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charincharge · 4 years

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I Don’t Want To Wait, eight

rowaelin high school bff masterlist

Based on the prompts:

“Okay, I know I’m evil and all that jazz, but I have standards too.”

What are you smiling about?

“He’s late,” Rhoe grumbled, his eyes flashing in annoyance as they flicked to his watch. Aelin sighed from her spot on the couch and rotated her brace-covered wrist. It was a minor sprain, the most minor sprain; she wouldn’t even have been injured at all if she hadn’t reflexively held up her hand against the deploying air bags, but when Rhoe had received a call from Aelin that she was in the hospital, he’d gone a bit ballistic. And his former surrogate son was pretty much persona-non-grata in the Galathynius household at the moment.

“Dad,” Aelin warned.

“I’m allowed to be mad,” Rhoe repeated for the hundredth time that week. “When I let that boy—” Rowan had apparently lost his name privileges for being a minute late. “—drive you around, I expected you to be returned in a single piece.” He shook his head, repeating the same speech Aelin had heard every day for the last week. “I have one single treasure, Aelin. The most valuable treasure in the world, and when that treasure leaves the house, I expect it to come back to me in perfect condition.”

She wondered how long this would go on. How many days of penance Rowan would have to pay before Rhoe forgave him.

Aelin sat up straighter at the sound of three raps on their front door. While Rowan used to just swing the door open himself, he now knew better. Aelin threw him an apologetic smile from the couch, her eyes trailing over the tightly sewn stitches above his eyebrow. They somehow made him look even more handsome.

“You’re late,” Rhoe said, looking expectantly at the white paper bags in Rowan’s hands.

“Sorry, sir,” Rowan’s eyes were tired. It’d been a long week. “I had an extra delivery this morning and…”

“No excuses,” Rhoe snapped, causing Rowan to nod nervously as he laid out the food on the coffee table for Aelin. Her eyes lit up at the feast in front of her. As part of his punishment for his “reckless driving,” Maeve had him doing breakfast deliveries before school all week, which ended in something special for Aelin.

She felt somewhat guilty that she was benefiting so much from Rowan’s accident, since she was a hundred percent positive that it was her own comment that had caused Rowan to become distracted and not see the car stopped at the red light in front of him. But, as she smelled the chocolate stuffed french toast, she couldn’t resist smiling.

She also wasn’t complaining that in her dad’s overprotectiveness, he’d assigned Aelin-watching duties to Rowan for his late-night shifts.

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Aelin had scoffed, while her heart pounded with glee at the notion of extra time with Rowan.

“What if you need something from the top shelf and fall and sprain your other wrist?” Rhoe had argued.

Rowan was more than happy to agree to Rhoe’s terms, immediately clucking and fretting over the couch-bound Aelin like an overbearing mother hen. It should have annoyed her to no end, but she was secretly enjoying every single second of his fussing.

“I’m working a double,” Rhoe said with narrowed eyes at Rowan, who nodded succinctly. “I’ll be home just after midnight.

Rowan cleared his throat nervously, and Aelin paused, fork midway to her mouth to gape at her friend. “Sir?”

Rhoe’s eyes narrowed warily. “Yes?”

Rowan ran his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends slightly. “I, uh, just wanted to ask you if you wanted me to come here tomorrow?” Rhoe frowned, his lips turning down at the question. “It’s just that tomorrow is prom, and if you want me to come here, I totally will. But I should probably tell Lyria today.”

Aelin felt her stomach clench uncomfortably at the mention of the L-word. She’d been so busy enjoying the extra attention from Rowan all week that she’d forgotten about prom. About the circumstances that led to this whole ordeal. Maybe her dad would tell Rowan he couldn’t go. She felt guilty about even thinking it, but she couldn’t help but hope it. Even just the slightest bit.

Rhoe rolled his bright blue eyes. “Don’t be stupid, boy.” Rowan flinched slightly at the way Rhoe addressed him. Seemed he clocked losing name privileges too. “You’ll take that girl to prom. You made a commitment, and I would hate to think you’re the type of person who doesn’t follow through on promises.”

“Yes, sir.” Rowan’s eyes flicked to Aelin, who was still holding her breath in anticipation. “I can still bring breakfast in the morning, if you want…”

Rhoe clapped Rowan’s shoulder just a smidge too hard as he smiled. “Nope. I took tomorrow off. You have fun at prom.”

Aelin exhaled as her dad finally left and Rowan slumped down onto the couch next to Aelin as she poured the extra side of chocolate onto her French toast and dug in.

“Your dad is fucking terrifying,” he said with a shake of his head.

“He can carry over a hundred pounds up as many flights of stairs, Ro. You should be terrified of him,” Aelin laughed through her sweet chocolatey bite. “He can definitely take your scrawny ass.”

Rowan’s mouth popped open. “My ass is not scrawny!”

Aelin poked his thigh with her toe. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Stand up, so I can take a better look.” She winked as Rowan shoved her foot away from him.

“Aelin…” Rowan’s cheeks flushed pink as Aelin wiggled her eyebrows. He bit his lip, tugging at the skin there, looking annoyed.

“What?” she asked, wishing so badly that she could jump into his head and hear what he was thinking.

“I have to get up to get you a napkin,” he said, looking at the chocolate that had splattered onto the table, “ And I know as soon as I stand up you’re going to stare at my ass,” he grumbled, and Aelin let out a loud cackle.

“I would never,” she said through her laughter.

“You’re such a liar,” he said, poking her shin.

He was right. As soon as he pushed himself off the couch, Aelin’s head snapped in his direction, but he spun around to walk backwards so she couldn’t get a good look.

“Ha!” he said, a victorious smile appearing across his face.

Aelin rolled her eyes. “Come on, Ro,” she pouted. “I’m injured. The least you could do is let me get a good look.”

“I hate you,” he chuckled, his cheeks now a deep red as he continued to trail backwards into the kitchen.

“You know what they say whenever you walk by,” she said through her giggles. “There goes Orynth’s ass. Everyone gets a piece.”

He flicked her off as he grabbed a handful of napkins with his other hands. “Please,” he scoffed. “I know according to your dad I’m evil now, and all that jazz, but I have standards. This ass is for my eyes only.”

Aelin cackled. “I’m now just picturing you staring at your own ass in the mirror, being like… damn, that’s a good ass.”

“I don’t have a full-length mirror for nothing,” he said with a wink, leaning over the coffee table to clean up the chocolate splatter.

Aelin couldn’t resist leaning back and peering behind him, trying to get a better look. She sighed happily.

“Ace!” he yelped, standing up straight and spinning around again, covering his rear with his hands. Aelin was laughing so hard that her stomach was starting to hurt. “I’m telling your dad that you’re the evil one.” He tried to say seriously, but soon enough Rowan was joining in the laughter, tears rolling down both their cheeks.

As he smiled at her widely, helping her from the couch, that sudden pang of desire sprang up in Aelin again. She’d been able to control it for the most part, and neither of them had mentioned the conversation that had caused the crash in the first place. She wasn’t sure she could even imagine how the rest of that discussion would go. But she was glad to put it to the backburner for a tiny bit. At least until she felt more comfortable with it again. That hadn’t deterred Lysandra from texting constantly and asking when Aelin would like her first lesson. Luckily, Aelin was able to stave her off for a little while longer – at least until her wrist completely healed.

Rowan slung Aelin’s backpack over his shoulder, carrying her books as they walked to school, enjoying the balmy morning.

Once they arrived, Rowan led them to his locker instead of hers, and Aelin frowned. “Ro, I have to put my books in my locker.”

He shook his head. “We have world history first. I’ll just put them here, and we’ll come back together after.” He looked as his watch. “We walked too slow.”

“Sorry my leg span isn’t four thousand feet,” Aelin said, laughing at her best friend. He complained that she walked too slowly, but really he was just too tall for his own good. He didn’t realize how fast he got places simply by having longer legs.

Aelin clearly hadn’t looked at Rowan’s locker in some time, though, because she was shocked by the decorations on the inside of the door. It was dotted with photographs of their group of friends through the year – but, Aelin noted she made a prominent appearance in the center of the door, in a picture of just her and Rowan. It was from Yulemas break. Aelin’s favorite holiday; but she’d never seen this photo before. It must have been taken at the tail end of Maeve’s Yulemas party, when Aelin had fallen asleep after too many sweets and rum-laced eggnog. In the photo, Aelin’s head rested carefully on Rowan’s shoulder, her eyes closed and face relaxed in slumber as Rowan smiled softly at whoever was behind the camera.

“What are you smiling at?” he asked, and Aelin shook her head.

“I like your pictures.”

“Oh,” he said, returning her smile. “Yeah, Aunt Maeve printed a bunch out for me.”

“Mr. Whitethorn, Ms. Galathynius,” Principal Havilliard bellowed at the other end of the hallway. “You’re late. Again.” Aelin and Rowan sighed simultaneously. “Your second infraction this week,” he continued. “Don’t make it a third, or I’ll see you both in detention next week.”

Aelin wanted to tell Principal Havilliard off. It wasn’t her or Rowan’s fault for being late, exactly. They both had single working parents, and with Rowan’s car in the shop for the next few weeks, they had to walk over two miles to make it there. She was gearing up to say something snappy back, when Rowan dragged her down the hall, away from the offending school administrator.

“Not worth it, Ace,” he mumbled.

They managed to make it through the rest of the day with no other incidents, unless Aelin counted getting a C on her Ancient Languages oral exam an incident – which she didn’t.

“So, RoRo, you excited for prom?” Wes asked Rowan from the driver’s seat. Technically, Aelin wasn’t supposed to be driving with any of her friends for the rest of the year, but her dad was at work. And she couldn’t bring herself to walk another two miles home.

Lysandra’s eyes met Aelin’s in the backseat of the car, and Aelin purposefully looked out the window to avoid her face doing anything she couldn’t control.

“Uh, yeah?” Rowan asked. “I guess.”

“Dude,” Wesley laughed. “You’re going to prom with a cheerleader, who’s been all over you for months, and you guess you’re excited?” Next to her, Rowan shrugged silently. But Wesley was only spurred on by Rowan’s lack of enthusiasm. “Should we pick up some condoms for you on the way home, or do you have some?” Wesley asked, and Rowan inhaled so sharply he started coughing. “What?” Wesley asked, looking at his girlfriend, confused, and rubbing his elbow where Lysandra must have pinched him. “I’m just saying. I heard it’s tradition to get a hotel room after prom…”

“Rowan would never be so cliché,” Lysandra interjected, her bright eyes flashing to check on Aelin in the mirror, but Aelin refused to look anywhere but out at the trees passing by out the car window as she steadied her breath. “Right?”

“Right,” Rowan repeated quietly.

“Doesn’t hurt to have some on hand,” Wesley said. “OW, what the fuck, Lys?” he yelped.

“You’re such an idiot,” Lysandra mumbled, just barely audible over her exasperated sigh.

“I’m good,” Rowan spoke up, clipped.

Aelin couldn’t control herself as she looked over her shoulder and took in her best friend’s paled face, staring at the roof of Wesley’s old sedan.

“You are?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound too high.

“Yup,” Rowan replied, still refusing to look down at her.

“Smart boy,” Wesley laughed.

Lysandra’s eyes flicked to Aelin again, filled with worry, and Aelin shook her head slightly.

But Wesley raised a fair point that Aelin hadn’t even thought about during her busy week. She’d been so worried about Rowan and Lyria being at a dance together, arms wrapped around each other intimately, that she hadn’t even considered the implications of what would happen after prom?

She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been.

Despite looking forward to their late night “babysitting” all day, Aelin’s mood was completely soured by the conversation in the car.

She overcooked their pasta, couldn’t settle on anything to watch, and gave terse replies to every question Rowan asked.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he finally asked, after finishing loading the dishwasher, and Aelin grunted a sure. He turned on Clueless, one of Aelin’s favorite movies and relaxed back into the couch.

To his credit, he made it all the way through the movie, which Aelin laughed about 500% less than usual at, until asking Aelin what was wrong. But Aelin wasn’t sure what to say. She couldn’t exactly tell him she was stressed about the prospect of him having sex with Lyria. She didn’t think he’d really do that. He’d said on multiple occasions that he barely knew her. And sex didn’t seem like a thing Rowan would just do with someone he barely knew. But, then, why did Aelin feel a pit of dread sitting deep in her stomach? Nothing about his answers had reassured her. And Rowan was changing. She never thought Rowan would abandon her at a party either, and he did that easily.

“I’m just tired,” she replied, yawning loudly and throwing all her acting skills into her performance. “It’s been a weird week. I think I’m going to head to bed. I’ll see you Sunday, right?”

Rowan crossed his arms as Aelin got up and started heading up the stairs, his bowed lips frowning and pinching his beautiful face.

“I thought we told each other everything,” Rowan said, annoyed. Aelin paused her feet on the stairs, looking over her shoulder at him. He was hunched over and still frowning, angrily glaring at the darkened TV.

Aelin cocked her head to the side, thinking of all the things she’d censored from Rowan in the last few months, and thinking that he’d probably started doing the same.

“I thought so, too.” She paused, looking at the way Rowan tensed at her words. She smiled sadly, and trudged upstairs to bed, not bothering to let him reply again.

~*~

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#rowaelin #high school au #i don't want to wait au #charincharge writes #throne of glass

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 3 years

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Wrong Sibling

Summary: Class 1A learns that their hero fundamental's teaching assistant is dating Todoroki's sibling. They assume it's one of his brothers.

They're wrong.

Pairings: Izuku/Fuyumi, mentioned Inko/Mitsuki

Tags: Female Midoriya Izuku, Aged up Midoriya Izuku, Izuku is like early twenties, Bakugou isn't a dick, for once lol, Midoriya Izuku Adopts Shinsou Hitoshi, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Quirkless Hero Midoriya Izuku, Endeavour was exposed

On AO3

Part of the They're Lesbians series

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The first day of the Class 1A Heroic Foundations class, All Might walked in with a green-haired girl wearing a pale blue jumpsuit and a pair of goggles on her head. Around her waist was a large belt and had multiple pockets everywhere. The top of her jumpsuit was down, revealing she was in a black tank top and her arms were a mess of scars.

“IT’S GREEN BOLT!” Tanaka squeaked, the brunette girl covering her mouth and squealing. Green Bolt threw her head back and laughed as All Might chuckled himself.

“I have a fan! Nice!” Green Bolt smiled at the class.

Ochako figures that she had more than just one in the class, as Kirishima hissed so manly and Ashido clapped her hands excitedly. Then again who wouldn’t be shocked and awed to see the Green Bolt- the first Quirkless Hero in Japan and ranked in the three hundred of the limelight heroes. Though while they were all fans- Tanaka herself was Quirkless too. It made sense she idolized the hero more.

“Nice to meet you all- well I know about four of you.” The woman nodded as she looked around.

“You know some of us?!” Kaminari asked, but then froze. Ochako winced, glancing to Todoroki.

The biggest claim to Green Bolt's name was her unearthing and reveal of the abuse Endeavour put his family through, as well as her reveal of the Hero Commission’s more unsavoury practices.

Todoroki though just smiled.

“Hi nee-chan.” He said simply.

“Hey!” Bakugou turned and glared. “She’s MY sister!”

“She’ll be my sister-in-law soon,” Todoroki told him.

“Oh joy another uncle,” Shinsou called out mockingly.

Tanaka looked like she was having a heart attack as Green Bolt snickered.

Ochako joined her. It was hard NOT to laugh.

-0-

“YOU’RE GREEN BOLT’S BROTHER?!” Tanaka yelled, slamming her hands into the lunch table where Bakugou was. All of 1A had ended up sitting together to eat, gossiping about their lesson the other day. “AND YOU’RE HER SON?” She lifted a hand to point at Shinsou.

“Calm down pigtails,” Bakugou said. “Yeah, she’s my sister.”

“And my mom. She adopted me a few years back.” Shinsou said dryly.

Tanaka looked so shocked, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

“You don’t look a lot like her, kero,” Asui remarked.

“My mom married mama when I was like… nine,” Bakugou said. “My bio dad is… he’s Quirkist. Made some comments about her being a hero my mom did not like. I was seven at the time and I just remember my mom throwing him out, shouting that if he can’t support his goddaughter he can leave.”

Ochako winced as did the others as Bakugou took a vicious bite of his lunch.

“I still see him. He’s not a bad person- just you know. Quirkist as fuck. But…” Bakugou sighed. “You can be a good person and hold terrible beliefs. I see him rarely.”

“Katsuki is my favourite uncle,” Shinsou said dryly. Bakugou glared at him and the purple-haired boy just smiled.

“And your brother is dating her?” Tanaka asked Todoroki who blinked.

“My sibling is yes,” Todoroki said blankly.

Ochako frowned at that wording. She glanced at the hidden smirks of Bakugou and Shinsou.

Well that was interesting.

The class got to know her well though. Midoriya Izumi was her legal name. She was twenty-three, had adopted Shinsou when she was nineteen and had a strong friendship with Phantom Thief- another TA in the school. Though it seemed they were bitter rivals at times as Phantom claimed.

Ochako witnessed a so-called ‘battle of rivals’ where the two just shoved each other into the mud cackling for thirty minutes.

“Too bad Phantom isn’t a girl- we could have some mud wrestling!” Mineta complained. Unlucky for him both TA’s heard him and slapped him with some pretty serious detention for that.

Bakugou was pretty tight-lipped, about his sister, just grunting when asked. Shinsou took a similar action, though he included staring.

Todoroki was the main source of gossip about her and his reactions were just blank: “She’s the one who punched out my dad and threatened to murder the people helping him cover up the abuse. I would die for her and if my sibling doesn’t propose soon I will.”

Of course, that just got the class wondering which brother the hero was dating. Everyone knew that Shouto had two brothers. Natsuo, a doctor in training. And Touya- the one who faked his death, came back with a rap sheet and a mountain of proof to prove that their dad did beat the crap out of them.

“I mean- it would be cool if she was dating Touya,” Ashido remarked. “He’s like really advocating for like helping abused kids and also villain reform. Shit sorry I mean Dabi.”

“I don’t know. Bolt-sensei doesn’t seem the type to go for a villain. Even if it was more out of necessity than not.” Yaoyorozu remarked.

Ochako mostly stayed out of it, not interested in gossiping about their teacher- more so when Todoroki’s words of Bolt-sensei dating his sibling, not his brother played in her head.

Something about it…

Ochako continued pondering that sentence through the first two weeks of UA, and she clutched to it after the USJ, after seeing Aizawa-sensei broken and bloody, seeing Bolt-sensei with a broken arm aiming a gun and taking a shot, teeth bared.

After seeing their sensei kill a villain for them.

Ochako still could see their sensei firing her gun. Could still see the splatter as the bullet hit the head of the mist villain. Could still hear the screams of the hand villain who tried to kill her.

The sight played in her mind for the week after the incident, when Bolt-sensei was under review for the death of the villain.

For an entire week, she felt haunted by her dreams.

When they did see Bolt-sensei the entire class cried out in relief. The green-haired woman stood with another woman who had white hair with red streaks, the woman smiling at Bolt-sensei. They stood in front of the gates, the class watching through the window.

“She’s back!” Tanaka cheered. “Does that mean she’s teaching again?” She asked Aizawa who grunted.

“Yes.” Was his only reply. Everyone felt relieved though.

“WHAT?!” Ashido screeched though upon seeing the other woman lean in to gently press a kiss to Bolt-sensei’s mouth. That got everyone’s attention.

“I thought she was dating your brother!” Tanaka said to Todoroki who snorted.

“I said sibling. That’s my sister. And they’re now engaged.”

“About fucking time,” Bakugou voiced.

Ochako simply watched as their sensei smiled at her fiancé.

Ochako couldn’t help her own smile.

She was happy her sensei had love in her life.

It was a very good thing in her opinion.

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Prompt: So what about aged up Izuku/Fuyumi. Izuku is a TA at UA and half of the students have a crush on her the other half wonders if she is in a relationship with Aizawa or Yamada. Meanwhile Shouto just calls her big sis once (she is over at the Todorokis often when Endeawhore isn’t home) and now people think Izuku is dating Natsuo until they have have a parent teacher conference (or the school festival something) where Izuku just dips a visiting Fuyumi and kisses her in front of everyone just to get the rumors out of the way.

Somewhat not following, but like here we are!!! Also, this was harder then I thought and I kinda am angry at how bad it is, but I legit did not know how to like drag it out? It's not like they're in the same class and they watch her all the time!!! She's a TA!!!!

But whatever. So here we are! Also- good Bakugou! For once in my works...

Hope you guys like this and Happy Pride!!

#bnha #bnha au #they're lesbians #fem izuku #quirless hero izuku

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6rookie-writer0110 · 4 years

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I don't know. Might further the plot.?

Male Reader x Avengers Cast

Request- Do you think you could make a Avengers cast X Male reader & his talking about his past & saying his been in juvenile detention & jail cause he had a rough childhood & his friend (oc) always helped him and stayed by his side & helped him get into drama class & he was good at it & now his new movie is coming out & it's about helping his character with his depression, suicidal thoughts & he meets his love interest who becomes his girlfriend in real life & her character helps him through depression

Your childhood was rough because your father would hit you physically and mentally abuse you. Your mother would do the same, also she would call you horrible names. Your father is known for selling drugs and always gambling. Your mother is a drunk and always high on drugs. You barely went to school and if you did you would cause problems.

You have always been on a rough path, your rap sheet is long as the train tracks. You didn't go to school often because you were in juvenile detention, many people gave up on you. When your turned eighteenth, you were in and out of jail. Since your parents didn't care for you they didn't pay for your bail. The longest sentence you did in prison was eight years.

After getting out of prison, you packed what you had left, took the van, and stole from your parents. You stole your dad’s pot to make quick cash.

As days went on you slept in your van. You would sell pot, with that money you would buy food and fill up the van. It's the middle of the night and you are sleeping, your best friend John Krasinski, banged on the van. You opened the door and you tackled him to the ground.

”Dude it's me!!!” John yelled.

You were about to punch him.

”What the fuck!?” You yelled.

You get off him and he gets off the ground.

”You almost gave a heart attack!!” You yelled.

It's freezing because it's November.

”I heard what happened. I came to get you and tell you to move in with me” John said.

You and John Krasinski have been friends for a long time. You trust him and only him. He has been there for you many times and never left your side.

”I don't know men. I can't even pay rent on time and I won't get a job from nine to five” You said.

”Just move in before you freeze to death,” John said.

”Fine,” You said.

-----

The next day, you start to help John run his lines. He is trying out for a role on a show called the office. You always help him run his lines, even in high school when he tried to the school play. He told you to try out for the school play but you said no.

”Y/N, you should really get into acting. You are really good and you should think about being an actor” John said.

”Don’t lie to me,” You said.

”I’m serious. With more training then you will become a better actor. I think you should take a shot at it. Now you are not doing anything with your life, take a chance” John said.

You have always been into acting but never took it seriously. You start to think and you are unsure what he said.

”I will think about it,” You said.

”Okay. Give me a ride?” John said.

”Yeah sure,” You said.

John goes to acting classes also he pays for you to go. At first, you hesitated to go but you didn't have money to pay for the classes. But you promised him that you will pay him back later on.

✧ ✯ ✧ ✫

John has been helping you become a better actor. But he can't help all the time because he has his own life. You get one role for acting but it was to be an extra, you took it paid $200.

You tried out for a role to start in an Iron man movie, it was for a small role but you didn't get it. And you can't afford to do headshots.

”What’s your name?” He asked.

”Y/N... I really like your movies, ” You said.

”I saw your audition. I see you have potential but you need acting lessons” Robert said.

”I can't afford it. Most times, I sleep in my van and doing random jobs” You said.

You watched every single movie that Robert Downey Jr. Did.

”I will help you and I will be your mentor,” Robert said.

”No way!!” You sad very loud.

You can't stop smiling and he is serious. You are still speechless and can't stop smiling. Later, you told John about it and he is happy for you. Robert will let you live with him but you told him, to repay him back you will do chores around the house.

-----

You are happy that you get to sleep in a new bed. Every day he gives you lessons for acting. He tells how to bring the characters to life and cry on cue. You always run lines with him and he tells you what you do wrong.

” Besides my best friend, you are the only one who ever believed in me,” You said.

He hugged you and you did cry a little bit, he starts to rub your back.

”It’s okay. Let it all out. You are a good person, you are the only one that has control for your future” Robert said.

You wipe the tears away.

”That means a lot,” You said with a small smile.

✧ ✯ ✧ ✫

You have been getting small roles on tv shows and some indie movies. You always give it your all and you keep improving in each role you get.

You got your big break to appear in The Avengers in the first movie. You got the role of Marcus "Marc" Milton aka Hyperion.

Hyperion possesses great physical strength. Between 75 and 100 tons. Marcus Milton was able to hold two piles of the earth apart to prevent them from colliding with each other for a period of time, confront the Hulk blow-for-blow until the Hulk reverted back to human form. He also does not require air, food, or water to survive as long as his body absorbs Solar energy. Also, he is a Trucker, adventurer, vigilante, former teacher.

---

But you didn't have a role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. For the first movie, you invited John to the movie premiere.

With the cast, you get along with them really well. Sometimes play pranks each other, make each other laugh during sets, and more. You and Robert still have a good relationship, he is still your mentor. John always supports you in any role you get. During an interview, you said you hope gets a role in a Marvel movie.

✧ ✯ ✧ ✫

You decided to take a chance to make your own movie. It took a while for your script to be completed. You meet Elizabeth Olsen for the first time and she got the lead role. She will play your love interest in the movie.

While shooting the movie during sets and offset, you and Elizabeth would spend time together. She does invite you to her house and you always yes. Always making each other laugh and you like to stare at her green eyes.

”You should help me cook more often,” Elizabeth said.

You laughed.

”Only to help you. My parents never taught me how to cook or taught me anything positive” You said.

”You still don't talk to your parents?” Elizabeth asked.

”No. They did contact me two months ago, pretending they care about me. They only called because I am famous. I don't want to give them a second chance, they made my childhood a living hell” You said.

She hugged you and it caught you off guard, but you did hug her back. Later, you and Elizabeth eat dinner outside in the backyard and kept talking. Later, she taught you how to make smores and you love it.

