#So yeah anyone to who's having first day jitters

[evyonagray]

My sister's starting college next week, and since she was anxious about how to make new friends and how that if she dosen't she'll have to eat lunch alone, so me being the good bis sister I am, was trying to calm her down and then she sent me something she had written a while ago and this. I don't think anything I could have told her would have been a better advice than this. ->

Credit: via my sister♡

#So yeah anyone to who's having first day jitters #you've got this!! #just be yourself #Have fun and enjoy these new experiences to the best pf your abilities #But also dont let people walk all over you in the fear of being seen as rude #Treat people the way they deserve too #Don't undervalue yourself just to please someone #Students #College #University #First day of first year #desi tumblr #engineering student

[navybrat817]

Focus

Pairing: Motocross!Steve Rogers x Motocross!Female Reader Summary: You have a crush on Steve Rogers, but you don't think you're his type. Word Count: Over 1k Warnings: Crush, longing, slight insecurities, swearing, nicknames, Curtis is a good friend, Motocross!Steve Rogers (he's a warning, okay?) A/N: Finally an intro for Champ and Daisy in our Dialed In AU! Took me how long, @yenzys-lucky-charm ? Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated! ❤️

A 450 rider like Bucky with a lot of wins under his belt, Natasha was serious when she said Steve was one of the best riders in his class.

It was one of the reasons people called him “Champ”, a nickname he wasn’t overly fond of since some of the guys liked to tease him after races where he didn’t place first. It also gave him flashbacks of when he was younger and smaller, virtually ignored or told he wouldn’t excel in anything physically.

With a lot of heart and a late growth spurt, he proved them wrong.

Bucky said once that his nickname should be “Adonis” because of his now statuesque looks and the pit lizards fawning over him or “Golden Boy” because of his success and admiration.

Steve never let any of that get to his head and refused to let the pit lizards distract him. He worked hard to get where he was and continued to give it his all on and off the track every single time.

His determination was one of the many reasons you found yourself drawn to him. He was the kind of rider and person many aspired to be.

Your crush only grew the day you two actually met.

A rider yourself, you earned the nickname “Daisy” thanks to the flowers on your helmet and general sweet demeanor.

The helmet was the very thing Steve complimented you on when he walked by you at your first pro race.

You hadn’t meant to stare when he walked by, but his reputation preceeds him. Clad in red, white, and blue like a patriotic God, his blonde hair sparkled in the sunlight and his eyes looked like the sky on a cloudless day.

The sheer size of him almost made you whimper when he got closer. How a man was able to walk with such confidence and dominance yet still had an air about that said he was humble was a gift.

He even stopped to speak to a few kids who were eager to meet him and you couldn’t stop smiling when one little boy wrapped his arms around his legs in a tight hug.

Who wouldn’t fall for him?

You were certain you still had a dopey smile on your face when he looked your way.

“Beautiful.” The deep timbre of his voice sent a shiver down your spine when you realized he was speaking to you, which you tried to blame on pre-race jitters. “Your helmet. It’s beautiful,” he said when you didn’t reply.

You deflated slightly because of course he didn’t think you were beautiful. You were just a rider and not like the girls who flocked to him.

“Oh, thanks,” you croaked, clearing your throat immediately to try and save face. “I like daisies,” you added, mentally kicking yourself for stating the obvious. Why else would they be on your helmet?

The lopsided grin he gave you brought your smile back to your face. “You’re Daisy. Heard good things about you.”

Biting your lip and glancing away briefly, you didn’t catch his gaze following the movement. “You have?” You asked, slightly surprised that your name made the rounds.

“Yeah.” He nodded toward the track. “And I’m eager to see what you do out there.”

Your stomach did a somersault, but you held your head high. “I’ll try not to disappoint.”

“I doubt you could disappoint anyone,” he quietly spoke, looking over his shoulder when Bucky called out to him. “Gotta go. Good luck out there, Daisy.”

“Thanks, Champ,” you said, shifting back and forth on your feet when he stood up straight and flexed his gloved fingers. Maybe you shouldn’t have used his nickname. “I mean, Steve.”

You couldn’t read his expression, but you felt better when he gave you one more lopsided smile. “Champ sounds nice coming from you,” he said before he walked away.

You tried not to swoon or check out his ass when he went on his way, but Curtis clocked you immediately.

“You might wanna wipe that drool off your chin before your race,” he said, nudging you with his shoulder when you glanced at the ground. “Nervous? Don't be. You’re gonna kick ass out there.”

“Not nervous,” you said, biting your lip again. “He said he heard about me.”

“Yeah. Riders talk, you know that. And the guys saw you practice, so they know you have skills,” he said, sighing when you lifted your head and longingly stared after Steve. “Look, don’t let him distract you.”

“I’m not letting him distract me,” you argued, moving your helmet between your hands. “It’s just nice to get a compliment from such a skilled rider,” you said, especially since a lot of guys had a tendency to ignore you once they knew you loved to race.

Curtis narrowed his eyes. “I’m a skilled rider and I compliment you. I don’t see you walking around with hearts in your eyes and having a little crush on me.”

Your cheeks flamed before you hit his arm. “More like you bust my nonexistent balls. That’s not the same thing,” you said.

He didn’t move an inch when you hit him, the wall of muscle that he was. “Perk of being my friend,” he deadpanned, looking in the direction that Steve went, too. “I’m not one for gossip, but Champ is single.”

You put your helmet on so your friend couldn’t see your face. “Good to know, but I doubt I’m his type,” you said.

Because why would he like you?

“Rogers is a fucking idiot if he doesn’t want a girl like you,” he said sincerely before he hit your helmet with the palm of his hand, the familiar grumpy stare back on his face. “But enough of that shit. Get out there and win your fucking race.”

Which you did.

Steve's heart skipped a beat when you removed your helmet and smiled.

Because the truth was, you were exactly his type.

And he’d sweep you off your feet if you let him.

They're sweet, okay? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Steve Rogers Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

#navybrat writes #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x female!reader #steve rogers x f!reader #steve rogers #motocross!steve rogers x reader #motocross!steve rogers #dialed in: motocross au #champ and daisy #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers au #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fluff #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans x female reader

[stitched-mouth-vs-the-world]

Edge You To Death

Pairing: Undertaker x AFAB! Reader or Undertaker x Fem! Reader.

Summary: Undertaker loves ruining your orgasms.

Warnings: NSFW, Smut, Casual sex, Undertaker and Reader have a weird ‘situationship’, Age gap relationship, Mention of pedophila (not in reference to Undertaker! UT is not a pedo!), Reader is unaware Undertaker is a reaper or of what he does for Ciel, Reader has MY personal thoughts on pedophila (I don’t think they are controversial but just in case you don’t wanna here it skip the introduction), Oral sex (fem receiving), Edging, Daddy kink.

Writing Time: 1 hour.

Word Count: 1,317.

Format: Kinktober Fic, Day 20.

A/N:

I kinda forgot wtf I was doing here.

Most of my Kinktober works were written well in advance, but this wasn’t one of them. I wrote this 2 days before it was due. My requests are pilling up but I should start prioritising these now. I doubt I’ve gotten that Matthew Patel request done yet, I planned to do that when I got the requester’s first message about it, sent the same day I got the request, but not anymore. Sounds a lot like a request got ages ago on my previous account but deleted when I started feeling harassed by the requester. This is more for the Matthew Patel requester than anyone else but yeah… don’t harass people about requests especially if it hasn’t been that long since you sent it. Everyone, harass me over a request and I’ll just delete it. You can send one reminder after a week and that’s it. Anymore and I delete. I usually have requests done in a week or two and those kinds of messages just destroy my motivation.

Anyway! Please enjoy this Undertaker smut.

Here are my other Kinktober 2023 works.

—-///—-

You had been feeling dam good since you started sleeping with the Undertaker.

You had new relationship jitters, even if it wasn’t really a relationship. He was what you had fantasied about for years. An older gentleman who was kind and treated you like a Queen, but also open about wanting to ravishing you. With his age also came along a lot of life and sexual experience, a lot more than you had. He never mocked you for knowing less than him, he was just happy you wanted to know and happily taught you a lot.

Whilst age gap relationships have always been common and considered normal prior to the Victorian era, it was slowly becoming distasteful. Something many were unhappy with but also many other who were happy. Undertaker, years ago, would have been in favour this but with you now… he was in the middle and uncomfortable with it. Surely you and his relationship was ok because you was definitely an adult.

You were pretty set in stone on the matter. To you, age gap relationships were bad, unless it was you. You were a young woman who would never say no to an older man, even when you was a girl. You knew your exes were absolutely pedos, but you didn’t care as long as it was just you they were after. And no you didn’t consider yourself a victim.

You didn’t think of Undertaker in the same way though. You was an adult when you met him therefore wasn’t bad for perusing you. Well, you perused him but it didn’t matter.

Right know you was doing some dusting in the front of Undertaker’s shop, he was in the back. The first thing you took notice of when you first met your lover… was how nasty his shop is. It’s always covered in dirt and stinked of death. Obviously it would smell of death, it’s a funeral home, but the dirt was unnecessary and you was surprised that Undertaker had tried to do something about the smell. You figured he’s probably gotten used to it now and gone nose blind.

Once you had cleaned to a satisfying amount, you heard the bell go. You looked up and saw the familiar Earl Phantomhive and his butler. The young boy always looked so dam miserable, it depressed you. You didn’t like interacting with either of them and they never seemed to want your help, so you called your bedmate.

Undertaker came into the room, happy to deal with the Phantomhive and his butler. You was aware the two engaged in a different kind of business than coffins or funeral services, but it was none of your business what their business was. So you wasn’t going to ask…

Instead you headed out of the room and upstairs to bed, it was late and you knew Undertaker would join you after he was done with his ‘business’.

—-///—-

“Sort out the Earl?” You asked.

“Yes, Dear.” Undertaker smiled as he climbed into his bed, next you.

You sat up immediately and glared at him, “How many times have I told you Undie?! No sleeping in your day clothes!”

He laughed as you pushed him out of his own bed. Yeah, Undertaker had a bad habit of sleeping in his day clothes. He didn’t own PJs until you came into his life, nearly a year ago now.

“Ok! Ok!” Undertaker walked over to his drawers to fish out his sleepwear.

Once he did, he placed them on the end of the bed and looked down at you. You gave him a small smile, suddenly remembering this was his home and his bed and who are you say anything about how he sleeps? After all, you’re not even dating.

Undertaker grinned widely at you and slowly started removing his cloak. Ah, he was trying to indicate something.

He slowly stripped completely in front of you before getting back on the bed and crawling onto you. You kissed his lip gently and took hold of his arms, but Undertaker shook your hold off his arms and grabbed your face to pull you even closer to him, deeping your kiss. He quickly slipped his tongue into your mouth, desperate for a makeout session.

You moaned in between the kisses, you were started to feel a growing sensation in between your legs. If not dealt with quickly, it would become uncomfortable. Luckily for you, Undertaker could sense your arousal and was more than willing to help.

He let go of your lips and before you could even whine or complain, he was pulling the duvet and sleep shorts down and licking your lower regions. You made your hands comfortable, pulling on the pillow under your head and proped up your legs and planted your feet into the bed.

Undertaker ate you out like a mad mad. Sucking, licking, spitting and groaning like crazy. Your pussy and it’s sweet smell made him act unusual, way less calm and in control than usual. This was something you was proud of. You had the power (or pussy) to make Undertaker lose all composure.

You started to feel less prideful about your achievement as you started to feel yourself losing to Undertaker’s tongue. Your whimpered had become cries and moans, you begged him for release but you should of known better. It would be a long while before you got that.

Undertaker grinned evily against your cunt then looked up you, just go get a glimpse of your flustered expression. Having wait himself for release was a sacrifice he was willing to make if he got to see you cry and beg him for climax. He absolutely got a weird power trip from it.

“Oh please… oh please Daddy, I need to cum now!”

“Nu uh uh! You don’t get to cum until I say so, Dearie!”

You were still staring up at the ceiling and unable to look down, but you didn’t need to look down to know Undertaker was wearing his usual evil wicked grin. He always had that look when he was planning to edge you to death.

#stitched #stitched talks #stitched mouth #stitched writes #stitched’s kinktober #kinktober 2023 #kinktober #black butler #kuroshitsuji x reader #kuroshitsuji smut #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji undertaker #black butler x reader #black butler smut #black butler undertaker #undertaker x reader #undertaker #undertaker smut

[palajae]

closer.

PAIRING ▸ ravenclaw! jungwon x ravenclaw! reader

GENRE ▸ hogwarts! au, fake dating! au, f2ls, romance, angst, fluff, humor

SUMMARY ▸ your house’s prefect, yang jungwon, is the textbook definition of a ravenclaw. as a fellow housemate and friend, you’re certainly willing to help him out when he needs it. but when jungwon asks you to be his date for the yule ball, you don’t expect the trouble that follows.

WORD COUNT ▸ 4.7k

AKA you and jungwon are the definition of dumb and dumber. 

NOTES ▸ mentions of food, not proofread ???

part of the charms and chasers miniseries.

“WILL YOU BE MY DATE TO THE YULE BALL?”

certainly a great start to your breakfast in the great hall. you choke on your orange juice, not expecting those nine words to leave your house prefect’s mouth. you’re not sure if you’re lucky that your friends hadn’t arrived yet to witness such unexpected words or unlucky that they weren’t there to help you. 

“e-excuse me?”

yang jungwon shuffles around nervously, glancing around before he repeats his words. “listen, i’m really desperate. you’re the first person i saw who was available-“

your eyebrow quirks up at that. 

“-and this year they’re making the prefects dance the opening and I don’t have anyone to-“

you zone out. 

sure, you thought jungwon was a really nice and responsible prefect slash housemate. and sure, you thought he was literally the textbook definition of a ravenclaw, but you weren’t sure what to make of this. 

you would even consider jungwon a friend- if someone you only talked to a couple times a week for schoolwork counted as a friend. blinking, you return back to focus when you see jungwon staring at you with a half-desperate and half-embarrassed? look on his face.

you fumble, “uhm….”

it comes out utterly confused, your mind scattered at the abrupt confrontation. with his eyes boring into you, you look everywhere and anywhere but at jungwon. you just wanted a peaceful breakfast, not a massive heart rate spike in the early hours of the day. give credit to your social anxiety and personality to please everyone that made you stutter out a weak, “sure,” and shoot jungwon a half-grimace, half-grin. 

he practically deflates in relief, clasping his hands together tightly and thanking you countless times. biting your lip, you watch as he leaves and your friends come into view, making their way over to you. truly, you have no choice but to wonder what you just got yourself into. 

you find it awkward to talk to jungwon after the confrontation. should you say something to break the ice? after all, he was the one who asked you to be his date. 

or was he waiting for you to make the first move? 

you shake your head, overthinking really sucked. 

“did you finish the assignment for potions?”

you jump at the familiar voice, turning around in your seat to see jungwon looking at your expectantly, although the jittering of his knee below the table catches your eye. 

“oh. yeah. uh… did you?” 

“yep,” he nods shortly. silence overcomes you and you bite the inside of your cheek. 

why were you acting like this? jungwon was your friend (right?), so you shouldn’t be feeling afraid to hold a conversation with him, let alone look in his direction. 

“listen, about the other day,” he starts off and your body tenses. 

“i just wanted to apologize for asking you so out of the blue. i was kinda freaking out since i had to find a date really soon, so i’m sorry i put you on the spot like that. if you don’t want to go with me, that’s fine, i’ll just have to-“

again, jungwon starts rambling and a tiny smile makes its way onto your face. 

“jungwon. i said i would go with you, right?”

he pauses and nods slowly at that. 

“yeah, and i don’t go back on my word. as long as you’re good too, there’s nothing to worry about. how about we just stay as comfortable as we have been?” 

you attempt your best to give a reassuring smile and you think it works judging by jungwon’s sigh of relief. 

“o-of course. thanks y/n, a lot. i mean it.” 

you’re not sure but maybe that conversation broke down a wall and unlocked something in jungwon. because after that day, you felt a noticeable shift in your relationship. 

no more of the friendly surface level conversations about school- you came to learn much more about the ravenclaw yang jungwon. 

entering your house’s commonroom during a break, you’re pleasantly surprised to find jungwon sitting at a corner, looking focused as he scribbles furiously on a sheet of parchment paper. 

there was no harm in sitting with your friend, right? that thought crossed your mind as you strolled over and took the seat across from him. 

for a couple of seconds, jungwon doesn’t even seem to notice your presence. you watch with amusement at the way his eyebrows furrow. what could he be so focused on? 

the sound of your name being called out questioningly brings you out of your thoughts. you look up to find jungwon studying you with wide eyes, a sight unexpectedly cuter than you thought. you internally slap yourself. 

“y/n! what are you doing here?”

you shrug, “wanted some peace and quiet during break. just happened to see you here so i…” your voice begins to falter, “thought it was okay to join you?”

jungwon smiles his trademark prefect smile and you almost choke. “yeah. i don’t mind at all.”

coughing, you glance around the empty room before looking at him again. “what are you working on?”

he lets out a exhausted sigh, and as a ravenclaw yourself, you’ve heard that too many times to count. 

“well, the riddle to enter the common room changed so i had to go around telling all the clueless first-years what the answer was. then i finished the herbology research and had to go on patrol. finally i guess i came here for peace and quiet, like you.”

an eyebrow of yours raises. “and yet you look like you’re still working hard?” 

he glances at you sheepishly, “helping complete a third-year’s defense against the dark arts homework?” 

“helping or struggling?” you snicker, and jungwon pouts. 

“not struggling entirely,” he defends himself and you send him a look, scooting closer to see the sheet better. 

you squint at the questions, faintly remembering the content on the page. as you explain to jungwon, you see his eyes light up as he begins to remember. 

while watching him write down the answer, you smile to yourself. 

“you have a lot on your plate, yet you always seem to be so on top of things still. it’s crazy. i really admire you for it.” 

the sound of scribbling stops. 

his lips purse together as he stares down at the half-filled paper in front of him. 

“thanks, but it’s not exactly ideal when that’s what it only seems like. in all honestly, i don’t know what i’m doing half the time. finding you as my date for the ball lessened half the load on me.”

perhaps there was much more to jungwon that you didn’t know about. you suppress a laugh, “was it really that hard?” 

“it was so bad,” he whines, and you resist the urge to reach out and pet his top of his fluffy hair. 

“then, i’m glad i was able to help you, mr. ravenclaw’s perfect prefect.” 

you can only laugh as he protests to no avail. 

as you leave charms, you pat jungwon’s shoulder. 

“good luck on your test- and don’t worry. you always overthink.”

he sticks his tongue out at you, “shouldn’t i be the one telling that to you?” 

with a huff and a shake of your head, you bid him goodbye. your friends are left on the side to watch your interaction with the boy, eyes zeroing in on you. 

“what was that about?” wonyoung sneakily slides in, giving you the side-eye. you give her an innocent look in response, “what was what about?”

“don’t try me. you know, the budding relationship between you and yang jungwon?” 

you roll your eyes at that. “what budding relationship? we’re friends. we’ve been friends. you know that.” 

she hums, “yes, but i’m also your friend. so,” she drawls on, “i’m telling you right now to tell me what the deal is. there’s obviously something going on.” 

at that, you’re not sure what to say. you have no clue if the ‘situation’ between you and jungwon was public knowledge or not. 

that being you as jungwon’s date to the ball.

the yule ball hadn’t become a huge topic amongst the school yet, mainly because it wasn’t announced to the student body yet. 

jungwon knew early as a prefect and asked you, so you figured you had to keep everything a secret. even to your friends. especially to your friends. 

who knew the amount of teasing you would be succumbed to for having jungwon as your date? 

you shiver. not exactly an ideal situation after all. 

what you didn’t realize, was that the news would be released during breakfast the next day. 

once the yule ball’s exactly details were announced, the great hall erupted in conversation.

“y/n!” kazuha calls your name from across the table with a gleam in her eyes. you turn to her with an easy smile, kazuha was like an older sister to you and you loved her. 

“are you going with anyone?” your friends turn to you expectantly, and your palms begin to sweat with all the attention. 

“w-well, you see-“ you glance around desperately for help but there appears to be no one. you’re not sure why but something in your chest tightens. 

you just can’t tell them the truth. it was so simple, yet something was keeping you from saying that you were going with jungwon. 

“er, i’m so sorry but i have somewhere to be- you know, i have to water my homework!” you blurt out quickly and grab your stuff before basically flying out of the great hall, leaving your friends to share confused looks. 

you turn the corner to an empty hallway and place a hand on your pounding chest. great job y/n, great job running away indeed. 

you take a small breather, closing your eyes and laying against the wall before blearily opening them again. your vision focuses on a clock in front of you, and you suddenly come to. 

“shoot, i’m late!” 

you just barely manage to make it to the ballroom. chest heaving, you noisily push past into the room, attracting everyone’s attention. you can only stare back, in a daze and gasping for air. 

the professor turns to you. 

“oh, wonderful! you must be mr. yang’s date to the ball!” 

as gasps fill the air, you almost collapse right then and there. 

“-jungwon’s date?” 

“does that mean they’re dating?”

“they have to be! did you see the way jungwon looked so worried when y/n didn’t show up?” 

amidst the mess, you find jungwon staring back at you with an apologetic gaze. as awkward as it is, you drag your feet over to your rightful spot next to him. while the professor goes over the details, you quietly apologize for being late. 

“i’m so sorry, i totally forgot what time you told me-“

“hey,” he interrupts, a hand reaching out to squeeze yours quickly. “it’s okay. at least you’re here now. that’s all that matters.“

curse jungwon for getting you into this mess and being so nice about it. you refocus on the task at hand, and as the words fill your ears, you feel the blood drain from your body. 

of course, the whole ball was about dancing. 

another thing you didn’t know about jungwon. he’s freaking good at everything. besides being smart, kind, attractive- you slap yourself once more- 

he’s also good at dancing? 

you can’t count the amount of times you had to apologize to jungwon that day, whether it be for stepping on his feet or literally existing. 

you shouldn’t have been surprised, honestly.  after that day of rehearsing, you couldn’t catch a break. 

you were still nursing your sore legs later when wonyoung quite literally attacks you in the courtyard. you were contentedly studying on a bench, papers in front of you. that is, until she practically leaps on you and makes all your notes blow off into the surrounding air. 

your lips purse into a thin line. what could it be now? 

“you’re dating yang jungwon?” 

your jaw drops as if she wasn’t just talking about you. 

“what did you just say?”

she grabs you by the shoulders, pupils blown. “it’s been spreading everywhere, y/n! why didn’t you tell me? or-“

her words fall on deaf ears as you stalk off with one mission in mind. 

it isn’t hard for you to find jungwon, you already knew what his next class was. but to see all the eyes on you as you drag him away and to the room of requirements for privacy was something else. 

jungwon doesn’t even get a word in as you force him to sit in an empty chair, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. 

“what is-“

“you tell me. what in the name of dumbledore is going on, jungwon?” you stare at him accusingly. 

when he avoids your eyes, you know your hunch is confirmed. 

"you see…”

“i see?” you prompt.

“all my friends kept teasing me about you… so i kinda forgot to mention that i asked you out on a whim, a-as a friend,” he manages to fumble out. 

it’s not hard for you to put two and two together. you pinch your nose bridge, “so you chickened out and said we were dating?” 

he visibly deflates. 

“yeah. basically.” 

you bite your lip, “but why would you do that? it’s not a bad thing for two people, who are friends, to go to the yule ball together. is it?” 

jungwon sighs and just says, “it would be embarrassing if my friends found out that i couldn’t find anyone and asked you randomly. literally i would never hear the end of it. i know already embarrassing enough for the both of us, and it’s all my fault, but can you please go along with it until the ball‘s over?”

you hesitate, and he stares at you with those pleading eyes again. curse yang jungwon. 

“we can just pretend for a short bit. it’ll be harmless, and after that we can just go back to normal.” 

harmless? normal? 

you weigh your options in your head. wouldn’t it be situation escalate even more if you denied the rumors after he confirmed them? maybe you should have thought about your answer more, but it was too late. 

“fine,” you exhale, “but you owe me a favor. history of magic tutoring because it’s literally the most boring class.” 

“o-of course. i really owe you one.” 

it was a long process coming up with a story. but surprisingly easier than you thought. 

“can’t we just say we were friends and then i asked you out?” jungwon frowns. 

you scoff, “really now? how realistic does that seem to you?”

he clears his throat. “fine. we’ll say that you asked me out and things just went on from there.” 

facing your friends was the hardest part. you had to give them the fake apologetic look and explain. 

“we wanted to keep it a secret at first. you know, since it was so new to us…” 

“you know, i’m honestly not that surprised. I could definitely picture you guys being together before anyone said anything,” haerin chimes in. 

you swallow your spit a little too harshly. before long, sounds of agreement fill the air and you actually want to transfigure into a fly and escape out the window. 

you let out a strained laugh, “really? i’m surprised.” 

wonyoung frowns, “i’m still mad you kept it from me but i have to agree. you guys look good together.” 

you splutter, “you haven’t even seen us together!” 

she shrugs innocently, “i’ve always been watching you two.” 

“creep.”

“whipped.” 

some ground rules were established between you and jungwon. rules never to be broken within your expected duration of (not) dating. 

first, no kissing, obviously. hand holding was fine, hugs were fine, just nothing too far. second, no cheesy nicknames (merlin’s beard, never). you settled on won for jungwon and he settled on- you pause- what did he settle on? after you suggested won, he seemed to be too preoccupied (with reddened ears) to focus on making one for you. 

third. walking to class together was necessary to keep the act up and study “dates” in the library (aka your side of the deal) were every thursday. 

“I think that settles it,” you glance at your list in satisfaction. 

“wait-” jungwon says abruptly before faltering. 

“what?” you glance at him curiously. “are we missing something?”

he mutters something under his breath and you lean in closer. 

“you can just say it,” you shake your head in amusement, “it’s not like this is a strict, by the book set of rules.” 

“clothes!” jungwon manages to get out, “like- don’t couples share clothes and stuff like that? but if you’re not comfortable with that-“ 

you fall silent. 

jungwon takes note of your lack of reaction and rubs his hands nervously. 

“o-or not, we don’t have to-“

“okay,” you say quietly, all of a sudden your fingers seemed much more interesting to look at than the boy in front of you. was it just you or did the room feel a bit too hot? 

you found jungwon’s scarf to be a bit big and a bit itchy, but comfortable. the first thing you noticed when you put it on was that it smelled like him. 

jungwon smiled softly, “it looks good on you.” 

you blink, almost feeling the soft material tug at your heartstrings. “oh. thanks.” 

“see you later at lunch,” he waves and you wave back with a soft smile.

besides the teasing from your friends, you found it to be quite nice- including the extra tutoring from smartie jungwon. 

“i don’t get it. who cares about who started the goblin rebellion of 1289?”

jungwon chuckles in amusement, “the professor does, that’s who. and you will too since your marks depend on it.”

you groan, planting your cheek on the wooden library table. habitually, jungwon pokes your cheek. 

“come on. we won’t finish until 12 if we stop now.”

you let out a muffled protest.

“y/l/nnnn-“ he drags out the last syllable. 

you turn your head so your cheek rests on the table, but you can still see him staring back at you with a fond expression. 

“don’t want to.” 

sighing, jungwon puts the textbook aside and puts his head down so he’s directly facing you. your breath hitches at the close proximity.

at this closeness, you can every speck of light in his eyes. the moles on his face, the eyebags that you’re sure you share as well. 

“i’ll make an excuse so you don’t have to attend the next dance lesson,” he says softly, and his breath tickles your cheek. 

“deal,” you whisper back. 

and yet neither one of you can seem to get up from your position. 

“you guys are sickeningly cute.” 

at this point, it was becoming a regular. after the shock of you and jungwon “dating” had subsided came the admirers and fans.

you laugh dryly, dropping jungwon’s hand and ignoring the look of confusion and protest he sends your way. to make up for it, you lean in and give him a kiss on the cheek.  only for a split second do you see the surprised look on his face before it’s wiped away with an easy smile. 

“see you later, won.” 

“bye, baby.” 

again, you pretend not to hear the cooing and awwing from your friends behind you. 

“you even have nicknames?” 

“he’s such a nice boyfriend to walk you to your classes.” 

you shift uncomfortably in your position. “yeah…” 

what was bad was that you had gotten a little too used to it- acting as a couple with jungwon. what was worse was that you were starting to like it. 

he comes to pick you up after class is over. and walk you to lunch. usually jungwon would drop you off at your designated seat with your friends and go to his friends, but today he was stopped by some third years. 

“hey prefect! could you help do my research paper for potions?” 

at the first sign of jungwon’s uneasiness, you frown. it wasn’t the first time you witnessed his stress and exhaustion of being a prefect- and simply a kind person. 

you knew he always tried to help out whenever he could. that was his duty, and his personal values. but the days spent observing him literally pulling his hair out over other people’s issues wasn’t making it any better. 

“excuse me,” you step out in front of jungwon, “but my boyfriend here isn’t your homework machine. he’s a human, and he’s perfectly willing to help you guys out- not do you work for you because of your laziness.” 

jungwon’s eyes widen, mouth opened to object, but you angrily take his hand and drag him out of the great hall to a quieter place. 

“y/n- you didn’t have to-“

“they were taking advantage of you. they always do. you have your own problems and those kids need to learn how to do things for themselves.” you were internally fuming and not about to hear jungwon defend them. 

