#the way joe says YEAH just made my heart explode

[fallout-lou-begas]

who would you say is your favorite wrestler? also please keep filling my dash with these big hot women wrestlers thank you

honestly i think it's kris statlander (which means there will be plenty of big hot woman posting). she's not even been medically cleared for in-ring activity the entire time i've started watching AEW but i've been going nuts on youtube and stream sites watching basically every statlander match that i can just because she's so strong and cool and fun and her movement is so expressive and a joy just to watch and her fits are to die for and on top of everything else her technique is just absolutely killer. i think if she so much as looked at me i would explode with a crunchy poor stock explosion effect, for dyke reasons. it's funny because it's like, i miss her but haven't even seen her live on television! i miss her without even knowing her! anguish. agony. i've also been watching a lot of thunder rosa matches just because she's the other really crucial wrestler out on indefinite injury leave and my god she's a blast. goes apeshit. again, just so much fun to watch; like statlander she just has that je ne sais quoi where she could be doing the most basic possible moves in the ring but it's still compelling because she's the one doing them, and she's just got it. this is probably just a form of confirmation bias but digging into the backlogs for these two wrestlers, it really does throw into relief how badly the women's division is limping with all the injuries. but maybe if kris wasn't doing the double-suplexes that made people fall in love with her, her knees wouldn't have exploded so it's like...man.

as far as wrestlers that are Actually Wrestling Right Now: i do love that jamie hayter and she's basically carrying the women's division of AEW singlehandedly on her shoulders rn because the whole outcasts thing is just foul but takes up so much oxygen; mox for his rabid desire to bleed and fluid-bond with every man who enters his field of vision; bandido is a lucha who i've only seen in the ring once, against bryan danielson, but who was AMAZING and i want to see him and his fucking execution-shot gesture running attack over and over; MJF for being literally perfect in every way as a champion heel to the point where i genuinely hope darby, sammy, and jungleboy all fail to take the title because i just think it would be a huge downgrade in entertainment value; samoa joe for being DA KING OF TELEVISION; stu grayson for being apeshit (and dark order in general is always such an entertaining stable); brian cage for being probably the epitome to me of the ferocious kind of Terminator heel who just destroys people, like the motherfucker looks like a miniboss in a batman video game; keith lee is a wrestler that i fell in love with basically immediately when he showed up to diss chris jericho and then i fell in double-love with him in the ring when he gave chris a fuckin polite little kissaroo on the forehead between blows.

honorable mentions go to Wardlow who i hated at first but who has sucked so much that he has endeared me. getting his car broken into. losing the title immediately. my ex-husband pointed out that he's a hired goon without a boss, like a stray cat, and it broke my little heart. the poor guy is acting out! he's troubled! there's also a lot of women wrestlers that i would love to see a lot more of like willow nightingale and nyla rose but either they're all wrestling on friday nights (i only really watch wednesdays) or the outcasts' feud with jamie hayter is really just burying opportunities for Literally Anything Else to happen in the women's division. jade cargill is an absolute beast but she has literally run out of people to fight so i hope taya valkyrie or something finally takes the belt away (as it's looking like) so that jade can do something else beside mulch regional guests. and yeah i think i do like britt baker as a wrestler, the dentist gimmick is good to me, she's good in the ring, and i know the legit feud with thunder rosa is messy and shitty but whatever, i like her matches (including THE hardcore cage match WITH thunder rosa pre-feud). honestly when rosa comes back, maybe they patch things up face-to-face or maybe they don't, but in either case i'm expecting a fucking barnburner of a grudge match that'll make the hardcore cage match look like a kindergarten classroom

[ellus986]

Could I ever forget? Part 7

Joe from Mammal x reader

Warning: kissing, suprises, unprotected sex

Joe ties his tie, and looks at you through the mirror. “Do you think they sumise something?”

“I don’t think so…” you mumble with a bright smile on your face. “You look buff!”

“Sorry for the black eye…” he kisses your cheek.

“You only knew about this date for a month, but boxing was and will be like this. You rock it though!” You smooth his face. “Get your family, we already put Dominic’s seat in Alice’s car!”

He kisses you and lefts. Alice looks out of the window. “I like your new car!”

“It was good we could sell the old one, and both of us got a raise. It is lucky this house was grandpa’s so I’m in no debt for it…”

“It would have been hard with a newborn!” She chuckles.

“I would have been living with my family still.” You chuckle.

Joe’s point of view:

He picks up his family his mother and his three brothers. She looks him up lifting her brows, but says nothing.

“I told you this is a fancy lunch invitation!” He mumbles, blushing.

“You look great! But your eye…”

“I know, should be more carefull at boxing…”

“You are boxing again?” She smiles at him.

“Yeah!”

“Great, you had your talent to it!”

He parks the car and sees your parents there. They are looking confused too as they see him. “You really meant the fancy part!” Mumbles your father.

“You look great!” Comes from your mother for his suprise. When you walk to the restaurant’s balcony everyone’s eyes at him. “What does an officiant do here, waving at you?”

“That is the part I should say suprise?” Joe looks really akward.

“I knew it!” Her mother chuckles. “The tie was okay, but the suit… the suit made it obvious!”

“Are you serious?” Your mother looks a little offended.

“Like my son isn’t enough for your family?” Asks Joe’s mom.

“Stop! This day is not about any of you! We want this, and you need to accept it, if any of you can’t, there is the door, because if Y/N steps in and anyone makes a scene I won’t be nice!” Joe stands out for himself, for you.

“You are right son!” His mother smooths some hair out of his face.

“If you thought this through…” comes from your mother.

“We did, I asked her to marry me months ago, I want her to be my wife, I want to make her life the best she ever could get, I want her to be the happiest she can be!” His heart is beating so fast it is almost escaping his chest. Everyone looks behind him, and as he turns you stand there. His heart stops, just to beat even faster again. You look fantastic. You had a lacy dress on what showed off all your curves he loved. Like there was any he didn’t. You smile at him and he smiles back, with a heart that is about to explode, as you walk to him, to get married.

Your point of view:

“You are officially husband and wife!” You hear the words you were waiting for all day. “You may kiss the bride!”

This kiss was different. Never in your life have you kissed before infront of your family, or if you did they weren’t watching you. It was a promise, it was everything.

You chuckle into his lips. Your husband. As you sit down to eat and your mother smiles at the two of you, you kiss your husband’s cheek and wishper into his ears. “What did you do? Charmed her, or threatened her?”

“To be fair I told everyone where is the door, because if they make I scene in front of you, I won’t be nice!” He bits your ear.

“It worked!” You smile at him, eyes shining like diamonds.

The lunch went down very easily looking at the fact it was a suprise wedding, and your mother even offered to take Dominic for the night, so you two can be alone for your first night as a married couple. You happily took the opportunity as you haven’t been alone since may, and it already was september.

So you are already on your way home, thinking about how you will get his shirt down button by button.

“What are you thinking about?” He smooths your nape not taking his eyes off of the road.

“How to undress you…” you wishper with a half smile on your face.

“I was thinking the same!” He chuckles. You run your fingers on his thigh. “Don’t make me stop, I want this first to be special, after I made the other so horrible.”

“It wasn’t horrible, and yet we are here, married, who cares about past heart breaks?” You giggle.

“Me! I want it to out shine that night!”

“Than there is your chance!” You kiss his cheek before getting out of the car. “Than take it!” You wink at him closing the door.

“Fucking hell I will!” He runs after you as he closes the car and gets you in his arms as you just opened the door. “Did you think you can skip this part?”

“No, my sweet husband!” You kiss him as he walks in with you in his arms. Your heart is about to explode. You loved him since you knew him, and were in love with him since puberty hit both of you, you had the rockiest road to lead you here, still you wouldn’t change anything. “You know I wouldn’t change anything that happend right?”

“How did I deserve you?” He places little kisses on your lips, on your cheek and on your forhead as he puts you down on the bed.

“With hard work!” You smile at him as he is about to light some candles. “I know it wasn’t fairy tale, but this is what made us us, this is what made you the stronges, kindest, most carrying person I ever known. It is a plesure to watch you grow…”

“You always speak about my growth, but you came a long way too!“ he unzips your dress. “It is a plesure to watch your growth, and still seeing that little girl I first feel in love!” He kisses you softly getting the dress down your shoulder. His eyes are filled with love, and lust as you let the fabric slide slowly down your body. “I could watch you all night!” He bits his bottom lip.

“Let me see you!” You wishper getting his pants down. “Hmmm, I should have guessed you had no underwear on…” you bit your lip.

“Underwear when you are around?” He chuckles into your mouth. You unbutton his shirt slowly, kissing his neck, his chest feeling how fast his heart is beating, kissing his abs, but before you could kiss that sweet line of hair he stops you. “No, It’s my turn first!” He pushes you into the mattress.

He runs his finger slowly on your stomach making you shiver, kissing you sweet and gentle as his fingers are softly playing with your vulva. You moan into his mouth as he pushes one of his fingers into you. “You are this wet for me?” You nod. “Just for me?”

“Only for you… always and for…” you almost scream as he curls the one finger in the right spot. How much he knew your body. “…ever!”

“I love the tast of your excitement!” He wishpers into your ear before getting between your legs and you groan from so deep you don’t even recognise your own voice. When he kisses your vulva pushing one more finger in at the same time, you lose it and scream, moan who knows what. “You know you make me hard with all that?” He mumbles into your pubic, making you cum. “God, how sweet you are!” He wishpers between licks, as you let your head fall back and all the breathy moans comes out of your mouth. His rough fingers are discovering your body, while the two what you keep caged is driving you crazy, together with all of his tongue work. You get off of him and try to regulate your breathing before pushing him on the edge of the bed and getting on your knees. You let your gasp play with the head of his cock as you run your fingers on it. He shivers and moans into his hand.

“Nah, you can be loud!” You say before letting your lips cover his member.

His moans are contiguous, his fingers are playing with your hair, and you can feel how tense they are trying not to lead you, even you liked the rough lover he was.

“I want to be inside you!” He pulls you up and pushes you into the mattress. His fingers are trailing down your body before he would tease you with pushing the head of his cock in and out your folds. “It slides in so easily!” He wishpers into your ear, what is more likely a moan than anything. He works his way in slowly, moving in and out, in and out driving you crazy.

“Please!”

“Can I be once a soft lover?” He kisses your cheek and only than your lips.

“No!” You wishper into his mouth. “Please, faster!“ You moan and he does as you asked.

“I won’t last long like this…” he groans into your neck.

“I don’t want you to!” You scream as you cum. “Joe!” He keeps going faster and faster and you almost lose your mind, when he trust even harder and stays in shivering.

“Y/N!” He moans. As he slowly slides down you, he smooths some hair out of your face. “I love you, wife!”

“I love you, husband!”

______________________

You are standing infront of the mirror in the bathroom, washing your face, with a shaky hand. Dominic is still asleep, but Joe is in the kitchen drinking his coffee. He made you one already, steaming next to his.

“Tell me how all the drugs and alcohol did not effect your fertility at all!” You giggle.

“What are you talking about?” He looks at you confused.

“Do you remember that one night… our first night as a married couple?” You toss a pregnancy test infront of him. “You know, just one night using no protection, what can possibly happen… turns out history repeats itself!”

“You kidding me!” He looks at you with a big smile.

“You mean that we had sex without protection twice in our life, and we will have two kids? Yeah sounds like a joke, but it is not…” you giggle, as he grabs your hip and holds you close.

“Oh woman, I can’t ask for more in my life!” He runs his finger in your hair and kisses you deep.

“So you are happy…”

“You are not?” He looks at you with brows in the air.

“I’m, suprisingly I’m! I thought I would need more time before an another child, but with you on my side nothing is impossible!” You kiss him, and he puts his hand on your stomach.

“You can’t get ride of me this time!” He plants kisses on your belly.

“I’m not planing on doing that!” You smile at your husband, the father of your two child.

The end

Story tag: @giogiorabbit

[nevermindirah]

Things I love about James Tiberius Copley

*Tiberius isn't his canon middle name. Nile calls him that in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, where Nile & Copley friendship was the sneak-attack best part of writing that fic. (Background detail I decided just now: Nile used to watch a lot of Star Trek reruns with her grandparents.)

Ok. James Copley. The antagonist with a heart of... actually a significant amount of gold alloyed with the bullshit.

His wife died two years ago and he sounds wrecked describing her late-stage symptoms. He starts with "she couldn't TALK." He cared about what that woman had to say. He quit his high-status high-salary job because of her illness — the movie doesn't specify whether it was to care for her, to spend more time with her, or just because of his grief, but the way Chiwetel portrays him, I think he was part of her care team.

I know a lot of people with professional experience at least somewhat like Copley's and that shit is beyond toxic, interpersonally and structurally. You never know whether someone who's pleasant and engaging like Copley is at that table in Marrakech will turn out to be an unrepentant power-hungry monster who's charming only as far as it'll get them something they want. We've seen plenty of those stories and many of them are interesting but I love that Copley's story isn't that. He has genuinely good intentions: the end of disease. He just doesn't fucking think about the downsides of his chosen strategy.

It completely tracks with my experience of folks who've spent years in "for the greater good" jobs related to the US government that he would do something this terrible, with such obviously predictable negative consequences, having made no contingencies whatsoever to prevent or even limit those obviously predictable negative consequences, while genuinely believing himself to be doing the right thing for the right reasons. Not seeing the trees for the forest thinking is one of the most frustrating and heartbreaking things about my industry, and seeing that play out here in the form of Copley failing to give adequately clear instructions to the kill floor mercenaries and then failing to anticipate Merrick's extremely strong economic motivation to lock away the Guard for a long-ass time, and then seeing fandom explode with very reasonable "wow Copley and Booker are complete idiots" — like, yeah, that's exactly why a lot of government programs don't work anywhere near as well as they should. Can't see the trees for the forest thinking. It's not just white supremacy and capitalism that means we can't have nice things (though that's A LOT of why), it's also that running massively complex projects requires attention to the micro as well as the macro that plenty of smart and ambitious and at-least-somewhat-well-meaning people like James Copley just completely fail at. They believe their own bullshit and believe their golden ambitions will be enough. The text doesn't super encourage this analysis, but it's there, and it's a hell of a thing to be present even under the surface in a summer blockbuster.

Copley's biggest flaw is assuming everyone shares his moral worldview. He seems unperturbed by the presumably local South Sudanese people who are paid to be slaughtered by the Guard in the opening setup, just how the CIA trained him to be callous to "necessary" loss of life. He insists to Andy and then to Nile that immortality is a gift to the world, and it seems it hadn't occurred to him until Nile says so that it wasn't his gift to give. When Andy isn't healing from Booker's gunshot, Copley is immediately concerned for her welfare (ironic as hell considering he arranged these circumstances) and he's disturbed that Merick isn't, despite Copley's own lack of concern for all the dead mercenaries this plan of his has racked up so far. He's shocked and outraged when he finds out Merrick intends to hold the Guard captive indefinitely when it's just the most obvious fucking thing for a CEO to "protect intel" from competitors. Anticipating where other people he's working with might have values and goals other than his own is not a skill Copley has, because it doesn't occur to him that moral perspectives other than his own even exist.

What interesting flaws to give an antagonist turned support character, especially one who could be a secondary protagonist and even a foil to Nile in the sequel.

My favorite moments of this flawed, squishy mortal person so lovingly portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood:

The aforementioned "She couldn't talk, at the end, my wife. She couldn't breathe." Copley SWEETHEART

The way his fascination with Andy and the Guard borders on child-like wonder. He's not childISH in any way of course, what I mean here is that there's a purity in his reverence for what Andy, Joe, Nicky, and Booker have done with their immortality. His worldview sees some people as more worthy than others of making decisions that will affect millions, and that's fucked up, and it's definitely informing how he treats Andy. But still, the sheer awe in his voice when he talks about the impact Andy has had on the world.

The way Copley's all ready to risk his life and throw down to rescue the Guard, but he immediately gives it up when Nile reminds him that of the two of them she's the only one who would make it out alive. For a dude who was in the damn CIA for however long, he sure does take a young woman's expertise at face value, no ego posturing whatsoever, and I LOVE THAT FOR HIM.

The way Copley says "Good luck, Ms. Freeman" gives me fucking chills. The RESPECT in his tone. He clocks about as fast as Andy does that Nile is her successor.

[fanfics4all]

Different Time

Request: Yes / No  MORE Savitar PLZ... I LOVED IT SO MUCH! @camdachs​

Requests are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Barry Allen (Savitar) x Fem!Reader 

Word count: 4505

Warnings: Some sad shit

Y/N: Your Name 

Y/L/N: Your Last Name

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK! 

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you! 

Masterlist 

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

In a world of Meta-humans, soulmates aren’t the craziest thing. Everyone has their soulmate’s name written on their wrist and mine said Barry Allen. I fell in love with the name Barry, I could only hope my soulmate liked mine just as much. Before the particle accelerator exploded I had a normal life, but once it sent the dark matter into the air I gained the power to create illusions. When I first realized it scared me. Lucky for me the Flash had rescued me from myself. Someone had attacked me on my way home and before I even realized I had created illusions of strong men to scare the guy off. However, I couldn’t stop it even after he ran off. I sat on the cold floor cowering in fear of something I never realized I made. The Flash ran in and slid to a stop. He looked around and started trying to fight the men, but found he couldn’t actually hit them. 

“What the…” I heard him say and then he looked at me. He kneeled down and placed his hand on my shoulder. 

“Hey, you’re alright. They’re not real.” He said and I looked into his blue eyes, and suddenly I felt safe. All the men disappeared and The Flash looked around confused. 

“Guys, I think we have a new meta.” He said and I looked at him confused. 

“Right, we’re on our way.” He said and stood up, offering me his hand. 

“Come with me, me and my team can help you with your powers.” He said. 

“But I don’t have any powers.” I said, still confused. 

“I believe you do.” He said, but I shook my head. 

“What’s your name?” He asked. 

“Y/N.” I answered and he smiled. 

“Well Y/N, I believe you have powers and we can help you with them.” He said. 

“Trust me, and if I’m wrong I’ll take you home.” He said and I sighed. 

“Alright…” I said, taking his hand. Within seconds we were at S.T.A.R. Labs. There were a few others there were four other people in the room, which I assumed were team Flash. 

“This is the girl that triggered the Meta alarm?” A guy with long black hair asked. 

“Yep.” Flash answered. 

“I’m sorry, but there’s no way it could be me, I don’t have any powers.” I said. 

“In denial, interesting.” A man that looked exactly like Harrison Wells said and my eyes widened. 

“Y-You’re Harrison Wells! B-But you’re dead!” I said getting freaked out. Suddenly creepy looking shadows filled the room and I backed against the wall in fear. 

“W-What’s happening?” I asked, scared out of my mind. 

“Hey Y/N, calm down. They’re not real, you’re making them.” The Flash said and I shook my head with my eyes glued shut. 

“N-No! Impossible!” I said. I felt someone gently grab my shoulders and I looked up to see The Flash, except his mask was off. 

“Hey, just look at me okay? You’re okay, the shadows aren’t real.” He said and I once again felt safe. The shadows disappeared and I took a deep breath. 

“Whoa.” A girl with dark brown hair said. 

“That was awesome!” The guy with long hair shouted. 

“I-I have powers?” I asked and The Flash nodded. 

“We’ll help you learn your way around them. I’d like to do some tests so we can figure out exactly what you can do.” A light brown hair girl said. 

“I think introductions are in order first. I’m H.R. Wells, Earth 19’s Harrison Wells.” The man that looked just like Harrison Wells, but more hipster like said. 

“I’m Cisco Ramon.” The long-haired guy said. 

“I’m Iris West.” The girl with dark brown hair said. 

“I’m Dr. Caitlin Snow.” The girl with light brown hair said. 

“And my name is Barry Allen.” The Flash said and my eyes widened. 

“W-What?” I asked and he looked at me with furrowed brows. 

“My name, it’s Barry Allen.” He said again and my heart skipped a beat. 

“Oh My God, it’s you!” I said and hugged him. Everyone in the room was confused and Barry gently pulled me off him.

“I’m sorry?” He asked, still lost. I pulled up my sleeve and showed him that written on my wrist was Barry Allen. He looked at it confused then at Iris. 

“Um… I’m sorry Y/N, but I already have a soulmate.” He said and I furrowed my brow. He lifted his sleeve and showed me his wrist said Iris West. 

“B-But this says you're my soulmate?” I asked confused. 

“I’m really sorry Y/N but it must be someone else with the same name.” He said and I frowned. 

“Come with me Y/N, let’s get some tests done.” Caitlin said and pulled me along with her. How could the world be wrong? Barry Allen is my soulmate, then why did he have someone else’s name on his wrist?

Once team flash helped me control my power they asked me to join them. I agreed, but it was rocky at first. I was very awkward around Barry and Iris for a long time, but learned how to deal with my pain and sadness. Now that I was part of the team I was notified when a baddie was around town. This time it was another speedster who called himself Savitar. His goal was to kill Iris, but we didn’t know why. Barry and the team decided that I would be a powerful asset in his defeat. Once I learned my powers I learned that I can make my illusions feel so real to other people. We all knew when and where Savitar was supposed to kill Iris, now it was up to me to save Barry’s soulmate. Everyday up until the event I would practice making my Iris illusion as real as possible, spending a lot of time with her. It hurt me to spend time with her, but I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to see Barry happy. When I finally thought I perfected my illusion of Iris, it was time to test it. Barry was in the lab alone and I knew no one else was here. I took a deep breath and focused on creating Iris. I sent my illusion into the room and focused on replicating Iris’s voice.

“Barry?” Illusion Iris asked. Barry turned around and furrowed his brow. 

“Iris? I thought you weren’t here?” He asked. 

“I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I just needed to see you” Iris answered. 

“You know I won’t let anything happen to you, the team won’t let anything happen to you.” He said, gently holding her hands. 

“I know, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it.” Iris said and Barry sighed. He brought Iris into his arms and held her tight. 

“How did things go with Y/N?” He asked and I knew now was the time to show him. 

“I think it went pretty well.” I said as I walked out from around the corner. 

“Y/N?” He asked and I took a deep breath. Iris disappeared and Barry looked at me confused. 

“T-That wasn’t Iris?” He asked and I bit my lip, shaking my head. 

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to test it. Make sure it was real enough to fool Savitar.” I said, I felt guilty for tricking Barry like that. 

“No, it’s okay. I really thought it was Iris.” He said with a smile. 

“Are we sure Savitar isn’t going to see this coming? I mean he does have all your memories right?” I asked, worried we were just walking into another trap. 

“Savitar has mentioned everyone but you. I don’t think he knows about you.” He answered and I nodded. 

“If you’re sure.” I said and went to walk out, but Barry stopped me. 

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked and I nodded. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I answered, lying through my teeth. 

“I don’t believe you.” He said with a small smile. 

“It was just hard spending all that time with Iris.” I said and looked down at my wrist. Barry grabbed my hand and I looked up at him. 

“I know and I’m really sorry Y/N. But thank you so much for doing this. Iris is my soulmate and I know you’ll find yours one day.” He said and I faked a smile as best I could. 

“I know.” I said. 

