#we got two packs of cookies both nearly gone in the day they were gotten

[mechawolfie]

someone took ONE of my cookies.

[biggest-stupidhead]

Bad Timing (Levi x reader) Part 10

Summary: How do you tell your friends that you’re falling for your big brother’s best friend? 

Word Count: 4.9 K 

__

The loud buzzing of the tattoo gun was beginning to annoy Levi. The little pricks less annoying than the drone of the machine. He winced as the needle skimmed over a sensitive bit of skin.

"Try not to flinch." Farlan scolded as he readjusted his grip.

"Tch, sorry." Levi apologized through gritted teeth. Farlan reached for a wipe to clean off the excess ink, revealing the nearly finished piece. Like his other tattoos, this one was no different, the design was drawn out in thin delicate lines of ink. He had chosen to get this one on his tricep. Farlan spun his chair around to show Levi the design in the mirror, a flower, more specifically a lily of the valley. More specific yet, the flower for the month of May, the month his mother was born.

He nodded in appreciation a she admired the thin stem that led up to delicate bell shaped petals. The stems faded into a two leaves at the base of the design, they were all that needed to be filled in before the piece was complete.

"It looks good." Levi mused as he stared at the aggravated skin, the black lines were outlined with red angry skin.

"Thanks, I must admit I'm a bit rusty." Farlan chuckled as he leaned in with another wipe to clean the tattoo.

"Could've fooled me." Levi muttered as he turned in his chair to give Farlan better access.

"Let me finish this up and then we can go grab some lunch." Farlan gave the tattoo one last wipe down before he wrapped it in sandiderm. Once he was pleased with his work he tugged off the gloves and tossed them into the trash.

"Sounds good." Levi grunted as he stood up from the chair. Farlan had picked up tattooing as a side hustle, not that he booked many clients. It was more of a hobby for him, but he was rather good at it. As Farlan cleaned up the equipment and packed it back into his bag Levi went into the bathroom to wash up before they left for lunch. Isabel was out with friends, she hadn't been particularly interested in visiting the University with Levi and Farlan.

____

Levi trailed a few paces behind Farlan as they wondered through the sprawling campus. The campus had a dark academic vibe to it, with all the gothic architecture and the snowy lawns. Levi's trip was coming to a close, and he was glad that he had managed to squeeze in the visit. He spoke to an advisor, who was very enthusiastic about him applying. He figured that him coming from a single parent home, being an orphan with dual citizenship and good grades probably looked good for their statistics. So Levi and Farlan left, packets of information that they would need to apply. He decided that he should give Erwin a call, since he would be coming back home on the 26th, he originally intended on coming back after the new year but Hange had convinced him to come back early. Of course it was intended to be a surprise for Erwin and (Y/n), he felt bad for leaving Farlan and Isabel early but he figured that he could make up for the lost time when he got accepted into the University. They would have him all to themselves for four years if everything went according to plan.

"This place looks as good as any." Farlan paused in front of a small pub not too far from campus. Levi shrugged and kicked a chunk of ice out of his way. Farlan held the door open for him as they ducked into the dimly lit bar. The two settled into the barstools facing an impressive stock of alcohol, since it was about three in the afternoon the bar was basically empty save for a scraggly old dude that was mumbling to himself in a booth.

"Come here often?" Levi huffed as he inspected the sticky bar top. Farlan chuckled and waved for the bar tender.

"No actually, but I've heard that it's popular with the uni students." Faralan explained as he waited for the bar tender to finish counting the money in his hands.

"Two gin and tonics please." Farlan asked politely, the bar tender nodded and began to make the drinks.

"So you leave in what five days?" Farlan asked as he grabbed his drink and took a long swig.

"Yeah, sorry it was kind of last minute." Levi apologized, Farlan waved him off dismissively.

"Wait what did you get Isabel for Christmas this year?" Farlan asked as he slammed his already drained glass onto the counter.

"I bought her the DVD set for that one show she likes." Levi answered as he nursed his gin and tonic.

"Ah no way! That's a good one! The veterinary show right?" Farlan gushed, clearly impressed with Levi's choice of gift.

"Yeah that's the one." Levi nodded, a small smirk spreading across his lips.

"She'll love that. I got her some new jeans and a stuffed animal." Farlan shrugged, as he motioned for another drink.

"Not the shittiest choice." Levi mumbled as he brought his glass to his lips.

"Thank you Levi." Farlan held his glass up for a toast, and Levi indulged him, gently tapping his glass against Farlan's. Levi knocked back the rest of his drink before pulling out his phone to check his messages.

"What time should I pick you up from the airport?" Levi pursed his lips in thought before responding to Hange's text.

"Six in the morning."  he typed his response quickly and sent it. He had already planned on arriving early to give himself plenty of time to prepare himself for the annual post Christmas party that your family hosted.

"See you then, don't have too much fun in France!" Hange's reply was instantaneous,  Levi hated to admit it but he missed four-eyes and bushy brows. Hell he even missed Erwin's bratty sister.

_____

You draped your arm over your eyes in a feeble attempt to block out the blinding light that was flooding your living room. Although the snow was pretty, it sure was a bitch when the sun hit it, causing the light to reflect sharply in through the large windows in your living room. It was finally Christmas break, and you were enjoying it to it's fullest, basking in your sweats on the couch. Your mom had just gotten back from grocery shopping and was beginning to set out ingredients for the baking that she had planned to do for the rest of the afternoon. Erwin and Hange had gone ice skating with Mike and Nanaba, and planned to all meet up back at your house to assist your mom with the seasonal baking. Your phone chimed on the coffee table and you stretched to check it.

"Coffee and chill? 🥺" You rolled your eyes at Jean's message. He had been trying to contact you relentlessly for the past week. You had evaded him, not quite ready to confront him about his wrong doings. You ignored his text and instead favored to ask Mikasa if she wanted to come over to bake.

"hey I know it's been a while, but want to come over to bake cookies with me today? You could bring Armin and Eren if you want!" You sighed and dropped your phone back down onto the table with a sigh. You were pleasantly surprised by how quickly she responded.

"What time?"

"an hour?"

"See you then :)"  You smiled at the screen as you read her response. You always thought it was cute how she preferred to use characters instead of emojis when she texted. You decided that a shower would be a good idea since so many people were coming over now, so you hustled up stairs. You were thankful that Hange and Erwin weren't home because they had made a habit of interrupting your showers. Whether it was Hange trying to join you in the shower to "save water" or Erwin coming in to take a massive dump while you were in the shower. So you fully took advantage of your uninterrupted shower time while you could. You took your time, washing your hair and the rest of your body and enjoying the hot water. By the time you were finished the bathroom was cloudy with steam from the hot shower. You wrapped yourself in towel and scurried to your room to change. You pulled on a pair of leggings and a cropped fitted turtleneck. You then proceeded to tug on a faded crew neck to complete the look. You loped down the stairs, but paused about half way down. The sound of shoes being toed off and a coat being hung up made you rethink your decision.

"Oh Kenny! I'm so glad you made it!" Your mom gushed and you bristled. It wasn't that you didn't like Kenny, it was just that you weren't expecting him. It seemed that your house needed to keep an Ackerman on hand at all times because as soon as Levi left Mikasa and Kenny began coming around more frequently. Your mom invited Kenny over for coffee on Sunday mornings and you invited Mikasa over for sleepovers and craft nights.

"Hey sorry I'm late, I brought booze though." Kenny's rough voice felt foreign to your ears. Despite his sudden presence at your house he still felt like a stranger to you. Of course you could only blame yourself here, you tried your best to avoid him and his questions, not sure how you felt about the gruff man. He seemed nice enough but you weren't quick to trust him, Erwin certainly wasn't either.

"Ah (Y/n)! Perfect timing! Come down stairs and say hello." your mom called out, you winced but obeyed, descending the last few steps.

"Hey there kiddo, how's it hangin'?" Kenny drawled as you slunk into the kitchen sheepishly.

"Hey Kenny, I'm good how are you?" You asked politely, aiming to please your mother more than Kenny. The man smiled triumphantly and leaned further back into his seat.

"I'm fantastic." he stated with a smug smirk plastered on his lips.

"Mom, I invited Mikasa, Amrin, and Eren over is that alright?" you asked, dismissing Kenny.

"Yeah of course baby, the more the merrier!" she cooed as she continued to set up the mixer and prop up the cook book.

"So my little niece will be joining us tonight?" Kenny affirmed as he stood to help your mother untangle to cord of the mixer.

"Yeah." you trailed off, not sure if this was good or bad. Although the pair had both been frequenting your house recently, they hadn't run into one another yet. You knew that Levi had a bad relationship with his uncle, so you could only assume that Mikasa's relationship was also just as rocky.

"haven't seen that brat since she was in diapers." Kenny mused as he flipped through the cook book.

"really? Well she sure has grown. Such a lovely young woman." Your mother sighed dreamily as she thought about Mikasa.

"Glad to hear it.." Kenny mumbled as he paused on a gingerbread recipe. Before you could decode the meaning behind his bland tone, the door flew open and Hange sauntered in. Today she was dressed for the weather in a downy parka and leggings with a thick crewneck. Erwin followed close behind, dressed in joggers and a t-shirt, he tended to get hot easily. Mike however was different. Mike was dressed for Arctic temperatures with a thick quarter zip underneath his north face and a pair of denim jeans on his legs. Nanaba wore a quarter zip as well but leggings instead of jeans. You rushed to help them shove their coats into the cramped closet and put snowy shoes over vents to melt off the ice. Soon they were all crowding into the kitchen, Mike was quick to help your mom set out ingredients while Erwin went to light the fireplace. Hange was rushing up the stairs and Nanaba was skimming through the cook book.

Ah yes such a familiar scene. You immediately felt better in the presence of the upperclassmen, Kenny seemed to melt into the background as he watched you all fall into a familiar rhythm. Erwin returned to the kitchen, dusting his hands off as he entered.

"Hey." He greeted you with a slight nod before he stooped to pull a baking sheet out of the cabinets.

"How was ice skating?" you asked as you leaned against the counter near Erwin.

"Cold, we saw Petra and Oluo there." Erwin mused as he sat the sheet down with a clatter.

"Really? Are they a thing?" you quizzed, your interest piqued.

"Couldn't say, wouldn't surprise me though." Erwin shrugged, his large frame pressed against the counter opposite to allow Nanaba to squeeze through.

"I don't know Erwin, last time I spoke to her she seemed pretty fixed on Levi." Nanaba interjected as she stooped to pull out a bowl.

"I thought she was over him. He left her hanging at my house a few months back remember?" Mike reminded Nanaba who pursed her lips in thought.

"Oh yeah I remember that...she was upset." Nanaba agreed as she sat the bowl in front of you on the counter.

"Then why was she with Oluo huh riddle me that." Erwin challenged, a sly smirk on his lips.

"Oh they've always been close, doesn't mean she likes him or anything." Nanaba scoffed.

"Well he sure likes her, saw him checking out her ass." Mike chuckled, your mom gasped and hit him upside the head.

"That's enough you guys! (Y/n), Kenny mix cut this butter up." Your mom ordered, grabbing you by the bicep to drag you over to Kenny at the island. She dropped a huge brick of butter in front of the two of you along with two butter knives.

"Oh I can do it on my own mom." you insisted with wide eyes.

"Nonsense, show Kenny how it's done." she slapped you on the back and turned to help Mike crack eggs into the wet ingredients bowl. You and Kenny shared an uneasy glance, you took the knife and sliced the chunk of butter in half. You slid half to Kenny and took the other half for yourself. You began to slice the butter into thin chunks and drop them into a bowl. Kenny watched with raised brows, the knife hanging loosely in his hand. You spared him a glance and an amused huff.

"Just slice it into chunks and drop them in this bowl." you instructed, pushing the bowl closer to him. He chuckled and then began to tediously cut the butter into uneven chunks. You nodded in approval as he began to gain confidence.

"Where does this go once it's done?" Kenny asked as he finished chopping the butter.

"In the mixer." You directed, as you wiped your hands on a damp rag. The doorbell chimed and you weaved through the kitchen to answer it. You were greeted by the familiar faces of Mikasa, Armin, and Eren. The trio piled into the house and kicked off their shoes and shrugged off jackets.

"Perfect timing guys, we just started making cookies." You said as you helped Armin out of his coat.

"Great! We brought our piping tips." Eren said, holding up a plastic bag filled with piping equipment.

"Oh yeah I forgot that you're a natural at cookie decorating Mikasa!" you complimented as you guided them into the kitchen. You placed the bag next to Kenny who was staring at Mikasa with slightly widened eyes, she returned his gaze with a surprised expression.

"Hey hothead!" Hange called out to Eren in a sing song voice as she descended the stairs.

"O-Oh Hange!" Eren cringed at her volume as she swang into the kitchen.

"Hange!" Armin cried out excitedly, you'd known that Armin looked up to the brunette due to her intelligence.

"Aw hello coconut head." she cooed as she ruffled Armin's blonde mop of hair.

"And baby Ackerman!" Hange giggles, turning her attention to Mikasa who was scowling at the brunette.

"So nice to see you all!" Hange gushed as she pulled on an apron.

"That was an awful long shit. You constipated or something?" Mike scoffed as he whisked the eggs.

"Ha ha very funny Mike." Hange scoffed as she sidled up next to Erwin who was crushing almonds loudly with a rolling pin.

"I'm just trying to pick up the slack. Someone needs to make Levi's crass jokes for him." Mike sighed, setting the whisk aside.

"Ah I'm sure he will appreciate the sentiment." Erwin approved with a chuckle and another jaw-rattling smash of the rolling pin.

"Kids why don't you start rolling this dough out and cut them with these." Your mother instructed as she thrust the large mixing bowl into your hands and pointing over to Kenny. You led Mikasa, Armin, and Eren over to the open counter space. Mikasa was side eyeing Kenny as she sprinkled some flour out.

"I want to make a penis." Eren remarked, a stupid look on his face as he looked to Armin for approval.

"That's inappropriate Eren." Armin chided as he reached for the dough in the bowl. He dropped the heavy ball of dough with a thump and a whoosh of flour.

"Hah! I'd like to see it!" Kenny chortled as he brushed some flour off his shirt.

"See he gets me!" Eren chuckled as Armin began to roll out the dough. Mikasa and you both rolled your eyes at the boys. Nanaba breezed by and brushed her hand across both yours and Mikasa's shoulders as she passed.

"You girls want pizza?" She asked with an angelic smile as she stopped by the landline.

"Yes please!" Eren answered before either of you could.

"Shut up Eren!" You snapped before turning to look at Nanaba who was holding the phone up to her ear already.

"Yes please Nanaba, can you put pineapple on one of them?" you asked with a sweet smile.

"Ew pineapple on pizza are you insane?!" Hange screeched from across the kitchen.

"Now now, if you order one with pineapple I'll eat it." Kenny agreed as he pressed a cookie cutter deep into the dough.

"Ugh, you guys are disgusting." Mike shook his head in disappointment as he poured the liquid ingredients into the dry ones for the next batch of cookies.

"Alright everyone be quiet while I order this." Nanaba ordered as she pressed the phone between her ear so she could jot down the orders on a pad of paper. The volume in the kitchen fell from a roar to a soft murmur as Nanaba placed the order. Once Nanaba hung up the phone the bustle picked right back up. The cookie hustle only stopped once all the dough was in the oven and the pizza had arrived.

When it was all said and done you all settled in the living room to watch christmas movies and eat pizza. As the movie began to play you finally took some time to check your phone for the first time all afternoon. You were surprised to see at least twenty messages on instagram from a swagmasterfarlan. You clicked on the first message and your frown deepened.

"cutte assf."  

"Let me show you parish"

"I cantreat you right."

":)"

The seventeen other messages followed a similar pattern. You noticed that the last message that had been sent two hours ago. You glanced at the clock and frowned, it was already eight pm. You considered blocking the account but upon checking, you realized that it was Farlan's  side account. You'd seen drunk texts before and these were no different. You glanced up to see Kenny with his hat over his eyes as he snored on the arm chair. Your mom was already dozing off on the couch with her feet in Erwin's lap, Erwin had an arm around Hange who was babbling about special effects to no one in particular. Nanaba and Mike were in their own little world on the floor as they watched the movie. Eren and Armin were joking in hushed voices as Mikasa's head lolled against your shoulder. Yeah you could use some entertainment.

"I would love to see parish."  you smiled at your response as you sent it. Not two minutes later a new message appeared.

"Woh, I'm durnk as shit."  

"yes you are swagmaster ;)" you responded with a giggle.

"Let facetime before levi punches my face."  Farlan's words were becoming clearer so you figured that he must be sobering up to some degree.

"Alright."  as soon as the read receipts confirmed that he had gotten the message your phone buzzed as he called you. Mikasa grunted as you shifted to answer the call, you answered on the third ring, thankful for the darkness in the room which concealed your features for the most part.

"Heyyyyy kid!" Farlan drawled, you could tell he was in his apartment, the surroundings familiar due to the times you had facetimed Levi.

"Hey Farlan, nice to finally meet you. I've heard all kinds of things." You chuckled as he squinted at his screen.

"No kidding! Hey what time is it over there?" Farlan questioned as he brought his phone closer to his face, giving you a perfect view of his eyebrows.

"It's about 8:30 here, what time is it in perish?" You mocked his blunder from earlier and he gasped in offense.

"That's cold!" he moaned, playing along with your joke.

"Spell it right next time!" you snickered, you glanced up from your phone and met Hange's curious gaze, her head tilted to the left. When you returned your attention back to your phone you were surprised to see the camera was no longer on Farlan's face. Instead it was spinning, the sound of grunting and shuffling was deafening. You winced the struggle continues for a few moments before there was a thud and a deep groan.

"Get into bed now before I punch your lights out." Levi's voice was gravely and strained with exhaustion as he spoke. Hange's ears were still perked as she tried to figure out who you were on the phone with. Once she heard Levi's voice she stood up and skipped over to the sofa to sit next to you.

"I'm serious Farlan this isn't cute get the fuck in that bed or so help me-" the phone clattered down to the floor, and you could make out the sound of stumbling footsteps.

"What is going on?" Hange asked as she leaned on your free shoulder to see the screen. You shrugged and bit your lip as you tried to decipher what was going on.

"No Levi, I've got to talk to her, she's still on the phone!" Farlan grumbled, his voice sounded a bit far away.

"You can talk to her tomorrow just go lay down already." just by the tone of his voice you could guess that he was pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was frustrated.

"nah I'll just go grab my phone and-"

"No." the sound of bed springs creaking and Farlan grunting hinted that he had been pushed onto a bed. After a few more moments of the bed creaking and incoherent mumbling, the sound of footsteps approached the phone and then finally the camera was turned back towards the ceiling as it was picked up. And then Levi's face filled the screen, his eyes widened in surprise, you snapped a screenshot of the moment much to his displeasure.

"What the fuck." he huffed as he took in both you and Hange's amused expressions.

"Hey Levi! How's it going?" Hange cooed as she angled your wrist to show more of her face.

"How-"

"He called me." You answered quickly as you angled the phone back onto your face.

"why?" Levi interrogated. You simply shrugged as you took in his face. You were relieved to see that he looked the same, maybe his eye bags were a bit darker, and his hair a tad longer. But otherwise, he was the same.

"What are you doing?" Levi continued to grill you, to answer his question you panned the camera around the room, sure to not linger on Kenny who was snoring in the chair across the room.

"Thrilling." he scoffed when you brought the camera back to your face.

"Yeah, we spent the day baking. What about you? Seems like you guys are busy." You began your own interrogation.

"Yeah, Farlan had one too many at the bar." Levi agreed as he dropped down into an arm chair with a heavy sigh.

"And you? Did you have anything to drink?" Hange asked with a sly smirk. Levi's brow creased at her suggestive tone.

"If you must know, no I did not drink.... a lot." he answered.

"Lucky, I wish I was drunk right now." you sighed wistfully.

"I never said I was drunk." Levi clarified.

"Any big plans for your birthday Levi?" You asked, quick to change the subject.

"No, just dinner and gifts." Levi replied with a shrug as he sank into the chair.

"That sounds nice." you smiled, Hange dropped her head to your shoulder, her chin digging into your shoulder as she did so. Levi shrugged and averted his gaze for a moment.

"Where's Isabel?" Hange asked as here eyes scanned the background, which was too dark to really reveal anything.

"In her room playing some stupid video game." Levi scoffed as he cocked his head in the direction which you assumed Isabel's room was.

"Fun." Hange mused as she closed her eyes.

"And you? What are your plans for Christmas?" Levi's question surprised you, but you still answered.

"Same as always, gifts in the morning, breakfast, hopefully be plastered by 2." you sighed, Levi scoffed at your answer but seemed satisfied.

"What about the 26th?" Levi asked carefully. you pursed your lips as you thought about your schedule.

"Hmm well I'm not sure, probably-"

"Oh I forgot to tell you, Annie is hosting a party and asked me if you'd come." Mikasa's sleepy voice startled you.

"Really? Huh that's weird. Are you going?" you asked, tilting your face down to speak to her.

"Yeah. We're smoking weed." Mikasa mumbled, her eyes still shut.

"Guess I'll go too." you shrugged. Meanwhile Hange and Levi shared a wide-eyed glance, this could throw off their plans. More specifically Hange's plans, even more specifically her plan to set you and Levi up.

"Weed?" Levi asked, clearing his throat after the word fell from his lips. You knew that he had smoked the stuff in the past, but recently he had stuck to his juul and the occasional dab pen.

"yeah, Annie has like 30 grams right now." Mikasa answered.

"I've never smoked weed before." you mused, excitement bubbling up in your chest at the thought of the chance for a new experience.

"Eh it's okay." Mikasa shrugged.

"Guess I'll just have to try it for myself." you teased, nudging her with your shoulder.

"Guess you will." Mikasa mumbled before falling silent once more.

"Well there you have it. I'm going to Annie's on the 26th." you smiled as you answered Levi's original question. With the 26th only three days away, it gave you something to look forward to.

"Fine. Do  what you want." Levi rolled his eyes and stood from his chair, his whole vibe seemed to change. You wondered if it had been something you'd said or if he was just growing bored.

"I've got to go. Farlan's phone is almost dead." Levi said as he walked through the apartment.

"Oh well it was nice-" before you could finish he had already hung up, or the phone had died.

"Classic Levi." Hange chuckled as she rose up, stretching her stiff muscles before returning to Erwin's side. You rolled your eyes and sat your phone down in defeat. You reached behind you for a throw blanket to cover you and Mikasa, you shuffled over a bit so you were snuggled between the arm of the couch and Mikasa, who had followed you. Using the arm as a pillow you lied down as much as you could with Mikasa still using your side as a pillow, she had stretched out as well to prop her feet up in Eren's lap. Eren was already passed out, his head leaning against Armin's shoulder, who was in a similar position to you. It was nice, you hadn't made much time for nights like these recently. Since you had spent most of your time with Jean you had neglected your friends, and you felt awful about it.

You had missed them deeply, in fact this had probably been the longest you'd gone without a weekend like this. Your family had been close to the Jeagers since you were babies. Your mom and Dr. Jeager both worked at the same hospital and often worked together, they had only grown closer when your father died of cancer when you were 9. Grisha and Carla had helped your mother our a lot the months following his death. Meaning you spent a lot of time with Eren and Mikasa, and by extension Armin. That same year was when they took in Mikasa since Kenny had been deemed "unfit" for a second child in his care. You assumed that the Jeagers would be coming over for Lunch like they always did on Christmas, as well as Armin and his grandfather. You felt your eyelids grow heavy as you thought about all the preparations that were needed for you to host this year, and before you knew it you had fallen asleep.

[harrypotter-imaginess]

A/N: This was a request by @fiiiinewine . Mentions of charector death for Hogwarts Mystery and canon. It’s a little angsty, but overall it’s pretty good. Takes place maybe 1-3 years after the seventh book. Hope you like it!

- Molly wraps you up in a warm hug the second she opens the door.

- “Mum I’m here too.” Charlie adds, and she just shushes him.

- She pats him on the shoulder before leading you both inside. The house is completely spotless. Which you don’t doubt is because Molly’s been tirelessly cleaning.

- “Anything to eat dear? Must have been a long journey.”

- And before you can even answer she grabs both of your arms and gives a tender squeeze.

- “Thin as bones,” she mutters. “What are they feeding you in Romania? Broth?”

- “I mean, yeah, there’s always soup.”

- And she clicks her tongue.

- “Soup isn’t proper food dear, it isn’t even proper food before a meal.”

- You laugh and assure her that you’re eating enough and everything is fine.

- “What about me Mum, I eat the same things as (Y/N) does.” Charlie mocks hurt at the lack of attention.

- Molly just rolls her eyes.

- “You’ll be fine, you and Bill once “went camping” with pack of biscuits for a week and came back even plumper then you were when you left.”

- Charlie just rolls his eyes and takes your bags up the stairs. And you go with Molly to the kitchen.

- “Molly do you need help with anything?” Long have the days gone where you call her Mrs. Weasley and she tells you “Call me Molly!”

- “Oh please, call me Mom, you and Charlie have been together long enough.” She says with a wave of her hand and you almost laugh. Somethings don’t change.

- You stand beside her in the small kitchen measuring ingredients for for cookies.

- “So when are you and Charlie thinking of giving me some grandchildren?” She’ll ask, and you stutter to a stop, nearly dropping the measuring cup as you do.

- “I-I think you should ask Bill and Fleur that first shouldn’t you?”

- “Just because he’s the oldest?” She asks, a corner of her mouth quirking up.

- “Well, also because they’re married.” And she scoffs.

- “It’s the 21st century (Y/N), marriage doesn’t mean what it used to.” She shrugs, taking the measuring cup full of flour you’ve extended towards her.

- You never thought that Molly Weasley would have such progressive views. She’s been a fairly traditional homemaker and housewife for much of her adult life.

- “Besides Bill has shifted back to Egypt to work on his curses, not a stable environment for a child right now.�� You smile, also too far away for Molly to go visit everyday.

- “Well you’ve always got Percy.” You day with a chuckle, earning a scoff from her.

- “With the formality between those two it’ll be years before I even see them hold hands, let alone a baby.”

- And you both laugh at that.

- Before she can talk more about marriage or babies or any other topic you are completely unprepared for, Charlie comes bumbling through the door.

- “Making cookies?” He asks with a raised eyebrow, pulling out a spoon from the drawer before dipping it into the mixing bowl.

- “Without me? Your beloved son who loves baking more than anything in the world?” He smirks as his mother hits him with a wooden spoon lightly, taking a bite of raw sugar cookie dough.

- “What can I do, you love helping so much you always polish it off before I can even bake it.” Her words are stern, but you can see the cheerful twinkle in her eyes.

- She hits him again with the spoon and he laughs.

- “Well I’ll have to take over for (Y/N), Dad’s outside ecstatic that they’re here.”

- You nod, a grin spreading across your face. You’ve been expecting to talk to him about muggles ever since you arrived.

- You pull of your apron, and hand it to Charlie, exchanging a warm look as you do.

- You vaguely hear: “It’s like they’re already part of the family” and you feel a smile spread across your face.

- Arthur is in the living room, scanning a newspaper. And he smiles wide when he see’s you.

- He stands and envelops you in a warm hug, and you note how he smells like old books and honeysuckle.

- “So good to see you, how’ve you been?”

- And you tell him that you’re doing well. That life in Romania is good, that Charlie seems happy. And he smiles.

- “So when are you two planning on getting married.” And you practically choke on your tea.

- “You know your wife just asked me a similar question in the kitchen.” You laugh, but feel a hear creeping up your neck.

- “Oh she’s my wife and no one to you?” He jokes. “That’s your future mother-in- law you know.”

- You can’t help but laugh.

- Charlie’s in the kitchen, rolling the cookie dough out, sprinkling some more flour on top.

- “Are we the first ones here?” He asks, and Molly nods.

- “Ginny, Harry and George will be here tonight, Ron and Percy will be here tomorrow.” She waves her wand, and the rolling pin begins to move on his own.

- “Spent too long in Romania, you’ve forgotten you can use magic.” She chuckles, and Charlie laughs as well as he blushes.

- “(Y/N) always does it by hand so I didn’t realize.” He murmurs, and Molly smiles.

- Charlie’s freckled face is practically glowing red, his dark red hair cut clean, his beard well trimmed. He looks good.

- “You know, (Y/N) would make someone a fine (Daughter/Son) in law.” And Charlie has to stifle the urge to roll his eyes.

- “They don’t want to get married yet Mum.” He mumbles, grabbing a cookie cutter to press shapes into the dough.

- Molly Weasley’s mouth purses into a long straight line.

- “They don’t want to get married yet, or you don’t?” It’s a pointed question, but her tone is soft.

- A long moment of silence falls between them.

- “They feel strange getting married without Jacob or their parents being there.” Charlie finally breaks the silence.

- “And I feel strange getting married without Fred being there too.” This part leaves much softer, and Molly’s mouth begins to relax into small smile.

- “I suppose I should just be glad Bill had the common sense to get married before.” And Charlie almost scoffs.

- “Is that what we’re calling it? Because at the time I remember seeing you tangled in Christmas lights, muttering “the things you do for love””

- Molly lightly shoves her son and they both laugh.

- When the others arrive is when the fun really starts.

- Warm hugs are passed all around.

- Ginny practically squeals when she see’s you.

- “You’ve gotten so thin! And your hair is so shiny!” She looks at you with wide eyes, expecting to divulge all your secrets but you just shrug.

- “Air in Romania is very clean.” Is the best you can offer.

- Harry offers a polite hug, and George practically wrestles you into a headlock with his bear hug.

- “I’ve got some Products I need your advice on!” He says with a big grin, and you smile back.

- “We’ll stay up after they’ve all gone to bed” You nod.

- There’s hot cocoa, and games of wizard chess, jokes and laughter.

- And you smile when Charlie grabs your hand and gives a tight squeeze.

- You and Charlie are split up when the sleeping arrangements are being made. He’s taken away by a grumbling George, who’s wrapped his arms around his shoulders

- “(Y/N) would be better but you’ll have to test out some new products I’m working on.”

- You and Ginny share her room, sleeping side by side on the bed.

- “Are you and Charlie ever going to get married?” She asks, and you can’t help but let out a groan.

- “Oh not you too!”

- She props up on an elbow

- “It’s a serious question you know, how long have you been dating anyway?”

- And you have to use your fingers to count the years.

- “Hmm eight? No maybe nine.” And Ginny huffs

- “Don’t you think that’s long enough?”

- You sigh, Ginny’s so much younger then you. She may not understand.

- “Well for a few years we were long distance you know.” You tell her, through the dark room you can make out one of her bright red eyebrows raised.

- You sigh again. Might as well be honest.

- “For a while we actually were thinking about it.” You admit, and even through the dark you can see her perk up. “But then-“ you have to still your breath.

- “But then Jacob passed away,” you finally manage, and the words don’t hurt like they used to. “And then my parents,” And this doesn’t seem to hurt as much either. “And then Fred.” You whisper. This one, this wound is still fresh. And you know it’s fresh for her too.

- She doesn’t say anything back.

- Her hand tangles in your own and gives it a firm squeeze.

- The silence is only broken when she says:

- “So no nieces or nephews either then? You don’t need to be married to have kids you know.”

- They really are family

- You just roll your eyes.

- “Maybe we’ll bring home a dragon or something. Molly can knit it a sweater and everything.”

- The next day starts late and lazy, all gathered around the table having a simple breakfast of toast and fruit, glasses of juice and coffee traded along the table.

