard you wrong. I thought you said—" TJ cut off his sentence. "That we need to break up? Yeah, that's what I said." TJ said, trying to cover the pain in his tone with bitterness.

Cyrus froze. "W-What?" Was all he could muster. He swore he'd start crying if he said anything else.

He stood up quickly, walking around to TJ's front side. TJ stood up as well but looked away. "Move, please. I have places to go." He mentally cursed himself for how he was acting, but he had to do it.

"I—uh— wait—I'm—" Cyrus couldn't even form words. If he tried, it came out as word vomit. "Why?" He asked.

TJ didn't respond. He still avoided eye contact. "TJ, look at me." Cyrus almost demanded. Still, TJ was stubborn. "This, this is a sick joke right? Like you're just trying to pull an asshole move or something?" Cyrus felt his voice shake as he talked. He hated that he couldn't keep it steady.

"No it's not." TJ said, staring at his feet, mastering a cold tone. "I have to go. We're done."

TJ stepped past him, his shoulder bumping and brushing against Cyrus'. Cyrus spun around and grabbed TJ's arm, pulling in almost in a circle. "Just tell me what happened. Obviously something did." Cyrus pointed out.

"Nothing happened." TJ hissed. "This was a mistake." That still wouldn't do it.

"A mistake?" Cyrus almost could laugh. "If it was a mistake, why'd you let it go on for six months, huh? Why'd you stay with me, she. You could've easily left me sooner?" He challenged. "If I am correct, if it was a 'mistake' you wouldn't have cared about sparing my feelings so don't even use that excuse, TJ."

TJ sucked in air deeply, releasing it in almost a growl. "Can you just leave it? I already said this is done and told you why."

"No, you didn't actually. You're lying to me. I know you TJ, and I know you're an awful liar." Cyrus hissed out.

"Or— Maybe you were just wrong about me this whole time. Maybe I'm just a prick after all, and maybe I want you to leave me alone and let me go on as who I am." TJ said harshly. He forced out the tone of slight anger, trying to make it seem more real, like he was annoyed.

Cyrus' breathing picked up, his desperation was starting to make its place in his body each time he spoke, as much as he tried to hide it. "But you aren't! TJ you're a good person. I know that, you know it too. I know you do."

TJ stayed quiet as Cyrus started thinking out loud. "This, this is an act. I know it is. I, you, we— we love each other. I love you, you love me. We're boyfriends, we— Uh, you... I remember you told me you love me. And all things you love about me too. And you pay attention to me and you care for me and you're trustworthy and an overall good person so I don't understa—"

"It's not an act! This is who I am Cyrus. And I am not your boyfriend. Not anymore. I already told you, we're done. All of it was fake. My feelings were fake," He had to stop and swallow before saying "I don't love you."

It was that moment that the words left TJ's lips that Cyrus broke. The tears he'd been keeping in, the rage and anger he'd locked in, the pure disgust and feeling of betrayal all let loose.

He stepped up to TJ, looking him right in the eye even if TJ wasn't returning eye contact. He swung and hit TJ in the chest. Cyrus' fists repeatedly struck TJ on the chest, his tears falling. TJ finally grabbed Cyrus by the arms and looked at him— like truly looked at him for the first time this entire conversation.

He felt his heart break. He felt the self hatred wedge itself into his mind. He saw the pain he caused Cyrus, that he wished he could take back. Cyrus ripped his arms away from him.

"You were right Kippen. You're just a cold hearted jerk! You're a jerk and a liar, and I should have never let you help me get that muffin!"

Ouch. TJ thought, watching as Cyrus walked away. When he was out of ear shot, he broke. He was sobbing loudly In his hands before his knees buckled beneath him and he fell to the ground.

Even though he knew it was for the best, it didn't make it hurt any less.

•

That day, that awful day that changed everything was December 12th.

I'm such an ass. TJ told himself. I should've waited longer, till I knew completely. The dismissal bell rung, signaling the students to leave. He stood up and dash out of the classroom, making his way to the bus and sitting in his regular seat with his things. He looked at the date, February 12th.

It was two months since the break up. Two months since he ruined his own relationship.

The bus stopped, and he saw it was his stop. He  walked home, going instantly to his room and sitting on the floor and facing the window. Two months. Two whole months it had been since he had Cyrus at his side. He felt so guilty still, he wanted to apologize and explain his actions and lies but he couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to find Cyrus, pull him aside, and explain everything.

He saw his reflection and he saw a coward. A coward who was feeling bad for himself when he brought it upon himself. Just for it to mean nothing in the end, and probably hurt even more for Cyrus since he never got some sort of closure.

He knew if it was the other way around, and Cyrus broke up with him out of the blue with no explanation and said the absolutely awful and cruel things TJ said, he would hardly be able to sleep at night. He'd go insane trying to figure out why. And knowing Cyrus, he probably was.

But who knows, maybe he moved on. Maybe he didn't care about TJ. Maybe he even hated TJ. Hell, TJ hated TJ.

Amber walked into her twins room, seeing him sulking by the window. "Hey TJ." She said carefully, making her way over to her brother.

"Hey." He mumbled. "You're thinking about him aren't you?" She asked. He simply nodded. "It's almost been two months." He said. Amber looked at him sympathetically, "T, you're my brother and I love you. You know that, but you also should've listened to me and waited till things were final. Had you waited two more days—" "I fuckin' get it, okay?! I screwed up. I don't need you reminding me too." He hissed.

TJ instantly felt bad. Amber stood up and went to leave when he called out. "I'm sorry, okay? Today was just rough on me."

She stopped and turned back around. "It's okay, and I get it. I would be acting the same way if I was in your position." Amber told him, sitting back down by his side.

"What should I do?" He asked almost inaudibly. "I think you need to apologize. Explain to him the situation. Cyrus is a forgiving person, and he'll understand you were just trying to protect him—" "—in an extremely shitty way?"

"Yeah." She said. After talking to Amber for a few more minutes, he decided he'd do it. He'd go find Cyrus, see if he'll hear him out, and apologize.

Even if he's lost Cyrus forever, due to himself, he needed to know that Cyrus knew why. So that began his jog to Cyrus' house. 

His heart was pumping and the blood was rushing through his veins. The pit in his stomach that hadn't left in two months was more present than it ever had been, and it only felt like two seconds before he was in front of the door and knocking.

He stared at the wood porch flooring, waiting and waiting. He knocked again, waiting a little longer.

Just as he was about to turn and leave, Leslie answered the door. "TJ! What a surprise." She said with a warm smile.

That surprised TJ. Surely she knows everything and hates him. I mean, come on He thought.

"Hi Mrs. Goodman, uh, can I talk to Cyrus? Please? If not it's fine—" She cut him off by holding one finger up.

"Cyrus! Someone's here for you!" She shouted. "Would you like to come in?" She offered. He shook his head, "Could me and him go on a walk by any chance?" He lowly asked. She nodded. "Cy, make sure your being a warm jacket down!"

TJ shivered in his thin hoodie, realizing he shouldn't brought a jacket. It was snowing a decent amount, and the wind certainly didn't help.

He and Cyrus finally met gazes. "Thanks mom, we'll be back soon. Love you." Cyrus quickly said before stepping out side with the door closing behind him.

They stood on the porch, staring at one another. "Could we walk?" TJ asked. Cyrus motioned for him to go on, which began their awkward and silent walk.

TJ was nervous still, but he finally decided to speak up. "This was really random, I know. But I need to explain something." He said hesitantly. Cyrus stopped, looking at TJ with a look saying "go on". 

"You, I, you—we, I um, I'm..." TJ stammered on. "Spit it out." Cyrus said, much harsher than intended as his heart and body ached with pain.

Worried that Cyrus would get fed up and walk away, he began talking really fast and in confusing circles.

"Cyrus, I'm so sorry that I broke up with you and that I hurt you without any explanation. I was lying when I said our relationship was a mistake, and that I didn't love you, I thought it would be what was best for you and I took it too far and I'm so sorry for everything I said. There's no excuses for anything except I am an asshole who decided to lie as a way to protect you and—"

"TJ!" Cyrus shouted. "Slow down. Gather your thoughts, I'm not going." He said, speaking softer than before.

"My dad, he... he lost his job in December. My mom was laid off at work, and we were gonna lose our house. My parents told my sister and I that we were more than likely moving out of Shadyside." TJ explained, talking at a normal and understandable pace.

Cyrus looked confused. "Why does that have to do with our break up?" He asked. "I didn't have the heart to tell you we could have been leaving. I thought for sure we were going and that we were going soon, so I thought breaking up with you and making you hate me wouldn't hurt as much, but it did. And it does. And I'm so sorry for lying to you and for hurting you. You didn't deserve one bit of it." TJ continued with a sad and teary sigh. "I don't expect you to forgive me, but I needed you to know that. Ive owed it to you."

He waited for Cyrus to say something, anything. But nothing. "I'll leave you alone, I'll leave you alone forever if you want that. But please know I am so, so sorry." His voice broke mid sentence, and he turned and started making his way home.

"I still love you." TJ froze dead in his tracks. Tears rolled off his cheeks as he looked back at Cyrus, who had tears of his own staining his face. "I never stopped, I don't know if I can."

Cyrus slowly stepped toward the blonde haired boy, placing a gentle arm on his bicep and turning him around.

"Look, TJ..." Before Cyrus could continue,he was cut off. "Cyrus—" Cyrus shook his head. "Let me talk." TJ quickly shut up. "Teej, what you said to me, it hurt me. A lot. It broke my heart beyond belief, and I never thought I'd be happy again," He started. TJ felt his heart beat rapidly as he waited for Cyrus to continue. "You lies to me and broke up with me without any reason. For that, I don't think I can fully forgive you yet." He continued on.

Cyrus grabbed one of TJ's hands, "But, I love you. And I want to try this again." TJ almost started bawling. "Cyrus I— you don't know how happy that makes me to hear that, but how? I hurt you so bad, I told you I didn't love you! Which was the biggest lie. I said things I cant and never will be able to take back, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself so much for how I hurt you. Cy, I love you so so so much and I hurt you..." TJ rambled on and on.

"I don't care about any of that!" Cyrus exclaimed, cupping TJ's face in his hands. "I love you, and sometimes love is gonna hurt and is gonna be hard, I'll forgive you eventually, it'll take time, but I want— no, need you in my life again. I need you back, Teej."

TJ couldn't believe it. So much was happening at once, and he couldn't help but start sobbing. Cyrus pulled him into his shoulder, allowing him to cry in his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry... I," TJ paused. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." Cyrus whispered. "There's no need." He patted TJ's back, and he soon pulled away and wiped his eyes.

They rested their foreheads on each other's, their breathes mixing to create one between them. Cyrus was the one to close the gap, standing on his tip toes and leaning forward, connecting their lips. The kiss said so many things. It said I'm sorry, it said I love you, it said don't leave me and it said I've missed you so much.

The words stuck unspoken, they both knew to was true. That didn't keep TJ from saying "I love you so much" against the brunette boy's lips. Cyrus pulled away, "I love you too." He said in a soft and sweet voice. A happy voice. A loving voice. Cyrus grabbed TJ's hands.

"You're freezing! Let's get you to inside, ASAP!" TJ chuckled but didn't argue. He and Cyrus stayed inseparable from then on, they were madly in love and they knew it too.

Nothing, nothing would keep them and their love apart ever again.

[ceiaofsilence]

Firepixie, Ch. 1

In which the Spade Pirates get a new member by the name of Harry Potter

„Hey! You’re a pretty good cook! Want to join the Spade Pirates?”

Hariel Potter stares at the man-child hanging over the bar before her. He can’t be older than seventeen, and his smile reminds her of the sun. It’s infectious.

It hadbeen a while since her last adventure, and this island was slowly being taken over by the Marines. If the people had been opposed to it she’d have kicked them out, but the World Government’s enforcers had been welcomed and celebrated so far. Harry isn’t so sure it’ll last, but it’s none of her business. If the people are happy about the Marines’ dubious protection then she won’t interfere. But she certainly wouldn’t stick around to watch it, either.

While she can admit that there aregood Marines, and the ones that had arrived in recent days seem to be fine for the most part, Harry had long since figured out she wasn’t made to follow the World Government’s law.

So she looks at Portgas D. Ace and returns his sunshine grin. “Sure,” she says. “Why not? But fair warning… I attract trouble.”

Ace laughs. “Worth the food! This stuff is great!”

Harry grins. It’s rare to see someone enjoy her cooking this much. Hers is a rather small and hidden bar, her patrons mostly regulars. It’s rare that she gets new visitors, but apparently Ace has a good nose when it comes to finding food. “Well then,” she says. “Give me a few days to pack my stuff up and set everything in order. How long do I have until your log pose settles?”

“Three days.” The boy grins. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Hariel,” she answers smiling for she can feel the sea and the adventure calling for her, and this time she’ll follow the call. “Just call me Harry.”

It was a year after the war, and the Ministry was holding a memorial ball at the newly rebuilt Hogwarts. It was among the last things Hariel ever wanted to do. Kreacher had passed away in his sleep a mere two days before, though, and she fully intended to have him be remembered as a hero of the war, no matter how much some people would like to forget the contribution of house elves. Hermione had been ever so touched when Harry had shown her the speech she had written.

So here she was, in her fine black dress robes that hugged her curves, black curls artfully arranged, receiving praise for her kindness and beauty, the endless efforts she put into rebuilding the Wizarding World. Already she had opened the dance with Kingsley, and danced with what felt like a hundred officials and diplomats. It was-

“Tiring, isn’t it?” Kingsley murmured as he walked up to her.

“At times,” she answered, inclining her head.

“Be careful,” he said quietly. “You’re giving more than you receive. Don’t burn yourself out. I’d hate to lose my best Auror.”

Being a pirate is fun. Harry stands on the ship’s figurehead, arms spread as if she’s about to fly away. Her hair whips about in the wind, completely untamed.

Ace is laughing at her, but from the happiness in his eyes, she can tell he understands.

They were building statues of her. One at Diagon Alley, one for the atrium of the Ministry, and another at Hogwarts. She absolutely hated it. It wasn’t like she’d won the war alone, but one would never know, listening to the way the witches and wizards talked.

“You have to look at their view,” Hermione tried to reason with her. “You’re the one who brought Voldemort down, fought him time and time again. You were the beacon of hope!”

Why couldn’t they be their own beacon? Shealways made her own light. Dumbledore gave her a path to follow, but the courage to actually walk it - that was all Harry’s own.

“I don’t need to be their beacon now,” she answered the woman who had been her best friend and confidante for so many years, but now had been swallowed up by business and politics and revolution so much she barely listened to what Hariel had to say anymore. Hermione was the brightest witch after all, and Hariel’s words tended to be tainted by ‘unrealistic idealism’.  As if Hermione’s own crusades weren’t, but thosewere of course different because they were Hermione’s.

“Harry,” Hermione said exasperatedly. “Do you even realise how much you can influence with just words, simply because they come from your mouth? You can accomplish so much. You can’t just ignore that, think of all the goodyou could do!”

“Think of all the good all of usalready did!” Hariel countered. “Why’s there statues of only me? Why not of you, why not of Ron, and Dumbledore, Dobby… why only me?”

“Oh Harry,” Hermione answered softly. “I’m sure if you just talked to Kingsley, they could change it?” She wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t the statues itself that were the problem. It was that they would be of Harry alone, made from gold, and the mere idea of it was what really got to Hariel. That she was remembered as the golden girl, that she was held to a standard that no one else was, and that she was all on her own on that high pedestal.

“It’s not Kingsley who decided this, it’s that stupid post-war morale committee or whatever they’re called,” Harry answered, not bothering to explain. Hermione was already distracted, looking at her watch.

“Look at the time!” she said. “I have a meeting, talk later? I can fit you in at lunch on Wednesday!”

“Sure,” Harry answered, a trace of sadness in her voice, but mostly it was filled with resignation. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on your busy schedule.”

The Spade Pirates are a loud and friendly bunch. Harry is the only female member, and it is like gaining a dozen older brothers. It amuses her since she’s definitely the oldest member. And definitely more mature than all of them put together.

“Clean your hands before lunch, whippersnappers!” she scolds, laughing at the crew’s antics. Wherever she goes on the ship, she gets snatched up in hugs or outrageous confessions of eternal love or just casual kisses on the forehead or cheeks. It’s wonderful and she’s never felt as warm and protected before.

“You talk like an old woman!” Benji, the first mate, laughs at her.

“Older than you!” She grins as she points her cooking spoon at him.

“How old can you possibly be?” Eagle-Eye Lyle the sniper asks incredulously. “You’re, like, a pint-sized fairy! Can’t be older than sixteen!”

“A lady never tells,” Harry says dramatically. “And your punishment for asking… Ace gets your dessert!”

“Nooo!” Lyle wails.

“YES!” Ace cheers.

Later, when the crew’s gone to sleep and she’s up in the crow’s nest on watch duty, he joins her.

“You’re not actually my age, are you?” he asks quietly.

“It’s not a problem, right?” Harry answers.

“Nah.” He laughs a little. “You’re nakama. You’re my cook. Why would your age matter?”

“Just checking.” She shrugs. “It’s just… I age differently from what I should. Sucks a bit, but I’ve sorted it out for the most part.”

“A sabbatical?” Ron asked incredulously. “You aren’t sick, are you?”

“What? No!” Harry denied instantly. “I just… need a break.”

“From what?” Ron was mystified. To him, Hariel appeared to lead the perfect life. He’d gotten over his jealousy issues, but he still lacked some understanding. He tried, though.

“Everything?” she asked wryly. “I’ve never taken a vacation in my life. I think at twenty I’m due one.”

“Well… okay?” he said dubiously. “You’ll come back, though, right?”

“Of course,” she answered. “Of course I will.”

“Marines, huh?” Hariel mused. The helmsman grunted. Buenaventure was large. Thrice as tall as her, twice as tall as Ace. He was a man of few words which was a shame, because he had the nicest voice, all warm and deep. “Should be interesting.”

“All right, crew!” Ace shouts. “Let’s kick some ass!”

They all laugh and cheer back.

The Marine ship’s cannons’ range is longer than their ships’, so they fire first. But the Spades don’t exactly need cannons when they have Fire Fist Ace, do they? The cannon balls don’t even come close. Until the Marines fire sea stone cannon balls, then his fire can’t do much.

Ah, but that’s what she’s there for, no? Her own fire, blue and golden, joins Ace’s. Then she vaults over the railing and changes into her animagus form. Fire races in her veins, her vision shifts to encompass so many more colours, so many things humans just don’t see. And she flies swiftly, and strikes true. The sea stone cannon goes up in flames, and the Devil’s Deck, the Spade Pirates’ ship, is protected.

After the battle, Ace holds his arm out and she lands on it, trilling a few notes. “Phoenix, huh?” he asks. She fluffs her feathers proudly before she hops off his arm and turns back.

“Yep,” she answers, just a little bit wary. “There’s a bit of a crazy story behind it, actually.”

“Isn’t there always!” Benji claps her on the shoulder. “Gonna tell us over some booze, or what?”

“Sure, why not,” she laughs.

Hariel didn’t travel that far, for the most part she stuck around Europe. Six months in she joined Charlie in Romania for Christmas. It was nice, she hadn’t seen him in a while. He didn’t come around England all that often anymore.

Life at the dragon reserve was good. Simple. No one looked twice at her, even knowing who she was. There was a guy there who offered to teach her the animagus transformation. An offer Harry gladly took.

“Of courseyou’d be a mythical creature,” Charlie snorted when she finally found out what her form was. He himself could already turn into a pitbull terrier.

“Oh shut up!” Harry laughed.

Four weeks later no one was laughing when, after a group of poachers and mercenaries attacked the reserve, she cried on the dying Charlie and healed his wounds just before a piercing hex found her heart and she went up in flames.

“Just up in flames?” Lyle asks incredulously, poking at her face. “Like our Ace?”

“Nah, not exactly. See, it’s this thing phoenixes do…”

“What the hell am I supposed to do with a baby?!” Charlie asked incredulously.

Harry stared up at him, sniffling and terrified out of her mind.

In the end, he brought her to his mother. Whose reaction to him bringing home a newborn child was nothing short of terrifying. When she found out the child was Harry... that was even more terrifying. Then came the mothering, and that wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Phoenixes grow quickly during their rebirth cycles, and Hariel was no different. Within nine months, she’d grown to her eighteen year old body, and a few months later she was back to age twenty. In a way, it was nice to repeat her childhood in way that didn’t involve the Dursleys; Mrs. and Mr. Weasley were very kind to her, and so were all the Weasley siblings and her friends. On the other hand, it was inconvenient as hell, and she was aching from growing pains the entire time. Not to mention the constant clumsiness that came with being in a body that wouldn’t stop changing.

And then there were the security measures. Her magic became unstable, she could barely use it anymore. Madam Pomfrey finally told her that it was because she’d become a phoenix animagus. Her magic had been swallowed up by the mythical creature inside her, and only the most base magic tasks would still work for her. It spelled the end of her career in law enforcement.

