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jade-of-mourning · 3 years ago

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theformat wrote, "im floating with the birds im talking to the weeds look what youve done to me"

in which i spontaneously take several hours to translate nate’s awfully punctuated commentary on dog problems into Comprehensive English Words. partially so i can write my stupid essay on it for fun. but yes here you go, 4.2k words from a 2006 livejournal archive that i managed to snatch out of two saves. here’s a link if you want to read it from the source, but i’ll have you know it’s a nightmare. early 2000′s nate ruess learn how to type properly challenge.

theformat wrote,

[@ 2006-5-18 18:44:00]

"im floating with the birds im talking to the weeds look what youve done to me"

Hi,

Sitting on my couch, watching ESPN. Damn, it’s good to be home. Things have been pretty crazy the last 6 months. As a lot of you know, we were dropped by our label — we went and recorded a new record, labels became interested, [and] we decided to release it ourselves. We went on tour, and now I’m [...] home for the next week: my first week off in six months. What do I do?

Well, my roommate and I got memberships to the YMCA down the street from our house. It’s an amazing place. Downtown Phoenix is pretty much an amazing place. It’s not like the rest of the state — speaking of which, I’m declaring war on Scottsdale, it’s the opposite of Downtown Phoenix.

Anyways, so I wake up at 9am every morning. I don’t know what it is, really — I’ve been a "pro" musician for about 3 years now, [and] we are supposed to wake up at 11 or 12. I know some dudes that wake up at 1, but no; since I’ve been home the last few days, I’ve been going to bed at 1 and waking up at 9. My roommate has a job, [so] I think it has to do with that.

See, there are 3 showers total in our house. I have the big bedroom, so I have the big shower, [and] since I’ve been off on tour and recording, he has gotten used to the nice shower in my room (Which is fine — anyone that’s gotten close to me knows I’m not too fond of showers, so it’s not like I use it that much). So every morning around 8:45, I wake up to my door opening and my roommate going through my room to use the shower.

You know what it’s like when you’re half asleep but you want to act like you’re awake so as not to freak someone out with all the crazy babble, but you just end up saying all the same crazy babble? I do that every morning. I turn and look at him and try to act like I wasn’t just dreaming about tootsie rolls and parrots that shatter like glass. "Hey [Roommate's Name], that was some game last night" [is what usually] comes out of my mouth — something to that extent — and I think he feels sorry for me, but continues to walk right into my bathroom, and use the shower.

At this point, I’m awake. I usually have to pee, and I have to then use his restroom. It’s a terrible swap, and it always ends with me wide awake on my front porch (har har) smoking a cigarette and wondering how the hell I’m gonna fall back asleep when the air conditioning is broken. Ah, what a wonderful life at home, [but] that’s the weird thing — I love it. Now we wake up and we go to the [YMCA]. We run, we play basketball, we jump in the pool, we play pool basketball, we get yelled at for dunking the ball. We don’t use soap before we go into the sauna, and the night usually ends with a poker tournament. This is the life I love to live when I’m away from the road. It too is the opposite of Scottsdale. It’s who I am, [and] it’s pretty much who I’ve become.

See, for the last 23 years, it’s been about the highs and the lows for me. I’ve got an addictive personality, [so] I stay away from a lot of things because of this; however, when I find things, I get generally excited. I go crazy. It’s all I think about and all I do for the next howeverlong. For the first 23 years, it was either talking non-stop or locking myself in my room. It’s either great or terrible; not good or bad. Dog Problems changed that.

Initially, Dog Problems was supposed to be that — the original concept of Dog Problems was to be 2 sides of music, the first half taking over where Interventions [+ Lullabies] had left off: "We'll be together in the morning…"

We weren’t, in fact. We were over before Interventions was even released. We were over two weeks after it was recorded, [and] I spent the next 2 years feeling terrible. We got back together… we broke up… we got dogs… we broke up… we got back together and got dogs…

I was still miserable, but I wanted Dog Problems to get me through everything. I wanted it to help me, not anyone else — just me. The first side was supposed to be me down in the dumps [and] everything that went down: how the two of us were dealing with it differently, [and] the second half was supposed to be a realization.

The first inkling of realization was a day [when] we were on tour. We were all laughing about something I’m sure Marko or Adam said. Here I was supposed to be depressed, but the fact that I can spend all of my days in different states with my best friends, all of us doing what we love — that was major! Then my mom called… I’ve got my parents! My friends! What else could I possibly need?

At that point, I felt as if a relationship in a Michael Bolton sort of way didn’t mean anything. It was the people you surrounded yourself with — those were the people that made the difference, and that was going to be side two. I was convinced that when I just closed my eyes and thought about the wonderful people around me, I was going to be great. Not good, [but] great.

I didn’t get that far, no. I got back into the relationship.

I was sure it was going to work. At that point, life would be perfect, and we all want perfection right? [But] things went right back to far from perfect. Things went to terrible. I couldn’t stop feeling sorry for myself, but I had a concept. At that point, I figured that even by singing and recording these positive songs I was going to feel better, so Sam showed me what was then just a short acoustic guitar version of Snails.

This was it. This was my first chance to prove to myself that life can be beautiful. The thing is, I had never been more miserable. I remember writing the lyrics to Snails: my roommate was at work, I was on the bed, on my night stand was a giant bottle of booze, and somewhere off in California she wasn’t calling me back on a Friday night. So I went to work, listened [to it] over and over. I wanted to get it right; I wanted to be positive. I passed out, then I woke up the next morning [with a] big headache (P.S. drinking is not really that cool; it’s cool when you condemn it for the first 22 years of your life, then it becomes not cool, then it becomes ok when you moderate yourself) and I started writing everything positive I could think of. [...] Snails was, in Sam’s mind, supposed to be a 2 minute kid’s song, [but] I wrote so much that there was no going back. I thought that was it — Snails solved all of my problems.

It didn’t get that far either. Nothing could shake the depression, [and] I really started to worry about myself. Here I want to feel great, but I only feel terrible, [and] a few months later it got really really bad. I had to go to my parents house that night, I didn’t want to be at my house. I wanted to feel like a kid.

It’s funny how we always want to be adults when we're younger. We want to drive cars, we want to have girlfriends. I still didn’t consider myself an adult — all I wanted was to come home, be tucked in, know that everything was going to be alright. I woke up the next day [and found out] she met someone new. I’ve got to figure myself out…

In the meantime, we've got 4 songs we are recording over at our friend Aaron’s house (he is an amazing producer and [...] musician, and his house and his roommates have gotten me through a lot of tough times. They’re some of the only people I know who would rather spend their Saturdays getting dinner and watching a movie instead of going to a party. I like that). All of this turmoil in my relationship was going on at the time, and I was trying to write side two [but] I couldn’t. There was more fuel to side one. These songs have to be done, so I wrote about what I knew, and at that point I knew how to feel terrible.

So much for side two. Dog Problems is going to be one giant mess of depression and "look what you’ve done to me".

Atlantic got those four songs, as well as a few others. They were not psyched, to say the least, but some people at the label actually cared about it enough to say "go record". So we were able to pick our producer, we met with a few people, talked to a few more. Things were looking up. Dog Problems was going to happen.

I remember meeting Steve McDonald at his house — Sam and I were excited to be [there] because we knew his wife Anna would probably be there. Anna was the lead singer/songwriter for a band we used to obsess about called "That Dog", her brother was one of the ten drummers in the world that I actually liked, so Steve couldn't be so bad. And he wanted to produce our record, so he had to be pretty cool!

He was just that, and more. Sam and I were eating every word that came out of his mouth. He had stories; he was young, hip, energetic, and yet very all knowing. We saw someone that was going to let us do whatever we wanted to do, and in the meantime he was going to make us laugh and make sure we didn't lose our minds. From that point on, I knew there was someone I could always trust. I made a friend pretty quick.

Things were moving forward. Steve McDonald was to be the producer. I hated Los Angeles so there was no way in hell I was going to record there, [so] we decided Palm Springs would be perfect. Weird, but perfect. I had a phone conversation with Steve that night and we were finalizing everything. I was going to call Atlantic in the morning and let them know just how everything was going to work, [but] I didn't get that far.

I was sleeping in a blowup bed at the house when my phone rang. I didn’t wake up and answer like it was my roommate and he was coming into my room to use my shower, [because] this call felt different. Right away, I was awake.

It was our manager: "You’ve been dropped."

When I heard that, the first thought going through my mind wasn’t "Oh man...how are we going to be famous now and make boat loads of money?" It was more like "fuck...but Dog Problems. We were supposed to go make Dog Problems."

The thing is, Atlantic wasn’t into Dog Problems. They were into whatever it was they thought we were. Never had The First Single made more sense — what was supposed to be a song about getting the band started and doing something with it had actually turned into a song about how stuck we were in the labels eyes because of the song. I was past that; we're proud of something we wrote when we were 19 and 20, but when I think of music, I think of progression.

I think of all of the wonderful records I had been introduced to when I had nothing to do riding in a van. I think of all of the new influences, all the instruments, all of the "How did they do that?" And I think of how much it gets me through everything.

Music has been the consecutive[ly] great[est] thing in my life. It’s been that one thing, and with Dog Problems, it wasn’t about "I want everyone to sing along because I can write a catchy song." It was about feeling. It was paying tribute to all of the bands that we obsessively listened to. It was for Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks, it was for Jellyfish and XTC. It was our way of saying thanks for making our lives better, whether it be lyrically or musically. It was never about being something, being told something, and sticking to something. It was an adventure, for the artist and for the listener.

[And] they didn't get that. They wanted the old record, the old songs, just with different words and a few different chords here and there. They didn’t care about Snails or Dog problems [or] what it meant to write those songs. They knew it wasn't going to be huge; the guitars were not big enough (if big guitars are your thing that’s fine, it’s just not really our thing right now); it wasn’t going to be competitive, and so they dropped us. And rightfully so: we weren’t going to change, and obviously the major label business is never going to change, [so] now it comes down to who goes down first. And we weren’t ready to go down.

Sam and I had conversations about it, whether the business end of things have been fucking with us so much that we'll never be sane enough to just enjoy it. We thought about getting out — it wasn’t [be]cause we hated each other, or the songs; it was because we hated the business.

Steve called to let us know that he was still onboard, label or not, [and] we let him know we were still on board. We were going to make this record, [and] I was going to feel great! But the record was going to cost something. How could we afford it?

We were lucky that we had a management company like Nettwerk. Not only are they the most forward-thinking music business people around, [but] they’re also (for the most part) Canadian. Oh, and they care a shit load about the music we make. They could have waited for the ship to sink, but they told us they would pay for the record if need be. Fortunately, we were able to get money for getting dropped — Atlantic actually paid us to leave, so we could afford the recording ourselves. The only stipulation was that it had to be done quicker, and when you want something quick, you have to go to the "right here, right now" capitol of the world: Los Angeles. I was a little irked at the thought at first, then Steve said it was his personal goal to make LA a wonderful city for me. Like I said, I would jump off a cliff if Steve said it was the best way to get coffee, but I wasn’t jumping off of cliffs. I was too excited to make Dog Problems, [so] LA it was.

Sam and I moved to the "Silver Palace" in Silverlake California in the middle of December. We found an amazing studio in Burbank, California and an amazing engineer in Ken Sluiter, and our goal was to just do everything free from a record label and someone constantly messing up the recording process by saying things like "that’s not high octave enough". The only pressure we had at all was from our manager saying "You have a tour you accepted in March, [so] get it done by then.” Other than that, it was me, Sam, Steve, and Ken working 13 hours a day for 6 days a week.

It became our lives we were putting so much of ourselves into. Everyone that worked and played on the record was the same way when they were there contributing. I would leave the studio at 2 in the morning and wake up at 10 to be at the studio by 11. There was no free time — the four of us were so invested in this. We all bought into the concept.

In the meantime, things outside of the studio were getting interesting. We had a lot of labels calling and constantly asking about it. During one week of recording, I remember at least 3 different label people coming down to the studio. Our minds weren’t made up as to what we were doing with the record once it was recorded — all we wanted to do was finish it — but we kept our options open and let people sit in the big chair and listen to what we had been working on. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but we didn’t really think about it too much beyond the compliments we were receiving. Sam and I got used to LA — I was 10 minutes away from where I had been the previous summer when I was back "on" in my “on and off" relationship. I was ten minutes from her, she was calling every day, I was singing about it… but how was it not getting to me? Why did I not care?

My phone was off. I woke up in Silverlake one morning and started wondering why for the last month I had a smile on my face. Sure, I was down at times, but the thing that had been bringing me down for 3 years was now the last thing on my mind. Apparently, it had been that way for awhile. Something that took 3 years to get over… I was finally just okay with it. No big realization — just the fact that things happen. People make mistakes. And I came out of it alright. I was good; not great… I was good, and that felt good.

I wasn’t looking for great anymore. I was okay. The last song on Dog Problems is all about that. Here, this record was supposed to be the downs, and the ups, and it ended with the middle: the realization that I don’t need to be talking; I don’t need to be locked in my room — I need to enjoy what’s going on around me. And if things go wrong, they go wrong. There’s always tomorrow.

Dog Problems means so much to me in so many different ways. I’ve never been more proud of anything in my life. I cried so many times during the making of the record. All the money I had spent on therapy, and all I had to do was go make a record, realize that I’m alright, and realize that I made something that I’ll forever be proud of.

Shit… the record was supposed to be about how California can change you for the worse, [but] it played a huge part in doing the opposite!

So as we were putting the finishing touches on the record (all our friends came in and recorded! A ton of people we admired came and worked on the record! All of their responses were so positive that it's hard not to get an ego about it. These are the people I worship. They’re the ones I wanted to pay tribute to, and they think we've made something unique and special. It’s like Michael Jordan telling you that you have a nice jump shot (no more sports references… I swear I’m done)) and we started to think about what we were going to do with it. How we were going to release it. Labels were getting pretty into it, and we knew we would have to make a decision soon.

After much debate and discussion, we decided that the record was something we had made completely on our own, so why not release it completely on our own? Nettwerk was going to take care of the distribution so it would have a major label distro. It would be inside all of the Best Buys; what more did we want? We didn’t want a big fat check — we did that last time. It made us miserable, and nothing came out of it. Barely anyone at the labels helped us, we weren’t making music videos, our songs weren’t on the radio, so why would we take their criticism? After all, everything that we’ve done — any success we’ve had is from being real people who make music. From showing up to play, from 3 years on the road.

On Interventions [+ Lullabies], there might have been an Elektra logo on the back of the record, but it ended right there. We were the ones SHOWING people who we were. I wouldn’t have it any other way — no one knows us better than ourselves, so why not release it ourselves? To me, it’s not only a testament to the hard work we put into the band (Mike, Don, Marko, Toco, everyone else involved in putting these songs to life — you guys are the best thing we have. It’s pretty special when your best friends are some of the most talented musicians), but I really feel like the people who come to our shows are such good people that they don’t give a fuck what label it’s on.

They are there because we are doing something positive, and because we care about them as much as they care about us. So for the time being we've said "fuck the middleman": we're the only people we can blame at this point. I’m so tired of even talking about major labels and the split and everything like this. The music is the only thing I care about. Dog Problems is the only thing I care about, so why let someone else ruin it?

The Vanity Label was born.

The record got finished. We had no time to rehearse, and we had to go right back out to tour. Our first show before the Motion City Soundtrack tour was in Nashville — I remember the last time we were in Nashville, there were about ten kids. Reuben’s accomplice kept asking them why they hate whales, so we figured why not go there and get some of the rust out of the way. After all, we haven't toured in a year so there should be like 3 kids there; we can mess up if need be.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to mess up. On a Sunday night in Nashville, with Ted Leo playing across the street (I <3 Ted), our first headlining show outside of Arizona in almost a year was over sold out. What the fuck happened?

We thought we were going to have to play for another 3 years just to get back to where we were when we left, and yet it’s sold out on a Sunday night? It didn’t end there either — the whole tour went like that… night after night ("nite after nite?"). I couldn't believe it. As if having Dog Problems wasn’t enough, now we have people showing their support in the most positive way: coming to the shows, being there from the only thing they knew before. Those two months were such good months. It was the last thing I expected. Thanks so much to all the bands that played with us, and thanks so much for everyone that came to the shows and sang along. We'll be back in July.

In the meantime, things were going great on the Vanity Label front. Business actually felt natural. We are shooting a video with the directors we had always dreamed of doing a video with (it won’t be serious...no pouty face). There were magazines like AP and online magazines like AP taking notice, supporting the whole idea and concept. We actually took press photos. I’ve never been through any of this before, it’s exciting. I don’t think it’s going to change who we are, not one bit, but it’s still exciting to see people who can help out actually help out.

So where does that leave me now? Sitting on my bed. I’ve rambled for hours, the air still doesn't work, and I’ve been told that Dog Problems (something that isn't supposed to come out till July) has been leaked. Not the best news when you just got out of the pool, but it happens. I freaked out at first — I thought I was going to lock myself in my room. After all, this is something that we spent over two years making. It’s something that you have to take the time… listen to in headphones… play loud… listen to in order of the tracks… the artwork… Sam did the best artwork he has ever done. The packaging is something we paid extra for because Sam’s concept was so brilliant, and now… it’s leaked on the internet? I was locking my door, then our manager called.

"Hello?"

"We're releasing it on the website today."

"Wow."

So, here goes. You’ve read enough. I shouldn’t have to go on about it anymore, but I will say, if you wanna wait for the full hard copy release then do so. It’s July 11 — we are gonna be touring right after that — but if you want to get it now,.please do it by purchasing it right here. We released it, it’s our money, it’s our little baby — you should take the time to listen to it all the way through, free of distraction. You should turn the songs into your own. It’s an adventure, and it’s something that we put everything we have into; and if anyone deserves it first, it’s you guys who have been here with us all along.

Without further ado...

"Dog Problems"

- Nate

#dog problems #the format #nate ruess #basically: dog problems; a lyrical & musical & emotional masterpiece #i honestly feel like i don't even need to write that essay anymore wtf #4.2k words baby that took me ages to edit bc he has the WORST typing habits #every half statement is interspersed with ellipses and there are no apostrophes and everything was no caps lmaooo #moving on #this is absolutely my favorite album ever and holy shit #finally reading this post in its entirety gave me so much more insight it's wild #i'm like so fucking emotional help jhfhbjgfhsdkg #i'm just glad he's doing alright now and having a good time even if music isn't a big part of his life anymore #and i also feel like i understand the breaking up of fun. a lot more as well #hell i just really understand nate ruess in general a lot more and it's really nice #bc he's been my favorite artist for a while and i know a lot of people shit on him for his personality but like. fuck off people are people #and u know. if work permits is my favorite song so hearing shit about it makes me happy #truly makes me appreciate the album more than i already did #and makes me get why it's the only part of his discography he still actually likes #even though OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING they are all Excellent but okay then nate

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imaginingmyloki · 3 years ago

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A Shift in Reality

Fandom/universe: Marvel

Pairing: LokixReader

Timeline: AU marvel where its after Ragnarok so Loki keeps his character development and no one dies because infinity war/end game never happened :)

Word Count: 2140

A/N: So this is the first non-requested fic I have written in a long time. Reader’s powers are essentially Daisy Johnson’s powers (earthquake/vibrations for those who haven’t seen agents of shield- if you havent seen it I HIGHLY recommend it! If any part of reader’s powers being used for certain things get confusing I’ll try to link a youtube video of Daisy using her powers doing the same thing to see a visual of it! But here’s an overview video of her using her powers to do a lot of really cool stuff if you’re interested :) not at all relevant to the story but I have a MAJOR crush on daisy haha). I’m already working on part 2 and it should be posted early next week! Anyways, I hope you guys like it :) and requests are open so if you have any let me know!

“Kid, where are you?” Stark came over coms sounding like a frantic father. “I’m fine, Tony. I’m 26 and I don’t need a babysitter.” I had only been with the team for a couple months. Tony had found me in rough shape, running after escaping from Hydra. After a few weeks healing and training, I had been allowed to go on a few easy missions with the team but always had to stay with someone since I was still learning to control my abilities. Hydra didn’t teach me control, they only taught me to use anger as the driving force behind my power and with powers like mine, that could get dangerous quickly. This was my first mission where I wasn’t instructed to stay with someone the entire time. I still ended up walking with Loki for the first few minutes after everyone splitting up. He and I had become friends since I had moved to the compound. He was the only one who didn’t look at me like he was waiting for me to break or pestering me to talk about what I had been through before joining them. It was supposed to be a simple mission just to gather some intel from an old shut down Hydra base. I turned down a hallway that had a door at the end as Loki turned down one on the opposite side of the corridor. He gave me a nod before we went our separate ways as if to reassure me that I could handle this. I made my way towards the door and realized that it was slightly open and I could hear low talking inside. I paused just outside the door to listen, “There’s at least 6 of them here and probably more outside for backup. We need to hurry up and wipe the server and blow the rest of it.”

I tried to warn Loki over coms but didn’t get an answer so slowly made my way into the room, staying out of sight of the two men sitting at the bank of computers. As I snuck around a large shelf, something came into view. A bomb that had a timer on it and was counting down. It was hooked to multiple, smaller impact bombs that would go off after the initial explosion disturbed them.This would cause catastrophic damage to the building. We had 2 minutes until it would bring the building down on top of everyone inside. Giving up on staying hidden, I stepped out, hands at the ready, and said “Stop the bomb. Now.” The man at work on the computer continued what he was doing and the man who had an air of authority about him slowly turned to face me and the air in my lungs suddenly went cold. His name was Nelson and he was the man that had been in charge of me when Hydra had me captive. It took everything in me to remind myself that I was in control of myself and I didn’t need to tell him that I was ready to comply with whatever orders he would give me. I was free now and there would be no punishments for disobeying. “Well now if it isn’t my most promising weapon of mass destruction. We’ve been looking for you. The boss is not happy with me for losing you. You took out quite a few high value assets on your way out.” He was smirking and the look on his face made me feel like I was missing a piece of the puzzle. With coms still silent and no sign of anyone coming to help me, the fear started to sink in and the room around us started trembling as I began to lose control of my powers. Nelson chuckled, “Still having trouble controlling the fear, I see. Guess we didn’t quite beat that out of you yet, huh?” I glanced quickly at the timer, a minute and 15 seconds left. Loki suddenly came running into the room, a knife in both hands. Before I could say anything to him, the knives left his hands with a swift flick of his wrist. One took out the man at the computer and the other landed in Nelson’s shoulder. “Go, Loki. Get everyone else out of here.” He ignored me and sent a warning out to the others over coms. Mine was apparently the only one not working. I heard Nelson let out a short laugh at my confusion. “Of course we knew you were here, 9213. We may not be able to hack all of Stark’s tech but we can manage to fry a single com unit.” Hydra didn’t refer to any of their assets by names. It was either “soldier” for those that they tried to replicate the winter soldier on or by your file number. I was file number 9213. Just as I was about to respond, the bomb went off. Without thinking, I dove towards it and used my powers to contain the explosion. Loki punched Nelson, knocking him out. The exertion of trying to hold the explosion in place was starting to get to me. “Loki, I need to let this go. Is everyone out?” he nodded and I told him to go as well. He didn’t move but I couldn’t hold it anymore so I pushed it as far as I could in the opposite direction of Loki. The force of the explosion threw me into the shelves and just before everything went black I realized that Nelson was nowhere to be seen.

