#this isn’t even a ficlet anymore I’m so sorry

[redstonetrapblocks]

If you're still taking ficlet requests, could you do one with Lukas suddenly realizing "Uh oh! I think I got a crush on Jesse!" It can be either gender Jesse.

Yes yes! Jesskas!

—————

It hadn’t been so long since the defeat of the witherstorm, and yet, Lukas already had a large part of his notebook filled with text and scenes inspired by it.

Everyone had a part in it, but yet, everytime Lukas reread the parts where Jesse was on, he would always get this strange, odd feeling inside him.

He put the book down and looked at the blue sky above him. He spun the pencil with his fingers. Normally when he did this, it was to think for new scenes and words to add to the book, but this time, he was purely thinking about Jesse.

It was soon when he heard his voice, and he turned to see the brunet man, running around the town alongside his friends. All of them having helped to save the place from the witherstorm, which is why Lukas was writing that book in the first place.

He’s such a sweet, kind man. Lukas thought. And he’s so handsome… and funny… and brave… and cute…

Lukas gripped his blond hair when he realized what he was thinking about.

He shook his head and turned back to his book, opened in a page that was entirely dedicated to Jesse. That caught him by surprise, despite the fact that he knew that he had literally just written that page.

And he blushed when he saw the text below it. Every single thing he was thinking about just a few seconds ago, scribbled in a letter that appeared as if whoever had been writing it was distracted by something else. It was almost as if he had been writing his own thoughts this entire time.

He reread it, making thought of every single adjective he had just used to describe him, the way he had been thinking about them just before, and the way that they were written.

He blushed when he remembered that ink couldn’t be taken out of the page.

“Well, fuck.” Was all that he said, and with a sigh, he wrote a few final words just under that gibberish written on ink.

“I guess this is how you find out you like someone”

[crystalsamethyst]

Ficlet Request for 100 followers! Post-canon Hualian domestic fluff! 😁

Hii! Here you go ❤️ I hope you enjoy!

A gentle, refreshing breeze flowed over a small shrine nestled on a hill. It picked up and softly tossed around the long fine strands of Xie Lian’s hair, making him sigh in peaceful bliss. That sensation mixed with the sunset was just such a wonderful end to the day, soon made completely perfect by the presence of his husband.

Hua Cheng sat next to him with a tray in his hands, offering up a cup of tea. With a small hum and nod of thanks, Xie Lian took it and sipped, savouring the delicate flavour and marveling at the talents of his husband.

“Today was really nice,” he whispered, looking out over the sights from the hill. “I love when we can do so much here.”

His husband took a moment to reply, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with warm laughter. “Gege, today has not been what I would call ‘nice’. It was one degree away from being classified as a disaster.”

“Getting stuck and falling into the mud of the rice fields is nothing,” he waved it off. He’d had far worse tumbles in the past 800 years.

“What about that ox going mad and chasing you?”

“I’m a fast runner.”

“And the farmhouse falling around you?”

“I don’t even notice anymore,” Xie Lian laughed, remembering the thousands of times the houses he built collapsed or burned down. “That farmhouse was destined to fall in the next wind storm anyways. It was better taken down by me; besides, it gives us a good upcoming project.”

Hua Cheng frowned at that and then sighed, shaking his head. “Your shackles have been gone for years, and yet your luck still seems to be against you.”

Xie Lian hummed again and leaned into his husband’s arm. “My luck has gotten a thousand times better ever since I met you. Even when I answer prayers on my own, I’m a lot better off than I used to be, and it’s all thanks to you, San Lang.”

“Gege…”

The way Hua Cheng was looking at him, Xie Lian knew he wanted to protest or to offer to transfer him all of his luck. It had been a conversation they’d brushed over several times, though the god definitely thought his husband was overreacting.

“Even if you weren’t able to pass it, your love is all the luck I need. With it, I can endure anything… Even when the things that go wrong really can’t be compared to how it used to be.”

After putting the tray down next to him in the grass, Hua Cheng delicately took the nearly-emptied cup out of his husband’s hands to put on it as well. Xie Lian laughed when the ghost king then lunged at him, sending them rolling from the impact.

Hua Cheng pulled his husband in to rest on top of his chest, and wrapped his arms around him in a tight, snug hold that both of them enjoyed immensely, enjoyed the moment until the sun went down.

When the evening chill finally started to settle, though neither of them were really affectedby it, they still moved inside to have a late meal of offerings and pull each other back into the tight hug once they made it to their bed.

“… Really though, San Lang, my luck has gotten better,” Xie Lian murmured into his husband’s chest. “Didn’t you notice? I didn’t get hurt even a little bit.”

“Of course I noticed. Had you gotten hurt, there would’ve been dire consequences.”

Xie Lian laughed. “Like what? There’s nothing you can do about gravity or the nature of animals.”

“There isn’t, but I would have had no choice but to swoop in and give you plenty of ‘care’ in plain sight,” he teased, making the god groan and bury his face in even more.

“San Laaaang…”

“Maybe some extra spiritual energy applied directly to the spots that might have been sore… Imagine if the villagers had to witness me literally kiss your-“

Xie Lian huffed and turned without prying himself from the hold on him. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng whined, nuzzling into his hair. “Gege, I’m sorry.”

“Shh. I’m sleeping.”

[klausinamarink]

decided to write a steve part as a continuation of my steddie deals with chronic pain ficlet. Might’ve wrote this more in vein as a prequel but eh, you’re welcome :D also extra angsty

-

Steve used to consider himself as the embodiment of high pain tolerance. Since his junior year, he had been punched in the face many times, had a broken plate in his scalp, injected with Russian drugs, and gotten bit and nearly strangled by interdimensional monsters.

Or as he calls it Tuesday.

But after the Spring Break of Hell, Steve’s been feeling weird. Not the usual looking at my own body when I do things weird, but more physically weird. He doesn’t really know how to describe it even to Robin when he feels like he’s suffocating but there’s nothing around his neck. Or how every day his arms and back sting and pinch him at every breath like ants biting underneath his skin. Or how he’s walking fine until the next second, his knees get stiff and the pain travels upwards right to the top of his spinal cord, the place right on the back of his skull, it aches and aches to the point that he’s frozen but he has to move anyways because he’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

All he knows that it’s probably worse than the intense migraines he’s dealing with since Billy Hargrove and the Russians definitely cracked his right eye socket.

But there’s people who are more hurt than Steve. Like Max and Eddie who need and are getting actual help and care. He almost wants that too, but it’ll just get him in their way. Nobody would look at him and think that his suffering is even the same as theirs.

(Please, his heart and brain begs, look at me and take care of me. It hurts so much.)

So, even with his body betraying him and hurting him in ways he thought wouldn’t happen, Steve isn’t going to admit it. His injuries are healing fine anyway.

But god, can his body just actually rest and not hurt like bitch for one fucking hour?

(I’m sorry for hurting you, his body apologizes again, but it’s what i can do right now.)

It’s gotten more annoying, really. Steve keeps pushing the pain behind him, pointedly ignoring how it’s blurring his vision and pulses his certainly cracked eye socket. He knows it’s affecting his mood, but he doesn’t want to be that asshole King Steve anymore. He doesn’t want to everyone to lose their trust in him. So he keeps smiling, driving the kids, visits everyone, hands out clothes and food, and lives with the acid corroding his entire body.

Unsurprisingly, his suffering pushes back like an exploded dam.

At the Munsons’ new house, he’s visiting Eddie, who’s been more tired than Steve’s ever seen him since being discharged from the hospital. He still talks to the Party but he couldn’t go outside much without his scars and limp acting up.

It’s during when Steve finds himself placing wet towels on Eddie’s bare shoulders (“I can’t waste the water but I need some cold water on me right now!”) that it. Just hits him.

He can’t explain it - he’s never good at explaining anything well - but the sour and tired mood Steve’s been vaulting up vanishes. But then comes the hyperawareness of how much his skin is bubbling and itching with discomfort, his muscles dissolving into bone which are exploding starbursts of agony, and the pulsing under his right eye is slithering through his brain. It should’ve been horrible than the Russian torture, but it doesn’t even hurt. It’s like in class when the teacher is giving an important lesson but Steve is barely listening.

He does feel overwhelmed but so much so it just circles back to apathy. He doesn’t feel himself moving but he does end up on the floor, his face pressed against the frizzy carpet.

“Steve? Are you okay?” He hears Eddie asking. Feels him poking at his buzzing shoulder. He opens his mouth to say something but only says through salt-tasted lips, “Hurts.”

“Oh shit, what hurts? Where?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He closes his wet eyes and refuses to open them. The pain still follows him even when he falls asleep because of course it does. He hasn’t gotten a pleasant night of sleep since the demogorgon burst out of the Byers’ ceiling, but the pains makes him closer to the edge of consciousness than he liked.

When he slowly wakes up, there’s a heavy pressure sitting on his back. Steve lifts his head up and sees Eddie sitting on him, reading a worn book and the towel still on his shoulders.

Huh, that’s new.

Eddie flips a page, his eyes flickering to Steve, who stares blearily back. Eddie gives him a small smile. “The king awakes from his slumber as the prophecy foretold.”

Steve blinks. “W-Why are you sitting on me?”

“Wayne lays facedown sometimes after his shifts and I sit on his back almost every time. He says it’s the best massage he ever got.” Eddie says nonchalantly, but then he looks nervous. “Is, is this working for you?”

Steve reflects on his body. The pain is still everywhere but it’s a bit lighter this time. Where Eddie sits on his back is like a fucking miracle - the pressure settled into the muscle and bone where it feels like a portion of how his body used to be before the Upside Down busted into his life.

He grins with long-lost relief, “Yeah, man, just stay here forever. I’m not gonna move again.”

Eddie looks at him pensively, putting his book away. “Steve, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, this is kinda weird but I don’t mind it.”

“Steve, are you okay?”

He doesn’t cry, but Steve feels the tears trickling down his face and over his nose. He sniffs, blinking rapidly as Eddie gets off him and the pressure disappears so the pain comes back in its ugly sense. Steve turns around so his back on the ground and he’s staring at the ceiling, refusing to look at Eddie. He never cried before even when his body started hating him and he started hating movement.

“Hey, hey, Steve. Look at me, big boy.”

He does. Eddie is laying right next to him, his worried doe eyes staring at him. Fuck, he looks so kind and Steve shuts his eyes, clamping a hand over his mouth. The phantom pain of the demobat’s tail returns, but it feels more wet and clogged.

Eddie’s hand is on his. Gently moving Steve’s hand away from his mouth. Eddie is still looking at him as he says, “You hurt worse if you don’t ask for help.”