-----

You and Elizabeth go to the beach because it's very hot in California. You start to help put sunblock on Elizabeth’s back and the paparazzi take pictures of everything.

You told her you don't know how to swim, she decided to teach you how to swim. She teaches you the basics and how to breathe underwater. You come out of the water and you start to cough. She starts to pat your back.

”Did you swallow the water?” Elizabeth asked.

You nod and coughed again.

”Y-yeah. It's hard to breathe underwater” You sad.

”It’s not and I will keep teaching you,” Elizabeth said.

Again she teaches you how to breathe underwater. The paparazzi take pictures of when she kissed you.

----

Working on a movie that is dark, you and Elizabeth try to make each other laugh. She would take pictures with you and post it on her Instagram account. You are sitting down on your chair and you are using your phone. She takes a picture of you and writes something.

So cute when he is focused 😍

✧ ✯ ✧ ✫

You did appear in the other movies Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. Now you go on promo tours with the cast, it's always fun with them. You did talk about your character Hyperion.

”i will appear in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. But I won't say what will happen for now” You said.

”Can you tell us about your new movie?” He asked.

You nod.

”My character has depression and he is suicidal. He meets his love interest who becomes his girlfriend, who is played by, Elizabeth Olsen and her character helps him through everything. It's hard for him to believe that anyone truly cares for him and she proves that she does care for him. Robert also worked on the movie has a co-writer and producer” You said.

”Is everyone invited to the movie premiere?” He asked.

”Of course not. I don't get along with them, they are such divas and horrible to work with” You joked.

Everyone starts to laugh.

”Why are you laughing? It's true” You said.

”I hate Y/N, I'm so happy I won't see him again. And I won't go to his movie premiere” Scarlett Johansson joked.

”I agree with her” Chris Evans joked.

”You have to tell us. Are you really Elizabeth Olsen’s boyfriend?” He asked.

”I knew you two were going to end up dating,” Jeremy said.

”Is it true?” He asked.

”Yeah-”

”How did you even ask her to be your girlfriend?” Mark asked.

”She lost a bet in Uno, duh. How else I would be her boyfriend” and you are serious about it.

That didn't happen.

----

You are finally home and Elizabeth is staying the night over. You do enjoy cooking together with her. You and Elizabeth watch the new movie Scoob while eating dinner.

”I saw the interview,” Elizabeth said.

”What do you think?” You asked.

She laughed and drinks her wine.

”Can't believe I lost in Uno and we are stuck together” Elizabeth teased.

You and Elizabeth laughed.

”You could have won if cheated but it's not my fault you lost” You winked.

”You are such a doofus” Elizabeth laughed.

You laughed too. Elizabeth again stole a hoodie from you. It's cold and she loves wearing your hoodies, you like how she looks in it so you don't say anything about it.

✧ ✯ ✧ ✫

Since you said Elizabeth lost in Uno, when she does interviews they ask her about it. She goes along with it.

The night of the movie premiere, Robert and the others arrived to support you. Everyone posed for the cameras, you are not serious because you are making everyone laugh.

#marvel imagine #Male Reader x Avengers Cast #avengers imagine #elizabeth olsen x male reader #elizabeth olsen imagine

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soundofseventeen · 4 years

Text

Long Way Home (Jeon Wonwoo)

I would just like to take a moment and say FUCK PLEDIS, lmao. Also Haley requested this forever ago and I’m just posting it, so I hope this is okay.

Inspo

Word count: 5325

You could already hear Minghao scoffing at you in your head. He didn’t believe in perfect days so if you even explained the weekend’s events, he wouldn’t have believed you. So naturally, you were just gonna tell him it was a good time. The sun was almost done setting and you could feel the tan/burn of your days spent outside. Wonwoo cracked open the windows to let the hot air out and turned on the ac, letting the coolness hit your face and making you feel sleepy, and you could hear faint chuckling.

Spending a weekend in Changwon to (properly) meet his family turned out much better than you expected. Instead of taking a plane or train, he opted to make a road trip out of it, picking you up at the crack of dawn on Friday morning. You'd stopped at the gas station at the beginning of the trip, buying all the soda and junk food your arms could hold and rolling the windows down as the sunrise progressed into the morning. The more the world woke up, the more energetic he became and the louder he cranked up the volume.

While you did admire his onstage persona, intimidating you with the way he spewed venom when he rapped, it was another thing to hear him sing off-key to your song choices and giving you his dopey grin whenever you judged him. Wonwoo pointed to everything he remembered from his childhood along the way, stopping at a few places that he was sure that you’d like, like the frozen yogurt place that offered more toppings than he knew what to do with; or the second hand bookstore that gave away bookmarks after buying more than seven books. His favorite part of the road trip had been pulling over at the pet shop he begged his parents to stop at when he was younger but obviously said no.

Wonwoo laughed a lot the whole way there, enjoying the warmth of the sun through the windows and threading his fingers through yours and occasionally bringing them to his lips and kissing your hand, almost forgetting it was the weekend where he had planned to introduce you to his parents and trying his best to keep your nerves calm. It looked like it worked because he didn’t see you playing with your hair or drumming your fingers anywhere or even looking out the window. In fact, when he was about to ask how you were feeling you had fallen asleep somewhere along the way and he just laughed, letting go of your hand.

From all the stops you made, you didn’t get to his parents’ place until mid afternoon. His dad was outside washing the car when you pulled up. Wonwoo got out first and greeted him, trying to make up for all the lost time in that hug. You had to look away from that because it felt too personal for you even though you had those moments multiple times before. They talked for a moment and then he turned around and waved you over. You took a deep breath, fiddling with the door handle and you slowly got out.

“It’s so good to see you Y/N!” Wonwoo’s father greeted you cheerfully. He didn’t know whether to shake your hand, bow, or hug you right away. He opted for the last choice. “Wonwoo talks nonstop about you! I was afraid he was making this up!”

“It’s so nice to see you too,” you smiled at him. You kept your grip firm but not enough to hurt him. An awkward pause from you. “Thank you for having us over this weekend.”

“It’s no trouble at all. I missed seeing you here.” He fished out the keys from his pocket and pressed the panic button on it, not saying anything else until another figure emerged from the door.

“Yah! I told you to stop making noise before the neighbors file a complaint on us again!” The woman who became like a second mom to you marched over to him and smacked his shoulder. “Have you forgotten my name or something?”

“I could never,” he chuckled, “but our guests are here.”

“And you couldn’t take them inside?!” She shook her head at, finger raised and ready to scold him.

“It was easier if you did it.” He turned the nozzle back on the hose, the water spraying onto the car. “I still have this to clean.” He momentarily aimed it at her, and she screamed, which made him laugh.

“My children! How are you?” She kissed Wonwoo’s cheeks, pinching one of them and straightening his shirt to keep him presentable. “Y/N, you’re looking as lovely as ever.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, oh my gosh.” You wrapped her arms around her and did that little dance while hugging. “I’ve missed coming here. How are you?” You missed her warmth.

“Everyday is a good day.” Wonwoo’s mom brushed some crumbs off your face. “I’d invite you guys in, but my house is still a mess. Bohyuk won’t be home until after his detention.” She shook her head just thinking about it. “So, we can stay out here for a couple minutes. Or are you tired?”

“Y/N slept the whole way; I was so bored.”

“You woke me up early,” you whined. “No one wakes up before dawn.”

“Some of us sleep at dawn,” Wonwoo retorted, slinging an arm around your shoulders and trapping you in his hold.

“You’re not human. Ahh! Wonwoo, let me go.”

“First say you’re sorry.” He didn’t know how much it hurt to laugh this much with you, and you weren’t even doing anything remotely funny. He finally let you go though, panting hard to catch his breath. “You will be the death of me, you know that?”

“Am not!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“YES….DAD!” Wonwoo hollered, spitting out some of the water that had landed in his mouth when you got sprayed. “What was that for?”

“I see the bickering hasn’t gone away. Since you guys wanna fight so much, you can go pick up your brother after his detention.”

“Who’s fighting?” Wonwoo looked at you. “We’re not fighting. We’re best friends.” He draped his arm over your shoulder again, bringing you close to him, which made you blush for some reason and you smacked him. “Aren’t we friends, Y/N?”

“I’ve never seen you in my life. You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“This is why you should go along with my foolproof plans,” Wonwoo said a little while later, towel drying his hair and offering another to you. He noticed you still shivering from the cold so he pulled you out into the sun, hoping to warm you up.

“Nah, you still end up getting us in trouble.” You wrung the water from your shirt, surprised at how much it managed to absorb from the sprays Wonwoo’s dad hit you both with and then took it from him gratefully.

“I’m sorry. My parents are a little more excited for us visiting than I thought.” He brought the towel to your arms, drying you up a little.

“You don’t have to apologize. They miss you. The idol life is hard for everyone, you know?” You shuddered when his cold hand touched your cheek to press your foreheads together. Some of the droplets fell from his hair and landed somewhere on you.

“The rumors are true. Gross.” You both turned your attention to the voice, pinpointing it as Wonwoo’s younger brother as he gagged. “Oh my god, it’s my worst nightmare come true.”

“Shut up. You knew this was coming.”

“I want you to know that I lost a bet for saying you weren’t gonna….stay away from me. You’re wet and I don’t want Y/N’s germs on me.” He waved at you. “Hi Y/N!”

“Hi Bohyuk,” you smiled at him. “Still getting into trouble I see.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he protested. “If the teacher kept to the right instead of going to the left, then she wouldn’t have been showered with baby powder.”

“How juvenile.”

“Sure, you made the move on my babysitter, but I’m the juvenile one.”

You winked at Bohyuk. Due to babysitting him, you and Wonwoo had become friends. Not best friends who told each other everything, but occasionally hung out at school and sometimes studied at the local library before he went away to train to become an idol. And as Bohyuk grew up, the Jeons didn’t require your services anymore but they helped you get another job as a thanks for your help.

You weren’t sure how you and Wonwoo managed to reconnect, no matter how many times you looked back on it. You just remembered that one day you were closing up at work….and you swore you just blinked when Wonwoo had dropped by for a visit. Even then, your feelings didn’t develop right away. You didn’t feel your heart break when he left again, and you didn’t chase him to see if he felt something. There was that sadness, yes, but you got over it just as quickly as it came. Always bad with texting during one of the times you exchanged numbers, he only responded when he remembered to and he made up for it with lengthy paragraphs and e-gift cards for you. But once he debuted, you saw him either onstage or in photocards.

And when you moved to Seoul to fill the hunger you had for adventure….nothing happened….at least, not at first. You didn’t bump into him at a coffee shop where he invited you to dinner and confess his feelings for you when he dropped you off at night; and he didn’t spy you in the crowd during one of his comebacks and make his forget lines. In fact, the first time he saw you, he sped through your neighborhood and saw you throwing out the trash, but he wasn’t even sure it was you, so he forgot about even asking you.

Your paths eventually crossed one day while coming back from work and you picked up dinner you ordered ahead of time. He had been there with Soonyoung and Chan, waiting for the rest of their members when you walked in through the door when he saw you. He had been in the middle of a story but the bell dinging interrupted him. The funny thing was that he didn’t stutter or stop his story when your gazes locked; he merely smiled and waved at you and continued as if you weren’t there, but it wasn’t until you were getting ready for bed that he had messaged you on one of your social media accounts asking why you didn’t say hi or let him know sooner you were in town, but otherwise made no other move to make plans to hang out with you.

You supposed the thing that got the ball rolling was finding him at a bookstore. Only instead of him looking for books like you were, he was on a coffee run with Seungkwan, but while waiting for their orders, he saw you in the young adult section, taking pictures of the covers and possibly sending them to someone. He left Seungkwan hanging in the middle of the conversation to ask what you were looking for, which scared you and made you drop your phone. By the time you picked it up, he already had a couple of books in his hands, which he swore you would like because he enjoyed them a lot. In the middle of that, he apologized through his laughter And with that he pulled out his membership card for the discount and shooed you to the checkout line and went back to check on Seungkwan who looked offended at having his story time ruined but had the self control to not ask who you were until they were in the confinements of the car and he mentioned you were an old friend.

You asked him about the books….if they had been made into movies or a series or something, and gave him your honest thoughts and opinions, and he offered his own. He seemed more surprised at the fact that he had forgotten how well you could discuss literary works and even though you had different opinions on each, he respected that. He didn’t even think that it would turn into something more (and neither did you), so he didn’t think much about it every time he asked you to go out with him. But then after misreading the signs one night, you kissed him.

Although he had been shocked, he was also pleasantly surprised at how much he liked it, but he asked you to take it slow with him because of his life and he didn’t want to hurt you if anything were to come out of it. And he credited you for being as patient as you were. He sent you his schedules for the week (and sometimes the month) to see when it’d be okay to see you for more than just your casual outings and after Jihoon knocked some sense into him, he dove in and asked you on a proper date, unsure if it had been the right thing to do.

And now as he looked at you passing the plate to his mom and how you listened intently to whatever story she had been telling you, he figured it was worth it...even when you caught him staring and stuck your tongue out at him.

Saturday had brought you cruising the neighborhood and bickering over trying to remember what the abandoned buildings once held. You waved to vaguely familiar faces asking each other if someone was your friend or his. It was Wonwoo’s turn to play the music, but none of it matched the vibe of the day, so naturally, you skipped songs until they felt right

You stopped by the library, a little heartbroken to hear that the librarian who used to help you two find books on several occasions had passed away. The last time you saw him before you left for Seoul, he had expressed how much he would’ve loved to see you both at the same table one day and fighting over whatever it was people your age argued about again. They did, however, have a photo hanging by the kids’ section as a memorial and Wonwoo let you rest your head on his shoulder while you paid your respects and spoke softly about how your lives came to be like this. You stayed long enough to read a chapter book from your childhood and renew your library cards knowing full well you wouldn’t come back anytime soon and promised the photo of the deceased librarian that you’d stop here every time you were in town.

For lunch, you stopped at a Chinese restaurant where you found out that the head chef there was now the owner of the chain. She remembered you two as the ones who’d order the biggest plate of orange chicken and split it but always left the vegetables on your plate. She led you to your favorite table, feeling a little guilty at seeing your names carved in there from your adolescent days. For old time’s sake, you ordered the same food, only this time you got your own food since you could afford it now. Wonwoo slurped his noodles loudly, partly to annoy you and partly because food that good needed to be known by making as much noise as possible. The chef/boss even comped your meal because of how adorable you two were together and she seemed pleased to know she played a small role in it. Wonwoo may have left a really big tip as a thanks.

In the afternoon, he brought you to the wide schoolyard of your middle school days. You sat under the big shady tree where you’d hang out with your small group of friends and watched Wonwoo walk to the bench where he hung out with his friends. You brought out a journal and a small speaker to listen to music to fill the silence you didn’t wanna hear just yet. You caught your journal up on the events so far, not leaving any details out and just proclaiming your love for the haven the weekend created.

Wonwoo had with him a soccer ball and kicked against the gate, creating a ruckus and you asking him to knock it off, mostly because it wasn’t the noise he had in mind. He watched the way you scribbled across the pages, wondering what you could’ve been writing, seeing as though he’s been with you and nothing really seemed worth remembering. After a few more “goals” he scored, he sat down next to you and closed his eyes, to gain some of his strength back. He didn’t ask you to read what you wrote but he asked what you were thinking about, letting your words paint a picture in his imagination At one point, in a fit of boredom he took all his stuff back to the car and re-emerged with the guitar that Jihoon let him borrow. He was still practicing how to play it, so he wasn’t all that great yet, but it didn’t discourage him. He was still playing when you asked for the keys to trade your journal for your switch, figuring a video game seemed like fun.

When the late afternoon turned to dusk, you both stood up, having gotten a lot further in your respective books than you expected, and stretched, letting the blood flow across your bodies and feeling lightheaded with the sudden movements. He grabbed your hand and together, you explored the campus, reminiscing about the worst and most useless classes ever thought of and why they even existed.

“Wonwoo, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but algebra? We kinda need that. Computer skills on the hand….”

“I could live my whole life without knowing whether parentheses or exponents, especially when you add letters to the equation...no pun intended.” He pointed to the woodshop class, ranting about the stupidy of school districts needing permission to teach sex ed classes but apparently preteens were mature enough to handle heavy machinery that could cause bodily harm and how he almost sliced his finger one time because the board he needed for a project wouldn’t cooperate with him.

“Do you remember this is where we first had lunch together after I started watching Bohyuk?” Wonwoo shook his head and you continued, hoping to jog his memory. “You didn’t say hi or anything. You literally just sat-” you pushed him down on the seat, you nearly falling on him but catching yourself in time, “-right there and started eating your chicken burger as if it was the most normal thing in the world.” You smiled a bit. “I didn’t even know who you were and you scared me.”

He nodded. “I remember some of that. But I only needed to tie my shoe and then you started talking and you haven’t stopped since then. I didn’t have lunch with you though. That was probably a different time. We didn’t become friends until way later.”

“It didn’t happen like that. We became friends really fast….stop shaking your head! My memory is better than yours.”

“What did we have for breakfast?”

You opened your mouth, ready to fire off the first thing you had this morning, but then you scrunched your face up, trying to remember. Was it pancakes….no! They were waffles! You dunked them syrup….right? You were pretty sure you had juice though. Wonwoo had coffee and maybe a bagel….you think. “I-” Your eyes darted everywhere, anything to spark a memory, but you came up empty. You closed your mouth again, lower lip sticking out.

“That’s what I thought,” he said smugly. He squatted a little to get to your eye level. “Who’s my favorite person in the world?” He reached out to poke your cheek to get you to smile. “Come on, friend. Who is it?”

“No,” you pouted, shaking your head at Wonwoo when his smile widened.

“What did I get you for our first official date?”

“Coasters with kittens you and Seokmin named after the Weasley twins.” You weren’t sure why you remembered that, but it just stuck with you. “Stop trying to be cute with me, you little shit.”

“Okay, fine.” he kissed your forehead, chuckling. “We became friends that day. And what else do you remember about those days?”

“I saw you a lot at the book fairs; you were in the school’s top 30 biggest readers, and you kissed someone under the basketball court during PE once.”

“I didn’t know you had a crush on me back then.” He pinched your cheek lightly. Well, he’d probably never tell you that he had one on you for about four days, but it went away. But he’d say just about anything to get that blush on your cheeks, even if it meant accidentally busting you but you not admitting to it.

“Come on, let’s go home already. Your mom’s probably waiting for us so we can all eat.”

“Hey, Jagi?” He had to know now, even if you weren’t gonna give him a clear answer.

“What?”

“Did you really have a crush on me?”

“What’s important is that we’re dating now and not reliving the most embarrassing parts of my life.”

He took that as a maybe.

Sunday morning, after staying up a little too late playing many, many rounds of Mario Kart, Wonwoo’s parents decided on an impromptu family day at the beach despite knowing that you’d have to leave later in the day to get back to Seoul at a (somewhat) reasonable hour. You made sure you had all your stuff packed so you wouldn’t forget anything and you joined the Jeon family for an early-ish breakfast with Wonwoo’s mom pouring too much syrup on her husband’s waffles, despite his protests of not liking it anymore. (He took one bite of them though and proceeded to snatch the bottle away and almost drown them in the gooey mess.) Bohyuk was more interested in whatever noise was coming from his phone than anything else, and Wonwoo almost falling asleep on his waffles.

You chucked one of the wadded up receipts from your pocket at him and he jumped up, nearly knocking his glass of milk over and you laughed. He seemed wide awake the rest of the day though because he sang all his favorite songs at the top of his lungs on the drive to the beach while you fed him gummy worms and constantly asked him if you were there yet, to which at one point, he pulled over on the side of the road, unlocked the passenger door and told you to get out.

Once the scent of salt hit your nostrils, you bounced in your seat excitedly, talking at a million words a minute about the last time you spent the day at the beach and how it’s felt like forever since you felt like a kid and had he not been driving, he would’ve kissed your head at your cuteness, but he did take your hand and squeezed it. But when your feet actually touched the sand, you remembered just how much you hated it when it got into your shoes and socks, so you took them off, not caring you’d eventually get blisters from how hot the ground was.

It wasn’t too fully packed with people but still you didn’t stray too far from the family, watching Wonwoo slowly dip his feet in the water but make no other effort to go further inside because Bohyuk was the dutiful brother trying to push him inside.

You wrote down the non interesting events in your journal, enjoying the waves crashing on the shore and the gulls flapping their wings and reluctantly reading a couple entries to the curious mom. You drank your water happily to keep you hydrated, especially since the sun seemed warmer than most days. Wonwoo did call for you sometime later, and you raced to the water, jumping eagerly over the waves and grasping at his hand when one almost knocked you over. A little before you had to leave, you and Wonwoo walked through the shore, holding hands and just enjoying each other’s company. Truth be told, you didn’t want to leave; you wanted to stay in this paradise, where you didn’t have to worry about anything except maybe falling into the water and possibly taking Wonwoo down with you.

Eventually, Wonwoo did have to gently remind you that home was quite a ways away and a few of the boys wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t show up, and he had to pull you of the water to say goodbye to his parents. Wonwoo’s mom cried a little, saying she’d miss you both and Wonwoo’s dad hinted at you staying a little longer, going as far as saying that he could call someone at Pledis to excuse him for one more day, and the idea was tempting but you had to go and they only let you leave when you promised you’d come back soon.

The sun had finally set when you were at the halfway point of home, and you were proud of yourself for staying up with Wonwoo as long as you did. He didn’t have much to say other than asking if you were hungry from time to time.

“You’re not ready to go home yet, are you?” you asked, stifling a yawn. You managed to crack a small smile when his hand found yours and entwined them.

“Not yet. I had so much fun this weekend.” He snuck a peek over at you scrolling through your phone, the brightness illuminating your face. “Are you still scared of my parents?”

“Yes and no. If we break up, it’d be a little hard to tell them that, don’t you think?”

“Or we can get married and hope we end up like them.”

“Jeon Wonwoo, you haven’t even told me you love me yet, and you’re already deciding our future.” You were grateful that he couldn’t see you blushing, but you didn’t feel like outing yourself by asking him to turn down the air. You had to admit the idea was nice though.

“I didn’t say I love you. I’m just saying that if you don’t wanna tell my mom why we broke up, this can be an option for us and she’d never know.”

You could feel your eyes closing, the small banter tiring you out. Maybe he could make it home without you bothering him. The big neon signs could keep him company and possibly feed him since he often talked about grabbing a bite to eat. You weren’t hungry, but you felt as though you could sleep through the end of the world. You didn’t catch what Wonwoo told you, but you could feel him patting your head.

When you woke up from your nap, the car smelled like food and the streets looked familiar, but you still shut your eyes just in case you were dreaming. You could feel the disappointment of going home bubbling deep inside you. You didn’t want the night to end; you didn’t want to say goodbye to Wonwoo yet. It felt like you didn’t spend enough time with him. Maybe you should’ve stopped at a restaurant or maybe you should’ve stayed up with him. Was it too late to call one of the boys and say you got a flat tire on the way back? Maybe you could tell Wonwoo that you forgot your phone...and the one resting on the cupholder was his mom’s.

“Come on, sleepy head. I know you’re up.”

“No, I’m still sleeping. You can’t make me get up if I’m not awake.” You opened one eye, peeking at your surroundings. Pretty soon, Wonwoo would turn right and then go down a few more streets and then once you passed his favorite grocery store, you’d be home. You didn’t want that.

“Come on. We have to get up for work tomorrow and you have a lot of other things to do.”

You shook your head. “No, not yet.”

“What if I promise to take you out on a date this weekend? Or we can stay at my place and bug everyone?”

“No.”

“What if I spend the night after everything’s done? I know I promised Chan I’d do something with him, but-”

“No.” you felt childish but you couldn’t help it. “I’m still asleep.”

“Please Y/N?”

Slowly you opened your eyes, sighing in defeat. You had a good weekend at least, but now you had to face the reality of tomorrow as soon as you got home. You saw the McDonald’s sign, getting ready to hear the blinker to signal his turn, but instead of turning like you expected, Wonwoo drove straight ahead. “Uh, Wonwoo? I think you missed the turn.”

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. “Do you feel like taking the long way home tonight?”

At this, you nodded. You liked when Wonwoo could read your mind and it comforted you to know that he felt the same way, even if he wasn’t as vocal about it. He let his phone choose the songs as he drove on, making random turns and not caring about where he was taking you. He just wanted to be with you until the last possible second.

“I didn’t know you liked Green Day,” you commented when he stopped at a red light.

“I don’t think I’ve heard enough of their songs to know if I like them, but Vernon probably got into my phone. I can’t understand a lot of what they say anyway.” He shook his head. “All I know is that I question the whole anarchy thing.”

“I mean we jam out from time to time so it can’t be all that bad. The light’s green now.”

“Always in a rush to leave, aren’t we?” He waited a couple more second before driving down a few more streetlights (all of them turning red when he’d pull up) before making another turn that led you to a rural part of Seoul...and the outskirts from the looks of it. You came across a few neighborhoods, Wonwoo explaining how he’d like to live in something like this one day after the whole idol life/military discharge was over. He picked up the habit of kissing you whenever you stopped at the stop signs, liking the fact that it seemed like you were the only two people awake at that hour.

Eventually he had to take you home, but he took every detour he could find, taking advantage of all the streets that he could find stop signs and red lights, so he could kiss you a little more and have those milliseconds add up. He finally stopped at your apartment building, turning off the music and looking up at you. “We’re here.”

“Thank you for this weekend, Wonwoo. Can we do it again?”

He nodded. “I’d like that a lot.” He deliberated a moment before turning off the ignition and all the lights dimming around you before turning off completely.

You sighed quietly, feeling sadder than you should’ve but you unbuckled your seatbelt and opened your door. “Good night.”

He caught your arm before you could leave. “Jagi?”

“Yeah?”

He leaned closer to you until he could kiss you one more time. “Good night.”

Maybe you weren’t falling in love with Wonwoo yet, but you were more than okay with taking it slow.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he whispered.

It was your turn to lean in quickly and kiss him good night. “Thank you for taking the long way home.”