--2 weeks later--

I sighed in frustration as I rolled over and adjusted the pillow for what felt like the hundredth time. Every single time I lay down and close my eyes to sleep since we got back from the mission, I can hear a rhythmic humming noise but when I open my eyes to try and find the source of the noise, it disappears. Giving up on sleep, I made my way to the kitchen for a midnight snack. “Oh for fucks sake, why does Thor keep putting the Oreos on the top shelf?” I grumbled to myself as I climbed up on the counter to reach my favorite cookies and heard a low chuckle behind me. “Need some help with that, Love?” I turned around with my arms crossed and looked down at Loki from where I was standing on the counter. “You could have offered before I climbed up here...” I pouted. After grabbing the Oreos and Loki helping me down from the counter, we sat on the couch together. Loki was almost always awake late at night so we had developed a sort of routine. We sat and talked for a few hours about everything or we sat and read together. Tonight was a reading kind of night but after a few minutes of comfortable silence he said “So what’s been keeping you up this late, Darling? Sleepless nights are my forte but before recently, I rarely saw you up and about after midnight.” I didn’t know how to explain the nonexistent noise that was plaguing me and keeping me awake without sounding crazy. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation I sighed and said “Ever since we got back from the mission a couple weeks ago, I hear this humming noise whenever I am trying to sleep but its almost like I’m hearing it through a wall. It’s muted but loud at the same time.” He gave me a look of concern “You hit your head pretty hard on that mission.. you were knocked out until we got back home to the compound. You should talk to Banner and make sure you’re ok.” I told him I would talk to Banner when he came down from his room. The sun was just starting to rise and I wanted to go up to the roof to enjoy the peace that always comes with the way the sun slowly chases the darkness away.

I had been up on the roof for an hour, enjoying the quiet with my eyes closed and my face turned towards the sun. This was my favorite place to meditate and destress. After relaxing and getting my mind to go blank, I started to hear the noise again. Instead of immediately opening my eyes like I had been at night, I tried to focus on the noise to see if I could tell what it was. The humming noise started to die down some and I started hearing a slight beeping in its place. Just as I was about to give up, I heard a familiar voice say “(Y/n)? Can you hear me?” but when I opened my eyes there was no one on the roof with me. With the addition of hearing voices added to my list of problems I decided to give up on meditating and head down to the clinic to see Bruce. When I got to the clinic and told him what was going on he gave me a concerned look. After he ran a few tests, Banner came back into the clinic and I could tell by the look on his face that he was just as confused as I was. “Nothing in the tests suggests that there is any residual damage from the hit you took and you passed the hearing tests with flying colors so I don’t think that it affected your auditory cortex.” he said as he sat back in the chair across from me, rubbing his chin in deep thought. I could tell it was truly bothering him that something was wrong and he couldn’t figure out what it was or how to fix it. There was a knock on the door and Loki peeked his head in, “Are you alright, (Y/N)?” I smiled at him and gestured to the seat next to me, inviting him to come sit. As he sat down Bruce said “So you said you only hear it when trying to sleep or when you let your mind go blank while meditating?” I nodded and he said “OK so I have an idea. What if we try giving you something to help you sleep? You can sleep here in the clinic so we can monitor everything and maybe get some answers on what’s going on with you.” He must have seen the hesitancy on my face because he was immediately reassuring me that I would be 100% safe and looked after at all time. Loki grabbed my hand and said “I will sit by your side while you rest and look after you myself.” This calmed my nerves a bit and I reluctantly agreed. After Bruce administered the meds and I got comfortable, I was beginning to feel pretty drowsy. Loki and Banner had pulled the comfortable couch from the library into the clinic and put nice cozy blankets on it for me. Loki had set up a chair next to me and was quietly reading out loud because he knew it helped to calm my nerves. As I drifted off to sleep the sound of his voice slowly faded and in its place was the humming. I started to notice more noises added to the humming. A steady beeping noise, hushed voices that I couldn’t quite make out, and I swear I could hear someone snoring. I reached up to scratch my nose and heard a gasp. “She moved. (Y/n)? Are you awake? Can you hear me?” I knew that voice. Why did I know that voice? I slowly opened my eyes and looked around. “What the hell is this?” I asked. My hand immediately went to my throat, surprised by how raspy and dry my voice sounded and the harsh feeling in my throat as if I hadn’t used my voice in a very long time. I was surrounded by strangers in white coats. “Who are you? Where am I?” I tried to move but realized I was hooked up to machines. Wires and IV lines getting tangled as I moved. The beeping was coming from a heart monitor next to my bed. I was in a hospital. Did Nelson find a way to take me away from the compound? I raised my hand in an attempt to use my powers and make a run for it but nothing happened. I looked at my hand in confusion and then searched the room for any kind of clue as to what the hell was happening. There was a small tv on in the corner that caught my attention. The team was on the tv. It was in New York and they were fighting aliens. “Is that the news? What happened?” everyone was looking at me. A small woman slowly sat on the end of the hospital bed and put a hand on my foot. The familiar voice from earlier came from her and said “(Y/n), honey, thats just a movie. Its your favorite movie. Remember? The Avengers?”

#Loki Laufeyson #loki x y/n #marvel #Avengers #loki imagine

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aethersea · 4 years ago

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you know what, I never do these things, but actually I’ve decided I would like to get to know people better! I would like to partake of the mortifying ordeal! I would like to talk about myself for a bit!

ok for the next...let’s say five days I will answer any of these things that people tag me in, or any random personal questions you plop in my ask box. I don’t have an ask meme on hand but just....pick one you’ve seen recently, or make up questions of your own, and I’ll answer. (the answer might be ‘nope that’s private’ but I will answer.) (@ the anon who asked for book recs - I see you, I’ve been thinking of books all day, I’m going to give you SUCH a long answer, I hope you don’t regret your choices bc it WILL be full of gushing)

alright, let’s go!

🌻 Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @booksandchainmail

Last Song: I’m currently listening to “Falcon in the Dive” from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical on loop. I watched one or two Scarlet Pimpernel movies when I was just barely too young to fully get what was going on, and the story’s held an odd but deep-seated place in my heart ever since. A few years ago I found out there’s a musical and most of the songs are pretty stellar (go listen to “Madame Guillotine” if you like big ensemble broadway numbers, it’s a banger, the bit where he cries out for God has been running through my mind on and off for a few days now haha not like that’s topical or anything), so every once in a while I spend a few days listening to them a lot.

Sometime last year I read the actual book, and got super into the whole concept of the Scarlet Pimpernel for a while. I plotted out Pimpernel aus for several fandoms, I read the entire wikipedia article, and I went looking for bootlegs of the musical. I didn’t find one, but I did find a full radioplay-style recording of the script, complete with full musical numbers, and listened to it like a podcast.

Reader, I was so disappointed. The play adds some scenes, bc a lot of the dramatic tension of the novel comes from internal conflict and that doesn’t stage super well, and the very first scene of this play – a play written in the NINETIES – features our dashing hero rescuing some aristocrats from a French prison, and then saying to the person in the next cell, who begs for rescue but is not an aristocrat, “We have enough of your kind in England.”

Enough! of your KIND! What in the merry frickety HECK my dudes!! The book has some rather unfortunate™ takes but it is from 1905, it’s regrettable but sadly to be expected. This play is from 1997. It has NO excuse. This scene wasn’t even in the book! What! the heck!

I was so disheartened that I lost my excitement for the play, and a couple songs later I stopped listening. It occurred to me just a few days ago that you could actually stage that ironically, with the person in the cell giving the audience a “can you believe this” look, and then the rest of the play could feature assorted non-aristocratic ensemble members constantly looking at the audience like they’re on The Office. And hey, maybe that’s what they did, or something similar – maybe that was never meant to be taken as a cleanly heroic stance, and the play deals with it in a complex way. It’s possible. I wouldn’t know. Kinda doubt it though, based on song lyrics.

Favorite Color: red, probably

Last Movie: I watched that new lesbian christmas movie with my family for christmas, the one with kirsten stewart and the guy from schitt’s creek. it’s very sweet and good and kinda sad, and I really enjoyed it. it also incidentally has the best gay best friend trope in probably anything ever, bc it’s not a trope (I didn’t realize until several hours after watching that it technically fits), it’s just a guy who is the protagonist’s best friend, and they’re just all gay, and then when he Gives Relationship Advice as a gay best friend always does, it’s advice about how to deal with your partner’s hangups around coming out.

actually every part of the gay best friend trope becomes better when they’re just best friends who are both gay. the big dramatic gestures (in this case, driving some ungodly distance in the snow on no notice) go from “haha how kooky” to “queer man will do anything he needs to to rescue his queer friend from an isolating & potentially triggering situation”. the relationship advice isn’t “honey you deserve some self-respect, treat yourself”, it’s a deeply sincere reminder of the vulnerability that is shared across almost everyone’s queer experience, and look I could ramble about this for a long time before reaching a coherent point but I’m INTO IT, okay? I’m into it.

Last Show: you want me to remember what show I last finished???? impossible, cannot be done, it was a long time ago and the adhd has eaten everything that happened before last week. here, instead I’ll tell you about another movie I watched, late at night with my mom in cozy companionship just a couple days ago. it’s called Quigley Down Under and it’s about a cowboy who goes to Australia and kills a bunch of racists, 10/10 would watch again. it’s from 1990 but it feels much older, with the music choices and the cinematography of a 70s Western. the cowboy is great, honorable and fearless and kind, but the breakaway star of this movie for me is the woman who attaches herself to his side and refuses to leave. her name is Cora, and she’s crazy, in the sense that she’s not altogether tethered to reality, but this never for a second diminishes her agency. she’s fierce and clever and compassionate, and she basically never does anything she doesn’t want to in the whole movie. her arc is about overcoming trauma by taking charge of her own fear and facing it head-on, she is never belittled or dismissed by the narrative or the protagonist, and look she’s just so cool. I love her. she’s so vibrantly alive. her story could probably have been handled with a bit more nuance, but honestly for the 90s it’s pretty great. I’m no expert, but I found nothing objectionable in it, just a bit of heavy-handedness.

anyway the theme of the movie is that racism is evil and racists deserve to be shot, and this too could have been handled better (not a single aboriginal character speaks a single line of english in this movie), but it follows through on that message in every way, while still being a fun kinda campy cowboy movie. overall a very good time.

Currently Watching: started showing my sister Hilda the other day, and she’s liking it! I love that show, it’s so incredibly cute. can’t wait to see season 2

Currently Reading: lmao I wish. lately the brain has firmly rejected all attempts to read anything of any length. currently pending, bc I was halfway through them when my brain stalled out, are tano’s fic What Does Kill You Can Make You Stronger, Too, a Toby Daye book - I think it was The Brightest Fell, I got like half a chapter in and haven’t picked it up in over a month, the Locked Tomb series, and probably a few other things too. ooh! also a book called Making Sex by thomas laqueur, which is my fancy academic reading that I’ve been doing in short bursts for the past year or two when I feel fancy and academic. it’s about the development of the concept of biological sex and of gender in Western society, and it’s fascinating. has among other things introduced me to the idea that until quite recently, fathers were a matter of faith. the mother? yeah, you can watch the baby pop out, we all know who the mother is. but the father? how can you know? how can you really know? we have paternity tests these days, but for all of human history up until now, we've just had to take fatherhood on faith. (not to mention we didn’t even know what fathers were contributing to the production of a fetus. clearly it was something, since you can’t get pregnant without a penis getting involved, but we have literally not known what until the past few decades. and that is wild. it has colored ALL of human history, all of our conceptions of society and family and kinship and gender, all of it, and it hadn’t even occurred to me until it was spelled out for me in this book, and it’s just......wow.

Salty, sweet or savory: for christmas my sister and I made seven different types of cookie, most of them involving chocolate somehow.

Craving: no bc I ate so many cookies. unless sleep counts. or maybe pringles, it’s been many moons since last I had a potato chip and I miss them.

Coffee or Tea: no thank you

Tagging: @coloursisee, @krchy-tuna, @sam-j-squirrel, @xzienne, @mirandatam, @viciousmaukeries, @sepulchritude, @elidyce, and @navigatorsnorth bc it’s been a while since we’ve talked, and I’m super hyped that you’re married now. v happy for you!

#finx rambles #finx has friends on the internet #be sure to tag me if you do this so I can go read it!#also you don't have to yammer on as much as I do #I'm just Like This you know #hmm perhaps I should readmore this actually #hmmmmmmm #I think I will use the excuse that it is 6 am to not do that #on account of how surely there are not many people up #and anyway this isn't meant for reblogging; you will only have to deal with this post once

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movedkagen · 3 years ago

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hey so before i get to working on replies again i do want to analyze gojo ( what’s new ) and discuss some aspects of his healing process. tbh i could never properly analyze the stages of thinking that gojo underwent during geto’s defection and afterwards in one post, but i ranted about it a bit on discord and I’m hoping to get it to make sense here.

what namely sparked this analysis was me finding two different translations of the same panel, which is a flashback from when gojo approaches megumi and takes him in. at one point, megumi asks if he’ll have to become a sorcerer ( in order to keep tsumiki happy ), and gojo said yes, but the translation is wildly different depending on which you read.

GIGANTIC ANALYSIS OF GOJO’S GRIEF POST STAR VESSEL ARC / GETO’S DEFECTION UNDER THE CUT.

the first is close to the gojo we've been seeing all throughout this past arc, the gojo that doesn't really care for people weaker than him: it continues to frame gojo as this unreachable glass sealing, this limitless individual who believes only the strongest will survive.

however, the second has a far different meaning, and is closer to the gojo we met initially:

the second is close to the gojo we see now, who is faithful and even hopeful in the next generation's ability to surpass him. the second translation is also really important not just to how gojo in general is characterized, but also in the way that i perceive gojo's healing process and what him seeking out megumi meant to his character.

in order to take that apart, i first have to address how i view the famous kfc breakup scene: i don’t think it was the moment gojo and geto realized they had opposing ideals. i think, purely because geto didn’t clue him into why he felt the way he did, gojo was forced to get ideals of his own.

gojo was in ethical limbo after geto left. geto was, according to gege, gojo's moral compass. and geto just walked off a ledge that he himself pulled gojo back from just the year before. in essence, it's not an opposition of ideals at all, because honestly, at that point, gojo doesn't have any ideals of his own. call it coping, call it neurodivergency, call it the fact that this is the only type of life he ever expected to live having come from a powerful sorcerer clan, but gojo never seemed to care much about the purpose in his work or what it meant to himself or others. it was just something he did because he had the ability to, and because at that point in time it was simply what sorcerers like him did.

there's a BIT of delinquency before the star vessel arc, but it's more in him wanting to do things HIS way because he's been under his family's control all his life before coming to tokyo tech. however, at the end of the day, gojo completes his jobs and his tasks without much second thought to it. he doesn’t question why he does jobs, and almost treats them like a game to show his own strength. geto even tries to convince him there's purpose in what they do and gojo laughs it off and says that sort of philosophy is for the weak and that he thinks it’s a load of self - righteous crap.

fast forward to when geto leaves. he's been following either the school or geto's lead in terms of intent for years now and he's been comfortable that way. so when geto leaves, gojo can’t understand why. he says things like "you can't" and "that's crazy talk" but he has no other reasoning to support that:

he just says it because what geto is doing is so outside of what the normal duties are, which is why geto pretty easily argues against it and gojo has no rebuttal. geto very easily turns that entire argument upside down, and shakes gojo’s entire sense of self with a single counter:

and gojo can’t understand it. he can’t argue it. gojo is less arguing because he opposes his ideals and more arguing that he can't break away from the system because he's never thought to himself. it's like a child refusing to accept something simply because they don't understand it, like if they deny it entirely then it isn't real and can't bother them.

this is also why i think he made the motion to attack him; he was never going to fight him, it was more about doing whatever was possible / in his power to try and force geto to stay because he didn't want to accept he was leaving. and if geto had stayed, gojo would have found a way to absolve him of his crimes because at the end of the day, it wasn't that he was opposed to geto's mindset. he was opposed to geto leaving.

geto was the single person who ever made him think about his motives and stopped him from doing things he knew he was capable of. with geto gone, gojo is totally lost and he is not coping effectively. he wouldn't empty out geto's room at all because that would mean he really left, so he didn't. not for weeks, or months, or even a year after it happened. he refused to do it and he threw a tantrum if anyone else tried to go near the room at all. there was a surplus of rooms, so that room was left alone almost like a grave for a long time.

during that intermediate period, gojo wasn't even sure where he stood anymore. he really questioned if he even wanted to be a sorcerer because if geto didn't do it anymore, why should he? he's never had compassion for non - shamans like geto did. what was he doing it for at all, then?

gojo was at a crossroads where he was between being a weapon for the higher ups that he didn't even like to begin with or following someone he did care about and respect, down a path that he knew to be wrong but realized he'd never once asked himself why.

gojo was moody. sometimes he'd be too reckless on jobs, and other times he would rebel and outright refuse to go on missions because he was lashing out at the control he let them have over him. he was a loose cannon and while he had yet to start actively being an enemy to the higher ups ( at this time i hc he never really threatened them or demanded to know their every move ), he was still powerful enough where they knew if they couldn’t get him under their control, they might lose everything ------ and frankly, if geto and gojo defected, they'd never be able to recover from that. at that point if they had a way to kill him, i truly believe they would have and i'm sure there was at least an attempt, which i have a separate headcanon for.

but healing has to start somewhere. he clearly does have a shift in mentality where he does care about protecting those weaker than him, and that's the first step. it's gojo accepting he can't go geto's route because he doesn't hate the world like geto does. he hates the people who oppress it. the next step is accepting geto left, which is hard. after about 2 years he and shouko clean out geto's room and it's really hard on him, it's a very emotional event and it's a very delayed acceptance that he is gone.

the final step in his decision to heal ( heal being a strong word since the man never gets therapy and is clearly still traumatized ) is investigating those final words toji left him with, that "do what you want" regarding his child.

i have said that i don't hc he went there to get megumi, but he just went there to see him and see what the big deal was. but then he found out about the deal and something compelled him to go and investigate, and when he met megumi, he didn't find toji's "trump card" or some secret weapon. he found a child. a child that was abandoned and destined to turn out like himself or geto or toji and he very impulsively decided to take him and tsumiki in and stop the deal entirely.

that was the first time he opposed the higher ups for real. that was the first time he said "i'm getting in the way of this and if you try and stop me i WILL attack you and kill you all" and while he's an outsider with seemingly nothing to gain from that, they have no choice but to let him because no one can stop him.

that second translation of "become strong enough to leave me behind" speaks volumes about the way i perceive gojo's shift in perception over one of the hardest segments of his life ... how i view the process in which he went from not caring about the weak at all to becoming a man who "won't forgive anyone who takes another person's youth", which would have happened to megumi and tsumiki if toji's deal went through.

maybe he didn't understand protecting the weak out of a sense of nobility, but protecting one's youth? one's right to be happy? he DOES get that. and that is what guides him towards compassion. it's a really good line in what i saw as the "final step" in him moving on from the events of the star vessel arc and moving towards becoming the person and teacher he is now, and of course his road there is neither linear nor perfect, but this is his turning point.

#* GOJO » hc.#2000 word hc on gojo? sounds like i'm back in the groove

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years ago

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The Daryl and Leah Spoilers - Everybody BREATHE!

Okay, let’s talk about it. We’re gonna have to talk about it. The Crappiest Spoilers of All Time. (We’ll just abbreviate them CSAT, okay?)

Yes, I saw them. Yes, I spent most of the day yesterday talking about them with people. Yes, we went up and down and forward and back and right and left trying to figure out what the hell. Actually, I literally got 68 Asks about this yesterday. 68! Lol. I may have sarcastically told a couple of people it was 400. It wasn’t that high. But even when something big happens, I don’t generally get more than about 20, so this was a lot.

***Below I’ll be talking about all kinds of spoilers for 10x18! If you’re not someone who wants to know, stop reading now. You’ve been warned!***

Okay, let’s start by attacking this head-on.

Does this suck? Yes.

Am I happy about it? Obviously not.

Does it change my opinion about Beth’s return? Not in the slightest.

And in all seriousness, I’m not trying to make light of this. I totally understand how everyone is feeling right now and I feel the same. But if you’re doubting or losing hope, please keep reading. I really think the things I have to say after talking to people in the fandom literally all day yesterday will make you feel better.

So I’m going to talk about some things that are suspicious to me about this, and also about some reasons why, even if it’s exactly what it looks like, we don’t really need to worry. I’m also gonna give you a possible way this could actually be okay, but I’ll warn you that scenario is mostly head canon and not super likely to be the case.

Context

The first thing I’m going to point out is that we really, REALLY do not have the full context for this episode. CSAT are big, but there’s a lot we don’t know about what’s going on here. I have a thousand questions and we can’t really be sure of anything until we know the answers. Which we won’t until we see the episode.

And I don’t mean things that make me doubt CSAT are true. I mean like, what is Leah doing out there? Why did no one else ever meet her? Why did she disappear? Did she go on her own because she’s a jerk, or was she taken? Is the CRM involved? We simply don’t know.

These are just a few, and the answers might profoundly effect the way we view these events. So, I’m just saying there’s a lot we can’t be sure of and we should be taking these with a grain of salt. I’ll come back to these questions in a minute.

The Psychology

So, my first reaction to this was that it’s not entirely unrealistic. Is it out of character? Yes, for sure. They’ve pegged Daryl as a character who wouldn’t do something like this, so it’s definitely out of character for him. I’m totally with ya on that. But I also feel like this isn’t a real relationship for him. What I mean is, it might be something of a rebound or an act of desperation on his part.

Think about what we know about this part of his life. He’s just lost Rick and is devastated. According to these same CSAT, Carol abandons him. AGAIN. I think he’s feeling very depressed and lonely and would reach out to just about anyone at this point. It doesn’t mean he’s in love with her. And yes, I know about the note he wrote to her, but I still think that can be explained by his state of mind. If he’s not feeling like he belongs anywhere else, and Carol has specifically told him she’s not coming back, why wouldn’t he go with someone who’s promising him companionship? I don’t like it, and I know it’s not what everyone wants to hear, but I do understand it.

I promise I’ll move onto happier things. Like this:

Patterns:

We’ve seen this pattern with A LOT of the TWD couples. They put one or both of them together with a small, short-term love interest. And that always happens RIGHT BEFORE they hook up with their soul mate. So, let’s review, shall we?

