#and I’m kind of running out of shelf space for figurines

[otaku553]

Ehehehehehe lookit him!!!!! The boy!!!! He!!

Found this figure in akihabara during a class trip to Tokyo and even though my luggage was pretty stuffed already I couldn’t resist,, maybe it’s a good thing they only had sabo and luffy in stock because if they had Ace as well I definitely would have been spending thrice as much

#need to find a display case for him so he doesn’t get dusty :))) #probably won’t take him back to campus with me because moving the figurines I already have in my dorm will already be enough of a hassle #and I’m kind of running out of shelf space for figurines #but oh my god this was such a lucky find. and for 3400円 #:))))) #this sparks very much joy #look at him smiling!!! #might do a redraw tbh

[titan-fodder]

Prima Vista Part IV

[ previous ]

Rating: E (explicit; mdni) Pairing: Mike Zacharias x fem!reader wc: ~ 9.6k

Warning: a big helping of abandonment/daddy issues, lots of feelings, explicit sexual content A/N: y’all are gonna be so soft and then so mad lmao. 

The plan was to go to Mike's house then back to campus. You said you didn't have anything to do at your mom's, that a long phone call would suffice, which is why Mike is confused when you ask him if you can stop by before going back. It's an hour out of the way, but it's not like he has anything better to do, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious about your humble beginnings. 

 The house is in a decent-looking neighborhood, small, nearly identical one-story homes surrounded by cracked sidewalks. He has to be careful not to trip as you make your way to the front porch, pots of dead or dying plants along the edges of it. You shove your key into the lock, twist and open, then motion for Mike to follow. 

 The den is dimly lit, ceiling fan above with only one working bulb. A crime show is playing on the TV but there's no one watching. There is, however, another light pouring from a back room, and as soon as you drop your bag on the couch, a head pokes out from the doorway. 

 "Baby girl!" A shrill voice cries, and Mike sees you grimace. "I thought you weren't coming by!" 

 A woman walks into the den wearing long, cotton shorts and an old tie-dye shirt then pulls you into a hug so tight that it makes you cough. 

 "Mom," you take a deep breath as if to refill your lungs with all the air that was pushed from them. "This is Mike."

 He holds out a hand and smiles, but all your mother does is stare with round eyes and blurt, "Oh, he's a big boy." 

 "My fucking god." You don't yell or whine, just pinch the bridge of your nose and mumble, "Just shake his hand please." 

 "Sorry, I'm sorry, just was not expecting… You didn't tell me how tall he was."

 "'Cause it doesn't matter. Why would I—nevermind," you cut yourself off, face falling flat just like your voice. 

 Mike isn't sure if he should be flattered or offended or embarrassed, so he just ignores the comment entirely and says, "Nice to meet you." 

 You make your escape to the back, dragging Mike with you before shutting your bedroom door and leaning against it. 

 "Mom is a little weird, but you'll always know where you stand with her," you tell him. "Also, sorry about the house. She’s a teacher, so she’s usually pretty beat at the end of the day. Not enough energy to do a lotta cleaning."

 "Didn't even notice," he reassures you. 

 Mike unpacks his bag next to you, and you gather the dirty clothes from both yours and his, balling them up and taking them with you out to the garage to throw into the washing machine. Mike should have done it at his parents', but as you were packing up that morning, his mother got all teary eyed and his dad just kept shaking your tiny hands and telling you to come back, so it just didn’t happen. 

 Back in the living room, your mom is sitting in an old rocking chair, and Mike thinks you'll take a seat on the adjacent couch, but instead you ask, "You need help with anything? Dishes or vacuuming or somethin'?"

 She looks up at you, fly-away hairs sticking out around her temples and forehead and responds, "It'd be nice if you could do the dishes. I just haven't gotten around to it."

 "Can do," you nod and walk into the kitchen, opening the dishwasher and making a displeased noise at the dirty plates and bowls inside. There's room for a few more, but once it's full and running, you just clean what's left in the sink by hand. Mike finds a towel, stands next to you, and holds his hand out for every scrubbed dish, drying it and placing it in the rack to hopefully be put up later. 

 "You hungry?" You ask when you're done and drying your hands. "It's almost one."

 "Uh, yeah. I could eat." 

 Truthfully, he's starving having only had a small breakfast at his parents'. He doesn't want to say that, though, doesn't want you making a big meal for him or apologizing for anything. 

 "Sandwiches okay?" 

 Something in your tone has him on edge. Your voice is too quiet, deflecting downward as if you're forcing each word from your mouth. 

 "Yeah," he nods. "If you get the stuff, I can make 'em." Mostly so that you can relax but also because there's no way he's gonna let you make him a fucking sandwich. 

 You shrug your shoulders, grab bread, lunchmeat, cheese, and condiments, then say, "You can make ours. I'll make mom's."

 He knows he's missing something, but he doesn't know what, and right now he's too afraid to ask. 

 He eats next to you on the couch, you and your mom watching TV as Mike tries to subtly glance around. Mounted shelves are decorated with dusty, mismatched figurines, cracks opening at the corners where the walls meet the roof. The brick fireplace is stacked high with plastic tubs and books, probably from your mother’s classroom, and the carpet has seen better days. 

 Mike isn't judging—not in the least—but he has a feeling he knows why being here puts you in a sour mood. The house feels lived in, cluttered and cozy and worn around the edges, but it's still empty somehow. 

 After the three of you are finished eating, you take the paper plates and dispose of them, then tell your mom that you'll be in your room. She gives you a soft smile that you struggle to return.

 It's a little more you in the bedroom, blue walls covered in old posters and collages, a quilt similar to the one in your dorm folded at the bottom of your bed. Your pillow cases are faded and covered in an old flower design that matches your sheets, and there's a small nightstand next to the headboard that's bare on top with wrinkled papers poking out of the bottom drawer. 

 "It's not much, but if you wanna snoop around like I always do, feel free." 

 Mike doesn't really want to, especially since you already seem so uncomfortable in what should be a safe space for you. The only thing he feels okay investigating is the old bookshelf next to your closet—mostly YA novels, some poetry books, an old set of The Lord of the Rings series, a textbook over rocks and minerals and another over volcanoes. Tucked away in the bottom shelf is a tiny booklet that looks like a photo album, and Mike has to fight the urge to pull it from its place and flip through the plastic pages. Anything to get to know you better. 

 You lay in bed, eyes locked on the ceiling, and Mike doesn't know what to do. There's a very small TV sitting on your dresser, an old DVD player next to it, so he figures he'll save both you and himself from talking by picking out a movie. 

 He fingers through them, not that there's a lot, just skims the spines until he pulls out a copy of Space Jam. You only glance at the screen when the intro starts, and Mike immediately zeroes in on the way your jaw sets and your brows furrow. 

 "I can pick something else," he tells you quietly. 

 You take a deep breath and shake your head. Slowly but surely your features begin to soften. 

 "'S'fine."

 "Are you sure?" 

 "Yeah. My, uh…" You swallow loud enough from Mike to hear, neck bobbing with the motion. "My dad and I used to watch it all the time."

 He doesn't know what to make of it or how to respond. In the months he's known you, Mike has never heard you mention your father a single time, and he's never asked in fear of what your response might be. 

 He moves your quilt to sit on the very edge of the bed, a little too tense as he heavily contemplates ignoring what you'd said and still switching movies. 

 "You can lay down, you know," you mumble. "I'm not gonna bite you."

 "You have before," he tries to act casual, but it comes out too stiffly.

 You laugh through your nose— "Suit yourself—" then get more comfortable on the mattress. 

 Michael Jordan gets pulled into a golf hole and the Loony Toons journey to retrieve his shoes from the real world. Mike is barely paying attention, more focused on the way your breathing evens out until it becomes slow and deep. 

 That's good. You could use a nap. 

 He watches you for a while, the way your eyelashes flutter against your cheeks and your lips part. You're all curled up on yourself, hands tucked under your chin, knees to your stomach, and Mike wants to slip behind you so badly, to pull you to his chest and lay with you until his heartbeat syncs with yours. 

 But first. 

 As carefully as he can, Mike stands from the bed and glides to the bookcase. He lowers himself in front of it, quickly finding what he's looking for and pulls it from the shelf. 

 It's a small little album, full of polaroids and old pictures cut in half. The first page sets the tone for the rest of the booklet, a photo of a very small you outside eating a popsicle next to a man that is most definitely your dad. You've got a similar facial structure as well as his coloring. Not to mention the expression he's wearing is one Mike has seen you make many times before. 

 The next picture is the two of you dressed up for an event. He's in a striped Polo and slacks while you're in a little checkered dress, a rose corsage on your tiny wrist. Some kind of father-daughter dance, Mike guesses. 

 Sitting on his lap at a fair, a chubby little boy a few years older than you standing close with a stuffed snake around his neck. A party where you're posed with an honestly frightening costume character. You in a bright, mesh jersey standing back to back with your dad, arms crossed, looking at the camera with your chins tilted upward. 

 They all look like good memories. The little boy in the fair picture appears several more times, and as he loses his baby fat, Mike sees the resemblance he shares with you and your father. It's too close to be a cousin—your eyes and mouths shaped the same—so he must be your brother. 

 Mike doesn't know how to feel about that because again, you've never uttered a word. As far as he knew, you were an only child, so why…

 He gets lost in the pages, watching you grow and pose mostly next to your dad. Smiles and laughs and silly faces with your tongues sticking out. Your mom is in some, brother in others, and then, you're in a cap and gown, grinning widely next to your dad who's beginning to gray at the temples. His own smile is barely there now, a ghost of what was seen in the previous photos. It's forced, it's sad, and it's the last picture in the book. 

 Mike's chest hurts. He wonders what happened, when exactly you'd lost him. Was it a quick goodbye, or had it been drawn out and painful? Had he been sick for a long time? He'd looked perfectly healthy in all the shots. Maybe a car accident that took both him and your brother…

 He flips to check for one last photo on the back of the page, but it's empty. However, tucked in a tiny, paper pocket is a folded up note that Mike stares at for a few solid minutes, debating the pros and cons of reading it. He knows he's already violated your privacy by looking through the album, and fuck, he's only been in your house for a couple hours at most—how has he already managed to tumble down such a humongous rabbit hole? 

 Your tiny snores reach his ears, and Mike gently pulls the note out, biting his lip as he unfolds it as quietly as possible. It's soft, like it's been read too many times, and the letters scribbled in all caps are beginning to fade, but the words are still legible. 

 It starts with your name, and then it's all apologies—sorry I can't stay, I have to leave, you don't understand how much this hurts me and so on. 

 Mike's eyebrows pull together the further he reads, blood pounding against the walls of his arteries, pulse picking up because he understands now.

 Your father wasn't in any sort of accident; he just left. 

 The letter ends with a gut-wrenching, You'll always be my little girl, and Mike nearly crumples the paper up to throw away. He resists somehow, simply folds it with shaky hands and slips it back into the pocket at the back of the album. 

 He's never been so mad at a stranger in his life. This must be it. This must be why you are—

 "Should've known you'd go straight for the photo album." 

 Your voice makes Mike's body jolt, his face heating as he turns to look at you with wide eyes. 

 "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

 You wave him off and prop yourself up on an elbow. "It's whatever."

 But, it's not. It's this huge part of you that still affects you to this day. Mike is no psychologist, but he has a pretty good feeling this is the main reason you hold everyone at arm's length. 

 "Why didn't you ever tell me?" 

 "What's there to tell?" 

 Sitting up fully, your gaze moves to the screen just in time to see Michael Jordan step off of the spaceship and onto the baseball field. I Believe I Can Fly is playing, and you're gritting your teeth. 

 "It's not anything that comes up in normal conversation anyway. I wasn't just gonna hit you with it outta nowhere. Also," you look back to Mike, eyes still sleepy, lips pulling downward in a frown. "I'm not the only one who hid stuff about my family."

 Mike sighs and quietly tells you, "That's different," as he closes the album and slides it back into the row of books. 

 "Is it, though? Is it really?" 

 "I..." 

 Mike shuts his mouth and actually thinks on it. He wasn't trying to lie to you about his home life or his heritage. He's only half Greek on his mom's side, after all, and he's only been to the country to visit family a couple of times—once when he was a child and once right before college. The culture is a little different over there, but it all seems so natural to him, especially after being raised to speak the language. 

 Honestly, he didn't ever tell you because he didn't think to, but Mike can understand the shock of walking into his childhood home and getting thrown through that loop. It must have been jarring for you. 

 It's a positive aspect of his life, though. It's not something that's damaged him or made him cold toward others. And, he hates describing you in such a way, but it's true.

 At least it makes sense now. 

 "I guess not," he shrugs. He's not about to fight you on it. 

 You stare at him for a while, waking up a bit more as you rub your eyes and stretch. 

 Then, you flop back down on your pillows. 

 "So. Any questions, Zacharias?" 

 He's surprised that you're asking, and though he doesn't want to twist the metaphorical knife in your gut, he still replies honestly: "Too many."

 A long exhale through your nose, and then you're patting the mattress next to you and grumbling, "Fine, I'll do my best, but you gotta come up here."

 "Why? You gonna need to cuddle afterward?" He can't help but tease. 

 "Fuckin' maybe, dude! We're about to get into my god damn trauma so—"

 Mike is up on his feet and flying toward the bed. He isn't about to sabotage the one fucking moment you're opening yourself up. 

 "Alright, what first?" You ask, trying to look bored, but Mike can clearly see that you're nervous. 

 "He left." 

 "Yeah."

 And then he gets the full story. 

 Your dad was pretty perfect during your younger years—a bit of a workaholic but still good. He took you to dances like the one you'd both dressed for in the photograph. You'd spend days at amusement parks where he'd carry you on his shoulders. He coached the basketball team you'd played on as a child.

 "Not saying he played favorites, but I was definitely closer to him than my brother was."

 The brother who developed a drug problem at fourteen, who was always either out with his little addict friends or at home where he would just scream at you and your mom. 

 "He went to rehab a couple times, but it didn't stick." 

 He left home at seventeen and hasn't gotten in touch with you or your parents since. 

 "I keep thinking one day we'll get a call from the police saying they found his wallet on a fucking corpse, but who knows. Maybe he got clean. Maybe he started a family somewhere else. He'd be twenty-five now."

 "Were you ever close with him?"

 You shrug. "We spent a lot of time together when we were really little, but even back then he was kinda a mean kid."

 It very quickly circles back to your father. Mike still doesn't feel like he has all the answers, so he asks through the skin of his lip, "Why'd he leave?"

 At this point, you've got your head in his lap as he sits against the wall. He smooths your hair back from your face every once in a while, something his mom used to do to him when he was very young that always soothed him. 

 He hopes it's having the same effect on you, thinks it might be considering you've had your eyes closed for a while now, humming now and then as you talk. 

 "Honestly, I don't really know. I don't think he and my mom were ever in love. Like, they just kinda settled for each other," you sigh. "They didn't have a lot in common. They had different upbringings. But, they didn't fight or anything—not in front of us. They were good at hiding the hard times from me and my brother. They just didn't… click."

 Mike bites his tongue, wonders if that was hard to watch or if you'd been too naive to notice. 

 Then, there's his second train of thought that's really just the voice in his head screaming, we click, though! You and I work! But he keeps it to himself. This isn't about you and him. 

 "I think maybe dad had, like, a 'stay together for the kids' mentality 'cause as soon as I graduated, he was fuckin' gone. And, I mean gone. We went to a graduation party the next weekend that lasted a few hours—just me and mom—and when we got back his truck wasn't in the driveway and his drawers were empty. He left that note you read on my desk."

 Mike breathes. Just breathes. He tries to make sense of it, how someone could just do that without a real reason. There hadn't been any explanation in the letter, only apologies. 

 "Have you seen him since?" 

 You open your eyes and reply, "Nope," popping the 'p'. "I don't know where he is, and he hasn't reached out. Mom made the drive to my grandma's—his mom—but she said she didn't know where he was either. Pretty sure she was covering for him, though. She was always kind of a bitch. You know, save for the whole paying for my college and all."

 Mike snorts at this, not that there's anything funny about the situation. It's just his first reaction. 

 You ignore it, moving on with an, "Anyway."

 "Anyway," he mimics. 

 "I don't know if you've noticed in the short time you've been here, but my mom is a little… off. Not super good at taking care of herself."

 "Is this why?" 

 "Clever boy," you show a bitter smile. "I didn't really understand since they weren't, like, in love or whatever, but… I think it was the betrayal more than anything. Like, it came outta nowhere, a big ol' slap in the face."

 "Plus, he left you behind," Mike adds, as if you don't already know. 

 Looking up at him, you raise your eyebrows and smirk. "And, now you know about my abandonment issues." The last part comes out in high-pitched, melodic syllables, a little song that would be funny if Mike didn't know it was a coping mechanism. It most definitely is, though. He can tell that you're the type to mask every issue with humor and sarcasm. It's how you've been dealing with him for the last several months. 

 "So, that's my story," you conclude on an exhale. "Now you know all my dirty secrets."

 "For some reason I don't think that's all of them," Mike pets your hair again. "But, probably the important ones."

 "Mm. I guess."

 The rest of the day is really just spent killing time. You cook an easy dinner that you refuse to let Mike help with, then sit in the den with your mom just like you did at lunch. A medical show is playing. Then a reality show. Then a game show. None of you say much of anything, and it's painfully awkward for Mike now that he knows what happened, but he can power through a few days of this if it makes you feel better. 

 Hours pass until you can retreat, and moonlight shines through your bedroom window, not that Mike needs it. He's memorized your body at this point, knows where to touch without even seeing. He makes sure to be gentle, to suckle and blow on your pebbled nipples as you card fingers through his hair and breathe faster and faster. 

 Leaving love bites down your chest and stomach, he sucks on your skin, gently grazing his teeth over every bruise. Mike wants you to see them all the next day—not a staked claim, just something you can't ignore when you look in the mirror, evidence of his feelings in every mark. 

 When you're finally nice and relaxed, he spreads your legs and licks into you, trying not to be too rough with his beard, but a few swipes of it over your clit leave you shaking in his grasp. You whisper his name, the common one that everyone knows him by, but then, rolling off your tongue like a prayer, you call him, "Miche," and he can't help the rumble that rises in his chest. 

 It should be strange. That's the name only his family uses, the one he was born with. He only simplified it so that kids in school wouldn't ask questions or make fun of him, and after that, it just sort of stuck. But, here and now, falling from your lips, it's so soft. So intimate. 

 You whimper when he sucks on your folds, making them swell, making them sensitive. And then, he's pushing his tongue inside of you and humming happily at the taste. His nose is bumping against your clit, and Christ, you even smell good to him—that ripe, tangy aroma that has Mike going a little crazy. He has to make sure he doesn't get too carried away. You can't make very much noise even with the rattling of the air conditioner, but as he slowly slides a finger into your pussy, he hears you moan around the fist you're holding to your mouth. 

 He stretches you just enough to get you ready, then he holds himself over you and pushes into your wet cunt. Your eyes are open, locked with Mike's as your brow raises and your jaw drops. It's erotic, something you've never done with him before. You typically either gaze somewhere other than his face or keep your eyes squeezed shut. 

 Tonight, though, you've been vulnerable and apparently want to stay that way for a little while longer. 

 He bends to catch you in a kiss, lips and tongues moving just as slowly as his hips, and when you reach to tug at Mike's hair, he pants into your mouth. 

 Those words are there again, stuck in his throat but slowly crawling upward until they're just there, pouring from his tongue, "I lo—"

 Until you cut him off with a sharp, "Don't."

 He makes a noise of frustration, wants to protest because he's so deep inside of you, and you're holding onto him like you want him—truly want him, but you mutter once more against his lips, "Don't say it, Miche."

 So, he doesn't. He bottles the confession up and keeps it locked away, hoping like hell that one day you'll let him tell you. 

 After you climax and coat his cock in slick and cream, he gives a few more thrusts and comes inside of you, filling you with himself and wondering why you're so willing to accept him in that way but not in any other. 

 He's hurting again, like he did at his parents' as you walked around like you belonged there. Except it's worse now. 

 If you don't want him to say it, that means you don't want to say it back. 

 He stays with you for a few more minutes before pulling out. You leave to clean up, and while you're gone, Mike sits on the edge of the bed, head in his hands as he tries to get it all out of his system, whispering it out loud to himself: 

 I love you. I love you, I love you.  

 You still let him hold you as you fall asleep, gripping his hand until you can't anymore, and as Mike drifts off behind you, he has one last thought—Just let me.

* There’s only three weeks left of the semester when you head back to campus, and you intend to make the most of every passing day. 

 You pay better attention in class. You study harder in the library to prepare for final exams. You go to a few more Pi Alpha Kappa parties, making sure not to burn yourself out. And, you let Mike fuck your brains out every few days. Sometimes it’s late at night after those parties. Sometimes you're too tired after the nights of drinking and end up just going to bed only to wake up in the morning and have slow, sleepy sex. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the afternoon when you both have breaks between classes.

 Neither of you bring up anything that happened over the break—meeting families, details about your childhoods, how much you learned about one another in general.

 Most importantly, neither of you address that first night at your mom’s, the way Mike had basically worshiped your body, how he’d come so close to uttering the three words you least want to hear. 

 Thinking about it still makes your chest tighten, your heart beat faster. Sometimes when you’re sharing his bed with him, back pressed to his chest, large arm slung over your waist, you think about why it is you’re so vehemently against it. The two of you already act like a couple most of the time. You walk with each other to class when you can. You stick to each other’s sides at parties. You fuck like rabbits and don’t care who knows about it. 

 And, though you’re hesitant to admit it even to yourself, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t have feelings for him. Mike is your best friend at this point. He’s insanely hot. He’s goofy. He’s kind. Yeah, the frat boy persona he puts on around his friends is annoying, but you understand it a little better now. Plus, he always takes off the mask when he’s alone with you, giving both you and himself a break from it.

 You know your time with him is quickly coming to an end—for about two months, at least—and whenever you think too hard about it, it makes you pout and huff. You’re not looking forward to your summer classes without him, but he promises on several occasions that you can call him while he’s at his parents’ if you ever need help with the material.

 It’s impressive, the way he’s able to act like nothing happened. You know it must be troubling him, but it’s not like you can do anything to soothe him. If he was really upset with you, he would have stopped spending time with you, but he hasn’t. He just bottles it up, keeps smiling at you all crookedly, and keeps satisfying you in the bedroom (more than satisfying honestly. There’s really not a word to describe what he does).

 He’s back to getting along with everyone in the Pike house, everyone being Erwin. It’s a relief just because you don’t have to put up with the tension between them, but it’s also awkward. And, a little frightening. 

 The brothers have Smash Brothers tournaments and movie nights, a few date parties here and there, and it never fails that at some point during the evenings, you find your neck prickling as it always does when you feel someone staring at you. You always hope it’s Mike. Fuck, you wish it was him. But, when you glance up and around, it’s Erwin. Every time. His deep blue eyes are trained on you, the corner of his mouth twitching upward on one side. It doesn’t matter if he’s alone or if he’s got Maddie or some other girl sitting in his lap. He's fucking shameless, and it makes your stomach hurt.

 You keep your mouth shut for the sake of the friendship but also for the sake of Erwin’s pretty face. If he and Mike ever got into an actual fight, Erwin would probably be able to get a good few punches in, but you’re nearly positive Mike would end up destroying him in the long run. That could get him kicked out of school. That could get him thrown in jail. 

 Finals roll around, and you manage to pass all of them without issue, even getting grades above the class average. You feel fantastic, like your long term goals might actually be attainable. You have a long road ahead of you, but your GPA at the end of the year is more than enough to raise your confidence. 

 Mike asks you to come back to his house for the couple weeks between the end of the semester and the start of your summer courses, but you turn him down, too scared of what might happen while you’re there. Acting like a couple in front of his parents will only exacerbate his feelings as well as yours, and you’d like to avoid that as best you can. 

 Even now as you’re standing outside by the Jeep, he tries to persuade you one last time, almost pleading, “Are you sure you don’t wanna come?”

 “Miche, I’m sure,” you tell him, trying to stay stern, but it’s hard when his sea glass eyes light up at the sound of his real name. It’s a habit you’ve gotten into, a bad one considering how much he likes it. How much you like it. “I already told you I wanna spend the free time I have at mom’s. I need to check up on her and… Probably clean, honestly.”

 He lets out a little grunt of disappointment, then nods. “Yeah, I get it.”

 “You saw what she’s like,” you remind him. “Someone needs to drop in every once in a while to make sure she isn’t, like, wasting away or something.”

 “Makes sense. I’ll be bummed, though.”

 “Be bummed all you want,” you smile. “I’ll probably still bother you over break. A lot.”

 He sounds terribly sincere when he mumbles, “You never bother me.” It makes your stomach flip in the way you do not enjoy.

 Mike sighs, taking in one of those deep breaths that makes his broad chest rise then fall, calling attention to it and making you bite your bottom lip. 

 “Alright, I should get going,” he concedes, bending down to kiss you too deeply for simple friends with benefits. It doesn’t stop you from humming into his mouth and smiling against him. You hold him by the back of his neck as he pulls your body close to his, his voice muffled when he tells you mischievously, “Don’t forget to send pictures.”

 It makes you laugh, and you lean back to swipe your tongue over his lips so that he groans and chases after you. 

 “I promise I will. Perv.” The beating sun is nothing in comparison to the way your body heats at the thought. You’ve sent him nudes before, but the idea of him looking at them from hours away, fisting his cock as he admires your body through his phone… It makes seeing him off even harder.

 After a couple more softer kisses, Mike swings into the Wrangler and pulls out of the lot. You stand in his parking space and watch him until he’s out of sight, then walk back to your dorm, dragging your feet the whole way. 

 You only stay at your mom’s house for a week, and just like you predicted, you spend most of it cleaning. She thanks you the whole time but makes excuses in between. You just reassure her that you don’t mind even though you do. She really should see a therapist and sort out the depression she’s been stuck in for a few years now, but telling someone they need professional help is easier said than done. 

 Sleeping in your old bed is much harder this time around. You're all too aware of the weight that isn't behind you, and most nights you lay awake for at least a couple of hours trying to imagine it. 

 Like you’d promised, you send him a few pictures, some of them just lewd selfies with your tits pouring out of the cups of your bra, but others are of your naked body in the bathtub, sometimes a shot of you with your hand between your legs. It feels wrong to touch yourself in your childhood home, but it’s necessary, especially when Mike sends you a few pictures of his own—one with his torso on display, defined abs absolutely mouthwatering and the V of his hips suggestively leading into mesh shorts. Another is of him in the gray joggers he wears all the time, the ones that always show off his cock. 

 He’s so fucking hot it atually hurts, makes your pussy throb as you crave his touch. It’s an awful feeling honestly, but even worse than that is the way you miss him. You aren’t supposed to miss him. You’re just supposed to be friends who have sex. Nothing more than that.

 It's why you’re glad to go back to school. Your classes will distract you, keep you from thinking about him too much. The semester is shorter during the summer, so you have to work even harder than you do during fall and spring. You don’t really think it’ll be a problem since you’re trying to cram your brain full of anything other than Mike which is great motivation for studying. 

 Nothing is gonna get you off track, you tell yourself. Nothing will interfere with your studies. That’s the plan.

 Then, you meet Zeke Jaeger. 

* You're studying in the library. It seems like you spend most of your time here, nice and quiet and empty. The campus isn't nearly as busy in the summer as it is during the rest of the school year. No parties, no sporting events, just you alone with your books. 

 It's nice. Most of the time. A little boring but mostly nice. 

 Your eyes are getting tired, and when you check your phone, you realize why. It's almost eleven PM, meaning you've been studying for about six hours. You've had longer nights, usually spent on the phone getting quizzed on the information you're learning with a few breaks in between, but that wasn't the case tonight as Mike had to spend the day with family from out of town. 

 It's okay. You're supposed to be distancing yourself anyway. 

 Taking a deep breath, you pack up your books and slide your laptop into your bag, then stand and swing it over your shoulder. 

 The strap is too long. The bag swings too hard, and your heart sinks when you hear a little grunt followed by a, "Agh, hot!" 

 Turning with wide eyes, you immediately start apologizing, "I'm so sorry, oh my god, fuck, I'm so sorry!"

 A head of light blond hair looks up from the brown stain on his white t-shirt, icy blue eyes narrowed behind wire-rimmed glasses, but when he sees the mortification on your face, his own expression softens, and he chuckles. 