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bijoharvelle · 4 years

Note

Deancas high school au, cas sees dean giving sam a wedgie and thinks he's a bully so he picks a fight and the two end up alone in detention together

okay so i ended up doing something different with how they got detention because that’s what my brain made happen but hopefully you’re still cool with it!!!! cw: for mentions of bullying/fighting that’s implied to be based around queer issues

Dean stops short a foot into the classroom serving as detention that afternoon, just staring. Aside from their chaperone, the only other person there is Cas and Cas is the whole reason he’s even in detention to begin with. “Aw, c’mon, you gotta be kidding me,” he whines at Miss Milton, his Latin teacher and apparently the detention monitor on Thursdays. “Shouldn’t we get, like, separate detentions or something?”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just glares harder at the desktop.

“Apparently not,” Miss Milton says brightly. She does everything brightly and normally that would piss Dean off on principle but, well, he likes her. “Have a seat, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean slouches to the last row and slings himself into the desk in the farthest corner. All he can see of Cas now is the disaster of their hair and their tense shoulders.

It’s not long into the forty-five minutes of their sentence that the statistics teacher, Miss Masters, raps on the door jamb. Dean can see from his angle that she sends a pointed look with raised eyebrows to Miss Milton, who promptly blushes and then tells the two boys that she’ll be right back and they better be quiet and well-behaved in the meantime. And then she ducks out of the room and it’s just Dean and Cas.

“Hey,” Dean half-whispers. “D’you think Milton and Masters are banging?”

Cas doesn’t answer, but Dean can see that their hand clenches on the desk.

“Oh, that’s rich,” Dean says, leaning back in his chair and rolling his eyes. “They’re mad at me.”

“Yes! I am!” Cas says, seemingly unable to help themself. They whip around to set their eyes on Dean, face murderous. “You had no right to do what you did!”

“I was defending you!” Dean counters, arms spread wide. “Al woulda kicked your ass and you know it. You should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you,” Cas repeats sarcastically. “Yes, Dean. Thank you. Thank you for making everyone think that I can’t stand up for myself. That I need someone like you to fight my battles.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Someone like me?”

“Some over-compensating, uber-masculine closet-case!”

Dean laughs at that and he means for it to be sharp and mean but it just comes out a little punchy. Because, yeah, he never expected Cas Novak to have that kind of fight in them. They’re intense, sure, but they’re so quiet and always digging around in books like Sam. Though, considering how Sam could fight, maybe Dean should have figured after all.

“Okay, first, that’s a pretty fucked up assumption to make about someone,” Dean says calmly, still smiling a little. Maybe because something in Cas’s tirade reminds him of... Well, of himself. Of him chasing after his dad, always wanting to be seen as enough, as capable. “Second, I can see, I guess, why you were pissed off, so I’m sorry. I just didn’t wanna see Alistair drag your ass to hell. And third, just because I don’t wear a pin on my bookbag about it, doesn’t mean I’m straight, or pretending to be.”

Cas is taken aback threefold, eyes widening by degrees as Dean went on. They look at their backpack, where there is a cluster of colorful pins, rainbows of pride in different shapes. “That’s two things I didn’t expect,” Cas says quietly, head tilting a little. After a soft moment, they look up to Dean. There’s a deep mottled ring of purple and green around his one eye, where Alistair got off a shot. “You’re right. I’m sorry for...making that assumption. And. And thank you. For apologizing.”

Dean definitely does not ignore the bubbles of light that burst in his chest because there is definitely nothing like that happening. Sighing, he rises from his seat, kicks his bookbag forward and slides into the chair next to Cas. Pointing at the buttons, he asks, “Is one of those stupid things for, like, bisexual?” And maybe Cas is a little right about the over-compensating thing because it’s not like Dean doesn’t know what the bisexual pride flag looks like and it’s not like he doesn’t know it’s the one right next to the one declaring “they/them -- grammatically sound & best around.”

Cas just blinks at him for a minute. And then they reach down and unpin the pink, blue and purple button. “You can... I mean. If you want...” They’re offering the button out to Dean.

And Dean realizes he’s absolutely fucked because he takes the thing and fastens it to the strap of his backpack. “Thanks,” he says and he smiles a little even though it makes his split lip ache and when Cas looks at him, they’re smiling a little too.

And then Miss Milton lopes back in through the door, blushing even worse than before with a dreamy look on her face. Dean grins pointedly at Cas but doesn’t say anything.

“Well. It looks like you two are getting along better,” she says (brightly) and claps her hands.

“Yeah, we’re a regular Breakfast Club,” Dean replies, kicking his feet up onto the chair in front of him.

“I don’t understand that reference,” Cas says quietly, head already tipping back down to look at their desk. But just beneath the swell of their injured eye is the hint of a blush.

#destiel fanfic #destiel #deancas #deancas fanfic #high school destiel #my stuff #prompts #Anonymous

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

Best Part of Me - Chapter 72

WARNING: some smut

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @alievans007

They lay in a mess of rumbled and twisted sheets and naked limbs; bodies sated and spent and covered in thin sheens of sweat that glisten in the moonlight. His chest against her back and his arm stretched across her pillow; her head resting on his bicep and one his thick, muscular legs draped over hers. His eyes are closed, chin perched upon the top of her head; relaxed by the familiar smell that clings to her hair and skin and the warmth that radiates from her smooth, supple body. Enjoying the soft, almost tickling sensation of two of her fingertips moving against his palm; smoothing over the calluses and tracing slow circles and random patterns. It’s the simplest things that he often enjoys the most; the way their bodies -despite the substantial difference in both weight and height- recognize and mould to one another. Those soft and tender touches that seem so pure and innocent yet still manage to reach your very core. The feel of her in his arms and her body pressed tightly against him; her skin silky and warm and smelling so damn good. He had never taken the time to appreciate those things before, nor had he ever been with anyone that really allowed him to. The ex wife had ever been into the whole afterglow; intimacy purely sexual in her mind and pillow talk considered useless and boring. And he certainly never craved the quiet and loving aftermath with Nik or any of the women he’d hook up with while on the travelling and travelling from place to place. They were nothing but conquests; a chance to get his rocks off and rid himself of any lingering adrenaline or the last bits of frustration and anger.

Seven years ago everything changed. What should have been nothing BUT sex and two broken people using one another -and their bodies- as a coping mechanism for everything wrong in their lives, had quickly turned into something so much more. It had become apparent on the second night that he was in way over his head. When she’d fallen asleep on his arm -and turned his hand completely numb in the process- and he hadn’t had the heart to wake her hip. She’d looked so peaceful...so fucking beautiful...that instead of trying to slip away, he’d just rolled over onto his side and rapped his arm around her; burying his face in her hair and finding himself soothed by her scent and the softness of her skin and the feel of her heart beating against him. And while it should have terrified him -feeling things that strongly and that quickly- it hadn’t been enough to push him away or send him running.

“Tyler?”

He nuzzles the top of her head with his nose, then drops a kiss on it. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Why would I be? We fought, we made up. In the best possible way. All is right in the world. For now, anyway.”

“You haven’t said much.”

“I thought I talked a lot while we were...you know…”

“As much of a turn on as it is and how amazing sounds in your voice, dirty talk does not count as REAL talk.”

“Says who?”

“It’s in the rule book.”

“I already told you; I don’t like your rules. Fuck your rules.”

“No wonder you got sent to detention so much when you were a kid. An attitude like THAT,” she teases.

“You know what would be really hot?”

“I’m almost scared to find out. I know how warped your mind can be.”

“You remember those glasses you wore in Ireland? To go with your reporter cover?”

“Those were fake.”

“I don’t give a shit. You should totally get another pair. And put your hair back; one of this really tight, formal looking buns. And wear a short skirt and heels and a low cut blouse.”

Esme snorts. “What the hell kind of teachers did you have growing up?”

“Not hot ones, that’s for sure. And you’re the one who told me that if you ever went back to school, it was to become a teacher. YOU put that in my head. My brain and my hormones just took it from there.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you. You get weirder as you get older, I swear.”

“Maybe.” He moves his hand from her hip to her stomach, pulling her even tighter against him. “But you love me.”

“I do,” she confirms. “Although some days, I really want to throat punch you.”

“No throat punching. And you wonder where your daughter gets that shit from.”

“Because it’s definitely not from her father who technically beats the shit out of people for a living. And she definitely doesn’t have your temper.”

“Nice of you to finally take the blame for her.”

“You’re a dick!” she declares, and directs an elbow to his stomach. And he chuckles into her hair and removes the arm from her pillow and wraps it around her neck; palm resting above her left breast. “You’re lying on your bad shoulder,” she points out.

“It’s fine.”

“It won’t be in about ten minutes when it seizes up and you can’t move it at all.”

“Stop giving me a hard time. I’m the one giving you a hard time, remember?” He grins as he presses his groin against her ass.

“I seriously wonder why the hell I’ve put up with you for so long,” she grumbles, then plants her elbow into his chest and shows him onto his back. “You're stubborn and you're chaotic and you’re absolutely fucking exhausting.”

“What are you bitching about? Those are all my best qualities.”

“I can think of better ones. Ones that don’t make me want to strangle you. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t actually enjoy your stubborn moments and your chaotic tendencies and the way you exhaust me.”

She rolls over onto her stomach and presses a kiss to his lips. Both of his arms wrapping around her as she nestles her face into his right trap; tip of her nose against his neck and her breath warm against his skin. And for several minutes neither of them speak; their eyes closed and one of her hands repeatedly brushing through his hair and the fingers of the other lightly drifting back and forth along his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I called you crazy.”

Tyler’s eyes snap open. “What?”

“When we were fighting. I called you crazy. Or suggested you were. I said that you’d finally snapped and went totally nuts. And I should NOT have said that. IT was way off base.”

He can’t help but chuckle. “Are you being serious right now?”

She raises her head to look at him, chin resting on his shoulder. “You have a legit mental illness. You have three of them, actually. And I totally preyed on it and I’m a shitty person for doing it. I never should have said what I did.”

“Baby, you’re kidding, right? You’re not really serious about this, are you?”

“I am.” Tears glisten in her eyes. “I never should have said it. I’m sorry. I know you’re not crazy. I know you can’t help being the way you are. That your brain just doesn’t it own thing and you’re trying to get it under control and you’re constantly fighting and trying to get better and…”

“Okay, you know what? Now you’re the one being crazy. You think it bothered me? That I haven’t heard worse? Or thought worse about myself? I call you crazy all the time when you say something I think sounds nuts. It’s a figure of speech; doesn’t mean I actually think you’re crazy.”

“I still shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.”

“You are really fucking hormonal.” He removes one of his arms from around her and uses gentle fingertips to brush the wayward tears from her cheeks and under her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s the worst it’s ever been,” Esme laments. “I mean, I always get hormonal and irrational but never this bad or this soon. Oh God...what if it’s triplets?”

“Jesus fuck. Don’t say that.”

“You’re the one that always goes on and on about your super sperm. Maybe all this time you’ve been right; maybe it’s actually insanely super. And it would explain it, right? Why it’s this bad and why it’s happening so early. More than or two would make me extra hormonal and extra irrational and…”

“When we get back home, we’ll call the doctor and we’ll get you and little bean checked out. I’m no professional, but I’m pretty sure there’s not three in there. I’m good, but I’m not THAT good.”

“Twins, maybe. I mean, we have a history. It’s happened to other people; two sets of twins.”

“How about you stop wishing multiples on me and just pretend we know for sure it IS just one.”

“What if it is more than one? What if it is twins again? You know how hard it was the first time carrying two made from someone the size of you. I don’t know if I can handle that again. Because things went wrong so quickly and Tanner was so sick and we didn’t think he’d even make it.”

“But he did. He DID make it. And now look at him; he’s the healthiest out of them all.”

“And the smallest.”

“Well I think Addie has that title and probably always will. And who cares if they’re small? You’re small. They take after their momma.”

“I don’t know; Tanner is ALL you.”

“How you figure?”

“He is so much like you. He has all these feelings and emotions inside of him and he’s so sensitive. But he isn’t afraid to just let it all out; he’s just totally out there with it. He’s just so open and so honest and just so innocent about it.”

“He’s also only five,” Tyler points out.

“You keep everything inside. And I know how deeply and powerfully you feel. How big of a heart you have. How sensitive you can be. You just bury it deep down for the most part. You always act so embarrassed when you catch yourself with the ‘feel’ or when you think you’re showing too much emotion.”

“That’s what happens when you get that side beaten out of you for years, I guess.”

“Tanner is the kid you could have been had none of that ever happened to you.”

“Maybe. Who knows,” Tyler shrugs. “If none of that happened...losing my mom...having to put up with my dad...there’s a chance we wouldn’t have happened either. I’m pretty sure going through what I did with the old man is what pushed me towards the military in the first place. And if I’d never gotten into the military, I probably would have never gotten into the job, either. If it wasn’t for the job, we never would have met and none of those kids would exist. And they’re awesome fucking kids.”

Esme smiles. “They are. They’re incredible and they’re beautiful and they’re a mix of everything that’s perfect and right inside me and you. We did good, didn’t we.”

“We did better than good. We did amazing.” He presses a kiss to her forehead. “Not bad for two people that were so messed up seven years ago.”

“Remember what Gaspar said to you? About how two broken people can’t fix one another? That they just end up making things worse?

Tyler nods.

“I think we’ve pretty much proved him wrong. We didn’t destroy each other like he said he would. And we definitely didn’t make things worse. I know we’re not perfect; not by a long shot. And we’ve gone through some pretty shitty times; including times we didn’t think we’d make it. But we’ve put the work in. We work at being better; for ourselves AND each other. Shows you how completely full of shit he was.”

“I could have told you that before he even opened his mouth.”

“I still don’t get how the hell you two were even friends. He exemplified the worst of the worst when it comes to mercs. Even back then...with all your issues...you were so far from being like him.”

“In my defence, whenever I WAS around him, I was pretty drunk. So I wasn’t exactly the best judge of character.”

“I was completely sober and I was a great judge of character,” Esme proudly declares.

“You think so, do you?”

“I let you in my pants, didn’t I?”

He smirks. “A lot of people who know me would probably argue that showed you failed HUGE at judging my character.”

“Well they’d be wrong. Maybe none of them have ever seen what I have. Maybe they don’t take the time to look for it. There was something different about you; I could see it, in your eyes. Yeah, you were tough and hardened and totally badass, but I still saw it; whenever you looked at me. I even heard it in your voice. When we used to have those talks in the middle of the night after we...you know…”

“Fucked each other senseless?”

“To put it bluntly, yes. Even the first night I saw it. You were looking at me when I was telling you about Mark and his bullshit and you reached up and you pushed my hair out of my eyes and behind my ears and you were so gentle about it. It was so simple, yet it took my breath away. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. It was the last thing I ever expected from you; being like that.”

“Probably because an hour before, I had my hand around your throat.”

“Well that didn’t hurt, but it was more than that. I go into a job where I have to pretend to be married to a mercenary. And not just any mercenary, but one who was practically a legend; I’d heard all the stories and all the rumours and you ended up being completely different than I thought you would. And you go from being hard core and aggressive to having this quiet, soft, sweet side to you. That is the last thing I expected. And then to hear it in your voice and see it in your eyes; this vulnerability and this brokenness. It was sad but it was beautiful all at the same time.”

Tyler frowns. “Have you been drinking?”

“Don’t be such an ass! I’m trying to be sweet and loving with you, goddamn it! Don’t ruin it!”

“I’m sorry,” he laughs, and loops her hair behind one ear, then the other. “You’re right; I do get embarrassed by this stuff.”

“Why? It’s not like we’re strangers. It’s not like we haven’t spent seven years sharing cooties.”

“Oh I think we’ve been sharing A LOT more than that.”

“Of all the people you shouldn’t be embarrassed around, I’m at the top of the list. So…” she climbs on top of him places a knee on either side of his torso, then leans down to peck his lips. “...stop your bullshit. You’re exhausting me.”

Reaching up, he pushes her his hands through her hair; fingers combing through the dark, silky tresses and pushing them over her shoulders. “If it was that easy of a fix…” he skims his palms over her shoulders and down her arms. “...I would have fixed it a long time ago.”

“Well you ARE getting better at it,” she admits. “Maybe on our fiftieth anniversary you’ll be fully over it and surprise me!”

“Bold of you to assume I’m still going to be alive.”

“We got married when you were thirty five. You’ll only be eighty five then.”

“Exactly. Eighty five. You really think I’m going to make it that far?”

“I do. For the simple fact I won’t let you die.”

“Funny how you think you have control over it.”

“I might not have control over it, but I am optimistic that you’ll make it that long. Even longer, actually. If you can survive everything you have in the past forty two years…”

“Forty one. I haven’t reached forty two years. What the fuck?”

“Your birthday is only three months away,” Esme reminds him.

“Okay, so I’m forty one and three quarters.”

She sighs in exasperation. “Fine. If you can survive everything you’ve gone through in the last forty one and three quarter years, there is no way you’re NOT dying an old man, warm in his bed. If anyone deserves that, it’s you. If you can get shot in the neck and still get off that bridge alive? Your chances of making it to eighty five are very good.”

“You’re forgetting I got very fucking lucky; someone was on that bridge that actually give a shit about me and wanted me to live.”

“I only played a small part,” she says, and her fingers move to the side of his neck; gliding over the tattoo that graces his skin and the scar left behind from Farhad’s bullet.

“A small part? You stuck your fingers in my neck to stop me from bleeding out. That’s more than just a small part.”

“We’re not going to talk about that, okay? That part of it.” Her voice trembles with emotion. “I don’t want to talk about that part.”

“You don’t have to, baby. Come here…” he lays a hand on the back of her head, drawing her down onto his chest. “...it’s okay…” he places his lips against her temple, the fingers of one hand gently massaging her scalp, the other drifting up and down her spine. “...you don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry I brought it up. I know better than that.”

“It’s not your fault I can’t get over it. That my brain is messed up because of it.”

“Actually, it kind of IS my fault. Considering…”

“It isn’t your fault,” Esme insists, and wraps both arms around his neck. “I’ve never blamed you. It’s just happened. IT was a horrible fucking mess and that stupid fucking Farhad. You should have killed him that night in the alley. You should have just done it. I wouldn’t have held it against you if you did.”

“Okay, first of all? He was a kid.”

“A kid that nearly killed you. So I’m sorry if I have no sympathy for him. He was a little bastard and you should have just done away with him. And if he’s still out there, I almost hope we run into him in Dhaka. Because I'll kill him if you won’t.”

“Alright, you need to settle down. Don’t get so worked up over this shit. Let’s NOT talk about this at all. For the next however many days, let’s not mention that place at all. Deal?”

“Deal. But I swear to God if I see him…”

“What did we just agree on?”

“Sorry,” she mutters against the hollow of his throat. “I get worked up.”

He grins. “Just a little.”

“I’m just scared. About going back there. That’s the last place I ever thought I’d go back to.”

“Trust me; I’m not too excited about it either.”

“You know what would be funny though?” She pulls back to look at him. “If we ended up at the same hotel. In the same room. Maybe we should go there and ask for that room. For old time’s sake.”

“How about no?”

“It wasn’t THAT bad. You had a good time. A VERY good time.”

“I am pretty sure that had nothing to do with the actual hotel or the actual room and everything to do with who I was there with.”

“Maybe they fixed the toilet sometime in the last seven years!”

He chuckles. “Maybe.”

“And maybe someone over five foot five can actually take a proper shower. That was the weirdest thing; you couldn’t take a bath comfortably because you’re too tall and your legs are too long, but you had to sit in the tub to take a shower.”

“I’ll let you have this moment. But only because I’ve spent years making fun of your height. Or lack of it.”

“You were such a good sport about it, though. You let me wash your hair.”

“Honestly? That was the first time I ever had someone do it.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“You were totally having the feels for me weren’t you. And I’m not talking about the feels below the waist; those were more than obvious. I’m talking about legit feels. You were having legit feels for me.”

“I was,” Tyler admits. “And it was fucking terrifying.”

“Not terrifying enough to walk away though. Or to back away, I should say.”

“There was no way in hell I was backing away. I spent years feeling dead inside...years where I just wanted to die...and all of sudden I’m feeling more than that? Something BETTER than that? No way in hell was I backing away.”

“I knew it,” she grins. “I knew you had the warm and fuzzies for me.”

“Holy shit,” he laughs. “So THAT’S where Tanner got in from.”

“He asked me how it feels when you like someone. How it felt when I met you. So told him that you made my heart feel warm and fuzzy and he just took it from there. Did you ask you the same thing?”

“He asked if I got the warm and fuzzies when I met you.”

“Did you?” She scrapes the knuckles on both hands against his beard. “Did you get the warm and fuzzies?”

“From the waist down? Yes. I totally got the warm and fuzzies for you.”

“Please! You did NOT get a hard on the second you saw me on your front porch.”

“The hell I didn’t. There was a hot girl at my place, all tatted and pierced up and looking totally unlike anyone that ever graced my door stop. Damn right I got one.”

“I would have noticed if you were pitching a tent.”

“I was wearing baggy shorts.”

“Baby, you are phenomenally blessed in that area. There’s no shorts baggy enough to hide when you’re excited. So nice try. I appreciate you attempting to build up my ego, but you did NOT get a hard on when you first saw me.”

“Okay, so maybe not a full one, but there were some feelings down there. Especially when I saw you had a tongue ring.”

“Please tell me that’s NOT what you told Tanner when he asked about the warm and fuzzies.”

“I did not tell our five old son that his mom made me horny when I first met her, no. I did tell him that I liked how you smiled at me. That you had a beautiful smile and it made me feel kind of warm and fuzzy.”

“I knew it!” You’ve been denying it for seven years. You had a thing for me right off the hop.”

“I so did. Lust at first sight.”

“You had a weird way of showing it. You weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy to me when we first got to Dhaka.”

“That’s ‘cause you pissed me off. Really pissed me off.”

“I wasn’t listening to your stupid rules. I’m a strong, independent woman. I do what I want.”

“Yeah, and if someone had grabbed you in the market? Who do you think would have had to bust his ass to rescue yours? I should have known right away you were trouble. As soon as you didn’t listen to me the first time. Now I’m seven years in and you still don’t listen to a thing I say.”

“It’s not that I don’t listen to you. Just sometimes I think it’s bullshit and I ignore it.”

He smirks. “I knew you were trouble. The second you downed those two drinks in my kitchen.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s probably what turned you on even more.”

“I’m not going to admit or deny that.”

“You don’t have to. I have my own lie detector test. In the same way you do.”

“Yeah?” He rubs his palms up and down her thighs. “How does it work?”

“I can give you a tutorial,” she offers.

“I bet you can.”

“It starts very simple…” She pecks his lips, followed by the corner of his mouth and then along the side of his jaw. “...see, I know all of your weak spots. All those little places that drive you crazy. For example, this…” she drags the tip of her tongue along the outer edge of his ear. “...always gets things going. I know it drives you insane. In a good way. Just like I know doing this…” she bites down lightly on the lobe and then nibbles her away down the side of his neck. “...mixed with this…” she scrapes her nails down his chest, applying pressure against one nipple. “...really gets you going.”

“You’re evil, you know that? Really fucking evil.”

“You’re not the only one who’s good at teasing. Or did you forget that?”

“Oh I didn’t forget. I know how good you are at it. Seven years, remember?”

His hands push their way into her hair; dark tresses slipping through his fingers as she slides her body down his. Her mouth placing hot, moist kisses along his collarbone and over each peck; a low growl and then a hiss tumbling from his mouth when she first bathes each nipple with her tongue and then scrapes her teeth against them. Breath coming in ragged, uncontrolled pants as she licks, sucks, and kisses her way across the one side of his ribs, then the other; fingernails gouging the skin as her mouth moves even lower. Tracing the ridges of well defined abs and the cut of his hips, the wiry hair that surrounds his navel and travels lower surprisingly soft against her lips, tickling her tongue as she follows its downward path.

She’s always been amazing at this; from the slow build up and the torture that causes his body to lock up and his breath to quicken, the actual act itself. As so willing and eager; offering or taking it upon herself to just do it instead of having to be asked. A far cry from any of the previous relationships he’d been in.

“Jesus...fuck…” he manages through gritted teeth when she sucks and nibbles at his inner thigh and her fingertips drift along the side of his cock. He hates being on the receiving end of this kind of torture; the only time he possesses little to no patience. Yet it’s a game to her. Payback, in a way. For all the times he’s had the nerve to do it to her; the smart grin that takes over his face while he ignores the begging and pleading and allows his mouth and his hands to wander her entire body while purposefully ignoring where she so desperately wants them.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes open at the sound of her voice; unaware that he’d even closed them, or that his body had been drawn so tight it’s almost painful. And when he looks down, her mouth is hovering at the juncture between hip and thigh; a devilish curve to her lips and a mischievous glitter in her eyes.

“Are you desperate Tyler?” Her eyes never leave his; her mouth moist and warm as it presses soft yet excruciating kisses along the top of his thigh. “...you seem pretty desperate. I know how hard it is for you; giving up control like this.”

“I’m not giving up shit. Just…” he bites down on his bottom lip and his eyes close once more as she sucks and nibbles her way across his pubic bone; one of her nails lightly scraping along the underside of his cock. Already painfully hard; tip leaking pre cum. “...you’re bad.”

“You like it,” she says, as he palms cradles his erection. Pads of her fingers replacing the nails and repeatedly brushing against the sides; methodically tracing and exploring every vein, ridge, and indent. “...if you didn’t it, you wouldn’t be letting me do this…” her hand tightens around his rock hard length,

One hand grabs the sheets beneath him while the other shoves its way into her hair.

“Entirely or…?”

“No. Not fucking entirely. Just…” His hips arch off the bed when she drags the tip of her tongue along the top of his cock. Starting at the tip and ending at the base; aggressively suckling and nibbling while her hand tightens around him. The pressure of her thumb firm as it repeatedly passes over the head. “...if you’re just going fucking play with me like this, just stop.”

“This is karma. For all the times you’ve made ME wait. All those times you got off making me beg and plead for it. And let’s be realistic…” her one hand continues to slowly and gently manipulate his cock while the other moves from his hip to his ball; first cradling and then rhythmically squeezing. “...if you really wanted me to stop, you’d make me. You have more than a hundred pounds on me. And more than a foot in height. You’re more than capable of getting your control back.”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You would never hurt me. At least not intentionally.”

