#this is a good 12 years later - like. your ideas never leave you

[chaussetteblanche]

AHH i lived ur luke one do u think u can do another maybe like an enemies to lovers trope (sorry im a sucker for enemies to lovers)☺️

hi babe !! thanks for requesting ! don't apologise we're all on our knees and begging for enemies to lovers <3

I hate you

pairing : luke castellan x fem!reader summary : you and luke have been mortal enemies for months, will things change because of a quest? word count: 2.3k warnings : swear words, description of a wound

Luke had hated you since your first day at camp. To this day, you had no idea why. But after months of letting snark comments and aggressive capture the flags slide, you’d decided you had had enough. That had been the moment you'd officially become enemies. 

When he'd jeer at you, you'd bite back with even more venom. If you made him drop his sword at capture the flag, he’d come after you with his bare hands. When one hit, the other hit back harder. It was constant war. 

The rest of camp never understood this hatred you both harboured for one another. Singularly, you were both kind, generous and intelligent people. The kind of people you’d expect to get along fine and even become good friends. But no, it was always one thing after the next. 

So imagine your horror when a relatively new camper was chosen for a quest and found nothing better to do than pick you and your mortal enemy to accompany him. It was your worst nightmare come true. You froze when both your names resounded in the agora. 

You choked, coughed and held back from spluttering, refusing to embarrass yourself. You smoothed down your camp shirt and nodded. You did not look at Luke, even though you could feel his heated glower on your skin. He would probably find a way to blame you for this. Chiron looked between you and Luke with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips. You could almost hear what he was thinking. Nonetheless, he abided. 

Walking back to your cabin to prepare your things, you could hear the word actively spreading behind you.  "Did you hear that-" "Yeah, he’s chosen Luke and-" "They’ll be lucky if they don’t kill each other." Rolling your eyes, you shut yourself in your cabin and leaned back on the closed door. You dug the heels of your hands into your eyes, groaning. This was going to be nightmare.

And it really was. By hour 12 of the quest, you’d managed to get yourself thrown out of a train, fought off two harpies and had lost Luke.  "Where the hell did he go?" you asked loudly as you and Alan, the young camper, walked in direction of your next task. "He couldn’t have just disappeared!" "I don’t know, maybe he’ll join us later on." Alan shrugged. You frowned.  "Do you know anything about this?" You slowly turned to to him and he took a step back, shaking his head. "No, no, I-" "I’d suggest you think twice before lying to me, Alan," you growled. Alan sighed. "Yes, he told me he wanted to see how badly you did on your own so he could report it to camp." "Right." Of course. Of course he would find a way to make the dangerous quest even harder than it needed to be. You inhaled deeply, trying to remind yourself not to take your anger out on this thirteen year-old child. Your blood boiling, you turned back around and continued to walk. If Luke wanted to stay behind, that was fine with you. Better that than have him be in your way. 

"Oi!" Called a voice about an hour later. Ugh, Luke. You ignored him, keeping a steady pace. He called your name again. You didn’t react until his hand came down on your shoulder.  Before he could say another word, you spun around and pushed him up against the nearest tree, your forearm pressing down on the column of his throat. "Who the fuck do you think you are," you snarled, close to his face, "to leave Alan and I alone? The quest comes before everything! It comes before your hatred for me and your stupid pettiness! So pull yourself together and stop fucking around! » You shoved yourself off him, glaring into his eyes. He looked at you darkly before grabbing your wrist and pulling you close to him. "Yell at me again, princess, and I’ll give you a real reason to scream," he warned in a low voice. You scoffed, ripping your wrist out of his grip.  "Shut up and start walking, Castellan."

The quest went smoothly -as smoothly as it could go considering the tension between Luke and you- after that. You found that the three of you made a pretty good team. Everything was going fine and you had been on your way back to camp when you crossed a griffin. You pushed Alan behind you immediately, taking out your sword at the same time Luke did. "Distract him, I'll go around the side!" Luke ordered, running off. Despite not wanting to follow his orders, you set your jaw and instructed Alan to hide. You twisted your ring, a gift from your mother which turned into a shield when twisted the right way, and waited for the shield to form before banging your sword against it.

"Over here, you stinking pile of feathers! Or should I say fur?" You yelled as you ran backwards, away from Alan. You continued banging your sword against your shield and watched as Luke charged forward from the griffin's unguarded side. The beast shrieked as it was struck and batted Luke away with its large wing. Luke flew to the side with an 'oomph' sound. Despite your despise for him, you felt surprisingly concerned.

You darted forward as the griffin raised one of its clawed feet, ready to strike down Luke, who was slowly getting to his feet. The loud clang of claws meeting the metal of your shield made him look up quickly. You were straining underneath the power of the monster, pushing back against your shield with all of your strength. "Fucking. Move." You managed to speak through clenched teeth. Luke finally snapped out of his daze and bolted to the side. You readied yourself before jumping to the side, out of the griffin's reach -or so you thought. He swapped at you with his other clawed foot and despite you trying to run out of the way, managed to cut a gash in your side. You cried out. You heard Luke and Alan scream your name, but they felt far away.

You spun around, livid, and cut off the beast's hand as it came down towards you once more. Luke took his chance and stabbed the monster in the chest. The three of you watched as the creature turned to dust. You fell to your knees. Luke was next to you in a second, breathing heavily. He laid you down in the grass, muttering to himself. "Show me," he ordered, lifting your shirt up to reveal your stomach. You squirmed both from the strange feeling of having his eyes on your revealed body and from the stinging pain of the cut. "Gods- how bad it is?" you asked. The sound of Alan vomiting was indication enough. Luke bit his bottom lip, brows furrowed. "It's fixable. You just need ambrosia and a healer." "Really?" You hated the way your voice sounded so weak. Luke nodded strongly. "Trust me." And for some reason, you found that you did. He stood up and sheathed his sword before gesturing for Alan to take your bag.

"Can you walk?" he asked, though it sounded like more of a formality than a real question. You lifted yourself up on your elbows and groaned in pain. You shook your head, hating the fact that you had to rely on him of all people for help. "Okay, then." Luke bent forward, going to pick you up. "Wait." He stopped immediately. His eyes snapped up to your face, which had gone frighteningly white. You were staring at the gash across your stomach. It went from the top of ribs to the side of your belly button. And it did not look good. The cut was jagged and blood poured out all over your clothes. Luke watched, helpless, as your fingers reached out to touch the cut. You hissed in pain before looking up into his eyes.

"I'm going to die." Your voice shook dangerously. He hated the way your eyes watered and the way you looked so scared. He'd never seen you look that way before and he wanted to wipe the sight from his memory. You did not have a face that was meant to look frightened. You had a face which was meant for pride and victory. "Look at me." He grabbed your chin and kneeled next to you. "You are not going to die." He pulled a spare T-shirt out of his bag, balled it up and pressed down on your wound with it. "I know, it hurts," he cooed as you whimpered with pain. "Hold it here."

Ignoring your groans of pain, he pulled you into his arms and stood up. Your vision was becoming blurry, but you did all you could to keep pressing down on your wound with his T-shirt. You heard him bark out orders to Alan in the distance. "Luke," you spoke softly as black dots danced in your vision. "No, no, no, don't close your eyes, princess. Keep looking at me." "I don't wanna die," you whispered before passing out. Luke clenched his jaw as he sped up the pace, ordering Alan to keep up with him. "Idiot. You're not gonna die. I won't let you."

You awoke to a soft yellow light surrounding you. Slowly opening your eyes, you looked around to find yourself in the camp infirmary. Luke was on a chair beside your bed. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Hey." "Hi," you croaked, trying to sit up. Wobbly, you managed to sit somewhat straight against the pillows. "How're you feeling?" Luke asked, looking over your face. He was relieved it to find it less white that it had been two days before. "Like shit, really." You let out a hoarse chuckle. He laughed shortly, looking down at his hands. You were surprised to find it was a really nice sound. That had been the first time you'd ever heard him laugh, and it felt really good to be the cause of it. "How long have I been out?" "Two days and a half." You were quiet for a moment as you thought back to the last things you remembered. "I guess I should thank you for saving my life, Castellan."

Luke let out something close to a scoff and leaned back in his chair. "You saved mine first. Thank you." "Well, yeah." You coughed. "I couldn't just let you die like-" "I don't hate you, you know," he interrupted you. You stopped talking. "Not really."

"What do you mean you don't hate me? Of course you do. You can't stand me. You think everything I do is stupid and bound to failure." "No, I- I don't hate you. I'm envious of you. Of what you have." "Of what I have? I have a fucking hole in my stomach right now, Caste-" "Of your mom. Mostly."

Your lips made an 'O' shape as you understood. Suddenly, everything made sense. That was why he'd disliked you from the start. You had the one thing he never would. Your mother was a minor goddess and did not have many children. This permitted her to be frequently in contact with you and therefore play the role of a present mother. Your father always kept in touch with you. You knew that with each of them you would always have someone to turn to. Unlike Luke.

"Mostly?" you asked, tilting your head to the side. "I'm envious of how whenever you walk into a room, it immediately lights up. Of how everyone likes you. Of how you always look good, even if you've just been torn to pieces by a griffin. Of how you always seem to see the good in people, except for me, I guess. Of how you get along with everyone except for me." Luke didn't meet your eye as he spoke. "Maybe if you hadn't been such an ass when we first met, we'd have gotten along fine. And I do see the good in you, I just like to ignore it for my own benefit." Luke's eyes shot up to yours.

"What do you mean 'your own benefit'?" "Well, if I didn't ignore the way you're so kind to the new kids, the way you're so protective of your friends and Annabeth, the way you stand up for what you think is right, the way your eyes look when they catch the light just right and the way your laugh seems to draw everybody in, then maybe... Maybe I wouldn't dislike you at all. Quite the contrary, actually." You could feel your heart hammering inside your chest as you spoke. The way Luke was staring into your soul was not helping either.

"Say something, Luke," you pleaded. His first name felt soft and foreign on your tongue. You had never said it before.

Luke did not answer. Wordlessly, he stood up and was by your side in two steps. He cupped your cheek, leaned down and brushed his lips against yours. Your heart raced and when he pulled away, you found yourself chasing his lips. He looked deeply into your eyes and smiled before kissing you properly. Eruptions exploded in your stomach as you kissed him back. You pulled him closer by the shirt as his warm lips pressed against yours. Finally, you couldn't help but think. All those feelings you'd ignored and pushed to the back of your mind finally broke free and you almost cried from relief.

His free hand found the back of your neck and you shivered as his fingers caressed the skin there. You leaned into his touch and cupped his jaw before slowly sliding a hand into his hair. He let out a soft moan but before you could get too into it, a cough resounded throughout the room.

"I'm glad to see that you and Luke have managed to work through your differences, Y/N." Chiron spoke, amusement dripping from his words, as he trudged into the room. "Now tell me about your quest."

[wilwheaton]

favorite goncharov character

Goncharov! Holy shit I haven't thought about Goncharov in YEARS!

I remember seeing it at the Vista theatre downtown in ... I want to say 1983? It was either 82 and I was 10, or 83 and I was 11. Now that I think about it, it must have been Spring of 83. I remember that Kimmy Mendini was my babysitter, and she drove my friend Ahmed and me all the way downtown to see Goncharov. She would have been at least 16, but I feel like she was a little older. I remember that she LOVED movies and just never stopped talking about European cinema.

Ha! I can still her her sort of roll "Cinema" out of her mouth. Movies were for the masses to watch, while sophisticated adults experienced Cinema. I'm just realizing now that she absolutely pronounced it with a capital C. She was like "you are so lucky to see a clean print of Goncharov!"

I had no idea what a clean print was, but I understood it was important and impressive.

She had read about this screening in the LA Weekly, which I didn't know at the time was TREMENDOUSLY subversive in our suburban part of Los Angeles County, and we were going to an old theatre in maybe not the greatest part of town, but Kimmy had been watching me since I was in second grade and was like my big sister. I knew we'd be safe with her.

That old theatre (which is now a fucking swap meet) was just so beautiful inside. 100 foot ceilings, box seats, gold paint and murals. It felt like a place you went to experience Cinema, but, like ... it had absolutely seen better days. I remember that I felt kind of bad for the place, a little embarrassed, like when I got a good grade and accidentally made eye contact with a friend who got a D.

Okay. This clearly hit a memory artery, and I appreciate you staying with me this far, when we finally get to the fireworks factory. We're walking up to the box office, and she tells Ahmed and me that we have to wait on the sidewalk, because *technically* it's rated R, and she's not our legal guardian, but what does this guy making two bucks an hour know about art anyway?

So we wait. She buys the tickets, and then we all walk in as casually as we can.

I remember how scared I was that we were going to get caught and they'd call the cops (that's how it worked in my anxiety-ridden brain), but literally nobody cared. The theatre wasn't even half full, and everyone there was a dude at least as old as my parents.

You know the story, so I don't have to recount all of it, but I can at this very moment remember how shocked I was when Bruno was shot. This was the first time, ever, I had felt an emotional connection to a character. I didn't cry when Bambi's mother was shot, I didn't cry when ET died, I didn't cry E V E R.

But when Bruno died? I didn't make a sound. I just silently wept. Tears just poured down my face and I wanted to roll back time, rewrite the movie, and get him out of that room.

I obviously understand now, all these years later why I connected to him and why his story meant and means so much to me, but at the time I had no idea. I just thought the actors were that good.

I can't believe that guy who played him died so young. I think he was like 40? I remember thinking that was old. Now I know different.

When the movie was over, Kimmy asked us how we liked it. Ahmed was obsessed with the photography (he grew up to be an illustrator), and I obviously had my Bruno Moment.

We got Thrifty ice cream on the way home and listened to Donna Summer in her Datsun.

I haven't thought about Goncharov or Cinema or Kimmy in FOREVER. Leave it to Tumblr to boost my nostalgia check to a natural 20.

tl;dr: Bruno. I know he's supposed to be that character we all hate, and there are so many valid reasons for that. But when I was 12 ... well, I was a different person.

Oh! And now that I know what a "clean print" is, having seen so many "dirty prints" in revival houses before they all turned into swap meets or churches (hey, two places where people sell you stuff and take your money!), I retroactively appreciate it in a way that would make Kimmy happy.

Thanks for the trip into the crumbling mall that is my childhood memories. I haven't been here in awhile and it was nice to visit.

[snowysosturn]

Speeding Car - Matt Sturniolo Part 10

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29

Pairing : y/n x Matt Sturniolo

Summary : After six years with your boyfriend Alex, you start mentally check out. At a UCLA party, Alex reconnects with his childhood friend Emily, who proposes a double date with her boyfriend Matt. Your attraction to Matt grows as he pays you the first real attention you've had in years, sparking a complicated emotional journey.

Warnings : MDNI, arguments, cursing, unhappy relationship, tension, not feeling good enough, being let down

Matt POV

Emily was sprawled across my bed, her phone held lazily in her hand as she scrolled through her Instagram feed. She sighed, as she turned to look at me. “Can you believe it’s been four weeks since Alex’s fight? It feels like it just happened yesterday.” She mused, a faint smile playing on her lips.

“Yeah, it’s crazy” I replied, half distracted as I was setting up Roblox on my computer. We were preparing to film a new YouTube video later that day, and I was trying to get everything in order. But Emily’s presence always had a way of pulling my attention away, whether I wanted it to or not.

She stretched, tossing her phone backwards onto the bed. “I still need to pack for Barcelona” She said with a sigh. “I’ve been putting it off all week.”

I looked up at her, arching an eyebrow. “You leave tomorrow morning and you haven’t packed yet?”

“Of course not.” She laughed, as if the idea of being organized was completely foreign to her. “I’ll order an Uber back to my dorm and get it done.”

I nodded, already mentally preparing for the peace and quiet that would come when she left. As much as I cared about Emily, tecently I needed space. Space to think, to breathe. Space to stop feeling so conflicted all the time.

“Oh, and don’t forget,” Emily added, her voice casual as she sat up and began tapping away on her phone. “Alex is staying here tonight.”

I forced a smile. “Yep, I remember.”

She got up from the bed, smoothing down her clothes. “I’ll let you know when I’m done packing so you can pick me up. We’ll grab Alex on the way back too.”

“Sure thing.” I said, watching as she gathered her things. As she left, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of relief, mixed with something else, something that had been nagging at me ever since that night in the hospital. The night when I realized I was feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling.

As the door clicked shut behind her, Chris turned to me with a box of camera equipment in his hands. He looked at me, then glanced at the door. “Alex is staying over tonight?” He asked, a slight edge to his voice.

“Yeah.” I sighed “I’m giving them a ride to the airport in the morning so Emily thought it would make more sense if they both stay here, since we’re closer to the airport.”

Before I could respond, Nick burst into the room, interrupting our conversation. “Speaking of Alex” He said, his tone serious. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

I blinked, completely caught off guard. “What are you talking about?”

Nick crossed his arms, leaning against the kitchen island as he stared at me. “I’ve been keeping this a secret since the night of the fight” He began, his voice low but intense. “When you and Emily came home that night, I heard everything she said to you about Y/n. About how you’re not allowed to hang out with her anymore.”

I felt a chill run down my spine, my mind flashing back to that night. The tension, the way Emily had drunkenly demanded that I didn’t hang out with Y/N “alone” but yet never being asked to hang out with the 3 or them. “I… I didn’t know you heard that,” I stammered, trying to process what Nick was saying.

“I thought you might have noticed I was there” Nick said, his expression hardening. “Since when I tried to tiptoe back into my room, the mother fucking floor creaked.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, running a hand through my hair. “Look, Nick, I get where you’re coming from, but Emily is my girlfriend. I have to respect her boundaries.”

“Bullshit.” Nick snapped, pushing off the island and stepping closer to me. “You’re following her orders, not respecting her boundaries. There’s a difference, Matt. You’re letting her control who you can and can’t be friends with. And that’s not okay.”

Chris stayed silent, his eyes darting between us, sensing the tension in the room.

Nick continued, his voice softer now but still filled with emotion. “I could see how well you and Y/n got along. She’s a good person, Matt. She doesn’t deserve to be cut off just because Emily’s feeling insecure. And it’s not just about you, either. I was starting to build a friendship with Y/n too. Just because you’re not allowed to be friends with her doesn’t mean I’m not.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. I hadn’t realized how deeply this whole situation had affected Nick too. But hearing him lay it all out like that, I knew he was right to a degree. I’d been trying so hard to keep the peace with Emily that I’d lost sight of what was fair and what wasn’t.

“Nick…” I started, but he cut me off.

“No, Matt. You need to think about what’s really important here. And if Emily really loved you, she wouldn’t be putting you in a position where you have to choose between her and your friends.”

I stood there, speechless, as Nick turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Chris gave me a sympathetic look but didn’t say anything. He knew better than to get involved when things got this heavy.

I knew Nick meant well in what he said, but he didn’t know what I knew and matter of fact, neither did Emily.

Y/n’s POV

I placed the last shirt into Alex’s suitcase, carefully folding it to make sure everything fit perfectly and that his bag wasn't over weight. His flight wasn’t until the morning, but I wanted to make sure he had everything ready - the right clothes, his passport, all the paperwork for the trip. I’d even slipped in a few of his favorite snacks, knowing how he got restless on long flights. As I zipped up the suitcase, a small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Maybe tonight we could actually spend some quality time together. I’d been looking forward to it, especially since this would be our last night together before he left for ten days.

I walked out of the bedroom, finding Alex in the living room scrolling through his phone. “Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual as I leaned against the doorframe. “All packed. I figured we could order in tonight, watch a movie or something? You know, just spend some time together before you leave.”

Alex barely looked up from his phone, and when he did, his expression was unreadable. “Uh, actually… I’m staying at Matt’s place tonight.”

The words hung in the air between us, and I felt my heart drop. “Matt’s?” I thought to myself.

“What? Why?”

“Emily’s packing at her dorm, and Matt’s giving us a ride to the airport in the morning. It just makes more sense for me to stay over there tonight,” He explained, his tone dismissive, as if it was the most logical thing in the world.

I stared at him, feeling my chest go on fire. “But it’s our last night together before you go. I thought we could at lesst spend some quality time together tonight.”

Alex sighed, clearly not understanding why this was a big deal. “It’s just one night, babe. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“One night?” I repeated, my voice trembling with the effort to keep my emotions in check. “Alex, you’re leaving for ten days. This is the last time we’ll get to see each other before then, and you’re choosing to spend it with Matt and Emily?”

He put his phone down, finally giving me his full attention, but there was a look of impatience in his eyes. “It’s not like I’m ditching you. I’m doing this because it’s convenient.”

I shook my head, the resentment I’d been holding back for weeks finally bubbling to the surface. “Convenient for who? For you? Because it sure as hell isn’t convenient for me. I’ve spent the last four weeks taking care of you, Alex, I’ve adjusted my shifts so i’m working either at the crack ass of dawn or into the depths of the night, i’ve cooked all your your meals, driven you to and from class, and done your assignments even though I don’t even fucking go to college. I’ve bent over backwards for you, and now you can’t even give me one night?”

He looked at me, stunned, as if he hadn’t realized how much I’d been carrying. “Y/n I appreciate everything you’ve done, but you’re overreacting.”

“Overreacting?” I felt a hot tear slide down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away. “Do you have any idea how it feels to never be a priority in your life? I’ve tried so hard, Alex, but no matter what I do, I’m never enough. You’re always putting other people before me. And now, on the last night we could have had together, you’re leaving me alone.”

His expression shifted to one of frustration. “You’re not the only one who’s had to adjust, Y/n. I’ve been through a lot too, with the injury and everything. I need my friends, and I need to be there too. It’s not all about you.”

His words hit me like a slap in the face, and I felt the last bit of resolve in me snap. “It’s not about me? You wouldn’t even be injured if you hadn’t blown me off that night to go out drinking with your team! None of this would have happened if you’d just kept your plans with me!”

Alex’s face hardened, his eyes narrowing. “So this is what it’s about? You’re still mad about that? I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know it was going to turn into a fight. But you can’t keep holding that over my head.”

“I’m not holding anything over your head.” I shot back. “I’m just trying to make you see that you keep making choices that hurt me, that push me away. And I’m tired, Alex. I’m tired of feeling like I’m never good enough for you.”

For a moment, there was silence between us, the weight of everything I’d just said sinking in. Alex opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and I saw Emily’s name flash on the screen.

“They’re outside.” He muttered, more to himself than to me, as he walked past me into the bedroom to grab his suitcases.

I couldn’t believe it. We were in the middle of a serious conversation. Our relationship was practically crumbling in front of us, and he was just going to leave? Just like that?

“You’re really going to walk out on me right now?” I asked, my voice cracking with disbelief.

Alex hesitated for a split second, then looked at me with a mixture of guilt and annoyance. “We’ll talk when I get back, okay? I just… I have to go. I can’t keep them waiting.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and headed for the door. I watched as he left the apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. Not a hug or a goodbye kiss, no form of reassurance at all.

The silence that filled the room was deafening. I sank down onto the couch, the tears became hysterical as the reality of the situation hit me.

I wasn’t enough for him. I’d never be enough for him. And the worst part was, I just had to sit with it.

What hurt me also was Matt hanging out with Alex. I hadn’t heard from him in a month, he seen how upset Alex made me that night, I opened up to him. What had happened in such a short space of time?

Matt’s POV

I sat on the edge of my bed, watching as Chris and Nick wrapped up the last bit of filming. We’d spent the evening working on a new video, we played Dress To Impress on Roblox, and all of my outfits were shit. Just as Nick made a final comment into the camera, my phone buzzed on the nightstand beside me. I reached over and saw Emily’s name on the screen.

Emily: “I’ll be done packing in about 15 minutes. Can you come pick me up? x”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Looks like I’m off on chauffeur duty.” I muttered to myself, a faint smile tugging at my lips. “Emily’s ready to be picked up.”

“Fun times,” Chris joked, shutting off the camera. “You want company?”

“Nah, I got it.” I replied quickly. “It’ll be easier if I pick up Alex first, then swing by Emily’s place.”

Nick raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. I could tell he was still thinking about the argument from earlier. I didn’t want to dive into that mess again right now. I grabbed my keys and headed out, hoping to avoid more drama tonight.

As I drove towards Y/n and Alex’s apartment, a part of me hoped I might catch a glimpse of Y/n. I felt a wave of longing as I realized how much I’d missed seeing her in the past few weeks. I shouldn’t be feeling this way, I knew that. But something about Y/n made me question things I hadn’t thought twice about before.

When I pulled up outside the apartment complex, I realized with a start that I didn’t actually have Alex’s number. Shit. I’d have to go up and knock on their door. It wasn’t a big deal, but the idea of possibly seeing Y/n again, even briefly, made my heart race.

I stepped out of the car and made my way up to the front door. As I raised my hand to knock, though, I heard voices inside. Loud ones. I froze, realizing that Y/n and Alex were arguing.

“It’s not like I’m ditching you. I’m doing this because it’s convenient.” I heard Alex said defensively.

“Convenient for who? For you? Because it sure as hell isn’t convenient for me. I’ve spent the last four weeks taking care of you, Alex. I’ve adjusted my shifts so i’m working either at the crack ass of dawn or into the depths of the night, i’ve cooked all your your meals, driven you to and from class, and done your assignments even though I don’t even fucking go to college. I’ve bent over backwards for you, and now you can’t even give me one night?” Y/n’s voice, thick with emotion, sliced through the door.

She’s been doing all of that for him?

“Y/n I appreciate everything you’ve done, but you’re overreacting.” Alex snapped back, sounding more annoyed than apologetic.

“Overreacting?” I hear her voice break. “Do you have any idea how it feels to never be a priority in your life? I’ve tried so hard, Alex, but no matter what I do, I’m never enough.”