Steve opens his mouth. For an awful second, he wants to yell at Eddie ‘what the hell do you know about feeling like complete shit”. But he doesn’t and he is so fucking glad because it would’ve been so hurtful to Eddie and Steve would feel even more in agony that he just proved the other boy’s old impression of him as an asshole.

Instead, when Steve opens his mouth, he doesn’t say anything and starts weeping. He sobs like a baby and Eddie is holding him closer now, his face pressing against Steve’s messy face.

Moments pass in a blur. Steve stops crying. Eddie has moved himself on top of Steve, the familiar weight pressing the pain down and forcing his bones and muscle to rest. Their faces are closer to each other now, Eddie’s nose brushing Steve’s chin.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks again in a hushed tone.

Steve gives a little shrug. “A little.”

“Is this okay?”

Steve isn’t sure if he’s talking about laying on him or this new kindle of their friendship or both. But he nods, carefully wraps his arms around Eddie’s torso, and rests despite the pain stiffening him.

[bunysliper]

Castle Ficlet: Troublemakers (Lightning Flashes) 1/1

Troublemakers (A Lightning Flashes ficlet)

"Well, aren't the two of you just adorable?"

Normally, she would blush and tug herself away from Rick at the tease, but she doesn't this time. There's no reason to hide anymore, not from Martha, not even from herself.

They're new to this, at least in some ways. In others, though, it's like they've been doing this forever.

"Mother," Rick whines. There's no bite behind it, though. Just good natured childish embarrassment. And Rick can always use a little bit of embarrassment. It keeps him honest, humble even.

"What?" Martha scoffs. "I'm simply saying that the two of you are delightful as a couple and I am so glad you finally got your heads out of your a-"

"Hey, hey, hey," Rick says quickly, glancing down at the baby sprawled across their laps. Alexis is finally settling down, which means her eagle ears are definitely listening to everything they're saying. The last thing they need is for her to parrot what she hears.

Though, Kate muses, it would be nice to be able to blame someone other than herself for Alexis learning a new curse word. The last one had been a little bit mortifying - less so because of the word itself and more because of when the kid had decided to demonstrate her new favorite four letters; Kate's fairly sure they'll be allowed back in the restaurant, but she's going to wait a little longer to be sure.

Martha holds up her hands. "Oh, relax, Richard. I'm not going to corrupt your one year old. Especially not by giving you and Katherine a compliment."

Kate snickers at that, pressing her cheek to her fiance's shoulder. It is still hard to believe that they made it here, after so many years, so much hiding from each other, all the back and forth. It's nice, though. So nice.

And the getting married part isn't so bad, either.

"Thank you, Martha," she says, brushing a hand over Alexis's back. They need to put her to bed soon, but they're all so comfortable the way they are. "We appreciate that, even if Rick is bad at admitting it."

Her fiance feigns offense.

"Then say thank you, Ricky, and we can enjoy the rest of our evening in peace." She makes a show of rolling her eyes, winking at Martha playfully.

Rick's mother grins, lifting her glass in response. 

"Traitor."

Kate laughs, careful not to startle Alexis. The girl squirms, rolling closer to her belly and sighing.

"I'm sorry, honey," she murmurs. "Daddy's causing trouble again."

Rick scoffs, ducking his head to kiss Alexis's hair. "Yeah, because your mommy is so much better," he says, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. "She's never caused a bit of trouble in her life."

Her heart stutters in her chest. It's not the first time the name - title? Honorific? - has been directed toward her, but somehow it feels different than when it's said in the middle of the night or when it comes from Alexis's lips. It's never been said in front of others, not even at Alexis's birthday, when the girl had been happily babbling away about anything under the sun.

Sucking in a deep breath, Kate swallows hard. She reaches out for her drink, curling her fingers around the curve of her wine glass and bringing the rim to her lips.

"Nope," she says a moment later, allowing the air to escape her lungs. "Mommy's never done a thing wrong ever. She doesn't know a thing about making trouble."

She shifts, pulling Alexis closer. 

"You won't either, will you, Alexis?"

The baby snuggles closer. She's oblivious to the conversation around her, to the warmth she's providing.

"Yeah," Kate exhales, bringing Alexis's fingers to her lips. "S'what I thought."

"With the two of you for parents? I will believe that when I see it," Martha chuckles, taking another sip of her wine.

Kate grins, cuddling Alexis and sinking deeper into Rick's arms. Let them be adorable troublemakers tonight; they've earned it.

[sunriseverse]

26 for either pingxie or poly iron trianle please?

26: a kiss…as an apology.

silly little pingpangxie ficlet, coming right up!

-

They’re covered in marble dust, flakes of leaf litter, and far too many streaks of dark something that Pangzi, frankly, doesn’t want to think about, because nothing good comes of dark streaks from tombs. “One of these days,” he complains, laying flat on his back and having less than no desire to get up, staring at the glinting stars visible through the foliage overhead, “I’m going to get some horrifying disease from these places, and inflict some long-dormant virus on the unsuspecting population of the entire country because of it. No, the entire continent. You mark my words, Tianzhen! I told you so!”

By his side, there’s the faint sound of shuffling leaf litter. “Pangzi,” Wu Xie says, placating. “It’s not that bad.”

“Xiaoge, give him the Look,” Pangzi commands. “Bastard doesn’t take mine seriously anymore.” Also, his limbs are aching from the flat out sprint they’d been subjected to as the three of them had narrowly fled the collapsing tomb nipping at their heels.

Wu Xie makes a sound of protest. “No, don’t,” he says. There’s the sound of shifting at a little distance—Xiaoge sitting up, his shadow falling long and pale across the two of them, still laying down. “Pangzi, tell him not to—ah, hell, Xiaoge, don’t look at me like that…” Wu Xie’s voice goes weak at the end; Xiaoge’s Looks are a force to be reconned with. Big, dark brown eyes, an expression that goes from jade to soulful. Pangzi almost feels bad for him—but only almost. “Pangzi,” Wu Xie pleads, his demeanour already showing cracks, “come on, please? I swear I didn’t mean for you to almost get bitten by those weird fish!”

“And yet my ass remembers,” Pangzi says, archly. “Scars, Tianzhen, scars. For life. Who’s going to look at this old body and think scars like that come from anything worth glorying?”

“The two of us are the only ones who’ll see your ass,” Wu Xie mutters. “Narcissus. Ah, Xiaoge, I’m saying da-ge, I’m saying da-ge, let me live!”

Xiaoge makes a patent noncommittal hum. Wu Xie lets out an overly dramatic whine, and then there’s more rustling leaf litter, and then Wu Xie is scooting into an awkward cuddle up against Pangzi. The line of him is warm, comforting; familiar. Even annoyed as he is, Pangzi can’t help but turn in towards it, just a bit. And, well, then Wu Xie levers himself up into an awkward bending position and kisses him, and that’s even nicer, soft lips and that puppyish charm he’s never quite managed to lose. “I’m not letting you off that easy,” Pangzi mutters against his lips when he pulls back.

In response, Wu Xie blinks down at him. “Even if I say I’m sorry?” he says, and kisses Pangzi again, which, Pangzi would point out, isn’t an actual apology, except his mouth is too busy with the weight of Wu Xie, and his mind is too busy with the recognition of the weight of Xiaoge’s gaze on them, hungry.

When he finally pulls back, Pangzi means to make him apologise properly. Instead, he gets a glimpse of Xiaoge’s expression, and any mock haughtiness flies out the window. “We’ve been teasing our poor Xiaoge’r,” he says, and finally sits up; nudges at Wu Xie. “Go on, don’t keep the man waiting.”

Wu Xie brightens. “So you’re forgiving me?”

“We’ll see,” Pangzi says, aiming for stern and, probably, not hitting the mark. Ah, well. “Get. I want a turn with him too; if you wait, I won’t hold back.”

[steddieas-shegoes]

ok no sorry your latest childhood friends ficlet is driving me to madness

maybe that last summer they still made the bracelets, but when eddie gave steve his, steve was forced to make a choice and ended up telling eddie they couldn’t be friends anymore, he’s sorry but his parents don’t think he’s good enough, he’s friends with tommy now. it’s not a big deal, god eddie why do you have to be such a baby? just go home eddie no one wants you here (big harry and the hendersons energy ya feel?)

so now steve has both bracelets and he should probably just throw them out but he can’t bring himself to do it, so they sit in his “box of things in the back of my closet that mean something to me and i don’t want my parents to find” for years until the night after the boathouse gets him thinking again, and he grabs them on an impulse as they’re leaving, but there’s a hole in the pocket of his sweatpants so he gives them to robin to hold onto.

and then everything goes to hell.

and when eddie calls his name as they’re marching off to war, he can’t stand that look on his face, like he’s resigned, like they’ve already lost, and he needs eddie’s head in the game because eddie is the one he’s trusting to look after henderson, so he thinks “oh. i can fix this. i can comfort him. i can make him the promise i should have made then.”

and he turns to robin like “bobs, do you still have the-“ and he waves his arms around hip level, and she’s like “oh! shit really? for him huh? ok yeah here” and she pulls out two bracelets eddie hasn’t seen since he was 13 years old and he can’t breathe for a second because what??? he assumed steve would have thrown them out! they don’t even look faded! (and in the background nancy and dustin are like tf is this really the time?? but we’re ignoring that guys they’re having a Moment! god!)

and steve grabs eddie’s wrist and ties on a bracelet eddie spent the last 7 years thinking he had never even made at all, but despite the lack of wear it’s obviously as old as the others, so he must have had it with him that last day and just decided at the last minute to do what he did instead, and what the hell is eddie supposed to do with that knowledge? (nothing right now dumbass you have a wizard to fight get your head in the game) and steve finishes tying it on and hands eddie the other one, the one he remembers making all those years ago, and holds out his own wrist, and eddie’s hands are shaking but he remembers how to do this, and steve is saying “same rules as always, right? when we come out the other side, back to the real world,” (because summer never felt like the real world back then, it was always a liminal space, a pocket dimension where nothing mattered but the two of them, and isn’t that an ironic thought now) “it’s you and me. i’ll still be here. i couldn’t promise you then but i’m promising now, ok?”

and eddie takes a shaky breath and runs his fingers over the bracelet he thought no one remembered but him, and what can he say to that except “give him hell, stevie,” because it’s not like he’s the one doing the dangerous thing. and he’s not the one who didn’t promise to come back all those years ago. there’s no need for him to promise in return, because surely steve knows. he doesn’t have to say the words out loud. so he doesn’t.

and later, in dustin’s arms, he’s glad he didn’t. he wouldn’t want to have to break this promise.