“Hold on, you were a Marine?” Benji asks incredulously. She snorts.

“Not even close. Where I came from, law enforcement was very different.”

“Which island are you from, anyway?” Ace asks curiously. “Can’t be from the one where we picked you up Hey, I wanna go where they use magic!.”

“Ahhh…” Harry sighs. “Imagine the Grand Line. It’s made up from countless islands, right?”

The Spade Pirates nodded, unsure where she was going with this.

“Now imagine… what if the Grand Line itself was only an island in a bigger sea? What if there were more islands in that sea? Or imagine if every star you saw in the night sky was a different world. And you can’t reach them unless you know how to sail…” Harry’s voice trails off. “I’m from very far away, and I fell into the bigger sea and the Grand Line is where I ended up.” She shrugs. “We had these things called portkeys that allowed us to travel very quickly from one place to another. I happened upon a faulty one. I panicked, my phoenix abilities acted up - and here we are.”

“Apparition is so much more comfortable now,” Hariel told Hermione. “Like breathing.” She blinked, let the fire fill her, flames flashed - and she was standing on the other side of the room. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Harry…” Hermione said, stricken. “I know you’re putting up a happy front - but you lost your magic! You know you can talk to me, yes?”

“Didn’t lose it, it just changed. I still have it.” Harry smiled. “I’m really okay. I feel - so much lighter now.” She twirled around herself. Her hair, no longer black but a rich orange-red that showed golden and blue highlights when the light hit it right, whipped around her as if it was fire itself. “I’ve never been better!”

Hermione burst into tears. “You died! Again! And now you’re - you’re not even a witch anymore, and it’s not fair! We need to fix this!”

Harry sighed quietly. Of all her friends, Hermione had taken it the worst.

“I’ve written to the Library of Alexandria,” Hermione said. “They say they have some books and scrolls on mythical animagi. At least - at least think about going? I can arrange a portkey for you.”

Knowing Hermione, the portkey was already arranged. Well, if it made her happy… and a trip to Wizarding Egypt sounded nice. The Library of Alexandria was said to be the greatest in the world, too, and not being an Auror anymore, Hariel had more than enough time to research her new abilities. “Okay,” she said. “It sounds nice.”

But two days later, when she touched the portkey and the magic of it hooked behind her navel, she knew instantly that something was wrong. It didn’t hook just behind her navel but everywhere under her skin, and it tore in all different directions. There was no whirl of colour, no spinning, just the awful ripping inside and outside of her, but she couldn’t let go of the portkey, couldn’t move, and it hurt. So she tried to turn to flame and get away that way.

It was a mistake.

She had no idea how long she drifted through the in-between of the worlds. She knew she died, ripped apart the first time, and then pressed and twisted through time and space the following ones. There were no adequate words to describe the ways she died. She wasn’t aware most of the time, thankfully.

But eventually it stopped, and she fell into water. There was nothing around but water, though her newborn body’s eyes were weak so she couldn’t see far anyway. But she felt something under her, deep below in the see. Something enormous and old.

Not long later, an enormous sea snake towered over her, mean eyes staring hungrily upon Harry’s weak and helpless form.

~Help me,~ she hissed.

“To sum it up,” Harry says upon seeing the teary eyes of her crewmates. “The sea king brought me to the nearest island where a kind family found and raised me. Seeing as this isthe Grand Line, they didn’t really bat an eyelash at how quickly I grew, especially when I explained it later. Once I was fully grown again, I went and travelled a bit until I had my next… accident.” She rolls her eyes. “This dying and de-aging thing got old really fast. Anyway, I sailed for a bit, got a feel for this world… opened a bar… and then you came along.”

“…explains how you aged like ten years in two months when you joined,” Lyle finally says.

Harry kicks his shin. “Five years in four months, you arse! I’m only twenty-one! I think.”

“Oww! Captain, Harry’s being a mean old lady!”

“Why you!”

The crew laughs on as Harry attempts to tackle Lyle to the floor.

“What’s this?” Ace asks curiously, poking the cake with his fork.

“Treacle tart!” Harry answers enthusiastically. “I finally got it right! It’s the best cake in the world! My favourite!” She nearly succeeds in stealing a piece from Ace’s plate.

“Mine!” he says, catching her wrist - Merlin damn it, he would’ve made one fine Seeker with reflexes like that - and pulling her over. She ends up in his lap, restrained by his arms.

“Not fair!” she whines. “It’s my favourite!”

“Mmm.” He chews noisily. “It’s pretty good.”

“Pretty good!” she gasps in outrage. “Pretty good! It’s the bestest cake in the world! And it’s wasted on you!” She struggles against his iron grip while he chuckles. No use. Ace is freakishly strong. “Aaaace!” she whines, and aims puppy eyes up at him. “Pleeeeaaase? One tiny bite?”

The arse is laughing at her! Oh, she might be nice most of the time, but when it comes to treacle tart, it’s on. One moment, Ace is holding a rather pretty young woman, the next he’s attempting to fend off a fully sized phoenix from hell who’s trying for his food. “Argh! Goddammit Harry stop that! Ouch! Oww! No, my food!”

Harry chatters angrily and sets herself on fire. So does Ace.

…the room is in shambles by the time the cake is gone. Harry is entirely unrepentant, at least she got her cake.

Benji makes them scrub the deck as punishment.

Ace is shell-shocked. It was - she had warned him, Harry had, but to see it - God, Buenaventure would’ve been dead if not for her, but now she-

The tiny little phoenix chick cheeps at him pathetically. Its eyes are exactly Harry’s colour, but the fuzzy plumage is a soft ash grey, quite unlike the glorious golden, red, and blue feathers her fully grown phoenix form sports.

“Okay,” he finally says. “So what do baby phoenixes eat?”

Harry’s yet unable to turn back, she only got killed two weeks ago. She is, however, well capable of making her displeasure known.

She’s quite displeased. She flaps her completely useless fuzzy wings angrily and chatters at the Wanted Poster Ace is holding up before her with his arseholish grin on his stupid freckled face.

The chick. Pet of the Spade Pirates. ฿5.

The chick.

The. C h i c k.

Five. Beli.

Outrageous! How dare they!

And how dare Ace laugh at her. She attempts to peck his fingers. Doesn’t work. “At least it’s a cute picture?” he asks, still laughing.

The picture is the worst! It’s disgustingly adorable! Taken a week ago, her tiny phoenix chick form sitting on Ace’s hair as if it was a nest.

Mark her words, she will poop on him the next time she sits there.

In a rather obvious attempt to mollify her, Ace pulls out another poster. Wanted: The Firepixie. ฿30,000,000.

Fire. Pixie.

Harry squawks indignantly. It’s not her fault everyone on the Grand Line is a freaking giant! She’s perfectly above average in height! Oh, just wait until she’s grown again - heads will roll for this! Firepixie, her bloody arse!

“Where’re we going?” Harry whines, pulling on Ace’s hair. She’s riding on his shoulders. It’s about all tall people are good for. Harry’s decided she really hates tall people. She’s now physically about three years old, it’s been almost six weeks since her latest incident. She ages about a year within two weeks, faster when she’s in her phoenix form; meaning she’ll be at her actual age of twenty-one in less than a year. But at least she’ll be useful again when she hits her teens in (hopefully) around three months, and everyone will just go back to not being an overprotective cooing dunderhead. Merlin’s balls, she can’t go anywhere.

And then there are the jokes. Tall people are the worst.

Also, she’s pretty sure someone has started a photo album of baby pictures. So far no one’s dressed her up yet, but it will happen; it happened with Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, Hermione, and about every other female friend she had. She’s apparently cute as fuck even when she cries - a rarity in this world - not that she does that a lot but being a child has her head all frazzled and what was she talking about again? Whatever.

“Are we gonna be there soon?” she continues to whine. Some good has to come out of her plight, and if everyone gets to make jokes about her situation, then she gets to be a rotten brat. Justice must be served to the tall people.

“Yes, Harry,” Ace says. “Stop pulling my hair!”

She pulls his hair. “No. How long till we’re there?”

“How can she even do that? He’s fire! His hair is fire!” Lyle complains.

“’s cold!” Harry continues complaining.

“You’re a bloody phoenix! You can’t be cold!” Lyle yells. He’s the easiest to annoy.

Ace sets his hair on fire. “Better?” he asks. Harry snuggles into the flames. Mmm, nice!

“Yup! Are we there yet?”

“We’re here,” Buenaventure interrupts with his deep voice.

“Finally,” Lyle groans.

“It’s a cave,” Harry mutters. “You brought me all this way so we could see a cave?”

Right then, a man comes stomping out of the cave. “You! What do you want!” he yells at them.

“Food and booze!” Harry shouts back.

“Oh my God, shut up Harry!” Lyle hisses at her and attempts to pry her off of Ace. She clings to his head like a limpet.

“Ignore the brat,” Ace says. “I want to meet Red-Hair Shanks!”

“And food and booze!” Harry shouts.

“Haha, a girl after my own heart!” Another guy comes out of the cave. He’s only got one arm, a scar across his eye, and some really nice red hair. Almost as nice as Harry’s own!

“Don’t give the kid booze, captain!” the first guy shouts.

“Not a kid!” Harry shouts. “Just got de-aged, arsehole!”

“Grand Line shenanigans?” the captain asks sympathetically. Harry nods. “That sucks.” He turns to Ace. “So you wanted to meet me?”

"Yeah." Ace grins his sunshine grin. "I wanted to meet the guy who saved my little brother's life and thank him." He gives a bow that nearly throws Harry off his shoulders. "Thank you for saving Luffy!"

"Eh, you know Luffy?" The captain looks confused for a moment before a grin also splits his face. "Guys! This is Luffy's brother! This calls for celebration!"

"Food and booze!" Harry cheers.

...no one gives her booze in the end, but the party is still fun as hell.

Harry makes it to age thirteen - takes her around nine months in total - before the next incident.

"Harry," Ace says seriously while she cheeps helplessly, once again locked in baby phoenix form. "You need to stop doing that."

She sneezes up a lick of flame. The crew goes aww.

"But seriously, that shouldn't have killed you," Doc, the Spade’s doctor, says while frowning.

Well, it's not my damn fault everyone here is so bloody sturdy! Harry tries her hand - or rather her beak - at bird speak. Normal people die from being launched head-first through seven walls, you asshats!

"Aww, she's so cute like that!" Lyle coos, and attempts to swipe her from Ace's hands.

"Nope, mine!" their captain says, grinning.

Thricely cursed fucknuggets! Filthy maggot brains! May a stampede of pregnant hippogriffs run you over while a dragon pisses on you! Harry chirps indignantly, flapping her tiny, fluffy wings. I tickle your catastrophe!

"I'll get the camera," Benji snickers. "Hey, Buenaventure, didn't you knit her a Spade Pirates sweater?"

I will peck the eyes from your lifeless corpses while they rot in the sun!

"Aww look, Harry's happy!"

Harry chirps pathetically and aims puppy eyes up at Ace. He's too busy laughing at her to notice.

She resolves to burn that camera and the photos it already took.        

                                                                      Ace is sitting at his desk and going over the newest bounties. His has doubled, again. Buenaventure's has grown by twenty million. Everyone else's is still the same.

There's a knock on Ace's door, then it opens and Harry - now four years old, enters, blanked clutched in one hand and enormous owl plushie in the other. "I'm thleeping here," she announces.

Four year-old Harry is the best. She has a lisp.

"Bad dream?" Ace asks. She looks away and climbs up on his bed where she curls up, still clutching her plushie. Ace had gotten it for her, mainly to annoy her because brat-Harry's tantrums are hilarious, but she'd fallen in love with the thing immediately and henceforth refused to part with it, which was even more hilarious.

"Just a bit homethick," she mumbles. "Mith my old friends."

Ace leaves the bounties on his desk and sits down next to her. She's hidden her face in the stuffed owl. It'd be cute if it didn't mean her being sad.

He isn't quite sure what the hell to do with a sad kid, though.

"Hug," she orders, turning her head to glare at him.

Ace snorts and boops her on the nose. "Respect, brat."

"Shut up, you tall arse." There's a tiny grin on her face now, though her eyes are still infinitely sad. "Now hug!"

"All right, all right." Anything to make that look go away. "Brat."

"Stupid tall prat." She snuggles into him. "I love you, you know?"

Ace stills. It's - she just said it like that, and he's not - she doesn't mean it, can't meant it, she doesn't know the truth about him - but even if she did, she's not from here, has no idea of Gol D. Roger and what the rotten blood in Ace's veins means.

He could tell her, he thinks. He could tell all of the crew, they’re his family as much as Luffy is, though in a different way. They have a right to know.

And Harry would understand. When she’s in the right mood, she tells them stories from her home. She knows what it’s like, to have her fate decided for her, knows what it’s like to be hunted for simply existing. It’s not the exact same situation as his, but similar enough.

���Say it back,” she orders like the brat she is.

He chuckles. “You’re such a brat.”

She pinches him. “Say it, Ace!”

“Oww!” He’s a Logia, how does she keep doing that?! “It’s on, brat!”

She shrieks as he begins to tickle her. It turns into a small-scale war.

“I was holding back,” he insists later.

Harry tightens the headlock she has him in.

She’s four! How?! This is the same girl that dies from being thrown into walls. He’s pretty sure she could win against Garp in arm wrestling!

“Say. It!” she yells. “Or I’ll eat all the cake!”

“Fine!” He grumbles the words so fast they are unintelligible. “There. I said it!”

“Nope, you gibbered it!”

“That’s not even a word! Gah!” Harry’s cut off his air. “I’m your captain, dammit! Don’t kill me! Hrrrrgh... fine, love you!” He feels his masculinity die a swift and brutal death.

Harry lets go of him and pats his head. “There! Not tho difficult, right?”

Ace glares at her.

…he’ll wait until she’s asleep. Then tie her up and use her as sea king bait.

The pipe feels awkward in her hands. "Seriously?" she asks, and then curses herself for using a word with so many 's' in it because her physical age is four and this means she has a lisp.

Sure enough, Ace is grinning. Tall people suck.

“Can’t handle a little weapon, Firepixie?” he asks.

“Little?” she asks incredulously. “This thing is as tall as me! And since when are pipes weapons?”

Since forever, apparently.

“Why do I have to do this?” Harry whines two hours into training, and stomps her foot.

“So you don’t get thrown into any more walls,” Lyle points out reasonably, damn him. “You’re cute as fuck, but we’d like a cook that actually cooks instead of kidnapping one of us and yelling at him to do stuff in the kitchen because she’s too short to reach the cupboards.”

“I’m not cute!” she shouts. “Or short!”

Lyle grins unrepentantly. “Sure thing, Firepixie.”

“I will murder you.”

“Use your pipe when you do it,” Ace pipes up. “Remember, a secure grip is everything, and don’t just use your arms, use your whole body when you swing!”

Harry points at him. “And you are next.”

“I’m so scared.”

“Rawwwrrrr!”

Harry goes up in flames.

Lyle shrieks like the little girl Harry is supposed to be and runs.

Ace clears his throat. “We have assembled today to celebrate a most special birthday.” He raises his glass. “To Harry finally making it to adulthood!”

“Hear, hear!” the crew shouts.

Harry sniffs. “You guys are so sweet! You even got me cake!” Store-bought, making a cake without the cook’s help failed epically and they’re very lucky Harry was shopping for clothes with Doc while the kitchen exploded.

“Well obviously you’re going to share with us,” Benji says reasonably. “It’s not like a shorty like you can put away that much cake.”

Harry throws her fork at him. “I’m taller than average!” she shouts. “You just watch, I’m gonna eat it all alone!”

Harry is most certainly not taller than average. Even at the physical age of eighteen, she’s nowhere near as tall as the average Grand Line human woman. Makino would even be taller than her, and everyone used to comment on how small and dainty she was. Firepixie describes Harry pretty well, no matter her protests.

Ace grins and grabs himself a handful of cake while she’s distracted yelling at the others.

He bloody loves his crew.

[danfanciesphil]

Give Me A Try (New Chapter)

Gay Instagram Model/Bartender Phan AU Part 7

(Part One)

(Part Two)

(Part Three)

(Part Four)

(Part Five)

(Part Six)

(Read on Ao3)

“Thanks again for doing this, Dan. It’s really nice of you,” Phil is saying, though Dan is barely listening. He’s typing the various codes and instructions Phil had reeled off a moment ago into the notes of his phone, but mostly he’s trying to keep himself from looking Phil in the eye.

“It’s really not a problem,” Dan says, shrugging. He pockets his phone, wrapping his arms around his middle. “Your flat is, like, ten times nicer than mine. Not to mention super close to the bar.”

Phil smiles, though he still looks abashed. Perhaps Dan should invite him round to his shitty Kemptown flat one day, then Phil might feel less guilty for asking Dan to house-sit.

“I’m gone until Wednesday,” Phil informs him, grabbing a jacket from the row of hooks nearby. “I’ll be back around midday, probably jetlagged and grumpy as hell, so you might wanna steer clear of me.”

Phil laughs, and Dan infers that this is Phil’s polite way of asking him to be gone by Wednesday lunch time. “Got it. I should have everyone out of here by then.”

Phil pauses, one arm in one sleeve, an adorable frown caught on his befuddled face. “Who out of where?”

“Oh, all the hundreds of people I’ll be inviting round for a week-long orgy.”

Dan’s straight face seems to catch Phil off guard for a split second, and then he laughs, giving himself away. Phil dissolves into laughter with him, tongue caught between his teeth.

“Just put a cover over the couch, yeah? It’s velvet. Stains easily.”

“Ooft, no promises.” Dan jokes back. His heart pangs as the easy banter slips off his tongue.

Doing this jokey back and forth with Phil used to be fun. It used to excite him, how effortlessly they could buffet off one another’s humour; now, in the wake of Tyler’s words the other day, it’s just painful. This ‘friendship’ with Phil had once seemed like a miracle. Now all Dan can see is a pretence. He hasn’t told Tyler about the fact that Phil has asked him to stay in his flat, because it just seems further proof that Phil is only using him.

But Dan’s weak, and he couldn’t refuse Phil anything if he tried.

“...and I’ll call and check in now and then just to make sure you’re okay,” Phil is saying, Dan realises with a start. He nods, trying to show he’s been listening, and Phil beams at him, jacket zipped up. “So, see you in a week then, I guess!”

Dan’s about to go in for a safe handshake, but then Phil is wrapping an arm around him, his other hand on the handle of his suitcase. He squeezes Dan tight, and Dan lets out a sound that he hopes is muffled by the broad, warm chest he’s smushed against.

He’s released after a moment, and he’s pretty sure he’s bright red. He nods, taking a swift step backwards. “Y-yep, see you. Have fun in the Maldives.”

Phil rolls his eyes, making an ‘ugh’ sound. “Not likely.”

It seems a bizarre reaction, but Dan is used to Phil speaking about his work with distaste at this point. Dan tries to stave off judgement, but it’s difficult to view these eye rolls and grimaces as anything other than ungrateful. Phil is going to spend a week pouting for a camera on a beach in the blazing sunshine. Dan is going to spend this week sweating behind a bar, then crawling home to someone else’s sofa to eat his weight in crisps and fall asleep.

“Well, uh, send me some pics,” Dan says, not sure what else to say. For whatever reason, the idea of this seems to perk Phil up.

“I will!” He gives Dan a small wave as he opens the door, and then, right before it closes, he blows a kiss. “By-eee!”

The door clicks shut behind him, and Dan stares at it for a moment, replaying that kiss in his mind. “Bye,” he whispers to nobody.

*

Friday nights are karaoke, and it usually gets a little messy. The gays love to sing, and with a few drinks in their system, they’re practically unstoppable. More often than not, the hardest part of the evening is dragging them off stage when it’s closing time.

With the help of Matt, Dan manages to boot the last few out of the door, and sighs in relief. Now there’s just a final clear up to do, and he can wander down the road to crash at Phil’s. He grabs a rag and starts wiping down the bar.

“Dodie, could you switch the music off?” Dan calls.

“On it!”

“Lara, would you grab a mop? I think the guy’s bathroom could use a once over.”

“Already did it, Dan!”

Dan lifts a smile to her, impressed. She’s sealing the mop and bucket back in the cleaning cupboard already. “Thanks, you’re a star.”

“What shall I do, boss?”

Dan turns to face Tyler, who is smiling sheepishly at him from the other end of the bar. “You’re as much of a boss as I am, Ty. Figure your own jobs out.”

It comes out a little bit colder than he intends it to, but Tyler is undeterred. “Don’t equate such lowly peasants with yourself, boss!”

Tyler scoots close, then grabs the rag from Dan’s hand. “Hey!” Dan exclaims.

“Let me do that,” Ty says, still beaming. “You’re tired. Go home, I’ll lock up.”

“It’s my turn,” Dan points out.

“Pfft,” Tyler say, swiping the rag through the air. “I don’t mind. Besides, I’ve got Dodie and Lara to help me.”