My heart clenched as I listened. I knew I shouldn’t be standing there, eavesdropping on such a private moment, and what I had just heard made me want to leave. Hearing Y/n’s pain, feeling the rawness in her voice, it was like a punch to the gut.

I turned on my heel and headed back down the stairs, moving quickly towards my car. I needed to get out of there, away from the fight that was echoing in my mind. I felt awful, like I’d just intruded on something sacred. As much as I wanted to check on Y/n, to make sure she was okay, I knew I couldn’t. Not without crossing lines I wasn’t ready to cross.

I drove to Emily’s dorm straight away, the words I’d overheard replaying in my mind. I had to let this man stay in my home tonight, after knowing how much he’d upset Y/n again.

Emily was already waiting outside when I pulled up, her phone in one hand and a suitcase in the other. She climbed into the passenger seat, flashing me a quick smile. “Thanks for coming to get me,” She said, leaning over to give me a peck on the cheek.

“No problem,” I replied, forcing a smile. I started driving back towards Alex and Y/n’s place, the tension in my chest tightening with each passing minute.

“So, how was filming?” Emily asked, breaking the silence.

“Fine. We finished up just before you text.” I said, keeping my voice even. I didn’t want to make it seem like anything was wrong, Emily didn’t need to know what I’d overheard, or the storm of thoughts swirling in my head.

When we arrived back at the apartment, I didn’t get out of the car this time. I couldn’t bring myself to go back up there. Instead, Emily shot Alex a quick text, letting him know we were outside.

A few minutes later, Alex appeared, his expression hard and his movements stiff. I could see the anger plastered all over his face, you could almost feel the anger radiating off of him as he climbed into the back seat.

“You okay?” I asked, glancing at Alex through the rearview mirror.

“Fine,” Alex grumbled, but it was clear that he was anything but.

a/n : ooof nearly everyone’s arguing 😬 buckle uppppp!

taglist : @muwapsturniolo @anitahunt @sturnfannn @jayde510 @chrissfavhoe @babyalliah-777 @v33angel @urmom69lol @willowrites @ribread03 @2muchofaslvt @sturnsaver @sleepysturniolo @jcsturniolo11 @jessie-essie @hoeforchrizz @mynbbys @sturniolopanini @mattsturnxoxo @delicatechrry @t77te @sturnsyaper69 @hotdismylife @maggot3647 @ivysturnss @noplaceissafeanymore @mattssgf @hottiirr @maethem0nth @sillyponygrl @mattyblover07 @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut

[thebestofoneshots]

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 8.3 K Warnings: none Prompt: It's time to set up a trap with the boys! It has to be fun, right? This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it. Proofread by lovely @aremuslupinsimp

Chapter 60: Stone in Love

Wednesday 12th, 1977 - 12:34 AM

Lily didn’t take too long in the bathroom, and you went inside right after her. The girls had showered after arriving on the train, you, on the other hand, had only mildly gotten yourself looking decent before walking to Gringotts, and that was because you knew you had to look presentable. You suspected that after the entire mirror adventure, running around Hogsmeade like a crazy person, and making out with two boys at the same time, you urgently needed one yourself. 

You looked in the mirror, and thankfully, you didn’t look as bad as you assumed you would. You did have a parted lip that you hadn’t noticed before, and your wrist was still slightly sore, but you looked brighter than you had looked in the morning. The evident sadness from then was now coexisting with a newfound joy, the tinge of someone completely in love –and happy about it– evident in some of your features. The shine in your eyes, the curve of your lips, the dreaminess of your gaze. It was almost ridiculous how much a small talk had changed the way you felt, and looked. 

You took a deep breath and turned on the shower, basking in the way the warm water fell over your body, so soft and kind, so unlike the blazing fire, and the cold snow, that you almost wanted to fill the tub and stay there. You were still slightly sleepy, but the shower was enough to wake you up. 

By the time you stepped out of the shower, Mary had also fallen asleep, and Lily was sitting on her bed while reading a book. “You’re leaving now?” 

You nodded, and yawned, “Hopefully I’ll get some sleep after the preparations are ready.” 

“Good luck,” she said and yawned. 

“Sleep tight,” you replied with a smile, took James’ cloak and wrapped it around yourself, completely disappearing before her eyes. There was an air of child-like joy in Lily’s pupils as she saw you do it. She might have been immersed in the magical world for years, but every now and then, something caught her eye that reminded her of just how fascinating magic could be. People might have called the way she saw things a “muggle outlook” but Lily refused the idea of ever taking it all for granted. She loved being mesmerized by magic, and she never wanted to stop being fascinated by it. She smiled, looking at the door open and close by itself and then went back to her book. 

She was trying to find a toad-repelling charm. If there was anything completely unrefutable about Lily Evans, is just how much she wanted to be prepared for any situation that she might face. And with the little to no information you had given her, she wasn’t eager to find herself surrounded or –Godric forbid– vomiting toads without being able to stop it. She really hoped it wasn’t the latter, Barty had charmed Nox like that in first year after he said something about Evan. She had been in the infirmary checking on Remus and she had to leave the room before he woke up because she too, had gotten the urge to puke. What a terrible jinx that was.

Luckily for her, having the entire school puke toads, was not on your plans, you were only trying to infest it. You walked down the stairs making as little noise as possible. You thought of using a spell to silence your steps, but it was quite late –about 40 minutes later than your original meeting plan– and there seemed to be nobody around. You walked towards the boys’ dormitories and gently knocked on their door. 

“About fucking time,” Prongs whispered as he opened the door. Once it was closed, his voice went back to normal. “We were thinking you bailed on us!”

“He was, not me,” Remus said with a shrug. 

“Why did you take so long, anyway?” Peter asked.

“Oreos,” you retorted. “And girl talk.” 

“You talk about me with Lily?” Prongs said as he raised his eyebrow at you. 

“What? Do you think girl talk is always about boys?” 

“No?” He retorted, dragging that O a little too much. 

You scoffed, “We did not. I’m sorry to inform you, our agendas don’t always include complaining about our boyfriends.” 

“What are Oreos anyway?” Peter asked about at the same time that James murmured “Complaining about our boyfriends?” He had a frown on his face and looked terribly upset at the idea of Lily complaining about him. 

You didn’t even bother to hide the smirk that had appeared on your lips. “Oh, a very muggle thing,” you retorted. The boys didn’t need to know what an Oreo was, at least not until you bought them a pack, at which point they’d be too busy delighting in them to remember that you had been late for the prank because of some cookies. 

“A very muggle thing?” Remus asked, eyebrows raised, his tone clearly telling you he knew exactly what they were. Hope made an Oreo / triple chocolate cheesecake that was to diе for.

“Indeed, Moony,” you retorted as you shot him a look. “And talking about muggle things, I brought you something,” you said as you pulled out the Aero bar from your pocket. “Have you tried it?” 

“Don’t think I have,” he said as he looked at the chocolate. “Thanks, Luv.” 

“How come Moony always gets treats and I never do?” Sirius said with a small pout. 

“Somehow  I knew you would say that,” you said as you pulled out a tiny chocolate frog and placed it right in front of his mouth. “I got these at Muggle London, they don’t jump but they’re tasty. Open up.” 

“That’s what he said,” James said and got a short slap from Peter who looked mortified. Somehow he was the only one in the entire group who saw you more as a girl than as a Marauder. 

“Oi! What was that for?” James complained as he rubbed his arm. Meanwhile, Sirius had taken a bite out of his chocolate, you expected him to take it all in, but instead, he bit right in the middle, causing the filling to spill down his mouth and your hands. It was liquidy and it kind of looked like cough syrup. 

“Oh, I guess it was blueberry,” you said as you noted the purple colour drip from your hands. You took the other half of the frog and plopped it into your mouth, “It’s actually my favourite,” you added as you licked the back of your palm. They were small kitten lips, just trying to get the stickiness out of it so you could wipe them on your shirt but somehow that had caught the attention of the two boys. 

Perhaps they were too imaginative, or the kisses from a few hours ago had left them wanting more, but both boys had their mouths watering at the sight. James and Peter were still arguing in a hushed tone so neither of them noticed their gazes until you felt you were being stared at. “What?” you asked as you turned to Remus. “Got something on my face?” You eyed Sirius who was also starring. 

Perhaps if Peter and James weren’t there, Sirius would have retorted with “A kiss” and jumped on you, but instead, he cleared his throat. 

“Nothing. It looks like it was a good chocolate,” Remus said, somehow calmly.

“You think?” you asked as you pulled another one from your pocket and held it up to his mouth in the same way you had done with Sirius. He glanced over at Peter and James nervously, but their small discussion had turned into a relatively heated quarrel. He then eyed Sirius who nodded with a small shrug. 

Remus leaned towards your hand, taking the chocolate with his teeth without breaking it, his soft lips brushing against your fingers in some kind of way that made Sirius wish he could drag the two of you somewhere private and kiss your pretty lips until he ran out of breath.

“Good, yeah?” you asked as you saw him smile mischievously as he bit the chocolate. You didn’t understand the look he and Sirius had, but he did, and he did not miss the way Sirius was looking at the two of you. First your way and then his, he never thought he’d love being the centre of attention of Sirius’ piercing eyes as much as he did right then. 

“Delicious,” He replied with that same, devilish smirk. Sirius would have scoffed if he hadn’t been just as lured by him as if he had been with you. 

You smiled and turned to the two boys still deep in their discussion. “Okay, that’s enough, we’ve got a spell to teach you,” you said as you placed a thick book in the centre of the small circle you had ended up in. Quite similar to the one you’d been in back in your room with the girls. The book fell down on the wooden floor with a thud so loud it snapped Peter and James out of their quarrel. 

“What? I thought you were going to do it with Moony,” Peter said. 

“If the school didn’t have thousands of classrooms perhaps. We’re thinking we have to split into 2 teams. The team with three takes the bigger places, such as the great hall, the courtyard, the stairs, the astronomy tower,  and the longer halls, the team with two takes the other classrooms. Especially the ones with classes tomorrow, but also the empty ones in case the teachers think switching classrooms would be a solution.” 

“Classes will be cancelled, no matter what,” Sirius said with a smirk. 

“And is it complicated?” Peter asked with a frown. 

Remus tilted his head to the side, “Well…” 

“You’ll do great Wormy, I know!” You said with a thumbs up and opened the book. “What Remus and I designed was a variation on Arresto Momentum,” you explained. 

“The freezing time spell,” Remus continued. “More technical versions can freeze a person before they fall to their dеath, Quidditch coaches are all taught how to perform it–” 

“Simpler ones are used to freeze food in time so it does not go bad. Muggles need refrigerators and stuff for that,” you continued. “But the tricky thing with this one–” 

“Is that we needed to time set them, like a bоmb. And all of them at the same time.” 

Sirius was looking at the way the two of you quite literally finished each other's sentences completely in awe. While he had already been in love both with you and with Remus, the fact that he could kiss either of you mid-sentence was beyond thrilling. You were both insanely pretty, almost unfairly so. Sirius was sure you were saying something important by the way you both pointed at the book and flipped your wands in a very specific way, but he was so entranced by you that he hadn’t been listening at all.

“You got it?” You asked Peter, he was moving his wand up and down and then in a circle and saying a couple of spell words, albeit a little clumsy, he was saying the words right and making the correct movements. 

“Did I?” He asked as he loosened his grip on one of the decoy swamp-bombs (the ones that had no swamp but just a little water inside). The ball stayed in its place until James grabbed it and put it in his pocket. 

“James mate, that’s a–” Remus started, but you placed your hand on top of his and threw him a knowing look. A small eyebrow wiggle and a tiny little smirk. He shook his head in amusement but didn’t press further. 

“Yeah?” James asked. 

“A great swish and curl,” you said as you imitated the swish on his wand. “Also, I think Pete is ready too,” you smiled. “You just need to add a little more confidence with the wording,” you added as you turned to him. “It’s Arresto Momentum um debiat” you added. 

“Um debiat,” Peter repeated. 

“You got it, Puppy?” you asked, turning to Sirius, who only now seemed to be snapped out of his trance.  

“Uh, yeah…” he replied with a confident nod, only now turning to actually look at Peter and James moving their wands and practising the new spell. He leaned towards Prongs. “What were the words again?” he asked in a whisper.

“Oh, my Merlin!” James complained. “You’re keeping this twat with you,” he added as he turned to you. 

“Hm… I suppose I’ll have to take one for the team,” you said with a shrug and a smirk. 

“You love having me as your team, shut up,” Sirius retorted with a playful scoff. 

“Moony is going to be with us, yeah?” Peter asked. 

James threw a look at Remus and smirked himself, “Don’t think so, Worms. Vixen and Moony are taking the bigger places since they’re faster with the spell. We’ll take the classrooms.” 

“Oh well,” Wormy said with a sigh. “Should we hide the balls in the corners, in case someone notices them?” 

“We probably should, yeah,” Remus replied. “That way even if one of us fucks with the spell they’d have to find the rest of the swamp-bombs before they actually explode.” 

“Brilliant idea, Pete!” you said with a warm smile, Peter smiled confidently after that. He knew he wasn’t all that great with charms, but he got little pride from getting ideas that turned out for the best every now and then. Like the cuddles, he was still pretty shocked by how well it worked in the end.

Sirius threw you a look, not quite jealous but not quite happy about you praising Peter either. It’s not that he didn’t like Peter, but he was still kind of bothered about the PDA discussion they’d had earlier, even if he had been playing him just to get on his nerves, he wasn’t too happy about being told when he could and couldn’t kiss his girlfriend; unless it was you telling him, that is.

“Okay, then, we ready?” you asked. “Who's keeping the cloak?” 

“Well, if you disillusion me and Peter, you three should have it,” James said, thinking of how cosied up you’d get under the cloak. You had been there for him every time he tried to have Lily fall in love with him. He considered his duty as your best friend (since Remus was your boyfriend now) to ensure he provided you three with lots of quality time together. Besides he hadn’t seen Remus this happy in so long, he wanted that smile to grow bigger. He wanted all of your smiles to do so. “Besides, you'll be going to the red zones.” 

The red zones was a term employed by the boys to reference the areas with the most teachers and prefects around at night. Places like the library (which you would not touch because both you and Remus valued books too much to risk them being damaged by the toads), the great hall, and the grand staircase.

“Sounds like a plan,” you said with a smile and took out the wand, successfully making both boys almost completely invisible. “The swamp-bombs?” 

“Under the bed,” James said as Remus pulled a small bag that had been extension charmed, and then another one. “The blue bag has the most.”

Peter leaned over –at least you assumed it was Peter, if the faintest whisp of neatly tucked hair was anything to go by– and took the purple bag. The colour of the bag faded after his hand touched it, it was almost completely gone by the time he lifted it from the floor. 

James whispered something, and you didn’t even notice they were leaving until the door opened by itself and closed seconds later. “I really need to learn that silencing charm, James has truly mastered it.” 

“Bet it’d come in handy,” Sirius teased, and you reproachfully threw the cloak at him, understanding full well his implication. He took the cloak and the bag and stood from the floor. “All right, we don’t have all night, we better hurry this up,” he added as he extended his hand for you to take. You stood up and then did the same for Moony who, once he was up, took the cloak from Sirius. 

Remus extended it around himself and held it over his head, welcoming the two of you inside. You smiled and got in, Sirius followed with a smirk, standing almost unnecessarily close to the boy. Not that you were standing much farther. Both –per James’ prediction– had cosied up to the taller boy like you did when you were in your animagus form. 

Remus tensed at first, being brought back to before you were with him, to having to worry about being caught smelling Sirius’ hair or looking at the back of your neck. And then you pulled your hand behind your back and searched for his, taking it in yours and giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. He relaxed almost instantly, smiled and squeezed your hand softly in retort. Since you’d kept the cloak, Peter and Remus had gotten the map. That meant you’d have to be extra careful while walking around the school. 

If only we had two of those, you thought as you walked towards the door. Remus held his finger to his mouth, and for a few seconds, your breaths were the only thing either you or Remus could hear. “It’s empty, let’s go,” Remus said and Sirius opened the door. The three of you stepped out and in a matter of seconds were out of the door. 

The hall was empty, Remus was set to patrol that night, along with Frank Longbottom, the Gryffindor head boy whom you hadn’t met yet –at least officially, you’d seen him around– but was kind of close to the boys. And Remus had convinced him he’d take care of the prefect’s duties. According to Remus, Frank was trying to sway a girl named Alice (not the one you knew, a different one) and he was going to be working on writing her a letter all night.

“What do you even do when you patrol?” asked Sirius after he yawned, you instantly did the same. It was as if the sleep that you’d gotten after drinking the cookies was coming back to you, slightly stronger than before. 

“We literally just walk until the clock ticks midnight and then we come back to our rooms,” Remus said. “Frank talks a lot about spells, he’s a little clumsy like Peter, but he’s really clever regardless. When I’m with Lily we just discuss things like what we saw in class or the themes of our essays. Sometimes we just talk about muggle stuff,” he retorted. He was speaking low, not quite in a whisper, but enough for it to be muffled by the cloak. James had added a sound-blocking spell to it, it wasn’t strong, but it was enough to cover for words as soft as Remus’. 

“Where are we going first?” you asked, holding back another yawn. You knew Sirius would instantly tease you if he noticed you were sleepy, and while you didn’t hate his teasing, you didn’t want Remus to have the impression his new partners were childish. 

“Great Hall?” Sirius asked.

“We want them to go off in class, I was thinking we could have those set a little later, you know how Dumbledore loves taking the students to the Great Hall in a contingency.” 

“Imagine! They think it’s safe, and boom, toads!” Sirius added. 

“How do you even know about the contingency plans?” you asked with a frown. 

“We’ve caused a couple of them,” Sirius retorted with a smug smirk. “How does it feel to really be a troublemaker in the end?” 

“I sometimes feel it’s your madness rubbing off on me, you know?” You retorted and Sirius gasped. 

“Speak softer,” Remus chided when he heard a portrait yawn in the background. “I was thinking we could do the stairs first. Prefects are rarely there.”

“What about the portraits?” You asked, tilting your head. “They can be as bad as the Peeves when it comes to ratting someone out.”  

“Nah, they won’t bother you as long as you don’t wake them up, most of them just take the time to relax,” Remus responded with a shrug. “If anything happens I’ll just tell them I caught you sneaking and I’ll report you.” 

“Who would have thought it’d be so convenient to have the law in your pockets,” you said with a teasing smile and got a slight shove from Remus. “And we didn’t even have to bribe him!” 

“Oh, if I have to pull the Perfect card, you’re most definitely gonna have to make it up to me.”

You eyed Sirius, it was dark but the slight shine on his eyes was unmistakable, he was, like you, eager for something like that to happen. 

“Should we split to cover more ground?” you asked as you stared down at the massive staircase. 

“It would be the best…”  Remus said hesitantly. He clearly didn’t want you to pull away from him. 

“Promise I’ll be thinking of you,” you said, placing a short kiss on his cheek and disillusioning yourself. You exited the cloak with about 15 small balls hidden all over your pockets. You walked towards one end of the stairway and started to perform the spell over the small little balls. They looked almost kike gobstones, which was great since, even if they were visible, they wouldn’t be all that suspicious.

“Aren’t you going too?” Remus asked Sirius when the boy grabbed some of the balls from the bag and placed them in his pocket. 

“Thought I’d see you do it a couple of times to make sure I got the hang of it,” Sirius said as casually as he could. 

Remus groaned in return, “You so weren’t paying attention to either of us when we explained.” 

Sirius didn’t even try to deny it, “You both looked too pretty, I’m sorry.” He didn’t miss the blush that crept up on Remus’ neck when he said it. “So, pretty boy, care to teach me?” 

“Are you serious?” Remus dеadpanned. Regretting his words as they came out of his mouth. 

The other boy’s smile grew wider, “As a matter of fact, I–” 

“You have to flick your wand to the right, to the left, do a swish and then flick it again, towards 9 o’clock though. You got the words, yeah?” 

“Rude,” Sirius said with a small pout and followed Remus’ instructions seamlessly. Moony was almost jealous of how easy it was for Sirius to do it. You and he had taken so long to develop the spell for him to come and master it in seconds. 

“Like this?” 

“You’re just a show off,” Remus retorted as he pushed Sirius lightly, but the other boy just took the chance to hold on to Remus’ hand and pull him closer. Both still under the cloak. 

“Allow me to thank you, Professor Moony,” he said flirtatiously, planting a short kiss on the boy’s lips and slipping off the cloak with a disillusionment charm. 

Remus had to take some time to recover, blinking and staring at nowhere in particular, only being brought back by the moving of the stair underneath him. He was taken by surprise and lost his balance for a mere second before he remembered where he was and what he was meant to be doing. He tried not to think so much about the fact that he could literally walk up to you or Sirius and kiss you and how you would happily return the kiss, because if he did, then he might as well call the whole prank off and bring the two of you back to the room now that Peter and James weren’t around. 

By the time you were done with placing your swamp-bombs and turned to look for the boys, you realised just how hard it would be to find them now that everyone was using some kind of invisibility magic. You looked around for a while, trying to spot something that could reveal it, but it was almost useless, there was no way you’d spot either of them. You resorted to trying to use your other senses. 

You took in a deep breath, trying to channel Vixen’s sense of smell, but while you had gotten much better at transfigurations, and you had managed to do things like getting those fangs out and ripping your skin, you were not so good as to be able to just do that, not without turning into Vixen at least. You were just about to do that when you remembered that you didn’t have to solely rely on your senses, but that you could rely on theirs too.

“Remus,” you whispered. “Hey, Remus! Where are you? I’m done.” You blinked a few times, looking around to see if you spotted any sort of odd movement, and you thought you saw something move in the background when you felt a pair of hands grab you from behind and drag you inside the cloak.  You sucked in a breath, and his hand was over your mouth in a second. 

“Shhh,” he whispered to your ear soothingly. “It’s me, Little Witch.”

“Holy shit, Rem, why the hell from behind?” 

“I was there,” he replied with a shrug. “You seen Sirius?” 

“Thought I saw something move over there,” you said pointing at a stair that was moving on the other corner. Remus leaned closer to you, his head almost resting on your shoulder as he looked at the point you referred to. He was squinting his eyes in the direction of your finger, not realising how close he had gotten to you or perhaps he would have gotten as nervous as you were. 

But it was the good kind of nervous, the sort of heart-fluttering sensation that you got when you are close to the person that you like so much. While both Sirius and Remus had realised their feelings for each other and for you a while ago, you were just now noticing how much you liked Remus, and how many things about him you liked romantically. It was like being brought back to the Slug Party where you weren’t able to stop ogling him. 

He really was outstandingly pretty, so much that you wanted to kiss him. “You know Rem…” 

“Mhm?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as if trying to see better, while his eyes weren’t on you, he looked comfortable with the closeness. 

“Sirius and I have a bit of a tradition…” Now he turned to you, eyebrows knit. “It seems like whenever we’re on a stealth mission,” you added, turning your face to his as well, you were standing so close that your noses were pretty much brushing against each other. “Something comes over the two of us, and we end up doing the most outrageous thing.” 

“Like getting caught?” He teased. 

You scoffed, “Of course not! We’ve never gotten caught.” 

“What about that time at the Slytherin’s?” 

“He got caught, I didn’t!” You retorted, He raised an eyebrow as if to remind you that the only reason you hadn’t gotten caught was because he had been there to stop you. He had been tempted to kiss you then, perhaps as tempted as he was now. “But that’s not it.” 

“Then?” 

“Well when the tension rises,” you leaned a little closer to him, “and the adrenaline is in the air–” Your mouth was centimetres away from his, “we tended to–” 

You didn’t even finish, Remus got the idea and he was more than eager to join your little tradition. He was the one to close the gap, your lips crashing against his in a rather urgent manner. As if he was trying to kiss you for every time he had wished he could and had to restrain himself. He tasted like chocolate and cherry wine (probably because of the filling of the chocolate frog he got earlier). 

Despite his urgency, it was you the one who bit his lower lip and pressed your tongue against his mouth. He was quick to part them and chase your tongue with his, there was something about the way he kissed you that made your knees weak, in the same way that Sirius’ kisses did. Like you wanted to melt into him, allow him to mould you to his body instead of moulding him to yours. But then there was the other part of you, the one that didn’t like losing control and fought back for it, your hand rushing to the back of his neck and pulling him down to you while allowing your hands to play with his hair. It was much shorter than Sirius’ but that didn’t mean you couldn’t pull on it just slightly. 

He moaned into the kiss when you did and it was hard for you to hold back the smile as you separated for air. You were about to go back to kiss him when you heard a door shut from the side. You pulled apart from and looked towards it, biting your cheek to swallow the gasp you would have instinctively made. 

“It’s Severus,” you whispered as you stared at the greasy-haired boy. He was walking with his head held high, his Prefect badge, perfectly polished adorning his chest. You rolled your eyes and turned to Remus again, his lips were rosy and he was also panting a little, you never thought he could look prettier and here he was, all kissed out and looking like a prince. “You find Sirius?” 

Remus turned to you with eyebrows raised. He was too busy finding your lips to look for Sirius. “We have to distract him,” you mouthed, not daring to speak any louder, despite the charms the cloak had, you couldn’t risk it. You were not going to get caught by Severus Snape, of all people. 

“How?” He asked. 

You smiled mischievously at that. “Insecti,” you whispered, effectively conjuring about 4 thick flies, directing them straight towards his hair. Remus looked at you with interest, while the flies buzzed about all around Severus. 

“Go away!” the Slytherin said as he frantically waved his hands over his head. Hitting one of them with the back of his hand but still being followed by the rest. “I said go away!” He said again, much more irritated. He was going up a flight of stairs, and you knew he wasn’t distracted enough to fall, regardless you were keeping a very close eye on him. Finally, he took out his wand, and the moment he did you pulled just the tip of yours from the cloak. 

