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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years

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Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 19

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

While at first the days and nights that Mulder is away on a case feel lonely, she soon comes to appreciate the time to herself. She reads more, watches the rom-coms that he despises, has one-sided conversations with Priscilla, and gives her vibrator, long since relegated to the back of her bedside drawer, a second lease on life. When Mulder is home he’s more animated and energetic, their sex exciting and passionate. The things she loves best about him magnified, but also some of the worst. There have been a few nights he’s missed dinner without so much as a phone call, and her worry quickly gave way to irritation when he waltzed in the door raving about secret storage facilities hidden in mountains. They create new routines, new boundaries and expectations, and as time wears on, they adjust. He’ll call if he’s going to miss dinner, and she won’t guilt trip him when unexpected cases ruin their plans.

The day before Thanksgiving, he gets a tip from one of his sources about a UFO crash site in Utah and books himself and Monica tickets for that night. Scully questions whether he’s going to miss Thanksgiving dinner at her mother’s and he grimaces, saying he hopes to be back but as usual, can’t make any promises.

The last she hears from him is around 8:00 am on Thanksgiving day when he asks her to send his regrets to her mom. She tries to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she promises to pack up some leftovers for him to have when he gets home. When he hasn’t called by Friday afternoon, she’s a little bit worried. By Friday night, she’s panicking.

Not knowing what else to do, she goes to the Gunmen’s, using her own special knock that spells out “doc” in Morse code.

“Hey, Sis, are you okay?” Missy greets her with a worried frown, now an honorary fourth member of the trio.

“I haven’t heard from Mulder in over twenty four hours,” she answers, breezing past Missy and into the tech room. “I need you to find him for me.”

The Gunmen work their magic while Missy pours her drink after drink. They track his flight into Salt Lake City and then ping his cell phone just outside Provo around 8:00 pm Thursday night. After that, nothing.

“What do you know about the case he was investigating?” Byers asks, perched behind a computer with Missy’s arms draped over his shoulders, her chin resting on his head.

Scully rubs her hands over her face in frustration. “Nothing, other than an alleged UFO crash site. He didn’t give me any other information.”

“What about his partner, Agent Reyes?” Langly asks, “do you have any way to get ahold of her?”

“I’ve tried her cell a hundred times, it’s off,” Scully replies, feeling tears coming up again.

“Does she have a family, someone else you could contact to see if she’s been in touch?” Byers adds.

“She has a partner, Dahlia,” Scully explains, “but I don’t know her last name to look up her number. I’m sure it’s in Monica’s file as her emergency contact, but the whole Hoover Building is shut down for the holiday. I know that her first name is Dahlia, she works at a flower shop in Alexandria, and they live in Palisades. That’s it.”

“Well we can work with that, why don’t you go home and get some rest?” Frohike offers, resting his hand on her shoulder.

She shakes her head, quiet tears slipping down her cheeks. “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispers, her voice small and afraid.

“I’ll come with you, Sis,” Missy says, replacing Frohike behind Scully and wrapping her arms around her sister’s shoulders.

After Missy has gathered her things and kissed Byers goodbye, she drives Scully’s car back to her apartment and plies her with more alcohol. They hold hands as they sleep, Scully’s dreams plagued by visions of Mulder detained, hurt, or worst of all, dead. If she’d had any idea that having the X files reopened would put his life at risk, she never would have entertained the idea.

Please come home, she begs God, the universe, Mulder himself if he’s somewhere listening. Please be okay.

The phone shrieks and she sits up abruptly, her head spinning. Early dawn light is just beginning to seep into the room and she feels like she hasn’t slept at all.

“Mulder?!” she blurts out, a thousand prayers on the tip of her tongue.

“No, it’s Langly, sorry. We got a number for Agent Reyes’ partner.”

Missy is now awake, and scrambles to the hallway to get a pen and paper so Scully can write down Dahlia Vidales’ phone number.

“Thank you Langly, bye,” she says and hangs up without waiting for a response. She dials Dahlia’s number with shaky hands, repeating please please please in her head over and over.

“¿Hola?” says a creaky voice, and Scully glances at the clock to see that it’s only 6:00 am.

“Dahlia?” she asks desperately, her head feeling thick and muddy.

“¿Si, Quién es?”

“This is Dana Scully, have you heard from Monica recently?” Her throat feels thick and dry, her ears ringing in protest of what they might hear.

“Oh, Hi Dana. Yes, I spoke to her last night around ten pm.”

She lets out a shaky breath, feeling a wave of relief.

“Was Mulder with her?” she questions, her jaw quivering.

“Si, she said their cell phones were confiscated and they had stopped at a diner to get something to eat. She called me from a payphone. Is everything okay, Dana?”

She’s shaking, her body suddenly freezing even under her down comforter. The tension she’s been holding for the last two days erupts in a wave of tremors and she starts sobbing.

“Did she say when they’ll be home?” she forces out around her tears.

“They were hoping to get a flight this morning, so sometime today, should be.”

“Thank you, Dahlia. Sorry to wake you,” she says, and hangs up.

Missy holds her as she shakes uncontrollably, her head aching as her racking sobs jostle her dehydrated brain. Missy runs her a hot bath and after some ibuprofen, two big glasses of water, a set of warm clothes and a hot meal, she feels physically much better.

Mentally, she has shifted from worry, fear, and despair to white hot rage. When he walks in that door, she is going to kill him.

———

“Later, Reyes, sorry to hijack your Thanksgiving,” he says with a regretful smile as Monica slides into a cab. He grabs the next one, chucking his duffel bag into the trunk and slumping into the back seat with an exhausted sigh.

It’s been a long few days. They’d located the crash site and even got a little peek at it from behind a utility shed, but soon after they were loaded up in a paddy wagon and interrogated for six hours in a place that was definitely not a police station. When they were finally released, it was without their cell phones, though the suits were kind enough to let them keep their FBI badges.

He needs a shower and a shave, and a good night's sleep. He hopes Scully has gone grocery shopping, and if he's really lucky, there will still be Thanksgiving leftovers. He’d tried calling her from the terminal but she hadn’t answered. At least he has a full day off tomorrow before getting back to the daily grind on Monday.

The cab drops him off outside Scully’s apartment building and he tosses some money over the seat before retrieving his bag. Once inside, he’s fitting his key into the lock when the door swings open and he finds Melissa on the other side.

“Oh, hey Missy,” he says with a touch of surprise.

“I was just leaving,” she replies with an icy stare, and he wonders if something is up with her and Byers.

“Okay, see ya,” he says as she brushes past him and down the hall.

The apartment is dim, a fire crackling in the fireplace the only source of light.

“Scully?” he calls out as Priscilla trots up to him, rubbing her flank against his leg. He picks her up and scratches under her chin, letting her rub her cheek against his two-day stubble.

“I’m here,” Scully says flatly, and he realizes she’s lying on the couch.

He picks up his bag and walks it to the bedroom, dropping it on the floor and discarding his suit jacket on the bed. Returning to the living room, he leans down to kiss her on the cheek and then stands between the fire and the couch, facing her.

“Did you have plans for dinner?” he asks, “I’m starving.”

She scoffs, but he can’t make out her face in the dim light.

“Make your own fucking dinner,” she spits at him, and he physically recoils. Scully very rarely swears, so when she does, it means something.

“Whoa,” he says with a concerned tone, “What’s going on with you?”

“What’s going on with me?” she repeats, moving to sit up. “What’s going on with me? Hmm, let’s see,” she continues, her voice shifting to angry sarcasm. “Perhaps, Mulder, what’s going on with me is that my boyfriend skipped town just in time to miss Thanksgiving dinner with my family and I had to answer questions all night about where he was. Or maybe,” she says as she leans over and snaps on the lamp on the end table, illuminating her face. Her eyes are red and puffy, pronounced bags resting underneath them. “Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t heard from you in over fifty hours, not a single phone call, or email, nothing. Maybe what’s going on with me, Mulder, is that I have barely slept in two days.” She stands, moving towards him, her voice rising in volume and her bottom lip quivering. “Maybe what’s going on with me is that I thought you were fucking dead, and I had to track down Dahlia to learn that not only were you alive and well, but you were also perfectly capable of calling me, but simply chose not to. MAYBE that is what is going on with me, Mulder!”

He stands there shell-shocked as she pushes past him, slamming the bedroom door shut as wails of agony erupt from the other side. Priscilla jumps up on to the coffee table and quirks her head at him with a meow.

“I have no idea,” he says to the cat.

He cautiously opens the bedroom door and finds Scully sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, a wad of tissues in her hand and tears streaking her face. She looks up at him with a wounded expression that he’s never seen before, and would never like to again

“I’m sorry, Scully, I didn’t mean to make you worry,” he says softly, approaching her.

She gives him an incredulous look.

“How the hell would I not worry if I hear nothing from you for two days, Mulder? What was I supposed to think? And why didn’t you call me?”

“They took my phone, Scully,” he offers, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“What about the phone in your hotel room, Mulder? Or a pay phone, or a goddamn stranger’s phone. Your cell phone is not the only device available for you to contact me with.”

He’s starting to feel like he’s being lectured by his mother for staying out past curfew.

“Okay, Jesus, I get it. I’ll try to call next time,” he says with an irritated tone.

“You’ll try?” Scully asks him, the anger taking center stage again.

He shrugs. “Shit happens, Scully. You don’t know what it’s like out in the field. Sometimes you don’t have access to a phone, or you’re running down a lead and just can’t waste the time to make a call.”

The shift in her demeanor tells him that was the wrong thing to say.

“Waste the time?” she asks in a tight whisper. “Calling me so I know you’re okay is a waste of your time?”

“God, no, Scully, that’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words around. Look, I’m exhausted, I’ve barely gotten any sleep, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“YOU’VE barely gotten any sleep?!” she screams, then stands and walks towards him. Even with the ten inches he has on her, she looks larger than life, imposing, and scary. “I have been lying awake crying for two days worried about you!” she shouts up at him. “Get the fuck out of my apartment!”

He’s dumbstruck. He can’t remember the last time she referred to it as her apartment instead of theirs.

“Scully, you can’t be serious, all my stuff is he-”

“I said get OUT!” She cuts him off. She picks up his bag and walks it to the front door, tossing it into the hallway.

He walks slowly towards the door, waiting for her to say she doesn’t mean it, that they should get some sleep and talk about this in the morning. She stands beside the open door, her chest heaving and her jaw set, eyes focused on some far-away point but most certainly not on him. He steps into the hallway, opening his mouth to speak, and she slams the door in his face.

He hears the thunk of the deadbolt, and the sound strikes him as similar to the final nail in a coffin.

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files fanfic #alternate universe

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winryofresembool · 3 years

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Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 31

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation, pt 4/?

A/N: Soo sorry about the long wait! This was a very long and kind of tricky chapter to write so it took me longer than I would have wanted. But in a way this is (ironically) a good day to post this chapter as it's the Mother's day in many parts of the world today. (Happy Mother’s day Esperanza Valdez ;___;)

Before we head into this chapter, I want to give you guys a warning that it (specifically, the flashback in the beginning of the chapter) talks about what happened to Leo's mother, so in case you find that too hard to read, feel free to skip it. (If you have read HoO, I think you can somewhat guess what to expect)

Thanks for all the amazing support you guys have given me so far! ♥ It's what keeps me going! Now, enjoy, and remember that I'd really like to hear what you think because there's a lot going on in this chapter!

Words: 5550 (yeah, long one)

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: minor character death (talked about), be aware!

previous chapter / AO3

*flashback*

There was fire. So much fire.

Leo had been tinkering with his toy tools and drawing some simple blueprints in the living room when he had remembered that he had left his hammer into his room. He went to look for it and it took him a couple of minutes to locate it from under the unfinished toys and papers he had thrown around. Unfortunately, that couple of minutes had been enough for all hell to break loose in the living room.

He started smelling smoke and ran back downstairs to see where it came from. The wooden floor and several pieces of furniture in the living room were on fire, which seemed to have started from the papers he had left near the fireplace. Leo’s mind went completely blank like a machine that had just been shut down. The only thing that he was capable of thinking was: what do I do?

His mother had put a fire in the fireplace before she had left to run some errands because it had been a cold day. She had warned Leo several times to be careful with it, even putting a bucket of water and a smothering blanket nearby in case of emergency. But it was already too late to use them; the fire had already spread too far in the room. Because of his state of panic, it took Leo a while to manage to make decisions, but finally, his brain told him: get your phone so you can call mom, and run.

What his 8-year-old brain didn’t understand: he should have just left the building right then and asked a neighbor or someone to call the fire department instead. But Leo could only think how the very thing his mother had been worried about just happened and how she’d probably never forgive him for – no matter how accidentally – burning their home. He had vague memories of leaving his cell phone that he had gotten a few months earlier on his birthday into his room, so he ran upstairs as quickly as he could with his short, wobbly legs. However, the phone wasn’t on his desk like he had anticipated, and it took him a while to remember he had thrown it under the bed after getting frustrated with his homework; the words on the textbook they were supposed to read had not made any sense to him.

Once he finally found the cell phone and went back downstairs to leave the building, the fire had already spread so much that he could barely see anything from the smoke. Coughing, he tried to cover his mouth with his shirt so he could protect himself from the smoke and dash to the door, but he soon realized it was not possible. His road was blocked, and the only way for him to get out would be through the upstairs windows.

Leo didn’t have the time to figure out how to open the windows so he ended up breaking his bedroom window with a real hammer that he happened to find nearby. Shaking, breathing heavily and trying to avoid the glass shards, he looked down. The fall would be quite big, at least 5-6 meters, but he was no stranger to broken bones. The fights with other school kids had taught him a thing or two about that. He would still be more likely to survive the fall than trying to go out from downstairs; at least there were no stones or other hard objects under the window. He was so full of adrenaline that he didn’t even notice that his hands were bleeding; they had hit the broken glass when he had peeked out.