“but it’s my job as-“

“i don’t care about your prefect duties, i care about you!” 

he freezes and your voice noticeably loses its strength, “you’re my friend. of course i care about you.” 

“yeah… right,” he manages to whisper before stalking away, leaving you alone and confused. 

you hadn’t seen jungwon in a while. it’s like he was personally avoiding you, but you had no idea why. 

he stopped walking you to class, showing up for tutoring on thursdays- completely and utterly avoiding you without a single word. 

you couldn’t even approach him, it’s like you didn’t even exist. you replayed that days events in your mind over and over, picking apart each and every interaction. 

what did you do? what did you say? 

“don’t worry, y/n. he’s just going through a tough time probably and wants to be alone. just give him time,” kazuha reassures you. 

wrong, you think bitterly but don’t voice your thoughts. jungwon wasn’t the type to do that, or so you believed. 

the yule ball was still coming up and now you had to practice dancing alone, rehearsing every step in the dark with an imaginary partner. 

you didn’t even know if you were still going with jungwon, but something in you made you feel obligated to at least get the moves down. if any tiny hope in you still said so. 

the day before the ball, one last practice, you thought you heard a sound but when you looked, there was no one. it was probably just your imagination hoping jungwon would show up out of nowhere. 

sweaty and breathless, you lay down in the middle of the ground. and let the sadness wash over you. 

“are you sure you’re not going?” 

you smile sadly, curling up tighter under your blue covers. “nah, i’m good.” 

“but-“

“really,” you insist, “i’ll join later.” 

as the door clicks shut and silent fills the room, you stare up at the highlighted ceiling, sprinkled with stars. stars alike the ones you saw in jungwon’s eyes. 

you rub a hand over your face, throwing the covers off you. 

screw it. 

you need to do this. 

scrambling out of the room with one heel on and the other untied, you hastily managed to dash over to the ballroom. soft music floated over through the doors, and you curse. 

were you too late for the introductory dance? 

releasing a heavy breath, you push past the doors and stumble to a halt. 

your eyes fall upon the familiar prefects positioned in the middle of the room, all students surrounding on the sides. 

and finally, you spot jungwon next to the dance professor. 

everyone’s eyes are on you, but for once you only seem to care about one person’s. 

the professor silently sighs in relief, 

“thank goodness. prefects and respective partners, take your places!”

blood rushing in your ears and adrenaline effectively coursing through your veins, you take each step carefully towards jungwon. 

he has an unreadable expression on his face, which makes your stomach churn. you take your positions as practiced, and your hand tingles when his touches yours. 

it’s silent at first, the period of waiting for the music to start, but once the music begins, jungwon speaks under his breath. 

“you look beautiful.” 

your heart skips a beat and slowly, your eyes flicker to his face. he doesn’t look at you, instead focusing on executing the moves perfectly. 

“you look handsome,” you whisper back. 

the dance proceeds smoothly in the beginning, as if you had practiced a hundred times. but nearing the end, you falter at one move and bite your lip, hoping not too many people noticed. 

“you’re doing good. three… four…”

you look eyes with him, surprised, and in that moment, your breath is taken away. time pauses and the music fades. everything else doesn’t matter in the moment, 

it’s only you and him.  

with jungwon’s encouragement, you’re able to finish the routine without another mistake. and when the dance ends and applause begins, you quickly take his hand before he can run away again, grip desperate. 

“can we please talk?” eyes pleading, he has no choice but to listen. 

finding an empty corridor, you face him on the other side, leaning against the wall. it’s completely silent, so you clench your fists. 

“could you explain why you ignored me for the past week? please explain what i did to you?”

“it doesn’t matter,” he shakes his head, “after today, we don’t have to do this anymore. everything i put you through will be over, because that’s what you want, right?” 

you groan in frustration. 

“who said i want that? what if i say i don’t want it to be over? what if i want answers from you so we can go back to how we were? fake lovers, real lovers, i don’t care! i can’t keep acting, i just want you back in my life,” your voice cracks at the end. 

his hands fall to his side. 

“what do you mean?” he responds shakily. you can barely see him in the darkness, so you take a few steps closer. 

“are you that dense? because i don’t think so.”

another step. 

you realized, and you knew. thursdays became your favorite day of the week. no, any day spent with jungeon was your favorite day. you had become too comfortable supposedly acting with him for all of it to be a lie. and it wasn’t. your feelings weren’t a lie. 

“i think i should be asking you that question.” 

you stop, head cocking to the side. 

“what-“

he pushes off from his spot on the wall, and you feel the action. blinking, you didn’t realize how close you had gotten. 

the newfound confidence seems to fade when jungwon fiddles with his tie, “i wouldn’t have asked you to be my date if i didn’t like you…” 

you clear your throat awkwardly, “so the whole you’re the first person i eyes on and was available was a lie?” 

“somewhat,” he defends himself, “i didn’t know what would happen, but you really were the first person that i was comfortable enough with to ask. it just so happened that i liked you as well. i dunno- things just happened and we got closer.”

“then why did you push me away?”

he sighs, “because i thought you didn’t feel the same way. i got too caught up in being your fake boyfriend so i tried to prepare myself to go back to the way we were before. just friends.” 

you lean in, just a barely. “but now we both know- that’s not what we want.” 

his face was just an inch apart. you could feel his nose tickle the side of your face. 

“what do you want?”

“this.” 

and you proceed to smash your lips on his.   

bonus :) 

“you’re just lucky that i practiced.”

“alone too,” you add with a fake dramatic turn of your head (jungwon internally melts at the sight of you acting like a little kid), “like a maniac in the ballroom during the wee hours of the night.” 

jungwon lets out a melodious laugh, squeezing your hand and sending you a guilty smile. 

“i know.” 

you straighten up, "excuse me?” 

“i saw you during patrol that night,” he explains, “technically no one is allowed there past hours, but i let you stay.”

you frown but suddenly gasp at the recollection, “it was you back then!”

he blushes. 

“you were watching me?”

“of course, i always was.” 

a/n ▸ hehe as a ravenclaw i had to do this :>

MAIN TAGLIST ▸  @precioussoulofmine @lov3niki @heesterical @rerequire @nvertheless @duolingofanaccount @hoeshii

SERIES TAGLIST ▸ @ritsusakumasgf @minimarkive @lilactangerine @shinsou-rii @ahnneyong @nomniki @nyanggk @imtaehyungry @seattlesolace @allthegirlsmialoved @annoyingbitch83 @jakahbot @leeis @heavenforatlas @acciocriativity @loveza1nab @juliemr0 @en-martieru @uomre

UNABLE TO TAG ▸ @/27melodies

send an ask/dm to be added to the ‘charms and chasers’ taglist!

#enhypenwriters #enhypen imagines #enhypen x reader #enhypen scenarios #enhypen fluff #jungwon fluff #jungwon x reader #jungwon x you #yang jungwon x reader #jungwon imagines

[kxmisato]

♡ DATE FIRST, CAFFEINE LATER — DAN HENG

↳ characters : dan hang x fem!reader

↳ genre : fluff

↳ synopsis : after pining over you for so long, dan heng has finally worked up the nerve to ask you out. and he’s nervous, extremely nervous because, it’s his first date with anyone.

↳ note : for lovers who hesitate by JANNABI (i am so in love with him, i'm very normal)

dan heng has never before been more nervous about something than he is now. is that a bit of a stretch? yes, but he is still extremely nervous. he knows you’ve already said yes to going out with him but he wasn’t expecting it?

he had already set his expectations low, so when he eventually worked up the courage to ask you out he wouldn’t get his hopes crushed.

but, when you said yes and asked him to text you the details, he was surprised and relieved at first -- then his nerves got the best of him.

now, he has everything set up. where he planned to take you as well as the time he was supposed to pick you up, different conversation topics, he even picked out his outfit beforehand for crying out loud.

needless to say, dan heng is excited but nervous, very nervous.

and when dan heng approached you and asked you out with his typical nonchalant face, you were surprised as well. 

you had always thought of dan heng as someone who was not interested in romantic relationships but instead as someone who kept to themselves more, surrounding himself in books to keep him company, not a companion.

well, that is what he is, he does keep to himself and you do often see him studying in the library or walking around campus with his headphones in. 

so you hope he didn’t take notice of the stunned look on your face when he asked you out.

when the day finally came, the both of you are excited and nervous. 

typical first date jitters. 

you staring in your mirror, nitpicking your outfit and jewelry while dan heng is trying his hardest to tame his hair and find where he left his cologne. 

you’re tying the laces of your tennis shoes just when you get a text from him.

dan heng ​​◡̈ : i should be there in about 5 minutes.

y/n : okok ! super excited to see you !

dan heng ◡̈ : same :)

dan heng is in the elevator of your apartment complex and just your quick response to his message eased his nerves for a split moment, before the doors open with a ding! and he realizes he’s on your floor.

he takes a deep breathe then walks out down the ivory painted hallways, looking at the numbers on the doors before he finally reaches the one he was searching for.

you’re grabbing your bag and wallet while dan heng is standing in front of your chestnut stained door, straightening his sweater and wiping his clammy hands on his black jeans out of nervousness. 

the period of anxious waiting and final touches are done for both of you. 

and it’s finalized when you hear the wood of the front door of your apartment being knocked on and done when he hears your footsteps approaching it.

as your hands go to reach the knob of the door, you take a deep breathe then finally grip the brass. 

“hi…” you greet him shyly. “did you want to come in for a second? i just need to go make sure shushu’s water dish is full.”

“shushu?” dan heng asks as he comes in, with you closing the door behind him.

“she’s my pet cat, did you want to meet her? i can bring her out to see you.”

“ah…” dan heng coughs. “are you sure that’s okay? i know that cats sometimes get stressed out when meeting new people.”

“it should be fine, she didn’t have any issues meeting march or stelle. but it’s okay if you don’t want to see her, of course.”

“maybe i can meet her when i drop you off later? the café closes early on sundays.” he suggests.

it’s not like he doesn’t want to meet your cat, dan heng loves cats and cats love him, he thinks… but right now he really wants to go on the date with you, even if he doesn’t know how to say that outright to you.

“oh, yeah! that’s smart.” you smile at him. “i’ll be right back then.”

as dan heng stands in your apartment’s front corridor, he looks around. it’s your place, but it’s so you. the plants, the decorations, and the knick knacks that are littered throughout the place.

the empty beige walls are filled with so much life, your life. 

pictures of you, of stelle, of march, and shushu, of course. it’s warm. you made this place your home, a part of your life and dan heng hopes that he can be too.

“okay!” he hears your voice, breaking him out of his trance. “should be ready to go now, sorry about that.”

“it’s okay, i didn’t mind.” he affirms then opens the front door for you. 

“oh, thank you.” you thank him as he steps out behind you. you then pulled your key out from your bag and locked the door.

“let’s go. is… is it bad to say that i’m excited to be going out with you?” you turn and ask him as you two begin to walk down your hallway, footsteps tandem.

dan heng laughs awkwardly but turns and smiles at you. “no, uh, not at all because i think i’m just as excited as you are.” he admits.

“i’m happy to hear that,” you say, trying to hide your growing shyness. “i’ve been wanting to spend more time with you.”

“me too.”

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

“i seriously don’t think you understand how nervous i actually was for our first date.”

“really? you seemed pretty like… relaxed? to me.”

the two of you were currently bundled up to combat the dropping temperatures of fall turning into winter, sharing a throw blanket in your living room and reminiscing on your first date together.

“i thought i was going to screw everything up!” dan heng admits with a laugh. “and shushu not liking me right away also shook me up, i’m not going to lie.”

you giggle at the brunette, cuddling closer under the blanket. “shushu is very cautious. besides, you didn’t mess anything up. i thought it was a perfect first date. you were very gentlemanly.” 

“gentlemanly?” he ponders.

“yeah! you held the doors open for me, paid for our order, and you listened to what i was saying. not only that, you added onto the conversation, i really liked that. you left a very good impression on me, dan heng.”

“i’m glad i left a good impression on you, but shushu didn’t seem to think so.” dan heng mumbles defeatedly.

“i’m still so sorry that she scratched you, i’ve never seen her like that. but at least she likes you now!” you joke.

“yeah, now she does. it only took like 3 months of me coming over for her to like me.” he says then turns to look at shushu as she’s resting beside him on your beige couch.

“she’s obsessed with you now, everytime you leave she cries and looks for you.” you tell him.

“yeah?” dan heng asks, still looking at the resting feline.

“yes, i swear.” you say, reaching forward to grab the tv remote from the coffee table, pausing the movie that the two of you were watching. “so, are you still staying over?”

dan heng hums, faking thinking over your question.

“hey! answer me!” you whine, playfully hitting his chest. “i want to go to the cafe with you tomorrow morning, so you have to stay over, okay? i need your help with studying for my exam.”

“ah… i don’t know, should i stay over?” dan heng jokingly questions. “what do you think shushu?” he turns to ask the cat.

“dan heng, you do realize that i’m your girlfriend and not shushu, right? you’re in my apartment not hers…”

“i’m joking!” he laughs at your pouting face. “yeah, of course i’m staying over.” he says, leaning over, pecking your temple.

“you’re paying for the coffee.” you say.

“i wouldn’t let you pay to begin with.”

you hum happily, snuggling closer to dan heng then unpausing the movie.

“i love you.” you whisper to him.

“i love you too, shushu”

���wow. really?”

“kidding, i love you too.” he admits, wrapping his arms around your torso, pulling you impossibly closer.

#— kxmisato’s works #dan heng #dan heng star rail #starrail dan heng #honkai star rail #star rail #dan heng x reader #dan heng x fem reader #dan heng x y/n #dan heng x you #dan heng fanfiction #star rail x reader #star rail x you #star rail x y/n #dan heng fluff #star rail fic #honkai starrail #dan heng starrail #dan heng honkai star rail

[peninkwrites]

The Showfall Aftershow!

THIS TRANSCRIPT AND ALL OF ITS CONTENTS ARE THE PROPERTY OF SHOWFALL MEDIA. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS IN REVISION AND CANNOT BE PUBLISHED UNTIL THE REVISED TEXT HAS BEEN REMOVED. ANY DISTRIBUTION OF THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT REVISION WILL BE CONSIDERED AN AUDITION TO JOIN THE CAST. THE TRANSCRIPT CAN ALSO BE ACCESSED ON THE ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN FOR CHAPTERED READING

THE HOST: Welcome back to the Showfall After Show!  As always, I have the honor of hosting on behalf of Showfall Media.   For those new to Showfall, this is where we get into the nitty gritty of the volume, where we talk about our favorite moments, the unexpected twists, and of course, recognize our top-tier talents!

[applause]

TH: [laughs] Glad to hear we’re all excited!  I will say, just like this was a very special volume, this is a very special After Show.  For the first time ever, Showfall aired to a live audience!  To celebrate that, we’re going try another first, interviewing the whole cast tonight! 

[applause]

TH: I can hardly wait!  And what a cast do we have tonight!  Kicking off this Premiere of Showfall’s first cast interview: you were endeared to him from the moment he talked about his pet fish, you laughed at his antics, and cried when he finally died, let’s welcome Ethan Nestor!

[applause]

ETHAN NESTOR:  Hello?  Where am I?  I thought I… I don’t understand.  Please, please, can you help me?

ETHAN NESTOR: Thank you!  Thank you all so much, it's really just such an honor to be here.

[applause]

TH:  And we’re happy to have you, Ethan!  Tell us, how did it feel, to be the first to speak on the carousel?  No pressure, right? [laughs]

EN: Why are you laughing?  I don’t understand.  I don’t know where I am, I… I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to go home.  But I

EN: [laughs] Right!  No pressure at all, huh?

TH: But I’ll say you handled it with grace!  We could tell you were a little nervous, do you mind telling us why that is?  Was it just first day jitters, or something more?

EN: I said I want to go home!  But I… I remember I went through that doorway and… oh fuck, I… I don’t know why I’m here, I don’t understand

EN: I mean, yeah, you could say first day jitters, for sure.  But at the same time, some of the nerves were totally from having to plead for my life, y’know?

TH: We’ve all been there!

EN: What the fuck are you talking about?!  I… I was scared out of my fucking mind, I don’t…

[audience laughter]

EN: This is just a fucking joke, huh?!  I… why can’t I move?  Why can’t I… I want to leave, but I can’t move, why can’t I move

EN: [laughs] I know, right?  But I think I did a good job pleading my case!  I… I know I got a little choked up there, which was a little embarrassing.

TH: No, no it’s not embarrassing at all!  I think we all were touched by your speech about your beloved fish, Turner.  Am I right, folks?

[audience ‘aw’s]

EN: Who the fuck is Turner?!

EN: I mean, I just love the little guy so much!  Aw, dang, I’m… I’m getting choked up now!

TH: That’s okay, Ethan!  Who could blame you?  Now, I have to ask, were you disappointed when the audience didn’t pick you?

EN: A little, sure, but I understand it was some tough competition.  We all wanted to make it out of there alive, you know?

TH: [laughs] So true!

EN: But it wasn’t fair, right?  It… it didn’t have to be like… what the fuck is happening?  I died

EN: I know it was a bit of a hiccup in the show, when the Puzzler shot Nihachu point blank–

TH: Twice!

[laughter]

EN: What about… what about the other guy?  What about Vinny?  He died too, he died, I died, wait.  Why isn’t anyone fucking listening to me?!  I died

EN: Right, [laughs] twice, but I mean, it ended up being an opportunity, huh?  In the long run, of course.

TH: True, but not a very long run, am I right?

[laughter]

TH:  Now, you made it pretty far, but that last puzzle you got… well, you were caught between a rock and a hard place, huh?  Well, not as much as Austin was!

[laughter]

EN: He didn’t make it?  None of them made it?  Did I make it?

EN: I sure was, but yeah, [laughs], not as much as Austin!

TH: So, Ethan, did you have any regrets in that last moment?

EN: I just don’t fucking understand, I don’t know why I can’t move, I think I’m dead, I think I’m supposed to be dead, but I

EN: No, Host, I don’t think I did, actually.  I was proud of what I did accomplish, you know, in the time I was given, I guess, actually…

TH: Oh?  Is there something?

EN: Yes!  Yes there’s fucking something!  I should be dead!  But no one can fucking hear me!

EN: I guess, I just wish I could’ve seen Turner one last time, just, looked into his little eyes…

EN: Fucking hell, this can’t be happening

TH: Do you think he was out there?  Cheering you on?

EN: I thought he was supposed to be a fish

EN: I know he was.  Up until the very end.

TH: Beautifully put, Ethan.  Thank you so much for coming out tonight.  Can we give him another round, folks?

[applause]

EN: Wait!  Wait, don’t!  Don’t take me away again!  Please, why can’t I just go?  Why didn’t I die?  Why can’t anyone hear me?!

EN: It was my pleasure!

[applause]

TH: What a fun start to the evening!  Unemployed or not, that lovable scamp sure touched our hearts, right folks?

[applause]

TH: We've got plenty more interviews to come!

TH:  Next in the line up, a hoarder full of tricks, you cheered when he succeeded, and laughed at his hilarious misfortune, give it up for the comic relief, Vinny Vinesauce!

VINNY VINESAUCE: How's it going tonight, everybody?

[laughter]

TH: Welcome!

VV: Did I make it?  I was… I made it across the room, is this what comes after?  Did I make it?

VV: It’s great to be here!

TH: So, Vinny, you served as a spur of the moment stand in for Nihachu, am I right?

VV:  She was dead.  A woman died, why are you acting like it didn’t matter

VV: Yeah, yeah I did!

TH: How did it feel, having to hop in last minute; challenging?  Exciting?  Did you feel ready?

VV: She was dead.  That scared me, I know it did, so why

VV: Well, I felt pretty lucky.  I was given an opportunity!  I mean, not gonna lie, I was a little thrown off when I came into the candy room and saw her corpse, but I got into the groove of things pretty quick!

TH: You definitely did!  I think we were all blown away with how you surprised us in the laser room.

VV: I made it across, it… it doesn’t make sense, but I did, right?  So, does that mean I get to live?  Is that what this is?  Hello?  Are you guys hearing me at all?

VV: It surprised me too!

[laughter]

TH: But you’d done it before, yes?  Isn’t that what you said?

VV: When?

VV: Yeah!  Of course, lots of times.

TH: So what surprised you, then?

VV: I mean, I gotta say I was a little surprised about the twist after that!

TH: Oh, skipping right to your ending, huh?  I know we all got a laugh after you got your head crushed by that anvil!  What were you thinking in those last moments?

VV:  I’m dead.  Oh my god, wait, I remember, I’m actually fucking dead, so how am I

VV: Mostly just, ‘oh no’.

[laughter]

TH: Of course!  Thanks for coming out, Vinny!  Don’t let an anvil hit you on the way out!

VV: [laughs] I’ll do my best!

TH: Let’s give it up for Vinny one last time, cheers to him getting through his hoarding problem and showing up!

[applause]

TH:  Now, moving on to the fan favorite, our female lead, the nicest girl around, Niki Nihachu!

NIKI NIHACHU: What’s… what’re you doing?  What are you saying?  Did you say female lead?  Because I was the only girl there?

NIKI NIHACHU: Hi, Host!  Hi!  How are you all doing?

TH: Oh, we’re doing just great, Niki!  How are you doing?  No tears yet today?

NN: No, no I’m not crying, I’m fucking pissed off, okay?  I did what I was told, I… I played nice and I got taken out of the game early.

NN: [giggles]  No, not yet!

TH: So, Niki, how did it feel when the audience picked you?

NN: I should have kept going and it’s not fucking fair.

NN: Oh, I was so relieved, Host.  I couldn’t believe it!

TH: Really?  But you’re so nice!  How could they not pick you?

NN: Are we not going to fucking talk about how I got cheated?!  I… I was shot!  I… wait, wait I was shot, so…

NN: I don’t know, there were so many cool, impressive people they could have picked, and I’m just, you know, a girl who wanted to live!

[audience ‘aw’s]

NN: I wanted to live!  I still want to live!  I’m here!  I’m in here, I don’t… I don’t know how, but I’m still alive!  Last time, I tried, I told you all I was still alive, he shot me and I was still fucking alive!

TH: And that’s all you need to be, Niki.

NN: I was still alive!  I could’ve lived, and he… he shot me again!  He shot me again, and you let him!  You all let him kill me!

NN: Thank you, I’m touched.

TH: Now, I don’t mean to press, but do you want to maybe talk about how you got a little… well, over emotional, at the start there?  We won’t blame you, a sweet girl like you, of course you’d cry when told you were going to be blown up!

NN: I… That was me.  No, it’s not… I remember doing that.  It wasn’t you all making me, I was breaking down because I didn’t want to die, and then you.. You made me stop.  How did you make me stop?!

NN: Oh, now I’m embarrassed!

TH: Aw, I bet some of the boys would’ve cried too if they were pushed a little further!

NN: [giggles] I guess I’m just sensitive!

NN: Why do I get ‘giggle’ when all the rest just laugh?  Why’d you turn me into this?!  Why did you… I don’t understand, I’m just… You made me weak.  All that could come through was the tears, I couldn’t fight.  How did you do that?

TH: Now, could we, real quick, talk about our little mishap at the end of your run?

NN: Oh, sure, but I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.  Accidents happen!  I’m sure the Puzzler didn’t mean anything by it when he pulled the trigger!

TH: Twice!

NN: [giggles] Yes, twice!  But still, I don’t want to make a fuss, it’s really alright!

TH: Aw, that’s so nice of you, Niki!

NN: I try!

TH: Now– Oh!  Are you feeling alright, Niki?

NN: Hm?  What?

TH: You’re crying.

NN: Oh! [giggle] I don’t know why I’m doing that!  It’s really fine!  It's no trouble, really.  I'm fine!

NN: I want to live… please, please someone help me, I want to live.  Please!  Please, someone fucking help me!  Please!  I didn’t want to die!  This isn’t fair!

TH: Well, thank you so much for coming out, Niki, and being your sweet self.

NN: I don’t want to die.  Please don’t make me go, please, it’s not fair!  I want to live!  Please.

NN: Thank you, Host!  I’m just so happy I could make everyone’s days just a little brighter.  I’m just so happy.

NN: Please.  I'm scared

NN: I'm just so happy.

TH: Wasn’t she lovely, folks?  Let’s give her another round of applause!

[applause]

TH: Let’s move on to an old favorite!  You all loved his apathy, his disdain, his witty quips, his bromance with his co-star, give it up for Sneegsnag!

SNEEGSNAG: Hey.  What's up?  Uh, crazy to be here tonight.  Just crazy.

TH: Are you sure you feel that way?  You sound pretty uninterested, Sneeg!

[laughter]

S:  I’m still here.  How the fuck am I still here?!

S: Ha, well, you know me.  I’m just kinda chill about it all, right?

TH: That you are!  Now, Sneeg, compared to some of your costars, we got to see more of you!  What was it like working on Episode 1?

S: Help!  One of you, fucking help me!  All of you!  Just stop sitting there doing nothing!

S: I mean, it was cool.  It was chill.  Being in a cage like, forever kinda sucked, but me and Frank made it work.  That was before the show technically started, though.

TH:  Right, Frank! Your zany co-star!  Word on the street is he was popular on set!

S: Frank, man!  Frank is the best.  He’s like, so funny and definitely has the best comebacks out of… out of anybody!

TH: You and Frank particularly were close, right?  Some might even call it a bromance?

S: I mean, yeah, you spend all of your living memory up until that point in a tiny cage with the guy, it forges a bond.  Without Frank, I probably would’ve tried to kill myself.  Like, just from the boredom part, not even counting that demon dude showing up sometimes.

TH: I mean, you wouldn’t be alone, that’s what Frank did!

[laughter]

S: There was a corpse in the room with me, all that time and I didn’t even know it.  I was in that cage for so fucking long, as long as… I dunno.  I don’t remember before that.  It was… it was a skeleton, but then… then I could see it, could see him, and the smell, fucking christ, the smell

S: [laughs] Yeah, I guess.  The middle part of the show wasn’t so bad.  It was kinda fun ragging on Ranboo.  He sorta sucked as a hero at the beginning.

TH: A hero’s journey is about growth, Sneeg!

S: Yeah.  Guess so.  Like, he couldn’t even stop me from getting ripped apart by that stupid shark thing.  I mean, he totally saw me screaming! Psh.

S: No, no I don’t want to remember that part, I don’t want to remember any of it, that fucking thing looking like a joke but the pain was real, the pain when it dragged me through the wall and started tearing

TH: True!  And not long before, the two of you went Mano a Mano!  Was that fun to film?

S: Huh?  Oh, yeah, I dunno.  Don’t remember that bit.  Got slimed.  Sorta shoved me out of my body for a little.

TH: Right, of course!  The slime!  Was the goop the worst part about that day on set, do you think?

S: It’s not slime!  Please, any of you, I fucking saw it!  It’s… it’s not fucking slime.

S: No, no if I’m not gonna say spending all of my living memory in a cage I’d probably say the bit where I stood still for eight hours.

TH: You weren’t entertained by the demons?

S: No.

TH: Oh.

S: I couldn’t move, man!  I literally could not move!  It wasn’t… it wasn’t eight hours.  It wasn’t, but it felt like it.  It hurt like it.  Fuck, how did they do that?!  My body just wouldn't do what I said, they took that control away from me, do none of you see that?!  Do you not see how fucked up it is?!

S: And after Ranboo woke back up, like, moving again after that much time was kinda like more torture. And more torture.

TH: Sneeg, you know how to complain like no one else!

S: I have a fucking right to!

S: Yeah and they continued to be totally incompetent.  Like, they so could’ve done something about the shark.

S: No, no shut up, I’m not saying that shit!  He was just some kid, I’m not… I’m not empty like that!  I care!  I fucking cared about him, you can’t just take that away!

TH: But they didn’t!  Do I sense some drama among the cast?

S:  He was just some fucking kid!  I said… I said I was gonna come back for him, but I didn’t even make it out.  Did anyone make it out?  Fuck, that thing tore me apart, I didn’t get out the fucking door, but I died, how the fuck did I die?!

S: What?  No, nah we’re chill.  He like, wiped the slime off me and picked me to come off the carousel.  He’s my boy.

TH: Should we talk about the carousel?  I think we should talk about the carousel.

S: I promised I was gonna come back and get them out

S: Uh.  Yeah.  I dunno.  Sure.

TH: You’ve got to admit, it was a little unprofessional, you leaving in the middle there.  Was there something more going on?

S: I saw it!  I saw him, I saw Charlie, disemboweled on the fucking table!  No one else could see the blood!  No one else saw the fucking rotting corpse chained up beside us!  Charlie was screaming!  He was fucking screaming because they tore him apart!  And no one did anything, no one was fucking moving!

S: No, nothing.  Shit happens, y’know?  I got back on, and got back to work.  I even survived for a long time, so.  That was pretty cool.  Sorta sucked when the Puzzler took my man Frank out of the game, but rules are rules.

TH: Rules are rules!  Are you feeling alright, Sneeg?  Not going to run out on us again, are you?  You’ve got that sort of hazy look again.

S: You don’t understand what I fucking saw!  You don’t know what’s really going on here!  There was so much blood!  Fuck… oh fucking hell, there was so much blood…

S: Nah, not planning on going anywhere.

TH: You know, I see you’re not wearing your hat today.

S: Uh, hat?

TH: Yeah! The hat that you acquired on the carousel.  It caused quite a buzz for the audience!  Would you like to tell us more about that?