“I’m gonna go practice more.” I added and left. There were only a few hours left and everything had to be perfect, for Barry’s sake… 

After a little while of practicing in the lab I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to go to Earth-2 where Iris was. At least if I was practicing my illusions there and Savitar somehow found her I could protect her. I hopped through the portal and when I got there everyone held weapons my way. 

“Whoa! Don’t shoot! It’s just me!” I cried and everyone put their weapons down with a sigh. 

“What the hell are you doing here, Y/N?” Joe asked. 

“Sorry I should have given a warning. I figured I should be here in case Savitar figures out where Iris is, at least he can take my illusion instead of the real one.” I said and everyone looked at each other. 

“Look, I just have a bad feeling and I think it’s better if I’m here.” I said and everyone agreed. So here I was in Harrison Well’s lab, keeping Illusion Iris around. 

An hour later an alarm was going off and I broke my concentration. I looked around at everyone, who looked panicked. 

“What’s going on?” I asked. 

“Savitar’s coming.” Harrison answered and my eyes widened. 

“What?” Iris asked. 

“Now. Joe.” Harrison said walking the opposite way of me. 

“Iris, stay behind me.” Joe said, taking out his gun. 

“Dad.” Iris said. 

“He gets to you through my dead body. Harry, Wally.” Joe said. Everyone was at the ready and I went and hid behind the portal. Savitar came through a moment later and I took a deep breath trying to concentrate. 

“I got him.” Wally said and ran at him. Savitar ended up beating him and it was just Joe and Harry left, shooting him. His suit powered down and suddenly a guy that looked just like Barry, but with a burn mark on his face, stood behind Iris. 

“Oh God, it’s really true.” Joe said. 

“Yes, it is.” Savitar said. 

“Aim that gun at me and I’ll kill you.” He added. 

“Listen to me. You were my son once. Whatever I did to make you feel this way… I’m sorry. Please Barry.” Joe begged. 

“No. That’s not my name.” Savitar said. 

“Barry.” 

“That’s not my name!” He growled. I knew what I had to do. I’ve never tried this before, but I had to try now. I concentrated all my energy into my power and opened my eyes. 

“Please! Stop, okay? I will go with you, just please, do not kill them.” I said as Iris. 

“I’m not gonna kill them now. They… need to watch you die first.” He said. 

“Baby, no.” Joe said. 

“Dad, it’s okay.” I said as Iris. 

“Oh look, Joe. She’s accepted her fate. You should too.” He said and suddenly I was being dragged away. 

It was an hour later and I was now standing where Iris was to die, except I was Iris. Savitar held me and Barry watched from the grass. 

“Flash. This is it. Now the moment is upon us. My ascension to become a God.” Savitar said. 

“Not tonight.” Barry said. 

“Show me you’re the hero.” He said and pushed me to the ground. 

“Let’s see what happens.” Savitar said. This was the moment I could get away and replace myself with an illusion, but I still had to keep Iris safe where she was. This was really going to test me, but I had to do it so everyone could be safe. 

“I’m gonna stop you.” Barry said and in a second he returned with the cannon they were working on. He shot at Savitar, but of course Savitar escaped it. I quickly replaced myself with an illusion and kept focus on where I had Iris. I felt myself growing weak from how much I was pushing myself, but I couldn’t stop. Not until this was all over. Barry kept trying to hit Savitar and finally did, but it didn’t work. 

“What? What? What? Why didn’t it work?” Barry asked, dropping the cannon. 

“I spent an eternity in a trap just like that. You think I didn’t know how to prevent it from happening again? He asked as he held up an orb. 

“The Philosopher’s Stone.” Barry said. 

“It’s made of calcified Speed Force energy, and you gave it to me.” He said 

“No… guys… guys! Joe!” Barry screamed.

“You stuck me with Speed Force for an eternity of hell. Now, welcome to yours.” He said, picking up the illusion Iris. 

“No. Don’t do this.” Barry begged. 

“Don’t do this!” He begged again. 

“Now, finally, I am free of you.” Savitar said, getting ready to stab Iris. 

“Barry.” Iris said. 

“I’m begging you, just-” 

“Barry!” Iris cut him off. 

“You lose, Barry.” Savitar said and stabbed Iris through the chest. She fell to the ground and Savitar ran off. 

“Iris. Iris. Iris. Iris.” Barry said her name over and over again, then started crying. I knew it was time to end his suffering. I let Iris disappear from his arms and Barry looked around confused. 

“W-What?” He asked, confused. I walked out and fell to the floor. 

“She’s safe Barry, she’s safe.” I said breathless and Barry ran to my side. 

“Y/N? What? How?” He asked. 

“It worked Barry… It worked.” I whispered and passed out. 

When I woke up everyone was surrounding me. They had smiles on their faces and I sat up. Barry held Iris with the biggest smile. 

“Thank you Y/N. Now we need to finish this.” Barry said. 

“How did you do it?” Joe asked. 

“I was practicing something that was advanced and I wasn’t sure I could do, but turns out I can. I was there when Iris was taken, but I knew if he took an illusion through that portal it would just disappear when he reached the other end, so I became Iris and switched places with her, keeping her in a pocket dimension. Savitar wouldn’t be able to find her, no one but me would know where she was and everyone would be safe. I thought I would die that night, but then Savitar pushed me to the ground and I was able to replace myself with an illusion. It was hard to keep everything going and it was taking every bit of my energy to keep each illusion up, but it paid off.” I said and everyone looked at me with wide eyes. 

“You could have gotten yourself killed!” Barry scolded me and I shrugged. 

“But you would have your soulmate.” I said and everyone was silent. 

“Anyway, Savitar is still around right? We should probably get on that.” I said and got out of bed, heading into the control room before anyone could stop me. 

Barry ended up going somewhere and we were all left waiting around. After a while Barry walked in and we all looked his way. Not far behind him was Savitar. You could feel the tension in the room, but my heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was because he looked almost identical to Barry, or maybe it was fear. I honestly couldn’t tell. 

“You make a move toward Iris…” Joe started. 

“He won’t. Killing Iris… won’t save him now, not anymore.” Barry said. 

“Where is Cisco? Where’s Caitlin?” Julian asked, clearly pissed. 

“They’re safe.” Barry answered. 

“I was asking him.” Julian said, looking at Savitar. Savitar looked around and walked towards me. 

“Show me that you can help me. Then I will tell you where your friends are.” He said. 

“You tell us now, or you go up in smoke.” Joe said. 

“This is bloody insanity. What is he doing here? He’s a monster.” Julian said. I walked closer to him, I felt a strange connection that I just couldn’t explain. 

“Hey! Stop! Guys, it’s okay.” Barry said, quieting everyone. 

“Y/N, stay away from him.” Wally said, clearly still scared of him. Savitar couldn’t face me and I was confused. 

“Look at me.” I whispered. 

“Please.” I whispered and he looked at me slowly. I gently placed my hand on his burnt cheek and felt a tingling on my wrist. He closed his eyes and mine slightly widened. 

“We’re gonna help you, I promise.” I said and took my hand away from his face. He looked at me sadly, then over at Barry, then back at me. 

“Thank you.” He whispered and I nodded with a small smile. 

“Right. Well, since our guest here has both of our resident scientists hostage, what temporal problem can we help you with?” Julian asked. 

“Tracy built the Speed Force trap. Maybe she has an idea.” Wally suggested.

“Tracy’s our best bet.” Barry said. 

“Am I?” Tracy asked from the doorway. 

“Because last I checked, it didn’t work.” She said and walked off. 

“I shouldn’t have come here.” Savitar said and I looked up at him and shook my head. 

“No, she just needs someone to convince her.” I said. 

“I think we know someone who could get through to her.” Iris said with a small smile. Everyone left except for me and Savitar. 

“Y/N? Are you coming?” Barry asked, peeking his head in after a moment. 

“I’m going to stay with him.” I said and pulled my eyes away from Savitar to look at Barry. I could tell he was worried, but I gave him a reassuring smile. 

“I’ll be fine.” I said and he nodded, leaving to follow the others. Savitar walked silently into the medical lab and I followed. 

“It’s strange being back here.” he said after a moment of looking around. 

“You remember S.T.A.R Labs?” I asked curiously. 

“I remember everything.” He said. 

“This is where we came up with the cerebral inhibitor to use against DeVoe.” He said and I looked at him confused. 

“Who’s that?” I asked. 

“You guys haven’t gotten there yet.” He said. 

“So you remember me?” I asked and he nodded. 

“I remember you, Y/N.” He said and the way he said my name just made my heart flutter. 

“Then why didn’t you see me using my powers to save Iris?” I asked and he sighed. 

“Your powers.” He answered and I furrowed my brow. 

“You don’t know?” He asked and I shook my head. 

“Know what?” I asked and he chuckled. 

“You’re not there yet either.” He said and I was more confused. 

“Y/N, you learn that you can manipulate memories. I guess you do it without knowing how yet.” He said and my eyes widened. 

“I can do that?” I asked and he nodded. He walked up to me and gently touched my cheek. I felt the tingling on my wrist again and wondered if he felt the same. 

“I missed you so much.” He whispered and I just stared at him.

“I wish this wasn’t how we met, but I’m so happy to have you back.” He said. 

“W-What do you mean?” I whispered, not trusting myself to speak any louder. I was honestly scared that this was just another illusion I didn’t know I was making. 

“I may not go by Barry Allen anymore, but, unfortunately, that is still my name.” He said and my eyes widened. 

“You mean?” I asked and he smiled. He pulled his hand away and revealed his wrist to me. It said Y/N Y/L/N on it and I gasped, looking up into his eyes. 

“You’re my soulmate?” I whispered and he smiled. 

“That’s exactly the same reaction you had when we first met.” He chuckled. I threw my arms around his neck and placed my lips on his. I couldn’t help myself, I’ve been looking for my soulmate my whole life and thought the world had made a mistake. 

“That’s also what you did when you found out.” He chuckled when we pulled apart. 

“I thought the world made a mistake.” I whispered. 

“They didn’t, Barry just didn’t create me yet.” He said and I looked at him confused. 

“You said everyone gave up on you… Did I?” I asked while biting my lip. 

“No, you were the only one.” He said, gently caressing my cheek. 

“Then what happened to make you want to kill Iris?” I asked and he gulped, pulling away from me. 

“There was a fire. I wasn’t fast enough to save you… Barry wasn’t fast enough to save you… I was alone and I knew the only way I could have you back in my arms is if I became a God of speed.” He said and I heard his voice break a bit. It explains the scar. 

“Are we interrupting something?” Barry asked and I looked to see him and Iris standing near the door. 

“No, so how’s this gonna work? Where will I live?” Savitar asked, acting completely fine. 

“What do you mean?” Barry asked, confused. 

“Are Wally and I gonna be bunkmates? Am I supposed to just rejoin Team Flash, fight some Rogues? What kind of life were you thinking I’d lead?” He asked. 

“I-I hadn’t gotten that far yet.” Barry stammered. 

“How do we explain me at the wedding? And do I sit bride-side or groom-side?” He asked, seeming lighter. 

“Ah, look, I mean, we don’t have all the answers. You know, we’re gonna figure it out. Together.” Barry answered and I smiled at Savitar. 

“No. Not together. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life with them, but I remember asking you to marry me. And I remember you dying.” He said to me and my eyes widened. 

“I can’t do this.” He said and went to leave. 

“Hey, yes you can, okay? I will be here for you and we can get to know each other all over again.” I said with a smile. 

“I wasn’t fast enough.” He said and I took a deep breath. 

“We can fix that when the time comes, but right now we need to focus on you. Where are Cisco and Caitlin?” I asked. He looked at Barry and Iris, then back at me. 

“I’ll bring them home.” He said then smiled. He ran off and suddenly an alarm went off. 

“What is it?” Iris asked as we all walked into the control room. 

“There’s energy radiating from the breach room.” Harry answered. 

“And it’s not breach energy.” H.R. said. 

“It’s the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s releasing all it’s energy.” Julian said. 

“Savitar.” Barry said. 

“It looks like it’s gonna blow.” Joe said. 

“Wally. Get everybody out.” Barry said and suddenly we were all on the street. Energy exploded from the lab and we all looked on with wide eyes. 

Barry took us to his and Iris’s apartment and Cisco came in fighting with his soulmate. 

“Guys?” Iris said and he looked over at us. 

“Oh my God! I thought something happened to you guys. Two-Face told me you guys were dead.” Cisco said. 

“We’re okay…” Barry said and everyone smiled at him. 

“Gypsy…” Barry said when she walked down the steps. 

“Gypsy.” Cisco repeated. 

“Guys.” Gypsy said. 

“Gypsy.” Julian greeted. 

“Harry.” Cisco looked over. 

“Here to help.” He answered. 

“Good.” Cisco responded. 

“I know what he’s up to.” Cisco said and sat everyone down to explain Savitar’s plan. Barry was going to go to the place and I knew I needed to go too. 

“I’m coming with you.” I said and everyone looked at me. 

“No way Y/N, it’s too dangerous.” Barry said and I shook my head. 

“I wasn’t asking. Either you take me there or I’ll just use a pocket dimension to travel there.” I said, crossing my arms.

“Pocket dimension? You can do that? She can do that?” Cisco asked. 

“Apparently she can.” Julian said and Barry sighed. 

“Why do you want to go?” He asked and I bit my lip. 

“Because, he’s my soulmate.” I answered and everyone’s eyes widened. 

“Maybe we can use that against him!” Julian said and I narrowed my eyes at him. 

“I’m not going to help any of you destroy my soulmate! Barry, please…” I begged and he sighed. 

“How are we going to stop him from becoming a God then?” He asked and I looked at Harry. 

“No, Y/N we can’t.” He said and everyone was confused. 

“Can’t what?” Iris asked. 

“A long time ago I had asked Y/N to help me create a device that theoretically keeps a clone alive. Such as a time paradox. But after two test runs I deemed it too dangerous for both parties involved.” He explained. 

“Why were you testing this?” Cisco asked. 

“I thought two of me might help me.” Harry shrugged. 

“Please Harry, we never tested it on speeders, maybe that will change the outcome!” I said and he shook his head. 

“It’s too risky, I’m sorry Y/N.” He said and I sighed. 

I knew I shouldn’t use my powers to trick my friends, but I needed to keep my soulmate alive. I wasn’t going to let them take him away from me. When I got there Barry and the team were fighting Killer Frost and Savitar. None of them noticed me, but I watched as Barry pushed Savitar out of his suit. They were fighting and I watched as Barry pulled the blade out and held it in the air over Savitar. 

“Barry! No!” I cried and ran in front of Savitar. 

“Y/N?” Both Barry’s asked. 

“There’s another way for you to live. For us to be together.” I said and pulled out the device Harry and I made. 

“Here. Just stay still.” I said and focused my energy, sending a blast into Savitar and he groaned. Savitar fell to the ground and I gently shook him. 

“Hey Savitar?” I asked with tears in my eyes. 

“Barry?” I whispered and pulled his head into my chest. 

“Please don’t leave me…” I begged with tears falling down my face. 

“I said the same thing when I found you…” Savitar said and I looked down at him with wide eyes. 

“Y-You’re alive…” I whispered with a smile. 

“I’m alive. Thanks to you.” He whispered and gently caressed my face. I pulled him in for a kiss and held him tightly. 

“I told you all it would work!” I said to everyone when we pulled apart and Savitar chuckled. 

“Everyone should know not to doubt you.” He said and I smiled down at him. Now I have my soulmate forever, just like how it’s meant to be.

Tag list: @les-bio-lie​ @tashy-bear​ @ashwarren32​ @hollie-blogs-blog1​ @schisbro87​ @lover-of-books-and-teas​ @nerdygaloresposts​ @teenwolfbitches2​ @genius2050​ @drw0301bieber​ @lady-of-lies​ @ravenmoore14​ @ravenempress101​ @cillianchamp​ @rowanthomasknapp​ @rachelxwayne​  @bruisedfists-and-splitlips

[stillbandofbrothersthirsty]

Ok, something fun, maybe a brawl in there over the lady - 9 & B & liebgott

Oo I lovveee this combo!! & this was the perfect one-shot for me to throw in some zaddy Welsh 😏

“What the hell’s he doing?” Joe Liebgott slammed his glass down in frustration.

“Hey, Lieb, relax,” Moe Alley said.

Liebgott shook his head then quickly picked his glass back up for another drink. He knew he shouldn’t be so upset, but his blood was boiling. This idiot was being so disrespectful. Liebgott knew he should probably look away, but his eyes were glued on the I company soldier who had walked in with Grace but whose hands were all over some other dame.

Joe had his own fair share of problems with Grace. Sure, maybe he wasn’t one to talk. But when he had been with her, she was all he could see. She deserved more than a guy who hardly noticed her.

Liebgott scanned the room to see if Grace was noticing what he was. He hoped she saw how foolish this guy was acting when she wasn’t around. But the second he spotted her, all the anger melted away from Liebgott's heart.

She wore her favorite blue dress the twirled at the bottom when she danced. It was the same one she had been wearing when they had first met. Liebgott felt a pang in his heart at the thought of her getting dressed up just to go out with a guy who hardly gave her a second look.

She was so beautiful and effortlessly elegant. Grace’s hair shone under the band lights as Skinny Sisk spun her around on the dance floor. She laughed as she whirled in and out of his arms in time to the music. At one point, Liebgott had been jealous of that relationship; until he realized she and Skinny were childhood friends, but not before he picked a fight over it. He had a bad habit of starting fights over nothing.


Liebgott watched as the song ended and Skinny released Grace back into the crowd. His dark eyes tracked her through the room with a sensation of dread. He knew what she would inevitably find when she found her date; a drifting eye and a dangerously placed hand.

Liebgott forced himself to look away. He didn’t want to see her get hurt.

“Anyone need another drink?” Liebgott barely waited for his friends to respond before he turned to the bar. “Three beers,” he held up his fingers to the bartender. “And uh, actually get me a shot of whiskey too will ya,” he added.

Liebgott winced as he threw back the foul liquid. He paid, collected the beers and returned to the cocktail table where his friends stood chatting and generally enjoying themselves.

“Thanks,” Tipper took a sip from the new drink. Liebgott tried to jump in on their conversation but he was far too distracted. It took all of his concentration to not look over at Grace and her soldier. He focused his gaze on a knot in the wood of the table and took a sip of his drink. He began to feel the whiskey's heat enter his blood stream. Alley was saying something about one of their shooting exercises at the range the other day but Liebgott couldn't bring himself to pa attention. Finally, he couldn’t bear it any longer, the temptation was too great. He looked up and saw Grace animatedly gesturing at the soldier in anger. Liebgott couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“What d’ya think is going on over there?” Liebgott asked no one in particular. He watched as the soldier said something that made Grace cross her arms. After a beat, she began speaking angrily again and the soldier waved his hand dismissively at her.

“You gonna go do something about that?” Liebgott gestured to Grace as Skinny approached their table.

Skinny blew out his cheeks and exhaled, “oh uh, you know Grace, she can handle herself.”

Liebgott shook his head. He felt helpless just standing there watching what was clearly an unfair argument. “We gotta go say something.”

“Lieb, give it a rest,” Alley said from beside him.

“She’s none of your business anymore,” Tipper added.

His friends had lost patience with him the last couple of weeks. He and Grace had broken up for the third time, thanks to him and his temper of course, and everyone was done hearing about it. Liebgott knew he had fucked up, again. But no one knew Grace like he did. No one could appreciate her like he did. He would have her back in a heartbeat if she ever gave him the chance.

Liebgott’s lip curled up in disgust as he watched the soldier lean in to kiss her. Grace pushed him back forcefully with an angry look. The grabbed her arm forcefully and that was the last straw for Liebgott.

“That’s it, I’m going over there.”

“Joe! No!” Tipper and Alley grabbed for Liebgott but he was already gone.

Liebgott sidled up to the soldier, “everything okay here?”

“Joe,” Grace said in a warning tone. Liebgott glanced down and saw the desperation in her glassy eyes.

“Who're you?” the soldier demanded.

“Who are you?” Liebgott shot back, “messin’ with my friend?”

“Look buddy,” the soldier sneered, “I’m not in the mood, get out of here.”

“No,” Liebgott took a threatening step towards the man, “I wanna know what you’re saying to Grace here.”

“Step back,” the soldier gave Liebgott a little shove, “have some manners in front of the lady.”

“Oh man,” Tipper said from where he, Alley and Sisk stood watching it all go down.

“Okay,” Sisk said.

“Time to go,” Alley and the others jumped towards Liebgott in anticipation of what was about to go down.

Liebgott barked out a humorless laugh, “Ha, me? Have some manners? What about you buddy! Touchin' a woman like that!” And he lunged at the guy.

Their area of the bar exploded with action.

“Joe!” Grace’s high pitch voice sounded over the noise of men struggling. At first, the soldiers' respective friends tried to pull them apart until a rogue fist collided with Alley’s jaw and then he was swinging too. Suddenly, soldiers from I and E company were hopping in to defend their buddies who got pulled into the fight. Until finally a voice roared over the crowd, “break it the fuck up!” Harry Welsh’s voice startled the men enough that they lost all of their momentum. Bull Randleman and Bill Guarnere began pulling people off of each other.

“Hey, hey!” Guarnere shouted at a foolish I-company soldier who stepped towards Joe Toye again. Welsh shot the private a freezing glare.

“Get the hell out of here, Joe,” Welsh commanded.

“But lieutenant-,” Liebgott protested. But the lean Irishman was stronger than he appeared. He grabbed Liebgott by the scruff of the neck and dragged him towards the exit. “Go cool off.” Welsh threw him out into the chilly night air.


Liebgott groaned in frustration and kicked the side of the building as the door slammed behind him.

“Watch it,” some guy smoking a cigarette frowned at him. The guy flicked his cigarette to the ground and with a disgruntled look directed at Liebgott led the woman he was with back inside.

Liebgott paced in circles, his blood pumping in his ears. He pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. After a few deep inhales he finally began to calm down. His heart rate slowed as he focused on the burning tip of the cigarette that glowed orange in the darkness.

The bar entrance opened behind him. Briefly, the night was filled with the sounds of revelry before the door closed again.

“Joe,” Grace’s voice made him turn. She stood with her arms crossed, her head tilted in disapproval.

“What?” Liebgott snapped, “quit lookin’ at me like that,” he spat on the ground. Blood from his busted lip replaced the taste of tobacco in his mouth with iron.

“That was pretty embarrassing for you,” Grace said with a hint of humor.

Liebgott scowled at her. She smiled crookedly back at him, unintimidated. Liebgott shook his head. He tried to maintain his offense but faced with her smile, he quickly relented. He chuckled and kicked at the ground, “yeah, maybe not my best moment.”

She walked over to him and plucked the cigarette from his fingers. He watched as she brought the cigarette up to her perfect red lips and took a long drag. She propped an elbow on her hip, letting her wrist dangle gracefully as the smoke from the burning paper spiraled up and into the dark. “What got into you?” she asked.

Liebgott sighed, “I just, I couldn’t stand watching him flirt with another dame when you were right there.”

Grace bit her lip. Liebgott sniffed, “you deserve someone who thinks you’re the only girl worth lookin’ at,” he shrugged.

“Joe,” she said in a low voice. His cigarette had nearly burnt out in her hand.

“I know, I know,” he mumbled. They had been here before; this familiar place that teetered between so much potential goodness and the mess that had just occurred. Somehow it never seemed to work out between them and not for lack of effort.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispered.