 "It's fine. You can calm down."

 You're still breathing heavily, guilt making your hands shake, but he really doesn't look angry. In fact, he's grinning now, eyebrows raised like he's amused. 

 The longer you stare at him, the more familiar he looks. You're pretty sure you've seen him before. Many times before, actually, and then it clicks that this guy is on the front page of the school website. You see him every fucking time you log in, looking much more stern than he does now. Baseball hat and jersey, mitt on one hand as he hides his other in it, and yeah, you know him. 

 "You're Zeke Jaeger."

 He makes a face, scrunching his nose up and squinting. "Yeeeeah, I guess I am."

 Best pitcher in the college league despite being a sophomore like you. He's beaten the records of some major league players. 

 You don't give a fuck about baseball, have never even been to any of the school's games, but you've been hearing about Zeke since the last season. You've learned to tune it out because, again, no shits given (and also you're much more partial to lacrosse now), but he's hard to ignore when he's staring you right in the face. 

 "Well, uh," you try to act casual. It's something you're pretty good at these days. "Cool."

 He snorts, picking his shirt off his chest to air it out like it'll help, then says, "I don't know your name, though."

 You run your tongue over your teeth, wondering why he cares, then introduce yourself. 

 "Oh, you're Zacharias' little girlfriend, aren't you?"

 Your stomach flips at the mention of him. 

 "We're not dating."

 Zeke cocks his head to the side. "No?"

 "No. Just friends."

 He hums but doesn't say anything, and your eyes are once again drawn to his chest as he fans over the stain. 

 "Okay, let me get you a new shirt or something," you try. 

 He laughs again. "I highly doubt you've got a men's shirt tucked in that bag of yours, sweetheart."

 "I—" you pout for a second, mumble, "Okay, yeah, fair point."

 "Another coffee, though," he muses out loud. "Wouldn't be the worst thing."

 You shoot him a finger gun and smack your lips. "On it. Where do you get coffee at eleven o'clock?"

 "I'll walk with you," he states more than offers. 

 Then, you're both leaving the library, leaving campus, and going to a little 24 hour cafe where you blow on lattes and cover the basics about each other—philosophy major, valedictorian of his high school class, playing baseball since age seven, etc. You should sleep. You should get ready for another long day of studying.  

 But it's hard to make good decisions when Zeke Jaeger is smirking at you from across the table like you're the most interesting thing he's ever seen. 

* Zeke gets your number that night. You're not exactly sure how, but he does. 

 Then he doesn’t text you for three days. It doesn’t bother you that much. You figure he has other things to focus on. He’s on campus to take a couple courses and practice for the upcoming season, so he’s probably just busy. If that night had just been a one-off, it’s fine with you. It was cool to talk to him, but your heart isn’t broken.

 These are all the thoughts and justifications running through your head when you’re in class on Tuesday and your phone lights up during the PowerPoint lecture. You glance down, expecting Mike or Hitch, but it’s an unknown number instead. Eyes flicking from the projection screen to your much tinier one, you slide to open the message and chew on your lip. 

 Hey, it’s Zeke. You have classes this afternoon?

 You do not. And, you are too quick to tell him that.

 He takes you to a little Mom and Pop restaurant, too far to walk so you end up riding in the black Bronco he drives, trying to convince yourself that it definitely does not make him any more attractive to you. Because you aren’t attracted to him in the first place. Right?

 You sit at a table for two eating paninis and fruit. Zeke asks how classes are going, you ask about practice, and as you talk, he gets that look in his eyes again, like you amuse him or interest him or something.

 It confuses you, and for a moment, you’re taken back to last fall at that first Pi Kappa Alpha party, the one you met Mike at when he tried to get you to shotgun a beer. God, he had been so obnoxious back then, always following you around and flirting and—

 “You listening, sweetheart?”

 Your eyes refocus on the man in front of you, his raised eyebrows and little smirk. “Looks like you’re a million miles away. Sorry if I’m boring you.”

 “No, no,” you try to defend. “I just zoned out for a second. Realized I, uh, got an answer wrong on the quiz I took today.”

 “That sucks,” he hums. “Anyway, I can stop talking about baseball.”

 “It’s okay. Just go over the last, like, ten seconds,” you say with a laugh, hoping your cheeks will stop burning sooner rather than later.

 Zeke chuckles and does just that, doesn’t seem irritated or put out. He tells you about how he has a new trainer this year to warm him up and make sure his throwing arm is in top shape. “I hope he’s as good as my last. Colt was always on it, knew exactly how hot to make the warm compresses and how cold to make the ice packs. Stuff like that. He learned my needs.”

 You both laugh, and if it was anyone else, you’d have an innuendo sliding off your tongue, but for some reason, you don’t think Zeke would want to hear it, like he’d be unimpressed with your vulgar humor. 

 Back at the college, he drives you to your dorm, explaining that he lives in the apartments on the other side of campus and wouldn’t want to make you walk that far. Then, as you slide out of the Bronco, he stops you with a smooth, “Hey,” that makes you look over your shoulder at him. “Make sure you save my number in your phone, okay? I’ll text you soon.”

 The way your stomach flips is worrisome, a feeling you’re only used to when you’re with…

 “Yeah, okay.”

 He grins widely and nods, then waits for you to get a good distance away from the car before driving off.

 No distractions, you’d said. It’ll be good for your focus, you’d said. 

 What a fucking joke. 

*

Mike has to help you with some homework that weekend. You can hear his smile through the phone, snort when he makes his little nerd jokes, then sigh when he gets to the actual subject and explains it to you without a problem. His brain is incredible, and when you think about it too hard, it makes you warm inside. 

 “You’re so fucking smart. Why don’t you let people know?”

 “Maybe I just want you to know,” he chuckles. “You think I wanna spend my days tutoring every idiot who needs help?”

 “Miche, did you just call me an idiot?”

 You hear another breathy laugh followed by a sigh. “I have many, many names for you, but ‘idiot’ isn’t one of them.”

 “Oh yeah?” You play. “And, what might those other names be?”

 He lists a few, all of them making your face flush and your body tingle, and before you know it, you’ve got your pants off and your fingers between your legs. You can hear Mike’s heavy breathing on the other end, the wet sound of his hand stroking his lubricated cock, and when you reach your climax, you moan out your usual, “Oh fuck, oh fuck, Miche.” 

 He tumbles down right behind you, panting and telling you in a voice of disbelief, “Jesus, it just keeps coming.” It makes the pulses of your orgasm even stronger, remembrance of all the times he’s painted you in white, and God, you are so ready for him to get back to the school.

 Then, there’s the voice in the back of your head that makes you think maybe it’s better that he’s gone for now, that he might not be too pleased that you’re spending time with another guy. But, it’s not like things with Zeke are going anywhere. You wouldn’t even call him a friend. You text on and off, have brunch or lunch or coffee depending on the time of day. 

 And, yeah, he calls you pet names, tells you that you look nice even when you’re just in leggings and a t-shirt, talks about his family and…

 Okay, it could potentially lead to something more, but it’s only been a week, and considering his golden boy status, he could have anyone he wants, so why would he even be interested in you in any way, shape, or form?

 Naturally, your thoughts circle back to Mike and the way he could have any girl on his arm, but he still chooses to spend time with you. To fuck you. To nearly confess his feelings to you. You have to wonder if you’re emitting some kind of scent or beacon, if there’s a sign hanging above your head with an arrow pointing down. Sports gods, come get a piece. 

 If only you’d never gone to that party. If you had just kept your head down like you had freshman year. Your life would be so much easier now.

 But now you’re in Zeke’s apartment listening to him rant about some philosopher you’ve never even heard of. He’s gesturing with his hands, flipping curling, blond bangs from his face, and whenever he pauses to think, he scratches his beard. He’s very fond of the white t-shirts and jeans get-up, sometimes switches it up and wears a button down under a sweater vest. Both looks are becoming of him no matter how much you try to deny it, but when he drops down onto the couch next to you and peers into your god damn soul with those piercing, blue eyes, you have to choke back a dreamy sigh.

 What is happening to you?

 “So, what do you think about it?” He asks, looking hopeful that you might have some insight on this matter.

 But, you simply laugh and shake your head. “Zeke,” you start. “I’m gonna be real honest with you here. I didn’t understand a fucking thing you just said.”

 You assume he’ll be disappointed, maybe tire of you since you can’t be as intellectually stimulating as he’d like you to, but Zeke exhales in a lighthearted sort of way, shows one of those amused smiles, and tells you, “You’re cute.”

 Anyone else and you would have snapped back, something along the lines of, don’t fucking patronize me, but with Zeke, all you can do is stare at him and let your lips part, silently asking for something you won’t speak out loud.

 His gaze moves to your mouth for a split second. That soft smile turns into one of his famous smirks. Then, he’s back on his feet and asking, “You wanna go to dinner?”

 You are more than relieved at the shift in atmosphere, but your heart is still beating too hard as you follow him downstairs and to his car. 

* Summer is passing quickly. Too quickly. The eleven week classes are kicking your ass, or are close to kicking your ass. Lucky for you, you have your own private tutor just a call or text away. Mike helps you, and you laugh and goof around, shoot off innuendo after innuendo, but the phone sex slows to a halt eventually. You tell him that you’re tired, and you are. It isn’t a lie. But, it also isn’t the full truth.

 Between classes when you could be resting, you’re eating out with Zeke. Or, watching him and the rest of the baseball team practice for the upcoming season. Or, sitting in his apartment, watching movies and chatting about all manner of things. Nothing important, of course—there’s no diving deep into your life story like you had done with Mike over Spring Break, but Zeke still learns the little things about you. Why you’re majoring in geosciences and how you became good friends with some of the Pike guys. You don’t give him the full details on that one—that you got blackout drunk and fucked Mike and just couldn’t stop. You don’t think Zeke would be interested in hearing about it anyway.

 You learn a bit about his dad and stepmom, the latter of whom he isn’t very fond of. He also has a little brother who’ll be attending the college starting this fall, and he’s interested in the Greek life. Naturally, you build PKA up. Even if there are some… Problematic people in the house, there are also a lot of really good guys. 

 “I’ll make sure to pass it along to him,” Zeke tells you one evening as you’re both sprawled on the couch, backs against the armrests as you face each other. It’s how he seems to prefer to sit when the TV isn’t on. When you asked him why, he had told you, “Just like looking at you,” and you didn’t know how to respond. You still don’t know how to respond.

 “Eren thinkin’ about joining any sports?” You ask now. “Does baseball run in the family or anything?”

 Zeke snorts. “Kid couldn’t hit a baseball even if it was on one of the t-ball stands.”

 “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then.”

 “I would say he’s more academically inclined, but,” Zeke sighs. “That would be a lie.”

 You can never tell if he actually likes his brother. Most of the time he complains about him, but every once in a while he’ll bring up something cute Eren did as a little boy, and you see a fond glimmer in his light eyes. 

 “Anyway,” Zeke waves off the subject and transitions to a new one—one that makes your stomach drop. “Are you gonna tell Zacharias about us?”

 You choke on your own spit, leaning forward to cough a couple times, then challenge him with a nervous laugh, “I wasn’t aware there was anything to tell him.”

 Zeke tilts his head, mouth pulling up as he raises his eyebrows. “Come on,” he chuckles.

 “Come on, what?” You frown. If you were with Mike, you both would have died at that. Come on my face, you can hear him say, and you have to fight a smile because there’s absolutely no way you could explain that to the man in front of you.

 “You don’t have to play coy, sweetheart. We both know there’s something going on between us.” He says it with such confidence that even if he wasn’t right you wouldn’t be able to argue with him. The assumption should annoy you, should make you scoff and leave, but instead you sit there staring, caught up in his gaze and cocky grin.

 “I—”

 “It’s okay, you know. Not like you’re alone in this.”

 Those questions swim through your mind again, all the insecurities that you’ve been sorting through with Mike, but now that voice is louder because that sense of trust hasn’t formed yet. You’ve only connected with Zeke over meals and movies. It sounds domestic, but despite your apparently obvious attraction to him, you still don’t feel like you really know him. 

 But, he draws you in, like a moth to a flame. You can’t help it. There’s just something about him that makes you want him to like you, like you want to impress him, like you want to be good for him. You’ve been trying to ignore those thoughts, but they’re much harder to fight now that you’re sitting in front of him, taking in his wavy hair and pale blue eyes, that ever present smirk on his face, the curve of his neck that disappears into his shirt.

 He could just want sex. He could just want a fling. Wait for everyone to get back on campus and drop you for another girl. You tell yourself you wouldn’t care; you’re good at keeping things casual.

 Wouldn’t it be fun to be his arm candy for a while, though? Let people look at you and whisper louder than they did when they’d see you and Mike together? You don’t care about status, about being in the spotlight. It’s more for the experience, dating someone who could teach you things.

 Mike teaches you things, that voice pops up again. He’s been helping you with your work for almost a year now. You can’t just overlook that. 

 “What, are you weighing the pros and cons over there or something?”

 You snort. “Maybe. We still don’t really know each other all that well, Zeke.”

 “Might I remind you that we’ve been hanging out all summer? Did you honestly think it wouldn’t lead to anything more?”

 “Honestly,” you mimic, “I never thought you’d be interested.”

 “Why wouldn’t I be?” His brow furrows like he’s genuinely confused. “You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re cute.” 

 God, you can’t even count how many times he’s called you ‘cute’, how many times it’s made you blush over the last several weeks, just like it does now.

 Then, he pushes, “Do you not find me at—”

 “Of course I do,” you cut him off. “I don’t know who doesn’t, which is exactly why I don’t know where this is coming from.”

 Zeke sighs like he’s annoyed, then turns the hand on his thigh palm up and beckons you with two fingers. “Come here.”

 “What?”

 “Come here.”

 Your blood pressure spikes, breaths coming in little puffs that have no way of getting to your brain. It’s probably why you obey, rolling to your knees and clumsily crawling over to him. You stop short, right between his bent knees, but Zeke sits up, straightens his legs, and pulls you into his lap.

 More of that precious air leaves your lungs as you exhale too sharply, staring at him with huge eyes. You don’t know what’s happening, can’t believe it’s happening. It doesn’t feel real even as you rest your hands on his shoulders, even when he holds your hips and pulls you so that your full weight is on him, but fuck, you can’t say anything. You can’t make a sound. All you can do is wait for him to make his next move.

 “Why do you look scared?” His voice is just above a whisper, but at this proximity you can hear him without a problem. 

 “I don’t have a lot of experience sitting in men’s laps,” you manage, trying to keep your usual careless tone, but you doubt it works.

 “For some reason I don’t believe that.”

 You rear back, actually offended. “Excuse m—”

 That ire, however, melts away as quickly as it arose. Zeke slides fingers up your waist, all the way to the back of your neck to bring your face to his—your lips to his. 

 He feels different, not at all what you’re used to. His kiss is more demanding, hungry, and God, you still can’t breathe, can’t think straight because his tongue is moving past your lips, and you’re letting it, letting him taste you as your fingertips dig into the flesh of his shoulders. You lift yourself from him just a little only for Zeke to pull you back down with the hand still gripping your hip. He makes sure you feel him when he grinds up into you, the zipper of his jeans rubbing you through your little shorts so that you gasp into his mouth. 

 You both stay like that for what feels like a fucking eternity, biting and sucking on lips, stroking over each others’ tongues until you absolutely have to break apart. You’re panting now, body still tense on top of his, and Zeke stares at you with half-lidded eyes and shows the ghost of a smile.

 “Oh, I’m gonna have so much fun with you.”

 The statement sets you on fire, so much so that all you can do is whimper quietly and lean in for more. 

  And, as you get lost in Zeke Jaeger, you decide for yourself.

I need to tell Mike

[ next ]

#mike zacharias x reader #miche zacharias x reader #aot x reader #aot fanfic #aot fanfiction #mels prima vista

[izusun]

https://shitfromtwitter.tumblr.com/post/636749728098418689/thinking-abt-that-specific-type-of-intimacy-from ok but hear me out cus is this not LICHERALLY bakudeku like cuifjfkdkzkcn we’ve never seen bakugous room so what if the first time we see it is when izuku is there and we find out that he has old pics of him and deku framed or maybe in an album BUT even outside of that like just a regular non superhero college au, the idea of them meeting as roommates (they were ROOMA-lemme stop) and then going to visit each other for the holidays and izuku is SO EXCITED to see kacchans room and he (barely) hides his excitement until they get there and he just runs over to the shelves, taking in everything with wide eyes like hes at a museum while katsuki stands in the background wary cus who tf cares about his soccer trophy from 3rd grade? DEKU DOES.

[x]

anon, bestie, im sobbing at this au.

it’s so gentle and soft and so so canon at this point. hori did show that their rooms are reflections of their personalities so i think bakugou’s dorm room in UA is definitely kind of domestic.

imagine midoriya visiting bakugou’s dorm room, feeling so soft and nostalgic because after eleven years, he finally gets to visit katsuki’s room. sure it’s not the childhood room that izuki still vaguely remembers when he was five, but still, it’s katsuki’s room.

(he’s probably thinking that “this is the first time i’ve been in kacchan’s personal space and i’m scared of ruining things oh my god what if i break something and i can’t replace it??? maybe i should just tell kacchan to teach me in the common rooms- but also i wanna see kacchan’s room because he’s inviting me and this must mean he trusts me and that he feels safe with me oh my god kacchan!!! why are you literally so perfect i’m gonna sob-”)

so izuku enters and feels this strong emotion almost choking him up. it’s almost an overwhelming nostalgia tinged with longing and some sort of desperation because it’s like the reality is crashing down on izuku that this room is like seeing katsuki so bare.

izuku smiles at the sight of katsuki’s table, one that has a shelf built on the sides and is filled with his limited all might comics, queued neatly in ascending order. beside his comics are some books that are frayed at the edges, and are arranged into two stacks: one that is for annotated books and one that is not. there are more annotated books than there are not.

katsuki’s walls are bare except for a framed limited all might-dedicated album poster and a limited silver age all might poster. izuku squints at them in jealousy because he never did manage to get ahold of these merchandises.

by katsuki’s windowsill is an array of picture frames. izuku turns to katsuki, silently asking for permission to look at them. he is granted with a stiff nod and izuku pads quietly towards them.

they’re pictures of them. pictures of them when they were infants and were wearing matching all might onesies; and when they were three, katsuki missing a tooth and izuku’s knees bleeding, both holding up matching all might figurines; and when they were twelve, tensed beside each other as they pose in front of aldera; and when they were sixteen, katsuki’s arm resting on top of izuku’s chair and izuku throwing out peace signs as they smile up at the camera, matching all might headbands on their heads. izuku feels so, so elated.

“kacchan,” he says, voice heavy with emotion. he doesn’t even know what to say other than katsuki’s name.

and it’s almost like katsuki knows because izuku watched as katsuki pats the space beside him and beckons izuku to sit with him.

“deku,” katsuki responds and it’s more than enough.

SECOND AU BABY:

I LOVE ME SOME COLLEGE AU! there is no better way to cope with college than to project many many college headcanons to your faves.

ok but bkdk college au wherein they’re childhood friends who kind of separated in high school and only reconnected in college??? saucyy

they meet each other in their dorms and kinda look like that spiderman meme before katsuki pulls izuku into an embrace. and izuku’s short circuiting because he doesn’t know this character development, but also who is he to say no to his beloved kacchan?

so yeah they share this very loaded embrace which kickstarts their slowburn college au arc.

katsuki and izuku’s dorm room is filled with mini posters (mostly from izuku’s side) of their favourite comic characters. most (around four) of it are pictures of their favourite hero, but some (around two) are also pictures of dope supervillains that they both adore.

there’s not much room for comics because their desks are being eaten up by textbooks and journals and periodicals that they need for their courses.

they had to buy a mini shelf for their growing number of books. izuku doesn’t like how it looks so out of place in their room so he bought a potted plant to put on top. katsuki diligently takes care of this plant.

they’re good roommates and even better best friends so it’s not a shock that katsuki invites izuku to his home for the winter break.

izuku easily says yes.

they pack their things and katsuki drives them to his house early at 04:00 am. around 09:00 am, they pull over to have breakfast and switch roles. katsuki snoozes in the passenger seat and izuku drives them to the bakugou residence.

after the pleasantries with the bakugou’s, katsuki leads them to his room. izuku can faintly see him blushing, the tips of his ears blazing, and he feels the sudden urge to coo at katsuki.

the desire is very much snuffed after seeing katsuki’s room.

izuku knew that katsuki’s an athlete; a genius in science and a genius in sports—katsuki’s truly a gifted child. but knowing and seeing are two different things because the moment he passes the threshold of katsuki’s room, he is greeted with rows and rows of katsuki’s trophies. there is a separate case dedicated only for katsuki’s medals and izuku is spluttering in amazement.

he notes that the trophies are not the same; while many of them were from rugby, there are also trophies from basketball, volleyball, and track.

“holy shit, kacchan,” he whispers as he looks at the displayed pictures of katsuki taken during the award ceremonies. it’s so weird (in a good way) to see katsuki aging up from the pictures while he continuously secured victories upon victories.

“shut up,” katsuki mumbles, voice muffled by the collar of his hoodie which he pulled up to hide his embarrassment from izuku.

“you even played kendo!” izuku says, whipping to turn to katsuki, eyes wide and sparkling with adoration.

katsuki’s heart swells and he tries pushing himself further into his hoodie.

he grumbles when he feels a dip beside himself, and lets out a grunt when izuku pokes at him.

“tell me some of your games, please kacchan?” izuku asks and katsuki turns to him to see unadulterated excitement and genuine interest for whatever katsuki used to play.

katsuki didn’t mean to bask in izuku’s admiration, but as he continued to recount stories of his youth to izuku and izuku responds passionately, well that’s between them.

all he knows is that in the comfort of his room, izuku managed to make more treasured memories with him.

#anon #ask #THIS IS SO GOOD TO MY POOR TIRED SOUL #just bkdk being so soft and domestic as they share each other stories about whatever shit is on their rooms #bkg tryna not gloat but midoriya is making it hard by literally loving bkg at whatever #bnha #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #bakudeku #bkdk #dekubaku #dkbk #long post

[redorich]

Out of This World

Niki watches despairingly as her new roommate, one Mr. Wilbur Soot, once again pours water into his cereal. He seems to prefer it that way; Niki can’t help but wonder, not for the first time, whether her roommate is a literal alien from outer space, or just the weirdest motherfucker she’s ever met.

What kind of a last name is Soot, anyway? She thinks to herself unkindly. At least he doesn’t leave dirty clothes on the floor for her to clean up like her last roommate did. But seriously, Niki can’t tell if this man is a crackhead or not.

“Niki, can you pass the salt?” Wilbur says, breaking her out of her reverie. Without thinking, she plucks it from the lowest shelf of the tiny kitchen cabinet and hands it to him. She regrets it instantly when he begins to salt his cereal.

Breathing deeply so as not to grab him by his bony shoulders and shout, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”, she flees the scene of the food crime. When Niki was in college, she was surrounded by people who asserted they had the world figured out. Atoms and gravity and wavelengths. But Niki knows that humanity is desperate to control the uncontrollable, define that which cannot be explained. Science, Niki knows, isn’t just throwing out what doesn’t fit, but rather taking all the data and asking the question, “Why?” So, she thinks, let’s consider the data. 

-------

Niki sneaks trepidatiously to the door to Wilbur’s bedroom. Who knows what sort of unholy, confusing mess he’s got in there, lurking in wait for its next unsuspecting victim. A pinch of guilt hits her. Yeah, Wilbur may be a lunatic, but an alien? Really? It’s a bit uncharitable of her to think such a thing. Shaking herself, she knocks on the door.

“Yes?” Wilbur’s voice carries from inside the room. “Come in.”

Steeling herself, she turns the doorknob with a sweaty palm and is faced with…

A bed. A desk with a computer on it. Two pairs of shoes lined neatly near the closet. Wilbur is taking off his headphones-- he was playing Minecraft. How… ordinary of him.

“Hi, Wilbur. Sorry to interrupt, I just wanted, uh, to see how you were settling in.”

Wilbur smiles his pretty smile. “Thank you. Quite unaccustomed am I to the comforts of-- apartments.”

What Yoda-ass kind of phrasing is that? Niki thinks. A figurine of the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters stares her down from its place on Wilbur’s desk. She meets its eyes warily.

“Oh! Noticed my Ghostbusters statuette, have you?” Wilbur says brightly. “I have more in my closet, if you should like to see them.”

Niki is filled with a sick sense of curiosity. Yes, she wants to see whatever insane thing Wilbur hides in his closet, but she also doesn’t. She idly wonders if Wilbur has ever read The Cask of Amontillado. She feels like he has. This is not comforting.

Wilbur doesn’t sense her hesitation. A small corner of her brain thinks it’s because he’s unfamiliar with human body language. Without pause, Wilbur opens the closet door, revealing…

Niki’s first thought is, where does he keep his clothes? Because the closet is filled with Ghostbusters paraphernalia. The entire. Fucking. Closet. It wasn’t even that great of a movie?? How much did Wilbur spend on this, anyway?

Her roommate misinterprets her blank uncomprehending stare as a marveling gaze. He puffs up proudly.

“Such a profound impact have these movies made! I am truly fortunate to have met a lass of such upstanding artistic caliber, that you should also enjoy the Ghostbusters franchise.”

“Thank you for showing me this,” she says slowly. “I need to-- water the dog. I mean, I left the stove on. At my friend’s house. Uh, see you later.”

She beats a hasty retreat, leaving her apartment for Eret’s place. Something whispers in the depths of her mind: Doesn’t one of the Ghostbusters movies have aliens in it?

-------

Orange is her favorite nail polish color. Eret paints the nails on her right hand in that soft warm shade of orange as he listens to her complain.

“Am I being irrational? Like, do you think I’m going too far?” 

Eret hums noncommittally, putting a little flamingo sticker on her index nail. “He does sound like an unusual person, but I don’t know if I would say he’s an alien.” 

Niki nods her head, since she can’t gesture with her hands. “Okay, yeah, sure-- but he puts salt in his cereal with water. He has a literal dragon’s hoard of memorabilia from shitty movies that came out like three decades ago. And his vibe is just...off. Like when I talk to him, he’s there, but his head’s drifting off somewhere in outer space. God, I’m the worst.”

Eret protests. “Hey, hey, you’re not the worst. Look. I don’t know why this dude is bugging you out so much, but you said he didn’t seem dangerous, right?”

Niki nods dejectedly.

“So, we can figure this out together,” Eret says with a flourish, screwing the top back onto the bottle of polish.

The tender moment is interrupted by Niki’s ringtone. It’s from Wilbur; speak of the devil and he shall appear. Gingerly, so as not to ruin the wet paint on her nails, she picks up the phone and puts it on speaker. “Hello?” she says, motioning for Eret to remain quiet.

“Ahoy, Niki! Wherefore are mine frog legs gone?”

“What?” Eret mouths at her. Niki doesn’t understand either.

“Sorry, Wilbur, what was that?”

“My frog legs,” comes the crackly timbre of a phone in an area with poor reception. “They are no longer in the refrigerator.”

Niki sputters. “Why did you have frog legs in the-- no, never mind. I don’t know what happened to your frog legs, Wilbur.”

The phone line repeats static to her for a moment as Wilbur pauses. “Interesting. Perhaps they walked away, as legs are so oft wont to do. Niki, would you mind dearly to purchase some more? And perhaps, be you willing, some condensed milk?”

Eret silently gags at the idea of frog legs and condensed milk together. Niki doesn’t blame him.

“Okay,” Niki says. 

Eret shakes his head at her, as though begging her not to torture herself like this. The moment Niki hangs up, the first words out of Eret’s mouth are, “That man is one hundred percent an alien. I am so sorry I ever doubted you.”

-------

With frog legs, condensed milk, and an Eret in tow, Niki enters her apartment the following morning with new-found assurance. The rest of the evening goes about as normal as it can, with Wilbur humming nursery rhymes and stirring a pot of, quite frankly, poison. Niki and Eret hide in the living room watching all the Ghibli movies until the only light left comes from the TV in front of them. The front door opens and the floors creak as Will enters. I thought he was in his room?

Eret seems to be on the same page as her. “I didn’t hear him leave,” he says, distant fear in his eyes.

Niki’s ears pick up a faint sound. “Shh!” she hisses. “He’s on the phone.”

Though the apartment is dark (the only light being the TV), Wilbur’s eyes glow like an animal caught on camera. Niki shivers. She only barely catches a glimpse before he ducks back into the entrance hallway, but what she sees unnerves her.