S: Why was that it?!  It was a fucking hat!  It was covered in blood because it came from inside someone!  He was still alive, he was still screaming, how the fuck did they keep him alive like that, why did they keep him alive why are they keeping me alive

S: What, that I like to accessorize?  It was just kinda slimy because it came out of that dude on the hospital bed, but that’s about it.

TH: So, you can tell the folks at home there was nothing else to that hat?

S: Nope.

TH: Well, you heard it from the man himself!  The hat was just an accessory.  Thank you for showing up, Sneegsnag.

S: Not like I had a choice.

[laughter]

S: Stop it!  Stop fucking laughing!  You heard him, you heard me!  I said I don’t have a choice!  Does that not mean anything to you people?!  Hey!  Don’t fucking touch me!  I’m not walking away!  I’m not!  I’m not choosing to do this!  How do I stop?!  How do I fucking stop?!  I need this to stop!

TH: Wasn’t he just a riot?  What a guy!  But the night is only getting better!  On to the next interview, folks!

TH: The night is only getting better!  You know him as a smooth talker, witty and handsome to boot, please welcome our own Mr. Congeniality, Frank!

[uproarious applause]

FRANK:

[laughter]

TH: Good to see you!  Now, you’ve become a bit of an icon since the show.  How does all that attention feel?

F:

TH: Humble and handsome! Frank, you’re a delight!

F:

TH: I mean every word!  Now, Frank, you had a smaller role in the first episode, but you definitely made the most of it!  Were your jokes on the rocking horse improvised or scripted?

F:

TH: Interesting!  I think we were all sad that your charm stopped at the carousel.  Were you surprised that you weren’t picked?

F:

TH: I guess in that sense you were picked, huh?  That’s a nice way to look at it.

F:

[laughter]

TH: Speaking of, it looked like you and Sneeg were two peas in a pod for a while there!

F:

TH: Oh?  Really?

F:

[audience ‘aw’s]

TH: That’s so touching.  Really, a beautiful confession.  And… have you told him you feel this way?

F:

TH: Wow.  Well, I’m sure he feels the same way.

F:

TH: Sadly, Sneeg’s interview has already passed, so that’s all we have to go on, I’m afraid.  I guess you’ll never get to tell him how you feel, huh?  Ever!  Rotten luck.

F:

TH: I’d like to believe that too, Frank.

F:

TH: How profound!  Wow.  What a thought provoking note to end on.  I wish you could stay here all night, but sadly, we must move on.  One last round of applause for Frank!

[applause]

TH: Alright, folks, this shady character had us laughing from the moment he made up– I mean mentioned, his kids!  He’s gay, he’s a liar, and he is here for an interview!  Give it up for Austin of the AustinShow!

AUSTIN: Hey, what's this I hear about me making up my kids?

[laughter]

A:  No, no really, that wasn’t a joke.  I’m not lying.  I’m not!  I… I have them!  I have kids, and a wife.  A very real wife.

[laughter]

TH: Right, sure you do, Austin!  Let’s focus on the games for now, huh?  You showed up late to the party, right?  You and Ethan came through the tunnels all the way in the closet, but I’m guessing you’re not unfamiliar with closets, huh?

[laughter]

A: I– What?

A: This is just cheap.  And at least a little homophobic.  That’s it?  That’s the joke?  I’m gay and I’m lying about having a beard?  I died for this?  Really?  For this?  Wait, wait I died for… I died

TH: Don’t worry about it, Austin, let’s just talk about some of our favorite shenanigans of yours!  You and Ethan were really the bells of the ball, huh?  Some fierce competition between you two!

A: Yes, yes right, I mean, I was largely doing it to escape with my life, and return to my family–

TH: Sure you were!  How’d those heels fit, Austin?

A: I died,  you people killed me and all you could come up with is a man in a dress joke?  You’re pathetic.

A: Poorly, of course.  I… I could barely walk in them, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.

TH: Right, right.  Now, Austin, your ending.  It got pretty intense there, huh?

A: I spent my last hours running around like a panic, terrified idiot because of you people and I got crushed to death like it meant nothing.  You basically had me let myself die, didn’t you?

A: Oh, yes.  I fought my hardest.  Only one of us could go through, and I was so sure it had to be me.  I had people waiting on me, you know.

TH: That’s why you fought so hard, huh?  It seemed to me more like you were a bit of a chicken.  You’d been squeamish at the sight of blood through the whole show!

A: The others didn’t care!  Why didn’t they care?!  Ethan’s blood spilled out and they just stared at me like I was the crazy one!  I wasn’t crazy!  Even if they tried to make me be!

A: I prefer to think of myself as empathetic.  I saw people die, several, in fact.  Is that not supposed to leave a lasting impression?

TH: Now, considering your desperate drive to live, did you have any last wishes you didn’t get to fulfill before your untimely demise?

A: I just… I just wish I could tell my kids one last time how much their papa loves them.

TH:  Of course, I’m sure, of course.  And, what were their names again?

A: It’s– they’re– uh…

TH: I think I better let you off the hook, there, Austin, but thank you for showing up, even if you weren’t being entirely honest with us!

A: You won’t even let me say my last wishes!  You’ve killed me, and you’re puppeteering my corpse into being one last joke!  It’s sick!  You’re all sick!

A: But I was!  I was being honest!

TH: Of course, Austin.  Another round of applause for that very straight man, and the missus back home!

[laughter]

[applause]

TH: Alright, folks, our penultimate interviewee, a triple threat, the goopiest guy around, you loved him as the devil, you loved him as a patient, and you loved him live on twitch, just as he wanted to make– I mean give love to you, give it up for Charlie Slimecicle!

CHARLIE SLIMECICLE: Aha, that's me!  I'm the goopiest guy!  Wow!

TH: Now, Charlie, other than the hero, you played I’d say a very important role in the show!

CS: Multiple roles, actually!

[laughter]

TH: Can I ask which of the three was your favorite?

CS:  Hello?!  Hello?!  Somebody?!  Hello!  Where is he?!  Where’s Ranboo, what did you do to him?!  Ranboo!  Oh, oh god, how did I… I shouldn’t be… Ranboo!  Ranboo!

CS:  What the fuck did you do to him?!  Who are you people?!  I don’t know how I… how I got here, how I didn’t see it… oh god, please fucking tell me Ranboo made it out, please, please at least let me see him, so I know he’s okay, please, I’ll cooperate, I swear, I will

TH: Um, Charlie?  Too hard a question for you?

CS: What?  Oh, no, Host!  Sorry, just a lot of options to work through!

TH: I mean, there’s three?

[laughter]

CS: It’s a big decision!

CS:  No, no I’m not fucking doing this right now, I’m not.  I don’t care about your stupid games, I’m not going to believe in this, I’m not going to let you people make me believe in this ever again, but I’ll pretend, I will if you just tell me if Ranboo is okay, please just let him go

CS:  I think I’d have to say the hospital patient!

TH: Oh, what a fun choice!

CS: They disemboweled me!  They had that fucking kid disembowel me!  I was begging them to stop!  It should’ve killed me, it should’ve fucking killed me!  I wanted to die then but I didn’t!  And you people just had them keep tearing into me!  They fucking disemboweled me!

TH: Oops, looks like we’re getting some microphone feedback here!  Usually it only cuts out like this if there’s too much noise!  One second, folks!

CS:  Go ahead!  Smother me!  Kill me!  Drown me in my own fucking blood and call it slime!  I won’t stop screaming until you fucking put me down like a dog!  If that’s all we are to you people, then just shoot me like one!  Shoot me!

CS: Sorry, Host, what was the question?

TH: Favorite role!  You were talking about being the hospital patient?

CS: I’m not… I am not a person! [laughs]  I’m not!  You made me!  You made those memories of a cabin and a life and then you just took it all away!  So just tell me, I will do literally anything, I’ll stay in that miserable cabin alone, I’ll lie there while you rip me apart, I will sell myself on twitch, I don’t care, just please someone fucking tell me Ranboo got out okay!   Please!  Anyone?!  Any of you!  Please!

CS: I mean, it was so easy, right?  I just had to lie there and let Ranboo, y’know dig around! [laughs]

TH: And how did you fit all of that in your stomach, Charlie?

CS: What can I say!  I’m a hungry guy!

[laughter]

CS: Stop talking!  They gutted me and stuffed me with fucking garbage and I was still alive!  Is that it?!  I can't die?  Can any of us die?  Is that what this is?!  Oh, god, oh fuck, we can’t actually die [laughs] We can’t actually fucking die!

TH: Now, I know this isn’t about that role, but forgive me, I’m curious!  What was it like playing Ranboo’s sidekick?  We all loved that twist when they took off your headphones!

CS: Ha, what?

CS: That was… that was part of it?  That was part of the show?!  None of it was real?!  None of it was actually real?!  Where’s Ranboo?!  Where are all of them?!  Are we all still alive?!  Please, please I’m begging you, I’m begging you just stop hurting them, just leave Niki and… and Sneeg, and Ethan, and Ranboo,  Austin, Vinny, leave them alone, okay?  Or just… just please don’t do to them what you did to me.  Please, don’t make them play… play the hospital patient.  Just not that.  Just do it to me.  That’s all I ask.  Oh, fuck, what am I doing, none of you are listening!

TH: I mean, the action sequences, the chase scenes, it’s all so thrilling!  And the heartbreak of finding out it was all for nothing, it was all part of the show!  Or, sorry, I guess you weren’t there for that part!

CS:  Ha.  Yeah.  Of course.

CS:  They didn’t get out… it was all part of the show, it was all just nothing, they never had a chance, none of us had a fucking chance and even the stupid fucking part of me you programmed for this interview doesn’t know what to do anymore!  You broke it!  You beefed it!  You cannot just keep twisting people like this!  You can’t!

TH:  How about your death scene, huh?  Oh, I was about to cry when you were begging Ranboo to keep running, when the head of security finally took you over, I just got chills!

CS: I mean, what’s one more role, right, Host? [laugh]

TH: Are you feeling okay, Charlie?  You look a little green.

[laughter]

CS: I’m fine!  I’m doing great!  Probably just need some slime to recover from all that running!  I mean slime.  I mean slime.  I mean slime.  I mean slime–

CS: Time!  Say it!  Say fucking time!  Be a person for one freaking minute before we get cut open again!

TH: Well, okay then, Charlie, we’ll give you that slime! [laughs]

CS: (overlapping) I mean time.

TH: What was that?

CS: I meant time.  I meant to stay time.

TH: Did you now.

CS: Thank fucking god!  Ha!  You can’t bury me forever you fucked up assholes!

TH: Well, Charlie.  Clearly, you’re tired.  I think we should end the interview here and you can get some rest in the… capable hands of our Showfall staff, alright?

CS:  Sure thing, Host!

CS: Fucking do your worst!  What’re you gonna do, rip out my organs?!  Come at me, man!  I can’t control my body anymore, but you can’t fucking stop me from screaming at you until your stupid mics break!

TH:  Thank you for your slime, Charlie.

CS: Time.

TH: [laughs] No, no I definitely said slime!

CS: Whatever.

CS: Ha!  Whatever!

TH: Let’s move on to the last interview of the night!  I’m… I’m losing stamina!  Huh, folks?  Let’s… let’s try and keep the energy up, why don’t we?

[applause]

TH:  This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for!  Our hero!  Our Martyr!  Our favorite toy!  Put your hands together for the one, the only, Ranboo!

[applause]

Ranboo: What...?  Where... Where am– Wait, wait no.  No, this isn't fair, you said I could die!  Please!  Please, you said I could die!  it was supposed to end!  Please!

TH: Aw, it’s a bit early in the night for tears, Ranboo!  We haven’t even gotten to the interview questions yet!

R: Interview..?  I’m not… I’m not playing along anymore.  I don’t… I don’t care.  I don’t… I don’t want to do this, oh god, I don’t want to do this…

TH: Well, Ranboo, as your costar Sneeg said, you don’t have a choice!

[applause]

R: Stop it!  Just shut up!  Just let me die!  You voted for it!  You wanted it!  Kill me!

TH: Well, actually, you did die, Ranboo!  And then we brought you back!  Audience polls on the livestream voted to kill you, sure, but ratings say they really want you back.

R: Kill me!  Please, please just kill me!

TH: Now, Ranboo, how did it feel to play the hero on a Showfall production?  That’s a lot of pressure for a young star!

R: Kill me!  Just let me die!  Let me die!  Let me die! Let me die!

TH: Whoa, there, Ranboo, if you keep hitting your head back like that, you’ll hurt yourself, and we won’t be able to finish the interview!

R: Kill me!  Please!  Please, you lied!  You said you’d let me go!  You said you would!

TH: One moment, folks, I’m going to have some of our fantastic crew make sure Ranboo can complete the interview.  We wouldn’t want to let our wonderful viewers down, now, would we, Ranboo?

R: Stop it!  No, don’t– Don’t touch me!  Get off of me!  You said you’d kill me!  You said–

TH: Sorry, Ranboo, there’s no puzzles or rings of keys for you to go through on this one!

[laughter]

R: Let go of me!  Let me go!  Stop it, don’t touch me!  I don’t want– I don’t want you to–

TH: Much better!  You can still look at me, and the audience, but you won’t hit your head!  Let’s give it up for our great crew, give it up for the rats!  How they put up with these brooding young stars, I’ll never know!

[applause]

R: I swear to god, I will find a way to kill myself if you people don’t–

TH: And then Showfall will bring you back, Ranboo.  Please, we already got through the exposition in your finale, let’s focus on the interview questions.  So, how did it feel to play the hero in a Showfall production?

TH: Ranboo, the lights don’t go off, I won’t stop asking, and you don’t get to move an inch until the interview is over.  That’s how this works.  

R: I’m not… I’m not a hero.  Please, I’m not…

TH: [laughs] Oh?  Interesting take!  I love the genre subversion!  If you’re not a hero, then what are you, Ranboo?

R:  I don’t… I don’t know, how could I know?  You took it all, you took everything... How could I know?  I don’t…

TH: Humor me a little!  Playing along is part of the fun!  I’ll try again––this is actually a good question, Ranboo, you did a good job, might make a fine interviewer one day!––if you’re not a hero, then what are you?

TH: Take your time, not like we’ve got a live audience waiting!

[laughter]

TH: What are you, Ranboo?

R: I’m… tired.  I’m tired.

TH: Aw, look at that face, folks!  Doesn’t it just make your heart break?  We love a tragedy here, don’t we?  And you certainly have the talent to pull it off!

[audience ‘aw’s]

R: Why didn’t… why didn’t you just turn the mask back on?  Why’re you letting me be like this?

TH: Come on, Ranboo, the interviewer asks the questions!  Sorry if I made you think it was the other way around.

[laughter]

R: Ask me something, then.

TH: I’d be happy to!  Now, Ranboo, you clearly dabble in genre subversion, but I think the one twist we’re all dying to hear about:  The codes.  The codes, am I right folks?

[applause]

TH:  Why didn’t you listen to the audience’s pick?  You probably didn’t know this until now, but they actually told you the right one!  They had your best interests at heart!  It’s touching, really.

R:  I hurt people.  I let people get hurt.  I wasn’t in control, they were.  So, why didn’t they turn the mask back on?

TH: Aw, you’re trying this back and forth thing?  I ask one, you ask one?  Fine, fine!  Sounds fun.  Because, Ranboo.  We here at Showfall are all about authenticity. There’s nothing quite like being real with an audience.  We just wanted them to see your true self!  Now, Ranboo.  My turn! [laughs] Isn’t this fun?  Now, Ranboo.  Near the finale, after that dramatic chase through the mall, after you and Charlie found the cabin set––what a twist!  Am I right folks?––and then Security came out!  Oh, what a jumpscare! [laughs]  I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry, it’s just exciting!  My question for you, Ranboo, is why did you leave Charlie?

R: …What?

TH: Why did you leave Charlie?

R: I… I don’t…

TH: I mean, come on, you were, basically, mostly, in control of yourself, your mask was going haywire, that was actually your choice to make!  So, why did you leave him?

R: I couldn’t… I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t, I was too late, he told me to– to run, I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t–

TH: Really, Ranboo?  You didn’t even try.  You saw how the show came together by then, you don’t know if he was beyond saving, and as for telling you to run, [laughs] it’s not the first time Charlie’s speech came out, well, a little different.  How do you know, for certain, that Charlie wasn’t actually begging for his life, like he was on that operating table?

R: Why are you doing this?

TH: Now, Ranboo, you’ve got to answer my question first!  Then I answer yours!  This is your game, remember?

R: I don’t… I don’t know, I don’t know.

TH: Hm, bit of a cop out, but it’s late in the night, we’ll keep things rolling!  And in answer to your question, Ranboo, we here at Showfall are honored to provide authentic, life-altering, one of a kind entertainment.  What better reason is there than that?  Hang on, that’s not my question. [laughs]   Ranboo, in episode one you got to cook for demon Charlie!  If you could go back and pick another ingredient, knowing what you know about the shark monster that killed your friend Sneeg, what would you pick?

R: Knowing what I know now?

TH: Yes!

R: I’d have killed myself.

[laughter]

R: Maybe Charlie too.

[laughter]

R: And Sneeg, if it was the only way to get them free.

[laughter]

TH: Now, I don’t know what that has to do with cooking, but thanks for playing!

[laughter]

R: You lied to me.  And to them.  You people told me I could die, that I could rest, and you didn’t let me.  You didn’t let me.

TH: Well, actually Ranboo, we very much did!  You were dead as a doornail in that box, but like I said, we just couldn’t get enough of you!  So, yes, we did as we said, and we killed you, and now you get to go again!  Isn’t that fun?  Who knows!  Maybe they’ll vote differently next time, huh?

TH: Nothing to say?

TH: Maybe we should give him some encouragement, folks!

[applause]

R: [screams]

TH: Whoa!  Nothing like some electricity to wake you up!  Shall we talk about the votes?

R: [inaudible]

TH: What was that?

TH: Aw, I think our hero is getting a little tired!  And honestly, I am too! [laughs] but thank you so much for coming out, Ranboo.

R: One day I’m gonna kill all of you.

TH: And thank you for tuning in to this Showfall Aftershow!

[applause]

#hhh the genloss worms #they're kicking in #they're biting #generation loss #genloss #gen loss #my writing

[cobbssecondbelt]

Dincember 2023 - Day 2: Fire

Night time fell quickly on Tatooine. Without warning, the burning air turned bitter with a chill, blowing a breeze that felt like a blessing at first, before giving up all its mercy like everything else having to fight its way through the desert. Beige dunes and orange ridges turned blue, carefully looked upon by the watchful eyes of three moons. Tatooine had a unique way, especially at night, of making anybody feel always and never alone all at once, as if the planet herself was a constant silent looker, frowning upon every stranger who dared stomp over her cracked skin.

Din had camped among Tusken company more than once, but if he had to guess, he would affirm with confidence that Marshal Vanth never had. The jitter in his leg, the jitter in his eyes, the jitter in his fingers; he was a man ready to run and scowl and shoot, boiling with the anger of a prey who had grown a little too comfortable in the wolf skin it was hiding under. Din could understand, which doesn’t mean he pitied, for he knew the man was plenty competent. Few were those who got to live long enough to see their hair turn gray on this planet, and any silver mane was a trophy in itself, a well-earned one at that.

Vanth remained quiet after his little hissy stunt. He only began to settle once the Tuskens left one by one to retreat to their respective tents, until they were the only ones left by the fire. Din couldn’t help studying him from the corner of his eye. What a strange man. Loud but quiet, calculated but impulsive, angry but kind. Decades of bounty hunting had given Din a keen eye for puzzles, and this was an enigma he was oddly determined to solve.

‘’So,’’ Vanth eventually said. ‘’You really think this’ gonna work?’’

‘’Yes. The Tuskens know those territories better than anyone.’’ It didn’t seem enough to convince the antsy marshal. ‘’I know what you think of this, but you have to trust them. It’s the only chance we got.’’

Cobb kept his eyes on the fire, watching the embers pop. He choked out a scoff. ‘’You think I’m a bastard, don’t you?’’

Well, 

‘’I do.’’ The answer startled a quick chuckle out of Vanth. Although, for once, he didn’t seem shocked. Din rested his elbows on his knees with a tilt of his head. ‘’But that’s not my problem to fix.’’

Cobb rolled his eyes. 

‘’We’ll see about that…’’ he mumbled, the rumor of a smile ghosting over his thin lips.

They fell silent, letting the minutes stretch, easily, lazily, and for the first time in probably way too long, Din almost felt as if he had all the time in the world. 

Unsurprisingly, Cobb broke the silence first.

‘’Can I ask you somethin’?’’ he asked, voice gone soft, gaze up towards the night sky. 

‘’Yes?’’

‘’You must travel a lot, right?’’

‘’I do.’’

Cobb toyed unconsciously with a string coming out of his right glove. ‘’What is it like up there? In space?’’

Din turned his head to look at the man properly, before leaning back to look at the sky. The stars had fully come out by now, hundreds visible from the ground, and so many thousands more to see from up way above. Thysk was shining bright tonight, always by Chenini’s side.

‘’It’s quiet. Quite… quite beautiful. Peaceful.’’

‘’Doesn’t it get lonely?’’

Din’s fingers stilled from where they were rubbing idly at his vambrace.

‘’Sometimes.’’ he murmured.

Cobb nodded. ‘’Good to know.’’ he said, mostly to himself.

‘’You’ve never been?’’

‘’Mm?’’

‘’In space.’’

Cobb chuckled with a rise and fall of his eyebrows. ‘’Nope.’’

‘’Oh.’’

‘’Yeah.’’

The fire was dying out. The chill in the wind was getting more biting. At Din’s feet, Grogu groaned in his sleep, curled up in a heap of beige robes.

Cobb sighed and brushed the sand off his lap. ‘’Better hit the sack, got quite the day tomorrow.’’ he got to his feet with a grunt and a few pops from his joints. He eyed the tent that had been assigned to them through eyes still squinted in apprehension. 

‘’I’ll be right behind you.’’ Din replied as he bundled Grogu in the crook of his arm and kicked some sand over the remains of the fire.

He watched the marshal go, the lanky length of him swaying through camp with what could have been mistaken for nonchalance, if it hadn’t been for his right hand hovered over his holster, still ticklish. 

Soon he was swallowed by the night, and Din followed him, a fuzzy kind of amusement fluttering against his sternum and an absurd proposition juggling in his mind he would never dare to offer.

#dincember 2023 #din djarin #cobb vanth #din grogu #my works #Does it have anything to do with Christmas? Nope #Was it the only thing that came to my mind because I was watching that scene from chapter 9 again? Yup

[trulymadlysydney]

Wait For Me in the Sky: Eleven

“I’m gonna go now,” she says quietly, after a long pause.  She sniffs again.  “I’m sorry.  I..  I promise I didn’t call you just to make you listen to me cry.”

And how can Harry tell her that he would sit and listen to her cry for hours, just to have the chance to be talking to her again?

“It’s okay,” he says, his voice cracking slightly.  “I am glad you called.”

“You don’t have to call me ever again after this, Harry.  I didn’t mean to stir up old shit, or--”

“Hey.  I want to.  Having you in my life is enough.  Okay?  Just having you in my life again is more than enough for me.”

Mars laughs, almost out of disbelief and sounding somewhat relieved.  “Yeah,” she says, voice still wet.  “Yeah I agree.”

“Get some sleep, love.”  Harry doesn’t want to be telling her that.  He wants to keep talking to her, until he knows she’s done crying.  “You have to get to Dallas in five hours.’

Mars laughs.  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep at this point.”

“Just try,” Harry encourages.  “A little is better than nothing.”

“Yeah,” Mars agrees, slowly.  “Okay.”

***DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION***

(as a quick side note, this chapter contains elements of like.. kind of sexual harassment about halfway through. It's nothing too graphic, but just know that it's there!)

Get all caught up HERE

HARRY

February 26th, 2020

“Harry, you’re on in ten.”

Harry looks up from his phone, smiling as politely as he can manage at the woman with a clipboard.  Normally he’s quite good at remembering names, however he cannot for the life of him remember hers  Although, to be fair, he has quite a lot on his mind.  He clicks his home button off and shoves his phone into his bag on the table.  “Thanks,” he says.

He really should be more enthusiastic than he is.

“Are you excited?” Glenne pipes up from her corner of the room, setting her own phone down on the table. 

Harry smiles at her, quirking his eyebrows up playfully.  “Nervous,” he teases.

Glenne rolls her eyes, rising to her feet and making her way over to Harry.   “Oh please,” she says.  She lightly adjusts the lapel of his suit, straightening out the invisible creases she sees. “You’re not nervous at all.”

Harry chuckles. “I am, too,” he says, although Glenne is right.  Sure, he’s got a bit of pre-show jitters.  But honestly, he’s just excited to get back out there.  To forget everything that's on his mind.

For the first time in ages, he is 100% completely alone; which sounds more dramatic than it is.  He hadn’t gone back to Nicole after Mars had left him that night in Saint Thomas. In fact, he’d blocked her on everything-- from both his regular instagram and his burner account.   It had felt right, although he knew that it wasn’t going to bring Mars back to him.  He knew Mars wasn’t going to want to hear from him again-- probably ever-- so in truth, he was blocking Nicole as more of a way to heal himself.

And it had worked in the exact way he’d wanted it to.  He’d started focusing more on himself, on his album.  Working out the details of his upcoming tour, scheduling promo interviews and rehearsing for a completely choreography-based music video-- somewhat out of his comfort zone but a thrilling challenge nonetheless. He could feel himself doing better without the constant cloud that was Nicole looming over his head.

Except it welcomed room for another looming thought-- one that weighed heavy on his heart with every passing day.

At its best, it had just been a lingering little ache in his brain throughout his days.  Seeing a small flower on the sidewalk that he knows Mars’ would have loved to receive a picture of, or hearing a song on the radio that he’s certain Mars’ would’ve shared with him months before it made its way to the charts. 

But at its worst, it was nasty.  It was self-deprecating.  It was a constant nagging voice in his head-- a reminder that he fucked up.  He found someone who meant more to him than anyone in the world and he lost her.  That was on him.  And he hated himself for it. 

With every passing day, he’d tried focusing on other things.  And sometimes, that was all he’d needed.  Sometimes, in fact, he’d been too busy to even think much about his personal life-- what with album promo and music video filming and everything in between.  But it had always been there, picking at the back of his brain until it manifested itself physically into a migraine.

And it’s here today; just not loud and in his face like it is some days.  Just quietly there, like a dark gray rain cloud threatening to unleash its fury on him at any second.

“You’re going to do great.”  Glenne’s voice pulls Harry from his thoughts.  

He smiles at her.  “Yeah?”

“Mm.”  Glenne studies him for a moment, lips curving slowly into the subtlest frown as her eyes narrow ever so slightly.  Harry knows that look.  Harry hates that look.

“What?” he asks, although he knows what she’s going to say.

“What’s going on in your brain right now?”  She takes a step towards him. “You’re off.”

Harry hates how well his friends know him.  “I’m not off,” he lies.  

“You are.  We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but…” She lowers her voice. “Nicole?”

“Fucks sake,” Harry groans.  “No, it’s not Nicole.  How many times do I--”

“I know, I know!” Glenne puts her hands up defensively.  “I’m sorry.  It’s just… she had a knack for popping up at the worst times and I--”

“It’s not Nicole,” Harry says, definitively.  “Nicole is long gone.  I know you don’t believe me, but she is.  And she has been for a while.”

Glenne softens the slightest bit.  “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Harry.”

They stand in silence, Harry realizing that he’s snapped at her unnecessarily, and he sighs.  “Sorry.  It’s--”

“Mars.”  Glenne finishes his sentence for him before he can.  She offers him the faintest, most sympathetic yet all-knowing smile.  “It is, isn’t it?”

Harry freezes, licking his lips and considering his words.  Glenne steps towards him gently.  “Have you spoken to her?”

“No,” Harry says.  “I haven’t.”

“Have you thought about--”

“No.”  His tone is a bit more pointed.  “I haven’t.”

Glenne eyes him before letting out a sigh, shoulders dropping.  “But don’t you think--”

“I love you Glenne, but I don’t want to do this right now.  Not right before a show.  Genuinely.”

Glenne turns to Jeff, who Harry realizes has been watching from his spot on the couch this entire time.  Jeff glances nervously from Glenne to Harry, as if only just now realizing that he may have to say something.  He clears his throat.  “Maybe this isn’t the time,” he admits, “but I think it bears saying that we’re… concerned.”

Harry rolls his eyes.  “So you’re choosing now to bring this up?”

Glenne groans.  “I’m sorry!” she says.  “I shouldn’t have… it’s just--”

“You’re not the same, Harry,”  Jeff says, coming to Glenne’s rescue and annoying the shit out of Harry.  

“I just--”

‘And we don’t have to talk about it any longer if you don’t want to.”  Jeff rises to his feet and continues speaking.  “I get it.  It’s a sensitive spot.  It’s just that… I dunno, man.  You’re not you.”

Harry wants to say something defensive back, but he squashes it in his throat because, deep down, he knows they’re right.  He lets out all of his breath in a sigh, glancing between his two best friends.  “Have you spoken to her?”

Both men’s eyes fall on Glenne, and she squirms in place.  “A little,” she admits.  “Not like, frequently or anything.  It’s been a minute.  But--”

“And?” Harry asks, quicker than intended.  “Is she alright?”

Glenne glances nervously between Jeff and Harry, as if unsure how to answer the question (or if she even should answer it).  “I mean,” she starts slowly,  “from what I gather she’s alright.”