Carol had Tobin, and right after she left him, she met Ezekiel. Rick kissed Jessi, and only a month after she died, he and Michonne finally got together. Enid was with Ron when we first met her, but it was obvious Carl was meant to be her true love. You could even point to Abraham and Rosita. Their relationship was a bit longer and more established than these others, but the fact is Rosita wasn’t Abe’s soul mate. Sasha was. And now Rosita is with Gabriel, so…

My point is that Leah may be Daryl’s Jessie. Or Tobin. Take your pick. But the pattern is that this will be short term and he should be finding his true soul mate VERY soon after. Just saying.

Is This a Healthy Relationship?

Someone in my group pointed this out. CSAT says she asks him to choose between her and the rest of his life. I didn’t think much about that until one of my FB groupies pointed it out, but it’s really not cool to do that to him. It’s almost passive-aggressive. The way I see it, when you fall in love with someone, you want to get to know their family and participate in every part of their lives. If this was a true, committed relationship, she would WANT to go to Alexandria and meet his friends. She would WANT to help him in his search for Rick’s body. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

So, in terms of how Daryl feels about her, well, loneliness is a different feeling than real love, and I’m not sure this is the healthiest relationship for Daryl to be in.

Scope, or Lack Thereof

The thing that I think most of the fandom is on the same page about is how out of character this is for Daryl. How out of left field this feels.

I’m mean, this is Daryl. Daryl Freaking Dixon. The writers know about the shipping wars. They know that no matter who they pair him up with—Carol, Connie, Beth, Leah, someone else—it’s going to be a huge deal. For them to do it like this just doesn’t make sense.

Now, I don’t think we have a definite timeline on this. We have two possibilities.

1) I’ve seen some people say he’s sleeping with a complete stranger, which is very out of character for him.

2) I’ve also seen posts that claim the two of them meet and develop a relationship over time. That would be less out of character, but it would also mean that the writers developed an entire relationship for Daryl in only one episode…and then took it away.

Does that seem logical to you? I just don’t buy it.

So, at the very least, if this turns out to be what it looks like on the surface—a real romantic relationship for him—I’m gonna say it’s not going to be a big one. It’s not going to be end-all, be-all of Daryl’s love life.

My Praying-This-Headcanon-Is-True-While-Also-Trying-Not-To-Get-My-Hopes-Up-That-It-Is Theory

All right, everyone. I honestly wasn’t sure I should even include this. I don’t want to get people’s hopes up about it. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a distinct possibility.

So, @wdway said this first, and I kind of just glazed over it like, “Meh, probably not.” But the more I thought about it, and the more I talked to people and hashed things out, the more sense it made.

Let me go back to some of those questions I asked at the beginning. Why did no one else ever meet Leah when he was in a relationship with her? Yes, because they were out in the woods together, but it talks about him going to see Carol and going to Alexandria and looking for Rick, which is why she asks him to choose in the first place.

But if you have a sustained relationship with someone, why wouldn’t you introduce them to your friends? Why wouldn’t he have taken her to Alexandria with him? It’s really odd to me that this happened at a time when Daryl was completely on his own out in the woods and NO ONE in his life ever saw or met her.

(Once again, I have to point out that with how vague CSAT are, we can’t know for sure that no one else knew about her. Maybe when we watch the episode, it will show that someone did, but this is the vibe I’m getting right now.)

What else do we know about this point in his life? He’s deep in the throes of his grief over Rick, he’s withdrawn to his robotic, survival mode, which he always does when he’s lost someone close to him, Carol has just abandoned him, and he’s lonely. People who spend too much time alone DO tend to go a little crazy.

So, here it is:

Is there any chance this Leah woman…could be a hallucination?

Honestly guys, that makes WAY more sense to me than that she’s real. Because everyone in the fandom who’s saying this is out of character for Daryl is 100% right. Everyone who’s asking why the writers would do this is 100% right to be asking that question.

And let me tell you, it’s not just us asking it. The entire fandom is. Obviously, all the shippers. And while I’m sure there are some in the non-shipping fans who are glad Daryl is getting a love interest, even they think it’s a little weird. Cuz, you know, it is.

But this show regularly does hallucination story arcs, and Daryl himself even has a history of it. I’m just saying.

People have also suggested that it would sort of makes sense given what I said above about the “unhealthiness” of their relationship. Maybe her wanting him to choose was really more about his sanity and leaving the delusion behind. Again, just a thought.

Then there’s the suspicious timing of CSAT.

Suspicious Release of CSAT and Hype

While messaging with @monroelibrarian0626, she said something I hadn’t thought of that made a lot of sense. Does anyone else find it suspicious that they said we wouldn’t be getting screeners for several weeks and then literally two days later all these spoilers about Daryl’s sex life drop?

It’s not rocket science to know that tptb intentionally leaked these to drum up viewership. Everyone is totally going to watch to see what this is all about. But it also seems to me that they may be releasing just enough information to get everyone all hyped up and then it won’t end up being what it seems. Here, I’ll just give you part of my text message with her because she explains this point better than I do.

But yeah, I get that impression that she's not real, and that's really good promotion and hype for the producers to draw in more viewers. Don't miss it! Daryl is gonna have sex! And then, boom! You find out it's a hallucination. I remember with LOST, there was a preview for next week's show, and in it, the Korean guy, Jin, was shown saying, "It's going to be alright." And he didn't speak English then, in season 2, so it was like, OH MY GOD! And here, when the episode aired, Jin speaking English was part of Hurley's hallucination. Could be along the same lines! --@monroelibrarian0626

Doesn’t that just make a certain amount of sense? Especially given how out of character this feels for Daryl? No matter what you think of the writers on this show, they just really don’t betray the way they’ve set up their characters like this.

Now, once again, I’m really not hanging all my hopes on this. I’m preparing myself for the outcome of her being real and this being a real relationship for Daryl. Mostly because I don’t want to get my hopes too high. And I would suggest you all make your peace with that being the case. I’m just throwing this out there as a possibility. Even TD aside, given how out of character this feels, it would make more sense to me than that they’ve actually put him in this relationship.

It could also that once we actually see the entire episode, depending on what the other details of the story line are, it might be really obvious that she’s real and the detail will explain a lot of this away. That’s a real possibility. Once we learn about other parts of the episode, everything I’ve said here could easily go straight down the toilet.

Another outcome is that she could be a hallucination, but we won’t even know it because Daryl doesn’t. If he doesn’t realize she wasn’t real, the viewers might not be told that, either.

Other Things I’m Side-Eyeing

Check out this tweet, specifically the emojis he uses. Don’t you find those suspicious? Fish? A violin? A sunrise? Boat? Hourglass? Now, this guy got a screener. He’s not one of the writers or someone close to the show who would know the overarching grand plan, so I’m not suggesting he has some inside knowledge of Beth’s return.

But why would he use these emojis? There’s no reason for him to tie them to Leah. The only answer there can be is that he saw these things in the episode. He simply added them to the tweet as hints of what we can expect. And if all those symbols are represented in the episode, this is going to be a super heavy Beth-symbolism episode.

Not to mention, have you checked out Leah’s costuming in detail? Her boots are damn close to what Beth’s looked like. And sitting on the porch, the bag on her back looks a LOT like the one Beth carried in Still.

I feel like she’s a Beth stand-in. And I think that will be true whether she’s real or not. Again, if we go with the Tobin/Jessi/Ron pattern, she’ll be a forerunner of Beth, so having Beth symbolism around her isn’t surprising.

But once again, this isn’t something we need to worry about.

And don’t even get me started on the damn cabin motif. I’ve been thinking about this since I did my 5x09/Tyreese post last week. I’m not going to go into details here because I don’t even have it all straight in my head yet, but it has some interesting ramifications for this Daryl/Leah situation.

So, pretty much everything that everyone is saying (including me) is pure conjecture until we actually see the episode. I know that’s probably not very helpful, but it’s the truth.

So, what’s my main point about this? It’s this:

I hope she’s a hallucination, but even if she’s not, it doesn’t bother me overly much. I mean, of course I’m bothered because I don’t like to see him in a relationship with her, but I mean I’m not bothered where Beth is concerned. It doesn’t change the fact that I think she’ll still be back, and this will just be a blip of some kind in Daryl’s story. And if she’s real, and it’s following the Tobin/Jessie/Ron pattern, Beth (his true soulmate) should be surfacing VERY soon thereafter.

So, we basically don’t know anything until we do, and I know the fandom is collectively losing its mind. I know this is going to be hard to get used to. But try to make your peace with it, in all its possible iterations. Try not to let it freak you out. Hold the line, TDers. Hold the line!

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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taiblogcomics · 3 years ago

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All Out of Outlaws

Hey there, that live service you paid for but only used once. I hope you liked last week's anniversary review as much as I liked writing it. Now we're back to the usual stack. We're on a streak with Red Hood junk, so let's get back into it~

Here's the cover:

Since it's an anniversary issue of its own, the cover is way glossier and higher quality than usual. I don't object to homaging most of Jason's old teammates in the sky, but why the fuck is Crux there? Like, why would you remind us of Crux? Nobody liked Crux, nobody even remembers Crux. At least he's partially covered by the logo, but not nearly enough. Like, Isabel's worth way more of a cover appearance than Crux. Anyway, other than Crux, this cover's pretty good. Very movie poster-esque.

So this book takes place "one month ago". That somehow means it takes place after issue 48, AKA the unnecessary tie-in issue, and that other story arc that ended last issue. You got that? One month ago is after the tie-in story, but before the story that just ended. You can tell all this because Bizarro is still here instead of trapped in hell, and Jason Todd's narrating to himself about how Punchline tricked him regarding Duela Dent. Yeah, there's no moment showing how he realised this, even though that'd make good story in itself. No, he's just here because he's already pissed at the Duela deception.

After the flashback, we return to the present. This is after issue 49, just so you know where we stand. It's pretty clear Artemis and Jason have just slept together. That... seems odd to me. It's odd to them as well, so that's forgivable. Jason acknowledges that really he just needed some human contact. Because, like, Roy is dead, Bizarro is in hell, and Starfire is in space. Thankfully, he mentions Crux not at all. Jason thinking Crux is a friend worth missing would be more disbelief than I can willingly suspend. Anyways, they're interrupted by a welcome sight.

The loud yelling returns us to seeing Monsieur Mallah yell like a drill sergeant at the Outlaws of Tomorrow, or whatever those kids were called. You remember them: Devour, Doomed, Cloud 9, DNA, Babe in Arms and Mombie (which I swear I came up with before it was ever written in an issue), and Vessel. Anyways, they were my favourite part of the last dozen issues or whenever they first appeared. Jason points a gun at Mallah to try and get him to stop yelling at the kids, and Ma Gunn calls him out on it. Basically, she's hired Mallah and the Brain to train these kids, since Jason keeps skipping out on it. If he disapproves of her methods, then he should train them himself. He concedes the point, and opts to leave the kids in her care.

Jason leaves, heading up to Dr. Veritas' lab. This is where Duela's ended up after they rescued her from the flashback. She's alive, but part of her recovery has been reconstructive surgery. Her repaired face has basically left her non-verbal and mostly unresponsive. Jason has a plan, though. It's probably supposed to be his pocket, but I swear it looks like he's taking this out of the fly of his jeans. That's extremely worrying, almost as worrying as what actually happens: Jason hands her a rubber Joker mask, and she puts it on. With her "face" restored, she starts laughing--and doesn't stop. Jason wonders if this was a good idea after all. I'm gonna go ahead and venture "no"~

Following that, we advance three weeks, where Duela has been doing physical therapy in Suzie Su's private gym. She's been struggling, and is still mostly non-verbal, but at least communicates in laughs and animal noises. Jason decides the best way to get her to improve is to taunt her. Surprisingly, it works: when he dumps enough insults, she's able to stagger to her feet well enough to attack him. He says he knew she could do it with the right motivation, and she's pleased with herself. Pleased enough that when the time skips ahead again, she's perfectly verbal once more.

This scene takes place in a graveyard. Not just any, but the very grave that Jason once upon a time clawed his way out of. Naturally, she thinks that's cool. This is Jason's "don't make the same mistakes I did" lecture, but Duela doesn't want to hear it. She's too mad at Punchline and Joker for treating her like shit. Jason understands, but he says he'll be there for her when she decides to change her mind about being a crazy psychopath. They both return home to Ma Gunn's, but while Jason laments some thoughts to Artemis, Duela decides to escape. Just like the teen she is.

Partway off the grounds, she actually encounters Pup-Pup. Yeah, the talking Superman plush doll is still somehow hanging around. I might pick on this series a bit, and rightly so sometimes, but how many other comics do you know where a sapient talking plush toy of one of the world's greatest heroes is a recurring character? That's fantastic. That's exactly why I read comic books. Anyway, she stops to chat with Pup-Pup, because when life throws that much weirdness at you, you stop and interact. She relays an exaggerated version of her backstory to him, talking about how her father beat her while her mother laughed, and she killed them both in the end. Pup-Pup sees right through it, and the pair of them end up hanging out all night until Jason finds them both asleep in the yard the next morning.

So it's a bit later, and they're in New York. A bank's been broken into by... Agent Smith from The Matrix?? It's a group of guys in shades and suits who are all identical and refer to themselves as sharing a single collective mind. I don't care that they call themselves "The Chairmen", that sounds like Agent Smith to me. Fortunately, the Outlaws are here to beat them up. Joker's Daughter and her pal Pup-Pup have joined as the pre-requisite third member(s), but partway through the fight, the strain of the fight causes Duela to have some sort of mental break.

Very suddenly, it's no longer funny for Duela. She's not into the violence or death. She is just a teen, after all, and I guess it built up over time. The rest of the Agent Smiths are dealt with while Jason comforts Duela and removes the Joker mask from her. No doubt he's going to store it back in his trousers. And so, after the fight, Duela gets cleaned up, dresses like a normal person, and returns home to her parents. Artemis imparts the wisdom that it doesn't matter how you live, as long as you're living the way you want, it's the greatest act of defiance there is. Jason also allows Pup-Pup to stow away in her backpack, just to keep an eye on her.

After returning Duela to her home, Jason and Artemis ride on for a while. Then, abruptly, Artemis pulls over. It's as far as she's going, at least with Jason. But they both agree: he doesn't need her around anymore. He's a capable guy who can stand on his own two feet. And so Artemis also departs, she taking one road, and Jason driving down the other. And that road Jason's on? Why, it's the road home. The road back to Gotham. Jason muses that he was an okay sidekick, a crap supervillain, and a great outlaw. But what he was most of all... was a good friend.

I’m gonna say to start out with that I think this is a good issue. Heck, I think this is a great issue. It’s very character-driven, which is kind of what I always want in these things. Would much rather read something that develops the characters than just another fight scene.

I guess the issue, then, is A) does the character development make sense, and 2) do we care? And honestly... I don’t really care that Joker’s Daughter got a happy ending. Nor do I really feel it was earned. We’ve followed the character’s entire history on this blog, after all. Honestly, it probably would have made a lot more sense if she’d stayed on as part of Generation Outlaw. I just don’t think there was any build-up to her sudden realisation that “oh crap, everything I do sucks”, and thus her sudden retirement/redemption doesn’t feel earned.

But hey, at least Crux wasn’t in it~

Next issue, Jason finally goes solo!

#comics #reviews #red hood and the outlaws #red hood: outlaw #Taiblog #Joker's Daughter

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leafs-lover · 4 years ago

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Because Two People Got Drunk: 9

Series Masterlist

A/N: I linked the outfit in case you’re interested.

Summary: Fred has a game in Toronto so he visits as your due date arrives. You get to meet some of his former teammates and make a decision on your future,

Warnings: Smut, swearing, soft Freddie, oral sex

Word Count: 2,985

November 3, 2021

Fred left shortly after breakfast that day. You have sent some messages back and forth and exchanged phone calls once sometimes twice a week. Neither of you have discussed what you thought happened in Denmark, making you think you imagined it.

He hasn’t brought back up the idea of you moving to Pittsburgh after the baby is born. It would be easier, and during road trips you could fly back to Toronto if you wanted to see friends/family. It would be good for both Fred and your son to have that time early on to bond. But if you do, how long will you go? What if he meets someone and wants to take her on a date, hearing he lives with the woman he got pregnant might be a hard thing for someone to understand. If the situation was reversed you wouldn’t go on a date knowing that, it’s a complicated situation.

And even if you do go there for the entire leave which could be 18 months if you chose, what happens after that. You have a 1 ½ year old, he can’t fly alone. So you go back to Toronto and still have to constantly fly to Pittsburgh and back during the season. By going to Pittsburgh you aren’t solving any problems, just postponing them, and creating some new ones.

The season has started, and Pittsburgh is playing the Leafs on the 4th. Fred got permission to fly out the morning of the 3rd and miss the practice to spend time with you. You open the door, to see him in a dark peacoat, grey plaid scarf and toque. He steps in and takes his coat off, you see his tight and toned upper body in a light long sleeve shirt, your breath hitches.

“Wow you look amazing" he says placing his hand on your stomach. So do you, you think to yourself

“Really? You’re lying? I look like a whale. Everything is sore. My back, legs, feet. Oh my feet are so sore.”

He smiles and leans down putting his arms under your leg and behind your back, lifting you up as he walks to the couch.

“I’m not lying you look amazing” he says setting you down gently and begins rubbing your feet. “Ohhh" you moan, Fred's eye brow lifts.

“You don’t see me for 2 months, I hardly touch you and basically have you coming undone.”

“Pregnancy makes my sex drive crazy, but it also makes everything sensitive. Told you it’s like everything is heightened, all the time.”

“I think I’m just that good.”

You laugh as he keeps massaging your feet, applying light pressure to the ball of your feet. “So how are you, apart from sore, how are you actually doing?”

“Unbelievably stressed. I don’t think I’m close to ready for him, I don’t have any furniture at the other apartment, the movers are coming soon. And I’m due in 14 days so I’m stressed. And there is just questions of the future, having a baby with someone who lives in a different country isn’t the most ideal. How are you doing?”

“I mean I’m stressed too, a lot going on, a lot to think about. New team and expectations is stressful enough. But I have something planned for today that I think will help both of us.” He grabs your hand and you head down the elevator. He leads you to a rental car, opening the door and helping you in.

He pulls up to a spa and you look at him. “You have mentioned being sore a few times on the phone, so I thought a pregnancy massage could help. So I booked us a couple massage.”

“Wow that’s amazing Fred, thanks “

You walk in the door and they lead you to a private change room. You strip down completely except your panties and place the plush white robe on your body. When you’re done you open the door and enter the treatment room, where Fred is already sitting on his table in his boxers, his robe hanging on a hook. He walks over to you, taking your robe and hanging it beside his. You turn around to head to the bed and his hand reaches out to touch your stomach, he begins stroking it his thumb grazing your nipple sending a sensation down to your core.

“You look stunning, pregnancy suits you” he leans down to kiss your cheek. A smile comes across your face as he takes his hand off and helps you into the table before walking over to his table. You watch him as he walks over to his table, his boxers are tight on his ass, resting part way up his large thighs. You feel wetness pool staring at his muscular back while he climbs into the bed.

You both get a 90 min massage, and it was exactly what you needed, with you dozing off for part of it.

You return back to your apartment when Fred speaks up. “So some of the guys on the Leafs invited me for dinner, was wondering if you wanted to come. They are super nice, and have a chef coming to make dinner.”

You are hesitant not wanting to impose, but Fred convinces you to meet his friends. You shower and stare into your closet. You have some nice outfits, but most of your maternity wear consisted of leggings and sweater dresses. Your clothes mostly focussed around comfort and warmth. You finally settle on a pair of maternity jeans, with a white long sleeve shirt. You complete the look with some beige booties and a plaid wrap. You and Fred arrive at Fred’s old apartment building, your soon to be new apartment building. This time he leads you to the 41st floor. The door opens and Auston Matthews is on the other side, the two briefly hug before Fred is practically knocked over by a bernadoodle. “Hey I’m (Y/N)” you say as you step in.

“I’m Auston, this is Mitch and his girlfriend Steph he says pointing to them. And that guy is Felix.” You reach down to pet Felix as he weaves around your legs wagging his tail. Dinner with them flowed easily, you were originally nervous but quickly realized you had no reason to be. After dinner the chef has left and you are all sitting at the table talking.

“So are you scared to become a dad Fred?” Steph asks.

He looks at you briefly before responding “No, not really.”

Silence falls briefly as you stare at him. “Are you serious? You’re not nervous? I’m absolutely terrified to become a mom.”

Everyone stares at you for a second.

“Oh thank God” Fred responds. “You seem so confident and together with everything. I thought you wanted to hear I was too. So I lied. I’m scared shitless” everyone laughs.

“What scares you the most?” Mitch asks.

“Well I think every first time parent has the same fears and concerns am I going to be a good parent, am I going to make mistakes blah blah blah . I think most of those fears get erased in the first month or so of being a parent. But I think my biggest fear is not handling this thing in the best way" he looks to you “the co-parenting with someone in a different country” he finishes.

“It’s a unique situation with him leaving for Pittsburgh and me living in Toronto. Like I don’t know what is the best decision for our son. Like stability and routines are all so important for babies. But that’s hard when each parent is in a different country” you add.

“Have you given much thought into what you will do once he comes?” Mitch asks.

“Yeah I’ve been thinking about it non-stop. I’ve been considering spending part of my mat leave in Pittsburgh. That way when he is playing at home they can have that time together. But I worry about what to do after my mat leave. It’s just delaying everything. Like are we better off trying to create some kind of a travel routine now and stick to it after I return to work. And in the beginning I’ll be breast feeding so I’ll need to be around but once I’m able to pump enough I don’t need to be and can give him some time alone to bond with him. But what do I do, fly there drop him off and leave? Stay in a Pittsburgh hotel alone, I know nobody there. And also travelling with a baby doesn’t sound exciting at all. So it’s just a lot to consider and lots of options. And I just don’t know what’s best. I don’t want him to resent me down the line because I made a bad choice. It’s hard"

Silence falls over the room “sorry” you say realizing you rambled for a while.

“Yeah it’s a lot you are dealing with. I can’t imagine" Steph finally says. Fred puts a hand on your leg squeezing lightly “we’ll figure it out” a soft smile on his face.

Later that night you are at your place getting ready for bed. After brushing your teeth you crawl in next to Fred. His hand falls to your stomach as he shifts to put his head just above your stomach as he starts talking to your baby, you run your hand gently through his hair.

“Hey baby boy, I can’t wait to meet you. It would be really awesome if you came tonight or tomorrow while Daddy is here in town” he kisses your stomach. “I just want you to know that things might be a little crazy sometimes, and because I live so far away I might not get to see you all the time, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you or I’m not thinking about you.” You zone out as you feel tears beginning to rise, you focus on breathing trying to supress them as he continues talking to your stomach.

“Goodnight baby boy” he says rubbing your belly before kissing it. He crawls up behind you, his hand still resting on your stomach.

You drift off, waking up in the morning and realize you slept straight through. Fred’s arm thrown across you, holding you close, you can faintly smell his cologne. “Wow I haven’t slept for 8 hours in a long time. This guy doesn’t normally let me” you say groggily.

“He doesn’t’?”

“No he is normally up all night, kicking and moving, he’s a night owl. Since you got here he has been much calmer. It’s like he knows his dad is here and is on his best behaviour.” Fred laughs, rubbing your stomach and leans down lower “you are supposed to behave for mom, we’ve talked about this.” He places a kiss on your stomach, a light moan leaves your lips as he crawls back up behind you.

You lay there silently, him stroking your stomach, placing soft kisses in your hair. His eyes get heavy as you whisper “Fred?”

“Mm, what is it dear?” he questions weakly.

“I don’t think I can do this” you say with tears in your eyes. His hand stops as he rolls you onto your back slightly, looking at your face. Concern washes over him.

“Do what? Be a parent? Seems like you could have made that decision months ago. Kind of late to make that choice don’t you think. How can you even think about leaving him?"

“Noo, no no no, not that!” you cut him off quickly. “I don’t think I can do this without you. I just, I..I uh… I don’t want to do this without you around every day. I need you, we need you.” You look up at him and continue “I want to come to Pittsburgh after he is born and stay with you for my mat leave. I will tell my company I am taking the 18 month leave, and I’ll come down. We both need you around. I was thinking I could stay with you at first and when he is 3 or 4 months then get an apartment and we can do the split custody thing around your schedule.”

“Just stay for the whole thing, I have 3 bedrooms.”

“Yeah one for him and the other should be for guests, like your family. Besides it could be weird if you are on date and have to tell the girl your baby momma lives with you"

“Well I haven’t talked to them much since Denmark, after you left things got a little intense with them. I’m not ready to talk to them. Also I don’t see myself going on many dates as a professional athlete with a newborn, but if she had a problem with it she isn’t the one for me. How about we see how it plays out, and if it’s working you stay the whole time. If it isn’t we’ll find you a place.”

He doesn’t let you respond leaning in and kissing you passionately causing you to moan lightly. He takes a finger down into your pyjamas, and strokes over your folds. He slides it in you and begins gently thrusting “oh my god" you scream breaking the kiss.

His mouth returns to nibble on your ear alternating with placing kisses on your neck. It’s been so long since you’ve felt anything, and your body is heightened and extra sensitive. He slides down your body, placing a pillow in his spot. He pulls your pyjama bottoms off and begins licking up your folds, he uses his fingers to create a scissor and open you up as he sucks lightly on your clit.

“This okay?” he asks.

A soft moan leaves your lips in response, “good. You taste so good” he says as he dives in further, his nose brushing against you. He increases the pace, slipping his tongue into the mix, his fingers curling inside you. He sucks on your bud his fingers pumping in and out of you.

You feel your orgasm approaching as you squirm, your hips lifting. You grip the bedsheets, your toes curling as Fred continues pumping. He sucks hard on your bud causing an intense orgasm to crash over you. You lay there as his pace slows but he doesn’t stop. He finally pulls out his fingers and wipes his hands on your bed. He removes the pillow replacing it with his body, your head falls back onto his shoulder and he leans in to kiss you. Your juices still fresh on his lips, he pulls away slightly but still close enough for his beard to tickle you.

“So, I bought a book on sex positions for pregnant women” he whipsers.

You laugh “oh really?”

“Yeah… I mean I wanted to make sure you had a good time obviously, but also that you are comfortable. I know this” he rubs your stomach “can make you uncomfortable and can make certain positions not as enjoyable. We tried a few out before leaving. There is still a few we can do if you are up to it.”

“Yes. I’m definitely up for it”

“You sure? I don’t want you to be too uncomfortable.”

“I won’t be! I have wanted to do this since I opened the door yesterday. Then I saw you in your boxers at the massage; I almost jumped you then.” He leans his head back laughing. You continue “besides some people believe sex this close can help kick start labour, and others believe it can help with pain during labour. Make it easier to push a baby out if you aren’t so…tight.”

A grin crosses his face as he pulls his pants off and pumps himself a few times.

As he is lining himself up you question “do we need a condom?” He looks at you questioningly “I don’t know if you met someone in Pittsburgh… you’ve been gone for a bit.”

“Just you babe, just you.” With that he pushes in gently as you lean your head back onto his shoulder.

You’re lying on your left side and he slightly bends your right knee, and places a pillow under your stomach.

“Good babe?”

“Fred fuck. I need you.” he pulls out and pushes in fully “bad" you practically screaming the last word.

Fred keeps pulling out and pushing back in but at a slow pace. You know at this pace it will take a while for you to reach your high, but he doesn’t want to push you too hard. He pulls out and as he is pushing back in you force yourself back bottoming out “faster.”

Fred reaches around you placing a hand on your clit and begins playing with it. He keeps pulling out and pushing back in but his pace is starting to quicken, you groan “yes.” He leans forward and kisses your shoulder. You feel yourself getting very close as Fred’s hand continues to apply pressure on your clitoris. You grind back on him searching for your high. Fred continues his pace, you feel him becoming sloppy behind you as you become undone gripping the bed sheet as your pussy clenches around him.

He bites your shoulder as you feel his warmth fill you up. He lays there still inside you for a few minutes as you both catch your breath. A hand comes to your chin and turns you to look at him, engaging you in a soft but passionate kiss. He eventually pulls out and wanders to the bathroom starting the shower. He carries you into the shower, helping to rinse you off.

Outfit

Next Chapter

#Freddie Andersen #Frederik Andersen #Freddie Andersen Smut #Frederik Andersen Smut #Freddie Andersen Fic #Frederik Andersen Fic #Auston Matthews #NHL Smut #NHL Fic #freddie andersen x reader #fred andersen smut #fred andersen x reader #fred andersen #fredzilla #because two people got drunk #my writing

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solangelover · 5 years ago

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3 Days + 1: Day 2

@solangeloweek ‘s Solangelo Spring Ball 2020 - Collab w/ @nicostolemybones

Read on AO3 or FF.Net

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4

Will was practically dead on his feet at this point. Working for the past few days straight, not including the entire battle that came before, he could feel the exhaustion pulling at his limbs. In moments of weakness, he considered curling up under his desk and napping right there. Instead, he’d shake his head and focus on what he was doing.

People are in pain, people need healing, I need to keep going. He knew this thinking wasn’t great for his health, but it helped him do as much as he could during the many battles they’d all been through. Besides, at some point, one of his siblings would always kick him out and force him to sleep in their cabin. It usually worked out.

Now that everything was winding down, he finally had time to track the son of Hades down and forcibly help him. He knew for a fact that Nico had been a major part of defeating Gaea, which also meant that his body needed some major recovery time. Will was honestly a bit surprised that he got the boy to come in so easily, but Nico had looked overtired, so maybe he just couldn’t protest anymore. Whatever the case, seeing Nico di Angelo, scary-emo-death-boy number one, sleeping peacefully in front of him, he knew he made the right move.

It’s always annoyed Will, how everyone judged Nico just because he was the son of Hades. He remembered him in the battle at Manhattan, where Nico really saved everyone at the perfect time. Even Will, as he frantically healed as many people as possible, stopped to watch the raw power of the prince of the underworld. It was frightening to know that one boy held so much power, but it was clear that he wielded it for the good of others. Will was glad that Nico was on their side.

Will yawned wide, jaw cracking, and he looked at the clock. Only 10 PM, he could still get a little more done before the night shift took over. He glanced again at the sleeping son of Hades, reluctant to leave him there.

When Will exited the curtain, he came face-to-face with Austin. “Dude, Will, it’s time for you to leave.”

“What?” Will asked, confused. “My shift goes to 11.”

Austin just shook his head. “Nu-uh. Nope. You’re leaving the infirmary and going back to the cabin to sleep. You’re tired and you know it.” His words left no room for argument.

But Will tried anyway. “But it wouldn’t be fair to whoever’s taking over.”

“I’m taking over, and I’m saying it’s fair. You’ve been here for days, Will.” He put a strong hand on his older brother’s shoulder, comforting, but firm. “You have to rest, you know that.”

Will sighed, glancing back toward the patient behind the curtain. “Yeah… but I finally got Nico here, and I don’t think I should leave him.”

Austin chuckled at that, peering around Will. “I can’t believe you got him here. I thought he would’ve bitten your hand off if you tried to touch him.” Will shot him a tired glare, like he’d heard the kind-of-not-a-joke too many times. “Look, I, quite frankly, don’t want to be the only person here when di Angelo wakes up, so let’s compromise. You sleep in that bed there,” he pointed to the bed neighboring Nico’s, “while I work the infirmary. If he wakes up or anything, I’ll get you. Otherwise, you will sleep tonight.”

Will nodded solemnly and saluted his brother, who scoffed and shoved him toward the aforementioned bed. It’s not like Will didn’t want to sleep, gods, did he want to sleep. But he was a “workaholic” according to his siblings and usually needed someone to look out for him. He was also immensely proud of his siblings as they’d been stepping up to help a lot in the past few weeks.

Will cast one last look toward Nico’s curtain before collapsing into his bed and knocking out instantly.

Will awoke to a loud cracking sound and his whole bed shaking.

He jolted upright and confirmed, yes, his bed was shaking, along with the entire infirmary. He thought it was an earthquake before he heard a strangled scream from the bed next door.

“Will!” Austin shouted, but Will was already out of bed, leaping over the one foot-wide fissure in the ground. He turned to see Austin a few feet back from Nico’s bed, his hands out in front of him and his face frozen in fear.

“What’s—”

“I don’t know! His powers are acting up!” Right as Austin said this, Will noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun around to see a hand clawing its way up the opening in the ground. He spit out a curse in ancient Greek, grabbing the closest thing to a weapon that was in reach—a mop, apparently—and brought it down on the decaying hand. The zombie flinched back, but more were on their way and, surely, they needed more than a mop to stop this.

Will shoved the mop into Austin’s hands. “Hold them off.”

He didn’t wait for his brother’s reply before he rushed to Nico’s bedside. The son of Hades was thrashing in his sleep, his face contorted in a mess of fear and pain. Will normally didn’t wake people when they had nightmares, knowing it was a normal process of the brain and especially common for demigods. But this was dangerous, something had to be done.

“Nico,” Will went for a softer tone, hoping that he could calm the boy down in his sleep. “Nico, listen to me. You’re in the infirmary. You’re safe. Please, calm down.” Will pushed as much meaning as he could into his words, threading his hands through Nico’s hair like he did earlier. Nico was sweating and his breathing was frantic still. Will began to sing a hymn to his father like he did while healing, pressing his palms to Nico’s head and cheek. Dark tendrils were leaking out between Nico’s fingers where he was clutching at the sheets desperately.

“Come on, Nico. I believe in you. I’m here for you. You’ve gotta calm down for me, okay? I’ve got you.” Will leaned over and pressed his forehead to Nico’s, pulsing his healing powers out from where they connected. “I’ve got you.”

Nico immediately stilled, his breathing ragged but slowing down. Will tentatively opened his eyes and gazed down at the son of Hades. His eyebrows were drawn together, but the panic had subsided. Will leaned back, trailing his hand down Nico’s arm to grip his hand. He looked back toward Austin, who was still wielding the mop and staring at the ground. Will looked down right when the fissure closed up, leaving only a thin crack behind.

The brothers met each other’s gaze, nodding as soldiers did at a job well done. Austin’s eyes flicked over to Nico, who was still asleep. Will rubbed his thumb across the back of the hand he was holding, staying there until the son of Hades was fully back to sleep.

Will sighed and stood up, placing Nico’s hand gently back at his side. Austin shook his head, but instead of making some snide comment about Nico’s heritage, he said, “We don’t get paid enough to clean up the gods’ shit.”

Will chuckled, knowing there was nothing really to say about that. He placed a comforting hand on Austin’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Thanks, Austin.”

They continued with clean up for a little before Will was directed back to bed. All he could think about as he fell asleep once more was the pain on Nico’s face. We’ve got a lot of healing to do.

Will woke at the crack of dawn like normal, and despite the interruption, last night was the most sleep he had gotten in a while. He pushed himself out of bed, cleaned up a bit in the infirmary bathroom, and walked over to his desk, where Austin was slumped over some paperwork.

He gently shook his brother awake. “Hey, Austin. You can go back to the cabin, I can take over.” Austin grumbled as he woke up, rubbing his face.

“Ugh, Will, isn’t it someone else’s turn this morning?” He yawned wide. Really all of the healers had been going non-stop, not just Will.

“It’s fine, Austin, I slept last night. I’m still head medic, anyway.” Will chuckled as his brother rolled his eyes at him, finally standing up to leave.

Then, he suddenly looked more alert when he noticed the line across the ground. “Wait, oh shit, you remember what happened last night?”

Will frowned, but it wasn’t directed at his brother. “Yes,” he muttered as he glanced back to where Nico’s curtain was still pulled closed.

“Dude, that was crazy. I don’t think you should be here alone with him.”

“It’s fine. He was having a nightmare. We know a lot of demigods’ powers are linked with their emotions.” Will tapped his chin in thought. “I’ll talk with Nico to learn more about it today. But I’m going to sanitize this area for now. Don’t want any zombie remains in my infirmary.”

Austin shuddered. “That’s nasty. I’ll send over whoever else is on shift to come and help.” He then smirked when he met Will’s eyes. “Seemed like you had di Angelo all under control last night, though.”

Will felt his cheeks heat up. “Shut up, this is serious. I just did my job.”

“Mhmm,” Austin hummed as he strolled out of the infirmary. “Sure thing, Doctor Solace.”

Will stared after him for a minute before shaking his head and sitting at his desk. He looked over what Austin was working on, trying to focus on something else besides the brown-eyed boy behind the curtain. After some preliminary checks, Will began to pull out cleaning supplies. He crouched on the ground and ran a finger over the newly formed crack in the ground. It seemed fine. You would never know that there was a gaping hole there last night.

Ten minutes later, two of Will’s siblings stumbled into the infirmary. They greeted each other with a tired “good morning” each. Will only said that this area needed to be decontaminated. No one really needed to know the context—it was an infirmary, after all. All kinds of things happened in here.

As the others finished cleaning, Will washed up and went to check on Nico. He slipped behind the curtain, happy to see that Nico was still asleep. He was worried that Nico wouldn’t be able to sleep long after his nightmare, but he seemed fine now. Will blushed at the memory of pressing his face so close to Nico’s. At the time, Will was only thinking about how best to help Nico, but now he couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed by his actions. But it did help Nico calm down, so he wasn’t going to overthink it.

Will sat in the chair by Nico’s bed and looked over his clipboard. He frowned in thought, pondering over what he knew of Nico’s condition and how to treat everything. As he mumbled to himself, Nico stirred and slowly opened his eyes. Will looked over to see Nico rubbing his eyes and looking around, slightly disoriented from his setting. How cute, Will thought before he could stop himself.

He shook his head before clearing his throat. “Mornin’, Sunshine.” Nico turned his head toward the sound of Will’s voice, finally remembering exactly where he was. He groaned and threw his arms over his eyes in response.

Will laughed lightly and asked, “Sleep well?”

Nico groaned again before moving his arms and staring up at the ceiling. “I feel like I’m more tired.” He flexed his fingers, like he knew how tense they were throughout the night.

“Well, I have a few possible answers to that.” Nico swiveled his head, staring at Will in surprise. Will raised an eyebrow. “What? It’s my job to figure out what’s wrong, then hopefully fix the problem.”

“I guess, I just…” Nico trailed off, now looking confusedly at the ceiling. “I didn’t really think there was an explanation, I guess.”

Now, there was an interesting thought. Will hadn’t considered that Nico hadn’t considered finding a solution to his fatigue and exhaustion. Maybe the son of Hades wasn’t stubborn, he just never cared for himself properly before. Will hummed in acknowledgement as he jotted a quick note to be really clear in any future treatment instructions for Nico.

“Okay, first thing to address: you had a nightmare last night.”

“What?!” Nico burst out, sitting straight up and looking at Will with a slightly horrified expression.

Will put his hands out in front of him in a placating manner. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. Austin and I were both here, and we handled it. You’re fine.”

Nico gazed down at his hands, which were slightly shaking now. “A nightmare… you said it could explain why I’m tired.” He looked up at Will. “I used my powers last night, didn’t I?”

He caught on fast, Will thought. “Yes, you did, but—”

“What did I do? Was anyone hurt? Did I destroy anything?” Nico glanced around frantically, looking for any signs of damage or any newly filled beds.

Will wanted to reach out like he did last night and help comfort Nico, but he wasn’t sure if that was welcomed at the moment. “Nico, look at me.” He waited for them to lock eyes before continuing. “You’re fine. We’re all fine. No one got hurt, we’ve decontaminated the area for any zombie—”

“Oh gods, I summoned zombies??” Nico seemed on the verge of despair, like Will was about to kick him out for something out of his control. Will really wanted to cry for the kind of expectations Nico had about his life, but he managed to hold back.

“You tried to summon zombies. Austin and I stopped it, and you actually calmed down enough to control your powers.” Will reached out, but Nico pulled his hand back, as thought he would hurt Will. “Nico, please, I promise it’s okay.”

Will slowly reached for one of Nico’s hands, and this time, Nico let him make contact. Will pushed out his power through his fingertips to where he touched the back of Nico’s hand. Nico’s posture relaxed immediately, his eyes fluttering shut as a sigh escaped his lips. Will smiled at him when he opened his eyes again.

Nico’s lips lifted upward for a brief second before he looked down and hid his face behind his bangs. “I’m really sorry about that. My powers are… difficult, sometimes.”

Will shook his head, not that Nico saw. “Everyone’s powers get out of hand at times. You’re extremely powerful, so it’s no surprise that they’re hard to control. Honestly, you utilize your powers really well, I’m sure it’s not easy.”

Nico looked back at Will, his mouth slightly open as he was taken aback by the words of praise. Will held his gaze and tried to convey his sincerity about what he said.

Before the silence could stretch on too long, Will spoke again. “So, yes, you had a nightmare and used your powers, accidentally, last night. You were already suffering from overusing your powers, so the extra usage didn’t help.” Addressing whatever he was dreaming about that made him react so strongly would have to wait for another time.

In the pause, Nico’s stomach grumbled loudly. Nico flushed red as Will chuckled. “Which brings me to my next point: you need food. You’re malnourished, as I’m sure you weren’t concerned with proper, nutritious meals while carrying the Athena Parthenos across the ocean.” That got a snort out of the son of Hades, which Will counted as a win.

The healer got up and grabbed a plate of food his sister had brought over from the pavilion. It was standard for the morning shift to come in with food for the overnighters. Nico got his own full plate per Will’s instructions, which he only got minimal teasing for.

Will placed the food on Nico’s bedside table. Nico scowled at the food and said, “I can’t eat all that.”

“We can share,” Will said before he lost the nerve. “But you’re going to have to eat as much as you can.” He moved toward the food first so that Nico felt more comfortable. It worked as he watched the son of Hades tentatively nibble on some toast.

A little into their breakfast, Will continued with his diagnoses. “So, aside from power drain adding to your tiredness, it sounds like you also have chronic fatigue.”

Nico looked confused, so Will added, “It’s a condition where you’re often tired for long periods of time, even if you slept a decent amount. You may also experience headaches, body aches, or lack of concentration.”

Will let that sink in, watching Nico mull over it for a minute. Then, the boy spoke up and said, “That makes sense.”

That really wasn’t what Will wanted to hear. “It does?”

Nico nodded. “I think so. I mean, I’m always tired, but I usually don’t get enough sleep, so I figured it was that. I didn’t know there was a name for it or anything.” Nico looked less concerned and more thoughtful. Did he never think to diagnose his symptoms as something treatable? Ever?

Will couldn’t really wipe the genuine concern off his face, so he turned toward his clipboard to write things down. “Well, this will require a bit of a lifestyle change. Actually, probably a lot of change for you. No underworld-y stuff, mister,” Will wagged his pen at the son of Hades, who rolled his eyes. “I’ll be developing a treatment plan for you over the next couple days.

“While I’m at it,” he turned back toward Nico, who had started on the pancakes. “You probably also have chronic pain. I’m guessing your body usually hurts, at least a little?” Nico hesitated before nodding. “Yeah, chronic pain and chronic fatigue can get mixed up sometimes since both may cause symptoms of the other. But, considering everything you’ve been through, I’m guessing the normal symptoms of both conditions have been overshadowed by, ah, everything else. Not that I think you’re recovered from the entire war yet, but I have a feeling that those underlying conditions are there.” Will’s lips pulled into a thin line as he thought about what he just said. Nico had gone through so much in both wars, and probably outside of the wars, too. His body has endured a lot of strain, it’s a miracle it hadn’t snapped yet. The gods really didn’t give this kid a break, did they?

Nico sighed and rolled his shoulders back. “Sure, why not? At least I’m probably used to it by now.” The son of Hades gazed upward, like he wanted to ask the gods why, but he was tired of it by now.

Will shook his head. “No, you deserve better than that.” Nico whipped his head back toward Will, eyes wide. Why is it that painful diagnoses are fine, but care from others is out of the ordinary? “You do, Nico. I promise, I’ll do whatever I can to help take that pain away. The gods owe you a break from all… this,” Will waved his hands around at nothing, but he knew Nico understood. Will huffed out a breath, upset that he couldn’t do as much as he’d like to help.

“I didn’t know,” Nico began quietly. He peeked up through his bangs at the son of Apollo before quickly looking away again. “I probably wouldn’t have admitted to—to having chronic pain, before today. I didn’t realize it until you used your powers on me.”

Will sucked in a breath. “You—”

“I’ve never felt… nothing before that.”

Will was not going to cry for Nico’s pain right now, he was not. Instead, he held out his hand, palm up, a clear invitation. Nico eyed it for a second before slowly, hesitantly, lifting his own hand and settling it lightly in Will’s. Will closed his hand around Nico’s with barely any pressure, not wanting to crowd the son of Hades or make him uncomfortable. He smiled, holding Nico’s gaze as he pushed out some of his healing powers. It didn’t actually heal, but it soothed nerve endings to bring temporary relief, which was very useful as a medic. But right now, as he watched the son of Hades nearly melt and the sensation, Will believed the entire purpose of his power was for this boy before him, who deserved peace and freedom from pain so, so much.

After a moment, Will gently lowered their hands. Nico’s eyes fluttered open and for a second, Will saw the eyes full of peace and joy. He really wanted to see that again. Both boys had blush painting their cheeks when they pulled their hands away.

“Hey, Will, could I—”

Will sprung backwards, away from Nico, at the sound of his sister’s voice. Nico jerked back as well, nearly knocking over the plate of food near him. Will’s sister stood just behind the curtain, unaware of the panic she just caused.