Finally, he managed to gain enough courage to climb up the windowsill and lift one of his legs over the edge. In the process he scraped himself some more in the glass and tore his pants a bit as well, but who cared? It was a very minor thing compared to his mother’s face if she’d find him dead in the house. For a moment Leo thought about all the blueprints and devices in development in the basement of the house, how hours and hours of his mother’s work would go to waste if the entire house burned down – but that was a thing to worry about for later. It was already too late to do anything but to try to escape.

With a huge lump in his throat as he imagined how his mother would hate him when she’d find out about the fire, Leo finally lifted his other leg over the edge as well, sitting on the windowsill with his legs hanging in the air. The distance between him and the ground seemed even bigger than it had earlier, but he had to do this. Slowly, he inched himself forward, hesitating a bit more, but the sound of the fire breaking something downstairs startled him and finally, he dropped down.

After that his memories started getting hazy. He fainted when hitting the ground and when he first woke up he noticed the pain in his left ankle and some blood coming from his forehead. He was laying on the grass, not unharmed but at least alive, and suddenly he got aware that he had to get farther from the house because the fire could easily spread to the surrounding grounds. He could only hope that a neighbor or a passerby had already called the fire department because he himself would not be able to do that, not with his dizzy head and the pain everywhere in his body. Before he passed out again, his last thought was: when would his mother be back?

The next time he was conscious, he remembered trying to drag himself forward with his hands. He could not stand up, and not even crawl, so that was the only thing he could do. Inch by inch, he got a bit farther from his falling spot, and by that time he also started hearing some distant sirens and human yells somewhere, but his mind could not comprehend what all of it meant.

After that, the next thing he remembered was being lifted from the ground by a first responder. The man tried to tell him soothing words, probably something like ‘poor child, it will be alright’, but Leo didn’t care. He wished the fogginess of his brain would just fade so he could speak and walk on his own feet and find out what happened to his mother – if she returned yet – but afterwards, he wished he would have never found out.

He kept slipping in and out of consciousness for a while, not really sure what was happening around him, until finally he woke up in the hospital. One of his legs and arms had been plastered and a bandage had been wrapped around his head. Already he wished he could have just ripped them off and run away but he knew that wasn’t possible. A couple of minutes later, a nurse finally arrived at his bedside.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you’re awake,” she said, testing his forehead to see if he had a fever. “You scared us there, young one.”

“It’s not me you should be worried about! Where’s my mom?! Hasn’t anyone told her I am here?” Leo demanded in a hoarse voice.

The nurse ignored his question. “Now, what is your name?”

“Leo Valdez,” he answered grumpily, glaring at the nurse.

“Good. How old are you?” the woman asked then.

“8 years. But how does that have anything to do with anything? I want my mom here!”

“Calm down, Mr. Valdez. We are just doing some routine tests. You hit your head pretty badly. Now, do you remember your home address?”

Leo, despite still feeling quite dizzy, got really angry about the question. “Yes, I do, but it doesn’t matter! There’s probably nothing left of it anymore! Because it burned down!” The tears finally demanded to get out of his system as he added with a tiny voice: “And I don’t know where my mom is.”

The nurse looked very hesitant for a moment. “I, um… You know, I think we are gonna complete this test a bit later. There are some people who have been wanting to see you.” She looked towards the door restlessly.

“Is it mom?” Leo asked instantly.

The nurse just shook her head. “You’ll see soon.”

She let the visitors in and left the room, closing the door behind her. Leo found himself staring at a firefighter, who he vaguely recognized as the same one who had carried him to safety after his fall. With him entered a police officer whom Leo had not seen before. Why would a police officer want to meet him, he wondered. Maybe they’d sentence him to prison for burning the house down?

“It was an accident!” Leo blurted before the men had time to say anything, trying to look brave even though he had just cried.

“We know, we know,” the firefighter tried to calm him down. “That’s not why we are here. We wanted to see how you were doing, and, um…” he looked helplessly at his companion.

“We have some bad news,” the police officer went straight to the topic.

“Is it about the house?” Leo asked.

“No, it’s about your mother… she’s gone.”

It took Leo a moment to register what the police officer had said.

“What?” he yelled.

“I’m sorry, but she is dead.”

Leo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was already so panicked that denial was his only coping mechanism left. “Again, what?”

“It is true, young man,” the police officer stated matter-of-factly.

“But she can’t be! She wasn’t even home…!” Leo squeaked, trying to make sense of the situation in his blurry, shocked mind.

The firefighter spoke this time. “I’m so sorry, son… but he’s not lying. We found her in your house. The neighbor who called us had seen her go in before we arrived, and… when we got there… it was already too late.”

“But… but…” Leo had a very hard time getting any words out at that moment. “Why… why would she go in…? And… why didn’t anyone stop her?”

Again the visitors hesitated before answering. “This is just what we heard from a couple of witnesses, but… it seems like she had gone in to… look for you…”

Leo wished the sweet unconsciousness had returned to him in that moment, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it felt like something tried to pull his heart out of his chest. His mind was going through about a hundred different things at the same time: grief, anger, denial… and perhaps above everything else, guilt. It was his fault. It was his fault that the house had burned, and it was his fault that his mother had gone into the burning house. If he had been there to warn her… if she had known… But no, he had had to jump from upstairs to the backyard from where he had been harder to find. And then he had, only half conscious, dragged himself to a nearby trench where the humidity had protected him, being even harder to spot unless you happened to walk right next to it.

That meant that his mother had gone into the house thinking he was there… and she had died thinking he had died. All because he hadn’t listened to her, because he had left some papers on which he had been drawing too near the fireplace.

‘My fault. All my fault’, was all Leo could hear in his head on repeat. He noticed that the firefighter was trying to say something, but he could not register what. Leo didn’t ask him to repeat what he had said. Instead, he stuttered with a weak voice:

“You didn’t answer my other question. Why… didn’t anyone… stop her?”

The police officer sighed sadly. “From what we know, your neighbors had tried to tell her to not go in, that there was nothing she could do, but she refused to listen. The… smoke had already suffocated her by the time we arrived.”

Leo clenched his small fists, unable to focus his gaze anywhere. Everything around him was just a meaningless blur. All of a sudden, nothing mattered to him anymore. With his mother, Leo hadn’t just lost the most important person in his life, the only person who had ever really cared about him and understood him. He had lost his home, his safety, everything that he had loved. More to himself than to the men in the room, he sobbed:

“What's going to happen to me?”

And then everything went blank.

*end flashback*

…

When Leo woke up, he noticed he was breathing very sharply. He had to tell himself to slow it down a bit, trying to focus on the breathing instead of the dream he had just seen. Once he had calmed down a bit, he realized his face was soaked from the tears. The good feeling from the day before was gone, and suddenly he remembered all too well why he hated that holiday so much. His mother had died on Christmas day, 11 years ago.

The worst part about the nightmare he had just seen? It had actually happened. Sure, the details might have changed in Leo’s mind a bit because he had been so young when his mother had died, but most of it was true. The fire, the jumping, the people in the hospital, all true. When he had still been a kid, he had dared to hope that maybe someday the memories would start fading and it wouldn’t hurt so much. But now, 11 years later, he knew better. Thanks to the therapy and Jo, Emmie and the friends’ help, he did have moments when he managed to feel happy, focus on the future and forget the pain for a time being, but when it came back, it was always as intense. And it was especially bad on Christmas days, the anniversary of those horrific events.

‘Pull yourself together’, Leo told himself. ‘This is not what your mother would have wanted for you.’

‘No’, another, the evil voice in his head said. ‘But then again, if it weren’t for you, she would still be here.’

He groaned at himself and decided that it would be better to get himself up and moving rather than lay there listening to the voices. Sitting up, he combed his fingers through his messy hair in an attempt to tame it, with little success. After that, he wiped the tears from his face, trying to pretend it had never happened. Registering the voices coming from the living room, he figured some of his family members were already awake even though it was still rather early. They, especially Georgina, were lucky that they didn’t know what was going through in his head that day; it would have ruined everyone’s Christmas.

Trying to pull himself together and put on a happy face, he got up and washed his face in the bathroom quickly before joining the family. The moment he reached the bottom of the stairs, Georgina ran to him and hugged him.

“Merry Christmas, hermano!”

Leo patted her hair absentmindedly, thinking that Georgina was now only a year older than he had been when… no, he had to stop thinking about it. If not for anyone else’s sake, then Georgina’s. She deserved to have a happy day.

“Merry Christmas to you too, hermanita. Well, did Santa visit? Did he receive my memo on your behavior towards me this year?”

Georgina pulled away from him and folded his arms. “I’m not a little baby anymore; I know Santa doesn’t actually exist. But we did get presents! Even you, although I was kind of surprised about that.”

Leo clutched his shirt. “Ouch, Georgie! I thought you were on my side!”

The siblings continued bickering playfully as they waited for the others. They had a tradition in their house that everyone needed to be there for the present opening. Soon Josephine appeared with a tray full of coffee cups, gingerbread cookies and certain small pies she used to bake every Christmas.

“Where are the others?” Georgina asked impatiently as she started stuffing the cookies into her mouth and drummed her legs against the sofa. “I want to open the presents already!”

“Calm down, Georgie,” Jo scolded her. “Emmie is checking the cats and dogs because they also need care on Christmas day, and Calypso may still be sleeping.”

“Ugh, I told her I wanna start opening the presents early!” Georgina protested. “I’ll go wake her up if she isn’t here in 10 minutes!”

“You’ll wake who up?” Calypso showed up from the stairway. Hearing her voice and seeing her face, Leo forgot for a moment why he had been so upset earlier. Somehow her presence just had that weird effect on him. She was wearing a green holiday sweater knitted by Annabeth over her pajamas – pink with some small flower prints – and her hair was flying freely, slightly wavy because of the braids that Georgie had insisted on making the previous evening. Somehow even that casual look made her look adorable in his eyes and his throat felt dry for entirely different reasons than a few minutes earlier. Leo almost missed Calypso’s next words due to his distraction. “Sorry that you had to wait, Georgina. I was finishing up one last present because I wasn’t entirely happy with it.”

“No worries!” Georgina exclaimed. Apparently the last minute gift preparing was a good enough reason to be late in her books, because Leo knew that if he had been late for the gift opening, the little girl wouldn’t have forgiven that easily.

Calypso put her pile of neatly packed presents under the tree to wait and turned to the others.

“So, merry Christmas, everyone! If I am allowed to be honest with you, I don’t really know a lot about Christmas traditions… My family never celebrated it… But I want to learn!”

“We’ll teach you,” Georgina told her immediately. “It’s gonna be so much fun, you’ll see!”

Leo wished he himself could have been as enthusiastic about the holiday as Georgina was, but tried to keep the happy face on anyway.

“Cal, try some of those pies before Georgie has eaten them all.” He pointed to the tray Jo had brought. Calypso glanced at him suspiciously for a moment. “Don’t give me that look; I swear I didn’t make them. It’s all Jo and Emmie.”

“Fine,” Calypso agreed and took a bite. “This is really good!” she exclaimed once her mouth was empty.

“Told you. Now do you trust me?” Leo asked her teasingly.

“Hmmm. That’s still to be determined,” Calypso replied, but Leo could see her smile into her piece of pie.

As everyone waited for Emmie to return inside, they kept up a light banter as they ate their Christmas breakfast in the living room. Even Leo did his best to participate in it, and soon he did feel a bit better, although if someone had looked at him more closely, they would have noticed the smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes.

Finally, Emmie arrived together with Festus and Georgina instantly pulled her towards the Christmas tree so they could start the gift sharing. A grin spread across Leo’s face as well when he watched the little girl run back and forth as she delivered the packages to their rightful owners. This was now, he tried to remind himself. What happened in the past… was in the past and his mother would probably have wanted him to enjoy these moments.

Not that he’d ever know that for sure, the nasty voice in Leo’s head said again, and the grin almost disappeared from his face.

To no one’s surprise, Georgina got the most presents because even some family friends and neighbors had sent her something (that’s what happened when she got everyone wrapped around her finger, Leo thought), but everyone else got their fair share of self made gifts as well. Leo noticed that Calypso had three packages; one from him, one from Georgina who had insisted on making her own present, and one from Jo and Emmie. He found himself wishing she’d like what he had made; he had spent quite a lot of time on it.

Before anyone could start ripping their wrapping papers off the presents, Festus was given some treats so he wouldn’t interrupt the gift opening too much. Georgina got the privilege of getting to open hers first. She chuckled at Leo’s jokes in the photo album, which Leo took as a success, and squealed excitedly at the tiny dragon toy he had carved from wood and painted. Calypso had sewed her a detailed gryphon plushie, because Leo had told her that Georgina had recently gotten interested in the mythical creatures, a topic Calypso knew a lot about. The little girl hugged the plushie enthusiastically while Calypso promised her to tell her more about the Greek mythology later when they’d have more time. Emmie gave Georgie a tiny beginning of a plant that she’d get to raise on her own, and Jo, the practical person that she was, gave her a pocket knife for tinkering with a warning that she’d only get to use it under her supervision.

Leo and Calypso allowed Jo and Emmie to open their presents next. It was mostly practical stuff, like woolly socks, self made chocolate, and new tools (which broke the ‘homemade’ rule but Leo knew Jo needed them), but Leo had also tinkered frames for a photo of the Waystation family and asked Calypso to decorate it with her paints. The final result looked pretty good in his opinion.