Harry chuckles quietly.  “Of course she is,” he says with a shrug.  “No reason not to be.”

“But that doesn’t mean--”

“Look,” Harry says.  “I love you guys.  I do.  But the Mars chapter of my life is closed.  It’s not going to be reopened.”

“Fine, it’s closed,” Jeff cuts in again.  “I understand, man.  Trust me.  But something does have to change.  We’re worried about you.”

“And what exactly should change?”  Harry shakes his head.  “I appreciate the concern, but there’s really nothing any of us can do, is there?”

The silence between the three is thick following Harry’s words, and Glenne is the first to break it by clearing her throat.  “I didn’t mean to turn this into such a big deal.”

Harry lets out a long, slow breath from his nose, his blood pressure rising.  “It’s not,” he says.  “Not a big deal.  Sorry, it’s… I didn’t mean to respond like--”

“It’s okay,” Jeff says.  “I’m sorry we brought this up now.”

The three friends glance between one another, waiting to see who’s going to be the first to speak again.   Harry shrugs.  “Look, I appreciate it,” he says slowly.  “Genuinely.  I’m sorry.  I just… I don’t think it’s something I’m ready to talk about.”

“Understandable,” Jeff says.  “Seriously.”

“But I do appreciate the concern and I’ll… try and see if I can maybe… change something.  I don’t know.”

“We love you,” Jeff replies,  “and we hate seeing you like this.”

Harry nods, feeling like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs.   “I know.”

Jeff grabs Harry’s shoulder supportively.  No more words are exchanged, but the squeeze Jeff gives Harry’s shoulder is enough.  He gently nudges him on his way with a nod.

Harry turns to leave, then stops.  “Glenne, I-- if you do talk to her, could you let her know I--” He trails off, then shakes his head.  “Sorry.  God. Stupid.  Nevermind.”

“It’s not stupid!” Glenne says, as encouragingly as she can manage.  “I just think… maybe, anything you might want to tell her may be better received if it’s coming from you?”

Harry chews the inside of his cheek.  She’s right… but god, he wishes she wasn’t.

“She’s right,” Jeff pipes up again.  Of course he does.   

Harry says nothing.  Jeff adds, “Just think about it.”

Just think about it, he says.  As if Harry has done anything but.

Harry clears his throat and nods in finality before making his way to the exit of the building.  He can already hear the screams of the crowd in Rockefeller Plaza before he even reaches the door, and he knows they’re about to get much louder.  

He wonders if Mars is watching on a television of her own wherever she is in the world, and then he hates himself for entertaining that thought. 

Of course she’s not.  She’s busy. 

He pushes open the door to Rockefeller Center, unable to hide the smile on his face the moment he hears everyone’s screams increase in volume.  It’s like a switch flips in his brain; like he’s no longer Harry, now he’s Harry Styles.  

It’s an incredible feeling, to find that balance between who he is and who he shares with those who consider themselves fans of his.  Of course it’s all him, and he tries-- genuinely-- to bring his most authentic self to the forefront of everything he does.  And it works, for the most part.  But still, it's nice sometimes to flip that switch.  To become the person that he absolutely in no way feels like he is right now.  To forget, however temporarily, the Harry that lost someone who just might have been the love of his life and remember that he’s the Harry who just released an album that these people are here for. 

And so, he becomes that Harry in his entirety.  He plays for these people, he teases them, he holds professional yet playful interviews and watches amusedly as a fan loses her ever loving mind over simply winning tickets to see him.  He tries to ignore the way his pink suit clings to his skin in the humidity, and he can feel his curls-- which have been perfectly styled-- become frizzy with the rain.  He is as professional as possible, but he is so acutely aware of everything going on around him right now and how, still, the only thing he wants to see is Mars’ face.

Every now and then he catches sight of Jeff, Glenne, and other members of his team watching him fondly from the sidelines.  They’re all smiling, dancing along with his performance, and the smiles they give him fill him with relief-- they haven’t caught on to how weirdly out of body he’s feeling right now. 

The entire affair is over in the blink of an eye, and it isn’t long before Harry finds himself alone in the silence of a makeshift dressing room.  

Moments like this are often odd to Harry.  They don’t come often, but still-- he is no stranger to them.  Especially this past month and a half.  They’re the moments where he’s left with insane adrenaline coursing through his body, a flood of serotonin directly to his brain that only comes from performing.  Never in his life has he gotten this same feeling from anything else. There is no high like the high after a performance, and Harry knows that firsthand.

However, when paired with heartache and a healthy dose of loneliness (garnished with a pinch of self-pity) it becomes a heady tonic-- one that leaves an odd taste in his mouth and doesn’t sit right in his belly.

He should call someone.  Mars?  His Mom?  His therapist?  He isn’t quite sure, but he knows that he hates this feeling.

He lets out a breath, catching sight of himself in the vanity mirror as he turns to begin undressing.  He looks happy, healthy enough-- nothing about him physically would indicate anything about his current mental state, which is wonderful.  But he feels the symptoms every day.   And try as he does to outrun the sadness, it seems to be catching up with him more and more.

Hesitantly, he takes a step towards the mirror, staring at himself as if expecting his reflection to do something unexpected.  He starts to slowly raise his hand, guiding it towards the glass as if nervous to touch it, and just as he’s about to make contact, a loud knock on his door startles him out of his thoughts.

He straightens up immediately, clearing his throat and calling out a loud “C’mon in!”

The door swings open and in comes Jeff, Glenne, and a few other people from his team close behind.  “That was insane, man!”

Harry beams.  “Yeah?”

Glenne, smiling to herself, closes the door behind her while Jeff comes up and squeezes Harry’s shoulders. “You were amazing.  How do you feel?”

With everyone hyping him up like this, there is a new buzzing energy within the room that was not present in his solitude.  He’ll admit that he’s feeling good.  He knows he crushed his performance, and he knows he should feel proud.  “Honestly?  I feel fuckin great.”

“Yes sir!” Glenne says.  “As you should!” 

He’s swarmed by the voices of the friends that he loves, some asking questions- “Did you see that guy in the green shirt?”  “That girl was so happy!”  “What happened with the water on the stage?”-- and some praising him -- “When you hit that fuckin note, man?”  “The pants were a good choice.” and the playful “And your hair stayed intact!” 

And it’s an incredibly welcome distraction. 

It’s all a blur from there on out.  He gets changed, he answers questions, he jokes with his friends.  He sneaks out the back entrance and is spotted only by a handful of fans as he dips into his awaiting black car.  And for a while, he doesn’t think about Mars or the conversation he had with his friends earlier before the show. For a while, he feels normal.

Until he doesn’t.

It happens much later in the day, when he’s alone in the flat he owns in New York.  God, he hates that he’s alone right now, because it makes the thoughts in his head much louder and harder to ignore.

He knows he shouldn’t do what he’s about to do… but with no one there to stop him, he feels he doesn’t have a choice.

He opens his instagram and goes immediately to his search bar.  

He doesn’t even have to type in her name, it’s already there from the last time he did this.  He frequents her page, keeping up with her life from a distance-- even though she hardly posts.

And for a while, he’s been really good about not checking up on her as frequently.  He usually finds ways to distract himself, pull himself out of his thoughts from her.  Besides, he hardly ever sees anything new on her page anyway.

But tonight, he’s feeling rather sorry for himself.  And that little pinkish-red circle around her profile picture indicating that she’s uploaded a new story is just calling his name.  So fuck it, he thinks.

His thumb hovers briefly over her profile picture as he tries to talk himself out of viewing it.  He knows it’s most likely going to be a meme or a picture of some aesthetically pleasing plant she found during a layover.  He knows he’s going to hate himself for looking at it, and that she’ll be able to see that he viewed it-- which is quite an embarrassing thought for him.  The thought of her seeing his name every single time she posts a story; it’s a wonder she hasn’t blocked him yet. (Although he’s grateful she hasn’t.)

He blows out all of his air and clicks on her story, his stomach sinking the minute he views it.  It’s a picture of her and some pilot standing in the front galley of a plane, and there’s a little gif sticker that reads ‘Reunited!’ with animated confetti around it.  He’s a good looking fellow, and by the tag of his username directly below his face, Harry knows exactly who it is.  Mars had complained about this guy to him many times;  Franco was his name and he was an absolute dick.  Harry hated him, and from the sound of things Mars wasn’t too fond of him either.  Still, Harry knows there is a history there and, shit, he can’t even really blame Mars for going back to him.  Especially not after what he put Mars through with Nicole.

Bloody Nicole.

The next picture makes his stomach drop even further; so much in fact that he almost tosses his phone immediately upon seeing it.  It’s a very aesthetically pleasing picture indeed, but it’s got fucking Franco in it. 

It’s a picture focused on Mars’ dinner plate, which looks incredible and expensive, and there’s a filter on the photo that causes it to have some sort of dreamy, sparkly effect.  There’s a candle in the center of the table, and in the background, there’s the bastard himself.  He’s smiling up at Mars-- in fact, it looks like he’s laughing hard at something she’s just said-- and although it’s only about half of his face he seems genuinely happy.  Happy to be with Mars.

Happy to be with Harry’s Mars. 

After staring at it long enough that he feels sick to his stomach, Harry tosses his phone onto the bed beside him and groans loudly.  He tilts his head back, not caring when it hits the wall a little too hard, and covers his eyes with the heel of his hand.  

Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck. 

Last Harry had heard, Franco was an asshole who treated Mars like shit.  But for all Harry knows now, he’s a prince.   Maybe he realized how badly he’d fucked up losing Mars the first time.  Harry feels nauseous as he thinks about all the things Mars has probably told Franco about him.  Franco has probably comforted her through everything, reassured her that he would never treat her that way. 

Harry lets out an audible groan.  He knew he should have never gone to her profile.

He sits up a bit, leaning forward and continuing to rub his face, as if doing so will ease any of the anxiety he feels.  He can’t keep living like this, and he knows it.  He knows it isn’t good for him and, shit, even his friends are noticing a difference in him.  Every single day gets harder and harder not to be in communication with her-- and although he sort of knew he had lost her, seeing her on what appears to be a date with someone else makes him feel even more hopeless than before.

He shouldn’t message her.  He knows he shouldn’t. In fact, he should finally delete her number once and for all. She’s probably so happy now, with a man who has a similar schedule and lifestyle to her own.  Someone who isn’t going to end up putting her in every gossip magazine across the globe.

Someone who treats her the way she deserves.

With a curse under his breath, Harry rises to his feet.  He shakes his head, deciding he’s going to go have a long, hot shower to get this shit off of his mind.  He may even have a long, manly cry while he’s in there too because, well, he deserves it.

He tosses his phone onto his bed, mutters “fucking Franco” with a shake of his head, and makes his way out of the bedroom. 

-----

MARS

“Yeah man it’s just, like, such a rewarding job, you know?   LIke I’m really just, so important up there. And like, the amount of people who tell me like, ‘ohh, you’re too handsome to be doing this’ or like ‘oh why didn’t you get into modeling or something,’ it's like… why can’t we break that stigma, you know? Like, I love being that change.”

Mars is only half listening as Franco goes on, for the third time in the past hour, about how important he is at work.

She laughs quietly, nodding and trailing her fingers unenthusiastically along the rim of her barely touched wine glass. If there’s one thing she’s learned about pilots in her life, it’s that they sure do love talking about themselves. 

Her phone vibrates in her lap, pulling her from her thoughts. She contributes half-heartedly to the conversation, offering Franco a quick, “Mm, yeah, I love that.”  She figures it will buy her some time, make him think she’s listening while she steals a quick glance down at her phone.

Discreetly, she sits back in her chair, flipping her phone over in her hand under the table and glancing at the screen.  It’s a text from Glenne, which doesn’t surprise Mars at all.  They do, in fact, text every now and then and give each other frequent updates on one another’s lives.  It isn’t as often as they used to text-- which is something that Mars regrets to be honest.  But any time she sees Glenne’s name on her phone, it makes her smile.

This, of course, poses a challenge for Mars, considering most times she speaks with Glenne she has to refrain from asking her how Harry is doing.  Glenne never brings him up either, something Mars knows she should be grateful for but, dammit does she miss that boy.  In a sense, it almost feels like sometimes Glenne is purposely avoiding the topic of Harry-- which also hurts Mars’ feelings a little bit.  Because, Harry aside, she does miss the friendship that was slowly blossoming with Glenne. 

She discreetly unlocks her phone and reads the text message.  It’s a meme about flight attendants, followed by a text:

“Made me think of you, lol.  Miss you SO bad.  When are you back in LA?”

Mars’ hopes go up the slightest bit, although she knows there is most likely no reason for it. She and Glenne have done this back and forth quite a few times.  One mentions that they need to get together the next time they’re both in LA, the other agrees profusely, and neither makes any effort further than that. 

She takes a deep breath in, glancing up from her phone to see that Franco is still -- still -- talking about himself (something about these three girls who were fighting over him during flight school, because of course) and gives him a polite nod, as if to tell him she understands-- even if she really doesn’t.  She turns back to her phone subtly, typing out three texts that read:

“GLENNE!!!”

“I miss you so much it’s unreal!” 

“How have you been, my love?”

Mars is caught off guard by the yawn that escapes her own mouth, and she realizes that if she doesn’t start actually paying attention she may just fall asleep right here and now.  She looks back up at Franco and nods again, trying to calculate in her brain where exactly he is in his story. 

“I mean, I’m sure it’s the same for you,” he says, taking a sip of his water.  “I’m sure you’re like, getting dick constantly.” 

For a moment, Mars is genuinely unsure of how to answer him. 

She clears her throat.  “I mean,” she says.  And that’s all she has time to say, because he’s launching right back into his own story. 

Mars’ phone vibrates in her lap, and she reads Glenne’s text to herself.

“Been well! Very busy obviously, but I’m loving it.”

Very busy, Mars assumes, with things pertaining to Harry’s album.

Before she even has time to think more on that, another text from Glenne comes.

“And you?  Where in the world are you right now?  Saw your insta story… who’s that? 👀😍”

Mars has to physically stop herself from letting out an audible sigh.  She’d forgotten that she’d even posted a picture at the beginning of this dinner; an artistically shot photo of her appetizer with a less than subtle glimpse of Franco smiling at her in the back.  This, of course, had been intentional, with only one person in mind that she’d wanted to see it.  

It was minutes after that photo that the evening went downhill and Franco slipped right into his insufferable ways.

Mars, however, in tuning him out and losing herself in her own thoughts, had forgotten entirely about the photo meant to make Harry (and Harry alone) jealous.  And now here she is.  Paying for her sins.

She discreetly types back under the table, thankful for her ability to text without looking.  

“Just a friend.  He’s a pilot I’ve known for a bit.  We’re working a trip together.”

She makes a mental note to delete that picture as soon as she gets back to her hotel room.

As she and Franco continue to talk, she really begins to wonder what she ever saw in this man.  He’s impolite, and entitled-- the kind of person that no one had ever said the word “no” to.

Franco sends his soup back to the waiter because it’s too hot.  Mars tells a brief (brief) story about London, and Franco follows it up with an even better story about a time he went somewhere even nicer and did even cooler things.   And Mars brushes it off, checking her phone and doing mental math in her head.  If she goes to bed within the hour, she’ll get seven hours of sleep.  Not ideal for her, but still fine… if Franco would just eat his damn soup.

And then, for some god awful reason, something as simple as Franco’s pronunciation of the word “obviously” strikes Mars’ heart like a lightning bolt.  

It isn’t that he says it wrong by any means.  He doesn’t, it’s just that the way he says it reminds her of Harry-- of course-- because Harry would have pronounced it differently. 

Harry had a funny way of saying the word. He would have said it more pointedly, and Mars would have teased him for the way his accent would have gotten in the way.

God, Mars misses that accent.

She would have teased him for his pronunciation, and he probably would have rolled his eyes and laughed along with her, teasing her in return for something she does and then kissing her playfully to shut her up.   And it would’ve been enough to make her happy for the rest of her life.

In addition to his accent, there are several other things she misses about him.  Like the way he showed genuine interest in the stories she would tell him, and he never allowed her to apologize for rambling.  The way he made everyone in a room feel important and listened to, but always stole little glances at Mars and smirked when she noticed.  The way he lit up around his friends-- and the way his friends immediately accepted her and loved her.  Which reminds her…

She glances back down to her phone to see another, unread text from Glenne.  She reads it, less than discreetly this time because, honestly, it won't make a difference to Franco whether she’s fully listening or not.

“Are we suuuuure he’s just a friend? 😉”

Mars looks up at Franco at the exact moment he uses a spoon for a mirror while he picks something from his teeth.  He glances at their waitress as she passes the table, then back at Mars.  “You think the waitress is hot?”

Mars shrugs.  “Uh. I don’t know.  Yeah?”

“I think she’s weird as shit.”  Franco laughs.  “But I’d bang her.”

Mars nods unenthusiastically in response, turning immediately back to her phone to reply to Glenne.

“Definitely just a friend.”

Honestly, it’s her own fault she’s in this situation now.  She blames past Mars, who’d acted in an emotional rage, for the fact that she’s having to suffer through this torturous evening.  She should have never reached out to him in the first place back in January.  She should have, at the very least, given herself some time.  Maybe she would have processed more of what Harry was trying to say to her.  Maybe she’d be with Harry right now instead.

She’ll never admit it out loud, but maybe that’s where she’s meant to be.  And now she fears it’s too late. 

Not that she and Franco have done anything in the past few months.  All she’d done was text him, but once she’d calmed down a bit from the emotions of Saint Thomas she’d realized that she wasn’t exactly as interested in him as she’d thought she was. Through a lot of chats with her best friend, her therapist, and even her diary, she’d begun working out that it was better to be alone than with Franco-- and slowly her communication with Franco became, once again, more and more sparse.

Of course, she had forgotten that she and Franco had picked up this trip together shortly after the Saint Thomas incident.  So now here she is. 

The night drags on far longer than Mars reckons it should, and when they find themselves in the backseat of their lyft on the way back to their hotel, Mars is practically itching to get out of the car.  

Franco chats idly with the driver about some local basketball team that Mars couldn’t care less about, and she finds herself scrolling mindlessly through her instagram. She’s giving out “likes” very generously, for the simple fact that it keeps her from having to listen to Franco talk any longer.  Still, it's not quite as entertaining as she would hope.  Another girl she knew back in middle school is pregnant-- again.  Her college friend is posting a picture of his muscles at the gym.  Her favorite celebrity posted a picture from her international tour.  Blah blah blah.

Her attention is snapped back to the present when she feels Franco’s hand on her knee.  She looks up from her phone and over to Franco, who still is in deep conversation and won’t even look at her.  His hand trails a little bit higher, and his thumb rubs circles that Mars guesses are supposed to be soothing.  (They aren’t.)  His fingers curl a little bit and he keeps them right in the spot on her leg that they’re at, gently scratching them back and forth.  And oh, Mars knows exactly what he’s doing.

She swallows around a throat that now feels uncomfortably dry.  She shifts awkwardly in her seat, hoping he gets the hint. 

He doesn’t.

He glances at her briefly, a smile on his lips, and he moves his hand a bit higher, pushing the hem of Mars’ dress up along with it.  She opens her mouth to say something, and he feigns smug shock. Pretending like he knows he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.  The driver continues to drive silently, and Mars watches Franco intently.

“Franco,” she whispers, but she’s cut off when he speaks to the driver.

“Hey,” he says, “would you mind turning this song up a little bit more?”

The driver wordlessly complies with Franco’s request, and Franco grins smugly back at Mars before leaning impossibly closer.  He attaches his lips to Mars’ neck, just below her earlobe, and presses the wettest kiss Mars thinks she’s ever experienced against her skin.  She shivers, and not in a good way-- although the way Franco’s hand is traveling further up her thigh tells her he’s completely clueless.

“Stop,” she says quietly. 

If he hears her, he pretends like he doesn’t.  He uses his other hand to pull her closer, the fingers under her skirt now trailing lightly along her panties.  “Franco,” she says again.

“What?” he asks, an arrogance lacing his voice.  “You can’t tell me you haven’t been waiting for this all night.”  He leans in to kiss her mouth, but she pulls away awkwardly.

“Not… no, I haven’t.  What?”

“Is it just that you’re shy? In front of the driver?”  Franco smiles, lowering his voice.  “I bet he doesn’t mind.”

“I bet he does,” Mars says, increasing her volume only slightly.  “Franco, we’re not doing this--”

“Your room or mine then, baby?”

“Neither.”

For the first time, Franco finally seems to hear her.  He pulls away with a frown.  “What?”

“Franco, I don’t… this isn’t--”

“Then why did you want to get dinner tonight?”

“Cause I wanted to catch up! I told you that before we even left.  What the fuck?”

“I thought you were just saying that, Mars.  What, you’re too good for me now? Mars got a taste of some famous guy’s dick and now she’s too good for me?”

Mars’ stomach turns.  “What--”

“You used to practically beg me to hang out with you.  Remember that?  There was a time you would’ve given anything for me to touch you like that. And now you’re embarrassing me like this?”

Mars feels tears welling in her eyes, but not tears of sadness-- tears of pure, absolute rage  “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing,” she spits back.

“Get your story straight then.”  Franco scoffs.

“What?”

“You heard me.  You call me whenever you’re lonely or horny or whatever but you think you’re so much better than me.  Excuse me for thinking this time was any different than the last few times you begged for my attention.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.  I--”

“No fucking wonder Harry left your ass.”

Mars’ breath halts in her throat, and her mouth gapes open like a fish.  Franco laughs.  “Yeah.  I read the articles.  Harry fucking cheated on you, Mars.  Probably because you act like this.”

“You--”

“This is just what you do, isn’t it?  Get a guy all excited like a fucking tease and then you turn him down.  You’re a prude.  And I--”

Mars doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until she feels the heat of Franco’s cheek beneath the palm of her hand; the smack echoing through the cab despite the loud music.  Franco immediately grabs for his face, eyes widened with shock, and for a moment they both just stare at one another-- too afraid to move.

“Hey!” The cab driver speaks up, immediately muting the radio.  “I won’t have any violence in my car.”

“Let me out,” Mars says without a moment’s hesitation.

“You--” Franco starts, and Mars turns towards the driver. 

 “Let me out, please,” she says. “I can walk.”

The cab driver pulls over to the side of the road, parking as quickly as possible.

“You’re an idiot,” Franco says, “The hotel isn’t anywhere close by, and--”

The driver turns the light on and whirls around in his seat, pointing to Franco.  “Get out of my car.”

Franco scoffs.  “What?!” 

“Get out of my car.  Now.”

“Look, man, I’m not the one who--”

“I’ll call the cops.”

Franco puts his hands up immediately in submission, but he doesn’t make any effort to exit the vehicle. “That won’t be necessary, man, I’m just saying that--”

“Get out of my car then.”

Franco, who’s cheek is now bright red where Mars had slapped him, glances in disbelief from Mars to the driver.  Mars, who can hardly catch her breath, chews anxiously at her trembling lip, afraid to move a muscle.

Finally, Franco scoffs. Shaking his head, he reaches for the car door.  “Un-fucking-believable.”  He says under his breath.  “This is unbelievable.”

“Take everything,” the driver says.  “I’m not coming back for you.”

“Fuck you, man.”  Franco steps out of the car, reaching back in to grab his phone.  “And fuck you, too.”  He flips Mars the finger.  “Waste of my fucking time.”

He slams the door so hard that the car shakes, and Mars and the driver sit in silence for a few moments.  Trying desperately to get her breathing under control, she swallows a nauseating lump in her throat.  The driver puts the car into drive, but before moving, he turns to Mars.  “Are you okay?”

Mars glances out the window, where she can see Franco furiously scrolling through his phone.  “I’m okay,” she says, although by the sound of her voice she seems far from okay. 

The driver says nothing, he only nods, turns the car light off, and begins to drive.

Mars stares numbly out the window, trying desperately to calm the panic attack coursing through her entire body.  She takes a few shaky breaths, feeling her tears trickling rapidly down her cheeks, and she wipes at her running nose.   She’s thankful for the driver, and the fact that he keeps the radio playing softly.  His silence and stoic expression almost make her feel silly, and she laughs bitterly. What just happened?

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice hardly above a whisper.  “I’m so sorry.  I’ve never--”

The driver holds up his hand.  “Please,” he says.  “Nothing to apologize for.”

There are a few moments of silence following his statement, but he clears his throat and speaks again.  “It isn’t my place, and I won’t talk about it anymore after this.  But you did the right thing.”

Mars can’t stop the little sob that escapes past her lips.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She laughs bitterly.  “I feel so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.  And you shouldn’t feel that way.  He should feel stupid.   You did the right thing.”

There’s a heaviness on Mars’ heart that feels suffocating, but she knows he’s right.  She sniffles, wiping at her stuffy nose and focusing her eyes at the passing street lights out the window.  “Thank you,” she says quietly. 

The driver says nothing, he only offers Mars a sympathetic nod, then reaches down to turn the volume up slightly. 

Mars lets out a sigh, settling back into her seat and laying her head against the car window.  All she can focus on is getting her breathing back to normal.  Her heart pounds in her ears, and all she wants more than anything is to be home.  Not here, not on this trip, not even in her crashpad.  Home, with her parents, and her siblings, and her eighteen year old family cat.   She wants to forget the past couple of months entirely.  Start fresh. 

She begins to consider the amount of PTO she’s accumulated.  Surely she has enough to call out sick for her next trip.  Maybe she can swap with someone, call out of another trip, and go home for a bit.  Maybe she’ll even leave her phone behind. Maybe--

The thoughts stop dead in their tracks when her brain registers a familiar voice.  She sits up a bit, as if it’s going to help her get any sort of clarity, and she holds her breath until her thoughts are confirmed.  

That’s Harry playing on the radio. 

Mars’ breath hitches in her throat, and her ears begin to ring.  It’s a song of his that she really does adore-- for lack of a better word-- and it feels like it simultaneously shatters and heals her already broken heart. She buries her face in her hands, not caring about the mascara that’s going to stain her fingers, and lets out a long, shaky breath.

She’s torn between asking the driver to mute it or turn it up, and she’s not entirely sure he isn’t perfectly aware of the situation at hand.  In any case, he does nothing-- and Mars is left to listen, and suffer, in silence.

She lifts her head from her palms, her chest quivering with another shaky breath, and she considers the potential meaning of all of this.  Naive as it may be to take this as a possible sign, she also takes comfort in the thought that this could be the universe’s way of gently nudging her in the right direction rather than kicking her when she’s down. 

But a sign of what?  Surely she shouldn’t be reaching out to Harry.  Not now.  Not after everything, and especially not after the night she’s had.

Should she?

Mars glances down at the phone in her lap and picks it up to glance at the time-- although she isn’t sure why she’s checking that.  She doesn’t even know where in the world Harry is right now one way or another.  And the fact of the matter is, she has to be up incredibly early for tomorrow’s flight anyway-- so really she knows she shouldn’t call him.

That isn’t the only reason she shouldn’t call him, of course.  She knows it’s a terrible idea in general.  They don’t belong together.  They’re just going to keep going in circles, and they’re going to end up getting more hurt than they already were.

Still, what impeccable timing for this song to come on.

Mars picks anxiously at the skin around her thumbnail, glancing back out the window again-- suddenly completely overwhelmed with indecision.  Somehow, nothing has ever felt more right than the unexpected realization that Harry is-- still-- just a phone call away.  Just as he’s always been.  And she knows she doesn’t need him, sure, but god… she loves him.  She loves him so much that her heart aches.  And that is all she knows right now. 

It’s been long enough, surely he’s willing to talk this through. Surely he’s ready to accept an apology from her. 

Squirming subconsciously in her seat, she lets out a sigh far louder than intended.

“Is something else bothering you?” The driver asks, glancing back at her in his rearview mirror.

Mars makes eye contact with him, smiling as normally as she can manage, and clears her throat.  “No,” she says, “I’m okay.  Just… shaken up.”

She clicks the home button on her phone, darkening her screen, and sits in her anxiety; in her indecision.  After a few moments, she says the only thing she can think of to somewhat ease the situation and bring her comfort.

“Actually,” she says,  “Would you mind turning this song up?”

-----

HARRY

Harry wraps a towel loosely around his waist, making his way from the bathroom back into the bedroom to get dressed.  The humidity of the steamy bathroom clings to his freshly moisturized skin, and already he can feel his hair frizzing up.  He turns off the light and lets out a subconscious exhale at the drastic temperature change between the bathroom and the rest of his flat.

Clearing his throat, he walks  into his bedroom and over to the dresser.  Normally he’s all for sleeping in the nude but for some reason, his place feels extra cold tonight.  He carelessly flings open the top drawer of his dresser to begin rummaging through the various folded clothes.  Nonchalantly, he taps on his phone screen to check any notifications he’d received during his rather long shower.  A text from Jeff, a missed call from his goddaughter (whoops), and….

He stops dead in his tracks, his entire body going cold at the sight.  He immediately drops the clothes in his hand and reaches for the phone, pulling it up closer to his face so he can read clearly. 

He has to blink several times to make sure he’s really seeing what he thinks he’s seeing… and he is.  Two iMessage notifications from Mars. Right there in plain sight.

Holy shit.

He nearly drops his phone trying to get it unlocked, and his fingers shake as he opens her messages.  Right there, back to back.

“Hey, Harry. It’s Mars.”  As if he could ever forget.  Followed by: “I hope you’ve been doing well.”