“What?” Will squeaked.

“Um, I wanted your opinion on the Ares boy. Are you—” The curtain rustled where she touched it.

“Fine!” Will called. “I’ll be there, just a sec.” He glanced back at Nico, who was red in the face and decidedly not meeting Will’s eyes.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Will mumbled as he shuffled out through the curtain.

When he met his sister’s eyes, she looked concerned for all of two seconds before her smile turned sly. “If you’re too busy with your patient right now, I can probably—”

“Shut up and show me the problem,” he grumbled, moving past her and grabbing the clipboard from her hands as he went. The daughter of Apollo chuckled and followed, thankfully choosing to discuss the patient’s treatment plan and not her older brother’s flaming cheeks.

When Will returned, he found Nico staring out the window of the infirmary, which really only offered a view of the sky above. His breakfast, only halfway eaten, was pushed to the side. Will smiled at Nico as he cleared the plate away and straightened up things on his supply cart. He sat back in his chair with an exhale and picked up his clipboard again. But before he could say anything, Nico asked, “Aren’t you tired?”

The question caught Will off guard. “Huh?”

Nico twisted the skull ring on his finger nervously, but elaborated, “Didn’t you say you’d been working here for days? Shouldn’t you take a break?”

Will was caught by the worried expression on the son of Hades’s face. “Um, well I slept last night, and that was honestly pretty good.”

This only deepened Nico’s frown. “But I interrupted you.”

Will shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault, Nico. And still, I got a good amount of rest. But thank you for your concern.” He smiled, hoping to convince Nico to drop the subject, but also touched that he seemed to care so much. Though the hypocrisy of his words was borderline ridiculous.

Nico clearly wasn’t convinced, but Will began talking before anything else could be said on the subject. “So, to get back to your injuries we didn’t really address yesterday, I’m going to need you to take off your shirt.”

There was a solid three seconds where both boys just sat there, until Will’s words sunk in and they were back to being a blushing mess. Will, ever the professional, cleared his throat and said, “I need to get a good look at your injuries to start healing them, and since you’re awake, I won’t have to cut your shirt off.” Will was truly digging himself a hole that he could never climb out of. He really hoped his siblings weren’t listening right now.

“I-I-um, yeah, okay.” Nico, for his part, didn’t immediately shadow travel away. So that was good. “Like, right now?”

Not trusting himself to say anything intelligent, Will simply nodded and focused on his clipboard, attempting to give Nico some semblance of privacy while he stripped his shirt off.

Will didn’t notice Nico was done until the boy quietly cleared his throat. Will looked up to see a bare-chested son of Hades with a blush that spread down his neck. Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare, Will chanted to himself. But it was so hard because Nico was a warrior meaning that he had muscle on his slender body that was apparently always swallowed up by his shirt or jacket. Not only that, but he had scars littering his torso. Will almost desperately wanted to reach out and touch them. Not in a weird way (okay, it’s a bit weird), but more of a reverent, almost sad touch, like he could take away the pain that caused the scars through touch alone. As head medic, Will has learned how to deal with the scars of demigods. He’s learned not to touch or to ask, just focus on the problems he was meant to deal with. But he’d never seen any demigod Nico’s age with as many scars as he had.

Will kept his eyes pinned to Nico’s right shoulder, maneuvering around him so he could get a good look. The gash was still a faint red, like it was irritated, and possibly previously infected. “I’m going to touch you, okay?” Will warned, getting a nod in response. Will gripped Nico’s outer shoulder to steady him as he continued his inspection. The wound wrapped from the front of Nico’s shoulder over and down his upper back. The deepest part seemed to be at the very top.

“Can I ask what caused this?”

Nico nodded again and spoke quietly. “It was, um, Lycaon. Reyna, Coach Hedge, and I encountered him while we were coming back.”

Will bit his tongue as he immediately wanted to yell. This was from someone as dangerous as Lycaon?? And he hadn’t come in to get it treated?? He took a deep breath before starting, “Nico…”

“I know, I know,” he huffed. “Reyna and Coach had fixed it up, I didn’t really think about it. It was fine enough for me to fight.” He tried to shrug his shoulders, wincing slightly now that he was really aware of the injury.

Will shook his head. “I get it. Just, come in sooner next time, okay?” Will stepped back and went to grab some ointment from his supplies. “Luckily, Hedge knows satyr healing magic, so he probably prevented any major infection.”

The healer turned back with a green salve in his hands. He got to work on Nico’s shoulder, operating in a focused silence. Nico sat there and avoided breathing too deeply so he both didn’t move his shoulder and didn’t smell the weird minty-medicinal scent of the ointment. The salve felt cool on Nico’s shoulder, though it definitely stung. Nico hissed through his teeth when Will was at the deepest part. The son of Apollo mumbled out an apology, but they both knew Will had to put more there to clean out the wound better. All in all, it didn’t seem to be as painful as Will expected, though he knew Nico had an extremely high pain tolerance.

Once Will was finished, he washed his hands and grabbed a roll of bandages on his way back to the bed. “We’ll just keep that for now and check on it daily. The salve should help push out any remaining infection and soothe the irritated skin around the wound. It may or may not need stitches later, but let’s just get it wrapped up, and we can be done with it for now.” Nico lifted his arm and was pliant as Will wound the bandage up and around his shoulder.

“So, Neeks,” Will broke the silence while he worked. He saw Nico make a face out of the corner of his eye at the nickname, making Will grin. “What is your favorite color?”

Now Nico just looked confused. “Why?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Because I’m curious. It’s a basic question, Ghosty.”

“Really? These are the nicknames you came up with?”

“I’ve got more, and I will use them all until you answer my question, Death Breath.”

“Tch,” Nico turned his head, but Will could’ve sworn the boy was fighting back a smile. “Blue.”

“Really?” Will asked, surprised. They met each other’s eyes as Will tucked the end of the bandage back in. “What shade?”

Nico cocked his head, and that’s just adorable. “Not sure yet.”

That was an odd answer that Will was not going to overthink at this moment.

“Okay, Mister Mysterio. My favorite color is black.”

“Really?” Nico didn’t believe him at all.

“Okay, fine, it’s yellow,” Will grinned brightly.

Nico scoffed, “Of course it is. Typical Apollo kid.”

Will put a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Well, excuse me, we can’t all be mysterious and cool like you, Prince of the Underworld.”

That got a breathy chuckle out of Nico, which was as close to a full laugh as Will had gotten thus far, so he was over the moon.

Will glanced at the clock, then jumped up in surprise. “Oh! It’s past lunch already!” He smiled sheepishly at Nico. “Sorry, I get caught up in my work easily. I’m going to go get us some food, be right back!” He bounded right out of there without waiting for a reply, largely because when he looked back at Nico, he realized he was still shirtless and they had just been joking around in close proximity and wow, Will was really pushing his luck on not messing up a new friendship (maybe more, Will’s not ready to talk about that just yet).

When Will came back with a full plate of food for the both of them, Nico was leaning back in bed, shirt on and eyes closed. It didn’t look like he was asleep, but he was definitely dozing off.

“Nico, hey, you gotta get up and eat. No sleeping yet,” Will spoke softly, hoping not to startle the son of Hades. Nico made a disgruntled noise but dutifully sat up, moving his bandaged shoulder around as he stretched.

“Hey, don’t move your shoulder so much,” Will chided.

“It’s uncomfortable,” Nico pouted.

“It’s healing, which may be an unfamiliar feeling to you, but that’s what’s supposed to happen.” Will settled the food between them and sat on the end of Nico’s bed.

“It’s not good for fighting,” Nico commented, and Will nearly choked on his fruit.

“Yeah, you’re not meant to be battle-ready at the moment, di Angelo.” Will leveled a glare at his patient, to which Nico simply shrugged as he picked up a sandwich.

They chatted a little as they ate, both of them mostly focused on the food. After clearing the plate away, Nico settled back against the bed while Will once again grabbed his clipboard and sat in his chair.

“One last thing before I let you rest again.” Will took a deep breath before continuing. “I remember feeling a lot of darkness in you at the end of the battle. I still felt it yesterday when I did my preliminary assessment, but I’d like to get a full picture of what we’re dealing with.” Will looked to Nico for confirmation, who solemnly nodded.

Will held both of his hands out, and Nico placed his hands on top, reaching over to grip Will’s wrists. The hold was a lot firmer and less comforting than the last time they held hands. They both understood the importance of this assessment. Will shut his eyes and concentrated. It felt like Will sent out feelers from where he connected with Nico, seeking out all of the issues in Nico’s body. The healer had to push past any of the physical injuries they previously discussed, focusing only on that sensation of darkness he remembered from during the battle. He thought about Nico’s shadow-traveling abilities, the dark swirls of energy emanating from his hands last night, the stories he heard about Nico fading out of existence. He could not—would not—let something like that happen again. Not when he was around to do something about it.

Will shuddered as he encountered large amounts of darkness spread throughout Nico’s body. It was much less than a few days ago, but last night’s incident didn’t help any. It was hard to describe, but the deep, swirling shadows felt contradictory to Will’s very soul.

Will gasped as the connection suddenly broke off. He looked up to find Nico sweating and staring at him, his hands held close to his chest.

“Nico?” Will breathed. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“What? No, you—” Nico’s eyebrows drew together in worry. “You looked like you were in pain. I thought I was hurting you.”

“Oh,” Will gulped, smoothing his sweaty hands down his shorts. “No, no you didn’t hurt me. I was just… there’s a lot there. Darkness. I—I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

Nico looked sad but resigned when he lowered his gaze to his lap. “Sorry,” he whispered, almost so quiet that Will didn’t hear.

“No, hey,” Will’s hand hovered over Nico’s knee, unsure if his touch was welcome. When Nico didn’t pull away, he took it as a sign and settled his hand down in a reassuring gesture. “We’ll figure it out, Nico. You’re not at risk of fading, thank the gods. But,” he let out a frustrated puff of air. “We’ll have to figure out how to purge the rest of the darkness out so you can better use your powers without risk.”

The son of Hades tentatively looked up at Will, his brown eyes wide with worry and the barest hint of hope. “So, I didn’t… hurt you?”

It did something to his heart, that Nico so strongly cared for Will yet immediately pinned the problem on himself. “No, you didn’t. I promise, I’m fine.” He sent him his most sincere smile, to which Nico breathed a sigh of relief and untensed a little.

Will leaned back and mumbled to himself as he noted his observations on Nico’s papers. He then put it aside, feeling a bit tired from using his powers all day. He turned to Nico, who was fiddling with his skull ring and bouncing his knee nervously. “I think,” Will started, causing Nico to still his movements and face the healer, “that we’ve done enough for today. You need to rest more, I think that’s the best thing for your body right now.”

Will waited for acknowledgement before adding, “Nico, I promise that we will figure out the best way to help you fully recover. I care a lot about you—r well-being.” Nice save, Will. “I want you to be at your best. But you’re going to have to trust me, okay? I know it might be asking a lot. You probably don’t remember me from before—”

“I do.”

Will blinked. “You… you do?”

Nico nodded, avoiding eye contact. “You were a medic during the battle of Manhattan, too. Saved a lot of lives.” He turned to face Will. “I trust you. At least that much.”

The son of Apollo was stunned silent for a few seconds. He did not expect Nico di Angelo, hero of two wars now, to remember him. He might’ve teared a little, blinking and turning away so that Nico didn’t notice. “You had to add on that last part, huh?”

They shared a small laugh. “Well, all I know about you is your favorite color, Solace.” Will glanced back over his shoulder to see Nico settling back in his bed, eyes already drooping.

“We’ll have to work on that, then,” he smirked. “Good night, Neeks.”

“Night, Will.”

A/N: Now passing onto my collab partner!

#solangelo #solangelo fanfic #solangelo fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #my fic #pjo #hoo #toa #the classic 3 days #3 days #will solace #nico di angelo #solangeloweek #solangelospringball2020 #solangelo spring ball 2020 #three days in the infirmary #my collab #collab

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bedbellyandbeyond · 4 years ago

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Mystery Baby Theatre, Part 2

(Short Story Post, 2/6)

As expected, the little sick event drove in the views. Reggie’s newest pregnancy was a hit and he strut his stuff in front of the camera whenever his partner asked. The kids loved it too whenever there was a new baby on the way because it meant more family activities together because Carlos liked to show off how family driven they were on camera. Unlike his previous pregnancies though, Reggie found himself having a much harder time. Eating became difficult with his morning sickness and he only craved alcoholic drinks, specifically wine. This left him a little bit tipsy all the time. He also wanted to smoke. He wanted to smoke cigarettes really badly even though he’d never smoked a day in his life until now. He’d been told to expect these cravings by the mystery sire and that it was safe to indulge them. Smoking and drinking was bad for their videos though, so he had to do it in secret, but because he did it so often, he had less chances to be on screen. He was right about feeling the baby kicking early on: only a couple weeks after the first video, he could already see visible movement from the foetus inside. No other pregnancy has such development so early and it did not help him sleep at all. At night, Reggie spent hours rubbing his belly, hoping the baby would calm down so that he could get even just a few winks of rest.

As obsessed with the belly as Carlos was, he was first to notice appearance changes. As Reggie’s baby grew, the veins on his stomach had started to darken more than any of his other pregnancies, almost looking black under his skin, like ink had been injected into his bloodstream. By month four, his skin was webbed with them, starting from his belly and radiating up into his chest and down to his thighs. They bulged a little and anywhere there were clustered, his skin was overly sensitive and sore. Rubbing lotion on it seemed to help just a little with the pain, but the dark veins didn’t go away. For the most part, they avoided doctors. They found one they trusted to help with Reggie’s health through his pregnancies, but they still preferred not to go too often as they’d had one too many stalkers and they didn’t need anyone harassing their source of medical attention. Their doctor however was just a human doctor and Reggie always refused to have ultrasounds done to preserve the surprise of it all, so a lot of guesswork was involved in treating him. Carlos was more concerned than Reggie seemed to be about it. Yes, he loved the mystery and the views, but he loved Reggie more and this pregnancy was worrying him more than any of the others. “Mi príncipe, how are you feeling this morning?” Carlos asked one day, as Reggie came into the kitchen. He was now six months along and had their youngest, Ocean, on his hip. The blue babe had tear stained cheeks from finishing a little fit and clung to Reggie for comfort. Their little fist scrunched up his shirt, exposing a bit of belly. “You know, rough night, but I could be worse,” Reggie admitted, going and sitting down at the kitchen table. He placed Ocean on his shrinking lap and wiped their face down with a tissue. “Could you warm up a bottle for us?” “Is he hungry?” Carlos asked, getting up to prepare the formula. Reggie had already had top surgery before ever getting pregnant so he could only bottle feed his children. “They, babe,” Reggie reminded. “Please remember.” “Lo siento, my love,” Carlos apologised. Since Ocean was born a mixed Yulinian child, their sex was not like a human’s so at first, the couple had attributed the baby with the gender they believed they looked like they had but were quickly corrected by Yulinian fans who informed them it was proper practice that Yulinians born on Earth should use neutral terms and should be given the choice to choose genders when they are older. Carlos had been nervous about following it, but Reggie had been all for it especially since he had a few non-binary friends, so he insisted they do their best to work with that for Ocean. “Are they hungry?” “We’ll see. You know Ocean,” Reggie said. “They never know what they want…” “Fair.” Carlos threw the bottle in the microwave and went over to give Reggie and Ocean each a kiss. “Are the others still asleep?” Reggie nodded. “Brynn’s up but she’s on her iPad. Pretty sure she's addicted.” “Of course, but all the kids have them these days...” Carlos placed his hands on his hips. “What will you be up to today?” “I don't know... Maybe some yoga?” “You should see if you can get Vance to join you. He has karate tonight. Extra stretching could help.” “Oh, is it really karate day? I think his gi is in the wash.” “There's time.” “I know, I just don't have energy.” “Don't worry about the laundry. I can finish the laundry,” Carlos said, getting the bottle out of the microwave when it beeped. “Anything you need me to do.” “What are you up to today?” Reggie asked taking the milk. He tested it on his wrist. “Are you making a video?” “No, no... It’s a family day, babe. We should take the babies out somewhere.” Reggie shook his head starting to feed Ocean. “I don’t think I’m up for outings today… If you want to take them though, knock yourself out.” “You know I can’t do it without you.” Carlos leaned over the back of Reggie’s chair and placed a hand on his stomach. He blinked when he felt the squirming inside. “Reg, you didn’t tell me the baby’s kicking right now.” “It’s always kicking,” Reggie said. “It never stops so I guess I’m just so used to it now, I don’t even notice. Sorry babe, I know how much you love feeling the kicks.” “Yes, but this is a bit ridiculous,” Carlos said. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “I swear, everything’s perfectly—” Reggie was cut off by their doorbell ringing. They had the smart home all hooked up so their phones also buzzed. Reggie groaned. “What did Vance order this time?” “You know he’s banned. It’s probably my new smart toothbrush,” Carlos considered straightening up. He pulled out his phone to check the camera. “…No, it’s some guy in a suit.” Reggie tilted his head. “A suit? It better not be who I think it is…” “Who?” “The fucking government. They probably want to do tests on our children. Don’t answer it.” Carlos started pocketing his phone, but the doorbell went off again and his notifications when crazy. “They’re very insistent…” “Then tell them to fuck off.” Carlos nodded. “I’ll deal with it, you stay here.” “I had no plans on moving,” Reggie said, clearly occupied with feeding his child. Carlos jogged to the front hall and stood at the door. Through the door window, he could tell the suit was taller than him but skinnier. He pulled out his phone again and used the intercom option through the doorbell. “Hola?” “Hello, is this the residence of Carlos Fuerte and Reginald Tran?” “Who is asking?” “I am agent Korsgaard from the APID. I’d like a word with you.” “You’ve had a word. Now you can leave us alone.” “Sir, I understand that my team has contacted you before and that these encounters have been less than pleasant. I can assure you, I am here peacefully.” “Then peacefully go away.” The agent let out a long sigh. “...I have had to watch every single one of your videos to determine the health and safety of your partner, your children and yourself. Now we've checked in before, but your partner’s current pregnancy concerns us, and we are not sure that he is safe to give birth this time around. We just want to help.” Carlos paused. He was pretty concerned about Reggie too. This pregnancy did seem a lot different from the others. But Reggie insisted he was fine so he wasn't sure what to do. “...You're a fan?” “A fan? Well, I wouldn't...” “You've seen every video?” “Correct.” “Even the OnlyFans videos?” “Yup....” “Name one.” Korsgaard stretched his back and placed his hands on his hips. “... 'I eat Jell-O off my fiancé's ass'...” Carlos lit up with glee. “You are a fan!” “So, can we talk?” “No. Please leave my property.” The agent let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay... I left a card in your mailbox with my contact information. I urge you to be in touch.” “Bye.” The agent started to walk away down the driveway. Once he was off camera, Carlos jumped up and ran to the window on the side of the house. “Psst! Hey!” Carlos called the agent back. “Sir!” The agent cocked an eyebrow and returned. “Korsy, please.” “I'm sorry I was so rude,” Carlos said. “Reg was probably listening in on the whole conversation through our camera system app thing. I didn't want him to think I'm willing to talk to you.” “Are you?” “Yes!” Carlos started to crawl out the window. “I'm worried about Reggie!” Korsy rushed forward, worried the man was going to fall. “Hey, be careful!” “Haha, calm down.” Carlos hopped down from the window and straightened up. “A real fan would know a short drop from a first story window is not going to hurt me.” “You've been hurt countless times,” Korsy said. “Maybe physically,” Carlos admitted. “But not my spirit.” “That's not really... Anyway, can we talk here, or do you want to go somewhere else?” “Here's fine,” Carlos said. “The cameras near here only point towards the front of the house. Blind spot.” “...Have you evaded your partner like this before?” Korsy asked. “Yes, but mostly just for surprise gift deliveries,” Carlos said. “I instruct the drivers to leave things in the bush over there so Reggie doesn't see. You know, in case I'm not home.” “Ah. Adorable.” Carlos smiled. “So, um, do you know what's wrong with Reg? Can you tell?” “We don't know,” Korsy said. “It's the fact that we don't know which concerns us. All of Reggie's past pregnancies we've seen the species before. This one, we don’t think we’ve ever seen, and it appears to be adversely affecting his health." “I've been saying that to Reg from day one but he won't listen to me,” Carlos said. “He's more concerned about the views it can get us and keeping the surprise, but I care more about him. I don't want him to get hurt.” Korsy nodded. “Your partner needs to be seen by a professional. If he'd come with us back to APID, a doctor would be able to assess his health risks.” “He's not going to let that happen,” Carlos sighed. “Reggie's too stubborn. Isn't there any other way?” Korsy raised his hands. “I really can't say. Your best chance is a full examination.” “I can barely get him to go to our family doctor,” Carlos complained. “I don’t think I can get him to co-operate.” “Well, we can’t do anything without your co-operation.” “You can’t just, ya know, kidnap him or something?” “Absolutely not. The government cannot detain citizens without warrant to do so.” “So get one. Doesn’t the government pull strings like that all the time?” “I’m not going to arrest your partner just because you ask me to. Everything you and your partner are doing here is within your right. We just want to help.” Carlos went quiet, thinking for a moment. He looked over the agent then paused on a specific feature of his. “Wait…” “Sir, please don’t stare at my ears,” Korsy requested, noticing where the man’s eyes were directed. “You’re something else, aren’t you?” Carlos said. “Are you, like… A goblin or something?” “A…A-A goblin?!” Korsy scrunched up his nose. “I’m not a goblin, I’m an elf!” “Oh! Sorry, that’s what I meant,” Carlos said. “You must understand the mix up.” “Frankly, I don’t!” Korsy growled. “Goblins are tiny, ugly and greedy little creatures… Elves are a tall noble race.” “Lo sciento, I got the wrong word,” Carlos apologised. “I’m sorry, you know I’m not a native speaker… Anyway, I think I know a way I can get Reggie to participate.” Korsy placed his hands on his hips. “Really?” “Yes. I think I can get him to co-operate if you’d agree to father our next child.” Korsy blinked. “I’m sorry, what?” “We haven’t had an elf before,” Carlos said. “You’re handsome too. Reggie would probably be very excited, though he wouldn’t like that I’d know...” “Absolutely not.” Korsy turned around and started walking back to his car. “Goodbye, Mr. Fuerte. You have my information.” “Wait, please!” Carlos begged. “I’ll pay you!” Korsy stopped and turned around furiously. “Mr. Fuerte, my race isn’t for sale!” Carlos put his hands out. “Okay, okay. No need to shout. I was just trying to think of a solution.” “I recommend you talk to your spouse. We can’t help otherwise. Understand?” “Understood.” The agent got back in his car and drove off, leaving Carlos to figure out how he was going to climb back into the window.