You smiled, “Mucus ad nauseam,” you whispered this time. He sneezed. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said as he took out a handkerchief to stop his runny nose. It was a simple spell that you found in one of those trick books the boys had to sneak out of the restricted section. “It must be the fucking flies,” he complained again.

Remus threw you a diverted look and you winked his way. Severus sneezed again, waking one of the portraits. “Shhhh,” the man said by placing his hand over his mouth. “Some of us are trying to sleep.” 

“It’s not like I can control them,” Severus muttered under his breath, and then sneezed again, this time a little louder. Just to piss him off. But he inadvertently woke up a couple more of the portraits.

They had already started whispering about, a lady in a horse shushing him while on another one, two men that had been playing chess started discussing his outrageous behaviour. “Who’s responsible for this squawking?” a man with an Auror uniform asked. Severus sneezed again. “Ah, it’s the Slytherin kid, of course, it’s the Slytherin kid,” Said Lady McDougal as she pointed at him.

Severus rolled his eyes, trying to hold his next sneeze while also hitting one of the flies with his hand. Remus turned to you, pulling out his own wand and pointing it towards him. “Sonorus,” he whispered.

“Stupid ancient portraits, they should start minding their own fucking business,” he muttered again. Except this time, Remus’s charm had made his voice a lot louder. So loud that instead of a whisper to himself, as he intended, his voice resonated all over the Grand Staircase. He froze, looking around the portraits as he gulped. 

“Who are you calling ancient?” A very old man asked from the right wall. “I thought you’d be wiser since you’re a member of my house.” 

Severus was about to apologise, but he sneezed instead. “And he won’t stop making noise even after we asked him!” the portrait that had shushed him first added. 

Some portraits were looking at him with disapproving glances, others were muttering among themselves while, the most outspoken ones, were straight up telling him off. 

“Cannot believe the prerequisites for becoming a Perfect have stump so low that someone like you has gotten the honour,” a man with curly black hair added. “When I was the Headmaster of this fine institution you could only achieve such a position by being at the epitome of the student body. Only truly exemplary students…”

“Shut up Nigellus,” another portrait said. “Nobody liked you when you were Headmaster!” 

“He kind of reminds me of…” you muttered as you looked at the portrait of Nigellus, who had now engaged in a heated discussion with the portrait of a Quidditch player.

“Nigellus Black,” Remus said with a smile. “He’s nothing like our Sirius but he’s got those pretty eyes of his.” 

“Should have known…” you smiled as you turned to him. 

Severus sneezed again, successfully driving the attention –and anger– of the quarrelling portraits towards himself. 

“Well boy, what are you still doing here? Go lock yourself in your common room or something!” Nigellus said, you snickered, covering your mouth with your hands to avoid making a sound. 

Severus wiped his runny nose with his sleeve. “BIoody portraits!” He said as he rushed towards one of the halls, and away from the stairs. 

“BIoody portraits,” one of them mocked in a high-pitched tone as he passed by. It was the portrait of a younger boy, and he didn’t think twice before flicking his index and middle finger at him. 

“Let us sleep!” an old lady with a flower dress shouted from the very top. 

Severus cursed under his breath as he shut the door, loud enough to get cursed again by the rest of the portraits. “Slytherins,” Lady McDougal said with a sigh, “It had to be one of them.” 

Another lady agreed with her while some Slytherin wizards shook their heads in disapproval. Meanwhile, you and Remus couldn’t stop eyeing each other with a satisfied and diverted look. That’s when you saw green sparks coming from one of the doors. 

“Is that the Slytherin boy again?” One of the portraits asked. 

“Let’s go,” you said, knowing full well it had been Sirius and not a Slytherin. By the time you and Remus got close enough, you could distinguish his beautiful black curls through his disillusionment charm. Remus extended the cloak around him and suddenly the three of you were back in the little safe heaven James’ invisibility cloak provided. 

“That little act of yours was brilliant,” Sirius said with a smirk in a low tone. “Where next?” 

“The Great Hall,” Remus said. The three of you made your way towards it, stopping by the library before you got there. “We should probably lock it…” 

“Or they’ll try to give classes inside,” Sirius added. 

“A simple locking spell won’t be enough,” You said and took a deep breath. “What if we disappear it?” 

“What?” Remus asked with a frown. “How?” 

“We could hide it,” Sirius said with a nod. “Make it seem like it has disappeared even if it’s still there.” 

“Exactly, something close to a disillusionment charm, but for things.” 

“And then we could fill it up with something like escargot slime, nobody would want to get close to it.” 

“Snail,” you said before Remus even threw you a confused look. You had no idea why Sirius would remember the French word (which was far more complicated) than the English one but one time you had forgotten how to say spoon and went for cuchara instead.  You turned to Sirius, “Where would we even get snail slime, though?” 

“Don’t worry about that,” he said with a smile and turned to the massive library doors. He took in a deep breath and cast a disillusionment charm, followed by you and then Remus. The door had completely disappeared after the third spell. Sirius smiled and turned to the door. “Cochlea bitumine,” he said, suddenly there was a green, snot-like slime all over the floor and wall. You sighed, it didn’t stink, but the smell was rather potent. 

You took a swamp-bomb from Remus’ pockets and stared at it for a second, “I think they’ll rather enjoy this ambience,” you smiled and hid it inside the smile, while you avoided touching the viciousness of it altogether. Then you whispered the words of the spell. Sirius imitated you, and you ended up hiding about 6 of them just in the area. 

The great hall remained pretty empty at night, you had never been there, but the boys were familiar enough, apparently, the ghost didn’t really like being there when there wasn’t people, there were no portraits, and while the charms in the sky became a little fickle when there were people there after hours, it much easier, once you were inside.

The complicated part was getting in. Since that’s where the Prefects gathered before and after their patrol, it was much harder to get through the open halls that took you inside. Lucky for you, you had taken the cloak, which meant your life would be made easier. 

“Ready?” Sirius asked with a smile. You were standing just below the stairs, and peering up at the hall. There were three Hufflepuff prefects there. You recognized one of them as Alex Wood’s classmate, but you weren’t familiar with the rest. 

“We could try to distract them first?“ you said. 

“But then they would know someone’s out and about, and James and Peter would have people looking for them, they have no cloak.” 

“Then we become as stealthy as ninjas,” Sirius said with a confident nod. He’d been reading some Daredevil comics Andromeda had sent him and he had been fascinated by the idea of them. 

“I could turn into Vixen.” You shrugged, “they would never figure out I’m a student and not just a rogue fox.” 

“It’s not as believable as if Wormtail did it…” Remus replied as he shook his head. 

You were still discussing strategies when a ghost mounting a horse came in screaming through the side. “Someone has been in the classrooms,” he roared. You grabbed both boys’ hands and dragged them towards the great hall as the Hufflepuff scattered from the door and tried to talk to the very altered ghosts. 

“I guess they’ve been discovered,” Sirius whispered as you all arrived at the Great Hall. 

“Mhm,” you agreed. “We need to be more careful now.” 

“Perhaps not quite,” Remus said thoughtfully. “They’ll probably go talk to the portraits, and Severus was the one causing a mess, so they might pin the classroom incident on him too.” 

“Sir Pendragon would have said Potter and Pettigrew were there if he had spotted them. He’d take any chance to drag either of us down.” 

“Huh? Why?” you asked curiously. 

“Peter thought it would be funny to share a rumour about him in second year. He told everyone he didn’t lose his head on a joust, but that it had been eaten by a Wilddeoren,” Remus explained.

“They were a lot more common back in the day,” Sirius added. “Anyway, I think Sr. Nicholas found out it had been Peter and told Sir. Pendragon since he wanted to join the headless hunt. The man has hated all of us since then.” 

You laughed and shook your head. “You should make friends with the ghosts, not make them your enemies.” Sirius just shrugged, smiling and sending you one of those winks of his. He then pulled some orbs from his pocket and placed them on your hand. “Ready to cause mischief?” 

“Definitely,” you retorted with a smile, placing them in your pockets and then grabbing another handful. You disillusioned yourself before stepping out of the comfortable warmth of the cloak and walked to the back of the hall. You did hear the uneasy rumbling of the ceiling, as if it knew someone was around when they shouldn’t be, but you ignored it until you got all the way to the teacher’s table. You placed swamp-bombs underneath it, three by the windows and some on the closer gargoyles. Meanwhile, Sirius and Remus were making sure all the tables had swamp-bombs underneath them. And for good measure, they also hid a couple next to the floating candles.

Once you were done, you all reunited back in the same spot near the door, it was Remus –who still had the cloak– the one that dragged you inside as soon as he spotted you, or rather, smelled you, since he’d managed to do that way before the saw through your disillusionment charm. 

“Hey,” you said with a smile once he pulled you to him. 

“Hey,” he responded, like the idiot in love he was. You smiled, as you looked up at him, and he leaned in to press a short, quick kiss on your lips. “Sirius is on his last bomb.” 

“How do you know?” you whispered.

“I counted them,” he told you with a shrug. 

“No wonder he calls us nerds,” you said with an amused scoff. You were both pulling Sirius into the cloak mere minutes later. 

“Where to now?” He asked with a smile, Remus was tempted to press a kiss onto his lips as well but decided perhaps right at that instant it wouldn’t be proper. Not that either of the three cared too much about proper, but Remus still had more common sense than the two of you. 

“The tower,” you said as you yawned. 

“You tired?” Sirius teased. You blinked and shook your head in response. Not that you didn’t have perfect reasons to be tired, but the idea of falling asleep in the middle of a prank was so absurd to you, that being tired –no matter how sleepy you actually were– seemed preposterous. 

Sirius tightened his lips as he tried to hold back a smile, he had known this for a while, but when you were sleepy, you got into a cuddly mood, and when you were in a cuddly mood, he got to be as clingy as he wanted to be. He wondered if he’d be able to hug you and Remus at the same time later that night, without having to turn into Padfoot, and picture how amazing that might be. 

“You think they’re outside still?” You asked as you leaned your ear on the door. 

“They’re not,” Remus said confidently. “Even the portraits are asleep now.” 

“Good,” you said as you cast a silencing spell on the door and pushed it open. “Let’s go!”

The portraits at the Great Hall were also much calmer now, which is why you tried to be as quiet as possible as you climbed up the stairs that would lead you to the Astronomy Tower. “Looks like they’re already falling asleep,” Sirius said. “You think they’re still mad at Snape?” 

“They won’t get over being called ancient anytime soon,” Remus said with a smile. “And with how much they gossip, they might turn the rest of the portraits in the castle against him as well.” You let out a low giggle after that and covered your mouth almost in an instant. When you heard one of the portraits wake up the three of you threw a look at each other and rushed towards the tower as fast and stealthily as you could. 

Once you got to the stairs you looked up, it was a rather long stairwell, leading all the way to Professor Spellman’s territory. The divination classroom was dark and gloomy at night. There was a rather faint light coming from the window, but the classroom was only lit by a single black flamed candle. Spellman had talked about that in a previous class.

According to him, black flame candles were better than normal candles in divination spaces because they didn’t disturb the light from stars as much. 

“Lumos,” Sirius said and pulled out the tip of his wand from the cloak. “I don’t think there’s any ghost here now,” he whispered as he turned to you. 

“Prefects don’t come here often either. They do check the top of the observatory, but that’s just because some people use it to make out.” 

“Oh, really?” You said with a smirk, managing to shake off the sleepiness a bit more. 

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Sirius told you and you pouted as you looked at him. 

“You’re the one with the funny ideas most of the time,” you retorted. Remus shook his head in amusement, took some of the swamp-bombs and handed them over to the two of you. 

“Focus, we can discuss those funny ideas once we’re done.” 

Sirius turned to you with an eyebrow raised and a smirk that you retorted with a raise of an eyebrow and a similarly satisfied smile. After the small exchange, the two of you went on your way to set up the classroom.  Once you were done, the three of you stepped out and went straight to the observatory. You split up again, this time not bothering to disillusion yourselves, and started placing some swamp-bombs all over the place. 

When you were done, you walked over to one of the small lookout spaces and leaned both of your arms on the railing, looking out towards the Black Lake. It was the same railing in which Evan had threatened you not so long ago. If someone had told you then that he would save your life months later you would have called them crazy. And here you were, in that same railing, thinking of how sudden the change had been. 

You took a deep breath, trying not to let thoughts of that night cloud over your happy ones, “What is it?” Remus asked as he approached you, leaning close enough that your shoulders bumped into each other. 

“Nothing,” you said almost in a whisper. He raised one of his eyebrows. “Everything,” you sighed and then yawned. “Godric! Why am I so damn sleepy,” you asked as you rested your head on his shoulder. “It isn’t even that late...” 

Remus turned to his watch, “It’s almost 2,” he said. 

You yawned again. “I didn’t even wake up that early,” you complained. Your eyes were closing on themselves, and Remus was tall, warm and so reassuring that your eyes almost refused to stay open. 

“But you had one hell of a day,” he retorted softly. 

You hummed in response. “That indeed,” you yawned. “But still, there’s something weird about it…” you said with a long sigh. Remus was thinking of an answer when he felt a little bit more of your weight reclining against him. He turned towards you only to notice your evened-out breath and completely relaxed expression.

“Little Witch?” he whispered, the lack of response confirmed his hypothesis, you had fallen asleep as you reclined into him. Remus smiled, looking at your slightly parted lips as you breathed in and out the chilly winter air. He wasn’t sure he had ever had the time to look at it from such an angle. 

Not that you hadn’t already used his shoulder as a headrest, but he had never felt comfortable just blatantly staring, in case someone else was watching, in case somebody noticed how irrevocably in love he was with you. But you knew it now, and Sirius knew it too, and you were both okay with it. So he stared, at your lashes, and your nose, and the curve of your lips, like he was seeing you for the first time, even if he had been dreaming with them for months now. 

The snow was gently falling outside, the lake shimmered with the reflection of the stars and the forest was as dark and alluring as ever. But not even the beautiful, shimmering stars in the sky were lovely enough to divert his attention from you. He was in a trance so deep that he didn’t even hear the steps from behind.

“Hey Moony did you–” 

“Shhhh,” Remus said softly, turning to Sirius as he rushed a finger over his mouth. “She’s fallen asleep.” 

Sirius frowned and tilted his head, you had never fallen asleep in the middle of a prank. “Don’t you think that’s weird?” Sirius whispered. 

“With the day she had?” Remus retorted. “It might just be the only thing she’s done that makes any sense.” 

Sirius shook his head with a smile, “It’s not the only thing,” he retorted, leaning in closer to Remus, and laying his head on the boy’s free shoulder. “She got us together, and we make sense together.” 

It was almost ironic, that when Remus finally managed to rip his gaze away from you, it was only to look at Sirius. Sirius with his confident smile and sparkling eyes, he would have sworn they were shinier than the stars and the shimmering reflection of the crescent moon in the black lake. The snow might have been falling like glitter in the water and dissolving into sparkly droplets of dew, but his eyes were lost on the endless grey of his best friend, his boyfriend. Remus smiled, “Yeah, we make sense together.”

Series Masterlist | Next Chapter

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[halfagone]

Is it Canon or Fanon?

A little over a week ago, I received a very thought-provoking ask that wondered whether the Fenton parents could be considered good parents after everything they've done throughout the show. I did leave a response to that ask, and you can find the original answer here. But even afterwards, it had me thinking:

Why did we start depicting Jack and Maddie as Bad Parents to begin with?

I aim to answer this question through canon evidence to see where this argument might have come from. Now, something to keep in mind is that we still tend to ignore canon a lot of the time, so there may be some people who won't take this meta to mean all that much anyways. But for the purpose of fanfiction, we have to acknowledge that there needs to be an in-universe explanation to these events and sadly, the 'it's a Butch Hartman show' or 'it's an early 2000s cartoon' excuses don't really cut it.

So let's start with some basic stats. There are 49 episodes to the Danny Phantom cartoon (we will not be using the Graphic Novel, A Glitch in Time, for examples); 20 for the first season, 17 for the second, and 12 for the third. If you looked this up on Google, you might notice that these numbers don't line up with the episode list provided. This is because I counted any two-part episodes as one for convenience's sake. Season 2 has three two-parters: "Reign Storm", "The Ultimate Enemy", and "Reality Trip". Season 3 has "Phantom Planet".

Jack appears for 43 of those episodes, although he does not have any speaking lines in the episode, "Frightmare". Maddie, on the other hand, appears in 40 episodes. The three episodes that Maddie does not appear in, but Jack does, are as follows: "Memory Blank", "Flirting With Disaster", and "Double Cross My Heart".

Let's Start with Season 1:

"Mystery Meat": Jack is shown as dismissive to Danny and his friends' preferences, telling them, "True, I've never seen a ghost, but when I do, I'll be prepared. And so will you, whether you want to be or not." Later on, when Sam and Tucker are visibly shaking and Danny is panting from exhaustion, he doesn't realize something is off about this. When Jazz offers to drive Danny to school, the Fenton parents quickly assume that she's a ghost and go off to track them down... even despite her previous argument that she was mentally an adult (should I be concerned that Jazz called Danny an 'abused, unwanted wretch' to make a point to their parents?) A POINT TO MADDIE, she worried about hurting Jazz if she really wasn't a ghost but Jack quickly dismisses that, as their ghost-hunting device only hurts when gets into human hair (spoiler alert, it gets into Jazz's hair). She also insists that Danny is not a ghost, but unfortunately she ultimately doesn't try to stop Jack when he insist Jazz is a ghost. Standing aside and letting abuse play out does not mean Maddie is innocent of hurting her daughter too.

"Fanning the Flames": When Jazz and Danny are struggling to study for an upcoming test, Jack decides that they should put their kids into the 'Fenton Stockades' which is basically an iron maiden. And yes, the Fentons have an entire floor that is meant to torture people. I feel like that should probably be addressed at some point. A POINT TO MADDIE, she stood her ground and refused to let him put their children inside, and even locks him inside instead.

"Teacher of the Year": After hearing displeasing news about the state of Danny's grades in a parent-teacher conference, Maddie lectures Danny by saying, "Get this straight Danny. You're a Fenton. Fentons get As. Or in your father's case, B minuses." Before this, when Danny tried to explain himself, Jack shuts him up with, "Now that's enough of your sass talk mister." Do a lot of parents act like this? Yes. Does that make this a good, conductive way to help your child improve their grades? No, it does not. In fact, Maddie's response in particular probably reinforces the idea that Danny doesn't fit in with the rest of his family and further proves that Jazz is the favorite child. Not a great parenting moment.

"Fright Knight": In this episode, Jack tells Danny, "If I didn't consider it a sign of weakness, I'd weep with joy!" Not a very promising sign when a parent tells their child that it's wrong to show emotion. It's especially telling, however, when it's crying from joy and not even sadness. Yikes.

"13": This is the episode where Jazz 'dates' Johnny briefly, and we see Danny stalking them on their dates. I've seen people give Danny a decent amount of flack for that as well, so this would be a good time to say that the Fenton parents were there too and even encouraged him to keep stalking his sister. Danny was wrong to ignore Jazz's privacy like that, but he definitely learned it somewhere.

"Public Enemies": Here we see more of the Fenton parents' aggression towards ghosts. We get a line from Jack: "I'm gonna tear that ghost kid apart into a million different-" Notice something here? He recognizes that Phantom is a ghost 'kid' and yet still fully intends to shoot at him with the intent to hurt if not straight-up kill him. The only time Maddie disagrees with him is to insist that she does the dirty work because she has better aim than him. These are not the type of people you should let children stay with.

"Maternal Instincts": Okay, I gotta say it, this is a really cute episode. We get to see Maddie reminiscing over how close she and Danny used to be and wishing they had that bond again. Unfortunately she does get some points docked off for deciding what they should do as a bonding activity instesd of asking what Danny wanted to do and maybe learning more about his interests and who he is as a person now that he's a teenager. But there is this really sweet moment where Maddie tells Danny 'I love you' at the campsite which absolutely melted my heart and then later on when she saves Danny from the ghosts, Danny tells her she's awesome and gives her a hug. So sweet. But then she kinda ruins it by asking her son to act as a distraction and- Please do not ask your teenage children to keep skeevy old guys 'entertained' when you know he's a creep. A POINT TO JACK, while all this is going on he's defending his daughter and even shouts, "Back off, she's a minor!" That's some Dr. Doofenshmirtz energy right there, I respect it. He also talks about making Jazz an action figure, which was a really cute moment amidst the chaos.

"The Million Dollar Ghost": This episode is filled with some great Danny-Jack bonding moments and goes to show how much Danny cares about his father that he's willing to get caught to make Jack feel better about himself. We also get to see how much Jack cares about how Danny views him and he wants to be someone in Danny's eyes. Unfortunately, this is the episode where Danny gets lectured for not doing all his lab chores, such as cleaning the beakers and changing the ecto-filtrator- despite knowing that the portal could blow up if they don't change in time and knowing that Danny is bad at cleaning his own room. And we literally get a scene where Jack knocks something over and tells Danny to clean it up because he was too busy running around to do it himself. Is it important to give children chores? Yes, it teaches them responsibility. You should not be asking them to deal with hazardous, dangerous chemicals that can literally cause an explosion capable of killing people. Something to keep in mind.

Now let's look at Season 2:

"Doctor's Disorders": In this lovely (sarcasm) episode, we have Jack saying to Danny's face: "Poor Jazz. She's always been my favorite." I don't feel like this one needs much more explanation for how horrible this is. Also, this isn't really too relevant to the bad-parent-thing and more to the "they wouldn't take Danny's reveal well under other circumstances" thing, because Maddie literally says to Tucker: "Everybody knows humans can't have ghost powers." Which would technically, probably, dehumanize Danny in their eyes.

"Identity Crisis": There's one line in particular in this episode I wanted to point out, which is from Jack where he says, "Safety features? Why, safety features are for punks." ...I know this is probably supposed to be a joke, but when you think about it, it's even worse than you might think. In fanon we do tend to stress how forgetful the Fentons are when it comes to lab safety, but it's one thing to forget and it's a whole other thing to purposefully dismiss it. I could even argue that we're doing the Fentons a service by characterizing them as simply forgetful.

"The Fenton Menace": This is one of the episodes I referenced in the original ask as well, for its... plethora of concerning material. There are lines such as, "Whether it's air land or sea I won't stop until we capture a ghost and tear it apart. Molecule by molecule." A POINT TO MADDIE, she told her family she loved them by saying, "Nothing like spending quality family time with the people you love." However she immediately loses those points when she and Jack attempt to 'spin the crazy' out of Danny. The episode transcript reveals Danny's reaction to this, which is described by, "Danny screaming, his face and hair flying around. Zoom out to show him strapped to a table, which is attached to a metal arm. Zoom out to show the metal arm connected to a centrifuge-like device on the ceiling." As well as, "Danny is shaking, hair sticking up with bags under his eyes." Is this supposed to be a joke? I wouldn't know because quite frankly, I'm not laughing.

"The Fright Before Christmas": So in this episode we learn why Danny hates Christmas! Which is because he got peed on by a dog. As a baby. What kind of parent lets their baby get peed on by a dog? Again, child neglect is a criminally punishable offense, and if they had left him out, in the cold, with dog piss on him, we could have had a lot bigger problems here. They also ignore both their children for most of this episode due to their arguing, although they go back later on and tell Danny that he shouldn't be alone for Christmas and where was all this concern before?

"Secret Weapons": Ah... This is the episode where it happens. Here we get the infamous interaction. Please note how a ghost is referred to as an 'it'. Not a person, not even a kid. But an 'it' that can feel pain that will go ignored.

Jazz: "Does it hurt the ghost?" Maddie: [laughs] "Oh, Jazz! You know your father and I don't care about that. Jack: "Yeah! If we hear it scream, then we know it's working."

"Micro-Management": At the very end of this episode, Jack makes a comment to Danny, "I'm so proud. Our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president. Here's to you son." Clearly it's meant to be a compliment, but I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't take this as a compliment.

"Masters of All Time": This one takes a more distressing turn, because after Maddie catches Danny for snooping around, she has his strapped down to a table and fires a laser at him to interrogate him, thinking he's a ghost (though the laser doesn't hit him, just threatens him, which... isn't much better). And this is after he's already insisted that he's her son. He is still very clearly a child, and even if she doesn't believe that he's her son (for admittedly understandable reasons, people usually remember when they bear children), the fact that she strapped him to a table at all does not look favorably on her. Especially when he very clearly believed that she was his mother, and he was her son. And she still did this to him. Yes, there were time shenanigans involved, but that doesn't make this any easier on Danny just because he knows the truth.

"Reality Trip": This episode showcases that the Fenton parents can actually be decent parents. While they have a hard time believing the truth at first, they do eventually accept it. However, it is still important to remember that Danny could have never known what their reaction would be, so his fear is understandable and rooted in real concern for his life. Here are some of the best points from this transcript:

Jack: "Imagine, our own son has had ghost powers all this time and has kept them a secret from us. [confused] But we love him! [turning to Maddie] I wonder why he didn't trust us enough to tell us." Jazz: "[sarcastically] Hmm, let me guess. [mimicking Jack] "Hey, Maddie, let's destroy the ghost!" [mimicking Maddie] "No, Jack, let's dissect the ghost." [mimicking Jack again] "I know, let's catch the ghost and rip it apart molecule by molecule!" [normal voice, sarcastic again] You guys are so understanding." [Jack and Maddie drop their gazes, ashamed.]

Moving onto Season 3:

"Eye for an Eye": This is more a passing mention, but Jack seems to be a little obsessed with the GIW and huge fans of their work, and you do see it some more in "Livin' Large" later on in the season as well.

"Girls' Night Out": We see Jack trying to make an effort with Danny in this episode again. I did point out in the original ask reply that Jack was obviously trying to be a good father for Danny, which definitely deserves some points. However, it is still important to point out how generally uninterested Danny was in the bonding activity. It goes back to how Maddie ignored the chance to give Danny a choice, and how dismissive they tend to be towards him. I still want to award Jack a point for looking for advice from 'Father/Son Relationships For Stupids!' but I do so half-heartedly. Their interactions in this episode definitely reek with discomfort, but considering everything that has gone down in between now and "The Million Dollar Ghost", that does make sense.