His heart pounds in his ears as he tries to plan out his response.  Surely she has a bigger reason for messaging him than just checking if he’s well.  Maybe she wants to talk about something.  Harry’s heart drops when he thinks that maybe she’s going to bring up Franco.  Maybe Franco proposed at dinner tonight, and she’s calling to tell Harry about it so that he hears it from her first.  He shakes his head, rubbing anxiously on the tip of his nose before beginning to type out his response.

“Hiii Mars.  I’ve been well.  How are you? x”

As soon as he sends it he shakes his head.  There were far too many I’s in that “hi.”  Now he just looks desperate and weird. Also, why did he tell her he’s been well?  Sure, he’s been alright.  But ‘well?’ Certainly not.

Her text bubbles appear, then disappear, then appear again, and Harry realizes he’s holding his breath waiting for her response.

“Well… I’ve been better. Haha.  But I’m alright.”

Shit, Harry has no idea how he’s meant to respond to that.

On the one hand, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit excited to hear that she isn’t having the best night-- not because he’s hoping she’s miserable, but because he hates Franco and he wants Mars to hate him, too.  But on the other hand, it’s upsetting to hear she isn’t happy.

Not to mention, it isn’t the most open-ended text.  Where is the conversation meant to go from there?

Harry chews his bottom lip as he carefully types out his response. Several times he types (and deletes) “would you like to talk about it?”  He isn’t sure if that’s his place anymore.

Nor is he sure that he wants to talk about whatever is troubling her, especially if it’s Franco. 

Finally, he settles for a somewhat neutral, yet friendly and caring:

I’m sorry to hear that.  What’s been going on?

His heart is beating so hard that his ears are ringing, and he runs a hand through his hair as he waits for her to respond.  This is wrong.  He shouldn’t have even asked.  It comes off as nosey, and really it’s none of his business any longer what troubles her.

Still, surely she wouldn’t have brought it up if she didn’t want to talk to him, right?  What’s the worst that could happen?  Maybe she just needs a bit of friendly advice.

“Just a lot.  Work has been crazy. And people suck. Lol”

By ‘people,’ Harry hopes she means Franco.

His thumbs begin typing a new message, but another text from her arrives before he has a chance to write too much.

“Can I call you?” Followed by a hasty: “You can say no.  Sorry.  I know it’s kinda weird and you probably don’t even want to hear from me lol”  and then another “sorry” tacked on for good measure.

Harry’s head is absolutely spinning at her request; a request he’d hoped for for so long but never thought would come.  He rises to his feet for no good reason and paces around the room, staring at the messages on his phone.  Why does she want to call him?  What does she want to tell him?  What if it ends badly?  What if she’s still angry?

“You can literally say no” pops up on his phone then, reminding him that he very much needs to respond to her sooner or later.

He sits down swiftly on the corner of his bed and types out a quick “Yeah, you can call me.”  Followed by:  “Everything okay?”

“No yeah everything is fine I just wanted to talk.  But if it's not a good time you can say no.”

Harry has the right mind to call her himself just to get her to stop overthinking, but on the other hand he doesn’t want to scare her off.  So, as calmly as he can manage to keep himself, he types back,  “It’s a fine time. Call me.”

As soon as he sends it, his thumbs move at the speed of light to tack on a quick “Please. X”

Before Harry has time to overthink the “please” and the slight desperation that he’s concerned it may convey, his heart sinks into the pit of his belly when he hears it-- the specific ringtone set on his phone for Mars’ calls.  The ringtone he hadn’t heard in ages and had honestly, up until now, forgotten about.

He stares at the vibrating phone in his hand for a few seconds, completely overwhelmed by his nerves and his excitement, before clearing his throat and swiping his thumb along the screen.  The ringing stops.  The call connects.

He’s talking to Mars again.

Slowly, cautiously (although he isn’t sure why), he raises the phone to his ear. 

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Her voice sounds quiet and far away, almost an imitation of the girl he used to know. She sounds like she’s trying to be happy, and failing, and there’s a distinct wobble to her voice that only someone who knows her well would recognize.   

It shatters Harry’s heart.

“Heyyy,” he says, as soothing yet as conversationally as possible.  “How are you?”

“Uhh,” Mars says through a soft, breathy laugh,  “I’m… good. Um.  Busy with work.  I-- I just--”

“Yeah?” Harry doesn’t mean to talk over her, but fuck, he’s so nervous.  “How’s work?”

“Oh, it’s good, I--’

“Sorry I didn’t mean to--”

“What?”

“No you go.”

“Did I cut you off?”

‘No I was--”

“Sorry, I didn’t know if you were--”

“No, I cut you off.”  Fuck’s sake.  Harry chews anxiously at the corner of his thumbnail while he speaks. “Sorry.  You were saying you were busy with work.  And then what?”

“Oh.  Um.  Nothing else really.  I was just gonna say that…. I hope you don’t mind that I called.  I just…. It’s been a while.”

Harry swallows.  “No, no.  I don’t mind.  I’m uh… I’m actually kind of glad you did.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Harry has to physically stop himself from telling her just how badly he misses her, but he begins to feel anxious when a quick silence falls between them.  He clears his throat.

Say something.  Say anything.  Fuck. 

“What are you up to?” Mars, thankfully, speaks first.  “I hope you’re not like, somewhere in the world where it’s actually the middle of the night.  Like, I didn’t wake you up or anything did I?  I’m a little bit jet lagged myself.”

Harry chuckles, although he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt him just a little bit that she didn’t know about his performance this morning.  But then again, why would she? 

“I’m in New York,” he answers, sitting down on his bed and settling himself back against the pillows.  “Are you on a layover?”

“M-hm.  Today was a long day.  Tomorrow isn’t though. Which is nice.”

Harry bites his tongue to keep from mentioning Franco, but he can’t stop himself from asking, “Oh yeah?  Good crew then?”  

“Um,”  she trails off, and Harry can tell she’s trying to choose her words carefully.  “I mean… yeah.  They’re nice.  Most of them.  But uh, we get new pilots for tomorrow’s leg.  So.”

“Looked like you had a nice dinner.”  It's out before Harry can stop himself, and he holds his breath the seconds it escapes his lips.

Mars audibly sighs, and Harry instantly regrets what he’s just said.  “I didn’t mean--”

“It was okay,” she says.  “It was… I-I know you remember Franco.”

Harry’s mouth goes dry.  “Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I remember Franco.”

“Yeah.  He’s… the same.”

Harry wonders if she means that in a good way or a bad way.  He doesn’t even have time to ask before she’s speaking again.   “I have to tell you something.”

And oh, fuck, Harry has never in his life known an anxiety like this before.  He knows that “I have to tell you something” is hardly ever followed by anything good, and coming from Mars right now he can’t imagine it’s going to be anything wonderful.  He swallows, clearing his throat and fidgeting anxiously with his fingers.   “What is it?”

There’s a long silence that follows, so long in fact that Harry worries she’s hung up.  After a short while, he glances at the phone to see that she is still on the line. He’s about to say something, when she finally speaks.

“I fucking miss you,” Mars says quietly.  “I don’t expect you to say it back.  And I don’t know if I deserve anything other than your silence.  I--” she sighs. “We know that… it isn’t a good idea for us to be together.  And I don’t want to mess anything up, or stir up anything.  I just… I think you deserve to know.  I miss you.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry says, although his heart is begging him to say something along the opposite lines.  “Please don’t say that.”

“Why?”  It sounds like a genuine question; not a tease, not an insinuation or indication she’s looking for anything else.  Not even a hint of surprise.  Just genuinely asking him: why?

“Because,” he answers, picking at his chipped nail polish and struggling to find the words he’s looking for.  He takes a big deep breath in through his nose.  “Because I know you’re with Franco now.  And I cannot promise to respect that.”

“I’m not with Franco,” Mars says quietly.  “He’s a prick.  And I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”  Harry shakes his head, as if she can see him. “You’re not.”

“I should have never gone out with him,” Mars admits.  “It was fucking stupid. He’s not… he’s….  I was just….” she sighs into the phone, clearly at a loss.  “I don’t know.  I was looking for a way to fill the void, I guess.”

Harry hates himself for the question he asks next.  “Did it work?”

“Of course not.  He fucking sucks.”  

He swallows, unsure of what to say next.  What even is there to say?  He can’t tell her how badly he misses her.  How badly he wants her.  How he thinks maybe he might just be in love with her-  really and truly.  He’s used up all of those chances, and he’s not expecting to be able to get another one. 

“Well,” he says slowly, “If anyone understands that feeling, it’s me.”

Mars laughs, although Harry can’t tell if it’s genuine or sarcastic until it dissolves into a little half-sigh, half-hum.  He can picture her shaking her head on the other end of the phone.

“Anyway,” Mars says after a beat, and then she says nothing else. 

There’s a silence that falls between them, and Harry shifts awkwardly on the bed.  “Anyway,” he repeats.

“I do miss you, Harry.”

Harry nods, as if she can see him. “Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I miss you more than I can tell you, Mars.”

“I just…” She goes silent for a moment again, and Harry had to refrain from speaking. He wants her to get her words out, and he wants to give her the space and the freedom to do so. 

But god, is it hard.

Mars tries again.  “I just don’t know.”

Harry blinks through the tears that form in his eyes.  “I don’t know either.”

After a ridiculously long pause, Mars laughs into the phone again.  Somehow,  Harry can tell that she’s also crying.  “I shouldn’t have called,” she says.  “Sorry.  I don’t know why I--”

“I’m glad you did.”  Harry is quick to cut her off, terrified suddenly that she’s going to hang up and he’s going to lose her.  “I’m so glad you did, Mars.”

“You are?”

Harry can’t believe she’s even asking him that.  “Of course I am,” he says.  “I…”  

He trails off, unsure of where to go from here.  How can he tell her that he just wanted to hear her voice again, more than anything else in the world, and that he’d been watching old videos on his phone that he’d taken of them long before anything had gone wrong just so he could hear her laugh again?  How can he explain to her that she’s the only person he wants, that he’s never missed anyone the way he misses her, and that his heart quite literally feels like it’s breaking his ribs every time he thinks of her?

“I guess I just am glad to know that I’m not alone in how I’ve been feeling lately.”  

“No,” Mars says, practically whispering into the phone.  “No. You aren’t alone.”

They sit with the weight of their words, the silence on the line almost comforting because it’s theirs, and truthfully it’s something they’ve both yearned for for so long.   Harry licks his lips, anxiously fiddling with the rings on his fingers as he tries to come up with something to say so that he doesn’t lose her again.  

“So where are you?” is the best he comes up with.

“Uhh...” Mars lets out a breath, trilling her lips as if she actually has forgotten where she is and has to think about it.  “Atlanta.  Early start tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm.  Headed to Dallas in like… five hours.”

“Dallas,” Harry says, as conversationally as he can manage.  “Should be lovely.”

“Yeah. Looking forward to it, I guess.”

“Yeah? Good.”

Silence. 

Harry speaks again.  “Five hours?  You should get some sleep.”

Silence.  Again.  Harry fucking hates it. 

“I’m really sorry.”  When she speaks again, it surprises Harry. But he listens.  “Like, genuinely.  I’m sorry.  It’s…”  She swallows so hard he can hear it through the phone.  “It sucks so bad Harry.  And I-- I don’t want--”  

Mars trails off with a shaky breath, and Harry mutters an almost inaudible.  “It’s okay, take your time.”

“I know you’re glad that I called.  And I-- I’m so happy I got to talk to you again, it’s just-- I’m not… we--”

“I know,” Harry says, as comfortingly as he can manage.  “I know, Mars.   It’s okay.”

‘It’s not.”  Mars sniffs, a stuffy sound that lets Harry know she’s definitely crying.  Her voice sounds almost on the verge of panic, and he knows she’s getting too far into her own head like she tends to do. “I just-- I wanted it to be different but I... fuck, I shouldn’t have called you.  I shouldn’t have--”

“Hey.”  Harry wipes at his own tears, trying to hide the sadness in his own voice.  “Hey, listen to me.  It’s okay, Mars.  Yeah?  You’re okay.”

She takes a moment to catch her breath, and Harry holds his own breath in order to try and stop himself from crying just as hard.  He wants nothing more than to go to her and hold her.  To fix all of this.  To make it go away.

“I’m gonna go now,” she says quietly, after a long pause.  She sniffs again.  “I’m sorry.  I..  I promise I didn’t call you just to make you listen to me cry.”

And how can Harry tell her that he would sit and listen to her cry for hours, just to have the chance to be talking to her again?

“It’s okay,” he says, his voice cracking slightly.  “I am glad you called.”

“You don’t have to call me ever again after this, Harry.  I didn’t mean to stir up old shit, or--”

“Hey.  I want to.  Having you in my life is enough.  Okay?  Just having you in my life again is more than enough for me.”

Mars laughs, almost out of disbelief and sounding somewhat relieved.  “Yeah,” she says, voice still wet.  “Yeah I agree.”

“Get some sleep, love.”  Harry doesn’t want to be telling her that.  He wants to keep talking to her, until he knows she’s done crying.  “You have to get to Dallas in five hours.’

Mars laughs.  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep at this point.”

“Just try,” Harry encourages.  “A little is better than nothing.”

“Yeah,” Mars agrees, slowly.  “Okay.”

And what Harry wants to say is:  I love you so much.  I hope you have sweet dreams, text me when you wake up.  I don’t care how early it is, I want to hear about your day.

But instead, he says, “Okay.”

Mars lets out a breath. “Goodnight, Harry. Thank you for talking to me.’

“Any time, Mars. you know that.”  I love you. 

Mars says nothing for a moment, then clears her throat.  “Goodnight,” she repeats.

Harry has to physically pull the phone from his ear, lest he stay on the line with her for the rest of the night.  “Goodnight,” he says back.  I fucking love you. 

After a brief moment of hovering his thumb over the red End Call button, he finally pushes it.  He stares at the home screen of his phone-- a picture of the beach he’d taken in Cancun-- and sits in the silence that follows.

And then it hits him like a ton of bricks.

What in the fuck is he doing letting the love of his life go?

If there is anything Harry has learned, it’s that life is far too short to let opportunities pass him by.  Especially opportunities like this.  

He doesn’t know much, but he knows he loves Mars.  And at the end of the day, that’s all he really cares about.  

So he’s going to go and get her.

He glances at the clock on his phone before rolling clumsily off of his bed, stumbling on a pair of slippers that he’d carelessly left in the middle of the floor this morning.   He searches through the clutter on his desk that he’s been meaning to clean, finding his laptop under a pile of documents that he still needs to sign.  He opens it and waits a few moments, cursing under his breath when the laptop flashes a low battery symbol.  For fuck’s sake. 

A few minutes later, he finds his charger and plugs it into an outlet on the wall beneath his desk.  Drumming his fingertips impatiently, he waits for the laptop to boot back to life.  There’s a voice in his head telling him that he needs to be smarter than this, and there’s a twisting in his belly that tells him he’s too late, but he listens to neither.  He has to try. 

Harry curses under his breath and briefly considers doing this from his phone when the laptop finally blinks to life.  As quickly as his fingertips will take him, he’s opening a google tab and typing the first airline that comes to mind-- and then opening a second tab and pulling up another one. 

He’s got six different airline websites running when he finally finds what he’s looking for-- a flight to Atlanta that leaves in exactly an hour and 28 minutes. 

He chews on his bottom lip nervously as he clicks “Select Flight” and waits for the payment screen to populate.  If he times himself right, he can catch her-- but he has to rely on technology and, frankly, the anticipation is making him want to scream.

“Come on,” he mutters under his breath.  “Fuck.”

The page finally loads and he’s never in his life clicked a button so quickly, immediately entering the credit card information he knows by heart.  He’s speaking out loud to himself-- and also to the website, willing it to cooperate as he tries to navigate this.  “Okay,” he says, pressing tab to enter the next required field.  “Okay.”

When the ticket is purchased, he stares at the confirmation screen in shock for a good ten seconds before his adrenaline kicks in.  He’s doing it.  He’s actually doing it.

He shoots up from his seat, slamming the drawers of his dresser open in search of a pair of pants to wear while trying to text his assistant coherently about arranging a ride to the airport.  For fucks sake, why doesn’t he have more clothes in New York?  Surely he spends more time here than this, right?

It’s all a blur from then on out, and he keeps having to remind himself that, although he is in a bit of a time crunch, he needs to slow down.  This has to be done right.  He cannot risk a simple mistake that would make any part of this run less than smoothly.

His assistant is asleep, of course, and Harry feels bad for the amount of texts he’s sent him-- so he decides to redownload the Uber app to his phone.  He’s hardly ever had to use it in his entire life, but if any time is right, it’s now.

Fuck the fact that he doesn’t have a car out here-- why didn’t he ever think of it as a necessity? 

He’s stumbling out his door minutes later, a crossbody Louis Vuitton that has been carelessly stuffed with outfits he may need over the next few days slung lazily over his shoulder.   His Uber driver is showing as three minutes away, and he’s praying to himself that it isn’t someone who’s going to make a big deal about him. 

He yawns to himself as he paces along the sidewalk outside of his flat, trying not to think about just how late it actually is, or how awkward it's going to be if he doesn’t make it to her in time, or, the most terrifying thought of all, if Mars doesn’t receive him well.

He curses under his breath, willing the Uber driver to please hurry the hell up and get here so that he doesn’t have to just sit alone with his thoughts. 

When the driver does arrive, a new wave of anxiety washes over him, and he holds his breath as the driver rolls down his window-- ready for a slew of questions and preparing himself to most likely have to sign a few things or take a picture with the driver.

It’s an older gentlemen, and although Harry can hardly see him in the darkness he seems friendly enough, with a thick mustache over his top lip and thin, dark hair.  “Hi,” he says, “Harry?”

Harry slings his duffel higher up onto his shoulder.  “Yes sir,” he says.

The man looks him over, then wordlessly turns away, pushing a button to unlock the car without giving it a second thought.  It almost takes Harry by surprise, and he stands there for a moment-- as if anticipating something else coming.  When it doesn’t, he shakes his head back to reality and hurriedly slips into the backseat of the car.

Hardly a word is spoken the entire car ride, which truthfully, Harry doesn’t mind.  It gives him time to really think this through.  To plan what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it.

God, he feels insane for this.

He prays silently for no delays in his flight and no issues getting on board.  He prays that Mars will accept him back with open arms.  He prays she will forgive him.

And when the car pulls up to JFK International Airport, Harry swallows the last bit of nerves he’s got sitting like a lump in his throat.  He thanks his driver when he gets out of the car, nods at some fans who recognize him, and slings his duffel over onto his other shoulder.  

He takes a deep breath, and pushes forward into the airport.  

It’s time for him to win his girl back. 

#Harry Styles #Harry #Harry styles fanfiction #Harry fanfiction #fanfiction #Harry Styles fic #Harry fic #fic #Harry Styles angst #Harry angst #angst #Harry Styles fluff #Harry fluff #fluff

[star-going-supernova]

Silly prompt: Gregory's first day at school

You say silly, I say EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. :)  Takes place in a vague, unspecified AU that follows standard post-pizzaplex adoption rules.

One Last Time

Vanessa put the car into park, and for a moment, they both watched the stream of students heading into the building. Even from the drop-off zone, she could feel the first-day jitters and excitement bubbling out of them. Old friends greeted each other, new ones were introduced into established friend groups. Most of the kids looked to have put some effort into their appearance, and the shiny new backpacks were innumerable. 

“Well,” she said, not at all choked up. “Get out there, squirt.” 

Gregory rolled his head against the seat to level an unimpressed look at her. “What an enthusiastic send-off.” 

She huffed and wrestled her seatbelt into allowing her enough slack to lean over the center console. It’d taken some getting used to, suddenly having a kid, but Vanessa thought she’d done a pretty good job adjusting and just not screwing up beyond repair. And part of that meant figuring out where they stood in terms of parent-child affection.

Despite his groans, Gregory obliging tilted closer, head bowed so she could press a kiss to his bangs. “Gross,” he complained, but the telltale tiny smile and shine in his eyes said otherwise. 

“Now, unless you want me walking in with you—”

Gregory flailed himself out of the car, just barely remembering to grab his backpack. 

She rolled the passenger side window down before he even managed to shut the door. “I see how it is,” she said, faux wounded. “Can’t wait to get away from me, huh?”

“It’s nothing personal, Ness,” Gregory snickered. She doubted he’d ever call her mom, but she was okay with that. Ness… felt right, coming from him. 

“Have a good day at school, sweetie,” she simpered. 

He stuck his tongue out, hiking his backpack onto his shoulders. Her gaze drifted back to the school for a moment, then to the rest of the parking lot. She was just another parent dropping her kid off for his first day of a new year. Not too long ago, she never would’ve guessed this would be even a possibility for her, much less a fond reality.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

Vanessa dragged her attention back to Gregory, who leaned against the passenger door expectantly. 

Her nostalgic mood took hold of her again. She stared at him, and it felt like only yesterday that they’d first met in the pizzaplex. And now here they were, and there he was. 

From a feral ten-year-old to the seventeen-year-old standing before her. He hardly looked different at all, just taller and less scrawny. A scar from his misadventures followed the curve of his jaw, edging onto his cheek; she could still imagine the bandaid he’d had over it after it was first made. His hair was just as messy, though the blue streaks hadn’t fully grown out yet, leaving him with faded ends. 

Hell. Her kid had grown up on her. This would be his last first day, a senior in high school. She wouldn’t be there for his first day of college, so it wouldn’t count. 

Remembering her line, she huffed out a little laugh and tried to pretend like her eyes weren’t welling up. “I shouldn’t need to remind you,” she said, her voice come out a little thicker and shakier than she’d have liked. Gregory, all teenage charm, shrugged one shoulder, grinning. But his eyes were soft, and she knew he felt similarly. “One last time, yeah? You can take the gremlin out of the ’plex, but that doesn’t really change that he’s a gremlin.” 

Vanessa bit her lip, chuckling. “Don’t go biting anyone, munchkin,” she recited, just as she had every first day for years. 

He straightened, comfortably leaning an arm against the roof of the car. It wasn’t a small car either; he’d shot up like a weed once he wasn’t halfway malnourished. But he didn’t snark back about the inches separating them, nor did he comment on the two rogue tears that had escaped Vanessa’s self-control. 

“I make no promises,” he recited in turn. 

Laughing, Vanessa shooed him away and listened to his cackles as he loped off down the sidewalk with the stride of someone who’d grown up around Roxy. He careened into his friends, throwing his arms around their shoulders. They slowly migrated toward the doors as a group, but she didn’t move to drive away. 

Just before Gregory, taller than most of his peers, could disappear into the building, he turned on his heel and waved one arm enthusiastically, high above the crowd. And Vanessa, who had long ago succumbed to his gremlin-ness rather than try to make him unlearn it, leaned on the car horn in return. 

The dirty looks were so worth it when it left her with the image of Gregory throwing his head back with laughter over the startled jumping and shrieks.

#i answered a thing #willthemechanist #idea anon #fnaf fic #fnaf security breach #star's stories #life and times of star

[magdlene]

i think the thing about being an adult is that no one can fault you for your choices. You come into adulthood and what's the first thing that people tell you all the time: it's your decision now. You're not a child, you're not some awkward teenager, you're an adult and every decision that you make is solely on you, and that is just fine.

I wasn't getting enough hours at my main job so I decided to look for a second one, and it was fairly quick (since fast food places are seemingly always hiring) and I landed a job at this donut corndog place that caters to koreaboos. I walked in on my first day, and it was probably the worst job experiences I've had in a while. There was no training, the coworker that was supposed to be training me wasn't even there at that time even though he knew I would be starting that day. I was awkwardly waiting in the back with some other dude who's entire attitude was "yeah we just kinda get orders and then finish them, I usually sit on my phone most of the time, so yeah," while a giant vat of hot oil popped every once in a while reminding me of the stench of grease and old bread. And that's what we did. Sat on our phones and waited to pass the time until we closed. Usually closing for me means cleaning espresso machines inside and out and mopping every crevice of the store and doing the whole routine with a checklist, so when I asked what we needed to get started on for closing the guy told me they had their own cleaning crew come in during the evening after everyone has left to clean the whole store. They weren't doing a very good job apparently, because there wasn't even any soap to wash my hands.

After about two hours of calming down from the initial "first day jitters" and watching the (lacking) workflow of the place, I picked up my stuff and walked out. Like legitimately walked out, didn't say bye to the other employee, just walked to my car and drove to Canes for a 3 piece finger combo with lemonade. And that's what being an adult is about, being sure in your choices. I didn't have to ask my parents what I should do and hear a tone-deaf response of "that's the real world for you!" I didn't have to explain to anyone my choice, because it was all on me, I was going to face the consequences, good or bad. Yes I still need money, but I ended up just picking up more shifts at my main job. And that's another choice I made. Just like grabbing a snack on my way home as a reward for putting up with one of the most uncomfortable situations of my life was also a choice. And that's what I'm finding adulthood is, a series of choices that just lead you to where you are, and you can change them at any given moment. No one's there to hold your hand anymore, but no one's there to criticize your choices either.

#and I realize how juvenile this all sounds but honestly it's something I've been thinking about a lot #we think our experiences are different from generations before us #but we're all main characters of a coming of age storyline and it always has the same plot points

[destinyesque]

Roads

by Sam Lastname

Cassandra crashed our car in Kansas, a few miles down the road from the World's Largest Ball of Twine. She said it was an accident. I'm not convinced she didn't do it on purpose. I suppose how it happened doesn't really matter.

We ended up on the side of the road, the car miraculously right-side-up after it had swerved past the shoulder and rolled end-over-end once before settling. Neither of us had cell phones on us, and neither of us were in any condition to go seeking out the nearest gas station to call nine-one-one; someone else would do it for us eventually, anyway.

Cassandra was barely hurt at all, and I had hit my head on the dash only hard enough to make my brain jitter. I think I blacked out for a while, and the first thing I remember after the crash was her laughter filling the car like carbonated bubbles. On either side, the car doors had been dented, our little metal hovel almost destroyed in a single soda-can crunch. It was kind of funny, really. Or maybe that was the concussion talking.

I asked her how the hell she'd managed to fuck up highway driving on a mostly empty road with a mostly new sedan. She smiled at me and shrugged, and I remember thinking I wanted to kiss her. She'd been distracted, she said. She had drifted out of her lane and could do little more than panic. As if. She had years of driving experience under her belt, and I’m sure she could’ve driven these roads with her eyes closed and one hand behind her back.

At least it was like an adventure, she'd said. In the middle of our bleak, endless lives, a burst of sound and color, like a fuse lit too close to a firecracker—painful, but exhilarating. We could look back on the story fondly, maybe. Get some laughs at a party. She was wearing that kind of lopsided smile that I see in my head whenever I think of her. I remember agreeing with everything she'd said, out of disorientation if not understanding.

She kept on talking despite a busted lip, and it was probably the concussion that made me unclick my own seatbelt and lean over the center console and unclick her seatbelt too, even though it took a few tries, and it was probably the concussion that made me ask her, "can I kiss you?" and it was surely shock that made her say "yes" and put her hands on my cheeks and pull me in, and it might have been adrenaline that had us tilting back her seat and I wouldn’t have recognized the man who wasn't even embarrassed when the EMTs found him leaning over her, half in her lap, blood on both our lips, but it was definitely Cassandra that laughed and told them to fuck off before letting them wrangle her into the ambulance and drive us to the hospital.

Yeah, she said when we were both laid up in hospital beds, waiting on nightfall. Yeah, this is a pretty good story. One for the ages. (I remembered that part, "for the ages", because it was such an odd, so-very-Cassandra thing to say.)

I think both of us were loopy from medication because we weren't even really bothered by the knowledge that we'd be in completely different cities in the morning, and that we wouldn't see each other for months, probably. That neither of us would be telling anyone stories anytime soon. Or, maybe she would, but no one would remember her. Or me. Either of us.

 Here's how this whole thing worked: I awoke in a hotel bed in a highway town, the quiet hum of wheels-on-asphalt in my ears. I checked the time, opened the window. Unless there was snow outside, I had no idea where I was. I walked to the diner (there was always a diner—this is America, after all). The menu was usually the same, and I usually ordered the same thing: two pancakes, two eggs, and just water, please. The waiters were different in each town—I hardly ever talked to them, but it was nice anyway. I didn’t bother remembering their faces, because I'd be hundreds of miles away tomorrow morning. I ate. I paid with the money in my pants pocket (always seventeen dollars, every day). I left. I took a walk, just to see if there was anything interesting nearby. There usually wasn’t, of course, but it didn’t hurt to try. At the very least, I could find a corner store or a gas station. I'd buy dinner there later. I spent the day in the hotel room or outside, by a Wendy's parking lot. Usually, I just read, if I could find a book anywhere. I got real familiar with hotel Bibles; it’s not as if I had anything better to do. I ate dinner and went to sleep. Every night, at exactly midnight, I would be flung into a new town, an identical hotel room. Whether or not I had been asleep by then, I wouldn’t remember anything else until I woke up the next morning to repeat everything the next day in a different state. I lived an odd sort of Groundhog Day. So it goes, or whatever.

 Cassandra and I met in Tennessee. Or, she’d seen me in Kansas weeks earlier and we introduced ourselves in Tennessee. I was eating breakfast at a diner, same as every other day in every other town. She sat right down in the chair across from me—this plain, gangly girl with dark hair thick enough to be called a mane—and said she saw me the day I woke up in a tiny town called Grainfield. She couldn't have, because I didn't know anyone. She insisted, though, and even though I left her alone in the diner that day, chewing on strips of bacon she had stolen from my plate, I remembered her face.