Her mouth moves to his other thigh; lips sucking and teeth biting down hard enough to mark the flesh. And when he feels her warm breath against him as her mouth lingers over the top of his cock, he sees that pleased glint in her eyes and that and that victorious grin on her face and he finally snaps. Roughly snatching her by the hair; twisting it around his fist as he yanks her up towards him. His lips aggressive and needy against hers’ tongue hungrily and savagely pushing through her teeth as he flips her over onto her back.

“You must be feeling pretty generous tonight,” Esme chides. “Giving up THAT?”

“Maybe I’d rather just fuck you.”

“You ARE getting back to normal,” she grins, and raises her head in order to lick a path that starts in the middle of his collarbone and travels over his throat, along the underside of his chin, and up onto his lips. Capturing the bottom one between her teeth. “Your stamina is almost where it was before.”

“Almost? This will be the third time tonight.”

“You make that sound like a complaint. If you can’t cope with my wants and my needs…”

“I’ve been coping with them for almost seven years. I think I’ll be okay.”

He drops his head down to kiss her; long and deep and just as hungry and desperate as before. Shivering when her nails scrape down his ribs and over his hips. And he feels her body tense and then shudder when he hastily pushes into her, giving her body a chance to adjust to the sudden intrusion before pulling out and sinking back in even harder and deeper than before. It’s a break from their usual; slow and even thrusts and the exchange of soft, short kisses followed by longer and more needy ones. Her hands attentively exploring the muscles in his shoulders and back; fingers light and feathery when they travel over every bulge, ripple, and intent that exist in his arms.

“You’re so beautiful…” he breathes, a hand moving to the side of her face, cupping it gently; thumb brushing against the skin under her eye. “...you’re so beautiful and I love you so much.”

“Don’t talk like that,” she pleads. “Don’t say things like that while you have that look in your eyes. I know what you’re thinking. And that’s not going to happen; it’s never going to happen.”

He attempts a confident, reassuring smile and then kisses her. Long and soft and sweet at first, then much more intense. Feeling her legs wrap around his waist and her ankles lock together at the small of his back. And he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against her as he continues to move inside of her. Taking in every little whimper, moan and sigh and the press of her feet against his tailbone and the feel of her nails scraping his shoulders and back.

Attempting to commit all of it to memory. Just in case.

*****

He wakes to Addie’s shrill and incessant crying coming from the nursery across the hall. Eyes immediately snapping open and his body initially tensing. It’s a cry unlike anything he’s ever heard from her before. She’s always been a fairly quiet and agreeable baby; even in the midst of a ‘meltdown’ -when food isn’t coming as quick as she thinks it should- she never sounds like THAT. It’s louder and higher than normal; no longer the cry that almost resembles a kitten that’s been separated too soon from its mother. He tries not to feel panicked; it could be a number of things. A stomach ache, a wet diaper that she’s been in for far too long and has become unbearable, or she’s somehow managed to kick and squirm her way out of her tight swaddling.

Running his hands over his weary face, he sits up; left hand reaching for his right shoulder and his fingers pressing deep and massaging firmly in a vain attempt to rid himself of both pain and stiffness. Esme doesn’t even budge beside him; blankets pulled up to her ears and her hair falling over her face, oblivious to both the commotion across the hall and his movements beside her.

He groans as he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands; a hand on the small of his back and a grimace on his face as he hobbles towards the pair of sweats that had long been discarded near the balcony door. Climbing into them and pulling them over his hips and his ass as he heads for the door.

The first thing he notices is how quiet it is in the upstairs hallway. Not even the slightest bit of sound -aside from what Addie is making - trickling out from all the other rooms. Normally he hears something; music or talking coming from one of the kids’ tablets after they’d fallen asleep watching them, the dogs rustling around or snoring from their usual resting place on top of Millie’s bed, or one of the nannies moving inside their room as they prepare to tend to the baby.

The second is the sudden change in temperature when he gets to the nursery; the air coming from under the door drastically cooler than out in the hallway. And it makes him scowl and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; briefly pausing -waiting and listening- with his fingers curled around the door handle. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to hear, but his gut...his instincts...tell him that something isn’t quite right. Yet his brain is able to pin down just what it could be.

Addie has quieted down by the time he steps into the room; her crying now soft whimpers and gasps for air and a tiny fist shoved in her mouth. And as he makes his way towards the crib, his eyes do a thorough search of the room; it’s a large, open space and the closet door is close and there’s no possible place for anyone to hide. The window is wide open; the strong breeze violently rustling and flapping the curtains and filling the room with shockingly crisp air.

“It’s alright now,” he speaks calmly to Addie as he steps beside the crib. She’s managed to get herself out of her swaddling and her body is cold to the touch; likely woken up by the chill in the air and the sound of the curtains being tossed and shaken. “It’s okay…” he places a kiss to the side of her head as he scoops her up, using one hand to press her against his chest while the other snags the receiving blanket from the crib and drapes it over her. “It’s alright, little peanut. Daddy’s got you.”

She’s comforted by the warmth of his body and the sound of his voice, and he keeps her tightly and protectively against him as he moves to the window; sliding it down and securely the latch. Pausing before stepping away; pulling back the curtains and peering out into the dark.

“What’s going on?” Esme asks, lifting her head from her pillow when he returns. “Everything okay?”

“Did you leave the window in the nursery open?”

She pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks at him quizzically. “What?”

“The window. In the nursery. Did you leave it open when you put Addie to bed?”

“No. It was already closed. I just left it that way. Why?”

“It was wide open.” He slides into bed; leaning back against the headboard, baby finally calm against him. “Are you sure it was closed?”

“I would have noticed if the window was open; it’s been crazy windy all evening.” She reaches up to run a hand over Addie’s hair, then down her arm. “Oh my god, she’s freezing! What the hell?”

“She woke up because she was cold. The window was wide open. It was fucking freezing in there.”

“Here, ” Esme sits up and reaches for the extra blanket spread across the end of the bed, draping over the front of his body and tucking it tightly around Addie. “Daddy’s got you,” she presses a kiss to her daughter’s temple. “You’re okay now, bubby. You’ll warm up quickly. Daddy’s like a furnace. Except for his feet; those are always cold.” She places a hand on Addie’s back and rests her head against Tyler’s shoulder. “Maybe one of the nannies opened it. The window. Maybe they went in to check on her and they thought it felt hot in there so they opened it. Then forgot to go back in and close it.”

“Maybe. That’s pretty fucking stupid though, isn’t it?”

“People make mistakes, Tyler. She’ll be okay. She just needs to warm up. Maybe she’ll take something to eat; that might make her feel better.” She peels the blanket back and gently removes Addie from his arms, then stretches out on her side; baby on the mattress facing her, eagerly latching onto the breast when it's offered.

“Always hungry,” Esme muses, and combs her fingers through Addie’s hair. “Maybe you do have some of your daddy in you, after all. He’s always eating. You’ll be okay, little bubby. You’ll warm up and you’ll have a full tummy and then you’ll feel better. Good thing you woke daddy, huh? He hasn’t been a sound sleeper in a long time.”

Tyler stretches out on his side as well, facing the two of them. And he runs a hand over his wife’s hair and then his daughter’s before sliding closer to them; effectively shielding Addie’s tiny body with his own. His arm arm resting lightly on top of her as he places a protective hand on the small of Esme’s back.

He won’t be sleeping any time soon.

#Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fan fic #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Extraction #Extraction 2020 #best part of me #chris hemsworth character

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longitudinalwaveme · 4 years

Text

Nightmare

“You stupid, worthless brat! How am I supposed to get ahead in life with you and your sister dragging me down? If it weren’t for the two of you brats, I’d be living like a king!” Leonard Snart doesn’t move a muscle. Despite being twelve years old, practically an adult, his father is still twice his size and over four times his weight, so fighting back would be pointless.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

“No, sir.” Trying to defend himself will just make his father angrier.

“I should just throw you both out to fend for yourselves! Maybe then you ungrateful brats would learn to appreciate me! After all, if it weren’t for me, you’d both be dead in a gutter! Nobody else wants garbage like you.” When Leonard fails to respond, his father punches him in the stomach, then slings him over his shoulder. Leonard doesn’t react until he realizes that his father is heading for his sister’s room. Then, in desperation, he bites his father’s hand, producing a yowl of pain. Unfortunately, the bite doesn’t deter his father from his intended destination, and he storms into Lisa’s room, shakes her awake violently, and then grabs her as well. She immediately starts crying, and her tears only come faster when her father shakes her in an attempt to shut her up. Leonard tries to calm her down, but in his position, there’s not much he can do. His father opens the door to their trailer and violently deposits Leonard and Lisa on the front step.

“See how you like living without me!” his father yells before slamming the door. Leonard tries to open the door, but it doesn’t budge, and he starts to panic. His father has locked him and his little sister outside their home at three in the morning! What is he supposed to do? He can’t go to the neighbors-they all think he’s a juvenile delinquent-and he can’t call CPS because if he does, he and his sister will be separated and he’ll be thrown in jail just like his dad had told him. His sister starts crying again. He doesn’t think she fully understands what’s going on yet, but she can clearly tell that something is wrong.

“Shh….I’m here, Lisa. I’m not gonna let nothin’ bad happen to you, sis.” She hugs him, clinging to his thin frame as though her life depends on it, and asks,

“Are we in trouble again?” Leonard nods.

“Dad locked us out of the house,” he says, trying not to sound panicked.

“Is he gonna let us back in?” Leonard shrugs.

“I dunno, baby sis. I hope so.” At that, Lisa starts crying again.

“Shh...sis, we’ll be okay. Just pretend we’re having a campout.”

“Like the one Barbie had on TV?” Leonard grins.

“Yeah, just like that. Only ours’ll be better, ‘cause ours has us.” Lisa smiles.

“Okay, then why don’t we sleep over there?” she asks, pointing at a pile of leaves.

“Looks good to me, little sis.” He leads her over to the pile, takes off his shirt, and hands it to her.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s your sleeping bag. You can’t have a campout without one.”

“But where’s yours?

“I don’t need one, ‘cause I’m a man,” Leonard replies. He doesn’t want her to worry about him, and besides, tough guys like him don’t need sleeping bags, so it’s not a lie.

“Okay, Lenny.” Lisa lies down, and Leonard spreads his shirt over her.

“Good night, little sis.”

“Wait! Lenny, could you tell me a story before I go to sleep?”

“I guess so. What do you want me to tell you about?”

“The one with the princess and the superheroes!” Leonard manages not to groan, but it’s a close thing. Lisa asks for this story all the time, and it’s hard to tell. Superheroes might exist, but they don’t care about trailer trash like the Snarts. Why get her hopes up? But then again, it isn’t like he can refuse his little sister, so he launches into his story.

“Okay, so once upon a time, in a faraway place like New York, there was a beautiful princess named Lisa. Now, like all princesses, Lisa was smart and nice and all those things girls like to be called, but she had a problem- a big one. You see, when she was just a little baby, her kingdom-which I think is like a really old city-was cursed, so everybody and their Aunt Mariah forgot that she was their princess, and her loving mom and pop were replaced by a loose lady and an ogre who drank too much. The lady ran away, and the ogre was real, real mean to her and beat her up all the time for stupid reasons. Oh, and he also made her do chores and stuff, like cleaning up all his beer bottles while he was watching football.”

“How could he be watching football? Princesses don’t have TVs!” Leonard sighs.

“Okay, then he watched it with his crystal ball. Anyways, as bad as things were, the princess did have one friend. Before the curse, he’d been preparing to be a knight, but the curse had made him forget who he was, so he thought he was her brother and didn’t know how he was supposed to protect her from the ogre anymore.”

“What was the knight’s name?”

“Uh, his name was, uh….Sir Leo, the knight of, uh, Cold, and he could shoot ice! I mean, before the curse made him forget how. So anyway, Sir Leo and Princess Lisa were in a huge mess, and after years of living under the curse, they had given up on ever getting out. But that all changed when a superhero named-which one do you want?”

“The Flash.” Leonard nods, unsurprised. Jay Garrick has always been his sister’s favorite, probably because he lives near Central City just like them.

“Okay, so the Flash arrived to break the spell, and he did by, uh, running really fast. And then he punched the ogre in the face and gave the princess her real parents back, and she and the knight, who had his powers back and could protect her now, lived happily ever after. The End.”

“Thanks, Lenny,” Lisa says drowsily. Five minutes later, she’s fast asleep. Upon realizing that his sister is unconscious, Leonard finally allows himself to panic again. What’s he going to do if his father doesn’t let him and his sister back inside? It’s already October-if it gets much colder, Lisa could freeze to death. He wants to start crying, but doesn’t. Twelve-year-old boys-men-don’t cry. Ever. Instead of crying, Leonard decides to get angry. Someday, his father will pay for all the stuff he put Lisa through. He’s gonna pay-Leonard will make sure of that. With his tears firmly under control, Leonard falls asleep, determined to prove that he’s stronger than his father. The next morning, Leonard wakes up to find his sister still sleeping peacefully, her blonde hair a rather tangled, leaf-filled mess. In fact, she looks so happy that he almost hates to wake her, but if he doesn’t, she’ll be late for school.

“Lisa, wake up!” Her eyes flutter open.

“Good morning, Lenny.” Leonard pulls her to her feet and carefully brushes the leaves off of her, then takes his shirt back and puts it on.

“So, did you like the campout?” She nods.

“You’re the bestest big brother in the world.” Leonard smiles. If she’s happy, he’s happy. He leads her to the door of their trailer and turns the handle, and, thankfully, the door opens. The pair slip inside and find their father passed out on their couch, beer bottles strewn all over the floor and the TV still blaring. Leonard sneaks over to the couch, slides the remote out of his father’s hand, and turns off the TV. He proceeds to start picking up the bottles his father had left lying around. A few minutes later, he is joined in this endeavor by his sister, who is smaller and can more easily reach the bottles that had somehow ended up under furniture. About ten minutes later, the pair have successfully cleaned up the living room, and Leonard starts making breakfast.

“Go get dressed for school, Lisa.” Lisa obeys and vanishes into her room. While she gets dressed, Leonard finishes making cereal and sets the two bowls on the table. After doing this, he goes to the refrigerator, grabs the package of beer bottles, and fills all but one of them with water. If he only drinks one today, he’ll be sober enough to go to work tomorrow. Lisa returns from her room in a t-shirt and jeans long enough to cover the scars on her legs, and they both sit down at the table and start eating.

“Is Daddy all right?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” They spend the rest of the meal in silence, and then Leonard takes the dishes to the sink and instructs his sister to brush her teeth, which she does. He washes the dishes, puts them away, and then pulls out his math homework that was due two weeks ago. His teacher had been bothering him about it on Friday, and he can’t afford any more trouble at school. The principal had already made it clear the last time he’d gotten detention (for mouthing off) that if he was sent to the office one more time, he’d be expelled, and if that happens, he’ll be stuck at home with his father all day. Stupid school. It isn’t like he is going to benefit from school anyway-he’d heard one teacher tell another that he’d never make it through high school-so why do they force him to come? School doesn’t make him any money, so how do they expect him to support his sister? He needs a job, not algebra. After a minute or so of struggling, he gives up and decides that he will just take another F. It isn’t like he’s going to pass the class anyway. Just then, his sister returns with her backpack and asks him to walk her to school. He does, and about twenty minutes later, he is waving good-bye to her as she enters her second-grade classroom. He leaves the building and walks to the middle school.

“Hey, Leonard,” another kid says. Leonard nods in greeting but doesn’t reply. There’s no point in trying to make friends when your dad’s got a rap as the town drunk and a thief, so he never really talks to anyone except when he needs to prove how tough he is when he gets into fights with other kids. His day goes pretty typically until math class. Normally, it is his least favorite class of the day (because it’s at the end of the day), but today, when he asks his teacher to just give him an F on the assignment and expel him already at the end of the class (after sleeping through the rest of it), the teacher doesn’t yell at him, call him a punk kid, or expel him. Instead, he gives Leonard an odd look and asks him to sit down. Leonard obeys reluctantly.

“Is everything all right at home, Leonard? I know you and I have never gotten along well, but lately I’ve noticed that you’ve come in with bruises and odd-looking marks on your arms fairly regularly, to say nothing of how tired you always seem to be. Is something wrong?” Leonard freezes. How had he failed to realize that his injuries hadn’t been covered up adequately? If he’s not careful, the teacher might call CPS and then he’ll lose Lisa forever.

“What, are you stupid or something? Don’t you know that I’ve been sent to the office for fighting three times already?” No one really cares about him, so he might as well make sure that this guy stops pretending to.

“Leonard, no one gets injuries that look like belt marks from fist fights.”

“Belt marks? What’re you talking about?” Leonard asks, before rattling off a string of swear words. In response, the teacher gently rolls up his left sleeve, revealing several barely-healed scars from his father’s belt. Leonard’s mind whirls as he tries to come up with a plausible explanation for the marks, but before he can, the teacher asks,

“Leonard, who did this to you?” Leonard swears again and looks at the floor, trying not to meet his teacher’s gaze.

“Look, sir, it was nothing. I did it to myself for a dare, that’s all.” In response, his teacher rolls up his other sleeve, revealing marks from a hand clearly much larger than Leonard’s own.

“Is your father doing this to you?”

“Yeah, but it ain’t none of your business. I’m just an idiot, that’s all. If I wasn’t such a delinquent, he wouldn’t have to keep me in line. I’m just garbage, okay? I deserve everything I get,” Leonard replies, parroting his father. If the teacher believes him, he can go home and take care of his sister. So, even though his dad would’ve beaten him if he’d been a goody-good like that Barry Allen guy in ninth grade, he is perfectly willing to use his father’s words if it gets him out of his current situation. Lisa is probably worried about him.

“Leonard, no one deserves to be beaten so badly that they’re still black and blue days later. I agree that your behavior could use a lot of improvement, but I would never lay a hand on you unless you were to threaten the life of me or another student, and I have no reason to believe that you would do that. Your father is wrong to treat you the way he does.” Leonard shrugs.

“Maybe. But sir, you’ve gotta keep quiet about this. If you call CPS, I’ll be separated from my sister and they’ll put me in jail or something.”

“Who told you that?”

“My dad. I mean, he ain’t a great guy, but he used to be a cop, so he would know.” The teacher frowns and shakes his head.

“If your father told you that, he’s lying to you. CPS isn’t going to send you to jail-in fact, I don’t know if they even have the power to do that.”

“Look, sir, everything’s fine at home! Please don’t tell anyone about this-please. I don’t want to lose my sister.” His teacher sighs.

“Very well. But if I see you with injuries like that again, I will call CPS.”

“Whatever,” Leonard replies. He mutters a few more swear words and leaves the room, hoping that his teacher is angry at him now and determined to keep his injuries covered from now on. He leaves the middle school and picks up Lisa, then asks,

“So, sis, how’d your day go?” In response, Lisa frowns.

“Lydia Brown made fun of my clothes again and said that her mommy had told her that I was trash and would probably rob the whole class blind,” she says sadly.

“It’ll be okay, Lisa. When you’re bigger and become super famous, she’ll regret making fun of you. Besides, her older brother is in my grade, so I’ll just tell him to tell her not to mess with you, or he’ll have to answer to me.”

“Thanks, Lenny. You’re as brave and heroic as the Flash.” The two walk home to find their father gone. Leonard breathes a sigh of relief. Since he isn’t here, Lisa’ll be able to do her homework. Lisa sits down at the kitchen table and pulls out a math sheet, and Leonard starts making dinner. He’s still making spaghetti when Lisa asks him for help.

“Lenny, what’s nine minus four?”

“Five.” Despite his math grades, Leonard is actually really good at figuring. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be able to buy groceries and help his father pay the bills. He wonders what his teachers would think of that. After all, they all think he’s a stupid delinquent. None of them would ever guess that he’s responsible for taking care of his little sister, and he prefers it that way. Mockery is better than pity. Five minutes later, Lisa finishes her homework and Leonard finishes cooking the spaghetti and puts it in the fridge. This accomplished, he puts the clothes in the washing machine and then asks Lisa what she wants to do.

“Can we play dolls, Lenny?” Leonard groans. He hates playing with dolls, but he can’t disappoint his little sister. Except for their grandfather, who’s in the hospital, he’s all she has.

“Sure, sis.” The two of them get out Lisa’s collection of dolls (the majority of which come from either Goodwill or social service people who felt bad for her) and he asks,

“So, little sis, what do you want them to do?” Lisa grins.

“Let’s have Lydia (the creepy-looking porcelain doll she’d insisted he purchase at Goodwill) and Mariah (a rag doll with red hair) have a tea party and then go visit Tina (a Barbie doll with very short hair thanks to the previous owner cutting most of it off).” If it were up to Leonard, he would have all the dolls punch each other, but then again, he’s a man. Men don’t play with toys like little kids do.

“Sounds great, little sis.” An hour later, the game has somehow morphed into a really weird Star Wars parody featuring a female Flash (played by a knock-off Barbie) fighting the evil empire, which was lead by an evil emperor named Lewis (who was played by a cracked lawn gnome that had also been a Goodwill purchase), and both Leonard and Lisa have collapsed into uncontrollable giggling because Lisa had had the female Flash declare that she would defeat Lewis by vibrating him through a wall and then making him clean up all his beer bottles, only to realize how weird that sounded and declare that she wanted a do-over.

“Little sis, you’re the greatest,” Leonard says after he stops laughing-only to freeze in fright when he hears the door slam open and then slam shut.

“Leonard! Lisa! Get in here now!” The two rush to the door and find their father standing there with a bottle in his hand. He swears violently, slaps Leonard hard across the face, and then calls him a name that had gotten him suspended for three days when he’d used it at school. Lisa shrieks and clings to him, and he sighs and wonders how it’s possible that his father is drunk again when he’d made sure that only one of the bottles had had alcohol in it.

“So, you think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, you little punk? You filled my drinks with water and made me buy more to replace them. You moron! If it weren’t for you wasting my money, I’d be a millionaire, but no, I had to have a dirty, no-good punk kid instead! You’re supposed to respect me, not waste my money, you stupid brat! And now you’ll pay.” Leonard sighs and goes to fetch his father’s belt. Hopefully, it won’t hurt too much this time. Then his father grabs his shoulder and violently stops him in his tracks.

“No. I got a more effective way of punishing you.” He smashes his beer bottle on the counter and motions Leonard towards him. Leonard complies, unsure of what his father plans to do but too afraid to anger him. His father raises the bottle and brings it down hard across his arm, creating a spurt of blood. Then he shoves him into the counter and punches him in the ribcage. Leonard glances at his sister. She looks terrified, but hasn’t been hurt. Good. Leonard braces himself and his father gives him a black eye, then hits him with the bottle again, drawing more blood.

“Look, Dad, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I-I just wanted you to be happy, and you don’t seem very happy when you’re drunk.” He doesn’t really think he did anything wrong, but his father is scaring Lisa, so if he can bring the punishment to an end by apologizing, he will.

“You’re sorry? That don’t change a thing, you little sissy! You’re a sniveling little coward and I wish that you’d never been born!” He hits Leonard in the mouth, and Leonard tastes blood.

“Dad...please….”He has to protect Lisa!

“Shut up, you worthless yellow-bellied ninny!” His father raises the bottle to hit Leonard again, but suddenly, Lisa runs into his path and receives the full blow from the bottle. It opens up her shoulder and blood spurts everywhere.

“LISA!” His sister doesn’t reply. His father is right. He really shouldn’t have been born. If it wasn’t for him, Lisa wouldn’t be bleeding.

“You...you hurt Lisa!” he yells at his father.

“And if you don’t behave, I’ll do it again the next time. Maybe threatening to hurt her for your mistakes will make you give me some respect.” Leonard’s eyes widen in fear. Most of the time, he doesn’t know why his father gets angry at him. If his father starts hurting Lisa for his mistakes, he’ll never forgive himself.

“Dad, please don’t do that. Please, leave her alone! I promise I’ll never, ever sass you again, I swear. Just don’t hurt her again!” His father scowls.

“Whatever.” He looks over his daughter, then says,

“She’ll be fine. I know somebody who can stitch her up-and boy, if you even think about calling 911, I’ll tell them that you attacked her.” Leonard nods. He’ll never call 911 anyway, because if he ever does, he’ll lose Lisa. His father takes Lisa away a few minutes later, leaving Leonard alone with his thoughts. His little sister is hurt because of him, and he’s terrified. What if she dies? What if someone finds out what happens and he is separated from her? What if she decides she hates him for not protecting her? How much money is the surgery going to cost? How can he possibly trust himself to protect her after this? His father is right-he is worthless, and he always will be. He contemplates calling 911 so that Lisa will be taken away from their father, but quickly decides against it. Lisa will be terrified if she’s separated from him, and besides, what if the police believe his father and put him in jail? His grandfather will be so disappointed if that happens. Instead of calling 911, he grabs his father’s broken bottle and deepens the cut in his arm. If Lisa has to bleed, he should, too. Two hours later, his father returns with Lisa, dumps her on the floor, and demands dinner. Leonard gets the spaghetti out of the fridge, heats it up, and places it on the table. His father starts eating mechanically, and Leonard runs to Lisa. Much to his relief, her eyes flutter open after a few seconds, and she bursts into tears.

“Daddy hit me!” she wails. Leonard checks her shoulder and sees that it has been awkwardly stitched together. His heart breaks for her. Why does his little sister have to live like this when she’s done no wrong? She isn’t a delinquent like him or a drunk like his Dad. She doesn’t deserve this pain and poverty. Why has she been left with only a delinquent punk kid to raise her?

“Get your sister to stop crying or I’ll give you both something to cry about!” Leonard winces at the sound of his father’s voice and starts hushing his sister. About a minute later, she’s stopped crying and asks,

“Are you okay, Lenny?”

“Don’t worry about me, sis. I’m fine. How are you? Are you all right? Do you need anything? I’m so sorry that I let you get hurt.” His little sister isn’t supposed to worry about him.

“I’m….okay. Is Daddy still mad at us?”

“I dunno.” Leonard replies. He rocks her for a few minutes, and then his father finishes his meal and turns on the TV, then walks over to the couch and collapses on it. Leonard cleans up his plate, tells Lisa to eat, and then puts the wet laundry in the drier.

“Get me a beer, boy.” Leonard sighs and hands his father a can from the fridge, then joins his sister at the table and eats dinner. A few minutes later, Lisa finishes her food and tiptoes off to her room, and then Leonard finishes eating, cleans up the plates, puts away the laundry, and goes to Lisa’s room to help her plan her outfit for tomorrow. He leaves the room while she changes into her PJs, then helps her brush her teeth and tucks her into bed.

“Can you tell me another story, Lenny?”

“Sure, Lisa. What about?”

“Maybe one about some beautiful imaginary creature, like a fairy or a unicorn or a nice mommy who actually lives with her kids.” Leonard almost swears, but catches himself. Why does his sister have to live without a mother? What has she done?

“Okay, sis. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Lisa, and her brother, Leonard. They lived in Central City and they were the best of friends, but they had a problem-their parents didn’t want them, and neither did anyone else, because they were poor and people thought they were bad and mean just like their Dad was, and their Grandpa was too sick to help them. But then, one day, Lisa met a nice man and lady while she was ice skating. They were really impressed by her, so they asked her who she was, and soon they became friends with her, and when they learned that nobody wanted her and that he dad was loud and angry all the time, they called the police and he got taken away forever, and then she and her big brother got adopted by them and lived happily ever after.”

“And they had a pony and their house was made of candy!”

“And that. The end.”

“You’re the bestest storyteller ever, Lenny.” A few seconds later, she’s asleep, and Leonard kisses her on the head.

“Love you, sis.” He leaves her room and goes back to the living room, where his father is still drinking. Someday, he’ll make his father regret this day, when he gets older and can fight him. Someday, Lisa will have everything she wants. But it won’t come from imaginary caring parents. They don’t exist. He’s the only one who can give her her happy ending, and he will-no matter who gets in the way or what he has to do. After all, his future is doomed already. But if he can keep hers bright, he will have succeeded in protecting her, and that’s the only thing that matters. He certainly doesn’t.

#trigger warning for abuse #flash rogues #len snart #lisa snart #dc comics #Lewis/Larry Snart's A+ Parenting #fanfic #@gorogues

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zukofenty · 4 years

Text

always be my maybe

➜ Summary: The one where Zuko and Katara could never quite get their timing right. Especially when the universe throws a lost condom, thousands of miles, and a baby in their way.

“I will literally french braid my pubic hairs and never open my pussy to anyone ever again if this condom doesn’t kill me. Please don’t let it kill me.”

➜ Genre: Modern!AU, Celebrity Chef!Katara, Doctor!Zuko, Love, Rosie!AU

AO3 @zutaraweek

“Go a couple rounds, leave Zuko’s dick up in a casket!” Toph screams into the microphone, undeterred by the various guests who stare up at her, mouth open and half-chewed, dry-as-fuck chicken spilling out. It wasn’t her fault, really! As soon as Zuko handed the mic off to her, he basically gave her free reign to spit a Megan Thee Stallion verse in his honor. “Sing with me, bitches! Look up the lyrics on Genius.com, Cheryl!”

“Sit down !” Katara squeezes out from clenched teeth, ripping the device out from the girl’s grip.

“I didn’t even get to the chorus, you fucking whore .” A bridesmaid nervously plucks the mic from their table and avoids eye contact with both of them. “What’s going on with you, bitch?” Toph asks quietly. She could tell Katara’s been doing her fake smile for the last twenty minutes. The girl was practically going to break her face open with how hard she was grinding her teeth.

“Just thinking.” Katara wants to smack herself in the face, pinch a nipple and bring herself to reality. Everything felt too real, and Toph could sense it. She’s the type to somehow sense when Katara shifts in her seat a certain way to covertly satisfy a cooch itch, and then buys her Monistat the same day.

She hates that she could never hide any emotion from her. Toph could always figure out the puzzle pieces that were Katara. One of the few to know the real her, besides Zuko.

Sometimes Katara thinks the younger girl knows her better than him. At least now. Especially now.

“About?” Toph takes an experimental sip from the wine glass, and gags. The juice tasted like Gatorade and cum. “Why the fuck would anyone want a dry wedding? Weddings are the only time you get to see your alcoholic uncle vomit all over the bride’s shoes, and then your closeted aunt has to wipe up the puke and her reputation from the floor while thinking of her secret girlfriend at home watching Tiger King .”

“That example was extremely specific and extremely unnecessary.” Katara brushes a crunchy curl, doused in hairspray, from her eyes.

“Sorry, I got distracted. I had dick on the brain, or whatever Rihanna said,” Toph mumbles, risking a bite of the chicken.

Katara turns to see him at the couple’s table in the center of the extravagant wedding, and sighs. “And for your information, I was just thinking when will he penetrate my esophagus? You know, just girly things.”

Toph has the gall to slap the girl on the cheek.

Katara holds her stinging face, eyes narrowed in an unspoken threat for fucking up the parts of her face she didn’t set with powder (she was going for a dewy look, sue her). “Not fair! You were the one who called my throat the baby chute earlier today!”

“Ok, throat goat. One, he’s getting married. Two, you’re sick.”

“My therapist will most likely cosign that,” Katara sighs. Toph holds Katara’s hand and leans her head on her shoulder as they watch Zuko mingle with guests.

This is the happiest day of his life.

Her best friend of twenty odd years was getting married. He looked so handsome, so happy. A suit that looked like it would cost someone’s rent and a half casually hugging his muscular frame. A blinding smile on his face, cheeks flushed from champagne and excitement.

When he turns her way, his smile grows impossibly wider. Toph clinks on a champagne glass with a fork, breaking it a la Princess Diaries , and Katara could feel the stares of nearly everyone in the room, ready for her speech.

It should be the happiest day of my life, too.

Right?

Katara thinks she wants to cry.

Now, how come none of those Judy Blume, coming-of-age books have a chapter on how to write a Best Woman speech for your best friend getting married to another woman, even when you were struggling with the fact that you might have been in love with him for the past two decades?

Bitch, what the fuck do you even start that Google Doc with?

Does she start at 4 years old? When Katara thinks Zuko is an annoying piece of shit?

But, you know, he’s her piece of shit.

Guys have hepatitis, or cooties, or whatever Sokka said, she couldn’t exactly remember. All she remembered was Zuko sucked. He stole her crayons and made fun of her Hello Kitty backpack on the first day of school. He was the stupid one, not Hello Kitty . Never Hello Kitty . She’d shoved his face into the playground’s wood chips, threatened to cut off his peepee for breathing down her neck with his retainer breath, and even stuck his head in between two slices of white bread and lovingly referring to him as an ‘idiot sandwich’ (Sokka let her watch too many Gordon Ramsey hosted shows while their dad was working late).

Zuko and Katara were practically inseparable ever since.

Or 10, when you were asking for trouble if you fucked with Zuko.

He was a tiny kid, glasses too big for his head. Hair shaggy, clothes too oversized for him (just the way he liked it). His dad had tried beating it into him that it showed weakness by not making waves, not being loud and proud. But, he was quiet by nature. For him, it was just easier.

Not stirring the pot, being the observer, looking in from the outside. He was just Zuko , he liked Wonder Woman comics and figuring out what other words besides BOOBIES he could spell with his calculator instead of actually doing his math homework, because he was bad at math. Bad at everything, really. Everything but band class. Even if he did hate that stupid fucking tsungi horn.

His mom would hide his report cards from his dad, especially the ones noting how shy he was (Mrs. Kim had used the exact words ‘very antisocial, very easy to bully’). Even when Ursa would ask him to try, try to make friends outside of Katara, he was always a stubborn little thing. Something you got from your father , she would say, the smile slipping off her face just the slightest.

It was just more fun being by himself, the only exception he made was Katara. He spent his recess scribbling down a plot for a Love Amongst the Dragons Fanfiction and listening to Katara’s iPod he’d steal from her, just because he could , after she snuck it out from her backpack for the 10 minute break they had. It was the iPod she spent the last two Christmases saving up with Sokka for. Zuko insisted he could master Ludacris’s rap in Usher’s “Yeah!” and practiced the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she had custody of the device.

Some days, Katara would sit beside him in her signature puffy blue jacket, struggling to fold herself to fit on the blacktop beside Zuko. The patented jacket her grandmother forced her to wear every single day obstructing her abilities. He snickers, but keeps quiet, content with plotting out a story that he would hopefully get to type out on the school library’s computers if his mom picked him up late again. She usually did, much to the dismay of the ladies at the front office. They typically hissed at him (which made him cry, to which they would have to offer him a cherry Otter pop so they wouldn’t face a lawsuit) and called his mom words he couldn’t repeat without getting in trouble (“Whore”).

Katara would babble on about her day, sometimes thinking of ways for his characters to die a painful death, or cooking up Fanfic plots for Beyoncé and Britney Spears to find love among the chaos of a zombie infestation. She always insisted she brought the creative range to their friendship. Some days though, Katara forgets all about him and plays handball with all the most popular girls in school.

Zuko’s jealous.

(Sometimes.)

She’s my best friend! He wants to scream in their faces. At the end of the day, he thinks he’s going to lose her. The day she realized she was too good, too cool for the likes of him.

“Chan, stop it!” Zuko squeaked, his notebook snatched from underneath his nose. The boy was always picking a fight. Your dad buys you a Motorola flip phone and suddenly you think you’re the shit.

The boy sneers at Zuko, flipping through the pages. “What do we have here? Are you drawing Shrek with boobies? You’re gonna jack off to that later, freak?”

Before Zuko could get a word in and defend his honor, Chan’s entire body was shoved to the ground, a dainty foot cased in a light up, white Skechers sneaker pressing into his face. Zuko couldn’t help his glee as Katara could barely be peeled off and stopped from repeatedly slamming Chan’s face into the hopscotch chalk court. “It’s all ogre now, bitch!”

She made sure to pin her detention slip to her Bratz backpack with pride. Zuko buys two treats that day from the student store before he walks her home.

“You’re my best friend, forever and ever,” Katara declares, head held up high. Zuko saw through it, though. He knows she’s scared of what Hakoda has to say, what Gran Gran has to say. So, he holds her hand tight, trying to relay his gratitude in the touch.

He licks at his Spongebob popsicle. The eyes had melted off and looked more like someone’s worst nightmare than an icy treat. Katara had wanted his cherry Otter pop, and he happily handed it over. “Pinky promise?” He holds out his finger.

Katara hooks her finger around his, dwarfing his tiny digit. Her outstretched smile stained orange. “I’ll break yours if you ever forget.”

At 15, Katara came to the realization that men have the emotional intelligence of a Souplantation crouton (may Souplantation rest in peace).

Growing up, with their dad and grandma always at work at their store, Katara was always in charge of cooking. No matter how many times she’d try to get Sokka to do it, he always insisted he was far too busy with taking out the trash, killing bugs, hating women. So, she was stuck with it, and honest-to-Rihanna, really liked it. Not that she’d ever let Sokka ever get the satisfaction of knowing it. It was her time to be alone, gave her the space to pop in a Cheetah Girls CD and pretend she won Masterchef with the struggle meal straight out of a Spam can she had to pound on a few times to get it to squeeze out from its gelatinous casing, or a whitewashed recipe she tried replicating whenever she catches a Rachael Ray rerun.

Though, Katara’s favorite time was chopping up the green onions under Ursa’s careful eyes, a hand always just there in realign the knife just in case she’d carelessly cut the green onions too big to garnish. Then, Ursa would then take out scissors because nobody had time for that. When his dad wasn’t home, Zuko’s mom opened up their doors across the street to the siblings, rambling about the next big painting she was planning as they scarfed down a home cooked meal.

Zuko was similar to his mom in that regard. They were the type of people who managed to make everyday moments larger-than-life, made it infectious, too. When it’s nighttime and he’s snuck into and snug in Katara’s room, he’d tell her dreams too big for anyone’s comprehension. Sometimes he dreamed he had tits that would leak chunky chicken noodle soup. Sometimes he’d ramble until her eyes are flitting shut and he’s left talking to himself and measuring his hand with hers, securing the leg she instantly throws over his waist. He’d like to think he was her only exception in the Souplantation crouton narrative.

Her bed is starting to smell like him, too. His favorite Costco brand shampoo and conditioner that he leaves in her bathroom, permeating her nostrils when she pulled him close. She even let him put up a Drake poster right next to her plethora of Rihanna ones, but only after he let her draw a penis on both his and Drake’s face. What he didn’t account for was her using a permanent marker, or the fact he couldn’t scrub it away from his cheeks for the next two days.

It was easy like this, just the two of them.

He’s there for all the birthdays and Halloweens and Christmases that left her not quite feeling whole. When things were hard, when things fucking sucked, when she wanted nothing more but to die. He was there, (stupidly) holding out his hand and willing to be the eye to her hurricane.

At 15, Zuko decides Katara feels home.

At 18, Zuko had already been Katara’s many firsts.

He was her first buffet partner, and brought back his Justin Bieber haircut just to pretend he was 12 so they could qualify for children's rates and a complimentary Oreo cheesecake because they were always celebrating his “birthday.”

Her first clubbing partner the second she turned 18, rubbing her back when any Beyoncé song with a Jay-Z feature came on because the second he cheated on Beyoncé, he cheated on everyone in the Beyhive. The first one to have to hold her as she hurled on his shoes, the first one to have to take her to get her stomach pumped.

The first person she tried to roll a joint with.

“I don’t need to learn that.”

Katara purses her lips. “And why not?”

He gestures to his face. “I’m too pretty. Only ugly bitches know how to do that . ”

Sokka thinks he needs to intervene when he hears Zuko’s tsungi horn case being chucked across the room .

The first person she (almost) fucked.

His family life was, for lack of a better word, fucked up. Katara had been witness to the drinking, the drugs, the crying. The nights where she sometimes didn’t know if the person standing in front of her was Zuko. She just wanted one night away from it all, just one night out on the town.

“That was kind of terrible,” Katara admits easily, wincing because she was sure he spilled Papa John’s garlic dipping sauce in his shitty Corolla’s air filter last Tuesday. He tried positioning his arm naturally underneath her head while their half naked bodies were pressed together, but he ended up smacking off her glasses. He even had the audacity to contently sigh as though he accomplished something, rather than just tangle her hair and give her a tension headache.

She felt lied to! Cheated! Bamboozled! Hoodwinked! All the Shrek and Y/N stories on FF.net could not prepare her for the fact that there weren’t any tongues fighting for dominance, or any mouths that tasted like cinnamon or musk or shit like that. It was just retainer to retainer and smelled distinctly of her awkward friend (cheese). It was sweaty and a lot of weird humping and felt like a visit to the gyno.

“Hey! I thought it was pleasantly average.” He clears his throat. “You know, besides the fact you farted mid-insertion and I started crying after 20 seconds.”

“You mean right after you came, right?” She says matter-of-factly.

He glared. “Is it my fault you have a gorilla grip pussy? Is it?”

“Zuko, you’re so fucking — ”

“What happens when you put a hot dog in the microwave for 2 minutes?” He crosses his hands and folds them over his lap like a professor waiting for a volunteer to answer the equation on the board.

“So in this metaphor, are you calling my pussy a microwave?”

But in true Zuko and Katara fashion, it was clumsy and a mess and could be erased with an emergency Burger King outing where they ate in silence and pinky promised never to speak of it again.

She wonders if Zuko should’ve been her first date to prom, too.

She wants to stop feeling so bothered . She couldn’t quite pin it, but lately everything he did frustrated the shit out of her. How he was taller than her now. How he didn’t need her to fight his battles because he goes to the gym now and wears a fake Gucci belt because he’s just so cool (brooding Asian guy is the trend, and Zuko thinks he’s the blueprint). How he said yes to going to prom with Mai, the prettiest girl in their grade.

“Don’t look in there!” Katara yelps, a blush creeping on her cheeks.

“Why?” Zuko questions, taken aback. He was entirely too comfortable in her room.

“Um. Maybe I don’t want a freak going through my dirty underwear pile!” Her eyebrows are halfway done, and she only has one eyelash glued on. She was stressed, scared her dress might not fit with how many of Sokka’s cookies she stress-ate because she just wanted the night to be perfect .

“Relax, what are a few discharge stains going to do to me, huh? If anything, it gives your pussy some much-needed personality.” Zuko wasn’t going to stop until he found his fake Gucci belt in Katara’s closet.

“Zuko!” Katara screams at the top of her lungs.

“Do I have to remind you about the time you broke our friendship bracelet while masturbating and I dug the bead out of your vagina like the good friend I am?”

She shoves him back from the closet, crowding in his space. That belt was going to remain in its rightful place. “Oh, fuck you! I took the fall for you when you opened your laptop in history class and forgot to exit from your “VIBRATING PANTIES” porn tab!” She pushes him before plopping on her bed.

Katara buries her face in her pillow at that point, too entirely embarrassed and body too hot to continue to look at his nonchalant face. He doesn’t quite remember when exactly Katara became so cute .

Pretty? Definitely. Fearless? For sure.

But blushing Katara, embarrassed Katara, cute Katara?

He thinks it’s because they rarely saw each other now, despite his patented place in her bed. His band, Hello Zuko, was aiming for at least a few dive bar performances to build a reputation, especially with their new title track “Tennis Ball.” Katara was a familiar face at their town’s soup kitchens.

“Where are you going?” he would sleepily mumble as he tried taking his midday nap before late night performances.

Katara’s hands are full with ingredients, swaying side to side and eyes red and drowsy. “Trying to temper chocolate. Why? What’s up?”

She never misses a performance, though. Comes to them with a sparkly poster doused in glitter, and t-shirts with his face on them and everything. He never misses a fundraising event, making sure to bring a steaming thermos filled with tea because Katara was never the type to remember to take care of herself, and always buys out her fundraising goodies (even her overbaked brownies.)

He pulls her up by her ponytail, cupping her face in between his hands.

“You look cute.”

“You look like the human equivalent of toeless socks,” Katara mumbles, face squished in between Zuko’s hands. “Why are you giving my clit piercing a kiss kiss right now? What do you want?”

Zuko shakes her head in between his hands. “Pinky promise me you’ll drop all penises to dance with me if they play any Usher song?” It was like he was in fifth grade all over again. “Call me a Nissan because I just want you Altima-self.”

She lets out a cackle, the sound nearly deafening. “Don’t worry, the DJ will get us falling in love again in no time.”

“Do you have to go with Jet?” He asks, pouting. He lays his head in her lap, too entirely preoccupied with picking at her pilling sweatpants to look at her questioning eyes. They promised they were going to be each others’ dates at the beginning of the school year. It was more fun going to dances with Katara. She knew how to do the worm and every lyric to every Rihanna song out there (but she refuses to sing any with Chris Brown parts).

“What? You know I like my men stupid.” She runs her hands through his locks, undoing the crunchy gel job that Iroh had painstakingly spent time on. Zuko didn’t have the heart to tell him it made him look like a youth pastor.

“You do like your communal meat thermometers.” He wants to keep the hurt out of his voice.

She shoves him off her, getting up to put on the dress hanging off her closet’s door handle. “You’re going with Mai, remember?” She yells through the closed closet door.

“But the thing is, I’m not planning to fuck her afterwards at the shitty hotel like it’s some type of CW show with some old bitches playing teenagers!”

“Just say XOXO, Gossip Girl .”

He still resents her for getting him invested in Blair Waldorf’s headband collection. “It’s not my fault Jet looks old. He looks like he’s at least 27 for fuck’s sake!” His face grows more distressed as he spits out each word. He only said yes to going with Mai after finding out Jet asked Katara using some shitty poster that said “my heart is always running when I see you” with a box of Nike outlet sneakers after English class.

“I think you’re just jealous that I emptied my intestines for someone who is about to be in it within the next three hours. When have I ever done that for you?”

Zuko’s about to retort something until Katara slams open the door, flooding his eyes with a dusty blue, curve hugging dress that did weird things to him. Like make his heart beat out of his chest, and his throat all dry when he’s searching for the words to say. Looking for the right words that say he thinks it’s impossible someone’s smile could make sunsets brighter, make the stars twinkle even more, make the unthinkable just a fingertip’s grasp away.

“Can you see the outline of my underwear and/or desperation from the back?” Her spin has him bumbling like an idiot.

He wishes it was Katara that night. Letting him shyly press his sweaty fingers into her waist as Katy Perry’s “E.T.” pierced their eardrums. He knows she would have pinched his nipples as punishment, all things considered. But the fluorescent lights of the disco ball would’ve highlighted how her pretty flush would dust her cheeks, and he would hold her close to his beating heart despite her complaining her foundation would stain his Target dress shirt, and everything would make sense.

“Did you cum?” Jet was absolutely pretty with an oh-so fat horse cock. Too bad he was like the Justin Timberlakes of the world, and always spoke unprovoked.

Katara scoffs. “Yeah, I came to my senses.” She flicked his forehead. “How would I do that? Tell me. How the fuck would a few thrusts and you panting your Sweet and Sour sauce breath in my ear get me off?” She shoves the sweating boy off her. “Can I say jk and will it make me a virgin again?” The hotel room had scratchy sheets and smelled like a waterpark bathroom.

He groaned. “I’m sorry .” He’s completely unremorseful. “Your tits smell like Cinnabon’s cinnamon rolls and I couldn’t help myself!” Katara is about to cut his dick off for breathing in the same vicinity as her, before a gasp stops her entire world.

“Zuko!” she screeches, opening the hotel door with the same devastation as when Britney Spears discovered Ryan Seacrest wasn’t gay painting her features.

“You know what they say.” Zuko’s smirking, entirely ignoring Katara fuming. “Chlamydia is the powerhouse of the cell.”

“You’re. A. Dick!” She says in between smacks to his head. Jet makes a speedy exit, still pantsless and clutching his suit to his chest, while Zuko mouths a ‘ call me’ to Mai, who amusedly waves goodbye to Katara.

“Oh god, this is exactly like the bead incident all over again.”

“ You’re not helping! ”

“Maybe we’ll find Atlantis up there too,” Zuko murmurs, concentrating on positioning the hotel’s mirror under her legs.

“Please, Rihanna. Have mercy on me.” Katara’s hands are in prayer mode as Zuko turns on his phone’s flashlight. “I will literally french braid my pubic hairs and never open my pussy to anyone ever again if this condom doesn’t kill me. Please don’t let it kill me. All those times I took an extra gummy vitamin were a joke . I never wanted to die, I just wanted to feel a little thrill in my life. Please—”

Zuko screams when the squelch of the condom splatters onto the mirror.

“You’re wearing underwear under there right?” He likes the look of his blazer draping over her, buttoned to look like a chic, oversized dress and not because it was the easiest thing to throw over Katara to run and grab Plan B.

“No, because I would obviously let my fat cooter out, cute and bare and vulnerable in a Walmart.”

“A simple yes would have sufficed.”

She’s reaching for the box and wincing at the price when she feels a gentle nudge on her arm. “Ma’am, your entire pussy is out in a Walmart,” the employee breathes out pathetically.

“I am well aware.” She ekes out.

The employee eyes her up and down with a gaze that practically calls her a whore . “Please put her away.” Zuko’s face grows beet red as he tries holding back a laugh.

It was always easy like this. When the world was just Zuko and Katara, holding hands in her driveway while they watched the sun rise in his shitty Corolla. She’s still wrapped up in his blazer, he’s since loosened his cheap tie and his hair is sticking every which way. She likes his smile, especially now that it comes so easy.

He’s smiling a lot more now that his father is gone. Ozai essentially told Azula and Zuko to fuck off , and ran off to some big city to steer a hospital with too many controversies and too many white guys at the helm. Iroh came back from his meditation sabbatical, enthusiastic to take care of the siblings. Zuko seems a lot happier with Iroh around, and even spends nights sleeping in his actual bed. (Katara’s a little hurt, but keeps that to herself).

She wishes she could bottle up these moments with Zuko up and just hold them in her hands. Moments when they were still young and curious and still had time to wait for life to figure itself out. She wants to find a way to make these a permanent fixture, instead of memories that would fade with age. “Let’s get out of here,” he offers up, eyes starry.

“Yeah?” She folds her knees up to her chest, and he taps her under her chin to level their gazes.

“ Republic City . We can make something out of lives. Medical school, culinary school. Get out of this shithole. Get away from our past.” His smile is contagious. “Best friends, forever and ever, right?”

She’s so pretty, her wide eyes sparkling as they take in the rays of sun. She returns his smile. “Best friends, forever and ever.”

Katara remembers how Ursa would say Zuko always dreamt too big, his heart always wanting so, so much .

“It’s a blessing, but more of a curse,” she would note, with the wisdom only mothers are capable of possessing. Sometimes, Katara selfishly thinks the day Ursa left hurt her more than it hurt Zuko. They were impossibly close, to the point where Zuko even had to intervene when Ursa started siding with Katara during their arguments (he knows in his heart his Mother’s Day macaroni portrait of her was better).

She would wonder how the world could let her live like this, dangling something she’s always wanted right in front of her face, only to snatch it away. Wonder if it was easier to die, than live with a hole in her heart that seemingly doubled in size overnight.

“Zuko, please look at me.”

He’s mad, she could tell. With his pout and the way he was forcibly trying to squeeze his eyes in a glare. He’s been sitting in the same spot in her bed, eyes trained on tutorials on how to convincingly persuade your doctor to give you an adderall prescription and “who bit Beyonce” conspiracy videos.

“Well, what if I just wanted you to respect my privacy! For the first time in 15 years! Maybe I needed space!” She yelps after twenty minutes of the silent treatment.

Zuko sends her a look that has her freezing up on the spot. “Katara, you had a whole baby .”

She felt thoroughly scolded, but she was stubborn. “And? What about it?”

“You had an entire one, and didn’t even bother to tell the godfather? When was I supposed to find out?”

Katara didn’t think that one through, to be honest. It was easy to forget, in between diapers that smelled like a fish sauce and an expired Vagisil smoothie, and balancing work. She lays down beside him, thoroughly exhausted after putting her little girl, Yue, down for a nap. “One, who made you the godfather? And two, I guess we’re just not close like that.”