Dan sighs, wanting to protest. He knows this is Tyler’s way of apologising for what he said about Phil the other night, but it makes Dan uncomfortable. Sure, Tyler had said some things Dan didn’t exactly want to hear, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have said them. His apologies are unnecessary.

“Fine,” Dan says, exasperated. “But I’m locking up tomorrow.”

Tyler holds the rag up, and places his other hand over his heart. “Scout’s honour.”

Dan shoots him a tight smile, then squeezes out from behind the bar. He crosses the dancefloor to the staff room and gathers his things. As he’s coming out, he notices Tyler and Dodie in a deep discussion that ends abruptly when they spot him.

Wanting to groan, Dan shakes his head at them. “Guys, I’m not a fucking idiot okay, I know you’re talking about me.”

“It’s just…” Dodie swallows, her eyes darting to Tyler’s briefly. “We’re worried. Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet since…”

She trails off.

“Since I shoved my foot in everything and tore you to pieces for just having a crush,” Tyler finishes. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Ty, you’ve apologised literally like fifty times,” Dan reminds him, already pulling on his jacket.

“I know but… I just don’t want you to think that anything I said was anything except me lashing out because of my own love troubles,” Tyler says, walking over to him. “I don’t think Phil is intentionally being a dick to you. I just let all the gossip from the bar filter into my brain.”

“We’re just worried,” Dodie says again, biting her thumb.

“Well, that’s all very sweet,” Dan says, sighing. “But you don’t have to worry anymore. You were right in a way, it’s not very healthy for me to be so… close to him. I’m distancing myself for the time being.”

Technically, technically, there’s a lot of distance between he and Phil right now. Over 5,000 miles, in fact. This probably doesn’t count, however. After all, he saw Phil earlier on today, and will probably be texting him from his very own couch later on. Dodie and Tyler don’t need to know this, though.

Dan watches with mild despair as the two of them exchange one of their long, loaded glances; it’s filled with unspoken concern.

“Okay, I’m off,” Dan announces before either of them can verbalise it. He gives a brief wave, then heads for the door. “See you gays tomorrow.”

“Wait, Dan-” Tyler begins to say, but Dan just throws him another dismissive wave.

“Bye!” He calls, then wrenches open the door and steps out into damp morning chill.

*

Phil has every season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, along with all of Game of Thrones, every Studio Ghibli movie, and most Marvel films. Once he’s let himself into Phil’s flat, checked the houseplants, removed his jacket and shoes, and made a de-stress cup of tea, Dan kneels before Phil’s collection. He’s down there for a good ten minutes before settling on Captain America as his choice for a wind-down film.

He pops it in the DVD player and loads it up, then settles into Phil’s deliciously comfy couch to watch. As the opening credits roll, he snaps a photo of his hand holding the mug of tea, the film’s title screen in the background. He dithers, unsure whether to post it to his newly popular Instagram. His overtired brain is too mushy to think about it too much, so he slaps a warm filter on it, and posts it with the caption:

cap’s helping me wind down after a long shift

It immediately starts being hit with likes and comments, which is too much for Dan to comprehend right now, so he just locks the phone and shoves it in his pocket. He’ll read the comments tomorrow.

Dan’s just getting to the bit where Chris Evans’ CGI skinny body is being pumped up into his muscly self, when his phone trills. Confused, Dan pauses the film and reaches for it. Phil’s name stares out from the screen. He swipes it immediately, already bolt upright with concern.

“Hello?”

“Hey!”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Everything’s great,” Phil says. “Just checking in.”

Dan had been expecting a sombre, possibly urgent tone; contrarily, Phil seems to be his usual, chipper self. Dan checks the time on his phone, frowning. It’s 3am, meaning it’s 7am in the Maldives.

Dan rubs his eyes. “It’s so early.”

“Oh, crap, did I wake you up? I just thought ‘cause of your Instagram post that you’d be chilling after work, sorry.”

“No, I mean it’s early for you.”

“Oh,” Phil says, laughing. “Nah, this is when I have to get up for my shoot. The best light for beach photos is sunrise.”

“Oh,” Dan says, surprised. He never thought about that. “God, that must suck. Aren’t you jetlagged?”

“Super jetlagged!” Phil laughs again. “I’m used to doing shoots half asleep, don’t worry.”

“Have some coffee,” Dan suggests.

“I’ll definitely be trying to wrangle some caffeine from somewhere,” Phil agrees. His tone of voice suggests that it doesn’t look promising. “So, how’s your first night in the flat going?”

Dan glances around himself. “It’s, uh, quiet.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Phil says. “It can get pretty lonely there.”

This makes Dan frown. Phil has never mentioned being lonely before. “It’s cool, I’ve got Cap and Bucky to keep me company.”

“Ah, yes! Are you watching Civil War?”

“No, just the first one.”

“Awesome,” Phil says emphatically. “Well, enjoy the not-so-subtle gay undertones. I’d better get to the beach.”

“You poor soul,” Dan says sarcastically, which makes Phil laugh.

“Get to bed soon, okay? I know Chris Evans’ abs look really good on my obnoxiously large TV, but you’re working tomorrow.”

Dan chuckles. “Yes mum.”

“Night, young man.”

“Morning, you mean.”

“Hah, I guess you’re right. I’ll check in tomorrow, sweet dreams!”

“Oh, you don’t have to check in tomorrow if-”

The line goes dead, and Phil is gone. Dan blinks down at his phone, slightly thrown by the conversation. It’s difficult to believe that Phil is so concerned about the wellbeing of his houseplants that he’d call Dan the first morning of his trip. Now that Dan thinks about it, Phil hadn’t even asked about the houseplants.

An overwhelming fatigue throws itself over Dan suddenly, and he yawns, throwing his phone to one side, where it continues to blink with Instagram notifications. He should really switch those off. He blinks at the TV, eyes already growing heavy; he’s sure he won’t make it to the end of the movie.

With a hefty amount of willpower, Dan switches off the TV and heads to Phil’s room to grab the duvet. As he’s pulling the heavy quilt from the mattress however, he pauses, arms aching with the weight of it already. Would it really be so bad to take up Phil’s offer of just falling into the bed?

It will undoubtedly be weird, and he’ll probably hate himself for it tomorrow morning, because he’ll spend the whole of the next day (week, month, and year) dreaming about exactly how Phil’s bed feels and smells. But he’s exhausted, and it looks far more inviting than the couch right now.

Before he can argue himself out of it, Dan is shimmying off his jeans, pulling his t-shirt over his head, and crawling into the tantalisingly soft cocoon of the bed. He actually moans; these sheets feel divine against his skin. They’re probably Egyptian cotton or something. Dan would take longer to think about it, but he closes his eyes, and falls instantly asleep.  

*

Two hours before they are due to close on Saturday, at around 3am, a girl approaches the bar. She is pretty and slim, with a short, tight dress on and long dangly earrings. She’s wearing red lipstick and her hair is bleach blonde. Not wanting to judge prematurely, Dan gives her his usual customer-service smile; in the back of his mind, however, he can’t help but note that this girl is very much not the type of customer that they usually get at Habenero’s.

In other words, she gives off a rather… heterosexual vibe.

“Hi,” the girl says, grinning at him. She leans forwards on the bartop, pushing out her boobs rather obviously. Dan raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment. “A Malibu and Coke, please.”

“Sure,” Dan says, turning to make it.

“Actually,” she says, making him turn. “Make it a Diet Coke. I’m such a sugar fiend. Need to watch myself.”

Briefly, Dan looks her up and down. Her body is gorgeous, clearly the result of daily gym trips and a careful diet. A full-fat Coke wouldn’t even touch her skinny frame, and she knows it. He’s not in the mood to pander to her obvious attempt at fishing for compliments.

If she wants her ego stroked, she’s barking up the wrong tree.

“Don’t we all,” Dan says instead, and reaches for the soda hose.

The drink takes seconds to make, and he places it before her. “No straw?” She asks, smirking. “My lipstick is Dior. Can’t waste it on the rim of a glass, can I?”

Dan shrugs at her. “Sorry, we’ve introduced a no-straw policy at the club. Brighton’s a green city.”

For a moment, her smile wavers, but then it’s fixed back in place. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t think so.”

The scarlet lips form a perfect ‘o’. Her look of realisation seems ingenuine, like she’s performing a pre-rehearsed scene. “Oh my God! You’re AmazingPhil’s friend, right?” At the sound of his name, Dan freezes up. “David, is it? No, wait, Dan!”

“Uh, I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Dan mutters, though he can feel the heat flood to his cheeks.

“Oh, don’t be coy!” She laughs, and then she’s got her arm on his shoulder; she’s leaning right over the bar to reach him, which looks awkward. “You’re the bartender he keeps posting about, right?”

“Could be,” Dan says vaguely.

“Yes, yes, it’s totally you! Gosh, you’re so much cuter in person.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” He shifts awkwardly. “So, it’s five-fity for the Malibu and Diet Coke,” Dan tries to say, but she just laughs him off.

“So, oh my gosh,” she leans even closer somehow, a wry, knowing smile stretching her lipsticked mouth into a joker-ish smear. “Tell me. Is Phil just as cute in person too?”

Dan feels his cheeks warming. “Oh, um, I- I don’t know.”

“Aw, come off it. You have to admit he’s cute, right?” Her teeth are dazzlingly white as she grins at him; it’s mildly disconcerting in the low light.

“I guess,” Dan says. He looks around for another customer, trying to find an excuse to leave the conversation.

“And you guys met in Brighton? At this club?”

“...Yep.”

“So, like, you already knew who he was, right?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“You were a fan of him? You followed his Insta?”

“I, uh, well… yes, but-”

“I bet he was flirty.” She grins again, teeth blinding. “Does he flirt with you?”

“He’s kind of flirty, I suppose,” Dan admits, trying not to picture all the many, many times Phil has knocked the air from his lungs with an off-handed comment.

“Ooh,” she says, eyebrows wriggling. “That sounds intriguing. So go on, tell me, Dan. Is he good?”

“What do you mean?” Dan asks, stupidly.

“Oh, you know,” she says, and winks. “Is he good in bed? With that body, he probably doesn’t  have to be, yeah?”

“Wait what? That’s not- we’re not-” Dan stammers out, cheeks scarlet by this point.

“Right, right, you’re just friends,” she says, rolling her eyes. When they meet Dan’s again, she winks a second time. “Come on, Dan, I’m not an idiot. I mean, you’re staying in his house, right?”

Immediately, Dan’s hackles go up, and he pulls back from her. “How do you know that I’m… who are you?”

Suddenly a ruckus nearby captures Dan’s attention, and he turns to see Matt ploughing through the crowd and seizing another girl by the shoulders. This second girl, also blonde and in a skimpy outfit, is holding up a phone, obviously videoing Dan.

Dan gawps at the camera, then Matt plucks it from her hand. “Unsolicited filming of our staff is not permitted. Get out.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’re just asking him a few questions!” shouts at Matt. Her charming smile is gone now, and in its place is a ferocious snarl. “It’s perfectly within our rights to do that! He’s in the public eye, isn’t he?”

One hand on the filming girl’s shoulder still, Matt seizes Malibu-and-Diet-Coke-girl by her upper arm. “You’re out too, Princess. Highly doubt this is your sort of establishment anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Malibu-and-Diet-Coke-girl shouts, trying to break free of his grip.

“It means,” Dan cuts in, anger starting to swirl in his blood as he processes the situation. “That we don’t throw a Pride parade every year just so you and your gaggle of plastic friends can paint on rainbows and find a GBF.”

“You heard him,” Matt says, beginning to frogmarch the two girls towards the exit.

“This is discrimination!” One of them shouts on their way.

“Must be so hard for you poor straight white girls,” Matt replies, ever the sarcastic one.

A few people gathered near the bar clap then, cheering as the girls depart.

“Nice one, mate,” Nick, one of their regulars, calls out to Dan. He nods, still embarrassed, and Nick approaches the bar. “She was out of order.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, mind still reeling. “I don’t get it, though. Why was she filming me?”

“Well, ‘cause you’re in with that good-looking model dude, right? She wants exclusive behind the scenes gossip for her own account, I’d imagine. Chicks like that are always after their ten minutes of fame, so they try guzzle it from other people.” Nick says; it kind of makes sense, except for the fact that some random girl thinks Dan is anywhere near important enough in Phil’s life for him to be harbouring any secrets about the man.

Nick takes hold of the Malibu and Diet Coke Dan made for the girl, the one he now realises she never paid for. Before Dan has a moment to be annoyed about it however, Nick pushes a tenner towards him. “For the drink. Nasty stuff, Malibu, but someone’s gotta drink it, eh?”

Dan smiles at him gratefully. “Thanks. I’ll grab you some change for it.”

“No need!” Nick calls out, making Dan pause.

“Nick, it’s only a five-fifty drink.”

“Yeah, well. We’re mates, aren’t we? Keep the tip.”

Dan’s eyes fall to the ten pound note in his hands. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, course!”

“Wow,” Dan says, taken aback. “That’s seriously good of you, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“No worries!” Nick takes a sip of his drink, eyes darting around the room. “So… as I was sayin’. You and that Phil fella. That’s… a thing, right?”

“What?”

“The two of you are… gettin’ it on?”

Dan drops the ten pound note back onto the bar like it’s burning. “Is this a fucking bribe? Are you trying to get me to talk about Phil?”

“Aw, come on Dan, we’re mates, aren’t we?”

“You know what,” Dan grits his teeth, snatching the drink out of Nick’s hands. “I’m not your mate, and you can fucking hit the street with those other vultures.” Dan cups a hand to his mouth, and pushes up onto his tiptoes, scanning the crowd. “Matt! Got another one!”

“Dan, for fuck’s sake, you know me,” Nick says, annoyed. “Come on, you and the Insta dude are the hottest story in town right now! You can’t blame me for trying to get in on the goss!”

“What so you can tweet about some non-existent scandal for a few more followers?” Dan asks, disgusted. “Grow up.”

“Aw, come on, you know what it’s like in the gay world,” Nick fires back. “It’s fucking vicious out there! I’ve gotta stay relevant! I need to keep up-”

Dan just ignores him and turns away. He chucks the drink, glass and all, into the sink below the bar. In the background, he vaguely hears Nick protesting as Matt drags him away, but he can’t bring himself to turn and see it.

This is insane.

Never in his wildest imaginings did Dan think that people would actually seek him out and attempt to pry information from him just because he’s vaguely associated with a moderately famous Instagram account. That one girl had even filmed the entire exchange.

It makes Dan feel sick to his stomach. He leans over the sink, watching the broken shards of glass gleam and glint in the swirling disco lights. He’s trying, over the thump of the bass, to remember what he said to her. Whatever his answers had been to Malibu girl’s interrogating questions, they’re now saved to someone’s phone.

A hand claps down on his shoulder, making Dan jump. Tyler is beside him, looking concerned.

“Matt just told me what happened, are you okay?”

Dan nods, slowly. Then, he shakes his head. “They were filming me, Ty. What did I even say? It all happened so quickly, I-”

Tyler wraps him in a hug; it helps, a little. “Shh, don’t worry about that right now.”

“I’m gonna have to tell him,” Dan says, cold realisation dawning.

“Tell Phil? About the girls, you mean?” Dan nods into Tyler’s shoulder. “Maybe. But it’s okay, you won’t have said anything that bad, I’m sure. There’s nothing to tell, right?” Dan bites his lip. “They’re just some fame-whores trying to get a slice of the action behind the scenes. You can tell Phil about it in the morning. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Dan sighs, wanting him to be right. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll ring him in the morning or something.”

Tyler pulls back to look him in the eye. “Whatever you said, it won’t be anywhere near as bad as you think, I’m sure. And hey, Phil’s a nice guy. He’ll understand.”

Dan nods, trying to calm himself with the sure, solid gleam in Tyler’s eyes. “Okay.”

*

On Sunday afternoon, Dan wakes up in Phil’s bed to a flurry of notifications on his phone. His followers haven’t stopped climbing since that first night Phil put him in his story; now, Dan’s follower count is in the hundred-thousands.

He checks his last photo, which is the one with Captain America and tea from Friday night. It has forty thousand likes. He reads the comments, covers balled up in one fist from nerves.

that’s phil’s place!! i recognise the rug!!! #phanisreal

dan is staying at phil’s! 

isn’t he in the maldives atm? dan must be housesitting :o

i’d know that hello kitty mug anywhere!! hows phil’s place treating u dan? ;) #phan

He closes the app quickly, half wanting to delete the entire thing off his phone. These fans are bloodhounds, obsessed with a scent of some rumour they caught a whiff of. ‘Phan’ is such an alien concept to Dan, still. How can these followers even justify it to themselves? It’s preposterous to think that Dan and AmazingPhil are anywhere near on the same level, let alone in a secret romantic relationship.

“Oh, shit,” Dan mutters, his heart sinking. He clicks onto his missed calls, noting that he has five,  all from Phil.

He swallows, trying to remain cool. There are some texts too, all of which came through whilst he was sleeping.

From: Phil To: Dan hey can you call me when you get a sec pls xx

From: Phil To: Dan did something happen last night at the bar? im getting a lot of messages… xx

From: Phil To: Dan ok… wanna let me know why #phan is trending worldwide?

From: Phil To: Dan have u seen what that girl @lucyintheskaii posted on twitter?? there’s a video of you. did you tell ppl that ur staying at mine? how did she find u?

From: Phil To: Dan dan i need to talk to u ur probs asleep and i get tht but im gonna skype u at 2pm your time. x

By the time he gets to the final message, Dan’s heart is pounding against his chest. He hangs onto that one final kiss, despite the fact Phil usually ends his messages with two. He glances at the time at the top of the screen, and curses, loudly.

It’s 13:59pm.

Before he can do anything to prepare, his phone is buzzing in his hand, notifying him of a Skype call coming through. He thinks seriously about declining, as he’s on the verge of a panic attack, but he reluctantly comes to a decision that not facing up to this would be far, far worse.

He accepts the call, and watches in mild horror as his own sleep-crumpled face and bare chest fills the screen. Then, Phil’s camera bursts into life, and Dan’s own image is replaced by something far more pleasing to the eye. He braces himself for Phil’s anger, having no idea what that would even look like.  

“Phil, oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Dan blurts. “I should’ve called you last night when I got back from work and told you what happened, but Tyler convinced me I should wait until morning, and I was just so exhausted, and I convinced myself the thing with that girl wasn’t that big of a deal, but obviously you have every right to be mad, I was so stupid and-”

“Dan, hey, hold up,” Phil says, voice raised to be heard over Dan’s ramble. “Calm down, I’m not mad. Why would I be? I’m worried about you.”

Dan blinks. “Why?”

For some reason, this makes Phil laugh. “Because you were ambushed by some deranged fangirls! And it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry, Dan. I should never have said where you worked on my account. My fans are… intense.”

“Wait,” Dan says, confused. He sits up a little, trying to understand. “You’re not the one who needs to apologise. I said all that stuff to that girl! Her friend filmed it all. And she… did you say she put the video of it on Twitter? That’s awful, Phil, I’m such a fucking idiot, I-”

“Yeah,” Phil interrupts with a long sigh. “The Twitter video isn’t… ideal. But I’ve had literal nudes leaked before, Dan. I can handle you telling people I get a bit flirty IRL.”

Phil winks, and Dan blushes, partly because he’s only just now remembered telling that girl Phil is a flirt, and partly because he remembers the leaked nudes Phil is referring to. Not one of Dan’s proudest moments, searching the internet for those on incognito mode. He’d only found them once. And once was definitely enough; he’s not about to forget something like that.

“I guess,” Dan says, trying hard to focus on the situation at hand. “But I’m just so sorry for not realising what was happening, Phil. I should’ve known that girl was after something. I must’ve caused you so much stress.”

Phil shrugs. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

He’s too nice, that’s the trouble. Dan stares at the pixelated version of this beautiful man, wishing he could reach out for Phil’s hand. Phil would probably take it; he’s not opposed to touchy-feely stuff, and if he knew how badly Dan needed physical reassurance right now, he’d do it, Dan’s sure. Phil’s sitting at a table outside, on what appears to be a balcony overlooking a white sandy beach. There’s a light breeze ruffling his hair, and the sun is setting behind him. He has his chin in one hand, and a tiredness in his eyes.

Dan imagines he can smell the salt spray blowing through Phil’s locks. Stupid, soppy words are on the tip of Dan’s tongue, about how gorgeous Phil looks in the soft evening light, or how much it means to Dan that Phil’s deigning to so much as speak to him after he was so stupid with that girl, but right then, a door slams, hard. It comes from somewhere on Phil’s end, and it’s muffled, but it still makes Dan jump.

Phil looks towards the noise, sighing.

“What was that?”

“Charlie. He’s pretty annoyed about… this.”

Something heavy and blunt falls into Dan’s stomach. “Oh. I didn’t know Charlie was with you.”

Phil glances back at the screen. “Didn’t I say?”