Next was Calypso’s turn. Georgina had attempted to crochet a potholder for her because Leo had guiltily admitted that he may have accidentally ruined one of Calypso’s potholders while cooking something. However, since she was still a beginner in the handicrafts, the potholder had some room for improvement, but Leo could see from Calypso’s happy face that she appreciated the gesture. Leo had also told his mothers that Calypso really loved her flowers, so they gave her a white orchid in a pot that Jo had once crafted. Finally, she opened the gift Leo had made for her. He was biting his lip and tapping his fingers nervously even though he tried to act nonchalant as he watched Calypso’s reaction. Before she removed the paper, she knocked on the surface of the gift, trying to guess what was in it.

“Is this a tool box? So you could borrow mine when you lose yours?” She teased.

“Well, at least that would be useful, don’t you think? But hold your horses; it’s probably not what you think it is,” Leo hinted. Calypso gave him a quizzical look and Leo took that as a sign that she really had no idea what the gift was.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she noted and started carefully removing the paper. Unlike Georgina, she made sure that the paper would still be usable on some later occasion. Calypso wasn’t entirely wrong with her guess; the gift was indeed a box of sorts. But it wasn’t for tools. Instead, it was a jewelry box; wooden, self made, painted rose pink, which happened to be Calypso’s favorite color. When she opened it, she noticed a small mirror on the lid with some text on it. The box also played one of those few songs that they both happened to like. Calypso traced her finger on the smooth surface of the box for a moment before she noticed that there was still something more in the box: a silvery bracelet with a letter C hanging from it. She took it into her hands and admired it for a moment before reading aloud the text that had been written on the mirror:

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.”

“Um, yeah…” Leo was unsure how he should respond. Suddenly he got worried he had been too straightforward with that message, and Calypso wouldn’t appreciate it. “It was a quote, um, that I happened to stumble upon somewhere recently… But I thought it was quite fitting?”

Calypso looked at him straight into the eyes and for a moment Leo managed to forget that there were others in the room. It was as if she was trying to message him wordlessly that she understood the meaning of the quote.

“Yes, I think it works,” she replied slowly. “For both of us.”

Leo felt his ears getting heated and attempted to comb his hair over them with his fingers to not make it so painfully obvious. Given what day it was, he understood that it was ironic he was using that quote when he himself was struggling to let go from his past.

“True,” he had to admit, looking at the others nervously from the corner of his eye. “It’s… it’s something that we both should try to remember. Something we have in common, right?”

Calypso seemed to accept his explanation. “Right. Um, this box is really beautiful. You’ve seen a lot of trouble with it. The music and all… It’s really nice. Did you even make this bracelet?”

Even though Leo should have prepared himself for that question, he felt embarrassed to reveal the bracelet’s origins, afraid it might sound too sentimental. He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat to get more time to consider his answer.

“The… the chain was from an old bracelet my mom had… My biological mom, I mean. I didn’t get to keep a lot of her belongings but this had survived… and my dear aunt didn’t want to keep it so I’ve been carrying it around as a charm of some sort. But the thing is, I don’t really need it so it was Jo’s suggestion that I could give it to someone who’d use it. She helped me make this,” he showed the C, “because I don’t really…”

“Want to forge anything,” Calypso finished for him. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Good. If you don’t like it, you can give it to someone else; I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind…”

Calypso gave him an encouraging smile. “Oh, no! This bracelet meant a lot to you so it means a lot to me. It’s a really nice gesture, Leo.”

“You’re welcome?” he replied, kind of flustered by her reaction.

Calypso fiddled with the gift for a moment before turning her attention back to Leo.

“Would you like to put this on my wrist? I’d like to see how it fits.”

“Oh… alright!” Leo agreed, wishing he could say something that didn’t make him sound like a complete idiot. But then again, he reminded himself, wasn’t that what most people thought of him? And since when had he cared?

Calypso handed the bracelet to him and Leo took a very light hold of her wrist, as if afraid that he’d burn her skin with his hot fingers. He was so focused on his task that he even forgot that it was technically against the ‘rules’ they had set, but Calypso had initiated it so who was he to deny her request? He put the chain around her wrist with fumbling fingers and closed the lock. After that he allowed his hand to stay around hers a moment longer. He swiped the surface of the chain with his finger, also touching the back of her hand by accident (or maybe on purpose). Calypso looked up from their hands to him with a surprisingly soft expression that he hadn’t seen since that day when they had promised each other to try harder to be ‘just friends’. His brain sent sparks through his spine and he felt very warm all of a sudden.

“I… um… it seems to fit, doesn’t it?” he finally stuttered, looking down at the bracelet, Calypso’s gaze still lingering in his mind. He let her wrist go and already his hand felt much colder, as if it was missing something.

“Oh, yeah,” Calypso nodded, absentmindedly fiddling with the chain of the bracelet. “It’s small enough that it won’t fall but it’s not too small.”

“Good,” Leo said, a smile returning to his face. “Guess you’re just as tiny as my mom was.” He finally managed to bring out his more playful side.

“Have you looked into the mirror lately, Mister Super-Sized McShizzle? You’re not exactly a giant yourself,” Calypso teased back.

Georgina giggled at her response. “You tell him, Calie!”

“This Georgina here, though,” Leo grinned at her, “she must really have some giant blood in her. She uses my overalls in the garage sometimes!”

“I do not,” Georgina denied quickly. “They’re stinky.”

“Yeah? And you smell like flowers and rainbows,” Leo retorted and started tickling the little girl.

For a moment Leo was able to forget that he hated Christmas as he played with Georgina, but then someone reminded him that he still had to open his own presents. He looked at the pile he had gotten and thought briefly that he had gotten more of them than what he had expected. Georgina had drawn him a picture of him with Festus and sewed him a simple pencil case for his blueprint pencils. Jason and Piper had gotten him a book about weird mechanics facts. Percy had sent him a new orange t-shirt so Leo could return him the one that he had once borrowed after a workout (which, according to Percy, was ‘way too big for him anyway’). Leo’s moms had made him an awesome tool case where even the bigger tools would fit and baked some of his favorite goodies. Finally, it was the turn for Calypso’s present, though.

“What do you think it is?” Calypso asked, glancing at him curiously.

“My first guess would have been a pack of olives because you know how much I love those things… But this doesn’t feel like them. It’s mostly soft but there are some hard parts too. Maybe a bit like a backpack?"

“That wasn’t a half bad guess,” Calypso responded. “But I won’t tell you the correct answer; you can figure it out on your own.” She invited Leo to open the present.

“Okie, Sunshine, will do.”

He ripped the paper (which was Leo’s favorite shade of red) off notably less gracefully than Calypso had done with her presents, but his mouth opened involuntarily when he saw what was inside. It was a toolbelt, not looking like one of those belts that broke in his use after the first couple of days (Leo had a habit to load them too full sometimes), but sturdy, well made. Leo wondered where she had obtained the leather she had used in it, and hoped that it hadn’t cost her too much money. The belt had four different sized pockets for the tools and it seemed like one of them had something in it, but before Leo checked what was inside, he turned to Calypso:

“How did you know I needed one of these?”

“Probably because you’ve been carrying wrenches and stuff in your jean pockets and I’ve also seen your room and that’s enough for me to be able to tell you need a place for your tools,” Calypso smirked. Leo barely heard her answer. He didn’t want to admit aloud that one of the reasons why he was suddenly feeling so sentimental about a tool belt was because it reminded him a lot of the one his mom had made for him when he was a kid. “I hope this wasn’t too much trouble…” He noted more quietly than usual.

“It was not trouble at all,” Calypso reassured him. “I have sewed more difficult things. The leather was actually from one of my old bags that my dad got for me – which I hated – so I didn’t even have to buy a lot of the materials. Besides, you yourself made this,” she knocked the wooden cover of the jewelry box, “and I bet it was a lot more difficult.”

“Nah, it wasn’t…” Leo tried to protest and he noticed the others in the room had a hard time keeping their faces straight as they listened to the flatmates competing whose present had taken more time. “The music was probably the most complicated part.”

“Okay,” Calypso said, deciding to leave the debate there. “Hey, I forgot to mention that there is something small in one of the pockets. You could check it out now.”

“Alright, I will,” Leo told her. He reached out to the said pocket and found a small box from it. His smile instantly disappeared from his face when he realized what it was. Everyone went quiet for a while as they were waiting for his reaction.

“Why would you give me matches, especially today of all days?” He lifted his gaze from the box, his eyes sparkling angrily. Before anyone could say anything, he threw the box away and jumped up from his seat. Calypso’s sad face was the last thing he saw before storming out of the room.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au #finally this fic is living up to its name

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lananiscorner · 2 years

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Writing ask meme - 1, 2, and 3!

Thank for your ask, cerusee!

1. Which of your fics would you keep the basic plot of but rewrite completely?

Ooof, starting out with a tough one... I think it would be a toss up between two of my current published WIPs:

Unsettled: I started writing this one after Darksiders 3 came out, basing the characterizaton of the main character on how he was portrayed in that game... and then the next game came along and contradicted the characterization I had come up with completely lol. I have been suffering from writer's block regarding that fic ever since, and I'm still not entirely sure if/how I'll salvage it. There has been many a day when I played with the idea of just straight up deleting it.

A Ghost Here Amongst The Living: I set out to write a fic that included the side characters surrounding Dimitri more, compared to the almost entirely player-avatar-focused scenes from the game, but then the word count ballooned and it was 4am and I didn't want to write a 14k one-shot monster, so I decided to split it into chapters... with the result that the side characters are barely in chapter 1. What was I thinking?

2. Anything that you’d like to write but feel like you’re unable to?

I have nagging brain worms for a long fic for every single fandom I have ever written for on AO3, each of which I feel unable to write for two reasons. The first reason is shared across all 4 fandoms: I already have 5 published WIPs and several unpublished ones and if I add any more I'll go insane. The second reason is specific to each work/fandom:

A follow up to "Ill Weeds Grow Apace" that introduces Cass to my Batman Arkham: Compendium. I have a plot and characters and ideas! I have also been out of this fandom for years and would probably have to re-read significant chunks of IWGA to remember where the hell I even left off. lol

A chronicle of Fury's time with the humans after Darksiders 3. I'd have to create a shit ton of OCs.

A multi time line fic where Byleth from FE3H starts out going down the path of Crimson Flower, regrets her choice, tries again, ends up going through all 4 routes at least once, and eventually manages to walk an Azure Moon path that lets almost everyone live. This one is 90% fueled by pure spite in sight of the subtle racism and not so subtle sexism and extremely unsubtle canon violations of a certain fic that already exists in this fandom, and I just don't think spite can carry me that far.

A MCU AU set after Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which Wanda, driven by guilt over having allied with Hydra temporarily leaves the Avengers under the guise of needing some time to mourn after the death of her brother, but actually ends up relentlessly pursuing Hydra cells, one of which turns out to be looking for Bucky. She runs into him, they team up, and bond over mutual trauma by Hydra and their struggles with adjusting to post-Hydra life (platonic bonding only). This my blatant desire to see two of my favorite MCU characters interact, and also reconcile the fact that comics Wanda is jewish yet movie Wanda allied with literal nazis, and also to get her out of that awfully boring love plot they put her into with Vision (I love Vision, but these two have zero chemistry, imo). That said, the spark I felt after Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron died a long time ago (and got buried 6 feet under by IW/Endgame), so...

3. How would you describe your writing style?

It's like a beaten path through a misty forest: starts with the misty forest (I sometimes write a thousand words of scenery/mood setting before anyone starts talking), then you get to the path (plot), but the entire thing is overgrown with roots and moss and flowers (characterization!)

#asks #cerusee #writing #fanfic #writing meme #fanfic meme

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miraclekittyandbug · 3 years

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Ten Questions With A Twist Chapter 2

Hey guys! Here’s chapter two! I’ve decided I will be posting a chapter every other day. There are seven chapters on this story and they have all already been written, so you won’t have to wait for me to write them before they can be posted. Enjoy!

~Chapter 1 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 6 ~ Chapter 7 ~

Adrien was distracted. Having had a fitful night of sleep, he was mostly focused on staying awake during classes, not necessarily taking notes. Once lunch rolled around, Nino pulled Adrien to the side.

“Hey, dude, did something happen with you and Marinette?”

Adrien responded that he wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Well, you’re really distracted, and so is she, I just figured you guys got into a fight or something.”

“No, I barely talk to Marinette outside of class,” he clarified.

“So…” Nino narrowed his eyes at his friend, “So you guys aren’t secretly dating?”

Adrien’s jaw hit the floor. “What!?”

“What do you mean ‘what?’, it is so obvious you’re in love with her!”

Adrien stuttered and flung his hands, grasping at invisible somethings as he tried to figure out where the hell this came from. “It can’t be obvious, because it’s not true! What even makes you say that?”

“Well mostly the way you look at her.”

“I look at her the same way I look at anybody else!”

“Nah, dude. If you looked at my girlfriend the way you look at Marinette, we would have to have a serious conversation.”

Adrien was at a loss for words. “This is ridiculous.”

“I’m just saying!” Nino raised his hands, signifying innocence, “You guys would make a cute couple! You like her, she likes you, it isn’t a far stretch to think that something was going on. And I think you’d make each other really happy.” Adrien could only stare. “Just think about it, dude.”

Adrien thought about it for around thirty seconds. Then he saw Marinette and Alya wave himself and his friend over to eat and, though he tried to push the thought from his mind, he suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He had visions of himself and Marinette. They would sit on the same side of the table, rather than opposite sides as they sat now. He would use that excuse to lean into her, just to be more aware of her presence. He pictured going to the movies with her again and using that trick they use in movies, pretending to yawn so he could put his arm around her and hold her close. His heart did a spin at the thought, but he found himself being drawn back to reality.