 It was three months before I saw her again, in Ohio this time. I was sitting on a bench outside that day's hotel, reading a trashy thriller, when she stepped out of the lobby, stretching her arms so that a tiny strip of skin peeked out from under her shirt. Her hair was shorter. It took me a moment to place her in my memory, the handful of sentences we’d exchanged bubbling to the surface. Before I could say anything, she caught my eye. Her face turned real smug, and I got an earful of I-told-you-so until she ran out of steam. We walked to the only restaurant that wasn't a chain and sat down in booths in the back. Neither of us trusted the other quite yet, but I didn't have anything to hide and she was content to tell me the basics.

Turned out, we were in similar situations. Different towns, different states, different hotel rooms, same problem. For her, it had been six months. She remembered what it was like before this life in a way that I didn't. She said she was going to get out. I remember laughing her off, and then hardly believing my ears when I realized she was serious.

She took me to the library, where she looked up curses and wormholes and maps of the country, like she could find some explanation for this endless loop. She wanted me to help, but I didn’t know how any of it was supposed to help either of us. Still, she was determined. I dozed off in an armchair for most of the day, and she put fruitless work into research. She’d learn, eventually, I figured.

The whole time, she talked to me about all her plans, what she’d been doing—because of the nature of this whole thing, she couldn’t keep books or notes or anything. They were just gone the next day, and we were left with the same items we started with that morning. Cassandra said she had a good memory, though, and it was almost impressive. She remembered all sorts of things from books she'd read before, like the names of demons used in medieval curses and the equations for how light bends around a heavy enough object. When the library closed at nine, Cassandra had twenty pages of notes on all sorts of things, and I was almost convinced they could be useful. Almost.

We walked back to the hotel and put up in her room for the night. Cassandra got to memorizing all the information on the pages and I turned on whatever bad TV was playing. I think I fell asleep, because I don't remember much of anything after the first episode of House Hunters.

I woke up in another hotel bedroom, a few states away, more afraid than I could remember being in a long time. I could do little more than hopelessly hope that Cassandra would get out, get what she wanted.

 I used to worry that no one would remember me. I didn't really remember anyone, and Cassandra hadn't always been around. I remembered the tar-black road and I remembered a whole lot of towns that blurred together into one, and I remembered ground and sky that met together in a straight line in the middle. Living like this felt a whole lot like shining a lantern in the dark, because I could see where I was, right here, and I could see a few feet behind me and a few feet ahead, but I couldn't situate any of it within a larger whole. I didn’t know much about the before. I thought I had a sibling, maybe. Younger. And parents, maybe friends. There wasn’t a lot more than that. I might’ve been forgetting more and more as time went on, but, hell, I couldn’t even remember enough to know if that was true. Soon, I was sure I’d be left with just this. Just, you know, asphalt.

People don't realize just how much of this country is flat. All the land west of the Appalachians and east of the Rockies is empty brown field, like God drew the highways in but forgot to furnish the rest. As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between Iowa and Arkansas is temperature. Most of the people—most of the culture in this country is concentrated on either coast, so much so that they forget there's anything at all between New York and California. Flat, empty America is most of America, at least by landmass. And even where the smooth skin of this that land is marred with mountains and valleys, I could always count on the highways being the same.

 I tried to kill myself in Arizona, once. This was a few years ago, I think, but things sort of got fuzzy at the edges after so much time within same-y hotel walls drenched in cigarette smoke and dirty linoleum tile and black ribbon roads. I was alone, and I didn't remember very much in either direction. I don't know if the problem was me or if it was the country. Probably a bit of both.

However it was, I'd had enough. I woke up in a desert town with the same fast-food places and chain motels and tired old roads as in Minnesota. If I saw another day scarred with all the cursed things that I already knew too well, I thought I wouldn't be able to take it.

There was a pharmacy a bit away from the hotel I woke up in. The lights buzzed in the ceiling when I walked in, and one of the employees told me to let them know if I needed any help. I won't explain the irony.

In the end, I bought a few bottles of painkillers and an orange soda. The cashier must have asked if I was alright, because I remember reassuring her that my sister was having cramps, and I remember her saying the soda would only make the imaginary sister feel worse. One of us laughed when I said the soda was for me, not her. She wished me well and I didn't think about anything else until I was back in my hotel bed, leaning against the headboard like an invalid.

I took the pills one-by-one and washed them down with the soda. Not much of that night is clear anymore. I felt bad, and everything was blurry, and I threw up in the toilet a few times. None of it was worth it, because I was still there, obviously, and this damn country didn't let me out of its grip. I don’t even know if death would’ve freed me, or if the afterlife is the same as this. An endless road, a journey that leads nowhere.

I woke up in another hotel bedroom, in Iowa this time, completely fine and unfortunately alive.  

 I tried to kill myself in Iowa, once. Then in Nevada. Then Alabama, Wisconsin, Illinois. I thought killing myself would be the hardest thing I’d ever do, but eventually the reality of everything sort of crystalized, and I began to understand that the hardest thing was to know I was alive, and to know I couldn't do anything about it.

 I’ve heard that all horror boils down to fear of the unknown. I don’t think that’s right. There was a sort of horror in familiarity, too. Because I lived out every day in a town I've never been to before and that I'd never return to again, to the point where each new town was as familiar as the last. I'd been all around, but things didn’t change a whole lot. Certain buildings just got copied over in every state, every town. Gas stations, fast food joints, and hotels were the big ones, but every diner was just about the same, and the houses were all built with identical DNA, and the roads were all shaped by the same hand of God. There was a sort of horror in knowing you could travel as far as you wanted, but you'd never escape all the things that framed your life. I wondered, sometimes, if there were other copies of me, scattered around like everything else; maybe a few details changed, but the same at their core. I didn't know if that scared me or comforted me.

 The second time I saw Cassandra, we had both ended up in a log cabin motel to one side of Route 41, a half-hour walk to Calumet, Michigan—quaint in comparison to the endless Motel 6’s and Holiday Inns. We were the only ones there, since I guess the owners closed down for the off-season. It was mid-autumn at that point. Not quite time for skiing, but not warm enough to otherwise justify visiting the Upper Peninsula.

The whole motel was dark and cold. I woke up around dawn, shivering, and tried to go back to sleep, but eventually I had to give in to the temperature and look around for more blankets or something.

I got up with the comforter around my shoulders, flicked the light switch on and off a few times to no effect, and wandered to the tiny hotel common room, which seemed to already be occupied by one Cassandra, cuddled up in blankets filched from a linen closet. She had a weak fire going in the fireplace already, an armchair pulled up as close as she could get, and an old book in hand, already halfway read. I called her name and she startled to life, swearing like a sailor. I think I laughed. She scolded me, sniffled, and huddled back into her seat.

Fancy seeing you here, I said, to what do I owe the pleasure?

She smacked me with her book. Things were the same as before, she told me, and she hadn’t had any luck with her escape plot (Yet. She was adamant that ‘yet’ was the operative word here). Still, she had an idea. Maybe, maybe if she drove far enough west, hit the coast, the edge of the world, maybe then she could break free. Maybe braving the road, all the way to the end, was the only way out. I believed her.

Not today though, she said. She had spent the last couple weeks up north for the most part, probably caught a cold at some point. If there had been a car in the deserted lot out front, she wouldn’t have felt up to driving anyway, especially not in this weather. Even now, a light snow drifted outside the window. Usually, they’re pretty good about plowing the roads this far north, but it couldn’t hurt to be safe.

Cassandra wasn’t feeling up to finding food, content to hang out in her blanket nest as long as the cold (both the sickness and the temperature) remained. I scrounged up some canned soup and instant coffee from a break room of sorts, found a deck of beat-up cards too. The plumbing seemed to be out, but between all ten-ish bathrooms in the place, I got enough water for a few cups of coffee. Couldn’t figure out how to turn on the power, though. Apologized to Cassandra for that. She teased me about it, I remember. Said I must not have been an engineer before I got stuck in the loop. I didn’t remember what I was before this whole thing; now that she brought it up, it bothered me in a way it hadn’t since… long enough ago that I didn’t remember that part, either.

The only card games either of us knew were Blackjack and Go Fish, but we made the best of it. The soup helped, too. As the day ticked into mid-afternoon, the snow only got thicker, and Cassandra and I got to talking. She had graduated college about a year ago, one of the state schools on the east coast, with a degree in mathematics. She loved embroidery, her family had a pet cat named Sourdough (because he looked like a loaf of bread), and her two twin sisters were about to enter undergrad. She grew up in a suburb, but she left because there was nothing to do there. Ended up driving west on her own, road-tripping to “find herself or whatever” (the derision is all hers). Got stuck in a dead-end highway town a week in, and it had been like this since.

I think she was expecting me to give her my own story, leaving home and finding myself out here in desolate middle-America, but my story didn’t extend much outside a couple weeks of same-old, same-old memories and a handful of moments that broke the years-long monotony, one of which she already knew, because she’d been part of it—it isn’t often that you meet a fellow victim of the American backroads. At least, not a victim in this particular way.

 (I didn’t it then, but I thought I had a sister.

 I thought I had loved someone, once.

 But I wasn’t even sure of that.)

 I think she was sorry for me. Even though she was stuck in the same goddamn situation, the same goddamn highway towns every day, she still had it in her to feel pity. I guess she thought I was further gone even than she was. Which was probably true. I was forgetting more and more every day, the lights illuminating my past and future flicking out and dark nothing approaching on either side. She said she’d been forgetting things too, but not nearly as much. It scared me. I remembered a time before her, but I still couldn’t imagine a time after her, if I forgot her, too.

She must have noticed I was afraid, because she put her hand on my arm and reassured me that we’d meet again. When you wake up tomorrow, drive to Beloit, Kansas, she said. It was pretty damn close to the center of the country. No matter where we ended up, that would be our best shot to find each other before we were disappeared away to the next town, she said. We would be alright, she said.

 The next morning, I carjacked a pickup in Kentucky and overheated the engine trying to reach Beloit. I didn’t make it, but I kept trying. Some days, I’d start close enough to get there, but she wouldn’t. Some days, it was the opposite. Still, every now and again, both of us made it. Cassandra still wanted to hit the west coast eventually, but Beloit was nearly a full day’s drive away from any kind of ocean. Mostly, when we were together, we kind of just hung out, got food, tried to figure out what there was to do in a town of less than three thousand. It was one of those days, after we visited the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, that Cassandra flipped the car over on the highway. I liked those days. I was the closest I’d ever been to being happy that I could remember. Beloit didn’t change everything. Both of us were still mostly stuck in middle-America hotel purgatory. Most days, I still didn’t want to do much more than lay down and die, and I was still forgetting things. Cassandra had to remind me several times about how we first met. But if nothing else, it was an improvement.

 I was in New Mexico, before I met Cassandra, at another one of those lonely hotels. The empty ones, with a few cars inexplicably out front. There wasn't much of anything else for miles, so I took one of the cars and picked a direction. This was a long time ago. I think I was still trying to get out of the loop back then, but the memory has faded edges, so I don't know for sure. I remember turning onto the highway around nine in the morning and thinking that I wouldn't turn off until the car stalled out or I drove off the end of the earth. I didn't see much of anything the whole time I was on the road. Just one long line of asphalt, threading beneath my car like God was pulling it past me from the other end. I remember the sky was big and blue and everything beneath it glowed orange with the sunlight, as if in protest.

I made a game of counting cars, but I only got to ten or so before several hours had passed and I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere. Maybe the road had stretched out beneath my tires, so that every mile on the speedometer was really only an inch. Or maybe I was moving at seventy miles per hour, but the land was just a lot bigger than I had imagined. Like I said, people forget how much of this country is flat.

I kept going and going, and every hour or so, I'd drive past an exit sign advertising a gas station, or a fast-food brand "only 0.2 miles on the next right!" but I didn't stop for anything. I didn't eat, didn't drink, and the fuel tank never went below half-full. All I could do was keep mindlessly driving onward, so I didn't do anything but.

I watched the big blue sky turn pink and orange and red, and then deep blue and black and speckled with stars just as cold as the couple other headlights I passed. The car's dashboard clock was off by a few hours at least, so I didn't know what time it was except by guessing. I kept going in the dark, without streetlights or anything. Eventually, I flicked off my headlights and just kept going straight. Not out of confidence or anything. I guess I just did it because I was bored. Maybe I thought I could hide from my affliction. I don't know. With the dark and the hum of the engine and gentle jitter of the suspension, it was almost peaceful. I took my hands off the wheel. The car might have veered off the road, tires bumping over sand and dirt rather than asphalt. It was hard to tell the difference. Either way, that was probably the furthest I got from the highway in a long time. I still woke up the next morning in a neat, white-sheet hotel bed.

  The last time I met Cassandra, we were in Montana. It was winter, and rubber-stained snow was piled in dunes on either side of the road. I hadn’t even started in the same town as her that morning. She drove in with a car I didn't recognize and we stumbled across each other in a gas station. She was counting out singles to figure out how to pay for both gas and a drink, and I was wandering the town looking for something better to eat than chips and gum. Neither endeavor was going particularly well, so I remember she lit up when she saw me out of the corner of her eye as I pushed through the front door.

Her eyes were red and her hair was out of sorts, but her cold-cracked grin was bright as ever. Or maybe I was just imagining that part. I lent her some of my cash to pay for everything and then some.

As it turned out, she had picked up an SUV that morning and was beelining her way west. She wanted to hit the coast before midnight, she said, if she didn't spin out on the icy roads first. It wasn't even a question that I was going to climb into her passenger seat and ride along with her.

We had just made it out of Idaho by the time it started to get dark. It was just after five, according to the clock in the car—winter this far north was like that. Cassandra more-or-less had the major American highways memorized, but she still had me navigate with a huge fold-out map we bought in Spokane.

We stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru for dinner and Cassandra moved to the passenger side. She didn’t like driving in the dark much, but I didn’t mind it. She was supposed to be navigating, but she fell asleep not twenty minutes after we got going again. It was the kind of sleep that isn’t quite ‘sleep’, per se, but more a fitful doze. She kept humming unhappily and shifting around. At one point, her head slipped out of her hand and hit the window with a solid crack. She groaned and blinked blearily. When I asked if she was okay, she didn’t answer and just went back to sleep. I kept my eyes on the road, but it was hard not to look at Cassandra, at least a little. In the daylight, she had seemed the same as she always was; stubborn, determined, bright. But in the growing dark, the shadows on her face illuminated an exhaustion I hadn’t noticed. It was like gazing into a mirror. She looked like me. Hollow. Tired. If this wasn’t her last shot at freedom, she was at least pretty close to hitting her limit. I didn’t wake her, but I didn’t stop, either.

The coast came up suddenly. It was dark. There weren’t any sea birds still around this deep into winter. The burning cold far overwhelmed the saltwater smell. By the time I had left the highway and hit the end of a tiny beach road, our clock showed eleven thirty-eight. We had made it.

Cassandra woke up as soon as I parked, staring blankly at the rolling waves some fifty feet ahead of us. She didn’t say anything, just pushed open her door and stepped into the sand and the biting wind. I followed.

Without streetlights or electric anything nearby, I could hardly see anything, but the steady murmur of the waves was more than enough to guide me. Ahead of me, Cassandra stopped. Took her boots off. Dug her feet into the sand just before the edge of the water. She looked at me and I looked back. Breathed in deep. Held it. I took her hand.

In step, we walked into the ocean, cold wind and cold water gnawing at our skin.

Well, we’re here, she said. I nodded.

Thank you, I said.

It’s late, she said.

I know, I said.

One way or another, she said, I’m not going back.

Good, I said. Me neither.

In the water, my legs began to sting. The cold and the dark worked their way through my clothes and into my skin. Minutes ticked on. I don’t know how many. Eventually, we came out of the water, put our boots back on, and watched the clouds skitter across a half-full moon.

#my successful application to my school's creative writing honors thesis program

[shakespeareanwannabe]

One Hell of a Year: September

Summary: When Molly Henderson makes the move from Chicago to Lockhart, Texas, she doesn’t expect much. A new teaching job, a new community, and maybe a few new friends, but what she didn’t expect was to meet Michael Perry, a man with a heart of gold, October eyes, and a smile that made her tummy do a strange little flip-flop. With Michael by her side, Molly finds that she may just be able to not only find a life in Lockhart, but thrive there as well.

Warnings: swearing, yearning, anxiety

Disclaimer: Won’t Back Down and it’s character Michael Perry do not belong to me.

Divider provided by @firefly-graphics

Molly looked up at the sound of a knock on her door.

“I figured you’d be a morning teacher,” Michael joked as he gently shouldered the door open.

Molly sighed. “I think I’m an ‘all hours of the day’ teacher. I’ll do whatever it takes to limit what I have to take home with me.”

Michael nodded understandingly. “You couldn’t have had to do much prep this morning, right? It’s the first day.”

She shrugged shyly. “No, it was more of a…nervous thing. If I sat at home, I’d be counting the minutes until I could leave to come here. So, I figured I would come here and torture myself with listening to the ticking of the clock.”

Michael pulled one of the student’s chairs closer to her desk and flipped it around, straddling it as he held out a cup of coffee.

“Well, this was supposed to be a first day gift, but I guess now it’s a ‘don’t worry, they’re going to love you’ gift.”

Molly eagerly took the proffered paper cup and took a sniff. “You’re an angel, Mr. Perry,” she sighed, taking a sip of coffee to hide her smile at the way he rubbed his neck and broke eye contact at her words.

“I, uh, I didn’t know how you take it, so I just left it black. But,” he dug into his pockets. “I grabbed some sugar packets if you want. And I can run and get some milk from the staff room if you want it. I—”

“Michael,” she called softly, reaching out to grab his hand as he tried to stand up. “This is perfect. Thank you, it was really sweet of you to think of me.”

“Oh…” Michael grinned shyly. “You��re welcome.” He resettled in his chair and sipped at his own coffee. “So, why the first day nerves?”

She shrugged and settled back into her chair, sipping thoughtfully at her coffee. “I mean, why does anyone get first day jitters? New kids, new school, new city. I read the notes that their teacher from last year left about my class, and I’m about as prepared as I can be, but anything could have changed over the summer, y’know?”

Michael nodded. “I get that. But you built a bright, colourful, and comfortable classroom for them. You’re smart and friendly and caring, and kids know how to sense that kind of thing.”

Molly felt her face heat up. “Yeah, but—”

“Nope. No ‘buts’. You’re going to kick ass this year, I can already tell,” Michael winked.

Molly giggled. “How are you so confident?”

Michael chuckled. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I’m the weird male teacher across the hall who plays ukulele and makes up songs to help my students succeed. If I wasn’t confident, none of that stuff would work on them. I believe in it, so they believe in it. You –” he reached out and squeezed her forearm, leaving tingles in his wake. “You just have to believe in yourself and all the stuff that makes you an awesome teacher. The kids will lap it up and fall in love with you. Trust me.”

Molly felt her face heat up, a pattern she was beginning to recognize whenever she was in Michael’s presence.

“Thank you, Michael. That…that means a lot.”

Michael smiled warmly at her, and she felt herself melt even further. The walls she had built around herself were slowly becoming obsolete, and it was all because of the kind man in front of her. Still, she tried to steel the last of her nerves against him. She wouldn’t let herself go down this path. Not again.

She tempered her smile and gently pulled her arm away from him under the guise of reaching for her coffee.

“Thank you again for this. And for all your help in setting up this place.”

He nodded, seeming to understand the invisible boundary he had stepped over. “No problem. I’m happy to help. Remember, I’m just across the hall if you need any help.”

“Thanks, but…” she trailed off as her eyes caught on the large round clock above the door. “Shit!”

Michael jumped. “What?”

“God, I’m so sorry. I forgot that I signed up for morning duty every day, and it’s about to start. I’ve gotta…” she let herself trail off as she leaped out of her seat, trying desperately to straighten the pretty floral dress she had chosen for her first day, steady herself on the low heels she had jammed her feet into, and chug the rest of her coffee.

“Hey, hey, easy, tiger!” She gratefully grabbed Michael’s hand to steady herself as she changed her heels into her outdoor shoes. “Just breathe, okay, Molly?” She took a moment to match her breathing to his and ignore the heat of his hand in hers. “You good?”

She nodded gratefully. “Thank you. I just…”

“Don’t want to mess this up?” he finished helpfully. “You won’t. All the teachers cover the morning duty on the first day, so the kids are not unsupervised right now, and you’re not even late. So, take another deep breath, take another sip of coffee, and let’s get out there.”

Michael waited as she followed his instructions, then followed him out of the classroom and into the outdoor courtyard.

Outside was bustling with the typical hubbub of the first day. Anxious first graders clung to their parents, older students were laughing with friends they hadn’t seen since June, and parents were crowded around the class lists, shouting out to their kids who their teacher for the year would be.

“Mr. Perry! Mr. Perry!”

Michael smiled in the direction of the smiling kids and gave Molly a reassuring nudge.

“You’ve got this, teach,” he whispered before heading in the kids’ direction, a broad smile lighting up his face.

Molly straightened her spine, pasted on her warmest smile, and stepped out into the bright sunlight of the courtyard. “I got this,” she whispered to herself.

There was something to be said about the first day of school.

Molly’s class of 30 fourth graders had settled in spectacularly to the school routine so far, even going so far as to help her work the intercom system to submit her attendance, which she would have forgotten all about if it hadn’t been for a sweet girl named Madison reminding her.

The classroom rules had been decided upon, ice breaker games were played, and Molly had read them a book about first day jitters, ending with them all drinking their ‘jitter juice’ (plain ginger ale mixed with grenadine and a hint of lime juice) and eating their ‘jitter beans’ (bubble gum flavoured jellybeans).

At their first recess, Molly had made a run for the bathroom and then the photocopier, realizing that she was two copies short of every activity she had planned. She had just bitten into her apple when the bell rang, signalling that the kids were coming back inside. Rather than move to the staff room, she had stayed in her classroom, chatting with the kids about their lunches and favourite foods.

While the kids worked on a journal entry about their summer vacation, Molly had begun setting the stage for her reading program, even going so far as to read a few short stories with some of the kids.

By the time she had finished reading with the third student, the bell was ringing for lunch, and Molly was exhausted, but a student named Henry requesting assistance with opening his thermos had kept her stuck to her seat. It wasn’t until the bell rang for recess that Molly decided to venture towards the staff room for the first time.

She was just turning about to reach for the doorknob when the door opened and she ran into a broad leather-clad back.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, Molly!” Michael chuckled nervously as he held her elbow steady and checked her over. “I swear, I don’t normally exit rooms back first.”

Molly waved her hand dismissively and brushed her hair out of her face. “Don’t worry about it, Michael. No harm, no foul. After all the yammering I’ve done, nobody could have blamed you for bumping me a little harder.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Don’t start with that, honey. I told you, I like the yammering. And I’d never hurt you.”

Molly’s heart thudded. She knew he didn’t know exactly what those words would mean to her, but they wiggled into her heart and made a home there quickly.

“Oh, um…thank you,” she stuttered.

Michael grinned shyly. “Don’t mention it. Are you on your way in?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured I should get in there and show my face before I get a reputation as the stuck-up new girl.”

Michael scoffed. “If anybody starts that rumor, send them to me and I’ll set them straight.”

“Oh, my hero,” she simpered playfully in return.

Michael smirked. “I wish you had joined us in there earlier. I’ve got outdoor duty right now, but I could’ve played your knight in shining armour if anyone got too mouthy.”

“Well, hopefully I’ll catch you next time,” she replied before she could overthink it.

Michael nodded, a sweet smile gracing his handsome features for a split second. “Hopefully.”

Molly watched him walk away down the hallway, whistling a little tune to himself as he made his way to the doors that led to the grassy field.

She moaned to herself and stomped her foot petulantly. It was just her luck to find a sweet, charming, handsome, seemingly single guy who was for all intents and purposes into her, and he worked across the hall.

“It’s not fair,” she whined quietly to herself.

“Ugh, I know right?”

Molly jumped a mile out of her skin as she turned, coming face to face with Lauren and Alex, both with shit-eating grins on their faces.

“Wh-wh…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled, turning into the staff room.

“Honey, I’ve been willing to get with that for each and every one of the five years I’ve known Michael,” Lauren huffed as she took a seat at a round table and kicked out the chair nearest Molly for her to sit. “My husband Ken knows Michael Perry is on my ‘List’.”

Alex dropped into the third chair at the table. “Hell, he’s on the ‘List’ of at least half the married women at this school, and at least five of the single women have admitted to wanting to sleep with him.”

“List? You mean…”

“The list of people you’re allowed to cheat on your spouse with,” Lauren filled in helpfully. “Ever since Michael Perry walked his fine ass into this establishment five years ago, he has had the attention of at least 80% of the female population. And clearly, that’s not counting the guys.”

“It doesn’t help that he’s so damn nice too,” Alex groaned. “Sweet, charming, and helpful. But he shows no interest in anyone until you waltz in here. Then, he’s smitten. What’s your secret?”

Molly tensed but shrugged. “I…I don’t have one.”

Lauren smacked Alex’s shoulder. “Give it a rest, man. You’re freaking her out.”

Alex sighed and turned to her; contriteness written all over his face. “Sorry, Molly. I shouldn’t be giving you this kind of shit when you’ve known me for, like, two days. But you’re a good person, and I think we’re gonna be good friends, so you just let me know when I can start giving you shit, okay?”

A giggle sputtered out of Molly before she could stop it. “You got it, Alex.”

Lauren smiled and bit into her salad. “Welcome to Jefferson, Molly. You’re gonna love it.”

“Well, well, well, look who we have here!” a voice sang quietly across the empty staff room. Molly looked up and smiled as Michael strode across the room and settled into the seat across from hers. “You on prep too?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, my kids are with Corinne Fischer for gym right now.”

“Well, that’s fortuitous,” Michael smiled, pulling his math textbook towards him. “Do they have gym every day at this time?”

Molly nodded with a smile. “Either gym or health or Spanish.”

Michael smiled back warmly. “Mine too. They’re with Senorita Rivera now.”

Molly rolled her eyes playfully. “You mean I have to share my prep time with you?”

Michael held his hands up in defense. “And here I was thinking you enjoyed my company.”

She shrugged. “It’s alright, I guess.”

Michael laughed deeply, the sound traveling straight to her heart. “Just alright? I’ll have to step up my game then.”

“You can try,” she teased before turning her attention back to the book in front of her.

“Is that more of that Shakespeare for Kids stuff?”

She nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah. Whoever had them last year did a good job with their reading levels. Most of them are right where they should be. So I think they should be able to handle something like Midsummer.”

“May I?”

Molly considered his outstretched hand before handing him the book, careful not to dislodge the multiple sticky notes sticking out of it. In return, she pulled the math textbook towards her, reading the notes he had made on the numeracy units. She grabbed a bright pink sticky note of her own and jotted down some of his ideas while also thinking about an activity or two that might help him out.

A comfortable silence fell over them, and Molly felt herself relax for the first time that day. As hard as she was trying to convince herself to keep Michael Perry at an arm’s length, she couldn’t deny the sweet peace she felt whenever she was with him. Even on a day as stressful as the first day of school, and even after having only known him for approximately two days, she felt calm with him. It felt good, and that terrified her. She had worked too hard, sacrificed too much to not focus on her job. A workplace romance with her cohort partner was just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, no matter how his sweet smile made her feel.

“You know,” Michael hummed thoughtfully, successfully distracting Molly from her depressing line of thought. “We do a biannual school play here, and I’m pretty sure this is the year for it. If you wanted, we could pitch the idea to Renata.”

Molly’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “Idea? You mean, getting the kids to perform Shakespeare?”

Michael shrugged. “Yeah, why not? We could make it a cross-curricular or integrated thing. Drama for the acting and the rehearsals, English for understanding the characters and the plot…” He met her gaze with a twinkle in his eyes, and Molly could almost forget what she had just been arguing with herself about.

Giving herself a shake, she took the proffered book back from Michael and leafed through the pages. She had always encouraged her kids to get dramatic with the writing, to see it in its true form of being a script, but they had always performed in the safety of the classroom, not as a school wide activity. However…

Slowly, Molly began nodding her head. “We could use visual arts periods to make backdrops and costumes. We could probably swing teaching some measurement while making those backdrops too. If we get greenlit early enough, everything would definitely be ready by end of the school year.” She chewed on her bottom lip anxiously, eyes racing over the page like a hound with a newly found scent.

“We could probably cut down on costs too by reusing old materials and making stuff ourselves,” Michael added helpfully.

Molly looked up and grinned at him. “You sure? It’s gonna be a lot of work.”

“Of course, I’m sure,” he replied, leaning a touch closer. “It might be hard, but it’ll also be a hell of a lot of fun.”

Molly was already nodding. “Then yes. Let’s do it!”

Michael and Molly had presented their proposal together to Renata, and she had promised to get back to them as soon as the school’s budget for the year had been finalized. Until then, life at Jefferson moved on and Molly slowly settled into her new routine.

She’d arrive at school early every day, giving her enough time to double check all her photocopies, prepare the calendar for the day, and answer any work emails that she needed to get to. By the time she was closing her email, Michael would be popping his head into her room, almost always bearing a cup of coffee for her. After finding out that Michael tended to skip breakfast because he woke up too late, and in exchange for the coffee, Molly started bringing muffins for them to munch on while they chatted about their nights and the day ahead. He’d walk her to the outside door for her morning duty, then disappear into his own classroom with a smile on his face.