“Look, I literally have your social security number memorized, and have practically given you a Pap smear. You really want to say ‘ we’re not close like that ?” He sends her a look that has her resolve faltering the slightest. “You did your pregnancy announcement like a Sailor Moon transformation sequence with before and after pictures of you being pregnant, and you didn’t think to fucking tell me?”

Katara gasps. “I had you blocked !”

“Azula’s a snitch!” He also got a glimpse of the photo of Katara in her hoe time dress that barely fit over her belly with the caption: how the mighty have fallen . He pauses, sucking in a breath of air for strength. The hurt flashes in his eyes and the only thing she could think to do was wrap him up in a familiar embrace.

At 19, Katara is so incredibly lost, and just wants her best friend by her side.

He’s busy, the summer before everything Republic City. Everytime she tries their house, Azula answers, rolling her eyes while clad in a Harry Styles shirt, because it’s a girl’s rite of passage to go through a One Direction phase and wear badly made merchandise from Hot Topic. He’s usually busy packing, or fucking Mai until she sounds like a car alarm during Fourth of July fireworks.

“Azula, no . You cannot kidnap Mai’s younger brother and trade him in for concert tickets to send a message.”

“Not even for floor ones?” Katara’s glare summed up her answer. “I used to look up to you,” Azula retorts, returning to her stan Twitter.

She waits, waits, waits. The moans keep coming and she just rolls her eyes. Her stomach churns, mainly because she thinks Mai called Zuko’s dick The Pussy Penetrator every time he hit her g spot (you know what, good for her). But also because her scholarship to the university was less than she expected, and Hakoda didn’t want to cosign on a loan. She just wanted her best friend to be there for her.

She feels sick, sick enough to vomit in one of Iroh’s plants, while Azula rubs small circles into her back.

“You should’ve swallowed,” Toph reminds, bundling Katara’s thick hair into a ponytail as the girl hurled up her California roll. She’s so exhausted, she even leans her head against the Walmart toilet bowl, five positive pregnancy tests tossed carelessly beside her.

“Think it’s too late for that,” Katara grits out. “What are you doing?”

The last thing she expected was Toph’s hands gathering together in prayer formation. “Praying to Rihanna your period comes.”

Like many people her age, having a mental breakdown during a pregnancy scare and praying for a miracle in a public restroom was normal. But for the first time in her life, besides the time Rihanna willingly twerked on Drake at the 2011 Grammys, Ms. Robyn Fenty herself failed her.

“Fetus deletus that bitch! Fuck them kids !” She brings herself eye-level to Katara’s stomach. “Read the womb, bitch!”

“Did you just call my unborn baby a bitch?” Katara’s eyes are bleary from the smell of vomit and her future going down the drain.

“You should’ve kept that bitch-baby in the drafts,” Toph sweeps the stray hairs from Katara’s watery eyes. “My cousin saved up for her abortion by running a pyramid scheme. I can get you her number.”

Katara wanted to die. “I think I’m just going to crawl in this toilet and die. Call my brother if I don’t get flushed down all the way.”

“Again, I’m just a Walmart employee,” Toph snickers, helping the girl up. She’s rarely left her side since then. Their friendship just works, a pair of fuckups. The girl with the accident baby, and the Walmart security guard trying to figure out her own shit after running away from home.

“I should’ve been there!” Zuko reminds, tone heavy with betrayal.

Katara remembered the few moments before he boarded the plane to Republic City. She wanted to be selfish. She wanted to tell him to not get on the flight, to keep holding her like he did at the entrance of the gate. She had a kiss ready on her lips that he wasn’t ready to give, backing away when their faces were too close, when she was too close. He just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving with regrets.

“I should’ve been there holding your hand, letting you call me names, and fighting nurses if they breathed too close to this precious angel,” Yue holds his pinky with her little fingers, almost as though it was a natural reaction. His heart simply seizes up at the gesture, and he holds her tighter to his body. She was wailing after waking from her nap, colic crackling her throat for the last three months and causing her middle of the night wakeups to be painful and frequent. But with Zuko, she’s all calm and perfect and polite and beautiful and angelic.

“Didn’t know you liked kids this much,” Katara shrugs. She leans in, and Zuko throws his free arm around her.

��“I’ll have you know I am the resident expert in telling children’s stories,” Zuko insists.

“Like?” Katara quirks up her brow.

“Like Rumpleforeskin, the mythical man who can weave majestic golden fleece from the ends of his pubic hair.”

She smacks him upside the head. “You’re disgusting .” She curls in deeper into his embrace. He had that twinkle in his eye that could mean he was going to masturbate to this moment in the shower later, or he was in love. It renders her breathless every time

She hopes when he looks at her he doesn’t see the eye bags, or the titty milk leaking everywhere, or the permanent crease in her brow. She hopes he could still see her, underneath it all. When she was just Katara .

“I guess, not telling you was just my way of keeping our dream alive.” She pauses, stroking Yue’s barely there hair. “I keep thinking that one day I could find the time to go to Republic City, and I don’t know. Get a chance to just be me .”

“Do you regret it?” Zuko’s rubbing circles into her back until she gets sleepy and her heart feels too full.

“I don’t know.” She tries, quiet, almost ashamed. “I don’t know.”

At 21, Katara feels like she’s at the top of the world.

Not only did she get promoted from girl wearing a dumpling costume outside handing out 15% off coupons that only worked if you left a Yelp review, to a server in a shitty dim sum restaurant, she was also accepted in the culinary program at the local university. It wasn’t Republic City per say, but Yue could attend the nearby preschool and go to the university-run childcare program afterwards while Katara was working.

She even got a hold of Jet, who refused to disclose his location or job. But judging by the copious child support mandated by some judge who hated men as much as Katara did, he was doing well. He sometimes Venmos Katara a few extra dollars on Yue’s birthdays.

Sokka and Hakoda, while hesitant to the little girl’s presence early on, spoil her absolutely rotten. When they think Katara’s passed out after her 14 hour days, they’re red in the face, screaming at Zuko over the phone about who was going to get Yue the Peppa Pig Playhouse (complete with flashing lights) she always talks about.

Hakoda even tries at therapy, wanting to be there for the apple of his eye. Sometimes, Katara’s hurt he never tried for her, tried in her childhood. She’s happy for him, nonetheless.

(Mostly) everything was working out.

“How are both my girls doing?” Zuko would always sing-song during his nightly Facetime calls. Yue would scream and snatch the phone from Katara’s hands, delighted at the sound of her one and only Uncle Zuzu. He’s an extravagant gift giver, regularly sending Yue glittery Hello Kitty and Wonder Woman backpacks. He even buys her a whole iPad for her fourth birthday, already coming with child safe settings on and YouTube loaded with her favorites (namely, Barbie: Fairytopia ). He’s guilty he couldn’t come home, but then again, he rarely ever did. Too consumed with work, grad school applications.

Katara can’t help but feel her heart pulse the slightest bit faster during those calls, even if she shuts it down as quickly as it comes.

He’s so good to her .

She used to cherish those moments he used to tell her secrets, dreams, everything in those hours early in the morning before high school would start. With approximately 3,209 miles between the two of them, she wakes up to texts instead.

Zuko: I dreamed that I was being held at gunpoint by one of those thicc caterpillars from A Bug’s Life , and if I didn’t finish the MCAT in approximately 20 minutes, they would shoot me in the face. The dump truck ass of those ants were the bullets

Katara: Please block my number

Zuko: No. <3

He’s all gentle smiles and eyes squeezing into little half moons just like Yue’s after he plays a game of Facetime patty cake and messes up on the beat just to hear the little girl laugh.

The next month, Zuko had decided enough was enough . He missed his girl.

His hospital, for the first time in a year, was letting him have the weekend off. So he books Katara a ticket straight away, because he thinks he’s going to die if he has to be around people who don’t know who Megan Thee Stallion is.

“Boys only speak two languages. English and emotional manipulation,” Toph reprimands, hugging Katara so tight she could barely get in a word. “Please remember that.”

It was her first time leaving her hometown in her life, her first time on an airplane for God’s sake. She’s jittery though, the cushioned seats Toph somehow upgraded her ticket to (after covertly whispering with the gate attendant) doing nothing to alleviate her nerves.

When she jumps in his arms in baggage claim, he breathes in deep. Her hugs have always warmed his insides, and he didn’t realize how much he craved it until he was greedy, pressing into her and refusing to let go despite her many protests.

“Come here often?” he mumbles, smiling into her shoulder.

Her cheeks grew hot at his touch. “Occasionally.” She whispers back.

He decided there and then in front of Gate 3 they needed to make up for lost time as quickly as possible.

The college party is entirely too sticky, entirely too messy for a proper (extremely) late 21st birthday celebration. Her crop top and big earrings and glittery eyeshadow and endless curves has Zuko wondering how much he’s missed in the last few years. When she hugs him close to her and screams out Nicki Minaj lyrics, he doesn’t remember her being so soft and even prettier. Beautiful. Breathtaking, knocking the wind out his lungs if she as so much blinked.

She looks like any 21 year old, without a care in the world, just figuring out their life. He wonders what this version of Zuko and Katara was.

Maybe they got to go to Republic City together. Maybe they work in the same building, and are just letting steam off from work. Maybe they loved each other. It was dangerous though. He feels as though she’s caging him in, that grip on his heart sparking up again without his permission. Her fake lashes he saw her glue on in the airport bathroom flutter about, hands coming up to accentuate her words every time she tries to scream something in his ear over the pulsating music. He just grips her waist harder between his hands, holding her tight.

In a perfect world, all she saw was him. She wishes it was him. She sometimes thinks she sees Zuko’s eyes in Yue. She sees his smile. She sees his heart.

While they’d spent the entire night stumbling through the city, his girlfriend was home. Barefoot, pregnant. Looking like the cover of some women’s lifestyle magazine, stray curls escaping her bun to frame her face in all its angelic glory. Glowy and flawless and every bit beautiful. Different from the girl Katara caught crying in the kitchen. “You can hate me all you want, you can talk shit about me all you want. But I love him,” Jin insists. “I’m his girlfriend , for fuck’s sake.

Katara has to stop herself from recoiling. She had a specific vision of their future. One that included doing taxes together and matching sweaters and teaching him her new macaroon recipe and Yue balanced on his lap.

But one look at Jin, and it becomes glaringly obvious how little she fit in with his new life.

“I don’t hate you, Jin.” It’s every bit sincere, but the girl doesn’t look convinced.

Jin rolls her eyes. A pointed look freezing Katara in her place.

“Ok, I might’ve complained once or twice about your VSCO filter choice.”

“Yeah, Zuko sent a screenshot of your texts to me instead of you by accident.”

“God, you know he always fucking does that? To be fair though, M05 is too orange and is not a good look on anyone. You can do better, I know you can.” The two girls laugh. It was devoid of any genuine emotion, just meant as an attempt to fill the empty space between them. “If I had known. Fuck, if I had just known, I’m sorry, Jin.” She had no idea Zuko had a kid on the way, that they were still living together and determined to co-parent while their relationship was in a weird limbo. If she was Jin, she would’ve kicked someone’s pussy and made a scene and set something on fire. But Jin wasn’t that type of girl. Jin was soft and pretty and looked like she smelled like an interior designer's perfectly bleached asshole.

“Do you love him?” Jin seemed to shrink into herself, small enough Katara might miss her in a blink of an eye.

Katara couldn’t quite decipher the meaning behind the question. She thinks she’s too scared to.

Katara doesn’t know how to respond. She didn’t trust herself to speak. This Zuko wasn’t the Zuko she knew. She loved the Zuko who would steal people’s Netflix passwords off of 4chan, and cosplay as Todoroki at Anime Con to make a few bucks. Not the one who can afford sky rises in the big city.

He didn’t even tell her that his big internship in the city was for his father’s hospital, and he was next in line to running it. “You’re a lawyer with health insurance and your own Netflix account! You’re good for him, Jin.” Katara falters the slightest. “I just want to see Zuko happy.”

“Me too.” Jin says quietly.

“Whatever, fuck Zuko !” She tries at extending the olive branch. “I can’t believe you’re preggers!” She puts a gentle hand on Jin's belly, and her vagina immediately winces. “You know, your vag will never look the same, and you might grow a third boob in your armpit.”

“You’re lying .”

“Yeah, a lump of breast milk can form there, too!” Katara is about to scroll to the photo in her phone when Jin laughter breaks through the night.

“I hope your dick gets bitten off mid-blowjob!” She whisper-screams, struggling with her suitcase until it smacks all at nearly every corner and edge. She was just making noise for the sake of making noise, but it made her feel better.

He didn’t expect waking up to a charge on his card for a flight booked in the last ten minutes, or Katara shoving his good mixer in her suitcase.

“You hate it don’t you?” He always loved it when Katara went into Hulk mode anytime a bully dared test her protective nature. While it was never entirely directed at him, he now understands exactly why Chan peed his pants. Katara was terrifying .

“What?” Zuko’s confused, rubbing an eye booger away.

“You loved it when I’m crying over Jet, crying over something, fucking something up in my life. Being mad at the world. You hate that I’m better, and making something of myself now!” She’s angry and grasping at straws.

Zuko furrows his brows, not sure where to progress from here. “Ok, run that by me again?”

The air vanishes when her stare cools over to absolutely icy. “There’s nothing else I can give. So what the fuck do you want from me?”

He laughs, all hollow and almost mocking . “You know, I was afraid of you coming here.” He lies.

She stops in her tracks. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I thought...I thought you wouldn’t get this new me, because it’s different!” He protests. “See, this is exactly the reason why! You’re mad I can afford real Gucci !”

Katara recoils, looking embarrassed for him. God, were men so fucking stupid, and so proud of it, too. “Are you fucking serious.”

Zuko’s frustrated, running his hands through his hair. “What the fuck are we doing, Katara?”

“You tell me!” She demands. “I’m not that kind of girl, Zuko! I’m not that kind of girl that is going to break up a fucking engagement, or whatever the fuck you weirdos are doing!”

He throws up his hands. “I’m not happy! We’re not happy.”

“What? You think now that you’ve sold your soul to your piece of shit dad and you can buy jewelry that won’t turn your fingers green that I’m going to fuck you?”

“No! I’m not saying that—”

Katara scoffs. “Then what the fuck are you saying? Grow up, Zuko. Grow the fuck up and just leave me the fuck alone .”

“You’re still Katara.” He throws his hands up in the air, trying to stop her. Even if he felt like his entire world was falling apart, there was one thing he would always be certain about. “I’m still Zuko. The same Zuko who loves you .”

Katara turns her head, not willing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her upset. “The thing is, this isn’t you, Zuko.” Katara says with finality. “It isn’t you .”

When she gets home, she spots it right away. On their dining table, white paper folded neatly, Yue was the type of little girl who looked to both sides of the street before crossing, repeating it two more times to be safe. She always took extra care to make everything even, never a wrinkle in sight on her homework.

The Crayola family portrait that brought to life everything she’d imagined and more. Katara doesn’t have the heart to look for longer than a second.

At 27, Katara’s pretending that it’s the happiest day of her life.

She didn’t think he would listen to her, you know, men rarely did anything right. Zuko, though, heeds her warning and only calls exactly two hours before Yue’s bedtime like clockwork. There weren’t any surprise texts to wake up to anymore, no more evidence of Zuko in her life. She doesn’t even find out about Jin’s affair with one of those Axe commercial guys until months later.

When she goes to unblock his number and text him, to try and talk to him, she gasps. She sees those grey iMessage bubbles, and she’s ashamed her heart splutters, awakening a feeling she thought she’s dampened. She puts her phone down for milliseconds, before checking it again and again and again. She finally threw the damn thing across the room when a week passed.

She thinks it’s for the better, especially when she was sure she finally got things right with Jet.

“ We’ll make this shit work together.” Jet reassures, gathering her close to him she could see every little detail of him. “Like Kanye said, ‘you’re a MILF, and I’m a mother-fucker.”

She covers her ears, pushing him into the restaurant’s glass door. “No thank you. No more non consensual reciting of Kanye verses.”

“Yeezy, breezy, beautiful, baby. Get into it.” Jet winks, and Katara feels herself gagging again.

Then again, Katara always had a thing for stupid. And for three easy payments of $Penis.99, he had an all access experience to her pussy and her trauma.

“And he bought me those carrot cake cupcakes I always look at when we go to the supermarket but I never want to chance it because it could have raisins instead of nuts and I think I hate raisins more than I hate white men named Nathaniel.”

Toph jabs Katara in the forehead. “Wow, he spared $5 on some dry pastries, and your pussy was suddenly screaming pick me, pick me !”

“They were gluten free, too,” she points out. “Plus, my pussy doesn’t scream!”

“Oh right, my bad! It whispers!”

“ Toph !”

“Last night I heard it go wash me! Wash me!”

It felt good with him, though. It felt good to see him help Yue with math homework, making dinner in their little kitchen, pressing kisses to her in the morning despite her breath smelling like Khloe Kardashian’s earring backing pussy. Someone to come home to.

“Piece of shit, I’ll fucking kill you!” She was punching him over and over again until her knuckles were ripped raw, sitting straight on his throat. Beating him stupid in the middle of her shift. He thought he could get away with it. With Katara now stuck in the kitchen as one of the head cooks, and the fact he had a reservation in one of the private rooms for him and his secretary to go over...numbers, he didn’t think much of it.

Too bad Toph was too invested, and had a friends-to-lovers storyline to live vicariously through.

“Scram, fuglies!” Toph screamed to other customers who had already started chanting “WorldStar!”

Katara lost her job, lost her mans, lost a section of her eyebrow because Toph accidentally tried helping and swung the wrong direction.

“Catch me outside, how ‘bout that!” She yelps triumphantly, despite the fact Katara was cradling her own bloodied face.

And here she was, about to lose her best friend, too.

She accidentally Facetimed his old number, and spent the last hour mulling over her feelings with an executive of a porn studio who picked up mid-shoot. “Just tell him you love him!” The balding man is exhausted.

“What do I even say? Do I tell him, ‘I think I’ve always loved you?’ Is that too cheesy? You know that feeling when your heart just—Oh my fucking god! Is that Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob ?!” She screams, slamming her hands over her eyes. The squirrel’s melons-for-tits would never be erased from her memory.

He only has fear in his eyes when he looks at her. “You didn’t see anything.” Robert bites out, promptly hanging up.

In her post-Jet purge, she realized she wasn’t the type of ex dead set on destroying his things. After all, she was selling his light-up keyboard to pay for Toph’s birthday boob job. Her residual anger was instead, spent hacking away at the drawer he always kept locked. Until she found it.

A letter from him.

“ I’ve always been afraid that our friendship would’ve spilled over until all I could do is categorize it with four simple letters .” Katara whispers, eyes frantically scanning the paper. “And I’m done being afraid .”

“The four letters he’s talking about is D-U-M-B B-I-C-T-H . Dumb bitch. The ‘bitch’ is silent.” Toph insists. “I can’t believe you let a balding bum, whose credit score tanked because he invested his entire savings in Shake Weight Milkshake making machines, knock you up instead of Zuko.”

“It was innovative at the time,” she whispers.

“Fill the void in your heart, not your pussy.”

She's whipping out her shitty MacBook Air, and praying his email still worked. But when she calls all she sees is her.

“You told me to come to Republic City and find him!” Mai exclaims, holding up her hand where a big ring blinding the fuck out of her.

She feels her heart crumble at the same time she crushes the letter in her hand.

“I did do that, didn’t I?” Katara winces. The time the model stopped by in their hometown, Katara was still happy and getting her pussy pounded regularly and let that shit get to her head. She thought it would be a blessing in disguise, and wanted to help Zuko out, too.

"Fuck."

Their wedding looked ripped out of a 2014 Basic Bitch Pinterest board, and she’s definitely sure she couldn’t be happier.

“Why is her name spelled like ‘Mai’ and pronounced ‘May?’ Like, shouldn’t it be spelled like ‘Mei?’”

“Katara, you’re just being a bitch,” Toph reminds while Katara stares at the sign with their wedding hashtag in front of the photobooth with all the ‘YOLO’ signs and 2013 mustaches.

“I am well aware!” She asserts, chin jutting out.

Mai’s New York Fashion Week ready body was gorgeous, perfect in Zuko’s hold.

Katara wished life was like a rom-com. Where she could burst through the doors, declare her love, piss on him in her ugly, big bridesmaid dress and mark her territory once and for all.

But life wasn’t a movie. Life was just this shitty piece of dumpster fire shit and was always fucking her over like the Target self-checkout line camera.

What could she do? Deliver some long-winded speech about how she would go to realign the stars in the heavens if it meant a chance to rewrite their fate? That she hoped she visits his dreams before his mind could settle into reality, the same way he visited hers and overstayed his welcome every single time? Make everyone uncomfortable and wonder if they boned?

Then again, she was never going to be the one to block her best friend’s blessings. Not on the happiest day of his life.

“I think this is the happiest day of my life.” Katara says seamlessly.

Zuko sees it though, sees right through her and has to stop himself from reaching out to her.

“It wasn’t ever easy being Zuko’s best friend. I mean look at him now, getting married to someone perfect . He’s not even in the same ballpark, league, or hell, stadium porta potty as her!”

Zuko ducks his head with a brief pout that breaks Katara’s heart. Everyone laughs in spite of him, until he joins in, too. “You know, it’s easy to pretend that finding love is easy. You could find love in all the little things in your life. All the people, all the details. It’s easy to say you always, completely, truly love someone. Because that’s what we want love to be, right? At the surface, sure.” She folds the flimsy paper she had on hand, nothing was written on it anyways. “You want it to be perfect.”

“But the love everyone works so hard to get, is the love that’s hard . It’s the love that isn’t safe. The love that challenges, excites you, the love that will never have limits. The love that’s messy and beautiful all at the same time.” She looks at him, truly looks at him for the first time in years and all she could do was smile.

“It’s easy to find love, but it’s near impossible to find a soulmate.” She raises her glass. “Join me in a toast to the bride and groom. I wish you a lifetime of happiness.”

And while everyone is gathered out on the dance floor, she’s sobbing pathetically and smearing the winged eyeliner she worked so hard to perfect on the car ride there. Trying to stop any of the pain from consuming her.

She’s out on the rooftop of the venue, the cold air whipping her face as she tries lighting up a blunt.

“Are you getting high at my wedding !” Zuko is incredulous, and shocks Katara enough to drop the joint off the roof.

“On all things Fenty Beauty, bitch what the fuck?” Katara wipes the tears from the corner of her eyes.

“The flower girl wanted to see her mommy.” But Katara sees right through Yue’s little act. Pretending to sleep so she could be held by Zuko (me too, girl. Me too).

It felt dangerous, the way she could toy with his heart, his own personal defibrillator shocking it back to life. She’s pretty even with red-rimmed eyes, with the fake smiles he knew was trying to appease him to leave her alone. If anything, all it does is make him want to kiss her until her troubles are gone.

He wanted to do a lot of things at that moment. He wanted to feel the warmth of her skin, tell her that above all else, he missed his girl the most. But, he had everything on his plate and then some.

“The chicken was dry as fuck.” He blurts, wiping the sweat from his face. Only Katara could send him back a few decades. “I wish you could’ve catered it.”

“Yeah?” She laughs and wants to call him out for stalking her company’s Facebook page. “Remember you tried my new recipe and you vomited all over the front row at your fourth ever Hello Zuko performance?” She misses his messy hair, when he didn’t look so clean cut and rich bitchy.

“I didn’t know you weren’t done cooking it!”

She shoves his head, and he joins her, dangling his feet precariously off the roof.

When she’s here with him, when he has her in his hold for the first time in years, he sees his whole life with just a glimpse in her eyes. And all he wants to do is build a machine and reverse all the time that’s passed them by.

“I made a mistake.” Zuko breathes out, eyes nervously darting around.

As sure as he was that Nicki Minaj deserved a Grammy, he was sure he loved her.

“W-What?” Katara blinks at him.

“I made a mistake, Katara.” He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck, carding his hand through his hair. Looking every bit devastatingly handsome. “I realized something. After the speech, after just, everything.”

“I realized I just can’t have my cake and eat it, too.”

Just like that, just with the way he built her up, it comes tumbling down.

“So what are you saying?” Her heart was on the verge of cracking in half and he didn’t even know it. Because all he could pin her with a look she couldn’t read, and she thinks if he was a smarter man he would’ve at least pretended that it hurt him to hurt her.

But it did.

It broke him, ripped him in half to see her face turn to steel right before his eyes.

“What I’m saying is, after all these years.” He doesn’t have it in him to face her. “I think I have to finally let you go, Katara.”

#Zutara #Zuko #Katara #Zutara Week #atla #zutara fanfiction #avatar the last airbender #zutara week 2020

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

Text

survey by brock-checkitout

Do you like cheese? I loveee cheese.

What type of shampoo do you use? A salon style one for red dyed hair.

Do turtles make you happy? No, but dogs and giraffes do.

Name one person who snores in their sleep. My dad.

Would you walk around a grocery store with a bra as glasses? Uh, no.

Can you do the HoeDown ThrowDown? I know some of the moves lol but I can’t actually do it.

Do you like Hershey's Chocolate bars? Yeah. The cookies and cream one, especially.

What smiley face do you use the most? :) Or if we’re being real it’s not a smiley at all, it’s the :/ :X or :( faces more.

What type of cell phone do you have? An iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Do you listen to rap? Yeah.

Look at something green, does it have batteries in it? The closest green thing is my Baby Yoda plushie, which no, does not have batteries.

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when I say: PRINTER? Ink.

What is the last cuss word you said out loud? I think it was “shit.”

Do you like cows? Sure.

What kind of car does your mother drive? A Honda.

What do you get in your tacos? Typically just cheese, beans, rice, sour cream, and guacamole, but chicken tacos are quite good as well.

What is your opinion on blueberries? I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had an actual blueberry by itself, but I like blueberry muffins and waffles.

Are you currently wearing lip gloss/chap stick? Nope.

Is there a bottle of lotion near you? Yes.

Name one person that you know that smokes. My uncle.

What's your favorite season? Fall and winter.

Are any of your friends vegetarians? I don’t have any friends.

What is one phrase that you hate hearing? I haaaaate being told to calm down or chill out.

Can you name four presidents right now? Lincoln, Bush, Clinton, Obama.

What is the first thing you think of when I say: HOOD? A hoodie.