Dan shakes his head. He would have remembered that small detail, he’s sure. Though he guesses it makes a little more sense now that Phil picked him to house-sit, as opposed to asking Charlie.

“So, Charlie’s annoyed with me, then,” Dan deduces.

Phil shrugs. “I think Charlie’s annoyed with everyone most of the time. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“What’s he been saying?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Phil’s eyes avert from Dan’s.

From this small gesture alone, Dan can imagine exactly what Charlie’s saying.

Why are you even associating with that rando from the bar?

This is what happens when you stoop to their level, Phil!

He’s got the hots for you, and he’s gonna make up some bollocks about how you’re secretly fucking to bump up his follower count even more!

“Sorry I got you guys into a fight.”

Phil chuckles, but it sounds dark, hollow. “When are we not in a fight?”

So many words fight to push their way out of Dan’s throat. They want to scream that Phil is so much more than this, that he should realise his own worth and ditch Charlie for someone that deserves him. He swallows them down as best he can, creating a lump, the size of a boulder, in his throat.

Phil turns back to look at him, a sad smile on his face. Then, one eyebrow twitches, and he smirks. “Are you in my bed?”

Heat flames into Dan’s cheeks, and he attempts to pull the covers over his chest. “Fuck, sorry… I’ll wash the sheets and stuff-”

Phil is laughing, which cuts Dan off. “Dan, it’s okay. I said you could have the bed, didn’t I?”

“Well… yes, but-”

Phil yawns then, smiling sleepily at him. “You look cute under my covers. Wish I was there, to be honest.”

Dan’s heart spasms. He wonders if Charlie can hear what Phil’s saying, and whether Phil is only saying it to get a rise out of his boyfriend.

“It’s, um, very comfy. High thread count.”

Phil laughs again. “The thread count is top of my priorities.”

“So, is the shoot going okay and stuff?” Dan asks, wanting to move the subject into safer territory, so his heart rate can settle back into a human rhythm.

Phil shrugs. “It’s kind of difficult posing sexily on a beach with someone who currently hates my guts, but other than that it’s fine.”

Dan winces. “Is it that bad?”

“He’ll get over it.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Teleport me into the bed with you so we can watch Buffy and fall asleep?”

Another heart spasm. Another flush whipping into his cheeks. “Hah, I’ll…. see what I can do.”

There’s another door slam then, and Phil glances up, smile disappearing. “I’d better go.” He sounds reluctant. “I’ll call tomorrow, see how you’re holding up.”

“Okay,” Dan says. He shifts, still feeling guilty. “Seriously Phil, I don’t know how much of that video you saw, but… I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It won’t happen again.”

“I know, Dan. It’s my fault, I threw you in the deep end with all this stuff.” Phil smiles at him. “I forget sometimes that being friends with me isn’t as simple as it used to be. I come with a twin. His name’s AmazingPhil, and he’s kind of a jerk. Causes all sorts of trouble.”

Dan laughs at the analogy, shrugging one shoulder. “I kinda like him.”

“He likes you too,” Phil says, winking again. “It’s not your fault some girl attacked you over him though, Dan. You’re wonderful, okay? It’s everyone else who sucks.”

The corner of Dan’s mouth twitches. “Um, thanks. You… you too.”

“Enjoy your day off.” Phil waves. “Try not to worry about this. It’ll all blow over in two seconds anyway.”

“Okay,” Dan says, unsurely. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

The expression that flits across Phil’s face suggests that this is unlikely. “Thanks, Dan,” he says anyway, then blows a kiss, and is gone.

*

At around eight in the evening on Sunday, Charlie posts a photo to his Instagram account. Dan follows Charlie out of curiosity more than politeness, but he sees it in his feed, right at the top. It’s a photo of him and Phil, knee deep in the ocean, holding hands as they stare out towards the horizon.

Their silhouettes are perfect and symmetrical, their broad shoulders and tapered waists looking as if they’d been painted onto the streaky orange sky behind them. The picturesque image hits Dan like a punch to the stomach, dull and painful, winding him momentarily.

The caption reads:

happy anniversary baby <3

It’s been bombed with likes.

omg i didnt know you guys had an anniversary today!!!

congratulations charlie and phil! u r couple goals!! #chil4eva

so happy for you both! give phil a kiss from me cha ;) xx

#netflixandchil later guys?! ;) <3

A hot, stinging sensation burns in Dan’s retinas. He throws his phone to the couch, and doesn’t look at it again for the rest of the night.

*

Three more fame-hungry girls and nine more gossip-thirsty guys track Dan down over the course of Monday night. Tyler makes a sign for the bar counter that says ‘Want To Quiz The Bartender? Hope You Like The Taste Of Ass...phalt’, which helps a little, but doesn’t entirely ward off the AmazingPhil stans.

Dan just keeps his mouth clamped shut for the night. He’s not really in the mood to talk to anyone anyway. That photo of Charlie and Phil seems to be burned into the back of his mind; it’s there every time he so much as blinks, taunting him. He refuses to take his break halfway through his shift, sure that the photo will dance teasingly in front of his retinas for the whole twenty minutes.

It just makes so little sense. Phil had seemed beaten down by the weight of Charlie’s anger when he and Dan had Skyped last night. How is it that, hours later, they’re knee deep in the warm waves of a tropical beach, holding hands in celebration of their anniversary?

“Hey, you’re him right? Dan Is Not On Fire?” It’s a giggling pair of young guys this time, nudging each other forwards. “Phil is totally into you.”

The other one squeals, clapping a hand over the first one’s mouth. “Oh my God, I can’t believe my friend I’m so sorry.” He releases his hold on the other guy, laughing. “But seriously, we both ship Phan way more than Chil.”

It feels like a bolt in his chest, screwed too tightly, digging in just below Dan’s ribs. “Guys, do you wanna order something?”

“Oh, no, we’re seventeen,” one of them says, and the other one smacks him. “Shit, I shouldn’t’ve said that-”

“Matt!” Dan yells for what feels like the millionth time tonight. “Matt, get over here!”

“Wait, wait, can we just, like, get a selfie?” They’re snapping the photo before Dan can turn away, and he scowls at them both. “Thanks! Follow us on Insta!” They chirp, laughing, and are gone before Matt can push through the crowd.

Tyler throws a plastic cup after them, which Dan is grateful to him for. “We’re gonna need to hire more security at this rate.”

“It’ll blow over when Phil gets sick of me,” Dan says.

“Gets sick of you? He’s in here all the time!”

For now, Dan thinks privately.

He doesn’t reply out loud, he just turns to the next customer, who is, mercifully, just another regular. The realisation that Dan is coming to with the blow of each crushing Phil/Charlie couple photo, is that eventually Phil is going to seek out greener pastures.

Once he’s settled into Brighton, Phil will find his own social class of people to hang out with, people more like Charlie, that understand designer labels and spend their weekends at fancy  film premieres or in their second homes in Bali.

Up with the elite is where Phil belongs, even if Dan was able to tether him in the dirt for a while, playing Mario Kart and plying him with sugary alcoholic drinks. Dan is an ‘in-the-meantime’ friend, someone to pass the time with until he finds a better crowd. Someone to house-sit for him, and someone who doesn’t have a lot of free time, and is therefore low-commitment. There will come a time, Dan is sure, when he will once again be just a bartender to Phil. Sure, Phil will wave and chat when he comes into the bar, but they won’t hang out, and the fans that followed Dan out of curiosity will drop away like flies when they realise that Dan is simply… dull.

It will be difficult when it happens. But Dan won’t struggle against the current; he’s not stupid, and he’s been poor since he was a kid. He knows how society is separated into the wealthy and the not-so-much, and how the divide can rip through even the tightest of bonds.

He barely even knows Phil, still. There’s no doubt in Dan’s mind that one day, yet again he won’t know Phil at all besides the pictures that occasionally flash up on his phone.

*

On Tuesday morning, Dan wakes up earlier than usual. At first, he thinks it might be the seagull screeching right outside his window, but he’s lived in Brighton for years; it takes a lot of squawking to wake him.

He rolls over, still swathed like a baby in the thick covers of Phil’s bed, and immediately freezes, realising what it is that has woken him. There’s a body beside him, faced away. Even if Dan couldn’t recognise him by the shock of black hair, he’d know the bare, pale back, dotted with tiny freckles. He’d know the Emoji pyjama pants, and the shallow, even breaths that come out with a slight snore.

For a long, long time, Dan doesn’t move an inch. He just stares at the silhouette of the man he’s dreamed about laying next to for so, so long. He suspends his belief, and allows his mind to wander, to imagine that this is real, that Phil is his, and that he’ll roll over any second, give Dan a lazy smile, and kiss Dan’s world into colour.

None of this happens, obviously. So Dan just watches him, counting the minutes he gets to have this, and prays that it never ends.

(Part 8 !) 

[lids-flutter-open]

goth trans boy YA set in undisclosed PNW college town, chapter 2:

(content warning for: LGBT youth group, discussion of predatory grooming and stalking)

Chapter two

Group night was Wednesday, and that meant at seven in the evening I had to park my car by the library (because of the free parking) and walk down to Eighth Ave where the building for Compton House was. It was on the single street in downtown that was the bad part of town, or at least the bad part of town according to the Hollister set. It was just a block and a half, and it was where the homeless people and oogles liked to sit, but it was bustling with active commercial real estate, too. The gay bar was two doors down, and the same street had a show space and two Thai restaurants and a thrift store and a hair salon and a corner store. Compton House was on the fourth floor of a mixed-use building. It was accessible by elevator for people in wheelchairs as long as the elevator worked, but the elevator was the slowest in the world so anyone who could took the stairs. You had to get buzzed in the front door, because of the hate crime fears et cetera, and not even youth workers like me were supposed to know what the door code was, but I’d been going there so long I knew the code and just showed up. 

Tonight the adult facilitator was Spruce, who was nice and like, an old punk, but who I hated because she gave bad advice to tweens. I got ready to mentor the shit out of the thirteen-to-fifteen-year-old set. Ostensibly I was a youth like everyone else and this was my group therapy session, but sometime last year the formula changed and I realized that the shit I was having problems with was no longer anything that anyone in the group could help me with, even the facilitator. My pen pal who I’d had since I was fourteen had disappeared off the face of the planet and deleted his blog and then he resurfaced and it turned out he was schizophrenic and had a heroin addiction, and then he went AWOL again somewhere in Kansas. I didn’t have a way to contact him and his mom, who he had told me beat him, was messaging me on social media and I didn’t know what to tell her. What do you tell a sixteen year old to do about that? Or when Opal lost housing. Nobody was ready to deal with all of that shit and it just scared the thirteen-year-olds when I talked about it, so I stopped sharing the heavy stuff at group and just tried to take care of them. It was exhausting, but also good in a way that I knew would never help me on a college application but was somehow good for the community. Not that I could tell if I was giving good advice or not, but at least I was there, or something.

There were six kids in there when I got in, sitting on the orange couch and three folding chairs and single pink beanbag. One was my age, this lesbian named Gabby that I knew was fucking some dumb college student, or had been, and had issues with compulsive shoplifting that she brought up every time she was in group. Then there was this baby looking trans girl and three baby looking lesbians and/or theythems and/or transmascs, and one scared looking little gay boy. All of the latter set were somewhere between thirteen and sixteen, and none of them had been at the group very long. I couldn’t remember their names or pronouns. 

I got out the snacks, which Spruce had forgotten to do, and checked the coffee pot. It was grimy and I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cleaned it, so I just hid it behind the snack cart in the corner and brought out the water heater and the tea and plugged the water heater in. 

“Hey all, have some chips,” I said. “Or tea.”

“Ooh, the tea, miss vanjie,” said the shy gay boy, very quietly. I laughed, to show him that he could in fact say that. He smiled. 

“I’m James,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I saw you before a few weeks ago at group,” the shy boy said. “I’m Don.”

“Sorry, Don, I’m like almost faceblind,” I said. “I can’t remember people very well. I’ll remember you now.”

We went over the rules of the group before people started sharing. Step up step back had been changed last year to move up, move up, because of the ableism inherent in talking about stepping like it was universal and also the need to emphasize that listening was an active skill and not equivalent to nonparticipation. The rule basically meant that if you were talking a lot, shut up and listen, and if you were listening a lot, you should talk. The other rules were, don’t yuck my yum, which meant don’t say you hated a neutral thing someone else liked, and confidentiality, which meant don’t gossip about this shit or name people by name if you were talking shit about them in your sharing, and “this is a racism/sexism/etc free space”, which was a rule that kept expanding forever and needed to be elaborated on but in general meant respect pronouns and don’t say anything racist or say anything shitty about fat people. There was oops ouch snap, which meant that you snapped your fingers to agree with something someone said and said “ouch” when you wanted to start calling someone out. You were supposed to say “oops” when called out and move on, though that never happened. Then there was the rule that was about mandatory reporting, which meant that if the people who worked at Compton knew your name, they had to tell someone if you were being abused. That meant that people could use aliases if they wanted. There were other rules, too, which got brought up as they came up but were too obscure for our rule poster in the corner. 

We always divided the time up based on how many people were in the room and then apportioned everyone blocks of time based on that. If there were a lot of people, time was always crunched. Some people shared for five minutes and got feedback for five minutes and were good, while others prattled for thirty minutes. One time when I was first coming to group a girl had read her diary for thirty minutes while a neutralized facilitator watched in paralyzed awe, unable to intervene. We were better at regulating tempo now, if only because people like me were there. Long timers. 

The first girl, who was like, thirteen, talked about how she had come out to her parents and they told her that she was imagining it, and then took her to a therapist that asked her to think very hard about whether she was actually gay. The parents didn’t know she was at the group. She had come with her friend, who was wearing a rainbow bracelet. Spruce knew what to do with that kind of share, and in general told the girl that people were here for her and we cared about her. I echoed Spruce, and the other kids in the circle said their bit about how there were other gay people in the world and things were real and we cared about her. The girl, whose name was Eve, cried. 

The other kids were pretty boring too, though the little shy gay boy was apparently having sex with his boyfriend, who was his age. Spruce forgot to do the safe sex talk in her feedback so I told Don about places he could find condoms and told him about the books and zines in Compton’s library that he should read about sex and STD prevention and consent. I also had him write down the times he could go get free STD testing. He was so young that there was no way he’d get on PrEP, and I couldn’t imagine he was actually able to get downtown to access testing, but at least he’d know it was a thing and think about correct condom use during sex and he’d think to get tested if he noticed anything off about his partner’s dick or got any cold sores. 

Gabby talked about shoplifting. She’d stolen six hundred dollars worth of stuff from Nordstrom Rack and was worried her mom would notice it in her closet, so she was giving it away to friends. She always talked about how she was guilty about it, but I knew really this was the only place she could come to brag. I didn’t really see a problem with shoplifting luxury items for yourself and your friends, though I wouldn’t have chosen Nordstrom Rack. Gabby didn’t mention the college student, which I hoped meant they had broken up. I’d met the girl one time and hated her. Probably because she seemed like she actually shopped and spent money at Nordstrom Rack.

The trans girl, whose name was Venus, was fifteen, and hers was the first situation where I had to actually get intense with feedback. She started out with talking about how her mom wouldn’t let her get a piercing, which seemed reasonable to me, but of course devastating to a girl who really needs snakebites right now. Venus was on puberty blockers, so she had a cooler mom than most kids who needed snakebites, but even trans kids whose parents try to be supportive in the hormone and medical treatment department miss some stuff. Venus’s mom, for example, was unaware of Venus’s romantic extracurricular activities.

“It sucks,” Venus said, “that I can’t talk about my shitty relationship with a boy with my mom because she’s so paranoid that I’m sneaking around doing drugs or getting piercings or whatever and would totally flip her lid if she knew I was dating this older dude. Like I want to ask her advice about it and because I can’t get it the whole thing just keeps getting pent up and I explode at her about stuff that doesn’t matter.” She twisted her head around the room and looked at all of us without making eye contact, gauging our reactions.

Don, the gay boy, snapped his fingers. I knew Spruce appreciated that he was respecting the rule about using finger-snapping to affirm someone’s statement.

There was a long silence while Venus rearranged herself on the orange couch. It went on for so long that Spruce finally said, in the littlest little annoying breathy soft lesbian not-taking-up-space voice, 

“You still have ten minutes in your share, if you want to say anything more, Venus.”

Venus nodded.

“This guy Alex is my boyfriend,” Venus said, ignoring the alias rule for talking about people, “and I love him, or I did, but I think I have to break up with him. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And it sucks because I’ve been hiding it from my mom because at first I thought it was going to last a really long time. But we’ve been dating two months and I feel like he’s only using me for sex.” 

Venus paused again. Some people did that, looking for affirmation like they would in a conversation with a friend. Compton’s group doesn’t work so great for that kind of affirmation because nobody is supposed to say anything during someone else’s share.

“Yuck,” one of the small lesbians said, nevertheless. She was quiet, so nobody called her out for talking.

“And he never listens to me when I talk about what’s going on in my school, or how I feel about my bisexuality or my podcast. He’s in community college, and he’s twenty-one, so he isn’t that much older, but my Tumblr friend Koko said it’s creepy we’re dating. I think partly as a joke and partly not. But like, he sees me as a girl. He says he really likes me. So there’s that. I guess that’s why I don’t want to end it, because I like that.” She paused, and twirled her dyed bright red hair around her finger. “He bought me a choker necklace, which is like, a horrible stereotype about trans girls is that we’re all goth and otakus, but I am, so like, I appreciated it. And I can talk to him about kink, which I couldn’t do if I was dating like a high schooler. We’re trying daddy/little girl stuff, and I kind of like it. Because I never got to be a little girl and talk to my dad. But also sometimes I feel really pressured into stuff, in a bad way, so it’s like, so fucking conflicted. And he showed me this blog that’s like, trans girls getting dommed, like, porn, and it made me feel weird. I don’t know if he sees me like that, like I’m a porn star? I’m more than that. Like, I don’t know. I play video games. I want to be a video game designer. I like sports cars. I really like comics, I like She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel. I’m a teen slut, haha, but there’s more to me than being someone’s little girl and doing roleplay. And he doesn’t seem to see that a lot. He says he values me but I don’t see it. Like. I don’t know what I want to ask. How do I talk to him about that?” She sighed and ate a corn chip from the bowl in the middle of the table.

I couldn’t wait for the designated share back time, even though that was the rule of support group you were never supposed to break. 

“Sorry, but is this Alex who does civil war reenactments? His blog is unholyspacemachina?”

“Hey, hey, confidentiality,” Spruce said, snapping out of whatever trance she’d been in for the last dozen minutes. I had to hold myself back from glaring at her. Spruce and her fucking knuckle tattoos reading TEND and HEAL. 

“Yeah,” Venus said, looking uncertainly at Spruce and then at me.

“I gotta say this, Venus. Break up with him ASAP. Dude is bad news.”

“James, I need you to respect confidentiality,” Spruce said. “We don’t use this space for gossip. If you have something to say about Venus’s boyfriend, you need to take it out of this room.”

“Wait, I want to hear this,” Venus said. “If that’s chill. I kind of hate Alex right now. I wanna hear the dirt. I can’t believe you know him. Like, what?”

“Alex hit on me a ton when I was fifteen,” I told Venus, knowing Spruce wouldn’t have the chutzpah to kick me out of group or interrupt me if I talked loud and fast enough. “He was in this group. He was three years older than me. He would like touch my knee in group here and try to get me in the corner in the hall and touch me. One time he cornered me in the bathroom and stuck his hand in my pants. He asked me out a ton and I told him no. He’s really into sexually dominating young trans people. All kinds, but the people that look fem are his main thing. Before I went on hormones he stalked me for three months. Online and real life. He got banned from Compton for it. He kept sending me emails with weird poems about how I was a hermaphroditic goddess. He sent me a link to a password locked blog that was like six months of him journaling about how he wanted to fuck me. Before me it was this girl Katie who I was friends with, who was a trans girl who was also younger than him and who was really in a bad foster care situation. He told her he’d save her. I think some of it is like genuinely coming from a place of admiration and like, white knight sympathy, but it’s really weird and creepy and he acts like a Hannibal Lecter type stalker creep when you tell him no. Super rapey vibes. I can’t believe he’s still pulling that shit.”

Spruce didn’t seem to know how to respond to this information. “Oh shit,” she said. “That’s bad.”

“I didn’t know that,” Venus said. “Shit. Any of that. I didn’t know he went to this group. He told me that I was the first girl he’d ever fallen in love with. What a line, right?” She paused. “I guess I’ve been ignoring a lot of stuff he does.”

“It’s easy to ignore shit and pretend it’s not bad when it’s bad.”

“Shit. I’m stupid.”

“No,” I said. “Not stupid. Just, you know, it’s like the Taylor Swift song. You’re fifteen. By definition you don’t have a lot to compare this to and don’t have a ton of framework for this shit. I didn’t either. I considered going out with him a lot just because he clearly wanted me to so much.”

“I guess that was sort of what I did too,” Venus said. “He found my blog after we met in person and started sending me a lot of messages, and I was like, oh, I guess this is what feeling wanted is like.”