At first recess, they would be too busy to chat or meet with each other, barring a quick smile and a quippy remark in the hallway when they passed by on their ways to and from the bathroom and copy room.

Molly started spending her whole lunch break in the staff room, and she swore it was not because Michael would spend his time there before heading outside for his recess duty. Though they always sat together, she insisted it was to help her make friends with the rest of the staff, which she had done, to an extent. Corinne Fischer, the gym teacher, and Laura Rivera, the Spanish teacher, were now two people she could consider her friends. And, of course, Lauren and Alex, who, true to his word, hadn’t mentioned a single thing about her non-relationship with Michael.

Second recess was spent just trying to catch her breath, and her prep periods were spent in the staff room with Michael, sometimes in companionable silence, sometimes helping each other with new strategies and ideas for teaching different concepts.

After school, Molly would make sure everything was ready for the next day, and she would always call goodbye to Michael as she left.

Overall, Molly loved her new routine. While some would call it boring, she loved it. She loved the stability of coming to her job every day while knowing that somehow, something wouldn’t go to plan. Predictable instability, she liked to call it. She loved her coworkers, she loved her friends, and she loved spending time with Michael, who was slowly but surely becoming her best friend.

“Pssst!” Michael hissed playfully as he snuck in through her cracked door, Molly waving him in from her slumped perch on her desk chair.

It was far later than either of them should have been at school, and yet, they were still there.

Meet the Teacher Night was a school wide tradition, and one that was not taken lightly by staff or students.

A few staff members brought their grills and cooked up a veritable feast of hot dogs and hamburgers that were donated by a local butcher shop for the event. Michael was a hit in his black “This is What an Awesome Teacher Looks Like” apron as he manned one of the grills, and Molly was relieved to find that her students’ parents were extremely pleased with how the month had gone.

Now, after suffering through 30 different classroom tours and talking to 27 different pairs of parents and legal guardians, Molly was too tired to move other than to wave Michael inside and beg him to close the door.

“I come bearing gifts,” he whispered as he laid two large slices of cake on her desk.

Molly nearly moaned at the sight. “Remember a few weeks ago when I called you an angel?” Michael nodded. “I was wrong. You’re actually a saint.”

Michael chuckled as he pulled one of the student chairs up to her desk and produced two plastic forks from his back pocket. “Well, don’t go canonizing me yet. I couldn’t get you any of the chocolate cake, so we’re stuck with the vanilla.”

In response, Molly scooped a large bite of cake into her mouth, frosting smearing across her lips. “All cake is good cake,” she mumbled around the bite, closing her eyes in bliss as she could feel the sugar soaking into her bloodstream.

Michael giggled and took a bite of his own, moaning at the taste. “Oh god, this is the best cake I’ve ever eaten.”

Molly opened her eyes and matched his giggle. “You’ve, uh, kinda missed your mouth there, Mr. Perry.”

Michael opened his eyes and flushed. “Oh, um…” he tried wiping his cheek but only succeeded in smearing the blue frosting even more.

“Here, I’ve got it.” Hesitating for only a beat, Molly wet her thumb with her tongue and rubbed his face clean of the frosting.

“Thanks,” Michael murmured, meeting her gaze hesitantly.

Molly, taken aback by how he suddenly seemed so close, pulled away slightly and giggled nervously. “Don’t mention it.”

“Um, well, I wouldn’t but…” Michael pointed to her lips. “You’ve got some right there.” Hand stuttering in midair, Michael reached out and brushed the frosting from her lip. “There.”

Molly’s breath stopped, her heart suspended in some sort of limbo.

He was so close. And not because she had accidentally invaded his personal space, but because he had chosen to be there. He was so close she could almost count the flecks of gold that made those warm brown eyes of his so soothing, and she could definitely smell his aftershave through the smoky scent of the barbecue that lingered around him. He was so close and he seemed to be moving closer, his nose rubbing against hers as his eyes searched for something in her gaze. It felt like they were sharing one breath, the oxygen not having time to escape from the space between them. Molly felt her eyes flutter closed as his forehead leaned against hers.

Forehead to forehead is holy forehead’s kiss. She shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d spent the better part of a month going through every reason that this was a very bad idea, but in that moment, in that shared breath, she didn’t care.

Her eyes fluttered open again and met his warm autumn gaze, feeling the heat rise in her as he stared back into her soul, nose brushing hers again.

“Molly, I…”

The sound snapped her out of it and back into her chair, which she had been precariously leaning out of.

Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I must’ve been reading the signals wrong. I’m really sorry.”

Something shrunk inside her as he stood to leave, a dark, sucking feeling that seemed to absorb all the lightness she felt in his presence.

“Michael, wait!” she bolted to her feet and lightly touched his arm. “You…you don’t have to be sorry,” she whispered to his back. “You’re not misreading the signs, I just…” she folded her arms across her chest protectively and avoided his eyes as he turned around. “It hasn’t been the easiest couple of years for me, relationship wise,” she mumbled.

She heard him sigh and nearly bit through her lip when he placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“I get that, trust me,” he reassured. “But I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I really like you, and…if you were to ever want to give this a shot…” he allowed his words to drift off as she lifted her head and met his gaze dead on.

“I’d really like that, Michael,” she admitted softly, a sweet smile on her face. “Just…give me time, okay?”

He nodded with a bright smile. “Sure, honey. Whatever you need, I swear.”

“Thank you for understanding. I—”

A quick knock turned their attention to Renata standing, framed by the doorway.

“Oh good, you’re both here,” she said, smiling. “I just heard back from the district, and our budget has been set. There’s enough in there for your school play, if that’s something you still want to do.”

The two teachers smiled brightly at each other, hope shining in their eyes, as they turned towards the principal and nodded.

There was a lot they wanted to do together, and the school play was just the beginning.

Tags List: @budcooper, @wasicskosgirl, @aellynera​, @beenthroughalot, @itspdameronthings

#michael perry #michael perry imagine #michael perry x molly henderson #wont back down fic #wont back down #one hell of a year fic #oscar issac #oscar isaac characters

[the-lincyclopedia]

10 fic tag game!

Rules: Pick ten of your fics, scroll to somewhere in the middle, pick a chunk of lines, and share it! Then tag ten people, if you’d like. 

Thanks for the tag, @khashanakalashtar! I tag @cricketnationrise, @the-knights-who-say-book, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @doggernaut, @birlcholtz, @weneedtotalkaboutfic, @parvuls, @dexsbruins, @hoeratius, and @worldsentwined. 

Unlike Kieran, who did a spread of years’ worth of fic, I exclusively used fics from the past four months, because I’ve been posting a LOT of (mostly very short) fics lately. This covers three fandoms, namely The Queen’s Thief, Check Please, and Boyfriend Material. 

The Unlikely Friendship between the King of Attolia and his Favorite Guard - The Queen’s Thief, 2.5k, outsider POV on Gen & Costis, rated T, December 2022

After several seconds of silence, the king reaches out his right arm until his hook is right in front of me. “Touch it,” he says, and, though his voice is gentle, I recognize this as an order from my sovereign.

It’s not just the point of the hook that’s sharp, it turns out. The entire edge is essentially a razor. “You killed the assassins,” I say.

The king nods and then sighs. “I wish people had a little less trouble believing that.”

“Do you?” Ormentiedes asks. “Would you wish to be seen as just as bloodthirsty as the queen?”

Attolis sighs again. “No, admittedly not.”

When Lucia Day Dawns - Check Please, 1k, Louis character study, rated T, December 2022

Honestly, the details of this concert had eaten Lukas’s free time all semester, and he was pretty sure by now that he’d made a terrible mistake and should have just given a recital.

And then he played his pitch pipe and the choir started singing.

“Sankta Lucia” was such a classic Lucia song that Lukas had heard it a million times, but somehow his tiny, mostly American choir managed to bring out something new in it. “Lusse lella” and “Staffan stalledräng” were just fun little ditties, nothing profound, but they gave Lukas—and, seemingly, the rest of the choir—a jolt of energy and fun and wakefulness that they needed right at the beginning of the concert. “Ett barn är fött på denna dag,” “Hosianna Davids son,” and “Dotter Sion” soared in exactly the right ways, the harmonies locking in perfectly.

had the shiniest wheels (now they’re rusting) - Check Please, 769 words, Jack & Shitty, rated T, December 2022

Jack gave a quiet snort but didn’t smile. “I just—I’m worried that I’ll never again be as impressive as I was when I was a suicidal teenager. And I’m worried that I only did as well as I did back then because I was a suicidal teenager.”

Shitty decided that this conversation was probably better had in private, so he squeezed past Jack, into Jack’s room, and sat down on Jack’s bed. “What kind of bullshit logic got you to that conclusion?”

Jack closed the door and sat down next to Shitty. “I don’t think it’s bullshit logic. Back when I wanted to kill myself, I was willing to take risks that I’m not willing to take anymore, both with plays and with my body, with training. It paid off.”

“Yeah, in the short term,” Shitty broke in, even though it didn’t seem like Jack was done. “You know you can’t build a lasting career on treating your body like that. You’re smarter now, more strategic. That’s a good thing.”

First Date Jitters - The Queen’s Thief, 871 words, Costis/Kamet, rated T, November 2022

“Yes, it’s okay that you’re paying,” Kamet said. “I’m sorry for not answering that question earlier. It was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. And you just used the word ‘unilateral,’ so I refuse to believe you’re too dumb to be anything other than a jock.”

Costis shrugged. “I just have smart friends. It rubs off on me occasionally.”

“I think that counts. Or do you think knowledge only counts as knowledge when it springs directly into your brain without any interaction with anyone else?”

this love is difficult (but it’s real) - The Queen’s Thief, 3.7k, Costis/Kamet, rated T, October 2022

Gen grimaced. “I’m sorry. That sucks. Is this because of Costis, or is it because of . . . you know, him?”

Kamet scowled. “It’s because of Nahuseresh. But like—how am I ever supposed to trust anyone again? Especially when I have no recourse if something goes wrong. It’s not like anyone would believe me if I tried to report abuse.”

“I would believe you,” Gen said immediately. “Even if it were Costis.”

“Yeah, but what good would that do?”

“You know I got Sejanus Erondites expelled last year, right? I have my ways, and I’d help you. I promise.”

Five Times People Thought Irene and Helen Were Dating and One Time Everyone Knew They Weren’t - The Queen’s Thief, 3.4k, Irene & Helen, rated T, October 2022

When Helen exited the classroom, she turned to Irene and said, “So, everyone thought you were breaking up with me just now.”

“What?” said Irene, standing up. “But—what?”

Helen laughed and rolled her eyes. “Think about what you said when you stuck your head in the classroom.”

Irene frowned. “I just told you that I was done meeting about my group project.”

“Sure, I knew that’s what you meant,” Helen allowed. “But what you actually said was, ‘Helen, we’re done.’”

every day i wake up and suspect that i was simply never cut out to be the kind of person they expect - Boyfriend Material, 1k, Luc/Oliver, rated T, October 2022

“When I was fourteen my mother told me that I never planned ahead,” Oliver says with barely any hesitation.

“What?” Luc demands. “That’s ridiculous! You plan everything! You phone ahead for dinner reservations and make bircher to eat for breakfast all week and always make sure you know what you’re going to say in court. How could she think you never planned ahead?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver replies. “Ever since she said that, every time I’ve found myself planning ahead for something, I’ve felt all confused, like, how can I be doing this thing that my mother says I don’t do?”

“That sounds deeply unpleasant to have to deal with,” Luc says, “but also, how did that not make you realize she was wrong?”

Lay All Your Love on Me - The Queen’s Thief, 14k, Gen/Irene and Helen/Sophos and lots of Gen & Helen & Irene & Sophos, rated T, October 2022

Eugenides shrugged. “Okay then. But I’m going to keep acting the way I act.”

Irene rubbed her forehead. “It would be so much better for all of us if you could just be more diplomatic.”

“You don’t have to bring me on tours,” Eugenides said. “I don’t have to be part of the band. You get a say in that. But you don’t get to control my behavior.”

“Gen,” said Helen, tone dangerous. “Surely there’s a difference between controlling you and asking you not to sabotage this thing that all of us are trying very hard to build.”

Welcome to Fandom - Boyfriend Material, 1.8k, Luc/Oliver, rated T, September 2022

Can I call you? Luc asked.

Well, that wasn’t what Oliver had expected. I’m on the Tube. Why? Is something wrong?

Nothing’s wrong, said Luc, and then: Actually, can I come over?

Lucien, you’re scaring me.

I’m sorry, Luc said. After the typing bubbles had appeared and disappeared intermittently for at least a full, anxiety-producing minute, there came: I’m not upset with you, no one is dying, and I don’t expect this to have any consequences for our relationship. Just file this under Shit About Luc That Lives On The Internet. I promise not to hide in the bathroom this time.

Care - Boyfriend Material, 2.6k, Luc/Oliver, rated G, September 2022

“I really would rather be there for you and wind up ill than do neither.”

“I’m . . . not familiar with that logic.”

“Let me guess—your parents confined you to your room when you were ill as a kid and spent as little time around you as possible to limit the chance of contagion?”

“Lucien, can you please not try to start an argument about my parents’ choices while I feel like my head is going to explode?”

“Sorry, baby. Can I come round after work?”

#a lin original #tag game #fanfiction #the queen's thief #queen's thief #tw suicide #abuse #check please #boyfriend material #eugenides #costis #lukas landmann #jack zimmermann #shitty knight #kamet #attolia irene #eddis helen #oliver blackwood #luc o'donnell #long post

[hipsdowrite]

yandere platonic teachers would react to reader accidently called them pops/dad (some tiny bonus : infront of the yanderes)

Twisted Wonderland

warning: yandere content, if you don’t like please don’t read!

first ask and first time writing for the teachers so bear with me 😔. when i finished writing this i realized it might not be exactly what you wanted so i’m sorry!

and idk which ones you wanted so im gonna go with the most popular 2 lol

crewel:

it would be the slip of the tongue let’s be real

like calling your teacher mom

you haven’t had any contact with family for a while. plus since everyone is a literal sociopath there, it isn’t hard to get attached to seemingly caring people

grim wasn’t really focusing on the potions experiment, leading you to do all the work

expect you needed magic—which you lacked

you complained to adeuce who also didn’t help as much

little did you know someone overheard

the next day, grim got detention from crewel, for some odd reason, and you had to do all the work yourself…again

but don’t worry! your lovely professor is there to help!

“alright then, pup, tell me what the next step is.” crewel walks over to stand behind the cauldron as you rack your brain for answers.

you place your hand on your chin, tapping your foot against the tile anxiously, “okay, so first you pour 2 liters of styx fluid on top of the pre-existing half-filled cauldron of water.”

crewel takes his time pouring in the specified liquid.

you take a step back, swinging back and forth. you glance at your teacher for some approval before continuing, “then you add 5 mushrooms…”

with your teacher following your instructions, you successfully completed your part of the project rip grim

you pump your fist into the air, “yes!”

crewel walks away from the cauldron to clean up some spillage on the floor from certain distractions.

you spin to face crewel excitedly, “thank you so much dad! you have no idea how much i appreciate it!” your face is red from excitement, ready to tell your best friends how you—a magicless human— were able to pass a class they were made for.

you lightly skip over to your desk for your belongings. there was almost a whistling tune in the air, gliding you through the stares arching from the front of the room.

swinging the brown satchel over your right shoulder, you feel good. you rush over to crewel hastily yet gently.

luckily, while you were being oblivious, the professor turned red at the title you labeled him as. thankfully, his precious pup didn’t notic-

“are you okay there?” you poke over his shoulder, almost too close for comfort, but being in a good mood made you unaware.

he coughs, straightening up, “yes, do not worry. it was just the potion’s heat affecting me.”

he turns to look down in your direction as you blink through his response.

from his stare you tilt your head down, “no but really. you have no idea how much that meant, i-“

before you could start venting your feelings, grim pops through the door.

“hey, [name]! cmon, or we’re gonna be late for the shopping deals! we need to get there before the last tuna cans run out!” he hops repeatedly on both back-paws, displaying nervous amounts of excitement.

you twirl towards him, forgetting almost everything that happened, “oh yeah! coming!” you speed walk towards the door in fear of lowering your good mood.

when the door shuts, your professor sits down upright. he takes a deep inhale. his hands can’t stop jittering.

his perfect pup called him dad! sure it may be a complete accident but then it was their natural instinct! they had to somehow consider him as their father.

you are so dependent on him. it sucks how grim couldn’t help you. if he isn’t even capable of being there for you physically, you just don’t have anyone to rely on then do you?

he flips over the crinkled page in his lesson book—the page of the potion you just worked on. he flips over to the page where the grades are displayed and gives you an ‘A+’, even though you got half of the ingredients wrong…

oh well, he’ll support his pup no matter what the cost!

crowley:

you were curious of his possible reaction

after all, he basically put you into his custody without consent (not like you could go anywhere else) and he has been conspicuously making slow progress for your way back home

honestly it seems like he hates you or is using you for some bigger scheme

ANWYAYS

after joking around with ace and deuce over crowley’s thoughts toward his students, they (ace and grim) thought it would be funny if you accidentally called him dad

lowkey their canon or even yandere relationship gives me maka and spirit vibes from soul eater

with your pride on the line, and general curiosity, you decided to confront crowley in his office with your group watching from the sidelines!

knock knock

“come in!” crowley’s voice wiggles through the crack of the two doors.

you close your eyes and inhale softly, then you pull the right door open towards you.

he doesn’t look at you immediately, but you felt his piercing gaze through his eyes. the mask always creeped you out, but being in his general presence freaking you out.

he continues to scribble on the documents on his desk, and as you start striding towards him, it seems his wrist flicks quicker.

neither of you say anything. you feel the stares of the three imbeciles crouching alongside the door you left open a crack.

when you stand right in front of the headmaster that’s when he finally relents, seeming as if he put himself through a mind game to not look at you.

you let go of that breath you took before walking into the room.

“do you need anything, [name]?” he intertwines his fingers to provide a platform to lay his head on.

you tense your slightly, “oh, well i thought it would be obvious…” you glance towards your comrades and see them flipping through a notebook. your eyes scrunch up at their requests before not relying on them again.

your eyes tilt back to crowley as he stares at you like a bird, “i wanted to see you!” you smile, raising your arms up for a hug.

he blinks. you continue.

“you seem so busy lately with headmaster duties and especially with the students here. i now understand your pain with dealing some stubborn students!” the chair beside you seems inviting. you cant recall if it was ever there; you take a seat.

“but seriously. it feels like you are one of the only people that sort of looks out for me. i do appreciate it dad.” you smile softly, looking down at your hands.

the notepad in deuce’s hands feels hollow.

rustle.

the three behind the door look down to see their notepad on the ground, accompanied by the stares of the two in the room.

your shoulders expand as your face becomes red; you remembered what you came here to do.

you face back towards crowley quickly, “anyways! i just wanted to say i love you! buh-bye!” you push back your seat harshly that it shrieks along the floor.

you turn to the three at the door and stomp towards them. you grab the cat’s tail, hoisting him up, and you grab the two human’s ears pulling them away from the door for the headmaster to see.

you face back at the old man, “i am so sorry.” with that you drag away your idiotic friends.

crowley smirks to himself with a single chuckle.

“well of course, because i am so gracious i would do anything for you.” his fingers twitch and crack against one another.

he turns over the document to reveal the dark mirror.

the notepad in the corner blows slightly, revealing the message ‘say you love him’.

his face turns to a light shade of red, seeing the new found knowledge.

who knew his suspicious little human subconsciously viewed him as a dad! it seems his delays have been going well in his favor. by the time the next overblot comes, the mirror shall be gone for good, replaced with another.

of course, he wouldn’t let precious baby be in so much danger; if it were up to him, he would get rid of those pesky mischievous students—they aren’t worth his human’s time!

but he has to thank them, with the help of those troublemakers, [name]’s strength of leaving whittles away faintly ever so often. they might not even want to go only because their bond was so strong!

crowley’s nails sharply tickle the edge of his chin.

oh, still! how it brings him much joy to know that you treasure him so dearly. soon, it will be one of the only things you treasure—if he allows it.

now, he has all the time in the world to listen to that sweet word: “dad”.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere #yandere twst #crowley x reader #crewel x reader #also thank you for being my first request cause it really helped me figure my stuff out with my writing

[maximons]

Lost And Found

Summary: It’s almost the big day, Wanda would soon be married to Vision, and her best friend Y/n would be right by her side. Everything was perfect. But what happens when Y/n goes missing?

Word Count: 6,019

Genre: Angst w/ Happy Ending

Requested?: Yes

Warnings: Mental breakdowns, mentions of deterioration, implied death

A/N: Hellooo! Here is the much requested Part 2 to Only The Best! I got carried away with this one and took it a little left, but I love it and I hope you guys do too. Also if you watch The Flash, I kinda stole a plotline...and if you don’t no I didn’t. Okay, Happy Reading!

1 | 2

Four Months Later

Wanda and Vision’s wedding was fast approaching, the date only about a month away, and the wedding plans were in full swing. They got their dream venue, she had her dream dress, everything was seemingly perfect. So why did Wanda feel so...weird?

She should be thrilled. She was marrying the man she loved, vowing to spend the rest of their lives by each others side. But instead of counting down the days in a good way, she’s been starting to dread it.

At first she chalked it up to pre-wedding jitters, but those usually happened at the last minute, right? Not starting pretty much the day after you got engaged. She couldn’t pinpoint why exactly she was feeling this way...all she knew was that you weren’t helping matters.

Don’t get her wrong, you’ve been an amazing maid of honor yes, of course she asked you, making sure everything went according to plan, and avoided any potential disasters before they happened. You’ve been her rock since the day she met you, and even more so now during one of the most important times in her life. The only problem she had with you...was your stupid relationship with Kara.

She had nothing against Kara as a person. You were unfortunately right, she was pretty cool and they got along well. She could also tell that you were happy with her, which is something she should be happy about but...wasn’t.

She knew she was being ridiculous. Maybe she didn’t wanna see her best friend be taken away from her? Yeah, that must be it. She didn’t want anyone to distract you from her. She wanted you to be by her side 24/7, with no one else except maybe Pietro gaining your attention.

And yeah, she knows that sounds incredibly selfish and toxic, but so what? It’s how she feels.

Wanda was currently hanging out in the lounge area of the compound, about to turn on the TV, hoping to drown herself in some sitcoms, when you sped in. Her hair blew with the breeze of your speed, but she didn’t even flinch, knowing it was you.

“Okay!” You started, as you looked down at the IPad in your hands. “So, I know the rehearsal dinner isn’t traditionally until the week of the wedding, but then I thought ‘who cares about traditional?’ Sooo I was thinking, what if we had it next week?” You finished your speech, plopping down on the couch next to the witch, who turned her head to look at you with wide eyes.

“Next week? That’s so soon, we don’t need more time to prepare?”

“Please, Wanda, when are you gonna learn to trust my awesome Maid of Honor skills?” Wanda chuckled at that. “A week is plenty of time. There’s this beautiful restaurant in the city. Upper East Side, not too far from the venue actually. Here.” You brought up the restaurants website and handed the pad to Wanda.

She began swiping through pictures, also taking a look at their menu. She was impressed with your find. It was beautiful, like you said, but also wasn’t too uppity or sophisticated, which she appreciated.

Because, as much as she loved Vis, he always had a more...finer taste. Something she could never keep up with.

“This is perfect, Y/n!”

“See? I told you!” You smiled as you took the pad back, standing up. “They’re pretty pricy, and there’s always a reservation list a mile long, but what good is having a Tony Stark around if we can’t use him for our gain?”

Wanda laughed, happiness filling her gaze at the thought of the dinner. “This is an amazing find, Y/n! Where’d you even hear of this place?”

“I took Kara there for her birthday last week. Had to make the reservation back in March, but it was worth is for sure!”

And there goes that happiness. 

Wanda’s gaze fell down to her lap for a moment, before she looked back up at you. That half smile that she got so used to having around you these last few months now planted on her face. “Who knew you were such a romantic?” 

“I know right?” You answered, not catching on to Wanda’s obvious change in mood. “So we’re set for it then?”

Wanda sighed, the idea of the restaurant now tainted with the knowledge of how you discovered it. Still, she couldn’t look you in the face and turn you down. Not when you’re wearing that annoyingly perfect dopey smile that you only got when you were excited. “Yeah, we’re set for it.”

“Yes!” You fist pumped, causing a small smile to appear on the witch’s face. “Alright, I’m gonna go talk to Tinman about it, then we can talk more details.” Before Wanda could respond you sped off.

She turned her attention back to the TV, slumping down on the couch. She pointed the remote back to the TV, intent on continuing her search, but paused.

“Ugh, now I need a drink.”

One Week Later

Everything was set in motion for the dinner. Everyone was invited, seating arrangements set, meals chosen. Another flawless stop on the ride to Wanda and Vision’s wedding.

Or it was, until you came to talk to her two days before.

“So you’re not gonna be there?” Wanda asked you, completely saddened by what you just told her.

“Trust me, I tried to get out of it.” You sighed, hating breaking bad news to Wanda. You never wanted to see her sad, especially not at your hands. “Steve is insistent though. Apparently HYDRA has been experimenting and trying to make more speedsters. Me and Piet are really the only ones who can handle it.”

“Why can’t Pietro just go?”

“Wandsss, you know that wouldn’t be right.” You teased, but Wanda wasn’t budging.

“Well then I’ll go with you!” She exclaimed happily, and you actually laughed at the suggestion, thinking she was joking. When she didn’t laugh, you realized she wasn’t.

“You can’t miss your own rehearsal dinner.” You put your hands on her shoulders, rubbing your thumbs gently in an effort to comfort her. She visibly relaxed at your touch. “Don’t worry, we’ll do our best to get it done quickly, but if we can’t, I told Nat everything she needs to know. She’ll take care of it.”

“But-”

“It’ll be okay, Wanda. Trust me. You won’t even notice I’m gone.” Wanda wanted to fight with you on that, her immediate thought being ‘I always notice when you’re gone’ You were her rock. You were with her every step of the way. She couldn’t do this without you.

She already felt as if she was losing you to Kara...she couldn’t bare not having you at the dinner. She just couldn’t. You were the most integral part of it to her.

She didn’t stop to wonder why she felt that way when it should be her fiancé that filled that role.

Before she could voice anything to you though, you both turned at the sound of Pietro’s voice.

“Alright, slowpoke. Wheels up in ten. You ready?” He walked in, dressed in his super suit, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “You aren’t even dressed yet?”

“It’ll take me like two seconds. I was just, oh I don’t know, telling your sister that we might not be at her rehearsal dinner.” You said sarcastically, causing the man to scratch the back of his neck.

“Yeah, sorry about that sestra. We’ll be at the wedding though, definitely!” Wanda acknowledged her brother with a nod, her attention turning back to you.

“You’re leaving right now?” She said, disappointment lacing her tone.

You gave her a sad smile. “Yeah, it was kind of a last minute thing.” You shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it. Just remember to have fun, okay? It’s gonna be great.” Wanda didn’t get the chance to respond before you gave her a sweet peck on the cheek and then running off, her brother not far behind you.

She lifted her hand to her cheek, feeling the ghost of your lips still on there.

“It’ll be great when you get back.”

Three Months Later

You didn’t come back.

Wanda still remembers the day of her rehearsal dinner, but not for the reasons one should. It would forever be burned into the back of her mind.

The night was going beautifully, everything Wanda could’ve dreamed of. You were right to trust Nat, she handled it like a pro. She was still missing your presence dearly, but she tried her best to push it to the back of her mind. She’s meant to be celebrating her relationship with Vis after all, what was she doing thinking of someone else?

Vision rose his glass he couldn’t drink but still had to play along, preparing to give the final toast of the evening. He never got the chance to speak up as loud commotion began to happen towards the entrance of the restaurant.

She recognized Pietro, from what she could see his suit was in taters, signaling a rough battle. He went to find Steve, spotting him quickly and sped over. There was hushed discussion between the two, her twin getting more and more hectic in his movements. Steve tried his best to calm him down, but she could tell he looked distraught as well.

It was then that she noticed. You weren’t with him.

She ignored the sinking feeling in her gut as much as she could, hoping she was wrong. That you would come through the doors only a second later. When you didn’t, Wanda stood.

“Pietro!” She shouted, causing the attention to fall on her. She didn’t care, focus entirely on her brother. “What’s going on?” She asked, more like demanded. The two men exchanged a glance, Steve nodding. Pietro turned to her, and she already knew by the look on his face.

“It’s Y/n...she’s...she vanished.”

Needless to say the night ended right after that.

Pietro later explained everything to them as best he could. They all knew your powers were an anomaly and different from his. While he obtained his speed from the mind stone, you were struck by lightning. Seemed simple enough, but your powers had progressed steadily, while Pietro remained at around the same speed for years.

HYDRA had been experimenting using what they called the ‘Speed Force’. Nobody really knew what it meant, but you had just learned that's how you got your powers. It was an interdimensional force that cracked through their reality, appearing in the form of the lightning bolt that struck you. You were connected to this force.

How HYDRA managed to learn of it, nevermind pull from it to use for experiments, no one knew.

The mission had been a trap, meant to lure you in to attempt to rip your speed from you to finish their tests. The lab rats had surrounded you both, overwhelming you quickly. What they didn’t account for however, was that having so many beings connected to this speed force using their speed at once would rip a whole in your dimension.

The only way to stop it was to close it in on itself. Sending all the people with the connection into that dimension.