- You practically run towards him when Bill comes home.

- “You smell like a tomb.” You tel him and he grins.

- “Better than when we were in the cursed vaults at least.” He grins back.

- Fleur kisses both your cheeks and you giggle.

- “‘Ow ‘as Romania been?” She asks, squeezing your arms. “You ‘ave lost weight, yes?”

- Everyone in this family,

- you suppress a giggle as she moves to Charlie. His perplexed expression as she kisses each of his cheeks as well.

- “You know Bill, I still don’t get how you pulled that one off.”

- “Neither do I.” He admits.

- Percy arrives last with Ron, and gives you an awkward hug. Ron giving you a slightly warmer hug, blushing and asking you about the cursed vaults.

- You all stay up until midnight, reminiscing about your days at school. Sharing mugs of tea and cocoa, smiling and joking.

- You exchange gifts at midnight. You get another sweater from Molly, but you don’t miss the way she snatches the significantly smaller sweater she knitted with “W” on it, out of the bag before you notice.

- You give Arthur a stack of muggle encyclopedias , and a warm coat from Romania

- George gives you a bag full of candy and several “Weasley’s Fire Crackers”

- You give him a bag full of Romanian prank shop goods.

- “Hey Charlie what does this say?”

- “I donno mate, but if you use it you’ll find out yeah?”

- You give Ginny a chic overcoat she can wear for colder days on the quidditch pitch.

- “How come this says it’s from you and Charlie?” She asks, and you shrug.

- “Charlie just put his name on it after you got it didn’t he?”

- “Yeah, pretty much.”

- You give Percy a first edition copy of his favorite book, and almost smile when you see his expression. He almost reminds you of the boy you knew in school.

- Ron gets a quidditch jersey, and you give Harry an enchanted pen.

- “A pen?” He asks, he’s not complaining. It’s a nice pen, he’s gotten quite tired of the quills these days.

- “An enchanted pen, you need a strand of hair from someone. And wherever you write on your body, will show up in the same spot on them.”

- “So you know, if you and Ginny are ever apart, you can always send her a message.”

- You did it more for Ginny then for him really. You remember the thrill you felt when you first saw Charlie’s chicken scratch handwriting on your arm after being apart for months.

- Bill gives you an enchanted mirror from Egypt, so you can see whatever it is you want to look at.

- “Let’s be honest Bill, this is really more for Charlie so he can look at the Dragons in the middle of the night without waking me.”

- “It’s for you too, now you won’t have to get up and go with him”

- Fleur give you French perfume and hand cream.

- “Something you ‘vil actually use.”

- You laugh and smile, and grin as you exchange gifts and try them on. Tease each other and blow up fireworks in the backyard.

- It’s only at three in the morning, when everyone else is snug in bed, that you tip toe out of bed. Careful not to wake Ginny.

- Charlie’s already waiting for you downstairs, his eyes bloodshot as he takes a sip of Father’s fire whisky.

- “How is it, that even though we are in the same house, I feel like I’ve seen you for about thirty minutes in the past two days.” He mumbles, his face in your hair, letting out a deep sigh as he presses a kiss to your forehead.

- You settle beside him, your head on his shoulder.

- “Maybe I’d spend more time with you if you actually got me a Christmas present.” You smile teasingly as you rest your chin on his chest, gazing up to look at him.

- You feel his hand tangle with yours, his hands playing with your fingers.

- “I thought you said no gifts this year?” He grins back teasingly, but his eyes are focused on your hand.

- “Well we kinda broke the bank with everyone else’s.” You chuckle, and take a deep breath, taking in his scent.

- Even after all these years he still smells like honeysuckle and grass. He smells like home.

- You shut your eyes, taking in his scent and his warmth. Nearly humming in pleasure. When you feel something cold and hard touch the tip of your ring finger.

- Your eyes open, as you feel it slide down to the base of you finger, where your finger and palm meet.

- you glance down to see a rather remarkable diamond ring sparkling on your finger.

- Charlie holds you close, one arm around your shoulders, while the other hand rests over yours.

- “So what do you say? I feel like we’ve been married for a while now really, why don’t we make it official.”

- You just smile.

[psychedellic-phase]

Fifteen (pt 13)

(gif by me! I use the iphone app momento)

tw: language, angst, mentions of drug use (relapse), mentions of miscarriage

word count: 7.3k (im sorry)

masterlist

series masterlist

Spencer got up from the cold tile floor, fuzzy unicorn in hand, and faced the window above the kitchen sink. He stared out of it, admiring the snow that was still falling lightly, wondering if it was raining in Seattle. His memory flashed to the last time he stood in the rain with you, but he tried to shake the images away. Instead he watched the snowflakes hit his windowpanes and melt. He hoped that maybe you were somewhere staring out of a window, admiring the dreary weather, and thinking of him too. 

He found his place against the dishwasher again, sliding down as his mismatched socks gave way so he could stretch his long legs out fully. He pulled the nearly empty box onto his lap and appreciated the light weight of it, as he continued with his twelfth letter and thirteenth item. Thirteen, a number whose history of unluckiness stems all the way back to the thirteen attendees of the Last Supper, and tracks through the number of steps leading up to the gallows, all the way to the number of letters in the names of some of the most infamous criminals. 

Thirteen was a haunted number, which rightly accompanied a haunting letter. 

“This one’s long. It’s a month of tarnished memories packed into a few pieces of paper. So far I’ve gone through half of a college-ruled one subject notebook and I’ve had to change pens twice. It’s nearing 2:30, and the wine is finally hitting my empty stomach. Sorry in advance for the way my handwriting will be. I’ll try to make this make as much sense as I can. 

If you look at your thirteenth item it is the notepad I stole from that resort in Florida. There isn’t much around to signify this letter. You don’t keep mementos from one of the saddest days of your life, but for some reason I took this useless paper and shoved it in my purse on my way out. Good thing I did, or you’d have no item to attach to these memories. Though I suppose that might be better. 

The resort was where we were going to be at for our ‘babymoon,’ whatever that is. What a dumb idea, I’m still mad at myself for letting Garcia talk us into one. She just made it sound so appealing. 

Once everyone knew I was pregnant, Hotch pretty much sat me in Quantico with Penelope. There were a few local cases where I was lucky enough to go visit the ME’s office, but usually I kicked my feet up in her lair while you were out in the field. 

“A what?” I said one day as she ran DNA through CODIS. The two of us were drinking herbal tea, and I was barely 16 weeks. I just looked like I had a big lunch in my stomach, not a baby the size of an avocado. 

“A babymoon. It’s like a honeymoon, but you go when you’re pregnant. It’s one last trip for mommy and daddy to go on and spend quality time together. How many trips have you and Dad-Wonder even been on?”

I shrugged. We didn’t travel much for pleasure. We traveled for work, so on our rare days off we liked to be at home. 

“I mean we’ve gone to Vegas and Connecticut a few times.”

She rolled her eyes, “Visiting family, my dear, is not a vacation! I was thinking you two would go to the beach. You guys relax and wade in the ocean and Spencer can build sandcastles that defy every law of physics!”

I laughed at that. You and the beach? It just didn’t feel natural to me. Probably because you aren’t capable of actually relaxing.  

“That does sound fun,” I said and I spoke to my barely there stomach, “And it would make daddy take a few days off.”

Penelope squealed and started clicking at her computer, “I’ll find a resort online right now! Okay so how about Marco Island? It’s gorgeous and in Florida, so it’ll be like eighty and sunny, even in the beginning of December.”

“I’ll have to talk to Spence about it. I mean I know it would be fun and all but we really should be saving money for a crib, and car seat, and bassinet, and high chair, and a rocking chair, and a baby swing, and a—“

Garcia stopped me from spiraling out of control, “That is why you throw a huge baby shower! People buy those things for you.”

I rubbed my tummy again, “Oh no, Daddy is very particular about what things are bought.”

“That’s why you have a registry, Momma Bear. Now, no more excuses.”

Before I could even call you, she had put in both of our requests for days off and we had a week long reservation at this fancy resort that you see listed at the top of this notepad, the “Crystal Cove”.  

I was only slightly mortified that she did all this without me asking you. Mostly, I was happy. I was afraid you wouldn’t say yes, but if PG already booked it, you kind of had to agree. And to my surprise, you did. 

When you got back from that case we were at home, you eating something I had poorly made from a random cookbook on a shelf. I had decided to start cooking more, so I could make homemade meals. I wanted to be that mom who cuts sandwiches into flower shapes and always has fresh baked bread and cookies laying around. I wanted us to be those parents; the ones who are so sickeningly in love that their kids roll their eyes every time they kiss. We were those parents, kind of, if we could even be considered ‘parents.’ At that point, I don’t think we were. But we were definitely in tooth-rotting, sickeningly sweet love. 

“So, I have a surprise for you,” I said, coming up behind you and rustling your hair. 

“Hm?” You said, stuffing your face like you hadn’t eaten in days. You probably hadn’t. You’re the king of forgetting to eat. Maybe that’s how you stay so skinny. 

“I booked a trip, well I guess technically Garcia did.”

“A trip?” You raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, a trip, to the beach. Penelope called it a ‘babymoon.’”

You laughed, “A babymoon? I’m not familiar."

I smiled and sat across from you, “It’s like a honeymoon, except it's just me and you relaxing and spending quality time together before this lil dude makes his appearance.”

You smiled, “I’m telling you, it’s a girl.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s definitely a boy, but stop ignoring my offer.”

“Well, it’s not really an offer so much as it is you telling me that we’re doing this.”

“Okay, yes Garcia helped me book it already, and yes she put in our requests for days off, but you can say no.”

You did your little nose twitch scrunch thing, “I’d never say no to quality time with you, Love.”

You leaned over and kissed me, and I squealed, “I’m so excited! I have to buy maternity bathing suits now! Oh and a sunhat!””

Spencer smiled fondly, recounting that day. He was thrilled to go, minus the part where he’d have to wear shorts, and flip flops. Something about the piece that goes between your toes makes him squeamish. He was looking for the right opportunity to use something special he had bought for you, and you had just given him it. A week on a beautiful beach with the love of his life? That would be the perfect time to ask you what he had been waiting to ask you since JJ’s wedding. He was going to take Hotch’s advice; stop waiting, start doing, and get down on one knee with a blue velvet box. 

He never got the chance to. The trip was supposed to be in the beginning of December, around your week twenty-four. You never got that far. 

He got up from the ground, immediately digging around in a drawer full of pencils and compasses and rulers, finding the blue box in a corner. It was covered in pencil shavings and dust. He hadn’t looked at it in months. He held it delicately in his hands before opening it. 

It was plain, but he remembered you said that was what you wanted. 

“Oval, of course and silver,” You had explained to Penelope and JJ at a night out years ago. Derek and Spencer sat on the opposite side of the table, but his ears perked up at the mention of rings. 

“I like just the band,” JJ said, admiring her own ring, “And I have Henry’s birthstone, the citrine, so I didn’t need another one.”

“What kind of stone Y/N? I’d love a pink diamond! Or a ruby! Imagine!” Penelope gushed. 

You shook your head, “I’d take cubic zirconia, if it was coming from the right guy.”

Both Penelope and JJ stuck their tongues out, “Nuh-uh!” Garcia said, grabbing her phone to scroll through more pinterest photos. 

“Spence will be getting you a diamond.”

You rolled your eyes and whispered, “Don’t jinx it JJ! And I don’t want a diamond.”

Her mouth dropped, “No diamond? Really.”

“Diamonds aren’t ethically sourced.”

“Lab grown! Get lab grown!” PG piped it, showing you a picture of a ring, just an oval in a plain silver setting. 

“That! That’s the one!” You said and Garcia giggled, going on a rant about her dream wedding. 

Spencer had gotten that exact ring. Lab grown, oval, classic, beautiful. It was what you wanted, and you deserved everything you ever wanted. 

Spencer looked at the notepad. He could tell you had a hard time picking an item for this letter. He knows this letter is the end, the other two are the epilogue of  a story he wishes you kept writing. Crystal Cove is the place where he had planned on asking you to marry him, but it ended up being the place where your love story ended. He tossed the notebook to the side and decided that the souvenir for this letter was now going to be this ring. This ring that sparkled and shined, even in the dull incandescent lights of his kitchen. This ring that belonged on your finger, and not in the back of a drawer. This ring that you didn’t even know existed, but if you had, maybe you’d still be together. 

“I did buy three maternity bathing suits, and you bought shorts. Spencer Reid in shorts. It was going to be the best trip ever. We were going to snorkel and look at sea turtles and sunbathe and drink virgin piña coladas by the ocean. We were going to get couples massages and spend every moment loving and appreciating each other.

The actual trip? Much different than the one we had planned on paper, but let’s first discuss that time between the hospital and the trip. 

It was four weeks. Four weeks of me sitting at home while you were off at work. Four weeks of the door opening and Derek walking through, not you. And on the odd chance that it was you opening the door, you’d be appearing at odd hours of the night to grab a new suit or a file or a snack and then getting back in your shitty car and going to your apartment. Each time I heard that comforting sound of your satchel hitting the floor, I’d crawl out of the cave of blankets I was in to find you, and you’d act like I wasn’t even there. 

For the first few days, you asked me how I was and if I was feeling better, then you’d check your phone and wave goodbye. After that, I was lucky if you’d say hello, then I was lucky if I even got a glimpse of you. You never held me. You never kissed me. You never told me you loved me.

I got all my information about you from Derek. Every day I texted you, “Have a good day at work! Talk soon?” And everyday you didn’t answer, so I’d ask Derek if you were okay. He’d always tell me what you were doing. Usually you would take a stack of files of cases to a dark room and make preliminary profiles to send back to the departments, alone. I’d tell him thank you, and the next day would be the same nonsense. 

Those four weeks dragged. It was like every minute was an hour and everyday was a year. I was healing, even without you, everyday I felt better and better. But that’s relative to the day before. I haven’t felt ‘good’ yet. I haven’t felt ‘happiness’ yet. But I will. And I’m counting on that. 

My mandatory leave was four weeks, and at the end of that Hotch called me in for a ‘mandatory psychological evaluation.’ I didn’t tell you about it because you weren’t speaking to me, and even when you did you were angry and snappy and rude.  

I didn’t pass the evaluation. Even though the BAU wrote those damn questions, I still didn’t pass. When my four weeks were up, you were expecting me at work, and I never showed. You didn’t notice how not okay I was because you were too busy handling your own feelings, which I understand. You have to take care of yourself first, deal with your own trauma before touching anyone else’s. So, your trauma was none of my business, a concept you should've applied to my healing process. 

I was supposed to come back on a Monday and when I didn’t show you came to the house. You opened the door and yelled my name. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in weeks, and it felt good. I thought you had finally come home. I thought you were finally ready to heal with me, but you weren’t. You were there to judge me.

I think I ran to where you were, a smile on my face that I didn’t think I was capable of making, “Hey!”

You looked so put together in a neatly pressed suit, but your eyes exposed you. They were bloodshot and the bags were so large they almost reached the end of your nose. I had on one of your shirts; it was comforting at the time. Not so much anymore.  

You looked me up and down, a small scowl forming on your face, “Where were you today?”

I took a deep breath, and I lied, because lying to you felt easier than telling you the truth. The truth that I was not deemed stable enough to come back, even though I wanted to. I needed to be distracted. I was ashamed, scared, confused. 

“I-I didn’t go.”

“Didn’t go? You’ll get fired Y/N.”

I sighed, “No, my leave got extended.”

I could feel the way your eyes bore into my skull as I dodged eye contact. 

“Extended?! It’s been four weeks.”

“I’m not ready!” I desperately wanted you to see through it. I thought I was ready, but the papers disagreed.

“Hotch let you do that?” Your voice was increasing and I found myself inching away from you.

“He encouraged it!” Another lie. He didn’t ‘encourage’ it. He forced me.

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your bag and opening the door again.

“You’re leaving? Spencer c’mon I-”

You cut me off by slamming that door in my face. 

That’s when I started closing myself off. I started dreading the sound of your feet against the floor at three am. I started to put my own walls up, but they would dull in comparison to the Great Wall of Spencer you built around yourself to keep me out.”

Spencer was always good at putting walls up. In fact, you were the only person to ever get him to take (almost) all of them down. There’s a side of him he doesn’t show anyone, a side of him that he reserves for himself, and when something happens, that’s where he goes. He goes to the corner of his brain where he feels safe, and the walls come up to protect him.

And in those last four weeks, he did just that. He put the walls up, shut you out, and decided that was better. Except it wasn’t better, it just was easier. It was easier for him to bypass you and find a new outfit for work tomorrow. It was easier for him to disappear in the office until the odd hours of the morning. It was easier for him to hide away from you, because when he’s exposed he always gets hurt. It was easier to act like everything was fine, even though everything was the opposite of fine. 

He never needed to go to the house, part of him was drawn there like a moth to a lantern. He was drawn to you. As much as he didn’t want to see those four walls, he still needed to check on you. He just did it in his own damaged way. He’d get a glimpse of you in old sweats and a shirt with a hole in it, hair a mess and mascara from two weeks ago adding to your eye bags and he’d be reminded that he couldn’t be there for you. He would never be enough, and he’d retreat into the comfort of solitude. 

He was so preoccupied with being hurt, that he didn’t realize just how much he hurt you too. 

“I had forgotten about the stupid trip, and so had you. You were too preoccupied with work and not speaking to me and I was preoccupied with crying and trying to speak to you. I only remembered the trip when I got an email from the airline about the flight, they had to move our seats or something stupid. I decided that was a reason for you to actually need to speak to me like I was a person, so I took advantage of it. 

I intercepted you at home one day. I had been sitting in the kitchen waiting for you. You came home at two am. 

“Hey,” I said, immediately as you walked through the door. You looked surprised that I was up. 

“Hi, I’m just gonna—“

“Spencer, stop. We have to talk.”

You crossed your arms, not leaving the threshold of the door, “No. I told you a million times Y/N, I don’t want to talk.”

“Not about...” I couldn’t find the words and you started up the stairs. 

“Are we going on this damn trip or not?” I said, my voice cracking from lack of use. 

You stopped, looking over the banister at me, “You didn’t cancel it?”

“I didn’t think of it until now. We’re supposed to leave in two days.”

You groaned, “Why didn’t you cancel it?”

I threw my hands up. As if all of this was my responsibility? 

 “I was preoccupied! Did you cancel your days off?”

You shook your head, rubbing your face, “No, God. Can we still get a refund?”

I was hurt that you didn’t want to go, but not surprised. As I stared at the front door from my spot at the kitchen table I decided that I was going to go no matter what. It was going to be refreshing to look at the ocean instead of an empty nursery. That would be my distraction.

 “I-I’m going. I’ll pay for your half, but I’m going. I’m losing my mind here, Spence.”

You looked at me again, still contemplating your options. 

“I get it, okay? You can’t be in this house, but neither can I. Maybe we can talk and stuff on neutral ground. I-I just want you there with me, the way it was supposed to be.”

Then you took me by surprise, you nodded, “Yeah, yeah we’ll go.”

I’m sure I lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, “Really?”

You rubbed your eyes, “Yeah, we can go Y/N.”

I was feeling lucky, so I pushed it, too hard, “Are you staying tonight?”

Your voice went from sleepy to sour, “No.”

And you vanished up the stairs, taking all my hope in us with you. 

I knew deep down it wouldn’t end well. I knew it was going to be fighting and yelling and arguing, but any time with you was good time with you at that point. And I favored the little bit of serotonin and dopamine you flood my brain with as opposed to staring at the gray walls of the kitchen alone.”

Spencer only agreed to go because he thought he was getting there. Everyday he felt a little better when he’d walk through the door, but he still wasn’t ready. He thought a week of no work and no one to talk to except you would bring the walls down. This would finally be the catalyst in a reaction that was taking far too long to complete. He also couldn’t stand the thought of you flying and spending a week alone. He felt better about you being alone here because you weren’t really alone. You had Derek visiting, Garcia dropping off baskets, phone calls from Emily, the odd visit from Rossi, and apparently phone calls to Hotch, but on that island you’d really be alone, and he was worried about how you’d handle it. 

“So two days later we got on a three hour flight to Miami, and I drove our rental car to this resort. We didn’t talk much the whole time, besides some small talk about the flight and other odd comments. It was painfully awkward, and I regretted even coming. 

We didn’t speak until I used the keycard to open the door, and we stared at the one king sized bed in the room.

“Oh,” was all you said when you realized you’d have to share with me.

“What?”

“There’s only one bed.”

I rolled my eyes, “Spencer, we’ve shared a bed for three years.”

You just stood at the door with your hands fidgeting on the handle of the suitcase, “I’ll call down and ask for a cot to be brought up.”

“A cot? Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe you, “Why come if you wouldn’t even share a bed with me? I said I’d be fine alone.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but changed your mind. 

“Great communication skills Spence. Really, I’m impressed.” You rolled your eyes and finally started to unpack your bag, “I came because I was worried about what you’d do here all alone.”

Part of me was happy you were worried, but a bigger part was annoyed, “I’ve been handling being alone fine, thanks.”

You scoffed, “Yeah. That’s why you need Derek to bring you food everyday, because you’re doing so well.”

I bit my tongue and tried to speak calmly, “Well at least someone checks on me everyday.”

That shut you right up.

The three days you were there went as follows: we slept as far apart from each other as we could, despite how badly I wanted to cuddle into your arms. We’d get up in silence, eat breakfast in silence, walk to the beach and read in silence, eat lunch and dinner in silence, and each night we’d yell at each other until we fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed.

Remember what I said to trigger the fight on December third, your last day there? How could you forget? It’s the fight that broke us up. 

“So, I was thinking of going to a counselor,” I said, staring at the waves lap the sand from the balcony of our room. The air felt cold for eighty degrees. But maybe that was just because the air between me and you had been cold for weeks. 

You were sitting next to me, but I could tell you were worlds away. 

“Spence,” I nudged, trying to snap you out of your daydream. 

“Hm? What?”

“I said I’m going to go to a counselor.”

You twisted your face, “A counselor? What for?”

I shrugged, “I-I think it’d be good for me. It’s a grief counselor.”

You turned to look at me, your brow covered in sweat and your eyes watery. You were incessantly bouncing your left leg, rubbing at your nose, and you seemed disinterested in every single thing I was saying or doing. In fact, you’d been acting that way since the first day you disappeared to your apartment. 

“Counselor? Yeah,” You were fidgeting, barely making eye contact. 

A feeling I can only describe as pure dread formed in my stomach. I thought I might puke, but I swallowed the feeling and kept talking, “I got a recommendation from Hotch. He said he went to Dr. Stevens after Haley died. He said it really helped.”

You were still not listening. 

“I think it’d be good if we went together.”

That finally got your undivided attention. “Together?” You snapped, “No.”

“Why not?” I said it with an air of exhaustion and despair. I was tired of this. So fucking tired of it. 

“I’m not going to a damn therapist, Y/N,” You seethed, your metal deck chair scraping against the concrete as you stood in front of me. 

The sky looked stormy, palm trees whipping in the wind as you came before me. The bags under your eyes looked like bruises, and you had on sleeves. It was eighty and you had on sleeves.

“Okay, I’ll go alone then. I think he could really help us though.”

I was giving up on fighting. I didn’t understand how when I was at my absolute low you could just keep kicking me while I was down. All I wanted was for you to go to someone and talk about it. That’s it. You were acting like I’d asked you to move a mountain for me, which, might I add, at one point you would have done. 

“He? You really think a male therapist is going to help? You lost a baby, Y/N—“

“WE,” I clarified, for what felt like the fiftieth time, “We lost a baby.”

You rolled your eyes and ignored me, “You lost a baby. How does a male therapist help you through that?”

I was angry now. It was bubbling up to the top and I thought I might explode. 

“He’s a grief counselor! He’ll help me through my GRIEF! And I think you should go because clearly you have a lot going on. You always have! You should’ve been seeing someone for years.”

“Oh, I have a lot going on?” You sneered, “Of course I have a lot going on! I go to work everyday to bring you home a paycheck so you can sit around all day and do nothing.”

I stood up, got close to your face, “I’m on leave.”

“Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that.”

You bypassed me and went inside, and my hot anger turned into wet anger and fat tears were rolling down my cheeks.

“Do you know how traumatic this was on my body? Do you? Everything hurts and you were supposed to be there! You were supposed to take four weeks off too! You were supposed to be there for me!”

“Yeah and who’s there for me!” You yelled, louder than I think you ever had; at me at least. You had thrown your suitcase on the bed, haphazardly grabbing your clothes from the drawers and shoving them in. 

“I would’ve been,” I said softly, coming up behind you to grab your arm lightly, “If you had let me.”

You pulled back, “Don’t touch me!”

I reached up to wipe my eyes and crossed my arms in front of myself defensively, “I want to be there for you, Spencer. I do. Why won’t you let me?”

You didn’t answer, because even you didn’t know why. You just stood over the suitcase, one arm on either side of it, hair matted to your sweaty face, panting and panting. 

The facts I had chosen to ignore were staring me in the face again. Or maybe I was just that oblivious. 

“I’ve never seen you like this. This isn’t you, Love,” I tried to say in my most soothing voice. The dread had clawed its way back up to the back of my throat. 

“Or maybe this is me,” you said softly, and I swear you were crying. Or maybe I hoped you were, that way we were both sobbing. That’s as close to togetherness as we could get. 

“Maybe this is who I am now, or who I’ve been all along.”

I reached out for you again, but stopped myself, “No, Spencer. The real you isn’t this angry, and bitter, and mean.”

You slammed your hands against the bed, “Yes it is!”

“Is that what you’ve been doing all this time?” I said sadly, shaky breaths between words, “Is that what you’ve been going to your apartment and doing?”

You turned around, skin sweaty and eyes red, “What? What are you talking about now? God, do you ever stop talking?”

I snapped, ignoring your last jab there, “Are you using?”

Your face contorted into a sour expression, “Am I using?”

“Yeah, Spencer! Are you? Because I can’t see any other reason for why you’re so irritable and sweaty and out of it! So I’ll ask you again, are you going through withdrawal?”

You looked like I had literally punched you in the gut, and I kind of had. It was a low blow, I’ll admit it, but I was seriously worried about you. If an event would trigger you, this would’ve been it. 

“What? No!”

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should believe you, but I knew I had to support you either way. I love you, even when you’re angry at me, I still love you. Even when you throw clothes and seethe at me through gritted teeth, I still love you. That’s my fatal flaw. No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.”

Spencer let out a shaky breath, lower lip pinched between his teeth. Was he really that terrible? He didn’t remember being so spiteful. Reading it back, he understood why you thought he was high, and he had thought about it more than he cared to admit. But he hadn’t touched the stuff in seven years, and he wasn’t about to start again now.

‘No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.’ 

That line made him want to cry, hands clenching the ring box as if it were a stress ball. That line simultaneously felt like a stab in the gut and a breath of fresh air. He had given you so many reasons to walk away, and the one reason to stay was there in his palm, unused.

““It’s okay if you are. I understand this is a... hard time. I’ll support you through this,” I put my hands out to touch your chest. 

“I’m not high and haven’t been in years!” You swatted my hands down. 

“Then what the hell is going on!?” 

“I’m angry and I’m sad and I’m heartbroken!” You yelled, going back out onto the balcony to stand in the rain that had started pouring down in sheets. 

“Spencer! Stop!” I followed you out, tears mixing with rain to the point that I didn’t know which was which. 

“I’m just confused! It’s hard to see the point in all this anymore. Maybe it’s just not worth it,” You said, yelling at the ocean not at me. Rain soaked our clothes instantly. Part of me was hoping this scene would end like the ‘notebook’ we’d kiss and you’d spin me around. I guess this is kind of like the notebook, it’s a story to help you remember us. Except you don’t have Alzheimer’s and I wrote 15 letters, not 365. 

“Maybe what’s not worth it?” I was yelling too, just so you could hear me over the sound of the wind and the rain. 

“This!” You gestured between us. I felt like you knocked the air out of me, my whole body stinging. 

“But I love you!”

“All of this has made me realize that love isn’t everything! I love you too but we need more than that!”

That was the first time I’d heard you say ‘I love you’ in a month, but it was a double edged sword. I bit my lip so hard I think I started bleeding, “Love isn’t enough? Are you kidding me, Spencer?”

You swallowed thickly, “No! I’m not kidding. I’ve never been more serious!”

“So what? That’s it?” I said it quietly, but I wanted to scream at you. I wanted to scream that you were being an idiot. You were being ridiculous. You were being unnecessarily cruel. But I didn’t. I was tired and water logged. I had finally given up.

You ran your hands through your hair, “No–it’s–we we aren’t over Y/N. I’m just saying that it’s gonna take more than love to fix us.”

“Well maybe if you were ever home, we could actually try. But you aren’t. You’re always gone! So explain to me how we’re going to fix this. What’s it gonna take Spencer? What do you want from me?”

You took a deep breath, uttering words I was so sick of hearing, “We need space and time.”

“Space? Time? It’s been a month Spencer! I let you go to work. I let you spend every day at your damn apartment. I stopped calling. I stopped checking in. How much more space and time do you want?”

“Thirty-four days,” you mumbled, just so I could barely hear. The thunder rolled, mostly drowning it out. 

“What was that?” 

“It’s been THIRTY-FOUR days, Y/N. Thirty-four. I don’t know how you expect me to be okay after only thirty-four days.”

“I don’t expect you to be fine! I expect you to speak to me! To look at me! I want to go to bed crying and have you there next to me. I want to be there for you when you’re crying. The only way we get better is if we do this TOGETHER!”

The anger looked like it melted off of you, and I took that as my opportunity to approach. I threw my arms around your soaked body as you shook with sobs into my shoulder. I held you like my life depended on it, because in a way it did. You wrapped your arms around me too, and everything felt okay. We were standing in the pouring rain, holding each other as we cried, and somehow I felt more okay than I had in the thirty-four days prior. It felt like maybe you were coming back to me. 

You weren’t. 

We stood like that for what felt like hours, and eventually I pulled you inside. I wish I didn’t. I wish we stayed there, holding each other in the rain until the sun came up and dried us off. I foolishly thought the rain washed our sins away. 

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, my head on your shoulder as we wrapped ourselves in towels, “I promise.”

You shrugged me off of you, going back to packing your bag. 

“Spencer, stop packing, please,” I begged, grabbing the items you were putting in and taking them back out. 

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” you said plainly, taking a shirt and putting it back in. 

“I-I thought—“

“Thought what, Y/N? That because I cried to you and told you I loved you that we were magically okay?” 

I stammered, “No. No! But I thought it meant we were in this together now.” 

“You just accused me of relapsing an hour ago.”

“And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, but that’s not a reason you should go,” I pleaded, reaching for you again. I thought if you walked away I’d never see you again.

“You don’t trust me,” your voice cracked. 

“No, Love, I—“

“Don’t call me that.”

The pain in my chest bloomed, sending a wave of heartache through my entire body. A heartache I still haven’t been able to shake. It’s still there. Some days it's a thunder crack and sometimes it's a low grumble, but it’s always there. The rain hasn't stopped.  

I hadn’t even realized that you were completely packed until you zipped the suitcase shut. 

“You’re really leaving?” 

You stopped at the door, hand on the handle, to turn and face me. I didn’t need to use my profiling skills to see how much pain you were in, and my pain doubled at the sight. I’ve always been an empath when it comes to you, feeling what you feel like it’s my own. 

“I am.”

I crossed the room and threw my arms around you, sobbing into your chest. To my surprise, you wrapped your arms around me lightly. 