(alaldjiejeka i stg i didn’t mean to write a ficlet in your inbox but like i said that post actually drove me insane so uhhhhh sorry??)

Are you trying to take my job

BUT OKAY ACTUALLY THANK YOU!!! This is soooo good. I’m eating this up like a person starving and stranded in the desert

I had a sort of similar idea for my Vecna chapter in it led me to you but not friendship bracelets and more of a Big Moment™️ just between them but I can’t say more but just know that if you wrote this into a whole thing it would be soooo good

[dustydoop]

A little Chelley Christmas ficlet

“Chell, love, it’s alright! I am more than capable of not destroying the house in the two hours you’ll be gone. You’ve left me here for longer than that and nothing happened.” 

Chell humphed, true, but that was before he had limbs. Gangly, awkward, danger-inducing limbs. She rolled her eyes and began to put on her jacket. Fine…

Wheatley’s blue eyes lit up. “I promise, I won’t make a mess. Actually, it’ll look better than when you left it! Now go, you don’t want to be late to your office Christmas party. Mae’s going to be waiting for you, go!” He gently shoved Chell by the shoulders as she rushed to grab her stuff. Wheatley waved as she hopped in her car, waited until he couldn’t see her anymore, and ran back inside. 

“K.A.N.A! K.A.N.A! K.A.N.A! K.A.N.A! Hey, hey, I have a question,” Wheatley said as he opened Chell’s laptop. “How does one decorate a house for these holidays Chell has been telling me about?” 

K.A.N.A. whipped around, startled. “Ight man, slow down. Decorating? You sure?”

“Yes! She took me to the store two days ago after I said I wanted ou-her house to look like all the wintery movies that every channel has been playing this whole month. So, we have the tree made of plastic, some tiny light bulbs that are all together, shiny fluffy stuff, and ORBS!” Wheatley exclaimed as he showed off the ornaments they had chosen, one box of silver, one of blue, and one of orange. 

K.A.N.A. sighed. “Alright, you’re going to want to put the layers of tree together into one big tree and set it… In that corner there, next to those posters. There’s an outlet for the lights and it’s open enough. 

Wheatley set himself in doing just that. Eventually, he had the tree set up, and a bunch of lights in his hands. 

“And now I wrap the tree in these lights? How on earth am I supposed to-” Wheatley began messing with the string. After around five minutes, it seemed as though there were more lights around him than the tree. “K.A.N.A, I think I need help.”

“Sorry, can’t.” 

“And why not?” 

K.A.N.A. raised her digital arms. “No physical body, doofus. You gotta figure it out yourself.” 

“Ughhh, fine…” 

“And you have to do the same thing with the tinsel.” 

“... the what?” 

Eventually, all of the decorations were on the tree. True, it took much longer than it should have, but at least he did it. Wheatley stepped back to look at his work. “Oh, this is great, isn’t it great, K.A.N.A?” 

“Yeah, yeah it looks pretty good but uhh, where’s the angel?”

Wheatley glared at the avatar. “You never mentioned anything about that, what do you mean the angel?” 

“You know, the Christmas tree angel. Pretty looking woman in a dress, she’s got wings, all that, goes on top of the tree.” 

Wheatley ruffled through the bags, trying to find something that matched that description. “We don’t have one of those. K.A.N.A, what do I do, what do I do, ughh I’m going to ruin all this, aren’t I? Oh, of course I am, dumb little Wheatley tries to do something nice for Chell and it all turns to crap, why did I even bother?” He slumped into the couch, burying his head in his hands. 

“Hold on, no, no, no, I got this, pretty woman with wings, right? Give me one second.” 

Two hours had passed since Chell had left for her company Christmas party, and she was more than ready to leave. Even with her new-found appreciation for others, her social battery was drained. She drove home, ready to relax with the new vanilla honey scented candle she had received from the white elephant gift exchange. As she pulled into her driveway, Chell noticed a purple-ish glow behind the window curtains. 

What had Wheatley done this time?

Chell opened the door, demanding to know what the heck Wheatley was up to. As she turned to look at the whole room, she realized where the colorful light had come from. Wheatley had set up their Christmas tree. Chell’s tone softened as she apologized for her tone, but her apology quickly turned to laughter as she realized what Wheatley was doing. He was standing on his tip-toes, about to use a rack of the bookshelf as a stepstool. One arm was stretched to the top, desperately trying to put something on the top of the tree. 

Chell walked over and grabbed whatever it was in order to examine it. It was a piece of cardboard with a cardstock cone taped to the back. Turning it over, Chell realized the front had a picture of her taped to it, a photo Wheatley had taken soon after their escapade returning to Aperture. They went to a cute little cafe a town over, Chell even wore the only dress in her closet in celebration. Stock photo angel wings were glued behind her, vaguely near her shoulder blades. She chuckled as she asked Wheatley what this was supposed to be. 

“Well, K.A.N.A. told me that, usually, you humans put a figurine of an angel on top of your holiday trees for whatever reason. BUT! We did not buy one, so I made one! See, pretty woman, wearing a dress, I put little wings on you, I’ll admit my arts and craft skills aren’t as fine tuned as I would like, but it’s the thought that counts. Now let me put this on the tre-” Wheatley cut off as he continued to reach the point of the tree. “How tall is this tree, nine feet tall? This is ridiculous.” 

The tree was, in fact, only seven feet tall. Wheatley’s new body was just rather short. Chell took the homemade angel from him again and easily placed the cone on the one branch at the top of the tree. Wheatley stared up in awe as Chell reached above his head. 

At the same time, Chell looked down, Wheatley’s face was radiating more heat than a bonfire as his jaw dropped. She was trapping him between the wall and herself, wasn’t she? She backed down, apologizing for getting in his personal space. 

“Oh, no I don’t mind, do that all you want, love. I- uh, hope you like the tree.” 

Chell gave Wheatley a quick peck on the cheek, reassuring how much she loved it. It really did bring their house together. 

“Wait, our house?” Wheatley asked. 

Chell grabbed his hand, of course this was his place too, if he wanted. 

Wheatley’s face lit up as he wrapped his hand around Chell’s. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, love.” <3

[your-friendly-neighbourh00d-fag]

hey, remember that ficlet i said i was going to write? here we are!

that fucking painting.

The world is burning. Oh, haha, pun not fucking intended. The world is burning literally, Will guesses, but metaphorically as well. His world. His ears are ringing and his mouth is dry and he’s swallowing hard and he can’t breathe and his knuckles are turning white because he’s squeezing them so hard and he-

“Will? Can… Can you look at me?” 

Mike is still standing in front of him. His thick, black hair is in a ponytail. Of course he chooses NOW to look gorgeous as hell, and Will can’t be thinking about this. He can’t be thinking about this anymore. Not when Mike’s holding that. That stupid painting. 

“Wh-what?” His voice is hoarse. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

“I- I said it wasn’t from El, was it?” He sounds angry. He’s angry, right? Of course he is, why wouldn’t he be. Oh god, Mike hates him now. And soon El’s going to hate him too. His sister. Well, she probably isn’t going to count herself as his sister for much longer, is she. Shit. Why the fuck is he like this. The rest of the party’s probably going to take their side too, and they’ll be absolutely right for it, obviously. Of course they are. Tears start to prick at his eyes. 

“N-no, I, of course it w-w-was, she-”

Mike pulls his hands over his face in exasperation and sits down on the faded couch next to him. “Will, she told me herself. Who was… who was it from?” The painting has made its way into Will’s hands. The fucking painting.

Oxygen.

Oxygen, Will needs oxygen he needs to breathe, he needs to get out of here he needs to leave he needs to-

He’s running. Fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck. 

“Will-” The rain is pelting at Will’s face, but he doesn’t even care. He’s numb by now. Because of the cold, because of everything. 

“WILL!”

Mike hates him now. 

“YOU CAN’T LEAVE, IT’S RAINING!”

El hates him now.

‘WILL COME BACK!”

Everyone hates him now.

……………………………

Will isn’t sure where he’s running to. Well, it’s the fucking apocalypse, he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. And before he knows it, he’s at Castle fucking Byers. His safe place. His childhood haven. The place he built with Jonathan. 

And it’s fucking ruined. 

It’s fucking gone. 

Will sits in the wreckage of the Castle, really nothing but a pile of sticks and some fabric. It wasn’t a castle. Young Will had been so…

“Stupid.” 

Tears are flooding down Will’s face now. 

“So… stupid.” 

He’s biting his lip so hard that he draws blood, digging his nails into his forearms, closing his eyes and letting the rain wash over him. Will doesn’t even have the energy to cry properly. He just sits there. Sits there silently sobbing. Sits there letting everything pass by and happen to him. Sits there not doing anything.

“WILL!” 

Oh.

“WILL ARE YOU OUT HERE?!!?!”

Mike.

“WILL!!!!!!”

Mike is here. Mike is here and his hair is wet and falling out of its elastic band. Mike is here and he’s running towards Will. Mike is here and he’s wrapping his arms tight around Will. 

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers.

Mike’s lip is quivering and he’s shaking too. Why is Mike sad? Mike should be angry. 

“Wh-what are you sorry for?” He’s using that voice again. That stupid, soft, love-filled voice that made Will think he had hope. 

“I’m a fag.” 

Will feels Mike’s grip tighten on his shoulders. His pale hand slowly comes to rest under Will’s jaw, gently tipping his head up to meet his eyes. 

“Hey. Don’t say that. D-don’t call y-yourself-”

“Why not, Mike. It’s what I am. A faggot. A dirty little-”

 “STOP!” Mike grabs at his ears panickedly, holding his head like he’s hiding from a fucking monster attacking. He’s crying. Mike shouldn’t be crying. He should be happy that he has an excuse to start ignoring Will now. Not like it stopped him from doing it before, but.

“What. Can’t face the fact that your friend’s a fucking queer? That I’m gay? That I’m a fucking- fucking mistake? Because that’s what I fucking am, Mike. I’m a mistake. I’m a-”

Mike is.

Mike is kissing him. 

Mike has fallen forward on top of Will’s chest, eyes squeezed shut tightly and pressed his lips onto Will’s. 

He’s-

What the fuck is happening.

Will’s brain is short circuiting. He doesn’t know what to do. Is this a joke? Is this some kind of cruel, sick, prank? Oh he probably should have… Mike is pulling away.

“S-sorry. I… I shouldn’t have…” Will takes a moment to take in this beautiful black haired boy in front of him. His beautiful face that has tears running down it because of Will. His beautiful sopping wet hair that’s wet because he came after Will. In the rain. His beautiful golden brown eyes that have tears in them because of Will. Will has decided that Mike should never cry. Ever.

So he takes this beautiful boy’s face in his hands, wipes the tears away from his cheeks, and kisses him properly. 

Mike tastes like the sweet soda he was drinking earlier. Like rain on the weekend when you’re curled up in a blanket fort. Like popcorn and cold winter air. Like a meadow you’re lying in when it’s sunny, like syrup on eggs that he always insists on. Like childhood and like the warm glow of his basement. Like the last time Will was happy.

Mike bites down hard on Will’s lip, pulling him down further onto him and shoving his hands up into his hair. They pull apart after what could have been a few seconds, what could have been a few hours, what probably was somewhere in between. Mike and Will are now both breathing hard, staring at each other in wonder.

“So…” 

“So.”

Mike looks down onto the forest floor, pulling at the slowly ripping slip of paper. His face falls immediately, eyes prickling with tears again. 

“Y-your painting.” He sounds fucking heartbroken.

“It was stupid anyway.”

“No, n-no, it’s ruined. It got wet. It’s ruined. Your painting is ruined. It’s ruined it’s ruined it’s ruined-” Will grabs his face again and forces Mike to look at him. 

“Hey. It’s okay. I promise. I- I can paint you another one, I swear.” Mike’s eyes light up a bit more.

“Y-yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll paint you whatever you want.” 

“Okay.” 

They sit there, in the rain, for a little bit longer, holding each other tight like it’s the only chance they’ll get. Because let’s be honest; it could be the last chance they get. It’s the end of the fucking world! But it’s okay. Because they have each other. Mike has Will. And Will has Mike.

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“I fucking love you.”

“I love you too.”

[eightfifteen]

MadWheeler ficlet! - hearing without listening

Mike perks up as the faint ringing of the phone carries up the stairs. Despite the fact that it only rarely rings for him, Mike keeps his ears strained as he waits for the sound to cut off, indicating his mom picking up the phone.  

He knows they don’t have anything planned. Knows Will would have just talked to him when they were at school barely a half hour before. Still, two years of obsessing over the phone ringing is hard to simply unlearn. 

He’d known then too, that Will was never on the other line. They’d called maybe eight times during all of that first year in Lenora, and most of those calls had been initiated by Mike. Will never called him - he tried not to read into it.

The second year had been better, when they’d always scheduled their calls. Even then, Mike had often been the first to jump up when the phone rang, even when he knew Will wouldn’t be on the other end. 

Hope is a treacherous, addictive thing. 

“Mike! Phone!”

She barely has to finish before Mike is already throwing open his bedroom door, dashing down the steps and flying through the bent of the stairs as he slides into the kitchen. His mom’s eyes watch him with a hint of amusement, but there’s an edge of sympathy when she holds out the phone and says. “It’s Max.”

Mike tries to hide his disappointment, which isn’t too hard as he’s immediately flooded with concern. A glance at the clock show it’s still late afternoon - Will must have dropped her off at home less than 20 minutes ago. He accepts the phone, watching as his mom steps away and disappears into the dining room. Once she’s gone he puts the phone to his ear. “Max? Everything okay?”

“I’m fine.” Comes Max’ immediate response, but by the tense snap of her voice he can tell she’s anything but. Never mind the fact she wouldn’t have called him if she were okay. Even now he wonders why she hadn’t just asked El to stay over, even if just to wait until Lucas gets off practice. Mike catches her taking a deep and shuddering breath, before her voice fills the speaker once more, softer this time. “I’m sorry - I just…”

She trails off, but Mike doesn’t break the silence, allowing it the linger like an invitation. Eventually, she speaks up again, attempting at casual and careless, but Mike doesn’t miss her undertone. “Gotten any better at guitar?”

Mike’s eyebrows hit his hairline in surprise. “Uh- Not really. Haven’t really practiced in a while.”

“You should.”

“I know,” Mike glances around his empty kitchen. He imagines the cabinets fading away into white-grey walls and the floor melt into dirty linoleum, imagines the kitchen island as the oversized hospital bed. “But there’s no one to insult me whenever I miss a single note.”

“How else will you learn?” Max’ voice already sounds a lot more at ease, a smile itching its way across the phone line. Mike knows what she’s asking, and though it’s a surprise, it’s not something he minds. He’d been itching for something to do, anyway, bored out of his mind cooped up in his bedroom. He doesn’t fault his friends for getting other hobbies - not anymore - but he misses middle school, misses a time where they didn’t just go their separate ways at the end of the school day. Who cares about ‘extracurriculars’ and ‘maintaining GPAs’? 

“So can I come over? To practice?”

“If you must.” Max responds as if it’s not what she’d been asking this entire conversation. 

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

There’s a shuddering inhale as Max gives him the okay, a sense of dread that has Mike move twice as fast as he runs upstairs to grab his guitar and pops back into the kitchen to grab some leftovers. Never say his mom didn’t raise him right. 

No matter how hard he tries, there’s nothing he can do to change the length of the fifteen minute drive. Hawkins has too many stop signs and cross sections to just speed through, and at this hour even the long stretch of Cornwallis is filled with moms driving their kids to their after school activities and people getting off early from their nine-to-fives. 

It’s not like he doesn’t know Max is perfectly capable of being on her own for twenty minutes. She spends most afternoons at her house waiting for her mom to get off at six. She even spends nights alone sometimes when her mom has a late shift for her second job. Mike knows she’s independent. 

But he also knows that she wouldn’t have asked for his company if it isn’t a bad day. Despite their begrudging friendship, he’s still firmly the last on her speed-dial list. Well, maybe right above Dustin, but that’s because he knows Dustin can be downright unhelpful in emergencies. Steve is right when he complains about him having an attitude.

Even Will, who she’s never really been close with before, has the benefit of a,  living close by, b, being El’s brother - oh and c, not being Mike. 

There’s one thing Mike knows only he can provide though. 

She’s sitting on the steps leading up to her trailer as he parks his car. Her hair is down around her face, headphones thrown around her neck but not covering her ears, and she’s toying with her folded-up cane in her lap. The trailer park is quiet today, he notes as he grabs his guitar and slams the door after him, the sound echoing through the silence.

He takes a seat next to her as she turns off her Walkman, pulling his guitar into his lap. As he drums his fingers on the wood, his eyes scan Max quickly, making sure not to let her feel his gaze. She seems fine enough, like she’d looked all throughout the day, but with her sunglasses no longer perched on her face, he can tell she hasn’t been sleeping well. Worse, her eyes are slightly red in a way that definitely means she’d been crying not long ago.

But he can tell her shoulders are easing with every tap of his fingers on wood, and though he cringes when he strums his guitar, it makes a smile tug at Max’ lips. 

“Great start, Elvis.”

“Thanks.” Mike deadpans. “I told you it’s been a while.”

Of course he left his tuner at home. Maybe if he actually knew how to play he could tune it by sound alone, as it is, he tries his best to twist the knobs until it sounds somewhat the way it’s supposed to. He’s by no means a musician - he can barely read sheet music, everything he’d learned about playing guitar coming from a 30 minute crash course from Eddie in Freshman year and a library book that’s most definitely written for elementary schoolers. 

Still, Mike enjoys the routine - the mindless fidgeting with the strings and the repetitiveness of it. His thoughts cutting off as he simply tries to fix his stupid guitar. 

“Jesus, Wheeler,” Max cringes after yet another awful attempt and fixing his D string. “Of course you’d manage to find a torture worse than Vecna’s.”

“Hey! I’m a delight to be around!” Mike whines. 

“Keep telling yourself that.” 

He lets the teasing linger in the air for a moment, before putting his guitar to the side and shifting to face her better. “Are you okay?”

Mike immediately regrets allowing his voice to be that soft as he watches her tense, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she leans further over her knees. “I told you - I’m fine.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mayfield.” Her head snaps over to him, face hardening, but her posture immediately relaxes at his tone. “We haven’t done this since you were in the hospital.”

After another beat, he sighs. “It’s just me, right? Who cares what I think of you.”

Max scoffs and tilts her head back, but there’s humour to it, overshadowing some of the nerves and hesitation. “Fine. You caught me - I’m fucked up. Now what are you going to do about it?”

Mike shrugs, even though it’s obviously a useless gesture. “I can listen.”

“Look, it’s nothing new, okay?” There’s an edge of frustration to her tone, letting him know talking is the last thing she wants to do right now. “Just same old shit.”

“So just the silence?” Mike curses himself and curses his stupid guitar for being out of tune. 

It had been easy enough to figure out the silence bugged her. That’s why he’d started bringing his guitar to the hospital - well that, and having just lost Eddie - allowing it to fill gaps of conversation that would otherwise have her twitching nervously in bed, asking questions to get an answer, losing part of herself just to find confirmation that someone was still in the room with her. He’s not sure the others know - Dustin was never known to allow silence to linger anyway, and El and Lucas probably had enough to talk to her about. 

Mike knew talking got tired quickly. Sound is nice when it reminds you there’s people there, but he can’t imagine wanting someone jabbing in your ear the entire time either. It’s like how he can spend hours talking to Will, and never get tired of it, but only because there’s plenty of pauses in the conversation, plenty of moments to let the comfortable silence wash over you like a balm. Like how Will doesn’t even have to say anything at all to put him at ease - just his presence in the room enough to make him feel okay. 

Jarring himself out of his thoughts, he mentally curses himself for staying quiet too long, worried he’d upset Max, but when he glances over he finds a smile tugging at her lips. He frowns at her in confusion, until he recognizes he’d been bouncing his leg nervously, the movement making his keys jangle in his pocket. 

Huh. 

He snorts, trying to cover his smile, causing her to glare at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“I know.” Mike grins, pulling his guitar closer to him so he can mindlessly drum his fingers on the wood again. She doesn’t need to know he caught on. And even though it’s hardly confirmation that she likes his personality, it’s nice enough to know she likes having him around - even if just for the twitchiness that has his classmates glaring at him during tests. 

He remembers the leftovers he’d left in the car, but figures they can get to them later. For now, they’ll continue sitting in almost silence. 