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

#lore #short story #mpreg #Reggie #Carlos #Korsy #mystery baby theatre

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realm-sweet-realm · 4 years ago

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Like It Never Happened, chapter 2.

Susie found work in the city fairly quickly. It was just as a store clerk, but she said that the first thing she needed was an income, and she could focus on having a real career when that was settled. And anyhow, it seemed like a pretty nice place to work. Her only complaint was the hour-long commute each way.

Sammy found out about this while they were talking during one of their dates. At first he didn’t ask if she was planning on moving into the city, opting instead to ask about her coworkers. He saw the opportunity, but the longer he could keep her only seeing him during dates, the longer they could pretend that nothing had happened. It was Susie who had brought it up, and Sammy couldn't resist the urge to ask.

“It’s awkward. I don’t know that I want to live by myself again. Which I know, I’ll have to, and I am looking for a place-"

“Want to move in with me?”

Susie was a little taken aback. “You sure you're okay with that? We’ve only been seeing each other a couple weeks.”

“Sorry. It’s kind of hard to tell where I’m supposed to treat this like a new relationship, and where I’m supposed to act like we can just pick up where we left off. We were fine living together back then. But I understand.”

“No, let's do it. It sounds great” There was a long pause. “I’m going to try and make this as much like before as possible, alright? You’re going to have to be patient with me.”

“Okay,” Sammy had said. After that, they agreed on the day she would move in, and then changed the subject. Sammy wondered what she’d meant by that, but he supposed he would find out. Any signs of trauma she had, she was hiding well. He almost hoped, sick as it sounded, that she was doing worse than him. He’d hate to be the one testing her patience.

Their first week of living together went by without any serious issues, but there was one thing that Sammy noticed, and that was that Susie seemed to be avoiding music. He started noticing the pattern when he’d tried bringing it up once or twice, and she’d immediately changed the subject. Later in the week, he'd decided to play banjo in the apartment while she was around, and she quickly decided that she had elsewhere to be.

"Where are you going?" Sammy had asked.

"I'm going to get some milk." Her eyes were shifty- clearly she was lying.

"We have milk."

"Well, there are other things we need," she said before leaving. Sammy returned to his banjo. He supposed it was Susie's right to not want to listen to him, but still, he was frustrated. When Sammy heard her unlocking the door some time later, he turned on the radio. He wasn't much for 60s music, but he wanted to give her one last test. As Susie came in, carrying a few non-perishable grocery items they'd use eventually, she turned it off.

"Hey, Susie. Since coming out of ink hell, I found a nice little church. I'm going to a service this Sunday, and I was wondering if you'd like to come with me."

Susie looked a little... stunned. Sammy supposed he should have made it less obvious that he was studying her. “I didn’t know you were religious,” Susie said.

Sammy shrugged. “My parents took me to church maybe five times a year. I think I went about ten times in my entire adult life. Believe it or not, it was my experiences with my cult that convinced me that I should go back.”

“Cool, you wanna tell me more about that?”

“Not really.” Sammy could remember years of comforting the barely sane creatures that came to him for guidance. Back then, he’d been the most stable creature around. Now, well, Sammy was glad to have the luxury of being the lost sheep, coming to others for guidance and community. Plus, Susie surely realized that the church would play music, and he still wanted to test her comfort level with it. His little bird being afraid of music seemed just perverse to Sammy, and he wanted to know just how bad the damage was.

"Okay, then. I'll go," Susie said. Good. And hopefully she'd fucking enjoy it.

---

Sunday morning rolled around. Susie had been rather uncomfortable coming to Sammy's church, being that she had strong suspicions about why he wanted to take her there, but once she was there she saw no real reason for it. It was a fairly standard church, full of friendly old people that Sammy introduced her to. Of course, Susie knew there would be music, and she was ready for that. As the service began and the choir began to sing, she focused on the visuals in the room, averting her eyes from anything with an angel on it. It still made her tense, but she was managing. Then, her eyes landed on Sammy's face. He had been staring right her, studying her, just like he had that one night. She realized that she looked rather distressed and spent about a second trying to fix that before she got up and left.

Sammy followed behind her. “Susie, what's wrong?”

"Why don't you guess? You already have your theories, don't you?"

"It's the music, isn't it?"

"No, it's you!" she snapped.

Sammy could tell they were in for a fight. “Maybe we should talk elsewhere.” He’d hate for the other churchgoers to overhear them fighting, especially if Susie had figured it out.

“Fine. We’ll talk at home. Should we go back in there?”

“Are you going to break down because of the music?” Sammy felt like the father of a petulant daughter.

“I'll be fine,” she growled.

And she was. Grumpy, but fine. No worse than uncomfortable when there was music. The church service was fairly average, which for this church meant quite pleasant, though Sammy would have liked to stay at the end to talk to the other churchgoers. Ah, just like old times, Sammy thought, Susie going into theatrics and taking it out on whoever’s closest. Which just so happens to be me.

After they got home, Sammy asked, “Okay, where were we?”

“I was going to tell you that it wasn’t the music. Yes, it does make me uneasy because of ink-related craziness, but what really upset me back there is that you have been... I don’t know... testing me about it. Did you think I couldn’t tell? I’m not stupid, Sammy, and I don’t appreciate you making weird plans like that instead of talking to me, alright? I'm not your daughter. I'm not for you to go planning stuff behind my back like in the you did in the forties. Alright? I need you to respect me.”

“Alright, I hear you.”

Susie sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry for overreacting. Is that everything? I'm sorry I didn't just tell you about this when I first suspected you were testing me.”

“Well, I guess I would like to know if you're planning to get back into music.”

“I don’t know. Probably. I mean, who am I without it? But not right now. Sorry. Voice acting I definitely still wanna do, though." There was a pause, and a heavy sigh. "Sammy, have you ever read 1984?"

“Yes, decades ago."

"I know that music is a lot of what we had in common. I just hope we're not like Julia and Willson after room 101- too damaged to still love each other. And it'll be all my fault since you don't seem to be having hardly any trouble with this at all."

A part of Sammy was honestly just relieved he was apparently hiding it so well. "Actually, Susie, I'm struggling a lot. When I first came out, I was pretty much jumping at shadows. Even now, going anywhere new is pretty hard for me. And there's a reason why I'm just as tired as I was back when Joey was working me to death. I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep, and when I do, I have some pretty ugly nightmares. It is kind of like you said- I don't really know who I am anymore. Am I the person I became in that dimension, or am I the person who helped ink everyone in the first place? Neither of them are very good people, and I know I'm not exactly like either of them. I guess, we just have to be the best version of whoever we are now."

"I guess you're right. I might have a solution to the sleeping thing, though. I know that you aren't normally one for sleeping together, but, well, my sister's dog started crawling in with me when I was having nightmares, and that helped me. We could try it."

"Sure," Sammy said. It was mostly to indulge her. He remembered the nights they'd slept together in the 40s, before Susie was put away. Of course, then it was because she was freezing cold due to being made out of ink. Sammy would have refused her, but he half suspected that that was half the reason they were even still together. The two of us sleeping together because ink-related issues. Nothing ever changes.

---

Alice Angel turned on the record player. "Sing," she ordered, letting Susie into the forefront of her consciousness.

Susie blinkered awake. She wasn't really in the mood to fight. She got up anyhow, intent on finding a knife.

Alice took back control immediately and sat back down. "Don't you even think about it. Do that, and I'm popping the eyeballs of the next ink creature we get in here, and you'll have to watch. Now, sing. I need your voice to hit the high notes." Alice restarted the record and allowed Susie back out. Susie began to sing. It was the Alice Angel theme song- one of her headmate's favourites. After she'd gone through it a couple times, she got up. Alice didn't seem to try to stop her. Susie kept singing, as though doing so would keep her placated. She didn't know what was going on, but she wasn't about to waste the opportunity it presented. Her voice caught on the high notes as her breath grew unstable. She made her way to the tool drawer, retrieved a kinfe, and began cutting through the ropes that were holding a captive Edgar in place. She could barely hear the music of the record player now, and she was more muttering the words under her breath than singing them. Her hands were so tense she could barely handle the knife.

The knife flew into the Edgar's eye socket, and Susie was thrown out of her locus of control. The creautre wailed and writhed in agony. "You were never in control, Susie. Remember that. Even when I let you control certain parts of us, you're never in control."

Of course, that wasn't true. There were times when Susie took control by force. Still, she felt utterly helpless. And without a body to pilot, she couldn't even curl up and cry.

Susie woke up with wet eyes. She touched the gloxinia plant she kept beside their bed. It felt green. Its velvety petals felt purple. She felt her pulse (as useless a feature as that had seemed), and it felt red. Then, she felt Sammy beside her, also struggling with a nightmare. She snuggled into him, calming him down. Everything was fine now. It was all over.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #susie campbell #sammy lawrence #sammy x susie #my fanfiction #Like it Never Happened

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spideytingle616 · 5 years ago

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Five Months [2]

Part 1 / Masterlist / Part 3

*based on the five stages of grief*

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female reader

Warnings: Angst, death, swearing, possible implications of anxiety, mentions/implications of sexual activity, blood/injury

Description: The first time you touch your soulmate, you’re able to see a glimpse into your future. What happens if your future is also your end?

Chapter Summary: Still best friends and nothing more, you learn this battle isn’t so easy after all. You hope Peter feels it too, but you also hope he doesn’t. At least you have Nationals to keep you busy.

Word Count: 7.7K lol whoops (bold and italics are thoughts)

Month Two, Anger: Love Isn’t a Decathlon Event

As the days of continuing your charade with Peter roll into the next couple of weeks and eventually the next month, you couldn’t help but feel annoyed at this game. The next half of the semester has started, and you couldn’t blame tests for the lull that continued to grow.

But the more irked you became, the bigger the guilt grew in the back of your head. How dare you feel like this, you thought. Putting yourself first seemed far too selfish, but you couldn’t exactly talk to Peter about this, especially when he’s avoiding you whenever possible. Not being able to talk about it was killing you, as if your confrontation at his apartment brought no closure.

As the weeks passed, and the fall breeze brushed through the trees, you’ve had time to think about the facts at hand. You and Peter were soulmates, and though the situation wasn’t ideal, it did confirm your feelings that preceded this chaos.

All the times you caught yourself staring at Peter meant something, and all the times you’d flash a dorky smile at his corny jokes were genuine signs of admiration. You were smitten since you met the boy, and part of you wants to kick yourself for brushing off these moments. Maybe everything could be different if you realized sooner, and your flashback could’ve been something nicer, or something that indicated a forever…

These thoughts have started to cloud your head far more than you would like as your brain was off in another world during class. Your grades aren’t slipping quite yet, but you know they eventually will if you continue to let this distraction get to you more than it already has. The only thing you can do is to simply accept the decision Peter made; it’s his life, after all. Unless miracles exist, you’re stuck being the heartbroken girl.

At this moment, however, you were also the exhausted girl. Today was fitness exam day in gym, and you were stuck on the sweaty mats, forced to do sit-ups for the next few minutes. MJ was your partner per usual, holding your feet to keep you steady. You didn’t really care about your numbers, so you took your time and talked to your friend instead. You were multitasking by watching Peter going up and down on the mat, only pretending to be struggling. Just earlier he got around fifteen sit-ups in the first ten seconds.

Damn spider-powers….

“Okay, so it’s been, what, a month since you and Peter figured out you were soulmates?” MJ asked as you came up. “And to clarify, you two are still just friends?”

You did another sit-up before responding. “Yep, same as when you asked the other day.” And the day before, and the day before…

“Well sorry, but it’s kinda confusing, isn’t it? You two are basically together all the time; you’re just adding boning to the equation.”

You prop your elbows on your knees, stopping to look at MJ with wild eyes.

“Seriously, MJ? You didn’t have to say it like that.” You scoff. “And besides, it’s more complicated than just adding ‘you know what’ to our friendship.”

She laughs at your innocent wording as you fall back down, ready for more dreadful sit-ups.

“You’re such a dork sometimes, which is exactly why you’re perfect for Peter. You even told me that you thought you had feelings for him before you found out. I wouldn’t be so worried about his crime-fighting, if he was going to get seriously hurt, he would’ve by now.”

What?

The coach blows the whistle, indicating for each pair to switch roles. MJ lets go of your feet and takes a seat in front of you. You both knew she wasn’t going to do the sit-ups, avoiding the physical activity most of the time by sitting on the bleachers reading.

“How did you-” You shakily begin, breath trying to steady after the work you’ve just been through.

“You’ve seen all the times he’s up and left? Weren’t you the least suspicious as to why? I mean, it was either Spider-Man or a male escort, so.”

“I’m glad you didn’t go with the latter, then. Ugh, did everyone piece this together before I did? Some best friend I am.” You sigh, rolling your eyes at your stupidity. Peter was never one to keep secrets that easily, yet this still passed your radar.

“I know everyone’s secrets, Y/N. You’re not a bad friend, everyone knows you and Peter are perfect for each other. Except for you, apparently?” MJ raises an eyebrow at you, going back to her original question.

“I mean, I’m still shocked about it, but Peter doesn’t want anything to change. He’s too busy to worry about all this soulmate bullcrap.” You try to excuse. Whether or not you liked the situation, you weren’t going to tell your friend the actual truth, not until Peter is okay with it.

Before MJ had a chance to argue with your comment, you hear a yell. Specifically, one near where Peter and Ned were. All heads snapped toward the source of the sound.

“Peter knows Spider-Man!” Ned says all too excitedly.

“Oh god,” you mumbled softly, squinting your eyes in disbelief. Peter was the same way, mouth agape at his friend’s words.

Fortunately, the claim didn’t expose anything. In fact, it earned the two an invitation to Liz’s party, which wasn’t as fortunate. Jealousy slowly started to creep onto your face as you shifted your stare between the two of them throughout class. Peter likes Liz, and Liz likes Spider-Man. Despite being soulmates, Peter seems to have the stars aligned with someone else. The rest of class somehow sucked even worse than normal.

As you walk with MJ to the locker room, you’re stopped by none other than Liz. How great, you thought. You try your best to keep a pleasant face, but your smile was too tight to be genuine.

“You probably heard earlier, but I was planning on having a party this weekend. I’d love for guys to come too if you want.” Liz invited, her smile as charming as ever.

The offer took you aback. The two of you weren’t very close, so you were surprised she really cared enough to acknowledge you.

“Are you sure, Liz? I mean, we’ve never really talked all that much.”

“Well consider this an opportunity to do just that. I invited the whole decathlon team so this could be a good way to bond before nationals. And besides, I already invited Peter, and you two are super close. It only made sense.”

“Well, we’re not like, that close or anything.” You fumble.

“Oh, come on, it’s totally obvious you guys were made for each other. I bet you two are soulmates and everything.”

R.I.P to Peter’s chances, even Liz thinks you’re meant to be. (Well, Peter never really had a chance with any non-soulmate, but a guy can dream). MJ turns to you and offers a cheeky smirk, waiting for you to reply to Liz. Awkwardness starts to seep into the conversation, much to your dismay.

“That is, a crazy idea. I-I don’t even know where to begin with that. Like, totally not true. At all. Nope. He’s my buddy.” Your mouth feels like it’s full of sand at this point. You wish you could muster up more than that pathetic excuse.

“Huh, I wonder who is then. He’s too cute to still be soulless, you know?”

Your eyes largen as the fake smile cramps your face. So, the attraction is mutual… great. A burning in your chest emerges out of anger. Life really couldn’t go your way lately.

“Yep, totally…” was all you could say. “I should go, you know, change and stuff, but thanks for the invite. I’ll try to come, and, stuff.”

You immediately turned around and headed straight toward the locker room, not even noticing Liz and MJs’ confused faces.

Due to your runoff, you were headed to your next class earlier than usual. As you turned the corner, you body checked into none other than your superhuman soulmate. You put your hands on his chest to prevent an embarrassing fall. Under his sweater and layers, you could still feel how hard his chest was, which wasn’t a surprise considering the view you saw not that long ago.

What felt like minutes, you finally came to your senses and quickly put your hands down and awkwardly crossed them.

“H-hey.” You stuttered.

The most conversation you’ve had lately was during class, and those were just questions about the lecture. You hated that you felt awkward with your best friend.

“Um, sorry. I wasn’t looking” Peter replied, feeling the tension as much as you did.

“No, you’re fine.” You reassured. “Hey, uh, sorry about Ned. That kid is such a blabbermouth sometimes.”

The boy sent an airy laugh. It’s been a long time since you heard him laugh, so even hearing a half-hearted one was enough to make you miss him even more. You could’ve sworn your eyes got misty at that moment.

“No, it’s cool. He knew I want to impress Liz and just went overboard.” Despite Ned knowing you two were soulmates, he still remained loyal to Peter’s wishes of pining over Liz; Talk about an ultimate wingman.

You didn’t dare to mention the fact that Liz called him cute, as you were too selfish to say anything. I have to deal with a soulmate that doesn’t even want me, let me have this.

“I need to print my English essay so I should get going. If you go to Liz’s party, you could maybe hang with Ned and me or something.” Peter offers.

The invite was a surprise considering the past month, but you wanted nothing more than to spend time with him again. Even if it was at a party hosted by his crush and with people you didn’t know, you gladly accepted.

——-

The car ride to Liz’s was awkward, to say the least. Peter was asking for some advice about parties and girls, to which May offered back some words to wisdom. You assumed that she didn’t know anything about you and her nephew, and obviously you weren’t going to be the one to tell her. The fact that Peter wouldn’t even tell his family gave your heart a dull ache. You’ve gotten over the initial pain for the most part, but instances like these still trigger your sensitivity.

When you got inside, all three of you were surprised at the place in front of you. You all knew that Liz had a house outside of New York, but you didn’t imagine it to be so big. Jealousy pangs you once again; Liz Allen just seems to have it all.

“Sup losers,” greeted an uninterested voice.

You all turned to see MJ at the kitchen table eating tortillas straight out of a bag.

“You actually came?” You asked puzzled. “Yeah, I thought you didn’t like parties,” Ned replied, adjusting his fedora. He insisted it made him look cooler.

“Maybe I’m not here and you’re just seeing things. Ever think about that?” Your friend replied, raising her eyebrows in fake revelation.

Both Peter and Ned turned to each other in confusion before looking back at the girl. You rolled your eyes; they never really got MJ’s jokes.

“Well, anyway, I need to talk to my friend here, but you two can go ahead without me.” You told the two boys before grabbing MJ’s wrist and taking her to another room you believe is the dining room.

“Jeez, and I thought I wanted to leave that situation more than you.” MJ joked, not bothering to fight your grip.

“I’m going freaking crazy, dude. Weeks of constant awkward conversation, I almost peed my pants because for some reason he invited me here and I was stupid enough to come.” You rant, eyes wild with absurdity.

“Oh, so now all of a sudden you care?”

You roll your eyes, slightly annoyed that your friend thinks this is a good time for jokes. However, she was right. Up until that point in gym, you were accepting of the fact that Peter wanted to keep a distance and stay friends, though the awkward attitude between you two wasn’t exactly “friendship”. But seeing that he actually intended to have a shot with Liz made you sick to your stomach.

“I just- I don’t get why. Why is he chasing a non-soulmate to begin with? I can be fine with staying friends, but what’s he doing?” Your eyes kept grazing the floor as you complained.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? It’s not like I have all the answers, though I do know what’s happening seventy percent of the time.”

You sigh, “He’s not going to answer-”

“He’s also not going to answer your questions if you never actually ask him. You clearly don’t like the relationship between you two, so talk to him about it. If he won’t listen, then make him.” MJ quipped, having tried to tell you this how many times. “I think both of you know deep down that you two are the best thing that could happen to each other. But clearly, there’s something else going on, which is why you need to talk to him instead. Figure out how to be together.”

All you can do is stare aimlessly at her. Your mind, like your heart, is going a hundred miles an hour. Perhaps her advice would be different if she knew, but this wasn’t the time to tell her. Not in a chaotic party with Flash chanting “Penis Parker” in the background. Not when Peter himself is an enigma to his soulmate. If you knew more, or knew what to do, then maybe MJ could offer more for both your sakes. But it’s not your secret to tell. Even if you’re transparent to MJ, it’s not your place to say something to ruin your best friend’s life, especially considering the fragility of it.

MJ widens her eyes and tilts her head to the side, motioning for you to go out and find Peter. You sigh, nodding your head. The quick conversation was over before you knew it. A part of you thinks she also just wanted to get rid of you, but you couldn’t blame her. You probably weren’t the only one angry and annoyed with the predicament at hand.

You go back to the kitchen where you left the two boys to fend for themselves. It probably wasn’t going too well considering you could still hear Flash’s nonstop teasing. You spotted Ned and his spunky fedora, but there was no one else with him.

“Weren’t there two of you?” You asked, trying to use sarcasm to mask any panic you may have felt.

Ned snaps out of his slight daze. “Well, Peter went to go, you know, change, so he can impress Liz, and prevent the future embarrassment of not actually knowing Spider-Man.”

“First of all, does he technically know him if he is him? Second of all, you caused all of this so you kinda screwed him over. And third of all, aren’t you supposed to be on my side too?” You asserted, slightly hurt.

The sensible side of you thought that there was no way that Peter would go through with this. All this for a girl that wasn’t even his soulmate? Just thinking about it made you more upset. You were also hurt by your raven-haired friend and his betrayal, but one step at a time you suppose.

“Well in my defense, I have no idea what’s happening, like ever. And Peter doesn’t seem to be doing so well lately, so I thought this might make him feel better. You know, bros before hoes. B-but you’re not a hoe, Y/N. It’s just that you’re a girl- not that all girls are hoes, guys can be hoes too-“

“I’m gonna stop you before this gets any worse,” You warned. “It’s whatever, I can forgive you for now cause you’re a good guy. Just, where is he? I really need to talk to him.”

Ned sighs, slightly guilty that about the plan he participated in. He points upward to the ceiling. The motion leaves you confused, but upon looking up and seeing the skylight in the middle of the roof, you understood. Where else would you find a spider?

A few room searches later, and a risky climb, you were able to get on the roof of the house. The possible twenty-foot fall was worth it when you were met with a familiar face and a red and blue suit to match.

“Kinda envy your powers right now, could’ve found you a lot sooner.” You said, a half-smirk appearing on your face.

Peter turns his head from where he’s sitting, offering a rather sad smile. He soon goes back and focuses on the mask in between his hands, fidgeting with the fabric. You start to feel a little awkward for intruding, but you knew you this was something you had to do. Brushing away any stiffness between you two, you shimmy closer to Peter and sit down next to him.

“Shouldn’t you be down there, doing I don’t know, spider stuff?” You observed.

“Spider stuff makes my amazing powers sound rather lame; don’t you think?” Peter mumbles, trying to make a joke.

“Well, I’m terribly sorry.” You chuckle. “Seriously though, how long have you been up here? Ned is looking like a lost puppy without you.”