“Yeah, Adrien and I will totally sit with you guys.” Nino said, and Adrien nodded, mostly to shake those thoughts out of his head. For the first time, he had to remind himself that he was in love with Ladybug. Not Marinette.

Soon enough, the group of four friends were sat around a table, chatting absentmindedly about something random. (The exact topic of discussion was unknown to Adrien. Tired as he was, he was more concerned with pushing food around his plate and not thinking about Marinette).

“Are you okay, Marinette?” Alya asked her friend. Reminding Adrien that he still had to interact with the bluenette. They were friends, after all. “You seem really out of it today.”

Adrien looked up to see that Nino had been right. Marinette was also looking really tired and distracted. She was blushing and had organized the food on her plate according to color, but was glancing up at Adrien every so often. “Yeah, I just…” She looked up and made eye contact with Adrien before outright asking, “What’s your favorite color?”

Adrien just stared at her, wide eyed and slack jawed. A million thoughts went through his head at once. He finally settled on Wow, that’s a coincidence. But that isn’t so weird, right? It is a pretty common question, even though it was kinda out of the blue. “My favorite color is green, but I’m also rather fond of orange.”

Marinette smiled and the world seemed to shine brighter for it.

The warning bell rang, signalling that they had about five minutes before lunch was to end. Both students started shovelling food into their mouths, suddenly aware of their own hunger.

A few more classes went by when they heard a scream coming from not so far away. Phones started going off left and right, alerting the entire class that an akuma had been sighted a few streets down. Ms. Bustier reacted as she normally does, calmly asking everybody to move away from the windows, calling for each student as she did so. When Marinette failed to respond to her name, the class found that she was missing.

“Didn’t she just go to the bathroom?” Rose said, stress underlying her voice.

“I’ll go find her!” Adrien quickly called, leaving the classroom before anybody had a chance to point out the fact that it wouldn’t be proper for him to search for her in the women's restroom.

Once out of the classroom, Adrien rushed towards the nearest broom closet, looking up and down the hallway to make sure there was nobody to see him. He called for his transformation and immediately vaulted out of the nearest window, ready to assist his Lady in taking down yet another bad guy.

Soon enough, the akuma was tracked down and purified. Having finished up this particular villain fairly quickly, Ladybug and Chat Noir stood back for a moment admiring their work. Ladybug decided to let Chat in on a secret.

“His favorite color is green,” She said, blushing profusely.

Chat was amazed! “That’s my favorite color too!”

Ladybug threw her yoyo and made one more comment before zipping away, “Sure, but are you rather fond of orange?” And off she went,

Too late to see Chat’s very very VERY shocked face.

And that gut feeling from the night before was back, now, and stronger than ever. But this time it was telling him to think. He went back to class and proceeded to think hard. And here’s the thing. Adrien liked to consider himself smart. And no person with two brain cells could deny that that was more than coincidental wording. That was word for word what he had told Marinette earlier that day. A moment of clarity shone through the clouds of his mind and left him with one piece of information: Ladybug goes to the same school as Adrien. It all makes sense! She must go to his school because she overheard Marinette ask him that question earlier that same day! They’re even usually at the scene of an akuma at the same time so even that makes sense! It wasn’t until fifteen minutes before class ended that the next series of realizations hit him: causing his flat hands to slam against the desk, getting everybody’s attention.

Ladybug is in love with Adrien Agreste

Adrien Agreste is secretly Chat Noir

Ladybug is in love with Chat Noir

Lucky for him, Adrien is both of those people

The entire class stared at him. His green eyes wider than they thought possible. His arms straight with his hands flat on the desk in front of him, sweat starting to gather on his collar. He only snapped out of it when Ms. Bustier waved her hand in front of his face and asked him if he was alright.

“I-uh- I just remembered I have a photoshoot after school. Nothing else. I’m good. Sorry.” He picked up his pencil and put the lead to his notebook, trying to prove that he was ready to learn now,

Ms. Bustier saw right through his act, but decided it was close enough to the end of the class anyway. “Alright, well that’s as good of a stopping place as we’ll get to today, so I’ll just remind everybody to finish their homework and that there will be a quiz on Friday.”

Adrien let out a sigh of relief. After a realization like that, he was most certainly not ready to learn. He rushed out of the room and to his locker, desperately trying to get away from prying eyes. He needed to have a conversation with his Kwamii regarding what the FUCK to do about this! His lady was in love with him! This was amazing news! But also… kind of terrible.

Ladybug was set on them not knowing each other's identity, but what did he do now? He hadn’t meant to come so close, but he had! Now he was so close to finding out who she was and he couldn’t turn back. He knew what Ladybug would say. She’d tell him to not dig further, to let it go, and to move on without looking back. Adrien didn’t think that was possible though. It was like when he and his lady both de-transformed on either side of a door. He was on one side, lonely Adrien, and on the other was the love of his life in her everyday clothes. He wanted more than anything to open that door. To view his Lady in all her citizen’s glory. But she trusted him.

So now what? They were in the same situation, but with the door slightly open. They were both about to cross that line. He looked down and could see her feet. She was wearing flats, not tennis shoes. Her pants weren’t blue like his, but he couldn’t quite make out the right color. Directly across from him, her hair was visible. Just as blue-black as it had always been. Her hair was tied back in hair ties rather than ribbons like her superhero alter ego. Her eyes were deep blue and staring right back at him and the rest of her face…

That’s as far as he got. As he stepped into the back of the car with Gorilla at the wheel, he let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. That feeling was back again and it told him that he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t drop it when he was so close, just inches away from knowing who she truly was.

And so, he had decided. And as easy as that, a plan started to form. A way that would bring him and his lady closer than they had ever been.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And there’s chapter two! I’m working on another fic after this one that’s a little similar, but that one is going to take a while, so feel free to leave requests in my inbox! I really look forward to writing for you!

Chapter 1 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 6 ~ Chapter 7 ~

#10qwat #miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous fic #mlb identity reveal #adrientte

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ka-writes · 3 years

Text

——————

Notes- Did I decide I was gonna write a fic at 2:00 AM? Yes yes I did... anyways I don’t have an archive account yet but I wanted to get it out there.... um here is chapter one of my space AU, because I absolutely fell in love with the AU.

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Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

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Ohh also challenge if you wanna do it, fill in the Title! And another one... if you were an alien what question would you ask a human other than basic questions, like name and age.

Also suggestions are always appreciated! And if you wanna support my main blog it is kadoodle.. also I have no updating schedule so I will when I want to.

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Warnings: Cussing, mentions of tight spaces and characters being trapped, mentions of corpses, and needles.

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“Humans are [Insert text here]”

Chapter 1: Idiots kidnap the wrong kid..

Honestly, life hasn't been bad. His needs were met, most of the time, and he had a.. place to sleep…

Yeah no life wasn’t great.

Tommy was easily, barely, avoiding Social Services. Sleeping on benches and occasionally grass. He got whatever wasn’t wanted and had an official bag for the first time. He had some spare clothes, and no money. The authorities stopped looking for him after a while and the only main challenge was getting essentials.

No one would miss him. No one would look for him. Therefore he was the perfect target among many others. The only thing setting him apart was his sheer ability to survive, not a want, like many of the others, it was a fact he would survive. Not that his captors knew that of course.

Alternative: Tommy gets kidnapped by aliens and sbi rescues him.

——————

He woke up in a cage.

Not a cell or a room, a fucking cage.

There were a few others in various cages around the room. All of which were either dead or close to it. Most of the ones still alive had been there for months, possibly years. No one knew of course.

The smell of rotting bodies stenched the place with a coppery coating. The room wasn’t large but not quite small. It was dull grey with layers of grime settling on the floor and cages. The room was long and skinny, lined with cages against either wall in a zig zag format. The only light was coming from the small door window, which happened to be positioned right in front of Tommy. It glowed a faint yellow and was blurry, not allowing Tommy to see into the hall.

Shadows would occasionally pass by the window. None ever stopped at it. Causing the ever growing hunger to grow more. Once one had stopped at the door, not for more than a second, before it screeched. It was inhuman and sounded like a hurt hawk from one of those nature documentaries. Tommy shoved his hands onto his ears and waited for it to stop. The thing chuckled, not like a human, but something close to it.

——————

Tommy waited for what seemed like hours before something happened. The door opened, sliding into the ceiling. A weird looking creature stepped in. It looked like it had a porcelain mask over its face with a painted smiley face. There were no ears or hair, instead just more porcelain, which formed a spear which sat on shadows. The thing was wearing a lime green hoodie and black leather pants that seemingly faded into the creature's legs. The knees bent inwards causing it to look awfully awkward as it crouched near Tommy’s cage. The hands were long and lanky with no real palm. The creature also had a tail that looked close to how Tommy pictured a devil's tail to look. This was the first time in ages Tommy was glad to be behind bars.

The thing pointed at itself and said,

“Dream.”

In the most heavily accented English Tommy had ever heard. That didn’t matter as much of the fact that the seemingly painted smile moved with the words.

“Come.”

The creature unlocked the cage and half dragged Tommy out of the cage into what Tommy presumed to be the lab. He noticed a window. The only thing for miles was stars. He was in space. He had been kidnapped by Aliens. Fuck.

——————

Humans were a heavily avoided species. The things were what kids would expect to come out of their closet. They were feared, and for good reason.

The first ship to find Earth was ecstatic. Finding another intelligent species in what would’ve been deemed as a planetary desert was a scientific breakthrough. Causing the entirety of the media to go insane for a couple of years.. That was until the first ship ventured onto the planet. It was immediately shot down. The entire crew was killed and the entirety of the ship was destroyed in a matter of minutes. The ISF (Intergalactic Safety Force) deemed it as a no flight zone and claimed to punish anyone in the desert. Even so poachers smuggled humans and within days had their ship crashed.

The only ones allowed to take humans were scientists, who were specialized in taking care of difficult species. They were allowed to test on said species and do whatever they wanted, in the name of science of course. Most people didn’t care how they treated them and were really only interested in what could kill them.

Which is where Wilbur came in. He was a toxicologist, a scientist studying poisons, he also dealt with various potions and other chemical mixes. This knowledge is what gained his entry to the Dream Team Ship.

He had been testing on around nine different humans for the past six months on the celestial calendar. This time Dream, his boss and the captain, brought in a juvenile human. He was skinny and lanky. Clearly had been starving before being taken. He felt bad before shaking off his pity.

“V74 and V83. Make sure he can communicate beforehand.” Dream promptly stated before leaving the kid in the room.

Wilbur tried not to think about his terrified face, before he clipped on the translator. Usually it is worn on the back of the head, since humans brains are vastly different than most species, it is clipped to the left side of the head.

The translator looks like a simple device when in reality it took dozens of celestial years to perfect it. It’s a small silver disk that ingrains into the part of the brain that controls communicating. After the body gets used to the device it can translate any language into one you understand instantly.

It took a couple more years for the translator to incorporate the estimated 7,000 languages spoken on Earth. For a planet that has been isolated it has a more complex and diverse set of cultures and languages, than Pellucidian has had in centuries. To say Wilbur was jealous, wouldn’t be far from the truth. Not that he studied cultures for a living. It was something that always interested him.

He put the device on the kid’s head and grimaced at the pain that was on the kid’s face. He quickly dried up the blood and mixed a solution that would ease the pain. It was clear and tasted like water, which is the only way they got humans to take the pain reduction.

The kid relaxed for a spilt second before tending at the unfamiliar setting.

“Where am I?” He snapped, causing Wilbur to jump back a bit, before collecting himself and standing up.

“The Dream Team craft’s labatory.” The kid’s face flashed with panic for a split second, “You have two testings scheduled for today. It will go quickly.”

“Will it be painful?” The kid asked. As standard for testing, Wilbur ignored the question and measured the substances. He quickly cleaned the puncture spot before giving him the needle.

The kid winced in pain. Wilbur swiftly led him to the testing chair. It had restraints that moved with the patient's body, which prevented bruising while keeping them in place. Wilbur clicked them on and sat at the desk located to the left of the kid.

“What did you inject into me?” The kid asked clearly trying to fight off the anesthetic.

“A dosage of Lidocaine, which is an anesthetic for your species. It’s only to numb pain that may come with the solutions we will be using today.” The kid’s face flashed with a deeper panic than before, causing Wilbur to tense. “We won’t start yet, since we have a list of questions to go through before we begin.” Wilbur lied. He hated testing people, especially kids. Dream of course didn’t care, like the rest of the Dreamon species. It made him sick. That was when he made a split second decision. Hoping he could get a distress signal out, without alerting the other crew members. He was gonna get the kid off the ship, at the next stop of course. Which was in three celestial hours.

The kid scoffed, clearly not believing the lie. He paused a moment thinking over his options before he smirked,“Fine. Ask me what you want bitch-boy!” Wilbur gasped, clearly not anticipating the insult.

——————

Chapter 1 End

1406 words

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End notes: Why the hell does google docs make it so hard to copy and paste??

Also I had to do some intense googling for this... I hope you enjoyed!

(Also also this is my first ever fanfic... please give feedback and reblog!!)

Minor mistakes are forgiven... don’t expect me to be perfect... I am dyslexic.

——————

Tommy: ....

Wilbur: ....

*intense starring*

Wilbur POV: I am kidnapping it.

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Chapter 2:

#my writing #my fanfic tag #okay 2 rb #tommy mcyt #wilbur soot #dream mcyt #dream smp fanfiction #sbi au #space au

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crystalessenceswrites · 3 years

Text

Burden of the Survivors--Excerpt

*not my gif*

Burden of the Survivors

Pairs: Din Djarin x fem!reader Rating: T (at the moment- subject to change) Warnings: uh smooches? making out? not beta’ed cause I don’t have time for that rn *no spoilers- takes place in Season 1 timeline* Summary: You didn’t trust Ran and his crew anymore than you’d trust a stormtrooper to hit a target from 50 paces and they proved you right with that bantha-shit show of a job. You figure that’s whats got Mando so tense, turns out he has something else on his mind.