[blusandbirds]

zanna made me watch national treasure and all i got was riley poole as my new blorbo

@zannolin, a riley ficlet, this is ur doing

-

it’s like a math problem. if riley poole has an event that starts at 3:00 PM EST and ends at 4:00 PM EST, and riley poole has two friends who are either “working, i’m so sorry, but have fun, okay?” or just “busy,” then how many people are expected to arrive at riley’s event by 3:30 PM EST? the answer, of course, is none. just riley himself. just him, hidden away at the back of the bookstore, tucked between the cookbook and magazine sections.

the only people he’s seen today were one harried mom in yoga pants looking for better homes and gardens and the store owner themself who came to inform riley that the bathroom on-site was out of order and if he needed to use it any time, he should go to the café across the street. it’s probably the best crowd riley’s drawn yet.

ben and abigail think it’s an ego thing. they’re not completely wrong, because he does like it. his name on the covers, the enthusiastic 3.35 by 4 inch newspaper reviews, the flourish of his signature across the front page. but most of all, it’s because he isn’t like them. he can’t do the genius never to be understood thing. he wants— he needs to be seen. riley poole, in ink, proof that he was here at all.

so riley, sitting in the back of a bookstore even quieter than the museums and mausoleums he’s adventured to, takes an extended course in perseverance.

no matter how many of these he’s had to suffer through—the “are you ben gates?” questions and the driving back home with his own cardboard smile in the backseat—he’s not ready to quit. he’s not willing to be the guy who helped find two lost caches of priceless treasure, but then gave up because nobody came to his book signing. he’s not the last kid alone on the playground anymore. he’s got a cool car and recognition from the white house and two friends who he loves almost as much as they love each other.

give it ten more minutes, he decides. ten more minutes and then he calls it a day. ten more minutes and then he goes home to chalk up another failure on the riley poole is a big loser board.

three of his allotted ten minutes pass by, the hands on his stupid fake rolex limping forward like he’s listening to one of ben’s colonial architecture tangents. he blows invisible dust from a cover. he taps his fingers across the table surface. he sits. 

he thinks about doing this for seven more minutes. he thinks about doing this for twenty more events. he thinks about doing this for the rest of his life. the future stretches out before him, an endless aisle of waiting at empty tables for people who never planned on coming.

oh, who is he kidding?

riley kicks his foot under the table, shoving out the empty cardboard boxes so he can sweep the unopened, unsold books back into storage. it’s gonna be a pain getting it all back into the ferrari, like the world’s saddest game of tetris, and even afterwards he’ll have to reconfigure all the boxes to fit into his living room. his living room, which has become somewhat of a monument to his oh-so-successful writing career. stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes, taking over the space, bursting to overflowing. well, it’s not like he has guests over anyways.

empty tables. full boxes. riley poole’s life.

somewhere in front, footsteps pad down the carpeted floor. he doesn’t look up. it’s not for him.

the steps come to a halt oddly close to the table. someone clears their throat.

a familiar voice, “am i in the right place?”

riley’s head jerks up, nearly clipping the edge of the table. from behind a pile of books appears the face of the fbi’s very own special agent sadusky.

“agent sadusky?” riley shakes his head. “sorry, the self-help section is over there.” he points aimlessly. it’s only then that he notices the item in sadusky’s hand. instantly recognizable, given the dozens he has spread around him right now. a copy of riley’s book, coffee cup ring on the cover and the jacket dented. sadusky grins when riley meets his eyes.

“sorry i was late.” the agent shrugs. “we got a tip about somebody trying to steal the constitution.”

it’s 3:41. something lifts in riley’s chest. he settles into his chair and matches sadusky’s smile. “guess originality really is dead,” he says.

[onthewaytosomewhere]

Maybe 6 for junora for the ficlet game??? 🥹🥹

thanks for the prompt luv - have another junora going so this is good practice 💚

alright so my first ever written on my phone in the car ficlet - so hopefully I didn't totally mess up anything grammatical....posting this on the app is weird too - so hopefully it's not all messed up 🙂

June throws her phone down on the bed, yet another text message sent to Alex; she really hoped for all their sakes he and Henry figured their shit out – a moping Alex was not a pretty sight. From what they heard from Bea and Pez, Henry wasn’t much better. She is lost in thought and just staring at the tabloid open in front of her, not really taking in any of it, when Nora says it, so quiet June almost misses it. June looks up from where she is lounging on her bed, stack of tabloid magazines in front of her, “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

Nora sighs, “I said, What is it going to take for you to realize I’m in love with you? I have been doing my damnedest to get you to realize it, but I’m at my wit's end attempting to figure out what will actually work.”

June sits up, knocking the magazine off the bed in her haste, “Wait, are you saying …” She shakes her head to clear the jumble of thoughts racing through her head, biting her lip in contemplation. “You’re saying …” She’s still unable to finish a thought to get it out. Nora looks at her so fondly that she wonders how she didn’t realize her feelings were reciprocated. Her smile is flirtatious and sweet in a way June didn’t know was possible; it makes her wonder how many times that same smile has been directed her way without her noticing.

“Apparently, being clueless about people being in love with you is a Claremont-Diaz thing, not just an Alex thing. I mean, after the hotel in LA, I thought you might finally realize it, but no, so then I made up that lame-ass excuse about sending the pics of us kissing to Pez. I’ve been hoping you would realize we were something worth taking a chance on for so long now I don’t even know if I know when it started anymore.” Nora sighs, in a hopeful but defeated way that June didn’t know was possible.

“I thought those things were just fun for you; I mean, we all said that our times were just for fun. I didn’t realize you would be receptive to more. Hell, I really am as clueless as Alex, if this isn’t something new. Although I guess it could have just been me attempting to cover up my own feelings that I wouldn’t have noticed. Nora, I’ve been thinking I could be in love with you for so long. I suppose I could pull an Alex and give ya a big romantic gesture if ya want –“

Nora’s lips pressing against hers cut off whatever else she may have said. June’s not even sure when Nora joined her in the bed, but she’ll think about that later. She kisses Nora back, pouring everything she has into this kiss, wanting to show Nora just how much she wants this. They make out for what could be hours but could only be minutes, and as she looks up from the spot where Nora pushes her back onto the bed, she’s just grateful she didn’t have to cause an international scandal to find what could be the love of her life.

*quick edit cuz when i re-read some of the grammar bits were making me sad lolz

[cascader]

hope needs a home somewhere

jily | rated g | 1.8k

for the @jilytoberfest day 10 prompt: "Quick, kiss me — my ex is looking!"

read below, or on AO3 with my other drabbles and jilytober ficlets

____

“There’s something on my lips, and I need you to help get it off… with your lips.”

Lily laughs. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Alright, rude. How about… I’m a frog and your kiss will turn me into a princess?”

“I’m not a frog.”

“Your kiss will make me even prettier a princess than I already am?”

“That’s moot, Mary,” Dorcas sighs, opening her bed curtains and slamming her Charms book — and pretenses of studying — shut. “He already looks at her like she’s the most gorgeous living thing to ever walk the planet, which circles us back to my original suggestion of just march up to him and kiss him, Lily. You don't need any lines.”

Lily gapes. “He does not look at me like that.”

“He does look at you like that,” Mary confirms. “Has for ages. Makes a girl wonder what his face even looks like when he’s not staring at you gobsmacked.”

“Now that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said today,” Lily protests. She watches her reflection in the mirror — wand in hand, eye makeup done on only the right side of her face. “I’m not — he doesn’t. Trust me.”

“Lily…”

“No!” exclaims Lily, borderline frantic. She moves out of the bathroom doorway and turns around to face them properly now. They need to understand, because the hope they’re giving her is dangerous at best. Devastating at worst. “Don’t you think I know what he feels about me better than you do?”

To her credit, Mary isn’t swayed by Lily’s Head Girl voice. She sits fully up in bed, eyebrow cocked. “No, I don’t. You’ve — love, you have to admit you’ve never been that rational when it comes to him. Even in fifth, when you were always fighting, or… first, when you were always fighting, or last year, before you…”

Mary gestures helplessly.

“Before I started to fancy him, you mean,” Lily finishes hoarsely. She slumps against Mary’s bedpost and stares out the dormitory window. The sun is setting. “I fancy him so much. God, that’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Dorcas smiles. “We’ve come a long way from ‘I maybe don’t hate him’ and ‘I suppose his hair is… rather alright,’ haven’t we, Mare?”

Mary giggles. “That was a tough phase to keep a straight face through. Oh, I know! How about, ‘quick, kiss me — my ex is looking!’”

“No!” says Lily, and it’s abrupt enough that Mary startles. “I’m — I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not looking for help on ways to tell him because I’m not planning on telling him.”

Mary gapes. 

“And why in the ever-loving Merlin not?” Dorcas demands. 

“Because that’s not —” Lily struggles to articulate the feeling that’s settled in her gut the past few weeks — past few months, who’s she trying to convince anymore? — and that rises up, up, up to choke her into silence every time she looks at him too fondly. “It’s not fair to him. He — he liked me. I know he did. I’m not that oblivious. And I’m glad nothing happened back in fifth year, I really am, but last year… I missed my chance. And it’s not fair to him to make things so awkward now.”

“Lily—”

“Are you—”

Dorcas and Mary hesitate, waiting for the other to finish.

Dorcas snorts and continues: “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re not too late. You’ll never be too late for that boy, Lily. We’re not saying he used to look at you like you invented love and Quidditch and all things good in the world. We’re saying he looks at you like that now. Still. Always. At breakfast this morning, when you won that brewing contest last month, when you tripped coming down the girls’ stairs last week. All the time. They should study him, honestly.”

Lily scoffs, but she feels that feeling again, rising in her throat, sparkling and happy and in need of being squashed before it kills her. “You’re seeing what you want to see,” Lily says softly. “You’re not the one who — it’s not like I’m subtle. I’ve never been, even when the thing I was not subtle about was thinking he was a prize idiot. When we’re alone, he doesn’t look at me like anything. Just polite, cordial, doesn’t ask too many questions, doesn’t linger after meetings… nothing.”

They look skeptical. 

Lily sighs. “Asking him about Hogsmeade plans, listening too intently when the boys talk about girls — I can’t help it. And he’s just… perfectly friendly in return. A little distant, even, compared to last year. He’s switched our rounds around, keeps asking for rain checks when I ask to hang out alone. It’s normal behavior, but normal isn’t the way you are with someone you…”

“Fancy,” Mary finishes. 

“Exactly,” sighs Lily again. “It’s what I would do if… Benjy Fenwick was trying to make plans with me, even platonic ones. I’d do it if I had time, but I wouldn’t make time. I wouldn’t be trying.”

For the first time, Lily’s mates hesitate, and honestly, it kills her a little.

They’ve both been convinced of James’s undying love since third year, and as much as she likes to protest, the way they see things feels like the last chance she’s got for her and James to work. So if even they have some hesitations, if his behavior really is as damning of a lack of feelings as she’s been suspecting…

“I’m still certain…”

“Mary.”

“Fine. Fine. Maybe I’m not certain. But he — what he felt for you can’t just go away that quickly, that cleanly.”

Lily’s heart sinks. Felt, past tense, already. And all it took was them learning about things she already knew. 

She settles gently onto Mary’s bed and closes her eyes, willing tears away as Mary rests her head on Lily’s shoulder. She can’t cry about this. He did nothing wrong. He doesn’t owe her attention. He doesn’t owe her anything.

“I still wouldn’t be too sure he’s not interested, Lily,” Mary says hesitantly. “People are pretty good at hiding what they’re actually feeling.”

“I don’t think James Potter is one of those people, Mare.” 

“Still. Maybe he thinks you’re not interested and is trying to respect that.”

“Can... can we just please drop it? I don’t… I just don’t want to think about it,” says Lily.  

She exhales a shuddering breath as Mary starts to pet at her hair.

Every crush she’s ever had has passed. She knows this. She remembers her seemingly undying, world-spinning crush on Caradoc Dearborn in second and third years. She doesn’t think twice about him now. She knows this. This feeling will pass. There’s no reason for James Potter to be different from any other boy she’s liked and moved on from. 

He’s not special. 

(She’s a liar.)

The trance is broken when the door to their dormitory slams open. In the doorway is their fourth roommate, Izzy, breathless and smiling. She looks radiant — skin flushed prettily, dark hair messy and windswept but in that artful way Lily’s always wished for. 

“Guess what just happened,” she says breathlessly, and then, not pausing for a moment: “I have a date!”

“Oh?” asks Dorcas, emerging fully from her bed. Izzy has notoriously never been interested in anyone at Hogwarts, despite much of the male population’s interest in her. “Tell us more.”

Izzy settles onto the floor between Mary and Dorcas’s beds. Dizzy, Lily presses her palms against her cheeks and leans more heavily into Mary’s side, hoping nothing of their previous conversation shows. 

“I’ve liked him for a while, actually. Since last term,” Izzy says, suddenly shy. She picks at a loose string on the rug underneath her. “But I… you know, I don’t have much dating experience. And I wasn’t sure he’d be interested at all.”

“Bullshit,” Mary says, though not unkindly. “Never met a bloke not interested in you.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Izzy says matter-of-factly. “Anyway, we’ve been spending a little more time together this term. Not even on purpose at first, just coincidence… and then, later, more on purpose.”

Mary coos as Izzy starts to flush deeper. 

“I honestly still couldn’t tell. He’s a friendly person generally, so I couldn’t tell if it was just that, or something more… but he’s been really sweet. Attentive. So I thought, maybe…”

“Maybe?” Dorcas prompts after a moment of silence. It’s usually Lily’s role to coax Izzy out of her shell, but she doesn’t have it in her. She’s happy for her, truly, but she’s only human. She can take ten minutes to mope. Fifteen, tops. 

“I thought maybe I should give it a shot. Ask him out. You know, be brave for once,” she says in a rush. It’s always been an insecurity of Izzy’s, Lily knows — that she’s in Gryffindor but so shy. 

“I’m proud of you,” Lily says with a smile, and she means it. “That takes a lot of courage.”

“It did,” Izzy says earnestly. “But I suppose I needn’t have worried, because he said yes! That he’d love to! That he’s been enjoying us spending more time together this year. And now we’re going to Hogsmeade together next weekend.”

“Ooh, I’m so excited,” Mary says happily. “There are so many new Muggle hairstyles in fashion right now that the Wizarding world just hasn’t caught onto, and they’d be perfect for you.”

“We’re also just happy for you generally,” Dorcas corrects with a laugh. “First dates are fun.”

“That too,” Mary agrees. “So. I know you’ve been leaving us in suspense on purpose. Who’s the lucky bloke?”

Izzy scoots forward on the floor, closer to their beds, and as she does so, her gaze lingers for just a moment extra on Lily. 

Lily isn’t sure what she sees in the other girl’s expression. A flash of hesitation? Nervousness? It’s something different from the sheer joy she’d walked into the room with. And Lily suddenly knows.

It’s in a whisper that Izzy finally says it. A whisper, like that will make it less important. Less dizzying, less horrifying. Like that will knock Lily’s world sideways any less. 

“James Potter.”

Lily doesn’t cry. 

Everyone is looking at her, but she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t frown, or stare, or startle. 

That thing in her throat that she was so afraid of rising up, up, up — it drops clean out of her body. She feels cold, and suddenly empty. (He’s not special. She’ll be fine. He’s not special. This will blow by.) But vacuums want to be filled. So she opens her mouth, takes a breath, and smiles. 

“That’s great, Iz,” Lily says. 

“It is?” she asks, and Lily recognizes in her dormmate’s eyes what she now lacks — hope. 

“It is,” Lily repeats. 

Izzy smiles, relief sinking into her shoulders. 

Lily even smiles too. 

(Hope needs a home somewhere.)

[1800-fight-me]

Halloween in Hell’s Kitchen

A Saved by the Devil ficlet

Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader (No Y/N)

Friends to eventual lovers (Reader is Foggy’s childhood best friend!)

Rating: T

Warnings: fluff with an angsty ending, blind jokes, alcohol 

Word count: about 1.7k

Author’s note: This is set after college but before Saved by the Devil occurs! Also I know its not even close to Halloween rn but isn’t it always Halloween in our hearts?? lol

P.S. Here’s a link to my masterlist if you’d like to check out my other writing! Also! my taglist is always open- leave me a comment or an ask if you’d like to be added!

You were supposed to meet Foggy, Matt, and Karen at the bar at seven o’clock. 

But as you looked in the mirror and bit your lip you weren’t so sure anymore. Like your thoughts had summoned him, your phone rang. 

“Hey Foggy I’m not so sure about this…”

“Oh come on! It’ll be hilarious, my best idea yet!”

You tapped your foot, continuing to stare in the mirror. “Are you sure it’s not too mean?”

“Too mean? C’mon! It’s right on the edge I’ll give you that but it’s definitely not too mean,” he said passionately. 

You knew when he started like that he wouldn’t stop until you caved and gave him what he wanted. You remained silent and he jumped right back into it. 

“It will be so funny. I promise he’ll think it’s funny. You’re already dressed aren’t you?”

“Yes but..”

“No buts! You just get your butt to the bar! It’ll be fine! I promise! Gotta go, see you soon!”

He hung up and you rolled your eyes. 

With a sigh and one last glance in the mirror you grabbed the cane you’d left by the door and headed out to the bar. 

-

As soon as you saw them you snorted and couldn’t stop the peals of laughter. 

Three “blind Matt Murdocks” as Foggy had phrased it, stood in front of you and now there were four with your arrival. 

You were all dressed similarly in dark suits, dark ties, red glasses, and a cane in hand. 

They all turned to look at you and the giggles all started anew. 

“Happy Halloween, can you guess who I am?” you said with glee as Karen snorted and Foggy looked victorious. 

Matt’s smile couldn’t stretch any further as he reached for your hand and pulled you into his chest for a hug. 

“They got to you too, huh?” voice soft and deep in your ear. 

“Sorry, you know I'm a sucker for Foggy’s terrible ideas,” you said with a grin, looking up at him. 

He pursed his lips in fake annoyance as you giggled. 

“Don’t blame this on me!” Foggy interjected and Matt finally released you from his lingering embrace. 

You rolled your eyes at Foggy, “This was completely your idea. Matt, he made me do it.” 

This caused Matt to chuckle as Foggy immediately went on the defense and honestly even though you were right you didn’t know if you could win the argument against your attorney friend. 

“Alright alright,” you said, cutting him off, “it might’ve been your idea but I went along with it.” 

“Playing a joke on a blind man by dressing up as him for halloween, the nerve of all of you,” Matt said with fake outrage and a hand over his heart. 

This led everyone into another fit of giggles. 

The night continued with drinks, laughs, too much candy, lots of questionable blind jokes, and plenty of games of pool until the hour was far too early to be awake. 

Eventually Foggy called it a night and as everyone walked out of the bar, hugs and goodbyes were exchanged. Foggy and Karen decided to split a cab as they were heading in the same direction and Matt offered to walk you home. 

“Shouldn’t I be the one walking you home?” you asked teasingly, elbowing him with the arm he currently had wrapped in his own. 

You loved that Matt always held onto you for guidance rather than using his cane whenever he could. You had a feeling that he sought out physical contact with you even when he didn’t need it. But, maybe that was just wishful thinking. 

“I can handle myself. I’m a big boy,” he said smoothly and you ignored the way his words made your heart flutter. 

You rolled your eyes, “Oh I know. You held up very well tonight with all of the teasing.” 

He laughed and you couldn’t help but grin in response to the beautiful sound. 

“Well, I’m sure you make a very cute Matt Murdock,” he said and you giggled. 

“Cute? Foggy said I’m a hotter you than you are,” you said and he cracked up laughing with you. 

You reached the doorsteps to your apartment building and stopped, turning to face him. 

“Can I?” he asked, hands nearing your face. 

Your breath caught, “Mmhm,” you managed to get out. 

His fingers skimmed your cheeks then up to the red rimmed glasses you still wore that were a copy of his. 

The corner of his lip lifted in response. 

His hands then drifted back down your face, softly grazing your neck, then landing on the collar of your button up shirt. 

You swallowed, trying to keep your breathing steady, as if there weren’t trails of fire along your skin where his gentle fingers touched. 

He felt the collar of your shirt, then the tie around your neck, and finally the lapels of your jacket. You realized then that you had left the cane at the bar, not used to carrying it around like Matt was. 

“You did a really good job with tying your tie,” he said, the smirk on his mouth still captivating your attention. 

“Thanks, youtube helped,” you rasped out and he chuckled. 

His hands drifted back up to your neck. What was it about your neck that seemed to grasp his attention and desire? 

Was it the vulnerability? Oh, you wanted to be vulnerable with him but being in love with your friend was a dangerous game. 

How far could you push it before you lost him? 

Before you ruined the delicate ecosystem your friend group lived in? The one where no one talked about the feelings between you and Matt because too much time had passed and it was never going to happen, and it would make it weird for Foggy. 

And god, you had tried to move on, for so long you attempted to move on but here he was pulling you back in so easily. 

And what if your worst nightmare occurred, what if you went for it with Matt and lost him and his friendship in the process? These years with his presence, even if it was only his friendship, made you sure in your bones you couldn’t live a life without Matt. 

Hands still delicately grazing the sensitive skin on your neck he leaned closer and whispered in your ear, “The jury is out, I might not be able to see, but I can feel that Foggy was right, you’re the most attractive Matt Murdock here tonight.” His voice was deep and soft and your knees nearly buckled. 

You pulled back enough to look up at his eyes, this was it, you were certain. The years spent pining and dancing around one another were going to be over. He confessed his attraction to you just now, didn't he? 

Oh no, what if that was all he felt? You were in love with him, for god’s sake, there was no possible way you could survive a friends with benefits situation with a man you already felt so deeply for. Your heartbeat spiked. 

His head cocked and his hand moved up to your cheek, “Sweetheart, are you okay? Do you not want this?” 

You opened your mouth to speak, to confess maybe, you weren’t even sure what you were going to say when the blaring noise of Matt’s phone repeating Foggy’s name interrupted you. 

His hand dropped from your face and reached into his pocket to grab his phone. He took a step back as he answered the call and you sighed. 

Did you sigh in relief or disappointment? You knew Matt heard you and if you didn’t know the reason for your reaction there was no way he would. 

You know what you want. It’s the same as what you’ve always wanted, him. 

You wanted to throw caution to the wind and jump in his arms. Matthew, Matt, Matty. Your heart beat in time with the syllables of his name. 

But your brain wouldn’t quiet and you were worried and stressed about the outcome, the reasoning, the what if’s. 

You missed the whole conversation Matt had with Foggy and only looked up from your feet when said your name. 

“I should go. Goodnight,” he said softly. Was it wishful thinking on your part that you thought you heard something in his voice? Something that sounded like desperation, like desire for you to disagree with him. 

Dear god, you wanted to, you wanted to beg him to stay, to come upstairs, to kiss you until you couldn’t breathe. 

But you were scared, what if he didn’t feel the same for you? You had no disillusions about Matt, you knew his history with women. If something physical was all he wanted from you it would break you. 

And what about Foggy? If things didn’t work out between you and Matt then Foggy would be stuck in the middle, miserable without his best friends speaking to one another. And dear god, you couldn’t lose Matt, his friendship and Foggy’s were your lifelines. 

So no, you couldn’t risk it. 

“Goodnight, Matt. Get home safe,” you said, voice as soft and desperate as his. 

He let out a soft sigh and nodded before turning and leaving and the sight of him walking away hurt your chest. It was like you could feel your heart cracking. 

It didn’t matter that you cried yourself to sleep that night and never told any of your friends about it. You still considered it one of the best nights of your life, bittersweet was the least you could expect being catastrophically in love with Matt Murdock. 

And when Karen gave you a framed photo of the four of you from that night you placed it on your nightstand and the same bittersweet smile formed on your mouth every time you saw it. 

You and Matt never talked about the ending of that night and continued on your friendship as if nothing ever happened. Just like the last time he had almost kissed you. 

And it hurt, sure, but just like last time you did your best to move past it and not let the what if’s haunt you. 

Because what is love and joy, without a little heartbreak? 

Taglist:

@mindidjarin @hotnmad @samwisethegr8 @catholicdaredevil @salome-c @sobachka-korol​ @carters-things​

Everything taglist:

@spideysimpossiblegirl @dinandgone @ohpedromypedro @littlemisspascal @tombraider42017 @kirsteng42​ @just-here-for-the-moment 

[cable-knit-sweater]

mayaaaa. hello it is me. if you're still accepting prompts for the spotify wrapped ficlets, how about song 54? whichever ship speaks to you 🧡

Allieeee 💕💕 I am still accepting prompts, thank you so much for sending me one 🥰🥰

#54 is:

Which obviously has to be a stucky fic 😭😭 And I couldn’t just let one lyric inspire me, there are so many parts of this song that make me think of them, especially for the fic I had in mind:

Flashes of the battle come back to me in a blur // All that bloodshed, crimson clover // Uh-huh, sweet dream was over // My hand was the one you reached for // All throughout the Great War

But also:

Your finger on my hair pin triggers // Soldier down on that icy ground // Looked up at me with honor and truth // Broken and blue

And this 😭:

Always remember // Uh-huh, we're burned for better // I vowed I would always be yours // ‘Cause we survived the Great War

I’m sorry in advance.

Everything in him feels at war with himself. The need to follow orders, the urge to give in to the instinctive feeling that tells him not to. Part of his mind telling him to not hold his punches, that he has a mission here, his heart constricting painfully at the sight of sad blue eyes and a bruised, bloody face.

He feels so off balance, so unmoored, he doesn’t know what to do. That’s a first, or at least a first for as far back as his memory goes. He always has orders, knows instinctively to follow them or… But now, he’s torn, confused. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him.

The man below him just lays there, taking the hits as they come. He wants to scream at the Captain to put up a fight, to not just let the Asset kill him. Because he will, it’s all he’s good for. He’s never wanted to, he doesn’t think, but he knows it’s what he’s supposed to do here. He can’t fail. “You’re my mission,” he screams out, and he knows he’s just trying to convince himself of that right now, because he isn’t sure of anything anymore.

The man’s face is familiar in a way, even battered and bruised. His voice wrenches something loose in the asset too, but not enough to give him any sense of clarity. He feels the frustration with all these muddled thoughts starting to get the best of him, no longer the mission focused Asset he’s been made into. Or maybe always has been. He doesn’t know, and that makes him act like a cornered animal, lashing out.

If his mission could just stop, stop talking, stop looking at him with eyes full of hurt, eyes that he feels piercing his soul. But the captain doesn’t. He keeps fucking talking.

“Because I’m with you ‘till the end of the line,” the man finally croaks out. The Asset feels like something inside him breaks, memories rushing to the front of his mind, so strong and vivid, he feels paralyzed by them. He doesn’t recover quickly enough to catch the Captain before the helicarrier breaks apart further and he falls through the cracks, into the river. The sight of it so achingly familiar he wonders if he’s been here before.

(A fleeting thoughts tells him he has, but the perspective is off - was he the one falling?)

He doesn’t think for too long when he finally comes unfrozen, and just jumps after the man. As he dives into the river, as he tries to focus on dragging the man to the surface, he tries to push away the rush of memories that flood his mind. He doesn’t recognize any of them, unfamiliar images flashing before him, doesn’t know why this is happening or why he’s going against his orders and trying to save his mission.

(A lie, he does, his heart tells him - shut up, his brain tells it)

He drags the man in uniform to the side of the river bed, taking in the sight of him. The man isn’t breathing. His mission was to kill Captain America, so maybe he’s been successful, but it does nothing to ease his fear like it usually does. Instead, a different type of fear creeps over him, memories of a small boy struggling for air trying to push their way through his messy thoughts, no matter how much he tries to stop it. He can’t handle that right now.

When his mission - Stevie, his traitorous brain tells him - splutters out water, coughing roughly, the Asset finally feels like he can breathe again. He ignores the voice in his head that tells him to stay, to make sure the man is okay, and stumbles away from the body. The man is sure to be found, and when he is, the Asset can’t be there.

He feels guilty, but he doesn’t know why. This is for the best.

(He does know why. A vow. ‘Till the end of the line)

[tennessoui]

"This was never right" from the prompt list? 💖

hey hi hello!!! thank you for sending this in!! this (like the last few) are based on a tumblr au: professor can-fuck-me, which does not have a fic of its own but probably could have a discombobulated one shot at this point because this lil ficlet puts the total word count over 8k oops

anyway bit nsfw but not much; sort of implies again that they got together a bit before they should have (they slept together a few weeks before the class was over, while obi-wan was still his professor) so be careful if that's a squick for you!

(1.5k)

“I think you’ve got a good thesis,” Obi-Wan leans back in his chair, tucking the red pen in his hand behind his ear. He’s taken off his glasses at some point in the last thirty minutes, which becomes very inconvenient when he goes to push them up his nose and almost hits his eyes.

God, he’s too tired for this. He and Anakin had stayed up much too late into the night yesterday, at first fighting and then fucking the fight out of each other only to go to bed still upset. He’d forgotten until his alarm had gone off at eight in the morning and Anakin had hit him with his pillow to get him to turn it down that he’d scheduled back to classes office hours every Friday morning for the first month of school.

So now here he is, nursing a bit of a hangover, his third cup of coffee, and trying to remember if the shirt he fished out of his closet would hide the hickies he knows Anakin had left on his neck.

The student in front of him is frowning down at her paper. It’d been a miracle to see someone had already started the assignment he’d given the end of the second week of classes, as it’s due right before fall break, but upon reading her work, he sort of understands. He’s trying to find a polite way to say Complete doesn’t mean viable, but before he can, there’s a knock on his office door. 

“Sorry,” Anakin Fucking Skywalker says cracking the door open a bit, “only it’s been thirty minutes, and I sort of need to talk to Professor Kenobi? Oh, is that your paper? Which short stories have you chosen to write on? I’m stuck between two.”

Obi-Wan gapes at him as the girl flushes bright red and fumbles through an answer, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Oh, that’s a wicked dichotomy between themes there,” Anakin tells her. Obi-Wan isn’t even sure he knows what those words mean, but the girl turns even more red and jumps up with a flustered apology for taking so much of the professor’s time, and a loose-ended question as to whether or not she’ll see Anakin in class later, perhaps they could talk more about the essay prompt?

Because, of course, Anakin looks like a college student. Because, of course, in June he had been one. He’d been in Obi-Wan’s sodding class, and he’s been hanging around his house all summer—considering that he sort of lives there now—so of course he’d heard the different drafts of that prompt enough to fake his way through a brief conversation. Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s ever read a short story in his life.

“Yeah, you bet,” Anakin tells her with a smirk, holding the door open so that she has to duck under his arm to leave. “I’ll see you around.”

Obi-Wan is livid. Obi-Wan is so livid he doesn’t know if he should try standing because if he’s any closer to Anakin Skywalker right now, he’s going to try and strangle him. “That was completely inappropriate,” he snaps. “What are you even doing here?”

“Proving to you that I listen when you talk,” Anakin lilts, locking the door and coming to stand in front of the desk. “Professor.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan warns. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ve no reason to be on campus anymore, let alone visiting me during my office hours, let alone interrupting a meeting with one of my students so you can take up my time and—”

“I remember meetings with you when I was one of your students,” Anakin murmurs, sitting on the edge of his desk and propping himself up with a hand over the middle of his papers. He leans forward and takes the red pen out from behind Obi-Wan’s ear. “You’ll forgive me from wondering what you were doing behind another closed door.”

Obi-Wan stands, and his hands are shaking with anger directed solely at his partner, who in the last few weeks has simply become unbearable. Picking fights. Prodding. Needling. Going for blood.

“Leave,” Obi-Wan tells him hoarsely. “This isn’t right.” He means that it’s not right for Anakin to be here now, for him to drag any and all personal issues into his workplace, into his office. It’s not right for Anakin to make him lose his mind like this, it’s not right that his hands have already migrated to his hips, it’s not right how much he loves this impossible man as much as he hates him in this moment.