“I understand,” I said, looking into your eyes, “We can’t be there for each other the way we need to.”

You nodded into my shoulder, “Stay. When you get home from this we’ll talk. I just need a few more days.”

I shook my head, finally coming to the realization that we didn’t work anymore. We weren’t healthy anymore. 

“Don’t bother. The writing’s on the wall, Spence,” my voice wavered, and I regretted every word as they left my mouth, “I’ve been waiting for that person from the hospital to come home to me. I’ve been waiting for the Spencer who lends me his shirts and fact dumps and eats IHOP and ice cream with me to come home.”

I felt your breath stop under my arms, “But that Spencer, the Spencer I love, isn’t here anymore. We need to be alone.”

I felt you shake with tears under me, and that triggered mine, “We have to break up.”

I wish I never said it. I wish I gave you those few days, but we both know those few days would’ve turned into weeks and months and we would’ve ended up here anyway. I wish you didn’t let me say them. I wish you kissed me to shut me up and told me I was being stupid. I wish I didn’t watch you go down that elevator, tears on your cheeks. I wish I didn’t spend the other four days in an empty king sized bed, crying for you. 

I realize now that you changed. I did too. Instead of wishing for the old you, I should’ve learned to love the new you. I think I would’ve, if I had given it a chance. Actually, I know I would’ve. I think I’d fall in love with every version of you that could ever exist or has ever existed. You and I, we’re meant to be together. 

I know you probably don’t believe in it, but I like to think that we’re twin flames; we’re two halves of one soul that somehow ended up in two bodies and constantly pull to find each other again. I’ve read a lot about them recently. Twin flames don’t necessarily end up together. They can even just be two people with an intense friendship. They’re people who help each other grow, even if that means they’re only in your life for a short time. I like to think that we are that case, and that in some parallel universe I’m with you and we have our daughter and we’re happy. I just wish that I was in that universe now. 

I know it’s for the best that we went to the damn Crystal Cove and broke up. I’m sure someday in the future I’ll be pleased with that decision, but for now, I still regret it.”

Spencer stared at the notepad, eyes flicking between that in his left hand and the ring box in his right. He took the ring out and admired it in the light. It glinted and glimmered, delicately refracting light onto the cabinets. He slid it halfway down his ring finger because that’s as far as it would go. He imagined it was on your slender, perfectly manicured hand instead of his, but an ache formed where his heart was when he realized it’d never end up here. 

Spencer grabbed the notebook. It was unlined and the paper felt flimsy and thin. He got up from the floor to find a pencil in the drawer the ring had been hidden in, and took it out to scrawl his own letter to go with his own memento. A sixteenth letter for a sixteenth item you had no idea even existed. 

“Y/N,

I’d like to consider this letter sixteen, to go with the engagement ring that’s in my palm. I bought this ring the day after we ate dinner at Rossi’s and showed everyone tiny FBI onesies. I have your perfect ring here in my hand, a plain silver band with a lab-grown diamond in a four-prong setting in the center, just like you told Garcia you wanted. I should’ve given it to you the day I bought it, but I waited until the perfect opportunity presented itself. 

What you didn’t know about the trip to the Crystal Cove was that I was going to propose to you there. I was going to get down on one knee in the sand at sunset after dinner. I even had a whole speech planned. I was going to tell you that I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you, or that anyone would ever love me the way that you do. I was going to say that it amazes me how everyday, I wake up and love you more than I did the night before. And everyday I think it’s be impossible to love you and our daughter more than I do right now. I wanted to tell you that I want to wake up every morning and feel that for the rest of my life. I want the good, the bad, the ugly, I want it all. I want Korean film festivals and IHOP breakfasts and to talk to the moon. I want tubs of ice cream and overly sentimental flowers hanging from the wall. Most of all I wanted to say that I want to spend every day of my life making you happy. 

That speech still applies today. I still love you enough to ask you, but I don’t think you love me enough to say yes. 

It’s okay. It really is. I haven’t decided what to do yet, but if you do read this, just know that it’s okay. I promise you, it’s okay. I’m not the bitter, angry man I was at the Crystal Cove anymore. I changed again, and I hope you’re right. I hope we are twin flames and your soul will come looking for mine, and I hope it happens in this universe, not the infinite parallels that may or may not exist. I miss you and I want nothing more than for you to come back. Come home, Love, please come home.

-SR”

He stared at the notebook page, before tearing it off and folding it in half, placing it in his pocket for safekeeping. He went on his computer and bought the cheapest one-way ticket to Seattle that he could find. He needed to see you. He needed you to see this letter, see this ring. He needed to make this right.

The flight was a red eye, leaving at midnight, so he’d get to the Seattle field office by eight. He looked at the leather watch and saw that it was nearly nine. He decided had to finish, and he had to finish now, as he grabbed letter #14. 

PART 14

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Taglist!

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[jjba-hell]

One Clear Moment

Am I a cheese-fucker or am I confused? Is it just a phase? I DON’T KNOW SO DON’T COME FOR ME! 

WARNING! Some HEAVILY suggestive content up ahead- never expanded on or detailed but it is way too obvious to not put the warning out there. Possible disordered eating (mention), mention towards trauma but not expanded on. 

Consider this a ‘post- vento aureo’ timeline where you and Formaggio escape your deaths and decide to elope. Yes, some real fluffy domestic romance shit. 

@lasquadraweek2020, @risottoneroo, @giogio-gucci-gangstar.... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I promise I’ll stop annoying ya’ll with the tags when this week is over

1,8 K words and a gender neutral reader- good luck

“You up yet, sugar?” You heard Formaggio whisper in your ear.

You wanted to answer no, just be content to press yourself back into his chest with a sigh. Just so he can hold you a bit longer. But you only grumbled a soft no.

He laughed against the back of your neck, wrapping an arm around you softly and turning you to face him. “Baaaabe-“ he whined softly. “Forget breakfast at home- let’s go out to eat for breakfast.”

You stretched out in his arms, hooking your one leg over his hip. “You said that we’d go out for dinner tonight.”

A rough laugh vibrated in his chest as you turned to face him. “Why not both?”

“Or all day?”

He laughed pulling you in tighter. “Come on, you know I don’t get days off very often. I just want to get out of the house with my love.” He drummed his fingers on your back gently then perked you with a bright smile. “Beach day.”

You raised an eyebrow at him- “You just want me in the least amount of clothes possible.”

“Not my fault your ssooo hot angel face.” His forehead touched against yours, his hand running down your exposed side before leaning in and planting a kiss on your lips. “Ohhh honey buns.” He groaned against your lips- hand slipping from your hip to your backside.

“Sweetie, be gentle with me.” He nearly pleaded as you rolled him onto his back with you on top, running your hands up his bare chest. A whine came from his lips as you leaned forward, giving him just enough friction as you leaned down to kiss his neck.

“Beach day right?”

You rolled off of him before his hands could find purchase on your body and head straight to the closet for your swimwear.

“Baby!” He called from the bed as you head towards the kitchen to prepare snacks.

“Yeah?” You turned to stand at your bedroom door, leaning against the frame.

“Your teasing is gonna get you in trouble.”

“Ohhh I can’t wait to see where that trouble leads.”

You spun around and continued on your own mission.

You had gone to the trouble to prepare two cold salads, some finger quesadillas (a family favorite of Formaggio’s) and some muffins you had left in the cupboard but the second Formaggio slipped into the kitchen, he simply nodded at the packed bag, nodded and added the bags of cookies and chips and some bottles of water before zipping it up and giving you a kiss. “I’ll get these in the car. Would you bring the towels and sunscreen in your bag?”

“You got the umbrella?”

“Yeah, sugar.”

It was only after he had disappeared into the garage that you felt your heart swell with the cute domesticity- the two of you had been through hell and back against Bucciarati but the day after Formaggio could sneak away out of the explosion that day, he faked his death and soon the two of you eloped and never looked back. You had new names and new lives- you worked as a nurse at a pediatric clinic and he was working as a bar manager at a club nearby. Things were good- so impossibly good you were sure that by some way you had made it to heaven or that it was all just a dream.

You threw on a light shirt and some jean shorts and hopped into the car with your husband.

True to his word you had stopped at a beach front restaurant for a proper breakfast before deciding to rent some surf boards.

You’d been living so close to the beach for so long that surfing had definitely become a nearly mastered feat. With a smile on your face you sat up on your board and waited for your husband to paddle by. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve worked off breakfast?” He laughed.

You gazed up at the sun- it was probably around noon. “I believe you- it’s past noon. Need to reapply some sun screen too.”

You paddled back and tailgated in the trunk of your car- finishing half the water before setting up under the umbrella in the pristine white sand. The people started filling in the open spots on the beaches, the two of you leaning back and watching families and more couples than you could count. Formaggio looked up at you as you leaned over your own legs to get sunscreen over your feet.

“You ever wonder if we made a mistake picking this place?”

“Oh? And what would stop us from relocating?” You moved over to whisper in your ear. “Did you forget we’re not being watched anymore?”

Formaggio laughed, turning his head to steal a kiss on your cheek. “So we’ll talk where to next when we get home.”

You laughed at that. Was this what freedom felt like? At least you could admit that you forgot yourself but it was moments like this- that you could bask in the sunlight without the weight of the gang on your shoulders.

You had just finished the water in your hand when Formaggio leaned forward and kissed your jaw softly. You practically melted into him, leaning in closer, turning your head to kiss him properly.

But after a moment you stopped him and with a smile said. “We’re not going home.”

He gave an audible groan as he laid back into the trunk. “Doll face you can’t kiss me like that and expect me to behave.”

You turned back and hovered your upper body over him, with a pout you ran a hand over his chest. “But you promised.”

Formaggio ran a hand up your arm and sighed. “How am I supposed to say no to you sweet cheeks?”

You shot back up and got going again, making sure to massage the sunscreen into his back properly before you packed away the stuff back into the car and started your hand-in-hand walk along the boardwalk

You had occasionally indulged in some ice cream or a slushy together before heading through the supermarket closer to where you parked. You hopped into the car- exhausted by the day and head home. You had just packed the groceries away when Formaggio came to pick you up over his shoulder.

“Babe!” You laughed as he purposefully took wide steps to make you swing left and right over his shoulder. “Babe what are you doing?”

He gently put you down on the floor of the bathroom with a smile and were greeted with a filled up bubble bath and lit candles.

“I know you’re not really into this stuff but I thought you’d like to properly soak off the day.”

You turned around and kissed him eagerly, unable to stop yourself. “Join me?” You asked as soon as you broke away.

“Ohhh sweetums, I will.” He growled against your lips. “But I wanna get the pasta dough started for tonight first.”

You nodded eagerly and then slowly sunk into the water for a good soak.

Through the wall you heard your him put on the game for tonight- lucky for him it would be over before dinner, you just knew he liked some noise as he was kneading the dough.

You leaned your arms against the cool edge of the bath, wondering how you ended up with an Italian that liked making food from scratch- hard to imagine the bastard that would call and collect pizza and pasta at the restaurant near the squad base now refused to eat out. Sometimes you wondered if it was about his new identity he was so desperately trying to hide or if he genuinely liked making food from scratch.

The ten minutes of kneading passed and to your surprise Formaggio showed up into the bathroom with an anti pasta plate.

“You never stop eating, do you?” You laughed as he placed the platter on the lid of the empty laundry basket.

“I’m a growing boy, amore. I need to take care of myself.”

He poured you a glass of wine and joined you in the bath with a bottle of beer. One thing quite un-Italian of him but it was a little quirk you’d grown to love. “How’s the game going?”

You asked as you leaned out of the bath just enough to smeer two crackers with the sweet chilli cream cheese.

“Huh? How’d you know?”

You gave him his snack and smiled at his innocent surprise. “I’ve been living with you for four years, darling. I know you just want some noise while you’re kneading. Just like I know you hide the chocolate above the fridge so that I can’t reach it.”

He laughed at that, pulling you to face him on his lap. “And I know you sneak a cigarette after a nightmare but hate the smell of it on your hands so you hold the filter with a clothes peg.”

Your arm slid over one of his shoulders wrapping around him to bring him closer. “And I know you wash my smoking sweatshirt I leave outside once a week.”

“And I know you freeze the bread I bring home sometimes because you can’t eat it, which is bullshit by the way. If you wanna work off some extra calories, I’m sure you and I can figure something out.”

That mischievous grin slid over hid face as he brought his face closer to yours, noses touching as he pulled you close.

“Not in the bathtub, sweetie.” You groaned as he kissed up your shoulder to your neck.

He put his beer bottle down in the corner, not minding your warning so you put your wine glass down on the floor outside the bathtub.

“You’ve been denying me all day, baby. Please, honey. I’m so pent up.”

Oh how badly you wanted to give him what he wanted but if there was one thing you loved giving Formaggio, it was delayed gratification. So just as he had gotten handsy with your backside you stood up and stepped out of the bath.

He let out a strangled whine. “Hoonneey! I asked nicely.”

You sat on the edge of the bath with the towel. “Soon, babe. Trust me.” You gave him a kiss to the temple and got back up.

You picked up the plate he had brought- that was only finished halfway- and popped an olive in your mouth as you left.

He had often called you cruel for the way you teased but it had taken you a long time to realize how much he adored it- the suspense and the gratification made for a combo he couldn’t get enough of. You let him do the cooking for the dinner, sitting on the countertop in shorts with a glass of wine. You’d attempted to help him before and although he didn’t chase you out of the kitchen while he was working- but when you took a close enough step to his work, he littered kisses all over your face, stepping you away with a whispered. “No no no, my turn tonight.”

So you perched yourself on the countertop with your second glass of wine- every few minutes he’d come over, run his hands over the top of your thighs and settling himself between them nearing the end of his prep- alternating between gazing up at you with that stupid grin of his and peering around your waist to look at the soccer score on TV.

You sat cross-legged on the couch with your bowl of food and Formaggio next you as you watched the stupid soap story. Initially you two had laughed at the thought of being so domesticated you finished dinner on time for the soul purpose of having time to watch a stupid show on TV but at the same time it was comforting. To be side-by-side with each other when it seemed like you’d never have reached this point.

It was maybe also a distraction, perhaps a reminder to act normal under your new jobs and new names. His past was buried and burned in the street he had nearly died at and yours was buried under the blown up squad base.

Now you were simply a newlywed couple living a quiet life.

You packed in the dishes into the dishwasher and started the machine before cuddling up under Formaggio’s waiting arm until your show came to another boring end.

You lined kisses up his jaw, feeling low over his abdomen with your fingertips.

“Ohhhh sweetheart, please don’t tell me you’re teasing.”

You weren’t- he had waited long enough, so you silently felt him up just a bit more to see how well he’d restrain himself. When he let you do as you pleased without so much as making a move or whining you slipped down between his legs....

“I’m not teasing, sweetheart.”

[atlas-tries]

Shatter Me Chapter 3: Shatter Me

Read on AO3

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Summary: Patton finds a painful memory and Janus has a vision. Will it be enough to thwart the outcomes that await?

Notes: Redundant, no? Not gonna lie, fam, it's about to get to the darkest point. Trigger warnings for character death.

“Patton, are you sure you aren’t a hoarder?” Virgil asked, pushing aside a mountain of plushies where he had been unfortunate enough to land. This was the first time the anxious side had been in Patton’s room since he moved to their part of the Mindscape (also the first time he had ever been to Patton’s room) and Patton was beside himself to have him here.

“Absolutely! I just like to keep a few sentimental things around to look at when I’m feeling down,” Patton replied. “But I guess it uh, wouldn’t hurt to clean up a little. Gotta make room for more memories, right? I actually have the energy to do it now!”

Virgil looked at Patton with a lopsided grin. “Wait, what? You, not having the energy to do something? How’d that happen?”

“Ah right, you weren’t here for uh … all of that. Let’s just say I was recovering from an injury I got several months ago,” Patton said, instantly noting the worried change in Virgil’s expression. “Hold on, it’s alright, I’m alright now, see?” He lifted his shirt to showcase the few tiny cracks that remained. “I’m almost completely healed. Logan even gave me his seal of approval!” He pulled out a little medallion with Logan’s bespectacled brain signet on it. “See?”

Virgil breathed out a visible sigh of relief. He shook a finger at Patton. “Awesome,” he said, his voice cracking a little at the end.

“Alright, so you said you were looking for …” Patton started.

“… this one angsty poem Thomas wrote in high school. I thought I’d uh, spice the ruminating up a little when Thomas heads to bed tonight,” Virgil replied. “No better way to fall asleep than thinking about everything that’s gone wrong or that will go wrong, am I right?”

Patton smiled. “Sure, kiddo, as long as they’re balanced with happier thoughts during the daytime! Let’s see, I think what you’re looking for is over here.” He ran toward his version of the staircase that was piled high with boxes and other larger memorabilia that wouldn’t fit on the bookshelf. He glanced through a few of them, perking up a little when he came to the box on the fourth stair. “I think this is it!” He grabbed the box and ran back to Virgil.

“Keep them as long as you need them,” Patton said with a smile. He handed it over to Virgil, who nearly doubled over from the weight of the things inside. Virgil choked out a thanks and quickly sank out.

“Well, that’s one box temporarily dealt with. Now, about the rest of this marvelous mountain of memories …” Patton, though he would never outrightly admit it, didn’t like moving things around very much. It filled him with dread just thinking about moving something somewhere he would inevitably forget about it. Maybe it would be better to start smaller? He looked around for somewhere less cluttered to start. Finally, his eyes landed on the overflowing box labeled New Memories. “That’ll do for now.” He took the box carefully upstairs to his bedroom and got to work sorting its contents.

In around half an hour, everything was categorized into neat little piles that could be easily transferred to other more fitting storage spaces. Patton began collecting everything from the Friends and Coworkers pile and carried them to his dresser. The top drawer was for everything related to Joan. Admittedly, this one was getting a little bloated from all the fun stuff they and Thomas had ever done together. Still, Patton managed to find space for the newer memories in the crevices that remained. The rest made their way into their respective drawers, packed in tightly with all the rest of them.

Patton closed the drawers, smiled, and put his hands on his hips. “Perfect!” he said. Now all that was left was to take the box back to his version of the living room. He picked the box up and startled when it hissed at him. Something was still in there. He peeked into the box at the thing that had just slid toward him, an upside-down picture frame from the looks of it. Steadying the box with one hand, he reached in and flipped it over.

The last memory he had of Thomas’s now ex-boyfriend stared up at him from the bottom of the box.

His hands trembled a little as he stared at this frighteningly still image. “Nope nope nope, not today,” he said, closing the box and walking as quickly as he could to put it back where it belonged. Despite ridding himself of the visual, this memory was still going to make itself heard in the only way it knew how. Patton clutched at his chest hard and the box crashed to the living room floor. “N-not again …”

He sat down on the stairs a moment to regain control of his breathing. Searing lines thrummed in time with his heartbeat, dulled but not forgotten. This was another reason why he never bothered to clean up: too much of a chance to reopen old wounds. Patton rose with a wince to get that recording of the Rainforest Rap. That song always helped cheer him up. He kept the song on repeat until he felt some semblance of normalcy again.

For the rest of the week, Patton lay awake during the nights, praying that the darkness would somehow take away the memories that hurt him so. It, as many spectral entities do, provided no such reprieve. Certainly not enough to quell the ache settling further into his core as the days passed. Taking liberties in his duties here and there made things far more manageable. Just yesterday, Patton suggested Thomas indulge in a half a pack of Oreos and he listened. The day before, he had come thiiiiiis close to getting an actual bouncy castle! And today, Patton had one little plan he thought everyone would jump for (but not in a bouncy castle).

If everything went according to Patton’s plan, they would spend the next 48 hours rewatching The Office in a blanket fort with Thomas’s closest friends. They could all use a break right about now, what with Roman steamrolling through coming up with new concepts, Logan pulling all-nighters researching for new videos, and Virgil making sure everyone was staying on time with Logan’s schedule. He couldn’t wait to see how everyone else liked this idea! He was already out the door and nearly to the stairs when he heard muffled shouting coming from the living room below.

“—not seriously thinking of going along with this latest plan, are you? I have far too much to plan if we’re to keep this project at its utmost quality!”

Patton stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the stairs.

“I know, Roman, I’m concerned about this, too. We’re woefully behind schedule as it is,” Logan added. “If we don’t do something about this, my carefully constructed calendar will collapse under the weight of his impulse decisions.”

“But how are we even supposed to bring that up to him? He’s been acting weird all week, I know,” Virgil bit, “but you know how Pat takes these things, L.” Patton bit his lip to keep from making noise as the cracks grew once more.

“The best way to do that is to do like you said earlier Virgil, rip it off like a metaphorical Bandaid. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to do this.”

So. Patton had gone overboard these past few days with his contributions.

How many other times had he put the other sides in this exact same situation? They were all supposed to be in this together. Weren’t they …?

There was only one way to fix this. Fixing his cardigan and his expression, Patton plodded heavily down the stairs to announce his arrival. “Hey kiddos! Oh, good, you’re all here together, that’ll save me a few trips back upstairs,” he said cheerily.

“Don’t tell us, Padre, you have another idea?” Roman asked. His smile looked so forced.

“Kinda! So I was just thinking that since we are so behind schedule, a 2 day binge-fest might not be the greatest idea I’ve come up with. So instead of that, how about we work on this next concept together tonight?”

Jaws all around the room dropped. “Wait, what? I thought …” said Virgil, looking to the others.

Roman picked up where Virgil left off, “Patton, I believe that’s the best idea you’ve had all week!” He stepped closer. “How shall we go about it? At the dumb boring regular table here, or at the Round Table in the Imagination to help stimulate all the best thoughts?”

“Hmm, that’s intriguing, Roman. It would certainly be easier than trying to keep track of all our thoughts on paper,” Logan added.

“Hey Logan, I guess you say it’s a …” Patton started.

Logan’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Virgil snickered.

“… well-Round-ed idea,” said Patton.

Virgil and Roman couldn’t help smiling watching this play out. Logan groaned. “I will ignore that this one time because you made a worthwhile effort to get us back on schedule, but I do hope that you’ll spend a little more time thinking about what words you want to arrange in a sentence. And make them less … pun-filled.”

“I’ll try not to have too much pun, but I can’t make any promises!” Patton said.

Logan said nothing further, opting instead to vacate the premises as quickly as possible. “I’ll uh, go with him and we’ll get everything set up in the Imagination,” said Roman, running after him.

“Well, I guess that just leaves you and me, kiddo! Whaddaya say we make some snacks for everyone? We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us today!”

Virgil nodded. “As long as I can spit on something meant for Roman,” he said.

“I’ll let you have the cookie batter bowl,” Patton replied.

“Deal.”

Between the two of them, Patton and Virgil were able to make somewhat quick work of a heaping plate of hot cookies and several plates of sandwiches for everyone to enjoy. Sure, they may have gotten more flour and other assorted foodstuffs on them than into the finished products on the counter, but it was the fun they had doing it that mattered. Both of them decided that it would be best to change out of their dirty clothes before carrying everything into the Imagination.

Patton sunk into his version of the kitchen, which was considerably more cluttered than the common area kitchen. He stepped over a few stray memories before making it into the clearer living room. That was when he noticed Deceit sitting on his couch worrying his gloved hands. Softly, Patton called out, “Dee?”

Deceit startled and turned quickly to see Patton. “Um,” he said, clearing his throat and brushing down the front of his cloak, “you certainly didn’t sneak up on me.”

“What brings you back to my neck of the ‘burbs?” asked Patton.

Deceit stood from the couch. “We’re just getting so well acquainted that I thought I’d stop by for tea— and to give a warning. I know they’ve been growing again.”

Patton smiled sadly. “I guess I can’t really hide this from you. But you should know, this time—”

“It’s not their fault, I’m well aware. But doesn’t this make it the best time to tell them? The pressure is off. You don’t even have to tell them in a direct way!” Deceit said, taking Patton’s hands in his own. His eyes were alight with worry. “You just need to tell them.”

“I know I need to, but … it’s so hard to do. I’d be hurting them, I know I would.”

Deceit looked down and sighed. He brought his gaze quickly back up to Patton’s, staring with an intensity that Patton had never seen from him before. “You need to tell them,” he whispered slowly. “I saw something on the horizon. Something bad. As much as it pains me to say it, I don’t want that vision to be about you.”

That was a bit startling. Patton knew it wouldn’t get that far, but … could it? “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell them.” That earned him a split-second smile from Deceit.

“That’ll do, Patton. That’ll do. What in the world is on my gloves?” Deceit said, sinking out.

“Cookie dough!” Patton called after him. “And probably some mayo. Oh, he probably didn’t hear me. Now what was I doing again? Oh yeah, clothes, brainstorming, Imagination!” He quickly ran upstairs to the bathroom to get changed and emerged from his room less than a minute later and grabbed what food Virgil hadn’t. Maybe if he busied himself enough, he would be able to forget Deceit’s visit. He wouldn’t think about the panic behind his crumbling facade, or the thinly veiled pleas he made.

But that would all be a lie. Something had him deeply troubled, and when Deceit was the one giving out a warning in earnest, it bode better to listen. But how to go about it? Patton sighed. “Alright, Patton, let’s just focus on getting to the others right now,” he said to himself. He closed his eyes and thought about the others, and about castles, knights, and everything that made Roman happy.

When he opened them again, he was in the Imagination.

Or rather, he was in a field in the Imagination, right in front of Roman’s towering castle. It was a perfect amalgamation of Gothic architecture and pure Disney magic that made Patton’s nostalgia meter burst through the roof. He ran through the front gates with appropriate gusto and was thrilled to see the others there around the table already, quietly chatting amongst themselves. “Ah, Patton, we were starting to think you forgot how to get here again. Come, let us formally begin this brainstorming bash!” Roman said cheerily.

“That’s the spirit!” Patton squealed, trying to sound as normal as possible. He set down the cookie platter and took a seat in the high-backed chair with his new symbol on it.

“First things first, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page before we begin,” Logan said, summoning papers for all of them. “In order to maximize our output, Roman, Virgil, and I have decided to remove some of the thought filters from the castle for this session. This means that any particular thought, if it’s focused enough, will manifest in here for all of us to review. According to my own independent research, this should boost our productivity by 42% with a .03% margin of error.”

Patton’s eyes widened a little. He really didn’t want to interrupt their work, but this new system would definitely cause problems if he didn’t come clean now. So, Patton gathered every last bit of gumption that he had and shouted, “I have a confession to make!”

The others backed up a little, startled that Patton could be so loud, but quickly recomposed themselves. “Go ahead, Patton,” said Logan, straightening his tie.

Patton thanked him, doing his best to not squirm in his seat. He knew they wouldn’t react well, but maybe saying it now would keep thoughts about it from popping up later. “I uh, wanted to get this out of the way before we get down to business. But um … I think I might be breaking again.”

“Come again?” Virgil asked.

Patton slid the collar of his shirt down enough to reveal several deep fissures. “These things. They’re growing again,” he said. “Started earlier this week. I just didn’t want that popping up without warning and ruining our work. Anyways, um, what ideas are we working with here, Roman?”

“Wait, breaking? Like, breaking breaking? Oh God, Patton, are you dying? You’re dying, aren’t you? Oh God, no! What stops death?! Logan?!” Virgil cried frantically.

Patton quickly said, “Virgil, Virgil, breathe, I’m not dying. In for four seconds, there you go, hold it for seven seconds. You’re doing great. Just listen to the sound of my voice. Out for eight. Good job, keep it up.”

Logan got out a pen and notepad. “Again? And you say they started earlier this week? Do you remember which day it was?” he asked.

“The day I started cleaning up my room. Uh, what day was that again?” Patton said, still doing his best to softly coach Virgil back down to a calmer state.

“Padre … I thought there weren’t going to be any more secrets about this,” said Roman. The hurt look he gave to Patton about killed him where he sat.

“It wasn’t so much a secret as it was an ‘I-got-a-little-busy-and-kept-forgetting’ kind of thing. I never meant to keep it from you, any of you,” Patton replied. A tiny, glowing orb dripped from Patton’s chest. A thought. He pushed it down between his hand and the seat to trap it, knowing that it would unveil his lie. For good measure, he slung a leg over his hand.

“You were cleaning that day…” Logan mused. “I may have some theories that explain this phenomenon, though it is currently up to speculation. Allow me to elaborate. Patton, it seems that stressing yourself beyond your limits could potentially be the cause of this. You have certainly been going out of your way with your work this week. I believe we all recall the … bouncy castle idea. This could be leading to a lack of self-care needed to perform adequately.”

Patton nodded slowly with as real a smile as he could muster. “Yyyyyeah, that could be it,” he said, shoving down another treacherous thought as it popped out. It brought up memories of all the passing comments Logan made about his character.

“Uh, Pops? Whatcha … doin’ over there?” Virgil asked.

Patton stiffened. “Nothing, just, uh … Practicing a new kind of exercise?” Another one flitted out, pointing to being too overbearing with Virgil. “Hey, is that a dragon coming up to the castle?”

Everyone turned to look while Patton conjured a slingshot, flung that icky thought out the other window. and recaptured the one that had come out from beneath his leg.

“No, that’s a tapestry, Padre. It literally couldn’t hurt you if it wanted to,” Roman said. “Not that I would ever let it!”

Patton smiled. “You’re my hero, Roman,” he said.

Roman blushed a little to that. “Aw, Pat,” he gushed.

Another thought came up, a memory of a time Roman had taken him on one of his adventures. He had wanted to tend to a little wounded animal they came across and nearly got them killed because of it. Patton clapped his hand painfully over his heart to keep that one from surfacing. With a whimper and a slight grimace, he replied, “I mean it, Ro.”

Virgil was getting extremely antsy where he sat. “Okay, um … This is weird, right? Like, this just feels wrong.”

“Virgil has a point, you are behaving rather strangely, Patton,” said Logan. “Do you have something you’d like to add?”

With the focus being on what started this, another memory surfaced. The one that had started it again. Patton tried to bite that one as it meandered past. Curse these full hands! He missed by a mile, leaving it to float effortlessly to the center of the table.

“A thought?” Logan said. “Unconventional, but it’s an intriguing choice.”

It began to play. Patton was in his room, sorting through the new memories box. The last few were being tucked away. It skipped to him looking back in the box to see what was left. It showed him, holding the picture. Him, clutching his chest. Him, stumbling to the floor. As if on cue, the cracks thrummed in recognition. Thank goodness he already had a hand over them because it almost took his breath away. The memory evaporated, leaving the others to simply look with jaws slightly agape.

Patton could only look down at the table. These old wounds were reopening in the worst of ways, and now his closest friends would find out the truth. Logan finally broke the silence. “So, that’s how it happened.”

Patton nodded wordlessly.

“This was months ago,” Logan said.

“It was a busy time for me,” Virgil added. “Switching from everything Thomas did wrong to worrying that Thomas will never find love again got to be so exhausting.”

“I admit even I became a bit disheveled by his absence,” Logan said, looking down.

“I nearly ducked out over this. I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for you, Patton,” said Roman.

Patton still couldn’t bring himself to look up. He knew there were pent up tears threatening to fall if he did. “It … it was hard … and seeing a reminder of it …” he whispered.

Logan sighed. “I believe your best course of action is clear,” he said. “You simply need to let the past be the past.”

“But … what about all of the good times we had with him? I don’t want to leave them behind,” Patton said softly.

“Patton, these memories are physically hurting you. I can’t understand why you would rather suffer endlessly instead of just letting one person go.”

You’re too sentimental to save yourself from dying.

Patton’s face contorted and a small whine escaped his throat. Those insidious cracks lengthened once more, each one feeling like a knife tracing its way through his skin.

Roman stood abruptly. “Now look what you’ve done, Quantum of Soulless!” Roman cried, motioning to Patton. Logan rose from his seat, trying to get a better look from across the table.

“Roman …” Patton lightly scolded. “Pl-please be nice.”

Roman huffed. “Sorry. What I mean is this situation needs a bit more delicacy than Logan’s robotic demeanor could ever hope to provide.” Roman walked over to Patton and put a hand gently on his arm. Logan was making his way over, too, notepad in hand. “Now Padre, you know how much I came to you when this was all fresh. We did our best to hold each other up, but even now, I still feel lost. I can’t tell you how much I yearn to have our beloved return, or how much I want to call him after all this time.”

Patton sniffled a little, putting his hand over Roman’s and leaning his head against his arm. “I know, I want him back too,” he said.

“I think we all do. But I think it might also be time to start boxing up some of those old memories. We can even help you start!” Roman said. Virgil shook his head. Logan rolled his eyes. “Okay, I can help you start.”

“But I don’t want to forget … I wouldn’t even know where, or how, to start. We had so many good memories together that I don’t want to lose,” Patton blubbered.

“I know it’s difficult, but we aren’t children anymore, Padre. I know the relationship ending was for the best and I’ve been striving every day to remain strong. I also know that you wouldn’t be leaving everything behind if you do the adult thing and let the ghosts of the past go.”

You’re too naive to understand what needs to be done.

Patton doubled over, groaning as the cracks split further down his limbs and up his neck. Bile burned at the back of his throat, and he could taste the coppery twang of essence. He felt another wary hand on him. “P-Pops?” came Virgil’s wavering voice. “I… Thomas was being too overbearing. That wasn’t your fault!”

YOU were being too overbearing. YOU were what drove him away.

Patton cried out in agony as his skin split down to his fingertips and over his face to the top of his head. Small chips of skin were beginning to fall away with tiny tinks as they hit the floor, displaying the bright blue beneath. He could feel the front of his shirt begin to dampen.

“I don’t get it! We’re trying to help, why isn’t this working?” Virgil cried. “Why are they getting worse?!”

Logan came up to Patton, attempting to lean him back with utmost care. “Perhaps just talking about the subject of his pain is what’s causing them to worsen,” he said. As soon as he looked at the frail fatherly side, his demeanor changed. “Virgil, get a first aid kit. Roman, help me lay him on the table. Now!”

The others, at first too stunned to move, burst into action as quickly as they could. Patton screamed as they repositioned him on the table, hyperventilating from the pain. “Hang in there, Padre, please hang in there!” came Roman’s muffled voice. Logan was reaching for the hem of his shirt. He mouthed something to him. Patton felt something glide across his skin from his navel to his neck. Wait, when did Logan get scissors? And where was his shirt? And why did the others look so horrified? Those questions seemed inconsequential to the truth staring down at Patton, demanding he tell it.

“It w-was my fault,” Patton croaked.

Logan started threading a needle. Virgil was carding his fingers through Patton’s hair anxiously. Roman looked at him with incredulous eyes. “What are you talking about?” asked Roman.

“Th-the breakup,” Patton replied. Warmth was trickling down over his ribcage and soaking his back. “A-and everything e-else.” Logan tried his best to stick the needle through solid skin, but it just chipped further. Patton coughed, a bit of blue making its way past his lips.

“Everything else? Patton, you’re not making sense,” Logan said, trying the same thing again with the same result.

Patton whimpered, “I-I know that I’m always … messing th-things up. I forget s-so much … I kn-know that you think I’m t-too sentimental t-to do my job. Th-that I’m too … naive t-to see the truth right in … front of me. That I’m s-so over … o-overbearing that I drove him away. If it w-weren’t for … all of you t-to rein me in … I-I’d make Thomas into a… w-worthless mass of a man.”

You are worthless.

“C-Compression. Let’s try compression,” Logan said.

“Pat … is this … is this what caused all of this?” Roman asked. His eyes shimmered.

“You can’t seriously think that,” Virgil said, his hands becoming shaky.

Patton cried as Logan pressed firmly in the center of his chest. More fragments broke free and with them, Logan’s hands went straight through into Patton’s chest. Patton nearly passed out. Logan quickly withdrew his hands.

“Ohhhh my God, oh my God, Logan, what did you do?!” shouted Virgil. “What do we do now?!”

Patton coughed violently, essence spluttering from his lips in a steady stream.

Logan could only stand there, frozen in horror, staring at his blue hands.

“Logan?!” Roman cried.

“I … I don’t know …” came Logan’s voice, barely above a whisper. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks.

“You can’t die on us, Patton, please, we need you!” Virgil sobbed.

Roman grasped Patton’s hand delicately. It began to shatter like porcelain barely held together. Despite the jagged edges, Roman still lifted it to his cheek, holding on like it was the only anchor in a violent sea. “Y-you’ll … all be … alright … without me … Just … p-promise me … y-you won’t … blame yourselves …” Patton gasped.

He couldn’t hold it together when bigger pieces of him began breaking away from the rest of his body. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t see. But still, his mouth made the words.

“I… l-love… you.”

With a final shuddering breath, he was gone.

---

Janus knew that meddling with what his foresight told him never aided the outcome.

He knew this, but he tried anyway.

It wasn’t that he particularly liked Patton. He found him to be overly saccharine and ridiculously optimistic in the face of surefire doom, not to mention he stood by socks and sandals as a fashion choice. However, things always seemed to run smoother in the Mindscape with the fatherly side around. Someone had to be there to tend to the others and moderate their senseless bickering, he supposed. How would anyone get any sleep otherwise? And Patton wasn’t one to pass judgement when he was caught alone. Perhaps his near-blind acceptance was what endeared Janus to him in the first place.

Whatever the case, he didn’t want whatever was going to happen to go through like it wanted to. He could never determine much from these visions. Just … feelings. Notions. The occasional coherent thought. This most recent one should’ve been par for the course. Nothing could’ve prepared him for what came. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was being ripped apart. And there was nothing else around but the pain, searing a fiery blue, and those three intrepid words.

I love you.

A swan song if there ever was one. And now, standing here amongst the shadows outside Roman’s castle, he knew the swan had sung.

Taglist: @celeste-tyrrell @taxicabinmemphis @angeldiaries @somehow-i-got-an-account

[krisdreaming]

Could I request where a shy fem s/o is baby sitting their neighbors kid. The kid likes Disney songs and makes the s/o sing all the songs the s/o is a good singer they kinda get caught singing to the kid. It’s kinda just a fluffy mess with Disney songs. Uhhhh With Daichi and oikawa.

Okay, YES, I am behind this 110% percent. You can’t say no to a good Disney song. Here ya go!

-

“We’ll be home by nine, we promise.” Your neighbor assures you as she bustles around the kitchen, dropping her cell phone in her purse. “Send a text if you need anything, and Ama-chan-” She turns to give her daughter a stern look. “You be good, okay? (y/n) is so kind to watch you, you don’t want to give her any trouble!” She looks around to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything, and her husband tugs on her arm.

“Everything will be fine.” You nod reassuringly. He’s clearly anxious for them to be on their way. “We always have fun together, don’t we?” Amaya grins, nodding her head hard.

“Bye!” The two of you chorus, waving in unison as her parents finally step out the door. “Now what?” Amaya doesn’t take long to answer.

“Sing along!” She shouts, already rushing to her room to dig out her pink, plastic karaoke machine. It never fails. Every time you babysit for her, she always wants you to sing her Disney songs with her. It’s not as though you mind - you secretly enjoy the opportunity to belt out your favorite Disney songs with no one to judge you.

“You’ve got it.” You ruffle her hair when she returns, chattering to her as you get it set up. “You know, Sawamura-san might come around later to play with us.” 

“YAY!” She cheers, doing a little dance. Her parents have always liked Daichi, and it’s become a sort of habit for him to stop in after practice whenever you’re babysitting. Secretly, you think the reason Amaya enjoys it so much is because your boyfriend always brings a treat to share.

Amaya finally decides on the song she wants to sing, and you grin. It’s both of your favorite, and you already know which part is yours. Amaya is always the princess.

“I can show you the world. Shining, shimmering, splendid! Tell me Princess-” You dramatically wave your hand in her direction, “When did you last let your heart decide?” Maybe it’s because you’re already getting into the song, but you don’t even hear the door open. Daichi can’t help but smile when he hears your sweet voice. He doesn’t want to interrupt, so he tiptoes into the living room and softly takes a seat on the couch. Amaya catches a glimpse of him and her eyes light up, but he puts a finger to his lips, and she sings a little louder.

It’s moments like these when he can’t really believe that you’re his. You’re so sweet with kids, so happy, and so adorable - especially right now. He loves how into the song you’ve gotten. Finally, you sing the last line.

“... For you and meeeeeeeee.” You draw out the last word, and as you finally turn and catch sight of him, it turns into a shriek. “Daichi! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were there!” You drop your face into your hands, beyond embarrassed. How long was he sitting there watching you?

“Hi.” He grins, standing and stepping towards you. “You don’t have to apologize. I love listening to you sing. Maybe you two will have to put on a show for me later.” He leans in for a kiss in greeting, and even though you’re still embarrassed you gladly return it.

“EW!” Amaya shrieks. “Enough of this. I want to eat the sweet bread Sawa-san brought!” At that, the two of you take one look at each other and burst into laughter.

-

It’s such a beautiful day, you know you can’t waste it inside. The little neighbor boy you’re babysitting is only too happy to help you pack the picnic basket. “Here, Hiro-chan. Put in the cookies.” He grabs the pack from the counter and slam dunks them into the basket. You sigh and nearly reprimand him, but he’s grinning so widely that instead you just smile back.

“Alright!” You announce. “Let’s go find the perfect picnic spot.” He skips alongside you as you make your way to the park, chattering excitedly about the new car set he’s getting for his birthday. 

“Ooh! Here!” He interrupts himself when you come across what he has deemed the perfect spot. There are some shade trees nearby, and the grass is thick and soft, so you’re inclined to agree. The two of you much on your sandwiches, cookies, and lemonade, and when it’s finally gone, he falls flat on his back, looking up at the clouds.

“Sing me a song.” He abruptly demands. You grin, glancing around. There’s no one remotely close by, anyway. “Do Colors of the Wind!” You’re not surprised. Pocahontas is his current crush.

“You say I’m an ignorant savage.” You begin, poking him in the stomach and making him giggle. “You’ve been so many places, I guess it must be so.” He’s absolutely eating it up, laughing and swaying to the music. You’re even kind of getting into it. Even though you hear quick footfalls, you don’t care much because you figure it’s just a jogger going by on the path. Then, the footfalls stop. Your voice falters.

“Aww, don’t stop!” Of all people, there stands Oikawa. You don’t think your face could get any redder. “I didn’t know you could sing!”

“Um.” You duck your head.

“Oikawa-san!” Hiro cheers, grabbing Oikawa’s leg and dragging him even closer to you.

“Hi, little pipsqueak.” He rubs Hiro’s head affectionately, then leans down to whisper conspiratorially. “Isn’t she the cutest person ever? And the best singer? Can you believe that’s my girlfriend?” Right now, you kind of want to disappear into the ground. But you also feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“I didn’t expect to see you here!” He grabs your hand and pulls you to your feet. “I was just jogging along, minding my own business, and then out of nowhere I heard the voice of an angel.” He presses a kiss to your cheek. “And here it turns out it’s my angel.” This time his kiss lands on your lips, and you smile into it.

“I still think Pocahontas is cuter.” Hiro mumbles. Neither of you even hear him.

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Family and Fantasy

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Y/N finally gets the life she’s been dreaming of with the man she’s in love with but it’s not all it appears. 

Warnings: Supernatural typical violence, bad writing as always

____________________________________________

The sun shone brightly on your face, warming your skin, as you leaned against the warm sun-heated Impala. A light breeze rustled through the leaves of the forest that surrounded the clearing you were in and across the field of mixed weeds and flowers. Dean always insisted they were weeds at least; you thought that it was all beautiful. 

A large smile spread across your face as you heard the squealing laughter of your three year old son, Marcus, “Daddy stop!” He giggled, Dean chasing him in small circles with a big grin. You watched the two of them run around in the middle of the empty dirt road in front of your home.

“I’m gonna get you!” Dean said, closing in on the little boy, snatching him up in his arms and swinging him around. Laughter filled the air as Dean tossed him in the air and and ran up to you. “Now let’s get Mommy!” 

You put your arms up, jokingly shielding yourself as Dean and Marcus came running towards you, Marcus’s hands outstretched. His bright green eyes - his father’s eyes - sparkled with glee. Marcus squealed excitedly. “No!!!” You teased. Suddenly, Dean thrust Marcus into your open arms, “throwing” him at you. 

“Got you!” Marcus giggled, throwing his slightly chubby arms around your neck. Dean came up besides you, wrapping his arms around your body and squeezing you and your son into his arms. He kissed the top of your head and you snuggled into his neck, taking in everything. The feeling of his skin against yours, the scent of him and his cologne on his shirt, the slight scratch of his ever-so-slightly scruffy face on your cheek as he nuzzled against you, the squirming of your son as he vied for your attention over Dean. Most importantly, you looked up at Dean and you saw him smile. He actually smiled with genuine happiness and contentment. 

You looked up lovingly at him and watched his gaze scan across the scene in front of him: from the luscious green forest around a field mixed with grass and flowers to the dirt road that doubled as your driveway to the large dirt driveway that led to your home then back to your son, who there was no denying was his just by looks. Finally, his gaze drifted down, beautiful green eyes meeting yours as he kissed you gently, “I love you.” 

______________

Dean rushed into the motel room excitedly, setting the bags of take-out on the half-broken table. It was a good night. It was his night to take the bed instead of the floor and he had just gotten back from getting a double bacon cheeseburger. What wasn’t to love? “I HAVE PROVIDED!” He announced, throwing his arms in the air triumphantly for doing a basic human task like getting food.

He reached into the large brown paper bag, pulling out his burger before looking pu and noticing that nobody was getting their food. “Don’t all get up at once.” He commented sarcastically, looking at Sam, Cas, Jack, and… oh. That’s what was off. “Where’s Y/N?” 

Sam leaned back from his laptop, “Y/N’s not back yet.” 

“What do you mean Y/N isn’t back yet?” He asked. 

“I mean she isn't back. She left this morning to go check in on the girl we wanted to talk to about the potential case here but she never came back. She stopped responding to my text messages five hours ago. She won’t answer her phone.” 

“Maybe her phone died?” Dean suggested, trying to push aside the panic that was rising in his chest. 

Cas shrugged, “That’s what we assumed too but she’s been gone for almost twelve hours. Even if her phone did die, she should have been back by now or at least told us she went to go do other things. It’s nearly eleven o’clock at night. And nothing in this town is open past eight as far as I can tell.” 

Dean thought for a second, “Okay… so what do we do? Where do we start? What do we know?” He rambled. 

“I’m not sure,” Jack started, “But she went to interview someone who knew the vic right? Maybe we should go talk to the girl she interviewed? See if she knows anything?” 

Cas nodded, “That would be a good place to start.”

Before Cas even finished agreeing, Dean had the keys pulled out of his pocket and was heading towards the door, “Alright, let’s go.” 

__________________

“Excuse me boys but what exactly do you think you’re doing?” You questioned, hands on your hips, as you watched your three year old sitting on the granite kitchen counter next to your husband, both of them looking like a deer in headlights. Marcus quickly ripped his hand out of the pack of cookies he and Dean were sneaking into while Dean continued to look at you, mid-bite into his chocolate chip cookie. They knew they were caught. “I just got back from the store to make dinner! It is not time for cookies!” You exclaimed, not actually mad, just irritated at Dean for spoiling your son’s appetite. It was hard enough getting him to eat his veggies sometimes. 

“Daddy! Mommy’s home!” Marcus very obviously scream whispered, panicking. 

Dean leaned over, “Yeah, thanks buddy.” You cocked an eyebrow at him. After a second, Dean stood a little straighter, looking at you defiantly and finishing biting into the cookie. 

“Dean Winchester! Don’t make me fight you!” You threatened, reaching over to pick Marcus up off the counter. 

“Is that a promise or a threat?” Dean asked with a smirk and cheesy eyebrow wiggle. 

Your eyes widened as you cleared your throat, motioning to the toddler in your arms. 

Your husband rolled his eyes, “Awe c’mon, he’s three. He doesn’t know what I mean.” You rolled your eyes back at him, setting Marcus down. 

After watching him run into the other room, Dean moved a little closer to you, grabbing your waist and leaning close to you, his scruffiness scratching seductively up your neck, making your knees weak. “So… maybe we can get him to bed early tonight and we can make that a promise?” 

______________________

“Hello, Miss. Peyton Wilson?” Sam started, the girl nodding in response, “I’m agent Cole and this is my partner agent Wanek,” He gestured to Dean, “Another agent came by this morning to speak with you about your brother’s death, correct?” 

Peyton looked as if she’d been crying for days, her eyes puffy and hair messy, “I already talked to the police. But no, nobody from the FBI came by.” 

“No?” Sam asked, fear flashing in his chest, “Okay, well I’m sorry for bothering you so late. We’ll be back tomorrow at a more reasonable time to speak with you about the incident. Have a good night.” 

“So she never made it here?” Dean thought out loud as they walked towards the impala where Jack and Cas were. 

From the back, Cas said, concerned, “Then she’s been missing for longer than we thought.” 

“So where do we start then?” Dean asked, needing something productive to be said. He felt like they weren’t getting anywhere. 

In the backseat, a thought occurred to Jack, “What if whatever we’re hunting here got Y/N too?” 

Dean groaned, “Then we better find whatever it is fast. We don’t even know for sure what we’re hunting. But whatever it is, it’s not good and she probably doesn’t have much time.” 

“Three known victims so far, all completely drained of blood. So we’re down to… what? A vamp or a djinn?” Sam thought through before sighing, “Either way, it’s not good.” 

“And where’s the nest then?” Cas asked. 

Out across the dark, rainy street, what looked like a teenage girl walking down the sidewalk caught Sam’s attention. She walked straight ahead, shielding herself from the rain by pulling her coat over her head. Sam watched, noticing that she kept glancing behind her nervously. “Hey, guys…” Sam mentioned, drawing everyone’s attention to the young girl who was quickly looking more and more scared. The girl completely stopped, looking around and taking out her earbuds when suddenly a man appeared out of the bushes next to her. Within less than a second, his eyes glowed a bright blue, illuminating his heavily tattooed body, and he snatched her into the bushes, the both of them disappearing silently. 

All four of the men jumped out of the car, rushing towards where the girl and djinn just stood. “I guess we know which one it is now.” As they approached where they were, they couldn’t find where they went. Dean rustled the leaves around, trying to figure out where the djinn could have possibly taken the girl. That’s when he saw the opening behind the bush. 

“Right here guys!” He announced, ripping away the branches and diving straight into the tunnel, gun drawn. It was dark and entirely concrete, walls, floor, ceiling, and all. Water leaked from cracks in the ceiling, small weeds peeping through the seams between slabs on cement. The tunnel itself only went about fifteen feet in before opening into a medium sized room lit only by the sporadic, nearly-burnt out candle. 

Dean cautiously scanned the room, nodding his head silently to let the other three men know it was clear. They all entered, guns readied. Broken furniture littered the room except for the occasional mostly intact couch or table. The men spread around the room, each looking in different areas for either the man or the girl he took or (preferably) you. 

Jack followed along one wall, seeing a hallway that led off to the right. He rounded the corner, gasping when he saw the scene in front of him. Across the room, he saw a row of people strung up by rope around their wrists, feet barely touching the floor (not that it mattered considering they hung limp and unconscious anyways.) There were three people in total: one older gentleman, a younger man- the one who’s disappearance drew you all to the town in the first place, and you. Each of you were hooked up to an IV system, deep red blood flowing from your arms into a bag that hung next to each of your bodies.  “Dean! Sam! Cas!” Jack yelled, alerting the others. 

______________________________

You couldn’t help the slight quiver in your legs or the flutter in your chest as Dean’s lips dipped below your jaw and just behind your ear, knowing every spot on your body that made you weak. His rough hands gently crept under your shirt, calloused fingers resting on your soft skin, as he pinned your body between his hips and the granite kitchen counter. You tilted your head, giving him better access to exactly where you wanted him. A whimper escaped your lips as he sank his teeth into your delicate skin before soothing over it with his tongue. 

“Do you realize how beautiful you are?” He asked, pulling away from your neck to look into your eyes with all the love and adoration that they held five years ago when you first fell in love. 

Gosh, the way this man made you feel. He had the power to make you feel like the strongest most badass woman in the world but he could also make you feel like the most beautiful, loved person on the planet. 

“Do you realize how much I love you?” You responded, hoping your eyes conveyed the exact same message his did. Before he could respond, you pulled him close to you, hand resting on his neck before craning your mouth back up to meet his in a fiery kiss. Dean’s large hands trailed down from your hips to your thighs, lifting you up onto the counter. He quickly closed the gap between you, hips coming flush with you. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his hips as you pulled him impossibly closer, earning a grunt from Dean as the bulge in his jeans rubbed against your clothed core. 

Your lips still crashed passionately as his hand snaked around your lower back and he leaned forward, catching you off guard as you suddenly found yourself leaning back. Before you could lie all the way down, your hands shot out in panic, trying to catch yourself in a momentary panic despite the fact that Dean had you supported the whole time. In your panic, you accidentally knocked a small pile of books off the counter and they came crashing to the ground with a loud thud. 

You and Dean both froze, listening for Marcus to see if he woke up. After it was decided it was safe, you giggled at your mishap. Dean looked down at you and poked your sides in humorous aggression, “Gotta be quiet princess or you’ll wake him up! It’s already been so long.” He growled the last part, diving back into your neck, trailing hot kisses down into your cleavage and across your breasts, pulling your tank top down further to expose your supple skin. His teeth grazed over the tender flesh pulling a whimper from your lips. 

“You sound so sweet princess.” Ohhh that nickname. It really did things to you. His hands came up to massage your breasts , pulling your shirt and bra down, completely exposing you, and you found yourself arching your back into his rough palms. “You have no idea how badly I’ve missed this.” He groaned in your ear, grinding his hips into your heat and you could feel everything. 

“I’m pretty sure I have an idea.” You teased, your words broken by breathy moans. Slowly, he moved his left hand from your breast and down to your heat, massaging you through your shorts. 

“Oh Dean-” You moaned in ecstasy. 

_______________________________

“Dean…” You groaned quietly. 

“I’m here! I’m here Y/N. C’mon wake up.” Dean told you, panicked, as he and Sam ran over to you. Dean checked your pulse while Sam whipped out his knife and began sawing through the ropes that held you up. It didn’t take long to cut all the rope and your weight crashed into Dean’s arms. He gently lied you on the ground, kneeling over you. 

“He’s dead. Is she okay?” Cas asked, looking over from his own work of cutting down the elderly gentleman. 

“She’s alive.” Dean announced, “C’mon Y/N, wake up!” He shook you slightly. Gosh, you were so pale and your skin was cold and clammy. Your lips were chapped and he could’ve sworn they were almost purple. His eyes trailed down to where the IV was and he quickly removed the tape, gently removing the catheter from your arm, blood squirting down your arm from the lack of pressure. “Jack! Help!” 

Jack quickly ran over to you and swiped his hand over your body. His eyes glowed bright amber and a warm energy flowed from his hands into your body, stopping the bleeding in your arm and trailing up. As he worked his way up, you slowly regained some color and your breathing became more regular. 

Before he could finish though, Sam yelled, grunting as he was tackled to the ground by a man. Jack stopped and stood quickly, his attention turning to Sam who was being attacked by the same man that had taken the girl earlier that night. The man choked Sam, his hands gripping tightly around his throat. “Jack-” He choked out, hands trying to pry the man’s grip off. As Sam met his eyes though he noticed them glow bright blue and saw the tattoos all over his body do the same and Sam knew right away what he was dealing with. 

With a flick of his wrist, the man was thrown off Sam by some invisible force and sent crashing into the cement walls. Sam rolled over, gasping and coughing loudly, managing to croak out, “It’s a djinn!” 

The tattooed monster didn’t stay down for long though and before the boys knew it, he was back up. The djinn rushed towards Castiel, who turned soon enough to take a blunt tackle to the chest. He found himself pinned against the wall. Cas struggled hard against the pressure but the djinn wasn’t budging. Again, he glowed bright blue and brought his fingers up to Castiel’s forehead. When he did, Cas’s eyes glowed as well and he stared off as if he were in a trance. 

Before the djinn’s magic was completely though, Sam rushed up from behind, running him through with the angel blade. His blue glow flickered before completely dimming and he crashed to the ground. Cas fell as well but quickly regained consciousness, the djinn’s magic having not worked entirely. 

“Jack!” Dean hissed, snapping a distracted Jack back to his previous job of healing you.

“Right!” Jack knelt back down next to you and ran his hands over your still body. Slowly, you began moving again, even if only a little. 

Suddenly, your eyes shot open as you gasped and sat up, nearly knocking Dean’s head with yours. You leaned back against your hands as you gasped, looking around at your surroundings.

How the hell did you get here? What happened? Where were you? Two seconds ago you were in your very happy home, doing very very pleasant things with your husband when suddenly you were jolted to wherever the hell this was. You really thought you were done with all that hunter stuff… 

“Y/N?!” A familiar voice gasped, “You’re okay! We’ve got you!” 

You looked over to see Dean crouching next to you but this wasn’t your Dean. This was the Dean you’d first started dating back when you were hunters. “What’s going on?” You asked, looking around frantically. Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack all stood around you with worried looks on their faces. 

“You were taken by a djinn,” Cas explained, turning to the boys, “Her confusion is probably caused by suddenly being jerked from whatever fantasy he had her in.” 

Fantasy. That was just a fantasy? “It all felt so real.” You sighed sadly to yourself. You wanted that to be real so badly.

Dean took your hand gently, “Believe me, I know. I’ve been zapped in by one of those suckers too.” 

“Let’s get her back to the hotel.” Sam suggested. 

Everyone nodded in agreement and Dean reached down to help you up. The second his skin touched yours, your heart sped up and you gasped, still feeling hot from his touch in your dream. Dean noticed and looked at you with a concerned expression, “You okay?” 

You nodded hurriedly, avoiding eye contact with him. It was all too weird. You’d been in love with the man for months and you finally had everything you’d dreamed of. You’d been with him in ways you could only imagine being with him in real life and now it was as if none of it had happened. Because none of it had. 

“I can do it.” You stated, pushing yourself up with wobbly arms. They were still sore despite the fact that your wounds had been healed.

Together, the five of you made your way out of the room you were in, along with the girl they’d saved. Once outside, you made quick work of making the scene look like a typical kidnapping-murder. Dean called it in to the police that you’d all been working with as FBI and told them that you’d found the victims. 

As soon as all of that was done, you’d gotten in the Impala and made your way back to the motel. Everyone noticed you were uncharacteristically quiet but chose not to push it. They had no clue what hallucination you were stuck in. 

But Jack, of course, with his child-like naivety and thirst for learning looked at you innocently in the backseat, “So you were stuck in a dream?” He asked. 

You nodded, trying to hide the sadness, “Apparently so.” 

“And he was feeding off of your blood while keeping you trapped in a dream?” He pressed, innocent curiosity all over his face. 

“Yes, Jack.” You stated simply, really not wanting to explain all of this right now. It wasn’t as if you’d just been strung up and drained of your blood all day or anything. 

He shifted in his seat to look at you, “So what did you dream about?” 

You stopped, unsure what to say. Silently, you looked up to the front seat to look at Dean, hoping with every fiber of your being that maybe that dream was some premonition, “It actually wasn’t bad,” You explained with a small smile, “It was everything I’ve wanted my life to be for a long time.” 

“Doesn’t sound like a bad way to die,” Jack commented, “Y’know, stuck in a perfect dream world where you can’t feel yourself slowly being murdered.” 

You cringed a little at the way he explained it, especially since he did it with his boy-like smile. “I guess you’re right, Jack.” You chuckled. 

“Well now that you saw your perfect life, maybe you can work on making it real!” He chirped excitedly. 

Again, your eyes found their attention on Dean and the way the moonlight and headlights highlighted his features in the night and the way he occasionally peeked back at you to make sure you were okay. How could a girl not fall for him? “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” You said with a smile. Maybe he was. 

[thank-you-for-the-vampire-money]

SLEIGH RIDE

link to the sing is HERE

A/N: it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written for Jefferson

Jefferson x reader

Word count: 1450

Summary:  Being with your husband and step-daughter on Christmas is the most amazing perfect thing you could ever imagine spending your Christmas

Warnings: none

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too 

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you

  The bell tower rang its thunderous song, the clanging bell telling everyone in town that it was six o’clock.  It was already dark, the sun had set hours ago, leaving room for everyone’s Christmas lights to shine and light up the streets.  You locked up the stable, bidding your horse goodnight before you gathered up your things to start packing.

“It’s pretty dangerous for a lovely lady like you to walk home alone,” a deep voice called to you, the sound echoing down the wooden hall.

Your head whipped around to see none other than your husband, standing by the entrance.  “Jefferson!” You grinned, running over to hug him.

He took his gloved hands out of his pockets to wrap his arms around you.  “I thought I’d walk you home,” he grinned, kissing your cheek softly, “no one deserves to be alone on Christmas Eve,”. 

“It’s just an hour walk,” you chuckled, taking your red mittens out of your coat pocket, “where’s Grace?  Is she alone On Christmas Eve?”.  You laughed, playfully quirking your brow at him.

“She is, but she wanted to get her surprise ready for you,” He said, pulling you to his side, “she practically shoved me out the door, to go get you”.

“She better not be using the stove, you know what happened last time…” you warned, getting a bit concerned.

“Don’t worry, there will be no kitchen usage involved, I made her promise,” he promised, “she doesn't break promises, so no kitchen fires this holiday,”.

 Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling "Yoo-hoo!" 

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you

Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy and cozy are we

We're snuggled up together like two birds of a feather would be 

  The snow was falling gently as you attempted to brush your hair out of your face.  It was a struggle with your bulky mittens on.

“Here, Let me help,” Jefferson hummed, taking off one glove so he could fix your hair properly.

“Hey! (Y/N)! Jeff!” Mary-Margaret’s voice shouted.  Both your heads turned in unison to see her head poking out of Granny’s diner.  “Come join us! We’re having some hot drinks and watching the snow!”.

You and your husband looked at each other, shrugging.  Why not?  Good friends and good food on a cold day sounded amazing!  Jefferson held your hand as you jogged over to the door, careful not to slip on the wet ground.

  You let out a satisfied sigh as the heated building warmed up your cold face.  “Mmm… it smells like cake in here,” you grinned, salivating as you saw all the lovely baked goods laid out on the counter.

Jefferson grabbed a gingerbread man and held it between his teeth as he carried two hot mugs of cocoa to the booth you had sat down in. “There you go, sweetheart,” he mumbled through the cookie in his mouth.

"Thank you," you said, taking the hot mug and letting it warm your cold hands.  You inhaled the warm, sweet scent, cozying down in your little booth.  "So what IS Grace doing?" you asked.

Jefferson shrugged, "she said it was a surprise,".

   As time passed by and the alcohol content of your drinks rose, Jefferson realized how late it was getting.  Even though you were both having a good time, cuddling up together in your little corner, laughing and chatting with your friends, you didn’t want to leave Grace waiting for too long.

“Do you have to go?” David asked, not wanting to fun to end, “we haven’t even gotten to see Mary drunkenly try to sing karaoke! That’s the best holiday tradition ever!”.

You chuckled as Mary flicked her husband’s forehead playfully.  “Yes, we have to go.  We have a nine-year-old at home and we don’t want to abandon her on Christmas,” you explained, putting on your beanie, “but we’ll see you for the tree lighting tomorrow morning,”.

 Let's take the road before us and sing a chorus or two

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you

  Walking out of the warm diner into the harsh cold of the town was a shock to you.  You wrapped your arms around yourself with a violent shiver, the heavy snow coating your hair and eyelashes.  “Hell no, I’m not walking for an hour in this weather,” you said, cuddling into Jefferson’s chest, wrapping his unbuttoned coat around the both of you.

A chuckle left Jeff’s lips as he wrapped his arms around you in a hug.  “I’ve got an idea,” he grinned, seeing a horse-drawn sleigh glide by.   He took off his gloves so he could whistle around his fingers to grab the stage coach’s attention.  “Mind if we get a ride?” he shouted.

  The coach looped the horse back around and let you both get into the sleigh. “Thank you, my good man,” Jefferson smiled, handing the coach a wad of cash before sitting down with you on the red, velvet bench.  “Better?” he asked, taking a blanket from the basket by your feet and wrapping it around you both.

You grinned like a happy cat lying in the sun. “Yes, much better,” you squeaked, cuddling against him, letting his hand rest against your hip.

  The snow didn’t stop, but it gave the whole scene a magical aura.  The Christmas lights everywhere, Menorahs lit in the front windows of people’s houses, snowmen in the front yards of neighborhood houses, it was gorgeous.  “Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy and cozy are we…” Jefferson sang softly, absentmindedly humming the instrumental parts, “We're snuggled up together like two birds of a feather would be…”.  You giggled, covering your mouth to hide the sound.  “What? Grace has been singing that all week because of her school recital, it got stuck in my head!”.

“I'm not blaming you, I just think you’re just cute,” you giggled, “please don’t stop, I like it when you sing,”.  That made Jefferson’s heart melt, encouraging him to sing louder and more confidently.

"Silver beeeeellls!  Silver beeeellls!" he sang out, mocking a cheesy opera singer's voice, putting on a little performance for you, "it's Christmas tiiiiiiime in the cittyyyyyyy!".   He really hammed it up, doing dramatic expressions and silly gestured, just so he could make you laugh.  That was music to his ears.

 Let's take the road before us and sing a chorus or two

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you 

  You waved to the horse and coach as they left, dropping you off in front of your doorstep.  “Thank you!” you grinned, Jefferson carrying you up the short set of stairs.  “Do you know what Grace has been doing for the past couple hours?” you asked as you opened the door.

  You stepped inside and saw the beautifully decorated tree in the living room.  Golden garlands and white lights spiraled around the branches while big red ornaments were hung throughout.  To give it that one special touch, an angel sat on top of the tree, nearly touching the fifteen-foot high ceiling. “That’s… Grace, did you do this?” you asked, your eyes wide with amazement.

  The little girl stood proudly in front of her project, nodding eagerly as she saw how much you liked what she did for you. “Papa and I did it together,” she grinned, pointing at her father.

You looked behind you at Jefferson.  “You knew about this?  You sneaky son of a-” you laughed, playfully shoving him, “you big, fat liar!”.

He shrugged innocently.  “I may or may not have gone out and chopped a real tree… and let her decorate… unsupervised…” he hummed, blushing a bit.

“And you get to put the last ornament on!” Grace cheered, running over to give you the special framed photo ornament she had made at school.

The photo was of all three of you in the park from earlier that fall, all cuddled up together, surrounded by colorful leaves and fall flowers.  With a pink and purple glitter frame, decorated with a yellow button in the shape of a heart in the corner and some various rhinestones on the rim.  You would keep this forever and ever.

Tears of joy pricked at your eyes.  “Gracie… this is beautiful!” you smiled, kissing her head, hanging the frame up on the tree where everyone who entered your house could see.  Jefferson picked his daughter up and hugged you from behind.  “Best Christmas Ever…” you sniffed, unable to stop the overwhelming happy feeling in your heart.

_________________

TAGLIST

@buckyshattergirl​

[purplesurveys]

1032

survey by danceamydance

Have you ever witnessed a birth? Never have. I wasn’t present when my mom gave birth to my younger siblings and other than that there’s been no reason for me to be around for the birth of my other younger relatives.

What pattern does the closest tissue box have? I don’t have one in my room, but the one in our bathroom is brown. I think. I never actually checked even though I use it everyday lol.

Where did you lose your virginity, if you have? I truthfully didn’t really keep note of what counts as the first time because we had already been fooling around quite a bit. I’d guess either a hotel room or my room, or maybe hers. The one thing I can remember was that I was 18, so there’s that.

What color car(s) do your parents drive? We have two white cars and one teal. I still don’t know why my dad got a teal car when none of us in the family are into colored cars, but according to him getting the Vitara in white would’ve looked like an FX (a form of public transport here), so I’ve learned to make my peace with the teal car lol.

What are your views on getting rid of the penny? I can’t relate, because we don’t use pennies.

Which Asian country would you most like to visit? Aside from the ones I’ve already gone to, I’d love to take a trip to Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and India.

Have you ever had a nosebleed? Nope. I fear the day I get one; I’m scared of blood haha.

How far away do you live from your birthplace? Maybe around 30 minutes without any traffic. A realistic drive to Manila would take me anywhere between 1 to 1.5 hours.

Do you have bangs? Yep, and they’re starting to get pretty long as well so thanks for reminding me that I’ll have to trim them soon. I want to get rid of them already as I’ve had my fun with them, but NO ONE HAS SEEN ME WITH BANGS loooool so they are still staying. 

Are you a good driver? I wanna say I’ve been better through the years? Hahaha the consensus is that I drive a little crazy, but my friends still always pick me to drive them whenever we go somewhere because everyone apparently still finds me the safest driver to ride with despite my temper on the road. Having a tiny car, being bullied by bigger pickup trucks and SUV through the years has helped toughen me up.

Have you ever kissed someone underneath the mistletoe? No. My ex and I always celebrated Christmas separately, with our own families, so we never got the chance to do this.

Do you watch the Olympics on the television? No. It’s not really something that interests me.

What was the scariest experience of your life? The time I nearly crashed into a car that I didn’t realize was stopped in the middle of the road while I was going 80 kph, and having like 3 seconds to hit the brakes.

Do you have a Tumblr account? I mean...

Are your nails painted right now? What color? Nope.

Have you ever played truth or dare? Several times, though I always pick truth because I’ve never had a problem saying it. I also hate picking dares because my friends would usually make us do dumb things, like dance, or worse, make out with someone in the circle.

How long is your driveway? Not very.

Are there any tv shows you keep up with religiously? Mmm it used to be The Crown, but I probably won’t be watching it for a while despite the new season because 1) I used to watch it when my past relationship had still been smooth-sailing, so watching it would just remind me of that; and 2) Gabie loves the shit out of Gillian Anderson and she was brought in for season 4 lol. 

Right now my focus is on a new Korean drama called Start-Up, which is currently ongoing and is so fucking good. Nam Joo Hyuk is also there, so it’s a sweet bonus for me <3

What is your favorite iPhone app? I’m using YouTube the most these days, so it may as well be my favorite.

Where is your mother right now? She’s at work.

Do you know anybody named Carl? I don’t think so. The only person that came to mind is an uncle named Carlo who I haven’t seen in more than a decade. My dad’s college group used to be super tight-knit and I used to be friends with his friends’ kids, so it’s sad to see them kinda grow apart and notice the others be more reclusive over the years.

Are you more of a night owl or a morning person? Morning person. Ugh, work is changing me as a person haha.

What is your favorite song at the moment? Saw You In A Dream by The Japanese House has taken the top spot again. It’s just too goddamn good of a song.

Do you have a weak stomach? Very. I’m awful with car rides, bungee jumping, fair rides, you name it.

Have you ever been to a party where people were drinking underage? Hmm, yes. Kaira’s 18th birthday – it was held in May but most of the people at her party weren’t going to turn 18 until the end of the year, so it was a lot of 16 and 17 year olds drinking. I had just turned 18 then, so I allowed myself to take my first sip of a margarita.

How many stores are in the mall closest to you? Malls here are generally packed compared to what people may have in the US or other countries, so even though our local mall isn’t anything notable, it still holds 200+ stores.

Do you know anybody who has been diagnosed with cancer? Yes, but they’re all outside of family. My mom’s side is very weird about cancer and never share information about family members who may have it and only ever refer to it as ‘the c word,’ so I may have more relatives who have cancer than what is made known to us.

How far away is the closest McDonald’s to you? We have one literally right beside the main entrance of our village but because our house is at the very end of the village, what should be just a couple of steps away is instead a 10-minute drive for me.

Would you ever meet someone in person that you met online? Yeah I’ve done that with a few people in the wrestling circle. Jila I met unexpectedly while we were both in line for the WWE house show in Manila in 2016; Javi I met when I lent him my Chris Jericho memoir; and Rafie was the one who gave me a free ticket to said WWE show. Rafie’s a local celebrity now and he has such a huge following, so as weird as it is I’m also glad I have that little memory with him before he blew up.

What was the last film you watched? That Thing Called Tadhana, but I was unable to finish it. I’m into TV shows these days and I’ve been all over Start-Up.

Does it snow where you live? Never has.

Have you ever been to an art gallery? Of course, I’m a sucker for those. I always go to one whenever I can; there are a lot of malls here that’ll randomly have pop-up art exhibits, so art galleries here actually aren’t limited to just museums.

What are your neighbours like? A lot of them have kids, that much I know because a lot of them play outside in the afternoon and make some noise. We all keep to each other, though, so I don’t know any more about them; the only time we get together is when the neighborhood organizes its own Christmas party for the community.

Do you visit your town’s library often? I would if we have one, but public libraries are not a thing here. If you needed to go to a library to find a book, you would have to go to a university.

Have you ever had to take care of an intoxicated person? This just gave me college flashbacks haha. Of course I have, and the most notable people for me are JM, Andrew, and Angela.

What flavor was the last ice cream you ate? It’s a red bean ice cream sandwich that also has a bit of vanilla ice cream in it.

Can you do a cartwheel? No but I definitely tried a thousand times as a kid.

Who is the last person you spoke to on the phone? Can I do video calls instead? I haven’t done phone calls in a while. The last people I was on a call with were Ysa and Bea.

^ What did you talk about? Secret work stuff.

Which website do you spend the most time on? YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter.

Have you ever kissed someone of a different race? I haven’t.

What can you smell right now? My coffee chocolate chip cookie.

Do you read fanfiction? If so, what fandoms? I haven’t checked on my favorite authors since college, mostly because they went MIA at some point and moved on to different fandoms as well. But when I did, I mostly read ones for AJ/Punk and HHH/Steph.

What accent is your favorite? Man this question is asked a lot...

How did/will you celebrate your birthday this year? Gab gave me a cute digital present, I think I may have spent the whole day playing the Switch, and Hans and Angela sent over a box of sushi for me.

Are you more introverted or extroverted? I’m both depending on the people I’m with. If I’m with a crowd I don’t know all that much, I turn my volume down.

Do you tend to repeat yourself all the time? Yeah. I got it from my mom, who unconsciously repeats stories all the time.

How was the last chicken you ate cooked? Fried.

Is there anybody you always find yourself thinking about? Yes, but it has gotten easier to manage/ignore altogether these days.

What was your last argument about? Haven’t argued with anyone in a hot minute. It was probably my mom as always, but I no longer remember what it could have been about.

Are/were you part of any extracurricular activities in school? I had clubs in high school since it was mandatory. In college, I was in yearbook and a journalism org.

Do you want to get married someday? I don’t know about that anymore.

What colors are on your country’s national flag? Blue, red, yellow, and white.

Would you go back to your ex if he/she asked you? I’m pretty stupid when it comes to this, so yes.

[the-sunshine-dims]

spending time with your dark famILY

deceitber Day 4: Spending time with his dark family!!! @dragonindigo245     also this is pretty long so its going under the cut

*~warnings~* Remus being Remus, food, strong language, insomnia mention, Remus putting fruits in the pan with pancakes,

pairing(s): platonic dlampr, background logince (re, vi, and de are platonic but if you want to say its romantic or a qpp/qpr be my guest)

words: 1739

characters: Virgil, Remus, deceit, Logan, Patton, roman,

ao3 link

also this is long so its going under the cut

___________

it was nearly Christmas, or- it was in the Christmas month but that doesn’t sound as cool, anyway Virgil had decided he was ganna spend time with his dark family. he promised them 

it was a rather cold day which Virgil knew meant that everyone was probably huddled up in blankets and sweaters, Virgil smiled at the thought as he stared up at the ceiling of his room. he sat up and sighed “ok gotta get a hoodie on” he said absently as he stood up and tried to find a comfy hoodie in his closet, his normal one was getting washed since roman had somehow gotten ketchup on it, his eye cought on a ugly charismas sweater Patton gave him, it was grey and purple with a big Christmas tree on the front and it said ‘ya better watch out’ a bunch with the words reaching the bottom of the sweater, he smiled and put it on 

he headed to his door and opened it, he went down the hallway trying to find Patton or Logan or even roman just so he could tell them he wasn’t ganna be around today, he finally went down stairs after not finding anyone upstairs, he saw roman, Logan, and Patton hanging out in the kitchen, Patton was making what could be assumed was hot coco, roman was talking fast and excitedly waving his hand around, Logan gave a gentle smile at whatever roman was saying or maybe he was just smiling at roman 

Virgil gave a smile and sighed gently shook his head, he headed down the stairs he got to the bottom before deciding to talk

“hey guys i’m not ganna be around the rest of the day, I might be gone for a bit tomorrow too, just letting you know” Virgil said facing the others 

“oh kiddo where are you going?” Patton asked tilting his head like a confused puppy

“oh i’m ganna hang out with the darksides ” 

Patton made a hum of acknowledgment before smiling “oh! I just remembered I have some left over snickerdoodles I was ganna give them to them but haven’t got the chance!” Patton opened the fridge and grabbed a Tupperware with around 6-10 cookies to hand to Virgil “can you give them to them for me?” 

Virgil gave a small smile and nodded taking the Tupperware and giving his signature two fingered solute before sinking out

****

  Virgil plopped himself into the darkscape and gave the barely decorated room a small gentle loving head shake, he walked around to see if anyone was around or he would have to go to their rooms to get them, he gently walked around making sure not to stomp. he looked over the couch and saw a sleeping deceit, he smiled to himself before walking around trying to remember exactly where Remus’s room would be, apparently he didn’t have to because after a minute or so of aimlessly walking around he felt someone run over and hug him from behind

he made a surprised yelp before his brain processed that it was most definitely Remus, he gave a small airy laugh as he turned around to confirm what he pretty much already knew, it was in fact Remus, he readjusted the cookies in his hands and hugged him back

“hey Remus how’s it goin’” Virgil gave a small smile

Remus pulled away from the hug with a big smile “oh its been fine! I’ve even made some cooler parody’s of Christmas songs!”

Virgil smiled “ok, I saw that dee is asleep wanna help me wake him up? and then we get cookies.” 

Remus was practically bouncing at that “hell yeah! he’s ganna be so mad! or maybe not! either way it’ll be fun!” Remus laughed as he skipped down the hall back to the living room

Virgil gave a small pleasant sigh as he followed Remus in suit. when Virgil and Remus got there Remus started loudly screeching and Virgil just sat down next to deceit quietly trying to nudge him awake, and that actually did kind of work to get him half conscious 

deceit mumbled something incoherent before sitting up and rubbing his eyes “mmm y-you guys better-” deceit yawned “y-ou better have a reason for waking me up”

Remus laughed “cookies!! also Virgil's here! but I think the cookies are a little more important” Remus gave a shit eating grin towards Virgil and Virgil just abrupted into laughter 

“pfft yeah i’m here and i’m a little sorry I woke you up” Virgil grinned

“ehhh your lucky you don’t have cookies other wise I wouldn’t end you all” deceit said and yawned again and leaned over and put his forehead on Virgil's shoulder

Virgil gave a small laugh “if you fall asleep Remus will eat all the cookies”

deceit gave a small noise of protest “noooooo” deceit complained, causing Virgil and Remus to laugh a little bit more

“ok come on dee you have to eat breakfast, both of you do, because I know for a fact you guys haven’t ate” Virgil said trying to pick up deceit as Remus made a small offended gasp “come on dee wake up” causing deceit to make a noise of protest as he dug his head into Virgil's shirt he heard him mumble 'warm’, Virgil gave a laugh

“oooh we should do a prank if he doesn’t wake up!” Remus said happily

Virgil laughed “as fun- as that would be I don’t want a angry snek, actually if I just put him down he’ll probably wake up by the time the food is done” 

“eh maybe,” Remus shrugged “but if he doesn’t can I try and wake him up?” Remus asked eagerly 

“sure but its your funeral” Virgil lied down deceit on the couch only to hear a small noise of protest, Virgil chuckled and went over to the kitchen to cook- err try to cook, he was hoping there was pancake mix, that was easy and tasted good

*********

deceit had finally fully woken up to the smell of pancakes, the absence of Virgil’s warmth, and the sound of Virgil screaming and Remus laughing manically, deceit sat up and rubbed at his eyes as he turned back to the kitchen to see what Virgil was screaming about

what he saw was Virgil trying to stop Remus from putting what looked like a couple apples (but with Remus who knows) into the pan with the pancakes as Virgil tried to stop him, deceit looked over to the counter and saw a cooked apple that Remus had probably killed a pancake to make, deceit smiled at the sight of the others Shenanigan’s, deceit got up and lazily walked over to the kitchen,

Remus turned his head to deceit but was still fighting to put fruits of all kinds in the pan with the pancakes “hey double dee! your awake!” Remus twirled causing Virgil to be off guard and he plopped a tomato in “HAH I WIN” he screeched

Virgil made a unhappy noise “unfair” he muttered “dude i’m making your breakfast,” Virgil abruptly turned around when he processed that Remus said ‘hey double dee’ “oh! dee good morning, ya sleep well” Virgil said the last bit with a shit eating grin

deceit flushed “fuck you” he muttered only succeeding in getting a laugh from Virgil

“anyway breakfast is taking a bit longer then I thought due to-” Virgil turned and gave a death glare at Remus “-technical issues”

Remus laughed “your just mad I won”

“IT WAS YOUR BREAKFAST” Virgil screeched 

“yeah, yeah,” Remus rolled his eyes causing an annoyed screech from Virgil

deceit laughed “oh I have an idea to keep Remus from interfering” deceit made grabby hands at Remus “Remus your ganna be my heat pack for a bit” 

Remus laughed, happily hopping into deceits arms letting him use his warmth, Virgil laughed

“thank you dee, I think they’ll be done in a minute” Virgil said 

deceit nodded putting his chin on Remus's shoulder just chilling for a bit before Virgil eventually finished the batch of pancakes, after the pancakes were eaten they wandered back to the couch and all of them got comfy and turned on the nightmare before Christmas in the background 

“hey remember the cookies? its after breakfast so you can have some” Virgil said handing the Tupperware to the side lying his head on his lap

“thank you” deceit said grabbing two and headbutting Remus with the container 

“rude!” Remus said with an offended gasp and took the cookie container causing deceit to just laugh

“I don’t know” deceit said with a chaotic smile

Virgil laughed mumbling something undecipherable 

“what was that storm boy?” Remus said with a grin

Virgil laughed “nothin’~” he grinned

“come on what did you say?” deceit asked leaning his head  so he could see Virgil's face

Virgil laughed again “nuh uh I aint tellin’” Virgil smiled 

“whyyyy” Remus complained  

Virgil just laughed again “because” 

“that’s not a reason!” Remus complained once more

“eh I don't give up on this quest” deceit deadpanned and just lied his head back down and grabbed Remus, bringing him to lay down as well

“noooo not fair!” Remus squirmed but gave up

“oh no I cant move my legs are ganna fall asleep” Virgil deadpanned

deceit laughed manically “this was my plan all along” he patted Virgil's waist with one hand “pat pat”

Virgil sighed dramatically “oh woe is me how shall I ever recover” he said causing the other two to abrupt in giggles (Remus more maniacally) Virgil laughed “you two are such dorks”

Remus laughed “whal-” 

“-nope none of that” deceit interrupted causing more laughs, 

 Remus laughed and summoned a blanket and spreaded it the best he could in someone's arms and muttered something unintelligible before drifting off to sleep

“how did he just fall asleep?” Virgil asked baffled

“its because he is an insomniac like you”

“I mean yeah but why you got to drag me?”

deceit laughed “its cold and unpleasant…” he muttered readjusting himself before drifting off as well

“seriously? i’m the only one not asleep? wack” Virgil muttered only now realizing that him too is having trouble keeping his eyes open and not falling asleep, he carefully grabbed the container of cookies from Remus and put it on the coffee table just in reach, he gave a yawn and summoned another blanket and then he too drifted off into unconsciousness 

[whitebear-ofthe-watertribe]

That Which Holds Us - Chapter 11

Pairing(s): Adrien / Marinette, Nino / Alya

Summary: It has been several months since Ladybug and Chat Noir discovered their true identities. Now that they are not trapped by secrets, they can finally be their full selves around each other and have never been closer. Marinette is going into her final year at university, Adrien is exploring new classes and passions, and their friends Alya and Nino seem to be moving towards a happy future together. It all feels like things could not be better.

But of course, nothing in life is quite so perfect.

When Adrien starts having vivid nightmares and visions about his mother, old questions begin to resurface. Will he be able to find the answers, or will these ghosts from the past tear apart the heroes of Paris for good?

Reminder, you can also read / follow this fic at AO3 here, and FF.net here.

Previous Chapters

Chapter Word Count: 8,101

Enjoy!!!

A brand new dawn was peaking above the rocky mountains surrounding the city of Lhasa. Waves of gold gradually brushed through the valley, glinting off the many windows and giving the buildings a shimmering quality. As the sun slowly rose, it was not long before the light found its way to the far outskirts of the populace and into the windows of the Hostel Padme.

Adrien’s eyes opened slowly, blearily taking in the small room. Tiny dust particles sparkled through the air above him, swirling lazily as the sun slipped through the gaps between the curtains and inched imperceptibly across the intricate woven tapestries along the walls.

It took him a moment to fully understand where he was, his mind feeling sluggish from exhaustion. With a weary sigh, he brought his arm up and laid it across his face, blocking out the light that felt a bit too harsh for his sore eyes.

The little sleep he had gotten had been restless, his mother’s voice drifting in and out of his subconscious, never truly letting him sleep as she begged him to save her. Although he had to admit, it had been the first night in ages that his nightmares had not griped his heart in terror. Or at the very least, he had not awoken screaming. He supposed he must attribute this small breakthrough to Marinette.

‘Marinette…’

Moving his arm to uncover his face again, he turned to look upon her sleeping form. She had her head resting on his shoulder, her usually silky hair a tangled mess as it fanned across their shared pillow. One of her arms was wrapped gently around him, the other tucked tightly beneath her. The bed was so tiny that she had become wedged snuggly between himself and the wall, their legs tangled beneath the warm blankets. Soft, thin rays of sunlight fell upon her pale skin.

Like waves cresting over a sandy shore, the previous night came rolling into the forefront of his thoughts. A warm glow swelled in his chest. He could not even begin to put into words how utterly grateful he was for her. His fears were still present, but with her nearby, their usually piercing stabs were dulled somewhat. He had been so wrapped up in trying to keep his burdens off her shoulders in the recent weeks that he had truly forgotten the comforting, peaceful effect she had over him.

Her arm moved against him, brushing across his chest as she tucked it closer to herself, her hand curling delicately under her chin.

Adrien caught the silver flash of his ring on her thumb, and his brow creased.

As they had traveled halfway across the world in the last day, they had spent more uninterrupted time together than they had since school had started. The difference it made on his mind was astounding. Being in her presence, he felt that he was able to think objectively for the first time in weeks, fears caused by residual dark magic be damned. Could he actually take his Miraculous back?

Should he?

Nearly every fiber of his being screamed a resounding yes. After all, Marinette and the Kwamis had made convincing arguments in favor of his re-donning the mantle of Chat Noir. It was as much sealed into his identity as any other part of himself. Had it not been he that Master Fu chose all those years ago? He who had dedicated so much of his life to using that power for good? Had he not saved countless lives with the help of Plagg and that Miraculous?

And had Plagg himself not resolutely supported him, spending those long years by his side?

But of course, there was still that part of him—gently silenced in Marinette’s calming presence, but still there all the same—that could not stop replaying what he had done to that little boy.

Marinette had successfully convinced him that he was not a danger to those around him. Or rather, she had shown him that as Adrien he would not hurt anyone. But what about Chat Noir? Was there not still a chance that Chat Noir could bring harm to innocent people because of his hallucinations?

Adrien spent a while deliberating, taking advantage of his finally clear head to look at the matter from every angle, and after a while his thoughts turned to the journey they still had ahead of them. None of them knew what answers—if any—lay at the end of it. He still could not bring himself to fully consider the idea of his father working with their sworn enemy. Sure, he was cold and distant; they had grown further and further apart ever since his mother disappeared. But… a villain?

‘No,’ he thought vehemently, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. There had to be some other explanation, some other reason as to why the Peafowl Miraculous was in his father’s safe.

He opened his eyes again, sighing.

It was decided, then. He would resolutely not decide anything around taking his Miraculous back until they had had the opportunity to speak with this mysterious Kunchen. If anyone had the answers, it had to be her.

For another few minutes, Adrien gazed at Marinette thoughtfully, watching her shoulders slowly rise and fall with each breath. Her dark lashes fanned across her soft, pink cheeks, and he reached a hand out to gently run his thumb over her velvet lips.

Cupping his hand gently around the back of her neck, he leaned forward and carefully placed his lips against hers.

Marinette let out a gentle hum, and her ocean eyes opened to meet his as he pulled away. She offered him a small smile, which he returned after a moment.

“How did you sleep?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He shrugged.

“Same as usual.”

“So… hardly at all?”

“I think I got a few hours in, then dozed on and off for a while,” he sighed, combing a strand of her hair behind her ear. “It’s fine, I’m used to it.”

“You can’t keep going on like this,” Marinette frowned, but there was a helplessness behind her expression.

“I know…” he murmured, unable to think of anything else to say.

Marinette blinked slowly up at him as he continued to run his fingers through her hair.

In that moment, Adrien honestly wanted nothing more than to stay curled up with her, forgetting the world and leaving its troubles outside. But they did not have that luxury.

With a grimace of resignation, he finally pulled away from her and sat up. Climbing out of the small bed, he shivered. The air beyond the warmth of the covers was chilly, and involuntary goosebumps rose across his exposed skin. He dressed quickly, donning his clothes from the previous day, before opening the door and crossing the hall to retrieve Marinette’s pack.

The Kwamis were sitting on top of Marinette’s unused bed. They had clearly gone searching through the backpack’s pockets for food, because both were munching on a small breakfast of cheese cubes and mini cookies.

When Adrien stepped into the room, they looked soberly up at him. Tikki offered a soft “Good morning, Adrien,” but Plagg’s eyes were drawn to Adrien’s hand, where there was an obvious lack of ring. His ears drooped a little.

“Good morning,” Adrien said, guilt flooding through him. “We should be going soon.”

They floated after him, still nibbling on their food, as he carried the pack across the hall and into the other room.

Marinette was sitting up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She had cocooned the blankets into a pile around herself.

“It’s so cold here,” she grumbled. “I feel like my nose is about to fall off.”

“Did you pack warmly?” Adrien asked, putting her stuff beside his own.

“She did, we made sure of it!” Tikki said with a smile, alighting on top of one of the bed posts and downing the remainder of her cookie.

Leaning forward, Adrien gave Marinette’s nose a kiss. It did feel rather icy against his lips.

“Oohh do that again, you’re warm.”

She leaned forward eagerly.

He let out a soft laugh. “You’ll get more kisses when you get dressed. C’mon, I’m sure Rabten will be waiting for us.”

Marinette bobbed her head in agreement before moving off the bed to retrieve her clothes. She pulled the blankets with her, keeping them tented over her shoulders in a futile attempt to maintain some of the warmth as she got dressed.

Adrien couldn’t help but smile at her. It felt strange to smile now when, just yesterday, he had felt like his world was imploding into darkness around him. But Marinette always had a positive effect on him, and he wasn’t about to reject any amount of newly-regained joy.

As he wrapped his old blue scarf around his neck, Marinette finally turned to look at him, removing the blankets to reveal that she too had dressed in her previous day’s clothes. Of course, she had also added a couple new layers of socks.

“Did you two sleep alright?” she asked the Kwamis as she sat back down on the bed again to lace up her boots.

“Mhmm,” Tikki nodded. “Well enough.”

“It’s a little too cold here for my liking,” Plagg said, wrapping his tail tightly around himself to prove his point.

“Maybe being out in the sun today will help warm things up,” Adrien offered.

Plagg shrugged. “Doubtful. I’ll be lucky to have my ears at the end of this trip if they haven’t frozen off.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Marinette said, standing again to tuck her hair into a messy bun and pulling a warm knit beanie over it.

Tikki flew over and nuzzled into the hat to sit on top of Marinette’s head.

Adrien turned away to make sure that his bag was properly closed up, trying to ignore the hurt that filled his chest. He knew that Plagg was going to join Tikki and stay close to Marinette. After all, it was the most practical thing to do while she held the ring. And it wasn’t like he expected Plagg to forgive him anytime soon. Somehow, he was just going to have to get used to—

Something small thumped into his shoulder, making Adrien jump. Looking down, he was shocked to see Plagg burrowing himself into the folds of his scarf.

“You could’ve chosen something softer,” he complained. “This one’s all old and itchy!”

Adrien stared at him, floored.

Plagg looked back at him before offering a small smile.

Adrien—trying to get control of the overwhelming waves of affection now flooding through him—smiled back.

“Well, you were the one who was complaining about how cold your ears were just now,” he said as Plagg disappeared into the folds of fabric. “And this is the warmest I had.”

“Sounds like that’s a perfect excuse to get someone to make you a new scarf,” Plagg’s muffled voice came from the left side of his neck.

Looking up, he caught Marinette’s eye as she grinned understandingly from the door.

Gathering their bags, they left the room. The winding narrow halls were noisier than the previous night, as fellow travelers were beginning to wake up.

Rabten was lounging behind the counter with his feet stretched out on a chair, chatting animatedly with a young woman. They looked around when they heard Adrien and Marinette approaching.

“Good morning, heroes!” he said cheerily. “I am surprised you are up this early. I was expecting you to be another hour or two, at least.”

Adrien shrugged. “As nice as that would have been, I think it’s best that we keep moving towards what we came here for.”

Rabten nodded.

“Is there any chance we can pick up some food on our way?” Marinette inquired. “It’s been a while since either of us ate, and I doubt we could get very far today on an empty stomach.”

Grinning, Rabten lifted a sack that had been sitting at his feet.

“I have everything you might need here,” he said. “You can have your breakfast on our drive, and there will be plenty for lunch and snacks on the way. I’m sure I’ll be able to bully Kunchen into making some of her famous momo for you tonight.”