"Torrent of Terror": This is another instance of extreme lack of safety precautions- the airbags don't deploy? In the GAV??? Somewhere out there, OSHA is crying.

"Forever Phantom": Maddie and Jack show a lot of anti-Phantom rhetoric in this episode. So this tracks how uncomfortable and/or threatened Danny might feel at home. Some examples include:

Jack: "He keeps this up he's liable to make people forget he's nothing but a putrid rancid ball of self-aware protoplasm."

Maddie: "Don't be fooled sweetie. He's up to something. Remember that time he attacked the mayor? Or stole everyone's Christmas presents? Once a filthy ghost always a filthy ghost."

"Livin' Large": Something to remember, the GIW intend to fire a missile into the Ghost Zone after gaining access to the Fentons' portal. While they didn't have the password right away, it cannot be understated that the Fentons basically gave away their house in exchange for wealth. Thankfully the missile was just a fake and not a real weapon of mass destruction, but do not mistake this to mean that- had it been real- the GIW wouldn't have gone through with it. And the Fenton parents would have been just as responsible.

And that concludes our canon research for this argument! Let's wrap things up with some stats. Of the 49 episodes in the show, we have evidence in 21 episodes. That is roughly 43% of the show, and this does not include comments that Danny has made about his parents and how they treat him. Obviously, at the end of the day, human error is possible. There is always a chance that I could have missed another piece of information, or perhaps another thoughtful addition to this list. However, 43% is no laughing matter.

Yes, the Fenton parents had their shining moments, but with all the other evidence presented that overshadows those little gems, can you confidently say that they are good parents? And most of all, if you were in Danny's shoes, would you say the same thing?

It's easy to excuse this as a cartoon. When you're writing in this world, playing with these characters, that excuse instantly evaporates.

Thank you for reading, I hope you all learned something about the Fenton parents like I did.

[ynbabe]

Fake texts au- pt.12 bffs with the rookies+ Monaco for one, please!

Literally love the way anyone older than them has to be the babysitter 😭😭😭

| Masterlist |

The week you spent with Oscar and Logan was perfect in every way possible. You woke up with perhaps the worst backache you'd ever had, almost unable to breathe because Logan had shited his entire weight on you... well, that part wasn't perfect but the dinner you had afterwards made up for every ache and pain.

Oscar's mum made every favourite dish of yours and Logans, leaving a very jealous Oscar but at the end of the day, the three of you fell into the same routine you did as kids.

Sleeping late, Waking up even later and eating junk till you couldn't eat anymore (much to the dismay of their trainers) the only different thing is that all three of you couldn't bunk on the same bed. So you took turns, as suggested by Oscar's mother because your first idea was to fight for a spot on the bed.

But sadly, the week had ended and you had to leave, you hugged Logan and Oscar goodbye and made your way to Monaco, where you'd spend the rest of the summer vacation with Arthur.

He'd invited you not wanting to be alone while his brothers had their girlfriends and the last time he'd invited one of his friends from Prema, his mom had pulled him aside and given him the 'you know you can tell me anything, right, son?' he'd simply told her that he was just a friend, and anyways she should have been having the conversation with Charles anyway, with whatever he had going with Max, or with Carlos or Pierre.

You were a little nervous to go, never having been around his family before. You'd met Charles before and had become pretty good friends with him and Max but his mom? His Eldest brother? That was a whole other story.

He picked you up at the airport, drove you to the house, you offered to uber as you weren't allowed to drive in Monaco anymore (its a long story) when you walked in you hadn't realised everyone would be over and were currently on Arthur's back trying to get your phone back for the boy, which he had stolen when he saw the picture of you and Logan, oscar had sent you.

You looked around the room to find Charles, his girlfriend, his eldest brother, and their mother, staring at the two of you with wide eyes.

You jumped off your friends' back, snatching your phone in the process, "Um, hi, I'm Y/n, nice to meet you all!" You smiled hugging Charles and shaking hands with everyone else, trying to ignore your entrance.

"I'll go get the bags, yeah," he muttered as he left, his eldest brother following him.

"Maman, C'est une amie d'Arthur, celle dont je t'ai parlé," (Mom, She's one of Arthur's friends, the one I told you about), Charles said something to his mother in French, you tried to decipher with whatever Arthur had taught you over the years but they spoke too fast.

"Celui qui l'a emmené faire la fête?" (The one who took him to party?) She replied, her voice displaying disappointment, making the girl awkwardly standing next to the door frown at Charles for translation.

"Maman..." Charles began but his mother shushed him, making him look down.

Suddenly, the older woman's face and body language changed, doing a total 180, "Y/n, I've heard a lot about you, from Arthur and Charles!" She said with a smile, making the girl slightly jump in surprise, "Come on, sit, the boys will get your bags," she invited the youngest woman to sit and nodded at Charles to help get the bags, he wanted to protest but was nudged in the ribs by Alexandra, making him walk out in betrayal.

"Uh, hi guys," she said awkwardly feeling a little out of place. She felt like she was in front of a jury assessing her every move to give her life in prison and by the look on the mother's face, they were leaning in favour of the death penalty.

"Hi, Y/n," Alexandra began, quickly leaning forward as soon as her boyfriend left the house, " I've seen you around the paddock before, but mostly in Mclaren and Williams," She began, "I thought you were dating Oscar, right? Or Logan?" She asked making the girl cringe, she couldn't imagine dating one of her friends.

"Um, no, we're just friends, all four of us," she explained, this is so weird.

"And what about the hyper little British one?" Pascale asked making you laugh,

"Lando? I'm going to save his name like that from now on!" You smiled, "No, no, not at all, I think he's a little too invested in Carlos to even think about dating," you joked hoping to change the conversation, Alexandra smiled but Pascale remained unchanged.

"I've noticed, he's a sweet boy," she nodded, "Are you dating my son?" She asked, not sugarcoating anymore, making you choke on your spit, Alexandra quickly rushed to your side, patting your back.

"Thank you," you took the glass of water she offered, "I'm not dating Arthur!" You yelled as soon as you finished drinking the water, making his mother look at you suspiciously at first then nod.

"Thank you for being truthful Y/n," She began, "My kids are everything to me and they only have me to protect them. Lorenzo and Charles are old enough to understand just how cruel life can be, but Arthur's still naive," she explained slowly. It seemed like Alex had heard the same lecture too.

"Maman! Tell Charlie to stop kicking me!" Arthurs's voice rang as the trio stepped inside, proving her point.

"Maman, please, both of them won't shut up!" Lorenzo complained at his brother's antics, in true older sibling fashion.

"Only because you are stupid," Both Arthur and Charles replied at the same time making the eldest groan and place your bag down, to swat the others. Charles had your duffle and Arthur held your haversack, currently using it as a weapon to hit his brothers.

"Boys!" Their mother called out, making them all stop and pick up your bags, and carry them to some room in the house. Alexandra smiled at their antics and Pascale just shook her head.

"Sweetheart, come on, let's have some dinner, I'm sure the flight has you hungry and tired," She practically dragged you to the dinner table. You sat next to Arthur, Alex and Charles in front of you and Lorenzo and Pascle and either head of the table.

After the strange test of sorts, everything was normal, you joked along with the others, and the brothers often fought making you and Alex look at each other and laugh. You were getting along with her the most, being quite close in age and humour. However, as the night continued the jet lag became more and more of a problem.

Arthur was the first to notice your head falling as you sat, "Maman, We are going to turn in," you both began to get up but Lorenzo spoke up, making you stop.

" Où penses-tu aller?" (Where do you think you're going?) The older man asked.

"Ma chambre ?" (My room?) Arthur answered.

"Non, elle couche avec Alexandra, tu restes avec Charlie," (No, she's sleeping with Alexandra, you're staying with Charlie) He replied making both brothers angry.

They started talking over each other, yelling and shouting, you definitely made out more than one curse word. You looked over at Alex silently asking if she knew what was happening, but she just shrugged.

"You're so annoying, Lorenzo, Je jure devant Dieu que j'aurai une chambre d'hôtel !" (I swear to God I will get a hotel room!) He screamed making everyone quiet down.

"Don't yell at me, it was maman's idea," he looked at his brothers a little guiltily, making everyone look towards the eldest woman on the table.

"It's okay, Charlie, reste avec ta petite amie, Arthur soit avec ton ami." (Charlie, stay with your girlfriend, Arthur be with your friend.) Everyone seemed to be okay with the decision, though you didn't know what the decision was.

Arthur patted your shoulder, making you get up and follow him to his room. As soon as you walked in you kicked your shoes off, falling face-first on the soft king-sized bed. He followed suit, dropping himself on the opposite end of the bed, and turning his head to face you.

"I don't think your brother and mum like me very much, Princie," You spoke in a soft voice, too tired to even sit up.

"Nah, they are just over-protective," he answered, his voice nothing but a whisper.

Slowly your eyes drifted shut, letting yourself succumb to sleep.

"Bonne nuit, chérie."

Taglist: @dark-night-sky-99 @cashtons-wife @i-wish-this-was-me @thehufflepuffavenger1 @eugene-emt-roe @fangirl-dot-com @landosgirlxoxo @aquangxl @sachaa-ff @tyna-19 @assholeinatrenchcoat

[minustwofingers]

exoplanet p. 4.5

second half of exoplanet part 4!

pairing: ellie williams x reader

summary: you’ve won the life lottery as one of the few people on earth with parents who gained admittance to the most prestigous safezone in the world after the outbreak. but after a lab accident sends you out to jackson, wyoming, real life hits you fast. it’s a good thing that a hot lesbian finds u. (lol). mean ellie at first, slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, fem reader asf

warnings: PLEASE READ! mentions of nsfw content (read at your own risk), violence, explicit language. also a lot of angst. ellie is still kind of a dick but not quite as much. 

a/n: haha. isn’t it sooo funny how i said this would come out almost 12 hours later and then i posted it? i need to hit the hay early asf today if im to be frank w you guys so here it is now. i want to thank you all for the sweet and kind messages and comments i’ve been getting—they’ve been fuel for my writing!! also, i’ve got a better idea of how i want to end it now, so i’ve got a pretty good outline for what’s going to happen. expect around 3 more parts (one of which may or may not be an epilogue from ellie’s pov). as always thanks for reading!

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4.0 (first half of this part) 

playlist inspired by exoplanet!!

wc: 6.5k

tags: @prettyplant0 @666findgod @sawaagyapong @rystarkov @buzzybuzzsposts @addisonnie @galacticstxrdust @parkersmyth @pinkazelma @ariianelle @lu002 @blairfox04 @sparkleswonderland @elliesflower​ 

enjoy x 

Dina’s sudden reappearance in your life was turning into one of the best things you had going on. When you were done with work, instead of loitering about Joel’s home and hoping to run into Ellie, you’d knock on Dina’s front door and spend your afternoons gossiping and trading stories. 

She never asked so explicitly about Ellie again, but you could tell that occasionally she wanted to.

“Guess whose birthday it is this weekend?” asked Dina one day in late April. The Wyoming sun was hung high in the sky, and the weather was steadily becoming warmer. The temperature was stuck at a breezy 60, and a part of you wondered just how hot it would get over the summer. 

Terranova rarely ever got over 70 degrees. Would it be hotter than that? Would you even be here to see it?

“Yours?” you guessed casually, pushing away the ever-present question of how long you’d really be in Jackson.

Dina snorted. “No. Not quite. You just missed mine, actually. I’m a December baby.” 

“Jesse?”

“No.”

“Joel?”

“Nope.” Her mouth popped on the p. 

Your heart thudded. “Uh—Ellie?” 

Her face split into a wide grin. “Yes! It’s her 20th. Isn’t that crazy? She’s ancient.” 

“Wow!” you said, coaxing faux enthusiasm into your voice. 

You and her had kept seeing each other at night, long after Joel had turned in. It always proceeded like clockwork—she’d come knock at your door, you’d fall into her bed, and then you’d leave.

You’d thankfully avoided any of the embarrassing stuff that you’d done the second night—no more unnecessary sensual face touching and whispers of her being a good person. You wanted to, though. There was so much that you ached to tell her, so many words that threatened to spill from your lips that you just barely managed to keep at bay. 

The worst part was the way that nothing had really changed between you two beyond what transpired every few evenings in her room. Each morning, you’d wake up knowing that you were in for another day of pretending like she didn’t know what it sounded like when you whined and begged and told her where to touch you. Like you didn’t know how her mouth tasted.

“I want to get her a present,” Dina was saying. “I do something for her every year, but I want this birthday to be a little different—given that she’s made it two decades and all, you know.” 

“That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Dina’s eyes sparkled. “I know! Do you want to help? If you do, I’ll tell her it’s from you, too.”

“Actually,” you said, wheels in your head turning, “That would be amazing. I have no idea what I’d get her otherwise.”

“Great.” Dina leaned back, nabbing her backpack from the ground and fishing through it until she produced a map. She unfolded it and began gesturing over the marks. “I found an abandoned bookstore in this area outside of the wall.” She tapped on a dot that she’d made, situated a fair ways away from the wall and on the opposite side of the town as the dam. 

“So we’re going shopping?”

Dina laughed. “Yeah. 5 finger discount, too. The only problem is that we might need to kill some baddies to qualify, but once we clear our way, it’s home free.”

“Right,” you said, fear creeping into your bones at the thought of having to fight off the infected. You’d only been on a few patrols since you’d been shot, and each had been totally unnoteworthy. You’d yet to actually shoot your gun at anything. “You—you do know that I’m not actually that good of a patrol partner, right?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Dina, waving her hand dismissively. “I can take care of us. Plus, we haven’t seen infected in this area for a while. This is a pretty remote area—tough to reach unless you know what you’re looking for.”

“So, when are we going?”

A glimmer appeared in her eye. “Now?”

~

“Where are you going?” 

Ellie stood, her arms crossed as she leaned against the opposite wall. You were grabbing your patrol things, slinging your backpack over your shoulders and pulling on the gray sweatshirt she’d given you.

“Out with Dina,” you said, slightly breathless from moving so quickly. You hadn’t been expecting Ellie to be home—normally she was keeping herself busy picking up extra patrol shifts and helping Joel. It had been an unwelcome surprise to run into her, sour faced and serious while you were trying to get ready. 

“Out where?”

You shrugged, trying your best to look nonchalant. “Dina said she wanted to show me something.”

She was silent as you finished lacing up your shoes, but you could see her watching you from the corner of your eyes.

“I’ll be back in time for tonight, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you offered snidely, hardly realizing what you’d said until it had left your lips. It had been a low blow. It had been nasty. You weren’t sure why you’d said it. 

“That’s not—” She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“I know.” You stood up, feeling deflated. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” 

Ellie sent you a tight smile. “It’s fine.”  

You walked back to Dina’s feeling heavy. That was how most of your interactions with Ellie seemed to go nowadays—awkward, stiff, and remarkably unfriendly. You weren’t sure what changed. And she was still fucking you, which didn’t make much sense.

Sometimes it felt like she was distancing herself on purpose. But that had to be wrong, because why would she do that? You obviously liked her. She wasn’t the one at risk of being hurt. 

You and Dina took off by foot as the sun began to set, well-armed with both weapons and navigational equipment. Well—Dina was, at least. All you had was the small gun Ellie had given you. Dina was doing all of the heavy lifting.

The forest was quiet, interrupted only occasionally by songbirds and the sound of wind rustling through the leaves. Spring had hit Jackson suddenly, the underbrush exploding in volume and flowers blooming everywhere.

As you two walked through the woods, chattering mindlessly and generally enjoying each other’s company, you made a mental reminder to return to the forest to pick up a makeshift bouquet of flowers. Ellie didn’t seem like the type to swoon over things like that, but even the most unromantic people could recognize the gesture of flowers. You were sure she’d at least put them in a vase. 

Eventually the path Dina was leading you on opened up to a heavily overgrown street, a small decrepit strip mall hidden away in the shrubbery.

“Here!” said Dina cheerily. She jogged forward, scrubbing the moss off of the door to show a book icon on the filthy glass.

“And you said that there’s no infected here?” you asked, your fingers wrapped nervously around your gun.

“Of course I did,” said Dina. “Do you think I’d take you somewhere that was infested?”

The glass shattered as a body came crashing through the door, thrashing and clicking in a mass of bloody limbs as it took Dina to the ground.

Your finger squeezed the trigger before you could think, sending a spray of gore into the air as Dina forced the thing off of her and stood, panting. 

There wasn’t even a chance to breathe. A piercing shriek cut through the air before three more followed the first, not paying any mind to the jagged edges of the broken door that grabbed at their mutilated skin. 

“Fuck!” Dina’s knife went swinging through the air, slicing and jabbing at the creatures in front of you. They fell in quick succession, but there was more rustling and screaming from inside. Far too much rustling. “Run!”

She didn’t have to tell you twice. Despite the fact that you’d never been a track star in school, you bolted quicker than you’d even known possible. Your backpack banged against your back as you sprinted down the road, ducking into the brush and making a break for it with Dina right on your tail. 

The walk there had taken close to 30 minutes. Your sprint cut that in over half. You and Dina ran in stride, with her lagging behind to send off a few shots to ground the runners that were quick enough to keep up. The clearing you appeared in all the way back in the winter flashed by you in a second, and within another few moments, you were both resting against the wall, chests heaving as you both picked off the stragglers that had come out of the forest to investigate.

By the time the last gunshot rang out and the final infected slumped to the ground, you were shaking uncontrollably, your gun vibrating in your hand. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” said Dina, equally breathless though significantly more composed as you two walked through the entrance, getting concerned looks from the people who were manning the gate. “I’ve never seen so many in that store before. I don’t understand. It was clear the last time I went.” 

Before you could respond, someone stepped into your eye line.

“What the fuck did you do,” seethed Ellie. Her eyes were wild, her lip curled in a manner so derisive you began to wonder if you’d ever actually seen her angry before this. 

“Chill, Ellie,” said Dina. “Y/N and I were just going to try and pick something up for your birthday. There were…a few more than what I was expecting. But it’s fine. We handled them. She did great.”

Ellie looked at you then, and you could feel her taking you in. Her eyes rested with accusation at the way that your hands were trembling. “You’re so fucking stupid, Dina. You knew that she’s never done this before. What the fuck is wrong with you, taking her out like that?”

“It was clear the last time I was there!” Dina spoke with her hands, waving them through the air in emphasis.“There wasn’t supposed to be any. I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t purposefully try to get us killed.” 

Ellie sent her another scathing look before turning her attention to you. “And don’t even get me started with you.”

You blinked. “What?”

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” she snapped. 

Dina sent you a wink and disappeared down the street in the direction of her house. 

“I was thinking of your birthday, actually,” you said delicately. “We were going to get you something from the bookstore.”

“That is not an excuse to go get yourself killed!”

You held up your hands in mock surrender, which looked really stupid considering how hard you were still trembling. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the original plan. Can we not do this right now? I’m still trying to, uh, process what happened.” 

As if to punctuate your point, the next step you took nearly sent you to the ground, your knees wobbling. 

Ellie’s hands were at your sides in an instant, solid and steadying against you as you regained your balance.

“Sorry,” you said again, lower this time. 

“How many?” Ellie asked. Her voice was softer now, almost resigned. She hadn’t let go yet.

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “After the first three or four, I lost count. They just kept—” You winced at the memory of the wet sound that they made hitting the ground. “They just kept coming.” 

“You did them a favor,” said Ellie, stepping back and to your side as you began to walk forward. Her hand stayed posed on your forearm. “It gets easier.” 

“I don’t know if I want it to get easier,” you confessed. 

“Well, how about you start by never doing something that fucking stupid again.” Her words lacked any venom. “Don’t you ever go out without me again, okay? Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to you?”

You gave your trembling hands a look. “I can take a guess.”

Ellie walked you back to Joel’s house, helping you out of your jacket and unsubtly checking your skin for bites. Or at least that’s what she said she was doing. She couldn’t seem to stop touching you. 

You headed back up to your room to get changed as Ellie shut the front door and was off to finish her work with Tommy. As you leisurely made your way down the hallway, you noticed that something was off—the hallway closet was slightly ajar.

The memories of your first night there came floating back to you, images of Ellie shutting the door before you could see inside emerging to the forefront.

It wouldn’t hurt to look, would it? It was probably nothing. 

Your hand wrapped tentatively around the handle, pulling the door open so slowly that the old, rusty hinge fell silent.

It wasn’t what you were expecting. It wasn’t what you were expecting at all. 

It wasn’t really a closet—there were a few shelves, but no hangers. In their place, there were stacks of textbooks with old, dated covers of the stars, planets, and physics. The back wall was plastered with drawings of constellations and calculations in Ellie’s messy scrawl, reminiscent of the leftover scrap paper from when you sat your physics exams and did your problem sets.

The memory of Ellie staring at your textbook re-emerged to hit you with full force. No wonder she was interested in it. THIS is what she was going to say that she wanted to study when you’d asked her. 

A slow smile crept onto your face as you thought about her upcoming birthday.

You knew what you were getting her now. 

~

Preparing for Ellie’s surprise party was a full day’s worth of work. You and Dina had convinced Maria to give Ellie enough things to do that she’d stay out of the house for the majority of the afternoon. You felt kind of guilty that Ellie was being put to work on her birthday of all days, but Dina just shook her head.

“It’s Ellie,” she said. “She lives to act all macho and patrol and shit. This is probably an extra present to her.” 

You two had located some flour, sugar, eggs, and butter and were hard at work baking a cake. It was tough going without a real recipe, but you’d grown up with a mother who loved baking, so you tried to do it from memory.

The result was a rather lopsided looking monstrosity that you and Dina had attempted to salvage through the liberal application of the thin icing you’d managed to whip up using milk and powdered sugar. It didn’t work, and you two didn’t wait long enough for the cake to cool before frosting it, so it melted in puddles and made the cake soggy.

“Fantastic work,” said Dina, wiping her hands on her front as you two surveyed the final product. “Really incredible, Y/N. You should really consider a career change.”

“Shut up,” you said, snorting. “Ellie’s gonna hate this.”

“She’s going to think it’s hilarious,” Dina corrected. “I’m sure it can’t taste too bad, right?”

You shivered. “Don’t say that.”

The decorations and gathering of presents were thankfully an easier challenge, and before you knew it Joel’s living room was fixed up to look obnoxious as possible, with a tacky “HAPP BIRTHDAE ELLIE” strung up in blood red reflective plastic (you two couldn’t find any Ys) above the fireplace. “Happy 5th Birthday!” balloons filled the ceiling, their gaudy purple color clashing horrifically with the red of the lettering. 

“This is just awful, Dina,” you said. “Ellie’s never going to speak to us again.”

“You need to chill,” Dina responded. “She might act grumpy all of the time, but I know her, and I know she’ll secretly like this.”

7 rolled around quickly, and with it came the guests.

First was the unsurprising Jesse, grinning and carrying a satchel that had a makeshift card attached to the top labeled “Ellie”. 

Next came Astrid, Bonnie, and Greg—all of the patrolmen that were roughly around your age. You hadn’t spent all that much time with them, but they’d always been fun.

Last came a girl you’d never seen before.

“Hi!” she said, extending a hand and looking at you through a fringe of choppy black hair. 

“Hi!” you said, taking her hand and shaking it once. “I’m Y/N.”

“I know,” she said, her eyes crinkling. “I’m Cat.”

“I can’t believe you two haven’t met before,” said Dina, swooping in to stand beside you. There was something written on her face—something that looked kind of like worry.

“I can’t either!” you said good-naturedly. “How do you know Ellie?”

Dina cringed.

Cat just smiled wider. “Oh. Ellie and I go way back.”

“Cat, why don’t you go help me in the kitchen? I need to finish plating some stuff,” said Dina. 

“Sure!” Cat sent you one more winning smile, following Dina with a bounce in her step.

Something felt deeply off about that interaction, but you couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. You’d never seen Dina so eager to get you away from someone. Maybe it’d just been a coincidence?

You didn’t get a chance to dwell on it further, because Ellie was opening the door. 

“Surprise!” Everyone in the living room yelled upon seeing her. 

Ellie blanched, her eyes landing on you for a moment before she cast her gaze to the rest of the room. “What’s this?”

“Your birthday party,” said Dina, appearing from the kitchen with a plate of crackers and other appetizers, Cat in tow. “You didn’t think we were just going to let you turn 20 without embarrassing you just a little bit?”

“Those are the most hideous balloons I’ve ever seen,” said Ellie, crossing her arms.

“Thanks,” you said, beaming. “I picked them out myself.” 

Much to your surprise, her lips lifted until she was smiling back. “You’re such a loser.”

“Okay!” said Dina, clearing her throat and stepping in between you two. “You two can flirt later. I’ve been slaving away in the kitchen for an entire day. Let’s eat.”

You shut your mouth, blushing uncontrollably as your eyes lifted. Ellie’s cheeks looked uncharacteristically pink and her eyes were fixed on your shoes.

Dinner went by quickly, with everyone trading odd stories about patrolling and their life before Jackson. You learned that Dina had actually been born in New Mexico and that Astrid was from Oregon. You heard all about how Jesse and Greg came across an old mall a few miles out of Jackson that was so full of infected that they could hear them scratching at the doors and clicking even before they were within eyesight of the building. You told some stories about your life in Terranova, about studying and your family. 

“What the fuck is this?” asked Ellie once Dina had reappeared, carrying your sorry excuse of a birthday cake. Time had not treated it well. The first layer was almost entirely slid off, and the cake looked damp from the melted icing.

“It’s your birthday cake,” you said. “We, uh, tried. I don’t have a cake recipe memorized, and it was harder than I expected.”