Do you currently own a cat? No.

What do you think of Ulta? I haven’t been in there in years and didn’t shop there much to begin with.

Have you ever walked into a club and asked for a Coke? Not a club, but a bar.

Do you like classical music? Some.

What is your opinion on Oreos? I like Oreos. The golden ones are the best.

Do you like Chips-Ahoy? Yeah.

What did ya think of this survey? It was fine.

survey by carolynnnnonia

1. What time did you wake up this morning? I haven’t gone to bed, yet, but I plan to get up at 11 for my church’s live stream.

2. When did you take your default picture? A couple months ago.

3. Are you hungry? Nope, I finished eating like an hour ago.

4. Have you ever cheated on a test? No.

5. When was the last time you ate ice cream? It’s been a few years.

6. What computer game is in your CPU? My MacBook Air doesn’t have the slot for CDs.

7. Do you like Audrey Hepburn? Sure.

8. What color is your winter jacket? I have a few, but most of them are black. 9. Do you have any siblings? I have two brothers.

10. Would you call yourself skinny? Yes. I’m actually underweight.

11. Does your phone take pictures? Yes, 2008 survey, it does. <<< Hahaha.

12. Who is your favorite neighbor? I don’t have one. I don’t even know any of my neighbors.

13. Do you wish at 11:11? Nope.

14. Have you ever gotten a detention? No.

15. Do you still watch Disney Channel? I haven’t in years.

16. Who did you last IM? I messaged my aunt on Facebook Messenger.

17. Who is your least favorite teacher? I’m done with school.

18. What were you doing six hours ago? I was in bed catching up on some YouTube videos and dozing off here and there.

19. What is your ringtone? One that came with the phone.

20. Does your door have a dead bolt on it? Yes.

21. Have you ever been to a show? A concert? Yes.

22. What are some details about your first kiss? It was awkward, but it was my first kiss and all I knew. I was just giddy about having had it, haha.

23. What college do you want to attend/currently attend? I went to a local UC.

24. Have you had any soda today? Just a sip with my medicine.

25. What is your favorite scary movie? I have several, but some of my top faves are the Halloween series, Scream series, and the It movies. Ones like Get Out and Us, as well. There’s a ton.

26. Do you own a Wii? It’s my brother’s, but yeah.

27. Did you wear shorts today? No. I never wear shorts.

28. Anything fun happening this weekend? My dad’s birthday was yesterday and we had a chill day of watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which is a 4 hour movie, and eating takeout.

29. What shoes did you wear today? None.

30. What is your favorite type of Pop Tart? The frosted strawberry and the frosted brown cinnamon sugar.

31. Do you subscribe to any magazines? Nope.

32. What was the last television show you watched? Roseanne.

33. Do you know any other languages? Some Spanish.

34. Are you wearing anything green? I have Baby Yoda on my socks.

#two surveys in one #personal #text #survey #surveys

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omgjasminesimone · 5 years

Text

Juvenile Delinquents Part 2

Previous Part: Part 1

Next Part: Part 3

Author’s Note: I just moved, and I currently have no internet, which seems like the perfect time to work on my many unfinished fanfics! So this is unedited because I had to go to the library to post and it closes soon, but hope you guys enjoy!

Word Count: 3600

“Sanchez, you’re up.” A guard calls out gruffly. Logan nods, appreciatively taking the payphone offered. Logan tries to remember the number he’s supposed to call in this situation. He’s not calling the shop. Right now, the police currently have nothing definitively tying him to the Mercy Park Crew, and nothing trying the Mercy Park Crew to the unassuming Kaneko autobody shop located in South LA. So, this is a situation for Kaneko’s burner cell phone.

Logan tentatively dials in the numbers, not quite remembering if the last digit was a 6 or an 8. He really hopes he’s not blowing his one phone call.

The phone rings several times, before an unfamiliar voice picks up.

“Hello?” The voice calls impatiently.

“Umm… is this T. K’s phone?” Logan asks, knowing this conversation is no doubt being recorded.

“Who wants to know?” The voice is suspicious.

“Logan.” He replies, narrowing his eyes as he leans against the wall, trying to turn away from the other inmates in line for the phone listening in.

“Oh, Pop’s former protégé.” The voice mocks. “Thanks for getting yourself locked up. Opened up a spot for me.”

“Colt.” Logan growls. He’s never met Kaneko’s son, but from what he’s heard from the crew that must be who he’s talking to.

“What’s up Logan. How’s juvie?” Colt returns.

“That’s enough Colt.” Logan hears Kaneko admonish his son in the background. There’s a slight shuffle as the phone is handed over. “Logan, what did they book you on?” Kaneko asks.

“Public endangerment. Speeding. I’m looking at three to four months.” Logan had been surprised at the leniency of his sentence. But as his public defender explained, he wasn’t driving the stolen car. The police couldn’t prove he was actually in the Mercy Park Crew, not beyond a reasonable doubt. So, they could only charge him with what they knew he was guilty of.

“Glad to hear it. I knew the juvenile courts would be lenient.” Kaneko responds.

Logan absently tugs on the phone cord. “So, what happens when I get out? Can I come back?” Logan asks worriedly.

“Of course, Logan. I’m not one to abandon someone who’s loyal to me.” Kaneko insists.

“What about Colt?” Logan questions. For someone who doesn’t abandon those that are loyal, Kaneko sure seems to have replaced him pretty quickly.

“Colt is finishing out his senior year here, after being expelled from his high school in Texas, but he’ll be heading to college by the time you are released. Your place is secure.” Kaneko reassures.

Logan doesn’t 100% believe Kaneko, but he’s currently in no position to question anything he’s told. “Did you guys get my car?” He asks, treading back to lighter waters.

Kaneko chuckles. “We did. X picked it up, and Toby has already started on the repairs.”

Logan lets out a sigh of relief. He was more worried about his precious Devore GT than his own injuries. He’s been in jail overnight, and the bleeding has mostly stopped. But he still has a bandage wrapped around his forehead.

“Sanchez, times up.” The guard warns.

“I’ve gotta go. See you in a couple of months.” Logan hangs up as the guard shuffles him into the waiting line for transfer. He’s headed to the juvenile facility today, processing now complete.

He’s shuffled onto a bus with several other juvenile delinquents. They already seem to be jockeying for position, trying to prove themselves the biggest, the toughest as they shove and fight for seats at the back of the bus. Logan ignores them, taking a seat up front as the guards try to call for order.

A fist is thrown in back, and the guards rush back to break up the fight as the teenage boys yell out and egg the combatants on. Logan leans back in his seat, eyes closed. This is going to be a long couple of months.

When they arrive at the juvenile facility located fairly far inland an hour later, the boys are taken to an orientation of sorts. The guards force Logan and the others to strip as they check them for weapons. It’s dehumanizing, but Logan has had worse experiences. Like when one of the girls in the group home got lice, and then the administrator cut all their hair short, threw away all their pillows and bedding, and made them all submit to lice inspections.

Logan is given a grey sweatshirt, a grey t shirt, and unflattering grey sweatpants. But he tells himself at least it’s not orange as he tries to focus on the bright side. Once they’re all dressed in their grey jumpsuits, they’re forced into a single file line as they head toward the dormitory portion of the facility.

Logan is surprised to see a line of girls being walked past them to a neighboring dormitory. One of the young female guards seems to note his surprise. “Budget cuts. Weren’t enough girls to justify a separate facility, so they just tossed them in here. As if our jobs weren’t hard enough.” She grumbles. “Alright inmates, keep moving!” She shouts once the girls have passed by.

They’re assigned to their rooms. Logan’s roommate is a boy named Gabriel Hernandez. Gabriel asks if he plans to join the Latin King gang, and Logan emphatically says no. Gabriel stresses that Logan will need the protection, but Logan says he’ll take his chances.

…

Part of being in juvenile detention means that they’re all forced to go to class, something most of them probably don’t do on the outside. The teacher is a volunteer, and although she obviously means well, she’s clearly ill equipped to deal with juvenile delinquents. Most of the class spends the time sleeping, while the few who are awake are disruptive and make it almost impossible to learn anything.

Despite the setbacks, Logan tries to work through the handouts diligently without instruction. If he has to be here, he might as well do something productive. Maybe he can even test for his GED.

…

It’s a full week before Logan earns yard time for his good behavior. He has been good, keeping to himself, going to class, doing his work, reading to pass the long hours locked in his cell. It’s already starting to get monotonous though, and Logan is itching for a break in the routine.

He’s walking the track when Eleanor jogs up to him. She’s also dressed in the facility issued grey jumpsuit, but she’s rolled up the sweatpants at her waist, making the fit more flattering. She’s tied the t-shirt, exposing her midriff in a way that’s very distracting for a teenage boy who’s been surrounded by nothing but other teenage boys for the last week.

She smiles at him. “Logan, we meet again.”

“Eleanor.” He returns, and her nose wrinkles.

“No one calls me Eleanor except my Dad when he’s mad at me. Which is most of the time now-a-days.” She lets out a short laugh, and he feels the corner of his lips curving into a smile. It’s been a while since he heard anyone laugh, let alone anyone with a laugh as melodious as her’s. “My friends call me Ellie.” She informs him.

“Are we friends?” He questions as she falls into step with him, making slow progress along the track.

She smirks at him. “I have a feeling we’re going to be. Besides, you definitely need someone to show you the ropes around here.”

“And you’re a veteran, right?” He asks.

Ellie smirks. “Tour number 3. First time, I just got a week for shoplifting. Which I think normally wouldn’t have even gotten time, but my Dad was trying to scare me.” Ellie rolls her eyes. “The second time was for check fraud, when I tried to cash my dead grandfather’s social security check to put down a deposit on an apartment. That time I got a month, which I think would have been longer, but my Dad pulled some strings. But now he’s done pulling strings apparently, and I’m looking at 6 months for selling prescription drugs at school. Which doesn’t that seem unfair to you? They’re trying to discourage my entrepreneurial spirit.” She spits out all this very personal information flippantly, to almost a complete stranger.

She stops suddenly, standing in front of him to prevent him from continuing with his slow walk. “So, now that you know my story, you owe me yours.” She insists.

“But I didn’t ask for your story.” Logan argues.

Ellie smirks. “But you wanted to know.” She counters, stepping into his personal space, almost as if she’s going to kiss him.

“Wheeler, do you want to go back inside? You know the rules!” A guard shouts irritably, coming towards them from the basketball courts.

Ellie rolls her eyes and steps away from him, putting approximately a foot of space between them. “Ughh, the one foot between boys and girls rule. It’s 6 inches for same sex, which seems kind of stupid when you consider how many more same sex relationships happen in jail.” She mutters.

“Seems like it would have been easier to just keep the separate facilities.” Logan murmurs.

“Budget cuts.” Ellie reiterates what the guard told him. “There aren’t enough bad girls to justify a whole facility.”

“You’d think with your rap sheet you’d be able to single handedly keep that female juvenile facility in business.” Logan jokes, and to his relief Ellie doesn’t seem offended based on her laugh.

“Too bad they’re not all like me.” She says flirtatiously, winking at him. She stretches up to put her hair into a messy bun, and his eyes fall unbidden to her pierced belly button which is exposed from the action.

“You’re trouble, aren’t you?” He breathes out softly, raising his eyes to look into her twinkling brown orbs.

“Only the good type of trouble.” She insists.

…

“Hey.” Ellie greets as she sits next to him at his previously completely unoccupied library table.

She startles him out of his studying. “Hey.” He returns.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asks, glancing at his open algebra textbook.

“Math.” Logan responds shortly. He’s not really annoyed with her, although that’s how it might be coming off, he’s mostly embarrassed. Over the last three weeks of being incarcerated with her, he’s learned how smart she is. He’s sure she’s never had to study basic college algebra, it probably just came to her completely naturally.

“So, I’m guessing you didn’t get one of the few competent juvie teachers then?” Ellie questions, sounding sympathetic.

“She’s nice, but I don’t think she’s cut out for juvie teaching. She’d be better at kindergarten.” Logan answers.

“What are you having trouble with? I can tutor you.” Logan looks hesitant to accept her help, so she adds. “Come on, it will look great on my Langston College application.”

Logan leans back in his chair and looks at her curiously. “Langston College? Isn’t that super competitive? You don’t think your record is going to get in the way of that?”

Ellie waves off his concern. “Juvenile records are sealed, so they won’t know. I intend to be good once I turn 18.” Logan looks at her skeptically, and Ellie laughs. “What?! I can be good! I was good for 14 whole years.” She insists.

Logan grins. “I’ll believe that when I see it troublemaker, but I could use your help if you’re offering. Let’s start with systems of equations, I’m totally lost.”

An hour later, Ellie has managed to teach him what the volunteer teacher has been unable to get him to comprehend over the three weeks he’s been in her class.

…

“How’d you get an iPod in here?” Logan asks when Ellie shows him her contraband item a few weeks later as they sit on the bleachers, halfheartedly watching the basketball game going on during yard time.

Ellie grins at him, looking awfully proud of herself. “I have my ways.” She answers.

Logan glances out at the guards patrolling the yard. “You could get in a lot of trouble for that.”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “They should have more important things to worry about. Like gang violence. How am I hurting anybody by listening to a little Justin Bieber?”

Logan just shakes his head, smiling at her fondly. “Of course, you’re a Bieber fan.” He says with mock disgust.

“Oh yeah? What do you listen to? No, let me guess.” She gives Logan a long look, as if she’s deciphering him. It honestly makes him a little uncomfortable. “Something not well known, you’re one of those ones who’s all proud of liking a band before they become big and popular. Hmm…. RINI fan?”

Logan’s eyes widen. “How could you possibly guess that?!” He wonders.

Ellie smirks, shrugging nonchalantly. “I’m very observant. I have ‘Meet Me in Amsterdam’ on here.” She holds out an earbud to him, waving it at him in a tempting manner. “Come on, you know you want to.” She sing-songs.

Logan shoots another look at the guards before quickly taking the earbud from Ellie and putting it into his left ear.

She smiles as she puts the remaining earbud in her right ear, covering it with her hair. She reaches over to move some of his own long hair in front of his earbud, concealing it from prying eyes. Her hand lingers for a beat afterwards, and Logan has to fight down his blush. Eventually, she drops her hand and starts the song. She smiles when he starts to bob his head along with the beat.

…

Logan frowns when he spots Ellie across the cafeteria hall. He excuses himself from Gabriel and the rest of the non-gang affiliated Latinos he’s fallen in with. Jail, even juvie, forces people to generally stick with their own, and the whites wouldn’t accept Logan because he was clearly half not white. So, he found himself with the Latinos. The bright side is that over the 2 months he’s been incarcerated, his Spanish has gotten way better.

When he reaches her, Logan cups Ellie’s bruised face tenderly, running his thumb over the shiner she’s sporting. “What happened?” He questions worriedly.

“Nothing.” Ellie insists. “I’m just not everybody’s favorite in here. Dad being a celebrated LAPD detective and all.”

“Sanchez, you know the rules!” A guard shouts, and he quickly drops his hands from Ellie’s face. They both take a step back to put the required one foot of space between them. Logan’s fists clench at his sides.

“Who hit you?” He demands to know.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.” Ellie replies, turning away from him to wait in line for the sludge they call food in here. Logan falls in line behind her, although he already got his food and it’s currently going cold (well, colder, since their food is never really as warm as it should be in here) at his table.

“I am worried about it. Was it Piper?” Piper’s been in juvie for two years now, for a violent crime. Some of the inmates insist she has a murder charge, but the record is sealed so there is no way to know if Piper is actually as dangerous as she claims to be.

“No, just drop it Logan. I promise you I have it handled. Trust me.” She presses, looking at him pleadingly.

Logan sighs, but reluctantly gives her a nod.

Ellie smiles, giving his hand a quick comforting squeeze before any of the guards notice. “Thank you.”

A week later, Logan is returning to his cell from his new part time juvie job at the library when he notices Ellie’s roommate being forcefully removed from her cell.

“We turned up not only drugs, but a shank under you pillow during the sweep Johnson. You’re getting at least a month in the SHU for this.” The guard holding her arm informs her.

“That’s not mine! Why would I leave that shit right under my pillow?! That bitch framed me!” She gestures to Ellie, who’s sitting on her bunk reading a book.

Ellie looks up innocently. “Me? Why would I want to frame you?” She feigns surprise in her tone.

Johnson glowers. It’s not like she can admit that she beat Ellie up last week in front of the guards. She’s ushered away to the segregated housing unit, where she’ll spend a month in solitary with no yard time.

…

Ellie plops herself down on a nearby table as Logan restocks books, eating her Doritos cheerily.

“You know you’re not allowed to eat in here, right Troublemaker?” Logan asks.

“But when you’re on library duty, I can get away with it, because you like me, right?” Ellie teases, tossing another Dorito into her mouth.

Logan blushes at that, wondering if she knows just how much he likes her. He’s nursing quite a crush on Ellie. He’s never met anyone like her before, and he has a feeling he won’t be meeting anyone like her in the future.

“Plus,” She adds when he stays quiet, “I always share my commissary goods with you, so you really can’t complain.” She stands from the table and pops a Dorito into his mouth, grinning as he chews on the treat.

“Well, we don’t all have daddy putting a generous amount of money into our commissary accounts. Some of us have to make do with our 10 cent an hour job.” Logan teases.

“It’s really the least my Dad can do. If he wasn’t so overbearing, I never would have ended up in here in the first place.” Ellie insists.

Logan doesn’t argue with her. He’s tried that before, telling her there are worse things than having a father who cares about you. She wouldn’t talk to him for a full week and being that she’s the only bright spot in his day, it was a pretty terrible, lonely week. So instead of mentioning Ellie’s responsibility in her current predicament, he says “Can we get some more twinkies later?”

Ellie smiles. “Of course, we can! We deserve twinkies.”

…

Almost three months into his incarceration, the juvenile delinquents earn a movie night for making it one whole month with no fights (that the guards know about.)

There had been a vote on which movie to watch, but they’d been given very few options. Nothing with sex, violence, drugs, or anything fun really, was allowed. They’d settled on Little Rascals.

Ellie yawns, leaning her head against his shoulder as they sit in the back of the cafeteria, which has been converted into a makeshift theater.

“Wheeler, do you want a shot?!” A guard asks, waving his infraction citation pad around threateningly. Ellie rolls her eyes, sitting up to put more space between her and Logan.

“Don’t they have anything better to do?” She mutters under her breath.

“I think they actually take a lot of pleasure in being able to deny us any chance of fleeting happiness.” Logan theorizes.

“Why else would they go into corrections? It’s definitely not for the money. It’s the sense of power, being able to tell people what to do. They get off on it. My Dad clearly missed his calling becoming a detective. He’d be much happier working in a prison.”

Logan chuckles. “As much as being in here sucks, I’m really glad I met you Ellie.” Logan admits.

Ellie smiles, burrowing into his shoulder again. “I’m glad I met you too.” She reveals.

“Wheeler, Sanchez, if I have to say it again, you’re getting kicked out of movie night!” The guard yells.

…

“Logan!” Ellie calls as he comes back in from the yard. He’s surprised to see her dressed in the Langston college and jeans from take-in instead of the standard issued juvie uniform he’s used to. She rushes towards him, about to leap into his arms before she notices the way the guards are looking at her and thinks better of it, stopping just in front of him. “I’m getting out!” She says excitedly.

“So soon, I thought you had 3 more months?” He can’t quite keep the dismay of her leaving out of his voice.

“I thought so too, but I think my Dad ended up pulling some strings. I guess he figures I learned my lesson.”

“Did you?” He questions, brow quirked.

Ellie smirks. “Not a chance.”

Logan smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m happy for you Troublemaker, I really am. I’m definitely going to miss you though.”

Ellie’s eyes soften. “I’m going to miss you too. More than you know.”

And then, she’s kissing him. Hands in his hair, tongue in his mouth. His hands falls to her waist, hauling her against him as he deepens the kiss.

“Hey! Break it up you two!” A guard yells.

Ellie pulls away, smiling up at the stunned expression on his face. “Something to remember me by.” She whispers, raising up on her tip toes to kiss him again.

This time, a guard forcibly grabs her arms and pulls her away from Logan. “If you want more time here Wheeler, I can easily make that happen. Trust me.” He threatens. He turns his attention to Logan. “And Sanchez, that’s a week of no yard time.” He doles out Logan’s punishment.

Ellie casts him a sympathetic look, but he just grins at her. “Very worth it.” He tells her.

Ellie offers him one last smile before the guard pulls her away to be processed out.

Logan immediately feels her absence. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get through another month here without her.

….

Taglist: @choicesarehard @ifyouseekheart @brightpinkpeppercorn @regina-and-happiness @drakexnadira @flyawayboo @fairydustandsarcasm @alesana45 @umiumichan @maxwellsquidsuit @lahelable @god-save-the-keen @mrsmckenziesworld @paisleylovergirl @iplaydrake @sinclaire-made-me-sin @choicesgremlin @lovehugsandcandy @desiree-0816 @cora-nova @justdani14 @emceesynonymroll @emichelle @badchoicesposts @client-327 @riverrune @liamzigmichael4ever @princessstellaris @mskaneko @anxious-arliah

#ride or die #choices fanfiction #logan x mc #logan rod

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here4theheartbreak · 4 years

Text

2019 Writing Wrap Up

Under a cut because long, long, long.

Fandom(s): BTS and SH

Fics that you wrote in 2019:

💔🔥 Nice Things - Namjoon is clumsy, even with others’ hearts. (smut, angst, bottom!Namjoon)

🔥 Detention (Jimin/Namjoon/Taehyung) - Jimin and Taehyung are stuck in detention for a very particular reason. (smut, top!Namjoon, switch!Jimin, switch!Taehyung, teacher/student roleplay)

🔥 Euphoria - Jungkook has had a crush on the leader of BTS since forever. Now that Namjoon is helping write his solo for the upcoming album, this could be his perfect chance. (smut, dirty talk, bottom!Jungkook)

🍭 Lost & Found (Hoseok/Jin/Namjoon) - Hoseok and Namjoon get caught in a flash flood while hiking. A mysterious man saves them, claiming to be a supernatural creature. He’s crazy, right? (no sex, first kiss, faerie AU, fae!Jin)

🔥 Sentience (Halsey/Jin/Namjoon) - It’s Namjoon’s birthday and his girlfriend surprises him with an android. It’ll just be a single, fun night, right? (android!Jin, bottom!Namjoon, top!Jin, cyberpunk, MMF, smut, AU)

💔 forever rain (Hoseok/Namjoon/Yoongi) - Namjoon made a big mistake six months ago and has been hiding from the confrontation he knew would result. The rain can’t hide him forever. (fluff and angst, no smut, AU)

🔥 Silent Love (Jimin/Jin/Namjoon) - Namjoon got new toys for his boyfriends. He can’t wait to hear their silence. (smut, gags, dirty talk, bottom!Jin, switch!Jimin, bdsm)

🔥 Surprise Visit (Jin/Jungkook/Namjoon) - Jin surprises Namjoon with a visit while he’s working in the studio late one night. But they’re not as alone as they thought. (smut, voyeurism, bottom!Jin)

🔥💔Run to Me (Jin/Namjoon/Taehyung) - Taehyung has a crush on Namjoon. Not like he stands a chance with Jin there though. (smut, HYYH verse, AU, virgin!Taehyung, switch!Taehyung, switch!Jin, switch!Namjoon)

🔥 Ready (Jimin/Namjoon/Yoongi) - Jimin is finally ready to give a special part of himself to his boyfriends. They do their best to make it special. (first time, smut, bottom!Jimin, top!Namjoon, top!Yoongi)

🔥 Detention (Jimin/Namjoon/Taehyung) - Jimin and Taehyung are stuck in detention for a very particular reason. (smut, top!Namjoon, switch!Jimin, switch!Taehyung, teacher/student roleplay)

🔥 Trying New Things (Hoseok/Jungkook/Namjoon/Yoongi) - Jungkook loves trying new things. He also loves being tested. So his boyfriends find a great way to do both at the same time. (sex toys, bottom!Jungkook, triple penetration, top!Hoseok, top!Namjoon, top!Yoongi, bondage)

🔥 Red - Jin agrees to try a new form of play for his Dom, and things don’t go as planned. (smut, safewording, bottom!Jin, bdsm)

🔥💔 Camshows and Camera Lenses (Jin/Taehyung) - Jin knew it was a bad idea to get so involved with the camboy he knew as TaeTae95. But the young man was charming, beautiful, smart, and everything Jin could ever want in a man. Now only if those around him could see that too. (Multichapter, AU) 🔥 Stuck - Jungkook gets himself a little stuck. Good thing Jin is there to help. (smut, under-negotiated kink, bottom!Jungkook)

🔥 Sensitive (Hoseok/Jin/Taehyung) - Jin has a sensitive neck. His boyfriends can’t help but tease. (non penetrative sex, dirty talk)

🔥 Paper Beats Rock (Jin/Jungkook/Yoongi) - Jin and Yoongi didn’t really know how things would turn out with the cute stranger who played rock, paper, scissors with them. Neither expected this. (smut, meet weird, bottom!Jin, top!Yoongi, aro!Yoongi, ace!Jungkook, AU, poly V)

🍭 Love Is Not Over (Jimin/Jin/Yoongi) - Yoongi has decided that love isn’t worth it after a particularly nasty divorce. Even if his daughter’s kindergarten teacher is fucking adorable. He’s married anyway, and Yoongi sure as hell isn’t a home wrecker. (fluff, no smut, divorced!Yoongi, single dad!Yoongi, AU)

🔥 Mouthy (Jimin/Jin/Taehyung/Yoongi) - Jin’s been mouthy this week. His boyfriends wanna fix that. (smut, rough sex, bottom!Taehyung, sub!Jin, Dom!Taehyung, top!Jin, switch!Jimin, top!Yoongi)

🔥 Three Times as Much (Jimin/Jin/Jungkook/Taehyung) - Jin needs a little punishment. His boyfriends are happy to oblige. (smut, rough sex, triple penetration, all 4 are switches)

🔥 Best of Me (Hoseok/Jin/Jungkook/Yoongi) - The rap line has been working hard on their first American collaboration. Unfortunately, their hard work has caused their boyfriends to feel a little neglected. (webcam/video chat sex, dirty talk, bottom!Yoongi, top!Hoseok, switch!Jin, switch!Jungkook)