Peter gives a small laugh at your comment. Your conversations always included some form of witty banter, and even in predicaments like these, it doesn’t seem to go away that easily. “Couldn’t do it, I guess. I was about to head back, but when I saw everyone downstairs, I don’t know, something changed.”

“Changed as in, you don’t know why you’re doing this?” You prod.

Peter nods once as if to say you were right, but doesn’t want to admit it just yet.

“I’m doing this to seem like someone else. But it’s not someone else, i-it’s still me, you know? I love Spider-Man and all, but going there as him seems…” He trails off, a loss for words.

“They wouldn’t look at you as Peter, just Spider-Man.”

Peter nods again, this time to agree with your theory.

“I understand, it wouldn’t feel like they’re genuinely impressed with you. But hey,” You bump his shoulder with yours. “You’re Spider-Man because of who you are, because of who Peter Parker is. You’re the one trying to make the world a better place. I mean, Spider-Man isn’t a real person, but Peter is, and it’s their loss if they aren’t impressed with someone as cool as you.”

The words sent a bright smile onto your friend’s face. It was actual, good advice: something that he wished Ned or anyone could’ve given him sooner.

“Could’ve told me that before I went through all the trouble of putting this on.” Peter joked, bringing you back into your old rhythm of conversation.

“Well, I’ll try to climb the window faster next time. But if I’m on the ground and not up here, you know why.” You quip back, causing Peter to laugh once again.

Everything started to feel familiar again, all it did was a little talking. You suppose the hostility between you two couldn’t be fully blamed on him. Maybe if you tried to talk to him like this more and showed that you cared, you’d be able to find a balance in your lives.

The thoughts caused you to space off, your stares stuck on Peter. He eventually notices when he turns to look at you. Now the two of you are looking at one another, neither one of you wanting to ruin the moment. A part of you wanted to lean in, even if it was just an inch. You would’ve followed your urge too, but you didn’t want to lose focus on your purpose.

“Hey listen Pete, the reason why I came up here-”

“Holy shit,” He interrupts, staring into the distance, mouth agape.

You scrunch your face. What the hell, dude?

Looking in the same direction as Peter, you see what he’s referring to. A single, bright light beamed in the distance. It was too blue and too unearthly to be natural, which caused both of you to worry.

The spiderling stands up before looking at you again, this time with a guilty face. You sigh, this is just like the first time. When he left you in the dust at your own apartment to go fight crime after just finding out about his identity. You knew he didn’t want to leave just as much as you, but there was nothing he could do. No one else can risk their lives to save the city.

“Guess I’ll see you later, then.” You answer his silence.

You stand up afterward and motion for him to go, but he doesn’t move from his spot. He wants to, but there’s something stopping you and you couldn’t quite pin it. Before you know it, Peter wraps you into a tight hug. You can’t remember a time that he’s ever done this (which makes sense considering you found out you were soulmates after years of friendship). Yet despite the confusion that enveloped your head, you bring your arms around him, squeezing back. You close your eyes, enjoying the moment of warmth brought between you two. Peter lets go, much to your dismay, and puts his mask on. He webs away, leaving you to a party you didn’t even want to go to.

Since that party, you haven’t seen much of your Spider-friend due to Decathlon's practice. Nationals were coming up, and Liz was really making sure everyone was prepared for the competition. Peter has continued to dedicate his life to fighting, even more so than usual. You figured he needed a distraction, like decathlon was to you, but you still missed him nonetheless. Flash isn’t doing too hot as Peter’s replacement, and it only makes you miss him more.

After another week or so, you and your team were headed to Washington D.C. for the awaited competition. Waiting for everyone to load their luggage onto the bus, you and MJ were quizzing each other when Peter runs toward the group, packed and all.

“The hell,” You mumble under your breath.

“Hey guys, yeah um, I was hoping I could rejoin the team,” Peter quickly asks, nervousness seeping into his words.

You don’t say anything, not only because you were at a loss of words, but also because Flash looks like he has steam coming out of his ears. “No freaking way, Parker. We don’t even need you.” Flash boasted.

The rest of the group looked at each other, all awkwardly sucking in the breaths and gritting their teeth. No one dared to say anything afterward.

”Actually, it would be great of you to join us again, Peter. Who else is going to answer all the chemistry questions?” Liz smiled.

You tried to suppress a gag. By the look on Peter’s face, you could tell he was flattered, which only made things worse for you. This was the one rom-com you hated.

Peter continues to receive warm welcomes from the rest of the team, and especially Mr. Harrington. However, you leaned against the bus and watched from the sidelines confused. He dropped so much for Spider-Man; he wouldn’t join back all of a sudden. You wonder what your friend’s hidden agenda was.

Once you started to load on the bus, you decided to join Peter in the back. As you approached the end of the aisle, you reminded yourself you were doing this because you were friends. Aside from the intense hug at the party that seemed like forever ago, you and Peter were never more than best friends. Any harbored feelings were kept under lock and key, and you know it’s for the best.

“Okay,” You start to say as you slump in your seat. “Why are you actually here?”

“Was it that obvious?” Peter timidly asks.

“To me at least. Seems weird that you’re not busy with spider stuff all of a sudden. Unless of course, you are doing said stuff?”

Peter sighs, checking around to see no one’s watching. Once doing so, he opens his backpack and his hand reappears with a violent-tinted object. Though it seems obvious to Peter what the object means, it doesn’t answer your question.

“Uh, you’re going to D.C. because of a rock?” You asked.

“What, no, it’s not a rock. It’s tech, alien tech.” He rambles, basically shoving the subject in your face.

“And you got this from…?”

“Well, some guy tried to vaporize me-”

“What!” You scream. You would’ve continued to yell but Peter tells you to quiet down.

“Hey relax, I’m fine.” He looks back up to make sure you didn’t grab anyone’s attention. “But after I left Liz’s party, I caught some weapons trade deal going on. Turns out, someone’s combining alien tech with human tech to get rich.”

“Okay well, clearly I have missed a lot in the last week.” You say. “So wait, where exactly does D.C. come into play?”

“Well I put a tracker on one of the guys and they’re heading toward Maryland for another deal or something; D.C. was the easiest way to get there,” Peter explained.

“This is getting a little complicated, does Iron Man or Tony Stark or whatever you call him know about this?”

You don’t mean to sound like a mother, but going all the way into another state seems too overwhelming for a teenage superhero.

“Well, no he doesn’t really trust me. But Ned’s my ‘guy-in-the-chair’ so I’m not doing this alone, and when I catch the guys behind this, Mr. Stark will know I’m capable.”

You stay silent for a little bit, processing your thoughts. You don’t want Peter to get into any danger, especially when you know about his future. However, you knew you couldn’t stop him. He was dedicated, and clearly, this guy was bad news. If he truly needed help, you knew you would be there.

“Well, I’m just glad to have you back. We’re bound to win now, no offense to Flash.” You joke, letting go of all your previous thoughts.

The rest of the bus ride is consisted of decathlon practice, sleeping, and laying on Peter’s shoulder. Friendly, of course. You were tired after all…

——-

“Flash is totally jealous. The kid reeks of ‘I’m compensating my rather sad life by pretending to be cool so fuck you, Peter’.”

“Harsh, MJ. What did he ever do to you?” You reply, starfish on the hotel bed.

“I’m not saying that as a negative, it just makes sense as to why he’s the way he is.” MJ defends.

You hear your phones ring, interrupting the conversation. Too lazy to grab yours from the nightstand, you wait for your friend to tell you what’s up.

“Liz says she wants the team to have a pool night before the big day. Quick bonding session apparently?”

“Ugh, what’s the point? What is a party gonna do for us?” You groan, face down on the mattress.

“She’s captain, after all, wouldn’t want to go against her orders, right?” MJ jokes. “It probably won’t even be that bad. We don’t even have to swim; we can just sit in the chairs.”

Ten minutes later you find yourself heading down the stairs, expensive candy bars in hand. You’ll never understand why the minifridge is always so pricey; MJ blames capitalism, but when doesn’t she?

As you approach another hallway before heading to the pool, you see Peter coming out of his room in regular normal clothes. Did he not get the memo? You slow down as you get closer to the boy.

“Didn’t know you swam with gym shorts, dude.” You say, eyeing his inappropriate attire.

“Y/N, h-hey.” Peter stutters, which confuses you even more.

You cross your arms in front of your chest, which in turn highlights your assets there. Peter couldn’t help but glance at where your arms were placed. Your swimsuit clung to your body nicely, making him take a small gulp. Much of your skin was exposed, and Peter wondered how many times he’s looked at your body without realizing it. If you didn’t reply, god knows how much longer he’d stare.

“Something tells me you’re not going to the pool with us.”

“Yeah no, there’s something else I gotta do. I’ll tell you in the morning though.” Peter coughs, coming back to his senses.

He can see your disappointment at his urgency to leave. You didn’t mean to take it personally, but it felt like he was ditching you again.

You also couldn’t help but worry once again. He’s keeping this secret from the Tony Stark, someone who he has looked up to since he was saved by him all those years ago. Maybe you could at least try to stop him? But before you got a chance to, Liz interrupts your conversation.

“C’mon guys, let’s get a move on.” Liz cheered. “Peter you’re not even dressed yet. You know, you better be going. You’re back on the team, after all.”

“Yeah totally, I’ll be there. Just need to grab something first.” He explained as a blush warmed his cheeks.

You wondered if this would be an inappropriate time to gag. Anger stiffened onto your face as you clenched your jaw. You try to keep cool; it’s ridiculous to be mad as such a basic conversation, even if it left Peter smitten.

By the time you found your chill, Liz joined the rest of the team and hurried to the pool, leaving you and Peter alone again. He was about to run off, but you grabbed his arm before he turned away from you completely.

“Peter, don’t you think this is all, I don’t know, a bit much?” You warned, not letting go of his wrist.

“Seriously, Y/N? You too?” Peter snapped as he moved his arm out of your grasp.

You were taken aback by the sudden annoyance. Didn’t he get how dangerous this was? Nonetheless, a part of you felt bad that he was feeling helicoptered by you.

“I just mean that if it’s serious maybe you can call Stark or one of the Avengers-“

“I get that most of the Avengers are twice as old as me, and I get that it’s risky that Mr. Stark doesn’t know about this. But goddammit, I went to Germany and stole Cap’s shield right in front of his freaking eyes; I’m strong enough to lift cars and I can swing onto the Empire State Building if I wanted to, which is on my bucket list thank you very much. Look, I can do this, but I can’t if everyone I love is trying to stop me. I may be a kid to Mr. Stark, but no kid can do what I can do.”

Your friend’s speech leaves you silent. You look at him: Peter’s eyes were wide and his mouth was closed tight. Part of you thought he was going to say more, that he wanted to say more, but he stayed silent as well.

Peter wanted to add that he knew he wouldn’t get majorly hurt in Maryland. After all, he’s going to be in New York when it happens. He quickly forgets the thought, tightening the grip on his backpack straps. He turns away from you for what he thinks is the last time. He was in a hurry, and plus he was too upset to stay.

“Can you at least be careful?” You yell across the hall. “Even if you’re mad at me, it’s the least you can do.”

Peter turns back around to face you.

“You aren’t gonna stop me?” He asks.

“Don’t think I can, which is why I’m asking you to be safe.” You reply, offering a small but genuine smile.

“Yeah, I’ll be careful,” Peter nods. “I’ll try to keep you posted more, maybe you, me, and Ned can be a team.”

“We’ll see, don’t want him to be kicked out of his unofficial job.” You joke, causing you both to laugh.

Peter then leaves you by yourself in the hallway as he heads into the night. By the time he’s on the rooftop of the hotel all dressed, he sees you and the decathlon team in the pool. You were still sitting in the chairs while the rest of the group were splashing each other. You laugh at the commotion before looking up. A certain hero caught your eye, and your smile stretched from ear to ear.

You mouth “good luck” to the boy on the roof. Peter laughs at the cheesy situation, but he’s grateful you have his back. His heart tightens at the gesture, something that he didn’t notice until he swung away and the feeling still lingered. A part of him thought that maybe, just maybe, you guys could stand a chance.

——-

Not good.

Very not good.

Not very good at all.

In conclusion: bad, bad, bad.

Peter’s thoughts left him in a feverish panic. Okay, so maybe the plan didn’t go as well he hoped. He knew there was something bound to go off the rails. He just didn’t think being locked in a warehouse until the morning was going to be one of them. Of course he had to pass out in a moving truck…

Minutes felt like hours as he walked around the large, deserted building. There wasn’t much he could do but throw webs and talk to his newfound A.I. Karen. Eventually, he gave up trying to find ways out. He’ll just have to leave in the morning and rush to the decathlon competition, another amazing consequence of his failed mission. Peter is even gladder he didn’t tell Mr. Stark, he couldn’t bear to stand the embarrassment.

Karen helped to calm the boy down, even prompted him to talk about his life. Soon, Peter found himself in a therapy session, more or less.

“I just don’t want to be seen as some small-town hero, you know. Helping old ladies across the street is cute and all, but I want missions. Like Avenger-level missions. The only people that seem to be okay with that are me and Y/N, which doesn’t help change Mr. Stark’s mind.”

“Y/N?” Karen asks, unfamiliar with the person in question.

“Wha- oh, yeah. She’s just a friend. Well, I mean she’s my soulmate but-“

“So you’re in love with Y/N,” Karen confirms.

“What no, no. I’m not in love with her. I’ve never looked at her as anything more than a friend. Plus, there’s Liz who’s this girl that I like.”

“Why do you like someone who’s not your soulmate?”

The question silences Peter for a second. It’s a question he never took the time to ponder as he’s tried to keep himself distracted. He avoided ever thinking about soulmates, but in a situation where he’s stuck for the next few hours, he doesn’t have anything to distract himself with.

“Well, Liz is nice to me. She seems interested in me too, and she hasn’t found her soulmate yet so there’s no harm. There’s no rulebook to follow.” Peter explains, almost sounding like he’s defending himself.

“Could you at least see yourself with Y/N?” Karen pushes, causing Peter to sigh.

“I mean, in a perfect world, yeah. She’s my best friend, we know each other so well. She always seems to know what I’m thinking, even if she doesn’t say anything. And she cares so much about others. It shows how beautiful she is inside and out, which is amazing to me. I was really worried she’d stop being my friend once she found out about Spider-Man, but she accepted it almost right away. It- it’s good to know that she always has my back. If things were different, maybe we’d be together. But Liz, she’s got it all too. She’s really cool and stuff. I mean, we haven’t talked all that much, but I know she’s great. Yeah, she- she’s great…” Peter trails off.

It was obvious to Karen, an A.I. that doesn’t even experience emotion, that Peter was blindsided with his quest for Liz. To chase someone he doesn’t really know was clearly a distraction from something, though Karen wasn’t exactly sure what. Comparing how he talked about the two girls would prove to any competent person that you were his soulmate, and one that he clearly liked.

Peter soon ended the conversation as he became more restless. He continued to search around to see if there was anything stored within the warehouse. Good thing too, because soon after Peter is begging for dear life to escape.

Well, this isn’t ideal.

Not very ideal at all.

This is very bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

You and your team’s glorious victory fades into a dream as you dangle from a broken elevator more than four hundred stories up.

The morning already left you in a panic as Peter was M.I.A. for the competition, angering many. You lost in the penultimate round due to the fact that your best chemistry guy was nowhere to be found. While the members were annoyed at his sudden disappearance, you couldn’t help but be worried sick throughout the whole morning. Half the questions passed your ears as they were too busy focusing on your rapid, thumping heartbeat. You were lucky MJ answered the final question that won you guys the championship; you didn’t even hear it. Soon everyone’s anger at a certain team member dissipated and turned into whooping cheers and congratulations. You hugged MJ and Ned, but you were left with your worries still unanswered.

Your celebration led you to nothing but the one and only Washington Monument. Sightseeing was always your favorite part of trips, but you had a feeling that would change after this. Of course the elevator had to get damaged when there were a dozen people inside it. You turned to your friend, a gnawing suspicion that he knew what just happened.

“Ned, sweetie. Did you bring that goddamn alien rock?” You mutter with gritted teeth.

“Yeah b-but, why does that have to do with anything?” Ned stutters with fear.

“Well, I don’t think my phone caused the elevator to hang by a freaking thread.” You quip, raising your eyebrows. “It’s whatever, we can’t do anything about it now.”

“You seem too calm about this situation, we could die at any moment, Y/N.”

“We’re not gonna die in here, Ned. Not me, at least.” You whisper the last part.

“You don’t know that,” Ned says.

Oh, but I do. I have to watch my fucking soulmate die before I die too.

“I have a hunch,” You snap, ending the conversation.

Soon you could see security guards above you, opening the doors that would’ve exposed the elevator. They tell you to climb out one at a time carefully as to not mess up the balance. Flash pushes everyone else out of the way, him and the decathlon trophy climbing out first. Figures…

You let everyone else get out first since you were the farthest from the hatch. You helped Betty, the last person before you, by giving her a leg up. But the push must’ve been too forceful for the now delicate elevator. You hear a snap, and the elevator plummets another five or so feet. The sudden jolt causes you to scream and grip the railing. Even if you don’t die here, you were still terrified. Dropping to a near-death doesn’t sound any better than dropping to your actual death.

“Hey, over here! I got you,” You hear a familiar voice call.

Through the hatch, you see Peter. Well, Peter in his Spider-Man suit. He was still Peter to you, though. Relief flows through your body.

“Just climb out and jump out,” He says.

You don’t move from your spot, and instead you give him a glare of disbelief. He cannot be serious right now. Perhaps free-falling isn’t as bad as you think…

“Trust me, I’ll catch you, okay? Do you trust me?” Peter pleads.

“Always,” You reply right away, and you mean it. You always trusted Peter, and this was no different. If he says he’ll catch you, he’ll catch you.

You take a deep breath and nod. You make your way out of the elevator slowly, ignoring the loud creaks. Both your arms and breath shaky, you stand up after getting through the open hatch. Looking up, you stare at the boy above you. Even though his face was covered, you could easily imagine how bright his brown eyes looked. You still saw his face through the mask.

“Okay, just jump with your arms up so I can catch you. You’ll be okay, Y/N.” Peter reassures you. You hope no one caught the fact he knew your name.

With your knees bent, you try to jump as high as you can. You close your eyes so tightly, half expecting yourself to be falling hundreds of feet down along with the elevator. When you open them, you see yourself dangling in the now empty space, webs wrapped around your wrists. Slowly Peter pulls you up to the top and you were soon met by the floor that you missed oh so much.

“Are you okay?” Peter asks as you stand up.

You throw your arms around him tightly, not wanting to let go. Though shocked, Peter hugs you back and you’re reminded of the time he hugged you at the party. You bury your face in his neck with glee. Not only were you relieved that you made it out, but you were mostly happy that Peter was safe too.

“Yeah, I’m just glad you are too.” You say, face still close to his.

“Uh, what?” You hear Flash say.

Shit, you forget the rest of the team was behind you, watching you hug a “stranger”. You doubt none of them would piece it together, but you surely didn’t want to risk it. Quickly opening your eyes back to reality, you let your arms go slack by your side.

“I uh, I- I said I’m glad I’m safe too. Yeah. Thank you, Spider-Man, you are indeed a real hero. This is definitely the first time I’ve seen you face to face. I mean, face to mask, cause I’ve totally never seen your face before.”

MJ was right; you were a terrible liar, but you didn’t realize it that bad. You were left cringing by what just happened. Luckily, despite the atrocious lie, no one thought anything of it. You were a girl in shock after a traumatic event, they didn’t expect you to be completely sane right away.

“Okay, well bye,” You abruptly say, trying to ignore what just happened.

Peter gets the memo, also not wanting to expose himself in front of his classmates. He says his goodbyes and awkwardly waves to everyone. He gives you one last look, eyes glassy under the mask. The whole time he saw you in the elevator he was terrified for you, he wasn’t even sure his plan would work. He was still queasy to his stomach afterward. But looking at you, all safe and mostly collected, made him smile. Perhaps he looked at you for longer than he should’ve before swinging out and away. You didn’t mind. You were giving him heart eyes back.

“Shit,” Flash mumbles. “I forgot to ask if he knows Peter!”

——-

No one seems to care too much that Peter randomly showed up once again. You assume it was because everyone was still a little shaken, and it was for the best that they didn’t say anything. Your eyes light up when you’re face to face with Peter, glad that you could see him without his hero persona.

You hug him for another time. The feeling of his chest becomes more familiar, and you’re shocked that you’ve never done this sooner. Maybe it’s because you haven’t been put into near-death experiences until recently, but you still enjoy these moments all the same.

“Peter!” A voice that you’ve been dreading called.

Liz jogs over to you guys and Peter quickly lets go of you. You purse your lips with slight envy. You didn’t think the hug would seem that compromising, plus you also missed the warmth of his body against yours.

“He- hey Liz,” Peter blushes.

“Where the heck did you go? I mean, I should be pissed cause you missed the competition, but I’m more worried. I haven’t seen you since last night.” Liz rambles.

You feel slightly awkward just standing there, but Liz was too concerned about Peter’s whereabouts to really talk to you. It’s understandable; you’re concerned too. Yet it still leaves a foul taste on your mouth.

Peter and Liz continue to talk, with Peter asking Liz if she was okay after the elevator fiasco and Liz still shaken by it all. Eventually, it leads to the two of them completely forgetting your existence and sitting next to each other on the bus. You were left by yourself, staring daggers at their seat as you sat in the back with MJ and Ned. He abandoned you and you couldn’t help but be a little mad. Okay, you were furious. This past month you thought you were making progress with the curly-haired boy. Even if you couldn’t be together, which you understood, you at least thought you could come to an agreement about your feelings. He’s still in Liz Land, and you were left feeling rejected. You had a right to be angry.

You wish you had powers so you could hear the conversation between the two. They looked too close and chummy for your liking, but there was nothing you could do. You wondered if Peter even looked at you as more than a friend, and your heart sinks as you realize maybe he doesn’t. You hated this routine you’ve put yourself through: having a moment with Peter that inevitably ends up being interrupted by Liz, and you being left upset afterward.

If this month has shown you anything, it’s that you liked Peter. You loved how much of a hero he was and how he always wanted the best for others. Even though he ditches you for Liz, you knew he’d have your back when you truly needed, like today with the elevator.

As the anger settled in your stomach, you came to the conclusion that you hated this reality, and that you couldn’t do anything about it. If this will save him, then it’s worth it. Maybe…

Part 1 / Masterlist / Part 3

----

Taglist:

@eridanuswave

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dreamsafterhours · 4 years ago

Text

college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: III (donghyuk's pathway)

a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class

markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?

genre: fluff pairings: mark+my/n (fem), donghyuk+dy/n (fem), platonic!mark+dy/n, platonic!donghyuk+my/n format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college bf warning: some swearing

masterlist

or click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

III: 별빛이 내린다 샤라랄라랄라라 (2+2=4)

the meeting of two souls: donghyuk & dy/n

welcome! back and to the next part

in which things actually happen! yay

so. up until this point

it’s been quite obvious i hope

that this is the one where The Soulmates Meet™

and this one right here is the one where donghyuk meets his future wifenew best (not) friend

dammit this is a set plot with SET relationships

yeah

major spoilers for future parts but hey :) y’all know it i know it let’s just.

let’s get to it!!

that day you accidentally sleep in after a late night and walk into your lecture looking pretty trashier than you would normally a few weeks into the first sem and you’re already tired it’s okay bby aww

and mark suggests skipping the next lecture and going for coffee instead

you’re like ok lmfao free coffee for me yay thanks marcus i owe you one

and to make up for the lecture he suggests he join you and your roommate with his own roommate in the library later that day to study the material you’d missed out on

so you’re like sweet study group hell yeah and apparently his roommate is also in biomed like your roommate? hey they might get along pretty well it’d be nice to have roommates in the same faculty hey

little do you know you little cutie you uwu

mark takes you to a cafe to buy you your favourite drink and a croissant bc you skipped breakfast again and he cares about his friends ok plus he was eyeing that donut next to the savoury menu in the glass cabinet and he would have felt bad if he got something to eat and you didn’t

you sit down, sipping your drink at the window seats and wishing your fatigue away

laughing with mark about what you slept so late for

my/n had been ranting about her love life again or perhaps lack thereof,,

don’t worry tho

after you’d gotten her to sleep, you’d gotten major feels for an essay question that you’d been tasked with due in a week but you hadn’t touched it until last night

staring at the prompt for at least half an hour trying to get your head around it and wondering what the hell you’d write about

but like they say

starting is half of it

so when you start spinning your words and getting into the writing mood

you accidentally wrote an entire draft without realising

albeit being full of loose ends and points you need to refine, etc., it was a decent body of work that you’d tackle for a few more nights before turning in

a skeleton, you’d called it

“a skeleton?”

“yeah. next thing i need to do is.. flesh it out”

“.. literally”

cue mark’s small pause

/inhale/

/MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

you know how mark’s laugh is very how do i put this into words hm dictated

you can HEAR each HA and they’re separate syllables yet sometimes they can vary in tone and length right it’s usually the more consistent HAs before he kinda loses it and starts throwing himself around

it was that laugh

honestly man finds everything funny his laughing threshold seems so low

and no matter how unfunny you are he WILL laugh at anything you say

and you’ve been doing it a lot lately

you could say literally any random thing and he’d already be ready to laugh (see Figure 1.1)

Figure 1.1

you: /snort/

mark, already giggling: “what”

you, still sniggering: /touches his elbow/ “arm knee”

mark: /inhale/ gotta live and breathe that oxygen

mark: HAHAHAHAhahAhaHAHAhahAhHa (decrescendo.. cRESCENDO)

^ that but looped, with intermittent slaps to your arm

anyways you never fail to make him fall out of his chair in laughter

but enough of that. dy/n is donghyuk’s y/n for a REASON ahEM

so after you finish up your breakfast at the cafe you go back to your dorm to take a power nap and recharge before your library session you were going to stay awake but mark forces you to take a nap and you’re like bro you just fed me caffeine now you want me to sleep??

then he tells you he ordered your drink decaf

you turn to him real slow

“.. you sick traitor. how dare you besmirch my name so. you scorn my forefathers and our dependence on the holy bean’s juices. betrayal runs rampant in your soul and mine stands at the mercy of your choices, them informed by the devil himself”

mark: /shrug/ “placebo effect yeet. hey, it worked for a bit. now you should really go home and get your sleep”

and he drags you back to your dorm and waves you off before going to his next class

you’re lowkey grateful for it tho when you take a shower and collapse onto your bed, falling asleep in what you think could be half the time you usually take

dreaming about losing your airpods and mark yelling at you to be more careful and then you two fighting bc you’d just lost your $300 bean sprouts but you could have sworn he took them

then police sirens went off out of nowhere and both of you were being arrested for assault and thievery

why you were the one being arrested, you had no idea but it’s a dream nothing follows the guidelines of hard reality anyway

just as you’re about to be handcuffed, you think to yourself, nope. i have a library session to attend. ain’t nobody got time for this shit

and you just

wake up

but the sirens are still continuing?? so you’re like ? is my building surrounded

they’ve come for me

even though you haven’t exactly broken any laws or have you

and you realise it was the alarm you’d set in time to get ready for your library session

so you grab your stuff and leave for the library, double checking with your roommate over text to make sure she was on her way

her lab class was taking longer than usual so she tells you she’ll be 10 or so minutes late

so you tell her you’ll be saving a seat for her and call mark to let him know you’re on your way to the library

“oh i’m already here lol. alright, i’m waiting for you outside”

and sure enough, you see him leaning on the wall of the entrance, eyes on his phone

you consider calling out to him but before you actually do, he glances up and spots you walking over tf do you have psychic spatial awareness mark

smiles and takes his corded earphones out

“you seriously need to upgrade those”

“they work fine”

“nop i’m getting you airpods for your birthday”

“dUdE thEy’RE tOo ExPEnSiVe. nO dUDE NoO”

“nOP. i’m GOING to buy you EXPENSIVE BEAN SPROUTS for your LIFE DEBUT ANNIVERSARY and you CAN’T STOP ME”

at this point i should just put /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ and you should know what laugh i’m referring to

/MARK LEE’S MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

/MLML/ for short

nvm it’s fine it’s kinda fun to type /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/

literally mark laughs in bolded italics i’m just sad i can’t underline it on tumblr unless it’s a link lmfao

n e ways

i digress

you shush him because you’re about to walk into the library

“qUIET DOWN marcus” turn that sh down for quiet new dawn

the library is almost full for the day but after a minute or two scouring the building you find an empty four seater in the middle of nowhere it’s CRAZY you can NEVER find a MIRACLE like this life couldn’t get better

i’m sorry

you speed walk to claim it even though there was no one else in your vicinity to threaten your territory

mark laughs at you trying to get to the table as fast as you could without all out running

getting out your things, you send a photo of your seat to your roommate and tell mark to send it to his roommate as well so they know where to find you

you start watching the lecture online while taking notes and since you’re not in the lecture theatre you can talk more audibly with mark not that you don’t talk in the actual lecture too,,

maybe you do text a lot,,, during class

mark usually says things like “.. implications of what now?? interpretation of huh?” to which you reply “i want cheese when i get home”

and he has to stifle his laughter while you keep your straight face and continue writing your notes he admires this ability ngl

and so while you’re watching it on your computer

you can say things like “fuck. i want pickles”

and mark will /throw himself back/ and cackle and probably say some shit like “DIDN’T YOU HATE PICKLES??” between his giggles

and you’re like “yeah. fuck pickles but like. fuck. pickles”

he almost falls off his chair at this point

but when he balances himself again he spots someone down the corridor and wave them over

“oii! over here dude”

you turn to glance at them to expect his roommate, but you see your own roommate talking to someone and wave her over as well

“heYY my/n”

you see the other person turn to your roommate and tell her something, , then she says something back

which is apparently shocking to them, because he glances over at mark and then at you

and then he looks again when your roommate points straight at you

to which you’re like ?? hi? y u look me

and then they both start laughing

you wonder if they were laughing at you or smth until mark’s like “tf is that idiot doing”

and u look at him like ? what idiot

“that idiot. the idiot roommate i told u about. the one who called u a homewrecker”

and you’re like

wait

[info clog]

wait

[error]

“wait”

“what”

“that’s your roommate?” u point at the boy next to my/n, who r both still laughing at something going all “wOW r u KIDDING” he has a loud voice

and mark’s like “? yeah”

and you go

“.. the girl next to him is my roommate”

mark: “wait what”

that’s what she said

at that point they’ve made their way over to the table, still trying to hold in their laughter

you start to introduce your roommate to mark, who’s still confused by the situation

you: “mark, this is my/n, my/n this is mark”

my/n: “nice to see you again mark”

you: “wait. again?”

mark: “yeah we’ve met. hi my/n”

you: “what”

mark: “yeah”

my/n: “yeah”

his roommate: “yeah”

you:

you: “i feeling like i’m missing something here”

turns out

surprise surprise

that one friend that my/n had made in her biology class was mark’s roommate oh my god they were roommates

whose name, you are told, is lee donghyuk

magical moment

us watching: heh 🤤

u can’t help but do a lil body scan from head to toe bc he a fine piece of cake we all know that

honey skin, oversized white t shirt, black pants, sneakers and lighter brown hair that looks fluffy the type of fluffy that makes u wanna touch it

yes he’s good looking. yes

yaaaaas

then mark tells him your name

“she’s the one i said reminded me of you”

“r u talking abt me behind my back marcus??”

donghyuk laughs and holds out a hand for you to shake

“what kinda coincidence is this?? i adopt your roommate, you’re dealing with mine”

“oh you’re gonna have to get in line to adopt her, i’m her legal guardian, sorry donghyuk”

to which he goes

“lmfao then we’ll both be her parents”

“k but i’ll keep her on the weekends. you see her on the weekdays”

then he wipes his smile off his face and he’s like “who said we’re split”

mark and my/n are doing the /MANIACAL LAUGHTER/ at this point

mark: “so ,, seriously what are the chances”

you: “this quartet,, it’s fate guys it’s fate there’s no way about it”

yes it is. yes. it is

even that four seater table was free because of fate

donghyuk: “this calls for drinks later. we all free? no 9am classes tmr?”

my/n: “we have a physics prac at 8:30 dingus”

donghyuk: “ah shit”

you barely got any notes for that lecture for at least an hour because you end up talking altogether throughout the session but once you remember you’re in a library to study you request a ceasefire and agree to study for a bit which,, you gotta admit ,, isn’t really productive because you’re so excited to meet someone new

but the best part about the day was when you notice how many times mark is glancing at your roommate while she’s reviewing her notes, completely oblivious

donghyuk complains that he’s hungry after another hour or two and you suggest you all have dinner together

donghyuk leans back in his chair in a stretch, his jumper lifting up a little over his jeans and showing a bit of his belly “ah i’m craving chinese”

you perk up, “mE TOO”

so you all go to your favourite chinese place just outside campus where you find out that mark and my/n have the same taste and so do you and donghyuk

he points and u and goes “oH?”

“jjAMPPONG? U TOO?”

“the ONLY DISH EVER”

mark and my/n: jjajang is fine : )

you and donghyuk: “JJAMPPONG IS SUPERIOR”

give him a bro five with the shoulder bump and everything

the boys walk you and my/n back to your dorm afterwards

donghyuk and my/n end up walking in a pair and mark walks alongside you

mark mentions how it’d be fun if you made a group chat together

you: “do it”

“i don’t have your roommate’s number tho”

you’re smiling wickedly at his reaction “?? ASK HER FOR IT”

“dude what?? no u make one and i’ll add donghyuk to it”

“bRO JUST ASK”

“wHAT NO U DO IT THEN”

so u go

bet

and you call out the two biomed kids walking in front of you

“hey donghyuk! give me your number i’ll make a group chat”

“sure lol” and you open up a new contact to let him type his number into your phone

he saves his name as hot boi hyuk ✌🏻

which you just leave bc you’re busy making the group chat

mark is still astounded that you asked donghyuk for his number so easily

you: hi hello good day

my/n 🌸: yeetus meetus

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: bow before me

you: here before me lie the beginnings of a new era

you: one born from blood and stone

my/n 🌸: tf is she saying

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: idk but lets go with it

you: together we rise from the rubble and sort through the debris

hot boi hyuk ✌🏻: yas queen

my/n 🌸: i hate this gc already

you: and we WILL REBUILD THIS EMPIRE

read by marcus the fool 🤡 at 8:21 pm

safe to say you stay up for a good while talking on that group chat while mark just sits idle,,

you honestly don’t know if he’s consciously reading or not maybe he just left his phone on the chat

and thus our quartet is complete,,

and they all lived

happily ever after

but this isn’t the ending tho is it

wink wonk /waggles eyebrows/

this is but the epilogue to the prologue

that doesn’t make sense but n e ways

our quartet has not yet become two pairings

y’all just don’t know what the future has in store for you :)

click here to meet your soulmate, eng lit!mark!

II ⇤ | III | ⇥ IV

taglist: @lavellanfriendliness

shoot me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

#dreamwritersnet #kwritersworldnet #neowriters #nct au #nct 127 au #nct dream au #markhyuck #markhyuck au #markhyuck x reader #mark x reader #haechan x reader #donghyuck x reader #mark au #haechan au #donghyuck au #nct college #nct college au #eng lit mark #paediatrics haechan

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fangirlxwritesx67 · 5 years ago

Text

May Be Home, Chapter 11 Word count this chapter: 1950 Catch up here: Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

Characters: au rockstar!Dean Winchester x OFC Sasha. Song: Sounds of Someday, Radio Company Music

Tags: 18+, sex, smut, lots and lots of m/f sex in different ways (fingering, oral, penetrative) in different places (bed, table, car, shower), no condoms ever, enthusiastic consent, Daddy kink, language, lots of alcohol, sexy eating, etc

"Dean," she blurted. "What the hell?"

"Sasha," his eyes lit up just seeing her again. "You wouldn't answer my texts anymore but I need to talk to you. So here I am."

Sasha went weak-kneed and melty just seeing him again. He looked rough as if he hadn't slept in days. At the same time, those eyes, that mouth - she could never resist him. She wanted to hate him, wanted to make him pay; but the truth was, if anything, she hated herself for falling so quickly and completely for him.

Faced with Dean again, seeing how serious he was, Sasha felt her heart soften. She would've launched herself into his arms, except that suddenly Lee was beside her.

"Hey," he said. "Is this the guy that's been bothering you?"

Dean put his hands up in a defenseless gesture. "Hey, no, she knows me, I just wanna talk, okay?"

Lee looked from Dean to Sasha, baffled but still protective. "Sasha? Are you okay talking to him?”

“It’s okay, Lee, I’m going to give this guy five minutes.” Sasha turned towards Dean.

“You’d better give me one hell of an explanation because these guys are ready to take you out back and kick your ass.”

His eyes flicked towards Lee and a couple of the cooks who were suddenly very present and glaring at him.

She slid into the booth across from Dean, keeping the table between them.

Dean reached across the table towards her, then stopped and wound his fingers together. “Sasha, I never meant to hurt you. I would never hurt you on purpose.”

“On purpose or not,” she said plainly. “You did.”

Dean took a deep breath. “The next time I had a weekend away, you were the only girl I asked for. I wanted us to have the time to figure out what we were doing, what all this meant. But you never showed up. When I asked, Rowena told me you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. So I left. I wasn’t interested in anyone but you.”

“So you thought I was just there for a good time? I didn't matter to you - we didn’t matter - and you believed I felt the same way?”

“I didn’t have any idea,” Dean confessed, confusion creasing his face. “I thought we had some feelings for one another, but I also knew that you had signed a contract. Everything was supposed to be no-strings-attached. I didn’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Take advantage of me? Dean, I’ve been yours for the taking from the very beginning.”

“I didn’t know-” Dean began, his voice lost and pleading.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” Sasha’s voice trailed away, tired and overwhelmed. “After everything we did together, after all of the things we shared... You can’t just come in here and tell me you didn’t know."

Dean stood up slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. He held out one hand, beseechingly. Sasha looked away and crossed her arms.

"Sasha, please. I never meant to hurt you."

"Well, you did." Pain turned into anger as words tumbled out. "You meant so much to me. We meant so much. You can't erase all those weeks we've spent apart. You can't show up and just undo how bad you've hurt me by saying you ‘didn't know’."

Dean swallowed hard and blinked.

"You’ve had your five minutes. Now give me time." Sasha's voice was breaking but her chin was set. She jumped to her feet. “Get out Dean, get the fuck out.”

“Okay.” Dean turned and walked away slowly as if giving her a chance to change her mind.

He looked broken and alone, with his head hung low and his shoulders slumped. Her heart ached just looking at him. She wanted to run after him, to beg him to stay, but she couldn’t give in, not with her friends there to help keep her strong.

Lee strode up next to her. “You tell him, Sash,” he murmured.

Sasha watched until the door closed behind Dean. Then she sank back down into the booth, buried her face in her arms, and burst into tears.

Later that night, Dean sent her one more text.

I didn't mean to upset you. I just wanted to see you again.

She ignored it.

...

Sasha woke up the next morning to a knock on her door. She opened it to see a flower delivery person behind the biggest bouquet of red roses she had ever seen in her life.

The card said simply: Sweetheart Baby girl Sasha Please Xoxo, Dean

Sasha couldn't help the smile that crossed her face, but she grabbed her phone and texted: Roses Really, Dean?

I know roses are dumb. I'm just trying to show you how serious I am. Please.

Please, what?

Please, give me another chance.

Why?

I’m crazy for you, Sasha I’ve never met anyone like you I’ll do anything, anything you want Just to have you in my life again

Why now?

I told you I missed you the moment you left. Not a day went by that I didn’t want to talk to you I couldn't get ahold of you and didn't know where to find you

Why didn’t you even try to call me, Dean?

I thought you didn’t want to hear from me again. I like you but I also respect you I’m not going to stalk you or try to force your hand.

Rowena and Sam, right. If you're going to lie to a girl, at least tell a lie that makes sense.

They’re my family. I had no reason to doubt them. So, what changed your mind?

A week ago, Rowena walked into my music studio, handed me your number, and told me to call you. She said that you’d confirm it. I called anyway because I had to hear it from you.

Hear what?

That you weren’t interested That you didn’t want me Tell me and I’ll never bother you again.

You know I can’t, Dean.

Then please give me another chance. Sasha, please.

Sasha wasn’t ready to answer, didn’t know what to say. So she put her phone down.

She was surprised when her phone rang a few minutes later and it was not Dean but Rowena. She rolled her eyes but answered. Maybe she could find out a little more about what was really going on.

"It seems that Sam and I owe you an explanation." Her words were as quick as ever. "Please can we meet for tea?"

Sasha was off work, so she agreed. She was hurt and confused and curious all at once. Maybe Dean had been telling the truth. Maybe Rowena and Sam would back up his story.

When she got to the coffee shop, they were already there; Sam in a chair that looked too small for him, coffee cup dwarfed by his hand, and Rowena, daintily sipping from a mug of tea.

Sasha skipped the drinks altogether and sat right down in front of them. "Did Dean send you?"

The pair looked at one another in confusion before shaking their heads.

Rowena tossed her head a little and huffed. "Dean doesn't send me anywhere."

"But what do you mean?" asked Sam.

"Dean’s been texting me non-stop, trying to convince me to, I don't know, give him another chance," Sasha's tone was guarded. "He told me that you two were the reason he never called or texted me before."

Rowena nodded slowly.

“He did ask for me?” Sasha’s heart rose just a little. “And you told him I was not only unavailable but uninterested?”

“That is true,” Rowena admitted.

“How dare you?” Sasha’s voice was rising. “What gives you the right to manipulate us, both of us, like this?”

Sam spoke up then. “The whole thing with the girls’ weekends and Dean was supposed to be fun, and safe. He wasn't supposed to fall in love.”

“But you were different,” his voice was oddly soft. “The minute you left last time, he started asking for you again. We didn’t have any idea what your intentions were. Girls have lied to him, tried to blackmail him. We are his family. We tried to protect him.”

“That’s why we didn’t give him your number,” Rowena added. “We thought he would move on, forget you.” “But the opposite happened,” Sam continued, shaking his head slowly. “I've never seen my brother like this. He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep. He's supposed to be writing new songs. But he doesn't. He can't. All he can think about is you.”

"He wouldn't stop talking about you,” Rowena chimed in. “We arranged another weekend and he left when you weren't there. We finally agreed-” she paused and looked at Sam. He nodded in agreement. “We agreed to give him your number. I calculated enough time had passed that you would be over him, and send him on his way.”

“There is not enough time in the world for me to get over Dean,” Sasha answered, the words falling from her lips before she could stop them.

“I know.” A smug smile curled Rowena’s lips even as she rolled her eyes. "But now, you’re driving him crazy. Girl, he’s gone on you. He's positively pitiful."

Sasha looked from one to the other. "So Dean didn't put you up to this?"

They both shook their heads.

"Shit, no, we just wanted you to know the truth so you can decide what to do about Dean,” Sam answered. “He’s my brother, no one knows him like I do, and I’ve never seen him like this. He’s happy with you and inconsolable without you. We had to try and make things right.”

The two of them stood up to leave but Rowena turned back and placed one fine hand on Sasha's arm. "Dean loves you, you know. I wouldn't throw that away."

Sasha was left speechless. So much information, so many questions answered at once. Dean had been telling the truth; he hadn’t forgotten her or intended to hurt her. Their time together had meant something to him, too. But all she could hear were Rowena's parting words, over and over in her mind: "Dean loves you."

...

When she got to her car, Sasha checked her phone and saw she had another burst of texts from Dean. He must've messaged while she was talking to his brother and manager.

Sweetheart, I know you're still mad at me You have every right to be. There’s something I need you to see. Go to my Instagram. Please.

She couldn’t say no. She was curious, and honestly so confused after the things that Sam and Rowena had just confirmed for her. She didn’t know what to think or feel.

Dean's latest post was a 7-second video clip of him performing- wait- was that Sounds of Someday?

Sasha had never seen a recording of it. She had heard that song just once, when Dean had sung it in a crowded blues bar, and the way his eyes met hers across the room made her feel like he was singing just to her.

The caption was a link. She clicked it and opened a video of Dean, what looked like a cell phone video.

"I want to share my latest song with you." His voice sounded desperate and hopeful at once. "This one is for a very special woman. Sweetheart, I hope you see this."

Sasha gasped. In her wildest dreams, she could not have imagined Dean Winchester recording a song for her. But there was no way he was talking to anyone else. Not after this week, not after everything that had happened. Her hands were shaking, and she almost dropped the phone.

,,, Chapter 12 ....

A/N: Thanks everyone for the feedback on the series so far, and especially the last chapter! Thanks especially to my dear beta @thoughtslikeaminefield who said, “You’re done with Dean now; give him a break.” and then came back and said, “I don’t think you’re done with Dean yet; lets dig into him a little more.” I owe you everything hon.

SPN First Last and Always: @boondoctorwho @dawnie1988 @deanwanddamons@divadinag @flamencodiva @fookinghelljensensthighs@idreamofplaid @maddiepants@magssteenkamp@onethirstyunicorn @the-chocolate-moose @there-must-be-a-lock@tloveswriting

Dean Curious: @adoptdontshoppets @awesomesusiebstuff@deangirl7695 @deans-baby-momma @mrsjenniferwinchester@stoneyggirl@supersassyprobablysad @wayward-gypsy

#dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x ofc #dean winchester #actual rockstar jensen ackles #may be home

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