“Philza, calm down,” Wilbur says from the hallway as he takes off his shoes. “It is fine, she suspects not.” 

A pause. The other person on the line, Philza, is talking. 

Wilbur replies, “She was impressed with my Ghostbusters collection, you know-- Ghostbusters is a great movie, fuck off!”

Another pause. Wilbur sighs.

“Aye, I must admit you may have been right on that one. Pretending to be human is--”

“I FUCKING KNEW IT!”

Wilbur’s head peers around the hallway’s corner in a panic to see Niki and Eret. Niki is pointing her finger at Wilbur with pride on her face, and Eret looks as though he wants to be doing the same thing.

The two in the living room both flush a bit at the outburst, but Niki doggedly continues. “You’re an alien!”

Even though Wilbur’s phone isn’t on speaker, Niki and Eret hear Philza’s laughter from all the way across the room. Wilbur sputters and angrily hangs up the phone, before turning the corner to properly face the two humans. His eyes are actually glowing, it wasn’t a trick of the light, Eret observes. Of course, he also notes that Wilbur’s eyes are the size of dinner plates, and he looks about ready to jump out the window to run from them.

“I am… not an alien,” Wilbur says softly.

“Wh-- but you just said--” Eret says, then cuts himself off when Wilbur phases through the fucking floor.

“He’s a ghost,” Niki whispers, all the pieces clicking into place. Old English, weird taste in food, Ghostbusters are you kidding me. If Niki didn’t just watch her roommate evaporate, she’d be banging her head against a wall and asking her professors to revoke her degree.

Wilbur phases back up through the floor, much closer this time but still hesitant. He sits down a few feet away from the pair of humans nervously. He’s more afraid of us than we are of him, Niki thinks. Like the bears at the zoo.

“For many years, observed the living have I,” Wilbur begins slowly. “I wished to commune with them once again, as one of their own. My father-- Philza-- said unto me that I knew nothing of the modern era. I confess that he was right. Willst you cast me out of your home, knowing now of the spectre that I am?”

Niki tries and fails to suppress the amused quirk of her eyebrow. “How about this: Eret and I show you the ropes of being alive in the 21st century, and in return, you keep the frog legs on your side of the fridge?”

Wilbur smiles that pretty smile again. “Deal.”

-------

“Niki? What is an OnlyFans?”

FIN

#this was a collab written with barnaclegirl on discord #she doesnt have a tumblr so i cant tell yall to follow her :( #mcyt #nihachu #wilbur soot #eret #philza #ph1lza #me.txt #dream smp

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Absence of Words (Sawdust of Words 12)

At very long last, we have a new "Sawdust of Words" story!

Absence of Words, 13.5k, rated G.

London Sunday after the Apocalypse

They've survived an attempted Armageddon and near-executions, confessed their feelings, and now Aziraphale and Crowley are ready to spend the rest of eternity together.

But thousands of years of abuse are not so easily shrugged off. If this is going to work, if they're going to last longer than a few hours, Aziraphale and Crowley will need to learn to communicate.

It may be their greatest challenge yet. -- This fic takes place immediately after the "love confession" story "Finding the Words," and is my first real exploration in the series of what 6000 years of abuse and unhealthy communication becomes when you're abruptly free of your abusers AND starting a new relationship on the same day. Spoilers: it goes badly.

(However, I assure you all - it does have a happy ending and they will get better in the future!)

I shared the first scenes a few days ago, so the excerpt below is from slightly later, 1.3k of Aziraphale settling his emotions upon returning to the shop after the extreme thrill of walking hand-in-hand with Crowley for almost an hour. Hope you enjoy!

(CW for references to Heaven's emotional abuse/manipulation/gaslighting, and particularly to the fact that Aziraphale is still thinking in the ways they conditioned him to)

--

Aziraphale pushed the door of his shop closed and breathed a sigh of relief. Home again. His own space, where everything always made a little more sense, felt a little more secure.

Despite the fire, everything was exactly as it should be. Every book, every figurine, every speck of dust perfectly in its place. Even the rug he’d moved aside to contact Heaven lay flat in the center of the floor where it belonged, as if the entire horrid day hadn’t happened.

He paused for a moment, fingers resting on a stack of books, and took another deep breath. He didn’t feel quite settled yet; a cup of tea would really help, though he wasn’t sure if he had the time to make one properly.

Fortunately, as an angel, he had other options.

His favorite tea mug already sat on the desk by his favorite chair. Perfect. A quick miracle filled it with warm black tea, a blend of leaves with a hint of roast chestnut, something a little sweeter but more subtle than sugar, and a few buds of chamomile and safflower petals to help him relax. Then he settled into the chair and took a slow drink, letting the flavors linger on his tongue.

Yes, precisely what he needed. A moment of calm amidst the whirlwind, something Crowley would certainly understand once he’d had a chance to explain properly. Five minutes and he’d be ready for whatever excitement the world threw at him, or that he threw himself into, as that seemed to be something he did now.

He wiggled his shoulders, burrowing more comfortably into his pillows, pleased at his own boldness, wondering what he should try next. He’d played football once, years ago, perhaps they could find some energetic youths and play a match. Or he could learn a musical instrument, spend a day as one of those street-corner musicians. Not that he’d ever really wantedto, but he could if he liked, and the possibility was thrilling.

Or he could do something really audacious, like run his fingers through Crowley’s hair. That possibility made a great deal of heat rise to his face as he eyed the sofa where the demon liked to sprawl.

As he did, Aziraphale noticed a few things out of place. Nothing major. The blanket, usually draped across the sofa, lay neatly folded over the arm. The odds and ends across his desk had been properly stacked. The nearest bookshelf had been re-organized so that the books ran from the smallest on the left to the largest on the right. Even this mug, he realized, hadn’t been used for at least two days and should be sitting spotless in its cupboard.

Several possible explanations came to mind, particularly that in recreating the destroyed shop Adam had put a few items in the wrong spots. But he knew Crowley had spent hours waiting here this morning. Perhaps he’d done a little tidying, then sat and made himself a cup of tea.

That brought another fascinating blend of emotions. A little alarming, to be drinking from the same cup. Not proper at all, in today’s society, though it would have been more acceptable in the past. But in modern society, there was something intimate about it. And he found he didn’t mind that at all.

Not intimate, Aziraphale thought, eyes drifting across the shelf again. Domestic. Now there was an interesting idea. Crowley making himself at home in the shop. Making himself a snack, lounging about and being rude to customers, doing his little cleaning routine when he felt nervous, helping himself to a glass of wine in the evening or padding around in bare feet after waking up in the morning…

Instinctively, Aziraphale clamped down on the whole line of thought, burying it, glancing about to see if someone had somehow noticed.

But…there was no one to notice anything. No one to worry about. Not now, not ever again.

I’m…free.

He set down the mug and pressed his hands together. He’d never really considered himself trapped in the first place. Yes, he’d needed to be careful to avoid notice, judgement, but that was his own fault for not being the right sort of angel, for failing to measure up again and again.

And yet. There was no longer any reason to be careful.

No longer any reason to lie.

That was all Crowley had asked, wasn’t it? That Aziraphale stop lying?

Honesty. Now there was his most audacious idea yet.

“I…” He put his fingers to his lips, not quite sure he dared. But he could. He could. “I…love…”

His voice hitched over the word, his mind filling with caution, with warnings not to go too far.

“I lo-love…” Why was he shaking? He could hardly be reprimanded for it now. “I love…Crowley.”

The name seemed to hang in the air, echo off the walls. This was madness, of course, he had taken no precautions. He had every reason to think Gabriel might come back, for a check-up, for some final business, and Aziraphale would — would disappoint him, and that was worse than any punishment.

Only. Only that didn’t matter, did it? What was Gabriel’s disappointment, compared to a garden, a bright sky, and Crowley leaning down to brush his lips…

“I…I love Crowley!” It came out louder and more defiant than he intended, as warmth and excitement rushed through Aziraphale. “I love him! And he loves me!”

He gasped, just a little, to hear it out loud.

He loves me.

Sinking back into his seat again, Aziraphale rubbed his eyes. The mask of calm that had carried him through the Apocalypse fell away, and now he found himself quite close to actual tears.

He’d wondered for so many years. 78 years, 3 months and 14 days, to be precise. Did Crowley love him? Could Crowley love him? Did he feel even a fraction of that powerful force that Aziraphale often worried would destroy him, destroy them both?

It frightened him, sometimes, the love Aziraphale felt, warm and insistent, brash and bold, at times quite needy. Nothing like the pure love of Heaven, patient and kind, austere and a little distant. Not something to be freely given in exchange for a smile or a box of chocolates, but something to strive for, to inspire one towards improvement, towards one’s best self.

He’d tried, of course, oh how he’d tried. Every assignment, every duty, pouring every last bit of himself into whatever they asked of him with such good intentions, hoping for a sign, a bit of praise, a brush of that loving warmth. He always failed, of course, flawed and imperfect angel that he was.

He couldn’t resent Heaven for holding that love in reserve; that, too, was an expression of love, for how could one grow and develop if everything were simply handed to one?

But it had been lonely. So very lonely for so very long.

Not anymore.

Crowley loved him, right now, with all his faults and flaws. He couldn’t say it — such was the nature of the Fallen — but love wasn’t about words. He could feel it in Crowley’s touch, hear it in his tone of voice, taste it in his kiss. And that was enough.

He treasured it so, that love, that trust that Crowley had shared with so few. It was Aziraphale he found worthy, Aziraphalehe gave them to, and Aziraphale would do anything to show they hadn’t been misplaced.

My best friend, Crowley had said; what could be more precious than that? A greater honor than Aziraphale had ever expected.

He just wished he could hear the words in a different tone of voice, one not laced with all-consuming pain and loss. Wished he could think of them without remembering how he’d sat there stupidly, a corporationless angel floating in a void, unable to offer any reassurance or comfort, unable to even let Crowley see his face. Useless, as he’d always been.

That, at least, ended today. He loved Crowley, he was with Crowley. Nothing would ever come between them again.

He wiped his eyes one last time and went to find Crowley’s surprise. And perhaps some biscuits for the road, one never knew when one’s…companion (even that word made him blush) might get hungry.

Read the rest on AO3!

Or read the whole series here!

As always with Sawdust of Words - mind the tags and CWs.

#good omens prime #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #aziraphale and crowley #emotional h/c #aziraphale #anxious aziraphale #asexual aziraphale #crowley #demisexual crowley #getting together #hand holding #kissing #post-almost-apocalypse #crowley loves aziraphale #aziraphale loves crowley #crowley loves his angel #queen lyrics #the bentley #crowley can't say i love you #heave is a cult #aziraphale likes crowley's eyes #happy ending #my writing #sawdust of words #good omens #ao3 link #ao3

[ga-yuu]

Ikemen Genjiden ~ Ibuki 1st Birthday Story ~ “A Lewd Play”

(As expected, Kyoto is a beautiful city! Although its different from Kamakura.)

I was visiting Kyoto alongside with Yoritomo-sama and Kagetoki-san, for some business related matters....

After introducing me to some high officials and greeting them, they were kind enough to let me enjoy my free time this way.

Kid 1: “Are you sure?”

Kid 2: “Yes. I am.”

(Ah, these kids. Looks interesting.)

Few children ran past me while I was walking. While watching them with a smile....

???: “Hey, do you not want to hide?”

Yuno: “Hm?”

Suddenly I heard a voice and I turned around.

Kid: “You have to hide or a demon will catch you.”

(....! How beautiful.)

(Maybe his face....no, his eyes are more captivating.)

Kid: “What’s with that look?”

His voice was surprisingly matured, considering the elaborated make-believe appearance.

Yuno: “Even if you warn me....I will be fine because I’m an adult.”

I looked at the little boy and smiled back.

(Anyway, where is he from?)

(He is wearing fancy clothes which means he is obviously not a commoner....Maybe you’re a son of some high ranking official?)

Yuno: “Hey, what is your name?”

Kid: “Ibuki.”

Yuno: “I’m Yuno.”

(I know its none of my business, but I feel like it’s dangerous for a child like him to be walking around by himself...)

Yuno: “Ibuki-kun, aren’t your family members with you?”

Ibuki: “No, I’m lost.” (With most deceiving saddest expression but at the same time its cute.)

Yuno: “....I have never seen a kid like you getting lost. Hmmm. Would you like me to help you find your way back home?”

I don’t want to leave him by himself and so I made an offer....

Ibuki: “Will you?”

His clear blue eyes stared at me, and the little red lips drew an arc.

Yuno: “Yeah. Let’s get you home before the sun goes down.”

Ibuki: “Okay. Let’s go.”

Ibuki-kun walked up right next to me and took my hand as a matter of course.

Ibuki: “This way.”

Yuno: ‘Eh? Okay.”

I followed Ibuki-kun, who pulls my hand and started walking.

(Although he’s lost, he walks without any hesitation,...)

Yuno: “By the way, Ibuki-kun. How old are you?”

(He looks like he’s ten or twelve...)

I asked that while feeling a peculiar heat from his his palm radiating my body.

Ibuki: “I’m 1200 years old.”

Yuno: “Huh? Wait....Don’t make fun of me.”

Ibuki-kun laughed at my ridiculous response.

Yuno: “ If you’re like this from a young age, I’m worried about your future.”

Ibuki: “Heh, this is the first time someone is worried about my future. Also, I made a mistake. I’m aging one more year today.”

(Ah)

Yuno: “Is today your birthday?”

Ibuki: “Yeah.”

Yuno: “Congratulations! I mean......You’re not teasing me this time, right?”

Ibuki: “You’re a ruthless person to doubt an innocent child, Yuno.” (Innocent? huh!)

Ibuki-kun, lifts one end of his lips which didn’t seem innocent.

Yuno: “If it’s your birthday today, you have to go home quickly and celebrate.”

Ibuki: “Nobody lives with me. So it doesn’t matter.”

Yuno: “No one...”

(I know that’s not possible, but what’s going on?)

Ibuki-kun peeked at my face when I didn’t speak.

Ibuki: “If you’re going to look like that, will you celebrate my birthday, Yuno?”

(Hm?)

When I stared back at him in dismay, I saw a somewhat amused color in Ibuki-kun’s eyes.

(Maybe because he doesn’t have a family, might be the reason to his matured personality...)

When I think about that, I feel like I can’t leave him alone.

Yuno: “Okay. I can’t stay long, but I’m happy if I can.”

Ibuki: “Okay.”

Seeing Ibuki laughing with satisfaction, I also relaxed.

(I have to celebrate his birthday properly.)

Yuno: “Oh, wait.”

After asking him to wait, I quickly ran to a nearby store. Without him notice, I bought him a small gift and then we made our way towards Ibuki’s house.

When the sky turned red, we made it------

Ibuki: “Welcome, make yourself at home.”

Yuno: “Um..yes.”

Ibuki guided me to a house in the outskirts of the town without hesitation.

Yuno: “.....So. Is this where you actually live?”

Ibuki: “Is it strange?”

Yuno: “Because, this atmosphere is different from any kid’s room.”

The room, that Ibuki-kun claims is his, had a somewhat lewd atmosphere.

Ibuki: “I’m the only one who lives here. But I did bring many guests before.”(But seems like no one has made it alive!!)

The light coming from the window illuminates Ibuki-kun’s cheeks. For some reason, I felt a shiver run down my spine at a mysterious premonition.

Ibuki: “What’s wrong?”

Yuno: “......”

(Something is wrong. Ibuki-kun looks much more.....frightening.)

I unconsciously backtracked to Ibuki-kun who is approaching me.

Ibuki: “It’s not wrong but don’t you think its too late to be vigilant.”

Yuno: “Eh.....”

That’s when Ibuki-kun rolled up his long sleeve and I saw what looked like a very old looking bracelet. The moment he took it off-----

(.....!)

Ibuki (Daddy version): “That’s why I warned you before,didn’t I?. You have to hide from demons.”

Yuno: “You.....”

(What is happening.)

Ibuki-kun, who I thought was a small kid, is now transformed into a young man in front of me. He has two horns growing on his head and had bright blonde hair.

Yuno: “Oni....”

When I was surprised, the young man----Ibuki, laughed as if he was amused.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Correct.”

(No. I must not space out like this, I have to run away!)

My body moved as if it sensed danger and I ran to the door.

Yuno: “Eh.....Why won’t this open.”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Oh yeah, I locked the door with a magic spell. Do you think a human could leave safely after entering a devil’s den.”

(That’s....)

I stared at Ibuki as hard as I could with my back to the door.

Yuno: “What are you going to do to me? Maybe this has something to do with the rebels...”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “I know one guy from the rebels, but other than that, this not has nothing to do with them.”

Yuno: “Then...?”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Don’t worry, I approached you because I have a personal interest in you. That’s it.”

(I’m pretty sure he’s hiding something....but what does he want....)

At least there is no murderous intent in Ibuki’s eyes. Even so, I can’t let my guard down and be weak....

Ibuki: “So. How long are you going to stand there? Don’t you want to celebrate my birthday?”

(.....How serious are you?)

I can’t read anything from Ibuki’s teasing tone.

Yuno: “I only wanted to celebrate your birthday, because you were posing as little kid.”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Isn’t it your fault for not checking in advance if I am suspicious or not? Humans only see the surface. That’s what’s so cute about them.”

I looked at Ibuki while being confused as he continues to speak with amusement.

Yuno: “I made a promise and I’m not comfortable breaking it. But.... I really don’t know what you’re thinking. What’s your purpose?”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “That’s simple. If you managed to satisfy me, I’ll let you go.”

His blue eyes gleamed dangerously and my heart pounds with an anticipation. He takes my hand invitingly and brings me closer.

Yuno: “Wait....”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “It’s okay. There’s plenty of time. For you, that is.”

(Ah)

As he sweetly bites my finger, my shoulders bounce.

Yuno: “Mm...why...why are you doing this?”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Say my name.”

Yuno: “Ngh........Ibuki!”

In the midst of my spinning thoughts, I reflexively called out his name as requested.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Well done.”

As if to maintain the anticipation...Ibuki’s fingertips slowly unties my hair.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Yuno. It’s just a for fun. So relax.”

(............)

A sweet dangerous sensation hits my body as he hugs me.

Yuno: “Mm.”

When I felt his lips touching me neck, my voice slipped out.

(This is not good.)

My body became numb at the feeling of his tongue. But then my body follows Ibuki’s words and I relaxed.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “You like this, don’t you?”

Yuno: “.....Let go. You’ve had enough, haven’t you?”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “No way. Demons are greedy. At this rate, I’ll have to devour you completely.” (No wonder your son is Kurama. You raised him just like you.)

(Wait....)

Yuno: “ Are you saying that you’re literally....?”

Ibuki chuckled when I asked him fearfully.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “We are not little kids. Of course, you know what I meant.”

The touch of his fingertips at my throat tickled and made my body heat up.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Or do you want me to celebrate and please you in some other way?”

His fingertips slides down  from my throat, tracing the curves of my body teasingly.

(This is bad. If I don’t quickly satisfy Ibuki....then!)

When I tried to work my head, I caught something in the corner of my eyes.

Yuno: “Oh yeah, the gift!”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Hm?”

I pulled away from Ibuki’s body and picked up the gift and pressed it against his chest.

Yuno: “I bought this while we were in town....It for your birthday, so take it.”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “You are not very sexy in this kind of situation, are you? Oh well.”

Ibuki began to open the gift in a relaxed manner.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “If you are bothered to give it to me, that means you’re very confident about this, right?”

Yuno: “Well....”

(I gave it on the spur of the moment to stop his play. But the stuff inside is....)

Ibuki (Daddy version): “...!”

Ibuki’s eyes widened as he sees the gift.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “----Cat figurine?”

It was a cute wooden carving cat that I intended to give to a small child.

(Please tell me you like it.)

Yuno: “Well, you see...actually---”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “You’ve got a good taste, I’ll give you that.”

Yuno: “Huh”

Ibuki happily looks at the cat figurine as if he was in good mood.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “The loveliness of the cat is well expressed.”

He continues to talk to himself while arranging the figurine on his shelf.

Yuno: “....Do you like cats?”

Ibuki (Daddy version)(pouting): “Is there anything not to like?”

(Well yeah,....cats are cute, though)

Yuno: “How surprising...”

Ibuki (Daddy version):(Pouting) “Insolent woman.”

Having said that, Ibuki didn’t seem to be offended.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “Okay. I can’t help it, I was originally planning to play with you until morning.....but Yuno, you can go home.”

Yuno: “Eh!?”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “I promised that I would let you go when I’m satisfied, didn’t I?”

Yuno: “Yes, you did....”

(That was easy.)

Looks like he a disciplined type who keeps his promises.

(Forcible, dangerous, disciplined, cat-loving demon?)

I don’t know which is the actual Ibuki, but....before I knew it, my fear was completely gone.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “What’s wrong? You don’t want to go. If you want to do it, I’ll do my best to satisfy you.”

Yuno: “No no no! I’m fine.”

Before Ibuki changed his mind, I quickly touched the door.

(...! It really opened.)

Ibuki (Daddy version): “How rude. At least you could say ‘I’ll miss you’.”

(Being unreasonable, but ......)

Yuno: “Hey, Ibuki.”

While hesitating, I stopped behind the door and stared at Ibuki.

Ibuki (Daddy version): “....? What?”

Yuno: “I know it’s little late. Happy Birthday! I didn’t get to say it earlier.”

Ibuki (Daddy version): “...........”

In the faint light of twilight, I could see Ibuki opening his eyes slightly.

(Ah..... Ibuki can look like that!?)

Somehow that unexpected expression shook my heart....

#ikemen series #ikemen genjiden #ikemen genjiden ibuki #ibuki 1st birthday story #cybird otome #ikemen games

[infinitevariety]

May Your Days Be Merry

Having never been able to celebrate previously, Aziraphale and Crowley decide to embrace the festive season and make the most of their first December together since the world didn’t end.

Chapter Fourteen: Hope (AO3)

Crowley makes a nuisance of himself in the bookshop while Aziraphale is out.

The bookshop door is locked when Crowley pushes it, and his stomach drops. The door hasn’t been locked to him for weeks now—always Aziraphale has been inside waiting for him. His first thought is that Aziraphale has decided to go travelling. To take off and do some far flung Christmas blessings of his own, now he’s not taking orders from Heaven. But surely he would have at least told Crowley, even if this wasn’t in their plans for the holidays.

Trying to stay calm, Crowley snaps he fingers and enters the shop.

“Angel?”

No answer.

“Aziraphale?”

Nothing.

Crowley moves around the bookcases and heads straight for Aziraphale’s desk, hoping he just has the earphones of his personal cassette player in again. The chair is empty, but Crowley relaxes a fraction when he sees the note on the desk, addressed to him. He strides over and swipes it up.

Crowley,

Just popped out to get you a few bits for Christmas. Make yourself at home, obviously. I shan’t be long. And no peeking in my bags when I get back!

Yours, Aziraphale

Crowley collapses with relief into Aziraphale’s desk chair—then instantly springs up and back out of it. Aziraphale is very particular about his chair. Crowley made the mistake of sitting in it once back in 1863. Aziraphale had been aghast, running Crowley out of it and back to the sofa. He’d claimed it had taken him another two years to get the seat cushion back into the perfect position.

He hopes Aziraphale won’t notice that Crowley defiled his chair this time.

Shucking off his coat and scarf, Crowley tosses them on the sofa and heads to the kitchen. Nothing beats a cup of tea made by Aziraphale, but in his absence, a self-made cup of tea using Aziraphale’s tea leaves and apparatus will do.

He takes down a mug, picks out a nice sounding tea, and reaches randomly for one of the many tea strainers. It’s only as he’s pouring the boiling water into the mug that Crowley realises he’s used the wrong tea strainer. This is the one Aziraphale uses first thing in the morning, and only for the cup of Lady Grey he has to start his day. Crowley’s having a rooibos.

Seizing the strainer, Crowley snaps away the wet leaves inside. He gives it a through wash and dry before carefully replacing it in the drawer. His tea is a little weak, but he decides to forego any milk and try to enjoy it.

He only hopes Aziraphale won’t be able to tell his strainer was used for the wrong tea.

On his way back the sofa, Crowley peruses a few bookcases. There is no rhyme or reason to Aziraphale’s organisation, but Crowley hopes to spot any cookery books to help narrow down what kind he could get Aziraphale as a present. He spots something that looks like it could be about cooking, and reaches to pull the book out for a better look.

So intent on the book, Crowley completely overlooks the small glittery sea turtle figurine on the shelf in front of it. The book glides out and knocks the turtle forwards, off the edge of the shelf, and onto the floor.

Crowley freezes at the sound of breaking porcelain. Whipping his head around, he looks towards the door, as if expecting Aziraphale to come waltzing in at precisely this moment. The door remains shut. Crowley grabs the figurine from the floor and inspects it. It’s missing a small back flipper, but otherwise looks unharmed. Looking around, Crowley can’t see the missing flipper. He puts the book and the figurine back on the shelf.

He can only hope Aziraphale doesn’t spot—or find—the missing flipper.

Deciding it’s not safe for him to wander the shop alone, Crowley heads to the sofa and collapses into the familiar territory to drink his weak tea and wait for Aziraphale.

It’s almost half an hour later when Aziraphale returns, a few bags dangling from his hands. Crowley cranes his neck, but Aziraphale snatches the bags to his chest and disappears upstairs with them.

“No peeking!” he calls behind him as he goes.

When Aziraphale re-emerges his hands are empty, and his smile is large.

“When did you get here?” he asks.

“Only about 40 minutes ago,” Crowley tells him. “Did you get everything I wanted?”

“Who says any of it was for you?”

Crowley waves Aziraphale’s note. “You did. Along with all the chest-clutching theatrics with the bags.”

“It’s all a ruse,” says Aziraphale with a waggle of his eyebrows. “I’m going to make a cup of tea, do you want one?”

“Oh, go on then. A rooibos, please.” His first one really had been too weak.

As Aziraphale makes his way to the kitchen he stops beside one of the bookcases—the bookcase. He turns and Crowley can see his eyes roving over the space. Crowley says nothing, keeping his head lowered and phone out. After several seconds Aziraphale shakes himself and carries on to the kitchen. Crowley doesn’t realised how much he’s tensed up until his body relaxes.

Sounds of mugs being taken down and tea being brewed drift through from the kitchen. Crowley licks his lips in anticipation of a good cup of tea. Then suddenly all the noise stops, and Crowley tenses up again.

“Crowley?” calls Aziraphale.

“Yeah?” he replies, wary of saying too much.

“Did you make a cup of tea while I was out?”

His used cup is on the floor beside him. Surreptitiously, Crowley uses his foot to gently nudge the cup under the sofa and out of sight.

“No…” he calls back.

Another few seconds of anxious silence, and then the noises start up again. Within minutes Aziraphale is coming back through with two cups of tea, smiling as usual. Crowley smiles back and hopes it looks natural.

Crowley can’t help but hold his breath as Aziraphale lowers himself into the chair at his desk. He fidgets a little, but no more than usual, to get comfortable. Aziraphale quickly settles and picks up his tea, taking a long sip. Crowley does the same, relieved beyond measure that he’s got away with it all.

They sip their drinks in silence for a few minutes, and Crowley wonders what takeaway Aziraphale might want for dinner. He looks over, the question on his lips, and is unnerved to find Aziraphale already staring at him.

“Angel?”

Aziraphale eyes narrow slightly.

“You sat in my bloody chair, didn’t you?”

#good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fic #ace ineffable husbands #ineffably festive #fic: may your days be merry #2020 advent ficlet challenge #i wrote this

[dat-fandom-losertown]

The Drift Between Us

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Chapter 10: Adjustment Period

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Hank Anderson x Connor and Gavin Reed x RK900 (Ritch)

Pacific Rim AU

Warnings: None!

Word Count: 9,149

•◊•◊•◊•◊• 

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Ritch awkwardly stands in front of Gavin’s door– and his too, at least for for now– with both of his duffle bags set on either side of him. Either Gavin isn’t letting him inside out of spite, which is completely plausible, or he’s not inside because he’s staying at lunch later than usual. Either way, he’s hoping Gavin opens the door before lunch officially ends. He’s not willing to leave his bags out in the hallway just to go get food and he’s getting pretty hungry after this morning’s fight and nerves.