“Nothing,” he muttered. But his eyes said something else and his hand slipped onto her hip.

“Joe,” her eyelids hung heavy and she licked her lips. The air grew heavy between them and Liebgott felt her step closer to him.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered. She didn’t. And so he pulled her into him and she tangled her hands in his hair just like she always did. Her lips were soft and warm and exactly how he remembered them. With his arms wrapped around her, Liebgott thought for the thousandth time, that he had to find a way to make her his forever.

[thiswasinevitableid]

54. I’m not sure what you think I said, but you start calling me an asshole and whip a ruler at me and somehow, we both end up in detention

Indruck, sfw, please?

Here you go! Content note: spiders appear at one point.

I based some of this AU--namely the concept of the Crucible and how magic is channeled--on the Carry On series by Rainbow Rowell. And Duck is trans in this, because any good wizarding school is inclusive.

After three years at Amnesty Academy, Duck is used to the objects being magically propelled through the air. But a ruler zipping through the air and smacking the back of his head is a new, unpleasant experience.

He tracks it to two chairs to his left, the new third year with the silver hair. He hasn’t even been here a day, what the fuck the is his problem?

“Hey, what the hell man?”

“You know very well what.”

“Uh, no I don’t, and I don’t appreciate bein hit with a fuckin ruler!”

“The maybe think before you insult someone next time!”

“I didn’t fuckin insult you! I don’t even know your name!”

“Ahem.” Ned, their Charms professor, looks down at them reproachfully, “gentlemen, while I know the review of Zone of Truth is rather dull, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t entertain yourselves with mindless conflict.”

“Sorry, Ned.” Duck mumbles, sending his pencil shooting below desk level to whack the other guy in the leg at the exact same moment he whips his pen at Duck’s hand.

“OW!”

Ned sighs, “I hate to do this, but-”

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

“Detention! Lovely, my first day here and I’m in trouble. Thank you so much, Duck Newton, for landing us here.”

“You started it!” He growls as they take their seats. God, he hopes this isn’t one of Woodbridge’s days.

“Huh, only two.” Mama wipes her boots on the mat, closes the door behind her, “Afternoon, Duck. And…”

“Indrid.” Says his nemesis, “It is nice to meet you Professor C-” he cocks his head, “you really prefer I call you ‘Mama?’”

“Yep. Never could get behind that more formal stuff. Let some of the first years call me ‘Ms. Mama’ if they really need to feel like they’re showin some deference.”

Mama is deputy Headmistress of Amnesty. The only reason she’s not fully in charge is that she’s not a witch and some families object to that. So The Quell technically runs the school while Mama does most of the actual day to day work. She also teaches a course of non-magic practical skills because, “some things you can’t magic your way out of. Like taxes.”

Duck loves her class and, while he doesn’t understand why someone would opt into this weirdness, he admires the guts it takes as a fifteen year old human to walk into a wizarding school and declare that there was plenty you could learn there even though you couldn’t so much as send a spark from your fingers.

As he and Indrid watch the clock tick down, Mama pulls a bag from her satchel. The contents are cookies, which she offers to each of them.

“Barclay tryin’ out new recipes?”

“Course he is. Kid is gonna be the best damn kitchen witch in the country by the time he graduates. Guess he’s plannin to spend the summer drivin around and learnin the food magic of different regions.” She smiles, “bet you’ll never guess who’s goin’ with him.”

“Joe?”

“Bingo. Apparently he wants to study niche cultural magic.”

Duck’s pretty sure there’s another motive; sharing a van bed with Barclay. It sounds fun, roving the country, discovering new places with someone handsome by your side.

All that’s by his side is a glower hiding behind red glasses.

“Mama? I, ah, would it be possible for me to leave five minutes early? I’m supposed to get my pairing from the Crucible tonight.”

The older woman looks between the two of them, “Better tell me how you landed here first. Ned just said it was an argument.”

“He threw a ruler at me outta nowhere.”

“It was not, you know what you said.”

“The last thing I said before you hit me was ‘“nah, man’ when Billy offered me a pizza roll from his lunch.”

Indrid goes still, “Oh. I, ah, I misheard you. I thought you said 'mothman.' I apologize. I ought to have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

He seems so suddenly downtrodden that Duck shrugs, “Yeah, you should have. But it ain’t the worst thing that’s happened to me here. Not by a long shot.”

“No kiddin” Mama leans back on the desk, “Two of you can go at five til.”

His evening turns uneventful after that; dinner, hanging out with Juno and Aubrey, half doing homework and half fucking around on his phone in his room (the agreement between the school and the government is that a long as the students don’t post vidoes of themselves doing sick stunts with magic, the government will ignore any explosions and/monsters in the vicinity of the school).

He’s never had a roommate; when the Crucible spat out his name in fire on his first day, there was no other name with it. Almost everyone else rooms in pairs or trios. So his belongings are strewn about the tiny cabin that makes up his home away from home. Which is why, when the door creaks open at ten p.m, he sits up and prepares to fire off a spell.

Indrid stands in the doorway, one bag over his shoulder and another in his hand. He looks tired.

“Hello, Duck. Ah, I guess that one is my bed, then.”

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

The class schedules for Amnesty are generated by the heart of the school itself. Indrid isn’t entirely sure what that means, but the heart must not be terribly creative. It stuck him in divination class. He’s been seeing the future since he was five, managing it with his drawings since he was eight. Even the professor has no idea what to do with him, since the images come in like a garbled T.V signal when he uses a crystal ball and the cup shattered when he tried to read tea leaves.

At least Barclay gave him a conciliatory caramel while they swept up the shards. It made him feel a bit better, though whether that’s due to enchantment or Barclay being exceedingly good at cooking is hard to say.

And now he has to go to “Magical Weaponry.” Magical Defense he understands; there are still lots of malicious forces out there, or even just everyday evils that it’s good to be able to ward against. Plus, Vincent is a good professor, enthusiastic and understanding.

Professor Minerva is just as enthusiastic but twice as loud. This is their first day in the actual gym, as opposed to at a blackboard, and his visions suggest it’s going to go poorly for him. As it should; he’s not a fighter, he’s a disaster.

At Amnesty, magic is channeled through objects. Most people use wands or their hands but some, like Aubrey, use jewelry (a necklace from her mother) or another accessory.

Duck Newton uses a sword. Or he’s trying to. The sword seems to be winning.

“Exert your will on him, Duck Newton, he answers to you!”

“I answeeer to only the capable.”

“Shut up, Beacon.” Duck adjusts his grasp, but nothing happens until he drops the sword and sends a spell through his fingers. The target explodes. Indrid suddenly feels a bit better about his own probable performance.

Duck notices him, indicates the practice area next to him is clear. While they started off poorly, his roommate is doing his best to demonstrate southern hospitality. He invites Indrid to eat with him, helps him when his visions offer no help in navigating the grounds, and even lent him a blue and green shirt (Amnesty's colors) for his first Spirit Day. Duck is the best thing to happen to him in his first month here.

By the time class is over, they have six broken targets, a shredded mat, and a knife that is now a very confused frog between them. They manage to laugh about it, even as Duck scoops up the amphibian and tucks him into his shirt pocket.

It’s then that Indrid realizes he has a crush.

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

“You comin to the game tonight?” Juno measures her sapling.

“Assumin nothin comes up and nobody’s tryin to kill me, you know I’ll be there.” He loves cheering Juno on during her soccer games (hey, not everything has to be magic based, even at a wizarding school).

“Drat.”

The hissed frustration draws his attention to the far end of the work table. Indrid is trying to coax his Venus Flytraps to perk up, but they remain brown and limp.

“Need some help?”

“Please, as you clearly know what you’re doing.” Indrid tilts his head towards the sapling pine tree Duck is working on. If he does his growing spells right, he’ll be able to take it home as a Christmas Tree during winter break.

“You tend to picture words or, uh,pictures when you do your spells?”

“Images work best. The trouble is that the futures sometimes make it difficult for me to picture a spell clearly.”

“What if I try describing how I’d see it and you picture what I say?”

“It’s worth a try.” Indrid closes his eyes.

“Okay. Think about the roots drawin water up from the soil, about the traps absorbin nutrients from prey. That brown is goin green as they do, they’re stems are growin stronger…” he grins as the plant turns bright green, it’s mouths open, “hey, ‘Drid, look”

“Oh!” Indrid flaps his hands, “it worked! Now I can keep them healthy and big andohno, nono not again.”

The table cracks and collapses as the plant turns gigantic, blocking out the light from the greenhouse roof.

“Holy fuck, that’s great!”

“Language, sport, but I agree.” Thacker, the head of the magical Horticulture classes, whistles as he looks the plant up and down, “this is mighty impressive Indrid. Wonder if we could use it on some pumpkins come fall…”

“I don’t recommend it, unless you want them to chase people.” Indrid points to one of the heads, which is swaying in the air and lowering closer to him. It snaps and he leaps back, falling to a pile of potting soil. Thacker raises his walking stick and the flytrap returns to its proper size.

Duck helps Indrid up, but his friend stays quiet through the end of class and on the walk back to their room.

“You know it ain’t anythin to be ashamed of, right?” Duck flips on the light, “we all fuck up spells now and then. Hell, Aubrey is on track to be the best spellcaster this school’s ever seen and she still has trouble.”

“But mine go haywire constantly” Indrid flops, dejected, onto his bed, “forget mastering my powers, I’ll be lucky if I graduate able to keep them in check. If I graduate at all.” His hand searches the bed blindly; Duck sets the weighted, plush bat into so Indrid can set it on his chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never lasted more than a year at a magical school. Or a non-magical one. I started at Mt Vernon when I was fifteen. Tried Deep Hollow and Shasta the year after that. I’m powerful but I can’t seem to channel it well, and three different schools decided I was more trouble than I was worth.”

“Bullshit.” Duck rests a hand on Indrid’s knee, “you’re strugglin with somethin; that means you need more help, not less. And if anyone gets it into their heads to kick you outta Amnesty, I’ll raise a goddamn ruckus.”

Indrid chuckles, quiet and disbelieving.

“I’m serious. You know Aubrey and them would side with me, and Joe knows school policy well enough he could probably find a reason why them tryin to get rid of you was against the rule.”

“Thank you.” Indrid’s smile is a rare flower, fragile and stunning.

“You want one of those calm-down caramels Barclay made?”

“Please.”

Duck grabs the box from the cabinet of their little kitchenette, then snags a Coke and a pineapple soda from the fridge. Indrid is no longer horizontal, is instead sitting with his back to the wall so Duck has space to join him.

Under the fizz of fresh bubbles, his friend murmurs, ‘“Have people really tried to kill you?”

“Yep. Someone sent an assassin after me my first year, and there was a Dire wolf on the grounds last winter that was clearly locked on to my scent. Perk of bein a Chosen One.” He grumbles as he swigs his drink.

“...Who on earth sends an assassin after a fifteen year old?”

“Right?! Fuck if I know, they never got any information out of the guy. Fuckin prophecy I swear, I didn’t even want these powers, let alone to be some kind of hero.”

“I sympathize.” Indrid rests his head on Duck’s shoulder, “there are prophecies around my birth as well.”

Duck clunks their bottles together, “To bein’ fucked over by stuff we can’t control.”

Indrid drains his soda, then perks up, “Oh! Oh dear, you should go if you want to be there for Juno’s match.”

“Come with me?” Duck can’t get the image of the two of them sharing a giant pretzel while smushed thigh to thigh on the bleachers out of his head.

His friend grins, “Of course.”

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

Duck hoped, after his not-great time in middle school, that a magic academy would be asshole free. But no, there are assholes everywhere, and these ones have even more tools for tormenting their targets. He’s never been one, nor have any of his friends. The one time someone tried to bully Barclay, Dani sicked three spectral hummingbirds on them until they apologized.

Indrid, odd and new, is an easy target, though he seems to hold his own just fine (and his proximity to the most powerful witch in school does scare off many potential antagonists). But three guys in their Magical Defense class have zeroed in on him.

They’re standing in line to practice against an evil eye when Indrid’s glasses, the ones he doesn’t take off even when he sleeps, hit the floor by Duck’s feet. Duck scrambles to grab them before they get stepped on, wondering why everyone is making such a fuss. Then he turns and backs up in alarm.

An eight foot tall moth creature is where Indrid should be, red eyes wide and claws clicking together anxious.

“Who let that thing in here?” Someone yells from behind him.

Indrid’s antenna flatten.

“Fuck, wasn’t expecting him to be that big a freak” one of the bullies scoffs.

Black wings twitch.

“Newton, give him the glasses back so we don’t have to look at him!”

Indrid trills, upset, and leaps into the air at the same moment Aubrey yells, “that’s enough” and Vincent shouts a reminder about no flames in enclosed spaces and also detention for you three. Duck is to busy climbing out the window Indrid flew through to pick up the details.

One two-story fall later, he’s chasing a dark shape into the Monongahela forest. While the parts of the woods near his hometown of Kepler are non-enchanted, this chunk is magic down to the moss (he plans to write his final year project on how those halves of forest mesh on an ecological level). One of the worst aspects of the enchanted portions is their tendency to re-shape around travelers. His usual way around this is to have an unwavering sense of where he’s going and pretend the woods are giving him an unchanging path to get there. But that trick does fuck-all when he doesn’t know his destination.

After two hours of searching he’s no closer to finding Indrid, it’s getting dark, and he’s debating heading back to the school for help. He hasn’t been this deep in the woods since he fled the Dire Wolf, and he knows the deeper you go into the trees, the wilder the magic becomes. Bad news for him, even worse for his friend who's out there somewhere, upset and alone.

Eight gigantic eyes glitter at him from the dirt, and he quickly rearranges who has it worse right now.

Throwing a burst of light into the trapdoor spiders eyes buys him enough time to bolt to a tree and climb. As soon as it crawls free of its burrow he freezes; if he’s remembering right, they use vibrations to locate prey.

Fuck, that thing is the size of a VW Beatle. Why is that even a thing? No spider needs to be this big!

In spite of his stillness, it spies him and sets its forelimbs on the tree-trunk. There’s nothing else for it; he draws Beacon, pictures the spider shrinking, and casts his spell.

A soft crunch of leaves signals it hitting the ground, now an unremarkable size for an arachnid. Just as he steps down a branch, a second trap door opens and an enraged spider bursts out, looking for it’s friend. When it can’t find it, it turns and snaps its mandibles at Duck. This time, Beacon does nothing, no matter how Duck commands and curses as his eight-legged doom gets closer.

A crackle of electricity and then this spider disappears as well. On the other side of the trunk, red eyes regard him with worry, “are you hurt?”

“Nah, all in one piece thanks to you.” He holds out his hand, “you wanna head back?”

“Yes, please.” Indrid flaps to the ground, Duck following him on foot and then turning them towards campus, “you did not need to come look for me.”

“Course I did, not gonna let my friend get swallowed up by the forest. Oh, here” he holds out the red glasses, “you want these back?”

“Not just yet. That is, if this form is not too alarming to you.”

Duck takes in the glossy feathers, the charming ruff, the way the face is still obviously Indrid yet excitingly new, “I’m good.”

Light flickers from black claws, stars and flowers spinning out with ease, “It’s so much easier when I’m like this. I never foresaw my disguise charm being an issue, but the older I’ve gotten the more it seems to influence my ability to control my spells. But, well, you saw how people reacted. Even you were startled.”

“In my defense, I thought you’d been eaten by, well, you.” Duck casts the same spell, vines of light chasing the red flowers, “I’m still sorry, though. You ain’t horrible like this, ‘Drid; you’re fuckin stunnin. Never seen anyone as incredible as you.”

Indrid stops, looking down at him, “Do you truly mean that?”

Duck rises on his toes, pecking his cheek, “Yeah, I do.”

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

The Halloween Formal is the most elaborate event at Amnesty. Indrid feels that if there’s any day he’s within his rights to be in his true form, it’s when everyone else is dressed as monsters.

He doesn’t have a date. He thought Duck was in the same predicament. Then his friend left before he was half-done grooming his feathers, saying he needed to get flowers for his hot date.

Ah well. At least Indrid will get to see him there and spend some time with his friends.

He checks his reflection in the gleaming black walls, orange and purple lights glowing and jack’o lanterns floating above his head. He adjusts his robes, the nice red ones his father sent him, and prepares to enter the ballroom.

“Hold up.”

When he turns, Duck is standing there in his black dress shirt and green tie, looking for all the world like he’s alone.

“You got one more thing to put on” He holds out a bracelet of flowers, sized to slip perfectly over Indrid’s hand. There are matching flowers pinned to one side of Duck’s hair.

“Oh. Oh my. You really-”

Duck uses a small spell to bend Indrid into a kiss; it’s a bit messy, since their mouths aren’t meant to fit together, but Indrid would not trade it for all the magic in the world.

“Yeah, ‘Drid, I really do.” With that, Duck offers his elbow and they walk arm in arm into the great hall.

[ducky-moo]

It’s Nothing

A scream ripped through S.T.A.R Labs, sending everyone into a flurry. Weapon in hand and suit donned, Cisco and Barry rushed into the former's workshop, where the sound had come from, only to find you sitting bolt upright in a chair, alone, but panicked.

        "Are you okay? What happened? Did someone hurt you?" They asked a million questions, but you just shook your head. Confusion crossed Barry's face, while realization crossed Cisco's. "Nightmare?" He asked, tilting his head to the side to really look at you. You let out a weak laugh and nodded. You had been having increasingly worse nightmares recently, and it was near impossible to determine whether or not they were real. You had been having them ever since your last encounter with the Twisted Shifter, which was what Cisco had decided to call the shapeshifting meta-human that was after you. It had been a week and a half now, and even though you were finally almost fully recovered from your concussion, you had still been staying at Cisco's every night. The two of you weren't dating, but...no, yeah, you were basically dating. He had been taking such good care of you over your recovery, and he stayed up with you when the nightmares hit, and he was the best binge partner you'd ever had. The two of you had already watched all 8 of the Harry Potter movies at least 5 times.

        "Did you watch Chamber of Secrets without me again? You know what that does to you." Cisco chided as he lowered his weapon. This was the first time you had had a nightmare at work, and you hadn't really told anybody else about them yet. You only told Cisco about them because, well, he'd been sleeping right next to you when you had them. You made him promise not to tell anybody, and although he desperately wanted to help you solve them, he agreed. So he put up a flimsy excuse for the nightmare, and you went along with it. Barry seemed to buy it, as he laughed and shook his head at the two of you before leaving the room.

        As soon as he was out of earshot, Cisco closed the door and sat down in his chair and rolled over to you, taking your hands in his and resting them on your knees. "Are you okay? That one seemed pretty bad, Y/n." Concern was evident on his face as he leaned towards you, searching your eyes for some kind of hidden answer.

        "I'm fine, Cisco. Just another stupid nightmare," you mumbled as you turned your head to look away from him. You pulled your hands away from him as well, and he looked at you with even more concern. You tried to wheel away to go do something else, but he grabbed your chair firmly by the arms and held you there in front of them.

        "They're not stupid, and you're not fine, Y/n" he reached out and turned your face towards him with his thumb and forefinger, "I wish you would let me help you," he all but pleaded. You shoved his hand away and stood up.

        "You don't even know what they're about." You shot back, then turned to leave the room.

        "Because you won't tell me!" Cisco exclaimed in frustration as he rose from his chair. He stepped in front of you and placed his hands on your shoulders. You immediately shoved his hands away, afraid he would vibe you and find out what your dreams were really about. Hurt spread across his face as you took a step back from him. "Why won't you just let me help you?" His voice was strained, and you could tell he wanted to reach out for you again, but was trying to respect your space.

        "Its not something that can be helped Cisco. It's my grave and I'm going to lie in it. Alone." By this point you were near tears as your eyes darted about the man's face, trying desperately to make him understand. Your whole life you had had to fend and look out for yourself. It wasn't easy, but it was what you knew.

        "You can't handle this alone, Y/n. For Christ's sake, I've been sitting up with you half the night for the past week, watching Harry Potter on repeat because you're too scared to go to sleep. There's only so much Michael Gambon Dumbledore I can take."

        "You said you liked watching Harry Potter with me." You were trying to redirect the conversation, and you knew Cisco was easily distracted by movies.

        "I do. I do like watching Harry Potter with you. But the reason we've been watching them is keeping us up half the night, and frankly, I haven't felt like I've been getting any sleep because I'm up the other half of the night worrying about you!"

        "Please," you scoffed, "you snore like a freaking freight train as soon as you think I'm asleep." Cisco made a face that was a mix of surprise and offended.

        "Okay, one, hurtful, and two, maybe I have my own dreams! And in my dreams, I'm worrying about you!" He defended himself. You had to admit to yourself, that made your heart melt a little. 

        "Why do you worry about me so much, Cisco? Of all the things in all the worlds to care about, why me." Your voice broke as you sunk down into your chair, and you buried your head in your hands. You heard him inhale deeply, and he crouched down in front of you, taking your hands in his and looking into your eyes.

        "Because you're worth caring about, Y/n." His voice was quiet and soft, but there was such earnest in it that you couldn't help but burst into tears. "Baby, please," his voice cracked with emotion, "let me help you." He reached up and cupped your cheeks in his hands, holding your face so that you had no choice but to look at him. His thumbs brushed under your eyes as he wiped your tears away. You shook your head, watching his heart break as you denied him once again.

        "I can't." You whispered. He heaved a sigh and leaned his forehead against yours, closing his eyes. You sat in silence for a moment before Caitlin's voice rang out from the cortex. 

        "Cisco!!! We need you!!" Cisco muttered profanities under his breath and shook his head.

        "You know where to find me." He sighed as he stood. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and jogged back out into the Cortex.

        Hours later, Cisco was sitting at his desk in the Cortex, going over data from all the previous fights with Twisted Shifter. "Caitlin, you said Y/n's vitals-" He was interrupted by a short, weak scream coming from his workshop. His head fell, and he sighed as everyone turned to look towards the sound.

        "Was that-"

        "Yep."

        "Are you going to-"

        "Yep." Cisco rose from his chair and made his way back to the workshop. At this point, Cisco was pissed at you for not letting anyone help. He was preparing his angry speech when a second scream rocked through the building, causing him to jump. "Jesus fuck," he muttered as he jogged the rest of the way to the workshop. "Y/n?" He looked around, confused and possibly slightly panicked as he couldn't find you immediately. Finally, his eyes landed on you, curled up in the back corner of the room. "Y/n? Hey, hey hey hey, you're okay." He rushed over and dropped to the ground next to you, pulling you into his arms. After a moment, he felt you struggling against his secure grip, and rather than fighting with you, he simply let you go.

                "I'm fine." You snapped, wrapping your arms around yourself as you turned away from Cisco. He let out a loud groan as he schlumped back against the wall.

        "Fine my ass, Y/n, I just found you curled up in a goddamn corner!" His voice rose in his frustration and he threw his hands in the air. 

        "I don't-"

        "This is the second time today you've had these nightmares. You're being totally stupid! You need help!" Cisco was all but yelling now as he stood up. You started to walk away, but he grabbed you by the shoulder. You tore yourself away and whirled around to face him.

        "Don't vibe me, Cisco!" You exploded at him, your voice growing louder as well.