That included you.

You sacrificed yourself to save the world. Wanda knew you didn’t hesitate to make that choice, that’s just who you were as a person. But she hated you for it. You left her behind, without so much as a goodbye.

Weeks went by and Wanda fell into a depression. She withdrew from everyone, including her fiancé. She was really struggling with this. Everyone was struggling, but not in the same way she was. She felt as though her heart had been ripped out.

With the wedding date rapidly approaching, Vision found it best to just postpone it until further notice.

Wanda knew Pietro had contacted Kara, informing her of the events and your disappearance. She couldn’t imagine what the girl was going through, but she couldn’t help but think it was worse for her. Yeah, you’ve been dating Kara for a few months now, but she’s known you for years. It didn’t compare.

She saw Kara come to your room in the compound to pick up her items. Her depressed features telling her everything she needed to know. She felt bad for making this a silent competition after that.

Bruce and Tony began researching the speed force as much as they could, even contacting Wakanda to see if Shuri knew of anything. It was a force that was outside mortal understanding, almost as if it were magic. Wanda had tried contacting Strange about it, but he didn’t know much of it either. It seemed hopeless.

Until one day Tony came into the compound living room with a weird looking gun. Something that looked like it was ripped from a Portal video game. Those were your favorite.

“We found a way we can get her back.” Tony had announced, and Wanda felt the most hopeful she had in years. Everyone followed the billionaire out into the outside training grounds, where there was more than enough room for this test. 

“Okay, so while we can’t access much about this place, what we learned from the HYDRA files suggests we can access it for short periods of time.” Bruce began.

“So, us big brains figured that if we can hone in on Y/n’s location somehow while accessing it, it should be able to be enough to find her and pull her out.” Tony continued.

“Thing is...we only have one shot.” Bruce finished. Wanda was ecstatic. You were coming home. This was gonna work, she knew it.

“What about the risks, doctor?” Vision piped up from beside her, causing her to glare up at her fiancé. Who cared about the risks? This is you we’re talking about.

Before she could speak up though, Tony did for her. “Everything has risks my young robo man. Family is worth it.” He began to prep the gun, but the android wasn’t finished yet.

“I understand that, sir, but my findings suggest that-” 

“Vis.” Wanda had enough and cut him off with a harsh tone. That was enough to get him to be quiet.

After a few more moments, the gun was ready to go. Tony was on the front lines, armor appearing on his body to protect himself. Everyone else was standing about ten feet back. “Alright kids, moment of truth. In three...two...” Tony fired the gun, a blue light shooting out, which led to a blue portal-esque whole opening in midair. Everyone stared at it, hoping to see you coming out of it, but nothing came.

Tony began to struggle with the ray, and he began to shout out. “We can’t keep this open forever! It’s becoming unstable!”

“Sir, I believe it would be best to shut it down!” Vision yelled over the commotion. Wanda didn’t even hesitate to counter him.

“No! Just give it a few more seconds!”

Vision turned to his fiancé with an incredulous look. “Darling, it’s becoming increasingly unstable! It’s not worth the risks!”

“Yes it is!” Wanda turned her attention back to the portal. “She’s more than worth it.” She said the last part quieter, but Vision still heard it.

Before they could continue their back and forth, a bright yellow burst of lightning zoomed out of the portal. It was so powerful that it blew all of them back slightly, causing Tony to release the trigger on the portal, closing it.

That didn’t seem to matter though, as everyone's attention landed on where the lightning blast led. There you were, standing about thirty feet away from them. Your suit looked to be destroyed, really only having enough to cover your private parts conveniently enough. You were glowing, and after affect of the lightning that you had just produced.

You picked your head up weakly, taking a look at the crowd of people in front of you. Wanda’s face lit up. You were back. You were really here.

However, before anyone got the chance to say anything, you passed out.

One Week Later

Much to everyone’s relief, you were very much alive and physically well. You woke up only a few hours after you had passed out.

But unfortunately, that was where the good news ended.

When you woke up, it was almost as if you were a blank slate. You were operating on complete autopilot, not talking or acknowledging anyone around you. It was scary if Wanda was being honest. It was even worse when she looked into your mind and saw...nothing.

You had always been a very expressive and vocal person. To see you become a literal shell of yourself was horrible.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

It was as if a light switch flipped in your brain, taking you from one extreme to the next. After about two days of you functioning like a zombie, you were all of a sudden thrusted into overdrive. You were speeding around the compound at a pace that no one had ever seen you move before, even when you were pushing it. You were mumbling to yourself constantly about nonsense no one understood, and you still didn’t acknowledge anyone in your presence. 

This time when Wanda looked into your head, your thoughts were going way too fast for her to be able to understand.

Pietro had tried to keep up with you several times to try and stop you, but it was no use. You had gotten faster than him over the years, but now it wasn’t even a competition. 

No one knew what to do.

Steve ended up getting lucky with a trick shot of his shield. It ricocheted off one of the walls and you just so happened to speed into its path, knocking you out.

This time, for your safety and everyone else’s, you were put in one of the compound’s secure cells until they could figure out how to fix you. The longer you had been like this, the less hopeful it seemed. Wanda was not at all a fan of the main theory that Bruce presented.

“The speed force seems to run outside of space and time as we know it. Given it’s nature, it’s not impossible to think that things move at a ridiculous pace there. Y/n was trapped in there for only three months to us, but for her...it could’ve been thousands of years. We could be looking at complete mental deterioration...She might be past the point of fixing.”

Wanda refused to give up hope. She didn’t give up hope that you’d return, and you did. So it only stands to reason that’ll you’ll become yourself again. You had to.

“Wanda?” The witch’s thoughts were interrupted by her fiancé, who phased into the room. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. She had no idea why, but Vision’s presence seems to be annoying her a lot these days.

“What’s up Vis?” She groaned as she sat up from the bed she was lying in. Your bed.

“I was wondering if we can chat for a moment.”

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice.” She sat up on the bed completely, patting the spot next to her haphazardly. The android took this as a sign, and sat beside her. The two sat in silence for a moment.

“I think it is obvious to both of us...that we were not the same as we once were.” Wanda looked up from her lap into her fiancé's eyes, surprised at what he was saying. She stayed silent. “I understand you are upset about Y/n, I am too, we all are.” There was the urge to roll her eyes again. “But...you’ve been pulling away from me exponentially. It’s almost as if we aren’t even friends at this point.”

“I’m sorry if it feels that way, Vis.” Wanda sighed. “I’m just very stressed right now. Y/n is my best friend...”

“And are you certain that’s all she is?” Wanda’s eyes widened at the question, but before she could say anything, Vision continued. “I know that you two were once...intimate-”

“That was one night almost two years ago. Before we even got together-”

“There is also the fact that you’ve gotten very upset any time Y/n mentioned her girlfriend.”

“I...I wasn’t upset, I just want the best for her-”

“Our wedding got postponed because of her disappearance-”

“Do you really think I’d get married while my best fucking friend was missing, Vision!?” Wanda was getting increasingly upset by this interrogation. Vision didn’t let this deter him though, as he delivered the final blow.

“You were also willing to let reality be ripped apart just so she’d return.” Wanda didn’t have an answer to this one. “That is not normal behavior for a best friend, Wanda. I think we both know that.”

She was stunned into silence as she mulled all of this over. “Um...”

“Guys!” Sam’s voice cut her off, and she silently thank him for it as she had nothing she could’ve said. “There’s a breakthrough with Y/n!” He ran down the hall, Wanda not even hesitating to follow. All thoughts from the conversation wiped from her brain, as her focus went entirely to you. Vision reluctantly followed behind.

When she made it to your holding cell, Bruce Nat and Tony were already surrounding it. She ran up to the glass to see you, still pacing around, this time at a normal human speed. The thing that was interesting though, was you were looking your teammates in the eye, something you haven’t done for as long as you’ve been awake.

“What’s going on?” She frantically asked, not tearing her eyes from you.

“She’s gaining awareness, which is definitely progress.” Bruce began. “The odd thing is, she seems to be going through some sort of trance. Whoever her focus is on she just remembers random past conversations she had with them.”

“As nostalgic as it is to hear what you first said to me, Speedy, a simple ‘hi’ would’ve sufficed.” Tony said as he stared at you as well. As weird as your behavior was, he was glad that you were starting to come back.

“What’s going on!?” Pietro’s voice was heard as he sped up to the group. “Is she back?”

Before anyone could answer, everyone noticed your attention turn to him. You smiled. “Let’s see what you got, wannabe.” The tone of your voice and what you said didn’t match. Pietro’s confusion became evident as he turned to look at Bruce.

“That’s what she said to me when we first fought each other... way back during Ultron.”

“Yeah, she’s reliving the greatest hits it looks like.” Natasha provided.

“Thanks for always having my back, Piet.” You started again, attention still on Pietro. “She’s happy, and that’s all that really matters.”

“Doctor, is there anyway to tell if this will fade? Progress into her living in the present?” Vision cut in, but before anyone could answer him, your attention was now on the android.

“Hey there, Robocop.” Everyone chuckled at the nickname, even Vision himself who had never been fond of it. “I don’t think that’s the right one. Too flashy.” Vision’s eyes widened slightly at the conversation you were remembering.

“Sir, I think we should-” He began to address Tony, but you still weren’t done.

“Keep it simple, okay? Don’t hire that string quartet, she’ll get overwhelmed. She always talked about how romantic the night was, how much she loves the stars.”

“What is she talking about?...” Wanda asked quietly as she heard you talk. She finally tore her gaze away from you and turned to her fiancé, face hardening slightly.

“I don’t-” Vision didn’t get the chance to finish before you cut him off.

“If she says yes, don’t let her go, okay? Wanda Maximoff is once in a lifetime.”

Wanda gasped as she pieced it all together. Vision’s proposal had been one of the best moments in their relationship, and it was really the only time where everything was just...perfect. It felt as though he knew her, he finally understood her. No moments like that have happened since, and she never really understood why his proposal was so different than his normal behaviors.

It’s because it wasn’t him...it was you.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me Y/n helped you with everything?” Wanda’s eyes began glowing red as she glared at the android, who had flinched slightly.

“I just...never thought it to be relevant.” That wasn’t entirely true. Vision knew. He knew how you felt about Wanda, and he had his suspicions that Wanda felt similar, even is she never admitted it to herself. If he revealed you helped him with something like that, he feared she would leave him and go running to you. So he took credit for it.

“You lying little-” 

“Hey, stranger.” Your voice cut Wanda off. She turned to look at you, and for the first time in months, you were looking back. Her red eyes dissipated as she walked closer to the glass separating you.

The smile you were giving her was different than the ones you gave the others. Softer, full of love and care. She doubted you were even aware of doing it, but the sight of that smile made her feel as though everything would be okay again.

“Y/n..” She whispered, almost as if she talked too loudly, you would disappear again.

“Someone’s got insomnia, huh?” Wanda chuckled as you recalled that night. It was one of the first conversations you had with her, you were both awake at 3 am. 

“You breaking up with me already?” Wanda sighed at that one. She couldn’t lie to herself and say that she hadn’t thought about that night several times over the last year or so. Even more so in the recent months. And now more than ever, she wondered if she made the right decision turning you down.

Everyone remained silent as you started going through more moments of your and Wanda’s relationship. 

“I’m happy for you, I really am.”

“Marriage is gonna look so good on you Maximoff, I know it.”

“Just remember to have fun, okay? It’s gonna be great.”

Wanda began to feel the tears escape her eyes and fall down her cheeks. She figured you were done as she remembered that was the last thing you had said to her. The last thing you said to her as yourself anyway. She took a deep breath and began to take a step back to ask Bruce a question, but you interrupted before she could.

“I don’t even know why I’m in love you, Maximoff. You’re a pain in my ass.”

Wanda’s eyebrows furrowed as she turned to look at you again. What you said had shocked her, but she was more concerned by the look you had on your face. Your sweet smile fell and you began to look distraught. Confused.

“Is that something she’s said to you before?” Bruce asked.

“No. No, never.” Wanda stared at you wide eyed at the confession, however you didn’t stop.

“Babe, don’t you think we should get some sleep? We got that big mission tomorrow.”

“The ring I picked out for Vision was always the ring I wanted to give you, but this one is definitely better...if you accept that is.”

“I don’t know, I kind of like Tommy better. Works both ways.”

You started going through these thoughts faster and faster, worry evident on everyone’s face.

“She...she might be saying things that haven’t happened yet.” Bruce concluded, astonished.

“So what, she can see the future now?” Tony asked. No one provided an answer as you kept going. The longer you went on, the harder it was to understand the words coming out of your mouth as you began to speak at superspeed. When you crouched over grabbing your head in pain, Wanda was finally snapped out of the trance you put her in.

“She’s in pain!” She panicked, watching your state getting worse. You fell to your knees briefly before getting up and speeding around your cell. “Help her!”

“Got it.” Nat said simply as she walked over to a control panel outside your cell door. “Sorry about this, Y/n.” She muttered as she hit a button. All of a sudden a screeching sound made its way to your ears. You stopped speeding and covered your ears, letting out a scream of pain. Only a moment later, you passed out again.

Everyone was too stunned to speak, the events that just happened incredibly hard to process. After a few moments of complete silence, the sound of heavy footsteps walking away caught their attention.

“Darling-”

“Not now, Vision. I need to think.” Wanda was out of the room before anyone else could utter a word.

Wanda cried herself to sleep that night in your bed.

Two Weeks Later

You showed no real progress since then. You had a few more similar episodes, but nothing new of note. Wanda was losing patience.

Wanda had broken up with Vision not too long after the scene at your cell. It surprised her how easy it was for her to do so, at most just feeling guilty for having to disappoint the wedding guests. She really should’ve known sooner, and she could only bring herself to wish that you were there with her. You’d help her find the clarity she needed. You were her rock for a reason. What happens when you lose that?

She knew you were in there, she did. She just needed to get you to come out.

She was laying in bed, mulling the events from the last few months over in her head. She sat up suddenly as she made a spur of the moment decision.

Fuck it

She stood up and made her way through the compound. Only one destination in mind.

She arrived outside of your cell. You were sitting on the ground in the corner, cross-legged, gaze unfocused. She paid your state no mind as she marched over to the control panel. She typed in a code and the glass wall lifted temporarily, giving her enough time to slip in before closing behind her. She stared at you for a moment, struggling to think of where to start. 

“You’re such a fucking idiot.” Guess that’s what she’s going with.

Your gaze lifted from the ground, your attention now on her. You remained silent at the statement, so she continued. “You managed to get yourself trapped in some...weird super speed prison. Right before my wedding too? What the fuck is wrong with you Y/n!? Oh! And don’t even get me started on you helping him out with his perfect proposal! Were neither one of you ever gonna tell me about that!? That’s so unfair!” 

Wanda’s tone got progressively angrier, finally letting out everything she’s been holding in for so long. “I-I- I can’t fucking believe you’re so...so fucking selfish! You saved the world and all, fucking fantastic, but what about me!? What about me Y/n!? And yeah, I know that’s really what’s fucking selfish but I don’t care, cause you left me!” 

She finished her rant, panting. She stared at you, your gaze still unmoving. She let out a harsh breath. “And look at you...you’re just this shell of yourself...and it’s been so fucking heartbreaking to see.” She let out a sigh, emotions finally catching up to her. “I miss you Y/n...I miss you so much...If I’m being completely honest, I’ve missed you since before you disappeared.” She admitted that for the first time out loud, and it suddenly made everything else so much clearer.

Your gaze remained unchanging. She sat down on the floor in front of you, and sighed. “Things haven’t been the same with us for a very long time...ever since I started seeing Vision. I see that now... I shouldn’t have turned you down. I never wanted to admit it to myself, but I always ask myself ‘what if?’. I shouldn’t be doing that if I’m marrying someone else, right?...and Kara. I could never figure out why I never really liked her. She’s really nice and sweet and you guys were really good together. She checked off all the boxes, but it never felt right...and I think I finally know why now...”

She looked back up into your eyes. Your expression hasn’t changed, but your gaze was more focused now as you looked straight into her eyes. She wasn’t sure if you were aware of what she was saying or not, but seeing you lock eyes with her gave her all the confidence she needed.

“I’m in love with you, Y/n.” Tears began pooling in her eyes. This was the first time she’s fully admitted that, and she just wants to kick herself for not doing it sooner because damn, it felt so right. You felt so right. 

“God, I love you so fucking much.” Without thinking, she grabbed your face and pulled you in for a passionate kiss. The kiss had only lasted a moment before she realized what she was doing. She went to pull away from you, horrified at her own actions, but before she could, she felt your hand slowly come up the back of her neck.

You started to kiss her back.

This time, instead of pulling away in shame, she pulled away in shock. She looked into your eyes, and it was the first sign of real emotion you’ve shown the whole time you’ve been back. She saw nothing but love in your eyes. You gave her a small smile, but it was enough to light up her world.

Before she could say anything though, you were suddenly gone. Speeding out of the room, leaving a huge burst of lightning behind, shattering the glass on your way out. The force was enough to blow Wanda back, landing harshly on the opposite wall before falling to the ground. She looked up with wide eyes as she processed everything that happened.

“Shit.” She got up and moved to the control panel,  going to hit the emergency button. Before she could though, you were suddenly back in front of her. You looked completely different. Your hair was fixed, you put on a normal outfit that wasn’t the prison one you were provided with, but most importantly...you looked like you again.

“Sorry for that, I just wanted to look better when I could finally do the thing I’ve wanted to do for years.” Wanda couldn’t get a word out, stunned into silence. She didn’t need to speak though, because not even a moment later, you walked up to her, grabbed her face gently and kissed her. She didn’t even hesitate to fall back into the kiss. Yeah, this was definitely right.

After a few moments, you two separated. Large smiles planted on your faces as you leaned your foreheads together. Wanda was the first to speak. “Since when can you move that fast?” She breathed out.

You shrugged. “I guess being stuck in a super speed prison helped with my super speed. Huh, who’d have thought.” Wanda smacked your arm at the joke, but was overall beyond relieved. “I just needed that ‘true love’s kiss’ to get me back.”

“Of course you did.” Wanda laughed, leaning into you again, “You’re such a cliché.”

“You love it though.”

“I love you.”

You smiled, a brighter smile than Wanda had ever seen you wear. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that. I love you too, Wanda. I’ll love you till the day I die.” You leaned in for another kiss, this one somehow better than the last.

There was a lot you two needed to talk about, as well as make sure everything was okay with you physically, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care about all that at the moment.

You were lost for so long, even before the speed and mental prisons you were trapped in. Finally being in the arms of the woman you loved was everything.

You were finally found.

#wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x you

[father-time-and-baby-new-year]

alphabet boy II

SYNOPSIS: college AU. Armin, your brilliant tutor, invites you over to his house for some studying. Naturally, you're nervous and he seems to be giving you a reason to be.

PAIRING: SCUMBAG!Tutor Armin x FEM!Reader

WARNINGS: half edited, noncon/dubcon, fingering, non-penetrative sexual content. gaslighting, manipulating,

A/N: really need the motivation to write again and I've been slacking on my multi-parters so here's a somewhat highly anticipated one. Armin fuckers, this is for you. non-Armin fuckers, I hope this converts you

WORD COUNT: 2.0k

II. I.

“You’re not paying attention.”

You feel his voice right by the shell of your ear, and the proximity nearly makes you reel back in surprise but you manage to catch yourself.

“S-sorry” You apologize, wishing you didn’t stutter.

The thing is you’re just really out of your element. This is the first time you’ve been to Armin’s house for personal tutoring, and it was hard to focus on the material when his presence was so distracting.

It wasn’t like you were fantasizing about him or anything [well…]-you always tried to banish those thoughts as soon as it came. But still, being alone with an attractive boy with a disarming charm was causing some jitters. You felt like a shy middle schooler, on edge and jittery.

The last tutoring session in the library when he [basically] called you stupid plagued your mind. The memory of him feeling up your thighs lived in your head rent-free.

“Let’s take a break.” He sighs. Your heart drops at the noise of disappointment but you suppose it’s what you deserve.

You push your laptop lightly aside on the table, the bleak light straining your eyes, and ask for the bathroom. You just wanted to freshen up and be alone for a few seconds. The bathroom is meticulously clean, something even you knew was unexpected for a boy. You looked at yourself through the spotless mirror, scrutinizing every flaw.

You sigh, fiddling with your dress collar. Why you had tried dressing pretty for a boy so out of your league, he may as well be in Mars--you didn’t know.

When you return, there is a tall glass of lemonade waiting for you.

“Thought you might be thirsty.”

It’s a simple gesture that makes you blush so you thank him earnestly. Like the gentleman he is, he assures you it’s no problem. Not wanting to prolong the awkward silence, you compliment his apartment, “This is a really nice place. So much light and space.”

You’re babbling but he engages you regardless, and you two are mindlessly discussing the benefits of living at off-campus housing over dorming. His words are pleasant but there’s a sinking feeling within you as you notice he’s bored. Or maybe distracted was a better word.

“So, do you have a boyfriend? Or anyone you’re seeing?”

You nearly choke at the question uttered through a buttery voice.

“Oh um, not really.”

“Not really?”

You made a mental note to answer in definitives. Armin seemed the type to snuff out anything he reasoned as half-truths.

“No. I uh, don’t have a boyfriend.” And then you clarified a pin-drop later, “And I’m not seeing anyone either.”

The blond hums a playful tune that’s vaguely nostalgic.

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

You don’t understand the point of this line of incessant questioning, and can’t calm your heart rate.

“I-um, I don’t-“

Taking one look at your serious face, eyes rimmed with worry and cheeks pink, he laughs. It’s a startling sound like bell chimes.

“Relax. I just wanted to know if you had any experience.”

The sentence flies out of your mouth before you can even ponder it: “What do you mean by experience?”

It’s not his fault if he can’t hide the feral grin that crosses his mouth right at that moment. You can’t discern his expression as you’re staring at anywhere but him, so you don’t notice the uncontained excitement that glimmers in cerulean eyes.

“Let’s move to the couch. You’ll be more comfortable there.”

You think about saying that you’re fine wherever you are and didn’t really feel like changing positions, but he’s already striding towards the couch. So you start packing up the materials, before a clear voice calls out to you, “It’s okay. You don’t have to bring all that. Just bring your flashcards.”

You hoped that wouldn’t mean he’d quiz you, but that’s exactly what he meant to do.

“Law of diminishing returns.”

“Wait! I know that one!” You brightly exclaimed, “ Uhh..it gives way to the catch-up effect which means poor countries tend to grow more rapidly and they’ll one day essentially catch up with wealthier economies.”

The blond ran his hand through his hair before sighing. You could feel your heart drop. You were sure you were right. Was your answer wrong enough to cause exasperation?

“Stick with the formal definition next time. I didn’t ask for the theory based on the law.”

You pouted, and Armin couldn’t help but relish in how eagerly you sought his approval, like a puppy performing tricks to appease their master.

“You should sit closer. Can you even see the word?”

You moved closer to him, knees knocking into each other. He looks down at the completed set.

“Well, you didn’t do as bad as I expected.” Ouch. But maybe he meant it as a compliment?

“But,” the corners of his mouth curled, “I’d say you’re still struggling.” Never mind.

“T-this is a new chapter though. I don’t think we’ve even gone over it in class.”

Blue eyes narrow, and you wonder if he’s going to give the well-meaning spiel about how staying ahead was the only way to keep up. That mantra may work for someone with high ambitions and an extremely good work ethic but you were no well-oiled machine. You had other classes too!

“Why are you so defensive?”

Your eyes widen in surprise at the question, spoken so softly and casually, you almost miss the disdained lilt.

“Oh uh-“

“Listen to me. I quizzed you so I’m able to assert your skill level. And your response to my assertion is that it’s something you haven’t gone over in class yet. Do those things relate to each other at all?”

Meekly, you shift your attention to the rug.

“Answer me.”

“N-no”, you squeaked.

“And what have I always told you? The only way to keep up is to-“

“Stay ahead.” You finished, “I’m sorry, I just-“

“Did I say you could interrupt me?”

You could feel the blood rushing to your ears, unsure when the atmosphere had shifted. Your heartbeat was beating rapidly and you could feel your body go warm.

He sighed, and placed a hand over over your folded ones, squeezing your palms.

“You know I’m just looking out for you right? It almost feels like you don’t care-“

“No!” You exclaim, “I-I do.” Heat pools into your cheeks once you realize your grave mistake, “I-I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

The blond smiles radiantly and it nearly melts away all of your worries…until he opens his mouth to deliver another damning remark.

“You know, with your looks…you don’t really even have to graduate. Maybe choose an easy major and then get some rich husband to take care of you.” There’s a distinct lack of humor in his tone as if he wholeheartedly believed every word he was saying.

Your eyebrows furrow in blatant confusion, and in the back of your mind, danger signs are flashing at the back of your head. Your thighs are growing warmer. Oh no, this could not be happening right now.

“That’s what most girls’ dreams are anyways.” He inspects his spotless nails, “You chose this class because Ackerman’s attractive right? That’s why his class has such a high drop rate…silly girls join, not understanding how harsh of a grader he is.”

You open your mouth to defend yourself but the next inflammatory remark he spews almost sends you to shock, “Though I bet, if you got on your knees for him, you’d be getting an A on those finals.” He laughs as if he was saying something particularly amusing, an undercurrent of spite coloring his words, “You wouldn’t even need me as your tutor.”

There are a million things on the tip of your tongue but no voice to speak them out. You want to ask him why he’s been so weirdly invasive, what his weird hang-up with professor Ackerman was, and of course, the casual sexism was really throwing you in a loop. Still, you have no doubt Armin could beat you to a bloody pulp several times over in a verbal lashing, and your mind was too fragile to deal with this.

You’ll sign up for a new tutor or better yet no tutor. You’ll get over your social anxiety and join a study group. You’ll go to all of Professor Ackerman’s office hours. Anything had to be better than this. You’re giving yourself this pep talk in your head but there’s no denying that your legs feel warm, and the self-improvement speech is withering away in your mind as it seeks to instead process how Armin fucking Arltert is touching you right now.

He pins you against the cushions, one hand locking both of your wrists. You’re shaking but your pupils are blown out wide.

He smirks, “There’s an excellent stress reliever for studying you know.”

You limp in his hold but the cocky attitude behind his words brings you back. You thrash under him, earning an annoyed growl from the blond.

“I’ve been so fucking patient with you, you know? Planning out your study guides, sharing my notes with you, proofreading homework, going over the mock exams—don’t you think I deserve a little compensation?”

“I-I’m sorry.”

He's right. He's right. Armin actually has done so much for you. Maybe it was too easy to take for granted because of how efficient he was, and how he acted like it was nothing. But right now, nothing really was everything.

He smiles. Yeah, this is who you were. Add just a little bit of pressure and you crumble. That flash of bravery from before was nothing but a petulant outburst from a child who didn’t know any better.

Armin coos, “Isn’t it a little embarrassing to be a virgin at your age?”

With unbridled precision, while he’s still holding your lower body down with the weight of his legs, he unbuckles his belt and ties it around your strained wrists. Red fills your face, and like always, you’re struggling to find the right words to respond. To say anything at all. Most of all, you can feel a wetness building at your core.

“I know the way you look at me, you know.” He kisses the dip of your neck, slender fingers splayed from under your shirt, “I know you’re into this.”

And because he is a scientist who must have evidence to back up his hypothesis, his hands find themselves under the waistband of your floral skirt that you foolishly wore, pushing the cure pastel underwear aside. You’re writhing in his grasp but maybe not as much as you should be, but it’s not your fault your movements are sluggish right?

“You have such a funny habit of not deleting your windows and keeping your bookmarks open.”

You freeze.

“This entire time I thought you were some prudish virgin even though you dress like a whore. Someone with who I had to be gentle. But all that fucking porn you read? Nasty. Is that why you need help in this class?” He punctuates slowly, "Because you're wasting your brain for something else?"

Immediately, you remember how you left your laptop on the table. You remember how many times he used your computer to double-check the notes, and you trustingly let him, forgetting that despite deleting your tabs, the hidden windows of steamy erotica were not yet erased out of their existence. Embarrassment violently paints your body.

He doesn’t wait or care for your response as he starts a vigorous assault on your clit with his slender finger, rubbing up and down in a vicious manner. The second finger prods at your entrance, feeling a tight cavern despite the amount of slick collected. Your eyes roll back in pleasure-is this what being with someone is like?

Stop. Get a hold of yourself. Why are you so fucking horny right now? It doesn’t matter what Armin said about you or how he called you out for the fiction you’ve read, because this is real life. But Christ, it’s Armin, the boy you’ve had a crush on since the moment he explained to you what a marginal abasement curve was. Stupidly handsome Armin with a gentle voice and too-blue oceanic eyes. Stupidly handsome Armin who coerced you into being under him.

You’re so fucking warm and tight, and Armin can’t wait to sink himself inside of you, can’t wait to humiliate you further. With nimble fingers he untied the ribbons of your dress like you were a Christmas present, groping your soft mounds and marking up your collarbone with teeth and tongue. Crystalline tears roll down the side of your face. You really shouldn’t be crying when you’re this wet.

“So fucking funny how you can’t look at me in the eye when we have a conversation but you read the filthiest fucking smut I’ve ever seen.”

taglist: @candy-hime

#tw noncon #tw dubcon #attack on titan fanfiction #armin arlert fanfic #yandere armin arlert #armin arlet x reader #armin arlet x you #manipulator armin #armin x y/n #armin arlet imagines #armin smut #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting