#angst and humor

[mediumgayitalian]

“Hide me hide me hide me hide me hide me.”

Nico blinks, watching blankly as Will ducks under his arm, situating himself behind the door and peeking around it. When Nico doesn’t move, he cranes his neck to look at him, face urgent, and says, “Close it, dude, hurry up!

“Solace!”

“Fuck,” Will curses.

Nico blinks again. He squints across the common, trying to suss out what Will’s staring at. It doesn’t take long. She’s hard to miss, especially in full armour.

“Are you…hiding from Clarisse?”

“Am I hiding from —” He scoffs. “No, I’m just behind this door for fun. Fucking obviously I’m hiding from Clarisse, Nico, now get with the program and close the damn —”

“Solace!”

Both of them jump. When Nico looks, Clarisse is already way closer than she should be. Before he can process enough to slam the door, and heedless of Will’s increasingly-harried oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods fuck fuck fuck fuck, Clarisse is closer, and closer, and then suddenly she’s barging inside, pushing Nico aside like it’s not his damn cabin.

Will groans. “Aw, come on, Clarisse!”

She doesn’t bother to humour him with words, choosing instead to grab him by the collar and drag him bodily out. Will does not make it easy, going completely limp and getting his clothes grass-stained beyond belief, because Clarisse tugs him along like a sled behind her, bouncing over every stone. Nico follows, on the grounds that it’s not being nosy if Will dragged him into it technically.

“You have siblings! You have a boyfriend!”

“And yet I’m choosing you,” Clarisse says easily. “I’ve already told Chiron. It’s a done deal, weatherboy. You’re chariot racing with me.”

Will groans, trying in vain to squirm out of Clarisse’s grip. “There is no reason for me to be your partner in the stupid chariot race, I am a healer, I am at camp to heal —”

She shakes him a little to shut him up. “All the more reason. You focus too much on one thing, brat. All you do is heal and study like a big nerd. You need to get out of your comfort zone.”

“Um, no way. I’m very comfortable in it. That’s why it’s called a comfort zone.”

“You could use some training,” Nico pipes up, and the betrayed look Will gives him would be more effective at making him feel bad if it wasn’t so funny. “Last time I tried to teach you how to use a sword you almost sliced off your own face, so.”

Clarisse looks at him with appraisal. “Maybe you do have some sense in you, di Angelo.”

Nico chooses to take that as the compliment it is.

“Ugh,” Will says dramatically, and finally manages to wrench out of Clarisse’s grip in order to embed the appropriate level of drama in his face-down flop to the floor.

Clarisse kicks him. “You’re pathetic.”

“Ugh.”

Notably, he stops protesting. She kicks him again, affectionately this time, and stomps away.

———

“If I work myself into another coma, I don’t have to chariot race,” Will says gleefully, shoving the bottles of nectar Nico hands him onto a shelf. He’s been buzzing around the infirmary all day, healing things he is meant to be healing with a band-aid and a stop being a clumsy dumbass, dumbass with hymns and salves. “I’m gonna try to cure cancer again.”

Kayla, walking by, reaches out and smacks him. “Try it and I’m crack your country CDs in half.”

Will turns to her, opening his mouth —

“Every single one of them,” she stresses, green eyes narrowed.

— and closes it again, huffing.

“I’ll find a way,” he says glumly.

Nico pats him delicately on the back. “There, there.” A pause. “I mean, personally, I can’t wait to watch you fall out of a chariot.”

The look Will shoots him is nothing short of wounded. “You think I’m so uncoordinated I’m gonna fall out of the chariot?”

“Gracefully!” assures Austin from across the infirmary, smiling supportively. He grins brightly when they turn to look, nose scrunching with the force of his smile. “I’m sure!”

Will’s scowl twitches in the face of his brother’s blind enthusiasm. (It is impossible not to be endeared by Austin. He is genuinely the sweetest kid in the entire universe. Nico even gets, to his horror, the occasional urge to squish him. Gently.) He sighs.

“Thanks, Austin.”

“Of course! Love you Will!”

The twitching scowl melts into a full smile. “Love you too, kiddo.”

———

Watching chariot race practices, very quickly, becomes Nico’s favourite pastime.

He sees, now, why Achilles would bring them up, unprompted, wistful look in his eye, every time Nico visited. There’s a beauty in the rawness of it; the whipping winds, wild horses. Squealing wheels and bending axels, open-backed and inches from death at all time. Dangerous, exhilarating. Humanity, at it’s most thrilling and old — some of the first tools, the first domestic animals, the first machines, all at once. It’s pure, raw excitement.

Also, Will falls out of the chariot, like, eight whole times. And there’s nothing funnier than watching him lose his shit at a splintered pile of wood that was once a carriage, helmet thrown to the ground in a fit of rage, accent so thick he’s literally incomprehensible. Nico never gets to see him like this. His stomach actually hurts from laughter on several occasions.

Slowly, though, he starts to get the hang of it. He’s smart — incredibly so — and when he stops spending half his time complaining, and the other half pouting, he actually gets pretty decent. He’s fast, after all, and quick to observe, to respond; the other teams struggle to land hits on him, in practice runs, and sabotage is difficult when your opponent seems to have an almost prophetic gift to see things coming.

He can’t, however, steel himself to hit back.

And therein lies the trouble.

“For fuck’s sake, Will, I’m not asking you to kill anybody,” Clarrise snaps. “You need to get your head in the game!”

Will’s shoulders curl defensively. “I know! I’m trying! It’s just —” He kicks at their broken wheel, in two clean pieces on the ground. “Do no harm.”

“Do some harm. Or I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Will brightens. “And then ask somebody else to be your partner?”

“No, and then make you my partner forever.”

“Oh.”

Will’s sullen face is hard to look at. He’s got those big, puppy dog eyes, round and sad and pouty. Not even Clarisse is immune. (And certainly not Nico, who finds himself halfway off the spectator’s stands and jogging to the tracks before he wonders what exactly, the fresh fuck, he is doing, and sprints right back.)

“Shit, Solace, don’t look like I killed your goddamn mother.” She cuffs him on the shoulder, sending him sprawling with a muffled oof. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s go again.”

Accepting the spare chariot someone wheels towards her, she pulls herself up, making space for Will to do the same. He doesn’t get on immediately, still looking miserable, but concedes eventually.

His forearms look kind of nice when he grips onto the rails for dear life, Nico notices. From a totally objective perspective.

The four practicing teams guide their horses to the starting line, running a few last minute checks. To avoid spilling any secrets or strategies, everyone uses the same practice-issue wooden chariot and wears the same armour, but it’s still obvious who’s who.

The Hephaestus team’s chariot, despite being standard issue, gleams like it’s brand-new. The wood is polished and looks to be altered, barely; a carved groove here, a sharper wing there. Nothing that could really be considered an upgrade, but definitely making the whole thing look smoother. The spears they hold promise a plethora of untold ability hidden within.

The Hermes chariot looks deceptively beat up. There’s a chunk missing from the top of the left side, and one of the wheels appears to be just slightly out of alignment. Upon careful inspection, though, Nico can see clear, hollow tubing attached along the rails and open to the back — definitely a quick rig of some sort. Base (not acid, Cecil had happily lectured him on the benefits of using a base rather than an acid when dissolving anything from steel to human flesh), if Nico has to guess, or maybe Greek fire.

The Aphrodite-Iris chariot doesn’t have to do much to look great. The whole thing seems to coast gracefully to the beginner line, and neither charioteer looks particularly bothered or preoccupied with the competition — if Nico recalls correctly, and he does, their goal is to win through “gay audacity”, which Nico does not understand but supports wholeheartedly.

Will and Clarisse’s chariot, by comparison, is pretty run-of-the-mill. They haven’t done much training with the Ares horses or the Apollo flying chariot, because Clarisse is primarily concerned with training Will — she knows the equipment is fine.

Lacy, standing at the edge of the track, puts a sparkly pink whistle to her lips and blows loudly. It’s not nearly as loud as one of Will’s sonic whistles, but it does the trick, and the teams are off in a blur of movement; Will and Clarisse in the lead, Hephaestus behind them, Aphrodite-Iris in third, and Hermes lagging slightly behind.

As they turn their first corner, positions largely unchanging, Nico hears footsteps from his left — Lou Ellen smiles at him as she climbs the stand, settling into the space he makes next to him.

“What’d I miss?” she asks, brushing dust off her hands.

He shrugs. “Not much. They were in the lead the last practice round, too, but on the last lap Hermes caught up.” He gestures to the heap that was once their practice chariot. “Julia had her sword at their wheels. They were on the inner ring, nowhere to move; the only way to get rid of them would have been to knock her arm, probably dislocate her shoulder. Will couldn’t do it.”

Lou Ellen winces. “Ah.”

There’s a ripping sound, followed by cackling — the Hermes chariot has finally made use of their hasty rigging, setting off an explosion behind them that rockets them forward. It has the added bonus of shaking the ground, slightly, unsettling the other drivers for just barely long enough for them to pull into third place. Far ahead, still in first, Nico can see Clarisse yelling instructions at Will, although he can’t hear what they are. His grip on the rail has tightened.

“Why,” starts Nico carefully, and based on Lou Ellen’s pinched face she knows exactly where he’s going, “does she make him — well, you know.”

Lou Ellen is silent for a good long while, watching the practice chariot race with eyes that aren’t paying attention. Hermes is gaining, but Hephaestus is gaining faster.

“Clarisse has always liked Will,” she says eventually. She meets Nico’s incredulous expression, snorting. “Well, as much as Clarisse can like people. I got here way after he did, so I don’t have any more details there than you do, but he’s never been afraid of her, and she likes that. He’s never been mean to her, either. I mean, I know she can be a bully, but people aren’t exactly light on her, to be fair.”

The Aphrodite-Iris chariot turns out to have some tricks up its sleeve — it starts to glow; barely at first, but quickly blinding. At its crux, everyone has to look away, allowing them to pull into first.

Well, except that Will doesn’t seem nearly as staggered as everyone else. In fact, he doesn’t look bothered at all — for the first time that Nico has seen, there���s something like competition pulling a crooked smile on his face. He stares straight at the still-too-bright chariot, reigns wrapped around his arms as he yanks them forward.

“Is that why she drags him away sometimes?” Nico asks. “To train?”

“Something like that. Most of his training was with —” she falters. “Well, you know who. Medicine and some archery.”

They’re both quiet for a while. Neither of them ever knew Lee or Michael well, if at all, but over time Nico has found himself almost clamming up at the mere thought of them, the way one might tiptoe around an authority figure when they have something to hide. Forbidden subjects, where before Nico simply didn’t think of them often.

“You can’t just not train, though,” Lou Ellen murmurs, eyes trained on the chariots. Hephaestus throws one of their spears, lodging it in the spokes of the Aphrodite-Iris chariot. They come to a very abrupt and very screechy halt, knocking them out of the race in any real capacity. “Not at Camp Half-Blood. She taught him hand-to-hand because she was the only one strong enough to physically drag him to the arena. Everyone else gave up after the first few tantrums — I think she was kind of amused by the challenge. Or something.”

“Or something,” Nico agrees. Privately, he thinks that there is something about Will Solace that makes you want to protect him. Not frailty — he is not by any means incapable — but something about his smile, his genuineness. The stubborn belief that people are good and kind and worthy of everything he has to give. A naivety, except someone who’s been through what he has (what they all have) cannot be naive — his hope in the world is hard-earned and well-won. It makes people want to protect his hold on it, by any means necessary.

Even, Nico reasons, ornery old fuckers like Clarisse LaRue.

The three remaining chariots start the last leg of the race — Apollo-Ares, barely squeezing out in front; then Hephaestus, quickly gaining; and finally Hermes, lagging slightly but not to be discarded. As they round the bend, Nico watches as Clarisse cuffs Will briefly on the arm, clearly proud. This is the farthest they’ve made in first so far, after two weeks of training. Will, reigns safely transferred back to Clarisse, beams at her — bright enough that Nico can see it from dozens of yards away.

With sudden, calculated speed, the Hephaestus chariot surges forward.

As if coordinated, Nico and Lou Ellen inhale sharply, leaning forward. He sees the scattered few other campers so the same in his peripherals, watching with single minded focus as the chariot levels exactly with Will and Clarisse. Nico eyes the spear nervously — of all weapons, they’re the easiest for Will to dodge, to fight off. More impersonal.

But the sons of the smartest god around would know that.

For at least a hundred feet, nothing happens. Ares-Apollo and Hephaestus stay neck in neck, every urge forward matched, every pesky road-blocking stone avoided. The finish line is dangerously close, but no one pulls ahead, nothing changes. Four shoulders remain tense, four helmets stare resolutely forward.

Then, in a quick movement, the taller Hephaestus charioteer hands the spear off to the shorter, swiftly taking the reigns, and the shorter lunges — aiming right for Will’s shoulder. Will’s quick, though, and has his own spear poised to parry in an instant. There’s a barely perceptible nudge from Clarisse, and then Will’s eyes harden, and he lifts his spear to jab right back, needle-thin tip gleaming in the late afternoon sun, right for the chink in the charioteer’s armour and then —

The charioteer rips their helmet off, dropping it at their feet.

It’s Harley.

Hephaestus’ darling; hell, the camp’s darling. One of their youngest and brightest, with big, mischievous brown eyes, contagious smiles, endless enthusiasm. Cute, clumsy Harley, the only one of Hephaestus’ children Will doesn’t have to nag to get treated, who walks dutifully over the infirmary every time he gets so much as a second-degree burn and treats each one of Will’s overcautious instructions with utmost seriousness. Who Will sends away each time with an affectionate kiss on the forehead and a prized purple sucker — who Will, frankly, favours. Who Will would never, in a million years, even consider hurting.

A dirty trick by the Hephaestus cabin.

But an effective one.

Immediately, Will flinches back, spear dropping from his hand and splintering under thundering hooves and spinning wheels. Without a second of hesitation, Harley launches his spear in the same move as before — sticking it in the wheel’s spokes, inertia sending the charioteer’s sprawling, knocking them out of the race.

Except, maybe it’s different when the chariots are so close. Or maybe the chariot was faulty to begin with. Because as soon as the spear gets wedged, the fragile floor of the chariot seems to implode — sending Will and Clarisse under the still-moving machine, instead of flying over. The horses, disoriented from the sudden change, rip free of their harness, adding more force to the already precarious tumble.

There’s a sharp, sickening crack, so loud Nico can hear it as if it’s next to him. In the brief nanosecond immediately afterwords, he closes his eyes, sending a prayer to his father: please be the axle. Please be the axle. Please be the axle.

As the Hephaestus and Hermes chariots rocket past the finish line, Clarisse lets out a shrill, blood-curdling scream.

———

Nico’s off the bench and halfway towards the crashed chariot before he can blink. He’s not the only one — he processes, barely, everyone else’s quick convergence, including the remaining charioteers — but he’s there first, diving into the wreckage seconds before anyone else is close enough.

There’s not a lot of actual debris, chariots being as small as they are, but the dust cloud from the track is so huge and the pieces of wood are so splintered that it feels like there is. As the dust settles, and he kicks some debris out of the way, he starts to see the shape of Will, kneeling, in front of a prone Clarisse and an ever-growing pool of blood.

There’s a bone sticking straight out of her thigh.

As the rest of the campers converge upon them, Will looks up and meets Nico’s eyes. His own blue eyes are dark, steely — determined, but afraid.

“I don’t have time,” is the only thing out of his mouth before he braces both hands on Clarisse’s leg, immediately starting to sing urgent hymns.

Nico understands.

“Lou, Julia, Chiara,” he barks, taking charge in absence of Will’s voice. The three girls snap forward to him immediately. “Sprint the the infirmary and tell them what happened. Austin’s on duty — make sure he doesn’t come with you, we need him to prep a surgical suite. Send everyone else and send them fast. Bring a stretcher.”

He turns to the Hephaestus kids. “Jake, Harley, start clearing the debris to make space. Damien, join them; move the big stuff first, small stuff is secondary. We need a space for Will to work and a space to lay the stretcher. Jen, Butch, Lacy —”

He barks off a list of orders, doing his best to channel the commands he’s watched Will give dozens and dozens of times. In minutes, he has the track cleared, Will’s medical bag dragged over from the stands, and everyone who is not helping stabilize out to the infirmary to help as needed.

As soon as there’s an opening, he rushes over to Will and Clarisse, kneeling by her head.

“Help is coming,” he promises, watching the glow dim and flicker in time with the rhythm of Will’s chanting. The bleeding has slowed, marginally, but he can tell from the volume of blood alone that this was an arterial hit. It’s going to take more than Will’s raw healing power, although there is a lot of it, to keep Clarisse alive and keep her leg functioning in recovery. He needs tools, he needs nectar and ambrosia; he needs the surgery suite. He needs time.

“Is it helpful for me to knock her out?”

Clarisse, of course, is still conscious. Barely — and in so much pain Nico will be surprised if she’s processing anything at all — but enough that every few seconds she lets out an agonised shout of pain, writhing and flinching so hard Will has to focus on steadying her as much as healing her.

Without breaking his song, eyes still trained on the injury, Will nods. Nico breathes, squaring his shoulders, then shuffled forward to rest Clarisse’s head gently in his lap, fingers pressed to her temples. He presses, hard enough to feel the beat of her heart — weak — through his fingertips, and squeezes his eyes shut.

He’s no son of Hypnos, but dreams are the Underworld’s domain. Are his domain, as heir and prince of the Underworld, in every way that matters, that can be counted.

He lets himself sink into careful limbo; body in physical space, mind and soul elsewhere. Not too much — he’s no use if he falls unconscious — but enough to slip into Clarisse’s mindscape, step into her subconscious.

The whole place bleeds white, hot anguish.

Nico stumbles when he first walks in, nauseous despite being nothing but his own mind. It’s been a while since he’s experienced this kind of pain, his own or not, and he has to consciously beat back memories of brimstone and rot; liquid fire, endless red, red, red.

“Clarisse?” he calls, softly as he dares.

She doesn’t respond. He’s not sure she knows how to respond, even if she could. Cautious of the memory and emotion swirling around him, he steps forward. If he focuses, her anguish is pointed — is central. She will be at the centre of it.

He has volunteered, but he’s not sure he wants to follow.

Steeling himself, he shoulders through swirling masses of pain, of hurt, of fear. It’s blisteringly hot, and feels not unlike the sandstorm he was once stranded within, in the middle of the New Mexico desert four years ago. His face prickles; he’s blinded.

He trudges forward.

“Clarisse? Clarisse! Can you hear me? It’s Nico!”

Desperately and uselessly, he wishes he had more practice. Will has offered, the few times he’s needed to anaesthetize someone, but for the most time Nico has foolishly declined. Why on Earth he would pass up a much easier mindscape to navigate through in preparation for something like this is a mystery to him. Fuck.

“Clarisse! Try to — focus on me, can you hear me?”

He forces himself forward, a few more — well, there’s no distance in a mindscape, nothing measurable, anyway. He forces himself to look up, braving the assault to his face, and try to scan his surroundings. The swirling mass is more centralized, now, almost hurricane-like and conal. He’s closer than he was before, but if he can only find…

He looks up, and almost cries in relief: weak against the roaring storm, but still present, is a flickering, golden light. A very familiar light. Nico squeezes his eyes shut, thrusting out his own energy in an uncoordinated mass — boy, is that going to be uncomfortable to extract later — and flails wildly until he finally feels the warmth of Will’s energy entangling with his own, grounding him. He opens his eyes, and suddenly everything is clearer.

Clarisse kneels in the centre of her mindscape, hands pressed tightly to her ears, eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a silent scream.

“Hey,” Nico murmurs, kneeling in front of her. It takes a few seconds, and a few moments of gentle coaxing, before she looks up.

“It hurts,” she croaks.

She’s more vulnerable than he’s ever seen her — eyes brown and big and wet, pained, face twisted and chin trembling and achingly, unbelievably young. She is nineteen years old, but in that moment she appears almost childlike. The years of warrior’s hardness has abandoned her; she is armourless.

Nico swallows the lump in his throat. “I know.”

“Help me. Please.”

“Come here, Clarisse.” He reaches out and wraps a gentle hand around hers, tugging her close. The knee jerk discomfort at close contact is barely a flicker — he is so entwined in her right now that her fear has started to bleed into his; her rawness. He needs this comfort almost as much as she does. Right now she is a person, in agony, and so is he, and it is unbearable.

He holds her until the pain slowly stops.

———

Will is in the surgical suite for seven straight hours.

“Bed,” Nico says softly, rising up to meet him as he exits. It says something about how exhausted he is that he doesn’t even protest, letting Nico place a hand on the small of his back and guide him past the on-call room, past the patient cots, past the Big House living room couches, past Cabin 7. He leads him across the common and right into Cabin 13, with its double beds and blackout curtains, with its insulated, soundproof walls. With Nico.

He helps him out of his bloodstained scrubs, peeling them off his skin and tossing them directly into a trash can. He’d guide him to the shower, usually, but there’s a — glassiness, to his eyes, that there usually isn’t after surgery. Nico chooses instead to skip it, guiding him into the sweatpants he left behind the last time he was here and an oversized The Doors t-shirt of Nico’s, and then to the spare bed he always uses, across from Nico’s. He peels the covers back for him like he’s a child, tucking him in, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He’s asleep in minutes, curled tightly around a pillow, furrowed crease not leaving the space between his eyebrows, even in sleep. Nico smooths it away with his thumb.

“Goodnight, Will,” he murmurs, brushing the backs of his knuckles across his forehead.

He watches him sleep far past what is normal, and then slips back out of the cabin.

———

“On the bright side,” Will says, squeezing the hand that has left to leave Clarisse’s arm, “you’re free from your chariot race obligation! As am I!”

Predictably, she only glowers.

“Not a chance, Solace,” she rasps.

Will helpfully gets her a glass of water, fussing over her blankets while she drinks until she bats him away. Chris watches the whole thing with great amusement, shoulders brushing Nico’s.

“He’s a mother hen, isn’t he,” he comments, tilting his head in Will’s direction, who narrowly avoids having his fingers bitten off trying to feed her a square of ambrosia.

Nico snorts. “Yeah.” He watches the fussing for a few more seconds, making note of Will’s shaking hands, his shakier smile. “He’s guilty.”

“He didn’t do anything. She doesn’t blame him.”

Nico meets his dark look, mouth twisted in understanding. They both know this logic is futile.

“Yeah, well, someone tell him that.”

“Will — stop it.” In a startlingly quick move for someone on as much morphine as she is, Clarisse darts out and clutches Will’s fluttering hands. He hesitates, wondering if it’s worth it to pull out of her hold and possibly jostle her leg. “I’m fine. And you’re still charioting.”

“You’re not fine,” Will frowns, conveniently ignoring the part of the sentence he doesn’t want to deal with. “Your femur snapped in half and tore through your femoral artery on its way out of your leg. You’re going to be on bedrest for a week at least, and it’ll be tender for a good long while besides. That’s what we in the medical business call a Big Fucking Deal.”

She tightens her hold, staring at him until he finally meets her eyes.

“Will.” She narrows her eyes. “You are still participating in the chariot race. I’m not asking.”

“It’ll have to wait until you’re better,” he says lightly. “Besides, we’re focusing on you right now.”

Nico can see in her face when she decides to switch strategies.

“Okay,” she says, stubborn glean in her eye, “then I’m asking you, as a personal request, to stay in the race. Or else I’ll drag myself onto a goddamn horse myself, killing myself in the process, and that will be on your head.”

The tactic works.

Will scowls. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Clarisse doesn’t bother repeating herself, letting go of his wrists and readjusting her blankets.

“I am done talking now. I believe it’s time for morphine-induced unconsciousness. Please remember that I took down a drakon with my own bare hands; it is well within my abilities to drag myself out of heroin-haze and onto a chariot with no legs, let alone one. Good talk.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she leans back on her pillows and passes out. Genuinely, actually passes out — not closes her eyes, not behind to fall asleep; she is unconscious. Snores ring through the air.

“Well,” Chris says carefully, unfolding his arms. “It might be time to let Clarisse rest for a while.”

Will, healer that he is, cannot exactly argue with that. Will, drama queen that he is, decides to make his fury known by stomping out of the room, a feat in flip-flips possible by him alone.

“She is so infuriating!” he shouts the second they’re in the main room, startling several people. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “I put effort in! I failed! She can’t even — it’s not even about spending time together, obviously, since I still have to do it! What does she want from me?!”

Chris, like Nico, has wisely decided to let the hypothetical questions remain hypothetical and stay silent, lest his fury be turned onto them. Ten minutes into Will’s rant, Chris excuses himself to go sit by Clarisse. Nico waves him off.

“Will,” Nico suggests the next time he takes a breath, “let’s maybe go for a walk.” He glances at the group of wide-eyed patients. “I think you’re scaring people.”

Deflating, Will nods, following Nico out the door. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go for a walk.”

The fresh air probably doesn’t fix things, per se, but as they lap around the cabins, Will seems to droop further and further, curling in on himself. The anger recedes from his features.

“I feel really shitty,” he admits softly. “Just, like, generally.”

Nico softens like a goddamn slab of ice cream on hot pavement. For the second time in three days, he opens his arms in offering, although this time it’s significantly less difficult.

“Come here.”

Without even a beat of hesitation, Will collapses into him, arms around his waist, head tucked under his chin. Nico fights the urge to wince — Will, usually, takes quite a bit of pride in his height. He likes to be the one to wrap around people, not the other way around. Nico has been indoctrinated into Will-affection, in the time since the Giant War, and if Will is the one curling into him, seeking comfort, than he is struggling.

Nico hates it when Will struggles. He always feels out of his depth.

“There, there,” he hedges, feeling a good bit like an NPC. “It’ll be okay.”

Will makes a small, wounded noise. “You don’t know that.”

“Um, yes I do, I know everything forever. I’ve never been wrong even one time in my life.”

His awkward attempt at lightening the mood is rewarded by Will’s laugh. It’s slight, and nowhere near the brightness it usually is, but it’s there and it’s genuine and that’s all Nico wanted, really.

“You good?” Nico asks softly, squeezing his arms.

Will nods. “Yes.” He hesitates. “Can I stay here a little longer?”

Nico wraps his arms impossibly tighter, aching at the quiet vulnerability in his voice.

“As long as you need.”

———

The last practice before the chariot race is nowhere near as fun to watch as the others. In fact, it’s not fun at all.

Clarisse, casted and upright, appoints her brother Sherman to race in her place, much to both his and Will’s very vocal complaints. Will’s, because he still doesn’t want to race at all and especially not now that Clarisse is out of the running, and Sherman’s because, well, when isn’t Sherman complaining about having to breathe the same air as someone or whatever.

Clarisse silences both of them with a glare. “Do it,” she orders.

They comply, stomping over to their practice chariot.

The practice race is awful. Nico is surprised, frankly, that they managed to finish at all, as badly behind as they managed. He could practically hear their squabbling all the way from the stands. For as much as Will is generally easy to get along with, he’s impossible when he’s stubborn, and worse when he’s petulant. He takes every command from Sherman like it’s a personal offence, and Sherman, being who he is, does too. Every shout to veer right or deflect an attack somehow sounds like a jab at Will’s speed, or a remark about his general intelligence. When they stomp off the track, helmets thrown in a heap with the rickety chariot, Nico is almost relieved.

“We’re going to lose, tomorrow, and I can’t wait,” hisses Will darkly, fists curled at his sides.

Nico watches him warily. “You’re not even going to try?”

“What, so he can remind me that even when I’m trying I’m a useless idiot? Not a chance.”

Nico has to almost jog to keep up with him, striding as powerfully as he is. He’s not even sure where he’s going — he seems to be, mostly, going away from the track and from Sherman, wherever that may be.

“You’re not a useless idiot,” Nico offers, when some of the stormcloud has lessened its hold on Will’s usually sunny face. “Nobody thinks you’re a useless idiot.”

Will closes his eyes, sighing. “I know.”

“And Sherman is just a generally grouchy person.”

“I know.”

“It feels very, very weird to be the optimistic and comforting one, right now.”

Will snorts, finally meeting his eyes. “I know.” He flops onto the ground, cheek resting in his knees, and pats the space next to him. Nico sits much more delicately. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole lately.”

“You’ve been stressed,” Nico points out. “A little assholery is warranted.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Nico knocks their shoulders together. “I forgive you, then.”

Will smiles. “Thank you.”

For a while they sit in comfortable silence, watching the hustle and bustle of camp. Will’s presence is a comforting one, even though Nico can feel the turmoil leeching off of him. Strangely because of that, actually — sometimes Nico feels like he’s the only one who struggles out of the two of them. Will spends so much of his time smiling and joking and lecturing, hands on his hips, that Nico had almost forgotten that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, either. He’s just good at faking it.

“I’ll be watching, tomorrow.” He bites his lip. “And I won’t, like, bring pom-poms, or anything, but I’ll be cheering you on.”

Will grins tiredly. “Silently and in your head?”

“Uh-huh.”

His smile softens considerably, melting into something almost shy, before he turns back to face forward.

“Well, then, damn. I guess I’ll have to try.”

———

On the morning of the chariot race, Will acts like Nico is escorting him to his goddamn execution.

“It is a race that will last a maximum of twenty minutes,” Nico says with no small amount of exasperation, “including prep time.”

Will looks no less grim. “A twenty minutes that will never be returned to me.”

Nico rolls his eyes and decides to stop humouring him.

He drops him off at his chariot with a quick pat on the shoulder, jogging back to the stands. They’re full, today, as expected, with every camper and countless others cramped into the minimal space. Nico looks at the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, and is about to consider breaking his promise and fleeing back to his cabin before he sees a doodled-on hand stick in the air, waving wildly. He exhales in relief and heads over to sit in the spot Kayla and Austin have cleared between them.

“How miserable is he?” Kayla asks brightly, tapping her purple shoes. “He left before we woke up this morning. Assumedly to sprint around camp a few times like a feral cat.”

“Pretty miserable,” Nico answers. He reaches over to pat Austin’s head when he rests on his shoulder, knowing he’s nervous even if he tries not to show it. “A lot of it is self-induced, though. Like, yeah, Sherman is going to be a dick and it’s going to be stressful, but I feel like, in the grand scheme of things, this is among the least stressful things he’s ever been forced to deal with.”

“There was that one time he had to remove a brain tumour in the middle of the forest,” Austin muses. “I think that was probably pretty stressful for him.”

Nico opens his mouth. He closes it again.

“Demigod life is a nightmare,” he settles on eventually.

“Hear, hear,” both siblings mutter.

They lapse into silence as they turn back to the racetrack, evaluating the turnout.

Competition will be hefty.

Sherman has finally arrived, Ares horses in tow. The garish things look almost wrong next to the brightness off the flying Apollo chariot, but that may just be the tension between the team’s charioteers that’s so potent it seems to warp the air around them. Nico is vaguely surprised that they’re managing to stand so civilly next to each other, even if they could not be more visibly uncomfortable. Will, at least, tries for a smile, which drops immediately when Sherman mutters something too quiet to be picked up this far.

Nico sighs. This is going to be hard to watch.

There are about twenty other chariots lines up. Hermes, Hephaestus, and Aphrodite-Iris, like at practice, but Athena is competing too, as well as Nike, as per usual, and Tyche. In fact Nico, and by extension Hades, is one of the few cabins not participating — everyone else seems primed and ready for a chance of laurels and extra dessert. And, of course, settling personal rivalries via bloodshed, et cetera, et cetera.

The biggest competition, if Nico had to quantify it, will be Hephaestus, tricky as they were during practice; Athena, for obvious reasons; and Will and Sherman themselves will be their own worst enemy. He can’t tell if it would be better for them to fail out early to avoid racketing tension up further, or last close to the end to keep things at a healthy simmer.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. The second warning whistle goes off, and the chariots rush to the starting line — Will and Sherman at third position, Demeter to their left, Dionysus-Hypnos to their right. The stands go silent, the charioteers get in position, and with a sharp, shrill whistle, they’re off.

The first few seconds, as always, are chaotic.

In the ground with the settling dust are three separate chariots, including, surprisingly, Hermes, whose rigging backfired and sent their entire chariot up in smoke. They are luckily unharmed due to their unusually well-prepared fireproof armour, but neither Julia nor Connor seem too pleased about being out so soon.

The rest of the race continues on without them. Athena has a decent stretch of first place, but Nike is following fast. Behind them, barely a hair’s breadth of distance, is Will and Sherman, rocketing forward smoothly. Unlike Clarisse, Sherman does not care for giving Will any learning opportunities — despite the horses being Ares’, Will is on the reigns. Sherman is armed with his sword and his spear, slashing and jabbing at anyone who gets too close. Neither Ares or Apollo is big on tricks, not like some of the craftier cabins, but together they’re fast and strong and make a formidable opponent.

Or, well, they would. If they were working together, rather than two people simply being in the same chariot.

They cross into the second lap, Will guiding them across the innermost ring to move them up past Nike. They’re gaining on Athena, now, but that won’t be an easy task — challenging the camp’s wisest never is.

Kayla hisses through her teeth. “Shit.” She purses her lip at the trailing Nike chariot ��� they’re gaining, and they’re seething. Damien — at least Nico thinks it’s Damien, it’s hard to tell with the helmets — has an arsenal of throwing knives poised in his left hand, and as his teammate steers them steady, he takes aim. Nico has to resist the urge to shout a warning.

As the short knife sails towards the reigns wrapped around Will’s hands, though, aim ringing true, Will’s spine goes ramrod straight. Almost as if he can feel it. With an eighth of a second to spare, he shifts and jerks his hands out of the way, avoiding the knife and managing, somehow, to stay on track.

With a skill and ferocity that has Nico’s jaw brushing his toes, Will dodges all eight of the knives lobbed in his direction. In one memorable manoeuvre, he rips his left hand from the reigns, holding them in his teeth, and uses it to shove Sherman down behind the wall of the chariot right before a knife would have lodged itself in his uncovered cheek. Out of weapons, he steers their chariot right next to Nike, allowing Sherman to sever their reigns and send them rolling to a sad, victory-less stop.

Without pausing to look behind them, they race on.

Athena’s chariot has a lead, but their chariot is built for stability, not speed. They’ve accounted for every possible sabotage and built accordingly. They have not accounted for, however, stubbornness and sheer force of Will. The Ares-Apollo chariot gains on them, helmets glinting, skeletal horses gaining faster, faster, faster. Both Sherman and Malcom, Nico believes, have their spears drawn, ready, as the space between them gets smaller and smaller, to fight barbarically for first — for honour.

Nico doubts even Rachel, powers of prophecy fully restored, could predict what happens next.

Either too furious to accept a loss or simply deciding to throw the game, one of the Nike charioteers crawls out from their carriage, darting onto the live track. They scan the ground, looking for something. When they stand in the dead centre of the track, body perfectly tense, gripping something glinting in their hand, Nico gets it.

Austin gasps, nails digging into Nico’s arm. “Oh, no.”

Before anyone can say anything, they take aim. They measure once, twice, and then let the knife loose with deadly precision, knife cutting through the air with ease and hurdling with impossible power towards to two finalists chariots.

If the knife hits the Athena chariot, it will slice clean through the axle. Architectural wonder it may be, the chariot cannot withstand Celestial bronze at terminal velocity, and it will give, and the chariot will crumple. In an effort to lesson the chariot’s load, the Athena charioteers have largely forgone armour. Their fall will be painful and disastrous; as deadly as Clarisse’s, if not moreso. A hit to the Ares-Apollo chariot will be similarly as race-ending, but both Will and Sherman are in full armour. It will be bruising, but not deadly. They will lose, but they will survive.

All they need to do to win is shift, just slightly, so that the knife hits the Athena chariot.

Will, like with all the others before it, seems to feel this knife coming. Unlike the others, he glances backwards, looking at the knife, looking back at the Athena chariot. Sherman follows his gaze, and seems to realize what Will has calculated a split second after he does. He shouts something — presumably an order to move, to shift, to sabotage.

Will hesitates.

The knife hits the Ares-Apollo chariot, slicing through the left wheel.

It careens around, unbalanced, dragged into a heap by untethered horses.

The Athena chariot pulls forward to victory, the remaining functioning chariots quickly following.

The Ares-Apollo canon is left broken and humiliated only a few feet from victory, the almost-first-place.

———

As soon as they come off the track, things get messy. Both Will and Sherman are covered in dirt and grime, striped with grease from the broken wheels, bleeding sluggishly from various scraps. Sherman has his non-flailing hand clamped to an oozing wound on the side of his neck, and Will is limping.

“—and I cannot fucking believe you, Solace! All I asked for was effort!”

“Oh, forgive me,” Will says sarcastically, finally close enough to hear. “In the hustle and bustle of being shot at, I made a couple errors.”

“That gonna be your attitude in battle? ‘Oh, sorry, there was a monster chasing me so I lost all focus —’”

“Battles are not usually fought on a chariot going a hundred fucking miles per hour!”

“That’s no excuse! You need to be —”

“What, Sherman, fucking what? What indisputable flaw do I have, oh great one, that needs to be so desperately remedied?”

It’s startling when Will’s composure cracks. When he goes from bitey and sarcastic, eye-rolling from his usual distance, to right in Sherman’s face. It’s eerie to see him at his full height, no slouching, reminding anyone watching that yeah, actually, their laidback medic is six-two, strong, capable, in more ways than what they’re used to.

Sherman, in usual Ares kid fashion, doesn’t even flinch.

“Your reflexes, for starters,” he says coolly. “No matter what you do, Solace, you’re always one second too fucking late.”

A collective gasp ricochets through the gathered campers. The tension rackets up so rapidly that Nico coughs, lungs suddenly constricted. Will rears back so violently Nico is half-convinced Sherman actual punched him.

Sherman, for his part, seems to realise he’s crossed some kind of line. The cold look on his face twists into a scowl, uncomfortable and apologetic at once. “Look, Will, I just mean —”

“You don’t get to say that to me.”

Will’s quiet voice seems to echo through the entirety of the valley, cutting through laboured breathing of charioteers, pegasus neighing, even the crashing of the waves in the distant shore — everything goes silent.

Nico likes to think he knows Will pretty well. He knows what he sounds like when he’s giggly, watching his siblings argue about nothing; when he’s excitable, rambling about his newest obsession; when he can’t choose between amused and stern at whatever dumb thing Nico has gotten himself into. He knows what he sounds like when he’s exhausted, too, overworked and done with everything; when he’s annoyed, when he’s hurt and sad.

But he’s never heard Will sound so dangerous.

“Of all people.” His words are articulated, deliberate. The usual warmth of his eyes is gone. He’s completely still in a way he never is outside of surgery — no shaking in his perpetually trembling hands, no bounce to his curls, none of the constant energy that seems to constantly exude off him. Still, cold. Icy. “You do not get to talk to me about being one second too late.”

Sherman looks stricken. Guilt is written across each of his features, and for a second he steps back — as if afraid.

“Will, I —”

The son of Apollo turns without another word, striding over to the distant tree line and disappearing into the woods. No one chases after him.

No one even moves.

———

Predictably, the silence does not last long.

“You fucking idiot!” Clarisse explodes, the second Will is out of eyesight. She bats Chris’s hand away from her, and he, surprisingly, lets her go easily — his usually understanding face has hardened. She hobbles towards her brother, remarkably quick with her clunky cast, and starts truly tearing into him. “I asked you to do one fucking thing! One!”

Sherman quickly gets defensive under the scrutiny. “Well, you didn’t make it fucking easy! Just because he’s your protege doesn’t mean he’s my fucking problem —”

Nico doesn’t stick around to listen to their argument. He searches around the gathered crowd until he meets Kayla’s eyes, flicking his head towards the woods. She nods frantically. Knowing he’ll make sure they have privacy, he takes off, aiming for the same place Will went, barely slowing down once he enters the forest.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Will?” he calls, well aware he’s not going to get an answer. “Where are you?”

While there’s definitely no response from Will, he damn near jumps out of his skin when a dryad melts from her tree, shuffling towards him.

“Blond boy?” she asks, leaning close so he can hear her whisper. “Tall? Crying?”

Nico swallows. Fuck. “Yeah.”

“Headed down southeast, ways past Zeus’ fist.“

“Thank you,” he says, hoping she understands how much he means it.

She nods, then disappears back into her tree.

Following her directions, Nico jogs down beaten paths, heading in the direction that he is vaguely sure is southeast and mostly praying that he’ll find Will eventually. He shouldn’t have that much of a head start, since Nico left maybe five minutes after he did, but who knows. Will’s fast, and sometimes this forest seems bigger than it really is. It’s easy to get lost.

He searches for what feels like hours, and might actually be hours; sky darkening as the sun disappears into the lake. The temperature drops significantly. Nico is hoping that he won’t be spending the night sleeping in the dirt when he hears sniffling.

Heart pounding, he freezes, focusing on the sound. It’s muffled, sobs choked-off and sound hidden behind cupped hands. The echo sounds strange, too; it’s close, that much is obvious, but Nico almost can’t tell if it’s coming from the left or the right. Truthfully, it doesn’t sound like either.

On impulse, he looks up. Almost invisible in the branches of a large oak tree is Will, stained clothes blending in with the scratchy bark, leaves covering the rest of him.

Except, perhaps fittingly, his bright, golden hair.

Worried that calling out to him might startle him right off the tree, Nico begins to climb. He’s not great at climbing — he doesn’t have a natural sense of what is and isn’t a good foothold — but oak trees are easy. Every half-step has a branch, and this tree is old enough that the branches are thick, sturdy. He’s twenty feet up before he even realizes, barely breaking a sweat.

He pauses a few feet shy of his target, straightening until he’s standing on an almost flat branch, arm looped tightly around the trunk.

“Will.”

Will startles. He looks around frantically, struggling in the dark, until his bloodshot eyes finally land on Nico. He bursts into more tears, shoulders shaking as he sobs.

Alarmed, Nico crawls all the way up.

“Woah, Will, breathe, vita, breathe —”

He’s not sure what tree-sobbing etiquette is, but regular sobbing etiquette often involves some kind of comforting physical touch, so he goes with that. And Will, he knows, likes to be crowded, likes to be almost suffocated with the sights and touch and smells of other people, to remind him he’s not alone, even if he feels it. So Nico scoots as closely as he dares, legs wrapped around the branch, and slides one arm around Will’s back, one against his chest, and tugs him closely.

Will comes easily.

With a bit of manoeuvring, he’s tucked under Nico’s chin, shoulders hunched and shaking, enveloped entirely in Nico’s arms. He can feel a wet spot growing on his left sleeve, and honestly he should be at least a little bit disgusted, but he barely even notices. He’s too busy fighting the lump in his own throat, blinking back his own tears.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to Will’s curls. “Let it out, Will. You’re allowed.”

Will wails, a deep, choking, broken sound, and Nico loses the battle with his own tears. He’s never heard Will like this. He’s never heard anyone like this, except himself, in the echo of this same forest, years ago. It hurts like biting ice.

“It hurts, they’re gone, they’re gone, and I hate them, I hate them so much —” he heaves, dragging in breath like it cost him to say it, like part of his soul was dragged out of his vocal chords — “and I hate myself for hating them, I hate, they’re gone, I’m never —”

He dissolves into sobs, again, words breaking into nothing understandable, crying around the same repetitions over and over again. Nico hides his crumpling face in Will’s hair, wincing at every broken cry, every hitched breath, every moaned word. His heart feels like it’s breaking into a million fractals. He’s never felt so out of depth in his life.

“Let it out,” he whispers again, for a lack of anything else to say. “Let it out, sweetheart, let it out.”

For a long time, Nico had no one to hold him.

When he lost Bianca, he was by himself. And when he thought he had someone to guide him, someone to fix him, he was wrong — he was vulnerable and easy to manipulate. He had no one to hold him until he was too bitter and too closed off to let himself fall apart, anyway, and losing Bianca stayed somewhere rotten inside him, a bruise that never, ever stopped aching.

Until Will.

Last December he had cracked like an egg. He hadn’t meant to — it wasn’t even in the back of his mind — but he’d opened the door to Will’s smiling face on the morning, cold and sad as it was, and just started bawling. Some part of him, some deep, buried part, stomped it’s way from the prison Nico had kept it in and took the hell over, yanking open the floodgates, forcing him to expel every last drop of shadowy, strangling pain that had stayed inside him so long. He thought he was going to die. His entire body shook and jerked like a rowboat in a deep ocean storm, and it had been Will’s lighthouse, his endless, light eyes, his warm hands, his firm hold that had held him steady until he’d dragged himself out to the other side. It was and is the most painful thing he’d ever done in his life. And the most important.

He doesn’t think Will has had anyone to hold him, before, either. Not ‘til right this moment. Not Chiron, not his mother, and certainly not an older sibling. Will has been running on empty for as long as Nico has known him. Longer.

“Let it out,” Nico whispers again, and holds him tighter.

———

By the time either of them move again, it’s pale, early morning, and they’re damp from the dew and Will’s tears. Nico is as stiff as the tree he’s sitting on, but doesn’t dare say a word about it.

“I don’t want to go back,” Will croaks, the first either of them have spoken in hours.

Nico tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, resting a gentle hand on his cheek. “Okay.”

“We can’t stay here forever.”

“We can stay a while.” Nico pulls away slightly, just enough so that he can cradle Will’s face in both hands, tilting his chin up to meet his gaze. “I mean it, Will. As long as you need.”

“What if I’ll never have enough time?”

“Then I’ll stay with you until time runs out.” He presses a tentative, careful kiss to the centre of his freckled forehead; staying when Will shudders, leaning into it. Against his skin, he murmurs, “But you’ll have enough time, vita. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“I don’t want to be strong.”

“So don’t, I gotcha.” He presses another kiss slightly above the first, and another, resting again at the crown of his head. “But you can be.”

They stay like that until Nico’s face starts to go numb, and even then he doesn’t go far, shifting so his cheek lays on the top of Will’s skull. He ignores the slight tickle of his curls against his nose, focusing instead on the brand of his hands on his waist, the shakey but constant inhales, holds, exhales, again, again, again.

“Clarisse is my friend,” Will starts. “She was as important to me as — as Cass, before the war.”

Nico hums. “But she betrayed you.”

“All of us.”

“And you resent her for it, a little.”

Will nods. “It’s disgusting.”

“It’s human, Will, Christ.” He moves them around so they’re both sitting facing each other, Nico’s eyes firmly meeting Will’s. “I will never fully forgive Percy for letting Bianca die. Never. It’s not fair to him, and I love him anyway, and I am choosing to move past it. But I will carry that burden. Am I disgusting for that?”

Will glances away. “No.”

“Will, you — look at me.”

He does.

“Clarisse actively chose her pride over her people. So did the rest of her cabin. She’s not fully responsible for that choice, and the blame, as always, lands on Kronos’ shoulders, but —” Nico laughs, a bitter, defeated sound. “Out of all of us, you lost the most. No one lost as many as Apollo. No one burned as many shrouds. You’re allowed to be hurt, allowed to be angry.”

“I forgave them,” Will admits. “I did it publicly and called off the stupid rivalry right after the war. It was the first thing I did as head counsellor.”

“Trying to do what Michael would have done?”

“Are you kidding me, he —” Will scoffs, swiping at the tears trickling down the corners of his eyes. “If Michael were alive, and he found out I forgave them after what happened to Lee, too Diana — he would have been furious. He would stop speaking to me. If I was trying to be like Michael, I might’ve refused them treatment.”

Nico tries to imagine that for a second — Will refusing anyone treatment. It makes something sour uncurl in his stomach, something unsettling.

“You would never refuse someone treatment. I didn’t even — I didn’t think you guys were allowed.”

Will shrugs. “There are no rules to our practice. I just never made refusal an option, and the kids are too young to know any different.”

‘The kids’ — as if Kayla and Austin aren’t as old or older than Will was when he was in charge, when he held the bashed pieces of his brother’s brain as it oozed out of his skull. As he sat, exhausted, hands shaking, next to Nico, and embroidered twelve shrouds. As if Yan and Gracie are his, rather than Apollo’s.

“You forgave them so your siblings wouldn’t grow up bitter,” Nico realises. “Oh, gods, Will.”

He shrugs again, picking at his nails. “For me too. Grudges aren’t healthy.” He tries for a teasing smile. “You’d know.”

“I would.” Nico tries to smile back. It’s easier than he thought it would be, although it fades back into something serious quickly. He reaches out, linking his hands with Will’s to stop him picking before he bleeds. “You can be selfish sometimes, you know.”

“Not in front of anyone.”

“You’re admitting it in front of me,” Nico points out.

Will hesitates. “That’s — different.”

“How?”

“You get it.” He looks down, voice quiet. “You get me. I can —” He meets Nico’s eyes again, a kind of helpless smile on his face. “I dunno. You’re safe. You’re okay with me, even when I’m ugly.”

“Even then,” Nico echoes quietly. He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind Will’s ear again, even though none were loose. His fingertips linger, and the skin under his touch warms. “Especially then.”

“You can, too, you know, I lo —”

“I know.”

Will exhales in relief. “Good.”

He slumps forward until his forehead rests on the swell of Nico’s shoulder, breaths warming the air between them. Nico tries to match his rhythm — in, out, in, out. Hold. Out, in.

“Can we — hide here, for a little bit? Just a little longer.”

“Of course,” Nico murmurs, squeezing his wrists. “I’ll hide you as long as you need.”

#HOLY SHIT THIS OVERTOOK MY ENTIRE LIFE FOR LIKE SEVEN HOURS #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #pjo hoo toa #nico di angelo #will solace #nico di angelo & will solace #nico di angelo/will solace #will/nico #nico/will #will solace angst #will solace & clarisse larue #character study #angst and humor #longpost #solangelo #my writing #angry will solace #and righteously so #is this a nico study disguised as a will study or a will study disguised as a nico study? #who knows #not me

[baronessblixen]

And We Go On

Day 4 for the Eight Nights of Mulder: endurance and my prompt for the 24 Days of X-Mas Files Challenge: bad Christmas puns

Summary: On the car ride after they said goodbye to Emily, Mulder tries his best to ease some of Scully's pain. (emotional hurt/comfort with some humor thrown in; wc: 1,134)

Tagging @today-in-fic @eightnightsofmulder

They're wrapped in a coat of silence as they step outside the church, their steps in perfect sync. What is there to say, anyway? What do you say to someone who's just said goodbye to the child she didn't know she had? Mulder opens the car door for Scully and lingers there until she has put her seatbelt on.

A few yards away, Scully's family is still smiling and fawning over baby Matthew, and he hopes he's blocking Scully's view. After laying her own daughter to rest, she doesn't need to see this. If he could take her pain away, he would in a heartbeat. All he can do, however, is be here for her, and follow her lead.

Inside the car, there's neither enough space, nor air. When the silence threatens to crush them, Mulder turns on the radio. Soft melodies fill the car, and he fears he's only making things worse.

"Can we drive a while?" Her question cuts through the tension and stuns him. He clears his throat before he says, "Of course." Scully hardly ever asks for anything, and he's prepared to give her everything. He'd drive her to the end of the world if that's what she wanted.

"I'm just not ready to face everything yet." A crack in her voice and her armor.

"It's okay. We can drive all day."

"My family would worry."

"Eh, just tell them it's my fault." It feels like it, too. He'll do his penance. In front of a God he doesn't believe in, if he has to. Anything for her. He glances over at Scully, shocked at how ashen her face is and how devoid of life. Only weeks ago, the color returned to her cheeks. After she beat her cancer, he thought this was it. He thought they were in the clear. But there's always something else waiting for them, trying to take them down.

Years ago, Scully told him how much she loved Christmas. They were younger then, their friendship new and untarnished. She told him about Scully family traditions and that no matter what, they always laughed. Back then he didn't know the Scullys, had yet to meet Mrs. Scully, Melissa, and Bill Jr. When he pictured them, it was always with crinkled laugh lines around their eyes and a smile on their lips. The same one Scully wore when she mentioned her family.

Today, there is no laughter, no joy. And he can't bear it. She deserves more. She deserves a Christmas where she can smile, laugh, and just be herself.

"Hey, Scully?" He decides not to think too much about it. Just do whatever it takes. No matter how ridiculous he's going to look or sound." Let's taco about Christmas." It's a bad pun, but it's the first one that comes to his mind.

"What?" Her voice sounds weak. If he wants to make her laugh, or even smile, he has to up his game.

"I'm pine-ing for you this Christmas?" he tries.

"Are you okay?" she asks, her eyebrows knit in concern. At least he's distracting her from her pain.

"I'm up to snow good."

"You're..." he feels her eyes on him, and since there's not much traffic, he turns to look at her. Her expression is neutral, but he thinks she's thawing. He can't ease her agony; only time can do that. No one can stop him from trying, though. He will make her smile today, come what may.

"I've got high elf-esteem."

"You're insane." And he hears it. Soft, almost shy, but decidedly there: a giggle. A real, honest cackle. He grins, glancing at her. Tears shimmer in her eyes, and he reaches over the console to grab her hand.

"There's no gift like the present." Scully chortles and his heart soars. "I have something for you, by the way. I must admit I stole it from your brother's house, but I think it was a brilliant idea. Are you hungry at all? I'm a bit hungry. Reach into my coat pocket."

"This is not a trick, is it?"

"What? No." Her eyes on him, she sticks her hand into his pocket and fishes out two candy canes.

"Stole it last night and look, these candy canes are in mint condition."

"I'm not hungry."

"You don't need to be hungry for a candy cane, Scully." The plastic crackles as Scully unwraps the candy. Soft peppermint aroma fills the car. She's just holding the candy cane as if unsure what to do next.

"Want me to lick it?" He realizes the implications of what he just said a moment too late. Their eyes meet and then, miraculously, they're roaring with laughter, tears streaming down their faces. Mulder stops the car at the side of the road, needing a moment. Their laughter dies down slowly, a few chuckles falling out of their mouths here and there.

"Want to share?" Mulder asks after a moment.

"Snow be it," Scully replies, the corner of her mouth twitching. She breaks the candy cane in two, handing one half to Mulder. He's almost too mesmerized to notice it. Scully takes her half and bites off a large chunk, chewing slowly.

"I know what you're doing," she says. "And I appreciate it. Thank you." She puts her hand over his on his thigh. Her face is close to his and she smells sweet and fresh, like the candy cane. "I- I needed a moment of, um. I just needed a moment."

"I can come up with another thousand bad puns," he says earnestly.

"You never give up, do you?" Her smile is shaky.

"Only if absolutely forced to." She nods, quickly wiping away a few tears.

"I think I'm ready to go to my brother's house now."

"Are you sure? We can keep going. Hell, say the word and I'll drive us home."

"I know you would." She squeezes his hand. "I don't want to ask but..."

"You can ask for anything, Scully. Anything at all."

"Will you stay with me a while?"

"No one can stop me. Well, your brother could, but I won't let him. And if you need-"

"I know, Mulder. I know. Now tell me another one. I can see it in your eyes. You want to make another joke." Her smile may be colored in sadness, but it's still a smile, and he helped put it there. He starts the car again, Scully's hand falling from his and onto his thigh.

"What did one ornament say to another?" Mulder asks, trying to hide his delight. He pauses for effect until he can't hold it in any longer. "I like hanging with you." He hears a soft chuckle and it sounds glorious to his ears. It will take a while, but in the end, she'll be okay.

#ficmas2023 #angst and humor #i LOVE mixing those #i hope it worked #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic

[akashigadabi]

Premise: It’s just after USJ and you’re going to see Shouta in hospital. Heaven help anyone who stands in your way.

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor

Warnings: some swearing

Summary: It’s just after the USJ incident, and for some reason no one but Hizashi remembers to call you and tell you Shouta’s in the hospital. Anyone who tries to keep you from him is getting bitten.

Fuck fuck fuck. Where was Shouta? Your mind can only tumble between equally frantic thoughts while the receptionist takes her sweet time to give you his room number. It’s been agony waiting for them to finish their treatment plan, especially when they should have consulted you anyway. You’ll just have to make do with what’s left, you suppose, even if it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Once you get to his floor, however, a nurse sitting at the station stands and moves to stop you.

“Miss—”

“Let me through!”

You know the nurse is just doing her job, but right now you just want to strangle her. With how frazzled you feel, you just might. Then she just has to push it by touching your arm, and it takes everything in you not to bite her hand. You were a little feral, just like Shouta, but you never had your lover’s hero shtick to help redirect your impulses.

“Forgive me, but we cannot allow—”

“I said let me through. I’m his wife, godsdamnit!”

You don’t succeed in not snapping her head off, but she takes it well enough. Instead of getting offended, she nods and asks for a patient name.

“Aizawa Shouta.”

“Oh, I know that one. That teacher. I helped bandage him earlier. Follow me.”

You’re practically a nervous wreck as you follow her through the ward. The anticipation and anxiety make your heart beat like a scared rabbit, and all you can do is imagine the worst. It bothers you that no one but Hizashi called to let you know Shouta’s status, but then again, perhaps it had only slipped their minds in all the chaos. Perhaps that assumption was generous.

After all, they have to know you’re one of his immediate emergency contacts. They have to know they need to call you if he’s become badly injured because of your Quirk. You aren’t a Pro Hero, but there are other licenses, certificates, and permits that allow someone to use their Quirk. Anything from Certified Work Permits to Investigative Licenses to Limited Competency Certifications exist for those who wish to use applicable Quirks within certain scopes.

Your specific situation involves having a Restriction Level One Compassionate Healing License. It means that you can use your Quirk on others, even in public, regardless of if the situation is as mild as a sprained ankle or as critical as a skull fracture. Unlike Recovery Girl, your Quirk doesn’t use the patient’s stamina, so you don’t need them to be well-rested or a mild case, or to wait for them to recover somewhat first. Being a doctor or a Hero didn’t suit you, so this seems like the next best alternative. Especially since the government and HPSC recognize how difficult it often is to keep healers from assisting someone injured or dying in front of them and how disastrous it would be to punish said healers, especially if the public got wind of it. So they offer an alternative. Those with healing Quirks who don’t wish to become medical professionals or Pro Heroes full or part time can instead choose to obtain a Compassionate Healing License, ranging from Restriction Level Five to Zero. Level Five had the most restrictions, while Zero had none. It basically meant there were no restrictions on how you could use your Quirk to heal, both in consideration of its natural limitations, and in consideration of its legal ones.

By the time you arrive at his room, you’re ready to collapse from stress, but you have just enough presence of mind to thank the nurse as you lurch into the room. Of course, it’s worse than you thought. He’s bandaged from head to toe, doing a remarkable impression of a mummy. He looks almost like a broken doll lying there, and it breaks something inside of you to see him like that. You sink into the chair next to his bed, barely noticing Hizashi’s jacket that he wears when he wants to be lowkey off-duty.

“Oh, baby,” you whisper with tears in your eyes. “What did they do to you?”

You don’t expect your idiot (not really) husband to answer you then, sounding like he’s on death’s doorstep for a casual nap instead of his dire straights.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Oh, so it’s just a flesh wound?”

“It’s—”

“Shut up, you insufferable man. You almost died. Let me fuss over you.”

Your hands shake as you uselessly smooth the blankets on his bed. You want to touch him, to reassure yourself of his continued existence if nothing else, but you don’t want to risk hurting him. You haven’t used your Quirk on him yet to ease his pain or wounds. The way it works was that the more positive emotions you felt, the more you could heal. If you felt positive emotions about the patient, even better. Even neutral emotions worked for adequate healing in a pinch. If you needed to “fake it” to heal someone, you could focus on a positive memory or something with positive emotions attached to it to coax your Quirk into healing the way you wanted it to. It sort of reminded you of how people made a Patronus in that one Pre-Quirk book series. Shame the author was some hateful hag, but at least no one has to see her post Chirps. (Chirper replaced Twitter in the last stages of the Pre-Quirk Era, and she’s been dead for the last three hundred years, so no worries there.)

Shouta grumbles but allows your still-trembling hands to flutter over his form, hovering without touching.

“They said I’ll make a full recovery,” he tries again, attempting to soothe you. “You probably don’t even need to use your Quirk. We could just wait for Recovery Girl to—”

You interrupted with a put-upon little huff.

“Why would I let you suffer when I can fix some of it now?”

“Silly woman.”

“Infuriating man.”

Your fake glaring contest lasts for all of five seconds before he sighs and relents. “Fine. Get it over with, then. But you’re the one comforting Hizashi if this wears you out.”

“It won’t. I worked out that the more I love someone, the less energy it takes. Now hold still.”

You reach for his eyes first, because you know how much he needs them for his Quirk and in your Quirk sense, they’re an angry blood red. You don’t know how they look since they’re bandaged, too, but you gather it’s not pretty. Any damage to his eye socket or orbital floor would be hell for his career. Not because being Quirkless was such a terrible fate, but because without it, he’d be vulnerable. Even as an Underground Hero, people recognize him, and if they know he couldn’t use his Quirk properly—or at all—anymore, they’d take advantage of that. They’d see it as a weakness, and in a way it was if they knew he couldn’t rely on Quirk cancellation in his fights. He might fight mostly Quirkless, but Erasure still gave him an advantage.

Only a fool would insist otherwise.

He sighs in relief the moment your energy enters him, flowing into his eyes first, then into the rest of his head to ease the migraine he has. Whether it’s due to his injury, the medications used for surgery, a general lack of sleep, or some combination you have no idea. In hindsight, after you’ve chased away the majority of the pain and swelling, you readjust your assessment to include a concussion and skull fracture in the list of injuries. How lovely, a sarcastic part of your brain mutters as you berate yourself for losing sight of the forest for the trees in your rush to scrub away his pain. On the other hand, the concussion and skull fracture are irrelevant, gone like a flash of sunlight on a rainy day. Frankly, you don’t care. It all hurts him, so you get rid of it. Every single layer down to the last.

His lip, which had busted before he bit through it, also healed, as did his broken nose and a deep gash under his eye, though they might both scar. His scalp healed too. Someone had yanked on his hair hard enough to rip a chunk of it out, and you could almost feel the echo of it throbbing despite the pain easing. It made you furious to know someone had hurt him so badly. It made you ache, too, as if you’re the one laying in bed beaten to a pulp.

Next you heal his arms. One at a time, of course. You start with the one closest to you. A crease grows on your brow as you register the shade—still an angry red, but a shade lighter. His entire body glows like a red star, flickering in various hues of the color that spells danger for the one enduring the wounds. It’s not until your power flows into his arm that you discover the horrifying truth. Fuck the sprinkling of bruises and the little nicks. His arm is broken in five different places, which explains the glare of red bathing your second sight. You sigh from the depths of exasperation, because of course this absolutely insufferable man with no good sense of self-preservation manages to have his arm broken in five places.

“Why does it feel like you’re glaring at me?”

Of course your bastard sounds like he’s amused and apprehensive in equal measure, you think fondly even as you contemplate tying him up in his own capture scarf so he can’t get himself so damaged again.

“Probably because I am. How did you manage to get your arm broken in five different places, Shou?”

“He what?!”

Hizashi’s alarmed cry comes from the doorway. You turn to glare at him, because really? This is a hospital for fuck’s sake! People are trying to heal!

“Hizashi, you know I love you, but if the next sound out of your mouth is another screech, I’ll toss you out of the window myself.”

“And I’ll help,” Shouta added gruffly.

You flick your finger at his already healed cheek.

“No the fuck you won’t, mister! You shouldn’t even be moving yet, let alone throwing Hizashi’s loud ass through a window.”

“Sorry,” Hizashi apologized as he shuffled into the room and closed the door. “I’ll try to be quiet.”

“That’s like asking a cat not to be an asshole,” you mutter as you turn back around, ignoring the indignant “Hey!” from Hizashi as you set to work again.

Undeterred, the inappropriately energetic man sidles up to your side. Not close enough to get in the way, but definitely close enough to watch you work. It’s a delicate process. Even with all the love you have for Shouta, it takes fierce concentration. Mostly due to all the fine-tuned control you need for the seemingly endless fiddly bits. You sit back once you’re done with his arm and massage your temples. Only Shouta, you think again. Only Shouta.

“Your arm is healed, but your wrist and two of your fingers are broken too.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath at your side, and oh yeah, Hizashi’s here too, isn’t he? You’d nearly forgotten since you’d had to block him out to focus. Funny, that. At least Shouta’s arm isn’t hurting him now, though the fact that the other has also been set doesn’t feel particularly promising.

“In addition to the five breaks on his arm?”

“Yes, and some bruising and small cuts. I’ll fix the wrist and fingers then move to his other side. Once I do, it should be safe to touch his face and this limb. Do not touch anything else unless I say otherwise, got it? We don’t wanna hurt him more by aggravating his injuries.”

“Right. I can do that. I’ll hold his hand once you finish doing your thing.”

Without any further discussion, you dive right back into the healing session. Even though your Quirk isn’t directly tied to your stamina, like an inverse of Recovery Girl’s, you can still get tired. The mental and emotional exhaustion that can lead to a period of brain fog or numbness, like the kind that comes after a good cry—or even a short bought of depression in extreme cases—isn’t a cakewalk just because you can often otherwise function as normal. Still, Shouta’s worth the backlash, and you can always sleep it off. You heal his wrist and his fingers as promised, then pause and frown because while the halo of his arm has cooled to a healthier pink as it repairs itself, his ribs scream at you.

“Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“Ribs.”

It comes out as a grunt. You don’t care, just reach out to brush your fingers over them. Some are bruised, and some are cracked. Ribs can be bandaged, but not properly set. You probe around with your power to make sure they haven’t punctured anything, then cut off the flow of energy.

“How many?” Hizashi asks when you stand.

“Enough.”

His hand grips Shouta’s like a lifeline as you round the bed, pausing to correct the damage you see as you go. “Sprained ankles.”

“Shouta,” you hear the blond murmur as you heal a nasty bruise on his leg that feels suspiciously like the outline of a boot. Ouch. Definitely from a kick. The broken blood vessels sing in relief at your touch.

“He’ll live, Zashi.”

He’s got another three breaks on this arm that’s speckled with bruises, another broken finger, and huh. A broken clavicle. You list aloud the injuries as you caress each one, sending warm waves of healing energy through them. You heal the nasty scratch on his neck, too, and the random thigh muscle he somehow pulled. That seems like the worst of it, aside from the hodgepodge of bruised organs that includes his spleen, his liver, and both kidneys, and a bruised abdomen. Thankfully he has no internal bleeding, but he’d have been sore for a while otherwise.

By the time you finish, you feel a little numb, but only just. It seems to have messed with your emotions again in a limited capacity. The closest you can feel to happiness at the moment is bitter relief, though the love you have for him never fades even when you get these spells. They’re temporary, and part of this may be due to stress instead of just being induced by your Quirk backlash.

Mostly you feel tired, like you’ve been crying for a long time and can’t cry anymore but on a low level. It’s a largerly emotionally drained feeling mixed with the barest hint of brain fog. You don’t heal all the time, after all, not like Recovery Girl or some of the Quirked doctors. Even when you do, it’s not often to this extent. You don’t always have to push yourself so much, but now you feel as if you should. Quirk training might just save Shouta’s life one day.

You’d never forgive yourself if he needed you but you were too weak to heal him.

“Is it done, then?”

“It’s done. Give it an hour before you start taking off all his casts and bandaging, though.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

You shrug.

“I’m taking a nap.”

With that, you crawl into bed next to Shouta to sleep off your backlash. Hizashi doesn’t protest. Smart man, that one. Anyone who tries to pry you away from Shouta’s side right now still stands a high chance of getting bitten. Hizashi must like having both of his hands. Good.

#aizawa shouta #shouta aizawa #aizawa x y/n #aizawa x reader #eraserhead x reader #eraserhead x you #hurt/comfort #fluff and hurt/comfort #angst and hurt/comfort #angst and humor #fluff and angst #fluff and humor #usj arc #unforeseen situation joint arc #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #aizawa fanfiction #Eraserhead FanFiction

[heinesshort]

Therapist: "what would you react if someone gives you a negative feeling? "

Mammon: " that their right and just join lilith in father knows where"

Therapist: "NO"

20 minutes later

Lucifer: wait- why are you quitting??

Therapist: I don't think I can stay as a therapist for Sir mammon but I think I need one:') "

MC: yeah so don't ever hire a therapist and just let him be he got to many drama goin💀

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #angst and humor #mammon angst #therapy

[gracefulsouffle]

...Belos?

What's that? Not an entire month between chapters? Huh, weird.

New Chapter Excerpt below the cut! (Please give me lots of love and comments please. My life is making me sad and I needed it)

Excerpt:

Wake up before the sun rises, shake off the nightmares, then train. 

He’s free. 

Train until his body gives out or Flapjack starts yelling at him. Rest and recover, clean himself up and prepare a serving of rations for breakfast. They’re bland and tasteless.

This is freedom. 

Perform the needed chores- clean the dishes, take inventory of the remaining supplies, and wash his clothes if required.

He has to do this… No. He chooses to do this. Because he has the freedom to choose.

And he chooses the exact same thing. Every morning, rinse and repeat. Again and again.

His choice. 

After he's finished his morning routine he researches.

And researches.

And researches.

He’s… 

So tired.

This morning's nightmare was a different flavour of horrible. Instead of Belos, instead of chains, he dreamt of death and boiling seawater.

He dreamt of the mer-person's final moments, but the complete opposite of how it happened in reality.

In Hunter's nightmare, it's his own gloved hands gripping tight onto their throat. He's submerged in the tank with the mer-person, boiling, boiling, boiling, as he squeezes tighter and tighter staring into their eyes.

Except their eyes aren't yellow-teal with a horizontal pupil like a mer-person's should be.

They're magenta. Magenta like-

"End me like my others"

He squeezes and boils and stares into too-familiar eyes before waking up hot and shivering, soaked in a fevered sweat knowing in his heart that it's going to be one of those weeks.

#the owl house #toh hunter #toh #hunter toh #hunter noceda #hunter the golden guard #toh fanfic #hunter toh fanfic #angst and humour #angst and humor #angst #toh darius #toh belos

[passivenovember]

West.

(For my darling @cuepickle , ILYSM!)

--

Washed in fire-cracker light from a pit in Steve Harrington’s backyard, Billy swallows an entire topaz ocean from a can and stops wishing for California.

Because he’s piss-drunk, crinkling aluminum in his fist to keep from reaching out, into the flame, to prove that it’s all a dream. A feeling that will pass. And Steve’s smoking through Billy’s pack of Marlboro reds, one right after the other, the little train that could.

It doesn’t make Billy angry. It used to. Because he wanted to be the lighter in Steve’s hand and the smoke in Steve’s lungs and the blood rushing, confident, through his veins, and he never knew it.

That’s the thing about Billy. If it’s not coming from a textbook, he’s slow on the uptake and eager to swing out of misplaced anger. But once he figured out what this was, catching butterflies in his hands, he settled for friendship and he’s happy about it. Thrilled and content to share his cigarettes until the stars stop spinning like they’re caught in a washing machine, and he hopes against hope, that. Steve’ll stay put.

That they’ll sit close enough to touch all night long.

That even though people keep trying to drag Harrington back into the house, where they’ve got a game of beer-pong going and the stereo thumping so loud Billy thinks the Earth might crack open–he hopes that Steve will stop searching for tomorrow’s bright spring rays, too.

So, Billy stops dreaming of California.

“This is nice,” Steve says. The wind tousles his hair, kicking up notes of leather, coffee grounds, and vanilla ice cream. Billy wants to bottle it and make a fortune.

“Yeah,” He determines, instead. There’ll be time for masterplans and grand crimes later when Harrington’s the first to fall asleep.

Steve leans to scratch his leg, staring out at his empty swimming pool. “You’re having a nice time?” He asks, and Billy thinks all the color is gone from his face. But maybe it’s just the shadow of the new year closing in. Maybe it’s the moon.

Billy wants to make him smile. “Yeah.”

“That all you can say, Hargrove?” Steve glances over, cheeks red from the cold.

And he's gorgeous.

Billy's never seen anything like him in all the world, so he keeps a textbook full of moments exactly like this one. He never loses track of them, leafing through their worn and well-loved pages whenever he's lost in seas of brown.

A smile plays at the corners of Steve's lips, "Me too," he says, soft and secret and so like an eclipsing planet even though beyond a scraggly line of ferns and balding oak trees, tripping all the way along a path of bronze sandstone, all of Hawkins is getting trashed on the sloppy seconds from the Harrington’s Christmas party.

Steve doesn’t mind it. He’s got the world in his hand, a wristwatch that’s stopped working, and all of Billy’s attention focused as a searchlight, on his pretty, pretty face.

The whole cheerleading team is probably wondering where they are.

Billy can’t get his legs to work, they’ve turned to vanilla pudding. “What’d you get for Christmas, richie-rich?”

Steve shrugs and turns back to the pool. “Pair of Nike’s, that new Queen record, a pack of cool-ranch sunflower seeds, some kettle corn-–”

“Wow, Momsie and Papa couldn’t roll the savings account for you? Aren’t you an only child?”

“I got a Playboy desk calendar, too,” Steve passes his-their-Billy’s cigarette without a second thought. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Suddenly the backdoor opens, and a pinpoint of yellow flashes in a sea of dark, dark winter.

Billy uses his free hand to shield his eyes.

Steve clicks his teeth, annoyed when he shouts, “I’m busy,” to the short, pissed-off figure that calls his name into the night.

“It’s fine,” Billy tells him, swinging his legs over the side of the pool chair so he can get his feet under him, “They’re probably lost in there without you.”

“No,” Steve snaps. The thick gold band he stole from Billy’s gym bag after training camp this summer taps a frantic tune on the metal chair beneath him.

And Billy gets the sense that this isn’t a casual conversation.

That Steve’s got speeches and roadmaps snaking like candy-land fields in his mind, a clear goal trapping them in this moment on the last Friday of winter break, two hours past midnight on the first day of a brand new year.

Steve looks at him. Studies him.

Says, after a long, weightless moment, “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” and Billy’s mind goes a hundred and one places. None of them good, all of them baring teeth and claws and spikey bones from years of rotting decay.

"Feeling brave, Harrington,"

Steve grins in spite of himself, "Maybe,"

And somewhere behind them, the pinpoint of light goes out.

Steve takes a deep, uneasy breath. “I’ve been thinking about graduation.” He starts, and the world tilts sideways.

Frosted blades of grass crunch underfoot of someone drawing closer and closer to whatever grenade Steve’s about to throw on their perfect, carefree night. A stranger, or friend, or–-

Neil, for all Billy knows, is set to get a front-row seat to Steve’s admission.

I know what you are, Billy imagines him saying, kind eyes finally slicing Billy open after so many months of liquid care, I know how you feel about me and what happens in your gym shorts when you see my ass in the showers. I’ve seen how you fuck yourself open on your fingers imagining that I’m pressing myself inside you because we’re in love with each other–-

Steve gulps down the rest of his beer and turns, so their knees knock.

It hurts, and it doesn’t. He swallows panic, anyway.

Billy gets like that at the first sign of trouble. Sensitive as an overripe peach. All those times they put their hands on each other and Billy doubts Harrington knows that he bruises easily. That he carried Steve’s fingerprints on his skin for weeks after--

“It’s just,” Steve says, eyes cast to the ground. To the crust of the Earth, knocking politely on the lid of Billy’s sneakers, “When I think about my future, it gets fuzzy.”

“Yeah, that’s normal, I think.” Billy turns, eyes straining through the darkness to find the owner of those clandestine footsteps. The yard is empty. He passes the unlit cigarette back to Steve and wonders, through a cloud of haze and terrifying anxiety, if he imagined the whole thing.

Maybe they’re alone, after all. Maybe Steve will go easy on him. Maybe—

Steve lets the cigarette fall to the ground.

“Wasteful,” Billy says, trying to cast light on the mood.

“I don’t care, I’ll buy more."

On the tip of Billy’s tongue, he feels red-hot jealousy inflate like blown glass. Typical, he wants to say, you rich bitches don’t give two shits about the resources you deplete or the mouths you take them from, and still–-

Call it a habit.

Billy’s trying to file his own edges down. Doesn’t want to be that guy to Steve anymore, the one who says those things and means it, because–-

Billy bites down until he tastes blood to stop from saying something stupid. But the thought comes an hour and four beers too late.

Steve won’t look at him and Billy’s trying to find the hole in their lifeboat before their friendship sinks. There’ve been a lot of parties this break. A lot of weed smoke, a lot of tequila shots, and stolen six packs exchanged for frozen pizza, and Billy thinks for an endless moment that maybe he said something, once.

Got shitfaced and lost in the pink feeling when Steve carried him home and put Billy to bed and crawled under the sheets with him, so close but not touching, until they both fell to dreams.

Maybe Billy got too comfortable in their safe, easy friendship, and ruined everything.

Maybe Steve knows.

“My future,” Steve tries again, eyebrows pinched in a way that’ll give him wrinkles before he turns thirty-five, “It only makes sense if I imagine–-”

“Jesus Christ, It's fucking freezing out here."

Billy cranes his neck and Robin appears, windswept and higher than a kite, balancing along the abandoned edge of the pool. Her cheeks are red from the cold despite the insulated overalls that still hold last month's mustard stains, and the leather jacket she stole from Billy’s room and never gave back is slung around her shoulders.

They stare at her for a long, breathless moment.

“Y’all scared me,” She says, rubbing her hands together, "Am I interrupting something?"

Billy turns back around, "Not really," He says, at the same time, Harrington snaps, "Kinda," All teeth and none of that sappy best-friends-who-can-read-each other's-minds bullshit that he keeps on tap.

“You knew we were out here,” Steve clarifies. He flicks a cluster of ash from his sun lounger. “You were standing at the door, calling my name.”

“I was calling both your names.”

“Bullshit,” Billy tells her, chuckling.

“Not shit,” Robin says, plopping down on the pool lounger next to him, “I called both your names and when I heard Steve’s voice I thought maybe you went into the woods together.”

“How much dope have you had tonight?” When Robin waggles her eyebrows, Steve frowns, “We wouldn't go into the woods. Don’t go into the woods, Bucks.”

“Too late, I already did,” Robin snatches their cigarette off the ground and takes the lighter that’s offered, pinching the filter between her front teeth, “It’s fucking freezing out here–-”

Billy grins. "You already said that."

“We were talking,” Steve bristles. His eyes are narrowed, pools of honey covered in bees and wasps and he doesn’t say what Billy so clearly sees between the lines. We were talking–-

And you interrupted us.

Robin frowns. “What could you possibly be doing out here that couldn’t happen inside?”

“You mean the very same inside that’s caught under the mind-numbing cadence of Wham! and the watchful eye of half the school?” Billy shrugs, “Wasn’t my bag.” Billy takes robins-his-Steve’s cigarette and tells the truth. “Harrington’s waxing poetic about the future.”

“My future,” Steve says.

“His future,” Billy clarifies.

“Jesus Christ. It’s the last Friday of winter break, can we please not do the college thing?”

“Quick, check her head for bumps,” Billy deadpans, stealing his cigarette back. It’s comical, coming from Mrs. SAT herself.

Robin knocks her shoulder into Billy. Hard. “I’m serious. You guys put too much pressure on yourselves.”

“I got into UC Berkeley and it was my first choice,” Billy teases, “Don’t worry about little Hargrove, he’ll be shouldering summer road trips and bags of dope in four years' time.”

“Four and a half years, let’s not jump the gun,” Steve says, He fiddles with the sanded edge of his beer can, a thousand and one thoughts racing by like taxi cabs behind the curtain of hair on his forehead. “I can do that, now,” He says like it means something.

“Steve,” Robin begins softly, “What’s wrong?”

“God, nothing,”

And Billy’s smart enough to know when a bomb’s set to explode. Harrington’s got fire in him, it burns on a simmer like the focused light from an oil lamp, high in a tower overlooking the sea. He’s good at steering conversations and batting his spindly shutters to get what he wants.

It’s what makes him the King.

And Billy has to physically swallow his own tongue to stop from saying that Robin’s efforts are pointless.

Steve’ll talk when he’s ready if he ever gets there at all, and to be honest, Billy hopes the train doesn’t arrive tonight.

Billy’s feeling selfish.

Wants so desperately to skip the big, emotional conversations and for the light to return to the sky. For the last Friday before the spring semester to lose twenty pounds so it can fit, cookie-cutter and all, into the mold of Billy’s senior year. He doesn’t want to think about the future, there’s plenty of time for that.

Mostly, he wants to go inside and get drunk.

“C’mon,” Robin tries, kicking the toe of her boot and Steve’s sneaker together until he grinds his molars, “You can talk to us,”

Billy groans.

“Just because Hargrove and I are going to the same school-–”

“Buckley, leave the kid alone.”

Steve is silent for so long that Billy grows a headful of gray.

"I don't care about Berkely, I just care about California," He says. He looks at Billy, peers right through him and Steve’s eyes are glittering like a million wayward stars. Like he might cry. “I wanted to-–”

Billy springs to his feet.

“Jesus, can we just go inside?” Billy’s fingers itch for the comforting cylinder of aluminum. He wants to dance, and he’d take Cher or Madonna. George Michael–-

He pats the seat of his pants, instead, so it looks like he’s searching for something to smoke.

He doesn’t miss the hurt that flashes, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, across Steve’s face.

“Alright,” Harrington crumples his beer can and tosses it, sharply, into the dark hollow of his swimming pool.

“C’mon, Steve, Bills is just being an asshole,” Robin’s nose wrinkles. She’s trying really hard to look serious and interested and sober. “What were you going to say?”

“It wasn’t important.”

“It was important enough for you to hold Billy hostage for the last hour and a half,” She takes the last puff from her cigarette, losing steam in this conversation, “You know Heather Duke was playing twenty questions, trying to figure out where Billy ran off to?”

“I don’t care about Heather Duke,” Steve says bluntly, “What makes you think I would ever give a shit about–-”

Robin is unphased, “Seems kinda like you give a shit about Heather Duke.”

And all at once, Steve snaps.

It’s like watching a tree fall in the woods. Silent, and then all hell breaks loose and the world ends.

“You didn’t have to come out here,” Steve says, about as even and gentle as the aftershocks of a hurricane, “You could’ve stayed inside with everyone else.”

“God, you’re such an asshole when you drink brown beer, it makes you delusional-–”

Billy sits back down.

“--Shoot me for wanting to make sure my best friends are okay,” Robin tells him, dry as an old desert bone.

“We were fine,” Steve snaps.

“You drank a bunch of beer and then fucking vanished.”

“If you think I’d ever let anything happen to him–-”

“--Harrington-–”

“--You’re out of your mind, Buckley.”

“Fuck you,” Robin throws her cigarette at Steve’s face. “Come find me when you’re done acting like you’re the only one who’s got feelings,” She says, and then she’s off. Stomping across the frosted lawn until the french doors slam shut behind her, harsh and final.

Steve kicks his sun lounger.

“Hey, easy, pretty boy.”

“We were having a private conversation,” Steve snaps. When he looks at Billy his eyes are glossed over, wet, huge, and afraid. “We were talking, and then–-”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

Steve frowns, spine going taught like the string of a bow, poised to kill.

Billy shrugs, confused to the very core of him. “In all the months I’ve known you and crashed on your couch and gotten piss-drunk in your shitty fucking car I’ve never seen you act like this. Robs mentions Heather Duke and-–”

“What, you care about Heather Duke, all of a sudden?” Steve scoffs like Billy’s the most irrational, irritating, piece-of-shit guy on the planet. “You know her dad bought her a nose job, like, two weeks before you moved here?”

“Oh my god, who gives a shit? I’m here with you. Right? I’m right here,” Billy shouts, uncaring for how his voice echoes against the bark of a million barren, dying trees, “Can we try and have a good night? It’s the–-”

“If you say it’s the last Friday of break one more fucking time–-”

Billy wonders what crashed Steve’s yacht into the rocks. What’s got his panties bunched up, and why Steve feels like he’s got any authority to stop Billy from getting a few good orgasms in before sunrise.

He doesn’t get the chance to ask.

Steve rubs the wet from his cheeks. “Forget it,” He says, “Let’s just. Let’s go back to the party, alright?”

“Steve-–”

But he’s gone.

Before Billy even has a chance to say that everything will be alright, Steve’s gone.

It’s another hour before Billy has the courage to chase after him.

—

In a room full of piss-drunk kids and aluminum barrels and honey-comb ashtrays that look like they’ve spit up all over Mrs. Harrington’s nice coffee table, Billy drinks the edge away.

Steve said he was going back to the party but he’s nowhere in sight. Robin’s missing, too, and Billy has no doubt they’ve hugged and made up. They’ve got a Care Bear cut to them, you know, can never go to bed angry.

Billy imagines that they’re in the mast bathroom right now. Swimming in Ma Harrington’s jet tub, or painting their toenails in the guest bedroom that overlooks the west-facing tree line. He wonders if they’re drunk enough to talk, hushed and trepid, about their fears.

Billy wonders if he’ll ever fully fit in with them. If he could ever belong anywhere else.

Eventually, the house starts to empty. Tommy H. says some dumb shit about being hung out to dry, all, if Harrington wanted to fuck the weird girl in a quiet house all he had to do was say something, but everyone else is too drunk to fake a laugh.

Billy tells him he should move the party to his. “Your parents are in Aspen, right?” Billy wonders, swallowing the last sip of his last beer for the ‘85 season.

“Yeah,” Tommy H. slurs, so he uses Billy’s head as a push lever to stand on the coffee table and knocks Mr. Harrington’s ashtray onto the carpet. Says, “Hey guys, afterparty at my house,”

No one in their right mind wants to go home plastered.

So the house clears.

Billy sinks into silence about as easily as a rock in the ocean. It swallows him, the distant drone of the heater is his only companion as he vacuums drifts of cigarette and marijuana ash from the carpet.

He runs the loud machine about the whole room to tidy up, imagining that with this invention Billy is cleaning up the last, terrible dregs of a very long year.

It’s freeing.

Billy’s weightless, so on cloud nine that when someone thumps on the floor upstairs he wonders who could be so high above him. Higher than his crown of mussy curls, taller than God himself.

Billy takes the stairs leisurely, focusing every free inch of brainpower on putting one foot in front of the other.

And the thing about Steve’s house is that there are a million long, winding corridors that Billy can’t navigate even when he’s operating at peak performance, you know. Drinking lots of water and eating root vegetables and laying off the cigarettes and following the thread of gold that trails after Steve like toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

Billy’s shitfaced and out of breath by the time he’s run out of guest rooms to investigate.

There’s no one here, Billy thinks.

No one but me, and the pipes–-

“Billy?”

Steve’s in his pajamas. He looks a little bit like Winnie the Pooh, in red flannel, rubbing at his eyes like maybe something woke him from a deep, dreamless sleep but Steve isn’t angry about it. Because he sat up all night waiting.

“Thought you left,” Steve mumbles, eyes squinted as if every bulb in the house is burning at once.

“Why would I leave?”

“I thought maybe I pissed you off and you went home with someone else,” Steve pads forward, voice soft and warm with curling tendrils of exhaustion.

Billy wants to touch him. Billy aches to run his fingers through Steve’s hair and pull and tug until the guilt is smoothed from his face.

Most of all, Billy wants to kiss him.

And he’s so used to that feeling sitting like a hot coal in the very center of him, heating words and emotions to boiling until they bubble up and spill over in ways Billy could never stifle, even with a lid to the flame.

Billy’s so used to it that he shrugs, instead. “I’m wasted,” He admits, because it takes the sting away from the thought that Harrington’s suspicious of him. That once the alcohol burned everything away, Billy whored himself out. Chose someone else. Abandoned ship even though–-

“I know,” Steve smiles softly, “Me too.”

“Where’s Robin?”

“Asleep,” Steve confesses. They stare at each other for a moment and Steve’s expression melts. His smile is washed away, happiness swallowed by grief. “Listen, Billy–-”

Billy pads toward the bedroom. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“But I–-”

Billy takes his shirt off, slipping out of his boots and trousers on autopilot. There have been so many nights exactly like this one, so many beer-filled memories of slipping under the covers and feeling Steve, warm and soft, curl up behind him.

But it’s almost like a switch has flipped and after their friendly spat by the pool, they’ve been sucked into an alternate dimension where the awkwardness that stuck like wet paint to their friendship and never really dried.

Steve stands next to the bed, now, teeth rattling from the cold.

Everything’s quiet.

“I was an asshole,” Steve tells him.

Billy’s exhausted. “Stevie, get in bed.”

“Things are changing so fast and I just-–”

Billy’s already half asleep. “I don’t give a shit about that, Steve, it’s alright,” Billy settles in with Robin. She snuffles, rolling over until she’s settled enough to begin drooling slick over Billy’s left nipple.

He lets his eyes slip closed, breath calm even as the mattress feels like it’s lost at sea.

Billy cracks open one eye, glaring up at Steve where he’s watching Robin and Billy with a small, sweet curl to his lips. “Come cuddle, you shithead,” Billy mutters, knowing he’ll be embarrassed about that tomorrow.

Steve looks afraid. Young and frightened and so uncertain.

It’s a strange, unusual look to see on Steve’s face.

Billy’s heart pinches, shuddering painfully in his chest. “C’mon, Harrington, I’m cold,” Billy tries again. He knows he won’t be able to fall asleep without Steve. It’s a dorky, pathetic development as ancient as the stars.

Even when he’s home, lounging in his own bed on Cherry lane; even when the days are decent with no fights and swinging fists because Billy did his chores and minded his tongue, when there’s nothing to cry about and nothing be up early for, Billy doesn’t dream as easy as he does here.

With Steve.

So Billy shuffles toward the edge of the bed, smirking when Robin flips over onto her stomach. “If you get in here with me you can tell me all about it, alright?”

“And you’ll listen?”

“And I’ll listen,” Billy swears.

Steve bites his lip. He shuffles for another few seconds and then gives in, laying on the other side of Billy.

And Billy is too drunk to notice the way their bodies naturally curl around each other. Like clinging vines and stone houses, soft greenery seeking warmth. Billy puts his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, pushing into the calloused fingertips that trace the curve of his spine.

He’s warm.

He’s already asleep, dreams lapping like warm ocean water against his toes.

“I was thinking,” Steve says, “About the future?”

Billy makes a noise, floating on Steve’s mattress.

“I just. I want you–” Someone’s snoring. “Goddammit, Robin.”

Billy curls away from the sound, slinging one leg over the waist of that soft, murmuring voice to stop it from disappearing. It blends in with the texture of the night. It slips away but that doesn’t matter.

“Billy?”

Billy dreams of the boy it’s attached to, and he falls asleep, succumbing to the mystery of the future.

–-

“This is your fault,” Robin says. She dips a green bean in tarter sauce and licks all of it off before chewing, “Well. Mostly it’s your fault.”

It’s fish-fry day. Reminds Billy, like a spot of paint on a big bright canvas, just the tiniest bit of home. He’s in a good mood, taking his time with his mashed potatoes, hasn’t even cracked open his Pepsi, and it’s like the afternoon catches on a low-hanging branch and pops open. Ripped at the seams.

Billy’s slow on the draw, mouth smeared with lazy ease. “What now?”

“Steve,” She says. Like duh. Like, “It’s your fault.”

Billy stabs his last fish stick. Imagines blood and guts, little water-logged voices screaming in pain, “You’re full of shit.”

“I’m full of astute observations,” Robin tells him, looking around and leaning forward like anyone in first lunch gives a damn about Steve or either of them, for that matter.

Billy’s cool died, right along with his heart, the first time Steve smiled at him.

“You really need to pay more attention to the people around you.” Robin continues loudly, “Just because we don’t have 20-pack abs-–”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Buckley?”

“You were there. You saw how Steve blew a fuse.”

“Wasn’t like he was running in tip-top shape anyhow,” Billy spots Heather Duke across the room, batting her lashes so hard it looks like she’s got something in her eye. "Are we really talking about this?"

She waves.

Billy doesn’t wave back.

“Stop making fuck-me eyes at your girlfriend,”

“Buckley,” Billy warns, eyes snapping, poised to kill, on Robin’s face, “You’re on thin ice.”

“I’m always on thin ice,”

“More than usual,” Billy clarifies. He leans forward, close enough that he hopes his tarter-sauce breath kills Robin on the spot. “I’m not taking the blame for the Princess’ shitty New Years' mood.”

Robin doesn’t plug her nose. “Well, you should.”

“Why, because I’m a reformed asshole and that makes me a scapegoat for everyone else’s neurosis?”

“No,” Robin says dryly, “You’re probably the only person on the entire planet who can let him know everything’s going to be okay.”

Billy flops back in his seat, scrubbing at his face and tugging at his hair like maybe if he buffs hard enough, he can be a new person. Shiny and clean. The type that does shit like this, who can open like a spring flower and not care about the bees.

Eventually, Billy inflates again. “Steve hasn’t said anything to me about anything.”

“He’s probably embarrassed.”

“--The guy who brags about being best friends with a Middle Schooler–-”

“Okay, then he’s worried you’ll reject him,” Robin says.

And.

The first boy who ever had a crush on Billy pulled his chair out from under him. Billy cracked his head on the desk and had to get four stitches. Billy’s mom drove him to Urgent Care and said boys only do that when they’re in love with you.

Because they can’t find the words, she’d told him.

In retrospect, it makes sense to Billy that his mother would say that. All she ever knew was love the color of fresh bruises.

But the thing about Steve is, he’s full of words.

He drips honeyed dad jokes and terrible made-up song lyrics about the cowlick that floats in Billy’s hair when he’s had too much to drink. Steve spins stories about the future and says things like when we’re at college together and when we’re roommates and I get to trap you forever by my side–-

He’s stuffed to bursting with sunlight and easy promises.

And the thing about Billy is, his whole life has been about death. Rebirth, too. Over and over and over again. He’s had to rework what love looks like from all sides, proving to himself time after time that nice boys don’t leave bruises when they hold you in their arms. They don’t crack skulls and split lips with anything but their teeth.

And when blood spills, it’s all by accident.

They clean it up with their mouth. They spit it out again, and it's golden healing.

Billy’s pretty sure he falls through the chair.

Or maybe, the legs break out from under him. And the Earth crawls away, nursing split crust and shattered plates. And the cosmos burns up, like. In one fell swoop.

That first crush times a million and Steve isn’t even here.

“What,” Billy rasps. He clears his throat. Chokes and tries again, climbing up a mountain of truth. “What does that mean?”

Robin won’t look at him.

Billy leans forward. “He’s worried that I’ll stop hanging out if he’s vulnerable with me?”

Robin’s cheeks are red. So pink Billy would chew a roll of HubbaBubba to color match with the fuzzy damp of her skin.

“Did Steve say Friday was my fault?”

She picks at her food.

“Robin,” Billy says.

Robin shakes her head. She won’t look at him.

Billy grinds his teeth, “Robin.”

“No, Billy.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m not getting involved–-"

“You’re getting a head full of mashed potato if you don’t tell me what you��re talking about,” Billy scoops what’s left off his tray, gripping the handle of his spoon so hard he’s sure his palm starts bleeding.

“Billy,” Robin starts.

Billy raises his eyebrows in a venomous threat, leveraging the spoonful of mashed potatoes he’s got locked and loaded.

He’ll do it. He’ll fire the first shot and every blow that comes after and Robin knows he will.

She shifts in her chair, “I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

Robin shakes her head. “I was supposed to keep quiet.”

“Dammit Robin, why the fuck are you speaking in riddles? Why are you acting like you can point fingers and pin blame all from the comfort of your fucking high horse and not get your shit rocked for it?”

“I’m not on my high horse–-”

“Bullshit,” Billy slams his spoon on the table. “You can’t tell me that everything is my fault and not speak the fuck up.”

Billy won’t stand for it.

Robin frowns. “Maybe ‘everything,’ was a bit dramatic.”

“Ugh, Robin.”

“Maybe I should’ve chosen my words a little more carefully,” She dodges the mound of potatoes that goes flying, cheeks red as the sun. “I would’ve. If I could do it over again, I would.”

“Spare me.”

“You know I can’t control my mouth once it gets going, I get, like. Verbal diarrhea.”

Billy jerks into motion and starts gathering his lunch scraps.

Because he’s got a thing about blame, at the root of him. Being saddled with the weight of everything. Everyone’s shit mood and shit decisions and shit consequences, all smeared down the front of his heart just because he’s strong enough to hold it.

Robin stares at him as he slings his backpack over one shoulder. The calculus textbook he’s read twice cover to cover, sits like a familiar childhood blanket against his shoulder blades. His heart rate slows, everything grinds to a halt, and that’s when he realizes that Robin’s about three seconds away from crying.

At lunch.

In the lunchroom.

“Steve’s been such a good friend to me,” Robins says quietly. “He’s never aired my shit, you know? Or put himself in the middle of something that didn’t concern him.”

“Steve’s a good person, he wouldn’t do that.”

“But he could’ve,” Robin scrubs at her face just to make sure it stays dry. “I guess I'm still a little pissed off about Friday.”

Billy slides out of his backpack. “I don’t really blame you. Something’s bothering him, I’ve never seen him flip his lid like that.”

“I’m really worried about him, Bills.”

“And you think I’m not?”

“No, I know you are, it’s just,” Robin bites her lip again, so hard Billy worries that blood will trickle onto the Formica table top. “Have you talked to him about his acceptance letters?”

“His college acceptance letters?”

“Yes,”

Billy blinks, more confused than he’s ever been in his life.

He’s embarrassed to admit that it’s been the farthest thing from his mind. After Billy got into Berkeley and Robin followed close behind, like a toppling domino hellbent on majoring in Forestry, Billy just sort of assumed, that–

“Steve didn’t get in.”

Robin studies her picked-over lunch tray and the table beneath that, like maybe the wood grain will hold the key to the universe if she stares hard enough.

Billy slips into his backpack.

Robin jerks up at him, frowning, “Where are you–”

“Steve’s got free period next, right?”

“Yeah–”

“I’ll be back in time for Calc.” Billy kisses Robin’s cheek, immediately wiping the taste of nosey lesbian from his lips.

Chapter Management

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Chapter 2

: as long as you followChapter Text

Whatever Steve’s supposed to do with his life is a distant cloud on the horizon until it’s not.

And as his father would say, hardly glancing from the dotted line splayed on the desk in front of him, that Steve’s wrapped in a Molotov of distraction.

He’s never had to work a day in his life, really work, because Steve’s mother wanted him to have a bright and easy childhood. And because of the angelic grace given to him as the result of a long line of lovers who wanted better for their love, Steve won’t make anything of his life.

He digs his heels into that truth, ever his father’s son, making sure to take chunks out of it.

He wants to gather that harshness into a pile and create something else. Build a home or a treehouse or a getaway car.

So he drinks and smokes and fucks his way down the river. Past roiling clouds of semester finals and homecoming games , never really clocking that behemoth milestone in the distance.

Until Billy, who makes Steve so crazy he feels radioactive.

Billy talks about the future all the time. With a curl to his lips and a beer in his hand, ribs and knuckles bruised. When I’m finally out of here and I’m back home, standing in the summer waves—

He makes grand statements. He could sell Steve a plot of land at the edge of the world, his bare feet dangling in the cosmos because anywhere is a step up from here.

And at first, college is a welcome ticket out of Hawkins and away from Billy and all the confusing, fucked up things he makes Steve feel. But then, just as quickly, it becomes about doing everything in his power to stop the wedge of the future from coming between them.

It becomes about giving Billy something to hold onto. It becomes about all those gnarled things his father told him about failure and family names.

Steve’s future starts to look less and less like what he’d never fully imagined. It  doesn’t belong to himself, or to his father, but to Billy.

Just like everything else, it.

It becomes about mortaring a foundation and building a thatched roof to come home to when the stars grow cold.

But love doesn’t change his transcript.

And all the money Steve would rather die than take from his father to make every problem swallow itself doesn’t chip away at reality. For Billy, doors, and windows have opened into bright, golden pastures flanked by possibility as deep as the Pacific ocean, and Steve.

Steve will only hold him back.

–-

He chews on that for a while.

It grows thick and gummy from unsheathed worries and unshed tears and Steve wishes, into the empty well of his endless swimming pool on New Year's Eve, that things were different. That all the money he’s sitting on like a lucky dragon with a pocketful of coins could change the fork in the road.

Steve tries to ignore it.

Billy’s leaving in four months and he’s taking Robin with him and Steve wants that. Wind in Billy’s hair, you know.

Life.

It’s killing him. Robin knows, but only because Steve was wasting away.

She thinks he’s being a dumbass. “Just talk to him,” She says, “You never know what he might say, right? He could–”

What? Steve doesn’t tell her. Billy could give up his dream and stay here in Hawkins and rot and rot and hate me forever.

Billy asks him, “What the fuck has gotten into you,” That night and so many times before. Astute and scholarly and beautiful like an open flame when Steve can’t fake any more smiles.

Billy’s got to fly away. And Steve, regardless of whether he’s earned his wings, wants to jump after him.

–-

He’s parked at the quarry and the sun’s playing peek-a-boo.

On the hood of his car, Steve digs at his jean pockets and tires to imagine that the future could be like this. That maybe, without Robin’s big mouth and Billy’s fierce protection, Steve could find spots of sunlight to bask in so he won’t freeze to death.

But, really, every day is overcast.

He’s tired of pretending otherwise.

So it’s fitting that right as Steve considers walking ten extra feet to the lip of the rocky ground, Billy’s car pulls to a thundering halt and almost skids past the rope barrier, careening off the cliff and into the raging waters below. Steve imagines jumping after him. He would. He–

“You didn’t get into Berk,”

There are countless clouds on the horizon. “Nope,” Steve says, and he pop’s the P because it feels right. New Year New Steve–

Billy shoves him off the car hood. “You’re an asshole.”

Steve can’t fight anymore, “I know,”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

There’s so much he could’ve said then. And now. And always.

I love you, he tries, staring out at a distant line of trees, I want to give you the world.

Steve shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing will change it.”

“Your parents have money, Steve,” Billy tries, and that’s just like him. Steve’s biggest cheerleader.

But Steve lost, alright? The game. The guy.

“It’s not any kind of money I want.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Billy shoves him again. His eyes get caught on Steve’s collarbone, tracing the line of his sweater. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?”

“‘M not cold,”

“Your lips are almost blue.”

“So I’ll freeze to death,” Steve admits, like. Big whoop.

But then Billy’s shrugging out of his jacket, “Here,” He says. Pissed and venomous like it’s going against his personal code of ethics to keep Steve alive when all he’s ever been is a dumbass with a hazard sign taped to his ass.

When Steve doesn’t take the warmth that’s offered to him, Billy steps close–

So close Steve gets wind of the ylang-ylang oil Max got him for Christmas

–and drapes the jacket over Steve’s shoulders.

It’s sweet.

It’s exactly the kind of thing Steve would’ve done for Nancy, back when he thought he knew what love was supposed to taste like. It chokes him up, gets those huge, impossible words lodged in the back of his throat so when Billy lights a cigarette and hands it over, Steve nearly chokes to death.

He lives.

Billy sits on the hood of the Beemer. “What are you gonna do now?” He asks.

Steve puffs on the Marlboro, “Maybe I’ll work at my dad’s office.”

“You’re not doing that, Steve.”

“Okay, then I’ll go missing,” He passes the cigarette back over, trying to brush Billy’s skin with his fingertips one last time, “Maybe I’ll die if I’m–”

“What happened to Marine Biology?” Billy shifts on the hood of the car so his knees press, sharp as knives, into Steve’s hip bone.

He looks so open. Earnest and dead-set on solving all of Steve’s problems for him, making a way, and forging a path in fire when the road won’t yield its secrets. It’s so Billy, so exactly the reason Steve loves him, that. He can’t hold onto it anymore.

“That was a lie,” Steve admits, “I don’t know shit about biology or the ocean beyond what I’ve seen on the History channel, I just. Wanted to be with you.”

The truth lands like cold water on Billy’s lap.

Steve flicks ash from the end of the last cigarette he’ll ever share with Billy, and. Thinks this is what love tastes like. Truth and smoke and clear, bright wintery air.

“My whole life, nothing and no one ever really made sense. For so long I was avoiding every turn that brought the future because I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like, but then–”

“But then?” Billy asks, so quiet Steve almost misses it.

He takes a deep breath. “I met you,” He admits.

And it feels good.

It’s almost as good as flying, so Steve takes a deep breath and says, “I met you and everything made sense. You talk about the ocean so much that I really did want to learn more. I thought, if he loves it then I could, too. Because I love him and I would do anything, be anyone, if it would make him smile. I wanted to study its ways and become fluent in its language so when you spoke, I could talk back. I wanted to be good enough to make you love me, good enough to take you away from here, But I’m not.”

Steve scrubs a hand across his face.

“You don’t need me to take you away from here, though. I think I always knew that. You’re strong enough to do that yourself. I’m sorry I’m not good enough, Bill.”

The sun disappears behind a bank of thick, gray clouds, and Steve imagines freezing solid.

It’s fitting. A neon sign that proves Steve was right.

Billy takes the cigarette when it’s offered to him. He doesn’t say anything for so long that Steve starts the grieving process, truly dawning a black veil for the death of what was and what never will be.

Steve slides off the hood of the car.

“Do you want to see the West with me?”

He looks over his shoulder. The wind kicks Billy’s curls into his face, hiding his eyes so he looks like a mysterious figure, an ancient God, offering the world on a silver tray.

“I,” Steve mutters, “I don’t understand–”

“You can’t stay here.”

Steve stands his ground. “I can. I have to.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Billy determines. Because he’s beautiful and stubborn and when the wind flows into the east, his eyes bore holes into the cosmos.

Billy slips off the hood of the Beemer, heels cracking so even though they’re standing on even ground all of a sudden, Steve imagines toppling through the crater left behind and voyaging to the center of the Earth.

Billy must pick up on Steve’s master plan.

He sets his jaw in a cut line that has always and will always mean business. “You can’t offer me the world and then take it away because you’re scared,” Billy tells him. He steps close, fingers toying with the hair at the base of Steve’s skull. “I want to get out of this fucking town, Harrington,”

“You should,” Steve blubbers. He’s crying, when did he start– “You should run away and never look back, you know?”

“I plan to,” Billy says bluntly, “And you’re coming with me.”

“Billy–”

“Here’s the plan,” Billy wipes at Steve’s tears, his own eyes dry and resolute. “Over spring break, we’ll take that trip to California just like we said we would. We’ll smoke a lot of dope and I’ll teach you to surf and Robin and I will look around campus–”

“--That sounds great-–”

“--And we’ll find an apartment,” Billy insists, somehow eclipsing the sun and the entire vast, endless spread of the Earth behind him. “We’ll find an apartment, and you’ll go to community college and even if you decide to write terrible poetry and do nothing else for the rest of your fucking life, it won’t matter. Because we’re gonna grow old together, okay?”

He grips the ends of Steve’s hair and tugs, yanking until Steve finally cracks a smile.

“Okay,” Steve says.

When Billy kisses him, it’s like falling apart and fusing together, over and over again until Steve is made new.

Somewhere between the past and the future, the sun escapes the bank of clouds

They hardly notice.

#harringrove #gift fic #angst and humor #fluff #angst with a happy ending

[cochineal-leviat]

"Taranza blossoms into his role as one of the castle gardeners. But, he is still uneasy around Kirby and the rest of King Dedede's family - preferring to stay away from the persistent goddess killer. Unfortunately for him, his employer has an ace up his fluffy sleeve."

Heyo! Sorry, it took so long for this chapter to come out. It got so long, and when I finally finished the draft, I got to 14k, which is a lot to edit through. (and well, life getting in the way, you know, the usual) This chapter kicked my ass, and for it have this doodle I made. Please enjoy, cuz I'm going to bed. Have some sad man spider.

#kirby #kirby series #kirby gijinka #my writing #taranza #kirby taranza #king dedede #my art #kirby fanfiction #kirby fanfic #Taranza has a bad time #Taranza's very long road to recovery #post Triple Deluxe #before Planet Robobot #King Dedede can be sneaky #on a good day #angst and humor #dealing with grief #rough doodle #culture shock

[helpmeimblorboing]

Finally posted the first chapter of my reimagining of the Iliad on AO3 and other sites, including Wattpad. Check it out !! You won't regret it, I promise

The whole story is written, and it uploads weekly after editing

Title : Silvertongue

Summary :

The tale of Odysseus is one that has been retold over countless millennia, from the mouths of poets, of authors, and historians and storytellers. But has it ever been told from the mouth of the man himself ?

This is a familiar tale, and a familiar story - the Iliad, entombed in history as ancient as the land of Greece. This is the story of the Iliad as told from the mouth of the man who made it all happen - from the mouth of the Silver-tongued prince of Ithaca. From the mouth of Odysseus

Watch as he navigates the cruelty of the war, as lovers are ripped from each other, daughters die, heroes fall, and he survives it all - armed with a quick mind and a sharp tongue.

This is not a story of heroes and gods and myth This is a story of love, of loss and war and death This is the story of the most human of the Grecian heroes

Genre : Tragedy, Romance, War, Historical Fiction

Link :

AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/51546121

Wattpad : https://wattpad.com/story/356062564-silvertongue

RoyalRoad : Pending

#lgbt #gay #angst #lgbtq #odysseus #diomedes #homers iliad #the iliad #reimagined #achilles #patroclus #patrochilles #angst and hurt/comfort #angst and humor #odydio #odypen #penelope

[nuatthebeach]

prompt: "i have a special bond with you"

AO3 link above from my au in-every-universe fic "come walk for miles"

At the heart-jittering sound of her iron catching on the infamous (eye-roll) Spider-Man suit, Ginny yanks the cloth away from the board and breathes a sigh of relief when nothing comes up too damaged. "Fuck," she mutters under her breath. Leave it to her to almost fail at the one job she was assigned.

Though she finds it hard to believe that the masked man himself would be concerned about an iron burn when he's out bloodying up the place. The image of Dr. Curt Connors pausing in his terrorization to lecture Spider-Man about safe wrinkle removal triggers a snort from Ginny, and she almost burns the damn thing again.

Two light footsteps whisper against her porch floor, almost inscrutable. It's a good thing Ginny knows them by heart now.

"Do you have it?"

Ginny rolls her eyes, not bothering to turn around. "Morning to you too."

She hears a rustle from behind her and imagines he's shrugging. "Are your parents home?"

"Why? Are you worried that I finally decided to blow your cover?" Her brows furrow in concentration. If she can just get this sleeve to be stable, for once, maybe she can properly attach the tube–

"That would imply you knew it to begin with," he points out.

click here to keep reading.

#hinny au #hinny cross-over but not really #still obsessed with spiderman okay #the parallels that one can draw btwn harry and peter is insane #angst and humor #come let's walk for miles

[takeyourcyanide]

Too Much

(Soul Eater Fanfiction)

My Ao3: takeyourdailydoseofcyanide

Summary: Spirit and Marie pester Stein into going to a party. Stein gets drunk, and shenanigans ensue.

Word count: 4 009

Note: Only parts of this have been proofread. I really need to start switching my shit up. It seems one note. I’ve some other ideas for them, I suppose.

……

“Stein? Stein!”

Lithe and petite fingers snapped loudly in front of Stein’s distracted face. His memory of whatever conversation had taken place at the round cafeteria table was nothing but a blur, as he had seemingly dissociated for its entire duration.

“Huh?” He hummed in acknowledgment, whipping his head around in order to face the snapper in question; Marie.

“You should really come to the party with us,” the blonde suggested with a bright smile. Stein wondered silently to himself what she was so happy about.

“Yeah, I think it would be good for you. You don’t really get out much,” Spirit chimed in, despite his opinion on Stein’s social life being entirely unwanted. “You’re always alone. Doesn’t it get lonely?”

“No, not really,” he responded with an unchanging expression, wishing to God that people would stop commenting about him being supposedly “withdrawn.” It wasn’t unusual to him. That’s simply how things always were. That’s how he preferred it.

“Not really? Then it does sometimes?” The redhead continued to pester his meister. He was starting to sound like every single psychologist, or Doctor Status Quo, on the planet.

Stein shrugged his slumped shoulders, yawning, “I don’t think so.”

“Still… Have you ever been to a party?” Marie asked with a glint of curiosity shining in her eyes, staring intently at the male before her.

“No.”

Marie, always the expressive type, gasped. “You should totally go, then!”

“Wait a second… What party are you even taking about?” Stein finally questioned, completely and utterly lost.

“Oh.. There’s this party being thrown by some of the seniors here. It’s, like, some sort of graduation party, I think” she explained.

“Is it going to be loud?” His exhausted eyes narrowed at such a prospect.

“Well, it’s a party, so yeah, probably,” Spirit crossed his arms, snickering.

“Then I don’t want to go,” he declared, slinking lazily further down in his chair. “You’ll have to drag me there kicking and screaming.”

“Oh, come on, Stein,” Marie whined in complaint, her former grin morphing quickly into a childish pout.

“I’m with them, but only because I really want to see how this goes,” Sid chuckled with mirth, smirking teasingly at him.

Stein gave the meister a side-eye, shoving his hands inside of his pockets and fiddling with their inseams.

“Can’t you think of it like an opportunity to observe human behavior or some shit? You know we’re gonna bug you about this until you do it,” Spirit tucked his crimson hair behind his right ear. It appeared to be rather soft and silky, which did not surprise Stein in the slightest, given the weapon’s extensive self-care routines.

“You only want me to go because you think it’d be funny.”

“Well, come on, Stein, you have to admit that it would be rather amusing seeing you at such an event,” Azusa said, adjusting the position of her glasses on the bridge of her nose with her pointer finger.

“Well, yeah, but still,” Stein chuckled, removing his hands from his pockets, crossing them over his chest.

A deep sigh dripping with dread racked Stein’s frame, as he moved to sit more properly upright.

“Fine. I’ll go. Now leave me the hell alone already,” he ordered exasperatedly, his monotone voice possessing a hint of playfulness.

“Fine, fine,” Spirit flew his hands up as a makeshift white flag of sorts - a symbol, a gesture of peace.

……

Stein wished he had some noise-cancelling headphones on his person as he felt the blaring music reverberate through the floorboards, crawling upwards through his feet. He was standing in some dingy corner, holding onto a flimsy, red solo cup filled with vodka for Marie, of whom was taking her dear sweet time in the bathroom.

“You here all alone?” A girl Stein had never once laid eyes on approached him. She looked to be a little older than he was, a smirk filled with flirtatious intentions present on her rosy visage. She happened to have relatively long, light brown hair, her eyes of a similar color. Her tan hand was placed on her hips as she leaned closer towards the internally grimacing Stein.

“No, I’m with a few of my friends,” he replied, having to raise his voice simply to be heard over the music.

The girl nodded her head, scanning the room. “That yours?” She asked, pointing at the cup in his hand.

“No, my friend’s in the bathroom, so I’m just holding onto it,” Stein lifted his hand, bringing it back down again.

“How about I get you a drink?” Her smirk grew even larger. She looked him up and down with a sparkle in her eyes that made Stein simultaneously uncomfortable and a little bit intrigued. How far would this girl, of whom he didn’t even know the name of, attempt to take this?

“What are you going to do, drug me?” Stein asked with a lighthearted chuckle. He knew if he grinned a little, then she’d take it as a joke and not immediately view him as being supposedly paranoid.

“Of course not, silly,” she laughed heartily. “Don’t you want to have a little fun?”

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘fun’?” Stein furrowed his eyebrows in response, a questioning look on his face. She began giggling rather playfully. It repulsed Stein for some unknown reason, forcing him to dig his nails into the palm of his empty hand in an effort to deter himself from ripping her lustful face off. If he was allowed to be viewed as a sack of meat to everyone else, then he should surely be allowed to view everyone as a test subject.

“Thank you, Stein!” Perfect timing. Marie trotted joyfully over, fetching her drink from out of his hand. “Sorry I took so long.”

“Where were you anyway? I thought you were just going to the bathroom?” The brunette beside him pouted, her previously flirty face contorting into one of annoyance and envy.

“There was a long line. Some two idiots were fucking in there and wouldn’t get out,” she huffed, shaking her head as she elaborated.

“So, what, then, is this your girlfriend or something?” The giggling nuisance prodded, huffing and puffing like a bratty toddler.

“No?” Stein confusedly answered, looking back and forth between the two.

“Oh, yeah, who is this?” Marie gestured towards the girl.

“I honestly have no fucking clue.”

“Whatever,” she shook her head repeatedly, stomping away from Stein and Marie.

“What’s her problem?” Marie wondered after she had exited the room.

“I think she was jealous of you,” he replied.

Marie turned her head to properly face Stein, an eyebrow raised, as her body shook with amusement. “You can’t be fucking serious.”

“Well, I am. She was definitely trying to fuck me, and then you ruined it, thank god,” Stein snickered.

“Oh, but she was clearly such a catch. What’s wrong with you?” The weapon sarcastically mocked the girl, slapping her knees, as well as Stein’s shoulder.

“You better be enjoying yourself now,” Marie stuck her finger in front of his face, jokingly threatening.

“Well, not particularly. But that was kind of funny, I’ll have to admit,” he began. “I’m gonna have to tell Spirit about that.”

“Yeah, after he’s done romancing that girl over there,” she stuck her head out, along with Stein, observing Spirit’s cringeworthy behavior. He had the mystery individual pinned against one of the house’s walls, evidently whispering sweet-nothings into her ears as she blushed.

“How do those girls fall for his bullshit?” Stein chuckled in disbelief.

“God, if I know. He must pick some easy targets.”

“I think I’m gonna get some vodka of my own. That’s the only way I’m going to get through this godforsaken brothel of a party,” Marie elbowed his arm, earning a halfhearted glare in response.

“This is what most parties are like, Stein.”

“Then why do people even attend them?” She flashed him a “are you joking” look, a hand coming to meet her hip. “Yeah, that was a stupid question.”

He grabbed one of the many cheap cups available at everyone’s disposal, filling it with what was hopefully going to act as his “miracle juice.”

……

“Wha..happened t’your girl?” Stein slurred, giggling as Spirit approached him.

“Her boyfriend almost fucking killed me is what happened,” he pointed towards his bruising eye and busted lower lip. Even as fuzzy as his head felt, Stein took pleasure in Spirit’s current appearance.

“Are you drunk?” Spirit asked, rather shocked as he gave Stein a once over. His typically colorless face was flushed with a dusty pink. He was stumbling over his own feet just standing, and his speech had clearly taken a hit. The random giggling was pretty normal behavior, though, coming from Stein. And to be fair, he seemed to always have the motor skills of a fawn, being unable to walk in a straight line sober. “You reek of alcohol.”

“Yeah, ‘m drunk. Didn’ like this place, so I drank,” he smiled, latching his hands onto Spirit’s shoulders, shoving his head down into the crook of his neck. “‘M dizzy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are. How much did you drink?” He wrapped his arms around his abdomen, effectively keeping him from causing the both of them to topple over.

“Don’t know. A lot,” he mumbled into his shoulder.

“Oh, he drank more than a lot,” Marie walked up to the pair, finding humor in Stein’s little predicament. “He refilled that cup, like, a thousand times, man. I was with him. He would not stop drinking. He’s a better alcoholic than you, Spirit.”

Her latter comment earned a pout from Spirit, as Marie laughed at his glare.

“I’m just a stupid teenager, Marie. Drinking is normal at this age,” he grasped at straws for some sort of excuse.

“Not the way you do it, Spirit,” she teased.

“Hey, I only had one or two cups of that shit tonight,” he groaned.

“Wow, that’s crazy, congratulations!” She feigned a gasp.

“Fuck you,” Spirit laughed, shuffling Stein over just a smidge.

“I only had one myself,” Marie moved closer to the two of them, lifting Stein off of Spirit. “But you most definitely did not, so, why don’t we get you home?”

“Thank fucking God, no more torture,” Stein looked elatedly up at the ceiling, his arm flailing upward, and his pointer finger pointing in the same direction.

“He can lean against me if you want, he doesn’t weigh a whole lot,” Spirit gestured towards the limp male tilted against Marie’s side.

“You and I both know I’m physically stronger than you,” she smirked victoriously, a sense of pride evident on her face.

Spirit childishly stuck his tongue out at her, marching over to where the babbling and dazed Stein happened to be, walking right next to him as the three of them trudged out of the house.

“Where’s Sid and Joe? I thought they were coming,” Spirit curiously asked.

“Oh, they left a long time ago,” Marie responded, glancing at her small phone.

“What time is it? How long were we even there?” He crooned his head over Stein, attempting to get a good look at the time shining on the mobile screen.

“It’s 2:31, and it’s Saturday now.”

“Damn.”

“Only good thing ‘bout tha’ party was the vodka,” Stein continued to giggle, throwing his head in various different directions, as he tripped over the air.

“Be careful, Stein!” Marie exclaimed, gentle, yet stern, holding onto him tighter.

“When has he ever been careful?” Spirit snickered as he watched Stein recuperate from what was almost a fall.

“Obviously never,” she chuckled.

……

“Do you want me to stay? I can help, if you’d like,” Marie offered as they laid Stein down onto his bed, slinking him down under the covers.

“Nah, it’s late, you should go home and get some sleep, I’ve got this covered,” Spirit gave her a polite smile, further tucking the meister in as he stared up at them, giggling once again.

“You sure?” She asked, taking steps towards the front door, Spirit following behind her.

“It’s sweet of you to offer, but seriously, we’ll be fine,” he clarified, opening the door for Marie.

“Okay, then. Goodnight, Spirit,” she gave him the same polite smile in return. “Goodnight, Stein,” she said much more loudly than before, ensuring that Stein could hear her.

“Goodnight,” he nodded, waving her off.

“‘Pirit!” Stein yelled from his dimly lit room.

“Yes, Stein?” He shouted out, reentering the bedroom.

“Pirate,” he laughed, appearing as though he had a hanger in his mouth. Surely his cheeks hurt by now.

“Pirate, huh?“ He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so much,” Spirit pointed out, plopping down beside Stein on the edge of his bed.

“Y’know, I thought you put cameras or listening devices around the apartment, but now I realize it might’ve been the man,” Stein admitted, much to the confusion of Spirit. He acted relatively normal around him, as though he wasn’t overly paranoid. Well, disregarding some of his questioning and staring, but he figured he was just kidding. Or bored.

“You thought I put cameras around this place? Why? And who’s ’the man’?” He squinted his eyes, placing one of his hands on top of the grey comforter, of which was, of course, embroidered with a stitch pattern.

“Spirit,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t ask questions you know I won’t answer. I’ve already said too much.”

“Said too much?” The weapon thought aloud.

Stein’s smile disappeared, as he inched farther away from Spirit. A familiar feeling stirred within him, one of which caused his eyes to flicker about, scanning the room suspiciously. His facial expression altered between being blank and hollow, devoid of any discernible emotion, to one of almost childlike apprehension, and something akin to a childlike fear. He’d pout a little, quickly bringing his lips back to where they were supposed to be. His eyes were enlarged, his pupils growing to almost cover his irises. He threw himself upwards, sitting up and backing into the corner.

“I’ve said too much,” he huffed out in a hushed tone. “Oh, no, no, no, no.” He did not move, only gazing fervently at Spirit.

The shadows surrounding them seemed to dance and curve around him, engulfing him in their darkness. He could feel the presence of people all around him, they would never leave him be. Every noise, every feeling, everything was simply too much. He was at his brain’s mercy. Or was he simply at their mercy?

“I shouldn’t’ve said that.. I’m never getting drunk again. I knew I shouldn’t have. I always did. Not in the presence of others,” he rambled on. Spirit could practically see the little hamster wheel spinning endlessly inside of his cluttered head. Still, he was not expressing a thing Spirit could discern properly, his eyes being the only things to give away how cornered he felt.

“No, it’s fine, you didn’t say too much, I swear,” Spirit rushed out, a little panicked at how fast Stein’s mood did a full 180.

“Yes, I did! And you’re gonna tell Lord Death! You have to tell him everything! You’ll tell everyone else! And then they’ll know… Of course, they still don’t know the extent to which it goes, but.. it’s too much,” he brought his knees to his chest and his fingers to his lips, only to yank said fingers back down, seemingly at a loss for what to do.

“I’m not gonna tell anyone, I promise!” Spirit exclaimed, moving his hand outwards as some sort of peace-offering, placing it upon the boy’s knee. Stein slapped his hand from off of him, wrapping his arms around them, as though he was guarding them. Or truly, as though he was guarding himself.

He had never once seen Stein so… paranoid before. He always behaved rather confidently, and unbothered. Then again, it is certainly possible be both simultaneously.

That didn’t make it any less shocking.

“I can still fix it, probably, so it’s fine. But it won’t go away, even despite that. I can always fix it. It’s always in my favor, right? But what if that’s not true? They’re waiting, aren’t they? I’m not who I think I am, less integral,” Spirit truly had no idea what in God’s name Stein was even talking about anymore, but it was clear that Stein did, and it was clear that it was important to Stein, so he listened.

“What’s not going away?” Spirit asked, his head tilting to the side.

“Am I even making sense?” Stein chewed on the plush skin of his lips, once again bring his fingers to his lip, opting to bite on them instead.

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Spirit offered his partner a white lie, figuring the truth would only cause Stein to become even more distraught than he already was.

“No, you don’t, just look at you and your face, you’re lying,” Stein pouted, rocking himself only a little bit. “What if everyone is lying? I think they are. I’m never understood, am I? Maybe I am sometimes, but when I’m not going off of my data, my script, I mess up, and I can’t explain as well…”

Stein appeared almost sad as he spoke his latter statement into existence, his eyebrows furrowing and pushing downwards on his eyes. He looked utterly miserable, and more confused than Spirit had even thought of being throughout their whole conversation.

“I said too much again.. ‘n I can never know, can I? Why ‘m I saying too much? I need to stick to nicotine.. No more cheating on it,” he allowed his head to fall against the wall behind him, his eyes filled with nothing but helplessness and longing, a glint that conveyed the fact that he couldn’t seem to accept the fact that he’d never escape the utter hell he was born into, one that revealed to Spirit how little he really knew about his meister.

“Don’t tell anyone, please,” he turned his head to face Spirit, almost begging.

“I promise I won’t,” Spirit wanted to reach out and comfort the male, but it seemed to cause such discomfort for Stein the last time he tried, leaving him to repress the urge.

“I can’t trust you,” Spirit had never seen anyone look so utterly exhausted before. He looked as thought he had just come back from a brutal war.

“That’s okay,” he smiled kindly at Stein, unsure of what else he could do.

“No, it’s not. I can’t live like the rest of you do,” he said morosely, somberly, as though it were some sort of confession. “It’ll never go away. He’ll never go away. She’ll never go away. Stupid cats won’t either.”

“What are you talking about?” Spirit questioned once more.

“It’s nothin’,” he replied plainly, cryptically.

“Do you want a glass of water or something, to, you know, offset all that alcohol?” Spirit gently offered, standing up.

“I don’t want you to leave, but I want you to leave, but I’m never alone anyway, but I can’t trust you, but it’s a distraction, but- goddamn it,” he shoved his head in his knees momentarily. “You won’t take it seriously, ‘cause you think it’s funny.”

Spirit stood still in his position, not certain of what to say or how to help him.

“Jus’ go get the water, i’s fine,” Stein said, his voice shaking slightly, almost unnoticeably.

“Are you sure? I swear it’ll be quick,” he asked for the sake of clarification. It didn’t seem like a very good idea to leave him alone for even a single second.

“Mhm,” he hummed in agreement, nodded his head against his pants.

Oh, of course, his pants! He still needed to put on sleepwear.

“Oh, and do you think you’re good to change on your own while I get that glass?” Spirit flashed him a thumbs up from the doorframe.

“Sure,” he mumbled.

……

Upon his return to Stein’s bedroom, he ran to put the water down onto the nightstand, and assist Stein with effectively getting his limbs into his comfortable clothing.

He had found him with his head going into his left sleeve, though his pants were on as they were meant to be.

Spirit approached him, laughing, helping him to shove his skull through the intended hole. Stein, however, maintained his usual unexpressive face.

“You should get back into bed and rest, and take a sip of your water, of course,” Spirit pointed towards both the bed and the glass, of which stared menacingly at Stein.

Stein peered down at the floor, observing how it waved about, moving up and down slightly as though it were breathing. Was it alive? No, it couldn’t be. That would be stupid to even suggest. But it sure felt alive… As did that conspicuously threatening glass of water.

“You good?” Spirit asked with a hint of concern, leaning the boy back to his bed.

Stein distractedly nodded his head, allowing himself to be gently lead.

Spirit pulled the blankets over the meister’s cold, shivering body. He graciously accepted the warmth.

“Are you nauseous or anything?” The ginger asked, ready to bolt off and grab some sort of bucket to place by his bed.

“Don’t even know anymore,” he responded, burning holes into his ceiling with his stare.

“I’ll go get something for you just in case.”

Stein wondered to himself why Spirit was putting up such a fuss about him. Perhaps he was attempting to earn Stein’s trust, make him believe that he cared even a little about him, only to report back every breath he took back to his savior. He’d betray him, surely. But he was always multiple steps ahead.

At he listened to the weapon rustle around in the kitchen for some sort of something, he questioned what it was like for the others he knew, what it was like to trust so easily. Or were they only faking it to lure everyone else, including Stein, into trusting them?

“Here you go,” Spirit sung as he placed the blue bucket down beside his bed. “And make sure you lay on your side,” he placed his hands onto Stein, positioning him horizontally.

Spirit let out a sympathetic sigh, lamenting the fact that he had no idea how he could really help his partner. “I’m sorry, Stein.”

“Why?”

“I can’t do anything. Can’t even comfort you,” he looked shamefully and disappointedly at his feet.

“It’s not your fault. There isn’t a thing in existence that could make me feel any better, in the end,” Stein admitted, not even sparing so much as a glance at the scythe. “It’ll never go away, will it?”

Something about that sorely depressed Spirit. Everything that was coming out of his mouth was just so hopeless.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, opening and closing his mouth, searching for the perfect words to say. But there were none.

“Well, then I’m sorry that ‘it’s won’t go away. It doesn’t sound very nice,” Spirit shrugged his sorrowful shoulders, moving stray hairs from out of his eyes.

“Me too.”

There was a smidgen of unintelligible screaming to his dead tone, to his dead eyes, and dead expression. He was dead, and yet a living jumble of chaos. It was complete agony, that much was obvious to anyone. Though, what was not obvious was what was the catalyst behind it all. And what it was truly capable of.

Spirit gave Stein a pat on the head, ruffling his silver hair in between his fingers.

He whispered a “good night” to him as he exited the room, forcing Stein to promise that if he needed anything at all, he’d wake Spirit up.

But he and Spirit both knew that he wouldn’t bother, much to Spirit’s displeasure. He’d, instead, suffer alone, away from the scrutinizing world around him. Though, in a way, he almost took more comfort in the vileness he sought to escape from than the vileness he could never escape from that was his very own mind.

#soul eater #franken stein #stein soul eater #stein #dr stein #marie mjolnir #dwma #spirit soul eater #spirit albarn #alcohol #alcoholism #mental illness #mental health #possible psychosis #sid barett #sid soul eater #yumi azusa #azusa soul eater #hurt/no comfort #hurt/comfort #fluff and angst #angst and humor #fluff and humor

[grosslyoversimplifiedpolitics]

[ID: Angst and Humor, but not in that order more like humour then angst then humour again eventually]

#ao3 #ao3 tags #Angst and Humor #but not in that order more like humour then angst then humour again eventually

[darthpastry]

Since angst fic is currently tied for first in the poll, have this little canon compliant fic that contains both Michael getting scooped and also showcases Elizabeth's death. All from Mike POV. I mean, I guess part of it could be considered Circus Baby POV if you squint? It's complicated. Just have the summary and link.

"You are in the Scooping Room now," Baby's voice informed him.

"Uh-huh. No kidding," Michael said distantly. Something wasn't right.

or,

Canon-compliant SL except Michael talks and is sarcastic and hates life.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sister location #sister location #fnaf sl #funtime foxy #funtime freddy #ballora #circus baby #ennard #michael afton #elizabeth afton #eggs benedict #scooped michael #but mainly unscooped michael #fnaf handunit #angst and humor #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #archive of our own #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic writing #fic writing #exotic butters

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Frozen in Time

Fandom: DC Comics, JLI, GL Corps

Summary: Daddy-daughter weekend does not go as planned.

Chapters: 1/?

Characters: Michael Jon Carter (DCU), Rani Carter (DCU), Michelle Carter (DCU), Hal Jordan, Helen Jordan

Additional Tags: Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Road Trip, Angst and Humor

Chapter One: Unicorns

"I'm a great dad," I defended myself. Michelle bounced her head from one side to the other sarcastically. "I am!"

"Okay... Try not to cause a world-ending crisis at the tea party," Michelle replied on her way out the door. I glanced over the checklist Skeets printed out and packed Rani's bag. He even color-coded it to show me what order to pack things in. I'd planned this weekend for months, hoping I'd finally get Rani to call me dad or some variation of the word. It was my chance to get Rani to see me as a real, genuine father figure.

I packed her bag, and then I packed lunch for our special picnic. I must've watched thousands of videos trying to figure out how to make unicorn grilled cheese sandwiches. I made every cool and trendy snack I could think of to impress her. It was a rare four-day weekend, and I planned on making it the best four days of Rani's little life. The plan was to be impressive and fatherly and show her I was all in on the fatherhood thing.

I understand people would say I'm not the most responsible, reliable, or predictable guy they know, but I had a chance to be something different with her. I figured I'd take her on a nice trip and follow it up with a tea party. My plan was foolproof. I finished packing and prepping with a few minutes to spare. I had enough time to walk to Rani's school and wait at the gate.

I put on my shoes and grabbed a snack, Rani's favorite toy, and her visor. I was so excited to see her that I took the hopscotch path. There was no rush to get home to dinner or a meeting. We had time.

I stood at the gate with the other parents. While I waited, a single mom struck up a conversation with me. "I didn't know your ears were pierced," she smiled.

I touched my ears and remembered I was wearing flower earrings. "Oh, yeah. I took Rani to get her ears pierced a few weeks ago, and I didn't want to make her do something I was too scared to do... So, I got mine done first," I replied, "That doesn't explain the earrings, though... Does it?"

"It doesn't have to," she laughed, "Were you scared?"

"Terrified," I chuckled, "I had to close my eyes and suck it up. But Rani was a champ."

The bell rang, and she waved goodbye. I power walked to Rani's class excitedly and scooped her up as soon as she came outside. "Hi, Mikey!" Rani laughed. I set her down and took her backpack.

"Here, I'll trade ya," I smiled as I handed her toy to her. I put the visor on her head and offered her a snack. Rani smiled and grabbed my hand. "Rani, I need your help with some stuff this weekend."

Rani pouted. "Is it a lot of work?" Rani questioned.

I nodded solemnly. I finally figured out how to get maximum excitement from kids. The trick is to seem as disappointing as possible so that reality would seem fantastic in comparison. She was so disappointed she couldn't muster the energy to swing my hand. It took everything in my power to keep from laughing.

When we got home, she helped me put all the bags in the car, and then it clicked. "Hey! Why are we putting suitcases in the car?" Rani questioned.

"You've got me! Okay, I wanted to take you on a trip this weekend... Just you and me," I replied. Rani jumped into my arms.

"Wow! Where are we going?" Rani asked. I shook my head and grinned.

"That would ruin the surprise," I replied, letting her back in the house. "I'll wait in the car."

Rani paused. "Is it a long drive?" Rani questioned. I nodded. "Then you should go to the bathroom before we leave."

I opened my mouth to speak, but I realized she was right. After we met at the car, Rani sat in the backseat and buckled her seatbelt. "Mikey, guess what?" Rani asked.

"I love a guess what," I replied.

"We saw a real firefighter today," Rani announced, "How come you don't have a big truck? All the helpers today had big trucks."

"That's a great question. You see, they're better drivers than I am. I could probably drive a big truck, but I think it'd be responsible driving a car I'm comfortable with," I answered. Minus ten cool points for the minivan dad.

"Everyone has different abilities. Not everybody can do your job," Rani reassured me.

"Thanks, Rani," I replied.

She fell asleep immediately after that, and I turned the radio on low. I got on the freeway and drove for almost an hour before Rani woke up to tell me about her dream. "You were there! And you had a sword," Rani replied, "You looked so cool."

Thank you to Rani's subconscious! "I could definitely get a sword... I could be a sword guy," I replied, "Do you think I should get a sword in real life?"

"Yeah!" Rani replied.

"Cool! I'll probably have to take sword fighting lessons and learn proper sword safety because safety is important—."

"You still get your toast out of the toaster with a fork," Rani interrupted.

"Okay, but—. Is that actually—? Do you wanna pull over and have a surprise snack?" I asked.

"Yes, please!" Rani shouted. I grinned and pulled to the side of the road near an orchard. I climbed into the backseat. "What's in there?"

"A surprise. I made these," I replied. I pulled out two neatly-wrapped unicorn-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches. Rani unwrapped hers and gasped.

"They're so pretty! How did you make rainbow colors inside the sandwich? Is it like marshmallows?" Rani questioned. I took a bite and shook my head.

"Take a bite," I replied. Rani took a bite and smiled.

"It's cheese!" Rani exclaimed. She took another bite, and I took a moment to soak in my victory. The grilled cheese was a hit! I finally managed to make something for her that we both liked.

#fic #frozen in time fic #jli #gl corps #Michael Jon Carter (DCU) #Rani Carter (DCU) #Michelle Carter (DCU) #Hal Jordan #Helen Jordan #Fluff #Father-Daughter Relationship #Road Trip #Angst and Humor

[adelaide-b]

After watching The Untamed, I couldn't help but think of the hilarious situations that must have arisen when these four had to work together to repair the Tiger Seal. There were absolutely countless humorous situations, jokes and absurd twists. What was my disappointment when, even after a detailed search, I could find no such story anywhere. So I decided to write it myself.

Manuscripts - https://archiveofourown.org/works/49745341

#the untamed #jin guangyao #xue yang #su she #mo xuanyu #humor #angst and humor #four disasters #deciphering wei wuxian's notes

[gracefulsouffle]

After two months I'm back babyyyy.

New Chapter Excerpt below the cut.

Excerpt:

“You know, it’s okay to let go now,” Gus tries again, but just receives another one of Hunter’s glares and a little huff as they continue to trudge through the forest. Well, Gus trudges, arm locked firmly in Hunter’s grasp as the teen tracks. As if Gus is the one that has to be stopped from doing something reckless…

White hot light.

Burning. A slight pain in his chest.

The certainty of death-

He suppresses another shiver at the thought. Admittedly what he did was reckless, hence why Hunter hasn't let go of him since. Yet Gus reserves the right to hold on to some irritation with his friend due to the fact that if he hadn't pushed Hunter out of the way, Hunter would be… would be dead.

Dead because Gus hadn’t stayed behind to reassure his friend that everything would be okay. Dead because he couldn’t catch up with Willow and bring her back right away.

This is all his fault.

After the two friends had finished yelling at each other, Gus had to explain that just because Willow was shocked and angry, it didn’t mean that she had come to hate Hunter forever and that sometimes it was okay for friends to get angry at each other or need some time apart to calm down. A fact which he expected at least one of the spectators watching to know and try to explain to Hunter before he asked the Bat Queen to send him back in time. Evidently Belos’s Experiments seemed just as perplexed and in awe of this lesson as Hunter… Because of course they would be, having barely experienced life outside captivity yet. All of the castle’s previous residents had, like Hunter, simply accepted that Willow would deal the finishing blow (Gus then made a mental note to give everyone lessons on how to interact in the outside world, with the first needing to be ‘Friends Don’t Kill Each Other 101”).

Taking this lesson to heart, Hunter had promptly declared that he was mad at Gus for throwing himself in the way of danger, before setting out to search for Willow. Except despite the declaration, the teen still refuses to let go.

Gus crouches when Hunter kneels down to inspect a broken off twig on the forest floor and straightens up a second later when his friend peers above them into the canopy, deep in thought. So deep, in fact, that Hunter’s grip loosens for a moment and Gus considers tugging his hand away. He doesn’t though, in case the two of them get into another ‘argument’.

“You didn’t promise me that you wouldn’t do anything reckless like that again!” Hunter had stated with a scowl.

“Not until you promise that you won’t do anything reckless like time traveling again!” Gus shot back haughtily.

Hunter hesitated before shaking his head, “I- No. I’m different Gus. I won’t make a promise that I can’t keep.” A wry chuckle, "For the most part, I'm not exactly the one in control anyways. Typically I don't actually get to choose if I d- time travel."

Feeling his stomach sink at Hunter’s response, Gus had the choice of embracing either his growing despair or the hot flash of irritation he felt. Choosing the latter, Gus opened his mouth and started their fight.

“Fine! Then as your friend, I’m angry at you for- for being dumb!”

Hunter had sputtered and floundered for a few moments at that before he too narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, “Well- well fine then! As your friend, I’m angry at you for needlessly throwing yourself into danger.”

A dramatic gasp from Gus.

An angry huff from Hunter.

A short pause.

“So just to be sure- we’re both angry at each other, but we’re still friends right?” Hunter then tentatively asked.

“Yup, pretty much,” Gus confirmed.

“Okay,” Hunter nodded.

“Okay,” Gus replied with a little more force.

“Fine!” Hunter said with a growing scowl.

“Fine!” Gus shouted back, throwing his hands in the air, arm still locked in Hunter’s grip.

“Gah! You’re so frustrating! Come on, we’ve gotta go find Willow,” growled Hunter before setting off into the forest tugging Gus closely behind him.

Having discarded the broken twig, Hunter seems to follow some invisible trail in the trees above as Gus picks his way through the undergrowth behind him. They continue like that for a while until Hunter reaches up and pulls down a branch to eye level in order to inspect it more closely. 

The grip on Gus’s arm tightens for a split second as Hunter’s eyes blow wide open and he inhales sharply. There’s a quiet curse.

“Blood. Come on Gus, we gotta hurry. Willow’s hurt.”

And before Gus can get a word in, the two of them are sprinting through the forest and crashing through the trees. Suddenly he’s grateful for the strong grip on his arm keeping him connected to his friend.

Hunter slows to a stop whipping his head around wildly as he searches for Willow and lets out a noise of frustration.

“I don’t get it! The trail ends here! She should be here!”

Gus, having keeled over to catch his breath finally pops his head up and lends his eyes to their cause. His illusionist’s eyes, trained to pick out the tiniest details, spots the ball of vines a ways away, out of place in the foliage.

With a sinking heart, he shushes Hunter and leads the way to its tough outside before carefully knocking to avoid the thorns.

A quiet sobbing emanates from the ball.

Gus tries again, knocking harder, “Willow? Are you in there?”

The sounds of crying stop, and Gus notices a second too late how a creeping vine wraps around his ankle.

“Go… Away!”

The vines spring to life, writhing wildly as Gus is pulled up and out of Hunter’s grip into the trees.

#the owl house #toh #hunter toh #toh hunter #hunter noceda #gus porter #hunter the golden guard #toh fanfic #hunter toh fanfic #toh fanfic rec #my art #angst and humour #angst and humor #toh fanfic recommendation #willow park #huntlow crumbs

[wangxianficrecs]

Proud Author of a New Work

~*~

hi it’s jinyin again! i just posted a new work called the good detective! the good detective is one of my favorite k-dramas and i decided to put a wangxian spin on it. despite the heaviness that’ll be in the story, there’s gonna be an incessant amount of flirting and team bonding moments—and maybe just a twist or two!

the good detective

by jinyinhua (mature, WIP, wangxian)

Summary: “Anyways, he’s Lieutenant Wei Wuxian and despite his, ah, at times unorthodox methods, his solve rate is truly remarkable.” Alright, Lan Wangji thinks, but what exactly does this ringing endorsement of Lieutenant Wei Wuxian have to do with him? “He’ll be your partner starting today.” Lan Wangji blinks. What? (or: detective lan wangji meets lieutenant wei wuxian, his new partner—things spiral from there.)

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Author boost #Proud Author of a New Work #New Work by a Proud Author #Wangxian Fic Recs #Wangxian #The Untamed #MDZS #I HAVEN'T READ THIS YET #modern setting #angst and humor #drama and romance #eventual romance #hurt/comfort #childhood trauma #the good detective #jinyinhua #Mature