“So we’ll be at her place within the day?” Marinette raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Adrien imagined she hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect on this journey; everything had happened so fast.

“Certainly!” Rabten nodded. “Though there will be quite a bit of on-foot travel involved. Kunchen likes to stay fairly remote, so we can only drive so far before vehicles can’t traverse the paths.” He paused thoughtfully, then smiled again. “But I’m sure the two of you are strong enough to handle it!”

Adrien exchanged a shrug with Marinette. After having spent most of their free time parkouring through their city and fighting monsters since the age of fourteen, they were likely in the best shape of anyone they knew.

Rabten gestured for them to go and wait for him outside.

“I’ll be along in a moment! I just want to be sure everything is squared away here.”

The two of them made their way through the hostel’s front door and saw the city of Lhasa in the shining light of dawn for the first time.

Adrien stopped short on the front step, his breath catching in his chest.

The sky had never felt so incredibly, inconceivably vast. Towering clouds divided the deep blue expanse, scattering the shafts of bright light that spilled between distant patches of rain showers. The horizon stretched out before them, rolling in great earthen waves before the jagged teeth of mountains broke through the smooth hills, their rough peaks disappearing into the heavens.

Lhasa glimmered in the golden light, with countless houses and buildings stacking up atop each other throughout the valley. Distant sounds of people and traffic echoed as the city awoke.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Rabten’s voice came from behind them.

Adrien turned around to see him grinning from the doorway, a second pack of his own slung across one shoulder.

“I was blessed to visit many different places in my years,” he continued. “But nowhere calls to me as much as my hometown.”

Adrien looked at Marinette and saw her smiling up at him from beside the truck. His throat constricted for the briefest of moments before he cleared it and nodded.

“I think I know just what you mean,” he said to Rabten, before ducking his head. He strode forward to place his bag in the truck’s bed. Wordlessly, he took Marinette’s from her shoulders and secured it as well.

The grin she gave him in thanks made his heart beat a little faster.

Rabten drove them back through the city, which looked entirely different in the light of day. While they munched on dried mutton and wheat cakes with yak butter, he continued his informal tour from the night before.

There was a whole new life to the city that had not been apparent in the cover of darkness. Now, people were emerging from all over the place to start their day. For as many cars as there were, they saw easily twice as many people on bikes. Breathtaking architecture lay around every corner, so very different from anything Adrien was used to seeing. While Paris had its own history, there was an ancient and monumental quality within these surroundings which he could not put into words.

It took some time for them to reach the other side of the city. As the buildings fell behind them, they found their surroundings opening to vast countryside, broken up by the rolling hills that grew in every direction.

“We will drive as far as we can,” said Rabten, twiddling the steering wheel to pass around a slower car headed in the same direction. “But we’ll still have several miles of hiking to do once we reach the more mountainous terrain. Have either of you done much?”

Adrien shrugged.

“I’ve done a bit. I was in America for a while a few months ago and we summited a few fourteeners for an ad campaign. But no, we’re not usually in places to go hiking.”

“I’m sure you both will do just fine,” Rabten said confidently.

Adrien caught an uncomfortable look on Marinette’s face, and was forcibly reminded of how much she’d tried to work through her dislike of roughing it when they had gone backpacking with Alya and Nino.

He reached over to take her hand, and she shot him a timid smile.

“Yeah,” she murmured, looking back out the window to the road and mountains before them. “Yeah, we’ll be fine.”

*******

Carapace took one last running leap between buildings before coming to a stop to survey the city sprawled out before him. It had been a long time since he’d been able to see this view while enjoying the incredible feeling that came from wielding his Miraculous.

Rena Rouge halted beside him, perching gracefully on the narrow ledge of a high chimney.

He glanced at her, his grin broadening as he caught her expression. Her eyes were bright, and the smile that played on her face was exuberant. He knew that she had missed this even more than he had.

“You know,” she said, coming over beside him and taking a seat with her legs hanging over the building’s edge, “I know we’re all worried about our friends and whatever dangerous things they’re probably going through, but I’m finding it really hard to not be pumped about being out here again like this.”

Carapace shifted closer to her, taking a seat as well.

“You’ve been wanting this for a really long time, you’re allowed to feel happy that it finally happened again.”

Rena Rouge shot a smile up at him before letting it fall a little. Turning back to gaze out across the rooftops, she leaned forward and propped an elbow on her knee, her chin resting atop her fist.

“I still can’t believe they never told us the truth,” she said quietly.

He could hear the hurt in her voice that she tried to mask.

“You know they had good reasons for what they did or didn’t do.”

“I know, but it’s us!” she exclaimed, her tone slipping into a whine. “We’re their best friends, how could they not have told us?”

“Well,” Carapace said cautiously, “you are the single most invested reporter when it comes to everything to do with Ladybug and Chat Noir… you spent years working to dig up all the information you could on them and their Miraculous, and certainly spent no small amount of time trying to figure out who they were.”

Rena Rouge straightened up to glower at him.

“Excuse me?” she growled, her hands balling into fists. “Are you saying that they didn’t tell us because they couldn’t trust me?”

“No,” he responded firmly. “I’m not saying you’re untrustworthy. I am saying that they have been in a complicated situation for years now, and that their decisions were based out of a desire to keep us all as safe as possible. I’m saying that when you look at the timeline, they got the weight of the world placed on their shoulders when we were all way too young. And be realistic, if your best friend told you that she was Ladybug, wouldn’t it have been crushing to have to keep that from your hundreds of thousands of readers?”

Rena Rouge stared at him as he spoke, her mouth gaping like a fish out of water before she finally spluttered, “I would never have breathed a word! I can’t believe that you’re saying this, you think I would have put the curiosity of thousands of strangers over the safety and privacy of two of the most important people in the world to me?!”

“Put yourself in their shoes!” Carapace replied, exasperated. “You know every choice, every secret at that age, feels a thousand times bigger than it actually is. Now imagine you are put in the same position, as a child, where reveling your deepest secret could put you, your partner, your family, everyone you loved, in jeopardy. Would you have told us who you were?”

“YES!” Rena cried, jumping to her feet, the anger rolling off her in waves.

“Would you?!” Carapace demanded, rising as well.

Rena Rouge opened her mouth to retort, but said nothing, her breath coming out in angry huffs. Her eyes shone bright with unshed tears. Finally, she crossed her arms and growled, “I… I would have told you… eventually.”

Carapace’s expression softened.

“You and I are two of the very few people who could possibly have even the slightest idea of what they’ve been through. But I think we both know that we really can’t even begin to comprehend the isolating sacrifices that both Marinette and Adrien have had to deal with all these years. And if they decided that the best thing to do for themselves and the rest of us was to keep us in the dark, then we need to respect that. Plus, getting angry about it now doesn’t mean that all those years didn’t happen.”

Jaw set defiantly, Rena Rouge looked up at him.

“It still hurts, though,” she said after a long moment.

“I know,” he said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug, despite her continued rigid stance. “And you’re allowed to be upset, but you’ll need to find a way to be ok with it somehow.”

Slowly, Rena Rouge loosened her shoulders and leaned her head into his chest.

A slow, condescending clap echoed from one of the rooftop’s alcoves several yards away.

“Well, well, well. Isn’t this touching,” came a mocking voice.

Pulling away from Rena Rouge, Carapace whipped out his shield and brandished it in the direction he thought the voice had come from, his stance widening defensively to cover his partner.

Behind him, Rena stiffened into a half crouch, her flute held at the ready and her teeth bared.

“So, the city’s beloved super-brats decided they need a helping hand, huh? And here I was, all excited over nothing when I saw two masked vigilantes hopping around town.”

Carapace turned, trying to pinpoint the voice’s location. It echoed strangely around them, seeming to come from one place, then another and another until he felt like it was closing in from all directions.

“So sorry to hear you think we’re not up to your superhero standards,” he said, forcing his own voice to remain steady.

“Oh please, Donatello, you weren’t cool in the 90’s and you’re not cool now.”

The voice let out a laugh that raised the hairs on the back of Carapace’s neck.

He’d heard that laugh before.

“And who are you, exactly?” Rena Rouge called, her tone laced with venom as she turned to press her back against her partner’s, also trying to pinpoint their invisible adversary. “Some nameless villain who’s too scared to show his face?”

“You’re not as sly as you think, little foxy. No one needs the nonsense of a B-grade hero and her knock-off ninja turtle.”

“If we’re such throwaway competition,” said Carapace, slowly rotating both himself and Rena Rouge in a circle to get a full view of the area, “why not come and deal with us yourself? Get us out of the way so you don’t have to worry about us messing things up for you with our incompetence.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

The voice finally centered on a spot just to Carapace’s right. Without even taking the time to think, he spun. The shield on his arm activated just in time to block the glowing metallic strings from latching themselves to his partner.

“Oh-ho! Little turtle knows how to play!” the Puppet Master cackled gleefully, retracting his marionette strings to pool at his feet.

Carapace had been expecting it, but seeing the Akuma that had nearly killed one of his best friends still made his blood run cold.

“You!” Rena Rouge gasped, the horror in her voice mirroring Carapace’s own.

“ME!” Puppet Master’s gleeful cackle echoed around the rooftop, as though twenty of him were laughing at once. His face was shiny and distorted, like a sadistic doll come to life. Grotesquely dilated pupils glittered maliciously out of his eyes, which were rounded like coins, and his smile was stretched stiff, with lines running down his chin to mimic a ventriloquist dummy.

The Akuma’s outfit was much the same as it had had been the first night he’d appeared at Marinette’s Gala, but with a few alterations; instead of the violet paisley shirt and brown slacks with suspenders, he now wore blacks and smokey greys. A cape—embroidered with intricate patterns that glowed like embers—was slung off one shoulder, and the bowtie at his neck smoldered to match. The marionette strings, which hung from the control paddles in each of his hands, now burned red hot instead of electric blue.

“You’ll pay for what you did, you monster!” Rena Rouge shrieked, and Carapace moved to make sure she was still fully covered by his shield.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re on about,” the Puppet Master said, raising his eyebrows innocently. “I’m sure I’ve never done anything to warrant such hostility. Aren’t Akumas the victims these days?”

“Have you forgotten that girl you put in the hospital?!” Rena Rouge demanded. “The girl who you almost murdered? She nearly died because of you, Mathis!”

“Ah yes, Marinette,” the Puppet Master rolled his unsettling eyes, all trace of his virtuous act disappearing in an instant. “I’m still upset about that. I can’t believe she recovered after all the effort I put into that attack. Although I must say, I was really looking forward to finding an opportunity to throw her under the bus this semester.”

Carapace glared through the shimmering green barrier between them.

“You were planning to go after her again?! Man, what’s wrong with you? Why do you get so much pleasure from going after Marinette like that?”

“She’s talented,” the Akuma shrugged, casually starting to stroll to the right, circling them in a wide arc. “She caught the eyes of too many important people. And while I admit that in the beginning it was just fun to knock her off her little pedestal from time to time, she crossed a line when she stole that win from me at last year’s Gala.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rena Rouge scoffed. “Marinette put that collection together in two weeks! If your collection lost then that’s on you, not her. Jeez, I knew you were a prick but who knew you’d be such a sore looser that you’d try to take vengeance on her after all this time.”

“Mm, victim blaming,” the Puppet Master sighed melodramatically, observing his nailbeds without much interest as he continued to slowly circle them. “Not a good look for superhero. Remember, I’m the one who was hurt so bad that night that my emotions got taken advantage of! Isn’t that just so sad?”

He flashed them a tragic look, his lower lip pouting sardonically.

“Well if you’re still so torn up about it, why don’t we talk it out?” Carapace suggested without much conviction. “Clearly if you were Akumatized all over again you need to vent your feelings, right? How about instead of going on a vengeful tirade, you ditch the Akuma and we have a nice little heart to heart, huh?”

“Oh! You think this is all pent-up emotion?” the Puppet Master laughed, throwing his head back. “No, no, this time was all me! I really got a good taste of power when Hawkmoth reached out to me last time, so imagine how pleased I was to see another little black butterfly come to pay me a second visit!”

“You… wanted to be Akumatized?” Carapace asked, trying to wrap his mind around that.

“Yup, ‘fraid so! Now, enough chit chat about the then, let’s talk about the now! As in where is Marinette? I’d have thought Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes would have shown up with her mangy stray by now. Superheroes are always gnawing at the bit to come take out the bad guys, right?”

It took a moment for the Puppet Master’s words to fully sink in. Carapace frowned as they played through his mind again.

“Wait!” he called, unease twisting his stomach. “Are we still talking about Marinette? Because it sounds like you’ve switched to Ladybug.”

“HA! She’d love to have everyone believe they’re two different people, wouldn’t she?” The Puppet Master began skipping around them, and Carapace side-stepped with him, never letting down his guard nor allowing the monster a clear shot. “She’s obviously done well to hide it for so long, I’ll give her that. But nobody’s perfect, especially not her, and everyone is bound to slip up when they’re… upset.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Rena Rouge snapped, tightening the grip on her flute, which she was brandishing like a baseball bat.

“Oh c’mon, you’re not telling me she’s too busy, or something? I’m not a big fan of being made to wait, you know! Where is everyone’s favorite little designer, hm? I think it’s time she and I had a little tête-à-tête,” the Puppet Master’s voice lost some of its mocking sing-song and turned into a menacing growl as he stopped skipping. “Where’s Paris’ Lady Dumb-Luck? The Coccinelle of Cockiness? The oh-so loved Vigilante of Lame? Where is Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her… well I don’t really care who the hell that cat is, but I’ll still enjoy kicking his ass in Round Two.”

Carapace felt the knot of horror growing in the pit of his stomach as he came to terms with what the Akuma was going on about.

‘He knows Marinette is Ladybug,’ his mind screamed.

And if the Akuma knew, then Hawkmoth most certainly knew as well, and that meant no one in Marinette’s life would ever be safe again.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but Ladybug won’t be joining us this evening,” Rena Rouge spat. “She and Chat Noir have better things to do than mop the floor with your disgusting doll face.”

In spite of her menacing tone, Carapace heard the note of fear in her words. He knew she’d come to the same realizations he had.

“Guess you’re just going to have to settle for being beaten by us ‘B-grade superheroes,’ huh?” he said, retightening his grip on the shield.

Behind him, he felt Rena Rouge shift her stance, ready to charge.

“You’re right, that is disappointing,” the Puppet Master sighed, looking down at his hands. He twiddled the control paddles thoughtfully between his fingers. “But I suppose this will at least make things more… interesting.”

The lethal looking marionette strings glowed from burning red to white hot as he looked back up at them, his smile growing even wider.

“Alrighty, little heroes! Let’s play.”

*******

The gravel crunched loudly underneath Adrien’s boots as he labored to placed one foot in front of the other. A biting wind whistled through the valley, whipping his hair into his eyes and causing his ears to ache. His breathing was shallow, each intake bringing a sharp pang from the stitch in his side.

They had been traveling on foot for the entire afternoon, having left the truck a bit before midday. They’d experienced first-hand what true off-roading really was when Rabten had picked his way over terrain that Adrien was still convinced no vehicle was meant to traverse. Eventually, the jagged rocks and steep grade had become too much for even his trusty little truck to handle, and they had been forced to leave it in a clearing several miles back.

Now, the sun’s unusually bright light had begun to shift the shadows of the rocks and small brush trees that they wove between, picking their way over the fourth mountainous ridge of the day. The path they walked was hardly discernable. Adrien was certain that if it were up to him and Marinette to find their own way, they would have gotten lost a long time ago.

Rabten was several yards ahead of him, traversing his way along the narrow rocky path to the summit of a low peak.

“Not much farther!” he called, glancing over his shoulder with a toothy grin, as if amused that the two youngest and fittest people of their trio couldn’t keep up with him.

The hiking was unlike anything Adrien had ever done before. He had thought climbing the fourteeners in Colorado had been an impressive feat, but that was nothing to the altitude they were experiencing now. Each lungful was a struggle, and never truly satisfying. His movements were slow, and he had to forcibly remind himself of his hope for answers at the end of this path in order to keep going. He had realized an hour or two earlier that were it not for the heightened strength and stamina granted by holding a Miraculous for so long, he very well might not have been able to make this journey without spending weeks acclimating beforehand.

At a bend in the path, he paused to look back down the steep slope to where Marinette was bringing up the rear.

Her eyes were glazed, and her cheeks were deeply flushed as she trudged forward. She had pulled her hat low over her ears and wrapped a spare shirt around her neck as a makeshift scarf, covering her nose against the harsh winds. Even above the air’s hollow moans, he could hear her wheezing with each step.

Adrien knew that she was well out of her element. If camping that summer hadn’t been enough of an example, he had been convinced that the grueling trek through these mountains would certainly have proven that point by now. But as exhausted as he knew she was, Marinette had not uttered a single word of complaint. Even as she slowly came level with the rock he had paused on, she focused her gaze on him and raised her hands in a weak double-thumbs up before bringing them to her knees as she doubled over with a wet sounding cough.

“You okay?” he asked, frowning and putting a hand on her back.

She nodded, straightening up and uncovering her mouth to drag in a lungful of air.

“Doin’ great,” she said hollowly, gasping in deep breaths. “Just enjoying the view.”

“We can rest again if you need—”

“No,” Marinette cut him off. “We’re not stopping on my account. I just—just needed to catch my breath for a sec.”

“Mar…” Adrien began again, his frown deepening. “I don’t want you pushing yourself to breaking—”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, one side of her mouth quirking into a wan smile. “I’m more worried about you than about me. How are you holding up?”

Adrien shrugged, too drained to refute her subject change.

“I’m surviving.”

“We’ll hopefully you can keep surviving just a bit longer,” came Rabten’s voice from above them. They looked up to see the old man’s cheerful face peeking out from over the top of the ridge. He gave them an encouraging wave. “C’mon, now! I wasn’t lying when I said we don’t have much farther to go—our destination is near!”

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a silent look before nodding briefly and turning back to the path.

Marinette took the lead this time, reaching out to give his hand a quick squeeze of encouragement as she passed.

Adrien smiled, grateful that her bullheadedness had brought her on this journey with him.

Slowly, they crested the summit to stand beside Rabten, who stood with his hands on his hips and a crooked smile on his face as he surveyed the view before them.

Marinette clumsily sat upon a large rock, fishing a water out of her pack as Tikki peaked out of the cozy perch under her hat.

Adrien crouched beside her, using one of her knees as support. His heart was pounding in his ears, and a low headache was pulsing through his temples.

“You both must drink more water,” Rabten said, watching him. “It does not matter how strong you are, altitude is something no one can conquer by sheer will. Water will help, though. And we do not have far to go, look!”

He pointed to the far end of the valley that lay below. A flat plateau was nestled between the foothills of two steep peaks.

Adrien followed his gesture and squinted, trying to get his eyes to focus. There seemed to be a strange smudge on the land before them. Even with his heightened vision, he couldn’t quite make out what he was looking at. It seemed to be a kaleidoscopic swirl of colors, as if a giant had dropped an entire paint palette on the floor of the world.

He squeezed his eyes shut, convinced that this must be some kind of weird hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen.

“How much farther?” Marinette asked, taking hold of Adrien’s hand and gently pressing her water bottle into it.

He opened one eye and shot her a grateful nod before tilting his head back to take a long gulp.

“We should be there within the hour,” Rabten said. “I’m estimating that our pace will bring us to Kunchen’s doorstep just before nightfall.”

“Well,” Marinette sighed, her breathing still labored, “no use sitting around here, then.” She stood, and locked her hands around Adrien’s wrists, pulling him to his feet as well. “C’mon. Last one to the Sifu’s house is… well, still someone who hiked a whole lot with impossibly low oxygen, so that’s something I guess.”

Adrien snorted, shooting her a look.

Marinette smirked before pulling her shirt-scarf back up over her nose and following Rabten down the hillside, the dirt and gravel sliding beneath her boots.

They moved on, Adrien’s footfalls creating a slow rhythmic pulse in his own head. It was as if so much of his energy was being generated towards taking one step after another that even the rhythm of his thoughts were aligning themselves with the motion.

As they grew closer to the smudge Rabten had pointed out to them, Adrien thought something must be wrong with his eyes—his vision must surely be going funny, for the plateau was still practically glowing with vivid color. He blinked hard, trying to figure out just what he was looking at, when suddenly it clicked.

Flowers.

Thousands upon thousands of flowers covered every square foot of the valley before them. Flowers in rainbow hues of every color imaginable, with large bursts of bright green foliage springing up every so often.

The wind still clawed at them as they traversed the last few hillocks, but as they came to the outer edge where the tiniest of flora grew, the air stilled to a whispering breeze. A tingle washed over Adrien’s skin as humid air enveloped them; it was like they had crossed through some invisible barrier that kept the cold at bay.

Beside him, Marinette removed the cloths covering her ears and mouth. They both breathed in great lungfuls of air, feeling as if they were back near sea-level again.

Plagg and Tikki emerged from their shelters to float up into the air, taking everything in.

Rabten led them a short way around the edge of the flower field before coming upon a small but well-kept path made up of small white stones, each looking smooth enough to have come from the sea. Most of the plants growing on either side of the path were some variety of wildflower, but every so often they would pass something that looked much more exotic, like it belonged in a tropical jungle rather than in the mountains of Tibet.

Adrien’s mouth hung open as he took it all in. There was no possible way that this valley existed without some support from something magical. The air was too comfortable compared to the bitter cold they had been trekking through. Too many of the plants surrounding them absolutely should not have been able to grow in this climate, and the vastness of the valley certainly could not have been tended by one person alone without the influence of something beyond normal human abilities.

A small movement out of the corner of Adrien’s eye caught his attention. Looking around, he saw a pair of pale white butterflies rise up from the foliage several yards away. They spun and twirled around each other as they floated through the air, keeping a few feet of distance between themselves and the valley’s invisible barrier.

“This is incredible,” Marinette finally said as they continued along the stone path, turning her head to watch as a plump little honeybee hummed from flower to flower. “How can all of this thrive so well here?”

“Sifu Kunchen has always had a knack for growing things,” Rabten said, shooting her a smile over his shoulder. “She’s been cultivating her garden for quite some time, now.”

“There’s so much life here,” Marinette said, watching in wonder as an entire swarm of butterflies lifted up into the air before them, the evening sun shimmering off their delicate wings.

Tikki soared forward to examine some of the flowers up close, playfully bouncing on a few large blossoms and releasing little clouds of pollen into the air as she went.

Plagg gave a great yawn and settled onto Adrien’s shoulder.

“It’s alright I suppose,” he said casually, “but it’s no artisan cheese spread.”

The stone path curved gently over a low hillock. As they traversed around to the other side, a small cottage came into view just below them.

The house was nestled against an outcropping of tall boulders that created a natural wall against the hillock. Fluffy pine trees stood proud and protective around the vine-strewn fence that circled the property. To the house’s east was an enclosed garden overflowing with vegetables. Bordering the garden’s fence was a brightly painted chicken coop, and a dozen raised apiaries were silhouetted in the distance. A small brown goat stood beside the gate that ran across the stone path. It eyed the three of them indifferently before simply turning to chomp up another large mouthful of sweetgrass. Several plump hens pecked their way along the path which led right to the house’s blue front door.

The house itself crouched low amidst the boulders and trees, its light grey stone sidings punctuated by flashes of bright yellow window shutters. Strings of prayer flags were hung from the rafters of the overhanging roof, where a little stone chimney was puffing out a stream of smoke. Each of the windows shone with warm lantern light, making the whole scene look very welcoming indeed.

That was, until the front door opened to reveal a tiny old woman with flyaway grey hair and wearing a markedly un-welcoming expression.

Adrien and Marinette both stopped short as the woman stormed out towards them, scattering the chickens in the wake of her furious footsteps.

The Kwamis rose curiously into the air as she approached.

“Sifu Kunchen!” Rabten said, giving the woman a cheery wave and grinning as if nothing about her angry demeanor was the least bit strange. “I hope you’ve got some food on, I’m starving—”

“And you’ll stay hungry, Rabten you rat!” Kunchen barked, her voice gravelly. She marched right up to him until they were practically nose to nose, and placed her hands—one of them clutching a woven dishtowel—firmly on her hips. “You’ve been in contact with Wang Fu again, haven’t you?!”

Rabten straightened up, a smile still playing on his face. “Well, ‘again’ would imply that I ever stopped being in contact with him, and that wouldn’t really fit well with our third-Wednesday-of-the-month video tea time.”

With an enraged shriek, Kunchen went off on a tirade, slipping back into her native language as Rabten benignly stood by, as if waiting for her to run out of steam.

Marinette looked up at Adrien with shock, and he realized with a pang of guilt that Master Fu must not have warned her of his rocky relationship with this woman.

“Apparently,” he said, ducking his head low to murmur in her ear, “Sifu Kunchen was one of the Guardians even before Master Fu took on the mantle, and she’s never forgiven him for what he did to bring about their fall.”

“AND YOU!” Kunchen roared suddenly in words they could understand, turning to point an accusatory finger directly at Adrien. “How dare you show your face here, you son of a thieving cowardice marmot?!”

Adrien stumbled back in alarm as the small, dragoness woman pushed passed Rabten and advanced on him.

“Hey!” Marinette cried, her Ladybug authority kicking into gear as she tried to stand in Kunchen’s way. “What in the world are you talking about?! Adrien has never done anything of th—”

In a move so swift Adrien could hardly make it out, Kunchen spun Marinette off balance, sending her stumbling off the path.

Tikki fluttered after her worriedly.

“HEY!” Marinette called again, but she was too late.

Plagg leaped into the air with an indignant shout as Kunchen pounced on Adrien, snatching at his scarf and yanking his face down to her level.

Adrien froze, his hands raised meekly above his head in surrender as Kunchen gazed intensely at him with her stormy grey eyes. The dark skin of her face was etched with wrinkles, and age spots were scattered across her cheeks and arms. The seconds crawled by as the two of them stood there, forehead to forehead, his heart racing as Kunchen’s stare seemed to penetrate his very soul.

Fear gripped him, his mind flashing back to what happened to that little boy.

‘Can she know what I’ve done? Is she angry because of the mistakes I’ve made?’

Finally, after a small eternity where Adrien didn’t dare to breath, Kunchen’s boney grip on his scarf loosened. Her face relaxed into something closer to a calm sternness instead of the deep seeded fury it had reflected moments before.

“Interesting,” she said, her voice now level. She released him and took a step back.

Adrien slowly allowed himself to straighten back up, frightened that she would attack him again if he moved too fast for her liking.

“Excuse me,” Marinette said from his elbow, her voice dripping with fury. “Would you care to tell us what the hell that was about?”

Kunchen shifted her gaze to look searchingly at Marinette, one of her eyebrows rising curiously.

“You,” she said, pointing a finger at Marinette’s chest. “I like you. You’ve got a fiery spirit that makes you a good Ladybug.”

“Not to be rude, but I don’t really care what you think of me right now,” Marinette growled, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“I’m with pigtails on this one,” Plagg huffed, and Tikki nodded vigorously beside him. “What gives you the right, huh lady?”

“Why did you just attack Adrien like that?” Marinette pressed on. “What has he ever done that would warrant such treatment?”

“So that settles it,” Kunchen said, unrepentant. “Neither of you know the truth, then?”

“The truth about what, exactly?” Adrien asked cautiously, finally daring to speak.

Unexpectedly, the look Kunchen wore as she turned back to him had become one of pity. She didn’t say anything for a long minute.

“A man came to me years ago, looking for answers just as you are now,” Kunchen said finally, her intense eyes never leaving Adrien. “He seemed to know a lot more about the Miraculous than anyone who wasn’t actually a wielder ever should. But I let him stay for a night or two. I answered his questions as best I could without giving the secrets that have been held by the Guardian Order for centuries. I gave him food, a warm place to sleep, and what I hoped was some guidance regarding what he sought. But then, on the third morning, I awoke to find that my evening tea had been drugged with herbs from my own garden. And Nooroo was gone.”

“Nooroo?” Tikki gasped. “He was here with you all this time?”

Kunchen finally looked away from Adrien to glance up at the Kwami, her gaze softening slightly.

“Wait,” Marinette said slowly, looking from Tikki to Adrien. “Nooroo is the name of the Butterfly Miraculous’ Kwami, right? You’re telling us that you had Hawkmoth’s Miraculous?!”

“Does it really count as his Miraculous when he stole it to warp and abuse Nooroo’s power?”

Adrien was reeling with this sudden and unexpected flood of information.

“But then…” he said slowly, “that means that the man who stole the Miraculous might actually be Hawkmoth, right?”

“I am not just telling you this because you are the current wielders of the Creation and Destruction Miraculous,” Kunchen said, her frown deepening as she regarded him. “I am telling you this because the name of that man was Gabriel Agreste.”

Look at that, you guys! Two whole chapters in the span of one week? INCONCEIVABLE! Don't get too spoiled, now, because at the rate I've been going with this fic I probably won't finish Chapter 12 for another 6 to 8 business months lol (hopefully not that long, but you know what I mean!)

Thank you everyone who left such wonderful comments on this since last time. I know it doesn't seem like much, but those comments really encourage me to keep going with this. Your excitement makes me excited to share this with you, so THANK YOU! I hope you are all staying safe and taking care of yourselves! <3

PS: My usual editing process involved actually printing out each chapter and make changes by hand, since a different medium helps me catch errors better. Obviously I can't really go to Office Depot and get this one printed out, so there might be more mistakes than usual on this chapter. Sorry!

[n00dl3gal]

Baking and Entering (McCree x OC Commission)

Another commission for @junko-brewer, again featuring their OC Bunny! I was happy to revisit this pairing for a more action packed story.

Commission info: https://n00dl3gal.tumblr.com/post/188373806787/writing-commissions-open

It was supposed to be a routine heist. Get in, get out, enjoy the payday. Nothing to it. But Ashe had to get greedy, B.O.B. had to be a bit too creaky, and Jesse… 

Jesse had to see the prettiest girl on the planet. 

She had to be around his age, maybe a bit younger, eyes wider than a semi-truck. Her hair was tucked into a messy bun, dirty blonde strands flying in every direction. Her lips were full, crooked at the edges from smiling too much. The kind of girl any man would be honored to bring back home and introduce the parents to. Provided that man wasn’t part of a notorious gang infamous for robbing most of Southwestern and Midwestern America. The kind of girl who’d never go for a guy like Jesse McCree. 

Honestly, that just made her cuter in Jesse’s opinion.

They hadn’t even spoken. He just noticed her crossing the street when he was supposed to be on lookout duty. He got a bit distracted, didn’t notice the guards, who then heard BOB. And it was BOB’s job to keep Ashe from plundering too much from their target. A symphony of errors, or something. Oh well. 

He held his finger over the trigger, eyes glancing back and forth like a metronome. He hadn’t gotten hit, thankfully, but he heard something ricochet off of BOB just a few seconds ago. The guards were still firing, and the last thing Jesse wanted- 

Something grazed past his arm, then his leg, he let out a yelp when they hit his shoulder. 

 -was to get caught in the crossfire. 

He rolled under a bench or table of some sort, using his free hand to find the wound. The bullet hadn’t lodged itself in, thankfully, but it took a chunk of flesh with it when it hit. Jesse pulled the bandana off from around his neck and wrapped it around his shoulder. Not ideal, especially when he was bleeding in multiple places, but he had to attend to the most important wound first. 

He poked his head out and looked around, gun close to his chest. If he spotted someone, he’d shoot. Unless it was another Deadlocke member; he’d made that mistake before and he was certain Ashe wasn’t going to take too kindly to him pulling that same stunt again. But the only person he saw was a larger guy in a white suit. Deadlocke didn’t wear white suits. He was turned away, but Jesse could tell he was the one who shot him. 