💔 Promise - Jimin has some trouble dealing with things in his life. Yoongi is there to support him. (no sex, angst, self harm, eating disorders)

🔥 Gotta Go (Hoseok/Jimin/Jungkook/Yoongi) - Jimin has never had to go so bad in his life. Unfortunately his boyfriends have other plans. (watersports, no penetrative sex, urophagia) 🔥 Properly Chastised (Hoseok/Jimin/Taehyung) - Taehyung realizes that he really likes to be spanked. No way can his boyfriends find out. They would most definitely use it against him. (spanking, bottom!Taehyung, top!Jimin, top!Hoseok)

🔥 💔 Paint the Roses White (Jimin/Taehyung) - Jimin’s life sucks. He’s miserable, beat down, and tired. That is, until a mysterious boy with purple hair and a dangerous smile slides into his life and turns it upside down. The White Queen is ruling and drinks are on the house in the Hat Trick Lounge. Caterpillar is missing and the Prince of Hearts is ready for a war, if only he could figure out where his damn rabbit ran off to again… (AU, Multichapter) - collaboration with @i-live-so-i-love

🔥Naked Yoga (Jimin/Jungkook/Taehyung) - Jungkook is just trying to do his yoga and relax a little. But it’s his birthday and Jimin and Taehyung have other ideas. (smut, bottom!Jungkook, top!Jimin, top!Taehyung)

🔥Mile High and Mildly Bored - Jungkook is insufferable and horny when he’s bored. Especially on a thirteen hour flight. (smut, bathroom sex, bottom!Taehyung)

🔥 Taking the Challenge - Jin can’t handle his new toy, but Jungkook is up for the challenge. (smut, sex toys, bottom!Jungkook)

🍭💔 Family - Jin gets injured during a performance. He just wants to mope in solitude. (fluff, sick fic, slice of life)

🔥 Vacation Heat - Jin is in heat and needs a little help. Unfortunately his heat triggers those of his lovers, requiring a little more help than planned. (AU, Alpha/Omega verse, smut, knotting, omega/bottom!Jin, omega/bottom!Taehyung, omega/switch!Jungkook, omega/top!Jimin, alpha/top!Hoseok, alpha/top!Yoongi, alpha/switch!Namjoon)

🔥 Sleeping Beauty - Taehyung has a secret fantasy that he can’t wait to have his boyfriends fulfill. (consensual somnophilia, bottom!Taehyung, switch!Jungkook, switch!Jimin)

🍭 Bitter Revenge - Jungkook’s pranks have gone too far. The others will go to any lengths to get their revenge. (no sex, fluff, prank wars)

😈 Spooky Stories with Bangtan - A series of Halloween shorts. Some will have ships, some will not, but they are all based on the kid’s book series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. They may or may not all be connected… You’ll have to stay until the end to find out. Some will have character death, others are more funny, none are X rated gore (though some borders on M if you don’t like body horror or bugs - still read the warnings for each fic). Hope y’all enjoy and have a happy Halloween! (kiddie horror, no smut, light gore, varies, implied ships throughout including ot7)

🍭💔 Stretched to the Breaking Point - Jin’s exhausted after 4 years solid of picking up after/for the absolute loves of his life. He wants to prove he’s useful, but is this really how he’s going to have to do it? (fluff, light angst, no smut, slice of life)

🔥 Give Your All to Me (I’ll Give My All to You) - Malec - Alec really needs to learn to relax. Magnus has just the thing. (Alec x Magnus, smut, D/s elements, bottom!Alec, sub!Alec, sensory deprivation, sensation play, bondage)

🔥 As Equals - Malec - Alec insists, but Magnus isn’t sure he’s ready. (Alec x Magnus, smut, virgin!Alec, canon compliant, missing scene, sorta fix it, s02e07, s02e18, bottom!Alec, top!Magnus)

🍭 Season of Love - Malec - Magnus takes Madzie and Alec to make some new memories.

Total Fics: 33 + 3 = 36 fics

Total Words: 179,065 + 21,827 = 200,892

~Ship/Character Breakdown~

Ships (if applicable): (I’m only doing main focus ships for my fics)

Halsey x Jin x Namjoon

Hoseok x Jimin x Jungkook x Yoongi

Hoseok x Jimin x Taehyung

Hoseok x Jin x Jungkook x Yoongi

Hoseok x Jin x Namjoon

Hoseok x Jin x Taehyung

Hoseok x Jungkook x Namjoon x Yoongi

Hoseok x Namjoon x Yoongi

Jimin x Jin x Jungkook x Taehyung

Jimin x Jin x Namjoon

Jimin x Jin x Taehyung x Yoongi

Jimin x Jin x Yoongi

Jimin x Jungkook x Taehyung

Jimin x Namjoon x Taehyung

Jimin x Namjoon x Yoongi

Jimin x Taehyung

Jimin x Yoongi

Jin x Jungkook

Jin x Jungkook x Namjoon

Jin x Jungkook x Yoongi

Jin x Namjoon x Taehyung

Jin x Taehyung

Jin x Yoongi

Jungkook x Namjoon

Jungkook x Taehyung

Namjoon x Yoongi

OT7 (7)

Malec (3)

Character Frequency (minus ot7):

Namjoon Ships: 11

Jin Ships: 14

Yoongi Ships: 11

Hoseok Ships: 7

Jimin Ships: 11

Taehyung Ships: 10

Jungkook Ships: 10

Halsey Ships: 1

Character POVs:

Namjoon – 6

Jin – 11

Yoongi – 2

Hoseok – 1

Jimin – 3

Taehyung – 3

Jungkook – 5

Alec Lightwood – 2

Magnus Bane – 1

Omnipotent 3rd Person – 1 (Sleeping Beauty)

Varying POV – 1 (Spooky Stories w/ Bangtan)

~Specifics~

Best and Worst Title?

Best: Camshows and Camera Lenses

Worst: Season of Love

Best and Worst first line?

Best: There were a few moments in Jungkook’s life that made him stop and think, how did he end up here. (Stuck)

Worst: “I don’t get it?” (Ready)

Best and Worst ending line?

Best: “See, Namjoon? This is why we can’t have nice things.” (Nice Things)

Worst: Jin smiled softly, his heart feeling full and happy between his two new boyfriends. (Paper Beats Rock)

~General Questions~

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than, or about what was expected? – Actually, a lot more. It didn’t feel like I was writing near as much, but when I crunched the numbers over the past few years it’s actually more words on average per month than even when I was writing for SPN – and anyone that is a holdover from that time in my life will recall I was incredibly prolific and pressured myself to constantly put out new work. I got burnt out so bad too, which was why when I saw how much I wrote this year I was surprised – I felt literally no burn out.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? – Hmm, I mean SH, for one, I never thought I’d get into that show. But for BTS related stuff, a ship with Halsey in it. 100% did not see that coming.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest. – Three-way tie. Paint the Roses White, Stretched to the Breaking Point, and Give Your All to Me. Paint the Roses because it was my first collab with my best friend, and I had so, so much fun plotting it out and working with her to put this world together. I can’t wait to dive into our next universe and get it started. Stretched to the Breaking Point because it felt so raw while I was writing it. It stung but it helped me work through some stuff going on in my life and I just really felt like it came together in a clean and good way. And Give Your All to Me because it was my first SH fic and it felt like coming home. Normally I struggle with new fandoms but when I finally got a handle on the guys, it flowed like I’d been writing them for ages.

Okay, your most popular story? – By hits, it’s definitely Stuck. Kudos it’s Euphoria, comments it’s Camshows and Camera Lenses, bookmarks – Euphoria. So to me, I think Kudos and comments weigh more than hits and bookmarks – so Euphoria and Camshows and Camera Lenses are the most popular of mine on AO3.

Story most underappreciated by the universe? – Ugh. Sentience. I feel like it’s shunned because of the ship and it’s just an out there prompt but I worked hard on that thing and I’m proud of it.

Story that could have been better? – Paper Beats Rock. I wanted to do a lot more with it but I just ran out of inspiration for it and kinda rushed to the ending.

Sexiest story? – Give Your All to Me. While just a generic smut fic, I feel like I captured the feeling a bit better than I do sometimes, and it evokes more of a response in me than some of my other smut.

Saddest story? – Promise. I mean it ends on a hopeful note, but anything involving self-harm or other self-destructive behaviors always hurts.

Fluffiest story? – Love is Not Over – I never in my life imagined I’d be writing a kid fic for BTS but here we are.

Most fun story? – Sentience, again. It was a challenge but it was so fun to try and work out all the kinks and figure out how to make this AU work.

Hardest story to write? - Sleeping Beauty. I’m still not entirely happy with how it turned out. I had a grand plan in my head for how I wanted it to play out, but I ran into a lot of writing issues in terms of POV and just feeling rushed or not into it since it was so heavily smut. It gave me more trouble than I expected it to.

Easiest/most fun story to write? – Paint the Roses White. It was easier of course because I had help, with it being a collab, but I think that just the overall plot and idea and world itself was so fun. Things came easily and even when we had to stop and discuss it didn’t feel like things were being forced. It was just something that was meant to be written.

What story took the longest? – I feel like I was writing Paper Beats Rock for a century. This was likely due to the timing – I was writing it right over a busy time in the real world – school, work, kiddo, friends – and this distracted me and made me write slower.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? – I wrote things that I previously may have considered ‘risky’ in the sense of like… I wrote for me. Rather than spending a ton of time worrying about how others would perceive the story I was writing, I wrote what I felt helped the story and worked for it. It was really satisfying to do that, to be honest. I feel like it made writing so much more enjoyable overall and less stressful. And, it was nice to see that the response wasn’t near as horrible as I worried it would be, or it would have been in other fandoms.

What are your fic writing goals for next year? – Nothing serious or big, really. I would really like to finish up a couple of chapter fics that I have had sitting on my to-do list for almost a full year now. There’s also a collab or two I’d like to work on and publish next year, in addition to my own solo stuff. And I’d like to keep writing for SH and posting those – I’m doing a writing bingo for the first half of 2020 and I think If I can do at least half of the squares (so like 12-13 out of 25) I’d be totally satisfied with that. As for word count or things of that nature – I don’t think I have anything set in stone. It would be nice to keep the same or higher for total word count, around the 200k mark, but if I don’t reach that I’m not going to fret about it. Writing should be enjoyable and relaxing, not stress me out to the point I no longer enjoy it. So, I guess my goal is to just keep writing what makes me happy.

Tagging: @btsaudge @i-live-so-i-love @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell @compo67 @flora-jimin @chimknj @softjeon @zzzett And any other writing friends! I am 100% sure i forgot people here.

#tag games #writing wrap up #long post

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amillionsmiles · 5 years

Text

dizzy on the comedown (Keith/Pidge)

Title: dizzy on the comedown Summary: But it was molting season: time to trade the old feathers for new wings. / Keith, Katie, and the light of a small town moon. A/N: Written for the @kidgezine!

Read and review here or continue under the cut.

o.O.o

At this point in his life, Keith had two things going for him. Graduation, and—

Okay, well. Maybe just the one.

Above Mrs. Finkle’s head, the clock crept at a snail’s pace. Time moved slowly enough in Arus already—call it the universal law of small towns—but detention, Keith hypothesized, was where it froze in cryogenic sleep. If not for the one other student sitting two rows behind him and to the left, Keith could have convinced himself he was in bed at home, dreaming.

That was how most days felt, in the midst of senior spring. Like he could just float in and out of them until summer, when he’d be gone for good. As far as cities went, Altea hardly had the glitz and glamor of somewhere like New York, but its population of 100,000 was massive compared to Arus’s 1,800, and for that, Keith couldn’t wait.

In the meantime, though, he saved up his money and cut class. Which had been working just fine until he’d dropped by to grab an assignment and Iverson had spotted him, hightailed it down the corridor, and grabbed Keith by the scruff of his jean jacket before he could get away.

Dragging his attention away from the minute hand, Keith went back to fiddling with the radio on his desk. It was his mom’s, a vintage dark beige beauty that had started glitching last week. Despite not being much of a repairman, Keith hoped to fix it in time for her birthday this weekend. Mrs. Finkle ignored him, tongue darting out to wet her finger as she flipped another page of her book.

Keith messed with a wire and turned the dial. Nothing but static at first, but slowly the faint strains of music overcame the crackle. Keith smiled, stopping short when a ball of paper hit the back of his head.

He turned around. His detention-mate stared back at him with a steady gaze, hazelnut brown hair bundled in two messy braids. Katie Holt, sophomore. One older brother, Matt, who’d graduated last year. Her dad was an astrophysics professor while her mom bounced between running the local library and volunteering at the observatory up in the hills. Keith knew all these facts through no extra effort of his own, the same way everyone knew that his dad had died putting out the fire on Mr. McComb’s farm back in 2008.

What he didn’t know was why Katie was in detention. She didn’t exactly seem like the rabble-rousing type. Then again, maybe the fact that she looked so unassuming was exactly what made her trouble.

Impatiently, Katie jerked her head toward the crumpled ball behind him. Frowning, Keith swiveled in his chair and scooped it up, flattening it on his desk.

Nice, read the note.

Meaning the radio, probably. He glanced back at Katie and raised a single eyebrow in acknowledgement. At the front of the classroom, Mrs. Finkle’s chair scraped backwards as she stood up.

Though it took 30 seconds for her to leave the room and turn the corner toward the bathrooms, it felt like a year. Once she’d left, Keith put the radio in his backpack and swung it over his shoulder. He didn’t know Katie well enough to say anything meaningful out loud, but he granted her a brief nod of acknowledgement before turning his back.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.” He poked his head out into the hallway to make sure no one was around. The agreement with Mrs. Finkle was simple: as long as nobody saw him busting out, she could plead innocence, and they could both move on with their respective afternoons.

“Isn’t skipping detention just going to get you… more detention?”

At that, Keith turned to lean against the doorframe. Katie had moved to stand beside him, hands curled around the straps of her backpack.

“Trust me, I do it all the time.”

“In that case...” Katie tilted her head. “Lead the way.”

Katie Holt had a bossy streak, apparently. Without further conversation, Keith started down the hallway.

“Do you have some sort of secret arrangement with Mrs. Finkle?” asked Katie, hot on his heels.

“No, she just doesn’t care. I got top marks on all the state evals, and I pretty much carry the class average.” Keith didn’t say it to brag; he’d overheard Mrs. Finkle use the exact same reasoning in an argument with Iverson once. “Besides, detention wastes her time just as much as it wastes ours— hey. ”

Katie had grabbed his forearm, yanking him to the right.

“Coach Sendak always gets his coffee in the break room around this time,” she hissed. “I thought you said you did this a lot.”

“No need to be critical,” grumbled Keith.

They’d finally reached the parking lot. His red pickup truck, shabby as it was, beckoned like a jewel. Before he could head in its direction, though, he made the mistake of glancing over at Katie. She looked on the brink of asking him something, the determination on her face surprisingly imposing considering her stature.

Exhaling, Keith ran a hand through his hair. “What?”

Just as quickly, Katie’s expression transitioned to innocence. “What?”

He leveled her with a look that read, clearly: I don't have time for this. “What are you about to ask?”

She shifted. “I need a ride home. 23rd and Walnut.”

“That’s four traffic lights past Greasy Sal’s, right?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, fine.” Keith gestured for her to walk with him. At his truck, he pulled open the driver’s door, tossing his bag into the backseat. “Get in.”

o.O.o

“Dammit.” For the third time, Katie jiggled the door handle, rapping on the door. “Nobody’s home.”

“Window?” suggested Keith.

Katie shot him a flat look. “I’m not breaking into my own house.”

“Okay, then…” Keith crossed his arms. The Holts’ porch was small, painted gray while the rest of the house was white. A bristly brown welcome mat printed with a cactus laid in front of the screen door; cacti seemed to be a recurring motif, if the several growing in the yard were anything to go by.

He took a deep breath.

“Listen, I’ve got a paper route that starts in fifteen minutes. So either you stay here, or you come with. But I’m leaving.”

“Gee, you’re really selling the appeal of your company,” said Katie. “I’m in.”

It took Keith a second to process, during which Katie sailed past him and back to his car. “You’re—what?”

“I’m in.” Opening the passenger side door, she clambered inside. “Come on—I don’t want to be blamed for you being late.”

o.O.o

As far as newspapers went, the Arus Gazette would hardly win any awards for its journalism. But much like playing in the Little League or driving to nearby Olkari Springs for Labor Day Weekend, subscription to it was time-honored tradition, a given if you’d grown up in town.

“How long does it usually take you to deliver all these?” Katie asked, pushing aside a newspaper tube that had encroached on the space between them.

“Two hours. If you’re trying to get homework done, you could probably just use the dashboard as a desk.”

Shaking her head, Katie leaned back in the seat. “Nah, I get carsick.”

“Suit yourself,” answered Keith, just as the traffic light ahead of them blinked sleepily from yellow to red. The foot he put down on the brake pedal felt like a dampener on the mood in the car; in the silence, Katie turned away from him to stare out the window, her fingers laced in her lap. It was weird. Usually, Keith cared little about forcing conversation. He hadn’t promised he’d entertain her for tagging along on his errand run. Still…

“How’d you get thrown in detention?”

Katie turned toward him, blinking in surprise. “You really want to know?”

Keith shrugged. “Might as well.”

“Hm.” The seatbelt shifted as Katie wriggled around to face him fully. “You know Lance, right?”

“Yeah.” Former Little League rival and youngest child of the McClains, who ran the only Cuban restaurant in town. “What about him?”

“So, basically I rigged the water fountain outside Mrs. Sanda’s classroom to spray in his face, which didn’t go over so well because—” Here, she adopted a high-pitched, nasal tone, “—‘we’re in the middle of a drought!’”

Keith cracked a smile. “Was it worth it?”

“100%. So what’s your deal? Is all the delinquency just a bad case of senioritis?”

“Detention doesn’t make me a delinquent.”

“At its broadest definition, delinquency means misbehavior, and I’d say playing hooky counts.”

“You’re kind of a smartass,” Keith observed.

Katie remained unfazed. “I’ve gotta be, if I ever want to get out of here.”

At that, Keith’s ears perked. Very few people broke beyond Arus’s event horizon. For most travelers, it was a pit stop, but once you settled, you stayed. That was what had happened to his mom: she’d been passing through on her way to a motorcycling convention when her bike had broken down. Keith’s dad arrived to save the day. Three months later, they’d married in the town courthouse, a September wedding, escorted home by a fleet of men and women in leather jackets—members of Mom’s former motorcycle club, the Blades.

“Where to?”

“East coast,” said Katie. “Or maybe Midwest. As long as it’s somewhere cold. I want to see snow.”

“These desert nights aren’t cold enough for you?”

“It’s not the same. What about you? Everyone knows you’re ditching for Altea.”

“Yeah. They’ve got the nearest police academy.”

Katie’s eyes brightened. She had an uncanny way of looking at him, as if he were a gadget she wanted to figure out the innermost workings of. “You’re going to be a police officer?”

Drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, Keith quirked an eyebrow. “If this is the setup for another joke about me being a delinquent…”

Katie pouted. “I’m more creative than that.”

“Good to know. Can you pass me one of the newspapers?”

Obliging, Katie handed him a tube as he rolled down the driver’s side window. With a flick of the wrist, Keith sent the bundle arcing through the air. It landed with a satisfying splat on the front porch, right up against the door. Beside him, Katie whistled.

“Twenty points if you can get it to land directly on the welcome mat,” said Keith, reaching behind him to grab another roll. He held it out between them in challenge.

Katie’s eyes sparked. “You’re on.”

What Keith knew about Katie Holt: she liked a good prank, she wanted out of Arus, and when she grinned, a dimple appeared high on her right cheek. And now he also knew the curve of her shoulder underneath her green flannel, a corded strength only hinted at before, when she’d grabbed him in the hallway. Katie had a wicked strong arm for somebody so small.

“I used to pitch for my brother,” explained Katie, her slight smirk a sign that she’d caught him noticing.

Two could play ball. “In that case,” said Keith, letting their fingers touch this time as he passed her another newspaper, “Batter up.”

o.O.o

The pink and blue of Coran’s Convenience shone invitingly against the night sky as Keith pulled into the parking lot. Wasting no time in unbuckling her seatbelt, Katie leaped out of the car, leaning against the ice machine as she waited for him to catch up.

It didn’t feel like they’d spent the last eight hours together; in fact, Keith was almost reluctant to see the end. They’d made a game of the rest of his paper route, competing to see who could throw faster or with more accuracy. Afterwards, dinner at Flo’s Diner, where between the two of them they’d devoured a healthy serving of chili cheese fries, crispy fish sliders, and apple pie. And now, to close the night, Slurpees from Coran’s.

Coran was Arus’s resident redhead and town gossip. Like a homing beacon, his head whipped toward the entrance when the bell overhead jingled. Somewhat protectively, Keith steered Katie so that the chip aisle obscured them from view as they headed toward the back, where the white lemon, blue raspberry, and cherry ice churned in their respective containers.

Halfway through filling his cup with cherry, Keith was interrupted.

“You’re doing it wrong,” said Katie, taking over. “The trick is to layer all the flavors.”

Keith took the package of Twizzlers she thrust at him, watching Katie top off the Slurpee’s blue raspberry layer with practiced precision.

“You’re a sick little genius, but I’ll take it.”

“Watch who you’re calling little,” she warned. “Corn Pops?”

Keith made a face. “Pass.”

“All right.”

At the cash register, Coran rang up their total with a twinkle in his eye. “How’s your mom doing, Keith?”

Reaching for his wallet, Keith shrugged. “She’s fine.”

“Gonna miss you when you leave for Altea, I bet.”

“I’m not disappearing off the grid, just moving. I’ll visit.”

“Mhmm. And what about you, Little Holt?” teased Coran. “Running around with this one now that Matt’s gone—I hope he hasn’t gotten you into any trouble.”

“We met in detention, actually,” said Keith, finally done counting his change. “Here. $5.79.”

Sensing Keith was a dead end, Coran swept the bills and coins into his hand and redirected his wiles toward Katie with more vigor.

“Trade that story for a Slim Jim.”

“Two Slim Jims and a pack of Mentos,” Katie countered.

Coran laughed, running a thumb over his mustache. “Deal.”

After laying the negotiated items on the counter, Coran leaned over to let Katie whisper in his ear. Meanwhile, Keith sipped the Slurpee, shivering slightly as the cold rushed to his head. Coran’s grin had pulled higher; Keith narrowed his eyes at Katie, wondering what she’d just said.

Once they’d escaped Coran’s gleeful “Stay safe, kids!” he had a chance to ask.

“What’d you tell him?”

“Something much more exciting than the truth,” grinned Katie, stashing their additional haul of Slim Jims and Mentos in the cup holder. “So, where to next?”

In the eerie white-blue lights of the gas station, her lips shone. She hadn’t redone her braids since the afternoon, and the wispy tangles framed her face, giving her a wild softness. It suddenly seemed impossible that Keith had lived all this time at Arus without casting her anything more than a second glance.

He braced a hand on the back of her headrest, getting ready to reverse. “I know a place.”

o.O.o

Keith’s boots clanged heavily as he climbed onto the bed of his truck. Katie had already spread out the blankets; she reclined on them now, elbows jutting out on either side of her head like two bony bird wings.

The cold desert air, combined with the condensation from the Slurpee, numbed Keith’s fingers. When he hit the lemon layer, his nose wrinkled. Wordlessly, he passed the cup to Katie, who accepted with a gleeful look that let him know this had probably been her plan all along.

“Do you do this often?” she asked.

Keith followed her gaze to where the roads out of Arus dissolved into black ribbons through the dry brush. Every so often, a car’s headlight appeared. In the distance, you could just barely make out the lights of another town, but it was mostly cactus and mountains and big desert sky.

“Yeah. My dad used to drive me out here whenever I needed to blow off steam.” He rested his chin on his knees, staring at the horizon line.

A rustle. Katie sat up beside him. “Was it in this car?”

Keith smiled. “Yeah.”

“That explains why the engine sounds so clunky then. You’ve had it for forever.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith watched her. The starlight seemed to catch on her freckles, making them glimmer. He wanted to ask if she believed in ghosts. Not the evil, vindictive kind, but the restless sort. The type that might possess you to drive to the outskirts of town and sit in that liminal space between everything you’d known and everything you wanted to be.

“What’s your favorite constellation?” asked Katie, breaking his reverie.

“Aquila,” Keith answered readily. “I like how bright it gets in the summer. And I’ve always liked birds of prey.”

“Poetic.”

“Stars are the only thing I’ll miss about this place, probably.” Even as he said it, though, he knew it wasn’t true; there was the belltower and the trailer park and the way the sunrise seemed to set the grass on fire, and the dark, quiet corner of Mo’s where if you pressed your ear to the wall you could feel the vibrations from the band practicing in the basement. But it was molting season: time to trade in the old feathers for new wings.

“Well, that sucks,” Katie said. “Because even though we just started hanging out… I think I’ll miss you.”

Behind her head, the moon peeked out like an angel’s halo. Messy, he thought—about Katie’s hair, about this, starting something only to leave it behind, but. I’m not disappearing off the grid, just moving. I’ll visit.

Gently, he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind Katie’s ear. This new call was softer, more fragile than the one drawing him away from Arus, but it thud in his chest all the same.

“There’s room to add other things to the list,” he said, tugging her closer, or maybe she pulled him—either way, their mouths met in the middle, Katie’s hand curling around the flannel of his shirt, both a departure and an arrival, all at once. The glare from a passing headlight infiltrated the corner of his vision; instinctively, Keith turned away from it, nestling his face in the side of Katie’s head. Her hair smelled like a tangle of all the places they’d been today, hamburger grease mingled with desert air and notes of coconut.

“You’re trouble, Keith Kogane,” said Katie. She wrinkled her nose when she said it, and Keith was almost embarrassed by how fond he was of the gesture, already. It crackled in his chest, like a radio picking up a signal after hours of silence.

“So are you.”

#voltron #pidge #keith #kidge #kidgemas #my writing #fanfiction #ff: voltron

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