The candles Dina attempted to stick into the cake kept falling out, the structural integrity so weakened from the melted frosting that chunks were coming off.

“Let’s just pretend that there’s 20 candles,” said Dina finally once the top layer of the cake finally split in half. 

“Right,” said Ellie, snorting. 

Dina led a very enthusiastic rendition of the Happy Birthday song that ended in cheers and hollers as Ellie dramatically lowered her head to the cake and pretended to blow the “candles” out. 

No one touched the cake, but you couldn’t blame them. 

Next came presents. Jesse went first, giving Ellie a satchel that held a bunch of cleaning equipment for her patrol rifles. Dina had found a t-shirt that said “Enemy of the State” in goofy comic sans lettering, and Ellie was unsuccessful in holding back her giggles at seeing it. 

“Dina, this is so stupid,” she said, but there was no venom in her tone, just amusement. 

It was your turn next, so you leaned across the table to place the small box in front of her. 

“Please tell me you didn’t almost die getting this one,” said Ellie, giving you a suspicious look.

“Not at all,” you said. “I accidentally brought it from Terranova.” 

Her nimble fingers untied the flimsy ribbon you’d haphazardly wrapped around the tiny brown box, lifting the lid off and peering inside.

“It’s a…rock?” Ellie frowned, pulling it out and holding it in her hand.

“You got her a rock for her birthday?” Cat asked you from her position to your right, her eyebrows raised.

“It’s not just a rock,” you said. “It’s a moon rock. Like, from the moon.”

Ellie froze, her eyes saucers as she stared at the rock balanced in her palm. “What?”

“I told you I studied astrophysics,” you said casually. “One of my professors let me borrow it because my research supervisor wanted to take a look at it, so it was in my bag. And I never had the chance to give it to him, obviously. So it’s yours now.” 

“Holy fuck.” She turned in over, her fingers running across the surface. “This is…wow. Oh my god.”

“That’s so cool, dude,” Jesse said. “Like, insane. I didn’t even know that those were a thing.”

“There’s only a couple in the world,” you added. “And even fewer that are still reachable. The rest are…well, out here somewhere. Terranova only has a few from our own expeditions and the professors who managed to grab what they had when they moved.”

“This one’s from me,” said Cat, leaning forward and placing an envelope in front of Ellie. “It’s not as cool as a moon rock, but I thought you’d like it.” 

Her fingers slid under the tongue of the envelope, ripping it open and pulling a piece of paper out. 

“Good for one more free tattoo,” Ellie read out.

Cat sat back, looking awfully pleased with herself. 

“Cat was the one who gave Ellie the one on her arm,” Dina explained to you.

 A memory pricked at your consciousness, dating back to your first patrol with Ellie.

An ex had given her the tattoo on her arm.

The girl who had given her tattoo was Cat.

Cat was her ex.

That makes so much sense you realized with horror as you remembered how Cat had told you so confidently that she and Ellie went way back. Of course they did. They used to date.

“Where’d you go?” asked Dina, bumping your shoulder.

“Sorry,” you said, rubbing the bridge of your nose. “Just, uh, tired.”

When you looked up, Ellie’s eyes were on you, her lips slightly quirked.

You looked away, instead focusing on the placemats that Dina had set out. Cat was so different from you—so peppy, so confident, so loud. No wonder Ellie didn’t want anything more than what you had now. Whatever Ellie had seen in Cat had nothing to do with you. 

The night ended with you all sitting on the couches in the living room with Dina mixing drinks so strong that you were wondering if she was trying to kill you. 

“Jesus Christ, Dina,” you said as you watched her pour. “What is that? 90 percent vodka?” 

“I prefer to call it efficient,” Dina corrected. 

It burned going down your throat and you fought back a cough as you placed your glass back on the coffee table. Ellie was right next to you, her thigh barely brushing against yours as you moved.

Cat was on the other side of the room, seated next to Jesse and Astrid. You were internally very proud that Ellie had chosen to sit next to you instead. Her arm rested on the back of the couch behind you, and even though it couldn’t have meant all that much, you couldn’t help but wonder if it at least meant something. 

You were just halfway through your cup by the time you started to feel really and properly sloshed. Your voice sounded tinny in your ears, and from the way that Ellie was laughing at anything anyone said, you had a sneaking suspicion that she was somewhere around where you were.

It wasn’t long before everyone had excused themselves and wished Ellie a final happy birthday—it was getting late and quite a few had early shifts the next day.

Dina was the last to go, saying goodbye and sending you another look as she pointedly stared at the arm rested behind you.

For a few minutes, you and Ellie just sat in silence, hearing the fire crackle and the sound of her softly breathing.

Then she spoke.

“How did you know that I’d like the moon rock?”

“Oh.” You blushed. “Don’t be mad. You left the closet door open the other day—you know, the one with all your space textbooks and everything. It was an educated guess.” 

“So nosy,” she tutted. 

“But you do like the rock?” 

She smiled. “Yes. Thank you.”

You reached forward and polished off the rest of the drink that Dina had made you, feeling the liquid fire slide down your throat and settle in your stomach. 

When you turned back, you could see Ellie staring at you, her auburn hair glowing in the firelight, her pupils blown wide, and her eyes slightly unfocused. She’d had more than one of the drinks that Dina had made, and it was really showing. 

“You’re so pretty.”

You froze. Out of all the things you expected her to say, that was nowhere on the list. The words had left Ellie’s lips like a compulsion, raw and honest. 

She hadn’t stopped looking at you, but her eyes were wider, her cheeks red. She hadn’t meant to say it, you realized. Now she was embarrassed and flustered, and it was all because of you. 

It was the boldness of being tipsy that made you move towards her, pulling your legs up until you were seated on your knees in front of her.

Ellie didn’t move apart from wetting her lips, her eyes darting from your eyes to your mouth. 

When you kissed her, she melted into you. The arm that had been draped over the couch behind you dropped to your back, your own hands sliding into her hair and tightening at the back of her neck.

She gasped as she felt your nails scrape against her, and you took the opportunity to lick into her open mouth, tasting the vodka on her tongue as it slid against yours.

To your surprise, her hands didn’t creep up your shirt or dip below the waist of your pants. They stayed static, one glommed onto your back while the other clutched your jaw as she let you kiss her, over and over again. 

You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but there was something about it that felt different than your usual nighttime meetups. It felt more—vulnerable, almost, that Ellie was kissing you just to kiss you, not with some other agenda. 

The grandfather clock chimed, indicating that it was almost midnight. You pulled away from her for a second, panting as you caught your breath. A string of saliva suspended between your lips, snapping as you waved a hand through it and flushed.

“Sorry,” you whispered.

She just smiled.

“Is Joel going to be back soon?”

As if to punctuate your point, the front door banged open, the man in question pulling his jacket off and turning to see you both. You’d thankfully managed to get off her lap before he saw. 

“Oh!” he said, his eyebrows nearly touching his hairline. “I wasn’t expecting you two to still be awake.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Ellie, scratching the back of her neck. “We’ve just been…talking.”

“Good party?”

“Yeah.” 

“I’m glad. Tommy and Maria wish you a happy birthday, by the way. Though I’m sure you knew that.” 

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Well,” said Joel, giving a sigh that only old men could recreate, “I’m off to bed. You two don’t stay up too late, huh? You’ve still got work tomorrow.” 

“Goodnight,” you two chorused. 

Once Joel had disappeared into his room, you turned to look at her.

“That was close.” 

“Yeah.” Ellie laughed nervously, picking at her cuticles. “Um—do you want to move somewhere else?”

Something deep in your chest ached. Sure, you’d be okay with spending another hour or so feeling her hands on you as she made you finish, but a part of you had really liked just touching her for the sake of touching her—kissing her just because you could.

“Sure,” you said. “Just give me a chance to change.”

When you knocked after switching into more comfortable clothes, the door swung open to reveal a significantly more nervous looking Ellie than you’d seen in a while.

“Hi,” you said shyly.

“Hi.” 

You stepped into her, pressing a tentative kiss to the corner of her mouth. When she didn’t react, you pulled back.

“Is everything okay?”

“Do you want to stay over?” Ellie blurted out, her eyes wide and afraid. 

You balked. “Uh, what?”

“You don’t have to,” she said, her eyes dropping to the ground. “I’m sorry. I know we’re not like that. I just thought that—maybe, I dunno, just this once—”

“Yes,” you interrupted. “Please. I’d really like that.” 

“Right. Good. Okay.” She took a deep breath, then laced her fingers through yours to lead you to her bed.

When your mouth found hers again, it was just like on the couch—no intentionally rough or overtly sexual touches, just gentle brushes against your skin and the weight of fingers tangled in your hair as she pulled you further into her.

For the first time since you confessed, you didn’t sleep together. When you two finally tired out, you flopping down on the pillow first, Ellie’s head came to rest on the expanse of skin between your shoulder and your neck, your arms coming around her.

It was strange. For someone so deadly and tough, Ellie suddenly looked so small and fragile curled against you, the rise and fall of her chest synchronized with your breathing. 

“I’m sorry Cat was invited,” Ellie said, her voice muffled from where her face was pressed into your neck.

“What do you mean?”

“I should have told you what her name was. That must’ve been a nasty surprise.”

Her foresight and understanding made your heart ache, deeply. How was it that she could say all these things but not want anything more with you?

“It was alright,” you said. There was no conviction in your tone. “I wouldn’t have expected you to tell me.”

Ellie was silent for a few beats. You knew she was thinking, though; you could feel the flutter of her lashes against you as she blinked.

“How long do you think it’ll take for you to forget me?”

You paused. “What? What do you mean?”

Ellie shifted against you, one of her arms draped over your chest. “I mean, when you go back.”

“Ellie,” you chided, bringing your hand up so you could run your fingers through her hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if I’d ever just leave you behind. If I go back there, I’m finding some way to bring you with me. So, no. That’s not even a valid question. I’m never forgetting you.” 

In truth, you hadn’t even begun to consider what you’d do if—when—you were found. You’d been so focused on trying to fit into your new life here that your past had largely just faded into the back, shrinking in the horizon. What you did know, at least, was that even in some dystopian future without Ellie, she’d never be off of your mind.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” 

“I’m not,” you replied, tapping her shoulder. “I mean it. You’re stuck with me.” 

Her diaphragm vibrated as she let out a short laugh. “Oh, the horrors.” 

She fell silent as you kept threading your fingers through her hair, letting your nails scrape against her scalp. The hand that wasn’t draped over your chest had crept up, her thumb rubbing back and forth as she traced the outline of your jaw.

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I can be such a sad drunk sometimes. It’s pathetic.”

“It’s okay,” you soothed, your other hand lightly dancing up and down her back. “I think it’s sweet.”

She snorted. “You would.” 

Then, after a few more seconds of silence: “You really weren’t jealous?”

“I never said that.” 

“So she did make you jealous?”

You flicked her shoulder. “Fuck off. Of course she did. Happy?”

“Thrilled.” 

A few moments later, she spoke up again. 

“Can you promise me something?” Her voice was deceptively casual.

“Anything.” You’d give her anything she wanted.

“Promise me that you’ll take the first opportunity to go home,” she said softly. “Promise you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ll take the first opportunity to go home as long as I get to have you around, too.” 

You couldn’t see it, but you knew she was rolling her eyes. “Not good enough.”

“You want me to leave that badly?” You weren’t sure if you should be hurt.

“Of course not,” she responded. “I just...I don’t expect you to wait around here for me. I don’t want you to. I want you to be safe.”

“I feel safe with you.”

“Will you just—fucking—say you’ll go?” Her voice sounded raw, tired. 

“Fine,” you said. “I promise.” 

Your words were empty. You couldn’t promise her that. She had to know that. But would it matter? If you never had to make that choice?

In retrospect, you weren’t sure when you drifted off. All you remembered was the warmth of Ellie gathered up in your arms, her measured breath blowing across your exposed neck as you felt the slow, marching rhythm of her heart.

~

When you awoke to the early morning sunbeams streaming in through the window and warming your face, Ellie was passed out cold on top of you. A few unruly strands of her auburn hair had ruffled upwards overnight, sticking to your cheek and threatening the seams of your lips. 

You’d never been happier.

As you thought, running your hand gently up and down the length of her spine, Ellie’s breath hitched.

You froze, thinking you must have woken her.

Then she made a quiet snort. She took another deep breath in, whistling as it went. Her next exhale was louder and caught in her nose. 

You did your best not to laugh enough to wake her.

Ellie snored, even though she wasn’t that loud. The part of you that was still intimidated by her was shrinking by the minute. If only you had known in the beginning that after a long day of bullying you she went back to her room to honk shoo the night away, you never would’ve let it bother you.

She jolted awake, blinking rapidly as she pulled away and looked up at you.

“What the fuck are you laughing about?” she said groggily. “It’s—” She twisted in your arms, squinting at her desk. “It’s 6 in the fucking morning. Shut up.” With that, she flopped back down on top of you, laying one arm over your torso so she could shove it the space under the pillow beside your head. 

“You shut up,” you heard yourself say. 

Ellie smacked your shoulder, not even bothering to lift her head. 

“You snore,” you said, quieter this time. 

“I don’t.”

“You literally do. I was there when it happened.” 

She was silent for a few moments. “Really?”

You pressed your lips to her forehead instead as you trembled from the laugh you were doing your best to rein in.

“Oh, god,” groaned Ellie. “That’s so embarrassing.” 

“I thought it was cute.”

“You think everything I do is cute.” 

“And what about it?”

You settled back in, wrapping your arms around Ellie as you tried to drift back off.

“Do you hear that?” 

Her voice was whispered.

“Hear what?”

“That sound.” 

You let go of her and sat up, your eyes unfocused as you tried your best to tune into whatever Ellie was talking about. Out of the corner of your vision you could see her staring at you with big, nervous eyes.

It took you a moment to notice it. No one could blame you, really. It was hardly a rarity to hear the sound of a plane when you grew up in Terranova. 

“That’s a plane, Ellie,” you said, reaching out to cup her face. “It’s fine.” 

“A plane?” She frowned, still blinking bleariness out of her eyes. “I’ve never heard one before. Joel told me that they stopped being used after the government officially fell.”

“That’s not true,” you corrected. “There’s some in—”

A puzzle piece clicked into place, and with it came a sense of underlying dread. But you shouldn’t be dreading it. It’s what you were hoping for after all, weren’t you? What you’d been praying for since you’d arrived?

“Let’s go outside and look,” you said, nudging her side. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” You were hoping it was nothing. 

Ellie followed you, pulling a throw blanket from her bed and draping it around her shoulders like a cape. She looked so cute like that. You wanted to bite her. Not, like, in a weird blood kink way. Just in a…you didn’t know how to describe it. Better leave it there. 

A lump formed in your throat.

Maybe you were wrong. Maybe this had nothing to do with you.

The air was tepid and pleasant against your bare skin as you two quietly opened the front door and crept onto the porch. The town was quiet. No one was awake at this hour, not unless they were down by the stables or doing night watch. 

There was a sliver of pink and orange hanging over the tops of the mountains, no doubt remnants of what had been a spectacular sunrise. There were still snowy caps on the highest peaks. You hadn’t known that mountains could stay so cold for so long until you’d come to Jackson.

The lump in your throat grew larger.

“Shit,” said Ellie, leaping down from the porch and onto the road. “Do you see this?”

The plane was no longer in sight, but the swirling papers that hadn’t been on the road the night before were left as evidence.

“They must’ve dropped them,” said Ellie excitedly, snatching one from the ground and bounding back up the steps so she was next to you. “What do you think this says?”

You smiled sadly. “Why don’t you read it?”

She unfolded the envelope, ripping open the top and dumping the contents out in her hand. 

“Oh.” 

It was a picture of you. It’d been taken months prior at your family’s Christmas party. You’d worn glittery silver eyeliner and curled your hair. The upper half of your body was in view, clad in a rich red fabric that landed right below your collarbones. A string of creamy white pearls were clasped around your neck, matching the teardrop pearls that hung delicately from your ears. 

HAVE YOU SEEN HER?

There was no other text, but you did notice a divet at the top right corner in the shape of a small oval. 

Terranovan security. Of course. 

Wordlessly, you pressed your thumb into the mold, holding it there for a second as the parchment recorded your print.

Then a paragraph formed at the bottom, ink slowly leaking into the paper.

COME TO THE COORDINATES LISTED BELOW AT EXACTLY NOON, MAY 15TH. A LIFT WILL BE WAITING TO ESCORT YOU.

You’d been found. 

final a/n: sorry not sorry this was the original cliffhanger that i was planning for part 4 all along. you guys are incredible for still sticking around and reading even though this is getting lengthy as hell. anyway i hope you guys enjoyed this sort of different side of ellie before we reach the final act. the plot is abt to reach its peak and i’m hellaaa excited to share it with you. okok let me know what you think! it might take me around the same time it took me to finish part 4 to get part 5 out considering how sick i am/how much i have on my plate, but i promise it’s coming :))

[jeon-ify]

that night : j. yunho - pt. 1

a/n: this is my first actual fic since i’ve just been posting scenarios and requests :3 !! this idea came from listening to ‘you broke me first’ by tate mcrae. its a great song and it reminds me of yunho but toxic yunho. it would kinda be good if you listen to the song while reading !! idk girl i just write

genre: smut, drama, early 20s- mid 20s romance, toxic/dark romance, 18+

warnings: smut, dark romance, toxic!yunho, yunho has a threesome with y/n’s best friends, yunho is a cheater, reader swears a lot, yunho calls reader a psychotic bitch, san is a druggie, alcohol, cocaine, yunho begs, yunho gets sad and guilty, reader claims she moved on, san is annoying as hell, wooyoung is readers bestie!!

“san! i haven’t talked to you in so long, i’m sorry! how have you been?” your phone rang, you look to see that san called you about 20 times. you’ve been ignoring him, since he’s done almost every drug under the sun in the past year since you all have moved to different cities.

“man I called you 6 times. stop playing dumb. yunho’s asking about you again, please call him back. i’m sick of his shit.” san sniffles sharply. you’re sure he’s doing crack again, but when is he not?

you did not want to hear about yunho. you haven’t heard about or seen him in almost 4 years now, recovering from that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~

you call yunho, in hopes that he’d pick up. you left him a voicemail asking if he’d want anything from target when you were off work tonight.

*hello!! it’s yunho, sorry i couldn’t take your call. leave a message and i’ll call back!*

“i’m gonna stop at target, babe. did you want anything? love you, call me back.”

you finish your target run, grabbing a set of shampoo and conditioner and other necessities as you’ve been out of your favorites for a week now. you step out of the car, grabbing your bags and unlocking the door to yunhos apartment. you didn’t live with him, but you practically did since you were there almost every day of the week.

“~yuyu, fuck its so good! so big!” “you fuck us so good oh my god.”

“you’re both so fuckin’ pretty. my god.”

no fucking way.

your heart dropped to your ass, at a loss of every word in the dictionary. you felt like you were being run over by a truck 100 times over.

it felt like every moment with yunho was flashing at once.

he told you he loved you a million times a minute, you thought you were the only one. you thought that yunho would love you and only you, but how could you be so stupid to trust anyone else again?

you walk to where the noise is coming from, tears flooding your eyes, threatening to fall. the door is cracked a little, you see a pile of black hair and red hair mixed, one on top of the other. one of the girls has a tattoo on her wrist while the other has one too— it looks all too familiar.

one tattoo being a moon, the other being a sun.

your best friends.

you want to cut off the star tattoo on your wrist so fucking bad. how could they ever betray you like this? they never approved of yunho, but he’s inside both of them, fucking them on your shared bed. in your (what was once) home.

you didn’t even want to acknowledge the situation, instead you dropped the target bag at the door of the bedroom, leaving as soon as you could.

hours later, yunho calls. no answer.

you stare as your phone rings.

*32 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: hey, sry i didn’t call back. where’d u go?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: babe?

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: y/n, pick up the phone.

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: not funny.

Read at 12:43AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: ur reading my fkn messages but ur not answering n its pissing me off

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: alr whatever lmao dnt pick up.

Today at 5:21AM

yuyu 🫶🏻✨: i cnt sleep, thibkin about yoj

*2 missed calls from yuyu 🫶🏻✨*

you watch your phone ring, waiting for the ringing to stop. your tears flow, deciding to call him back.

“baby? my fucking god, i mis-missed you. *hiccup* had me worried sick.” he slurs. he’s fucking crying.?

“you’re a fucking liar. my best friends? you’re drinking, you piece of shit. and you’re fucking crying?”

“relax, they’re not your best friends and i know that cus they did that to you, plus me and you baby, we don’t belong to each other. been wanting to leave. felt so fucking locked up. you won’t let me do what i want, you controlling fucking psychotic bitch.”

what the fuck.?

you watch the time on the phone call increase as he mumbles what you really meant to him.

you feel like you really did trap him, but you both didn’t agree on a poly relationship. for him to fuck your best friends is an insane thing to do to someone.

you end the phone call after 57 minutes of yunho talking about how much he fucking hated you for never letting him fuck your friends.

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

“i’m never talking to that piece of shit again and never bring him up to me. i have things to do, i’ll text you.”

you hung up the phone after 35 seconds.

you’ve grown past the situation with yunho, healing and becoming a better person. you were single, traumatized from your past relationships being a burden on you. but, your best friend wooyoung always supported you through and through. he wanted what was best for you, even though he introduced you to yunho. it wasn’t wooyoungs fault that yunho had fucked up (or was already fucked up), he just wanted to help you find someone. you had your own apartment, your own car and your own lash studio. you were booked for days on end, always working and being your own person.

but, with healing comes pain.

you’d occasionally think about yunho, how he’d pamper you in gifts and he’d take you anywhere you wanted. you thought about the nights that you’d cried to him, he’d hold you in his warm chest, making sure you were held and you didn’t feel alone. you sometimes still toss around in bed, thinking yunho was next to you, on your right side. you’d still bake matcha and white chocolate cookies as if he’d eat them with you, a reminder that you loved yunho— as your love language was baking— and every time you see those cookies, your heart begins to ache.

you pick up your phone and text your best friend, as he’s the only person you go to for anything.

—————-

to: woo 🧍🏻‍♀️

y/n: bitch get up

y/n: r u awake yet

y/n: GET THE FUCK UP BRO ITS AN EMERGENCY

y/n: if ur not up in the nect 5 minutes i’m calling the cips

y/n: next *^ & cops^*

y/n: man i just need to talk 😩 san called me

*seen*

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: girl what the FUCK

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: did u call the cops yet

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: is the cop hot

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: bitch WHI CALLED

woo 🧍🏻‍♀️: im calling u rn answer

your best friend calls you in no less than 3 minutes after your series of texts.

“why is san calling you? what’d he want?” wooyoung asks, concern masking his voice.

“woo, i just started feeling like i finally moved on from all that bullshit. he fucking calls me like ‘oh yunho wants to talk to you’ and i’ve been dodging yunho for fucking ever. i know he’s been calling me but-“ you ramble to him. he cuts you off, questioning:

“did you ask him what he wanted from you?”

“it doesn’t matter because im over it and im over fucking everything. its all bad news and i don’t wanna go down that hole again, woo. if you’re so curious ask him yourself. i don’t care and i honestly don’t wanna know.”

“okay. i won’t ask.” wooyoung says in defense. he has a sixth sense, and his sense is telling him that maybe something is wrong with yunho, or maybe he wants to try to give you the closure you deserve. though he already gave you closure— just not the kind you expected from someone you’ve loved for 6 years.

but a part of you really wanted to know why he called. a little portion of your heart still aches for yunho, but you’re healing, remember?

the phone call ends after small talk, and you stare at yunho’s contact info for 7 minutes. you open messages and read the last message he sent you. you have him blocked, but you know it’s his number.

May 19th, 2021 at 3:21AM

*You have new messages from (***)***-**** *

(***)***-****: baby, i’m so sorry.

(***)***-****: you won’t ever forgive me, but i’ve changed. my star, my love, my moon, my sun.

(***)***-****: i can’t sleep anymore.

(***)***-****: i’ll leave you alone, okay?

December 10th, 2022 at 1:21AM

(***)***-****: i can’t live without you.

(***)***-****: it’s been so fucking long

(***)***-****: js need to see ur face. keep staring at the same pic but it was so long ago

(***)***-****: my messages are green, why are they green?

(***)***-****: i met someone today, his name started with an M but i can’t remember what his name was

(***)***-****: he’s helping me heal. ik i don’t deserve to heal but i wanna be better bc u deserve better

(***)***-****: i wanna be the one for u my love

(***)***-****: i fucked up but pls believe me when i say i’ll change for u bb

(***)***-****: i’m going to sleep, goodnight my angel

January 8, 2023 at 7:08PM

(***)***-****: everythibg remjnds me of u baby

(***)***-****: ur everywhere i go

(***)***-****: ur everything i see

(***)***-****: mingi won’t let me live diwn what i did to u

(***)***-****: i deserve to fucking die

(***)***-****: i really lost u

Today at 10:32PM

(***)***-****: i still miss you, my love.

(***)***-****: want you to carry my children and be in my life forever.

(***)***-****: i’ve bettered myself. i’ve changed, please let me see you again.

*seen*

shortly after you open his book of messages, your phone rings.

*2 missed calls from (***)***-**** *

———————

you watch your phone ring twice, your heart dropping 6 times over, you didn’t think he would be this bad about it, but maybe he aches for you the same way you ache for him.

maybe yunho is sorry. maybe he changed and maybe he wants to be with you again.

your phone rings again, the same phone number showing up, as your shaky hands press the green button.

silence. the first 8 seconds is silent as yunho tries to process and come up with what he’ll say to you.

he tried calling you for 3 years on end, you’d blocked him. he was so used to your voicemail being the only thing left of you to heal him.