If the man was a professional, Jesse would only have one shot before he’d be killed. Time to be clever. He fumbled through his pockets, looking for anything that might prove useful. All he had was a bunched up receipt from dinner the night before. It would have to do. Jesse did an underhand toss, beaning the receipt against a painting. The painting shook and clattered against the wall. As the guard turned around to investigate, Jesse rolled out from underneath his hiding spot. A quick Flashbang to the face and two shots from his gun, and the guard’s suit was rapidly changing red. Jesse placed two of his fingers against the man’s neck. No pulse. He was tempted to take his hat off in respect, but there wasn’t any time. He had to leave before another guard found him. 

Maybe he should stay to make sure Ashe was alright, but then again, she had B.O.B. Jesse was on his own. 

Clutching his shoulder, he sprinted out of the room. With his luck, he was probably leaving a blood trail, but there was no time to patch up. As soon as someone realized the dead guard was… well, dead, more would arrive. Jesse was a good shot only when he wasn’t handicapped. At least his dominant hand had been spared, but the pain was still going to affect him.

He found himself in a foyer, opulent and pristine, except for the broken vases and overturned chairs. The front door was a no-go. He’d have to go out the back. So he backtracked, back through the library and into a kitchen and finally a grand backyard. Damn rich people. 

Jesse took a second to rest in one of the perfectly-manicured bushes. His whole left side was injured. Better than his right side, but still less than ideal. His appearance was going to be a dead giveaway to his affiliations. He needed to find someplace quiet he could lay low in until the fuzz were gone. His mind went back to what Ashe had said before the stakeout. “There’s an apartment complex ‘bout two blocks from here. Nothin’ fancy, and not all of ‘em are inhabited, so head there if things go sour.” 

With his destination in mind, he set off again. 

. . . 

Bunny was prepared for a quiet evening of baking. She had gone to the store earlier that day, buying the few things she didn’t have to try out this new cupcake recipe. Of course, she had scolded herself for her negligence. What kind of self-respecting baker didn’t have a supply of butterscotch chips? 

Nevertheless, she tied an apron around her waist, humming to herself. It was a cool evening, the last breeze of spring ushering in summer, so she left the screen door open. The fresh air would also keep her small menagerie content while she worked. All seemed well, and Bunny set about preheating the oven. 

And then the screen door slid open. 

Bunny nearly screeched, but held her tongue. It was the wind, right? It had to be. Except she turned around and found herself staring at a man in dark clothes and an honest-to-God cowboy hat. They both stared at each other, just for a moment, and Bunny finally let out a scream. 

The stranger had crossed the kitchen in an instant, holding a gloved hand against her mouth. “Shh! Ya tryin’ to get us killed?” he snapped. 

She bit on his hand, hard enough to feel even through the leather of the gloves. He flinched away, yelping like a kicked puppy. “Killed? You just broke into my-” “I know, an’ I’m sorry, miss, but if ya’d let me explain-” “What good reason is there for anybody to be breaking and entering- you’re hurt,” she realized, reaching to touch his shoulder. 

He winced and hissed in pain. “I almost forgot about that.” 

“How do you almost forget about- that’s a gunshot wound, sir, we need to call an ambulance-” Bunny fretted. “Please don’t,” the stranger insisted. “I-I’m on the run from some folks, ya see, an’ I thought yer apartment would be a safe hidin’ place- it’s a long story, but they ain’t good people.” 

A fugitive? Or a victim? Bunny didn’t know. But this handsome stranger- yes, he was quite handsome- was still responsible for ruining her evening. Yet she was never one to deny help to those in need. She sighed. “I-If you know what you’re doing, I m-might be able to help?” she offered weakly, hoping he’d turn her down and decide that proper medical attention was better after all. 

Of course, he smiled like he just sold her the moon. It was an endearing smile, even under the circumstances. “I’d owe ya big time, darlin’,” he drawled, tipping his hat. Bunny flushed. Just who was this man? “My name’s Jesse, and I promise you, if ya do me this favor I will repay you.” 

“Y-you can call me Bunny,” Bunny said shakily, reaching to turn off the oven. “It m-might be better to do this in the bathroom, follow me.” He obliged, clutching his shoulder to prevent it from bleeding onto the floor. At least he was considerate. “Is- do you think the whatever-” “There’s no bullet left, if that’s what yer tryin’ to ask. Ripped right through. An’ I won’t ask you fer stitches, least not in the shoulder,” Jesse answered. “But a couple grazed my ankle and forearm, so if you could patch those up…” 

Bunny nodded, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. “And what about your shoulder? We can’t just leave it like that, it could get infected. Or there could be blood loss, or-” Did she say we? When did it become we? She barely knew him! 

But Jesse smiled. “Ah, I guess I should get a doc to see that. I’ll walk you through bandagin’ up for now and once the coast is clear, I’ll go to a hospital.” The smile didn’t reach his eyes, and Bunny had a suspicion he was lying, but she also didn’t want to get involved in any sort of crime. (As if she wasn’t already involved, if this man really was a fugitive.) So she nodded and found her first aid kit. 

To his credit, Jesse spoke with experience and gently guided her through the process. She stitched up the shallower wounds and packed gauze into his shoulder after disinfecting it. Not once did he cry out, tell her she was doing poorly, or wince away. He actually tried to make conversation, asking about her apron and why the oven was on. “Bit late to be havin’ dinner, but I ain’t one to judge.” 

“Oh! I was going to bake, actually,” she explained, placing a band-aid over one of the stitches. “I had a new recipe to try out. But I guess I’ll be doing that tomorrow night.” 

“You bake? What’s your specialty?” Jesse asked, moving his leg to make sure the stitches were tight. 

“Cupcakes, although I’ll bake anything,” Bunny told him. “I was going to try out cinnascotch cupcakes- vanilla cupcakes with butterscotch chips, topped with cinnamon icing.” 

Jesse’s stomach growled. “Well, if that ain’t the tastiest sounding snack I’ve ever heard.” 

Bunny laughed. “I would offer you some, but it’s a bit late to start them. I could, however, offer some chocolate chip cookies I made a couple days ago?” Offering strangers cookies? Bunny, what are you doing? 

Said stranger stood, using the toilet as a balance. “If you’re offerin’. I’d hate to make you go to any extra trouble, Miss Bunny. You’ve already done me a great service.” 

“I-it’s not a problem, really!” she insisted, helping him up. “But let’s do it in the kitchen? As wonderful as my bathroom is, it’s not the ideal place for a meal…” 

He nodded, following her back to where he first entered. As he did, he caught sight of a housecat. The cat spotted him in return, let out a loud mewl, and ran in the opposite direction. “I’m guessin’ your pet doesn’t take kindly to newcomers,” he said. “Phil is… skittish, particularly around men,” Bunny said. “Please don’t take it personally. But once he warms up to you, he’s the sweetest companion you could imagine.” 

“Pretty fitting for a woman as sweet as you,” Jesse replied glibly. Bunny stumbled, neck turning red. “I mean no offense, and I’m sorry if I took it a bit far, but few people would be willing to help out a stranger like that.” 

Bunny swallowed. Since when was her kitchen so warm- did she leave the oven on after all? “Especially if said stranger was also guilty of breaking and entering,” she answered slowly. Jesse laughed, and her shoulders eased. At least he had a sense of humor about it. 

“Ha ha, ya got a point! It takes a special kind of-” 

Knock, knock. 

Bunny turned to look at the door. Jesse was already paling, sidling up against a wall. “I ain’t here,” he whispered to her. Bunny glanced between both him and the entrance- another kock- before nodding. 

Two men stood beyond the front door. One was wearing a white suit. The once pristine fabric was speckled with red, and Bunny had a sinking suspicion it wasn’t paint. The other was a police officer. “Good evening, ma’am. We are wondering if you could answer a couple questions.” 

“Is something the matter?” she asked, putting on her most innocent voice. 

The police officer nodded. “The Darby estate not far from here was robbed by a group known as the Deadlock Gang. All of their members are now on the run, and we’re curious to know if you’ve seen any of them.” The man in white bowed his head. “They killed one of my colleagues, another bodyguard for Mister Darby. It would mean a great deal if we could find the killer.” 

Bunny’s throat felt dry. Was Jesse- he was injured, and clearly not above breaking the law, and on the run- but. But. She couldn’t just turn him in. There was no proof that he was the murderer, anyway, or even involved. “I’m terribly sorry about your friend,” she said slowly, “but I’m afraid I’ve been in my apartment baking all evening.” 

The police officer’s eyes trailed down to her apron. Her gaze followed, and she was horrified to see blood smeared on it. But she kept from crying out. “Seems as though you’ve had an accident.” She smiled at them, batting her eyelashes. “Oh, I’m a wee bit clumsy, is all…” Neither looked entirely convinced. She couldn’t blame them. She had no fresh wounds, no signs of an injury. “Hmm… mind if we have a look around?” the guard asked. 

“Don’t you need a warrant to do that?” she asked, twisting a strand around her finger.

The cop studied her but eventually nodded again. “Yes. We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am… if you hear or see anything, however, please call the police.” “Will do! Take care! Have a wonderful evening!” she said quickly, waiting until they had walked down the hall before shutting the door. She turned on her heel and stomped towards Jesse. “Do you mind kindly explaining why the people you are hiding from are the police?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling awkwardly. “It’s a bit of a doozy, but I’ll give you the quick version…” 

And he did. He explained the Deadlock Gang, the reasons for robbing the Darby estate, and why the heist went sour in the first place. “Truth is,” he said bashfully, “I saw a woman walkin’ home and the sight just about knocked me out. Wouldn’t say it’s the whole reason the operation went sour, but it certainly didn’t help.” He took his hat off. “That was you, ma’am. I had no idea this was your apartment. But please, don’t feel guilty. My own fault for gettin’ so swept up in your beauty.” 

Bunny lowered herself into the kitchen chair. “You… I’m holding a fugitive. This is all-all a lot to digest. But… somehow, I believe all of it. And you’re sure that woman was me?” She pointed to herself in disbelief. Jesse nodded. She exhaled quickly, leaning back. She was no stranger to compliments, but they were usually about her cooking. To hear her own appearance described like that- to hear that she was disarming enough to bring a carefully laid plan to ruins… it was an odd rush she got. A happy one, a flattering one, but an odd one nonetheless. “Holy crap… Jesse?” Bunny looked at him with sad eyes. 

He sighed through his nose. “I know. I should go. And I promise to go to a hospital.” 

Bunny nodded, but gnawed at her lower lip. “Or-or your gang’s medic, or- whatever. But… but I want you to make me another promise.” She stood and walked across the kitchen to a drawer, rummaging through it for a moment. She found something and hunched over it, returning to Jesse with a scrap of paper. “Promise me that next time you’re in the area, you’ll give me a call… or a visit.” 

He took the paper with a shaky hand. “You’re positive?” 

Bunny smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. “As long as you use the front door next time… yes.” 

(It was a promise he kept. Even throughout Blackwatch, his time guarding Dr. Liao and Echo, even his time on the run from his bounty. His visits were regular, and eventually became a bit more friendly… but that’s another story.)

[captainkirkmccoy]

Can I request a Pepperony with adopted Peter family hurt/comfort moment in a survival situation without powers or Iron Man? :D

Happiness looked like this: 

A packed car full of just enough presents to let only the smallest back window view, bundled up in under so many layers that Pepper deemed suitable, music a cheery holiday mashup of Peter’s favorites and the ones that Tony and Pepper grew up on. 

“Are we there yet?” Eight-year-old Peter squeaked from the backseat where a Starkpad kept him entertained. 

Tony gave a quick tap on the steering wheel, barking a laugh. “Why thank you child of mine. Pep pay up.” 

Pepper rolled her eyes. “I never agreed to this bet, Tony.”

“You wouldn’t let us fly upstate, honey. I had to come up with something.”

“Daddy deserves a cookie, mommy.” The kid in the backseat asked. 

Tony’s eyes immediately went to the rearview mirror where Peter, his kid of a year and six months now, continued playing the game unaware of the paradigm shift he just launched in the car. 

A quick look at Pepper found her with pursed lips and bright eyes. Wordlessly, she passed a sugar cookie–made with the exuberance of aforementioned nine-year-old in the backseat. 

Daddy. He was a daddy now. 

He reached over and gripped his wife’s hand. This was what happy looked like. 

***

“DADDY!”

Tony had the worst hangover imaginable. Worse than the morning after his only failed exam at MIT. Worse than his parent’s wake. 

“Tony.” Pepper rasped. 

His eyes shot open. 

“Peter.” Tony jolted up, but gentle hands forced him back down. 

“Thank god. Peter, sweetheart, hand me that towel, okay?” 

Something wet and soft covered his forehead. God, he was thirsty. 

“Mommy?” Peter whispered, his blurry form coming into focus next to Pepper. A gash split her eyebrow, dirt smeared across her chin, and dark circles hollowed out the skin underneath her eyes. 

“Pepper–how bad?” He tried to sit up again and this time his wife helped, gently cupping the back of his head as he lifted himself. 

The world spun–his vision taking in a cabin, spartan and dusty before he was forced to screw his eyes shut. 

“Car accident. Your leg’s broken. You’ve been out of it for about a day. We’re snowed in. We found this cabin before you passed out.” It came out in a rush, as if she had been desperate to let the words flow.

“Are you okay?” Tony sat up again, vertigo be damned. “Peter?”

“Not a scratch, thank God. And I’m fine, just a bump.” She gave him a watery smile before kissing his cheek, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Tony, I was so worried.”

“No service, I’d gather?”

“StarkPad broke in the crash. No service. I haven’t been able to leave Peter.”

“Car should have registered the crash.” Tony winced as he sat up. “Hey buddy. You okay?”

Peter, glued to Pepper’s side until this point, threw himself at Tony, big gulping sobs wracking his body with such force that the both of them shook. 

“Oh, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“I thought.” Peter’s breath hitched so that Tony had to tap gently on his back. “You left me.”

“No, baby. Never.” Tony rubbed his son’s back with the gentle circles he remembers from his own childhood. 

***

Two days later found the Starks playing a game of Sorry while wind battered the windows of their found cabin. Tony had lost the fight that may have granted him the opportunity to drag himself how many miles to civilization. Pepper threatened divorce if Tony even considered it again and Peter was so clingy that Tony could only hobble to the bathroom alone. 

When Peter tired himself out and passed out on the couch they had been using as his bed–Tony and Pepper worried. 

Food was running out. Pepper had depleted the cookies on the first day, feeding Peter a steady stream of cookies to keep him distracted from the worrying fact that Tony was unconscious. The provisions that they had packed and that Pepper had salvaged from their wrecked car–trail mix, beef jerky, Cheerios, goldfish, mostly road trip food that Tony insisted on as they drove from the city to Clint’s farm–was dwindling fast. 

The snow was not. 

“I’ll go.”

“Hell no.”

“We don’t have another choice.”

“Yeah, we do. I can fashion myself a crutch and be on my merry way.”

“And when Peter wakes up and you’re gone?”

“Tell him I went to get help. Help we desperately need.”

Pepper rubbed at her eyes. She was exhausted and Tony was worried about the cut on her forehead, though she insisted she was fine. 

“Let’s just go to sleep, babe, okay? Maybe it’ll let up in the morning and I can at least head to the car, see if I can wire up something for the tablet.”

They fell asleep the only way they could, curled up with each other as the storm raged on beyond the wooden and brick walls of their cabin. 

When they woke up, Peter was gone. 

***

The thing about happiness, Tony realized with a nightmare quickness, was how quick it disappeared. 

Pepper’s voice choked around a gasping cry. “Please, Peter! Peter!”

Tony dragged his useless foot as he screamed and pleaded, his voice going hoarse, swallowed by the wind again and again. 

Their kid was gone. Disappeared while they slept. His jacket, his bookbag, gloves and hat and winter shoes, all gone. 

“He must have heard us.” Pepper said, slogging through the snow, now up to her knees. “He must have tried to get help.”

Tony’s cheeks were numb. Snot was frozen in his nostrils, his eyes were starting to glaze over. “Peter Peter Peter,” he chanted. Pepper punctuating his pleas with calls of her own. 

“What do we do? God, Tony, what do we do?”

Their baby could be freezing to death a few feet from them and they wouldn’t know. He could be stuck and cold and alone. 

For the first time in his life, Tony was struck by such helplessness that he wished for nothingness. He wished he couldn’t feel anything. The panic rose from somewhere in his gut and he forced it back down. 

“PETER!”

“Petey, baby, mommy and daddy need you!” Pepper yelled. 

And then they found the car. 

Their family car, the one he traded up for, the one that solidified again that he was a dad now, was a heap of glass and twisted metal. And in the backseat, like he had never left, was their son. 

Pepper let out a strangled scream and rushed the car, pushing aside the detritus of the wreck, ignoring Tony’s own mad rush to get there as fast as possible. 

“Peter, sweetheart! Peter!”

Pepper curled herself around the nine-year-old, rocking him and kissing his forehead, pushing back his curly bangs, rubbing his hands and fingers. 

“God, Tony, he’s so cold.”

Somehow, with a strength he didn’t know was possible, he carried both Pepper and Peter out of the car. They hobbled as quickly as possible to the cabin, Pepper trying to coax Peter awake. 

***

They used the gameboard and books as kindling, setting a blazing fire as quickly as possible and piling together as closely as possible under rugs and blankets on the hearth.  

“Mama?” Peter woke, his words nearly swallowed by Pepper’s shoulder, where he was cradled against. 

“Shh, baby. We’re okay.”

“Daddy, Uncle Clint said he was on his way.”

Pepper and Tony’s eyes shot to each others. 

“Clever boy.” Tony kissed his son’s forehead and extracted himself to go take a look at the car. 

***

The gifted kid program Tony and Pepper had signed Peter up for at the school’s urging when they first adopted him paid off. 

Peter had used the radio and the StarkPad, what was left of it, to create a radio. Something Tony hadn’t even thought to do. 

“I’m so sorry.” Tony whispered into his wife’s hair as they were airlifted out of the woods of Upstate New York and to the helipad of a local hospital. “I should have gotten us out sooner.”

“You didn’t have to. Peter got us out.” Pepper whispered, pride making her voice swell. 

“He did.” Tony huffed, shaking his head as he realized the entirety of his luck and was so grateful for it and this family that he had made. “Our kid.” 

[hollandroos]

The Price We Pay | Chapter 2

Summary: A one night stand was all it took for your entire life to change. You're shoved into unknown territory, agreeing to fake date the prince long enough for his parents and the media to get off of his back only there are a few issues... one of them being that you really can’t stand each other.

Series Masterlist | Wattpad | Playlist

Words: 2.8k - Future chapters will be a lot longer, I just struggled a lot with this one.

Warnings: None really for this chapter

A/N: This chapter isn’t as jam packed but it was needed for the storyline– good/interesting things are coming for these two!! enjoy the rather timid storyline while it lasts. Chapter three is going to be FULL! Also I did decide to keep the Royal AU in this just because changing it proved more stressful then I originally thought and this just... works better in the long run!!

Agreeing to that deal had to be the best and worst thing you had done in your life because within minutes, Tom had left with no more than a thank you and an ‘I promise I’ll get back to you later.’ That was enough to leave you wide-eyed and overthinking. Everything that had happened in the span of the last ten minutes sounded nearly insane.

You then had to think about the fact that ‘dating’ Tom came with meeting his parents, the king and queen as well as having to keep up an act in the public eye. Sure you dealt with him the other night but both of you were drunk and needy, now you were fully sober and despising the idea of having to be a full-time girlfriend to someone you’d known for a few days. You felt a pang of what could only be a distaste for the prince and maybe you were just being a grump. Anyone else would have been overjoyed to be in this situation but not you.

In your eyes he wasn’t a royal– though you never gave them a second thought— he was just Tom, someone you met in a bar and happened to go home with.

He hadn’t fully informed you about what you’d gotten yourself into, not yet warning you of the extent of the media and his responsibilities but he didn’t have time. He left with his hood thrown over his head once more, looking like robin hood or that arrow character you’d seen in comic books. His promise to get back to you was also a promise to sort out plans, dates to please the public and fittings for expensive clothes that would make you look good enough to be seen with him.

Now, maybe Tom should have informed you of the extent of the situation because then you wouldn’t be heavily debating between further destroying his reputation and becoming the worst thing for his image, or actually doing what he wanted and becoming the picture perfect girlfriend. But rules were made to be broken, right? Even when it came to the royals?

What the fuck was he doing?

It did mean one good thing, however, that you didn’t have to go to work that day, or the day after and not have to worry about losing your job. You close the door with a slam once you could no longer see his coat dragging across the ground and slide the lock as you chuck your bag down and trudge back into the kitchen. You were going for a second bowl of cereal.

Poor Mallery was still staring in shock, her rake now hard against the pavement and you only hoped that she wouldn’t pull her back out picking it up.

“Who was at the door?”

You look over, seeing your roommate wobble into the room. Milly’s hair was all over the place like a birds nest, a robe thrown around her plaid pyjamas messily and she yawned unattractively, heading straight to the pot of not so freshly brewed coffee. The girl loved anything to do with drama and gossip, insisting that nothing good ever happened around here and she would have eaten your story up with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

You shrug your shoulders, groaning when you see that you were out of milk. “Just those kids from down the road trying to sell us cookies again.”

“Again? Maybe it’s because we bought three packs last time.” She snorts and sips her coffee, burning her tongue within the first sip and curses. Though you hoped it was because she’d tasted the scolding bitterness of the coffee instead of spotting the paper sitting on the dining table.

“Hey, you know the prince?” You question, staring at the closed door.

“Tom? Of course, I do, he’s a damn snack.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes that was somehow tied with the desire to tell her all about your night out– she’d find out eventually.

“What else do you think of him? Like, seriously.”

Milly shrugs her shoulders. “He seems cocky but definitely has a certain charm, you know? I think he’ll make a good king one day, but he actually has to settle down first.”

Sober you felt that Tom was a complete and utter asshole for getting you into this mess.

Maybe you were just too blind and full of unnecessary hatred to see that you got into it the second you dragged him out of that bar.

-

Tom had raced back to a house at a speed like no other, dodging the townsfolks and had gotten oddly close to knocking over a stall of fresh fruits and vegetables– why they were up at only near seven? He didn’t know. However, Tom was spoiled and had his fruits brought to him fresh every morning served on a silver platter with matching forks and knives. The only work the boy had done in his life was preparing to take the throne one day, which wasn’t much work at all, he was born for this.

He raced up to his room but it was hard with the number of stairs and irreplaceable sets of furniture that scattered around the house. The last thing he wanted to do was break something and upset his mother. Everything was either gold, white or silver despite Toms advice that was to add a little dark blue or red, he really had an eye for those two colours– obviously. He mutters good mornings to the maids as he went with one destination in mind: his room.

Tom already knew Harrison would be there waiting nervously. The boy was always more on-edge than Tom was, even growing up.

He tears the door open and as he expected, Harrison was there and practically jumped up off of the bed the second he walks in, eyes wide and unexpecting.

“Your dad's up and he’s not happy.” Harrison hisses, helping Tom slid the coat off of his shoulders and hung it up for the boy who fumbled around the room to find an outfit that his parents would appreciate. Anything was better than the dirty riding gear. “I told him that you went out for an early ride before breakfast.”

“When is he ever happy?” Tom scoffs. “Look, I sort of fixed things. They won’t be able to stay mad at me.”

In the hour or so that he’d been gone his bed had been made, clothes that were scattered across the floor had been picked up and his desk had clearly been organised. Tom didn’t ask if the maids had come in or if Harrison had been the one to clean but he had a hunch it was the boy that had been nervously sitting on his bed in desperate need of a distraction.

“What did you do?” Harrison wasn’t actually sure he wanted to find out, knowing Toms track record with impromptu plans.

“Come have breakfast with us and find out.”

“You know I’m not supposed–”

“This is a formal invitation from a royal, you can’t say no. My mum loves you, she won’t care.” Tom tells him, checking himself out in the mirror. Tom runs a hand through his curls, fluffing them up a little. “Besides, don’t you want to hear my little less-than-fantastic plan to steal the public's gaze from those stupid photos?”

“I can say no and besides, your dad scares me,” Harrison utters, speaking honestly and rightfully so, the king would scare anyone.

“You’re a fool.” Tom stops, grabbing Harrison's arm and tugs him towards the door. The maids stop and nod their heads respectfully as they see the prince. “C’mon, we’re having pancakes.”

Maybe Tom should have stopped and taken another moment to regain his breathing or think things through more thoroughly because he was acting on a whim, pulling things out of a hat as he went.

Maybe deep down he was scared– at least anxious.

-

Tom and Harrison stepped into the room carefully, each taking care as they discussed Tom’s stupidity in harsh whispers that only made the boys feel more unsettled.

He had been growing bored lately and asked the lords for something but not this– god, not this.

Tom could lie to his father but not his mother, possibly the most pure-hearted woman he’d ever come to know.

He felt terrible but knew this was the best option, the only way he could still look his mother in the eye after hearing what occurred.

The table was thick with tension and it was obvious before they even sat down but the second he did, he wished he hadn’t. Harrison obviously felt the same, choosing the seat closest to the Queen whom he could never not feel safe around.

It was right there in front of him, an obviously thrown around paper as well as his father who was as red-faced and angry as ever. The last thing the King wanted right after being woken up was to find out that his son had been causing more trouble.

His beard was greying, but still trimmed as neatly as ever and the crown that sat upon his head even as unnecessary as it was at this time of the morning remained on a slight angle, bits of dark hair sticking out from underneath.

Tom was probably going to look like him one day. He just hoped he wouldn’t be as miserable a king.

He knew it was coming before it happened– like a volcano that spewed spurts of ash before it erupted.

“Do you know how bad this is? What it could do to you?” There it was. “You’re a prince, Thomas. You can’t just go around doing this. We finally fixed things after– after her and now this?”

The king sighs, rubbing his wrinkly temples.

His dad held the paper with a clenched fist, practically ripping the pages that had been handed to him by one of his men first thing. Tom had to swallow harshly, not wanting to stare at the pictures again– it had already been a long morning because of them and he was tired at only seven thirty. Plus, they were reasonably explicit photos and his parents had seen them.

Oh fuck.

Somehow his night of fun and games had turned into one he dreaded thinking back to. What really did make him feel an ounce of satisfaction was seeing that you still wore little pieces of it, like the marks scattered along your neck and he suddenly felt uncomfortable in his seat remembering the scratches down his back.

“Look, it’s really not that bad–”

A plate of pancakes is placed in front of the prince and he nearly forgot about the argument upon seeing large chocolate chips and a side of blueberries. Harrison’s was similar, but instead of blueberries, it had strawberries. He was allergic to blueberries, they made his throat swell up and if they didn’t get to him on time, well, one can imagine what would happen.

A fist knocks the table and the Queen jumps back in response, cutlery clatters. “Not that bad? You have a mind of your own, boy, I tell you.”

“I know it looks really bad and you’re right, it is but there’s another side to the story, I promise.” He rushes.

“I don’t know what you can do to get yourself out of this mess, boy.” Words slithered through gritted teeth like venom. Harsh.

A sullen silence sat around the dining room, everyone including Tom too afraid to speak up and even his mother sat still, clutching her cutlery set for dear life as the older man's voice hit each of the four walls.

“It’s just– it’s not what it looks like.” He hurries out, knowing that the older man's temper was only limited at this point. Tom swallows thickly, trying to ignore his clammy hands. Tom glances at Harrison who felt that with every second, he was being dragged more and more into this mess that he hadn’t wanted to know about in the first place.

“Your Highness–”

“She’s my girlfriend.” Tom spills the words quickly, muttering them so quick he swore they were barely audible.

He watches his mother's eyes widen dramatically, her face shifting from stern to confused to slightly excited. Tom wanted to smirk knowing that he had at least one of his two parents in the bag. Of course it wasn’t too hard for his mum to believe it considering she’d been pestering him to find someone for months now.

“Your– your what?” His dad stumbles.

“You and Mother were right. I finally sat down and thought about everything you were saying and I realised that I need to stop wallowing in self-pity. I met her a couple months ago at an event and we started dating about two weeks ago.”

Tom grit his teeth together, knowing that the completely made up story sounded just that… made up. Would his father really listen to him?

His mother leans forward in her seat, sparing her husband a glance and Tom plays with a fork. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She speaks, soft voice resonating with his.

“I wanted to make sure things were right before I told you, but now you know.” Tom shrugs his shoulders, the clothing he’d thrown on just moments after he’d gotten back from yours hanging off of his body. To his family, it would’ve been classed as untidy but they were all too distracted at this point. “The media ruined the surprise I guess– she’s really lovely.”

“Harrison, did you know about this?” Derek directs his gaze to Harrison who nearly chokes on his pancakes. The poor boy had been trying to ignore the conversation, not wanting any part of whatever mess his mate was getting himself in but had no failed drastically.

He coughs repeatedly, dabbing his face with a napkin. “Huh– no, no of course not. It’s just as a big of a surprise to me as it is to you, your highness.”

His cheeks ran red, searching for a quick escape that wouldn’t come.

“When do we get to meet this… Y/N?” Anne's gentle eyes remained on her son, heart fluttering at the thought of her son finally finding someone that made him happy.

“I can invite her over if that would make you guys happy but I’ll warn you, she’s nervous about meeting you.” Tom offers, he also offers a warm smile, picking around at his breakfast with the fork.

He was nervous about bringing an absolute stranger to the castle, not knowing how you’d act and if you’d make this mess worse than it already was. He made a mental note to get you to come over a few hours earlier to get a suitable dress fitted and to learn only the simplest manners and rules because god knows the ones in the castle were much stricter than most out in the town. Plus, he couldn’t ignore the mental image of you in a fancy– near princess— dress.

The look of uncertainty his mother sent him didn’t go unnoticed by Tom. She was ever so observant and rightfully so bringing up a son that enjoyed to cause trouble and sneak around when he thought no one was watching.

“Two days from now we want to meet this girl that you’ve been hiding from us.” Derek reaches over and pats Tom on the shoulder forcefully making the boy jolt forward slightly. “I’m proud of you, Thomas. Not only for listening to us and admitting that we were right but also for finding a girl and keeping her around.”

“Thank you, I really think you’ll like her.” He wore a fake smile, lips pressed together firmly. It was a concoction of lies that would one day get Tom into a world of trouble if this plan were to go south.

It was one thing to lie to your parents, but it was another to lie to the King and Queen– where the stakes were high and reputations were cherished.

Tom knew that this would also come with a selection of public appearances with physical affection such as hand-holding and acting happy with a girl he’d known for a little over two days. The boy could do that because if he wasn’t a prince he’d want to act in those shows downtown but you, however, that was a different story. How did he know that you wouldn’t let him down?

“Harrison? Can you please pass the syrup?”

Harrisons' cheeks were still flaming red, his eyes wide an alert as he painfully passed over the saucer to the king. He was already balls deep in this mess too and Tom sends him a look that says ‘We’ll talk about this later.’

Good fucking lord.

Leave comments or asks, reblog if you wish!! let’s talk about this chapter!

Part three!!

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[psychosistr]

A Playful Spark- Chapter 3, Adulthood Pt.1

Summary: When Elmo fully hits puberty during his teenage years, some things come to light that make growing up much harder for him. Thankfully he still has Jack to support him, but how will the toy maker react when the electrically inclined rodent confesses a deep secret to him?