        "I am not vi-"

        "Hey, woah woah woah, what's going on in here?" Joe asked as he walked in, followed closely by Barry and Iris. Cisco drew his mouth into a tight line and looked at you expectantly. He was gonna do what he promised, no matter how stupid he thought it was. You looked away from all of them sheepishly, rubbing your arm, but saying nothing. There was an awkward silence for a moment before Barry spoke up.

        "Are you guys...Okay?" More silence. Cisco threw his hands into the air, finally giving up.

        "Yeah, everything's fine. With me at least. I can't say the same for her though," he threw a hand in your direction, and you closed your eyes, sucking in a deep breath.

        "Cisco-"

        "What? I didn't say anything. I left the fun part for you."

        "Y/n, what is he talking about?" Iris asked, taking a step further into the room than the boys would dare.

        "I-I- nothing. It's nothing. I'm fine." You stuttered out, unsure of how to get out of this.

        "Oh for Pete's- It. Is NOT! NOTHING!"

        "Woah, Cisco, calm down dude." Barry walked over to his friend, taking him by the shoulders and moving him back a bit.

        "Okay someone better tell me what the hell is going on right now or we're gonna have some issues." Joe stated, pointing to the two of you.

        "It's nothing, I-" Before Cisco had the chance to explode again, Iris held up her finger to him.

        "Okay, don't say it's nothing, because clearly it isn't. I'm pretty sure you're going to give Cisco a stroke if you say that one more time." Her voice was firm, but her touch was gentle as she rested her hand on your arm. "What's going on?"

        "It's noth-" you winced as you caught yourself, and you looked frantically around the room as if searching for a way out of this, "I- I just- I-" You stumbled over your words as you tried to find the right thing to say. Preferably something that would cause minimum concern, or at least de-escalate the situation at hand.

        "Take a breath, Y/n." Joe's soothing deep voice cut through the chaos in your head, and you closed your eyes, inhaling deeply.

        "I- I've just been having really bad dreams, lately." Blanket terms. As simple as you could hope to put it.

        "You're fighting...over...bad dreams?" Barry sounded confused, and you could tell by his voice that he looked it to.

        "Yeah, I'm not following." Joe chimed in. You squeezed your eyes tight, not wanting to explain any further.

        "How recently did they start?" Iris asked, rubbing your arm as she pulled you closer to her, away from Cisco's wide-eyed, hopeful form.

        "Not too long ago- um- just a couple weeks." You were tiptoeing around the actual issue at hand, hoping they would let it slide.

        "A couple weeks? Like- wait, a couple weeks like these started happening after you two fought the Twisted Shifter?" Joe asked incredulously as he looked back towards the door and back at you.

        You bit your lip and looked down, nodding as you wrapped your arms tighter around yourself.

        "Wait, is he still in your head?" Barry was suddenly coming to understand the situation at hand.

        "Whoomp, there it is," you heard Cisco behind you, and you squeezed your eyes tight again. Barry looked between the two of you.

        "Y/n, why didn't you tell us this?" You tried not to flinch at the disappointment and concern in Barry's voice as he questioned you.

        "They're honestly not that bad, I didn't think it was that big a deal-"

        "Oh no no ma'am! You are not going to pull that crap anymore." Cisco shook his finger at you as he approached you, then turned to the others. "She hasn't slept a full night in a week and a half. She's been forcing herself to stay awake so that she can avoid them, and there's only so much Michael Gambon Dumbledore a man can take, people!"

        "What are the dreams about?" Barry asked. Immediately, your lips drew into a tight line. This was not something you were prepared to talk about. Not with Barry, not with Cisco, hell, not even with yourself. "Y/n, if it's something that can help us beat Twisted Shifter-"

        "It's not." You interrupted him, shaking your head.

        "Are you sure? There's nothing he's making you see that we can use?"

        "No. It's just...He's just messing with my memories. That's all."

        "That's all?"

        "Yes, Barry, that's all. I swear. There's nothing in my head that's useful for this mission right now."

        "Hey, she won't even tell me what they're about, so don't feel bad man." Cisco reassured Barry, clapping him on the shoulder.

        "Okay...well, we should probably have Caitlin and Cisco run a few tests on you anyway, see if they can figure out a way to block him out."

        "Everything's gonna be okay, Y/n." Iris reassured you as she squeezed your arm, then left to go back to the cortex. Joe and Barry left promptly, leaving you and Cisco alone again. Silently, you sunk into your chair, schlumping down as if the past 10 minutes had wiped everything out of you. And mentally, of course, they had. 

        "Y/n-"

        "Don't, Cisco." You held one hand up to stop him and rested your forehead in the palm of the other. "I can't right now. I just can't"

        "Okay." His voice was tiny, and quiet as he nodded in response. "You know where to find me."

        At home later that night, you were walking around Cisco's living room clad in yet another one of his t-shirts. You had brought your own clothes from home, of course, but you simply liked wearing Cisco's better. There was something about the familiarity of each shirt that made you feel safer, almost.

        "Y/n, can we please talk." Cisco was pleading with you as he moved to stand directly in your path. You stopped, and looked him in the eye, your expression blank. You had hardly said anything the rest of the day- just answers to questions Caitlin and Cisco asked while they were running their tests. You had just been left completely drained after the event of the day. "I'm sorry, okay? Actually, you know what? No I'm not. You needed to tell people what's been going on, and you did, and, surprise surprise, everyone's working to help you!" Silence. "Okay, look," his form deflated as he looked at you, feeling defeated, "I know you're upset with me. I get it. I'm sorry about that part, but not the rest. You're finally getting help. Soon we can have all of this figured out, and you can go home and-"

        "You are my home." The words left your mouth before you had the chance to process them, and your hand flew to your face almost immediately. Cisco blinked, taken completely off-guard, and it took him a second to process what you had said. Once it sunk in, however, Cisco's expression softened significantly. His chest filled with warmth as he reached out to you. His hands stopped, however, before they made contact with you, as he remembered all the times you had pushed him away throughout the day. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

        "Can I? I'm not trying to vibe you, I swear. ...I just want to hold you." You could hear the yearning in his voice as he opened his eyes to reveal a pleading look. You took a step back and saw his heart break a little. After a moment of consideration, you nodded slowly. Letting out a long sigh, he reached out and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you snugly into his chest. It was more of a relief for the man than he thought it would be, and he felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders as he finally got to hold you again. He wanted nothing more than to keep you safe and happy, and every time you pushed his affection away, he felt a little piece of him die a little.

        You stood there for what felt to you like ages, just tucked away safely into Cisco's arms as he held you. You were almost falling asleep to the sound of his heartbeat when he finally spoke up.

        "Be mine. Like, for real. I want you to be mine. I want to do all the stupid cheesy couple things with you and I want to tell people you're my girl and I want to be able to hold you and kiss you and smack your ass in public," despite how your heart was racing, you couldn't help but giggle a little, "and I want you to know that you'll always have a home here." You could hear the smile in Cisco's voice as he spoke, and you couldn't keep a matching one from growing on yours as you simply nodded, burying your face in his chest. You could hear his heart skip a beat, and couldn't help but giggle as you realized you had caused it to do that. Suddenly, Cisco had scooped you up into his arms, and was carrying you into the bedroom. Gently, he tossed you onto the bed, causing you to laugh as he climbed on top of you. "There's that beautiful smile." A soft hum came from your throat as he bent his head down and planted a kiss on your neck. There was a quiet gasp that came from him, and he suddenly went still.

        "Cisco?" You reached up and grabbed his biceps, then ran one hand up into his hair. "What's wrong?" He suddenly lifted his head up and looked at you, blinking slowly.

        "Nothing. Everything's fine." He smiled and bent down to kiss your cheek, then got up and walked to the kitchen. You sat up on his bed, crossing your legs as you looked out the door behind him in confusion.

        "Just forgot I left the oven on." He remarked as he entered the room once again. You simply nodded and watched as he did a lap around the room to throw laundry into the pile, then returned to you. "Hey." There was a wide smile on Cisco's lips as he looked at you, then down to your lips, then back again. The simple gesture made your face flush, and you smiled back at him goofily.

        "Hi." The word came out as a giggle, which only made Cisco's smile wider as he reached out and ran his hand through your hair. His thumb ran along your bottom hairline and you froze, your smile faltering.

        "I never noticed this scar before." He commented as he pushed your hair away from the long-healed wound. 

        "Huh. Funny." You replied, your mouth going dry as you backed up a bit.

        "What's it from?" You were quiet for a moment, trying to come up with a convincing story when you heard a flash of Cisco's thoughts. Your eyes immediately widened, and you looked at him with panic and anger.

        "You vibed me!" His eyes widened at the exclamation and he shook his head.

        "N-no, I didn't, I-"

        "And you're lying to me about it? God, Cisco." You groaned, burying your head in your hands. 

        "Look, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to. I really didn't, I swear. How did you know?" You looked up at him and were silent for a minute. He raised his eyebrows at you. "You were in my head?"

        "It was an accident-"

        "So was vibing you! Sometimes it just happens, alright? Let's just move on." You nodded as he climbed onto the bed next to you, and you were both silent for a few minutes. Your hand drifted up to the scar at the base of your skull.

        "Cis...what...what did you see?" Your voice was quiet as you stared straight ahead. He didn't respond, so you turned to look at him. He was leaning back against the headboard of the bed, with a look on his face that told you he wasn't sure if he should tell you. "What was it?" You asked again. He sighed and sat up a bit more, running his hand over his face.

        "I saw...that." He gestured to where your hand was still pressed to the back of your neck. Another brief moment of silence.

        "All of it?"

        "Y/n, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

        "So you saw all of it." He sighed heavily.

        "Yes, I did. I saw all of it...Is that what you've been having nightmares about?" You bit your lip as you felt your eyes well up. Hot tears started rolling down your cheeks before you had the chance to control them, and Cisco reached out to grab you around the waist and pull you back to him. "Baby..." His voice sounded sad, which only made you cry even more. He smoothed your hair down and kissed your head, simply waiting for you to calm down. "You're okay, I promise. We don't have to talk about it tonight. Let's wait until tomorrow morning when you've gotten some sleep, alright. You need to wind down." He rested one hand on your back as he reached out and grabbed the tv remote, turning on the second Harry Potter movie. "Scoot." He urged you to move forward, then slipped behind you and pulled you back between his legs. His hands began to work their way across your shoulders and back, carefully rubbing out every knot. You let your head fall forward, and he pushed your hair over your shoulder to place a kiss on the back of your neck. You smiled a little bit and closed your tired eyes.

        "Thanks, Cis."

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Vaunna my beloved ❤

After your amazing Wels and Hels armorstand scene on my server could I get Wels and Hels story? Please? 👉👈

Oca my beloved ❤️

This is genuinely one of my favourite oneshots I’ve written. I just love the Wels/Hels dynamic so much. 

Also this is technically a sequel to the last one I wrote so go read it here if you like! This one does make sense without it tho

...

  It’s been a few weeks since the server has seen an evil hermit incident, and even though most of the hermits have let down their guard, Welsknight hasn’t. He hasn’t stopped being vigilant since his last encounter with Helsknight. He knows that his evil counterpart is out there somewhere, waiting for another chance to kill him. 

  Wels knows he can’t give him that chance. 

  One morning, while out in the desert, grinding for sand, Wels keeps spotting movement out the corner of his eye but every time he looks, he sees nothing. At first, he thinks it’s just the desert playing tricks on his mind. But his knight training tells him not to be so quick to jump to conclusions. 

  Eventually, he decides to put most of his stuff in a chest and go have a look, just in case. He leaves his valuables in the chest and explores the immediate area, looking carefully for any threats.

  He hears the sound behind him and twists to the side, a split second before a figure appears out of nowhere and attempts to shove him to the ground. 

  Wels jumps back a few steps and raises his diamond pickaxe, realising too late he accidentally brought it instead of his sword. “Helsknight.”

  His evil counterpart grins. “Hey, Welsy. Your face is looking great.”

  Wels’s hand automatically rises to his cheek, where the burn scar from their last encounter still sits. “Thanks. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here for you, of course. It’s time we have another little battle, don’t you think?”

  Normally, Wels wouldn’t hesitate to stay and fight. But he doesn’t have a real weapon and his inventory is practically empty. 

  So he bolts back towards his chest, intending to grab his sword for a proper battle. But then he realises he may be running directly into a trap, so he changes direction.

  However, at that moment, the ground under his feet gives way, sending him tumbling down into the hole below.

  His fall seems to last only a few seconds but it must be far; when he hits the ground, pain explodes through his whole body. He’s fallen very far. 

  A second after he lands, he hears a splash from nearby and glances up. With the sunlight streaming through the hole, he can see a figure emerging from a single source block of water to his left. His heart skips a beat. 

  “You idiot!” Hels snaps, tossing the bucket at the wall. “You triggered the trap too soon! I wasn’t out of the way yet!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Wels’s voice is strained from pain but his anger is unmistakable. “You’re right; I should have been able to avoid the secret trap you set up for me. Dang it. But hey, at least I’m not now stuck in a hole in terrible pain with next to no resources! That sure wouldn’t be ideal!”

  Hels glares at him. “Quit it with the sarcasm. This is all your fault.”

  Wels feels indignance boil inside him but he forces himself not to rise to the bait. His rational mind knows there’s no point arguing with Hels. “Whatever. I’m gonna see if my friends will come save me.”

  He taps out a message to the server asking for help, and within a minute, he gets replies from both Etho and Joe.

  “They’re on their way,” he says. “You may as well relax, cuz we’re not going anywhere ‘til then.”

  Hels huffs and sits down a few blocks away from Wels, crossing his arms irritably. 

  They sit in silence for a long time. The sun crosses the sky above them, marking the end of the morning and the start of the afternoon. 

  After a while, Wels decides to try and be practical. He checks his inventory; all he has on him is his diamond pickaxe, sixteen obsidian, a flint and steel, a single piece of bread, and some seeds. Nothing particularly useful. There aren’t enough blocks to pillar out, and Wels can hardly move while sitting, let alone standing, anyway. He could make a nether portal, but what would be the point? There’s no way he can survive better in the nether than in this pit right now. 

  He glances up. “Hels, do you have-.”

  “I don’t have anything on me, useful or otherwise,” says Hels immediately.

  Wels knows this means he doesn’t have food on him either. He can tell from the pouty expression on Hels’s face that his counterpart is hungry. Even though Wels’s hunger was reduced somewhat by the fall, he decides to be the bigger person. 

 He breaks his loaf of bread in half and offers the bigger part to Hels, who eyes him suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

  Frowning confusedly, Wels replies, “Giving you some bread.”

  “Why?”

  “...because we both need food?”

  “Yeah, so why don’t you just eat it all? You’ll be fuller.”

  “But you won’t have any.” Wels shakes his hand. “Just take it.” 

  Hels continues to scowl at him. “Is it poisoned?”

  Sighing and rolling his eyes, Wels flicks the piece of bread into Hels’s lap and starts slowly eating his own. Out the corner of his eye, he watches Hels carefully inspect the bread before taking a hesitant bite. Finally satisfied that he isn’t being tricked, Hels starts to gobble the bread.

  Wels watches him curiously. “Why would I try to poison you, Hels?”

  Hels shrugs. “We’re enemies, isn’t that what we do? Try to kill each other?”

  “No,” Wels says. “That’s the way YOU see our relationship. I never wanted to be enemies with you, you know.”

  “Really? Wasn’t it you who started all this?”

  “No, you literally turned up out of the blue and dropped me in a hole one day. Then I destroyed you in a rap battle. Remember that?”

  “I remember the hole,” says Hels. “Don’t remember losing any rap battle.”

  “Uh huh.”

  The two fall into silence as they eat. Wels continues to watch Hels, who has already finished his half of the bread. 

  “Can I make an observation?” he asks after a few minutes.

  Hels huffs. “No but you’re gonna do it anyway.”

  “You’re not used to the concept of sharing, are you?”

  “Sharing?” Hels sits up straighter, a possessive look appearing in his eyes. “I don’t share anything! Nothing!”

  “That’s not what I meant,” says Wels. “I meant the concept of people voluntarily sharing things with you.” 

  Hels glares at him for a moment longer, before relaxing visibly. “No. Back in my dimension, it’s every person for themselves. You protect what you’ve got cuz if you don’t, you’re gonna lose it forever, so people hoard their stuff like it’s made of gold. I never got attached to anything cuz I knew it’d probably get snatched away from me sooner or later. I-.” He breaks off as he registers Wels’s expression. “Oh, don’t you dare pity me,” he growls. 

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes you are, you’re looking at me like I’m an abandoned baby dog or something.”

  Wels raises an eyebrow. “Baby dog? You mean a puppy?”

  “Shut up!” Hels growls again and huffily turns away from his counterpart. “I’m not a stupid puppy for you to adopt and train! If I get the opportunity, I WILL kill you. I would gladly leave you here to rot if it meant I could get outta this stupid hole. In fact, the only reason I’m not beating you to death right now is because you’re my best chance of getting out of here alive.”

  A pause follows his words. 

  Eventually, Wels sighs. “Sometimes, it’s so easy to see that you’re all the worst parts of me combined.”

  To his surprise, Hels doesn’t respond. His arms are folded but Wels can’t see his expression, can’t see that his counterpart’s eyes are misted over. 

  Hels is frustrated with himself; Wels has insulted him many times since their first meeting so why did that one little remark hurt him so much? Why has it brought him to tears like this? 

  Maybe it’s because Wels’s remark forced him to remember that he’s not his own person. He wasn’t born organically; he was brought into existence by a combination of Wels and a weird cloning machine. The nature of his “birth” means he isn’t a real person. He’s just a copy of Wels, made up of all the parts of himself that he hates.  

  Maybe that’s all he’ll ever be.

  A soft groan brings Hels out of his thoughts. He glances to the right and sees that Wels’s condition has deteriorated; his skin has rapidly paled and he’s clearly struggling to breathe. 

  As Hels watches, Wels reaches a shaking hand into his inventory and weakly throws an item to Hels, who catches it and turns it over. It’s a flint and steel. 

  Hels glances up in time to see Wels drop some obsidian down beside him as well. “Go, Hels,” he rasps. “Make a portal and go back to the nether.”

  Hels blinks, his mind racing as he tries to figure out the catch. “What are you doing? Why did you give me this?”

  “So you can escape. My friends are coming for me but I’ll probably die before they get here. If you’re still here when they arrive, there’s no telling what they’ll do to you. Just go while you still can.”

  After a moment, Hels narrows his eyes. “Are you tricking me? What’s the catch?”

  “Nothing,” Wels insists weakly. “Just please, go, quickly.”

  “No, seriously. Why are you so insistent I leave?”

  “B-Because…” Wels hesitates, taking in a shaky breath. “Because it’s getting dark and the mobs will be coming soon and I don’t want you to die. If I die, I respawn. You don’t.”

  Hels stares at his counterpart in confusion. “You… don’t want me to die?”

  “Of course not. How many times do we have to-.”

  He breaks off as he tries to stifle a pained cry. The fall damage he took is starting to catch up with him now. 

  The groan of a zombie sounds from nearby. Hels’s eyes widen with fear.

  “Go, Hels!” Wels’s voice cracks. “Please!” 

  Looking deep into his counterpart’s eyes and finding nothing but fear and desperation in them, Hels turns and creates a portal on the very edge of the pit, lighting it up with the flint and steel. 

  He glances back at Wels one final time, before disappearing through the portal.

  Wels closes his eyes, breathing a shallow sigh. His counterpart should be safe; if he’s anything like Wels himself, he knows how to survive on his own. 

  As the mob sounds start to surround him, he feels a calm sense of relief. He knows he’ll respawn back in his bed, and at this moment, he doesn’t care that he’ll lose the items he has on him right now. He just wants the pain to end. 

…

  Hidden safely in the nether, Hels clutches the flint and steel his counterpart gave him. He can’t stop staring at it; it represents the sacrifice Wels made for him. The first time anyone has been willing to lay down their own life for him. He can hardly believe it even happened at all; the concept of loving someone enough to want to protect them even at the cost of their own life is completely foreign. 

  As he’s puzzling this out, a message appears on the communicator he stole from Wels during their last confrontation. A message he knew deep down was coming, but one that still catches him off guard. 

Welsknight was slain by zombie

[coffeebeannate]

From This Prompt List

“If a person is destined to have a soulmate in this life, they will find that one of their eyes has changed colour, reflecting the colour of their anticipated soulmate.

For this to occur, the two must be in close proximity to one another (most studies say no less than several miles, but others claim that there have been some variations), and that, upon meeting, the eyes will revert to normal.

In some legendary, and notable cases, the eye colours will remain heterochromatic for the rest of their lives.

Of course, keep in mind that these stories are not always the same, and not every couple has a soulmate status. And that there is nothing less valid about non-soulmate couples.”

“Nicky?”

Nicky looked up, hastily closing the cover over his tablet, “Ah, sorry, can I help you?” 

“The computers broken, again.” His co-worker sounds the most interesting combination of annoyed and sheepish, “Do we have to call tech support?”

“No, no, let me take a look, it’s alright.” Standing up from the desk, “The one we use for catalogue searching?”

“What else?”

He sighs, muttering curses under his breath, “Thing is about as good as a piece of scrap metal, at this point.” Resigning himself to an afternoon tinkering with the world’s most stubborn library resource computer. “It’s alright, go back to work, I’ll let you know if it decides to behave.”

“Thanks, Nicky, call me if you need help.”

“Yeah, yeah no problem” Facing the not-ancient but absolutely useless desktop, “You going to behave, or do we have to fight?”

Predictably, the computer blinks at him, Nicky sighs again and settles before it.

---

It isn’t that Nicky hates his life. Because he doesn’t, and despite what people might think, he’s fairly content. Working full-time as the head librarian might seem like an outdated job, but Nicky’s only 32, and he likes to argue that libraries are a vital part of society. Upgraded as they are, and some facets available entirely online. Besides, he had a degree in the stuff, and plenty of practice.

Andy might’ve had a series of interesting names for his life. His small apartment, three cats, more books and tech than is strictly necessary for a single man to have, and a car that is really a ridiculous thing, but it runs and he loves it and maybe the radio doesn’t work and it has no AC and the heater is also dying, but it’s a good car and he happens to find it charming.

He’s fine.

He’s dated, some one night stands, but nothing sticks.

“Are you reading that book again?” Andy asks, when she catches the soulmates book opened up on his tablet for what is definitely not the 10th, 12th, let’s not talk about it time.

“I think it’s comforting,” Nicky retorts, catching her look of disbelief.

“You know that in most cases, that shit’s a load of crap, yeah? Quynh and I have been married for eight years, no issue. She’s my soulmate, magical eyeballs aside.”

“I know I know..I just think it’s sweet.”

Nicky does not tell her that, for the last six or seven months he’s been glued to the damned thing. Everything feels antsy. He’s not an anxious man at all. His life has never felt empty, nor hollow. And yet, a few months back everything started feeling weird. Like he just couldn’t settle. Bee’s beneath his skin. Ghosting sensations across his scalp. Tingles.

He’d casually mentioned it during his yearly physical, but the doctor determined nothing out of sorts physically, and Nicky had been delaying calling a psychiatrist.

“Maybe you just need a change of scenery.” Andy suggested, stirring too much sugar into her coffee. ‘Maybe your library is finally getting to you.”

Nicky had declined to respond, but filed it away in the back of his mind regardless.

--

The morning that it happens, Nicky is running late, and doesn’t bother to look in a mirror much beyond ‘brushing teeth and running a comb over hair” before heading into work. 

They’re finally upgrading the useless front computer, and he has to let the techs inside. Meaning he’s supposed to be at work an hour before he’d usually be, fiddling with his keys and muttering apologies as he opens the door fifteen minutes after he was supposed to let them in. Offering to buy them coffee for the troubles.

He’s that sort, after all.

He stands in the early morning crowd rush at the cafe yawning and buzzing, body thrumming with tension he can’t pinpoint, nor understand. It’s ridiculous and by the time he stumbles his way through the unfamiliar order, he feels much like he’s about to explode from it all.

The techs are thankful for their coffees, at least, Nicky tries to do some work in his office, and by the time he finally takes a break from his unsatisfactory work, it’s nearly noon.

There, in the libraries Men’s Room, is when he finally notices it.

His left eye isn’t grey, or green, or blue.

(Or whatever true colour his eyes seem to think they are)

It’s dark brown. So dark Nicky can barely see any other colour to it beyond pupil.

He blinks. Splashes water across his face, scrubs his cheeks.

It’s still there.

He takes a selfie with his camera, and stares.

Still there.

It’s still there after work, and the next day, and the Friday when he meets Andy for their usual after work time at the bar, Andy staring at him.

“So it’s not a contact?”

“No, I don’t wear contacts, or glasses! You know that.”

“You think your flowery soulmate shits legit then?”

“What else could it possibly be, Andy?”

Andy studies her beer, for once, she has no answer.

---

It is an extremely boring Wednesday morning when Nicky scrolls through his emails and finds something that bothers him for absolutely no reason at all.

It’s from one of the other departments, and it’s about the national art show being hosted at their oh so esteemed library. Nicky’s library is a popular venue because the building is historic and has a nice receiving room.

That’s not what bothers Nicky. He looks forward to this show. And it’s the first time he’d be in charge of much of it since becoming head librarian some eight months back, but no, it’s the shows headline artist that is prickling at him for yet again, reasons he can’t discern.

Nicky scrolls past the necessary details, but keeps going back to the beginning.

Headline Artist: Mixed Mediums. Classics with a Twist. Yusuf al-Kaysani

Nicky saves the email.

Again, no reason at all.

--

“Do you think it means anything?” He asks Andy and Quynh while four beers in and sitting on their couch.

“Some artist’s name you’ve never even met or heard of?” Quynh snorts, ‘Yep, definitely cracked some universal secret code there Nicky.”

He sighs, “Hand me another..”

Maybe they’re right.

Maybe he’s being ridiculous.

--

“Sorry, are you uh,,Nicky..Genova?”

Yes, okay, that does sound odd. But to his credit! He was named  Nicolò thank you very much. His mother had made some comment about classics, traditions, blah blah.

“Yeah! Sorry just let me-”

He’s at the top of a ladder, fiddling with a birds nest, of all things. The outside of the library (again historic building) attracted plenty of them.

“Take your time, I don’t usually yell at people on ladders, on principle and all.”

The voice is nice.

It’s the dumbest thought Nicky has had in his head in months.

“Good practice, that.” Finally gasping the nest, starting to climb down the ladder, “Okay!” When he’s returned to solid ground.

“So, what can I do for-”

Nicky, quite elegantly, forgets how to think. Or breathe. Or do anything appropriately life sustaining like that.

The man before him, nice voice man, his brain helpfully supplies. is..gorgeous. And see, Nicky has SEEN gorgeous men and is nicely partial to them. But this man is gorgeous, attractive and, most distractingly, has one blue-grey-green who actually knows eye, and one dark brown one.

And! Nicky notices, has completely lost his own ability to speak. The two of them seem to amend this moments later by pointing at each other’s face mostly rudely, stunned and confused.

Nicky seems to find intelligent language first, but only manages to say, “..Are you Yusuf al-Kaysani?”

The equally stunned gorgeous man confirms this, and Nicky is quite sure he either faints, or dies.

(He does neither of these things, thank you very much)

“..It’s nice to meet you, Nicky.” Yusuf says, finding actual intelligence far before Nicky does. Nicky just swallows.

--

Their eyes never reverse to their birth states.

Not at the first date.

Not at the proposal.

Nor the engagement party.

Or the wedding.

--

10 years later, Andy remarks that ‘the most romantic bastard she knows’ would indeed, find an even MORE romantic sap, and that they’d have the perfect book romance.

--

Joe’s cleaning out the closet one evening when he finds a well-worn paper back version of the novel that Nicky had read endlessly on his tablet all those years ago.

“Hey babe, you never told me you had a paper copy of this.”

“Hmm?” Nicky pokes his head out of the bathroom, “I do? Oh, yeah, it’s a bit worn out.”

Joe flips open the cover of it, peering down into the slightly musty paper, reading aloud and finding his way to join Nicky at the vanity.

~~

“Before reading this book, we must advise and remind that soulmates in this manner are rare, and that there is little scientific study to show a truth. Please do not fret if you never fall into this concept.”

Nicky hums, accepting the arm to his waist, the familiar kiss to his cheek, ghosting along the side of his lips.

“Go on,” Nicky says, casually.

“You know this story, my heart.” Joe chuckles, but continues.

“This rare phenomenon has been observed throughout history..”

[terresdebrumestories]

Available for consultation

FANDOM: The Old Guard (2020) SERIES: - RATING: General audiences WORDCOUNT: 4 776 words PAIRING(S): None CHARACTER(S): Nile Freeman (POV), Yusuf Al Kaysani, Andromache the Scythian, Niccolo di Genova (mentioned), Sébastien Le Livre (mentioned). GENRE: Mutual care, Nile Freeman character introspection. TRIGGER WARNING(S): None that I can think of :) SUMMARY: Nile misses her mother but doesn't know how to talk about it or with who. fortunately, Bâtard the emotional support tortoise is here to help. NOTE(S): This was originally written for Nile Week 2020 but never put online because of reasons, so now here it is, longer and better written than it was :D Hugest thanks to @avaniesque for the most excellent beta work :D [ALSO AVAILABLE ON AO3.]

Nile gasps when something soft bumps against her foot, hurriedly wiping at her cheeks as she turns towards the door. It looks empty at first, the cobwebs they didn’t bother dealing with earlier in the day gently swaying in the air. There’s some shuffling along the dusty floor, a light click of nails on stone, and then a small oblong head appears near the bottom. This is swiftly followed by short scaly legs and a black and brown shell wrapped in a crocheted lab coat. Nile tenses, unprepared for any sort of human company at the moment, but relaxes when it becomes apparent Booker has not elected to follow his pet around.

Said pet has now fully entered the living-room and is beelining for a strawberry resting against her right pinky toe. It looks good enough to eat, as does the rest of what Booker feeds it, which Nile still doesn’t really understand but who is she to tell Booker how to care for his pet? Bâtard, of course, is unconcerned by her surprise and eventually gets to chomping on the strawberry.

Nile’s eyes are dry by now, the tight press of sadness around her heart still present but past its peak, at least for now. It still takes her a couple of seconds to realize the small square of bright white on the side of Bâtard’s outfit is a piece of paper. She picks it up to find a few words from a hand that hasn’t yet lost the impeccable penmanship of its first life. Apparently it’s hard to let go of habits people beat into you with a stick. The note reads : “He’ll keep your secret as long as you keep paying. First one on me.” It makes Nile smile.

(Andy, Nicky and Joe are all just as capable of impeccable calligraphy, but when free not to pay attention to it they tend to revert to script letters. Booker is the only one who insists on torturing them all with permanent cursive written with fountain pens on special paper.)

She doesn’t know Booker all that well, yet. Seven years ago, he was the quiet grumpy member of the group who didn’t seem to care much whether Nile stayed or left. Then he was the one who made a pretty compelling case against Nile seeing her family again—revealing himself to have some unresolved issues in the process—and then he was the one whose issues exploded all over the rest of the group. Now he’s mostly the one who was brought back way too soon, who knows it, and tries to make himself as scarce as possible because of it.

Mostly, it means that while Nile is the one who’s exchanged the most words with him so far, it’s also pretty much been limited to the topic of...well. His tortoise. All in all, much less informative about the man compared to just watching him settle said tortoise up in every safehouse they use, no matter how temporary. (Nile would help, but she’s not entirely sure how the others would take it. It seems prudent not to.) Or looking at the cozies the tortoise parades around on a regular basis...or, as the case may be, discovering he’s taken the time to bedeck his precious reptile in a new outfit for the sole purpose of leaving it (uncharacteristically) unsupervised in Nile’s company just so she has someone to talk to.

“You’re not who I want to talk to either,” she says, because she’s under no illusion that her solitude today has been accidental. “I mean, I know they’re trying I just—”

Nile sighs, wiping at her face in a vain attempt to clear her head, but the gesture only brings fresh moisture to her eyes as she tries to swallow down her frustration. It feels almost silly, in the grand scheme of things, to be this upset over this, but, well... Hearts do what they want, and there’s nothing Nile can do about that, so eventually she looks down at Bâtard’s scaly little head and tells the tortoise:

“It’s my mom’s birthday tomorrow. She’s turning sixty-five and I—”

Nile claps a hand on her mouth to stifle the sob wrenching itself out of her, but it feels piercing and loud in the quiet evening air nonetheless. She breathes around it for a bit, unwilling to attract company just yet, and reaches down to rub Bâtard’s head with her forefinger.

“I want to be with her,” she eventually confesses to the tortoise. “I want to be there and hug her, I—I miss my mom.”

Nile knows she can call. They’ve got burner phones, Copley’s skills to keep them hidden, and an uneasy truce with Quynh ensuring the biggest threat they’ve faced so far isn’t much of one for now. Three years ago she wouldn’t even have had that: her mother and brother both convinced she was dead and buried somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. She believes with all of her heart that her mother and brother would never blame her for living when they can’t.

Her mother is starting the second half of her sixties, and she’s not there to see it. Her mother, who’s growing older and greying a little at the temples. Her mother, who deserves better than never knowing when they’ll see each other again, with little-to-no news in between visits. Her mother, who was there for her in every way she could and every way that counted, and for whom Nile wants to be there but can’t. Her mother, who will not be there forever.

(Sometimes, the thought hits Nile out of nowhere, and it takes an impossible effort not to drop everything right then and there to jump in the first flight to Chicago.)

“It’s just—” Nile pauses, trying to pick her words so she can really make Bâtard understand, as impossible as that is, and continues : “They’re great. All of them. They’re—even Booker’s not so bad. I mean, I’m kind of stuck in the middle of the family feud so that’s not the best feeling, but... They’ve gone above and beyond to help me feel welcome, they’ve taught me so many amazing things…. They’re just...not my mom.”

Bâtard, done with his strawberry, lifts his head to look at her, and Nile swears he even leans into her scratching, just a little. It’s a pleasant surprise and she finds herself smiling, not very bright but present nonetheless. It soothes something in her, too, not to be alone right now even though she’s not ready for human company. Both her mother and Jordan have allergies so they’ve never had pets before, and Nile never really longed for one either. Right now, though, she thinks she understands a little better what endears them to people.

“I’m...scared,” she admits, keeping her voice quiet like it’s going to make a difference. “I know I’m going to lose her one day, that’s inevitable, but I don’t want to find out about it months later because my brother couldn’t reach me...I don’t want to find out about his death from nephews and nieces who’ll barely know who I am, if they know I exist at all.” Nile sighs again, sobs crowding in her throat and tightening her voice as she admits: “I wish I hadn’t listened to Booker.”

That last admission is what breaks the dam, and all of a sudden Nile is sobbing again, and she couldn’t stop if she wanted to. There’s misery here, and anger too, maybe even more than there was at the beginning. It was...easier, in a way, to pretend to be dead. She had to mourn, of course, and that tore at her and still does sometimes, but it was a clean cut. It was simple.

Now her mother knows she’s alive and her brother knows and it’s a relief for all of them, but it also means Nile has to be the one consciously deciding not to call home until she’s in a safe enough place to do so, not to text until she can do it from a sufficiently untraceable phone. The temptation there is a hundred times harder to resist because it would be so easy not to.

“If it makes you feel better,” Joe’s voice says from the threshold, “I think we can all sympathize with that sentiment.”

He’s being quiet and careful—it’s the middle of the night after all—but Nile is still startled, and she pretends to glare at him until he tilts his head in quiet enquiry. In response she sighs, wipes at her wet cheeks again, and waves him over. He smiles, something almost like relief in it, and steps lightly into the living room.

“Mind the doctor,” Nile tells him, gesturing at the remains of the strawberry, as he lowers himself on the ground next to her.

“The doct—you mean Bâtard?”

“Yeah he’s—”

In that instant, Nile realizes she has no idea where Bâtard went. He was chilling by her feet, seemingly content to go to sleep soon, and now he’s nowhere to be seen. The realization is enough to send Nile’s heart racing, horrified at the thought of being the one under whose watch Bâtard meets an unfortunate end.

Sure, it isn’t her pet and she and Booker aren’t really close—not like she’s becoming with the others, at any rate—but 1) Bâtard doesn’t deserve to die and 2) it doesn’t take a genius to realize his demise would be absolutely disastrous for Booker’s mental health, and no one wants to see the consequences that could have on the rest of them. Joe must have gone through a similar realization, because as soon as Nile falls quiet he tenses and gets back up into a crouch.

“Please tell me we didn’t lose the tortoise,” he whispers, like he thinks Booker might be listening in on them.

“We didn’t lose the tortoise,” Nile replies because it’s barely been five minutes and Bâtard cannot possibly have gone far in that time frame.

“Good,” Joe says while Nile rummages through her pocket for her phone and turns the flashlight on, “because I don’t think any of us are prepared to deal with the fallout of—”

“We did not lose the tortoise,” Nile interrupts, her tone firm enough to pretend she’s not actually nervous about this. “Can you turn the light on? I’m getting nowhere with this.”

Joe does, and Nile spots Bâtard almost instantly, ambling in his unhurried stroll towards the fridge like he knows where the treats come from...maybe he does, Nile really doesn’t know enough about tortoises to tell. Either way, it’s a relief seeing him there, and she turns to let Joe know she’s found their target.

“Oh thank God,” Joe sighs, sagging with it. “I really don’t want to find out what Booker would be like if we lose him.”

“You know,” Nile remarks as she follows Bâtard’s mosey to the fridge, “I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time the lot of you had a talk about this.”

Joe winces, and Nile can sympathize with that if she’s really honest. She doesn’t feel the same about what happened, but then she doesn’t have a shared history with Booker the way the others do; it’s easier for her to let go faster. Still, Booker’s been back for nearly three months now, and Nile is getting tired of feeling like she needs to be walking on eggshells between the two parts of the group. Joe sighs.

“Which ‘this,’ do you think?”

“All of them,” Nile retorts, careful to keep her voice gentle. She’s not trying to force anyone into anything, after all. “Just...it’s been months, and you’re still avoiding each other. You all need to talk.”

Joe sighs again, running a hand over the nape of his neck. He looks like he might be ready to talk with someone, but the very thought of it makes Nile want to recoil. Another day, maybe. When she’s got more energy, and more space in her head for other people’s problems.

Not right now.

“Remember you’re on my strawberry,” Nile says, smiling to turn it half into a joke, “if you need a consultation you pay your own fee.”

“Alright,” Joe chuckles, good natured even in the middle of the night. “That’s fair.”

He sobers up soon after, growing quiet and serious to ask: “Is it working for you? Or would you like to tell me what’s going on? I’ll even listen for free, if you’re short on strawberries.”

Nile snorts. The truth is, she does feel better for having told him what was going on, even if her ‘consultation’ was accidentally cut short. She’s not sure how much of this she wants to share with the team just yet. There’s never an easy way to tell people who want to help you that they can’t because they’re simply...not who you want at that moment.

“Actually, I’m good right now,” she tells Joe. “Take you up on it another time?”

Joe visibly hesitates, something a little worried in his frown, so Nile gives a fond smile and leans up to squish him in a hug as much as she can manage.

“Thank you,” she tells him, relaxing when he returns the embrace just as tight and actually lifts her up against him. “I’m good, I promise. It’s not─you can probably guess most of it, honestly. I just...I feel kind of awkward about it, I guess.”

“Because we’re too close?” Joe guesses, and Nile nods.

“Sometimes it’s just easier to talk to someone uninvolved.”

“Well,” Joe says, something too wet in his throat to be only about Nile, “I’m glad you have that then. Just...just know I mean it.”

“I know,” Nile promises, chest warming from the care and the obvious concern. “Now go to sleep, old man.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Nile gives Joe a playful shove, snorting when he pretends to stumble, and watches him go with the stretch of a smile sinking into her cheeks. Slowly, the air around her grows still again, the vague sounds of a forest at night and a door creaking barely even noticeable.

How much sleeping is actually taking place on the other side of the safehouse, Nile doesn’t know. She learned very quickly that no one on this team is capable of normal sleep patterns. It’s quiet all the same, and after a few seconds of standing in place, she goes to the fridge, retrieves a peach quarter from Bâtard’s snack box and she plops the offering in front of him, turns the light off, and sits back down next to the tortoise.

“Alright,” she tells him, “maybe I wasn’t completely fair with your dad. I mean...he was wrong, but it’s not like he was trying to be cruel. And he did have a bit of a point.”

She still can’t quite stand the thought of losing her family. It’s unavoidable, she knows. One day, maybe, she’ll make her peace with it, but for now...no. She doesn’t want to think about that any more than she already has tonight.

“I know there’s a purpose,” Nile tells Bâtard. “I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it. And we’re getting better at it! I know I’m doing more good here than I used to as a soldier...but sometimes I wish there wasn't a purpose and I could just go home.”

Bâtard, either oblivious to or unconcerned by Nile’s predicament, keeps munching on his piece of peach, and Nile can’t help but smile down at him, reaching to rub at his head once more.

“You really are a good listener,” she tells him. “You’re still not my mom though. She’s the one I want to talk to.”

Bâtard looks up then, and straight at Nile with something that could almost pass for a purposefully flat expression...and, really, he’s not wrong. It’s nearing three am here which makes for...maybe ten or eleven in the evening in Chicago? And sure, Mom’s not so young anymore and could probably use the sleep...but today is her birthday, and Nile’s always tried to phone her on the day before, and she has a burner phone with her so, really, what’s stopping her?

Maybe the possibility of displeasing Andy, a bit. But, Nile thinks as she dials, they’re leaving tomorrow aren’t they? If she’s going to do it, at least she’s picking the least inconvenient time for it.

“N─yes?” Mom’s sleepy voice mumbles into the phone, better at the incognito game than she was when it all started two years ago. “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Nile says, and smiles at her mother’s joyful, wordless exclamation. “Am I waking you up?”

“Nevermind that,” mom chides, “nevermind that! How are you? Where─well no, you can’t tell me where you are, but how are you?”

“Better now,” Nile says in a sigh, warmth and bittersweetness spreading in her chest as she leans back against the wall, finger still tracing circles on Bâtard’s head. “I mean. I miss you, but at least I get to hear you now.”

“Oh, I miss you too baby,” Mom says, tears audible in her voice, “but I’m so glad you called! Don’t tell your brother, but it’s definitely my favorite present this year!”

Nile smiles again, a little wobblier than she’d like, maybe, but not forced. This isn’t ideal and she wants more, but it’s better than not calling the way she’d planned to do. At her feet, in the dim silvery light of the moon, Bâtard looks just a little smug.

“Not a word,” Nile promises, knowing her mother is going to share the news herself anyway. “How was your day?”

“Oh it was nice! You know how I told Marjory down the street I felt ready to celebrate a little more this year now I got used to you being dead and all, so she treated me to lunch at that new Italian on the corner─you tell your Nuncio he was right, by the way, osso bucco is delicious. And then we went for a stroll in the park, and I was a little worried, because I’m still supposed to be grieving, but you’re alive and I wasn’t sure I’d look suitably emotional when we passed your favorite spots, but I do miss you so it really wasn’t that hard and all in all it was nice and Marjory’s none the wiser so I’m calling it a success.”

“I’m sorry,” Nile says, unsurprised when Mom tuts at her in response. “I know, I know. I still wish you didn’t have to lie to her.”

“Nile, baby, if Marjory knew, she’d understand. Now you stop worrying about her and tell me what your day was like.”

“It was alright,” Nile says, rolling her neck as the tension slowly seeps out of it, the breaths coming slower and easier now that she’s actually doing what she’s wanted to do all day. “I missed you. Jaamal taught me how to draw a dog, though, and then Antaram kicked my butt in training again.”

“Just you wait a few years,” Mom says with a chuckle, “then you can take advantage of her age.”

Nile snorts, even though she seriously doubts Andy will let an aging body get in the way of remaining the best fighter of the group. She might look past forty─although she doesn’t remember how long she’d lived before she died the first time─but she’s also been fighting since before horses were domesticated (or near enough), and all that expertise doesn’t just go away.

It’s still an amusing thought, though, so Nile chuckles along with her mother for a bit before continuing.

“It’s not that bad. I’m learning a lot.”

“Of course, of course! I’m just saying.”

“Of course,” Nile repeats, still smiling. “Anyway, that’s about it. Nuncio made us tagine, Jaamal made fun of him because apparently he cooks like a christian─I’m pretty sure that’s an inside joke. And then I was feeling a little down so Blàsi lent me Bâtard, and now I’m here.”

“Is Bâtard Franklin���s name?” Mom suggests when she hears Nile hiss at her slip up.

“Yes, but I don’t think he deserves it,” Nile says, grateful for her mother’s help. “I think we’re bonding. Either that or he just wants me for my fruit.” Mom chuckles. “He’s wearing a doctor’s outfit right now, by the way. I think it’s one of the homemade ones.”

It looks lumpier than the ones Bâtard wore at the beginning, at any rate, but in a way that makes it even cuter. Not that she needs the cozies to find Bâtard cute anymore. It’s entirely possible the tortoise doesn’t care one whit about her─she really doesn’t know a lot about them─but it’s clear that this little late night conversation was enough for Nile to bond with him.

“Oh, well, send me a picture if you can,” Mom says with the tone of a connoisseur readying to look at a newbie’s attempt, “see if I can give Blàsi some pointers.”

“I’ll try my best, but you know I can’t make promises,” Nile says, sadness creeping up again. “Places to see, things to do...you know how it is.”

“Speaking of,” Mom asks, “what time is it where you are? I mean─you can telle me that, right?”

“I can,” Nile says, smiling at her mother’s effort. “It’s uh...almost one AM.”

Nile yawns, unbidden, and then sighs.

“I think I need to go.”

“Yes you do,” Mom chides, teasing and firm all at once. “You’re not going to accomplish anything if you’re dead on your feet─off to bed, Nile.”

“I don’t want to,” Nile protests, not trying very hard to keep the pout out of her voice. “It’s your birthday.”

“It’s okay,” Mom says, and the tone of her voice is like a hug Nile wants to linger in forever. “I understand. I’m just glad you called.”

“I’m glad too,” Nile says, wiping at a stray tear on her cheek. “Happy birthday, mom.”

“I love you, baby,” Mom says, and Nile grins through a fresh wave of tears.

“Forever and ever?”

“Of course forever,” Mom promises with something like an amused eye roll in her tone. “Now go to sleep.”

“Yes mom. Bye.”

“Bye bye, love you.”

“Love you too,” Nile says, and then she reluctantly disconnects the call.

She’s still feeling blue, it’s true, but it’s a different sort of ache now, the sort that’s softened enough to be a fond remembrance of someone you love rather than a knife to the heart. It isn’t something Nile has figured out how to value yet, but it could be, someday, maybe. With a watery sigh and a smile, Nile bends to pick Bâtard up─he’s fallen asleep, it seems, all snuggled up in his shell and entirely unresponsive in the time it takes for her to scribble a quick thanks at the bottom of Booker’s note and bring Bâtard back to his terrarium in the old parlor.

“M’ci,” Booker mutters from the seat to her left, and Nile almost has a heart attack.

When she turns to scold Booker for it, however, he’s already back to sleep─or feigning sleep, she’s not entirely sure─his back to the door to the bedroom and turned towards the only unboarded window, which they’ve been using as an entry and exit point. Nile sighs, shaking her head, and goes to the room she shares with the others, only to jump again when she lies down on her mattress and finds herself face to face with Andy’s eyes shining in the moonlight.

“I fear the day my sleep patterns start matching yours,” Nile whispers to Andy, and sighs when all that garners her is a sharp smile. “How are you not dead on your feet?”

“I’m old enough to transcend the need for sleep.”

Nile punches her in the shoulder.

“Feeling any better?”

“Yes, actually,” Nile says, trying to shift into a comfortable position. “I talked to my mother...it’s always too short but. It’s good.”

“Good,” Andy says. There’s a pause, and then she adds, “Nile, I’m sorry.”

Nile blinks at the darkness. It’s been seven years, and while she knows full well Andy is perfectly capable of recognizing her shortcomings, it’s the first time Nile hears her actually apologize for anything. She’s got a right to be a little startled, she thinks.

“I was with Book on this,” Andy explains when the silence between them has stretched a little while longer. “Not seeing your family again, I mean. I didn’t think it could turn out well, either...sure didn’t do him any good. Or Lykon, for that matter.”

“To be fair,” Nile admits after a beat, “I get it. I’m probably just very lucky. And I...I’ll lose them anyway. Sooner or later. I don’t─I’m glad I still have them for a bit, even if it hurts but...sometimes, I think at least the clean break was...easier.”

Andy stays quiet at that, eyes still looking at Nile in the darkness. Nile resists the urge to squirm under those eyes, but she’s not surprised when the urge to elaborate becomes too strong:

“It’s just...before my mom saw us, I didn’t have to wonder how this was affecting everyone. No contact, stay out of Chicago for another fifty years, maybe a little more, and that was it. It hurt, but at least the path was clear. Now I keep wanting to call her not knowing if I should. I have to use fake names to tell her about the most important people in my life, who she’ll never meet─I’m making her lie to her best friend!”

On the other side of the room, Nicky snorts in his sleep, and Nile smiles through her anguish as it morphs into a soft snore.

“They’ve been friends since elementary school, you know,” Nile tells Andy when she’s sure Nicky isn’t waking up. “They tell each other everything, and now my mom has to lie to her because of me. I don’t know how she can bear it.”

She pauses, breathing through the sudden tightness in her throat, and concludes:

“I don’t know how long she’ll bear it.”

Andy hums.

“I don’t have any advice for you Nile,” she says eventually. “I don’t really remember how that went for me, it’s been too long. But...even now, sometimes I─it’s hard, living without your family. Even at my age.”

“I...I didn’t know you felt like that,” Nile admits. “I thought you’d grown past that.”

“I don’t think we’re meant to,” Andy says. “I can’t remember what my parents looked like, or what it was like to be a child...but I do know what it’s like to want someone else to take care of your shit for a while.”

Nile grins, surprised into a light laughter that’s almost a giggle. Sometimes it’s easy to forget Andy is as human as any of them, even if she’s the oldest person on Earth. Discovering moments of relatability is always a delight and a relief all at once.

“I know we’re not your mom or your family,” Andy says after a while, the smile fading from her voice as she grows more serious, “and we’re not trying to be. But you’re─I won’t get angry if we’re not enough. You don’t have to...to hide it from me. You don’t have to stay alone and just...assume. There’s been too much of that lately.”

Nile can’t see Andy’s face in the darkness, not when her eyes aren’t angled to catch the moonlight, but it’s not hard to guess where she’s looking. In the doorway, Nile can see the outline of Booker’s seat, one hand dangling over the armrest─bottle free for the second night in a row, though there’s still an empty glass nearby on the floor.

“What I mean,” Andy says, startling Nile again, “is that you don’t have to be ashamed if we’re not what you want or need. The fact that you value your family isn’t a weakness, or a flaw. Just because we’ve─just because most of us grew out of it doesn’t mean you’re wrong for still needing more time, especially when it’s so recent. This...I didn’t tell him that, and I should have, so now I’m telling you. Not to protect us, but because it’s true.”

“Thanks, Andy,” Nile says.

“Sure. Now go to sleep,” Andy orders fondly.

Nile snorts, gives Andy a light punch in the shoulder, and turns over to go to sleep.

[andromeda612]

Too short!

Ok, I'm into Sk8 The infinity and Renga as much I'm into Nathmarc which means the fanfic ideas are flowing... here we go. This may have some spoilers!!! 📢🚨

Also idk if this count as a crack but the thing is I'm done with the angst so I came up with this silly idea.

So this is a canon divergence in which they boys get to talk about their problems and have the reconciliation they deserve and need.

They understand each other better, Langa even started to pay attention to all the rude things some people say about Reki and is ready to assure him when necessary.

Though.... there are some assholes that are just well... assholes.

Like this guy we will call Yoshio... maybe I'll come up with another name when I actually write the fic. Btw, Yoshio is their age and a jerk, he tried to get close to Langa because being friends with Snow would be cool and would gain him some points, however Langa was not interested, the guy was... not friendly, besides the friends he already had (Shadow, Joe, Cherry, Miya and of course Reki) are more than enough for him, especially Reki.

And well Yoshio can understand why Snow would prefer the company of people like Joe , Cherry and Miya, even Shadow but that slime redhead? At least Yoshio has his own name in "S" but that guy was just a nobody, so he didn't understand why the big Snow was so eager to spend time with with such a nobody, the genius even looked like he was looking forwards to just be seen by the redhead, why?

Of course since Yoshio is a jerk he doesn't think and gives his opinion on the matter. In a rude way.

"I don't get it. Why waste your time with a lowlife like him? What does have that nobody that I don't? At least people here knows my name!"

Langa is not a violent boy, he usually don't get mad or angry, but right now he just want to punch this boy until he backs off his words. The only reason he didn't was because Cherry and Joe interfered, but he did give him a piece of his mind. Fortunately Reki didn't let those words get to him.

For some time Yoshio leaves them alone, but he really wants to humiliate that slime, so he would finally understand his place.

Then he comes up with an idea which is at best childish, but it would make what he wants: humiliate Reki in front as much people possible.

So he challenges him into a beef. The loser would wear a dress chose by the winner.

Yeah, childish and kind of retrograde is XXI Century please.

Reki honestly doesn't think much about the beef, is just a dress, though they are not his style. Yoshio will bother him until he agrees. Reki was about to win but Yoshio plays dirty, even dirtier than Shadow, and what he did was actually dangerous, Reki lost and ends up with more bandages on his left arm and right knee.

Again, the only reason Langa didn't beat the shit out of Yoshio was because Cherry and Joe stopped him.

Now Reki has to go to "S" wearing the dress Yoshio chose for him. That day the gang meet at Joe's restaurant so Reki can put on the dress, they all decided to wait until he wear it to see it, so it was a surprise. But Reki was feeling very uncomfortable wearing it and was seriously considering to not set foot in "S" ever again or deal with whatever shit he had to face if he decides to not keep with the beef.

"Everything alright kid?" Joe asked outside the room Reki was changing.

"Y-yeah... I just... I'm not sure I want to do this"

"Uh, are you ashamed for using a dress? I honestly thought you didn't give a shit about it"

"Language!" Cherry corrects Miya, but he had a point, they didn't thought Reki really cared.

"Is not that, I mean is just a piece of fabric and is stupid to say is just for girls, but that is not the matter..." Reky replies a little hesitant.

"What's the matter, Reki?" Langa asks soflty.

"Well... I didn't take on account Yoshio would chose something so... revealing"

"What do you mean with revealing?!"

Shadow already bored with all that just junked the door open revealing a blushing and startled Reki wearing a pink dress that seemed taken of some magical girls anime, it had ribbons and sparkles and just like Reki said... it was kind revealing. The neckline was pronounced, if Reki were a girl... you have an idea, and the skirt was way too short. It gained different reactions.

Shadow and Miya explode in laughter, Cherry and Joe's parental instincts kicked in and were internally ranting about how their child won't wear that in public and thinking in ways to make anything that may happen to Yoshio to look like an accident.

And Langa... Langa felt for the first time what a gay panic was.

He knew he liked his friend in a romantically way, after that talk he had with his mother the night he lost against Joe in the tournament, it was like an ephiny and it didn't took much for him to accept it. He knew he was gay since he was like 12 and Reki was just the sunshine incarnated, it was hard for him to understand how people would not like him.

He always thought he was handsome, cute, adorable, gorgeous and even sexy... he is a teenager and he has hormones okay?! Don't judge him!

But this?

Yeah, he has seen Reki shirtless (which made him flustered) but it’s just... the dress and he looking so freaking cute and flustered, that is making things to his heart... and to another parts, not gonna lie, his legs look amazing and he can't help but appreciatee how the dress embracess Reki's frame so nicely.

"Ugh, close your mouth you are about to drool" Miya whispers to him while elbowing his ribs.

Langa snaps out his trance, Miya is watching him with a smile too knowing for his like. Langa can't help the deep blush spreading over his face

"Jeez! I didn't know you were into this kind of stuff, and you looked so wholesome" the kid tases him shaking his head, for once the Canadian is speechless at his young friend, if for what he implied or the fact he talked about it despite his age he doesn't know and doesn't want to know either.

He tries to justify himself but all that comes out his mouth are stammered words, Miya just laughs at him, he glances at Reki who is too busy yelling at Shadow to stop laughing to notice their little interaction, good, he feels too embarrassed and he doesn't need Reki to notice.

"Absolutely no! There is no way you are going to "S" wearing that!" Cherry states immersed in his parental figure mood. Joe immediately agrees, for once with the man.

"But what about the beef? I get he feels uncomfortable but Yoshio won't let this pass" Miya chimes in, right that is a problem.

"But we can have Reki walking in a public place looking like that! Who knows how many creeps or homophobes are there!"

The people started to talk about what to do, but Joe's words keep floating in Langa's mind.

Creeps and homophobes.

Right, if Reki goes to "S" everybody will see him like that.... Langa's chest tightens at the idea in a mix of concern and, even if he is ashamed of the last one, jealousy.

In one hand both the creeps and homophobes have him worried for Reki's safety, he doesn't want him to be harassed or assaulted.

On the other hand he doesn't want anybody to see him like this, he doesn't want anybody to see how stunning Reki looks, is he jealous? He doesn't have a problem with their friends but... Joe and Cherry are pretty much their parents, with Shadow and Miya there is an age gap and even if that wasn't a problem, they are like brothers for Reki and him(Miya is like their cat son when Cherry and Joe are not present), so he is pretty sure they don't count, buy anybody else? Yeap, he doesn't want them to see this side of his dear best friend. It sounds selfish? Maybe. He cares? Pfff no. He is thinking about this when an idea crosses his mind.

"Shadow, borrow us your cape"

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

"What is this?! Where is the dress!" Yoshio all but barks at the redhead, the Canadian can't help growl under his breath.

"Actually I'm wearing it, under the tunic" Reki explains with a smirk and even opens the tunic a little to show that indeed he is using the damn dress, he quickly closes it again.

"This was not the beef slime! Take off that cape or..."

"Or what, brat?" Shadow appears suddenly and glares at Yoshido, who gulps and steps back.

"Also, the beef was for the loser to wear a dress chose by the winner, you never said the dress had to be seen by everybody so technically Reki is receiving the punishment" Cherry adds as he puts a hand on Reki's shoulder, Joe and Miya also appear besides them.

Yoshido, outnumbered has no other choice but back off.

That night Reki decides to just watch to avoid any accident that would reveal the dress, Langa decides to keep him company, practically attaching himself at Reki's side, just in case.

Though, at some point, in which he sees Yoshido by himself, he ask Cherry to take care of Reki saying he wanted a drink.

After 15 minutes, a long time to go for a drink, Langa returns without drink but with a very satisfied smile.

Reki doesn't miss it.

"What did you do?" But Langa ignores it.

"Mom will make poutine for diner on Friday, wanna come?" He asks instead.

"Hey answer my question!"

"I'm sure mom will love to have you there, she adores you"

Knowing he won't make Langa talk Reki just sighs and says he will be there, Langa will tell him if he thinks is important.

Needleless to say, after that day Yoshido never bothered Reki again and every time he saw Langa he would look away scared and just avoid any contact with the two best friends.

Reki, Cherry, Joe, Shadow and Miya are sure Langa did something but, they are not complaining, the guy was pain in the ass.

"As far as he didn't do something we wouldn't do" is Joe simply state.

As for Langa? He is just grateful skirts and dresses are not Reki's style at all, otherwise he is sure his poor heart couldn't handle it.

This is a draft, the actual fanfic will come soon 👀

[sweet-curried-powder]

Happy Birthday Cherry Blossom!

so it's cherry's birthday today, and since i've had sk8 brainrot lately both generally and ficwise, my brain would not let me relax until i wrote cherry a fic for his birthday. this took me several days to write, and i finished sometime yesterday before all my birthday celebrations took place, and wrapped up editing just now today.

so yeah, take a sk8 found fam fic for cherry's birthday!

~~

Reki, Langa, and Miya laid in wait behind a dumpster near Joe’s restaurant, watching the side door. It was Cherry’s birthday, and the kids wanted to surprise the pink-haired calligrapher, with no outside help whatsoever. As far as Joe and Cherry knew, Miya had a doctor’s appointment, Reki had to run some errands for his mother, and Langa had to go get his hair cut (Really, Langa’s excuse wasn’t really a lie. He’d gotten his hair cut by his mother earlier today, and it only took about ten minutes.). The “parents” had no idea what the boys had planned.

The doorknob jiggled, and Miya leapt into action. Joe waltzed out, fishing his wallet and keys out of his pocket, heading for his vehicle, back to the door. The door had some sort of automatic lock, where the door would lock once the door was shut, so Joe didn’t even give the door a second glance, fortunately.

Miya acted quickly, leaping to the door in less than a second and shoving his board in the doorway just before the door could close, keeping it open. By now, Joe was in his car, and starting it up. Reki opened the door, holding it for Miya and Langa, the latter’s arms full of grocery bags, watching the area to make sure Joe was gone before the redhaired boy popped into the restaurant.

The door was near the back of the large, spacious kitchen, which was neat as a pin; counters wiped clean, cooking utensils put away, nothing out of place. There was a faint smell of garlic and herbs still lingering in the air, which wasn’t overly strong, but it was mouthwatering nonetheless.

Langa set the bags down on the counter, Reki producing the cookbook from his bag, flipping to the bookmarked page, a recipe for a cherry cake. Miya rooted through the cabinets, getting out bowls, pans, and measuring cups and spoons.

“Do you think Cherry will like this?” Langa asked, getting out the ingredients and setting them on the table. “I mean, I don’t have that much baking experience besides making cakes and brownies from mixes…”

“I’m sure he’ll like it!” Reki reassured Langa, patting his friend on the back. “And besides, it’s cherry cake! For Cherry Blossom! It’s clever, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is,” Miya shrugged, opening a drawer with a bunch of aprons inside. He took some out and handed them to Langa and Reki. “Here. We don’t want stuff getting on our clothes.” The youngest took one for himself, putting it on. It was a little big on him, but it worked.

Reki threw his apron on, while Langa put his on more carefully. They fit just perfectly, since Reki and Langa were much taller than their brother.

“C’mon, let’s get baking! It’s just a cake, what can go wrong―”

There was a loud cry from Miya. The two boys turned to see Miya, whose face was coated in cake flour. He’d opened the bag too roughly, causing flour to explode all over himself and the counters.

Reki began laughing, pointing at the flour-coated boy. Miya growled, grabbing a fistful of flour and chucking it at Reki, who got a faceful of it. He coughed and sputtered, glaring at a smug-looking Miya.

“You’re kind of a little shit, you know that?”

“Thank you, dear brother.”

Langa began greasing and flouring the cake pans, making sure to get each and every little corner. Reki and Miya measured the flour, some of it flying out of the bowl and landing on the counters. Langa went to fetch the mixer from one of the shelves, gasping softly as he nearly teetered from how heavy the mixer was. He set it down on the counter, plugging it in before turning to Reki and Miya, who had started on the wet ingredients.

“‘Separate the whites from six eggs’?” Miya read aloud from the cookbook. “How do you separate egg whites?”

Reki opened his mouth to answer, before Langa took an egg from the carton. He put his free hand over the bowl, using the other to crack the egg into his hand. The white seeped through his fingers, plopping into the bowl with a satisfying noise. Langa put the egg yolk in a smaller bowl, shaking the stray egg white off of his hand.

“How’d you know how to do that, Langa?” Reki asked, tilting his head. “I thought you hadn’t cooked from scratch before.”

“Mom had a baking show on TV the other night,” Langa said, taking another egg. “I don’t know what the show was called, something about sugar or spices I think? But one of the ladies on the show did this with the eggs, I thought I could give that a try.”

Reki peered in the bowl with the yolk in it. There was still some white stuck to the yolk, but Langa had gotten most of it. He had to admit, it was fairly impressive.

“That was a good idea, Langa. Good job,” he congratulated Langa, beaming widely at him. A light blush dawned on the pale boy’s cheeks as he mumbled a “thank you” in reply.

Miya watched the two teenage boys talk with each other as they separated the eggs’ yolks and whites, blush and flour dusted across their cheeks. He shook his head, opening the jar of cherries and straining the juice into a measuring cup. I swear to god, they’re pining for each other. It’s like some sort of fanfiction.

“Okay! Whites are in!” Reki grinned, wiping some flour off of his nose. “Things should be smooth sailing from here, now that we know what else to do. Miya, the cherry juice?”

“Yeah, yeah, I―FUCK―” Miya tripped on his shoes, the measuring cup flying out of the small boy’s hands and splashing onto the floor. Luckily the cup was plastic, so it didn’t break, but the juice splashed all over the floor. “Dammit, that was all our cherry juice!”

“And we only have that one jar of maraschino cherries…” Langa mumbled.

“Don’t worry, don’t panic,” Reki tried to reassure the other two. “There’s a store right down the road, remember? They’ve got to sell maraschino cherries there, I’ll just go skate by there and pick up another jar.”

“What if Mama Cherry and Papa Joe come back before you do?” Miya asked, pulling on his sleeve. “The surprise will be ruined then…”

“I called the old man earlier and asked him to distract Cherry and Joe for a few hours while we make the cake. I’ll try and contact him and say we need more time.” Reki grabbed his board, rushing to the side door of the restaurant. “I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

“Stay safe, Reki!” Langa called out as Reki left in a rush, hopping on his board and zooming towards the shop, heart pounding as he approached the store. This could still work, this is just a minor setback, it―

“Will you shut it, you damn gorilla?!”

Fuck. It was Cherry.

Reki quickly ducked behind a trash can in a nearby alley, peering to where the voice was coming from. It was Joe and Cherry, with Shadow in between them. Shadow caught Reki’s eye, face starting to morph into one of his classic scowls.

“We need more time,” Reki mouthed quickly and quietly, gesturing towards Joe and Cherry, signaling the florist to distract the two. Shadow nodded, turning to Cherry and saying something that Reki couldn’t hear, the red haired boy sighing in relief as the group turned around, dashing to the store, weaving through the small crowd, yet trying to blend in.

He soon approached the store, ducking inside and heading for the section of the store with all the canned fruits, frantically searching the shelves. Pineapple, peach slices, apricot... it took Reki a good five minutes before he found the jar of cherries that he was looking for. He quickly grabbed it and hurried to the register, throwing a handful of yen at the cashier and running off with the cherries before they could even give him his change.

He slid into the back alley of Joe’s restaurant, banging on the door. Langa answered, being immediately greeted with a panting Reki.

“I got the cherries,” Reki panted, handing them to his friend. “I saw Shadow on my way here, but who knows how much longer the old man can stall Cherry and Joe.”

“We should hurry.” Langa nodded in agreement, handing the jar to Miya. “You two take care of cake. I’ll take care of making the fondant and frosting.” The three of them had been discussing how to decorate Cherry’s cake for several days, and eventually, they settled on frosting it with a homemade cherry buttercream (Langa had once helped Reki make frosting to frost his sister’s birthday cake with, so he knew how to do it) and branches of cherry blossoms made out of fondant. None of them had made anything with fondant before, but they had seen Joe make fondant from scratch enough times to get an idea on how it was made.

“You heard your boyfriend. Come on and help me with this cake!” Miya began draining the cherries again.

“Okay—WAIT A FUCKING SECOND!”

The next two hours were filled with trial and error. As in, 70% error and 30% trial. Reki had cut his finger while helping Langa cut the cherries for the buttercream, and Langa took Reki’s finger and put it in his mouth, his logic being that he saw it in an anime once, and he figured it was some sort of custom in Japan.

Miya had to tug on the extremely flustered Reki’s arm to get it out of Langa’s mouth, and didn’t stop teasing the two about it for ten solid minutes.

Then Reki burned his hand on the oven while putting the cakes in, and while Miya tended to Reki’s injuries, Langa went to put the last cake in the oven and burnt his hand too.

It was, not gonna lie, a disaster.

But in the end, after three and a half hours total of baking, the final result looked pretty great, for the standards of three teenaged boys. Some of the cherry blossoms on the cake were misshapen, and the branches looked like dark brown veins. But the three of them had tried their best.

“I hope Cherry likes it,” Langa said, picking at his bandaged hand. “We worked hard. And me and Reki burnt our hands.”

“I’m positive he’ll like it, Langa! Trust me!” Reki grinned, as Joe’s van pulled up to the front. “Oh, that’s gotta be them!” He bounced on his toes, trying not to move, as they were currently in the dark so Joe and Cherry wouldn’t see them when they first entered the restaurant.

They heard Joe’s keys jingle in the lock, before the door opened, and two pairs of footsteps came inside.

“The hell…? I was sure the lights weren’t off when I came in.”

“You seriously can’t remember something like that?”

“Karou, it’s not a big deal, okay? Just let me get the lights…”

You could hear Joe’s heavy footsteps head towards the light switch on the wall, the lights flicking on shortly after, revealing the appearance of their children.

“SURPRISE!” The three of them yelled, shocking both Joe and Cherry, the latter’s eyes going wide, the former jumping slightly. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“Is… is that a cake?” Cherry asked, pointing to the cake on the table, which had a bottle of champagne and some sparkling water next to it, along with fancy glasses, birthday candles, and a box of matches. “Did you kids make this cake for me?”

“We snuck in here when Joe was leaving to make it,” Langa confirmed. “Me and Reki have the burns to prove it.” He held up his hand, Reki copying him with a stupid grin.

“It’s cherry cake too!” Reki added. “For your S name! Cherry Blossom! We even made fondant how Joe makes it and made cherry blossoms!”

Cherry. His favorite.

He remembered when he and Joe were kids. When Cherry got hurt and fell down, Joe would help him to his feet, and bring him along to the next block, where his grandmother lived, and she would give them both cherry turnovers, full of sweet cherry pie filling and with a flaky crust. It was one of Cherry’s favorite memories, of his entire life.

“Cherry?” Langa’s voice broke the calligrapher out of his trance. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”

Cherry’s hands moved to his cheek, feeling the tears that were streaming down them. He smiled softly, glancing at Joe with a fond look in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Now, let’s try this cake.”

[caffeinatedbraincell]

A TOG fic inspired by that one post by @oldguardsaidthat

Read on AO3

“I wasn’t that drunk last night,” Joe insisted. The look on Booker’s and Nile’s faces told him that this was a lost battle, but he had to try.

“You were flirting with Nicky,” Andy retorted from the kitchen, noisily slurping a coffee. Joe quickly swallowed a bite of his scrambled eggs before turning over his shoulder.

“So? He’s my husband!”

“You asked him if he was single. Then cried when he said he wasn’t.”

As if on cue, Nicky walked out of their bedroom. His hair was still damp from the shower, poking out from beneath the hood of a large, comfy pullover.

“That’s my hoodie,” Joe and Nile said at the same time. Joe turned to glare at her.

“It’s a men’s hoodie, Nile. Booker got it for me.”

“No, it’s a unisex one from Costco and it was in the bag of shopping with my name on it. Right, Book?”

Booker looked back and forth between them, trying to decide who he wanted to get into a fight with less. He sighed. “It’s clearly Nicky’s.”

Nicky grinned, pausing next to the table to scoop more breakfast potatoes onto Booker’s plate. “You tell them, Booker.” He went into the kitchen to join Andy by the coffee bar. “What were you saying, boss? Who was crying?”

“Your husband. Last night.”

Nicky laughed out loud. Joe tried really, really hard to be mad.

“He remembered nothing this morning, if you’ll believe it. I didn’t even know we could get hangovers that bad.”

“Yeah, well. You know how he gets. He missed you.”

Andy’s voice had softened, and Joe could almost see the look of fondness that was no doubt settling itself across Nicky’s face. He decided to lighten the moment by stomping into the kitchen and angrily washing his plate.

“I’m right here, you know! I can hear you.”

Andy smirked a little evilly. “Don’t you want to know what happened last night, Joe?”

“No.”

Booker walked in with his and Nile’s plates, sliding them into the soapy water and shrinking back when Joe gently waved off his offer to help. Nile hopped up onto a stool on the other side of the counter. She leaned forward excitedly.

“Are you sure? Because it’s a good story. We’d love to tell it.”

“Of course you would,” Joe muttered with ire that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’d all jump to speak of my humiliation, wouldn’t you?”

“Of your all-encompassing love, hayati.” Nicky set his cup down and stepped next to him, pressing against his hip and shoulder as he reached for a dish cloth to start drying. “Of your sweetness. Your utter sincerity. Which of these sounds even remotely like humiliation?”

“Bold words for someone who refuses to delete the video of me slipping in the rain and landing butt-first in a puddle of mud.”

“It was funny, Joe!”

“You showed Nile,” he grumbled, but he felt his lips quirk up in a smile despite himself.

“She is part of our family now, is she not?”

“Of course. Which is why I’m taking her to the art history museum in Malta next time we all visit. The human anatomy exhibit, specifically.”

Nicky turned a lovely shade of pink and made a point of shaking the next wet dish directly over Joe’s head.

“What’s in the human anatomy exhibit?” Nile perked up. Joe opened his mouth to speak, but Nicky quickly cut in.

“Andy! Why don’t you tell Joe how he managed to get wasted before Booker and I even showed up last night?”

___

Andy slapped $200 onto the table. Nile raised a judgmental eyebrow as she chewed on a piece of fried chicken.

“Andy. I’m 27. I don’t have $200 lying around to throw in on a bet.”

“That’s fine. Put in how much ever you want. Winner takes all. Joe, you want in?”

Joe looked up from where his head had been resting against his hands on the table. “I refuse,” he began indignantly, “to go around flirting with people just to get their numbers. It’s unethical. What if you break someone’s heart?”

Andy rolled her eyes. “No one’s gonna lose their heart to someone they met a few minutes ago at a club. Most of the numbers are fake, anyway. It’s just for fun.”

“Nicky’s not here.”

“Booker texted me. They’re delayed because Copley told them to stop by the bank and withdraw some cash. He’s going on vacation and wants us to stay under the radar for a few days.”

Joe shook his head. “You two play. I think I’m going to sit at the bar and drink for a bit.”

“Suit yourself. Nile, come on.”

___

“Wait, wait, wait,” Nile interjected. “Let me tell this next part, ‘cuz you’ll tell it wrong.”

“Look, the fact that you had three more numbers when Nicky and Booker arrived is immaterial. If we’d continued the game like we were supposed to, I’d have won.”

“You’re a sore loser, Andy.”

“Hey, I paid you, didn’t I?”

The group made their way back to the dining table. Nicky sat back and ran a hand through his hair exasperatedly.

“Madre de dio, you guys. I’ll tell it.”

___

Nicky and Booker walked into the club, quickly locating Andy as she chatted with another woman animatedly.

“Andy!”

Andy looked up and smiled, extracting herself effortlessly from the conversation.

“Finally. The bank give you any trouble?”

“Tried to,” Nicky answered, “but nothing a quick call to Copley didn’t fix.”

“Where’s Nile and Joe?” Booker asked. “We should go home.”

“Oh? No drinks tonight, Book?”

“We have better alcohol in the kitchen cabinet.”

“That’s true. Nile should be around here somewhere, shoot her a text. Nicky and I’ll go find Joe.”

“Bet.”

They walked toward the bar and spotted Joe scooting what was obviously the latest of several $10 bills at a bartender. She spared him a concerned glance over her shoulder as she poured him another drink. Joe gulped it down in a matter of seconds.

Nicky shook his head despairingly. “This insane man.”

“He was missing you.”

“That’s no reason to drink the bar dry!”

“The alcohol can’t hurt him, Nicky.”

“I know, I know. Give me a couple minutes, I’ll get him.”

Nicky walked up and slid onto the stool next to Joe, leaning forward to ask the bartender for a glass of water. He turned to his husband. Before he could say anything, Joe glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and whispered,

“Beautiful company tonight.”

Nicky froze. Was his husband hitting on him?

Joe winked.

Nicky’s jaw dropped. He was going to slap this man. He didn’t even want to know how much alcohol it took for an immortal to get this much out of their own mind.

“Are you single?” Joe’s words cut through his thoughts. Nicky looked at his wide, sparkling brown eyes, alive and surprisingly alert compared to a few moments ago. Joe kept his hands to himself, but leaned forward almost unconsciously, as if taking comfort in breathing the air around Nicky. His voice and body were a study in longing.

“No,” Nicky replied honestly. He held up his left hand. “I’m married.”

For a minute, neither of them spoke. Then Joe turned back to the bar and rested his chin on his hands, looking away.

“Oh,” he said in a tiny voice.

Nicolo rested a hand on the back of his neck and brought the glass of water to his lips. “Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.”

As he returned the glass, Nicky heard Joe give a small sniffle. Then another. He whipped around just in time to see a large, unhappy tear trickle down his beloved’s face.

Nicky’s heart abruptly broke.

“Hayati,” he breathed, surging forward to take Joe’s face in his hands. “Joe, look at me, my love. Please.”

“I’m not, though. Your love.” Joe hiccupped sadly. “You’re already married.”

“To you, you absolute fool. Here, I’ll show you. See?” Nicky held up his husband’s hand, clinking their matching rings together. “You’re my husband, Yusuf. The love of my every life.”

Joe looked at their joined hands disbelievingly. “I’m… yours?”

“Yes. Of course. And I’m yours. For as long as you want.”

“Promise?”

If Nicky had to endure one more second of doubt in those wide, teary eyes, he would explode. So he leaned forward and captured Joe’s lips with his, trying to pour 900 years of tenderness and devotion into the kiss.

“Nicky!” Nicky pulled back just far enough to shout a quick, “Yes, boss?” over his shoulder. Not that Joe found even that small distance acceptable, with the way he clung to Nicky’s neck.

“Get your ass in the car. Joe’s, too. You two can continue there. The rest of us want to go home.”

“I call shotgun!” Booker yelled.

“Oh, that’s not fair at all,” Nile grumbled. “Andy, can I drive?”

“No.”

___

Joe buried his face in his palms and groaned, a blush creeping up his neck as the others laughed. “Please tell me I at least behaved on the drive back.”

“If you call whispering ‘ti amo’ repeatedly until you fell asleep in Nicky’s lap behaving, then sure.”

The others burst out laughing at Nile’s retort, and Joe flushed even deeper.

“Hey, it could have been worse,” Andy smirked.

“Anyway,” Joe interjected. “I guess I owe you all an apology.”

Every single one of them opened their mouths to assure him that no such thing was necessary, but Andy got there first.

“For what? Being an absolutely precious human being? Never.”

[rocksandrobots]

Of Rocks and Robots Ch. 35 - Wrestlers, Boxers, and Ninjas, Oh My (Part 2)

Honey Lemon leaned in close to Varian's ear, a tempting smile playing across her lips, as she conspiratorially whispered, "Do you wanna go to tonight's wrestling match with me?"

Varian tried to stifle a laugh as he feigned a half hearted protest, "I thought we're supposed to be studying for finals?"

They were inside the studio apartment that Honey Lemon shared with Gogo; textbooks splayed out upon the table. Though small by most standards, the residency did occupy a sleeping loft, a fully equipped kitchen, and had a full bath complete with tub, which made it functionally larger than the dorms that Varian had lived in previously with Wasabi. There was no sofa though, nor any other leisurely dedicated space as Honey Lemon's own bed, which was positioned below the loft that Gogo slept in, took up the non-kitchen area. So there would be no more impromptu naps here as Varian had to either sit in one of the dining room chairs or on the floor, much to his disappointment; not that he would ever say so out loud.

But oh how she made it hard to focus even without a couch to cuddle on. She wasn't trying to distract him, he knew, but she just wouldn't stay still. First she ran about the apartment trying to do some last minute tidying up as he arrived. Next she tried to play the good hostess, asking if he wanted anything while she rummaged around the kitchen. Then even after finally getting her to sit down and open a text book, her free hand would constantly pick up her phone to read some notification or reply to a text, often sparking a random conversation that had nothing to do with the physics test he was trying to prepare for. Now here she was asking him to abandon the study session all together and he couldn't even get annoyed at her for it.

Everything she did was mesmerizing. Her voice was a siren's call that he could not ignore. She could have requested that he travel with her to the opposite side of the globe and he'd already be halfway finished packing a bag. But most frustrating of all was the fact that she was clearly oblivious to the effect that she had on him. She held him in her sway and didn't even know it.

"So do you wanna go?" She timidly asked again. "I mean finals aren't even for another whole week and I just managed to scalp two tickets off of Ticketwatch." She held up her phone so Varian could read the screen that confirmed her purchase.

Varian had to chuckle at the ridiculousness of Honey Lemon treating such an innocuous request as some sort of naughty affair that he had to be persuaded into doing, lest he refuse to succumb to temptation and take the dutiful high road of being a good and diligent student. Did she not know who she was talking to?

Still Varian wasn't going to let her win so easily. "I helped you with midterms, so it's only fair you gotta help me out with finals. And unlike some people, I like being prepared beforehand so I'm not over worked." He teased, thoroughly amused.

Honey Lemon gave an exaggerated pout at this lighthearted jab at her scheduling abilities and Varian nearly lost it in a fit of laughter. She was so earnest in everything that it was comical. But he couldn't stand to see her sad, even if only in jest, and willfully caved into her demands.

"Okay, okay, I guess we can do this on Sunday instead." He dramatically sighed.

He was rewarded for his compliance by her jumping out of her seat with a huge grin and flinging herself at him to wrap him in a tight hug.

"But on one condition," he said as he held her close, "we stop and get food first cause those prices at the concession stands are criminal."

"Alright," she agreed as she pulled away, "Just let me grab my purse."

Varian watched her as she ran over to the other side of the room and bent down to grope under the bed for the wayward purse; still in complete awe of her. Though he still tried to play things cool as they prepared to head out the door.  

"Are you wanting to call Fred and see if he wants to come too?"

"Ah well, I could only find two tickets. They're sold out for the night." Honey Lemon answered guilty. "But he can come another time." She assured as she closed the door and locked it.

Varian chose not to press the matter, but he couldn't help but smile to himself knowing that she had thought to ask him first; even if it was only because he was the one who happened to be around at the time.

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

Joe's Diner was right across the street from Honey Lemon's apartment. The retro style restaurant had seen better days, what with its rusty sign and peeling paint, but it was clean and the food was good which made it a favorite hang out for the locals.

Varian had eaten there before with the rest of his friends, yet a new sight greeted his eyes as he walked through the door. Sitting at one of the tables was a purple gelatinous blob with eyes and a mouth. It excitedly waved one of its long jelly like appendages in the air upon seeing Honey Lemon and himself enter.

"Hi Globby!" Honey Lemon answered back and the blob stood up to meet them.

"Oh Honey Lemon I'm so glad you're here. I wanted you to meet someone." 'Globby', as the thing was called, said.

"Oh I'd like you to meet someone too. This is my friend Varian. Varian, this is Globby; he's Carl's boyfriend." She explained as if this answers all of his questions.

Yes he knew Carl had a boyfriend, and that said boyfriend was a superhero, but no one had bothered to mention that he wasn't human.

"Oh Varian," Globby's eyes lit up in recognition, "Yeah, you're in Carl's boxing class. He told me so much about you. Nice to finally meet ya!" He shook Varian's hand vigorously, which covered his arm in the same purple gloop of whatever it was Globby was made of.

"Uh, nice to meet you too." Varian replied back as politely as he could as he tried to wipe his hand clean on his pants.

"Globby here helps us sometimes with the 'you know what'." Honey Lemon whispered.

"Yes, not to brag, but what ya might call the I'm the protector of San Fansokyo! But I wasn't always so. Once I was a humble thief, and then this happened to me," Globby pointed at his right arm as it dripped goop on the floor, "and then I became a super villain. But once I discovered that the city was in danger I lept into action to save the day! With a little help from my fellow crime fighters Big Hero Six. But seriously, I'm a hero now! Can you believe it! Me!? And I owe it all thanks to Honey Lemon here."

"Oh, no," Honey Lemon blushed, "You did it yourself."

"No HL, I won't hear any false modesty from you." Globby protested. "You believed in me when nobody else did. Even when I didn't believe in myself. That matters a lot. So thank you. Plus you also kind of gave me superpowers."

"How did she do that?" Varian asked.

"Oh well it was kind of an accident." Honey Lemon said.

"I stole her a chim-purse." Globby explained. "Then I used it to break into Krei Tech to steal a neurotransmitter device. And then I kind of tripped and fell while wearing it and the chim-purse kinda exploded and now here I am!" He spread his arms wide at this last sentence, a huge grin on his face.

"Globby is a polymorph." Honey Lemon clarified. "He can change his molecular make up to be whatever he wants it to be."

"No way." Varian breathed in awe. "You mean to tell me you can charge and discharge photons and electrons on cellular level at will?"

"Uuuuuuh, I don't know about that? But I can turn myself into chocolate!" And with that Globby's hand transformed into what looked like a giant chocolate bar, of which he bit into and with mouth still full said, "Ooh nutty!"

Varian watched with a mixer of amazement, horror, and nausea, as Honey Lemon stood by silently; unsure of what to say. The awkwardness however, was dispelled by the sound of raucous laughter coming from the booth Glooby had been sitting at.

"That is a neat trick mi amigo."

A large man, wearing a trench coat and a mismatched luchador mask turned around in his seat to look at them. Varian recognized him from the wrestling ring.

"Hey you're…"

"El Fuego" Honey Lemon whispered in dread.

"Not anymore, now I am El Agua!" The wrestler proudly proclaimed; oblivious to Honey Lemon's discomfort. "It's a bit of a rebranding thing."

"Oh yeah, we saw you at the match last week." Varian excitedly jumped in, also not catching onto Honey Lemon's disquiet demeanor, "You were great! I especially liked how you threw The Sandman out of the ring with only one arm. That was cool."

"Oh hey, a fan!" El Fuego, or Agua as he now was called, enthused. "Always happy to meet fans. Would you like an autograph?"

"I sure would!"

The wrestling champ chuckled in delight as he pulled out a pen and began to sign his name upon a napkin.

"This is who I wanted you to meet," Globby explained. "Salinas here reached out to me for help. He's trying to go straight and is working really hard to get his life turned around."

"Yup, no more life of crime for me." El Agua confirmed as he handed the autograph to Varian. "I'm a changed man."

"How nice." Honey Lemon said with a strained smile on her face.

"Yeah I know, right!? I told him how much of a positive influence you were when I first started out superheroing." Globby continued. "I'm glad you stopped by, so that you two could finally meet. Wanna join us?"

He gestured to the booth and Honey Lemon looked like he had just asked her to dive into lava.

Varian was going to take up the offer but she answered before he could.

"Oh no, we only came here for… for… some… uh, ice!"

"Ice?"

"I thought we came here for fo-"

"Ice... ice cream that is." She nervously laughed. "Yup, we're just going to get some ice cream... to go. Wouldn't want to be late to… where we're going."

She wore a plastered grin as she turned to the counter to order. "Two vanilla ice cream cones please."

Varian and the others watched on in confusion as she took the two cones from Joe and then hurried back. She practically slammed one of the cones into Varian's chest as she hastily handed it to him, and before he could process what was happening, she grabbed the end of his sleeve and started to drag him out the door.

"Bye!" She yelled and Varian awkwardly attempted to wave before the glass door slammed shut behind them.

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

"Uh… Honey Lemon?" Varian asked after they were a few yards away from the diner.

"Hmmm?" Honey Lemon barely answered back as she strode forward, determined to put as much distance between her and the conversation they had just left.

Varian pressed on. "Ice cream is nice and all, but I thought we were going to go get, um, real food."

Honey Lemon finally slowed and turned to meet him, taking a guilty bite from the frozen treat. "We will, I just… I thought we could go get pizza instead!"

Varian turned back to look at the sign hanging from the restaurant window. Pizza was advertised alongside the menu's other assortment of food. He raised an eyebrow and Honey Lemon wilted under his skeptic gaze. She took another bite of her ice cream and suddenly found the toes of her shoes very interesting.

"Honey Lemon."

She looked up but still didn't answer.

"Honey, you're very sweet," Varian coaxed, "but you're a terrible liar. You know that right?"

Honey Lemon sighed and rolled her eyes in a rare display of frustration. "Look I just... didn't want to get caught up in eating dinner with them. We got on stuff to do."

"You mean stuff like going to the same wrestling match that El Agua was no doubt going to later?" Varian asked incredulously. "I figured you'd jump at the chance to hang out with an actual wrestling star. Maybe he could have gotten us backstage passes or something, I don't know?"

"Well, I don't." Honey Lemon said flatly.

Varian paused and looked at her in surprise. He couldn't remember ever seeing her being so cold or evasive.

"What 's wrong?"

Honey Lemon bit her lower lip, "I just.. I just don't trust El Fuego. That 's all."

"Why? What did he do? Did he hurt you?"

"No, no. It's just he's a super villain and we've fought him before…"

"But didn't Globby just say he used to be a super villain too?"

"Well yeah, but that's different."

"How so?"

"Well, Globby's nice and he tries really, really hard. He doesn't mean any harm, even back when he was a thief."

"Oh so, this other guy did something really bad then; something even worse than theft."

Varian thought he had hit upon the problem, but Honey Lemon's response was not one he expected.

"Weeeelll… Sort of…"

"What did he do then?"

"He- Well he.. He's a bully."

Varian tilted his head in confusion; not understanding Honey Lemon's point.

"I mean he called Baymax a bunch of names and tried to challenge him and Hiro to a fight." Honey Lemon explained.

Varian waited to see if she would list any other transgressions and when she didn't, all he could do was give her a look of utter bafflement.

"That's it!?"

She nodded her head timidly.

"Is- is that even a crime?" He asked with a hint of exasperation.

"Well, not exactly…" She admitted. "But it 's mean."

"So what?"

Now it was Honey Lemon's turn to act surprised, yet Varian didn't give her a chance to continue.

"You can't just lock people up for not being nice."

"Well we didn't," Honey Lemon defended, "but neither do I have to be friendly to someone who isn't."

Varian had to admit she had a point.

"Ok, fair enough. No one said you had to like the guy."

"Thank you."

"But he still deserves a second chance, surly."

"Well sure, and if he does become a nicer person that's great, and I wish him the best. But I don't wanna hang out with him."

Varian sighed and shook his head. "'Nice' has nothing to do with it, but of course if you don't feel comfortable being around him we can go somewhere else to eat." He pulled out his cell phone. "I'll call ahead and order us a pizza."

He continued walking towards the bus stop but Honey Lemon stood rooted to the spot in confusion.

"What do you mean 'nice has nothing to do with it'?  She eventually asked.

'Well you can't tell how good or bad some is by how polite they are."

"I know that. What matters is how they treat people."

"Yeah, but sometimes it's more complicated than that. Doing one bad thing, doesn't mean they're a bad person. You don't know what El Agua's life is like. You don't know why he did what he did."

"El Fugeo," Honey Lemon corrected. "And I know he tried to pick a fight with my friends; Your friends."

"Yeah, and from the looks of things he didn't actually hurt anybody. Hiro's never even mentioned him before."

Honey Lemon gave him an offended pout, and Varian tried to once more defuse the situation.

"Look, I just.. I know of people who've done far, far worse, and plenty of 'nice' people who'd stab you in the back. Anyways would you like the cheese pizza or the veggie supreme."

He pointed at his phone as he tried to change the topic, but Honey Lemon

wasn't ready to let the conversation go just yet.

"This isn't Corona." She said quietly.

"And thank goodness for that." Varian agreed, though his voice was tight with pained sarcasm.

"You think I'm being mean, by blowing El Fue- El Agua off?" She asked.

Varian immediately looked up from his phone. "No. Oh no, of course not; you're the kindest person I know. If you think the guy is bad news then you're probably right."

She searched his eyes for reassurance.

"Look,' he soothed, "let's just forget the whole thing and have a fun evening. We can get a five dollar pizza at Luigi's, then head on to the match and we'll see who's better at heckling. Loser has to buy the next tickets."

Honey Lemon snorted with laughter.  "Who decides that?"

"We do. Whoever makes the other laugh more wins."

"Oh you're on." She challenged; right when the bus pulled up.

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

Varian and Honey Lemon stepped out into crisp night air as they exited the arena. Crowds of people pushed past them also trying to leave the event and so Honey Lemon hooked her arm around Varian's so as not to get separated.

If there was one thing Varian knew about Honey Lemon, it was that she was a very tactile person. She showered everyone with physical affection; hugs, hand holding, cuddles, and pecks on the cheek, even people she just met would be subjected to her glomping them as if she'd known them her whole life. Therefore Varian tried not to look any deeper into such innocent action, but it still made his heart skip a beat to have his crush so close. Nothing could wipe the grin off his face as they hurried down the sidewalk to the bus stop.

"So why do you always root for the bad guy?" Honey Lemon asked as they went along.

She was referring to the wrestlers. Her and Varian always seemed to favor opposing teams. While she cheered on the heroes of the play, he always gravitated towards the heels that opposed them.

Varian shrugged. "I guess I just like the underdog. The villains tend to be more interesting in my opinion."

"But they're mean; at least in the story, I'm sure they're perfectly nice people in real life." Honey Lemon hastily added.

"All except that Vanguard guy you like. He's a jerk on stage."

Honey Lemon playfully sighed and rolled her eyes. "I don't see it that way. He's written to be like a knight in shining armor."

"Yeah and he's infuriatingly smug while doing it. He goes on and on about 'justice' this and 'honor' that, but what is he really fighting for? His own glory, that's what. It's a game and he wants to win it. At least the 'bad guys', as you put it, are more honest about why they're there."

"But it's all made up." Honey exasperated, "No one is more 'honest' than anyone else because it's scripted. If the story says someone is good or bad you just accept it. It's all a part of playing along and having fun with it."

"Oh sure, but I personally find the villains more fun because nothing is really at stake. Heroes in stories are always too perfect, too pure. Who can relate to that? Who's never wanted to lash out when angry or fight against the status quo? It's easy to be 'good' when you've never had to struggle for anything."

Honey Lemon studied Varian intently as she mulled over his words, and Varian could sense that he'd exposed a nerve; whether it was Honey Lemon's or his own, he wasn't sure.

He was just about to laugh it off and change the subject in order to ease the tension, when suddenly a very large and intimidating figure stepped out of the shadows. Varian instinctively moved to place himself between Honey Lemon and this new threat. Which was silly, he knew. She was an actual superhero. She didn't need him to shield her.

However the 'threat' was not a threat at all. The large man before them burst out into a very familiar boisterous roar.

"Oh I'm sorry mi amigos. I did not mean to startle you. You must not recognize me without my mask." El Feugo laughed.

He was out of costume, and dressed in the trench coat that they had seen him in earlier at the diner. Only this time the luchador's mask was off revealing a man in his late twenties with short black hair and a small scar running across his nose, indicating where it had been broken in a previous fight.

"You should have told me you were coming to see the show tonight." He continued on. "I would have gotten you better seats."

The wrestler's face beamed with an infectious grin and Varian was tempted to make polite conversation. He was always ready to make friends with just about anyone who wanted to, but Honey Lemon's grip tightened around his arm as she tensed up. He spared a quick glance back to see her still huddled behind him, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

"Uh, yeah, well we didn't want to trouble you." Varian answered.

"Oh no trouble at all. Any friends of Globby, is a friend of mine. Hey I know, I can get you tickets to tomorrow's match." He dug into his pants pocket and pulled out two tickets before either of them could protest. "We players always get a couple of free tickets for family or what not. I haven't got anybody else to give them to, so you might as well use them if you can."

Varian tried to politely turn him down "Oh no thank you. I don't know if we can make it. Finals are coming up and all that."

"I insist. They're good till the end of the month and they come with backstage passes too."

Without any other excuses to give, Varian took the tickets and said thank you, though he could feel Honey Lemon's disapproval radiating off of her as he did so. Still she neither said nothing, nor made any moves to stop him.

"Well I guess we better be going." Varian said, trying to exit the awkward situation, "We don't want to miss the bus."

"Oh me neither." El Fuego agreed as he walked with them to the bus stop. "Wrestling is my passion, but it doesn't always pay enough to hire a chauffeur to drive you around in a sports car." Then he doubled over laughing at his own joke and not unkindly nudged Varian with his elbow, "Not unless you get a promotional deal, am I right?"

Varian gave a fake laugh, "I wouldn't know. I never wrestled before."

"Oh that's right, Globby, said you were taking boxing lessons instead. Ever thought of getting the ring?"

"Oh no, my aunt would never allow that."

El Fuego titled his head in confusion. "I thought you two were in college? You still let your aunt tell you what you can and can't do? You stand up and be your own man."

Varian noticed Honey Lemon's lips tighten at that and she squeezed Varian's arm tighter. It was slightly unnerving to see the normally cheerful and carefree girl so clearly annoyed.

"Yeah, well she's the one paying for the classes." Varian explained and El Fuego nodded his head and then launched into another topic of conversation as the bus arrived.

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

And so it went the whole ride back to the apartment. El Fuego carrying on, freely talking about everything and anything, clearly oblivious to the fact that his company wasn't wanted. Varian trying to politely keep up his end of the conversation while ignoring the vice like grip Honey Lemon held his arm in. He was sure it had fallen asleep from lack circulation by the time they arrived at their destination. All while Honey Lemon, herself, kept deathly silent the whole way. She wouldn't budge from the Varian side, nor look away from wrestler sitting across from them; as if El Fuego had been a poisonous snake rather than just a man with a poor perception of social cues.  

What Varian couldn't figure out was why she wouldn't voice her displeasure. It was her evasiveness that threw him off kilter more so than El Fuego's chatter.

Yet he didn't have to wait long to find out, for as soon as they said goodbye to the man and made it back into the apartment, Honey Lemon let out a frustrated scream.

"Arrugh!"

"Have fun?" Gogo asked deadpan. She was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal when they had entered.

Honey Lemon's answer was another rage filled scream before flopping face down on the bed.

"Dude, what did you do?" Gogo asked of Varian.

Varian was offended "Why automatically assume it's my fault?"

"We met El Fuego." Honey Lemon said before an argument could break out.

"Where?"

"He was with Globby at Joe's and later he rode the bus home with us on the way back from the wrestling arena." She tiredly explained. "He says he's trying to 'go straight.'" She flung her hands up in exasperation before flopping back down on the bed, curling up with a pillow while continuing to pout.

Gogo gave the same bewildered look that Varian did earlier that day. "Oookaay annnd…?"

Honey Lemon scrunched up her face and revulsion. "Aaaand, he gave us free tickets to the next match, can you believe him?"

Gogo and Varian exchanged confused looks.

"Oooh how horrible" She sarcastically replied.

This really set Honey Lemon off. "You don't understand. He's just pretending to be nice to try and get us to trust him."

"And why would he do that?" Gogo asked.

"Well to...to... I don't know, to get to Hiro maybe."

"Does he even know who Hiro is? Cause all he ever cared about was fighting "Big Hero Six" and to him that just means Baymax."

"Then...he must be after Baymax then."

"Does he know that Baymax or any of us are in Big Hero Six?"

"I..I don't know. I don't think Globby would tell our secret. He didn't mention it when we met him." Honey Lemon starred out into the middle distance trying to recall their past conversation.

"Well, even then, it's not like he can actually hurt Baymax. I mean he's a robot." Varian added.

This only rewarded him with a narrow glare from Honey Lemon. Varian would have backpedaled away had he not been so shocked.

"You took the tickets from him!" She yelled.

"What else was I supposed to do? He insisted. It's not like we have to use them or anything."

Gogo ignored their spat as she texted on her phone. The reply dinged back; drawing everyone's attention.  "Okay, I just texted Globby. He says he hasn't told El Fuego anything about Big Hero Six other than that he works with us sometimes."

Honey Lemon pouted in confusion. "Then what is he after?"

"I don't know, friends maybe?" Gogo shrugged. "Whatever it is, it's nothing to do with us or superheroing."

"But...but, but he…" Honey Lemon stuttered over her words as she desperately tried to come up with another justification. "He… he was acting really creepy; alright!? Jumping out of shadows… laughing at.. at… well everything…"

"He was walking to the bus stop already and just happened to run into us." Varian clarified for Gogo. This made him the victim of another angry stare from Honey Lemon. "What!? It's true."

"Well, I don't trust him. I think he's up to something." Honey Lemon sulked, hugging her pillow tighter.

"Ooor maybe you just don't like him." Gogo said. "You're allowed to just not like people. You know that right?"

Honey Lemon looked surprised by this revelation. She opened and closed her mouth several times to form a response but the words just wouldn't come.

"Yeah and if anyone knows about not liking people, it's Gogo." Varian teased. "She doesn't like anybody."

This earned him a light punch on the arm. He just couldn't win today.

"Look, it's fine." She said, returning her attention to her roommate. "I know you're a little ray of sunshine, who's friends with the whole world, but not everybody gets along and that's ok. I'm sure even Varian here knows people he dislikes, and he's Mr. Congeniality."

Varian gave a look of offended confusion. He didn't know if 'congeniality' was a jab at his expense or a compliment. Either way he was sure the descriptor didn't fit him.

"Is there anybody you don't like?" Honey Lemon asked him.

"Who me? Yeah, I got a whole country's worth of people I hate."

"See?" Gogo confirmed, not catching on to the deeper meaning behind his words.

Honey Lemon pouted again, but didn't argue back as she mulled over her friend's advice.

Varian stepped in with a peace offering. "Look, would like for me to throw away the tickets?"

"No." Honey lemon sighed. "Ask Fred to go with you, since he didn't get to come this time."

"You sure?"

She nodded yes and gave him a small reassuring smile.

"So, are you still mad at me?"

"Oh, I was never mad at you."

"Really? Cause it sure seemed that way when you yelled at me just then."

"I'm sorry." She whispered sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sorry too. Next time we won't take the bus, how's that?"

She agreed and Varian made ready to leave.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" Gogo asked.

"Naw, It's alright. It's only 10:30. Besides, the bus is less drafty than the motorcycle." He joked.

"Well ok, just be safe and text one of us when you get back."

Varian rolled his eyes "Okay 'mom', See you Sunday."

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

They said their goodbyes and Varian walked back to the bus stop. He called Aunt Cass to let her know he was on his way home, and then proceeded to text Fred about the tickets while waiting on the bus to arrive.

Just then someone grabbed him from behind and placed their hand over his mouth. He dropped his phone in surprise and tried to break free of the person's grip. But no matter how he kicked and squirmed he couldn't escape their grasp.

Yet still even more frightening was the fact that he could feel his limbs grow heavy and his vision swam. They held a damp cloth in the hand that covered his mouth and whatever chemical itwas dipped in was making him lose consciousness. He listed the possible combinations in his mind as darkness rushed up to meet him; chloroform? no, morphine? probably not, fentay-.....

"Got him boss. We're on our way now." A man said over the intercom in his ear. He then picked up the unconscious teen and carried him off into the night.

[staarshines]

Paging A Heart Chapter 1: Darts (Grey’sAnatomy!AU) || P.D.

| Paging A Heart Masterlist |

Warnings: Spoilers for seasons 1-10, strong medical themes throughout (the entire series), language, drinking, mentions of sex, mentions of surgery

Word Count: 2.3k

Surgeons aren’t known for happy personal lives; they’re known for changing the face of medicine. You’ve only ever been interested in the latter, using all available resources to advance your career. That is, until, you meet a gorgeous paramedic that changes your view on that without even saying a word.

[A/N]: I’m back after a one month hiatus with finally the first part of Paging a Heart!

You slam the door to Joe’s Bar open and swat at the bells when they ring loudly, announcing your arrival. Rey catches sight of you and waves you over, accompanied by Meredith and Alex. You don’t even bother to plaster on a fake smile, stomping over and plopping down on a seat in between Rey and Meredith.

“Tequila.”

Today had not been a good day, to say the least.

You can see Meredith eye you warily out of the corner of her eye, probably debating whether or not she wanted to get into what was bothering you.

“Rough day?” Rey offers, clutching her Bloody Mary. Joe slides a tequila down the table and you treat it like a shot, downing it in less than three seconds and slamming it down on the table.

“You could say that.” You motion to Joe for a refill, massaging your forehead with your free hand.

“Don’t take your anger out on the glass,” Alex remarks with that trademark smugness in his voice, only making you want to throw it at him.

“What happened?” Rey tries to divert your attention from Alex and you let her succeed, but he’s getting on your last nerve.

“I just got off of a twenty-eight hour shift and this is the first thing I’m having to eat. Well, drink,” you correct yourself, grabbing the drink from Joe’s hand. He raises his eyebrows at you but you just shake your head, silently telling him you’d be fine after a couple of drinks.

Not going to lie, those ‘couple of drinks’ were looking like ‘blackout drunk’ right now.

“What the hell were you doing for more than a day that didn’t let you eat anything? And you’re drinking on an empty stomach? Give me that.” Rey snatches your drink away and you groan, rolling your eyes.

“As much as I love you, I kind of want to punch you out right now.”

“Like I care. Order a burger or something,” she shrugs. Meredith laughs from beside you at both of your antics.

“But seriously, you couldn’t sneak in one bite?” Mer chimes in.

“Nope. I had four valve replacements and then I got pulled into an emergency transplant that just ended twenty minutes ago. Welcome to the life of a cardiac surgeon.”

“You’re just stressed. You need to let off some steam,” Alex starts. Oh boy. Here we go again. “You need to have some sex.” You narrow your eyes, giving him a disbelieving glare. “What? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” you oblige, earning laughs from Rey and Mer. 

“I’m serious. I have Jo, Mer has Derek, and Rey… that paramedic, what’s his name? Ben?” Rey chokes on her drink, slamming it down on the table. You use her shock to your advantage, stealing back your drink while she looks at Alex with a presumably incredulous look on her face.

“How the hell do you know about that? Who else knows? Wait, who did you tell?” Your jaw drops, because did she really think you went around blabbing her secrets?

“Oh, please,” Alex starts before you have the chance to talk. “You’re not slick at all.”

“Plus, you work at Grey-Sloan,” Mer calls out to her from beside you.

“She’s got a point there,” you clink Meredith’s glass.

“Speaking of paramedics, that one’s had his eyes on you ever since you walked in.” Alex nods his head slightly to the right and you meet eyes with the one and only Poe Dameron, looking handsome as ever in his uniform.

He shoots you a charming smile before turning his attention back to some people you guessed he worked in the same rig with; they looked vaguely familiar and you could easily point out Ben. Turning back towards the table, you take a long sip of your drink while Rey looks for who Alex was talking about.

“Oh, Poe? The guy you have a crush on?” It’s your turn to choke on your drink, giving Rey a look of betrayal. It takes her a minute to realize her mistake, eyes widening.

“Oh. Oh shit. I meant—”

“You have a crush on McFlirty?” The enthusiasm in Meredith’s voice makes you groan, knowing her and Karev could—would—have the entire hospital playing matchmaker within hours.

“Wait. McFlirty?” Her lips turn into a fine white line when she realizes what she’s done. 

“Forget I said anything—”

“McFlirty?” you question Rey, knowing asking Meredith was going to be a waste of time if she didn’t want to tell you.

“Yeah. They call him that because he’s... flirty,” Rey explains the obvious, making you roll your eyes for the second time in those five minutes.

“With everyone,” Alex adds, earning a punch to the shoulder from Rey. “Ow! All I’m saying is—”

“No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have even gotten my hopes up.”

Yep. You were definitely getting blackout drunk tonight.”

“Aw, come on. It’s just in some people’s personalities. If you like him, go fuck him. He can’t seem to keep his eyes off you, anyway.” You’re not sure whether your jaw drops during Alex’s third or fourth sentence, but you’re definitely more interested in the latter.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“What the hell do you think I mean?” Alex snaps, and you’re a bit glad to see his normal personality return.

“Yeah, I think you need some sex,” Rey chuckles, and you can’t help but laugh at his own advice being used against him.

“Oh, please. I got some this morning.”

“I did not need to know that,” you mutter with a grimace, hearing Meredith laugh at your pain. She suddenly gets up from her barstool, drink in hand. Before you can ask what’s wrong, she shoots you a sly smile.

“He’s coming over here. Good luck.” She gives you a wink before walking off, leaving you momentarily speechless.

“Grey, you can’t just drop a bomb on me like that and walk off!” you yell after her, shaking your head and turning to the other two when you get no answer.

“Well I’m not the one who dropped the bomb, so good luck,” Alex tells you with a raised eyebrow, shushing you when you start to tell him off as well. “You’ll be fine. Relax. You’ve got this.” You can do nothing but nod as he leaves as well, remembering how long it’s been since you’ve panicked about something not work-related. Something like this. You had the ability to stay calm while a patient was coding on your table and you were elbow-deep in their chest, but making a move towards a guy you really liked? 

You’d choose scrub caps and the overwhelming smell of antiseptic over the talking stage any day.

Before Rey can say or do anything to calm your nerves, he’s already made his way beside you.

“Care for a game of darts?” he asks, giving you that same goddamn smile that he’s given you across the E.R. so many times. Butterflies explode in your stomach and you know you have to play it cool or else you’ll never forgive yourself.

“I think that would be great.” His smile breaks into a grin and you can do nothing but return it because his bubbly attitude is contagious. Rey raises her eyebrows, giving you a nod of proud approval before you follow Poe to a dartboard, taking a gulp of your drink just for the alcohol-related confidence. He starts plucking darts off of the board and you lean on the table, setting your glass down and trying to find a way to start a conversation.

But your mind is blank because he’s gorgeous and you’ve had a crush on him for so long. It was finally happening. Was he going to ask you out after this? Maybe you were getting ahead of yourself.

“I just realized I should probably introduce myself,” he chuckles nervously, setting both the darts and his drink down on the table and catching you off guard with how beautiful his eyes are. “I’m—”

“Poe Dameron,” you interrupt, holding back a wince when you realize you cut him off. “I’ve seen you at the hospital a couple of times. It’s nice to finally meet you without blood and screaming patients all around. Sorry for cutting you off,” you mutter sheepishly.

“It’s all good. And you’re [Y/N] [L/N], the famous cardiac surgeon.”

“Nope, I’m just the cardiac surgeon. You’re thinking about Cristina Yang,” you nod with a small smile.

“Don’t humble yourself. I’ve heard some things.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like the fact that you’re shit at darts,” he remarks with a grin. You can’t help but raise your eyebrows playfully, grabbing a red dart off of the table and walking over to the line behind the board.

“Whoever told you that must’ve been butthurt that I beat them,” you shrug nonchalantly, unsure of where all of this sudden confidence was coming from. Maybe it was the alcohol. The dart lands just an inch away from the center circle and you pout, moving off to the side and letting him take a stand. “I’ve only seen you around here for a couple of months. You new?”

“You could say that. I’ve been working for seven years as a paramedic in Seattle but I just got transferred to this quadrant.” He swings his arm and the dart lands maybe half an inch farther from where yours was, but regardless, you smirk because you’re still in the lead. “Funny. I’m usually crap at this game with new people. Must be luck.” 

“You’re joking. Someone doesn’t hit it that close on their first try,” you remark, motioning to both of the darts on the board. “That’s not luck.”

“You know what’s really not luck, though? You saving all those lives.” So that’s what he meant when he called you the hotshot surgeon. This man was disarming you with every sentence he spoke, and you two have talked for a grand total of less than five minutes.

“It’s just the job. You save lives too,” you point out, forgetting about the game and suddenly becoming more interested in talking to him.

“Yeah, but you guys do the real work.” Oh, forget disarming. He’s making you fall for him more and more with every sentence. He takes a small sip of his drink and you raise your eyebrows.

“Club soda? I didn’t take you for that kind of a guy,” you tease. Normally you wouldn’t be quite this bold, but you were already comfortable with Poe.

“I have a shift in an hour. Forty-five minutes, now,” he remarks, checking his watch.

“I just got off a twenty-eight hour shift,” you yawn, rubbing your eyes.

“It’s just the job, isn’t it?” he asks with a smile, and you can’t help but chuckle. “What made you stay in Seattle? I’m guessing you weren’t born here.”

“How’d you know?”

“Most doctors that are in Seattle aren’t actually from Seattle. Especially if they work at Grey-Sloan.” You nod in turn to his sound reasoning.

“I came here for my internship, actually. Thought I’d move to Mayo or Hopkins once I finished my residency, but I ended up getting attached to this place. Even if everyone who works here is cursed in one way or another,” you add with a small laugh.

“Cursed?” He quirks an eyebrow, letting you continue.

“Yeah. A lot of crap has happened over the years. Shooting, power outage, plane crash—”

“A place crashed into the hospital? I’m out of here.” You’re unable to suppress a laugh, gently pushing his shoulder.

“No! One of the hospital’s planes crashed. The doctors were out there for five days, if I’m not wrong.” Talking about it brings back memories of Lexie and Mark, but you’ve learned how to let it pass you by with just a sigh by now.

“Damn. You had to go through all that?”

“No, no. I was off both days of the outage and the shooting and I wasn’t on the plane.”

“Talk about luck. So you’re untouchable?” he offers with a sly smirk. You shake your head, biting back another smile. You seemed to do that a lot when he was around.

“Don’t jinx it, Dameron.” He opens his mouth—presumably to retort with another cocky remark—but your pager rings before he can say anything.

“Sorry. I’m not even on call,” you motion to your glass and pull your pager out of its holster, eyes going wide at the words on the screen. There was no way you could ignore this, and the fact that drinks with the man you’d waited so long to have were being cut short makes you groan.

“What happened? Is everything okay?” You shake your head, waving around the pager before holstering it and pulling out your wallet, slapping a twenty down on the table next to your half-finished tequila.

“Eight car MVC. I have to go in—”

“I understand. Better than most people.” Even though he’s reassured you, you can’t help but feel guilty. 

“I’m sorry—”

“Hey, it’s fine. I promise. I’m going to be in on this for the start of my shift anyway, so I’ll see you around. Go save lives.” Something about the last three words makes your heart skip a beat even though you’ve heard them countless times.

“You too.” You can’t help but say it with a grin, which is probably to blame because of his infectious, animated personality. “I’ll talk to you… later?”

“Yeah, for sure. Go, go, go.” You leave with the biggest smile on your face, bumping into Rey on your way out.

“I know that smile. It went great, didn’t it?” She nudges your shoulder, wiggling her eyebrows. You shake her off with a laugh as you both step outside and start towards the hospital.

“Oh, shut up. We have work to do.”

“I know, I know. But you’ll tell me afterwards?” You give her a playfully offended look, gasping dramatically.

“How shitty of a best friend do you think I am?”

•

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Masterlist

All taglists are open! Send me an ask or a message :)

Permanent: @becausewhyknotme​, @criminal-cookies​, @theladyoffangorn​, @officialtonystarkprotectionsquad​, @justmebeingtheweirdmeiam​, @agentpeggybarnes​, @fantasticcopeaglepasta​, @talk-geek-to-me​, @letsmellowjello​, @thescarletknight2014​, @wemisshim3000​

Star Wars: @kittyofalltrades​, @arkofblake​, @m1rkw00dpr1ncess​

Poe Dameron: @yougottakeeponkeepinon​, @seekerofmagnificentmysteries​, @poe-damnnn-eron​, @lapilark​, @peterhollandkait​, @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​, @ghoullflower, @twomoonstwosuns​, @writefightandflightclub​, @lady-sloan, @poes-stardust​

Paging A Heart Taglist: @mndalorians​​, @cloud-leader​​, @softly-sad​​