A/N: I notoriously write fics out of order because I’m a scatter brain and when I’ve got a thot I’ve got to write it before I lose it. I’m behind on Chapter 2 because of the holidays and now work is being a bitch so enjoy some first smooches with one Mandalorian while I get my ass in gear to finish the next chapter. Also thots are appreciated on whether or not this scene should be continued and how spicy ya’ll want them to get

[Masterlist] [Chapter One]

The tension on the Crest simmers after you put the baby down. You can see how Mando walks around with squared off shoulders, hear the leather of his gloves creaking as he continues to clench his fists. He’s wound up and you can’t wrap your head around why. Mayfeld, Xi’an and Burg were currently sitting in a cell on a New Republic prison ship, Ran and Qin had been blown up by the X-Wings and you’d been paid for it all. Despite the initial bumps in the day, it had come out in your favor in the end. Yet you still felt like you were walking on eggshells. What had gotten into him?

You wondered if Xi’an and Mayfeld had gotten under his skin more than you had originally thought. Or maybe he just needed space after getting shoved in a cell? It had not been pleasant being stuck in the cell, as brief as it had been. It wasn’t as if the Razor Crest allowed you to give him much space, especially with the Child sleeping up in the cockpit. His energy was starting to rub off on you too; it had you worrying your necklace in one hand while you tidied up the ration pack that had served as your dinner.

So wrapped up in the palpable pressure you didn’t notice Mando’s approach, or maybe he didn’t want you to hear him approach. Surprisingly silent for a man covered in metal. Metal that now had you pinned up against the Crest’s tiny built-in kitchenette.

You spin around in his hold, peering wide-eyed up into the emotionless visor. “Mando, what’s going on?”

One large hand falls to your hip, the other cups your chin with a subtle tilt up. The warm leather a sharp contrast to the frigid metal boxing you in. He’s so close he fills all your senses; he smells of blaster residue and weapons cleaner and something sharp. You’d never been this close to him before.

“You could have left me behind back there. Taken the ship and the child and have been in the wind, long gone by now.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why haven’t you done it, Kyber? You’ve had plenty of chances after you said you were only in this for the Child. You said you didn’t care about me. So why have you stayed all this time?”

You had said that hadn’t you? “I-I don’t know-”

His grip tightens on your chin, “that’s a kriffing lie and you know it, sweet girl.”

Your heart leaps into your throat, “Mando…”

His helmet tilts as your voice trails off. Curious how a blank helmet can be so expressive.

“Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll stop-” his thumb starts lazily drawing tight circles above your hip bone- “but I know I’m not wrong.”

That you stayed because of him?

Your eyes flutter closed as heat rises to your cheeks. How do you admit something like this to someone when you won’t admit it to yourself? “You’re not wrong… Mando…”

His voice is almost smug, “keep your eyes closed, sweet girl.”

You nod, eyes screwed tight. His hands pull away, leaving your skin tingling where he’d touched.

What was this man doing to you?

The lights in the hull drop before he’s caging you in again, both hands framing your face before his lips brush against yours with a gentleness you wouldn’t suspect the bounty hunter possessed.

His lips.

A sound somewhere between a groan and a moan bubbles up in your throat as the realization the faceless man has taken his helmet off. For you.

To kiss you.

You melt into him, chasing after his lips when he pulls back. He chuckles and his unfiltered voice nearly turns you into a puddle on the spot. How could someone’s voice be so attractive?

As he slots his lips against yours again you can’t help but smile at the slight tickle of hair against the soft skin above your lip. You had never pictured him with facial hair.

It’s rough and patchy but you can’t be bothered as he presses in closer, his chapped lips moving in time with your own. He’s insistent, barely pausing to let either of you breathe. You wonder where get got so good at this.

He gingerly releases your face, one hand returning to your waist, leaving trails of burning skin where his fingers ghost along your torso. The other tangles itself in the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your head back ever so slightly into his lips. You find yourself wrapping your arms around his neck, drawing him impossibly closer, sliding your fingers through his ridiculously soft locks.

He has curls.

You’ve seen the peaks of bronze skin under all the metal and his hair at the base of his helmet when he lets it grow too long. You know its somewhere between black and brown, the sort of shade that glows reddish brown when the sunlight hits it just right. The image you have of him wavers back and forth between green and brown eyes. A sharp, piercing green would suit him and his quick reflexes but a deep soulful golden-brown would fit as well, hidden away behind that dark visor.

His aquiline nose bumps against your own as he licks at your bottom lip, a silent question. You willingly open yourself further to him, his tongue mingling with yours as he licks into your mouth. He swallows you moans as his hand toys with the edge of your top, fingers sneaking along you skin until his large hand stretches out across the curve of your waist, his thumb resting beneath your breast band, teasing. His rough skin sends shivers down your spine and you lean further into his touch.

The two of you barely pull apart for air as your kisses grow increasingly desperate. His hand tightens in your hair and you let him guide your head to the side. Lips trail down your jaw and you sigh as they meet your exposed neck. You’re panting as he sucks and licks at the sensitive skin.

“Mando… Maker Mando…”

“Din.”

You brain is too occupied to process the three-letter word, “wha-”

“My name is Din,” he nips at the shell of your ear, voice rough in a way you’d never thought you’d hear. “You best use it when you tell me what you want, sweet girl.”

Sweet is not a word you’d associate with yourself after all you’ve done, but you swear you swoon like a lovesick teenager every time it leaves his lips.

“Din-” you’re breathless as his name leave your lips for the first time- “Din don’t stop.”

He smirks against your neck, “wouldn’t dream of it, sweet girl.”

#the mandalorian #fic: burden of the survivors #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x f!reader #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin #the mandalorian fanfiction #x reader #fanfiction #fanfic excerpt #crystalessences writes

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crystalirises · 3 years

Text

Phantombur AU

Just for the record, and before one was to read the fic, this one-shot refers to Ghostbur as ‘Ghostbur’ only because it mostly takes place in Fundy’s pov. Essentially, the AU is about Wilbur still coming back as a ghost but instead of the sweet and nice Ghostbur, Phantombur is still essentially Villain!Wilbur.

Also just want to add, my sophomore year of college has started so updates on stories and upload of one-shots will be very slow since my classes are very demanding. I will try to upload, but chances are I will only write short brainrot stuff such as this one cause I don’t really put much effort in the stuff I put in ‘Brainrot Central’ since I don’t use my brain cells for it that much.

Anyway, that’s all. Bye bye!

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31985884/chapters/83270641

Ghostbur was strange.

Fundy wouldn’t say that he was wary of the ghost, but ever since he’d let the spirit into his home, a few changes have occurred. He never spoke about them. No use in baseless accusations.

Yet he couldn’t quite stop himself from pausing each time these instances occurred. He couldn’t stop himself from shivering each time he caught a strange glint in Ghostbur’s eyes or when he would just turn to Fundy with a smile that seemed too sharp to be genuine. He’d tried to tell his closest friend, Ranboo, about how he felt. But Ranboo wasn’t much help since he didn’t even really know Ghostbur. He would have asked Phil… but his grandpa was still grieving the death of his own son to take well to any of Fundy’s slanders against Ghostbur. He would have asked Eret… but ever since the failed adoption, Fundy couldn’t bring himself to look Eret in the eyes.

Thinking about it, that was the first strange event. Fundy was hurt about the failed adoption, but a part of him wondered why Eret didn’t show up at all. Even if they decided against adopting him, they were still his best friend and should have just told him instead of not appearing at all. Fundy couldn’t wrap his mind around the incident. The day after the failed adoption, he and Eret had met along the Prime Path, but Eret had seemed so… normal. Not a single ounce of guilt.

“Hm? Oh, the adoption date? I-I think it was moved to next month…? Fundy mentioned that he needed more time to process before… He’s still grieving, though I don’t know what he’s sad for.”

The second instance… Fundy had lost any chance of asking to move in with his grandpa.

“Hi, Phil! Hm? Oh no! Fundy can handle himself. He’s such an independent young man!”

The third instance was embarrassing and incompetent of him. And it was his own fault.

He watched the cabinet of New L’Manburg scream at one another, well, he watched the president and the vice president scream at the foreman. It hurt to watch, but it really was for his own good.

The fourth instance was that Fundy kept waking up late in the morning. It hadn’t been an issue at the beginning, but his tardiness was obvious to both Quackity and Tubbo, who had urged him to resign from his position as Foreman since he clearly wasn’t taking it too seriously. He’d been irritated at first, but he’d understood and left the office with a tense smile. He did abandon them on their own during Technoblade’s scheduled execution. He could see why they deemed him unfit for his position. He’d understood. He really did. That didn’t mean it didn’t sting though.

He tossed away every bag of coffee he could find inside the house. When that didn’t work, he followed a much simpler plan. During the start of each day, when the sun had barely even risen in the horizon, he would sneak into the room and take the alarm clock. It worked like a charm. He’d muffle the alarm, and place the clock back onto the desk. Then nothing seemed out of place.

The last and most recent incident scared him the most. The oversleeping had gotten worse. Some days he would wake up and it would either be mid-noon or the middle of the night. When he’d apologized to people for not appearing as much, they’d give him confused glances. They said that… he was around, that he’d been seen walking around New L’Manburg or the Essempy.

He’d been so happy to discover one ability that he couldn’t quite use with anyone else. It was an easy process, like putting on a jacket on a cold day. Fundy hadn’t made a single fuss. He didn’t see the wrong in it, after all, how could he get rid of New L’Manburg if he wasn’t even alive?

Fundy pressed his head deeper into the warm pillow, his body ached from fatigue, but he’d done nothing in the past few days except lie in his bed and… he couldn’t remember. He shivered, ears flinching as he heard Ghostbur fly past his room, humming a tune underneath his breath. A gust of ice cold air seeped into the room, pricking at his skin like thousands of needles. He didn’t know why, but he quickly hid beneath the covers, waiting for the ghost’s presence to disappear.

Ghostbur moved on, much to his relief.

But the fear hadn’t left him.

Fundy shivered.

He wondered if he could ask Tubbo if he knew anything about ghosts.

=============================================================

The italics are Phantombur.

#fundy #wilbur soot #dream smp fanfiction #dsmp #phantombur au

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stars-trash-18 · 3 years

Text

Adventures of Mando and his girlfriend chapter 4

A/N I think I forgot to mention that this fic series has absolutely NO order. My brain skips around so ya’ll can buckle up and enjoy the ride of how I think these adventures go, think of it as a ride Yoda built, backwards. Also I write a female character since this is me shamelessly writing myself into this universe. I’m working on a non-binary story but I need to do some research before I release it.

Trigger warning: injury, minor cursing, choking (not the kinky kind), blood, stitches, death (RIP Davan)

You were gonna kill someone, and that someone was a twi’lek who couldn’t keep her eyes off your man and had a laugh that sounded like a dying Bantha on helium. Apparently Mando could tell because he had to gently maneuver the large wrench out of your white-knuckled hand and hide it along with your other tools. (Mando to this day wonders how you pick up that wrench like it weighs nothing because he sometimes struggles to hold it with one hand like you do)

“So where’d he drag you from, little mechanic, some back-water planet?” she asked, that stupid grin on her face making your blood boil. You don’t get angry but something about Xi’an made you beyond mad.

“Actually he dragged me from the imperial college, where’d he get you, a hutt’s whorehouse,” you bit back, as soon as those words let your mouth you had a blade to your throat but a durasteel shard to her’s (Din wondered where the hell you got it) The tension in the place could be cut with a lightsaber but Burrg laughed with glee watching two women fight. Mando and Mayfield quickly jumped in to break you up, they hated each other but both men knew that when women fought, they fought to the death. So Mando entrapped your arms in his and pulled you to your little work station that was behind the carbonite capsules.

“Y/N you need to calm down, Xi’an is doing what she does best and that’s getting under your skin,” he huffed, using his hands to turn your face to his, resting his forehead against yours so he had your full attention. You know he wasn’t mad, just stressed so you receded and relaxed in his hold. Resting your hand on the back of his neck and fiddling with the fabric there.

“I know Mando, but what she’s saying about you makes me wanna eat my wrench. She's disrespecting your entire creed and I can’t stand it,” you grumbled, feeling him tighten his embrace. You both stood there for a moment before you had to return to the others.

Everything was fine for a few minutes before they tried to take his helmet off, revealing the child. You barely moved in front of him before Mayfield took him in his arms making your heart stop.

“Did you two make this?” he jested, the child looking at you and stretching his arms for you to help him. At that moment Zero decided to drop out of hyperspace sending everybody into the walls, you barely managed to catch the child before Mando shoved you both to the floor and shielded you with his body. You and the child clung together until the shaking stopped. That droid better pray that he didn’t shake anything loose or you’ll use his limbs as towel racks.

“You alright little one, nothing hurt?” you cooed looking over the child for any injury, but finding none you placed him back in his room with his stuffed frog and moved to your station, collecting your knuckle dusters and a dataspike before making your way to the hatch.

-------------------------------Star Wars transition theme song---------------------------------

“I told you we shouldn’t have trusted them Mando, but do you listen to me, NO!” you ranted, punching his shoulder, only to regret it since it’s beskar. Now you’re trapped in a cell and might have broken your hand on your boyfriend’s beskar. Just great.

You admit everything was fine at first, sure you got pinned by republic droids, but you got to watch Mando take them down and that was hot. But then you ran into your old academy buddy Davan and Xi’an murdered him in front of you. After rescuing Xi’an’s hutt looking brother you and mando got shoved into the cell, you narrowly missed getting shot by Mando’s richoted shot. While lost in your own universe Mando managed to get a droid's arm to unlock the cell, you made a mental note to get better hand to hand training from Mando.

You both rushed through the ship to the control room, you took a moment to close Davan’s eyes before Mando shut the doors.

“Pretty boy lock down the ship and take care of everyone else, I have a score to settle with Xi’an,” you said hopping up into the vents and disappearing.

----------------------------------------transition music-------------------------------------------

You crawled through the vents for a good few minutes trying to find the twi’lek and when you did you slipped your knuckle dusters on before dropping in behind her, her reflexes were faster than you thought because one of her knives grazed your cheek before you even regained balance. But you shook your shock off before taking a running leap at her, dodging her knives as you landed a good hit to her chest with your uncovered fist.

You moved around her like a violent dance, dodging her knives and landing a blow where you could. Xi’an’s knives nicked you several times, one of them went a little deeper on your side so you had blood pouring. The only sounds being the various hits the other lands, your grunts as you dodged, and Xi’an describing very lewd scenes of her and Mando (which you knew were fake but you hated how she disregarded his creed and only spoke of him as an object).

She managed to dig a knife into your shoulder but when you ripped it out you threw caution to the wind and grabbed her lekku into your hand and twisted it like Gida taught you and yanked her head back, using your weight to throw you both to the floor, your knuckle duster landing harshly landing into her shoulder, you heard a sickening crack. She fought like a loth-cat and raked her nails down the other side of your face and used your shock to throw you off her and into the wall where she wrapped her hands around your throat.

“Mando can’t save you now little mechanic,” she seethed as she tightened her hand as you felt around your belt for anything. Hand landing on one of your little inventions, causing you to smirk much to her confusion as she loosened her grip slightly.

“I didn’t just study mechanics in the academy, I double majored as an explosives engineer ge’hutuun,” you choked out before quickly pressing a shock puck to the back of her neck and activating it. You got some of the electricity but you only enough to cause spots to dance in your eyes, while she was knocked out cold. Xi’ans body falling backwards as her muscles convulsed and you sucked in fresh air like a dying man.

You slid down the wall you had been pinned to moments beforehand, your eyes catching the reflection of your Mandalorian’s armor as he rushed over to you. His words were garbled together and you couldn’t focus on what he was saying before you blacked out.

-------time skip brought to you by my laziness of writing the rest of the scene---

When you woke back up again you found yourself on your makeshift cot in the cargo hold. Your face burning with the telltale signs of bacta on the nail marks. You dragged yourself to sit upright but hissed as you felt the stitches in your shoulder rip open and the blood seep out onto your shirt. The sounds of you waking up must have reached the Mandalorian because he quickly made his way over to you and rested a gloved hand to your face, his thumb gently brushing over the stitches where the knife sliced into your cheek.

“What happened mando,” you asked, whining when he went to pull his hand away.

“What happened Cyare, was you fighting like hell against Xi’an and winning,” he said pridefully, before being replaced with worry as he saw the blood blooming on your shoulder, “you got several nicks that the bacta closed but your shoulder and cheek had to be stitched, i’m sorry but I have to lift your shirt to repair the stiches,” he noted. You blushed at his care and consideration for your privacy, helping him remove your shirt so that only your breast band remained. He went to work silently for a moment, answering some of your questions after you passed out.

“ I saw from the cameras that she was taunting you and you answered them, you never answered taunts,” he observed as he took the broken stitches out and thread the needle.

His obvious inquiry caused you to suck in a breath before replying, “she wasn’t taunting exactly she was saying lewd things about you, about what you two supposedly did back in the day and it angered me,” you paused to bite back a groan as you felt the needle dig in. “she was insulting you when she was describing what she was, she insulted your creed and I couldn’t handle that, insults to me are one thing but insults to you are another,” you explained as Mando continued until he was done stitching.

Mando didn’t say anything while he helped wrap your shoulder and gave you one of his shirts since all of yours were dirty. When he did finally speak he rested his helmet to your forehead, “thank you but next time please try not to get hurt so bad,” he breathed before pulling away and moving towards the ladder.

“Please you enjoyed watching me kick her ass,” you jested, a smile overtaking your face to lighten the heavy mood. Din just groaned and tilted his head down before climbing up, leaving you to inhale his scent from your new shirt (he’s never getting it back now).

Mando would never admit it, but he did find it a little hot to watch you handle yourself like you did. That he felt himself heat up listening to you spit out that Mando’an insult before outsmarting your target. He always found you beautiful, but watching you fight and outsmart Xi’an the way you did made you even more attractive to him. He thanked the universe for letting you run into him in the blaze of fire that you did on Canto Bight.

Taglist: @soradragon

#Xi'an gets her ass beat #din djarin is hot #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin imagine #mandalorian davan

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samanthadalton · 4 years

Text

Star crossed lovers (au) part 3

pairings: poppy x mc (bea)

warnings: throughout this fic there will be mentions of substance abuse, homophobia, sexual abuse, violence, NSFW, mentions of abandonment, depression and death including suicide

reader discretion is advised

taglist: @somewillwin @save-me-the-last-dance @baexpoppy @cloud9in @stanzoeywade @ognenniyvolk @thepotatobleh @crazzyplays @rxssians @helpconfusedpersonhere (if you wanna be added or taken off just let me know😊)

(i had a huge writer’s block and im getting back into writing more often so this chapter is pretty short but next chapter will definitely be longer)

word count: 3.3k

part 1: part 2:

The make up

After the never ending nightmare provided by Chloe and her idiotic clique, Bea’s reputation at Belvoire couldn’t possibly be worse. Everywhere she went she was met with stares, or laughter, and some students would even go as far as to catcall her or demand a dance or two. Never so badly did Bea wish she could be invisible but alas it felt as if the world was against her even more and she couldn’t bring herself to find comfort in the person she loves the most, Poppy. After feeling heartbroken from Poppy’s actions, or lack of, Bea had been busying herself over the last couple of days so she wouldn’t have to see the blonde.

It didn’t help that Poppy was constantly blowing up Bea’s phone almost every second, not knowing why the brunette was ignoring her. It wasn’t until cheer/volleyball practice on Thursday that the blonde managed to steal a moment alone with her girlfriend after waiting for the girls to leave the locker room and then making the excuse she needed to find her speaker for practice and pulling an unsuspecting Bea to the back of the locker room.

“Poppy what the hell, let go. I have to be on time for practice since I missed practice on Tuesday because of work.” Bea’s tone is slightly agitated as she tries to shake out of Poppy’s ironclad grip but the unwavering blonde just tightens it embedding the shape of her slender fingers on the brunette’s arm.

“Not until you tell me why you’ve been avoiding me,” her voice is quiet, as she tries to catch Bea’s eyes searching for an answer.

Bea defeatedly sighs and faces the girl, her head slightly tilted down to look the blonde directly in her eyes, “You know why Pops.” Poppy’s grip slightly loosens up and Bea takes advantage and shakes her arm out of her grasp and sits on the bench in the corner with her head between her hands. “After what happened on Monday, I can barely walk through school without some asshole making a comment or giving me a weird look. I feel so… violated.” Her voice was low but soft like she was tired of it all.

Poppy wasn’t used to seeing Bea so vulnerable… so broken, usually when something like this happened at school Bea would reassure Poppy that she was okay and that Chloe’s words couldn’t hurt her. Only this time, it wasn’t just words, they publicly humiliated her girlfriend, and Poppy had never felt so powerless, as she watched her girlfriend on the brink of tears, fists balled up, but she couldn’t bring herself to move, to speak, all she could do was watch. Until Veronica broke out of her own faze and moved towards the brunette and tell everyone off. In the back of Poppy’s mind she knew that she should’ve been the one to defend her girlfriend’s honour, that she should’ve been the one by her side, not just this once but all the other times before, but her fears of everyone finding out the truth prohibited her from supporting her girlfriend, that damned fear that everyone would find out they were together which could be social suicide. For her career obviously, not her friends, they could eventually learn to love Bea, right?

Poppy pushes all thoughts from her mind and sits down next to a crestfallen Bea who’s breaths are becoming quicker, hands still wrapped tightly against her head. Poppy reaches over and wraps the girl in a one armed hug hoping the brunette doesn’t pull away, and feels a wave of relief when Bea nestles her head in the crook of the blonde’s neck and begins to regain her breathing.

“Poppy… why didn’t you say anything?” Bea’s voice was low, slightly muffled as she spoke into the blonde’s neck, if she wasn’t nestled in Poppy’s embrace Poppy would’ve missed the question altogether.

Poppy places her chin above the girl’s head and sighes and as she opens her mouth to answer, she realises that she doesn’t have an answer, or at least one that would satisfy both herself and Bea. Instead she stays silent, though her deafening silence is enough for Bea to know that neither of them had an answer. Bea pulls away from Poppy and pushes herself away from her on the bench leaving some distance between themselves, in more ways than one.

“I… see..” her voice is strained, as she battles with the tears that threaten her eyes, on the brink of exposing her hurt.

“So what do we do now? Bea.. I…I miss you so much,” Poppy murmurs, her voice slightly chokes as she apprehensively fiddles her fingers together.

Bea’s nostrils flare slightly as she grips the bench before using her force to push herself off to face the petite girl, anger flashing across all her features, she involuntarily raises her voice, “You think that this has been easy for me, Pops? It’s literally breaking my heart because I can’t talk to you about this,” her voice cracks slightly but she quickly masks it by clearing her throat and looking away.

Poppy jumps up from her seat and tries to grab Bea’s wrist to turn her around to face her and Bea pulls out of her grasp and moves towards the front of the locker room, Bea’s tone almost pleading as she looks at Poppy with sorrow in her eyes, the angered tone replaced with a softer one “just..give me some space Poppy, I just can’t really be around you right now.” Poppy tries to intercept and just as she opens her mouth Bea puts up a hand to stop her, “seriously Pops, please. After what you and your friends did I just can’t be around you right now.”

Poppy feels anger flaring up inside of her as she scrunches up her face and runs a hand through her hair, “Me?’ she points to herself, losing control of her voice raising it, ‘What the hell did I do? I didn’t even kno-”

Bea practically screams her whole face turning red as tiny specks of saliva leave her mouth as she shouts, “It’s what you didn’t do! You watched them humiliate me and you didn’t do anything! I thought my girlfriend was supposed to support me but maybe I was wrong.” With that she turns and walks out of the locker room leaving behind a broken hearted Poppy who just falters at the harsh reality of Bea’s words.

Poppy sits down on the bench, alone, thoughts running wild through her mind. She doesn’t care about the fact that the girls are probably waiting for her at cheer practice, her heart just hurts too much. She sits in silence until the sounds of heavy footsteps interrupt her thoughts, she looks up hoping it’s Bea but feels dejected when she sees a hint of grey-ish ombre hair.

“Poppy what the hell? We’re all waiting for you to tell us what to do.” Veronica tone impatient and she stands in front of the blonde with a hand on her hip, eyebrows raised. Poppy just hums non committedly, earning a frown from Veronica who in turn, proceeds to grab the girl by her arm to lift her off the bench, pulling Poppy from her reverie.

“Ow, chill V- what the hell” Poppy rubs at the spot which the ombre-haired girl just grabbed and pushes her slightly back, “Can’t I just take like 5 minutes to myself?”

Veronica has known Poppy long enough to know that something is on her mind since the blonde has a pretty clear track record for when it comes to showing up to practice on time, she sighs and cups Poppy’s cheeks staring directly into her eyes, “Now are you gonna tell me what’s up or are you gonna waste all of our time pretending you’re okay?”

“I’m fine V,” she moves towards the entrance of the locker room but is quickly pulled back by Veronica who knits her eyebrows together, features looking downcast.

“P, I’ve known you long enough to know something’s up, tell me.”

Poppy bites her lips her gaze drifts to the ground and she lets out an annoyed sigh, “I finally spoke to Bea”

Veronica perks up a little, “that’s good right?”

Poppy responds with a shake of her head obtaining a look of disapproval from the girl, “what happened when you guys talked?”

“She practically blamed me for what happened on monday, I mean how was I supposed to know that Chloe would do something so cruel? I didn’t think she had the brain cells to even come up with something like that.”

“What the hell?! It wasn’t your fault, do you want me to talk to Bea?” Veronica’s protectiveness bursts out as she awaits Poppy's answer.

‘No, I-, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean she’s right.’ Veronica sits down on the bench and pats the space next to her and Poppy obliges and sits down. “Bea was mad because I didn’t do anything, and she has every right to be mad. I mean, am I a shitty girlfriend?” She looks over to Veronica praying that she holds the answer to her question.

Veronica wraps her arm around Poppy and sighs before speaking, “Do you know why I got involved and stood up for Bea?”

“So my girlfriend could hate my guts because it should’ve been me?”

Veronica exasperates a little, lightly slapping Poppy’s back, “No idiot, I did it for you.” Poppy grimaces as she waits for Veronica to continue. Seeing that she isn’t going to interrupt Veronica carries on speaking, “I saw your face when you realised what they were doing to Bea, and I know that you were feeling conflicted. I mean I wouldn’t want to be in your place, having a girlfriend that no one can know about because our friends hate her because she’s part of the working class or whatever. Or a homophobic dad who has extremely high expectations and expects you to be the best of the best because he thinks it’s what your mom would’ve wanted.” If Veronica’s known for one thing, it's her bluntness. Her cold hard deliverance of the truth stunned Poppy, who for the first time does not have the words as reality dawns on her.

“... You’re right,” Poppy eyes frantically move side to side as she reflects on the past and realises that Bea has had to endure a lot of crap from her friends over the past couple of years, and she berates herself for thinking that her girlfriend could handle it on her own. She groans into Veronica’s shoulder, “God I’m such an idiot… I've been expecting Bea to just be okay with all the verbal abuse and I’ve never said anything to Chloe, I just let it all happen.” She jumps to her feet, suddenly feeling resolved, she looks down at Veronica who just blankly stares at Poppy hoping for an answer for her sudden awakening. “I know what I have to do” and with that she runs out of the locker room ignoring Veronica as she calls out to her.

Poppy moves with determination as she heads over to the hall where volleyball practice takes place and before she opens the door she peeks her head though the window and sees a disheartened Bea running laps as Chloe barks out orders to the rest of her teammates.

She throws the doors open and charges towards Chloe who notices a furious Poppy moving towards her and breaks out into a smile, “Hey P, aren’t you supposed to be at prac-” Poppy practically slams Chloe into the wall and practice comes to a halt as all the girls, including Bea watch the ordeal unfold. “Owww, what the hell” Chloe tries to move from Poppy’s hold as her back is flat against the wall but the shorter girl filled with anger and adrenaline rams the girl back into the wall.

“That crap you pulled on Monday wasn’t cool and you’re not gonna bother Bea or speak about her mom again. Otherwise you’re going to regret it.” Poppy’s eyes bore into Chloe’s, her tone threatening but low, only meant for the blue-eyed girl to hear.

Chloe’s temper flares as she looks over Poppy’s shoulder to see a confused Bea watching the two girls with a frown and in the moment she manages to shove Poppy back and overemphasises her height against the strawberry blonde, keeping her posture straight and her head bent slightly to look down at her, “So what? Because you’re lab partners you guys are all buddy buddy? Who gives a shit about that tramp? What you’re not going to do Poppy is walk into practice and try to embarrass me in front of my team.” Chloe’s voice echoes throughout the hall as she struggles to keep her temper under control.

Poppy’s somewhat startled by Chloe’s outburst but maintains her stoic expression and leans in to whisper, “I could end your life Chloe, don’t test me.” She looks down at Chloe’s hands to see them shaking as they’re balled up into fists, she knows the girl would never touch a hair on her head but she also doesn’t want to escalate the situation any further in case the fallout is bad for Bea. Well, there’s just one more card for her to play, she sighs and rubs her forehead with one hand as she reaches out and clasps one of Chloe’s fists with her other, “I don’t want you talking about Bea’s mom because at least she has one, no matter how shitty she may be.”

All the colour drains from Chloe’s face as her body relaxes and she looks more embarrassed than anything else, using her dead mom as bait for no one to find out about her and Bea? She’ll take that opportunity.

Chloe simply splutters struggling to find the words, so she just wraps her arms around Poppy and mumbles into Poppy’s ear, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise how much that would’ve affected you.”

Poppy rolls her eyes slightly as she knows that Chloe’s sincerity is only for her and not Bea but she releases herself from Chloe’s embrace and places a hand on Chloe’s shoulder, “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have barged in here during practice but it was eating me up inside and I just had to say something.” Chloe aggressively nods along to each and every one of Poppy’s words and her lips form a small smile, which Poppy reciprocates.

“Well, umm I should get back to practice and so should you, I’ll tell the guys as well to stop too”

Poppy genuinely smiles at the girl and gives her a small thank you before turning around to leave the gym. Her eyes catch Bea’s and she crinkles her eyes a little, giving a small smile before leaving the gym to go to practice in the field.

……

After a couple of gruelling hours of practice Poppy and the rest of the cheerleaders all shower and change before forming a small semicircle around the team captain. Poppy’s gaze shifts between every girl before landing on Veronica’s who gives her a wink. “Great practice today girls, remember that we need to be in top shape for the first football game against Hearst in two weeks.” She claps her hands together as all eyes are entranced on her, “I’m sorry I was late to practice so you guys had to stay back a little longer but remember that your dedication is what’s most important to the team. Also I’m still deciding who will be part of the smaller group to cheer at the volleyball games. When the teams make it to nationals we will be representing Belvoire at the games and will be invited to stay with the volleyball team for two weeks in spring. So…. impress me girls.” The cheerleaders disperse as Veronica and Poppy walk out of the locker room side by side and Veronica bumps Poppy’s shoulder slightly as they walk out to the dimly lit empty parking lot.

“So I’m guessing whatever epiphany you had worked out”

Poppy chuckles a bit, “what makes you think that?”

“Well you weren’t a crazy bitch today in practice so there’s that. What exactly did you do?”

Poppy lazily picks at one of her manicured nails, “What I should’ve done from the start, gave Chloe a piece of my mind.”

Veronica lets out a loud exaggerated cough and Poppy looks up at her eyebrow raised, “well whatever you said, I’m guessing it worked,” she nods her head towards the direction over Poppy’s shoulder and Poppy turns to see Bea leaning against her motorbike her eyes fixated on hers and she smiles. “Well, I’ll take that as my cue to leave” she gives the blonde a quick hug and salutes to Bea before heading into her car and driving away.

Poppy saddles up to Bea and awkwardly tucks in some of her hair behind her ears. Both of them just stare at each other, waiting for the other to initiate the conversation until Bea lets out a laugh.

“So…”

“So….”

“I liked that tactic of yours, slamming Chloe against the wall, I mean I’ve been wishing to do that for years.”

Poppy throws her head back and laughs, “Not my finest moment but I had to do something,” She nervously chews on her lips as she awaits for Bea’s reaction.

“Yeah, that was uh something,” She hesitantly reaches out to the blonde gripping her waist and pulling her closer, “I’m not fully happy with you though, but thank you. I don’t know what you said to Chloe but this was the first practice where she treated me with some decency.”

Internally, Poppy screams with happiness as this was the first time in days where Bea just simply holds her and she wraps her arms around the taller girl’s neck resting her forehead against hers. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, I know I have to earn that. And I know I’ve been a shitty girlfriend-”

Bea shushes Poppy her hand moving up to cup Poppy’s jaw while her thumb circles her cheekbone, “You’re not a shitty girlfriend Pops. It’s just I wish you could just I don’t know, publicly support me a little. No one’s gonna suspect anything about us just because you’re being a respectable human being.”

“I know, I know. If I’m being honest, I just froze, I didn’t know what to do but my first instinct should’ve been to help you. It’s just so hard sometimes when everyone’s watching because honestly speaking Bea? I don’t know how you do it sometimes. You’re the most incredible person ever and you deserve to be with someone you can actually be with, not just someone you have to hide in the shadows with.”

Bea places a finger on Poppy’s lips, silencing her, and when she speaks it’s with the greatest intensity and desirability, “I choose you Poppy. Everyday I choose you. I know it’s not without its challenges but I would rather do hard with you than have it easy with somebody else. You’re worth it all. I just want a little more support, that's all I ask.”

“And that’s exactly what you’re going to get Bea, I promise,” she leans in and places a soft kiss against Bea’s lips and whispers, “I love you so much, and I promise to do better.”

Bea feverently kisses the blonde before whispering back, “I love you too. Now that we’re okay..how would you like to accompany me to a party this Saturday” her eyes gleam with hopefulness as she knows that Ford is already planning a back to school party on saturday and Poppy’s obligations would usually fall align with her friends. “There’s even going to be fireworks.”

Poppy kisses the brunette, “Fireworks huh? I would love to” she kisses Bea again, filled with passion as the couple of days they spent without each other catches up to them and Bea grips Poppy’s hips tighter pulling her impossibly closer to her.

Unbeknown to the girls, a figure in the corner of the parking lot watches the girls locked in a passionate embrace which is eventually broken as the brunette offers to drive the blonde home and they drive off together, happy and content.

read part 4 here:

#playchoices #queen b #poppy min sinclair #poppy x mc

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Me and You Together, 3/10 (Taywhora) - Ortega

fic summary: The cardinal rule of having flatmates is that you Do Not Catch Feelings For Your Flatmates, because everything inevitably goes to shit and gets made horrifically awkward. A’whora and Tayce both know this, but being in first year of uni and making good decisions have never really gone hand in hand.

a/n: again, fucking bowled over by the love and support this has had so far. i cannot thank any of u enough, ur all absolute wee diamonds in the sky. hope u enjoy this one- we’re in January for this one, where the girls have to deal with the consequences of December…and Tayce is tasked with keeping a secret for Lawrence.

last chapter: September- On a damp, bright Saturday in September, six flatmates move into their student flat and meet for the first time.

this chapter: January- Tayce and A’whora still have unfinished business from a night out and a hungover morning in December. But it’s only awkward if they make it awkward…right?

***

Tayce is pretty sure she’s going to combust if something doesn’t happen soon.

It’s been a month and a week since A’whora kissed her, and twenty-four hours shorter than that since Tayce kissed her in return. Or thereabouts, it’s not like she’s counting. It’s not like it’s been consuming her every thought every waking moment of the day or anything.

In all fairness, Tayce seems like it’s an achievement to think about a kiss for that length of time. Especially through her first semester essay deadlines, Ellie’s raucous eighteenth, her first Christmas back home, her first New Year seeing all her old school friends after uni and updating Cheryl and Cara on everything. She’d drunkenly come out to Cheryl too after being gently encouraged and supported by Cara, and they’d both cried as Cheryl held her and confessed that since uni had started she’d also begun seeing a girl she really liked too.

It’s funny how at uni everybody seems so much more free. Away from a stifling hometown, Tayce and her friends can properly spread their wings and be who they’ve always been but have either not realised it or been afraid to show it. Tayce is the happiest she’s ever been when she’s at the flat with the others in her little bubble of a home away from home, with Bimini’s intelligent insights and Tia’s funny quips, Lawrence’s chaos and Ellie’s kindness and A’whora being…well, her best friend.

Except she’s not really sure that best friends kiss each other like that.

But maybe they do, because since they’ve all come back from home after Christmas A’whora hasn’t mentioned the kisses, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened between them. Hasn’t even joked about it with her or in front of the others (which is fair enough, as if Lawrence knew she’d probably tease them about it until they graduated). Tayce is pretty sure that none of the others even know, or at least if they do they’ve not spoken about it.

And the worst part is that A’whora has been absolutely…normal. Fine.

See, Tayce could’ve dealt with any awkwardness- she’d be upfront, bluntly ask A’whora if she wants to forget about it or what she wants the plan for them to be. Even better would’ve been if A’whora had rugby-tackled her the moment she’d got back from Wales and smothered her with kisses, told her how much she’d been thinking about her while they’d both been away. Tayce supposes it’s kind of her fault they never properly talked about it since she’d practically bolted out of A’whora’s room when she’d kissed her that morning, but she’d been nervous in case she’d made everything too weird. A’whora hadn’t seemed to be complaining at the time, though.

In fact that night, A’whora had been up for plenty more than just a drunk kiss. If Tayce thinks about everything she’d said when they were walking home her face still gets hot and she has to squeeze her thighs together. She’s definitely glad they never crossed any of those particular lines when they’d both been drinking, but sometimes when she’s lying in bed at night Tayce lets her hands drift between her legs as she thinks about A’whora telling her how much and for how long she’d wanted her.

Best friends definitely don’t do that.

So Tayce feels guilty spending time with just A’whora these days, the fact that things haven’t been awkward between them somehow being worse than if they were. She’s not been avoiding her per sé, she’s just been finding ways to make sure it’s very rarely the two of them alone together: hanging out in the kitchen with everyone instead of in her room, going to bed when the others do instead of staying up with A’whora, inviting the others to anything A’whora suggests the two of them do together. It’s silly, and Tayce does miss spending time alone with her, but A’whora acting like nothing’s happened while conversely Tayce wants everything to happen hurts her embarrassingly more than she’d care to admit.

Such a time is a lazy Sunday afternoon halfway through the shittiest month of the year, when the weather outside is full of misty rain that’s a recipe for frizzy hair, puddles, and misery. Just to add to the rubbish day Tayce is holed up in her room, watching the grey clouds drift and overlap over each other to create a paint colour chart in the sky as she begins an essay that’s due in a mere five days. It’s been hard to focus on anything when her head is full of her best friend and imaginary scenarios but the prospect of an all-nighter isn’t one that’s particularly desirable either, so she and the ninety-five words she’s written so far are engaged in a stand-off as Tayce waits for the essay to write itself and the word document waits for her brain cells to conjure up any more opinions on “Is art a conveyor of emotion?” (4000 words).

And then there’s a knock on the door that doesn’t wait for permission to enter and A’whora bounces in. She’s in a pair of grey joggers and a baggy navy pyjama top that she’s tucked in at the waist and rolled up the sleeves of, and her hair is up in a bun that’s had approximately 5% effort put into it apart from the little diamante hair clasp she’s slid through it at the top.

In spite of herself, Tayce can’t help but snort when she sees her. “Only you could make your shitty potato loungewear fashion.”

“Shut up! This is haute couture. This is actually my final project for the semester,” A’whora jokes in return, moves to sit at the foot of her bed and pout at her. “Tayyyce. I’m boreddd.”

Tayce raises an eyebrow at A’whora’s whining from over her laptop screen. “And I’m doing this essay. Find someone else to bug.”

“Don’t be such a hound,” A’whora frowns, falling sideways and landing onto the bed so she’s hugging Tayce’s legs through the duvet, her head resting on her shins. “I’d annoy Ellie but she’s in town with one of her friends from home. C’mon, let’s do a movie day. We’ve not had one in ages. I feel like we’ve barely had any time together since you got back.”

“Just been trying to catch up on all my coursework. It’s not personal,” she lies, her heart sinking only the tiniest bit at the realisation that her attempts at staying out of A’whora’s way have obviously been louder than they’ve been subtle.