“Yeah. No. It’s him being a stalker freak. Which isn’t to say you’re not cool. I’m not saying you won’t ever have sex appeal or anything. But this isn’t about him being into you as a person, I can one hundred percent guarantee it’s about his weird fetish stuff. He’s not a good dude.”

Spruce was leaning forward with this dumbass concerned expression. 

“What should I do?” Venus asked me. “He seemed so nice. God. I can’t believe this. We met at the bookstore, near the manga. Like in June.”

“Yeah you did,” I said. This group needs a fucking new rule: warn every trans kid in town about Alex. Especially the under-sixteen, is-a-girl set. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, but I would consider telling your mom about this. She seems relatively cool, even if she won’t let you get a piercing. She might be freaked out, or mad, or be like, you betrayed my trust, but just know that it really isn’t your fault, okay, this dude is like a serial predator and knows how young trans people’s minds work now enough that he’s reasonably good at manipulating people enough to get laid. If you tell your mom, she’ll probably have a handle on how to get this dude away from you.”

“Oh jeez. I don’t know. She’d totally ground my ass. This isn’t something I want to talk about to her.”

“I can’t promise she won’t ground you, but like, she clearly cares about your wellbeing, since she brings you to this group and is trying to get you care and medical transition stuff. And like, you said you wished you could talk to her. That tells me she’s cooler than my parents. You can think about how you want to proceed on this stuff, but my advice is to drop Alex like a hot potato and block him on everything and have your mom tell him you’re going to call the police on him over statutory rape. Which you literally could, he’s like six years older than you and you’re under sixteen.”

“I don’t want to call the cops,” Venus said. “I think I’m kind of anti-cop.”

“You don’t have to actually call them,” I said. “Just say you will. I said that. He backed off. Or if you don’t wanna use the threat of state violence say James Goldman still knows where he fucking lives and I’ll beat him up with a baseball bat if he pulls any shit.”

“What if he hurts me?” Venus asked. “He knows where my house is. He’s been driving to my house at night so we can make out. He shows up just randomly.”

I could see that Spruce was gradually registering that this might be a mandated reporter situation. Her gears were spinning. 

“Look,” Spruce said, and I took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair as her automated response started rolling. “Let’s talk more about this after group, okay? We can connect you with some resources. The main thing is that you’re feeling unsafe, and that’s not an okay thing to feel in a relationship with someone. That isn’t how you’re supposed to feel. You can absolutely find people who won’t make you feel scared that someone is going to hurt you. But look, come to the office after we’re done with group and we’ll go over your options for what to do. We want you to feel safe.” The options are a lot of pamphlets about the sexual violence shelter and recovery network in town, plus a referral to a therapist, plus the information that, since we probably have Venus’s last name and mother’s phone number, we have to tell her mom that she’s being groomed by a repeat sexual predator who’s been banned from Compton House and whose full legal name we also know. I knew that Spruce was probably not going to be the one to actually go over the options with Venus. That would probably be Natalie, who has been here longest and, whatever other issues she has as a person, is at least relatively good at having that conversation with kids in bad situations. 

I was kind of shaking. That happened sometimes. I couldn’t sit there for the rest of group without a break to pause and drink some water, so I went to the bathroom for a minute. Sitting on the toilet, I remembered when Alex had pushed me into a stall in the same bathroom and tried to kiss me and shoved his hand down my pants. I hadn’t had my bottle opener knife back then, and he got his lips on my face before I screamed at him and he jumped back. I was a acne-covered kid who wasn’t on hormones and had a bowl cut and bad glasses, and nobody had hit on me before. Before that moment, even with Alex’s rapey vibes and my utter lack of sexual attraction to him, I remembered seriously considering fucking him, just because I thought I wouldn’t ever have sex with anyone and because it would have been easy. I had realized that was bad after talking to Katie and hearing about her time with Alex and realizing that coerced, bad sex is in fact worse than no sex.

Shit like this is why I’m going to be a social worker. Compton House has historically also been pretty bad at dealing with abusers. They don’t train staff well on this stuff. Alex wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last. One time a boy’s abusive dad showed up and tried to break down the front door and then tried to grab the boy by his hair and slam his head against the door frame when the kid went downstairs to try to talk to him down. Staff didn’t stop him or try to mediate until it was too late. We had to call the cops that time. It takes something like that or a sexual assault on the property to get someone formally permanently banned from Compton. The whole formula is pretty much, wait until shit already has gone down, then process it. But at least there’s a formula. It also isn’t like the nonprofit itself attracts specifically predators, or at least not more than any other gay youth nonprofit would. It’s just that wherever there’s LGBT teenagers, there’s gonna be someone around who really wants to rape us or hurt us or whatever, and that person is sometimes also an LGBT teenager, and whoever they are they usually get as close to raping us or hurting us as they can until someone stops them. Safety policies like doors with buzzers don’t get you absolute protection. You need people who are on top of keeping kids safe and actually care about them and get the training they need to know what to do.

I really hoped Venus would be okay. I knew I would end up giving her my number, even though I knew that meant learning about the new Homestuck or whatever slightly younger weird nerdy trans kids were into these days. I had to be her friend here, or she might get stuck with someone like Alex over and over again. Or like, maybe not, after this. She seemed smart and like she was on her way to figuring things out without me. But she still needed friends. And even though I didn’t really feel like starting yet another friendship with a potentially volatile trans kid who I knew was just getting started on probably the worst time of her life, who might potentially get raped or get addicted to drugs or die at any time, I also knew I didn’t really have a choice. We had both gotten fucked with the same way. 

I didn’t share anything important about my life when I got back to group and it was my turn. I talked about wanting to go to college, and I mentioned seeing a cute boy I was into. The shy gay boy, who had been absorbing lesbian and bi trans girl trauma narratives and shoplifting stories the whole night, looked heartened by this anecdote confirming that there were other gay men in the world who had sexual desire. I didn’t mention my friend Aaron, who was on heroin somewhere in the midwest, or dead, and I didn’t mention the fact that I knew some of my friends (Opal, but I wouldn’t have said their name) still cut themselves sometimes. Don’t lay that shit on people when they don’t have a way to deal with it. 

When group was over, I gave Venus my email and phone number, and told her to text or call me, and that if she had her phone taken away, she could email me on a library computer. She thanked me, and typed the number into her phone. 

“Thanks for telling me about Alex,” she said. “I think this is probably gonna be a shit hitting the fan situation with my mom, but whatever, I needed to hear that and know that. That’s the most useful information I’ve gotten on what to do about all this. I was just googling ‘wikihow fix a shitty boyfriend’ all the time.”

“It’ll blow over,” I said. “With your mom, I mean. Your safety is the main shit. I’m not a great influence personally and don’t tend to impress parents, but if you want me to talk to your mom about Alex I can do that too to try and speak on your behalf and explain what kind of person he is.”

“I’ll give my mom your number too,” Venus said. Then she went into the office to have the resources conversation with Natalie and Spruce.

I didn’t actually know if Venus’s mom would be cool, but I hoped she would.

When I got out of the building after group I smoked a stress cigarette and walked over to King David’s Diner to see if Goober was there. Her shift ends at nine thirty on Wednesdays. Sometimes I just wait by the bus stop for her to avoid stressing her out during closing, but I wanted to see her as quick as I could, to regain some kind of balance and remember that I was just a dumb teenager. Also to shit talk Compton. The twilight was setting in on Eighth Avenue, and the thrift store was closed, meaning the people who slept in the doorway there were already tucked into the tiny backpacking tent they put up every night. Overhead, the sky was plastered with peach-colored fluffy clouds. Goober was still working, thank fuck. She was just getting ready to go, wiping down counters and cleaning under the mats before the night shift people got there. 

“Hey James,” she said. She looked tired. “What’s kicking?”

“Not much,” I said. “Just talked to some teens at Compton for a while. Spruce is no fucking good at facilitating, as usual. Can I help with anything?”

“You don’t work here, buddy. Just stand there.” She used a paper towel to get the coffee grounds from under the machine. “And tell me about it. I was so happy when I realized my social circle wasn’t all Compton people anymore. It’s suffocating.”

“It’s all I’ve got until I’m twenty-one,” I shrugged. “And good practice if I ever become like someone’s case manager.”

“I could spill some shit on Spruce,” Goober offered, pushing some flyaway hair out of her eyes with the wrist of one hand. “Just petty dyke drama, but I don’t love the girl.”

Goober’s coworker Morwen emerged from the back freezer, taking off her apron. She’s a thirtysomething butch with prematurely grey hair. She’s the day shift lead at King David’s. “Dyke drama? In my establishment?” She asked. “Say it isn’t so. I’m gonna count tips, Goober, okay? It’s nine twenty and I am out. Rafi and Miguel are already here in the back anyway.”

“Morwen, can we give James some like, pie?” Goober asked, digging in the back of the display case. “This isn’t gonna look good tomorrow and I’m pretty sure we’re not gonna sell it all tonight.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Morwen shrugged, giving me a fist bump as she walked over to the cash register and started counting her tips. Morwen isn’t the real boss—he leaves at seven, or earlier if he feels like it—so she doesn’t care that a lot of the kids who come to eat at the diner don’t pay. Goober gave me a plastic container with some kind of key lime goop in it. I put it in my canvas tote bag without saying anything. Don’t ask too many questions when you get free food. I didn’t have any more cash to put in the tip jar, either.

“Her hand tattoos always make me fucking hurl,” I said to Goober. I wanted to get back to shit talking Spruce. “I guess you only get knuckle tats that say TEND and HEAL if you’re bad at doing both.”

“What does that say about people with KILL COPS knuckle tats?” Morwen asked. She handed Goober one of the two stacks of one dollar bills she had made. 

“God, are you talking about that guy Chris?” Goober asked Morwen, taking the cash. 

“He doesn’t fucking tip. He was in earlier and had a twenty dollar tab and gave me two bucks. I was like thanks, bro. You remember when he peed on the empty cop car at the station at two in the morning when nobody was around and took an Instagram video and was like ohhhh I’m such a sick anarchist. I was like man, you’re twenty-nine and a white kid with a trust fund back East. His fucking friends are always partying at the goat skull place down behind me and Betty’s house. Keep me up all night. I fucking hate punks sometimes.” 

Morwen’s house is really close to Goat Mansion. I’m definitely one of the punks she hates sometimes.  I grinned sheepishly at Goober. 

“Chris like, pushed a dumpster into the road one time on the Fourth of July and set it on fire and said it was anarchist praxis protest against the state,” Goober offered. “Which like, it might have been if he had coordinated with anyone and anyone knew what the fuck he was doing or why. But people thought it was just like, fourth of July frat boy whatever.”

“I kind of want to learn more about what effective anarchism looks like,” I said. “I feel like I’ve never seen it here. I don’t think I’ve ever known what’s actually going on. Besides the organization that runs the needle exchange and the food not bombs people.” I also didn’t know very much about those, but I knew they existed. I’d volunteered at the food bank last year every week and we’d save stuff like produce for the food not bombs people to take and make free hot meals with. They’d give them to people out of a food truck by the bus station. It’s a pretty good thing. I knew that some of those punks volunteered at the winter shelter down at the church by the library, too.

“Dude, real anarchism is just like, helping people,” Goober said. “I mean, and fighting Nazis and cops.”

“I guess I know that,” I said. “Which also, like, speaking of helping, thanks for pie.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Goober said. “Let’s split, I wanna leave this restaurant now.”

We walked to the bus stop together. There’s no predictable bus schedule or transit app, so you just have to stand there and have faith. The sun had set a while ago, and the streetlamp in front of the bus stop was broken. The world was totally dark. Me and Goober stood there a while and talked about how cool Morwen looked and what we wanted our ideal looks to be when we were Morwen’s age, or older. Goober said that when she turned thirty-five she was going to change her name to Rebecca and open a bed and breakfast in Connecticut and figure out how to get Michelle Tea and her wife to come stay there so she could break up their marriage and then marry Michelle Tea and then write a memoir about it. I couldn’t think of what I would be like when I was thirty-five. I tried to picture myself as a social worker with an actual facial hair beard. A purple beard? No, ick. A mustache? Would I dye it black?

“You’re gonna totally have like a cool co-op and a garden,” Goober said. “If the bees don’t die and we still have agriculture. But like a put-together co-op where everyone’s past their Saturn return. You’ll have like Le Creuset dishware and a well-maintained compost pile with the correct mishmash of alkaline whatever. And a bunch of very clean band t-shirts in one drawer and all your like, jam jars downstairs and a neurotic dog. I can envision exactly how you’ll be when you’re thirty-five.”

“Or I’ll be like, an emotional wreck who wears leopard print to work and tries to take care of druggy thirteen year olds and only gives them terrible patronizing advice because I’m so over it,” I said.

“Just don’t manifest that.” Goober shrugged. “Anyway, that’s not you. You’re way more likely to keep being super invested to an unhealthy extent in everyone else’s crises and give yourself cluster headaches from thinking too hard about other people’s problems.”

“Thanks.”

We watched a large black cat cross the empty street and disappear into the bushes.

“Did you hear that someone’s been killing and mutilating housecats on the West Side?” Goober asked. 

“What?” I asked. “What?”

“Like, there’s been five people within six blocks that have had their cats killed in five months. It’s a serial cat killer. The cats turn up near the owners’ houses with their hair singed off their heads on one side and like, these weird marks like they’ve been stuck with some kind of needle. And their spines removed. All the same. My friends are talking about organizing a community cat protection thing where we walk around at night and try to catch whoever it is. And also protect stray cats. I’m worried about Ozma getting out and someone killing her.” Ozma was Goober’s white cat.

“That’s so crazy,” I said. “That’s scary.”

“I bet it’s some druggy sociopath college kid from the state uni. Next it’ll be people.”

“Yuck,” I said. “Don’t say that. We had the Oyster House Arsonist just like, two years ago. I don’t want any more shit to go down here.”

“It’s a small town,” Goober said. “We have a lot of secrets and dark shit. Just natural.”

When Goober caught her bus, I walked back to the library and got my car to head home. The roads that late were pretty empty. Going anywhere outside after dark on a weeknight is like that. As I drove back I listened to a new release from this artist Nightspace who I like. It got me in the right mood—it’s kind of like Grimes, but from someone who isn’t a wacky capitalist shill and whose voice sounds like Robert Smith from the Cure. Nightspace has been around a few years but is just getting big. They used to live in Seattle. As I drove past the lake, I rolled the windows down so that the kids who were drinking on the dock could get a little flash of goth culture passing through the night.

My dad’s house is fifteen minutes outside of downtown, in a newer suburban development a lot closer to the farms and the cow shit stink. My mom lives a little closer in, but this week she was at a conference for work, so I was at Dad’s. He lives with his wife Kaylin, who he married when I was twelve. Both of them are okay people. Just okay. I don’t have anything personal against Kaylin, though I hate that she keeps the house looking like a Martha Stewart magazine. Houses aren’t meant to look like that. I also feel like a really smart, good person would not have married my dad, so I’m still trying to figure out what is wrong with her.

When I pulled into the driveway I shoved all my weed gear in my overnight duffel bag before getting out of the car. The lights were on so I knew they were both awake. Kaylin was in the kitchen when I got inside, looking at her phone. She smiled at me. I nodded at her. 

“Hey James,” she said. “How was group?”

“Same old,” I said. “I’m the one giving the advice these days. I think I’m probably too old for it.”

“That experience with planning workshops and stuff will be very good on college applications,” she said. She was drinking her Bedtime Sleepy Blend tea. It’s from the hippie mom yoga herb shop downtown. Catnip and meadowsweet and stuff. 

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure tooting my own horn about it on all the essays.”

“Did you eat dinner?”

“I had a snack.”

“There’s stuff in the fridge if you’re hungry. Oh, and I’m making some crepes tomorrow morning, if you’ll be around before school,” Kaylin said. 

“School starts early,” I said. “Seven thirty in the morning, remember?”

“I’m going to be up early to jog.” 

“Oh, cool.” I shrugged. “Yeah, if I’m up I can help with your crepes.”

“I like that collar,” Kaylin said, in a tone that let me know it distressed her.

“Well, first week of school, gotta come on strong,” I said.

My dad came into the kitchen, wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt advertising the fact that he likes the band The Shins. 

“Oh,” he said. “You’re home. How was your day?”

“Just fine,” I said. “I’m applying to Berkley, so did some research on that after school before Compton and group.” 

My dad and Kaylin looked at each other in surprise. “Oh wow,” my dad said. “Well, that’s a big challenge. Good luck. Do you have any friends applying there?”

I shrugged noncommittally. I was not actually counting on applying to Berkeley. It was one of those things I said to my dad to shut him up from asking about why I smelled like weed. I was actually applying to a number of institutions I knew he would approve of, so it didn’t really matter. 

“Remember,” my dad said, “Make sure to emphasize all the different facets of your personality. Don’t focus on just one thing.”

“Totally,” I said. 

“Why do you want to go to Berkeley?” Kaylin asked me.

“I’d like to stay on the west coast but go to a prestigious university,” I said, “and I haven’t ruled out law school, so it might be nice to get a sense of the atmosphere there and to make friends on that track.” I went to the fridge and unloaded the key lime slime container Goober had given me onto the shelf next to the organic milk. 

“Good reasons,” my dad said. He was rummaging in the pantry. I heard the pop that signaled he had managed to pry open Kaylin’s Tupperware of carob energy cubes. 

“Yeah,” I said. 

“You need good grades for that,” my dad said through a mouthful of carob, agave and hemp seed. 

“It’s a good thing I get good grades,” I said. 

“I worry about that a little with your smoking, you know,” Kaylin said, though nobody had asked her. “You’re so smart. Do you feel like pot impacts your studying? I know the times I’ve gotten high I haven’t felt very…” she gesticulated primly. “Together.” Kaylin is the kind of person who wears gray linen and tidy Banana Republic ensembles to the beach. I doubt she has ever been untogether. 

“I have a 3.95,” I said. “As of now. And I do theater and used to do jazz band and I helped plan Gay Pride last year and was the only person under 18 on the task force. Frankly, I was the only person under 30. And I plan workshops on gay rights for nonprofits and do sex ed and canvas for local Democratic candidates and volunteered at the food bank for two years. I think I’m okay.” I filled a glass of water at the sink and drank it. “Speaking of, though, I have to do some homework before bed. I gotta go work on some chemistry. See you in the morning.”

“Nobody’s saying you’re doing bad, sport,” my dad said in that weird dry tone he has.

“Sure,” I said. “I know. Just practicing my shpiel.”

“See you,” Kaylin said brightly. “Remember, crepes!"

“Goodnight, kiddo,” my dad said. He replaced the carob Tupperware in the pantry and came over to me for a hug. I reciprocated awkwardly. “Love you.”

“Love you,” I said, leaving the room with my weed duffel. 

I don’t love my dad anymore—not since I was about thirteen, and came out, and he freaked out more than I expected and said a bunch of totally ugly shit and then kicked me out of the house to live with just Mom for a year while he “figured out what he was feeling” about my gender. He says he has figured out what he’s feeling and I know he read at least one of the articles my mom sends him, because he doesn’t say ugly shit any more and signed off on my top surgery with my mom, but he is still an emotionally incompetent moron who only cares about material success and shiny titanium kitchenware and gardening and like, Bjork. He has done nothing to repair our parent-child relationship. I resent him for things I would not resent a normal man for, like wearing a T-shirt for The Shins or eating carob cubes.  

Upstairs, I locked the door to my room and turned on the lava lamp my dad bought me when I was eleven. It’s orange and red and I still think it’s sick as hell. Between the lava lamp and the pink rock salt lamp Kaylin gave me for my birthday this year, my room at my dad’s house practically radiates the color pink. It’s good that it has such a comfortable glow, because besides the lighting situation it’s intensely impersonal. Just a big bed and a blank Ikea desk with some pens on it and a dresser filled with clothes I don’t actively hate but don’t like enough to keep at Mom’s. No books, no personal effects. It’s a guest bedroom. I don’t actually belong in my dad’s house. 

I could have used my vape to do my pre-chemistry smoke, since it’s less smelly, but the carob eating had annoyed me and I felt like reminding Kaylin and my father that I hated them in a subtle way, so I toked up and just opened the window into the September night. Most of the smoke left the room, so the fire alarm wouldn’t go off, but the funk would linger a while. I imagined Kaylin burning sage or nag champa incense or spritzing natural essential-oil cedar-scented air freshener when I left. 

It was early enough in the year that the stuff I had to do for my AP chem class was pretty limited, just ten problems, but I hadn’t been lying about the homework. When I finally got to bed it was past midnight. I had forgotten to check my phone for three hours. I had a text from Ian and another from Opal. 

Ian’s text read:

Should I break up with closet case? At the end of my damn rope.

Opal’s text read:

Just had a WEIRD convo with the trans man my roommate is fucking. He’s like a social work dude and he’s in law school. He said he’s maybe applying for the executive director position for Compton???? Because apparently NATALIE IS LEAVING??????? LIKE TO MOVE TO PHILADELPHIA?? DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?? 