    He looks down at the only watch he owns– a fancy one meant to be worn with suits during formal or semi-formal events– which is now on his wrist instead of put away like usual. There’s 20 minutes before lunch ends. Even if he left now, he’d have to eat faster than he’s used to if he wants to finish it before people are kicked out for cleaning purposes. Oh well, he’s missed more meals than he cares to count during his time with Amanda, and he’s definitely gone longer than this without food before. He’ll just eat dinner a bit earlier than usual to keep the hunger away.

    “Dick?”

    Ritch turns to Gavin and automatically corrects, “Ritchie, not Richard.”

    “Yea yea, whatever,” Gavin says, rolling his eyes and waving his hand in dismissal. “What the fuck are you doing just hanging around by my door like a stray cat or something?”

    “I was never given the code to the room.”

    “And you couldn’t’ve waited in your own room because...?” Gavin stops right in front of him, defiance in his eyes. Ritch is too mentally exhausted to deal with that right now.

    “Because technically starting this morning, this is my own room, unfortunately. Did you at least pick up any unmentionables?”

    Gavin barks out an unfriendly laugh and turns to the keypad. Ritch commits the code 4629 to memory, having a feeling that Gavin won’t actually give him the code just to make his life harder. Just because he’s able to break into bunkers doesn’t mean he wants to more than what’s absolutely necessary.

    “I told you I don’t keep that kind of shit in my room.” He opens the bunker door and lets them both inside before continuing. “Also, why the hell do you call it that?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch asks as he finds a clear space on the floor to set his bags.

    “‘Unmentionables’. That makes it sound like you’re some kind of prude, or some good little boy who went to catholic school, I dunno. More likely a nun with that baby face and mean stare.”

    Ritch sighs and grumbles, “Where should I put my stuff.”

    He just wants to get out of here and head down to the training room to help out a few of the struggling students. He’s just too mentally exhausted after all that’s happened today to properly banter with Gavin right now, and he can tell that bantering is all that Gavin wants at the moment.

    Gavin’s face falls for a split second, but he’s back to his aggressive self before Ritch can even comprehend what it could mean.

    “Left side of everything– left side of the shelves, left drawers, left closet– and the bottom bunk.” Gavin glares at him with a challenge in his eyes. Ritch doesn’t fall for it because he has no need to argue. That’s the space he took up in his and Connor’s room, so there’s no issue.

    “Perfect.” he says sharply, “Thanks.”

    He sets his bags down in the middle of the room in preparation to unpack. He gets his studying books (will he even need these anymore?) and puts them on the empty side of the shelf above the metal desk, then pulls out his personal books to put on the shelf above the last.

    Most are mainly about the science of how jaegers can safely transfer memories from one person to another without messing either person up, but some are just basic psychology books. The way people think and handle things have fascinated him ever since he first realized how different he and Connor are despite having always spent almost every waking moment with each other, and thus being in the same situations.

    Part of him hopes that Connor will do well on his own for the foreseeable future, but another part worries that there will be some kind of issue that could have been prevented if Ritch was there to stop it. Yet another part secretly hopes Connor gets used to being alone quickly so he isn’t as dependent on other people. He has the skills and brains to make it on his own, he just needs to use them instead of panicking or shutting down all the time. Hand-holding and direct interfering has proven less than effective, so maybe a hands off approach will help Connor realize his potential.

    “Alright, ground rules,” Gavin suddenly snaps as Ritch finishes putting the last of his books up. “First off, do not keep me up at night or you’ll regret it the next morning. And don’t wake me up early unless it’s an emergency either! Secondly, I get the first shower because the hot water runs out quickly here for some reason and I will make your day hell if I have to take a fucking cold shower. Thirdly, don’t touch my stuff. I don’t fucking care if you’re an OCD freak or something and I’ve left a mess, do. Not. Touch them, or I will break your hand. Got it?”

    Ritch nods simply. “As long as you don’t touch my stuff either, then it’s understood. Also, you don’t have to worry about me taking any hot water. I take my showers in the evening, and I prefer them tepid rather than hot.”

    Ritch hears the strange offended and concerned sound Gavin makes and looks up from digging his two jaeger figurines out of his bags. He doesn’t say anything, opting to silently raise an eyebrow at the pilot when he doesn’t immediately start talking like he expected. It works.

    “Why the fuck do you take cold showers? Have you never felt the glory that is a steaming hot shower before? ‘Cause you told me you were kind of sheltered earlier, but that’s just sad.” Gavin finally asks with what Ritch would call a sarcastic frown.

    He looks back down to his bag in an attempt to hide the pained expression he’s undoubtedly making. He doesn’t like reminders of that unfortunate night– dream. Nightmare. Whatever his brain decides that particular event was at any given moment.

    “It’s not cold, just tepid. You have your reasons for hating cold water, I have my reasons for hating hot.”

    “What the fuck do you know?” Gavin abruptly snarls, sounding every bit like he’s willing to kill Ritch or someone else.

    The tone snaps Ritch to attention, but he catches himself and freezes when he take’s in Gavin’s stance. He’s tense in a way that’s more defensive rather than his usual offensive position, and his face reveals equal betrayal and pain as rage. It completely catches Ritch off guard, which explains why he says what he does without trying to hide anything for the first time in a very long while.

    “Why do you get to ask me why I hate hot showers when you want to bite my head off for just saying that you have random reasons for hating cold water. Why should I care why you like hot showers when I’m the outlier in this situation, not you?”

    Gavin doesn’t respond, he just keeps glaring at him as if that will make him confess knowing something he doesn’t.

    Does he have a particularly bad memory/dream/nightmare like Connor and I do? What am I thinking, of course he does. He’s an official jaeger pilot; he likely has plenty of bad memories and experiences to choose from, Ritch thinks, making a note to himself to not bring up cold water or temperatures around Gavin anymore.

    Gavin must have finally come to some kind of conclusion, because he takes a deep breath and refocuses on the jaeger model that’s still in Ritch’s hands.

    “I thought I told you to leave your robot porn back in your bunker?” he snaps. At least he sounds less like he’s actually going to murder Ritch any moment now.

    “Sorry to disappoint, but just because you undoubtedly have explicit content hiding somewhere in here doesn’t mean I have any. Why are you so obsessed on this topic, anyhow?” he says smoothly as he gets up and positions his little models on the shelf. Are the jaeger figurines actually bothering him and he’s using this to somewhat cover it up, or is this another layer of teasing? 

    People can be incredibly confusing. Especially if their name is Gavin Reed.

    “I’m not obsessed with this topic. I’m just noticing that you’re obsessed with jaegers.” Gavin somehow makes climbing onto the top bunk look as lazy as plopping down onto the bottom bunk would. “So I’m just making sure you aren’t gonna be doing anything weird when we’re gonna be forced to drift together later on. I ain’t partnering with a fuckin’ creep.”

    “Well, nor will I.” Ritch rolls his eyes as he turns to fully face Gavin. “Actually, because I want a topic change, here are my own ground rules.”

    “Uh-uh! You don’t get to–”

    “Rule one!” Ritch declares over him, “As I said before, you don’t get to touch my stuff either. I am very particular about where everything goes, and I am a very private person. Rule two, do not wake me up in the morning unless it is an emergency. I have alarms set on my phone– that I place under my pillow so only I can hear it.” he adds when Gavin opens his mouth to retort, “I will always be on time to wherever I or we need to be, so please do not mess with me while I’m sleeping.”

    Gavin, surprisingly, just shrugs and says, “Fair enough.” It gives Ritch enough confidence to continue.

    “Rule three–”

    “There’s fuckin’ more!?–”

    “–and the last one I can think of for now. I am very introverted. Sometimes I will want to be left alone just because I am not used to having to constantly entertain someone, so try to not pester me 24/7. Although, considering your first rule, I think we can come to an agreement there as well.”

    Gavin doesn’t say anything for a solid minute, just scowling at Ritch from the top bunk. Ritch doesn’t move or break eye contact either. He’s played this game many times with Amanda over the years; breaking now would only be admitting defeat and showing that he isn’t as tough and confident as he is. Breaking eye contact and/or relaxing his tall, solid stance is something Connor would do, and while that seems to work for his twin a lot of the time, Ritch is most definitely not that type of person. He gets his way through confidence and logic rather than constant encouragement and compromise.

    “Fine.” Gavin barks. “We have a fuckin’ deal. And apparently the first part of the damned ‘personal schedules’ we’re gonna have to make.”

    That throws Ritch off track. “Personal schedules?”

    Gavin snorts. “Yea. It’s all bullshit, but all new partners have to do it. I’ve had to do one, like, three or four times now. It’s boring and annoying as hell.” He flops back down on his bed, so Ritch grabs his bag of clothes and starts unpacking them while Gavin continues, “We’ll write down that before breakfast and anything past nine or so are solitary times for our sanity. God, fuck all of this. Seriously.”

    “Will therapy appointments and trainee assisting have to go on these personal schedules? And are we turning these in to someone, or are these for private use?” Ritch asks as he puts his small pile of shirts in the locker-closet.

    “Yes to your first question. And people use these schedules to make bonding time or scheduled training or some shit, so we gotta turn them in.” Ritch doesn’t need to turn to know he’s probably doing his ever-so-famous scowl and glare. This entire thing is already becoming exhausting and they haven’t even started yet.

    The next several minutes are thankfully spent in blissful silence. Ritch isn’t sure what Gavin is hiding up on his top bunk, but he never came down for paper or a writing utensil before presumably starting the schedule, so he must have things stashed up there like Connor stashes his own things. If he’s that serious about his own privacy, then he’ll hopefully take Ritch’s request for privacy more seriously than he originally thought.

    “Okay, so I got my part of this fuckery down. You just slap on your schedule on this blank paper, we’ll hand this over. They’ll do a personality thing within the next few days, and then we’ll be back on our own separate ways.”

    That makes Ritch perk up from shoving his bags under the bed.

    “Why would they separate us so quickly?” he asks as he watches Gavin gracefully jump off his top bunk, dropping two pieces of paper on the bottom bunk before striding to the door.

    “Because I’m Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed, retch.” He opens the door and steps through, but he pauses long enough to grin smugly and add, “No one lasts long with me.”

    He shuts the door behind himself with a clang as if to emphasize his point. It leaves Ritch alone with the silence. He picks up the papers and sees that it’s much simpler than he thought. It’s just a normal chart that has 7 columns for each day of the week. Gavin wrote down his activities next to a rough time estimate of when the various things normally get done.

    Gavin’s schedule has several chunks of time dedicated to patrolling halls that are all listed as “duty” rather than “free time”. Ritch is surprised he wasn’t just roaming the halls with the sole purpose of finding a way to cause trouble, but it makes more sense how he always manages to randomly run into people and trouble and not get reported or something if that’s his job. He wonders if that would still be Gavin’s job if he became a full-time pilot rather than a back-up one that no one really likes.

    “No one lasts long with me” he said? Well, he hasn’t met Ritch when he’s determined to beat a challenge, and “Gavin mother-fuckin’ Reed” just issued one whether he meant to or not. Ritch smirks to himself as he fills out his own rather empty personal schedule, making a vow to himself to stick around the pilot like a stubborn mold just to spite him.

    Maybe this will be slightly more fun than he thought, after all. Only time will tell how exhausting it will be in the long run, though.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Ritch heads to the training room after finishing up his schedule and leaving it on the desk for Gavin to see. He would have dropped it off himself, but Gavin never said where it needed to go during his dramatic exit, so he’ll just let him do it. It’ll be step one in training Gavin; if he doesn’t tell Ritch all of the information, then he’ll have no help finishing what needs to be done. Ritch just hopes that this is a lesson that’s learned quickly and easily because he doesn’t actually like the thought of passing work on to Gavin just because of lack of communication and information.

    He’s in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of finding Tina Chen and asking what things he should look out for or work on with Gavin when he hears North arguing about something down the hall. He has no clue what’s being said, but she must be complaining to someone else since she occasionally pauses before starting back up again. He finally gets an idea once he gets close to the training room’s entrance.

    “How am I supposed to pilot a jaeger without–”

    “You find someone new, just like Ritch and Connor are trying to.” Markus says, his tone implying that that was far from the first time he’s said that.

    “Technically, Ritch was given another partner this morning.” Ritch forces himself into the conversation, “Now, what is this about?”

    He uses a second to take in their surroundings to make sure they aren’t causing a scene but has to do a double-take. It usually takes more than expected to get him confused and shocked, but finding the room half-empty, despite it being the middle of a training session, sure did the trick.

    His emotions must be apparent on his face for once because Simon explains, “The purge happened this morning.”

    Ritch focuses his attention on Simon and ignores North as she starts loudly complaining again. Honestly, does she not understand that throwing a hissy fit won’t change anything?

    “The purge?” he asks when neither Markus or Simon elaborate.

    “Yea,” Markus nods tiredly, “Luther and Chloe kept several people behind after we left for lunch today, and Josh told us it was so they could let them go in relative privacy.”

    “Ritchie!–”

    “Ritch.” he corrects North sternly, but she ignores him.

    “You’re like the teacher’s pet, right?” She continues before he can give his input, “You gotta convince Luther that he’s making a mistake–”

    “But he isn’t.” he cuts in. “Josh is too much of a pacifist to make it as a jaeger pilot. Connor and I saw that on the very first day of training. But I think he’d be a fairly good fit for the science department, don’t you think?” He adds when North starts going red with whatever petulant emotion she’s feeling right now.

    Simon sounds genuinely intrigued when asking, “Science department?”

    “Well, he loves learning about things, and he’s quite smart and quick to pick up on things if the rate he was learning at during the study time of the day is normally how he is.” Markus and Simon nod, North continues pouting. “And he made friends with several people in the science department already, unless those people who brought the alcohol for that party thing were being bribed somehow.”

    North harrumphs. “I still need a partner, and there isn’t anyone left I like.”

    “Sometimes partnering with someone means you don’t like them at first.” Ritch feels like he’s talking to a child. It certainly shows that she’s always been the youngest of the group. “You just have to adapt and find someone you’re compatible with.” Even as he says this, Ritch doubts she’d be compatible with anyone else in the room. She’s just a little too… herself.

    “You literally can’t be compatible with someone if you don’t like them.” North crosses her arms.

    “Not necessarily.”

    “Yes! Absolutely necessarily!–”

    “No,” Ritch scolds her like a child or a pet, “You don’t. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have been told to pair up with Gavin Reed after we got caught fighting in the hallway.”

    With how wide the trio’s eyes get, Ritch is almost worried their eyeballs will fall right out of their sockets.

    “You seriously got a new partner?!” North exclaims just as Markus asks “You with Gavin Reed?”

    The combination of the two end up turning people’s heads, and Simon is doing nothing to de-escalate things like he would normally try to– he seems too in shock to do much else beyond gaping at him– so Ritch tries his best to explain calmly and quietly. He knows it’s more likely to rile them up, but this group has surprised him many times before. He’s hoping they surprise him again because he really doesn’t want to be known as “the trainee stuck with Gavin Reed” by everyone, especially since Gavin is very obviously not the kind of person who like~ to have a lot of attention on him. He just seems like a chaotic mess and chaotic messes usually get attention, whether it’s wanted or not.

    “This morning, Gavin and I were doing something, but we ended up… disagreeing is a good way of putting it, and it escalated into an actual fight. Marshal Fowler apparently saw it on security cameras and personally came to pick us up and tell us that our punishment is becoming partners.”

    The three gape at him for a couple of seconds before Markus asks, “They can do that? They partnered you up with someone you hate?”

    Ritch scans the room again before answering, just to make sure no one is really eavesdropping anymore. Thankfully, people have mostly turned back to whatever they were doing or talking about before. Ritch nods to where the punching bags are and starts walking towards them so the four of them aren’t right in the entryway.

    “To be fair, we do have an unusual level of compatibility when it comes to combat, and I don’t actually hate him.” He sits down on the ground and watches North as she starts wrapping her hands. “I’d almost say that I don’t particularly dislike Gavin, since I tend to disregard any rumors I hear about him. So far only a couple have been true; his love for fighting and being annoying and his habit of roaming around. And there are a lot of people who do those same things.”

    Simon finally snaps out of his shocked silence. “Wait, what? Haven’t you complained about him picking on you at lunch a couple of times?” Markus nods in agreement.

    Ritch shakes his head, slightly curious and confused. “No, I wasn’t complaining, exactly. It was just different. I poke at him as much as he pokes at me– or as I think he’s called it before– I give as good as I get.”

    North sputters out a laugh that causes Simon and Markus to glare, but Ritch doesn’t understand.

    “Just ignore her,” Markus says before Ritch can ask, “She’s always got her mind in the gutter.”

    Ritch tilts his head curiously. “That’s an inappropriate phrase?”

    Simon looks at him kindly. He’s definitely been the one who helps him the most when it comes to not understanding things, and he appreciates it.

    “It can be for certain people in certain situations. There’s nothing wrong with the way you used it and it makes perfect sense. North is just being an idiot child right now without Josh to balance her out.”

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and understanding, making a mental note of what he’s learned about the phrase like he normally does with new slang. Maybe Connor had the right idea after all; a journal could be good for remembering everything. The human mind can only do and hold so much, after all.

    “So,” Markus starts, “What does being partners with Gavin Reed entail, then?”

    “So far just alone time in the mornings and nighttime for our sanity. He said we’ll probably be assigned daily bonding or training exercises because we both have large chunks of the day where we don’t do much.”

    North pauses her punching long enough to ask, “So, what are some juicy details?”

    “What do you mean?” Ritch does not like where this is going.

    “Like, what does his room look like? What kind of things does he have for fun.”

    If this is what North is always like without Josh, she won’t last much longer than a week. He just shakes his head with a sigh.

    “That is private information, and I wouldn’t know anyway. Unlike some people,” he sends her a pointed glare, "I actually respect people’s privacy, and he’ll respect mine.”

    “Are you sure about that?” she insists. “You won’t even peek at his stuff when he looks through yours?”

    “If he does– and I don’t think he will,” he corrects irritably while getting up, “why would I look through his things when it’d be easier and less uncomfortable for me to just ask to be removed from the room on an account of purposeful neglection of privacy.” He turns and starts walking away.

    “Ohhh, you’re leaving? It’s just a coincidence that you’re leaving while on this topic? You sure you’re not going to go check right now?”

    Ritch spins to face her so she can get the full extent of his unimpressed glare. It usually works on Connor, and while it seems ineffective on North, she definitely isn’t immune. If she was, he doesn’t know what he’d do to actually get her attention and let her know that he is absolutely done with her for the time being. He almost hopes she gets sent home or told off by Luther as some kind of wake up call for being a complete child right now.

    “I’m leaving because you’re being a nosey, whiny asshole because the partner you were barely compatible with was saved from having his mental health take a huge decline from the violence that a jaeger pilot’s life is filled with.” He sharply turns back towards the entryway of the training room. “Not everything is about you, and not everyone has the same views or values as you. That is what you need to learn before you’re even close to ready for finding a new partner, because I promise you that the people in here won’t be nearly as accommodating as Josh was.”

    He hears no arguments as he walks out of the room, so he’ll take the liberty to assume that Simon and Markus are silently agreeing with him, and that North is going to check herself at least for today, if not for the next several days. He’s unfortunately not naive enough to think it will last to the end of the week, though.

    Just as he steps out of the room, he almost physically runs into Gavin, who’s standing right out of sight from the people inside. Instead of stopping there and revealing Gavin’s poor hiding place, he casually walks past and stops when he, too, is out of sight from the room of trainees. Gavin watches him silently as he does this, then surprises him by not saying anything when Ritch leans against the wall right next to him. That normally gets Gavin at least glaring at him to leave his space, like he did this morning.

    “You know,” he murmurs, not wanting the trainees to hear him, “you could at least let people know that your job is to patrol the area. Less people would think you’re just looking for trouble all the time.”

    Gavin’s face remains relatively blank as he deadpans, “Where’s the fun in that?”

    “Less fun, true, but also less reports on Gavin Reed trying to start trouble, which means less things added to your apparently huge disciplinary folder? Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

    Gavin scoffs, then goes quiet. Ritch starts worrying. So far, he’s learned that Gavin isn’t one to stay quiet for long, but Ritch is also the very last person who should do anything relating to emotions. He’s surprised when Gavin starts explaining himself– Gavin Reed from the countless rumors he hears doesn’t like explaining himself to anyone but the marshal.

    “The official patrolling thing is a brand new excuse for me wandering around all day, but Luther’s always told me when he’s gonna start telling the failed trainees to go home so I can hover around and control any potential fights between punks who are upset that their partners and friends had to leave.” He turns to Ritch with a contemplative look on his face. “You ever think of picking up patrolling after people finally wake up and realize that we’re not gonna work as a pair?”

    “No, because I’d work better with jaegers than with the people. You know I’m not good with people or their emotions, or did you forget that I’m two steps away from being a robot?” he teases. He turns to leave then, not knowing what’s wrong with Gavin right now, but not wanting to accidentally push buttons.

    He stops and turns, however, when the pilot makes some kind of choked noise.

    Gavin huffs and glares at the far wall. “So why didn’t you tell her what my room is like, Mr. ‘this is now technically my room too’? It’s not like there was anything weird in there.”

    “If you heard that, then you heard my reasoning. Besides, with how much you’ve stalked me over the past couple of weeks, you should know by now that I hate drama and gossip.”

    Ritch turns and walks away, not having a real plan of where he’s going. If he knew where to turn in their personal schedules, he’d probably go do that, but he’s already far enough away that he can’t just ask Gavin over his shoulder without alerting everyone inside, and he’s not willing to turn and walk back to him just to ask a question as simple as that. One of them will take care of it later.

    He suddenly remembers Josh, how he’s the one who was told he wasn’t fit for piloting a jaeger. Even though Josh has told him multiple times that he was only doing it for North, that he wanted to be a teacher or something in the learning or education field, it probably still hits that he’s been let go rather than quitting on his own like he was contemplating doing. Although, at least this way North’s petty anger will be aimed at people she can’t touch and not at someone she can seriously damage emotionally, if not physically.

    With those thoughts in mind, he heads to Josh’s bunker to talk to him about maybe joining the science department, even if it’s just as an apprentice or intern or something. He figures with the multiple friends he has there and his obvious interest in the subject that it should be obvious, but it’s been proven time and time again that human brains just aren’t reliable. Maybe North will be less irritated and Markus and Simon won’t be quite as forlorn if he’s still nearby. 

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Gavin doesn’t know how to feel about Ritch anymore.

    At first, he was just some challenge, a robot he wanted to push and break until he showed some kind of reaction. Then the robot starts pushing and poking back, and they get into a surprisingly enjoyable rhythm. Then he’s suddenly perfectly fine with breaking the rules, even though that seems like it’d go against what Gavin knows of his personality. Then come to find out that he can fight damn well too. Then he’s only mother-fucking 23 years old and he honestly can’t tell if he was exaggerating about the “training everyday since 11 years old” thing or not. 

    Gavin’s used to a neglectful household, between his emotionally absent father and his mother who was so stressed she eventually just upped and left, then his step-mother who was more interested in the money and protection that his father’s job and location offered than the family. He grew up being the older brother who went to work right out of high school despite his father’s wealth because his parents seemed to forget that he and his brother even existed until they did something wrong.

    But training for something as serious and violent as jaeger piloting since 11? As much as Gavin would like to think that it was mostly play until tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum turned 18, Ritch’s level of skill and strength and just the way he carries himself can’t be learned and formed in just four or five years of adulthood. That, and Anderson wouldn’t voluntarily keep Connor around him if that twin was like the other trainees, so it’s not just Ritch.

    It also has come to his attention earlier that the reason why “Stern” sounded so familiar was because of the ever-so-famous Amanda Stern. Gavin doesn’t know much about her, but he does know that she’d probably be determined and crazy enough to adopt children in order to create perfect soldiers. She practically did it with Anderson from what he heard from the man before he became a low-life. Plucked him off the streets at the ripe age of 17, if he remembers correctly.

    Gavin isn’t going to get into that mess whatsoever, though. Ritch very obviously doesn’t see too many issues with how he was raised, and he certainly wasn’t sheltered to the point of living completely under a rock with how many references he’s able to make and understand without stuttering. So no, Gavin isn’t going to touch any of this with a ten foot pole, but he’s also curious of whether or not Ritch is just a really good actor, if he’s got some kind of stockholm syndrome, or if living with and being trained by Amanda fucking Stern instead of going to a public middle and high school wasn’t actually as bad as Gavin’s gut is trying to tell him it would be.

    The problem is, Gavin’s gut has rarely been wrong. Having good gut feelings and instincts is kind of a part of the job as a jaeger pilot. He hasn’t met a successful pilot that didn’t have a good instinct they listened to.

    He pushes himself off of the wall once it becomes obvious that none of the kids inside aren’t going to start a fight based on nothing but mutual anger for having partners and friends being let go. And isn’t that kind of weird, the fact he can easily call everyone in that room children when his partner is at least 3 years younger than the youngest person in there, but he also acts the least childish out of all of them. It almost makes Gavin curious of what kinds of things Ritch has seen and experienced to make him the way he is. What a fucking anamoly.

    When Gavin just turned 23, he was signing up to be a jaeger pilot for the first of two times after getting kicked out of his shitty apartment. He was starting to look for another construction job since they were plenty, but his history of violence wasn’t doing him favors.

    He still remembers the day he got a letter back saying they looked up surveillance videos of a few of the fights he’d picked once they got his second letter– probably because, as he now knows, people rarely try twice without sounding entitled and/or stupid– and decided that they’d take a chance on him, but to not get his hopes up. He remembers being overwhelmed in the best way possible when he and sweet, joyful Ty were finally added onto the “main pilots” list.

    He also remembers the first time he tried to enter the drift with someone after Ty. He remembers staring at himself in the mirror after washing his face with an expression almost identical to the one Ritch had while processing the fact they could be compatible. He remembers the day he found a way to keep his memories and experiences away from the drift.

    Gavin isn’t going to get nosey with this one, but it can’t hurt to stay observant. After all, he’s got a long history of winning fights against abusers of all sorts, and he doubts one old woman would be able to best him, even if it’s Amanda Stern. 

    He shakes his head to get rid of those types of thoughts and tries not to freak out about how protective they sounded even in his own head. He can’t exactly blame himself, though. Once a protective older brother, always a protective asshole who loves to start and finish other people’s fights. He’s done the same thing for Tina and her relatively new partner, so he’s not too terribly surprised to see that it’s starting to happen with the literal only other person he sees regularly. It doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

    He raises a hand to knock on Tina’s door and freezes. He doesn’t remember actually coming here and he doesn’t know why he’d want Tina, anyway, She can be insufferable with certain topics and this would certainly be one of them. He can already imagine her teasing about how she knew Ritch would be his new “boy toy” and hear her start making innuendos when he really, really doesn’t want to hear any of it today. Ty is too fresh in his mind, the fact that he can think his name instead of his “past partner” or just “him” proves it.

    Besides, now that patrolling is his actual job around here, he probably shouldn’t start skipping out. He may be irresponsible sometimes, but he tries to not be a total jackass about it. Skipping patrol as soon as it becomes his actual job– as opposed to something that he did because he’s a nosey shit and it also kind of annoyed people– would be an absolute asshole thing to do. With that in mind, he backs away from the door and strolls away with the intention to roam around like he usually does. However, he only makes it 3 steps before he spots his own door, which somehow reminds him of the personal schedules he and Ritch have to come up with.

    Gavin idly wonders if Ritch already finished his before setting off to wherever he was obviously itching to go. He certainly seems like the type to get things done immediately rather than putting them off, but he’s also surprised Gavin before in the past. 

    Before he even realizes it, Gavin’s opening his door and stepping inside. Right on the desk are two papers, one that he immediately knows is his own schedule. He strolls over and picks them both up, and takes them with him when he sees the “Signature of Completion” bullshit at the bottom. It stands out compared to the relative emptiness of the rest of the page. There are chunks of time dedicated to meals, and Ritch apparently likes going to help the rest of the trainees with physical training every morning, and has a note at the bottom noting a reserved time for “possible therapy, frequencies and assigned time unknown”. He must be therapist-hopping right now.

    Gavin doesn’t feel bad at all snooping through the schedule. If the higher-ups around here are gonna try to force a partnership on them, then he’s gonna find this shit out anyway. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s not like he’d see anything here that he hasn’t experienced or witnessed before. Therapy is something that is mandated for quite a few people around here, and is voluntarily sought after by others. It’s not anything to be shy about, and Ritch obviously agrees considering one of the first things he asked about these damn schedules was whether or not he’d have to add the sessions in.