“h-hello?” there it is. the voice you refused to hear for almost 4 years, its there. it’s no longer only in your head, it’s his voice on the other side of the 7 inch screen against your ear.

his voice makes your stomach twist and turn, your hands sweating as your chest forms a hole within itself.

“you don’t need to say anything, just listen to me, hm? you can hang up any second you want, but if your heart still aches for me the way mine does for you, you’d listen.

my love. i’ve ruined you and tore you to shreds. i don’t even know where i begin. you are the most precious thing that has ever happened to me. the minute you entered my life, i took you for granted and fucked up. i didn’t realize how much i loved you or how much you meant to me until you left. that night is a blur to me, you didn’t deserve any of that. you deserve to be treated like royalty, you deserve to be treated in the most beautiful and enchanting way because that is how you made me feel. but i went and fucked that up for the both of us. i didn’t mean what i said to you. i was drunk but that’s no excuse to talk to you the way i did. it’s not right. it never was.

the only time i ever find myself doing right is when i beat myself up for doing you wrong.

i stay at the same apartment, san comes over and does whatever he needs to do but i haven’t touched a drug since you left me. the minute you left was the minute i decided to better myself. mingi is helping me be the person i want to be for you. my god, i hate myself for everything ive done to you. i’m not asking for your forgiveness, i know you won’t give it to me. but i want you to know that i still am here and i still love you. i love you better and i love you the way you deserve.

are you still with me, y/n?”

he breathes. you breathe. you finally breathe.

“i- yunho. i don’t know how to feel about any of this, you really hurt me and i can’t trust anyone anymore. you fucked my best friends, in our room. i don’t even know why i even looked at my phone or why i even answered san when he called me. i’m doing better, but you calling me again is really making me feel like i’m falling down that hole again.” you try your hardest to not let him hear you grow weak to his confession. his heart caved in, and his stomach grew empty when you’d brought up his mistake.

“i understand. i won’t push or do anything to make you uncomfortable. but, i want to have coffee with you, or one of us can come over and we can talk about this, hm?”

you sigh. you felt like all the healing and all the self care you’ve been doing is going straight down the drain.

but do you wanna listen to what he has to say?

“i’m free tomorrow afternoon. but i can’t stay long.” is all you say. you don’t wanna keep this conversation going, nor do you even want to talk about this at all. you are growing selfish; only wanting to see yunho because you miss the attention you used to get from him.

“as long as i get to see you, its okay. i look forward to talking to you, y/n. been waiting forever. is 4:30 fine with you?” he sniffles and lets out a calm chuckle from within his throat.

he’s aching just as much as you are.

“yes. goodnight, yunho.”

“goodnight, star.” that nickname. the same nickname that dragged you into his lore. he speaks lightly. the phone call ends and he sounds like an angel, making your head spin and your heart confused.

you don’t know whether to trust yunho again because, maybe, he is sorry. maybe he wants to make things right with you.

for the rest of the night, you cannot sleep. you don’t decide on going tomorrow, you really don’t want to face yunho after what he did to you. after 4 hours of tossing and turning, rereading texts from yunho, drinking water, and listening to nothing but the buzzing in your ear, you finally manage to get sleep.

—————————————————————————————

first fic!! yay!! i know yall are gonna hate yunho because what he did to y/n is trash and ass and all of the above. i hope you guys start to understand yunho further in the story. idk what im gonna do with this fic but i hope i come up with part 2 in a timely manner cus i dont want it to be dragged lol. but!!!!!!!!!! i hope you all like this fic just as much as i HATE it 😋

[cobaltperun]

Lost (12) - You had me from hello

Tara Carpenter x female Reader

Summary: To anyone on the outside, and to Tara’s friends, you were Tara’s fierce protector, the MMA fighter who’d take anyone on for Tara. The Guard Dog, as Amber called you. You had no idea you’d have to protect her from people who claimed they loved her. It didn’t matter. As long as you and Tara had one another there was nothing you wouldn’t be able to survive.

Story warnings: Scream violence, family issues, trauma, angst, certain sensitive topics

Word count: 4k

Story masterlist / First part / Previous part / Next part

-If I never told you I just want you to know you had me from hello-

Proving that yesterday was a fluke, Tara woke up to the sight of you already up and rolling the dough, which, knowing you, probably meant you were making crescent rolls. Tara stretched a bit, grabbed your pillow and got comfortable. She smiled and just watched you work for a couple of minutes. The years working as a cook really paid off, as you moved in the kitchen with practiced ease and Tara found herself swooning at the thoughts of eating your cooking for the rest of her life. She didn’t even feel like she was rushing with that thought. The two of you went through enough to know for sure that nothing, absolutely nothing, could separate you. And that thought made her smile. She let out a content sigh, humming as she got up and approached you. She hugged you from behind, the same way she did yesterday, only without putting her arms underneath your shirt this time.

"Good morning, Y/N," she said a bit sleepily, she lazily leaned down a bit and kissed you just beneath your shoulder blade, loving the way you went still just for a moment. You heard her even when she stretched, it was the kiss that made you stop for a moment.

"Good morning, birthday girl," she didn't even need to look at you to know there was a grin on your face. She heard you moving a bit, and wiping something before she felt your hands on top of hers. "Great timing actually. What filling would you like?"

Tara hummed at that, it was tempting to go for something sweet, but she'd have her cake later. "How about pizza?" just some tomato sauce, cheese, and ham would be perfect.

You nodded, fake coughing and tapping her hand lightly. Right, she'd need to let you go. "Thank you," you teased, turning around to kiss her cheek before heading to the fridge.

Tara leaned against the counter, careful to avoid dough and flour. "You're making a lot. Are Sam, Chad and Mindy coming?"

"Yeah, apparently we owe them for leaving us alone yesterday. Although, should the three of you be this relaxed about school?" you asked while looking inside the fridge, causing Tara to freeze for a moment and look away. You got everything you needed and came back, a bowl, ham, cheese and a bottle of tomato sauce in your hands, and you were carefully observing her. When you stood in front of Tara you set aside the bowl and ingredients down, took your apron off, and then tucked a few strands of hair behind Tara's ear. "What's wrong?"

You noticed. Not that she was surprised about that. No one knew her as well as you did. "It's been difficult lately," Tara sighed, if she wanted you to always be open with her, she'd have to be the same way with you.

You frowned and she swore she could see gears turning in your head. "Because of what happened?" you figured it out quickly, though it wasn’t that difficult to figure it out.

"Yeah," she leaned into you, seeking the comfort of having your arms around her gave her. And you gave her just that, pulling her in. She rested her head against your chest, listening to the sound of your heart beating. "Promise me you won't go crazy when I tell you," if anyone knew you, she knew you. Even if she failed to recognize you weren't fine for years. She knew how you were when it came to her. She knew you'd get pissed off the moment you heard how things were at school.

Tara heard a reluctant sigh and smiled when she felt you picking her up and taking her to the sofa. You sat down, with her safely sitting on your lap. "I don't like it, but I promise."

"It's either pity or blame. You know, some say they are sorry for me because of what Amber did to me, some say I should have noticed Amber was... the way she was," some went on to say Tara wasn't any different, that she killed Amber, so she was just as dangerous and sick in the head as her now deceased ex. She couldn't tell you that. You'd want the names of those people regardless of what you promised.

She felt you clenching your fists, she felt the tension in your muscles as you held her, she heard the deep breaths you took.

"Y/N," she nuzzled into your neck, hoping she could calm you down with touch, with assurance that she was right there and fine, and that you didn’t need to get into trouble over this. And you would get into trouble if you got involved with this.

"I know, I know. I trust you to tell me if you need me to do anything," that was what she wanted to hear as she caressed your cheek, slowly kissing from your neck all the way to your lips. It was a soft, brief kiss, but it was enough to calm your down.

Tara pulled back first, smiling. "I love how protective you are. I love knowing you are always there when I need you. I still need to handle things myself, you know? I need you to get back to the way you were before I was attacked," back then you were protective, but not to the point of handling any problem she had yourself. You didn't get to that point now, either, but Tara worried you might if she didn't point it out to you right away.

Before you left two months ago Tara absolutely needed you. She needed help moving, she couldn't take care of herself properly and at first needed help with even some of the more basic tasks. That was embarrassing, but you were patient and made sure she never felt like she was an inconvenience. She couldn't do anything too difficult and with the damage to her hand, she'd still need help with certain tasks in the future. That was the physical side of things. Carrying her, carrying things she couldn't, all the things like that, all of that was fine. She knew her limits and she was fine with your help with what she couldn't do. That's how things were before she got attacked as well, only back then they were less intimate.

As for handling issues like the one she currently had at school, well, that was where she drew the line. She couldn't have you solving everything, or getting involved with everything. She needed you to go back to the way you were before. Where you'd only get involved if she asked you to and would otherwise just offer her the support.

"I can still get angry, right?" you asked, relaxing a bit at her words.

"There's not much I can do about that," Tara laughed and leaned down once again to kiss your cheek. “Other than kiss you and hope that’ll calm you down,” she joked kissing the corner of your lips as you smiled. "I have you," she kissed your cheek again. "And Sam, and Mindy, and Chad," with every name she kissed another part of your face, your other cheek, your forehead, the tip of your nose, purposefully avoiding your lips. "I can handle anything this stupid town throws at me."

How she wished she could erase what happened, go to a place where no one knew who she was and what she went through so that she could live a normal life. Hopefully, she could do exactly that once she leaves Woodsboro with you, Chad, and Mindy, and, she hoped, Sam as well.

You got tired of her insistent avoidance of your lips and gently cupped her cheek to properly kiss her. "I know you can. You will. And then we'll leave this damn place and never come back," Tara liked that idea. She liked the slow and gentle way you were kissing even more, the soft caress of your thumb across the side of her face. You separated too quickly for her liking. "Breakfast, Tara" you reminded her.

"Breakfast, Tara" she repeated, dejectedly getting off your lap and sitting next to you with folded arms, and you just laughed. "What?" she asked, surprised by your reaction.

"Pancakes, Y/N," you reminded her, and Tara blinked a few times, realizing she did exactly what you did yesterday.

And so, she laughed as well, jokingly pushing you to get up quicker. You got together yesterday, no one could blame her for being a bit more eager for everything than it was necessary. Besides, you weren't any different. Give it a bit of time and you'll both get used to the relationship, which should, in turn, make you a bit less excited about being in a relationship than you currently were. Twice a day was definitely not a pace either of you needed or could keep up with.

You didn't head right back to the dough, instead, you dug for something in your bag and walked back to her with a small bag. "I saw them and figured your hand might be sensitive to cold," you handed her the package. "Happy birthday, Love," you said, quickly bending down to peck her lips one more time.

Tara, pulled you into a hug, the package still in her hand. "Thank you," she whispered in your ear. The gift turned out to be a pair of rechargeable hand warmers. "I love it," could she tell you? Was it too early? She kinda figured you weren't the most usual couple, between near-death experience and being in love for years. Still shouldn't there be more build-up to those words? A relationship that was longer than thirty hours? "Y/N."

"Yeah?" you looked taken aback when you looked her in the eyes.

"It's just, I-" she was sure of what she felt, she just feared you might think it was too soon.

You smiled. "I love you too, Tara," her jaw dropped.

"Wha- How?" she jumped to her feet as you laughed and went back to making crescent rolls. "Y/N!" she scolded you with a pout on her face.

"Eyes are the window to the soul, right? Well, no one has eyes quite as expressive as yours, Tara. Besides, we've been through so much together. Saying 'I love you' feels more like stating the obvious, rather than a huge declaration," you shrugged while you began grating the cheese

Tara wanted to be annoyed, but, frankly, she couldn't be. You just had to be right, didn’t you? Tara did have to admit most people didn’t go through what the two of you did. There certainly wasn’t a book about when to say ‘I love you’ if you and your partner survived a couple of crazy killers trying to kill you. "You're right. Let's redo it. I love you, Y/N," she said and your smile morphed into a wide grin.

"I love you too, Tara."

~X~

About an hour later Tara got a text from Sam that her, Chad, and Mindy were almost there, and just in time as you were just done setting the table. The crescent rolls smelled absolutely divine and if they weren’t fresh out of the oven Tara would have tried them already.

The two of you heard a knocking on the doors and Tara jumped to unlock them.

“Sam learnt her lesson,” you teased as Tara walked past you and she just grinned at you, blushing slightly at the reminder of what nearly happened yesterday.

The moment she opened the doors Sam burst in, hugging her tightly. “Easy Sam, I was with Y/N,” Tara laughed, hugging her sister back.

“In more ways than one,” Mindy quipped shamelessly.

“Mindy!” Chad, luckily, chastised her before Tara could.

But Mindy just smirked, patting Tara on the back. “Early birthday present? Seeing stars without getting punched?”

Tara knew her face was as red as a tomato, she felt the heat in her cheeks as she looked away, of course Mindy would keep teasing her even now that she got together with you. “That’s… It’s not,” damn it, why was she so embarrassed? The two of you were in a relationship, of course you would…

“Damn it, Mindy, we’re supposed to have breakfast,” Sam complained as she let go of Tara.

“Exactly, and leave Tara be,” Chad jumped in to defend her as well.

Mindy just smirked, and while she stopped talking she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively causing Tara to groan. “Well, I had my fun, happy birthday, T,” Mindy finally went and hugged her. “Also, seriously, about time you two!” she exclaimed loud enough for you to hear her as well, but considering the way you were looking at them, with your jaw dropped, you definitely heard everything that came before as well.

“What the dingus said, I mean the about time thing,” Chad grinned and pulled Tara in for a hug. “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks, all of you,” Tara smiled, and just for a moment, for a fleeting second, she expected to see three more faces there. As if what happened was a horrible nightmare, as if Wes and Liv were still alive and Amber was alive and not a crazy murderer. But they weren’t there, they were all dead.

She tried to keep the smile on her face as she the three of them inside. All five of you sat down and Tara snuggled as close to you as she could, seeking your warmth and trying to push those thoughts away.

You always had a sixth sense for her distress, and you wrapped your arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

“So, world champion?” Chad awkwardly patted you on the shoulder.

Ever since Tara told the three of them of your retirement, they weren’t sure how to approach the subject, and that was with Tara. Now you were right there, and that awkwardness came back like a boomerang, and it was only slightly eased by the fact that you won. Well, depending on how you looked at it. Chad, personally, thought that you winning made it even worse, since you wouldn’t get the chance to defend your title and dominate the women MMA. He looked it up, you were the youngest women’s MMA world champion in history, and by a lot, especially in your category.

“Until the next title match, yeah. Anya will probably take it right back by beating up whoever her unlucky opponent ends up being,” you weren’t bothered though, not even a bit and Tara trusted you were honest.

“I bet, that woman hits hard,” Sam agreed, wincing slightly when she remembered how much Tara was panicking while they were all watching your fight.

You chuckled. “Tell me about it,” and just like that the tension was gone. Tara eased her worried mind by leaning into your touch, and you eased the worries of all your friends by being fairly chill about the retirement. For a brief moment Tara even chastised herself for ever doubting you in the first place.

~X~

Later that day you were washing the dishes while Tara and the twins choose how to pass the time. That was when Sam approached you.

She leaned back against the fridge, not quite looking at you, instead she crossed her arms and looked at Tara. "So, you and Tara," Sam began a bit awkwardly.

"Yes?" you couldn't help bit smirk a bit, but when you noticed Sam’s nervousness and the fact that she chose to keep her tone low, your smirk dropped, and you dried your hands. You were done anyway.

"You're official?" there was the question, honestly, you expected it a bit sooner, but you guessed there just wasn’t a chance for Sam to ask. And you guessed she was a bit conflicted.

You should have been annoyed by her demeanor. And maybe you were a bit annoyed. She was gone for five years, came back only when she had to, and while you were thankful she came back, you didn’t exactly appreciate the fact that she was tethering on the edge of protecting Tara from you of all people. But you did understand. Tara went through a traumatic experience, and she jumped into a relationship with you the moment you came back. Not to mention the circumstances surrounding you leaving weren’t the best either. Sam couldn’t know that you and Tara completely talked it out, before you got together, and then during the rest of the day, you just talked it all over. Or at least the most important topics.

So, between understanding where Sam was coming from and the excitement you felt over being with Tara you couldn't wipe that stupid grin off your face as you glanced at Tara debating with Mindy on which movie to watch was enough of an answer on its own. "Yeah, it kinda just happened," you then quickly raised your hand. "Before you give me protective older sister speech, I know. I get it. If I ever hurt her, you're free to do whatever you want," of course, after you chose your own fitting punishment.

Sam nodded, smiling at your reassurance. "Honestly, if it had to be anyone, I'm glad it's you," she looked at Tara, at the grin on her face that mirrored your own when she glanced toward you. "She's happy with you."

You smiled, that was all you wanted. To make Tara happy and be happy with her.

"Sam, Y/N, come on!" Tara said, interrupting the conversation you had with Sam, still, you doubted there was anything else left to say. Sam approved, even if she was justifiably concerned for her sister.

~X~

As the celebration began coming to a close the five of you were left sitting, just chilling in your and Tara’s apartment. Mindy and Chad were on the couch and Chad was eating his second slice of cake. Sam and Mindy refused the seconds, but you and Tara were sharing a piece, since Tara was already full, but craved something sweet and you weren't about to turn down extra cake. Sam was sitting at the bottom of your and Tara’s bed, while you sat cross-legged on your bed with Tara sitting on your lap. You had one arm around her waist while holding the plate in the other. Tara was the one with the duty to feed either of you.

"Hey, what should we do when we leave Woodsboro?" Chad suddenly asked as he took another bite of his cake.

"Go to university, get our degrees, you know how it goes," Mindy didn't seem too interested in the topic. She never was the one to complicate things, she knew what she wanted to do, and she would do it, thus talking about it in detail felt unnecessary to Mindy.

"Well yeah, but I'd like us to stick together. You know, after what we went through," he said and you couldn't help but feel relief at his words.

You glanced at Tara, seeing the hopeful look in her eyes. This clearly wasn't something they talked about before.

"I don't think I can trust other people easily, after what Amber did," Mindy admitted. "And I really care about you two," she said to Chad and Tara. "No offense, Y/N, Sam."

"None taken, I get it," Sam immediately assured her and you just grinned.

You and Mindy were friends, you were on good terms, you could see she was happy for you and Tara. You also fully understood it was a friendship that relied on your mutual connection to Tara.

"Well, I care about all of you," Chad was, for the lack of a better description, much more open to caring about people than Mindy. Granted, you had more in common with Chad than Mindy, so that may have had something to do with the closer friendship the two of you had.

"How about we pick the same university and rent an apartment together?" Tara went for the best-case scenario in her head.

Mindy immediately crossed her arms in an X shape. "No way, university yes, but living with you two? No, I can't handle how stuck together you two are," she immediately shut it down.

Tara laughed, jokingly smacking her shoulder. "We're not that bad!"

Mindy just looked at Tara blankly and shook her head. "T. We know what you did yesterday, a day, actually scratch that, hours into your relationship, by the way," Tara and you got embarrassed at that. It wasn’t even hours, it was more like minutes. "Also, kind of hard to believe you when you haven't left Y/N's lap for longer than a minute the whole night."

"She got you there Snuggle Bear," you snickered, pulling the embarrassed girl closer to you, despite not doing much better than her.

Tara pouted and untangled herself from you, so she could go to Sam who happily accepted the role of hugging her sister.

"There, there, don't worry about it," Sam smoothed Tara's hair and pulled Tara to her right side. Tara eagerly leaned into Sam's embrace.

"See! This is what I'm talking about! As if being sweet with Y/N wasn't enough, there's Sam as well!" Mindy laughed and honestly, given the situation, you and Chad couldn't help but join in. "It never ends, and I worry it might be contagious."

Tara just turned around and stuck her tongue out.

'We're all just touch-starved, aren't we?' you couldn't help but think as you shook your head slightly.

"No, look at it from the brighter side, at least she's going from one to the other," and Chad had to say it.

Tara immediately perked up and looked at you. "Y/N," she said sweetly and made a 'come here' motion with her hand.

"No!" Mindy and Chad jumped to grabbed onto you.

"Duty calls," you smirked, getting up to shake the two off and get closer to Tara and Sam despite the two trying to pull you back.

"Stay with us Y/N! She has you wrapped around her little finger!" Mindy laughed.

"How does Tara hold you back and pull you around all the time?" Chad complained as he relented and gave up on trying to hold you back.

Looking over your shoulder you saw Mindy looking at Chad with an 'Are-you-serious' look on her face.

"I let her," you shrugged and dropped down next to Tara. "Yes, Tara?"

Tara glanced down at her left hand, resting on her thigh. Then she glanced at your own hand. Okay, you could figure that one out. You leaned back and slid your arm around Tara's lower back so you could reach her left hand from behind. "Like this?"

"Just like that," going by the smile on Tara's face she really enjoyed the moment. Sam having her arm around Tara's shoulders and you hugging her at the same time.

"See, it's like she has two guard dogs now," Mindy's laughter suddenly stopped. The reminder of Amber's nickname for you hanging in the air like an uncomfortable weight on everyone's shoulders. "Shit, sorry, Tara," she apologized.

"No, don't worry about it," Tara got up, but before you or Sam could go after her Mindy got up and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm really sorry. For teasing as well, hug them all you want," Mindy dropped the tough act just for a few moments.

Tara returned the hug and you saw her shoulders relaxing before the two girls separated.

"Uh, I'd like a hug too," Chad grinned sheepishly, prompting Tara to hug him as well.

If there really was a group of life-long friends forming between the five of you there was no doubt in your mind the heart and soul of that group was Tara.

A/N: The gift is an idea from Anon's headcanon, I didn't even know those were a thing until Anon mentioned them. Thank you, Anon!

Story masterlist / First part / Previous part / Next part

[aemondloverr]

𝐓𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜

Pairing: Marc w/a little Steven+Jake X FemReader

Synopsis: Marc is your boyfriend of 3 years. You started slow the first year and he had lots of boundaries but he was trying. You know he’s been hurt before. However the second year, he started to pull away. Your relationship is getting weaker, and it seems like all he thinks about is Layla, his ex wife.

Contents: Angst, arguing, slightly drunk!Reader, jealous reader.

Wc: 2.1k ish

Proof read? Y’all know me. Hell naww (if there’s mistakes I’m sorry😔)

AN: Ngl, some of the lines Lowkey sound cringe to me but this is my first time writing angst so…😭

Every other night, Marc said her name in his sleep. “Layla..” he’d mumble.

You knew of his sleeping issues, his nightmares, his past with her. He still missed her and you couldn't bear the thought that he missed her more than he loved you.

As your relationship went on, it seemed like he was…less there, distant;Emotionally, mentally, and physically. Spacing out for long periods of time, not paying attention to what you're saying, or just tuning you out and ignoring you. He argued with you more frequently, not even over reasonable things. He’d say he was going out for work stuff and you knew, you had a gut feeling that he was lying to you. Tonight was no different.

*****

It was around 5 pm and it was already starting to get dark so you figured it was a good idea to get started on dinner. Just as you walked into the kitchen from the couch, Marc came out of your shared bedroom, dressed with a coat and hat on. It seemed like he was rushing, eager to leave the house.

Marc slipped on his boots and grabbed a small bag but as he unlocked the door, you turned around and interrupted him.

“Where are you going…?”

“Out. I have stuff to take care of.” His voice was barely audible but you could tell his tone was dismissive

“Please just be back before 8…okay? I wanna have dinner with you” for once, you added in your head

He looks at you but doesn’t say anything and steps out the door, slamming it shut. Taking a deep breath you get started on cooking, washing the vegetables to make his favorite vegan dish.

Steven and Jake on the other hand argue with Marc in the reflection of the glass in the window.

“You really need to listen to her…You don't want this to turn out how it did with-” Marc cuts him off abruptly.

“We don't talk about her. You know that.”

“But Steven is right and you know it marc…” Jake states

“Forget it mate…”

*****

5pm quickly became 7 and dinner was almost done. By 7:30, you were in the bedroom, changing into a dress you knew was Marc's favorite. It was form fitting and flattering to both your figure and complexion. You did your eye make up and a pretty lip combo and went to plate the food, setting out a bottle of wine with glasses on the table.

Half an hour later, it's 8 and he's still not here. Maybe it'll be different this time… you thought. But you waited there, sitting pretty in your long dress drinking wine and eating dinner. Alone. His food is getting cold.

10 pm. Still not here. You’re almost halfway through the bottle. At first you thought your relationship was perfect. How could you be so wrong? Why was he never there? Did he even love you anymore? Your mind starts to spiral as you become slightly intoxicated. Your overthinking always worried you.

You sat in the dark of the room, one leg crossed over the other, ruined mascara mixed with tears dried on your face. You didn’t even bother to pour wine into the glass anymore and just drank straight from the bottle. Every time you took a sip, the wine dripped down your chin and neck and stained your pretty dress. You read the clock. 12 am. Tears begin to pool your eyes again, but just then, The door unlocks. Marc opens the door to your shared apartment. Or Steven. Or jake. One of the three. He hoped that you were sleeping. When he saw that the room was seemingly dark and empty, he let out a breath of relief at the silence.

You interrupt the silence with your strained, shaky voice. “You’re late” you take another sip from the bottle slouched in a soft armchair. You knew it was Marc by the way he stayed silent. His breath hitched, slightly frightened by your sudden words and he quickly closed the door behind him.

“I know. I had to take care of something…” he mutters

“It’s 12 in the morning, Marc.” you reply sternly

Marcs mouth started to form an argument, but he snapped it shut. He took a deep breath, calming himself.

“I know…I'm sorry” he said inconsiderately

It took him a few seconds to notice the bottle of wine in your hand as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

“Have you been drinking…?”

You make a snarky remark “No shit. And you’re not fucking sorry. I told you to be home before 8. What the fuck Marc??” You took another large sip from the bottle.

Marc's jaw clenched as he sighed.

“I already said I'm sorry, what more do you want?!” he raised his tone at you.

He took the bottle from your hand and set it down on the table, looking down at you and your bloodshot eyes.

“Give it back” you reach for the bottle but he moves it away.

“You need to stop drinking-”

You cut him off with your words “What is wrong with you. You’re never here anymore. Ever.” You get up and snatch it from him.

Marc couldn't help but bristle at your words. You were always so stubborn. But it's because you loved him. You just wanted him to love you the same way he did before. He tried to hold in anger he felt building.

“Can we talk about this later? You're drunk”

“No, we're talking about it now. I can’t do this anymore Marc”

Marc rolled his eyes, thinking about how many times you’d said this before. He thought about the other times you were this close to actually breaking up with him…only for your words to turn into empty threats. He didn't want to get into a pointless argument this late at night.

“You’re being unreasonable and you're not in your right mind-” he raised his voice even louder than before

“I am not being unreasonable. Don’t you dare…”

Marc was fuming at this point. He took a step towards you until he was inches away from your face, smelling the wine on your breath. He wanted to scream and lash out at you, but he didn’t want to show you had an effect of him. After you showed him what real, unburdening, true, love looks like and he got scared. He got scared and pulled away. He gave you a cold shoulder that you didn't deserve.

Steven tries to calm him down from the mirror across the room. “Don’t say anything you’re gonna regret mate…” He does the exact opposite.

“You're here because you can't be anywhere else. I do everything I can for this relationship, and it's never enough for you.”

Scoffing in disbelief at his lie, you yell back. “You don’t do shit for me! I say I love you and you can’t even say it back anymore. You do NOT get to say you care!”

Now that was a low blow.

You had your finger poking right at his chest. Steven winces at your comment in the reflection. “I mean it’s true innit…Tried to tell you didn’t I?…You’re on your own now Marc.”

“Yea…you really did it this time” Jake comments too.

You tear up in frustration and hurt. Everything you've been feeling for the past few weeks is surfacing. Marc's lips tighten at the mention of it and he takes a sip out of the bottle he took from you. He didn’t think he’d have to hear that again and he knew you were right but he wouldn’t admit.

“You know why I don’t say it…”

He felt guilty, taking a step away. He didnt wanna look down at you as you looked up at him with those drunken, tear-stained eyes.

“Why?? It's because you still love Layla right?!”

Now that was a different kind of low blow. His body tensed at the mention of her name.

“Don’t you dare say her name…You know it's not that simple!! You don’t get to just throw that in my face every chance you get-”

“Yes it is,” you say, your lip quivering. You wanted to cry even more “all you do is think of her. You say her name in your sleep Marc!” He shouldn’t have been so quick to admit it, but something about the way you were looking up at him, the pain in your eyes, and the fact you were still slightly drunk made him soft. He couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt as he looked at you, knowing he was the cause of your hurt.

“It’s a simple question. Do you love me or not”

"Of course I love you…But that doesn't mean I'm not still heartbroken over Layla. I mean, she was my wife for Gods sake.”

“That doesn’t justify your shitty so-called ‘love’. I feel like I'm losing you…” Your tears turn black as they run through your mascara and down your face.

“I miss you...” You hesitantly grab his hands and hold them firmly in yours.

He thinks it's better to turn away and not get hurt by losing you than to be vulnerable, to take that risk again.

“It never used to be like this…before, you were there. What happened to us…?”

He pauses for a moment, tearing up. You look him in the eyes but he looks down at his feet. He wanted to prevaricate but that would only make things worse.

“I’m afraid of commitment, okay... I’m afraid to fall in love, that if I let myself feel that way again, things would end up the way they did when I was with layla”

“Why couldn't you just tell me that…? We could’ve handled it together”

“I.. thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t wanna be with me anymore. I was…”

He ran a hand through his hair, appearing stressed. He was being vulnerable with you and he wasn’t used to that…opening up to people, especially about Layla. He was really soft at heart and he’s not gonna let anyone catch him being soft…except you of course.

“I didn’t want to scare you away because I really do love you…I- It was stupid, but I promise…I promise I won’t push you away again, I’ll stop leaving, I’ll do anything…I love you”

He puts a hand on your cheek and brushes your messy hair off of your face. Tears swell in his eyes, bringing his forehead to yours. You dont reply and the two of you sit in silence for a few moments, savoring the feeling of being with him again;The way he holds you, just like way he used to before. But you can’t let it go that quickly.

“Just because you said a few words doesn't mean I can just forgive you like that…” You pull away from him and look away. “Sleep on the couch tonight please.” you walk away slowly without another word, taking his hand off of your cheek.

He doesn’t say anything more because he doesn’t want to argue, especially when you're half drunk and you both felt bad enough as it was

You go your separate ways to the couch and the bed. He stares out of the window at the moon, silently cursing Konshu in his mind, feeling the guilt of his absence. You curl up under the sheets in your wine-stained dress, no longer crying, but thinking about if he’s really going to change. Or will it just be an empty promise…

A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed ittt. BTWW I’ve been SO obsessed with hotd so I definitely will be posting some Cregan fics😏🙏🏾 As always like and reblog to show supporttt

[celestialglow24]

••• 3 Months •••

Hi everyone 🤗 I kind of had this idea come to me for a little series and I wanted to test it out. There will be 4 parts. The idea is that it will explore the development of the relationship between Frank and reader over the course of 3 months leading up to 12 months (or 1 year). I can’t promise how quickly I will have each part up—i’m about to go on a trip—but I will do my best! If you’d like to be tagged when the next part comes out don’t hesitate to ask. Hope you enjoy!

FRANK CASTLE x AFAB READER

Part 1

The first 3 months

He remembers the first time he saw you.

It was at a diner he’d never been to before and one he wasn’t really planning to come back to.

His favorite place to stop at was closed that day, something about being short staffed and the manager needing to handle some personal business.

Whatever the reason, it was bullshit. All he wanted was a cup of coffee and to read the fucking paper in peace.

Now he had to disrupt his routine and try some new place he wasn’t even sure about.

Frank didn’t like his routine to be changed.

But then he saw you.

Your warm smile and friendly eyes disintegrated any sour mood Frank was in that morning. It stunned him enough that he hadn’t even heard your first question.

He just stared at you with his eyebrows slightly raised.

“You need a minute?” you asked again sweetly.

“Uh, no sorry. Just coffee. Black.”

The words finally tumbled out of Frank’s mouth and he tried to avoid your eyes, awkwardly placing his hat and paper on the table.

He felt like a goddamned teenager.

“You sure that's all you want? We’ve got the best pancakes in town, they pair perfectly with our freshly made butter and syrup. My personal favorite is the cinnamon chocolate chip. Want me to bring you a stack?”

He looked at your name tag then back up to your eyes. If it had been anyone else he would’ve told them to just bring the coffee and the check. The less interaction he had the better.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do that with you.

“Just the coffee, sweetheart. I’m good.”

“Okay.” you smiled softly and nodded, collecting the menu that was on the table.

Minutes later, Frank was greeted with a warm cup of coffee and a stack of steaming pancakes.

He looked up at you with a confused stare and it made you let out a small laugh.

“I know, I know. You said you didn’t want any but I have a hard time taking no for an answer.” you winked.

Frank didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t all that hungry but he didn’t want to be rude. Though he couldn’t deny they did smell heavenly.

“You don’t have to eat them. I'll just leave ‘em here in case you decide to take a bite. Don’t worry, it’s on the house.” you smiled before walking away.

He took a sip of his coffee, and let out a low hum of approval.

That was a damn good cup of joe.

Torn between his pride and your sweet enthusiasm, Frank didn’t touch the pancakes for a few minutes.

He glanced around the diner, it had started to get busy and he couldn’t take his eyes off the way you moved.

There were several times he’d seen you being pulled in different directions. Whether it was someone from the kitchen, some kid dumping their food on the floor, or a screaming customer demanding to speak to a manager, you never once lost that damn smile.

He wondered how you did it.

When he knew you weren’t looking he picked up a fork and cut himself a piece of the pancake.

His eyes widened a bit in surprise and sure enough, you had been right.

This was the best damn pancake he’d had in a long time. He’d never thought to try cinnamon and chocolate chip pancakes, but now he was wondering how he could ever have them any other way.

By the time you had made your way back to Frank to check in, the whole plate was gone. Frank felt his face heat up a bit in embarrassment, he sure hoped his beard concealed most of it.

“Well, looks like I might’ve made the right call.” you teased.

Frank held out his mug for you as you leaned over to refill it.

“Yeah, yeah you got me.”

You nodded with a knowing smile. “It’s like a comforting memory isn’t it? I don’t know what it is, but it always makes me think of my grandparents. They made the best breakfast.”

Frank had not known how to label the feeling he had when he ate the pancakes himself, but a comforting memory sounded like the right description.

For him it made him think of Saturday mornings with Maria and the kids. The feeling both haunted him and soothed him.

“Yeah, something like that.”

You collected the empty plate and silverware, but before leaving you smiled at him again.

“You’re not from around here are you? I don’t think I've seen you in here before.”

“Eh kinda. I’ve been in town for a bit, just don’t usually hit up this spot.”

“I see.” you hummed. “You a regular at Joey’s?”

“Uhh-” Frank stammered. He didn’t want to offend you and he wasn’t sure if Joey’s diner was competition or not.

“It’s alright if you are.” you laughed, waving him off, “We’ve had several of his customers head this way since he’s closed today. No hard feelings. Though I think I can safely say his pancakes can’t touch ours.”

Frank let out a chuckle and raised his coffee mug, “Yeah I’ll give you that.”

You returned a bright smile and Frank swore he felt his insides warm at the sight.

You offered your name, gesturing to the tag on your shirt before asking for his.

“Uh, Pete.” he replied. “Castiglione.”

He almost gave you the name Frank but something in him hesitated. He didn’t want you to somehow get mixed up in his crazy past. It was better this way.

“Pete.” you said out loud. “I like that.”

Frank felt awkward again. He didn’t know how to respond to compliments. To an outsider it might appear he was rude or grumpy, but in reality he was a kind man.

He just didn’t know how to show it all the time. It took a certain kind of person to bring that side out of him and even then that took time.

In some ways he was like a turtle. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside. One wrong move and he’d either snap your finger off or retreat into his shell.

“Well Pete, don’t be a stranger. Come back anytime.”

Frank nodded in return, taking in your glowing presence one last time before he left.

Looking back now he could see how from that very first day he was a goner.

You’d already set the cracks in his tough exterior and it wouldn’t be long until you bulldozed right through walls he spent so long building up around himself.

Over the next few months Frank returned to your diner. He tried to play it nonchalantly at first. One weekend here, one weekend there.

Until finally he started coming around more regularly.

The two of you had struck up a nice friendship. You’d even gotten him to try more things on the menu. Frank didn’t like trying new things but he was finding you were impossible to say no to.

He’d never admit it out loud, but each time you’d been right. He was starting to think maybe changing things up every now and then wasn’t so bad.

So Frank developed a new routine. One that included coming by to see you and share a stack of pancakes.

He was being drawn to you like a moth to a flame. The pull was strong and he wasn’t sure what any of it meant.

All he knew was that he liked being around you and for the first time in a very long time, Frank wasn’t resistant to the chance of something good happening in his life.

[fandom-chic]

Please Please Please: Chapter 12

Summary: Y/N is only a child when she and Tommy Shelby meet. The two quickly become best friends as they grow up in Small Heath. As the years go by, Y/N and Tommy know there may be more to their friendship than they originally thought.

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Y/N

A/N: One more chapter after this. Apologize for the grammar, will go through with a fine tooth comb later.

Previous chapter

Her words got caught in her throat, and even if she wanted to say something, she knew she couldn't. The man before her left her speechless. It all brought her back to the night she confessed her love to him. This must've been what it felt like to be on the other side of that door, seeing someone who took up all your heart being completely exposed.

These thoughts swirled through her mind, not allowing Y/N to bring herself to shut the door. Her limbs were stiff, and her bones felt like they were fused together. All she could do was stare at her old lover as his frame took up the doorway.

“Can I come in?” He was calm, acting as if the events of last night had not happened. As if he did not follow her into her husband’s office, trying to use warm words to make her turn away from her life. The one she built without him.

Her grip tightened on the doorknob, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Her eyes narrowed as she refused to avert her gaze.

“Well,” Tommy ran a hand up and down the pine exterior of the door, assessing the strength, “I can imagine this door wasn’t very expensive. It could come down with a kick or two.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said behind a clenched jaw.

“Try me,” his eyebrows rose, accepting her challenge. Y/N knew another expense was not something her family could afford right now. She cracked the door open far enough for Tommy to slither in. Tommy tried to maintain his suave exterior, but it was hard for him when he had to wiggle through the now minuscule entryway. Once he was finally in the house, he smoothed down his front coat, “Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?” he grumbled.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Y/N said, a haughty twinge to her voice. She shut the door with a light push, letting the sound of it closing reverberate throughout the house. She refused to take her eyes off of this man. She crossed her arms, taking him in more holistically now. Last night, all she caught was glimpses of him as she avoided him at all costs. Now, she can truly examine this new version of Tommy. There seemed to be an air of wealth that wasn’t originally there. His gloves appeared to be made of leather and his jacket seemed to be made of superior cotton.

Tommy noticed Y/N’s eyes scrutinizing every detail of his exterior and began to remove his cap. There was a sophistication to him that was not there back in 1914.

“I can take your jacket if you would like, Mr. Shelby,” she said, a coolness set in her tone. Tommy let out an exasperated sigh as he slipped off his coat. Y/N took it in her arms and walked to a spare chair, tossing it on top. It was a simple act of defiance that gave her the smallest sense of superiority.

“I could have done that myself,” he noted, motioning toward the chair.

“Well,” Y/N dusted an invisible piece of lint from her skirt, “We wouldn’t want Tommy Shelby to have to exert himself now, would we?” The poison in her words made the air darken.

“Y/N, can we just-”

“Tea?” She asked, not wanting this part of the conversation to happen quite yet. Maybe if she pushed it off long enough, it may never happen. Tommy leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.

“Do you have anything stronger?” She couldn’t help but snort.

“I can leave the tea bag in for an extra minute if that’s what you’re looking for.” Her hands went to her hips as if she was scolding Tommy.

“Then I guess I’ll have tea.” His voice finally gave a bite to her, as if not having the option to have some kind of liquor impeded him. Something that the old Tommy could have lived without but this new one seemed to lean on.

The two wandered into the kitchen as Y/N set the kettle on the stove. Tommy took a seat, letting his elbows rest on the wooden table. She could not shake the feeling that Tommy’s eyes were analyzing every aspect of her home, creating a hypothesis about the kind of life that Y/N was living.

As if on cue, Tommy noted, “Small kitchen.” Y/N gripped the side of the counter, putting her anger into the pine.

“It’s good enough for me,” she said between gritted teeth. She heard Tommy scoff as she tried to keep all her attention on the water coming to a boil.

“I’m just saying I never expected to see you in a place like this,” there was a nonchalance to his voice that made her want to chuck something, anything, at it. “I always expected something-”

“Something like what, Tommy?” She interrupted, spinning toward him, making eye contact with the reposed man.

He throws his hands up, feigning losing the battle, “Just making observations.”

“Well,” The kettle began to sing, and Y/N began to pour little streams of water into the waiting mugs, “maybe you should keep these observations to yourself.” She picked up the two mugs and placed Tommy’s in front of him with a thud.

“What good will that do, Y/N?” He says, blowing on the piping hot drink.

“It will make me not want to kick you out of my house.” He chuckles at her response.

“Feisty tonight, aren’t we?” He noted, taking a sip of his tea. At this, the clatter of a teacup echoes throughout the kitchen, and shards litter the floor. Y/N’s face is a blotchy red as the anger rises from her stomach, through her throat and out her mouth.

“Why are you acting like this?” She screeched.

“Like what?” His aloof demeanor is beginning to slip.

“Like a childish asshole,” Y/N spat, wanting her words to stick to his expensive shirt. She couldn’t bear to sit anymore, letting her legs lift her from her spot at the table.

“Look who’s talking, at least I’m not throwing shit around the kitchen,” He stands to her level now. She runs a hand through her hair, wondering how to respond.

The words slip out, “Tommy, you broke up with me,” they were a whisper but they felt like a yell, “Why can’t you just let me be happy?” He immediately softened as he took a step toward Y/N.

“It’s not that simple.” This was the first time he couldn’t meet her gaze.

“It sure seemed simple when you told me I would never see you again,” she grumbled. This caused him to meet her eyes.

“Don’t say that.” His words were curt and cut like a knife.

“Tommy, you obviously were done with me because you know I would’ve waited for you forever.” She said that part before she could stop herself. A beat passed between the two before she felt a hand entwine with hers. She looked down to see Tommy closer than she had imagined he could ever be again.

He leaned in and rested his forehead upon hers. She knew she should run, tell this stranger to leave, but she knew she couldn’t. Her body was stuck in that spot as she stared into the blue eyes in front of her.

“Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I wanted to never see you again?” There was a quiver in his voice, but he continued, “I was stuck, Y/N. I loved a perfect woman and I just kept making her life shittier and shittier. I left because I loved you.” And there was her answer. The words she wanted to hear for so long.

“You don’t mean that-”

“I was damaged goods who would either die on the streets of Small Heath or honorably in France. I decided to do one kind thing I could do and…” He needed to catch his breath.

“And what, Tommy?” She stuttered.

He took a deep breath before saying, “I let you go. Gave you a fighting chance. You deserved better.” He pulled away from Y/N, keeping her hands in his as he took in her kitchen for a second time, “so maybe I am a little spiteful because I got exactly what I wanted.”

Exactly what he wanted. That’s what he said. He gave her what he wanted. A home. A kind husband. A beautiful child. Stability. Something he could never give her.

So, Y/N did the only thing she could think to do at that moment. That was when Tommy’s chest was pulled into Y/N’s. Their first embrace in four years. She felt his body stiffen as she brought it to her, but she didn’t care. She needed this. She needed to know why.

“Tommy, I loved you.” His body loosened, and she felt a hand graze her back. Y/N could barely hear the next words, but she knew she couldn’t ask him to repeat.

“I’ll always love you, Y/N.”

And in that moment, she knew she could play pretend. She knew she could pretend this home was bigger, cleaner, and fancier. She could pretend that Tommy was the one coming home to her every night and sharing her bed. She could pretend that they held each other close every night as they drifted off. She could pretend this was their life. So she gave in.

“Can I show you something?” She asked, pulling away from the broken man in front of her. He smiled in response as she motioned for him to follow her lead. She brought him to the living room where a phonograph was the centerpiece. Next to it, a pile of records lived.

“Quite the collection you have.” He noted, she smiled to herself at that.

“Thank you, but there is one I think you should see.” That was when she plucked an old dusty 45 out of the pile. She blew the dust from the cover before examining it. She took in the image of the singer and the way the words lived on the sleeve.

Tommy looked over her shoulder and smiled, “It’s our song.” She felt his hands touch her shoulders and she leaned in.

“I couldn’t get rid of it,” she said, turning toward Tommy, “how could I?” His hand goes to her cheek, caressing it.

“Why don’t you put it on?” And that’s what she did. As soon as the crackles turned into a melody, she faced Tommy, giving him a curtsy. She received a theatrical bow in response. No words were exchanged as Tommy held his hand out to Y/N. She floated into his arms and swayed as the crooner’s voice filled the room.

And there she was. 1914, telling Tommy to never leave and he listened. 1915, the wedding happened. 1916, they bought their first home. 1917, their first child was born. 1918, peace. And now, dancing in their living room like they were 15 and 16 again. Maybe they both were still those people.

“I’ve always loved you too, Tommy,” Y/N whispered at a volume no one could hear, but he did. She didn’t have to look up at him to know he was smiling. Maybe for the first time in a long time.

The song ended and the crackles filled the room again. Their eyes met and she didn’t have to question what happened next. His lips were just as soft as they were the last day she felt them. Warm, comforting and saying words he didn’t have the ability to speak. She couldn’t say them either, only her body could. And they were at peace.

At least they were until the dream was over.

A wail echoed throughout the home as Y/N pulled away from Tommy. She knew this couldn’t last forever.

“Excuse me,” she murmured before scurrying up the rickety old stairs. Standing in her crib banging on the bars like a prisoner stood Jane. Her face was red and blotchy as cries and screams too loud for her small body left her mouth.

“I’m here sweetheart,” she comforted, picking up the small child. Jane burrowed into her mother’s arms, immediately calming down. Y/N rocked the child, trying everything she could to calm her. A hum started to sound from her lips as the tune of the song she just danced too filled the room. It was only interrupted when a new presence made itself known.

“Who is this?” Tommy uttered, but he knew the answer.

“This is Jane,” Y/N voiced, “my daughter.” The baby finally noticed Tommy, looking at the man with the astonishingly blue eyes. Y/N could see the gears in her daughter’s brain moving as she took in this new man.

“Jane,” Tommy said, approaching the mother and child, “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” Y/N smiled as Tommy held out a hand to the baby. She took one of his fingers in her tiny hand and examined it. Tommy cannot help but mirror Jane’s curiosity, taking in every detail of the baby.

“She looks just like you,” he noted, moving his gaze to Y/N. “I always imagined our first child would be the spitting image of their mother.”

That’s when words she thought she would never utter exploded from her lips, “I cannot help but think if that would have happened with the baby, or if he would’ve looked like his father…”

A silence falls upon the room as the lovers gaze upon one another, imagining what could have been and what could still be. Because, deep down, she knew, she would follow him anywhere.

“Y/N,” she moved a step toward him, putting a hand on his cheek.

“Tommy,” she replied, he stiffened against her touch.

“I’m sure you know why I’m here today. I thought maybe I could convince you to run away with me. To finally leave this godforsaken place. Get married and live the life we deserve. But,” There it was, the but. She knew there was always a but, “I think someone else needs you a bit more than I do.” That was when Tommy’s hand moved from Jane’s to the baby’s face, taking the plump cheek in his hand.

“But, why?” She knew she sounded like a petulant child. With him here, that part of her truly seemed to shine. Tommy chuckled, pulling away from Jane.

“A child needs their father and mother, especially if that mother is you.” That was when it all became clear. Jane needed her mother but she also needed William. The stable and kind father any child deserved. Tommy was right, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t yearn.

“I just wish I could rewind the clock and run away from all of this with you.” At her words, his arms moved around her waist, pulling both mother and child into his embrace.

“Maybe in another life,” those words came out wistfully as his chin rested upon her head.

“Maybe,” she echoed, gazing past the room into the unknown. A beat passed before she turned toward Tommy, his chin leaving her head so he could get a good look at her. They both knew it might be the last.

“Can I ask something of you?” he questioned. She nodded, and he smiled. “One final kiss?” Before she could respond, her lips were pressed against his. She held it for as long as her lungs could bear. This was goodbye, and it had to count—or at least last forever, but she knew that was impossible. He pulled away sooner than she would’ve liked and rested his forehead against hers.

“In another life,” he whispered, placing a light peck on her forehead before leaving as quickly as he came.

His words repeated in her head, in another life. Little did she know, that life may not have been too far away.

Next chapter

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[b0r3dtod3ath]

Hellooooo!!!!

I was wondering if you could do a this request for Oscar!

Ok so reader is vettels daughter and she races.

They are on a karting race and Oscar crashes with her and she brakes her ankle so she’s in the hospital and he goes with a card and flowers to say sorry and Sebastian is a lil overprotective over her

(Try make it so that Oscar and her don’t really know eachother hustam that they race eachother)

When I thought about this I imagined it like them having 13 or 12:)

thanks for your time!!!!

Thank you @cedricsleftelbow for the request! I love this idea. You know how to melt my heart haha <33

Word count: 490

F1 masterlist

The time setting is prob weird - Sebastian is around his current age and is retired, y/n and Oscar are (as requested) 12/13. Fic approximately takes place in 2013 :)

Your dad has introduced you to the world of motorsport form a very young age. You had watched him race ever since you were little so when he retired and noticed your interest in the sport he decided to help you. He never pressured you, you both considered it your hobby. Nonetheless, you were really good at it and obviously wanted to win every race.

Naturally, your dad was a bit overprotective when it came to your karting races. His little girl being surrounded by boys wasn't something he was very happy about.

You were like a little sunshine before each race, you always greeted everyone with a big smile that you inherited from your father. It didn't take long for you to make friends on track, one of the being Logan. Even if you didn't know someone you still were friendly towards them.

Your relation with Oscar was pretty neutral - you usually greeted each other but you never really had a conversation with him. During the race you noticed his cart getting quite close to yours but it didn't cause you to panic. You entered a turn staying on the inside but he left you little room what caused you to bump into a wall. Well, go karts don't usually achieve high speeds but the way that they are build causes the driver not to be fully safe.

This incident resulted in your dad carrying you thru the door of the nearest hospital as you couldn't walk. An hour later, you had done an x-ray and a nurse said "Fortunately, it's just a sprain, nothing serious". As she was leaving a visibly distressed boy entered the room. He was holding a bouquet, full of white and pink flowers, that covered his blushed, embarrassed face. "I'm really sorry, I- I didn't mean to. It was never my intention. I wouldn't do anything like this on purpose." he nervously tried to explain. "Oscar, kid, don't worry. It was just an accident. Things like that happen." your dad said calming the boy down. You were quite surprised by your dad's behaviour - usually you would assume that he would rip the kid apart. "I'm going to find the doctor and speak to him. I will be back in 10 minutes. Behave." he said standing up and leaving you two alone. Oscar set the flowers on a small cabinet. "I'm sorry we have to get to know each other in such situation but I don't think I have ever properly introduced myself. So, I'm Oscar Piastri and again I deeply apologise, I swear I didn't mean to-" you stuck your hand out "Apologies accepted but you will have to keep me company as I recover".

10 years later.. Y/N's second year in Formula 1, Oscar's rookie year...

"Yea so basically he broke my ankle but was really nice afterwards so that's how we met." you said during a press conference, smiling at Oscar.

[jinkoh]

fixing fate's mistake

sangyeon x reader

part of my soulmate series

summary: why is it that the one who comes to save you is never your soulmate but his older brother instead?

tags: soulmate au (sharing bruises), smut - mdni, childhood friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, small age gap (Sang is 3yrs older), slightly possessive!sangyeon (but he is mostly a softie), car activities, oral (r!receiving), strength play(?), lots of consent, loosely implied virgin!reader; warnings: light injuries and mentions of blood, reader is being picked up/carried, no pronouns but reader has a vagina and wears a skirt

wc: 2.9k

a/n: this wasn't meant to include sexy times but then i felt like the vibes were there so here we are i guess i'm a smut writer now 🤷🏻‍♀️

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As you were sitting in the cold, moist grass at the side of the road, the sun long disappeared behind the horizon, your knees bloody and your ankle twisted, you wished that there was a way to start over. It would be great if life worked like a video game, letting you return to a saving point if you messed up. Maybe you’d return back to this morning and make sure to charge your phone properly. Or maybe this afternoon so you could take the bus and leave your bike on campus. But even more likely, you would go all the way back to that one day in elementary school, when you’d been at the playground with the two boys living next door. 

Even now, roughly 12 years later, you remembered it very clearly. You’d been on the swing, laughing brightly as you told them to look how high you could go. Sangyeon, the older one, told you to be careful, but you didn’t listen because all that mattered was the wish to impress him. Maybe it was because he was three years older, but at the time he was the coolest person in the world to you. He was nice and strong and really good at catching bugs. His younger brother who was the same age as you wasn’t half as interesting, but that was fine because he wasn’t interested in you either. He focused on his sand castle instead. You only got his attention when you fell, busting your knees open in the rough sand. The pain made tears spring to your eyes. Sangyeon immediately came over, a worried frown on his face. He’d probably felt responsible as the oldest. His brother on the other hand just gave you a dirty look as he got up from where he was sitting in the sandbox, dusting off his knees.

“You’re so stupid,” he said. But you didn’t mind. Your tears and pain were forgotten too, because all you saw were the bruises on his knees. You were overjoyed. You had a soulmate! Sure, it wasn’t the person you would have wanted it to be, but you were convinced you could make it work. The important part was that you had a soulmate, something you’d been dreaming of your whole (admittedly young) life. 

He didn’t feel the same way. While you were happy about it all, excited whenever a bruise of either of you showed up on the other’s skin, he seemed to hate the idea of being your soulmate. He’d been cold to you before, but from the moment you found out, he made a point of being mean. Looking back, you should have just given up then. Maybe things would have been different if you’d given him room. Maybe he wouldn’t have come to hate you to this extent. And then maybe he would have come to help you now. But giving up hadn't been an option to you back then. You’d been a kid fueled by the idea that he’d fall for you if you just kept trying. After all, you were soulmates. 

When you were in 5th grade, you fell down the swings again and broke your arm. You were crying and miserable and all alone, but it didn’t take long for your mom and Sangyeon to show up, first-aid kit ready. Your mom scolded your for not being careful and for going all by yourself, and that it was only thanks to the bruises on your soulmate’s skin that they came so quickly. Of course, you’d thought to yourself, he saw them and got worried about it, so he told mom. And that sparked hope within you. You completely ignored that he didn’t even bother to show up himself and clung to the  hope that he actually cared. It also made you come to a very stupid conclusion: He would pay attention to you if you got hurt. So you fell and you stumbled and you bumped into things, all to get a little bit of his attention. It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. It just made him despise you more and more, disgusted with your clingy behavior and the way you kept engraving all these marks into his skin, even if they weren't permanent. You regretted it now. If you could take it all back, undo every stupid bruise you’d bothered him with, you would. But there were no saving points in life that you could just go back to. Right now, there was only the moist grass and your scraped skin and the knowledge that no one would come to help you. Your soulmate must have seen the bruises by now and surely he was smart enough to connect the dots and realize that you had an accident on your way home. But he wouldn’t care. It wasn’t any of his business if you were hurt or not, aside from the fact that it stained his skin.

You wrapped your arms around your body, shivering from the cold seeping into your aching bones. You knew you had to get up and walk the rest of the way home. Maybe you could lean onto your bicycle to take some weight off the strained ankle. It seemed possible. But you just felt so miserable and alone, and your body was refusing to move. You buried your face behind your knees, letting yourself cry because there wasn’t anyone around to see. Except, you suddenly felt the headlights of a car on you, bright and white. The car was going slow, way too slow for a street like this, almost as if the driver was looking for something. The moment you saw the familiar license plate, you realized that something must be you. The car pulled over just a few meters away from you and Sangyeon got out, quickly jogging over. The second you saw his face, a new wave of tears welled up in your eyes. It seemed like he always knew when to show up to save you. He crouched down in front of you, cupping your face with a worried frown.

“Are you okay?”

You didn’t know how to meet his genuine gaze, so you looked away and gave him a small shrug.

“What happened?” His thumb gently brushed some of your tears away. 

“I fell,” you mumbled, suddenly feeling like a child again with the way he took care of you.

“Can you walk? Just to the car?”

Your gaze fell to your knees and your ankle. You probably could walk, despite the injuries, especially with help, but your muscles felt frozen in place. You didn’t say anything.

Sangyeon huffed a small laugh. “Fine, then.” He hooked one arm under your knees and wrapped the other around your back, before he slowly stood up, carrying you back to the car princess style. He sat you down on the passenger seat with your legs out, and then got the first-aid kit from the back. It stung when he cleaned the wounds on your knees, but it wasn’t like it would hurt less if you complained, so you just watched in silence as he carefully tended to your wounds. He bandaged your ankle too, saying something about how he could give you a ride to the doctor’s if it didn’t get better by itself. You barely paid attention though, distracted by the feeling of his warm hands on your skin.

“Are you listening?” He looked up at you from where he was crouching in front of your legs.

“How did you know?” You asked instead of replying.

Sangyeon hesitated for a moment before he replied. “I saw the bruises on his knees when I came home.”

You nodded slowly, lips pressed together in a tight smile. "Was it the same back then?"

"Huh?"

"When I broke my arm and you came with my mom—it was never him who told her right? It was you, because you happened to see his marks."

Sangyeon didn’t say anything and that in itself was said enough. Of course your soulmate didn’t actually tell him, or anyone. Of course not. You hadn’t expected anything else, but somehow it still hurt. It wasn’t even about him as a person. It wasn’t like you were in love with him, so maybe it was silly to expect him to care. But letting go of that dream of a fated love coming true hurt and it hurt that you were stuck with a soulmate like him, when clearly it should have been someone else. 

New Tears sprung to your eyes and you tried to blink them away, but to no avail.

“Y/n,” Sangyeon started, his voice soft. But he didn’t go on, because what was there even to say?

You sniffed. “I used to want a soulmate so badly, I didn’t even care who it was. But now I feel like I’d rather have none." You let out a bitter laugh. "I’m sure he for one has always felt that way.” 

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.” You paused for a moment, knowing what you were going to say next was probably best kept to yourself, but you felt too exhausted to care. “It should have been you instead. Why can’t it be you?”

Sangyeon’s eyes widened in surprise before he huffed an awkward laugh and busied himself with packing up the first-aid kit. “You don’t mean that.”

“Why? Would it be that bad if I did?”

“No,” he replied, momentarily pausing his hands, “but it’d get my hopes up.”

You felt your heart skip a beat at his words, your mind unable to quite grasp the meaning of it. You wanted him to look at you, to see in his eyes that he was serious, but his gaze was still fixed on the kit. You lightly nudged his knee with your toes, trying to get his attention back and he finally raised his head.

“Get your hopes up, then,” you whispered and you saw him visibly swallow. He set aside the kit before standing up and leaning into your personal space, one hand propped against the frame of the car.

“Do you know what you’re saying?” His gaze was intense and you almost wanted to shy away, but you were scared he’d misinterpret it as rejection.

“Yes,” you said, your gaze briefly dropping to his lips, “I know perfectly. Fate made a mistake, so let’s fix it.”

“And you won’t change your mind?”

You shook your head. “I won’t.”

His hand came up to your cheek, smoothing over your skin before tilting your chin up. Your breathing hitched when he came closer, only inches keeping you apart. “Even if he came begging?”

“Even then.”

A satisfied smile spread on his face. “Good,” he mumbled, before letting his lips brush against yours, “because I don’t plan on handing you over after this.”

Maybe the back of his car at the side of a deserted road wasn’t the most romantic spot, but Sangyeon’s touch was so warm as he lowered you onto the seat that you didn’t mind. He kept a hand at the back of your head, making sure you didn’t bump it on the car door. And then he settled between your legs, careful about your bruises and injured ankle.

“All okay?” He whispered as his thumb gently brushed some hair out of your forehead.

“Yeah,” you whispered but your voice was trembling with nerves.

“Are you sure?”

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. “Very sure,” you whispered, and you meant it. Of course you were nervous, maybe even a little scared, but you knew you were safe with him. You'd always been safe with him.

“Okay,” Sangyeon smiled into your lips before kissing you once more. One of his hands settled on your hip while the other ran over the outside of your thigh, sneaking its way under your skirt. A small whine escaped from your lips when his fingers lightly tugged at the fabric of your panties, letting the elastic snap back against your skin.

“Cute,” he mumbled, making your face flush with heat. Embarrassed, you covered your mouth with your hand, but he immediately pulled it away.

“It’s just me,” he said, keeping your hand in his. “No one else will hear, so don’t hold back.”

His other hand was still under your skirt, moving to your inner thigh now. His thumb rubbed circles into your skin in a motion that was both comforting and arousing. Then it wandered further up, tugging at the thin fabric of your underwear once more.

“Still okay?”

You nodded, trying to part your legs a little more so he knew you meant it. Sangyeon sat up a little, slowly pulling your panties down your legs which served a little difficult in the cramped space of the car. Once he reached your knees he went one leg after the other, carefully lifting the fabric over the bandaged bruises to make sure not to touch them, and then he was just as careful again when he reached your injured ankle. The sweet treatment made your chest feel full and you almost wanted to cry again.

"You don't have to be so careful. I'm not made of glass," you whispered while he slipped your panties all the way off and stuffed them into the back pocket of his jeans.

"I know," he said, leaning in again and leaving a kiss at the corner of your mouth, "but can't I still be gentle with you?" A grin tugged on his lips, "Or do you prefer a rough treatment?"

You felt yourself blushing, quickly averting your eyes as you stuttered "Gentle is f-fine."

Sangyeon chuckled. "Thought so."

His hands moved to the back of your legs, pushing them up so he could kiss the inner side of your knees and thighs, sucking little bruises into the skin.

"Sang-"

"Hm?" He looked at you through his lashes, barely detaching his lips from you.

"Sang, he'll see if you leave marks."

Sangyeon lightly bit down on your skin making you gasp. "Would that really be so bad?" 

Maybe you should have stood your ground, but the possessive gleam in his eyes had you swooning, so you didn’t complain when his mouth left more bruises in its wake as he slowly made his way to your core. When his breath fanned over your sensitive parts you yelped, instinctively kicking out your legs and almost hitting your injured foot on the car’s backrest. Before that could happen though, Sangyeon caught your legs in his hands. 

"No moving, hm? You'll hurt yourself. Just stay still and let me take care of you." 

Before you had a chance to reply, he leaned in again and put his mouth to work on your clit, making you moan instead. You tried to keep still, even as his tongue ran through your folds and made your body spasm with pleasure. But even if you’d wanted to kick out your legs again, Sangyeon’s hold on you was strong, keeping you in place. The difference in strength and the way he could overpower you so easily somehow had you even more aroused, calling to desires you didn’t know you had in you. Sangyeon seemed to have noticed, because he experimentally tightened his grip a little more, chuckling when you gasped and pathetically clenched around nothing. “It seems you like the rough treatment after all.”

You shook your head, too ashamed to admit it, but the way you whined when his teeth grazed your skin seemed to prove otherwise.

“It’s okay, darling, no need to feel embarrassed,” he said, looking at you as he let his tongue run over you again, “It’s just me, remember?” 

He let go of one of your legs, pinning it down with his elbow instead to be able to rub his thumb over your clit at the same time as his tongue pushed into you. You almost screamed at the sudden change in pace, the pleasure of it all a little overwhelming and making your head feel fuzzy.

“Sang–” you gasped, clenching your hands and bucking your hips, “feels strange.”

“Strange?” He asked, lifting his head, but not stopping the movement of his hand, “Or good?”

“G-good,” you agreed, screwing your eyes shut when his tongue was back on you, “So good.”

It didn’t take much longer for your high to approach, rippling through you in waves of pleasure that made you buck your hips into him. He kept going a little longer, helping you ride out your orgasm until you were reduced to a twitching overstimulated mess. Sangyeon sat up and wiped his glistening lips with the back of his hand. You watched him through dazed eyes, the realization of what just happened between the two of you not quite sinking in. 

He ruffled his already tousled hair. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“No, I don’t know,” you answered, still unable to take your eyes off him. “Come here.”

He smiled, leaning down and letting you wrap your arms around his neck to pull him into a kiss.

“This is real, right?” you whispered against his lips.

“Funny,” he said before giving you another kiss, “I was about to ask the same thing.” 

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[neonoddeye]

A lesson in physics | College! Gojo Satoru x Reader

In these trying times, I will provide: a college au! I actually wrote this as a birthday present for my best friend, but I wanted to post it here as well. It’s also my first chaptered fic, yay! I hope you enjoy :)

CONTENT INCLUDES: AFAB! Reader, cursing, Gojo and reader are both in college and everything is NORMAL and HAPPY, Gojo is a frat boy, enemies to friends to lovers, will be NSFW in later chapter (MINORS DNI)

Monday, 12:00pm

Working with Satoru Gojo on a class assignment was a horror you only conjured in your nightmares. And as you look at the physics class assignment on your laptop screen, you realize you wouldn’t be waking up from this one any time soon.

“Oh god, him?” Your roommate Shoko joins your gaze of disgust as she glances at your fate. “You’re gonna end up doing the whole thing by yourself!”

“Don’t remind me” you whine, leaning back in your chair and placing a hand on your forehead in dramatic distress. “Can I switch with you?”

“Hell no, I’m securing this A with Nanami” Shoko laughs, patting you on the back as a poor attempt at pity. “But we’ll be praying for you.”

You and Shoko had just left said physics class, the two of you lounging at the library to get a head start on the week’s assignments. You couldn’t help but truly stress over your predicament instead of starting on your homework, however: everyone and their mom knew of Gojo Satoru and his infamous Kappa Alpha frat boy title. Ever since he was on your dorm floor freshman year of college, you’ve harbored a vendetta against him. While you were immune to his mesmerizing blue eyes and undeniable charisma, most of your friends weren’t, and pursued him in droves. With every poor girl’s broken heart that he stomped on, your hatred grew, until you infamously bashed him at his frat’s party that same year. While his reputation was almost impenetrable in the eyes of his male friends, you definitely did a little damage to him from the outside. Two years later, you never thought you’d have to deal with him again- until you both enrolled in the same physics class. Hell, you didn’t even think he had the brain capacity to handle a STEM major. And now, you have to work alongside him; you can’t help but question the universe and wonder what you ever did wrong to deserve this.

“Guess I’ll get his contact info” you sigh, pulling up the list of class emails and scrolling for his name.

“Hey! Y/N, right?” You hear a familiar voice ahead of you. Your lab partner, Gojo Satoru, has already found you in the library. The devil works hard, but Gojo works harder. 

“Hey Gojo” you reply monotonously, barely glancing at him over your laptop screen. He’s dressed like a poster frat boy, wearing a dark blue knitted sweater vest over a crisp white button-up paired with slim khakis. His paper white hair is unkempt yet tamed, and his irritating blue eyes sit behind round gold-rimmed glasses. His trademark smirk is replaced by an awkward smile as he approaches you; it’s good to know your blow at his ego was permanent.

“Uh, long time no see” Gojo continues while messing with his disheveled hair, “did you see we’re working on that project together?”

You can’t help but let out a belated sigh. “I sure did. You have any ideas for it yet?“

“Oh nah, I haven’t really looked at the whole thing yet. Do you wanna start it right now? I have time.”

“Oh uh, I have to leave for class in 15 minutes.” In reality, your next class starts in an hour; you just didn’t feel like talking to him right now. Still, you keep up the act by packing your belongings to head out.

“Oh that’s all good. Here,” Gojo hands you his phone, presenting an empty contact card for you to fill out. “Let’s set up a time to work on it later. We have two weeks, but I wanna get it over with”.

“Well, that’s something we agree on” you mutter, filling out your contact info on his cracked iPhone screen. You then hand his phone back to him and rise from your seat. “I’m usually free after 4pm. Just remember to actually text me back, Gojo. I know you’re not very good at that.”

“I will, I will,” he chuckles, holding up his hands in surrender to your threat. “Promise!” he holds up a pinky and winks at you, to which you roll your eyes and head back towards the door. You’re really hoping these next two weeks aren’t as difficult as you think they’ll be.

Thankfully, Gojo actually responded, and the two of you agreed to Tuesday evening at the library. You’re currently waiting for your project partner at a cozy corner desk, taking out your notes and laptop to begin the assignment. It’s 5 minutes past the agreed upon time when Gojo saunters up to you; honestly, you thought he’d show up later or forget entirely, so you’re not upset.

“Sorry, club meeting ran a little later than usual,” he says as he slumps into the couch across from you, his legs dangling over the armrest. “I got you this, too,” he adds, sliding a Red Bull over to you. “I don’t know how long we’re working on this tonight, but I thought I’d get us both one, just in case”.

“Oh, thanks. I got something already, though,” you reply, picking up your thermos of espresso and politely pushing back the offering. “What club are you in?” It seems like you’re both attempting to make amends to make the project a little easier.

“I’m in an astrophysics club. It’s nothing much, tho”, he shrugs. We just talk about nerdy shit and occasionally do projects and stuff.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t expect that from you”, you lean back in your chair, now slightly interested in the man before you.

“Yeah, I actually do more than just party.” Gojo adds while taking out his own supplies. “Believe it or not, I’m not the same guy I was freshman year”.

“You’re gonna have to prove it to me, I’m afraid”, you retort. If he’s trying to charm you, it won’t work. 

Gojo clears his throat. “Anyway, here are some ideas I had for the project”. He slides his notebook closer to you, revealing a page full of bullet points aptly titled “project ideas.” His handwriting is messy, but legible, and as you read his notes you’re reluctantly impressed by his insightfulness and creativity. Gojo reveals that he actually stayed behind at his club to relay his ideas and ask for tips, admitting he was more interested in the material than he thought he’d be. As you lean over the table to point out one particular idea, you catch a hint of cologne from him. You can tell it’s not a cheap scent, with notes of mandarin and cypress above amber and leather. His hair is slightly neater than it was yesterday, and up close you can tell that his skin is flawless. You’re almost annoyed at his effortlessly attractive appearance; no wonder so many people fawn over him. 

An hour passes briskly, with the two of you making ample progress with the project. Surprisingly, the two of you work well together, even getting off topic a few times to discuss frivolous subjects. You learned that he likes watching cartoons and reading, and wants to go into research after college. You can’t help but feel a little guilty for holding a grudge over him for so long; it seems like he really has changed. 

After 30 more minutes, Gojo stands up to stretch. “Alright, we’re done with the outline”, he yawns, taking a sip of his Red Bull. “I don't wanna keep you too long, how about we call it for the night?” 

“Sounds good to me”, you yawn in response, closing your notebook. “It takes me a bit to walk home, anyway”.

“You’re walking home by yourself? At dark?” Gojo questions you with genuine concern in his words. “I can drive you home, if you want”.

“Oh no, I’m fine. I do it all the time”, you shrug.

“It’s no big deal to me”, he flashes a small smile. “I respect having the balls to walk home alone at night, but I’d be a dick to not offer”.

“Sure, why not. I appreciate it”. You smile back, getting up to follow Gojo to his car. As you walk with him to his car, the two of you excitedly discuss a new anime you’ve both been watching. You didn’t take him as the type to be an anime guy either, but he’s surprised you a lot today. When you get to his car, it’s as nice as you expect it to be: a slick silver BMW with a clean interior, accompanied by a new car smell. Of course he has money, too. He’s not a menace to society on the road either, and the low hum of his Spotify playlist accompanies the small talk. 

“By the way”, Gojo pipes up after a moment of silence, “I feel like shit for how I acted to your friends freshman year. You were right to call me out like that”.

“I know”, you reply, with a hint of playfulness in your tone. He chuckles in response. 

“No offense taken. But really, I hope we can be on good terms now. I had a good time, even if we were working on an assignment.”

“Unfortunately, I think I did too”. He’s pulling up to the entrance of your apartment complex, and parks neatly by the door. 

“Next time, how about we work at my place? Only if you want to though, just thought I’d suggest some place quieter”.

“I’m down”, you nod, “I could bring snacks, too”. 

“Sounds like a deal. See you on Thursday, Y/N”. He gives you a short wave as you exit his car, and even makes sure to watch you get inside safely. As you walk to your apartment, you battle with your renewed thoughts of the frat boy you once detested. After being alone with him for an extended period of time, you hate to admit that you can see the appeal; he’s handsome, charming, and seems to have mellowed out over the years. But should you really be giving Satoru Gojo a chance?

Fuck it, you might.

(Stay tuned for part 2!)

[atelierlili]

What's your headcanon for Katniss and Peeta's children?

How old was Katniss when give birth to their daughter?

How many years apart between them in age?

Your headcanon for their name?

Who gets the singing and art skill from their parent?

Bonus question : please give recs of your fav everlark post-Mockingjay fanfic.

Thank you :)

@curiousthg

You’ve made a grave mistake because I have so much to say and some art as well(becuase I’m so sane for them I swear)

So I’ve always headcannon that Katniss had her first baby in her late twenties-early thirties. In my head the 5, 10, 15 years go like this. Year 5: Katniss is open to the idea of children now. The games are done, but is Panem really safe yet? Is she ready yet. No, not really. Year 10: okay, Katniss feels safer and braver now. If it happens it happens. They won’t actively try for it and will let nature take its course. Year 15: Toast boy and girl are born within a 5-ish year time span.

Katniss names the girl Marigold for the golden flowers that Peeta planted next Katniss’ Primroses. Marigolds represent warmth, creativity, joy and good luck, but they were also given away during times of grief as a gesture of kindness and solidarity as the flower’s vibrant colours helped ease the pain of grief. Gold is also the colour that represents the bond between the district 12 team that comprised of Peeta, Katniss, Effie, Haymitch, Portia & Cinna. So it’s also carries some sentimental weight as without them and their bonds, this little girl wouldn’t have been born. Of course, Peeta calls the girl Muffin. Because she’s his little muffin. His little cupcake. It’s not until Effie decides that Mary is too bland a nickname for her favorite niece that we get the girl’s most used nickname- Muffy.

Muffy is a bundle of joy to their lives. And Katniss loves being a mother more than she’d thought. Having Muffy made Katniss yearn for the mini Peeta she dreamt of on a beach in the QQ.

Toastboy pops out about three and a half years later. The age gap is so close to be about the same as Katniss and Prim’s that it makes her heart squeeze again. His name is Cress, after Watercress (wait plz don’t leave), the aquatic plant that can be found in bunches at Katniss’ special lake. They are a highly nutritious plant to eat and is said to believe to have medicinal uses like treating swelling and fevers. The name is also a small nod to Annie Cresta and Finnick because of the water connection. His curly blonde hair gets him the nickname Goldilocks from Johanna.

Both children are highly artistic and connected to nature, Katniss teaches them both to hunt, but the kiddos don’t like it as much because they don’t like to hurt animals. It hurts Katniss a little bit, but she’s glad that bloodshed and violence (even to survive) aren’t a daily part of their lives.

Muffy is a performer. She’s definitely daddy’s little girl because she loves to yap. She could yap all day and still find something to talk about. She grows up loving to dance and then wanting to sing and dance- the dreams of making it big in the Capitol as a actress. (To Katniss’ complete and under horror) She’ll definitely develope some complex when it comes to being the Mockingjay’s daughter. Especially when she starts getting movie offers to play her Mom, even when after she tries going out of her way to distance herself from Katniss by going under a different stage name.

Cress is very much not Muffy. He’s a quiet little guy who follows after his big sister like a little duckling. He’s the only one who doesn’t get tired of her yapping and genuinely listens to her. Peeta and Katniss were a little worried when they started noticing that he wasn’t speaking for a while. They go to doctors and they can never find what’s causing this speech delay, but one day he starts talking at the age of 2, and he has the softest most sweetest voice in the world. He’s a very quiet and observant kid, that gets into more trouble than you’d think. While Peeta’s art is very imagery and emotionally (and politically) focused, Cress’s art is not. He’s super talented with a pencil and really skilled at realistic/technical drawings that he’d probably go an illustrate diagrams for scientific textbooks on nature and stuff. Growing up, he probably feels like his art work is too cold and unfeeling compared to Peeta’s splash of life. But in reality, the difference between they art styles are indicative of how they see and filter the world through their art.

Anyway, this is taking waaay to long so here is some early concept art of the toast babies. I’m still messing around with the tones and hues of their design, so none of this is final. I’m probs gonna switch Cress’s skin tone to a more golden undertone as opposed to Katniss’s reddish one to match his hair color, which might get a tad darker (or lighter tbh. In the books Peeta’s an ashy blonde) Meanwhile maybe I’ll give Muffy the redder undertone? There’s something off bout her that I need to keep experimenting with. She screams Movie Katniss baby, not Book Katniss Baby, but maybe that’s only because Jen has blue eyes.