Notes: Warnings for this chapter: It does involve domestic abuse and period-typical homophobia. Also, some mentions of pedophilia in this chapter, but it’s just Jack talking about how disgusted he is by that sort of thing and providing a reason for why he wouldn’t date a seventeen year old XP

-First Chapter-

<-Previous Chapter Next Chapter->

~Age 23~

*knock* *knock* *knock*

Jack groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the knocking at his door.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

If he ignored it long enough, it would probably go away..

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

“Alright, already, I’m comin’! Geez!” He yelled in the direction of his front door as he finally, begrudgingly, sat up on his couch. He’d had a late night at the toy shop and ended up crashing on the comfy cushions as soon as he’d gotten home. Looking at the clock told him that it was nearly two in the morning and he was irritated over being woken up after less than two hours of sleep. He stood up with a yawn and stretched his stiff joints before walking to the door. He didn’t even bother looking through the peep-hole to see who it was as he opened the door, too busy rubbing his eyes. “Dude, do you have any idea what..time…it..” His irritated question trailed off when he saw who was standing at his door. “Elmo?”

Blinking the sleep-induced fuzziness from his eyes confirmed for him that, yes, it was indeed his best friend standing at the door of his apartment at two in the morning. The poor teen looked like a literal drowned rat, his button-up shirt and pants soaking wet from the rain that had started shortly after Jack got home. His head was tilted down and his shoulder-length hair was just as wet as his clothes and plastered to him, hiding his face from the duck in front of him.

“Can..Can I stay here tonight, Jackie..?” Elmo’s voice came out small, meek, and almost afraid- a tone that Jack had never heard from the normally self-confidant boy, even when he was bullied or beaten up by the kids in school.

Jack frowned, wanting to ask what happened to put his friend in such a state, but he decided that questions could wait until the other boy was no longer in danger of catching hypothermia.

“Considering I’m not a completely heartless jerk- yeah, you can.” He stepped aside so Elmo could come in.

The next hour passed in a tense silence as Jack helped Elmo get cleaned up. He let Elmo use the shower to warm himself up while he pulled out some of his spare pajamas for the other to wear and threw the rat’s soaked clothes in the dryer. He grabbed a spare pillow and blanket from his closet and set them up on the couch to make it a bit more comfortable to sleep on, the pair more than used to random sleepovers by now (though usually under much nicer circumstances).

By the time Elmo exited the bathroom, his fur and hair slightly fluffed from the static-rich towels Jack had in there and changed into the pajamas Jack left for him, he had the couch made up into a make-shift bed.

Turning around to greet the kid made Jack’s words die in his throat, however, when he finally got a chance to see the teen’s face: He was covered in bruises dark enough to be seen through his short fur. The most prevalent ones were around his neck, looking like someone had gripped him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. There were slightly lighter bruises along his cheeks, on his long nose, and, most notably, the big one on his left eye that was swelling into a full-blown black eye.

Elmo must have noticed Jack’s wide-eyed stare, because he suddenly looked down and shifted uncomfortably. “……”

Jack frowned at the reaction, knowing that whatever happened must have been really bad to make the rodent so skittish. Looking at the couch he’d made up, Jack got an idea and suddenly took everything off of it- the blanket, the pillow, the throw pillows, and even the cushions. He then walked past Elmo to his bedroom and proceeded to strip everything off of his own bed and carry the assortment of sheets, blankets, and pillows into the living room with him.

Grinning, he tossed everything from his bed down to join the pile on the floor. He then went over to the kitchen area of his living space and grabbed a few clips he used for chip bags, the two chairs from his small (and mostly unused) dining table, and a package of chocolate chip cookies.

Elmo gave him a confused look as he watched the duck bring everything over to the pile in the living room, tilting his head as he watched Jack begin to pin the sheets together with the clips.

To answer his friend’s confused stare, Jack just grinned and held up the sheets. “C’mon, Mo- ya still remember how to do this, right?”

He could tell that the confused rat was about to ask what he meant, but then the look of realization finally dawned on his face when he saw Jack finish with the sheets and push the small coffee table aside before putting the two chairs in its place with a foot or two of space between them.

A small smile appeared on Elmo’s face and he nodded. “Yeah, I think so..”

He helped Jack make sure the chairs were in the proper place before they spread the pinned-together sheets out to form a curtain-like tunnel that went over the back of the couch, straight out in front to rest briefly over the chairs, and then ended up tucked around behind the TV so it was still viewable within the tunnel they’d formed- for good measure, they even tucked the sheet on the other end beneath the couch’s feet to make sure it wouldn’t droop. The pair then crawled inside through an opening in the sheets near the sofa and arranged the various stuffed objects into a comfortable cushion nest with the sofa cushions propped up against the couch so they could sit up comfortably.

Once everything was setup inside, Jack crawled back out to grab the last of their necessary provisions for the night. Namely the TV remote, the cookies he’d grabbed earlier, two cups of milk from the kitchen, and, as an afterthought, he grabbed an icepack from the freezer and wrapped it in a washcloth. He handed everything to Elmo through the entrance before joining him inside again and the two got comfortably situated in their blanket fort.

Jack picked a channel that he knew played bad sci-fi movies late at night and opened the pack of chocolate chip cookies for them to split. The two friends were soon engrossed in a bad killer-robot movie with Elmo pointing out how scientifically inaccurate the details on the robot were while Jack talked about a design he’d come up with for a toy robot. After they polished off their chocolatey desserts and drained their glasses, Jack held the icepack up to Elmo with an understanding smile, one that offered sympathy without prompting for a story just yet.

Elmo took the icepack with a sigh and placed it over his swollen eye. He hissed slightly from the contact at first, but relaxed soon enough.

After a while longer of watching bad movies, he heard Elmo say something so quiet that it was almost inaudible over the sound effects from the TV. “Hey..Jackie..?”

Jack turned his head to look at the other boy beside him. “What’s up, bud?”

“……” Elmo looked down slightly, hesitating before he spoke again. “…Thanks…”

Jack just smiled at his friend and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, holding the teen against his side comfortingly. “Eh, don’t mention it.”

They smiled at each other before nestling back into the cushions to get more comfortable as they watched another movie. Jack pulled the blankets he’d stashed inside the fort earlier up to cover them as a general feeling of sleepiness and contentment settled over both of them. Half-way through the film, he heard soft snoring beside him and glanced over to see Elmo had already fallen asleep. With a tired but affectionate smile, Jack turned the TV off and pulled the blankets up a bit higher over both of them before falling asleep as well.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Jack didn’t wake up until well past noon the next day. Thankfully, it was his day off from the shop, so he didn’t have to freak out about running late.

Feeling a weight against his side, he looked over to see Elmo still curled against him as the rat slept. Examining him in the dim daylight that filtered in through the sheets, Jack took the chance to quietly examine the boy’s injuries. The swelling in his eye had gone down a bit thanks to the ice pack, and some of the lighter bruises seemed to be healing a little as well, but would probably take more time.

Looking further down, he noticed that Elmo was gripping Jack’s shirt tightly in one of his hands as he slept. He seemed almost afraid to let go…

Jack frowned a little again at the boy’s subconscious behavior. Elmo may not have been physically strong in any sense of the word, but the kid always had a tough spirit. No matter how he got bullied or kicked around throughout middle and high school, he’d always kept a brave face and said that things weren’t that bad. THIS, though, whatever it was, was bothering him on a subconscious level and that worried Jack greatly.

Shaking himself out of his melancholy thoughts, Jack gently placed a hand on Elmo’s shoulder and gave it a light pat. “Hey, Elmo, wake up- let’s get some breakfast!” He spoke softly enough to avoid startling the still-skittish rodent, but raised his voice just enough to be effective.

Elmo groaned slightly and slowly opened his eyes, having trouble opening the blackened one all the way. “More like lunch by now..”

Jack shrugged. “Time is a man-made construct, pal.” He grinned excitedly. “So that means if we want pancakes after 12:30, then we can sure as hell have pancakes!”

Elmo released the grip he had on Jack’s shirt so he could rub at his non-bruised eye. “Fine, but don’t drown mine in whipped cream- I know how you cook.”

“You mean with style, flare, and great taste? I completely agree!” He joked as he gave the rat’s hair a quick ruffle before slipping out of the blanket fort to make breakfast.

To his pleased surprise, Elmo followed him and helped him pull out the ingredients for the pancakes. They worked together as perfectly as they always did when they set their minds to something, able to pass ingredients and tools back and forth without needing to ask for anything at all. This left them free to talk about the movies they watched the previous night and make jokes about the bad effects in so many of them.

While waiting for the pancakes to cook on the stovetop, a thought occurred to Jack and he briefly crawled back into the blanket fort to retrieve the icepack from the other night. He stuck it in the freezer so it could get cold again and, on his way back to the stove, he saw Elmo watching him.

Deciding now would be as good of a time as any to rip the metaphorical Band-Aid off, he asked the first thing that seemed safe. “How’s the eye? Any better?”

Elmo shrugged, avoiding eye contact again. “Kind of…”

“Hm, guess that’s better than it feelin’ worse.” He conceded with a shrug as he picked up the spatula again. Jack idly lifted the corners of the pancakes to check them, giving him an excuse not to stare at Elmo as they talked and providing the younger boy with some comfort. “So, something happen at school? Just give me a name- you know I’m not above scarin’ the shit out of teenagers.” He said with a smirk.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elmo lean against the kitchen wall with a small smile. “No, it’s nothing like that this time..” His smile fell slowly as he swallowed down a lump in his throat. “I just..I, uh..” He took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily, apparently trying to gather his nerve before he continued. “I kind of- that is, I just..well, I said something stupid and dad..he..he got kind of mad at me.”

“What?!” Jack’s eyes widened in shock and he nearly dropped the spatula, managing to catch it at the last minute before it hit the ground. Once he set the utensil safely back down on the counter, he turned so that he was fully-facing his friend. “Your DAD did this to you?!”

He was…well, shocked would be a gross understatement. Sure, he had never really had any super-long conversations with Mr.Sputterspark, but, from what he could tell, the guy didn’t SEEM like the kind of man to just snap and beat the crap out of his kid for no reason. Maybe he missed some signs or something?

A dark feeling bubbled up inside of him as a single thought crossed his mind: Had this happened before?

He’d known Elmo and his family for thirteen years- the thought that he’d somehow missed signs of this happening to his best friend before terrified and infuriated him at the same time.

“Yeah..” Elmo’s quiet voice brought Jack out of his thoughts that were quickly spiraling into something darker due to his brain conjuring up images of the young rat in pain. “It’s not a big deal…was my fault, anyway..shouldn’t have said anything..” He was looking at the ground, speaking more to himself than to Jack at that point.

Jack’s eyes set in a firm glare and his mouth formed a scowl as he turned back to the stove briefly, moved the frying pan with their pancakes off the burner, then walked over to Elmo to place his hands firmly on the rat’s shoulders. His friend jumped slightly from the unexpected contact before looking up at the duck with a startled expression- both from the grip the bird had on his shoulders and the look on his face.

“You listen to me, and you listen good, got it?” Jack said with a steely-firmness his voice never before possessed. At a hesitant nod from the teenager in front of him, Jack said exactly what was on his mind. “What you said doesn’t matter- NOTHING you could’ve said gives him, or anyone else, the right to HURT you! He doesn’t agree with what you said? That’s fine, but HE was still the one who was wrong for putting his hands on you! YOU didn’t do anything wrong- HE did! So don’t you dare go blaming yourself for ANY of this, got it?”

“…” Elmo listened to the older boy with a wide-eyed stare that slowly began to mist over as he processed the other’s words. He nodded at the end of it and wrapped his arms around himself in a self-conscious need for comfort and security. “…So..you wouldn’t get mad at me if I said the same thing to you…?”

Jack shook his head and moved one of his hands off of the mammal’s shoulders to pet the top of his head in a small gesture of comfort. “You’re my best friend, Elmo. You could tell me you were secretly an alien spy or an evil super villain planning to destroy the planet and wipe out all life on Earth and I’d still have your back- hell, I’d help you build the doomsday weapon myself! Promise.” He moved his hand off of the other’s head and held it in front of him with the pinky extended.

Elmo looked at his hand for a moment with a tiny smile before hooking his own pinky around it and giving it a little shake. He let go afterwards and took a deep breath to help him organize his thoughts before he spoke again. “Have you ever thought about, you know, dating someone…other than a..you know..a-a girl..?” He looked away slightly, getting that uncomfortable and nervous look on his face again. “I mean..is it okay to-to..to like a guy the same way you’re supposed to like a girl..? I-I tried asking my parents about it, but my dad he-he got..he got really mad an-nd grabbed me and..and..he..” He swallowed nervously, one hand going up to rub tenderly at his still bruised throat. “He said ‘I didn’t raise any f-fags in this house, so you’d better man up and quit with that fruity way of thinking’…at least, that’s the nice way of putting what he said…”

Jack’s eyes softened in understanding. So that’s what happened…talk about a difficult way to come out of the closet…

“Honestly?” Jack started, earning a slight upwards glance from the rodent in front of him. He paused briefly for dramatic effect before giving the boy a sympathetic smile and a nod. “Yeah. It’s fine to think like that- you can like whoever you want, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or someone else.”

“R-Really?” Elmo asked, a hopeful edge to the tone of his voice.

Jack nodded again. “Yep. At least, for me it is.” He shrugged a little as he continued. “Granted, it’s not always safe to talk about that sort of thing- lot of people are stupid like that, especially adults- but I’ve kinda played both sides of the field by now, if you catch my drift.”

Elmo’s jaw visibly dropped and hung open for a moment before he spoke again. “Seriously? You jerk, you never told me!” He pouted and gave Jack a light punch to the shoulder.

Jack chuckled at the other’s pouty face and shrugged again. “You never asked and I didn’t feel like bragging about my many adventurous conquests.”

Elmo raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. “Really? YOU??”

Jack pretended to look insulted. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ll have you know that I am quite a catch!” He winked with a coy smile.

The expression was enough to earn a laugh from the rodent, instantly brightening the mood between them and earning a chuckle from Jack in return.

“So, we’re, uh..we’re not..you know..weird..?” Elmo asked with a shy smile while running one hand through his long brown hair.

Jack laughed at that question, throwing his head back as he did. “Oh no, we are DEFINITELY weird!” He wiped tears from his eyes before giving Elmo a much more reassuring grin. “We’ve got a lot of things that make us weird, Mo…but..this ain’t one of ‘em. If anyone says otherwise, you just come to me and I’ll deal with ‘em.”

Elmo smiled with more confidence as he wrapped his arms around Jack in a tight hug. “Thanks, Jackie..for having my back..”

Jack smiled softly and returned the embrace, patting his friend’s back comfortingly. “Anything for my ‘Partner in Crime’.”

~Age 25~

Jack stepped out of his red sports car after he parked it safely in the spot outside of his apartment complex, walking into the air-conditioned lobby and taking the elevator up instead of the stairs. The shiny car and nice building were a far cry from the beat up old mini-van and cramped apartment he’d started out with a few years ago- a true testament to his financial success.

He had started out small, getting a part-time job in a toy shop and studying under the aging owner as he learned various trade secrets. Over time, he’d begun introducing his own toys to the store’s shelves until he was named partner in the business and, once the previous owner retired, he took over and used the money to expand his ideas. Just like he’d thought, his toys were a huge hit with the kids! It didn’t take long at all for “Quackerjack Toys” to become a household name and for him to move out to a better spot in town closer to his company’s main office.

A lot of things had changed rapidly in his life, especially over the past two years. However, as he reached his floor and pulled out the key to his apartment, he was happily reminded of one thing that stayed the same.

Said thing was casually seated on Jack’s couch, currently drawing up blueprints for his latest science experiment.

Elmo looked up when he heard the door open and gave Jack a quick nod in greeting before looking back at his blueprints. “Hey, Jackie.”

“Hey, Mo.” Jack greeted in return as he shrugged off his brightly colored red and blue jacket and hung it up by the door. “Still working on your static generator?”

“Mhm.” Elmo hummed absently while erasing one of his lines and redrawing it. “I’ve got the prototype set up at school already, it just needs some final adjustments and it’ll be perfect!”

“Heh, cool. Can’t wait to see it.” Jack said before heading back to his bedroom to change out of his work clothes and into his home-clothes (mainly consisting of comfy sweat pants and loose tee-shirts).

Having Elmo at his apartment had become an even more frequent thing over the past two years. Ever since the night his best friend had turned up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, soaked, scared, and abused by his family, Jack had made it a point to always get a spare key for the other to keep with him- giving him the freedom to come over any time he felt lonely or scared or even just bored. The rat had been hesitant at first, saying he didn’t want to bother the duck, but, after MUCH insistence from the older boy, he finally caved in and accepted the key.

Thankfully, Elmo had never come to see Jack in that rough of a state again, but he did still come over sometimes with a bruised cheek or wet streaks in his fur from when he’d been upset earlier. Jack never failed in his quest to help his best friend temporarily forget about his troubles, offering a shoulder to cry on or a funny distraction depending on which was needed more for the current situation.

Admittedly, having someone to talk to about his own romantic preferences was refreshing for Jack, too. Unlike Elmo, he’d never even broached the subject with his own parents, and, more like Elmo, he didn’t exactly have many friends besides the other boy to talk to.

Things were slowly changing in society as time went by, but the general populace was still very vocally against the idea, making it unsafe to openly discuss one’s personal tastes unless you were sure you were among like-minded individuals.

Being the head of an up-and-coming company that catered to children put Jack in an exceptionally awkward spot as well: One bad rumor or public scandal and people would start accusing him of crimes that, honestly, disgusted him to even think about. For now, it was best to keep his relationships a secret from everyone.

Well, everyone except Elmo, of course.

Once Jack was changed into his more comfortable attire, he joined Elmo on the couch by flopping over the length of the cushions with his legs dangling over the armrest and his head landing beside the rodent’s leg so he could look up at the seventeen year old’s intensely concentrated face.

“Hey, Nick-Elmo Tesla,” He joked with a chuckle, earning a hum of acknowledgement. “I’m feeling waaaaaaayy too lazy to cook tonight- you wanna stay for pizza?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sure, sounds good..” The other boy said quietly, still concentrating on his blueprints.

Jack hated being ignored, even if it was indirectly. With a smirk he sat up and grabbed his phone from the end-table. “I’m thinking extra-large with quadruple cheese, half the sauce, with pickled peppers, pineapple, and extra anchovies- sounds great, huh?”

“Mhm, sure..” Elmo didn’t even register the unappetizing combination, instead he just absent-mindedly agreed and nodded along. Jack pouted and turned the phone over in his hand so that the antenna was pointing forward and poked the teen in the side with it, causing him to yelp and finally look at the pouting duck. “Ack! What?”

Jack gave him a dead-pan expression and a raised eyebrow. “You just agreed to a pizza smothered in cheese with pickled peppers, pineapple, and anchovies.”

Elmo at last made an appropriately disgusted face. “I did? Gross!”

Jack chuckled at the expression and smiled a bit. “That’s more like it. You are WAY too into your electricity crap- way more than usual.” He brought his legs up onto the couch and crossed them as he looked at his friend expectantly. “Wanna tell me WATTS up?”

Elmo rolled his eyes slightly at the pun, but finally set the paper and pencil down with a sigh. “It’s just…prom’s this week and my parents keep bugging me about going.” He looked away from Jack with a slight frown. “They keep asking me which GIRL I’m going to take..” The way he emphasized the gender made it very clear exactly how his parents had been pestering him

Jack nodded in understanding with a sympathetic roll of his eyes. “Oof. That’s rough, bud.”

Elmo looked back over at Jack with an irritated sigh. “It’s so stupid- it’s just a dance. Why does it matter who I go with? Or if I even go at all?”

Jack shrugged and crossed his arms behind his head as he leaned back against the cushions. “It’s ‘cause it’s some sort of ‘sacred rite of passage into adulthood’, or some crap.”

“Who’d you go with for yours again?” Elmo asked as he leaned back more comfortably on the couch too.

“Oh, I went with Stacey Storkson- girl from my theater club.” Jack answered, recalling the blue dress the long-legged girl had picked out and the white and blue tux he’d rented. “Neither of us had a date and we got along well enough, so we went together, took a couple pictures, danced like two times, then went home. It was alright, I guess, as far as parties go.” He looked across the couch at the other boy with a raised eyebrow. “So, anyone you’re thinking about taking?”

Elmo frowned and folded his arms. “No, I don’t really talk to any girls..”

“What about boys?” Jack teased with a smirk.

Elmo shook his head in response. “I don’t really get along well enough with any of the guys at school, either…”

“Hmmm..” Jack hummed in thought, idly spinning the phone in his hand as if it were a large pencil. “Well, anyone outside of school you’d wanna take? You know- someone you’d like to ask out on a date or somethin’?”

The rat grew quiet at that, looking down at his lap with an apprehensive expression on his face. “…………”

Jack looked at him with a curious frown, noting how tense the other boy looked. “Elmo..?” He prompted carefully, not wanting to make his friend feel pressured, but genuinely curious and concerned now.

“……” Elmo took a deep breath in and let it out to calm himself, one hand nervously rubbing at his opposite arm. “There..is one guy I-I kind of..like…well, more than ‘kind of like’..that is, I mean..” He groaned, grabbed one of the throw pillows off of the sofa, and buried his face in it, hiding the growing redness that had spread over his cheeks. “..I..think I have feelings for someone…” He muttered through the fabric and stuffing, just loud enough to be heard.

“WhaaaaaAAAAAT?!” Jack shouted excitedly, bouncing from his end of the couch over to Elmo’s with a big smile. “Mo, that’s awesome!” He shook the boy’s shoulder with both hands. “You gotta ask him out!”

Elmo shook his head fervently, clinging tighter to the pillow. “I can’t..”

“Why not?” Jack tried tugging the pillow free from the rodent’s death-grip. “Just take him to prom with ya! It’s fine if he goes to another school- lots of people sneak friends in!”

Elmo frowned when Jack managed to yank the pillow away. “He..doesn’t go to another school..” He looked away, shrinking back against the couch uncomfortably under Jack’s curious gaze. “He-He finished school a while back…”

“A while ba..?” Jack’s questioned trailed off at the meaning of those words: It was an adult. “Elmo..” Jack said with a sudden tone of seriousness as he put a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “He hasn’t tried anything, has he?”

He felt protective fury burning in his chest- the same way it did whenever he saw Elmo hurt or bullied or threatened by someone else. He hated the idea of someone doing anything at all to hurt his best friend and would do anything it took to protect him.

Jack knew from experience that teenage years were already a confusing time for people when it came to hormones, relationships, and sex vs. love, but the whole thing was even worse for people like him and Elmo with so few options available.

In his own search for knowledge about his sexuality, he’d learned that the best sources were adults in less-than-reputable locations. Most of these people were fine to talk to, offering advice and knowledge and understanding that was harder to find in places where the light of society shined much brighter. However, there were always people that preyed upon those confused, attention-starved kids who still didn’t have quite the same grasp on the difference between genuine love and physical attraction.

The thought of Elmo being used by one of those creeps had Jack already mentally planning what weapons to bring and where he could hide a body-

“No!” Elmo’s urgent voice brought him back to the moment at hand as the rat shook his head, avoiding eye-contact with the duck beside him. “He doesn’t- I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s not aware that I..” He took a deep breath before shaking his head again. “He doesn’t know that I like him.”

“Oh, okay..” Jack relaxed his grip on the other’s shoulder, feeling a bit better now that he knew some pervert wasn’t trying to take advantage of his friend. “So, what’s he like?”

“He’s, uh..” Elmo struggled for a moment to find his words. “Well..he’s smart, for starters, a great engineer with a lot of really big and creative ideas. He’s also pretty funny- he makes me laugh a lot.” The look he gave Jack was strange, as if he was looking at him and looking through him at the same time. “He’s really kind and supportive, too…he’s always there for me when I need him…and..and..” He looked away, his face turning red as he managed to say the final piece of his description. “And he’s…he’s m-my best friend..”

Those words hit Jack HARD, making him fall back against the couch as if he’d been physically struck by them.

Wow.

Okay, that…that was a lot to take in…

Jack took a minute to collect his scattered thoughts before he sat back up to look at the nervous rodent on the other side of the couch. “So…” He had to swallow down a lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. “You’re, uh…You’re serious, huh, Mo..?”

Elmo nodded with a shaky laugh, running an anxious hand through his hair. “Y-Yeah…I am.” He took a deep breath before looking at Jack again. “So…?” He prompted, his face telling the older duck that he was prepared for whatever rejection awaited him.

Jack frowned slightly at the hurt look on the other’s face and ran a hand through his own head-feathers to collect his thoughts.

His best friend just confessed to having feelings for him and was expecting an answer. Unfortunately, he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about the whole situation, himself.

One the one hand, he did like Elmo a lot. He was his best friend and the person who understood and connected with him better than anyone else in the whole world. He had a lot of fun with the guy and, truthfully, he wasn’t that bad in the looks department (even if he was still a bit scrawny). All things considered, if they had been the same age, Elmo was totally the kind of guy Jack would’ve made a pass at by now.

On the other hand, there was the glaring problem that they WEREN’T the same age. Jack was significantly older than his friend and had seen the kid grow up. While it was true that he always thought of the other as his equal and never his junior or something condescending like that, he was still painfully aware of the fact that he was quite a bit older than the kid, as well, and the idea of being with someone who was still, technically, a CHILD grossed him out in ways that made his feathers fluff up, even if it was his best friend.

“Okay, look,” Jack finally said after he got his thoughts sorted, looking at Elmo with a serious expression. “You’re my best friend, Mo, above everything else. BUT, you gotta admit, I’m A LOT older than you.”

Elmo glanced away with a frown and mumbled. “Seven’s not that much..”

“Eight, during the holidays.” Jack added reflexively after many years of jokes regarding how their birthdays fell throughout the year. “Anyway,” He said with a shake of his head to get back on track. “You’re still pretty young and, I get it, things are..kind of weird and confusing right now. I’ve had PLENTY of experience in that department, trust me- it’s real easy to get a crush on someone you’re close to and think it’s love when it’s really just your friggin’ hormones driving you insane.”

That, unfortunately, seemed to be the wrong thing to say, making Elmo’s frown turn into a scowl. “Seriously?” He asked when he looked back up at Jack. “You think that’s all this is? That I’m-That I’m, what? Confused? Stupid? Just that desperate to get it on with someone?”

Jack frowned at the frustrated outburst. “That’s not what I’m sayin’, Mo.”

“Yes it is!” Elmo snapped, his hands curling into fists before he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “You think I’m just another stupid teenager and that I don’t know what love feels like just ‘cause I’m ‘inexperienced’. Well, guess what? This isn’t something new for me: I’ve been thinking it over for at least a year now, and it’s driving me crazy!” The edges of his face softened a bit as he frowned again. “It’s not just a stupid ‘physical’ thing, Jackie..I..I actually want to be with you. It sucks and it drives me crazy, but..but everytime I see you, I just get this..I get this sort of, I don’t know, ‘bubbly’- is that the right word? Do people get ‘bubbly’?- feeling in my chest.” He closed his eyes for a moment to avoid the startled look he was getting from the duck. “I think about you being with other people, or someone messing with you, and I start plotting ways to get rid of them. Then, when I think about what I want out of life, all that really comes to mind is just being with you- working together at your company, coming back here together after work, eating dinner together, then just hanging out or falling asleep next to each other.” He took a deep breath before looking at Jack with pleading, watery eyes. “So..So don’t just tell me it’s because I’m confused or because I’m too young- I’m old enough to know that I..I love you, Jackie..” He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes to stop any tears from falling. “Even if..you don’t feel the same..” He added quietly, so softly that Jack almost didn’t catch it.

“Elmo..” Jack frowned at the absolutely heart-broken tone to his dearest friend’s voice. He hated seeing the boy in pain, and hated even more that he was partially responsible for it. Taking a deep breath himself, Jack moved closer and pulled the teenager into a comforting embrace. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

Elmo looked at him hopefully. “You mean-?”

“Ah, ah.” Jack stopped him before he could finish his question with a shake of his head. “I didn’t say that either.” He put a hand on the mammal’s head and petted him gently in a familiar, soothing motion he’d learned after years of comforting the other boy. “Look, everything you just said..well..I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sound like stuff I’d enjoy doing, too. BUT,” He interjected the word into his statement when he saw the hopeful smile starting to form on the boy’s face and tried to stop it before it got too far. “You’re still too young.” He tapped the rat on his long nose when he was about to say something. “And I don’t mean that in a ‘you’re a hormonal teenager’ way, I mean it in a ‘I could go to jail for looking at you inappropriately and would totally deserve to get the shit beaten out of me by a big guy named Brutus in the showers’ sort of way. Right now, it just feels..wrong and kind of icky to think about you like that, you know?” He reasoned with a slight shudder. “And it’s not because it’s YOU- if I’m being honest here, I’d probably have made a move on you years ago if you were in high school with me- it’s because you’re still considered a KID.”

Elmo frowned a bit and looked back down. “So..that’s a pretty hard ‘no’, huh..?” Jack flicked his forehead with a light glare. “Ow!” The rat rubbed his head and looked back up at the duck. “What?”

“Would you quit puttin’ words in my mouth?” Jack said before his glare eased slightly. “It’s not a ‘hard no’, like you said. It’s more of a ‘no for now, but maybe later’, okay?”

“You mean it?” Elmo questioned, that familiar look of suspicion that showed he felt he was just being placated on his face again.

“Yeah, I mean it.” Jack said, holding his pinky out towards the other in a familiar gesture. “We’ll give it a few years, let you get a chance to try dating other kids your own age and see if anything settles down or changes for you. If you still feel that way once you’re old enough to LEGALLY buy me a drink, then I’ll go out with you. Deal?”

Elmo looked at his hand for a few seconds before bringing his own hand up and hooking his pinky around the offered digit. “Deal.” They shook their joined hands before letting go. After a moment’s hesitation, Elmo spoke again. “Hey, Jackie..?”

“Yeah, Mo?” Jack questioned while he went to retrieve the phone from earlier.

“…We’re..” The rodent frowned slightly. “We’re still best friends…right…?”

Jack blinked and looked at the other with a dumb-struck face. “What kind of stupid question is that?” He reached over and playfully tussled the other boy’s hair with a grin. “Of course we are! No matter what happens- if we go out or don’t go out, if we go out and it works out or doesn’t work out- we’re ALWAYS gonna be best friends. Got it?”

“Got it.” Elmo answered with a relieved smile before snatching the phone from Jack. “Now let’s order a pizza that DOESN’T make me hurl.”

Jack laughed and tried to grab the phone back from him (insisting that his jalapeño and Canadian bacon pizza wasn’t THAT bad), the atmosphere between them cleared and as carefree as ever, much to the pair’s combined relief. They spent the evening eating pizza and chocolate snack cakes and watching a comedy show on TV before Elmo left for home with a casual “see you later, Jackie” while Jack gave a light-hearted “smell ya later, Mo!” in return.

However, if Jack had known that was the last day he’d see his friend, he would have said so much more…

<-Previous Chapter Next Chapter->

End Notes: So, finally hitting some more serious drama in this chapter. Sorry it’s a bit longer than the last couple, but the next one will be a bit shorter before the final chapter.

Also, sorry again if any of the subject matter in this chapter made anyone uncomfortable- anyone who reads my work will see a pattern in which I am incapable of writing characters I like/ship ending up together without going through some sort of pain/drama >_<”