[notesbyfleur]

john and alizeh.

John is the most accurate definition of tall, dark and handsome. We have known each other since we were eleven, or twelve. We were in the same circle of friends—who grew up together from pre-puberty kids to teenagers with keypad mobile phones and independence—but sadly, we rarely talk. I never said ‘hi’ whenever we passed by, and neither did he. But he knows whenever I am present, and I would always secretly find his face when everyone gathers. We only exchanged smiles, occassionally, and communicates with each other via friends, very subtly.

There was a certain unspoken agreement that when your best friend has a crush on a guy, you do not talk to the guy. So despite not talking to John because Alizeh likes him so dearly, I have spend most evenings sitting at the bus stop down the school hill, watching the boys play football in their shorts. He was there. Tall, dark and handsome. His hair is always in a classic Frankie Muniz updo, and his eyes were dark, mysterious and calm. He was funny, and he likes cracking jokes, but he also retreats himself into a shy demeanour shortly after.

Alizeh talks about him nearly half of the time we hung out together in school and after school, so by time, I was able to get used to listening to stories of John. And when we were fourteen, they dated each other. I guess he must’ve liked her for so long too. Alizeh is a lovely person, and while she might not be the star student in our school, she walks with grace and beauty. Jet black spill of hair tucked behind her ears, and soft white skin with a subtle tan that reminds you of thick cheesecakes. There is a certain politeness in her smile, as if she was playing Dutchess all the time, but they were the most warm, genuine smile.

One afternoon when I was thirteen, I smashed the little glass swan John gave me for my twelfth birthday and practiced playing Game of Love on my father’s guitar until the tip of my fingers burned in pain.

Alizeh moved away when we were fifteen, and I still hadn’t talked to John in the most casual and direct conversation. By that time, I was able to recite the entire Science syllabus, played many songs on the guitar and sat with the boys of my class in my pinafore while they helped changing the strings of my father’s guitar.

John and I only started properly talking when we were sixteen, but not much words are exchanged. Most of the time, there were silence. Which had led us to this very moment—when he was waiting outside the gates of my house on his motorcycle on a Wednesday evening.

I refused to wear the helmet, because we were only heading a few blocks away from my house for Maths tution. I have no problem with walking, but our friend suggested that he gave me a lift.

“Okay, get behind me,” he said, already mounted on his motorcycle. His voice was slow and soft.

I climbed behind him and held on to my tote bag, which was sandwiched between us. He made a turn and we left. Again, very few words were exchanged between us—as it was in school and during tuition.

***

I remember evenings from my teenage years very faintly, but often times the recalling would come in the most beautiful form I could never explain—like old recordings of the five senses in the most comforting way that makes you feel like old memories are things that are so intangible, no matter how close they are to your heart. Often decorated with orange sunsets or gloomy skies, and framed with beautiful bokeh or grey diamonds of raindrops, my recollections of youth revolves around everything that was truly innocent.

Innocent, but nothing was within my grasp. Not the one I couldn’t control, at least.

Worn out debate cards tucked into my tote bag. Pages of my physics schoolbook turned chilly by the air-conditioning of my own bedroom, untouched and clean from scribbles. I lay in bed with my limbs sprawled, eyes staring into the nothingness that was on the ceiling. The five o’clock evening sun cast orange hues through slits of the curtains, on whichever surface it could touch.

Love Is Only A Feeling by The Darkness was playing. My lips mouthed its lyrics, my throat releasing nearly-inaudible vocals. It was an anthem. Music was my element.

It was also sad how music is something that guitar-playing John is something we could always bond over. Yet besides motorcycle rides and tuitions, our conversations were almost obsolete. Words exchanged between us could compare to the likeliness of solar eclipses.

Alizeh was long gone. Distance was a difficult barrier when you’re a highschooler of the 2000s—and the Nokias and Sony Ericssons were only promises on one end. Phone calls and instant messages with Alizeh became less and less, until one day, it stopped. Like a long-distance relationship with a faint ending, friendship faded into the background, like a slow score of an eventful scene.

Without Alizeh, eye contacts happened more often.

***

I have never had a proper conversation with John, and even two years after Alizeh has left us in this smaller, peaceful town, I still have not had a proper conversation with John. I regretted smashing the glass swan when I was thirteen, but we don’t carry or keep things that no longer serves us.

As Alizeh faded into the void behind us, making her presence no longer felt among our group of not-so tight knit friends, I breathed a new life into my courage. No, not the kind of courage you need to speak in front of the crowd, carrying the school’s name on your forehead and aiming for the grand prize.

Courage is a funny thing. It was as if we all exists on different planes and we view courage differently. One could fear the act of making decisions for a group of teenage mankind and strutting forward spouting instructions from his mouth. I have no such fear. One could fear the act of being left alone with a person she had known for five to six years, fear of stuttering and fidgeting not knowing what to talk about. That would be my fear.

For the rest of my high school days, I knew his full name. I knew his birthday. I knew his family, I visited his house. I knew that he broke his hand in the sixth grade from an accident. I knew how he liked his hair done. I knew he enjoys his motorcycle rides to and fro school in the evening. I knew what everyone else knew. I didn’t know what lies below the surface instead—insecurities, fears, everything personal and everything sentimental. Yet times spent whenever he was in my scene, my field of vision, and my presence; they felt somewhat cinematic. Time slows down to make way for the sun to give its golden warmth upon us, and whenever it was raining, alternative rock music often played in independent movies plays in its own plane. But that was ultimately everything. It was as if we have a cackling chemistry, but we never had an existing bond between us. It was like a metal bridge being built from both sides, having never met in the middle.

***

The town where I grew up in was such a small town, but when you have everything so close around you, physically and sentimentally, it becomes your entire world. There was nothing you could lose and even with the lack of this and that, everything felt sufficient. I have been fed with the idea of a wistful high school experience, from the sappy books I’ve read. I found out later that I was wrong, that I thought everything I had in my teenage years would stick with me throughout the rest of my life, growing with me. It’s such a beautiful thought—to be able to transition into a much more serious part of life with the people you grew up with.

Alizeh was the first warning that not everything lasts, and people grow apart. What the town gives you to nurture your growth doesn’t necessarily cling with you as you transition. Butterflies don’t bring their coccoon with them after metamorphosis. The first to leave was my best friend. And then, everything else.

John looked at me with obscure sorrow in his eyes. It was that one evening where our friends were as energetic despite the lack of sun. John’s hands clung onto his motorcycle as he stood beside it. Like everyone else, we weren’t in the rush to get home.

I was prepared—as usual—to go with him. After several times, he was used to giving me a ride from and back home. I forgot when did the favour turned into an unspoken one. Perhaps we took it as an arrangement, which unfortunately did not last under certain circumstances—changes.

But I was waiting for him to climb onto his motorcycle first, so I could climb behind him. That’s the way it is always, isn’t it?

He didn’t. Instead, he looked at me with obscure sorrow in his eyes. Head slightly tilted sideways, updo unwavered—he looked at me like someone looked at a nostalgic past, something he longed for but can never touch.

I didn’t ask questions. I never do. We never have proper conversations. I felt like asking would lead to and intrusion of personal space of his.

He opened his mouth and sucked his breath. My friends were already on the road, with laughter so loud it might have echoed the entire neighbourhood. He wasn’t curious enough to see what was so amusing.

And that was when I finally asked, “what?”

“I’m moving.” He said so with a tone that was only meant to be heard by me and no one else. I turned to the rest of my friends, but they were too occupied to be in the conversation—or perhaps John had only meant it to be a one-to-one announcement. The rest of our friends could probably wait.

“You’re moving?” I repeated rethorically—what else am I supposed to say?

He nodded. “I’m leaving next month.”

“Where to?”

“KL. The big city.”

I said nothing else. I clutched my fist, hoping not to look indifferent about his announcement of departure. But I couldn’t bring myself to produce a proper spoken response, or any response at all. I couldn’t keep the conversation going, mostly because asking things in which you could easily predict the answer is useless. He is moving because his father has to move for work—his mother is a housewife. He doesn’t know what school will he enroll in once he got there. He will come to visit—he has family staying in town still. And he will at least throw a farewell barbecue party for his friends before he leaves.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Sad. I mean, I grew up here.”

He moved away the month after. You’d think it would be cinematic. You’d think I would be sending him love letter like Lara Jean, and we’d be making out on an all-green football field under the sun, at least before he leaves forever. But it didn’t happen, I said nothing, and one day we stopped seeing his face around school.

***

A/N: This was written as a part of my memoir-themed novella, Oxygen and Other Dreams, that remained as unfinished as I left it in 2018. As much as I could recall a lot of details accurately, I couldn't bring myself to write the following part. It was something that I never have apologised to John for—but someday, maybe I will.

John and I remained friends on social media, as Alizeh too. They married different people now, and they're very blessed to have found lifetime love. I was never someone who could fit into their narratives comfortably—a misfit—and I feel like I am still the misfit. I'm still here, and I'm still me.

— steff fleur // july 2, 2021

[captainsbabysitter-blog]

I Couldn’t Leave Him Ch2

First Chapter Here

Characters/Pairings: Christopher Pike/Philip Boyce, James T. Kirk

Rating: Uh… Well Phil kinda swears a decent amount in this one, as you might imagine, so Teen?

Length: 1746 words

Summary: Chris meets Jim’s foster mother and caseworker then Phil loses his goddamn mind because why wouldn’t he?

~*~*~*~

The meeting was a little awkward, to say the least. Neither Renee nor Alex, Jim’s caseworker, were expecting Jim to show up to the house with a random stranger. Chris had to admit that it probably seemed a little creepy, but he wasn’t really sure how else to go about it. He stood off to the side as Jim made the introductions and offered up a small smile and a shrug when Alex eyed him critically.

“You do realize how odd this seems?” She asked cautiously. “Appearing out of nowhere declaring you want to adopt him?”

“I’m very aware, but well… I don’t really know how this works, and he mentioned he was meeting with you today, so I guess I figured you’d be the person to talk to.”

Alex glanced at Jim and couched to be closer to his height. “I think you and I should chat in private. How about it?”

Jim agreed and let himself be led off, leaving Chris and Renee, a tired-looking woman who sighed and gestured toward the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Coffee sounds good.”

When they were settled at the kitchen island with a couple mugs, Renee took a long pull from hers before finally asking, “How did you meet Jim? And when?”

“I was a guest professor at Drake this past week. He was there for my open lecture on Monday, and I sat and talked with him a while afterward. When I found out he didn’t plan on going back to school or at least back here, I let him sit in on my classroom lectures.”

Chris rubbed at the back of his neck a bit and sighed. “I probably should have just called in a truancy officer or something, but he just seemed like he needed someone to talk to. Anyway… He’s spent all week playing chess with me and sitting in on my lectures and I’ve grown attached.”

She nodded slowly as she absorbed everything Chris was saying. Overall, she didn’t seem like a terrible parent, but from the sounds coming upstairs, she had her hands full. A flash of guilt crossed her face. “I’m afraid I haven’t been able to give him the attention he deserves at his age. He really is a very bright boy.”

He remembered all too well how overwhelmed a foster parent could get with a bunch of kids running around. Still, it was easy to see where Jim would translate that into not being wanted. They sat in companionable silence until Alex came back in with Jim.

“Mister… Pike, was it?” When he nodded, she continued, “Despite how… Unorthodox this whole series of events has been, I would like you to come back to my office with me. We’ll begin the paperwork and find you an orientation meeting closer to your home. Jim mentioned that you’re currently living in Boston?”

“Yes. My fiancé and I share an apartment there.”

“Very well. If you’ll follow me back to the DHHS building, we’ll get things sorted out. Jim, I meant it when I said no more skipping classes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. His face turned up toward Chris with hope sparkling behind his eyes. “I’ll see you soon?”

“I’ll tell you what… I have to fly back to Boston on Sunday, but if Renee is okay with it I’ll come back tomorrow and we can go get lunch.”

Jim turned pleading eyes on his foster mother who gave them both a small smile and nodded. “Alright. We’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

By the time he got back to his hotel room after meeting with Alex, Chris felt an intense dread settle in his gut. In all the excitement, he hadn’t even thought to check in with Phil. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the series of texts they’d exchanged during their week apart. Mostly good mornings and good nights with the occasional reminder from Chris to eat something more solid than coffee. He’d mentioned Jim when they actually talked on Wednesday, but nothing about his random whim adoption plans.

He couldn’t put it off forever, so he finally sighed and just pressed the button, putting the phone to his ear and waiting. The warm, “hey, sexy,” fortified him.

“Hey sweetheart… How’s studying going?”

“It’s going. I almost feel like I won’t fail horribly.”

“You’ll be the smartest person in that room and you know it,” he chuckled before sobering up a bit. “Hey Phil…?”

“What’d you do, Christopher?” Of course he knew Chris’ tones by now.

“Remember that kid I was telling you about? Jim?” A noise of confirmation prompted him to continue, “I did something you’re not gonna be happy about. I asked him if he’d be alright with me adopting him. And I met with his caseworker to get started on paperwork.”

“You. Did. What?”

Instead of answering, Chris let Phil process everything. He knew if he tried to say anything else, it would just dig him in a deeper hole. Despite common misconception, he was capable of realizing when he should keep his mouth shut.

“Let me get this straight. You, without any input from your fiancé, a man you’ve been with going on almost five years now, began the process of adopting a child you’ve known for exactly five days. While your aforementioned fiancé is attempting to study for his board exam, no less. Does that sound about right to you, Christopher?”

“That… Yeah, that sounds about right…”

“What the hell were you thinking, Chris?! This isn’t bringing home a puppy that’s a fucking human being you’re talking about!”

“I couldn’t just leave him, Phil!” Chris sucked in a quick breath and rubbed at his temple. “You don’t understand.”

There was half a beat of silence before Phil responded, voice a little gentler now, “What wouldn’t I understand?”

“Kids his age don’t get adopted. If they’re lucky, they hang out in the same foster home until they’re 18 and then good luck with life. If they’re not, they’re bounced around because no one wants to deal with older kids when they’ve got a bunch of little ones running around until they turn 18 and then, again, good luck with life.”

“Chris…”

“I know I did this all the wrong way, but Phil… I can’t just leave him here.”

When he heard the sigh, Chris knew he’d won. “We’re not done with this, Chris. I’m not happy about how this is all happening, but if you’re positive this is what you want, you know I’ll support it. What do I need to do to make this all happen?”

“I have to finish the paperwork and then make an appointment to sit through an orientation meeting you and I will need to go through. We can wait to schedule that after your exam next week. Then we hand in stuff they need for background checks, a home inspection, and then a court appearance to finalize everything.”

“Alright… You’re still coming home on Sunday? And you’ll be by yourself, right?”

“Jim can’t come live with us until we do the background checks, interviews, and home inspection, so yeah. He’ll be staying here in Iowa until at least then.” He flopped back against the pillows with a murmured, “I miss you… And I’m sorry I did this all wrong.”

“I miss you, too. I’m not gonna say it’s alright, Chrissy, but we’ll work with it. Let me take tomorrow to think things through and we’ll talk about it when you get back. I’m about to finish up cooking. I’ll see you Sunday.”

Even then, they still stayed on the phone for a while longer just catching up on their weeks. That mostly consisted of Phil chattering about his exam prep and throwing in little questions about Jim. Chris knew better than to assume he was completely in the clear; Phil’s anger was more of a slow burn and he’d probably be worked up to a full dressing down of Chris by the time Sunday rolled around.

He was right, really. When he touched back down in Boston that Sunday, Phil looked torn between thrilled to see him and simmering fury. The kiss he received in welcome was a little stiff, but Chris was too happy to be back home to really care. He rested his forehead against Phil’s and murmured, “Let’s get home so you can tear me a new one.”

It started in the car. “Really, what were you thinking? Did you even think at all or did you just promise this kid a home without even considering the consequences and responsibilities of being a parent?”

“I did consider it, I just didn’t care,” he mumbled back, eyes fixed on the crawling traffic headed into the heart of Boston.

“And did you maybe consider me in all this? That maybe with everything going on between my exam and getting ready for my residency, I wouldn’t be ready for being a parent?”

“I knew you’d understand why I had to and we’d figure it out.”

“And what if he has problems we can’t handle? You only saw a little snapshot of him over the course of six days, Chris. And you met him while he skipped an entire week of school to hang around with a guy almost three times his age.”

That caused him to pause. Chris definitely hadn’t considered that little tidbit. This is why he didn’t usually make decisions without Phil anymore. When he didn’t answer, Phil filled in the silence, “I know you want to give this kid a family, but we have to talk about whether we’re the family that’s going to be best for him. He won’t be helped by your good intentions alone, I hope you know that.”

“Yeah, I do. And hell… Maybe we’re not the family for him, but I couldn’t live with myself if we didn’t at least try.” He started gnawing on his thumbnail as he contemplated everything Phil said. There were a few points he really hadn’t thought about before he jumped in, and he was now wondering if he was making the right decision.

“Quit chewing your nails.”

“You stress me out and then tell me I can’t chew on my nails? I know you’re pissed, but do you have to torture me in retaliation?” When Phil cracked a bit of a smile, Chris let himself relax. They’d make this work.

Tagging: @pinkamour1588 @auduna-druitt @gracieminabox @thevalesofanduin @yourtropegirl @southernbellestatues @the-space-goddess-16 @randomlittleimp @thinkwritexpress-official @its-life-jim @insane-sociopath @shroom-boi @themaidofgevaudan-mja

[dracusfyre]

Love and War

Another Winteriron Tumblr prompt fill!  From and for @imaginetonyandbucky

Original Prompt: age-reversal au; tony is 21 when obie finally lets him run lead on his first weapons demo, while at the army base, he makes friends with seal team sniper Bucky.  Explicit Sexual Content Ahoy.   (9k words)

Also on AO3

    “Who’s the bigwig that gets his own helicopter ride all the way out here?” Bucky asked as he scanned the sky for the lights of the incoming Apache.  “Even the colonel had to wait for the Wednesday circular.”

    “It’s Tony Stark with a box of goodies for us to test out,” Dugan answered, his contraband cigar an orange glow in the darkness.

    “And Tony Stark is…?”

    “Tony Stark is like the Bill Gates of guns and bombs.” Bucky heard Dugan’s feet crunch on the gravel as he moved closer and blew out a cloud of smoke.  “Word is he’s got a fancy new sniper rifle he’s trying to sell the Army.”

    “Well that explains why I’ve been assigned to be his babysitter,” Bucky said in resignation. He lowered the binoculars; the chopper would be coming in dark until it was almost on top of the base anyway, so it would be better to stop talking and listen for the sound of the blades.  “How long is he going to be here?”

    “His outgoing itinerary hasn’t been scheduled yet, so I guess however long it takes.”  His voice had a ‘better you than me’ tone in it that made Bucky want to rip that cigar out of his mouth and stomp on it.  It was bad enough when the higher ups foist a well-meaning journalist on them; usually the problem there was to keep them from climbing over the walls in search of a story.  But what in the hell was a rich old man doing way the hell out here? FOB Obelisk was a tiny special ops base in the mountains of Afghanistan that had maybe thirty people on base at any given time.  The food sucked, the entertainment was worse, and now Bucky was going to have to try to keep him entertained and try to figure out how to tell him that his fancy new sniper rifle wasn’t worth the metal it was made of without getting drummed out of the army.

    “Did I fuck somebody’s sister or something?  Why did the shit have to roll down this particular hill?”  Bucky kicked at the gravel in frustration.  “It’s not like my opinion is going to make a difference. Someone’s going to give a briefcase of money to someone with a star on their collar and the Army’s going to have 15,000 new rifles it doesn’t need.”

    Behind them a corporal stuck his head out the door of the transpo HQ. “Incoming,” he said, and then Bucky could hear the chopper blades.  Lights came on just long enough to bring the helicopter down and ruin Bucky’s night vision while the blades kicked up dust and gravel as they whined to a stop.  Bucky turned on the red bulb of his flashlight as he heard the door slide open.

    “Mr. Stark?” Bucky shouted as loud as he dared as he approached.   Thankfully the pilot killed the engine and he could hear again.

    “Working on it,” a voice said from the dimly lit interior of the helicopter.  The only passenger was struggling with the six-point harness, his helmet sitting on the seat beside him. He glanced up at Bucky, hair falling across his forehead.  Bucky stared at the long lashes, the straight nose, and the stubble along a sharp jaw and his brain froze.

    “Be right back,” he said, stupidly, and he turned around to where Dugan was watching him with interest. “That’s Tony Stark?”

    “Should be.” Dugan stepped onto the helicopter skids to peer inside. “Yeah, that’s him. Why?”

    “Can he even drive?” Bucky hissed, feeling a little hysterical. Almost six months with only his right hand for company, and now his job was to chaperone this walking wet dream?  “I was expecting a rich old white guy, like, I dunno, Bill Gates.”

    “Dude his parents died like, just a few months ago.  He got control of the company when he turned twenty-one.”

    “And when was that? Yesterday?” Bucky ran a hand over his face and tried to get his shit together. He looked back into the helicopter and almost got a face full of Tony Stark’s duffel bag.

    “It was quite a few months ago, actually,” he said as he jumped down onto the gravel.  The red light of Bucky’s flashlight gave a weird tone to his skin and the bulky flak jacket was not flattering on anyone, but it didn’t disguise the quirk of his lips as he smiled and held out a hand. Jesus Christ, that mouth, Bucky thought helplessly as he took it. “Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy. And arms dealer, I guess.”

    “Sergeant James Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky,” Bucky said. “This is Sergeant Timothy Dugan, better known as Dum Dum.  Is this all you’ve got?” Bucky said, nudging the duffel bag with his foot.

    “Careful, I’ve got grenades in there,” Tony said, and Bucky and Dugan both blanched and took a step back.  “Not really. All the toys are in those.” He pointed to the gorilla boxes the copilot and the flight line corporal were carrying into the transpo HQ.  Stooping, he grabbed the bag and threw it over his shoulder.  “If possible, I’d like a shower and a hamburger, in that order.”

    Bucky checked the time. “If you’ll follow me, I can get you a shower but midnight chow doesn’t start for another hour.”

    Tony shrugged philosophically. “Lead on.”

    In the short walk from the flight line to housing Bucky managed to convince himself that he could play it cool for a few days.  Just because he’s been stuck out here on this tiny fucking base for five months with only a couple of days R&R at a slightly bigger base a hundred miles away wasn’t a reason to lose his self-control over a mouth that looked like it was made for sin.  Didn’t he tell off a specialist for coming on to a female contractor just last week? He was way too old to be led around by his dick.

    Bucky was feeling good about that pep talk as he went up the stairs to the housing office to get the keys to Tony’s CHU.  He missed a step going back down the stairs when he realized that Tony was going to be right next door to him, but he shook that off too because he was a professional goddammit.

    “Alright, here’s your home away from home,” Bucky said as he turned on the obnoxious fluorescent lighting and dropped the sheets, blanket, and towel on the bare mattress.  Since it was a guest room it was pretty bare bones; someone had left a rug and a lamp behind when they shipped out, but other than that it was a long, metal rectangular room with all the charm and style of a high school locker. The bed was a metal frame with a mattress the thickness of your average dictionary; when they got here his unit had fought over the good mattresses until all the busted ones had ended up in the unoccupied CHUs.  Like this one.  For a brief moment Bucky felt self-conscious about it until Tony stepped around him to throw his duffle bag on the floor and start unfastening the flak vest with the loud rip of Velcro.

    Bucky stared as Tony pulled his sweatshirt over his head, leaving him in a sweat soaked black tank that clung to the long lean lines of Tony’s back and revealed his slim but muscled shoulders and the cargo pants that were about to fall off his skinny hips.

    Bucky started to sweat.

    Tony grabbed a towel and threw it over his shoulder, looking at Bucky expectantly.  “Shower?”

    “Sure,” he said automatically, and felt his face get hot.  “I mean, it’s…” He went out the door so he didn’t have to see that amused, knowing look in Tony’s eyes. “It’s right there,” he said, pointing to another of the ubiquitous rectangular buildings that made up the whole base. The stairs were barely lit up enough to keep you from tripping over it, but you could see the universal symbols for shower and toilet on the door.

    “You’re not going to stay?”  Tony asked and Bucky’s brain went blank for a moment.  “To take me to midnight chow?”

    “Right, uh, well my CHU is that one so I’ll just come back in a hour and take you over there.” Bucky made a hasty escape and banged his head against his door in frustration when he closed it behind him. “Get a grip, asshole,” he said and threw himself on the bed, reaching for his zipper.  He had an hour to jerk off enough that he could look Tony in the eyes without acting like an oversexed sailor on shore leave.

      Tony blew out a long breath as he turned on the shower, debating whether he wanted to take a cold one after laying eyes on James Barnes in the bright light of his room. Pale grey eyes, thick silky hair he wanted bury his hands in, and a body Tony wanted to climb like a jungle gym wrapped in an army uniform?  For a moment, Tony’d had a crazy thought that he’d wandered into a porn movie and was just waiting for the 80s techno music to start.

    And the look in his eyes when Tony had turned around in just his undershirt? Tony smirked as he stepped under the slightly above room temperature spray.  He’d bet half of Stark Industries Bucky was rubbing one out right now.  Digging out his soap, Tony wondered what Bucky was thinking about.  Maybe surprising him here in the shower and crowding him against the wall of this rinky dink stall, letting the water soak through that tight brown shirt as he lifted Tony up to wrap his legs around his waist, holding him up with those thickly muscled thighs that the army fatigues did not disguise at all. Bucky could pin him against the wall while he fingered him open and bit marks across his shoulders.

    Tony braced himself against the wall of the shower and wrapped his hand around his cock, stroking himself quickly.  When they were ready, Bucky could just pick him up and lower him right onto his dick, and Tony would tangle his fingers in Bucky’s dog tags as he held on for the ride. Was Bucky a talker during sex, winding him up with praise and filthy suggestions about what he would do to him when they were in a real bed?  Tony bit his bicep to stifle a moan, not sure how far sound would carry around here, and stroked himself faster.  Maybe Bucky was the take charge type and would pin his hands against the shower stall, watching him with those cool grey eyes and daring him to come untouched.

    His climax punched out of him at the thought and he grunted with the unexpected force of it. He shivered as he stroked himself just past the point of oversensitivity and made sure his hand was clean before he wiped the water from his face.

    Oh yeah.  Bucky Barnes just went to the top of Tony’s to-do list before he left Afghanistan.

    Bucky blessed the darkness when he went to pick up Tony for midnight chow because he knew he was blushing from having come twice imagining that wide, mobile mouth wrapped around his dick.  Thankfully it faded by the time they got to the DFAC and Bucky got to introduce Tony to the wide variety of food available on a tiny base in the middle of the night.

    “Burgers and bagels,” Tony repeated.  “Well I did ask for a burger.”

    “Welcome to FOB Ob,” Bucky said cheerfully, and started filling up his tray.

    “So what is there to do here?” Tony asked when he sat down across from Bucky in the surprisingly busy DFAC.  Everyone was eyeing Tony curiously since he was the only one not in uniform but so far no one had come up to them, which Bucky knew would change as soon as someone from his unit showed up.  Honestly, he was surprised that Dugan hadn’t rounded them all up just to give Bucky a hard time.

    “Well, we have a gym, the MWR has most of a game of chess and a stack of VHS tapes, and…” Bucky trailed off, thinking hard. “Sometimes we get nice sunsets. Oh, and we shoot people.”

    “Charming,” Tony said dryly as he bit into his hamburger.  Bucky had to look down at his plate quickly when Tony started licking a trail of grease off his hand and just like that, an hour’s worth of hard-on work, wasted.

    “Yeah, we gotta make our own fun around here. Tomorrow – well, later on today,” Bucky amended, looking at his watch, “is an unsanctioned poker night with the guys in my unit.  If that’s not your thing, I think they’re doing karaoke night at the MWR.”

    “What time am I getting up to meet the brass?”

    “They didn’t tell you?” Bucky patted down his pockets until he found the printout. He took a toothpick from the center of the table and put it between his teeth while he skimmed it.  “You have a meeting with Lieutenant Rogers at 1000, break for lunch, then looks like you’re going to sit down with me and the other Howlies to show us all these pretty toys we’re going to try out for you.” Bucky slid the paper across the table and caught Tony staring at his mouth.  Smirking, he tossed his toothpick on his tray.  “Sorry, we’re discouraged from smoking out here and it has left me with a bit of an oral fixation.”

    “You don’t say,” Tony said mildly, lips quirking when he met Bucky’s eyes. Then he surprised himself with a jaw-cracking yawn that brought tears to his eyes.

    “Come on, I’ll take you back to your room.” Bucky stood and cleaned off their trays.  “Chow starts at 0800, so if you want breakfast you’ll probably want to set an alarm.  Don’t know if you noticed, but the CHUs don’t have windows so it stays dark as shit in there. And there’s no insulation, so it’s going to be chilly if you don’t remember to turn on the heat before you go to bed.”

    Tony fumbled with the unfamiliar keys before he got his door open .  “Thanks for all your help, Bucky.  Sure you don’t want to come inside and, um, help me figure out the heater?”

    It was too dark to really see the look on Tony’s face, but he could imagine the dare in his eyes because it was certainly there in his voice.  Sparks lit up Bucky’s inside like fireworks but then Tony yawned again, swaying slightly.  “You’re the genius billionaire, I think you can figure it out,” Bucky said with a wide grin.  “Get some sleep, and we’ll see if you still need help with it tomorrow.”

      Eight hours later, Bucky was rudely interrupted from taking care of his morning wood by someone banging on his door. “Just a minute!” he shouted, grabbing his BDU pants and pulling them on over his boxers, wincing a bit as he had to tuck his erection behind his zipper.

    “What?” He said irritably, opening his door and angling his body so hopefully his visitor wouldn’t notice – oh, it was Tony.  With a slightly evil grin, Bucky leaned against the doorframe, successfully rendering Tony speechless for at least a moment as his eyes traveled over Bucky’s bare chest, down to his groin and then flew back up to his face.

    “Really?” Tony said. “Do you always answer the door like this?”

    “What?” Bucky put on his best innocent look and glanced down, as if not even noticing the hard line of his cock against the zipper of his fatigues.  “I put on pants.  On this base, anyone who’d be knocking on my door this time of morning has probably already seen me naked at some point or another.  Except you, of course.”

    “Yeah, except me,” Tony echoed and his eyes drifted south of Bucky’s belly button and went far away for a second.  

    Bucky would have bet money that whatever was crossing his mind at that moment was probably the plot to a cheesy porno and shit, now he was thinking about it too, and that was not helping the fit of his pants. He cleared his throat. “What do you need?”

    Tony raised an eyebrow and raked his gaze back down Bucky’s body, all the way down to his bare feet, and then back up.  He leaned slightly around Bucky to look at his bed suggestively. “Ready to teach me how to use the heater yet?”

    God, yes. Bucky’s hand tightened on the doorframe as he fought the urge to drag Tony inside his room and kiss that suggestive smirk off his face.           “Well the thing is,” Bucky drawled, “you only have about thirty minutes before you have to meet with the LT. And when I start a project, like showing you the AC, I like to be really…thorough and make sure the job is done right.”

    Tony swallowed. “And thirty minutes isn’t enough time?”

    “Nope. So what did you really come over here for?”

    “Oh yeah.” Tony looked down as if just now remembering he had a suit jacket draped over his arm. “For my meeting with Rogers, would you say he would respond better to a suit or something more casual?”

    For a split second Tony looked incredibly young and unsure and Bucky’s heart squeezed. He waved a hand at what Tony was already wearing, a long sleeved henley and khaki pants. “Rogers is a no bullshit kind of guy.  I’d skip the suit.”

    “Thanks,” Tony said with a small smile.  His eyes dropped to Bucky’s mouth and he ran his tongue over his lower lip, and Bucky ached to pull him up the stairs to follow its path with his own tongue.

    But.  “Believe me, I want whatever you’re thinking about and more,” he said in a low voice, shaking his head slightly.  Glancing around, he saw that they were alone – most people would be sleeping until at least noon, having run operations all night – but the sun was a glaring presence in the sky, illuminating all the different shades of brown and grey that made up FOB Ob, and Bucky hadn’t made it in the Army this long by being reckless.  “But if we get caught, Rogers wouldn’t have any choice but to drum me out of the country and out of the Army.”

    Tony nodded and took a step back. “I get it. I’ll see you later.”

    “Yeah, later.” Bucky did, however, let himself watch Tony walk away before he closed the door to his CHU.

***

    When it came time to meet Bucky and the rest of the Howlies down at the range, Bucky was impressed to find that Tony was all business, sleeves already rolled up and hands stained with gun oil as he unpacked the gorilla boxes.  All the fancy new toys were lined up on a table at the back of the range and the guys started making cooing noises as they saw them.  

    Tony worked his way down the line of weapons and explained where the Stark model differed from what the Army currently used, hands deftly taking the weapons apart to make a point before reassembling them like it was second nature.  Bucky found himself staring at Tony’s calloused hands, long-fingered and dexterous, with narrow palms and slim wrists and scarred knuckles.  Not, he imagined, the hands of your average billionaire.

    For his part, Tony didn’t seem to notice Bucky’s distraction because he was explaining something to Dernier, switching to flawless French when he noticed that the liaison was struggling with the more technical English terminology. Bucky must have made an interesting face at that because Dugan caught his eye and made a swooning gesture behind Tony’s back. Scowling, Bucky gave him the finger and turned away to start loading magazines.

***

    Later on that night, after dinner, Tony heard a knock on his door.  It took so long to untangle himself from his electronics that the knock came again, more hesitantly. He finally got to the door after tripping over a charger cable, smiling when he saw Bucky on the other side.

    “Hey,” Tony said with his most charming smile, leaning against the door to hide the chaos of his room. “What’s up?”

    “Poker night got canceled for a mission,” Bucky said, glancing around the darkened area to make sure he was alone.  “I thought I’d stop by for some luck.  Can I come inside?”

    “Sure,” Tony backed up to let him inside.  Bucky looked around and just quirked his lips and raised an eyebrow to see the mess; one side looked like a closet exploded and the other was full of electronics.  “So, luck, huh?”

    “Yeah,” Bucky said, curling one hand around the back of Tony’s neck, stroking the thin skin under his ear with his thumb.  Tony shivered at the touch, and the quirk of his lips widened into a smile.  “Maybe a kiss or something?”

    “I think I can do that.”  Tony hooked his fingers into the belt loops of Bucky’s fatigues and pulled him closer. Bucky dipped his head and brushed his lips over Tony’s, breath ghosting out with the smell of his after-dinner mint and coffee.  Then came Bucky’s tongue, lightly touching Tony’s bottom lip with little kitten licks. Tony didn’t realize he was holding his breath,  wound up by Bucky’s teasing, until Bucky finally covered his mouth with his own and he let out a long exhale. He felt Bucky smile and bit his lip in retaliation, feeling victorious when Bucky’s breath hitched.  Bucky’s other hand came up and then he was framing Tony’s face with those big, capable hands, calloused and smelling faintly of gun oil, holding him in place while he took him apart with his mouth. He was being so careful, so controlled, like he was afraid he was going to scare Tony away and all Tony wanted to do was to see what happened when he got pushed beyond that control.  He wanted Bucky to shove him up against the wall, a knee between his thighs, rutting against him fast and hard.

    But he knew without saying that now wasn’t that time, because Bucky was already pulling back with a few last lingering kisses, the final one pressed against the corner of his mouth.  Tony opened his eyes and saw Bucky smiling at him, still cradling his face in his hands. “Hey, handsome,” Bucky murmured. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

    “Yeah.  It’s going to take all night?”

     “I don’t know.  But we’re going to take some of your gear out, so I’ll let you know how it does.”

    Bucky still had his hands on his face, so Tony covered them with one of his own.  “Will it be dangerous, your mission tonight?”

    “Nah,” Bucky shrugged.  “Besides, I’m like, a level five Paladin so I’m practically invincible.”  Bucky knew he’d fucked up when Tony’s eyes got wide.

    “You,” Tony accused after a breathless moment, “are a nerd.” The joyful revelation in his voice made Bucky roll his eyes.

    “You,” Bucky countered, “knew what I was talking about. And I’m a geek, not a nerd.” He dropped his hands and started heading towards the door, Tony right on his heels.

    “Who’s your DM? Who’s your supplier, Bucky? Are you in a game right now? Are you really a Paladin?”  Tony was poking him in the ribs until Bucky turned around and shut him up with another hungry kiss.

    “I didn’t make it through SERE school to give up my secrets to a pretty face,” Bucky said with a smile, opening up the door behind him with one hand. “Not that easily.”

    “I have ways of making you talk!” Tony shouted after him as Bucky disappeared into the darkness.

 ***

    Hours later, Bucky paced a bit in front of Tony’s trailer, debating the wisdom of knocking on the door again because on the one hand, it’s like four in the morning and most people would be asleep by now, but on the other hand, Tony’s light was on.  But on the other other hand, he doesn’t want to seem needy and weird, but –

    At that point Tony yanks the door open and the light from inside made Bucky squint. “I can hear you walking on the gravel,” Tony pointed out.  “Why didn’t you just knock?”

    Trying to explain his headspace right now would take too long and would definitely sound stupid, so instead Bucky just said, “we just got back and I’m too wired to be in my room right now.  Want to go for a walk?”

    “Sure.” Tony stepped into his shoes right by the door, not even bothering to lace them up. “Where are we going?”

    “Just around,” Bucky said vaguely.  “I hadn’t thought that far, but it’s not like there’s a lot of options.”

    “Ok.” They walked in silence for a bit, their shoes crunching loudly on the gravel.  It was a nice night, an almost full moon and stars unusually clear without all the light pollution Tony was used to.  He’d gotten used to the smell out here, like hot asphalt and gasoline and an odd smell that he could only describe as desert, but at this time of night the smells had actually died down and the air was something close to clean.  “So how did the mission go?” Tony asked finally.

    Bucky shrugged. “Fine. We had a bit of a close call, but we got him in the end.  I’ll have a report to you about the gear sometime tomorrow.  Why are you still awake?”

    Now it was Tony’s turn to shrug, hands in his pockets.  “Insomnia.  Taking care of business back home.  After…you know…my parents died, I all of a sudden have to make a bunch of decisions, so…”

    “You don’t have any help?”

    “Yeah, I mean, there’s this guy Obediah, he was my dad’s right hand man, he’s been really helpful. But in the end, it’s still Stark Industries.  And I’m the last Stark.”

    Bucky made an understanding noise, and then it was quiet for a while. Until Tony heard a shrill, piercing whistle, and then there was a deep roooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrr noise that split the night.

    “Ah, shit.” Bucky grabbed Tony’s arm, dragging him towards a structure that was a darker shadow against the rest of the base that proved to be a bomb shelter.  

    “What’s happening?” Tony tried to peer out the little sliver of sky that was allowed by the concrete and sandbags of the bomb shelter.  There was another high pitched shriek and Tony saw a streak of red against the night sky, but he listened hard and didn’t hear any impact.

    “Indirect fire,” Bucky said shortly, rolling his eyes.  “Just gotta wait it out.”  After a while there were no more shrieks or streaks, so Tony leaned against the wall of the bomb shelter, close enough that Bucky was a line of warmth against his left side.

    “How long do we wait?”

    “Until they give the all clear.” It was too dark to see Bucky’s face, but after a moment Tony felt Bucky’s arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close. Smiling, Tony snaked his arm around Bucky’s back and felt lips press against his temple in return.  Tony turned and lifted his head so the lips met his own, just a little off center. Bucky made an amused chuck and settled against the wall of the bunker, tugging until Tony was between his legs. They kissed there, lazily, tongues curling together, hips grinding like they were teenagers on their parents’ couch.  Bucky slid his hands into the back of Tony’s pants and cupped his ass, a low groan rumbling through his chest.  Tony heard his head hit the back of the concrete wall. “You know what they say about snipers?”

    “I don’t, actually.  What do they say?”

    “Dammit, I was hoping you knew. I haven’t been a sniper for long and nobody’s told me yet.” Tony dropped his head against Bucky’s collarbone and shook his head, feeling Bucky shake under him with laughter.  “Seriously, though, my job is to cover my team’s asses, right? Which means I’m a great shot, and,” Bucky squeezed his ass and made a deep throated unf sound, “a connoisseur of fine asses.”

    “And?” Tony really wished he could see Bucky’s face.  His hands searched for skin under Bucky’s shirt, but it was tucked too tightly into his pants, so he settled for tucking his head into Bucky’s neck.

    “Well, I haven’t had a good look yet, have I?  But I can say that feels perfect. Like it’s made to fit my hands.”  He squeezed again and rocked their hips together. “Hey, guess what,” he whispered into Tony’s ear.

    “What?” Tony whispered back.

    “I like you.”

    “Yeah?” Tony grinned stupidly and rubbed his nose against the slightly stubbled underside of Bucky’s jaw, feeling warm inside.  Bucky’s hands were just resting on his ass, squeezing sometimes but mostly seeming content to just cup them instead of wandering anywhere interesting and it was oddly…soothing.

    “Yeah. You were great on the range today, handling all those weapons like a pro.  How many languages do you speak, anyway?”

      “Three.  You?”

    Bucky snorted a laugh and tipped his head down for a kiss.  “Well, I can speak enough Pashto and Dari to get by, but I’m not going to be explaining how changing the composite metal of a rifle bore affects rifling and accuracy.”

    Tony shrugged self-consciously.  “It was part of one of my masters’ theses.”