“Professor,” Anakin murmurs, looping his arms around Obi-Wan’s neck, “this was never right.”

Obi-Wan kisses him half to shut him up and half because he can’t not kiss him when he’s wandered into his office practically begging for a kiss. There’s a lot he thinks he’s probably fucking up in this relationship, but he knows how to kiss Anakin.

Anakin, despite everything else, knows how to kiss him as well.

His boyfriend moans and arches into him, adjusts the angle so that he’s standing in between his spread thighs, sucking on his tongue and making noises that are far too loud for the current venue. It’s like—it’s like he wants to be caught. It’s lke he wants everyone to know.

Obi-Wan separates himself with difficulty from his boyfriend’s lips, pulling back to study his face.

Anakin’s eyes flutter open just as reluctantly, mouth slightly parted and spit slick.

“You remember the sort of things you told me here?” Obi-Wan mutters lowly to try and keep all arousal from his voice. “Back before I was even close to breaking. Few months in. Anything that was troubling you, anything you were trying to work through.”

“You’re a good listener, Professor,” Anakin replies, licking his lips. One hand falls to rest on his shoulder, the other to resst on the small of his back, fingers skirting the line of his ass. Obi-Wan barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. His partner loves any and every chance to feel him up.

“I’m listening now, Anakin,” he tells him, catching his chin in a bid to force eye contact. “Has something been troubling you?”

Anakin blinks at him and then his face breaks open and his mouth scrunches up and his eyes squeeze closed and when he opens them again, they’re spilling over with wetness. With tears. “I didn’t get the job,” he cries even as Obi-Wan guides him forward so he can press his head against his neck. “I was so close, I was in the—the final stages—but they went with someone else, and I really thought I would, I really thought this was the one, but they didn’t want me—”

Obi-Wan hushes him gently, soothing his hand down the planes of Anakin’s back. “It happens, darling,” he murmurs into Anakin’s curls. “Is this why you’ve been so horrible, love?”

It’s a testament to how upset Anakin is that he doesn’t immediately say anything to protest that, just shrugs weakly and tries to nuzzle closer. “It’s—it’s September, and you said that I should move in for the summer but it’s September now, and I didn’t get the job because they didn’t want me and I can’t think about you not wanting me without my chest getting all tight so I keep—I just need you to say it, alright, I need to hear it.”

“I love you,” Obi-Wan replies, nonplussed. He tells Anakin he loves him all the time, almost every time he thinks it, which is truly a staggering amount of times.

“No,” Anakin says, which isn’t usually what he says in response to that declaration. “No, I mean—if you want me to leave. I need you to—you can’t just…just wait for me to get the message, alright, I…I cling.”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan pulls back. This is a feat, considering how tightly Anakin’s arms are latched around him. “Anakin, darling, I don’t want you to leave. Ever. I love you. I love having you with me. Every place I am, I want you to be there as well.” 

Anakin sniffles and wipes his wet face all over the shoulder of Obi-Wan’s shirt. He really loves a horrible person, he thinks with something like awe and infinite patience coursing through him. “That’s not true,” he mutters.

“It is,” Obi-Wan disagrees immediately. “It—”

“You just said I shouldn’t be in your office during your office hours,” Anakin points out, sitting back and wiping a hand over his eyes to get rid of the last of his tears. “So which is it?”

Obi-Wwan stares at his impossible boy. But, well, Anakin had come all the way out here to see him, and he’d been so vulnerable and achingly sweet. Perhaps he should be rewarded with equal honesty. “Darling, if you don’t think I’d rather kiss you until our lips are raw here on this desk like this than read shitty, cobbled-together essays from some student obviously aiming for a recommendation letter, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

Anakin tilts his head forward so that his next words are breathed against Obi-Wan’s lips. “Prove it, then.” he murmurs. “Professor."

[comradekiwi]

bkdk quirk kid/time travel ficlet!

inspired by me wishing there were more fics with this scene and then realizing I can literally. write it myself

EDIT: now on ao3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/38051554

———

“So. You’re telling me this guy looks like your dad? But younger?”

The little tyke nodded furiously, clutching onto Katsuki’s pants leg, fluffy blonde curls bouncing back and forth. Katsuki had to stifle a grin at the sight. Sue him, it was cute. The brat had bigass eyes that phased in and out of sight behind his curls as he bounced on his tiny feet, shuffling incessantly, almost like-

“Daddy!” the kid suddenly implored, staring into Katsuki’s soul with his huge fucking Bambi eyes. (Seriously, what the fuck? When did they start making kids this cute?) “Up!”

Tiny arms shot up in his direction, barely reaching his hips. “You want me to pick you up?” Katsuki asked, teasing, just to see him react. The kid nodded heavily again, stretching and whining like that would get him up faster. Katsuki bent down, humouring him. “What do we say?”

Jesus, he sounded like his father.

“Please!” The kid said sweetly, with a hint of a child’s lisp. Katsuki lifted him, musing at how light he was. It was insane to think that he or Deku had ever been this size, like a strong wind could blow them away. He held onto the kid tighter at the thought, then chastised himself internally for the sudden protectiveness that came out of nowhere. He was getting soft.

Aizawa seemed unamused at the exchange, texting someone on his phone, although most of the onlooking Class 3-A looked bewildered at the sight of tall, built, grumpy Bakugou gently carrying a tiny, adorable child. Kirishima and Mina just looked fond. Todoroki, apparently unconcerned, continued eating his noodles and pretending not to sneak glances at Sero. (He thought he was subtle. He was not. Katsuki hated his stupid simp ass.) Pinching the bridge of his nose, Aizawa muttered something about problem children. Children? It was just Bakugou here. Well, and the tyke. The other problem child-

“I’m here!” Deku burst through the door, panting. “I’m sorry I’m late for movie night I had to meet with All Might and I saw a dog on the way back and it was so cute it kind of reminded me of Kiri-”

“Papa!” Belted the newly exuberant kid, right in Katsuki’s fucking ear, now wriggling like an eel to get out of his grasp.

Wait. What.

The kid succeeding in sliding down his legs and rushing to Deku, who instinctively knelt down to catch the flying kid in his arms into a hug. “Hi Papa! Look! Daddy’s small! You’re small too! Oji-san has less grey hair and Uncle Kiri is smaller and Auntie Mina isn’t growing a baby anymore and I think I have to go to the bathroom!”

Okay. Now the whole class looked shocked, none more so than Deku. Actually, Kirishima and Mina looked even more fond and amused, fuck them. Their eyes were twinkling and mouths were stretched in ecstatic, teasing grins, openly glancing back and forth between Katsuki and Deku. Why wasn’t she fucking concerned about the pregnancy in her future? Sero mouthed “Oji-san?” and looked up at Aizawa, whose face remained unchanged, although he remained glaring steadfastly at his phone. Katsuki peeked. He was texting Mic-Sensei. There were a lot of messages on Aizawa’s end, now, and what looked like a bunch of unhelpful kaomoji’s from Mic.

Come to think of it, the kid did look a lot like Deku. The freckles matched, although Katsuki had long given up avoiding being reminded of Deku every time he saw someone with freckles, and had thus thought little of it. But the green eyes and excited rambling was unmistakable. He was now mumbling happily, shifting back and forth, nearly on Deku’s toes, clutching his shirt near identically to the way he had been holding Katsuki’s pants. Deku looked at the kids hair, then up at Katsuki from his kneeling position on the floor. Tch. Trust the nerd to connect the dots. Although the way his eyes were shiny but wary told Katsuki he was having a hard time believing it.

“Kacchan…?” Deku asked, gripping the kid a little tighter, impossible hope in his eyes. Katsuki was sure he was wearing a similarly idiotic expression too, taking in the side-by-side Bambi eyes and freckles, juxtaposed with his hair colour in curly form and his mother’s nose. His chest was going to explode. It broke Katsuki’s heart a little, to see such immeasurable longing reflected in the eyes of someone whose wishes he could have granted ages ago if they weren’t both so stupid. (Okay, mostly Katsuki. But he was never going to admit that.)

The kid had gone quiet, looking between the two of them. Perceptive. (Definitely his and Deku’s kid. Holy shit, this was his and Deku’s kid.) He held one hand out to Katsuki, who instinctively took it, and looped the other around Deku’s neck as he sat on his knee. “Papa came home Daddy! You gotta give him his welcome home kiss!” The kid scolded, little face aghast at his Daddy forgetting their daily tradition. Deku’s face immediately drowned in red, which was an amusing enough sight to distract Katsuki from the steam was coming out of his ears. No way in hell was he kissing the nerd right now, but the idea was sending him into spontaneous cardiac arrest. Not just kissing Deku, but the potential of having a domestic, stable enough life with him that things like welcome home kisses were the norm. Where a kid pattered around there to witness it, and remind them if they forgot. Where they were safe in the warm cocoon of a future together. Katsuki was well aware his eyes were glazed over at his wonderment, but Deku’s were, too, clearly having the same train of thought. Deku smiled shyly up at him, and Katsuki couldnt stop his face from softening back, the barest hint of a smile escaping unbidden. The kid suddenly blinked rapidly, then disappeared, completely gone. Deku blinked too, in a comically identical way, lashes fluttering and oh, Katsuki never had a chance. He was so, so gone for this boy.

Aizawa clicked his phone off and huh. He had had a timer going. “Ten minutes on the dot. The quirk user is only a teen right now but they happen to be in general studies here, so Nedzu let me know the details of the quirk’s effects. No harm comes to anyone involved, just ten minutes in the future or past of whoever you last touched, which in this case must have been Bakugou. Good job getting me. Now I’m going back to sleep. Please don’t contact me unless there is an emergency. Bakugou, Midoriya, if I hear a peep of noise complaints about your rooms, I’m expelling you both. If anyone gives me any details, I’m expelling them too. Good night.” With that, Aizawa stepped out of the room, leaving multiple classmates shaking with poorly-muffled laughter and a very red Katsuki and Deku. They made eye contact and hurriedly looked away, Deku scratching the back of his head and Katsuki shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “We should probably talk,” Deku ventured through his blush, “My room or yours?”

Katsuki threw his Level 5 Imminent Death Glare at Kaminari when he opened his mouth, satisfied with the “eep!” it provoked. “Hurry up then,” he said to the nerd, already walking towards the elevators. Deku fell into step next to him as he always did, and apparently always would, if the quirk was to be believed. Katsuki had to hide another smile at that. He didn’t know exactly what the future held, but if the way the nerd was looking at the floor and smiling uncontrollably, seemingly unknowingly, was any indication - it would be pretty alright.