    It’s an easy trip of carefully not thinking about anything and letting his mind be distracted by Ritch while not letting it focus too hard on him either. Well, maybe easy isn’t quite the word he’s looking for. It’s a simple walk without any interruptions, but complicated and kind of difficult to keep his head in check. He doesn’t even notice he’s in the office to drop off the schedules until a woman tries to take them out of his hands.

    Noticing her nervous look, he just apologizes, hands her the papers, and walks away. He doesn’t even have the energy to try to come up with something he’d normally say and do. He just wants Ritch out of Ty’s space. He wants Ty out of his own mind. He wants Ty back, but knows that’s impossible.

    He’d probably be over his old partner if they weren’t in the drift together when he was ripped out of the jaeger. He wouldn’t have felt most of the things he did. He may have even been able to say that it was always a possibility for any of them to die, and it was unfortunately him out of everyone else. 

    God fucking damn it. He’s gonna need to set up an emergency therapy appointment, isn’t he? God fuck it, Marshal Fowler should have probably talked to his therapist and whoever the fuck else before doing this. Gavin was actually starting to do better, if he does say so himself.

    At least Ritch seems like the type of guy who will leave him the fuck alone and won’t mess with his shit. He even put the morning and nighttime alone-times on his own schedule even though Gavin was half joking. Not to mention Ritch is the first person since Tina who teases him back just as much as Gavin teases while still knowing when it’s time to cut that out and be serious.

    Mother fucking fuck. He’s done thinking about this. He needs a distraction. Now.

    Gavin heads to the gym, hoping to work out any nervous energy he suddenly has now that the melancholy seems to have passed. He’ll set up that appointment tomorrow after he’s had some sleep. Besides, he wants at least some information on what kind of roommate Ritch is before he goes off to start complaining to the girl who loves to gossip. Going in without a plan is exactly what’s going to get the two of them stuck together permanently. That is, if their “natural compatibility” doesn’t start fucking up any time soon instead.

    It’s almost fucked up how this entire situation simultaneously feels like purgatory for being an asshole forever and a potential second chance. Whatever, Gavin’s just going to roll with it like he always does and hope things go back to normal soon enough.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

    Dinner finds Ritch sitting on the ground against the wall, feeling pitiful as he eats his very Americanized nachos.

    He tried sitting with his Markus, Simon, Josh, and North for all of a couple minutes before North drove Josh away while he was trying to explain the plan he and Ritch made to get him into the science department. Markus then told North off, who started snapping at Ritch for whatever damned reason. At that point it was either force himself to walk away calmly or cuff her upside the head, which would have led to her starting a fight he would have finished in seconds at the cost of disciplinary action against him.

    So he walked away, even if it took every ounce of his self-control to not grab her hand and sweep her feet out from under her when she tried to escalate things into a fight anyway.

    She’s turning into a new, whiny version of Alex and Ritch will not put up with any of it. If she doesn’t quit within the next couple of days, he’s going to have to bring this to Luther’s attention, because, according to Simon and Markus, she does not get nearly this bad during training. He just wishes he didn’t have to. He considered her a friend before, but now he’s not so sure he could handle any more unpredictability in his life. He has enough of it already with Gavin, and even then, he at least doesn’t antagonize for the sake of it. If he’s anything like Ritch, then he gets some kind of emotional release out of being a relatively unpredictable asshole.

    “What the hell are you doing here, vomit?”

    Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

    “I might ask the same question, book.”

    “Book?” Gavin asks with palpable confusion.

    “Vomit?” Ritch asks back almost mockingly. He figures Gavin’s most recent favorite nickname, Retch, went a little further and turned to vomit. “Look, if you want to sit, I’d suggest you do it. I’m not in the mood to play our usual games and, quite frankly, I’m hiding from someone.”

    Gavin’s eyes widen in visible surprise, but he takes a step forward and drops down to the floor. “You? Hiding someone? Why would the ‘top of the class’–” he makes air quotes “–need to avoid someone?”

    Ritch decides to be bluntfully honest. “To keep me from smacking them upside their whiny little head and getting me in trouble. Why would the man who’s known to love fights be hiding from someone?”

    “I never said I was playing coward, ass.” Gavin huffs irritably.

    “Then why aren’t you with Tina Chen like you always are?” he asks after finishing his bite of food.

    There’s a minute that passes where neither of them say anything to each other, but the ambient sounds of the food court keep things from going silent. Ritch hears Gavin muttering to himself, but he easily blocks that out because Connor does the exact same thing. He sometimes wonders if it helps people like them process and retain information or if it’s just a habit. Ritch certainly can’t force himself to speak when not necessary, and Amanda hadn’t ever said anything about him muttering like she had with Connor.

    “Tina Chen is a gossip at heart and loves making a big deal out of little things.”

    Ritch huffs. “I dislike people like that.”

    Ritch sees Gavin scowl and open his mouth to speak out of the corner of his eye. He never does say anything, though, he just closes his mouth and huffs in an irritable way.

    Neither one of them spend very long eating, and neither one of them say a single thing for the rest of their dinner. Ritch stands up to put his stuff away first, but he spots Gavin finishing and getting up as he walks out of the food court area.

    They say nothing to each other even though Gavin’s natural walking pace is a tad faster than Ritch’s, so they end up walking beside each other for a while. They don’t say anything while cooling down after dinner, and Ritch stays silent when Gavin calls his therapist on his radio thing and asks him for a “rant session” that evening. Gavin stays quiet and reads whatever book he has on his top bunk while Ritch gets himself together for his therapist trial.

    Gavin isn’t there when he returns, and Ritch is somewhat thankful for it. He actually likes this therapist, especially compared to the first one he visited, so he managed to gather the courage by the end of the session to mention keeping a journal to remember things. She said that keeping notes is a great way to keep track of things in a new environment and vent about anything he doesn’t feel comfortable telling other people. That, and more than plenty of people keep notes just for the sake of having reminders of events and other things, so they’re not just used for studying or therapy.

    Just a couple minutes after Ritch makes his charts on different people and a few lists of words and phrases and what they mean to most people, Gavin walks in. He immediately grabs some pajamas out of his locker with tense shoulders and jerky movements then goes inside the bathroom. Ritch decides to ignore as much as he can by reading a book that Josh recommended, since he may be leaving soon and will need it back. Gavin comes back out several minutes later, pauses to look around at who knows what, then settles his hands on his hips with a sharp sigh.

    Ritch tears his eyes away from the surprisingly good fiction novel in order to glance at Gavin. The pilot must take that as acknowledgement enough because he starts speaking.

    “So, my therapist had an idea I’d like to try, for once,” he declares.

    Ritch raises an eyebrow. “I’ve heard you’re supposed to listen to your therapist’s advice.”

    “Yeah, well, they’re not the fuckin’ know all be all of any of our lives, y’know?”

    Ritch emphatically does not know– he doesn’t quite understand what that phrase means– but he nods along anyway.

    “So anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard about how I used to have a partner.” Gavin sounds like he’s going to continue, but he doesn’t.

    Ritch hesitantly shakes his head. “I haven’t, but it makes sense since you’re in a two-person room rather than a single-person back-up room.”

    Ritch decides that he doesn’t need to know why said partner isn’t with him anymore. They either quit and left Gavin behind or they died, both of which are cases that need a lot more delicacy than Ritch has in order to handle and navigate without ruining what little truce they have right now.

    Gavin’s face scrunches up in confusion for what seems like less than a moment before he smiles sarcastically and claps his hands together.

    “Well then! Yes, I used to have a partner, and all of his stuff went where all of your shit is.” Gavin starts pacing. “And you see, I’ve always fucking hated all of my partners for valid fuckin’ reasons, right? And my therapist was always like, ‘you like who you like, and you can’t pilot with someone you hate’ yadda yadda yadda. So imagine my surprise when I come to him to complain about you, he stops me and tells me that I’m just afraid of replacing my old partner, right?” Gavin, once again, sounds like he’s just going to continue, but stops for whatever reason.

    Ritch nods slowly once more. “That’s an understandable feeling to have,” he says in a carefully neutral tone.

    “Yeah, sure, but it shook me up because that’s the first time he’s said something like this, right? So, turns out, my fucking therapist was on board with us pairing up and cleared it before we even knew it was our punishment. Like, what the fuck?”

    Ritch has no clue what’s happening, but he figures that if this is what’s going to keep Gavin from trying to fight him and their superiors every step of the way of whatever is happening anymore, then he’ll do what he does second best and sit silently. It’s not like Gavin ranting at him is going to do any damage as far as he can tell, even Ritch doesn’t understand why he would ever want to come to him with these types of issues.

    “So he’s goin’ on about his therapist thing that he’s paid to do, and he says that I’m gonna put up with your ass for a whole two weeks before we can request to split! All because he thinks our banter was a sign of some shit and our fighting styles are super compatible!”

    “They are,” Ritch interjects cautiously. “Compatible, I mean. I was taught to be able to tell in the event that something happened to Connor and I had to find someone else to pilot with.”

    Gavin blinks hard, then blinks a couple more times before shaking his head.

    “Your– You know what? I don’t have time to deal with your shit right now.” he replies combatively, tensing up as if preparing for a fight. Ritch holds back a sigh.

    “I… didn’t want to start anything? I was just listing facts. You mentioned that your therapist had an idea you wanted to try earlier? I assume it involves me– and I mean this in a kind way– or else you wouldn’t be venting to me, of all people.”

    Gavin goes blank and blinks once more, then snaps his fingers with a, “That’s right! Listen, we’re gonna switch our stuff around.”

    Ritch, as used to Connor’s random bullshit as he was, does not understand where the connection in any of this is. He just wants to read his book and get some good sleep before helping the angsty trainees tomorrow morning.

    Gavin huffs. “Look, He said it’s like I’m finding reasons to hate people because they’re replacing my old partner, right?”

    Oh. I think I understand now. I’m fairly sure I’ve read about this somewhere…

    “But I’m not replacing them. I’m someone else entirely, so you want to switch our stuff around so it’s not like I’m taking over his old space and replacing them further, but more like you’re keeping his old place and his memories safe, then I’ll be in your place where you aren’t as emotionally attached? Is that about the idea of it?”

    He meets Gavin’s wide eyes. This is probably the most genuine surprise and confusion he’s seen from him.

    “Uh, yeah. Kinda. How did you?”

    “I read psychology books in my spare time.” Ritch stands and looks away. If Gavin is going to offer something private information like that, then Ritch will return the favor. “People have always confused me, so I tried using psychology to learn about them more. Then I got more interested in how different kinds of people react in different ways when I realized how different Connor and I are from each other, despite being identical twins who grew up in the same conditions.”

    “But your eyes are blue.” Gavin blurts. Ritch is about to turn that question down when Gavin waves his hands dismissively. “Y’know what? I don’t actually care. I just want to move our stuff around so maybe my brain’ll stop fuckin’ me over. It’s been less than one god damned day and I’m already sick and tired of this shit. Two fucking weeks…” Gavin adds under his breath, but Ritch still catches it.

    Ritch nods in acknowledgement and moves to start taking things off the shelves. It may be a bit of an adjustment, getting used to his stuff being on the opposite side of where he’s used to reaching, but it shouldn’t be too bad.

    Gavin quietly follows after, sliding his stuff over to the other side of the shelf rather than actually picking things up and moving them. The silence continues after that. They don’t say a word to each other while moving things around, and really that may be a testimony to how compatible they are. Ritch moves some of his stuff when he notices Gavin preparing to move some of his own things in that spot, and Gavin follows him over to a new area of the room when he finishes a spot.

    Three mostly-silent hours later, the room has been readjusted and Ritch is clean and is climbing into bed to finally sleep. He’s out like a light just as he notices that Gavin is still on the top bunk even after everything else is switched. He’ll leave it alone; he really doesn’t want to have to climb up to the top bunk with injuries or during late nights, after all.

    Ritch wakes up the next morning to a note on his pillow and can’t help but smirk a little. “You won’t catch me dead on the bottom bunk. Have fun listening to creaking, whacking your head, and being closer to the bugs and shit down there.” It’s good to know they’ll agree to disagree on which bunk is best, at least.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Previous <> Masterlist <> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Heyo! Sorry for the slow update, life irl got busy, and I’ve rewritten this chapter a couple of times. I don’t know why I feel like I can never get Gavin quite right? But hopefully that problem is solved once Ritch and Gavin get used to each other and fall into a groove I have planned for them Lol.

Thank you all for sticking around all this time, I really appreciate it! I don’t really have much else to say besides get ready for some Connor POV and a possible, short time skip next chapter. I hope you guys have a good day/night! 😄💕💖

#reed900 #900reed #900gavin #reed900 fanfic #hankcon fanfiction #hankcon #hannor #gavin reed x rk900 #reed900 au #gavin x rk900 #gavin900 #hankcon fanfic #hank x connor #hank anderson x connor #reed900 fanfiction #hannor fanfic #hannor fanfiction #hannor au #The Drift Between Us #Chapter 10

[lovemesomesurveys]

1. Do you like having your picture taken? No.

2. Have you ever done a photo shoot, professional or non? I’ve had pictures taken at photo studios and I have a cousin who’s a photographer that did my college graduation photos.

3. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go and why? I mean, nowhere right now. BUT, there’s a lot of places I’d love to visit one day. Various countries and places here in the US. I just want to be able to travel a lot one day.

4. Who would you take with you on this little adventure? My family.

5. What would you say is the most daring thing to do in a lifetime? That’s going to be different for everyone of course, but basically something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. Conquering a fear.

6. Would you ever do that? I don’t know. 

7. Have you ever done crossword puzzles? Yeah. I much prefer word searches, though.

8. Ever actually completed one? Yeah.

9. Pick up the closest book and write a sentence at random from it. There isn’t a book near me.

10. Do the same with a lyric from either a cd or the radio. Nah.

11. Have you ever tried to analyze your own dreams? Yeah, many times. I’ve tried to look up what some things symbolize and what it might mean for me. 

12. Would you put up posters in your room? Yeah. I have some things hung up. 

13. Can you sing? I can’t sing well at all. I wish.

14. Do you ever sing to yourself while doing everyday tasks? Yes.

15. What's your favorite color of post-it note? Pink.

16. How many cassette tapes do you own? Zero.

17. How many cd's do you own? I don’t have any CDs anymore.

18. Ever bought a cd for just one song? I probably have. 

19. What would your perfect day consist of? Beach days are nice. Or since it’s winter, renting a cozy cabin in the snow sounds lovely.

20. Have you ever lied to get off the phone or out of talking to someone online? Yes.

21. Have you ever written a survey? Once. It was several years ago during the Xanga days. I wish I still had it saved.

22. How about a song? If so share it. No.

23. Or maybe a poem? If so share it or one of them. I dabbled with poetry when I was 16. I am definitely not sharing one, they’re super cringey.

24. Is your vcr flashing 12:00 all the time? I don’t have a VCR. Wow, cassette tapes and VCRs how old is this survey?

25. Do you read your horoscope? No.

26. If so, do you base your day on it? No, I’ve never been into astrology. I used to read it when I was younger like in an magazine, but it was always just for fun.

27. Would you rather chew gum or use mouthwash and why? Chew gum. Mouthwash is way too strong to me and I find it irritating for my mouth and yeah it’s just not a pleasant experience.

28. Do you floss? No. :X

29. Are you addicted to napster like me? Okay, now you’ve mentioned Napster so this survey is super old. Napster was like late 90s and early 2000s. 

30. How many times a year about are you sick? I rarely get things like a cold, which I find interesting because I feel like my immune system is crap, but I feel sick and crappy often for other reasons.

31. Ever been in an airplane? Yes, a few times.

32. If so where were you flying to? Georgia and back and to Disneyland and back.

33. What radio station to you listen to most? It’s been a few years since I’ve listened to the radio.

34. What color are your shoes? I wear my black Adidas the most.

35. Was fuzzy wuzzy a bear? He was. He had no hair, though, so he wasn’t actually fuzzy.

36. Do you know how to play dominos? I’ve never really played.

37. Or do you think I just mean pizza by that? No, I know what dominos are.

38. Speaking of pizza, what's your favorite kind? (toppings and/or place to get it from) My favorite is from this local place. I like to get white sauce, feta and ricotta cheese, crumbled meatballs, garlic, spinach, and pesto and olive oil drizzles. I’ve been really craving that lately.

39. What color are your eyes? Brown.

40. How many surveys have you filled out this lifetime? Oh pffffft, I am not even going to attempt to figure that out. There’s no way I could. I’ve been doing surveys for so long and sadly so many of them are gone because they were done on Myspace and Xanga. :(

41. Describe your bedroom, include all details. Okay, you want details? Here we go...

It’s small and has way too much stuff. For one thing, there’s giraffe stuffed animals all over, including a 4 ft one in the corner. There’s a dresser by the window that has my TV and Christmas decorations on it. To the right of that is a 6-cube shelf with some of the aforementioned giraffe stuffed animals as well as giraffe knickknacks, some coloring books and coloring supplies, a mini Christmas tree on top, a few more giraffe stuffed animals, a nice picture frame with my dog, Brandie, who passed away, and my BB8 droid I made at Disneyland. Above the shelf is an I Love Lucy wall clock. My closest is nearby and is full of medical supplies, 3-drawer file thing with random stuff I insist on holding onto, my shoes, and all my jackets and sweatshirts. To the left of my dresser is my bookshelf with a lot of books and other figurines and knickknacks of various things I like and hey surprise, surprise, more giraffe stuffed animals! Across from the bookshelf and dresser is my bed, which is also my desk cause I keep my laptop on it, my chargers, my phone, a coloring book, a couple packs of colored pencils, my Bible study stuff, my remotes, and my Nintendo Switch. I have a pile of clothes, too, cause dresser and closet are too full. I have like 8 throw pillows, a body pillow, a back pillow, and a couple actual pillows. I have a few stuffed animals that sit on my bed as well, which are a huge squishmallow giraffe, a small squishmallow pug, a small squishmallow Dumbo, a small squishmallow Baby Yoda/Grogu, and a Baby Yoda/Grogu plushie. To the right of my bed is a TV tray that has my bottles of water, my medicine and pill crusher, a box of straws, a glass, a Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink, chapstick, my wallet, a Zip-loc bag with half a glazed donut and half a chocolate one, and a small bag of shortbread cookies. Behind the TV tray is my 3-drawer bedside table, which has a makeup storage thing on it that I plan on cleaning out and getting rid of cause I don’t wear makeup anymore and could use that space for something else, a bottle of lotion, a couple little room sprays from B&BW, and a jewelry tray. Hung up on my walls around the room are a few giraffe framed paintings, a couple beachy canvas paintings, two Alexander Skarsgard calendars, a bulletin board with various stuff pinned to it, and a marker board. There’s also a hamper in here, a floor lamp, a ceiling fan/light, two fans, and an ottoman.

42. Name one person your life is made better by. My mom. She’s my best friend. 

44. How about someone else's? Huh?

45. Can you do math with ease? Ha, noooo. Me and math never got along.

46. What size is your computer screen? It’s 13.3 inches.

47. If you could only talk to one person online who would that be? Someone from the survey community on here.

48. Name your favorite type of music and why. I like a variety of music--various genres and decades.

49. Are you a vegetarian? No.

50. How about an aspiring actor/actress? Not at all.

51. What famous person dead or alive would you interview if you had the chance? Alexander Skarsgard.

52. Which movie can you watch and say the lines along with the actors? There’s a lot of movies I could do that with. I try not to cause it gets annoying, but it happens.

53. Name one of your passions in life. I don’t know. :/

54. What's your least favorite time of day? Evening time.

55. Who's your favorite member in a band, singer, guitarist, bassist, drummer, and why? The singer, typically.

56. Do you use hairspray or gel? I use neither.

57. Describe your favorite meal. Wingstop’s boneless garlic parm and lemon pepper wings. I also really enjoy my nightly bowl of ramen.

58. What color is the inside of your head when you close your eyes? Black.

59. Ever listen to classical music? Not typically, but it is nice.

60. Have you ever said lol in real life without thinking about it? No.

61. Do you find you use internet language when writing notes irl? I use “wtf, “wth”, “omg”, and “lol.” 

62. What songs would be on your ideal cd? Like I said, I like variety, so a mix of songs.

63. Say one thing you've learned today. Nothing, really.

64. What is the best present you've ever given someone else? I don’t know.

65. What is the best present someone else has ever given to you? I’ve been given many nice gifts throughout my life. I’m appreciative of all the gifts I’ve received.

66. So hey, what's your full name? Stephanie is all you need to know.

67. Describe yourself while drunk. I was chatty and annoying.

68. How big are the windows in your house? Regular, common size? .

69. Do you wear a watch? Nope.

70. What's the kinkiest thing you've ever done with someone else? Nothing.

71. What's the largest age difference between you and someone you've dated? Just a year.

72. How many mirrors do you have? Just one in my room.

73. Write one sentence stating what you want people to say about you after you've passed on. I don’t know, man.

74. Have you ever sailed? Nope.

75. How fast can you run? I used to be able to go pretty fast, but not now. I don’t have the upper body strength or energy I used to have.

76. What do you believe in? I believe in God.

77. How long does it take you to get ready to go out? Not long at all. I just change clothes, quickly do something with my hair, brush my teeth, put on deodorant, put on my shoes, and then grab my bag and mask and go. And a coat if needed.

78. Do you shower daily? If not how often? No, I shower 3-4 times a week.

79. What one thing would you change in your life if you had the power to do so? I’d make it so I had good health.

80. Describe the ideal superpower and what you would do if you had it. Teleportation. I’d travel all over.

81. Are candles romantic or a fire hazard? They can be both.

82. Name something you've done in the last 24hrs no matter how big or small. I had coffee and donuts. Exciting stuff.

83. Do you wear necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, rings? I haven’t worn any in awhile.

84. What colors are you wearing right now? Just black.

85. How often do you change the sheets on your bed? Twice a month.

86. Have you ever gotten lost? Not alone, thankfully, but yeah.

87. What's on your computer desk? I mentioned in the question about my room that my bed is also my desk and I listed the things on it.

88. How many folders are on your desktop at the present moment? Zero.

89. When your talking do you ever use your hands to do quotation marks in the air when saying certain words? Sometimes, if I find it necessary to do so.

90. Which landmark would you climb if you could? None.

91. Do you own or have you read, or thought of reading any self-help books? I read the Chicken Soup For The Soul books when I was younger but that's it. <<< Same.

92. Ever seriously questioned your sanity? Yes. 93. Can you breakdance? No.

94. What's in your fridge right now? Food and drinks. I’m tired from listing everything in that room description question lol.

95. How many people do you live with? I live with 3 people and a doggo.

96. Have you or would you ever do anything more than kiss in a public area? No.

97. What is the strangest thing you've ever done? Uhhh. I don’t know.

98. Name an instrument you've never played but would like to. Guitar.

99. Have you ever been on tv or the radio? Myself, as well as my story, was on TV after my accident happened. 

100. What is the worst thing anyone could ever do to you? Physically hurt me.

101. Are you a fast typer? Yes.

102. How high have you counted before getting bored? I don’t know, but probably not very high. I probably would get to 100 and be over it.

103. Describe how you sleep. (ie. your position and/or how you fall asleep) I sleep slightly propped up and turned to my left side. I have indigestion and post-nasal drip issues, so I can’t sleep flat. I have a whole nighttime routine consists of scrolling through Tumblr, doing surveys, and listening to ASMR until I feel tired enough to fall asleep.

104. Are you straight, bi, gay? I’m straight.

105. Do you ever do something else while on the computer? If so what? Sometimes I’m watching TV.

106. What is the most expensive item you own? My MacBook Air.

107. How about the least expensive? My little knickknacks.

109. What do you do online? Check my social medias, watch YouTube, scroll through Tumblr, and do surveys.

110. Name some stores you've bought clothes in before. Boxlunch, Hot Topic, Kohl’s, JCP, Target, H&M, Macy’s, Forever 21... those are a few that come to mind.

111. Have you ever read a book and not understood it? If so which one? I struggled with mythology. I just couldn’t get into it, so that definitely didn’t help, and it was hard to follow.

112. Have you ever watched a movie and not understood it? If so which one? Yeah. Whenever that happens I jump on Google and read up on it afterwards. 

113. Do people pick up your slang language more than you pick up theirs? I pick up lingo from others most often. 

114. Are you easily influenced by other people, or current trends? No, I wouldn’t say that.

115. What makes you unique in your own opinion? I don’t feel very unique.

116. Name your worst quality. Where to start... .

117. Name your best. I like that I’m open-minded.

118. What would you like to do with your life? I need to get myself together and figure that out.

119. Do you blowdry your hair? Nah.

120. How many clocks are in your house? We have like 3 wall clocks and there’s digital clocks throughout the house on appliances and electronics.

121. Are they all set on the same time? The phones and electronics are. The others are a few minutes fast. My parents set their digital clock like 15 minutes fast.

122. Have you ever intentionally set a clock ahead or behind the actual time? Like I said, we set some of them a few minutes ahead.

123. What do you think about when you first wake up in the morning? "What time is it?"

124. Which browser do you use? Google Chrome.

125. Do you bite your nails? Ugh, I don’t bite them but I pick and clip at them with clippers constantly. 

126. Would you ever leave little notes to your gf/bf? Sure, I think that’s cute.

127. Ever been to a farm? Yes.

128. Tell me about your dream last night. I don't remember. I rarely ever do. What typically happens is I’ll remember when I first get up, but then it like vanishes. My dreams are like Snapchat. If only there was an option to save or screenshot them like Snapchat.

129. Ever seen a shooting star? No, actually.

130. Say one thing about yourself you've never told anyone. Uhhhh. I’m so boring, I can’t think of something interesting to share.

131. Do your days fly by or seem to last forever? It often seems like the days go by slow, but then before I know it it’s already been a whole week again and I’m like wtf it was just Monday? That’s how the years tend to feel, too. There’s definitely some days that just really seem draaaaag, though. And there’s something about January that always feels super long. 

132. Have you ever stayed in a fancy high class rich hotel? Yes. 133. Have you ever stayed in a rent-by-the-hour motel? No.

134. What in your opinion is the best advertising slogan out there? If they get stuck in your head then they’re doing something right. It’s gotta be catchy. Jingles work well.

135. When they start sending rockets to the moon for us civilians, will you be on the list to go? Noooo, absolutely not.

136. How are you feeling right now? Tired, kinda hungry, and lonely.

137. Have you ever written anything on your skin? Yeah.

138. If so what? Random stuff. That was something a lot of people seemed to do in like middle school and high school for some reason.

139. Which website do you frequent most often? Tumblr and YouTube.

140. What color are most of your clothes? Black.

141. Do you own any plants? Nope.

142. Are things as bad as they seem? They sure seem bad to me.

143. Describe the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you. My mom is amazing. She’s sacrificed so much. I’m 31 years old and require aid with some things and here she is still taking care of me and doing so much for me on top of working a full-time job, being a caregiver for a family friend as well, taking care of us as a family and of things at home, and she very rarely has anytime for herself. She’s spread very thin and works so hard and yeah I just could never thank her enough. She’s the absolute best and I would be so lost without her. I couldn’t keep going if it weren’t for her.

144. Ever looked directly at the sun? Yes.

145. Have you ever made a pin hole camera to watch the eclipse? No.

146. What's your favorite cereal? All the main sugary ones, ha.

147. Who do you miss? My loved ones who have passed away.

148. Name something you just can't forget no matter how hard you try. Uh, a lot of things. My mind doesn’t like me to forget things like that. It likes to remind me of them often. Things like that hit at random times as well, like my brain will be like, ‘hey remember when...’ and I’m like, ‘ugh, yes I remember you won’t let me forget.’

149. Describe the worst fight you've ever been in whether physical or verbal. I’ve never been in a physical fight, but there were some verbal ones. I don’t want to get into them right now.

150. Say something else about yourself you've never told anyone before. Noooo. 

#personal #text #survey #surveys #150 questions

[thelogicalghost]

About Roleplaying

The internet is really useful at bringing people together, but it’s also, in my experience, sometimes useful for someone to point out places to start.

Roleplaying is a vast umbrella term that covers a diverse spectrum of activities, and if you enjoy any part of it, you might want to consider trying other styles.

I say this because, as someone who has been involved in both the least and most regulated forms of roleplay, it took me far longer than it should have to find out that there are dozens of gradients and variants in between, and I want to get more people involved in that growing diversity. 