    “One of, the man says.” Bucky slid his hands out of Tony’s pants and ran them up his sides, dragging his shirt up as his fingers trailed over the bumps of his ribs.  Then his thumbs were rubbing circles over Tony’s nipples and Tony was gasping against Bucky’s mouth.

    “Jesus, Bucky.” His hands tightened on Bucky’s waist and his hips surged forward, seeking friction against the hard length of Bucky’s erection.  “For the record, I like you too.”

    “Good.” Bucky was still tracing circles around his nipples, giving them only the briefest of touches.  His hands were so warm, making the rest of Tony feel both chilled and feverish at the same time. Tony shivered and made a sound deep in his throat.  “Want to go on a date with me?”

    “This doesn’t count?” Tony asked, incredulous.  He was like four or five serious strokes away from orgasm and this didn’t even count as a date?

    “This is an IDF bunker, I can do better than this,” Bucky said, sounding affronted.  “We may be in the middle of Afghanistan but I do have some standards.”  He had abandoned Tony’s nipples and now had a grip on Tony’s hip, encouraging him to ride the thick line of his thigh.

    “Sure, yeah, sounds great,” Tony said breathlessly as he let Bucky set the rhythm, giving up all sense of propriety and chasing his release. He fisted his hand in Bucky’s hair, the other on Bucky’s shoulder for balance.  When he tugged on Bucky’s hair he earned himself a surprised “fuck” and then Bucky’s mouth was crashing down on his.

    “Come on, come for me,” Bucky whispered against his mouth.  “I want to hear the sounds you make.”  Right now the only noises Tony could manage were panting breaths, so close that his hips were stuttering.  Then Bucky brought one hand around to the front of his pants, rubbing hard and that was it, sparks flew behind Tony’s eyelids and he came with a long hitching moan. Bucky was murmuring “yeah, that’s it, get it,” in his ear, pressing kisses along his jaw as he came down.

    Finally Tony slumped against him, boneless, skin still humming. Bucky’s erection was still a hard line against his hip, but he seemed content to just hold Tony instead of finishing, forehead resting against Tony’s temple.  “So I heard there was a lunar eclipse tomorrow night, want to get dinner and watch it with me?”

    “Is this the Afghanistan version of Netflix and chill?” Tony asked lazily, still leaning heavily against Bucky.  He brought one hand up to run his thumb against the underside of Bucky’s dick, smiling when he heard Bucky’s grunt of pleasure.  “Want some help with this?”

    Tony could feel Bucky wavering and his mouth started watering at the idea of getting his mouth on that cock, ready to feel the hot weight of it on his tongue, and then Bucky was pulling his hand away and kissing his palm. “Next time.”

***

    Tony spent much of the next day hunched over his computer while periodically wandering circles around the small, very boring base – he found the MWR Bucky had mentioned and it was just as dismal as he’d described, only with a lot more second-hand and second-rate political thrillers and mysteries stacked on every available surface.  He also wandered by the motor pool and got the bored PFC on duty to show him the vehicles that the soldiers used when they went outside the wire; the armor on them was a rush job if he’d ever seen one, the unreinforced axles of the HMVs groaning under the extra weight.   In his head he started immediately composing an email to Obediah to put together a proposal to the DoD because he could do a better job than this just using the spare metal he had around the lab.  He found the gym along with most of the inhabitants of the FOB and managed to kill some time on the treadmill, trying to lift weights until he got bored with it.  After lunch and showering, Tony thought optimistically that it would at least be three or four o’clock, but when he saw that it was barely after noon he groaned and collapsed on his bed, staring up at the cheap metal ceiling of the CHU.

    Goddammit it was going to take forever for this evening to get here.

      After the sun set Bucky wiped his palms on his pants and raised his hand to knock when he heard music.  He leaned closer and listened for a minute, smiling when he recognized a Black Sabbath song.  Smiling, he knocked on the door and said “Housekeeping!”

    “Just a minute!” Tony shouted. “JARVIS, music off.”  After a moment the door swung open and Tony was stepping back to let Bucky inside. “Hey, sorry about that. Watch your feet,” he added unnecessarily; scattered across the floor in neat piles were gears and rods and other random parts to what looked like a small engine. Bucky stepped carefully to avoid knocking over one of the stacks and found himself a small clear patch of floor to stand while Tony put his shoes on.

    “Who is Jarvis?”

    “This computer program I’m developing to respond to voice commands.”  Tony patted his pockets as if checking for his wallet then smiled when he realized all that he needed was his security badge.

    “That’s amazing.  That’s going to change a lot of things for people if you can get it to work.” Bucky leaned carefully over to kiss Tony.

    “I hadn’t thought about that,” Tony said, looking thoughtful. “I was primarily working on developing it as an artificial intelligence.” He grabbed the closest piece of paper, already covered with equations and scribbled notes and scrawled another note in the corner.

    “I definitely want to hear more about that, but first –“ Bucky dug into one of the big pockets of his fatigues and pulled out two small bottles full of dark liquid. “Can I buy you a drink?”

    Tony took one of the airplane bottles of whiskey and started laughing. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time, Sergeant Barnes.”

      When they got back from dinner, illicitly spiking their drinks with the contraband whiskey, Bucky led Tony behind his CHU, full of weeds and the loud humming of the AC/heating unit built into the wall. Bucky tossed a blanket up onto the roof and then boosted Tony up, hearing him walk around with loud pongs, before backing up a few steps to get a running start. When he managed to climb up he saw Tony making a face at the level of grit and grime on top of the CHU, from years and years of sandstorms and rain that never quite washed all the sand away, but Bucky just shrugged and spread out the blanket. “It’ll wash.”

    He lay down and held out his arms for Tony to join him. They finally got comfortable with Tony resting his head on Bucky’s shoulder with Bucky’s arm wrapped around him, hand resting on the center of his chest.  The moon was low on the horizon but full, gilding the base with silver light. Glancing up, Tony could see the dark shadows of Bucky’s eyelashes and his contented smile. “I didn’t peg you for a cuddler,” Tony murmured with a smile hidden by the darkness.

    “Apparently I turn into an octopus when I sleep.  I just naturally grab on to the warmest thing in bed and just,” he squeezed Tony to his chest, “hold on tight.”

    “Sounds sweaty.”

    “Slippery, even.”

    “Greasy and slick…”

    “Two wet bodies, sliding against each other…”

    “Getting all…moist,” Tony said, and under his head Bucky shook with quiet laughter.

    “Gross,” he said, still laughing, and then he tilted Tony’s head up for a kiss.  Tony could feel the curve of his lips and taste the whiskey he’d had at dinner.  Bucky’s hand slid along his jaw and then cupped the back of his neck, pulling him closer until Tony was laying half on top of him. Tony made a sound deep in his throat as Bucky tilted his head to deepen the kiss and slid his free hand into the waistband of Tony’s pants to cup his ass.

    He moaned into Tony’s mouth and squeezed his ass before releasing him and pulling back from the kiss. “Jesus,” he said, breathing hard, one hand still tight on the back of Tony’s neck.  Tony put a hand on Bucky’s chest and slid it down to his erection, pressing his palm against it and practically whimpering when he measured its size. Looking up, he saw that Bucky had one hand in his hair and his eyes were closed as he rolled his hips against the pressure of Tony’s hand.  “Jesus Christ,” Bucky said again, and then he was pulling Tony’s hand away.  That was when Tony realized he’d been practically riding Bucky’s thigh, chasing pressure for his own achingly hard erection.

    Tony forced himself to roll back over onto his back, shaky with arousal. He took a deep breath and released it slowly.  “You are a menace,” Bucky said under his breath.  “We’re on top of a CHU for Christ’s sake.”

    “That seems easily remedied. I bet I could find a video of a lunar eclipse to watch later. Much later.”

    “But then you wouldn’t be here to explain how they work.”

    Tony propped himself up on his elbow to peer down at Bucky in surprise and then huffed out a laugh when he saw the quirk of a grin on Bucky’s lips.  “You know how eclipses work,” he muttered as he lay his head back down on Bucky’s shoulder.

    “Sure, but I like hearing you explain things.”

    “Take me to a bed and I’ll explain a lot of things, I promise.”

    Tony heard the thunk of Bucky hitting his head against the top of the CHU. “I swear to God, you are making it difficult to be romantic.”

    That had Tony sitting up again. “Is that what this is about?” He said in surprise, then lowered his voice when Bucky put a hand over his mouth. “Romance?”

    “Well, yeah,” Bucky said, shrugging self-consciously.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re like the sexiest thing on two legs I’ve ever seen, but you’re also insanely smart and funny and…what?” He trailed off at the look on Tony’s face.

    “On two legs?”

    “Oh. Yeah, well, I’ve got a black Ducati Monster at home and she will always be my first love.”

    Tony’s brain went temporarily offline at the thought of Bucky on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket and jeans and big black combat boots, raking a hand through his hair after taking off his helmet.  “You’ve got a…”

    Bucky’s slow grin was perfectly filthy. “Oh, yeah.  I love having all that power between my thighs, the heat and vibrations traveling up my-“

    Tony effectively shut him up by throwing his leg over Bucky’s hips and grinding that perfect ass right down on Bucky’s still hard dick.  Bucky’s hands flew up to his thighs to hold him still, torn between wanting to fill his hands with the tight roundness of Tony’s ass and the acute awareness that they were still on the roof of his CHU. “You’re not the only one who likes a lot of power between their thighs,” Tony murmured against his lips, rocking against him, and that was the last straw.

    “Ok, ok, I give up.” Bucky lifted him off and got to his feet, adjusting his erection gingerly as he helped Tony to his feet and grabbed the blanket.  “Let’s go.  We’re going to fuck until we break the bed.”

    “A man after my own heart,” Tony teased as they dropped down from the roof. Bucky shook his head and fumbled for his keys, checking over his shoulder for witnesses before he was shoving Tony into his room.

    Tony had enough time to glance around quickly before Bucky grabbed his waist and pulled him in for a kiss that was surprisingly gentle and slow.  Tony let his eyes close, losing himself in the soft, wet glide of Bucky’s mouth, shivering when his tongue licked inside.  At his waist Bucky’s hands slid underneath his shirt, calloused fingertips raising goosebumps as they traveled up and down his back before they were pulling his shirt off over his head.  

    “Jesus, look at you,” Bucky murmured, running his hands over the lean muscles in Tony’s arms and shoulders.  Tony tugged at his uniform, pulling the lapels away from each other with the loud sound of Velcro and shoving it off his shoulders.  Bucky’s eyes didn’t leave Tony as he started undressing, hungry gaze running over every inch of his skin, lips parted.  When he unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the belt loops the noise of it sent chills down Tony’s spine.

    “Look at you,” Tony breathed, pausing as he was toeing off his shoes, staring at the sculpted muscles of Bucky’s chest and abs as he pushed his pants to the floor.  He abandoned his project to get naked as fast as possible to put his hands on Bucky’s body, to see if the muscles were as firm as they looked, the skin as smooth.

    It was. They were.  Tony growled a bit and set his teeth into the thick muscle of Bucky’s shoulder, drawing a hiss out of him and then hands were shoving his pants down and off, sliding back up his inner thighs to cup his balls and wrap slightly cool fingers around his cock.

    “Just to let you know, these walls are like, paper thin.  So if you’re a screamer, try to keep it down,” Bucky said with a smirk, eyes heavy lidded and dark as he slid his fingers up Tony’s cock and rubbed a thumb over the head.

    “I grew up in boarding schools, I know how to be quiet.” Tony started pushing Bucky backwards until he was sitting on the bed and then climbed into his lap.  “But generally speaking, I do prefer to make noise.”

    “Oh, I bet.  One day,” Bucky said, wrapping his arms around Tony and turning to lay him out flat on the bed, “I hope we do this somewhere we can be as loud as we want.”  He bent his head to press a kiss to Tony’s lips as he fumbled for something in a bag under the bed, pulling out a half-empty bottle of lube and a couple of condoms.  For now he just set them on the table beside the bed and dedicated himself to learning Tony’s body, running his tongue over his nipples, biting the crest of his hips, licking a hot stripe along the bottom of his shaft, all while Tony writhed under his hands with bitten off whimpers.

    “Come on, enough teasing,” Tony finally moaned, breathing heavily.  “I feel like foreplay started as soon as I got out of the helicopter, let’s do this already.”

    Bucky huffed in amusement but finally crawled back up his body to hand him the lube.  “Show me how you like it,” he said, his eyes hot and dark as he settled at the foot of the bed to watch, fisting his cock as Tony raised his knees.

    “And he says I’m the menace,” Tony muttered, gripping his cock tightly at the base to try to slow down.  He generously lubed his fingers and tried to concentrate on giving Bucky a good show.  He teased himself for a moment, tracing around his hole before sinking inside, curling his finger as he slid it in and out as he stroked his cock lightly.  He was so fucking turned on that he quickly added another finger, probably too quickly, making a low sound at the slight burn of the stretch.

    His eyes flew open as he felt Bucky stroke a soothing hand down his thigh, having moved up the bed a little. “You’re not ready yet, but you want my cock so bad, don’t you?” Bucky murmured, his eyes on where Tony was prepping himself. He reached out to trace the fluttering rim of his hole and Tony hissed out a breath.  “One day I’m going to put my mouth right here until you are begging for something inside you.”

    “F-fuck,” Tony gasped, running out of patience. “I’m ready, I swear-“ He propped himself up on his elbow to get another good look at Bucky’s cock, and then fell back on the pillow with a groan of frustration.  “Ok, one more finger, then you.”

    Bucky gave him a small smile, eyes still riveted on the slick thrusts of Tony’s fingers in and out of his body. Bucky’s hands were roaming over every inch of Tony’s skin that was within reach as if he were just as impatient.  Finally Tony gave him a nod and said, “How do you want me?”

    “I want to see your face,” Bucky said, cupping Tony’s cheek. Tony nodded and Bucky was reaching for the condom and lube.  He braced one arm on the bed by Tony’s head and the other hand was under his hips, tilting them up as he pressed slowly inside.  His grey eyes were watching Tony’s face as he slowly thrust in and out, going a little deeper each time until he was finally all the way in, hips flush with Tony’s ass. He let out a sigh and rested his forehead against Tony’s and for a moment they just breathed together while Tony adjusted to the feeling of fullness.

    “God, you are so tight,” Bucky whispered hoarsely, drawing back a little just to thrust back in. His dog tags brushed Tony’s chest and the feeling of the cool metal made him shiver and tighten around Bucky’s dick, dragging a low moan out of him. For a few minutes Bucky kept his thrusts slow and easy, hooking an arm under Tony’s knee to adjust the angle until one thrust hit a spot that had Tony arching off the bed in surprise.

    “Holy Christ,” Tony panted, bringing his hands up from the mattress to bury one in Bucky’s hair and wrap the other one around the back of his thigh.  He realized that Bucky was trembling with the effort of being so slow. “Do that again.  Not every time, but…”

    Bucky grunted in agreement and spread his knees a little bit for leverage.  Then he made the mistake of looking down at where they were connected, where Tony was still hard and leaking precome, and he gritted his teeth around another low moan. “Look at you, split open by my cock.”  He paused for a moment, thrusting shallowly. Tony whimpered and tried to lift his hips to get him deeper, but Bucky held him still.  “I’m going to try to go slow,” Bucky managed, pulling out until he was almost out and then sliding all the way in again, “but I just want to let you know that I’m going to want to go again before I let you out of this bed.  I want you to fuck my face and come down my throat, then I want to come on your chest.” He dragged his eyes down Tony’s chest and back up as finally settled into a steady, mind blowing rhythm. “If that’s ok with you.”

    The mental image of that made Tony shiver again.  “Holy fuck, Sergeant,” he said, then his breath hitched as Bucky’s eyes grew hot and the thrusts grew harder when he said sergeant. “You’ve got a filthy mouth, and now I know one of your kinks.”

    “Oh, you have no idea.” Bucky leaned down to capture his mouth, practically bending Tony in half as he rode him hard.  Tony waited as long as he could to put a hand on his cock, loving the feel of Bucky’s body over his, moving inside him, but eventually the need to come was impossible to ignore.  He kept one hand in Bucky’s hair because every time he pulled on it Bucky made a noise in his chest that went right to Tony’s groin, but his other hand went to his cock, stroking it fast and almost rough.

    “God, Tony, I want to see you, do it, come on my cock,” Bucky said, voice ragged and thrusts growing irregular as he felt Tony tightening around him. He hitched Tony’s hips up higher and then every thrust was hitting his prostate. Tony’s eyes flew open on a low moan, pupils completely blown, as he hovered on the edge of orgasm.  Bucky squeezed his eyes tight and buried his face in Tony’s arched neck as his thrusts got deeper and rougher like he couldn’t get far enough inside. “I don’t know if I can wait, you feel so fucking good, God, Tony, you’re so good,” he said, breath hot against Tony’s skin, and then the tight coil of tension snapped, a rolling warmth spreading through Tony in waves as cock pulsed hot come on his hand and stomach, his body tightening around Bucky’s.  He threw his head back against the pillow with a groan, arching his body and pulling Bucky closer, riding hard on his cock as the waves of pleasure kept coming.

    In his ear Bucky was chanting increasingly desperate iterations of “fuck, Tony, fuck” and then he was shaking as he came, hand fisted in the sheet by Tony’s head as his body went rigid. Tony wrapped his arms around Bucky’s shoulders as his hips rolled shallowly as he came down off his orgasmic high, pulling sparks of sensation out of Tony’s oversensitive body that was right on the edge of too much.

    Finally as his breathing slowed Bucky withdrew carefully and took the condom off to throw away.  He snatched a towel off the back of a wooden chair and handed it to Tony to try to clean off come and lube.

    When he was done Tony stretched gratefully, scooting over a bit to get out of the wet spot. “Holy shit,” he said, watching Bucky towel himself off as well. “So does Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell include ‘don’t come knocking if the trailer’s rocking?’”

    Bucky huffed out a laugh as he stretched out beside Tony. “Yeah, sure.  This is the military, everything that might be fun is against the UCMJ. Sex, gambling, drinking. Laughing, probably. But no one here is going to turn me in as long as I’m not stupid about it.”

    Tony turned so that he was laying half on top of Bucky, ignoring the light sheen of sweat covering them both, brushing his lips idly over Bucky’s collarbone while his fingers traced patterns on his chest.  “Why do people call you Bucky?”

    “My middle name is Buchanan.  When I came to the 105, there were like five other Jameses so they got creative.”

    “James Buchanan Barnes,” Tony said thoughtfully.  He sat up and straddled Bucky’s waist so he could get both hands all over that skin while he had the chance. “Can I call you the Notorious JBB?”

    “Hey, don’t put that evil on me,” Bucky said, putting his hands behind his head and letting Tony explore to his heart’s content. “They never found Biggie’s killer.  What’s your middle name?”

    “Edward.  I also like long walks on the beach while watching the sun set, in case that was your next question.”  

    Bucky smiled and smacked him on the ass.  “Rude.  Do you really like walks on the beach? Sounds dull.  Besides, after a few times out here I’m done with sand for a while.”

    “Picnics in the park?”  Bucky made a face.  “Dinner and dancing?”

    “Sure, I like to dance,” Bucky said with a shrug.  “Not all my moves are horizontal.”

      “I’m sure.” Tony’s fingers wandered up to Bucky’s face and he pressed his thumb into the dimple in his chin.  “So are you ready for round two, or do you need more time, old man?”

***

    Tony only had one more day on FOB Ob before he got called back to the States for an emergency board meeting.  Bucky managed to convince Lt Rogers to let him escort Tony back to Kabul for his flight out of country, but eventually the time came that he had to let Tony walk away without being able to follow him.

    Tony threw his duffel bag on top of the stack of luggage for the loadmaster to put on the C-130 that was his ride back to civilization.  Bucky gathered his hands behind his back in an ‘at-ease’ posture, both to look professional and to keep himself from grabbing Tony and giving him a goodbye kiss that would do Hollywood proud.  Tony shoved his hands in his pockets for the same reason.  “So do you guys have email out here? Phones?”

    “Sure. Why?”

    “If you, you know, wanted to call or write sometime, I’d like to see you again.”

    “Of course,” Bucky said with surprise.  The nervousness in Tony eased at the warm affection in his eyes, the smile curving his full lips. Tony felt an answering grin light up his face. “Barring any unforeseen events, I should be going home in under a month, and then I’ll be due some time off.  I’d love to spend it with you.”

    Tony pulled a business card out of his pocket and scribbled his personal phone number and email on the back.  Bucky’s hands trailed across his palm as he took the card and put it in his chest pocket.  “I look forward to hearing from you, Sergeant Barnes.”

    "Sounds good, Mr. Stark.  You know, I hate to see you go," Bucky said in a low voice, hiding his heavy heart behind a cheeky grin, "but I am looking forward to watching you walk away."

    And he did stay there, watching as Tony boarded the plane and gave him a last wave, then watching until the plane disappeared into the sky.  He gave himself five minutes to kick the sand and feel sorry for himself before he went on with the rest of his tour.