I’m prompted to do this now because everyone being stuck in isolation has caused a boom in virtual gaming through apps like roll20, and I’ve discovered Discord-based text roleplay games that feel like the evolution of the LJ forums I used to love. So this is a great time to research, experiment, and find games to help keep us connected and sane. But finding the right game is extremely important.

Here’s the thing: there is a whole world of tabletop RPG outside of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D absolutely has its place in the TTRPG world, but oftentimes I see people frustrated with its limitations because they’re trying to use it in unintended ways. I’ve learned that different rules systems exist to help promote or restrain different kinds of stories. 

I like to think of RPG rulesets as falling generally into these (highly overlapping and by no means all-inclusive) categories:

* Numbers-intensive, or “crunchy” systems are very granular and the most intimidating to new players. Crunchy systems are often built to try to quantify things that other systems handwave. There are players who really love these kinds of games. They can be really rewarding to master, for one. Because so much is quantified, they can allow complex interactions that other systems can’t handle, such as simulating the mechanics of a play-by-play fight between a werewolf and a psychic alien. 

* In contrast, a Rules light system will try to lower the barrier for entry as much as possible for new players. It’s much more like collaborative story-writing, with the rules mostly existing to help tell the story, add an element of chance, and give the players numerical reminders of their strengths, weaknesses, and progression.

* Live Action Roleplay, or LARP intended systems are meant to be run live by a group of people actually acting out the characters, kind of like cosplaying an OC with a bunch of other people and doing improv of their interactions. These systems are designed for two purposes: to define the world and relationships between people in it, so that players build characters suited to the setting and know how to interact with it and each other, and to make the process of breaking out sheets (having to stop and calculate the results of something done by numbers) as fast as possible so people can get back to playing.

* Other systems are more necessarily true Tabletop. Some require maps and grids, different sets of dice for different rolls, or even armies of small figurines. In the old days, this could be intimidating because of the money and effort needed to amass materials, but these days, digital systems can let people play many games for free, and players who are more invested can spend money for fancier programs. Even if you just want to run your game over voice on Discord, you can upload a dice-roller bot to keep play transparent and fair.

* Another important set of terms are one-shot, scenario, and campaign, which are probably the most common ways of discussing intended game lengths. Some game systems are specifically written to be played in a single session and tell a single story. These usually have the most work done for you, such as handouts and schedules of when events should happen during the game. Other game systems have potentially hundreds of pre-written scenarios, which contain all the information a game runner needs to run one or more sessions through a pre-written story. Not every game is intended to be a campaign that extends out over weeks and months of increasingly hard encounters, and often shorter games are much better ways to meet new people, try new systems, or just have fun for an evening.

What I’m trying to say with all of this is, if you like roleplaying, there is a game out there for you and this is the perfect time to find people to play with.

Is D&D too rules-heavy for you? Why not try a rules-light system like FATE or Powered by the Apocalypse? The former is incredibly flexible and can easily be edited to fit any setting, while the latter has a dozen fun varieties like Monster of the Week (a Buffy/Supernatural show setting) or MonsterHearts (more of a CW supernatural teen drama vibe). 

Do you like the rules, but not the setting, of D&D? How about Shadowrun, a near-future heist game in a Bladerunner-meets-magic world? How about World of Darkness, which has specific settings for modern-day clans of vampires, werewolves, fairies, and mages?

If you’re particularly fond of a certain licensed property, check around: there might be a TTRPG made for it. Star Wars has multiple systems geared towards telling different stories. There are games for everything from Serenity to Leverage, and many of these are available in less-expensive PDFs you can download to both save shelf space and maximize how much of your money supports the creators. 

I utterly love some of these less-common systems. I love what they can do and the kind of stories you can tell with them. I really, strongly feel that if more people knew these options were out there, more people would try them and play them.

#roleplaying #Roleplaying Game #game systems #psa #ttrpg #ttrpg 101 #larp #Dungeons and Dragons #fate #shadowrun #world of darkness #please share?

[spookysweet-heart]

The Little Devil

Request: “Ooo can I request 56 ( “You know what’s terrifying? Those damn elf on the shelf things. They watch you all the time. All. The. Time. Think about that.”) w/ Lydia x fem!reader & they've just started dating?” 

Fandom: Beetlejuice! The Musical

Pairings: Lydia Deetz x Fem! Reader

Warnings: none

A/n: Thank you @dontgotothenetherworld​ for requesting this! It was pretty funny to write I hope you all enjoy it! Collage was made by me! Edited by @semiproeagle23​ ^-^

Walking hand in hand with Lydia, you hid your blushed cheeks in your scarf. You two had just started dating over a month ago, but you still had so many butterflies in your stomach.

You both were walking over to her house for a study session for the last exam you had coming up before Christmas break. You passed by a few shops. 

Looking into the windows, you spot an Elf on the Shelf and stop in front of it, pointing at the little figurine.

“You know what’s terrifying? Those damn elf on the shelf things. They watch you all the time. All. The. Time. Think about that, Lyds.”

Lydia laughed as she looked into the shop to see the little guy standing there, surrounded by a bunch of other toys.

“(Y/n), you’re being overdramatic. They’re completely harmless.”

“They’re creepy…..and not in a good way.” You started to walk away with Lydia as she playfully rolled her eyes and giggled at your remark.

“Again, elf on the shelves are harmless, babe. We have one at my house. My dad loves them.”

“.....they’re little devils, Lydia.”

“Whatever you say, you dork.” Lydia grabbed your hand again and you two continued to walk the rest of the way, talking about the school day and what movie you wanted to see after studying.

-------

Sighing as you walked into the living room, something caught your eye by the fireplace. Standing on its two little feet with its weird painted smile on its face, was the little elf with its arm wrapped around a mug handle.

You scrunched up your nose when you saw it. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had one.”

Lydia laughed when she saw your expression after noticing it. “I told you we had one. C’mon, let’s go up to my room and get studying for this final exam and get it over with.”

Beetlejuice poked his head from the middle of the hallway looking over at Lydia. “Hey Lyds, what’s up with your girl and the little red thing?”

Lydia smiled at you when she noticed you looking back at her with a confused expression when she randomly stopped in the middle of the hallway. “You go on ahead. I’ll go get us something to drink and some snacks.”

“Oh, okay sure, here let me take your bag for you, then.” Gently her book bag from her shoulder, you kissed her cheek before walking up the stairs to her room.

Lydia made her way into the kitchen, opening the fridge and taking out the lemonade. 

Beej hovers over her as she does her thing. “So are you going to tell me or not?”

Lydia sighed and turned her head slightly to look at him. “(Y/n) doesn’t like those little Elf On The Shelf things because she thinks they’re creepy and not in a good way.” After pouring two glasses of lemonade, she grabbed the bag of chips from the counter and made her way out of the kitchen but stopped before she could make it to the stairs. “Don’t you dare get any ideas, Beej.”

Beetlejuice gave her the most dramatic, hurtful look he could muster up. “Me? Getting ideas to scare my best friend’s girlfriend? Lydia, what kind of demon do you take me for? I am really hurt.”

“Beej, seriously. Don’t”

“I won’t! Scouts honor!”

“....you were a boy scout?”

“What? No.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and walked past him up the stairs leading to her room.

Beej had a mischievous smile on his face when Lydia was nowhere in sight. “Alright. Where are the rest of those little things?”

-------

Tapping the pencil to your cheek,  you sighed as wrote down the last of your notes for the first half of the material. Sitting up, you stretched a bit and reached for your cup realizing, it was empty. “Hey, babe? Is it okay if I go get more lemonade?”

Lydia smiled as she looked up from her own notes. “Yeah! Definitely okay. Can you get me some more, too, please?”

“Sure thing!” Taking her cup as well you made your way out of her room and down the stairs. 

Halfway through, you start to feel uneasy. Like you were being watched. Shrugging it off, you walked into the living room, looking over the space. Still seeing the little elf in its place, you blinked only to see it was in a different position. “...Weird but okay….” 

Beetlejuice giggled a bit, seeing you confused. “Just you wait..”

Walking into the kitchen, you placed the glasses on the counter and turned to open the fridge. Grabbing the lemonade, you smiled as you turned around to see there was not one, not two, but three little Elf on the shelves staring at you while their little hands were around the glasses.

Carefully placing the lemonade back into the fridge, you backed away from the counter and out of the kitchen. As you turned around to go back upstairs, you tripped, landing on your hands. Looking back at your feet, you saw four more elves latched onto you. 

Letting out a scream, you scrambled to get up and run up the stairs, only to have other little elves come out of nowhere and attach themselves to you. “LYDIA!!! HELP GET THEM OFF ME!!!”

Hearing footsteps rush down the stairs you felt the little elves being pulled off of you. “(Y/n)! Are you okay??? What happened? Why are there-” Lydia helped you up and glared over at Beetlejuice who was laughing hysterically on the couch, watching you hide your face into Lydia’s neck out of fear.

She carefully leads you back upstairs and into her room. She gently sat down with you on her bed holding, you against her chest. “I’m sorry I’m scared of those things... they’re just figurines but…what just happened-”

“Hey, hey. No, you’re fine, sweetheart.  Everything is okay now and it’s okay to be scared of them. You said they’re creepy for you, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” Lydia softly kisses your forehead and smiles down at you. “I’m here if you need me.”

“Can I spend the night...if it’s okay with you and your parents?”

“Definitely okay with me. We can talk to my dad and Delia when they get home later. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind either. You can even wear one of my dresses to school tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Lyds...you’re incredible.”

“And you’re adorable.”

#beetlejuice #Beeltejuice The Musical #beetlejuicebroadway #lydia deetz #x reader #christmas fic

[erintoknow]

Little Plastic Woman

it’s been 85 degrees here the last couple of days. hopefully this is coherent

fallen hero fanfiction; chargestep ~2.2k words

also thanks to @frozenabattoir for a certain suggestion earlier this week.

Before your Debut:

        You’ve been trying to put this off for a while, but this trip doesn’t have to be a disaster. In fact, you can still turn this towards your advantage.

        Any insider intel you could collect on the Rangers now would only tilt the odds in your favor when the time for your rebirth finally arrived. Second rebirth? Re-re-rebirth?

      No. Stop it. Don’t get distracted by semantics.

        Focus on Ortega instead, walking next to you, Excitedly guiding you down Main street. She’s in casual clothes again, a light blue training jacket over a deeper blue tank-top with grey shorts. As the day heats up, the jacket slides further down her back, exposes the tanned curve of shoulders, her arms–

        No. Stop it. Don’t get distracted by aesthetics.

        “Oh, hey!” Ortega tugs at your arm and you reflexively yank it back. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to check this place out.” Ortega’s pointing a thumb at the building you just walked past. A Neon sign stuck in the window reads ViVi’s in hot pink letters.

        “What is it?” You ask, careful not let your facial expression change.

        Ortega rubs the back of her neck, “Just this thrift shop I keep hearing about. All sorts of odds and ends.” She smiles at you, pulling you inside behind her with a genuine enthusiasm stronger than any grip she could have used.

        You hunch your shoulders as you shut the door behind you. The interior of the store is dimly lit and the shelves closely packed together. Claustrophobic. Maybe reminds you a little too much of another place you’d rather not think about. How do you want to play this? You’ve been here as Jane once or twice when hunting down some specialty request items to speed along Dr. Mortum’s work. What are the odds Ortega would pick the same place?

        Being here in person rather then as Jane… It’s like you’ve walked into a dream. New and familiar, just slightly off in a way you can’t quite articulate. Difference in the build of your bodies? It’s unsettling, whatever it is.

        Ortega raises an eyebrow at you as you hesitate. Do you look uncomfortable? Well, you’re always uncomfortable in new places, so that’s not suspicious, right? “You looking for something in particular?” I ask.

        “Not really,” There’s that sly grin again. “Just been hoping to scope the place out.”

        You wave a hand, shooing her away. “Well, then go… scope it out I guess.” She’s not as subtle as she thinks she is. She’s on Ranger business. But to what end? Is there more to ViVi’s then you had picked up on as Jane? Might as well let her sniff around, maybe you’ll learn something that Jane can put to use.

        You take a different aisle from Ortega. Put some space between the two of you so you can think properly. Once, in another life, you’d have to restrain yourself not to follow in Ortega’s shadow. Laugh at her dumb jokes just a little too long. Go out of your way to find something she’d like. 

        You pull a pack of socks out of a bin. Little blue lightning bolts are stitched just below the hem. Does she still find this kind of thing funny? It’s been so long since you’ve ‘been’ Ariadne Becker, you’re not sure you know how to anymore. You don’t want to think about the past. Just let it fade. She’s your enemy, not your crush. You put the socks back.

        You wonder who Ortega is dating now. There’s always somebody in her sights. 

        “Ari!” Ortega calls and you jump an inch, almost knocking over the bin of socks. “Ari, over here, check these out.”

        She’s smiling. Like that.

        Oh no.

        This can’t be good.

        “..do I even want to know, Ortega?” With some trepidation you navigate your way through the aisles to her. It’s a shelf of kitsch, the kind of bargain-bin junk tourists get suckered into buying to prove they didn’t just stay at home for a week.

        Ortega thrusts something small and plastic into your hands. You bring it up to your face to inspect it. You purse your lips, unimpressed. “This garbage still exists?” It’s a small plastic figurine in the shape of your old Sidestep get-up. The bust is bigger than the real life counterpart.

        Ortega tsks at you. “Ariadne! It’s not garbage! It’s–“ You wait for her to think of something. “Well, okay, maybe these ones are. Look at that paint job. It’s not even on model.”

        You shoot her a look. “What are you, an expert?”

        You frown at the little plastic woman. What would she think of you now? 

Your Debut:

        You stomp through the the open double-doors. You are doing this. This is really happening. You’re going to trash the exhibit and the Rangers alike. You aren’t going to be a victim anymore. No more nightmares, no more running, no more living every moment in fear. You are the one in control now. 

        Time to jump.

        It’s hard to breathe, like a bad smog day, pushing through the fear and panicked thoughts as you scan the reception room. The Rat King curls around you, chittering in rhythm with the song running through your head. …Is it learning to mimic your own mental wall? It doesn’t matter. It’s just as much a tool as you are. Whatever makes it happy.

        Kick over the punch table. A woman screams, clinging to her date as red stains her white ballgown. Everyone backs away from you.

        They’re scared.

        Scared of you.

       It’s exhilarating.

        It’s terrifying.

        You hate that you love this.

        You take a breath, bracing yourself. You’ve got to get these people out of here. Before something happens– before you happen to them. You reach and the Rat King reaches with you, swooping up scattered panicking thoughts into a cacophony, you hold the notes and stretch them to silence. “Out!” You encompass the room with an arm and then thrust a finger at the open door, adding a mental push to your command. One by one by twos by threes, the reception hall empties out, little twangs of fear and panic going ‘sproing’ under your grip.

        You don’t let go, don’t take a breath, until the room is almost empty. Finally. Now you can get to work. On your way out of the reception you make a point to kick the cake over. Bits of frosting stick to the sole of your boot.

        You can sense a few stragglers scattered through the building. As long as they don’t get in your way, you don’t need to worry about them. The exhibit hall is easy to find. It wasn’t even half an hour ago you were here as Jane. Talking with Ortega. About you.

        No. Stop it. Don’t get distracted.

        The real goal here is wiping out yourself, but you can’t give the game away before it even starts. And anyway, this hall is grotesque. A monument to the dead. Just let them rest already. What ones that aren’t dead in body are dead in soul.

        You don’t want to think about which one you are.

        No! Stop it! Don’t get distracted.

        If being Ariadne and Jane visiting the same place is disorienting, tracing Jane’s steps now, inside your new skin feels like something else entirely. Liberating. Giving yourself permission. Break the glass, kick over dioramas. Send out the Nanovores to swallow mannequins whole. Bend the plaques, tear down the signs.

        Sidestep is the last one you touch. You know it’s just a mannequin under the mask but you feel like she’s judging you. For proving everyone right. For proving how wild and dangerous and terrible your kind are. She can’t understand, not yet. It doesn’t matter that she would be right. Everything you are is a crime to them, they would have never let you be.

        It doesn’t matter what Ariadne Becker would have thought, she’s dead. You’re just the ghost come to collect her due.

        You grab Sidestep off her stand, holding her up by the neck and squeezing until the head pops off and rolls away. The Nanovores take care of the rest.

        Whatever it takes to get your revenge; whatever it takes to make the nightmares stop. You’re going straight to hell anyway, might as well drag the rest of them down screaming with you.

The year after:

        You toss your headphones onto the counter and unclasp the broach of your shawl, draping it over the back of the couch before falling onto the cushions face first. “God, I’m so fucking exhausted. Herald makes me feel old.”

        “When did you start cursing so much?” Ortega asks from behind you. It sounds like she’s in the kitchen. 

        “I’m an adult, I can do what I want, mom. Fuck off.” You try to put an edge in your voice, try to sound more bad-ass then petulant.

        Julia laughs. “No dessert for you tonight.”

        “Oh yeah?” You turn over, stare up at the ceiling. “Just try and stop me then.”

        “Mm… I can think of a few ways. It wouldn’t even be hard… that part comes later.”

        You can feel the heat in your ears. “And when you did you start playing dirty like this?”

        “Oh, I’ve always played dirty, Ari.” The purr in Julia’s voice makes you squirm. You can hear her shuffle about the kitchen, the sound of water from the sink faucet. “Do me a favor? There’s some candles in the hallway closet, can you grab the pack?”

        You roll off the couch, and stand up, stretching your arms. “Well aren’t we getting fancy today. I didn’t realize this was going to be that kind of dinner.”

        “Who says the candles are for the dinner?”

        “What do you–? Hrm.” You bite your tongue as an image occurs to you. You don’t have a comeback for that one.

        Julia laughs as you open the closet door. Where are the…? There. Candles, bottom shelf. As you reach in to grab the pack something catches your eye further back and you push aside a cardboard box to see what it is. “Ortega…?” You call out.

        “Did you find the candles?”

        “Why do you have a bunch of… action figures in here?”

        There’s silence from the kitchen and then Julia answers back, embarrassed. “Found the collection did you?”

        You turn over one of the figures in your hand, rub your thumb against the plastic base. “Have you been… holding on to these?”

        “Things got a little… strange after we lost you and Themmy.”

        “Strange.” You repeat, your voice flat.

        “It’s not like we had that much to remember you by…” You can hear Julia’s footsteps. “I did have a few photos, but they all got torched when the apartment was bombed.” She’s standing behind you, and you let her pull you into a hug even as you continue staring at the Sidestep figurine. “Nowadays I just keep picking them up out of habit.”

        “You know I hated these things.” Downside of an economic free zone. What were you going to do, sue the manufacturer for violating the right-to-privacy act? Hah.

        “Why do you think I put them in the back of my closet?”

        Julia’s affection is like a vise, a pressure painful to the bone even as it holds you together. Every instinct in your head is yelling at you to push her away, to put distance between you. You turn the figurine over in your hands, guilt seeping in like bloodstains.

        You don’t deserve to be here, lying to Ortega just by existing. Sidestep wouldn’t do this to her best friend. “Look at this, look at the chest on that woman,” you say, trying to keep your voice light. “Makes me feel inadequate every time.”

        Julia laughs, running a hand up your side. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she says, cupping your breast. “I think the real thing is plenty adequate enough for me.”

        “J-julia!!” You push free of her embrace, dropping the figurine on the floor. Your face is beet-red, you just know it is. Still, you can’t stop the panicked smile on your face even as you try your best to look cross with her. “Wow, somebody’s bold today.”

        Julia smiles at you, bright, genuine. She’d be better off if you ended whatever this was between you. She thinks she can save you, but that’s not possible. You’ll just drag her down with you.

        “What till you see the cake.” Julia picks up the figure you dropped, careful to hold it by the base.

        “Cake?”  You eye Julia, side-tracked again. “What cake?”

        “You’ll see.” There’s that smug, tight-lipped smile again. “Trade you for a candle?”

        “Huh? Oh,” You swap the pack of candles on the shelf for the Sidestep figurine in Julia’s hands. “What’s this about cake?”

        “Relax, won’t you?”Julia reaches with her free hand to grab your own. “Close your eyes.” She commands.

        “…why.” What’s gotten into her today? What’s this all about?

        “Oh, just do it Ari.”

        You sigh theatrically, “Fine, fine.”

        You both stand there. Julia says, a little more harshly now. “I mean actually close them Ari.”

        “Fuck.”

        Julia laughs, pulling you after her. “It’s okay, you can trust me.”

       “I don’t know...”

       “Then trust the me that trusts you.” 

        Your eyes are closed but you roll them anyway. “You really shouldn’t.” You say, only half joking. You squeeze Julia’s hand. 

#fallen hero: rebirth #fallen hero fanfic #fhr #fanfiction #fallen hero #fhr/Ariadne #Rival: Yourself #mc #ortega #trans character #wlw fanfic

[lovemariannexox]

Letters on the walls

A short story by Marianne

“Whabb are you doin?” The girl asked her sister with a mouth full of toothpaste foam.

“The damn creatures buried their way into my foot again so I’m tryna get them out”. She answered. The girl watched her sister wearily.

“Wibb a pair of scisthors?” 

“Yeah they were the closest thing I could-” she finally managed to extract the creature from its root in her foot. The sister gasped at the size of the wriggling black parasite. It writhed in her grasp, splattering blood all over the wooden floor. The girl felt bile rising to her throat. She averted her eyes from that side of the bathroom, spat the most of the minty foam into the sink, replaced her toothbrush, and hurried out the door. 

Her room was the most cluttered, colourful place you could find in the house. Tapestries embroidered with intricate mandala patterns, deep purples and many shades of blue, lined the walls. Every space was accounted for, if not by a tapestry then by a poster depicting planetary alignments, a calendar, red with sweeping golden characters or a painting from centuries passed or years to come. Persian rugs of different shapes and sizes were scattered about the place. Most on the floor, but some were draped over furniture too. The patterns on these carpets were geometric, the fabric mostly red. The furniture in the room seemed to be arranged haphazardly. Most surfaces were hidden under piles of books, figurines of elephants and snakes and ornaments.  Incense burned amongst sets of tubes, vials, and bottles both empty and filled with bizarre concoctions. One large bottle contained a goldfish, and in another grew a venus fly trap. From the ceiling hung numerous dream catchers that spun, wind chimes that chimed, and thousands of rustling charms: herbs, jade stones, and red mushrooms speckled with white dots hung in bags among miniature globes revolving around each other, suspended by an invisible force. Horns, dried flowers and clovers seemed to be stuck to the ceiling. And rings hung in chains like paper decor, some gold, some silver, and speckled with precious stones. 

The most occurring object in the girl’s room would have to be the candles. Each different from the next, but all were lit with a blue flame that wriggled and danced. Perhaps it was a miracle the room hadn’t been burnt to ruins. Perhaps it was magic.

The girl picked her way across the room to find her bed. She cosied herself into the middle, her back against the wall, and righted her posture. Her legs were crossed, her hands rested on her knees, and her palms faced the ceiling. She closed her eyes. 

In her left palm, a blue flame appeared. It danced excitedly, moving to the steady rhythm of the girl’s heartbeat. As she deepened her concentration, the flame slowed. 

If you looked carefully at the little flame, it looked like a being of its own kind. Its chest heaved in time with the girls. Slowly, but steadily, the dream catchers stopped their spinning, the wind chimes stopped their chiming, and the charms stopped their rustling. All except for one. 

In the corner, next to the beaded curtain that hid her bathing quarters from view, the tiniest bell was tinkling. The girl opened one eye to locate the sound. 

She smiled “Hello Minerva.”

The beaded curtain parted to reveal a girl, her face mostly obscured by a massive horned helmet, lying in the turquoise tiled bathtub. She steps briskly out of the bathtub removing her helmet which reveals a very squashed head of curls. She grins.

“Iris” she replies with a nod. Minerva takes a moment to drink in the details of the girl’s room. Her eyes sweep across the furniture and ceiling. “I like what you’ve done with the place. I have always wondered where you find your decorations.” she whizzes around the room giving herself a hasty tour. She peers into the vials, picks up various ornaments before replacing them, and flicks a couple of dream catchers out of her way as she goes along. 

The girl watches her quietly from her position on the bed.

“It’s been a while hasn’t it? I assume the rest of the house hasn’t changed since I was last here.” 

Minerva begins flipping through a book before moving on to the next and discarding that one too. A tapestry seems to catch her eye. “I remember this one! This must have been the first one you owned.” She fingers the stitching delicately, following the pattern round and round. “It still makes me dizzy.” She smiles. 

“I thought you were gone.” 

Minerva continues her rampage across the room, touching everything she sees and moving anything and everything capable of being moved. Her speech becomes more rapid. “Ahh! I used to love these globes. Aren’t they the coolest? I was so jealous and I wished I could have one. I like the horns, they remind me of my helmet see?” She lifts up her helmet and compares it with the horn on the ceiling, staring at the girl with a demented grin. 

“I thought you were gone for good.”

Minerva begins looking through the vials and tubes “You and your potions. I swear half of this is just homoeopathy.” She pauses and looks back at the girl. “You know I never really understood all your magic. Well, I guess that’s just me isn’t it? Can’t teach me anything.” She browses through an old cupboard her hand floating over one shelf. “I just need to grab a healing potion if you don’t mind.” She peers into each separate tube. Minerva’s hand stops above one containing an opal coloured liquid. “What’s this?” She extracts it carefully from its place on the shelf and peers into the tube. Her eyes widen. “I think we should try this one. Take a trip down memory lane. eh?” as she turns to look at the girl, a dagger flies through the air. The dagger pierces the tube and it shatters. The shards of glass fall to the ground and the dagger lands bang in the middle of one of the mandala patterns. 

“Bullseye” Minerva whispers.

“I thought you weren’t coming back.” 

“Well I’m here now aren’t I?” Minerva replies plainly. She sighs and looks at the girl properly holding her gaze. She a glowing blue light coming from the right side of the girl’s chest. Minerva approaches the bed warily as if she’s not sure if she’s allowed to touch it or not. The girl provides no input, so slowly, she sits. She takes the girls hand in hers. “I’m sorry.” 

The girl tenses, screwing up her face. She lets out a heavy breath. The candles around her begin to stir. They wiggle about freely as if released from a spell. Then, each glob of flame detaches from each respective candlewick and begins to cross the room. Minerva watches enchanted as the globs evolve into little fire beings. They march in lines from all directions towards the bed, forming a sun-like pattern. They crawl up the furniture and leap onto the bed. The first fire being to meet Minerva hesitates. It looks up at the girl inquiringly. She gives it a nod and smiles, granting its permission. The fire being prods Minerva with an outstretched limb, she looks at it curiously. Seeing no ill effects, the fire being leaps onto her and the others quickly follow suit. Minerva laughs in surprise. “It tickles!” she exclaims wriggling around. The girl simply smiles, watching. Minerva begins to interact with the fire beings and they start to play with her. She tries to catch them but they run away from her, sliding down her tattooed skin. She laughs and laughs. The girl wipes away a tear, unnoticed. After a little while, the beings seem to be getting sleepy. Gathering them together, the girl tucks some of them into her clothes and pockets. She leaves the rest to Minerva who lets them find comfort where they please: on her shoulders, in her hair, in the nook behind her collar bone, on her stomach. The girl and Minerva lie next to each other. All is still except a few of the charms which rustle quietly. Eventually, when the girl falls asleep, all is silent. 

Minerva awakens the next morning to find herself alone with the girl. Their legs are tangled and the fire beings are gone. Minerva moves slowly, as to not wake the girl. Silently, she begins tracing her finger over the furniture, the walls, and the ceiling as if performing some kind of ritual memorised to the last detail. “Iris” she whispers. She then takes the opal coloured potion and places the helmet over her head. Minerva disappears from the girl’s room.

Later, the girl opens her eyes. She sits up abruptly. Tears begin to fall from her eyes, and she stares around her room astonished. Her sister comes into her room. “What is it?! What’s wrong?” she looks around perplexed. 

“Can’t you see it? The walls, the furniture…” the girl struggles to speak her voice catching in her throat. She rubs her eyes and looks again.

Minerva had written sonnets over everything. Poems, secrets shared between them, and lines and lines of dialogue, each from a different moment they had spent together. The writing could only be for her to see. The girl reads over everything hurriedly, suppressing a sob. She jumps up from her bed and begins tracing her finger over each word, crying tears of bittersweet joy and melancholy. Her sister stares in shock and then turns to head back the way she came. The girl doesn’t seem to notice. 

Minerva had written her letters on the walls, and she couldn’t take her eyes off them.

[sp4c3-0ddity]

the eve of it all

technically i had this idea before season eight so it doesn’t have any real spoilers, but i didn’t write it till after so you can consider it a fluffy little fix-it that disregards it entirely if you like (i know i am lol)

~1800 words. enjoy!! <3

The eve of their launch back into space, diving deep into the unknown, and Pidge can’t sleep. Streetlights shine through the thin curtains covering her bedroom window, plastic stars stuck to the ceiling glowing green, her old-fashioned alarm clock’s digital display a sharp red on her tired eyes. But she can’t do anything but stew.

Lance never showed up to their weekly game night - their last before leaving Earth for who knew how long.

The engine of an old car roars as it drives past her family’s home. Shadows fill her room, a room both familiar and not, wider than the walls she grew used to first on the Castle of Lions then on their intergalactic road trip residing entirely in the Green Lion.

Pidge sighs and turns over, putting her back to the window, and clutches her mermaid plushy to her chest before beginning to list the chemical elements. “Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron…”

She’s halfway through the third period when a sharp thwack against her window interrupts.

Pidge’s breath catches as she bolts upright, unsure if she imagined it or if it’s just a nocturnal crow rapping its beak on the glass like in that poem they read in eighth grade English. But when something else strikes the window, she jumps out of bed and dashes for the window.

Pidge nudges the curtains aside and peeks through the crack between them towards a shadowy figure standing in the dirt in the front yard. “What the quiznak?” she mumbles, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

The figure bends down, fingers scraping the ground before straightening, and when they move a streetlight shines on his face.

Her eyes widen, her heart skipping a traitorous beat as she fumbles for the window latch. She pushes it up and sticks her head through the gaping hole in the screen to hiss, “Lance?”

Lance raises his hand, a shadow of a hesitant smile on his face, but it falls, his eyes shooting wide in panic, when Pidge moves to slam the glass down. “Pidge, w-wait!” he shouts, voice bursting through a too-silent night.

Pidge’s hands freeze, her chest tightening with renewed hurt that he stood her up only to have the audacity to appear while she’s trying to sleep. She glares down at him and demands, “Why should I?”

He lifts a paper bag, shaking it so something inside rattles, and offers, “I brought peanut butter cookies?”

Her lips twist into a scowl. “You think you can bribe me so easily?” she retorts.

Lance’s gaze drifts away, shoulders slumping and bag lowering. “I was hoping you’d at least hear me out.”

She drums her fingernails against the glass, considering. No trace of exhaustion remains to her, and her heart pounds wildly with both anger and the…implications behind him simply lobbing pebbles at her bedroom window.

And, well, she’s always been a little weak to any hint of him moping.

Pidge sighs and says, “Fine. I guess it’s better we talk about this before we launch in the morning.” Lance pumps his fist as he breaks into a wide grin that only warms her (how will she sustain her anger like this?), but before he can say anything else, she adds, “I’ll let you in through the front door, but be quiet. My parents are asleep.”

(She hopes; her mother always makes sure her bedroom door is open anytime Lance is there, as if he ever wants to get up to something besides play video games and talk with her, so she can only imagine how she’d react to a nighttime visit.)

Lance flashes her a thumb’s up as she shuts and latches the window. She pushes her bedroom door open, wincing at the squeaking of the hinges, and tiptoes through the hallway past her parents’ bedroom and down the blessedly carpeted stairs to the front door. The deadbolt scrapes out, and Pidge swings the door in.

Lance steps over the threshold before she properly invites him in, his arms raised before he seems to think better of hugging her. Now, face to face, her irritation with him doesn’t fade, but something about seeing him smiling hopefully tempers it.

“Pidge—”

She shushes him with a finger to her lips and a glower, nodding for him to follow her upstairs once she closes and locks the door. She doesn’t exhale until her bedroom door clicks shut.

She rounds on him right as he opens his mouth and demands, “Where were you?”

“I was, uh…” His gaze roves around the room, lingering on her bed in its disarray, and quietly confesses, “I was on a date with Allura.”

Pidge blinks, his words slow to penetrate her keyed up yet somehow still sleep-deprived brain, but after mulling them over, letting them echo through her mind, her heart drops into her stomach, accompanied by a knot of dread.

She never could snuff out that hopeful whisper that lived in her so long as he stayed single, that thought she had a chance, that one day Lance would get over Allura and finally look twice at her. And the fact he went on a date without even telling her - without at least canceling their weekly game night - knocks the air from her lungs.

“B-but you and I had plans,” Pidge protests feebly. Where is her anger now? “You could’ve at least told me.”

“I should’ve,” Lance admits. He sets the paper bag of cookies on her desk and approaches her. “I’m sorry, Pidge. It was just—”

“Just what, Lance?” she says. Her fingers curl into fists, spine stiffening and - ah, her frustration’s back in full force. “How hard is it to pick up a phone and call me and say, I can’t come to our last game night on Earth for who knows how long because I made a date with someone else?”

He shifts his feet, but his gaze finally snaps to hers. “I don’t have a good excuse,” Lance says. “I was going to tell you - quiznak knows I did start to call you more than once - but…” He stuffs his hands into his pants’ pockets - a nicer dark wash of jeans, Pidge now bothers to notice - and shrugs, his whole demeanor almost painfully defeated.

She rolls her eyes, refusing to be moved. “I’m guessing you’re here because it didn’t go well,” Pidge says.

“Actually, it kind of did,” Lance says, “but also kind of didn’t.”

She quirks an eyebrow, more confused than annoyed. “What does that even mean?”

He sighs and sits on the edge of her bed, staring past her at her bookshelves riddled with textbooks, fantasy novels, superhero figurines, and stuffed animals. Everything she owns, all her interests that most people (including her own mother) usually disdain as childish, are on full display; she’s never bothered to hide them, and Lance has never commented beyond admiration - such as jealousy that some rare collectible sits on her shelf or that she has a box tucked in her closet full of older mint condition comic books she and Matt spent years hunting down - but a part of her can’t help but worry that one day he - or any of her teammates - will.

Geek, nerd, weirdo…all insults - and worse - thrown at her by peers, but never by Lance or her other friends.

(And why is she even thinking about this now?)

“I’m not sure,” Lance says. His fingers run through his hair and he adds, “But there won’t be a second date.”

His words send a shock through Pidge, a relieved giddiness filling her and pushing a smile onto her face. But she bites her lip to suppress it right as Lance looks up, and the implication of what he said hits her.

Her eyes snap open, her chest squeezing and guilt hitting her, and she offers, “I-I’m sorry, Lance. I know how much you like her.”

“Eh…it’s not really that.” He shrugs and smiles slightly. “It was kind of my idea to not go on another date; I’m not even sure I liked her as much as I thought I did.”

“O-oh,” Pidge says, unsure what to add. She perches beside him and rests a hand on his arm. “You still…okay with it?”

His nod is slow and hesitant at first, but it’s more vigorous before long, a smile stretching his lips as he turns and meets her eyes. “Yeah, I think I am,” he says. “Besides, it didn’t feel right that I blew you off just to go on it.”

And they’re back again. Her lips twist into a frown, but his not-quite reassurance fills her stomach with a familiar fluttering. “You going to make it up to me, Sharpshooter?” she wonders, nudging him in the side with her elbow.

Lance gestures towards her desk with a gasp of affront. “I brought your favorite cookies; what more do you want?”

Pidge laughs. “You think I can be bought so easily, Lance?”

He rolls his eyes and grumbles, “What else do you want from me, Pidge?”

She thinks for a second, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she taps her chin. “The Game Flux must be in my room on the Atlas,” she decides.

Lance buries his face in his hands, releasing a muffled groan. “A cruel and unusual punishment,” he whines.

“Commit the crime, do the time.” Pidge scuffs her bare feet over her shaggy carpet, leaning back on her hands and staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and the globes of Earth and the moon on her highest shelf. Soon…

“Fine.” Lance flops backwards, lying beside her with his legs hanging off the end of the bed. “Anything else, cruel overlord Pidge?”

She smirks and pronounces, “You have to carry me anywhere I want to go once we’re back in space.”

Lance quirks an eyebrow. “Seriously?” When she nods, he sighs and says, “You’re lucky you’re so small…but how long?”

“Until I forgive you for standing me up on our last game night on Earth,” Pidge tells him. She nudges his shin with her toe, warmth spreading through her chest when he turns his head to glance at her.

But his face falls in obvious dismay. He wonders, “And when the quiznak will that be?”

Pidge can’t help her smile as she lies down next to him and rests her hands over her racing heart. She’s already forgiven him, she thinks, but she likes seeing him squirm and the Game Flux is payback for when he stole her rigging for his room on the Castle, and the carrying…

Well, sometimes a girl gets lazy and busy defending the universe and needs a reason for her crush to cradle her in his arms.

But aloud, she says, “Just wait and find out.”

#plance #pidgance #lidge #flirtyrobot #tbh still struggling to write a little in the aftermath that is season eight #but trying to get back into it #and i'd like to think this helped #voltron #reem writes fic

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Chapter 15: more information, and finally, some answers -- but of course more questions. 

And surprise! Another chapter! I’m super excited for this one, and even more for what’s next up.

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Wednesday morning sees Apollo wonder if he got stuck in some sort of time sink in his way to work, if he dove through a liminal space and lost a few hours, because there’s no regular, non-fae, mundane reason that Phoenix should be in the office before him.

He has papers spread out over the coffee table, next to a formidable-looking legal text, and is sitting cross-legged on the couch hunched like a gargoyle. “Morning, Apollo,” he says, tapping his pen again a legal pad until it flings forth from his fingers and arcs up into the air to fall somewhere near the piano.

Something shuffles on the other couch, out of Apollo’s sight, and Vera pops up over the back of it. “Hi, Mr Justice.”

She still looks human. She looked human on Sunday, too, when Apollo went to see her and Trucy; he has wondered since the hospital visit when, or if, something will break like Kristoph broke.

“Hey, Vera.” He sets his bag down near the door. “What’s going on here?”

“Inheritance law fuckery,” Phoenix says. “I figured I’d spare you the early start on it.” He yawns and reaches for a mug perched precariously on the corner of the table. It takes all of Apollo’s self-restraint to lunge forward for fear of him knocking it over. “This does mean there’s some tea in the kitchen that hasn’t gone totally cold.”

“I didn’t know you drank tea.” It sounds tempting, though; he and Clay ran out of coffee yesterday and haven’t gotten their shit together for it.

“Not every habit I’ve picked up from people I hang out with is bad,” Phoenix says. “Just about eighty-five percent of them.”

Vera slumps back into the couch. “I don’t think you’re inspiring confidence in our client,” Apollo says.

Phoenix grins sheepishly. It’s an expression that still surprises Apollo, that vulnerability and acquiescence of wrongdoing, even if it must be calculated that he chooses to let it show at all. “Sorry.”

“You did warn me that this isn’t your expertise,” Vera says softly. “It’s okay. It’s better than being alone.”

Phoenix’s face falls. He looks back to his hand, expecting the pen to still be there, and finding nothing. “Oh, Apollo, if there is something you want to do later, I’ve got some folders on my desk I need run over to the Prosecutors Office.”

“Yeah,” Apollo says. “Sure.” It’s still a little cold – not that Phoenix is wearing a scarf inside today, but Apollo feels it biting into his nose and fingers. If he can get some tea and reheat it, that would—

He stops dead.

“Mr Wright,” he says. “This office doesn’t have a kitchen.”

Phoenix raises an eyebrow. It disappears beneath the hem of his beanie. “Sure it does,” he says. “Only just when you want it to.”

“You’re shitting me.”

He waves a hand. He’s found another pen somewhere. “Go look. You’ll find it.”

And in the next room, on the wall that doesn’t have a desk, there is a door that Apollo has never seen. It’s the wall across from his desk, that he has stared at often enough with no idea what to do and the window behind him, and he knows he should have seen it. Cautiously pushing it open, he steps into a narrow kitchen with no room for two people to stand side-by-side between the counters, with two stovetop burners, no oven, a fridge, and numerous cabinets. A teapot and several mugs are laid out on the counter. The teapot, white with black and gold detailing of some sort of hounds or wolves, looks like it cost real money, which means that it was probably a gift that Phoenix took up drinking tea in order to use. The mugs are a mismatch of kitschy souvenir mugs from cities across Europe, another with a cracked handle and the logo for one Ivy University, three hand-painted probably by Trucy and showing a clear progression of skill, and two with weirdly detailed images of cats on them. Someone’s reject mugs handed over? Apollo takes the one with the calico on it, feeling like those two might be the ones with the least meaning behind them (or conversely, the most, but probably a stupid inside-jokey meaning), and pours himself some tea with the distinct feeling that in picking up the pot, he has taken his life into his hands.

The tea is still warm when he takes it back out to the main room. Phoenix smirks. He hasn’t stopped being unbearably smug, apparently; just maybe has less to be smug at Apollo over. “I see you found the kitchen,” he says.

“Anything else I should know about this place?” Apollo assesses his options and decides he would rather sit next to Vera. She unsprawls herself and presses close to the arm of the couch. “Any ghosts or anything?”

“I guess you’re a bit behind the curve since I haven’t been around much,” Phoenix says, “but she’s not really a ghost, technically. ‘Ghost’ implies she died here instead of choosing to ascend into an incorporeal… blanketing life-force blessing who is… still sapient and has opinions about my lack of organizational skills and also everything else.” He straightens his back out and winces. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“I was only about half-serious,” Apollo says. “I mean, I thought this place was weird, but--”

The lights flicker.

“Oh.”

Phoenix laughs. It stops just short of mocking, but it’s close. “Her name is Mia,” he says. “She was murdered almost a decade ago now – at the end, I’m sure she could’ve lashed back one last time, knocked her killer dead instantly with a curse, but she just – went the other way – ascended, kind of? Stuck around to help me bring him and more to justice, legally. Life and death, she went for the blessing instead. She’d given enough of herself away to the office before, anyway.”

Vera wraps her arms around her knees. “Is that… something anyone can do?” she asks. “To… to learn to stay? Instead of dying, could…?”

No trace of the laugh is left in Phoenix’s face. “No,” he says. “I’m sorry.” They must be all thinking about her father. “Sell your soul and maybe you won’t go if you get murdered before your time, but that’s inadvisable for about a thousand reasons.” He shakes his head. “Otherwise – otherwise Mia’s unique. She’s the strongest fae I’ve ever known – she could have been Queen of the Winter Court if she had wanted. The ones on the throne, now, they’re powerful, but…” He shakes his head again and leaves it hanging, his eyes dark and downcast. “Not like her.”

Apollo doesn’t want to breathe -- wants to ask so many questions and is sure if he moves he makes Phoenix realize that Apollo has learned more of his personal life and relationships to the fae this week than in the past six months. This must be Phoenix’s mentor, fae royalty, and now Apollo knows what happened to her.

Mia Fey.

He always thought that name was bold when he read the trial records.

“Did you love her?” Vera asks.

Phoenix smacks his head back into the couch. “How do I keep getting to this kind of thing?” he asks the ceiling. The lights hum a little louder. “You can’t ask me that in front of her!” His exasperation tilts upward at the end, seems blended with some amusement. “Yeah,” he adds. “Of course I did. And she saved my life when we first met, and keeps saving it.” He sits forward again, rolling his eyes as he does so, but then resting his arms on his knees he stares very seriously between Apollo and Vera. “Whatever your misfortune or your curses, this office, Mia’s blessing here, is about the safest damn place in the world.”

Vera nods, her thumbnail halfway to her lips, and then she hurriedly brings it down. Does she know about the curse? Have they mentioned it in front of her? Has Phoenix told her – does she know of more than the nail polish poison? Does this reassurance, actually for her benefit, seem strangely out of nowhere?

“We should probably get back to work,” Phoenix says quietly, tapping his pen to the legal text, and the look at the man behind the cards is gone.

Apollo stays with them, because he has nothing else to do, and even if he’s personally inheriting nothing but abandonment issues and anxiety, it’s still good to know. Early in the afternoon, Vera begins spacing out and Phoenix is doodling in the margins of his legal pad. Apollo thinks it might be a good time to go.

“I didn’t know you are an artist,” Vera says.

Apollo, in the back, at Phoenix’s desk – still surprisingly bare, if only because he’s migrated to the couch – only catches part of his response, “on the side,” and when he reenters they’re talking about museums and classical art and Apollo definitely checks out. “1202!” Phoenix yells after him, in the middle of the same breath as something about the Renaissance.

Lawyer, artist on the side, turned piano-poker player, legal reformist on the side, seems pretty damn weird to Apollo, but they’re all also squatting in the office of “immeasurably powerful fae being on the side, lawyer full time”, so what does he know?

-

Room 1202 at the Prosecutors Office is the second prosecutor’s office Apollo has ever seen, but because the first was Klavier’s, he has no idea if this one is typical of their decor, or equally pretentious in the opposite way of Klavier. The couch and curtains are the same shade of – maroon? Burgundy? Apollo doesn’t know what he would call this color. On a small table sits a chess set, red and blue, and the shelf beneath the huge window is a bookshelf with a tea set and some kind of figurine resting on top of it.

The prosecutor at the desk has graying hair and a suit that matches his decor. He looks up over his glasses at Apollo and sits back, and he doesn’t actually look any older than Phoenix. Maybe even younger, but that could be Phoenix’s unkempt aura of existence. “Mr Justice,” he says, standing and starting to move around the desk. “I was told to expect you to come by. My name is Miles Edgeworth.”

“Nice to meet you.” Apollo shakes his hand and turns over the folders. “I have no idea what this is from Mr Wright, exactly. He didn’t say if I was allowed to look.”

Edgeworth flips the first open, scans it, and lazily tosses it onto his desk without a second glance. “Like a lot of the things Wright ferries my way, or has Trucy do, there might be something in there, but mostly, it is an excuse.”

Apollo shifts in place and fidgets with his bracelet. “For…?”

“Today? An introduction between us, I imagine.”

“Does he do anything without an ulterior motive?” Apollo asks, directed somewhere toward the wall, but Edgeworth snorts and shakes his head.

“He learned too well from his mentor and her cohorts.”

Apollo takes a step back away from the terrible, cutting blade of his words. “Forgive me,” Edgeworth says, his eyes and palms turning up, some sort of pleading with nothing or with Phoenix or with the fae. “That is neither here nor there. What I wanted was to speak with you about last week’s trial and your impressions of the system, having stood in the courtroom yourself; I was unable to attend to witness myself.”

It takes effort to stop himself from just weighing himself back and forth, foot to foot, burning off nervous energy in place. He feels like he did early in his career with Kristoph, still terrified of his boss but for mundane career-anxiety reasons. “I’d be glad to, but uh, since you’re a prosecutor, wouldn’t you rather get Prosecutor Gavin’s thoughts—?”

Edgeworth makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. Apollo regrets everything he has said so far this conversation. “I am equally interested in the perspective of both benches, but yes, I would perhaps like to hear from Gavin if he would deign to show himself in front of me.” He frowns deeply, squinting not really at Apollo, and then he cranes his neck over Apollo’s shoulder. “I asked him to deliver something to me in person today, so if I seem distracted at any point, I might be trying to make sure that I can corner him.”

“He hasn’t come into work?” Apollo asks.

“No, he has – I’ve seen those ostentatious vehicles of his.” Edgeworth folds his arms over his chest, drumming his fingers and shaking his head. “And he responds to email – but simply, no one has seen him around when I’ve asked.”

Apollo knows which office is his; he can stop on the way down. Is this some sort of machination on Phoenix’s part, too? “Oh.”

Edgeworth waves him over to the couch, returns to his desk, and begins what feels a little more like an interrogation or a trial than a conversation. He shouldn’t have expected otherwise – he knows the name Edgeworth as a famous (and infamous) prosecutor, and already he can see the hints to that reputation. He doesn’t ever ask more about Vera the changeling when Apollo brings it up, makes some quiet dismissive noise when Apollo mentions curses – and that, finally, seems like something he can push back on. He doesn’t know what Edgeworth is looking for from him, a fight or information or one in the form of the other, but he can try a new tactic.

“You don’t think that sort of thing is important to know?” Apollo asks.

“To what end?” Edgeworth asks. “For your own purposes, to secure your own belief in someone’s guilt, or lack thereof? What will you do with it – lobby an accusation that is subjective through your very own eyes and hope that someone believes you – that the prosecution will take pity on you?” He leans forward, intimidating even with the desk and the floor between them. “Will you take photographs through the center of a magatama – can you? – or just hold it to the eye of every detective on the scene, hoping to get corroboration to put before a judge and jury? Presume I trust you, because Wright picked you as his successor – faith and trust between the prosecution and defense can go a long ways, but if you have only that and wisps of magic, you still will not reach the truth.” His eyes, as they have all conversation, flicker from Apollo to the door and back again.

“And furthermore, for the matter of a jury trial, I can only see, going forward, that penalties should be made in cases of wanton claims about curses and magic, as you made.”

“But—”

He holds up a finger. “Consider this, Mr Justice: yes, the purpose of the Jurist System is for common sense to fill in the gaps where a clever killer has escaped with critical evidence. There is, however, a difference between that and a verdict based in impulse because accusations of magic have been bandied about. Consider a clever and unscrupulous attorney, or prosecutor, swaying a jury with passionate and baseless conviction that this witness is one of the Gentry – or even that the one behind the other bench is, and as such their evidence cannot be trusted. How will we ever untangle the truth amidst that slew of hearsay?”

Numbly, Apollo nods. Edgeworth sighs heavily and rests his forehead on his hand. “The psychology behind how a jury might respond to further cases such as this one, with claims of magic, is a headache in clear need of further research before we push the Jurist System toward the mainstream. We desperately need reform to prevent more Kristoph Gavins and so much other corruption like his, but…” Finally, he seems to be at a loss for words. “Wright was – is – a competent attorney, but it was fortunate for us all that the judge most often saddled with him is remarkably unfazed by talk of the Gentry. Going forward, with you and Wright and his methods and the possibility of uniquely made-up juries, I worry what could be unleashed, if the defense make claim to Wright’s Sight but lacks his integrity, or if the prosecution is not the rarest trustworthy witch who can confirm what was Seen.”

“I don’t think Prosecutor Gavin is a witch, actually,” Apollo says, knowing as soon as the first word leaves his mouth that he sounds like an idiot, and continuing on anyway.

He doesn’t even know if Edgeworth would consider Klavier trustworthy.

Edgeworth’s frown lessens, his brow slightly uncreasing. “Wright told me as much, eventually, but I admit I was thinking of a different prosecutor, my mentee.”

“Wait,” Apollo says, screaming again inside his skull because this next statement is actually going to be just as stupid, “you think Mr Wright’s an idiot for hanging out with the Fair Folk, but you mentored a witch?”

“Did I say he was an idiot?” Edgeworth looks, and sounds, puzzled, like he really isn’t sure if that was the phrasing he used.

“No, but I got that kind of, uh, vibe.”

“Hm.” Edgeworth considers it for another few seconds. “You are right, of course, he is; but the circumstances in our cases are very different, and my taking on a mentoring role toward a younger prosecutor was and is independent of him being a witch.” He folds his arms on the desk, quietly tapping a pen in one hand. “The most prominent difference is that I have not and refuse to give in and casually allow this office to become something like a coven, as Wright has your office.”

Apollo cannot lodge an objection to that. “I think I must cut us short here,” Edgeworth says, and Apollo tries not to jump up too quickly in relief. “I have to make more consideration of what we’ve spoken of, and see what Wright has thrown at me this time.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about, as well,” Apollo says. Edgeworth is right – it is a headache.

His mouth twitches. Apollo hasn’t actually seen him smile. “You aren’t the one running this reform, Mr Justice, so you need lend a little less consideration – but I am glad to learn that you won’t just sit back and let the wind carry you where it may. That you know how you wish to fight, too.”

With nothing to say to that, Apollo nods, turning it into a little bit of a bow of his head, and hurries for the door, finding sitting in the open doorway on the floor, a small stack of papers. He picks it up, glances it over, and finds his eyes are immediately drawn to the signature at the bottom, in purple pen, initials unmistakeable. “Um, Prosecutor Edgeworth?” he asks, turning back around, everything but his mouth and feet frozen. “I think – I think Prosecutor Gavin came by.”

Edgeworth curses, too much of a hushed hiss for Apollo to determine what exactly the words are, and he hurries around his desk to snatch the pages from Apollo’s hands. “Yes, he – yes, that is exactly what I asked him to—” He crumples the edges a little with the tightening of his fists, a harsh scowl tearing across his features. “I have been watching the door, all this time – you didn’t see these on your way in?” Apollo shakes his head. “Gavin, I swear – the man is a goddamned ghost, somehow, when he wants to be.”

-

“If you wanted me to meet Prosecutor Edgeworth for whatever reason, you could have just introduced us,” Apollo says.

“I wanted you to drop off those papers, Apollo.” Phoenix looks up at him like he’s looking up from checking the new hand he’s been dealt, utterly and frustratingly emotionless. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The second one is a red lie. It circles him – for someone else, he has no tells at all. “Bullshit you don’t,” Apollo says. He has the distinct feeling that he has had this conversation before. Twice before? Every conversation he has had with Phoenix is this one? “Or are you fishing for information on Prosecutor Gavin and hoped I would learn or say something?”

“And how is Prosecutor Gavin?” Phoenix’s lazy eyelid has returned. Apollo doesn’t miss it. Apollo wants to punch it away. It isn’t right that his boss should have such a punchable face.

Apollo crosses his arms. “No,” he says. “I’m not doing this. Ask after him yourself.”

“I have.” Whenever Apollo’s voice gets louder, Phoenix drops his lower, like if he can balance Apollo, Vera out in the front room won’t hear them. “And Ema’s only heard from him in email – Edgeworth too – nobody’s goddamn seen him, so yeah, maybe I did just hope that you could draw him out.”

“And what do you care?”

Phoenix scowls up at him, sticking a pencil to mark his place in the heavy leather-bound book with handwritten script he is paging through, and slamming it shut harder than necessary. “Where should I start?” he asks, voice with all of the bitterness but none of the sarcasm that Apollo is used to. “Maybe I spent seven years with Kristoph Gavin as my closest ‘friend’” – he makes quotes in the air with his fingers, too – “and learned not only how he thinks, but how you come to start think after being around him for a lengthy personal relationship. And maybe I spent those seven years also listening to all of his belittling, dismissive remarks about his little brother.” He smacks his palm on the desk like it is the defense’s bench and then he looks surprised, as though the muscle memory of being in court should have atrophied years ago. “And maybe I’ve seen prosecutors before have their foundations upended, to end with a spiral off a cliff, and maybe” – his voice drops further to a hiss – “I would prefer not to let Kristoph get the last goddamn laugh over any of us who have survived him this far.”

He falls back in his seat, spinning it halfway away from Apollo, and closes his eyes. “Or maybe I’m just morbidly curious how it ends this time. Your pick.”

Two steps forward – Iris and Mia, pieces of a history before Apollo, the man before disbarment – and then three more back. His internal counter of “Days Since I Last Hated Phoenix Wright” resets.

“I think less people would try to kill you if you didn’t pretend to be heartless,” Apollo says. He turns on his heel and heads for the sound of Vera humming along to the radio.

“Magatama’s in the bottom desk drawer if you want to go back sometime,” Phoenix calls after him.

-

Clay’s advice for no response to his texts was to wait a day and then send some casual, irreverent remark, maybe about something going on at the office, as a bump to the previous message. That, unlike most of Clay’s advice, had actually seemed reasonable to Apollo.

Ran by the prosecutor office today, maybe you saw me talking to Edgeworth I knocked on your door afterward to say hi, guess you weren’t in then

-

On Thursday, it seems to Apollo that Vera has officially-unofficially been adopted into the agency, because there’s some easels, canvasses, and paints that were not there when he left the prior afternoon. She has dismissed both the paints and her sketchbook for a plain pencil and the edges of a Wonder Bar flyer.

“You’re in early,” Apollo says.

She doesn’t jolt quite as much as she has when he’s surprised her other times. Maybe she’s learning to be a little more at ease in the world. “It’s lonely at my house,” she says. “I’m not lonely when I’m alone here.”

Mia. Apollo nods. “I feel that, too.”

Phoenix wanders in before noon, after the two of them thoroughly investigate the mysterious kitchen. Vera is trying to make a house of cards on an already-precarious end table, and Apollo is looking over the books on the shelves, hoping to find one that can teach him something new without being criminally boring. “Nothing?” he asks Vera, pointing to a canvas.

She shrugs. He is almost to the back room when she says, “Um, Mr Wright?”

He stops dead.

“How do you draw something that isn’t real?”

“Huh?” Apollo asks. Phoenix turns back around, heading for the couch and not looking confused, and Apollo has no idea why they both understand that very weird question.

“How have you done it in the past?” Phoenix asks. Vera has abandoned the cards and is flipping through the legal pad that Phoenix was doodling on yesterday. “I know your first, er, paintings—”

“Forgeries,” she says softly. “Call them what they are. It’s okay.”

“—your first forgeries were identical copies of things, but then – like the diary page – that was still you making something new, something that wasn’t real.”

“But it was always obvious how to make those real.” Vera’s eyes are fixed on the page and a little scribble of a woman with smudged graphite hair and red pen eyes, as many of them as a spider. “I was told exactly what to do. I had the torn edge to match my new page to, and the text to put on it, and the handwriting to put it in, and the type of paper. But I don’t know how to make something new.”

Phoenix digs his phone from his pocket and starts typing. “I’m not ignoring you,” he says. “I just need to, before I forget, tell a friend of mine that I need to introduce him to you.” Apparently satisfied with whatever message he sent, he tosses his phone toward a shelf. It bounces off and cracks to the floor. “Anyway. The advice that’s maybe shitty I can offer you is to find what’s real in it. Like… paint me how you feel today.” He gestures toward a canvas. “Not how your face would look if you were showing those emotions, not what’s making you feel them, but how it feels. That’s real, but it’s not you replicating anything.”

Seeming to decide against doing whatever he meant to, he returns to the couch and sits on the arm of it. “My friend’s a children’s book author-illustrator – he’s human, but his mentor was one of the fae.” The glance he casts about the office doesn’t land in any one place. “I don’t think I have any of her books here, but I’ll bring them in. After her death, he and I talked a lot about what he’d learned from her, because my experience with the fae and art had been my friends getting obsessed with kids’ action shows and needing the concept of ‘fiction’ and ‘acting’ explained about a dozen times.” There’s that fond exasperation again. “She said that her books were always grounded in something real. They had to have that heart of truth, and the rest she could build.”

Vera lets the pencil fall from her fingers and cranes her head back to look at her paint brushes. “Is this a common thing?” she asks. “The fae, drawn to art?”

“Culturally, it’s not their thing,” Phoenix says. “They themselves don’t have much of a tradition of storytelling or paintings that are much more than… apparently accurate versions of history. It’s something about how they consider themselves bound to the truth, even if they’re twisted about it. They’re a little weird about music, too, but I do know that they’re drawn to human artists over this same thing – that they don’t get it, but we do, so they like artists as…”

“Court jesters?” Apollo offers.

Phoenix snorts. Vera has stood and gone to consider her paints, and he slides off the arm of the couch and sprawls across it on his back. “Something like it. But it is interesting to consider, in terms of you, Vera – you’re a changeling. They swapped you for a human baby of artistic parents, who was more or less destined to grow up to be an artist – and there’s a woman I know, human, a musician, and she’s the other side of that coin. So from my nearly-anecdotal sample size” – Ema would not approve – “it’s future artists and musicians who… get… taken…”

He sits bolt upright, his eyes flashing blue. “Oh, son of a bitch!”

At his outburst, Vera squeaks and stumbles into the piano, knocking some some brushes and a palette down to the floor. He looks at Apollo, eyes pale and vacant, jaw twitching but still hanging open. “I do know what the hell he is!”

And Apollo, halfway to Phoenix’s desk to grab the magatama, is sure that they’ve realized the same thing.

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics #next: THE BOY IS BACK. and probably having a mental breakdown. mood but also like. bad.

[mystblbk]

Chavela Valdes--Chapter 3

After shopping for necessities, mom manages to get a job at a local cantina and had convinced the owner to have her start right away. Panchito gets us back home in an hour, just in time for Milagros to growl at us about how she wanted half the rent by the end of the weekend. I would have yelled at her if it were not for my mom grabbing my bicep to calm me down. I stay in our room long after mom left for her new job, as a means to keep the landlord alive and to practice.

I cradle the instrument in my lap while slowly sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. The roughly tiled floor rubbed against the skin of my thigh harshly, but I have no other place to practice seeing that the Evil Witch from the South was currently in the living room a few paces away.

Right then, let’s get started.

With the silencer covering my guitar’s sound hole, I practice some of the old ballads my guitar teacher had taught me. It became our ritual to teach me a new song every day, especially after the first week of class. No one truly wanted to learn how to play the guitar, they were just there for the easy grade, so having me actually wanting to learn was a godsend to the young teacher. Mr. Peña had been a kind person to me and even allowed me to take one of his practice guitars home after he noticed how I took to each lesson with ease. He must have seen something in me because after that he had me permanently placed into his class for the next three years of high school.

I wish I could have said goodbye.

I go through a few finger placement exercises until the sadness dies out, but the songs don’t. By the time I look down at my iPod and see that its almost 4’oclock in the morning my fingers have deep creases on the tips from the steel strings. I cradle my left hand and inspect the red digits. The worn skin has small cuts from being used again, but there was no pain to be felt. I sigh and close my eyes, hands instinctively playing a new song.

“I forgot how good you were.”

My mom’s voice shocks me and my hand makes a thumping sound as it hits my instrument. Mom gives me a sheepish look when I give her an empty glare from across the room. She smiles softly as she goes through the motions of getting ready for bed. Her long shiny hair is let down, and her clothes are exchanged with pajamas. Once she’s done, she comes to sit next to me. She cuddles into my side, reminding me of how I would when I was younger.

“You know I hate being startled,” I mumble, once we’re both settled in.

“Sorry, mija,” she grins, “Come on, play something for me?”

I look down at my mother’s hazel eyes and nod slowly, “What song?”

“Surprise me,” she smiles.

I nod again and quickly roll through the songs I have memorized in my head. My mother watches as I think then moves to sit across from me and against the bed. Finally, I start strumming the cocky and sassy song. Making sure my voice is clear, I start to sing with a grin directed at my mother.

Esas tus miradas de fulgor extraño Esa tu sonrisa de color de rosa Siempre me facinan aunque me hacen daño Porque eres muy linda pero desdeñosa

My grin starts to hurt as I see mom trying to hold back a laugh. My mood is cheery as I continue along, making sure to bop my head to the quick plucking I do.

Esas tus miradas de fulgor extraño Esa tu sonrisa de color de rosa Siempre me facinan aunque me hacen daño Porque eres muy linda pero desdeñosa

Mom coughs a laugh this time, her tan cheeks a little red for holding back her cheer. I try not to giggle as an effort to complete the song completely with no breaks.

Brindame el encanto de tus bellos ojos El sensual embrujo que en ti se adivina Para que en mi vida tan llena de abrojos Seas como una estrella que a mi alma ilumina

By now mom is covering her mouth with both hands, mirth bright as the sun rising behind us. My heart soars to see her happy, to bring some happiness in the midst of all this terror we’re going through. It’ the same feeling I had with Valentina in the afternoon, a painful need to see a beautiful woman smile at me instead of frown.

Brindame el encanto de tus bellos ojos El sensual embrujo que en ti se adivina Para que en mi vida tan llena de abrojos Seas como una estrella que a mi alma ilumina

As I go through the last fast-paced strumming, my mom’s giggles get the best of her once the song ends. I giggle along with her as she stands up from next to me. I place my guitar in its case on my side of the bed. My sleepiness night catches up with me as I set my phone’s alarm for later this morning, the volume only high enough for me to hear. With a huff, I settle myself next to my mother on our small bed. I glance over at the older woman and she smiles sadly at me before turning off our only light.

My mind continues to run long after my mom’s breathing deepens into a dreamless sleep. I stare at the ceiling, unused to the new sounds and feeling of the space I’m in. Annoyed, I quietly get up from the bed and make my way to the living room and into the kitchen. I pull a cup from the rack and fill it halfway. I sigh and drink slowly, trying to quiet down my thoughts. Once finished with my drink, I wash it quietly and place it back on the rack.

My footsteps are quiet on the neon pink tiles. I’m passing the coffee table when a familiar picture catches my eye. The latest issue of Cosmopolitan sits on the table with a dog-eared page. I raise an eyebrow and stare at the magazine for a second. Curiosity gets the best of me so I grab the paper book and flip to the page that is saved.

“No way,” I whisper gasp, “It can’t be.”

But it is.

Who else can it be?

Splattered across the page is a title to an article that should be in a National Enquirer instead of a Cosmo.

Léon Carvajal: El Ultimo Adios

Underneath the morbid title is pictures of a well-aged man in a fitted suit. His features are sharp but also aged just enough to show his age. His hair was multicolored, black fading into grey and then into white in spots. His smile was warm but strong as if to say he was the boss. Underneath the collage of pictures of his life throughout the years are pictures of his funeral form a few weeks prior. A strand of pictures is framed at the bottom but one, in particular, forces my attention on it.

In the center of the picture is a brunette with watery eyes wearing all black and sitting on a couch alone. Behind her are people lingering around a warm brown colored casket, a strike of platinum blonde surrounded by a group of brunettes. All seeming to be the immediate family. All not noticing what the lonely girl has in her hands: a silver flask.

“Valentina,” I whisper with a broken heart.

I read the article and get annoyed as they speak of my new friend and her family. The writer obviously using this man’s death as a way to sell copies of this month’s magazine. I sigh and close the book, making sure to place it where it once was so Milagros won’t see a difference. My feet still make no noise as I enter our room. Mom is still asleep as I get into bed next to her. I stare at the ceiling for a moment then close my eyes, one thought lingering in my mind.

Well, right now I don’t think it applies here.

“It will,” I mumble as I fall into the abys, “I’ll make sure of it…”

_________________________________________________.

The morning comes fast, almost as fast when we were on the run a few days ago. It blends into the day so well that the dream world isn’t even acknowledged to me as I wake up at 7’olock. I quickly get ready without waking mom up, knowing full well the hell I will have to pay for her not coming with me. I’m far too concerned with her getting her own rest then my own safety as I watch how peaceful she looks. The kitchen smells of food when I exit our room, but I ignore the woman cooking as my pride is too much for a pity breakfast from her. With a forced out ‘good-bye,’ I walk out of the house and into the sleepy streets of Mexico City. Pulling up the address on my phone, I pull the strap of my guitar case tighter as to not have it taken from me in a worst-case-scenario.

The way to my new job was a nice way to get used to the city as it goes through el centro and the marketplace it stands on. There are many streets filled with people selling form their homes or pop-up stalls, mostly of spices, fresh vegetables, and the occasional clothing or electronics. The scents of the pile of spices lined around my path tickle my nose in a way that reminds me of my empty stomach. I’m spared of this painful journey as I approach a large building sticking out of the mayhem as if it were a center point of the area. As I approach the restaurant I take not of its old Spanish style, the kind that was made to attract the tourist population: red brick with white trims and wide bay windows. My feet carry me up the flight of stairs and through the front arches leading inside to the second floor.

The fluorescent lights make my eyes hurt as I to adjust to my surroundings. I blink back the shadows and look around, taking notice of the large murals on each wall. Taking one side of the building is a large bar with two stainless steel doors that would lead to the kitchen. Decorating the counter behind the marble bar are figurines of Catrinas and Alembrijes on each shelf. There are artisanal wooden tables with matching chairs placed neatly in the space to make the best use of the size with paper floral centerpieces. It was a purely Mexican restaurant that one would see in a stock image photo.

“Juliana! Good morning!”

I look over to the sound of Salvador's voice and see him along with a group of five other young men that look to be around his age. Salvador stands in the center, a few inches shorter than the tallest man. To his right were two boys, twins actually, with light skin and eyes that matched their dirty blonde hair. Their round faces made them look young, a few years older than I am, and so did their smirks and bright hazel eyes.

On Salvador’s left were the other three young men, all three handsome and tall. The tallest, which stood directly next to Salvador, had black hair and dark eyes similar to Salvador except for the broody look on his face. On the broody guy’s left was a boy with dark skin, obviously from African descent, that hade burning green eyes to contrast the rest of him. This guy’s expression was kind and open, an expression that helped calm my nerves. Finally, the last young man had bright reddish hair and super pale skin. He looked like he belonged in the hills of Scotland, not the streets of humid Mexico.

As I approached the group, I pulled my shoulders back and stand straighter to make myself look taller. The second I was a foot away, the twins pulled me into a hug and started chattering into my ears. I stay frozen in place as the two boys tug me by my jacket.

“I can’t wait to hear—”

“No, you said we were—”

“No, Sal said we have to—”

“Sal said, more like you—”

“STOP!”

Salvador’s voice booms in the restaurant, shocking the twins to look back over at him.

“I’m sure you will have time to get to hear Juliana’s,” Salvador says as he drags them into submission, “Now, how about some food while we get to know each other?”

The twins quickly pull away and run to one of the long wooden tables nearby. I stare as they push each other back and forth like only siblings do. Sal brings me back to my current position as he claps me on the back softly and pushes me carefully to the table. We all take our seats and watch as two waitresses come and start serving us some traditional Mexican breakfast. My mouth drools as one waitress places a plate of huevos rancheros in front of me. I stare down at the food then look up and around me. The boys were all tucking into their own food, taking the liberty to take from the large dishes of sides on the table to place on their plates.

A tap from my right directs me to the dark-skinned boy, he smiles encouragingly and makes signals for me to eat in a polite manner. I glance at Salvador and he smiles back, so I sigh happily and eat along with them. The breakfast is good, the only downside is that I couldn’t eat more. I sigh and sip the rest of my agua de frutas while Salvador introduces the other boys.

The twins were named Raymundo and Ricardo, kids to a widowed father of a family of eight. The redheaded boy’s name was Francisco, or Franky, and was son to an American teacher and British painter. The darkest skinned young man was named Axel, had immigrated to Mexico City a few years ago with his parents from Argentina. Finally, the broody guy that looked very similar to Salvador was introduced to me as Raúl, Salvador’s cousin.

They were all kind, except Raúl who was still a bit cold and distant and talked to me about the city and such. The conversation came to a halt when Raúl reminded us of the two outfits that I had to try on. Salvador stood up and quickly went into the employees only room. The man comes back carrying two outfits covered by black coat bags.

“Sal huffed, “Thanks, Raúl. Juli, go try them on please.”

“Okay,” I sighed, taking the two bags, “be right back.”

Axel kindly points to the restrooms and I walk in the direction of them. I quickly go inside and let out a large breath I was keeping inside. Trying to calm my nerves, I carefully hang the two protected outfits on the stall door. A few minutes later I’m pulling on the tight black pants on, the pant legs are a bit longer than me but easily fixable. The soft white dress shirt is a bit too large but I tuck it into the pants before pulling on the black vest and finally the black jacket over that. The gold tie is tricky to get on, but after a minute of struggling I figure it out. The tan belt with obstaniously large belt buckle settles perfectly on my waist.

I open the door to the stall and step into the larger part of the restrooms. With a glance over the uniform, I turn to look at myself on the large floor-to-ceiling mirror. A gasp leaves me as I look over myself. The clothes are a bit too loose but I can see with a bit of a tweak here and there I can get it to look amazing on my small frame. I looked the part of a mariachi player, except for my loose hair and converse. With a small smile I use the band I keep on my wrist to pull my hair up in a bun.

“Better,” I sigh.

“Juli,” Sal asks with a knock on the door.

“Just a second,” I call back.

Taking one more look over myself, I turn and walk out. All five boys look up and take in how I look. Sal and Axel smile largely at me while the twins smirk and nod happily. Raúl walks from his position against the wall and walks around me, eyes rolling over me with a heavy stare. The boy comes to stand in front of me and stays there for a second. I hold my breath as he turns around to the table and takes the large traditional hat. Raúl slowly and gently places the hat on my head, positioning it to face forward correctly.

“You need dress shoes, maybe even boots,” the young man tells me, “What’s your size?”

I blink, “Uhm, nine.”

“Americans,” Raúl rolls his eyes but turns back to a bag he has next to the wall.

He pulls out a pair of black leather boots, “Put these on, they should fit. They belonged to my sister, but she doesn’t even wear them so…”

I stare at the man before sitting where he pointed me to. Raúl crouches down and pulls my tennis shoes off then replaces them with the boots, telling me to adjust the shoes as needed.

“Stand up,” he tells me, “I need to see that you don’t look like a fool next to us.”

I huff but do as he says by allowing him to look me over again. Once he is satisfied, Raúl nods at me then at the others.

“She’ll do,” he proclaims, “Just needs to get them both fitted, but she should be fine.”

Sal grins, “Good. Go take that off, except the boots so you can get them worn in and get back here so we can practice.”

“Okay,” I nod and turn to follow his orders.

I make it into the restroom and once again let out a large sigh of relief. Though I felt a bit on edge from having Raúl look me over, I understood his need to have me look good next to them. My mind kept traveling to the boys as I undressed and redressed, mostly thinking how easily we got along during our breakfast. By the time I had got the suit and hat into their proper places, I was ready for practice. The boys are now standing on the makeshift stage waiting for me as I approached them.

I look over the instrument they are holding as I pull my guitar out. Salvador, no surprise, is the other guitarist. Axel holds a shiny trumpet and is doing scales with Raúl who is the second trumpeter. The twins surprise me as they tune their violins, the shape, and color the instruments almost exact to reflect their owners. A grin pulls at my lips as approach my bandmates, ready to get to it.

“Alright,” Sal tells us, “You went through the setlist I gave you right?”

I nod to Salvador, “Yeah I went through it. I knew all of them already, so I’m fine.”

“Good,” Axel nods, “Let’s go through it and then decide which parts to add or correct.”

“Which brings up another thing,” Raúl huffs, “Do you know how to sing?”

I shift in place trying to ignore their stares, “A little.”

“Then we try that too,” Raúl nods, “Let’s start then.”

With that, we begin practicing for the day.

____________________________________________________.

The wind blows my hair out of my face as I stand in the sun. My eyes don’t leave to marble rock in front of me, newly placed onto of the grave of my husband of only a few hours. I stare at the rock for another minute before a tear is released from my eye and flows down to fall into the large field of grass.

“I wish you were here. The bed is too big without you. The house is too cold. And don’t get me started on the company,” I whisper to Léon, “I’m trying my best to pick up where you left off but Johnny is such a snake! Honestly, how didn’t you see how much of a backstabber he is? He’s off speaking with presidential hopefuls and big company CEOs—completley what you’ve always been against! To top it all off he’s been flirting with me, some adopted son you picked out Léon! I’m pretty sure he’s behind all this. His actions speak for him. I can’t get proof yet, but I really hope Eva can have a change of heart so she can help me at the paper. If I have her and Guille on my side, I’m sure I can catch him in the act.

“Eva is angry She thinks this is my fault. I suppose it is, you were killed at our wedding. Guille, well Guille is trying to be strong but I know he’s finding comfort with drinking his sorrows away when he’s not working. As for Valentina—she’s a mess, my love. I’m having the staff keep an eye on her, but I know she’s been sneaking alcohol into her room at night. I really hope she finds a way to get out before I have to call a family meeting on her.”

“I wish you were here,” I whisper with a sob, “We all do.”

As if answered, the wind blows again cooling the hot trail of tears on my cheek. I sigh and hold myself for another moment, thinking about my family and their individual struggles. Suddenly, the sound of guitars strumming catches my attention. I look up to my right and see an elderly couple standing next to each other as a young girl sings over the grave. Her dark hair is pulled up in a bun with a few strands falling over her cheeks allowing me to see how young she is. Perhaps Valentina’s age? Her clothes are worn and faded in color, reminding me of my time in the streets.

I watch as her soft voice carries lovingly through the cemetery and creates a strange peace that otherwise should be filled with a turmoil of the living. The girl finishes the song and allows the sound to bounce around the empty plain before turning to shake hands with the elderly couple. The old man dabs his eyes with a handkerchief and shakes her hand kindly. The older woman smiles as well and hands her a few bills in return for her service. The girl shakes her head but is forced the money into her had by the older woman. I smile as the humble girl goes through the motions of the Holy Cross then bows her head to the elderly’s dead before leaving them be.

I watch curiously as the girl counts the bills and does the Holy Cross again with the money in her hand, a sign of a thankful worker, before putting the money in her front pants pocket. I look down at Léon and remember how kind he was and willing to help me when I was in that young lady’s shoes.

“I suppose this is a sign,” I tell him then look over at the girl, “Hey! Young lady! Come here, please!”

The girl looks up and stares at me for a second before jogging up to me. I let her catch her breath for a second before speaking.

“What are you doing here,” I ask, “They normally don’t let anyone in here, it’s a private cemetery.”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “A friend’s uncle works here, and he told me I could come here to earn some money.”

My eyebrows furrow, “It’s really hot though. Can’t you find something better?”

“I can. I mean I do—have a job,” she sighs, “I play in a mariachi band and get a cut from what we earn, but I need more for the rent of the place I have. I don’t want my mom to work too hard, she’s been through enough this past year. I want to help her, so she won’t worry as much.”

“Past year,” I ask, “What happened?”

The girl sighs, “Well, my dad died during work. We had our house, well trailer, taken away and had to come here. We found a place but the landlord, well, she wants the rent for this whole month by this weekend.”

“What,” I gape, “That’s completely unfair! Most landlords give a week…”

“Yeah she did, originally,” the girl rolls her eyes, “But my mom could only get a job at a bar, so when she found out she gave us until Saturday. Something about being a streetwalker.”

“That’s just three days from now,” I whisper, outrage at this unknown landlord for acting this way to a recent widow.

“Yeah,” the girl nods, looking at her scuffed-up shoes, “That’s why I’m doing whatever I can right now.”

I watch as the girl shifts the guitar strapped over her shoulder from one place to the other. Seeing her up close made it even more clear how young she is. My heart tugged at her sad but determined look. With a sigh, I turn to my guard.

“Can you let home know I have another errand to do and might not get home on time,” I shout to Alirio.

“Yes, ma’am I’ll let them know,” he calls back.

I turn to the girl and pull my hand out for her to shake, “Lucía, and you are?”

The girl blinks back at me then shakes my hand politely, “Juliana.”

I grin and motion for her to follow me, “I have a job you can do for me. I need someone to come shopping with me. I need an honest opinion on what I’m wearing, I know these men won’t have a reliable opinion other than blank staring. You can also help me carry my bags to the car.”

Julian turns to me with wide confused eyes, “I—”

I cut off the girl, “Don’t worry. I’ll pay you for your time. I’m sure it will be more than the amount you’ll get here.”

“Why,” she whispers.

“I know how it feels,” I answer simply, “Now come on, I actually do need help deciding.”

Juliana stares at me for a second then grins, “Thank you, Ms. Lucia. You don’t even know me, but…”

I smile at the girl and pull her by her elbow. The door is opened by my guard and I enter the vehicle with Juliana. The young woman stays quiet as she stares out the window, enjoying the view as we reach the closest boutiques I like to go to. By the time we reach the stores, Juliana is a bit calmer and responds to the few questions I ask her.

The first store is filled with expensive ball gowns, a perfect place to find a dress for my meeting with the Spanish Ambassador in a few weeks. Juliana is in awe as we enter and a saleswoman quickly greets us with an overly bright smile. I let her down gently and once she’s gone I turn to my new companion.

“Alright, what should we start with,” I ask her.

Juliana pauses and looks me over quickly before looking around. I watch as something catches her eye from a nearby rack. The brunette scurries to a rack full of red and maroon dresses and quickly goes through them until she finds what she’s looking for. A bright red dress with a backless design and a long train is presented to me with excited and nervous eyes.

“Try this one,” Juliana mumbles, “I think it will suit you.”

I grin at the timid girl and take the dress with no complaints, leaving her shocked at my silence. I walk towards the dressing rooms and turn around with an encouraging look.

“Perhaps look for other ones,” I encourage her, “I’m always looking for good dresses for events.”

This seems to calm the girl as she smiles back at me and continues to look over the racks. The afternoon goes on like this. From store to store, my new stylist picks out clothes for me to try and I do as she says. By the time dinner time arrives, I have many new bags filled with clothes and accessories. I’m shocked that this little thing of a girl knows how to style clothes in just the right way and to fit my style. I’m sure she has a good future if she pursues a career in fashion. As I tell her this, she blushes brightly and scuffs up her shoe on the concrete paths.

“I’m not joking Juliana,” I pat her arm, “You could be a professional stylist or even a designer.”

“I’m flattered, but I’m more concerned with the food on the table,” she rolls her eyes like the teenager she is, “Maybe someday but not soon.”

I sigh, completely understanding her situation. I could help her but a strong woman like her, like me, would not like handouts. She wants to make things from her own strength, not the strength of others. I look down to her shoes and see that the worn Converse are really in need of replacement. The edges are almost all the way unsealed from the cloth of the shoe. The bottoms are worn out to the point that the grooves are almost gone.

I suppose I could help her with this at least.

“You know, my stepdaughter could use some new shoes,” I glance over at the girl, “I think you might have the same size as her. How about coming to help me find her a new pair before we drop you off at home? What’s your shoe size?”

Juliana stares down at her lap then looks up at me with a reluctant smile, “Oh, I’m a size nine, I don’t know about matching since I have a big foot….but I guess I can help…”

With a grin, I pull her with me to the closest shoe store. We walk through the long shelves of shoes until I find the Converse section and conveniently walk through the section. I watch as Juliana stops walking and stares at a pair with desire in her eyes. The pair was all black except for colorful stars dotting the fabric. The girl then shakes her head and continues on into the shop. I grin and pull out the correct size. With a signal to Alirio to take my credit card and pay for the pair. I grin as he walks back to the car, most likely to hide the pair in Juliana’s guitar case while I make sure the girl is not looking.

Through my show, I manage to find pairs for everyone. Before long I have new pairs of shoes for Valentina, Guille, and Eva along with a few heels for me and the girls. Juliana helps me carry the magnitude of shoes to the clerk and we quickly leave the store after that.

“Thank you, Juliana,” I tell the girl once we’re on our way again, “I really enjoyed your company.”

“I enjoyed it too,” the girl tells me, “You remind me of my mom, easy to talk to.”

“Well she raised a very kind woman,” I tell her, “I really hope things get better for you two.”

Juliana shrugs without looking at me, “So do I. I just hope this job gives me enough money so she won’t worry about the rent.”

“This job,” I start, “Is it in a band that goes to events, gets booked, or is it in a restaurant or…”

“Oh, both,” she nods, “It’s at a restaurant and sometimes we’ll go to parties and such. That’s what Salvador said anyway, I haven’t played once yet. I only just got the outfits today.”

“Wait, you mean you haven’t played anywhere yet,” I ask.

She nods, “Not yet, Friday is my first day. Today I met the band and practiced until an hour before I met you.”

I nod, “Well now I’m interested. You must be very good if they think you’d be ready in two days.”

Juliana turns to me and furrows her eyebrows, “I didn’t think of it like that. I just figured they needed cash too, you know for expenses and such.”

I smile, “I don’t think so. They must have a lot of faith in you after hearing you. I know I liked your singing from what I heard in the cemetery. I want to hear more from you. I’m sure you sound even more lovely with a full band to accompany you.”

Juliana’s tan cheeks turn rosy as she shifts in embarrassment, “Um yeah, thanks.”

“We’re here, Seńorita Lućia,” the driver calls to us from the driver’s seat.

I look out the window and see the humble streets lined with buildings decorated with chipping paint and cracked walls. Juliana sighs and tugs her guitar case over her shoulder. As she begins to open the car door, I take her left hand and squeeze it as a mother would do. This gets her attention and she waits for me to speak.

“Take care of yourself, okay,” I insist, “I know you’re tough but be careful.”

Juliana looks at my hand and then back up, “Okay, I promise.”

I smile and kiss the girl’s cheek, gaining another full-on blush, and tuck into her hand a crisp hundred-dollar bill. Juliana gapes at me and I simply smile back at her. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, the girl leaves the car in a daze and makes her way into the small home. Once outside, she waves at the car and makes quick work of the many locks to get inside. The door closes with a large bang sound.

“Let’s go home,” I tell the driver once Juliana is inside.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18497122/chapters/44311702

#amar a muerte #juliantina #valentina carvajal #juliana valde #fanfic