“Please?” A’whora bats her lashes, and if it was impossible to say no to her before it’s surely illegal to do so now.

Tayce sighs and closes her laptop, eliciting a smile from the other girl. “Fine. Fine! But you better ask the others, I don’t want them feeling left out.”

It’s a good spur-of-the-moment excuse to make sure Tayce doesn’t have to spend two hours cuddled up next to A’whora while her heart hurts, but she’s confused by the way a small look of something passes over A’whora’s expression. She can’t put her finger on what it is, but A’whora’s agreeing and bounding down to the living room before Tayce can figure it out.

Tayce throws on her dressing gown over her clothes before leaving her room to join her, the blue fluffy one with the narwhal hood that’s complete with a horn on the top. She doesn’t own many embarrassing items of clothing, but this is definitely one of them. It doesn’t matter too much, though. A’whora’s seen her in it before, when she’s been hungover or sad or hangry and on her period.

It’s so funny how she can only have known her five months and still feel closer to her than half of the friends she spent six years with at high school.

In the kitchen, A’whora’s already cheerfully getting organised as Bimini and Lawrence lounge on the sofa lazily. Tia’s not in either- it emerges she’s gone round to Veronica’s, which nobody’s surprised about.

“Main question is, what’re we watching?” Bimini asks. “It’s a lazy Sunday so it can’t be anything that’s too good. I want something I can rip the piss out of while I watch it, y’know?”

There’s some squabbling about film choices as A’whora makes popcorn in the microwave, burns it, then subsequently has to make another packet. It’s eventually decided that they’re going to watch Love Actually despite the fact it’s January, because they all either hate it or like it because of how bad it is and the film will simply be a vehicle for them to yell jokes over.

“Have we got anything to drink? We could make this into like…a day drinking situation,” Lawrence suggests casually.

“You’re not helping the stereotype that all Scottish people are alcoholics at all,” A’whora quips, causing Tayce to let out a too-loud laugh.

“Listen, if you’ve not figured out that I’m a walking talking stereotype by now, A’whora, are we even friends?” Lawrence shoots back, and A’whora shrugs in an unspoken fair enough.

Tayce tilts her head then remembers something. “I actually still have loads of canned cocktails in my suitcase that my Mum got me for Christmas. Haven’t unpacked them yet. Think there’s about…twelve?”

“Ooh, three each? That’s alright!” Bimini smiles, clearly buoyed by the prospect of being slightly tipsy in the middle of the afternoon.

“Right, that’s settled then. I’ll go get them,” Tayce decides. A’whora’s crossing the kitchen before she knows it.

“I’ll help you with them.”

Before Tayce can speak, Bimini gives a snort. “ ‘Ow much do you think canned cocktails weigh, exactly?”

As Lawrence bursts into peals of laughter, Tayce watches as A’whora rolls her eyes at them, then turns on her heel to follow her to her room. Tayce can’t help but be a little wary, though. It does kind of seem like A’whora’s trying to get her on her own, which Tayce wouldn’t mind if she knew where she was coming from. But she doesn’t.

Tayce kneels down onto the floor as she rolls her suitcase out from under the bed, chatting mindlessly as she does so because if she’s talking it means A’whora doesn’t have a chance to bring up whatever she clearly wants to bring up. “I think there’s actually eleven here, you know. Because, uh…I think I drank one of them while I was at home, so we’re gonna need to fight over who gets one less. I don’t fancy my chances in a fight against Lawrence, she’d probably give me…what’s that expression? A Glasgow kiss? She’d give me one of those. Although Bimini, what do you think they’d be like in a fight? You know I think they’ve secretly got a set of knuckledusters, they seem the type. Although when I think about it-”

“Tayce,” A’whora cuts in, forcing her to snap her head up. Her expression is troubled, and a little frown dips on her forehead as she looks at her. “What’s wrong? Why are you being so…I don’t know, weird? Like you want to get rid of me?”

Tayce feels ashamed for being called out on her behaviour, and she can feel her stomach drop as she looks back at the cans in her otherwise empty suitcase. She wants to tell her there’s a reason for the way she’s been acting but A’whora beats her to the punch, murmuring with her head down and not meeting Tayce’s eyes.

“Is this because we kissed?”

“A’whora…” Tayce immediately groans in exasperation, the heat rushing to her cheeks as if she’s been slapped. She’s embarrassed, because she knows she’s got the capacity to talk about this like a grown-up but there’s a part of her that’s cringing, because if A’whora’s about to tell her she regrets it then she’s not sure she’ll ever live it down.

There’s a small silence where neither of them seem to move, let alone speak. A’whora is yet again the one to break it. “I just feel like you hate me all of a sudden.”

Fuck. If there was one thing Tayce had wanted to avoid, it’s this. Even though she herself is hurting she can’t bear the thought of having hurt A’whora’s feelings too, so she frowns, reaches up and squeezes A’whora’s hand which prompts her to look at Tayce. “I don’t hate you, Rory, of course I don’t hate you. I just…”

Tayce looks up to the ceiling as she searches for the right words, even though she’s not really sure what they are. She wants to tell A’whora she’s yearning for something to happen again between them and that even the fact she’s holding her hand is setting her pulse off all too quickly, but now’s not the right time. Besides, she doesn’t even know if A’whora feels the same way. Either way, Tayce can hear A’whora holding her breath, can feel the way her body’s tense beside her, so Tayce finally formulates something that doesn’t sound too hot or too cold.

“…I just don’t know where we go from here, that’s all.”

A’whora visibly relaxes, then shrugs. Her voice is quiet as she speaks. “Well, it’s only awkward if we make it awkward. And I feel like I’ve been okay at not making it awkward?”

Tayce narrows her eyes at her, laughs. “So what you’re saying is it’s all my fault.”

“Yes.”

The pair of the giggle softly and things already seem to have shifted back into comfortable territory. The green of a spring bulb popping up through the snow.

Tayce swallows her not-inconsiderable pride and smiles up at A’whora. She supposes going back to being friends and not ever talking about the fact that they kissed again is better than existing in a tense purgatory for the rest of their time in the flat together, even if it does make her feel a little sinking feeling of disappointment and a sense of mourning what could’ve been. “I’m sorry for being such a…mingebag.”

A’whora cracks up, repeats “mingebag!” incredulously, before her laughter dies down and she gives Tayce’s hand a squeeze in return. “That’s okay. Just good to know you still like me.”

They share a soft smile before piling the cocktails high in their arms, cradling them as if they’re babies as they rush back through to the living room where Bimini and Lawrence are hanging up a huge white sheet on the wall opposite the sofa for the projector. The projector had been Tia’s addition to the flat, an AliExpress purchase that had turned out to not be broken, or unusable, or made for a doll’s house.

“Tia won’t mind us borrowing that, will she?” A’whora asks with concern. Lawrence scoffs, bats a hand in her direction dismissively.

“She’ll be too mouth-deep in Veronica to care when she realises we’ve used it, let’s not lie!”

There’s a cry of disgust at Lawrence’s turn of phrase from the others, and as Tayce sets up the cocktails on the little coffee table A’whora brings the bowl of popcorn through.

“It’s fun to be able to make jokes about Tia and her girl, in’t it?” Bimini chuckles good-naturedly. “Always feel like we can’t properly tease her when Ellie’s there ‘cause she always looks like she’s about to jump out the window any time we mention Veronica’s name.”

The revelation that Ellie has feelings for Tia had come via a drunken, tearful confession to the others the night of her eighteenth birthday, when Tia had left the party with Veronica instead of staying overnight at the flat. Poor Ellie had been so devastatingly upset that the others had seemed to forge an unspoken agreement that the situation wasn’t going to be fodder for flat jokes. Instead they make sure to ask Tia how her budding relationship is going when Ellie isn’t around.

As she and A’whora laugh in agreement at Bimini’s joke, Tayce doesn’t miss the way Lawrence grows uncharacteristically quiet.

“When d’you think Ellie will get over Tia? I mean it’s a shame she doesn’t like her back, but she’ll ‘ave to at some point.”

“She won’t. She’ll just pine after her every day until we graduate,” Lawrence says. It’s meant to be a joke but her delivery is somewhat flat, and Tayce wonders if she’s the only one that picks up on it. From the way A’whora and Bimini are laughing, it appears she has been.

Bimini and Lawrence step back from the sheet, satisfied with the job they’ve done. A’whora’s busy plugging in the fairy lights Ellie strung up where the wall meets the ceiling a few months ago, and Tayce can’t help but think to herself that sacking off her essay was a good idea as she glances at their setup. Never let it be said that their flat does things by halves.

“Oh! We should bring duvets through. And blankets,” A’whora suggests, and Tayce’s heart is both warmed and hurt by how adorably enthusiastic she is about the whole endeavour. She wishes she could shake the lingering feeling of disappointment she’s got in her gut at the knowledge that they’ll probably never talk about their kiss again; they’ve moved on from it, it was a one-time thing, and it’s only awkward if they make it awkward so Tayce bringing it up would be awkward, right?

So she settles on the sofa with Lawrence while Bimini helps A’whora gather up all their pillows, cushions, blankets and duvets from their respective rooms. Tayce is about to become lost in her own head when Lawrence turns to her with a look in her eyes that Tayce has never seen before. It’s almost conspiratorial and definitely suspicious, and for one horrific moment Tayce is convinced that Lawrence knows everything that happened in December.

“What is it?” Tayce asks her, before her flatmate can even open her mouth. Lawrence sighs, tips her head back to the head of the sofa and squeezes her eyes shut.

“I need to tell you a secret.”

Tayce’s heart drops as if she’s on a rollercoaster. Her mind immediately jumps to A’whora. What’s she told her? What does Lawrence know? It would make sense to wait until A’whora was out of the room before telling her anything. Tayce tries to keep her face impassive as she turns to Lawrence, nods quietly. “Okay, spill.”

“You can’t tell anyone, Tayce,” Lawrence insists, looking at her pleadingly. Tayce promises she won’t, although in retrospect she probably should’ve asked what it was first. The way Lawrence is acting is intriguing, though. It makes Tayce think it’s something about herself if it’s something she doesn’t want the others to know so badly.

“Christ, this is so cringe,” Lawrence groans, dropping her head forward and resting it in her hands. Tayce can still see the pink flush that’s started to dust her face, and by now she’s convinced that this has nothing to do with A’whora and everything to do with Lawrence herself.

Lawrence mutters out something incoherent into her hands. Tayce frowns, humoured. “What?”

A huge huff comes from the girl on the sofa beside her, and as she removes her hands from the front of her face she sticks them to the side of it like blinkers on a horse. It’s the quietest Tayce has ever heard Lawrence speak as she says the secret again. “I’ve got a crush on Ellie.”

Tayce’s face lights up at her friend’s confession. “Do you actually?”

“Christ, don’t make me say it twice. I’ll get struck down.”

Tayce leans into Lawrence, uses both her hands to lightly poke her in the arm. “Look at you! Being cute and having feelings!”

“It’s not, though! It’s not cute at all! It’s just sad!” Lawrence rolls her eyes, shaking her head at the same time. “Because she doesn’t…she’ll never see me like that, and she’s too busy making cow-eyes at Tia all the time anyway, so. It’s pointless, I don’t even know why I’m even hoping for something to happen.”

“Hey, listen! How long do you think Ellie’s gonna be able to keep moaning about Tia when she’s still seeing Veronica? I mean there’s only one way that relationship is going, the only ‘end’ there is in ‘girlfriend’. So Ellie’s gonna have to get over it eventually!” Tayce says supportively, shaking Lawrence’s arm to gee her up. Lawrence bats her away, though, giving another sigh.

“Tayce, it’s not exactly like she’s gonnae suddenly realise that I’ve been here all along! Like some fuckin’ chick flick. I’ve fancied her for years,” Lawrence explains. The information knocks Tayce for six, but when she thinks about it it makes sense- the way Lawrence gently bullies her so much, the way she gravitates towards her all the time, the way she gets quiet if Ellie starts moping about Tia. Tayce had never thought about it in that light before.

Lawrence hugs her knees to her chest as she continues. “Realised I liked her the last time we were at the caravan. And obviously we were at opposite sides of the country but like…I’d still meet up with her in Summer, get the train to Dundee and have sleepovers and all that shite. And when she came into the kitchen on that first day I was so happy she was gonnae be living with us, and I am still happy, because obviously she’s my friend? But like…it’s just shite to know that she’ll never like me back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Ellie’s type is obviously tall, dark and skinny. Which…” Lawrence gestures at herself with a deprecative laugh. “…how can I be any of that?”

“Right, for a start! Stop thinking about what you’re not and start thinking about what you are,” Tayce says firmly, gripping her hand tightly.

Lawrence rolls her eyes and fixes her with a pointed stare. “Oh, like what? I’m beautiful on the inside! I know I’m the fat funny friend, Tayce, you can spare me the bullshit.”

“Well…you’re fat, and so fucking what of it? Doesn’t mean you aren’t drop-dead-fuckin’ gorgeous. Being fat and being beautiful aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Very easy for you to say, sat there wearing size eights. Tell that to literally any piece of media we consume. Or any of my brain cells. Even if there are only about ten of them,” Lawrence sighs, then pauses. “I do like the way I look, and I don’t want to change anything about myself. It’s just…several things make that very hard almost all of the time, and it’s tiring to feel like you’re constantly fighting a losing battle. And it’s not like I’m pinning all my self-worth on a girl liking me back, but just…it would be nice to be the one that someone has a crush on for a change, if that makes sense?”

Before Tayce can say anything to affirm how Lawrence is feeling, a movement from down the hall makes her flinch and point at Tayce accusingly. “Not a fucking word, right? Least of all to A’whora, if she knows then I might as well just tell Ellie myself and like fuck is that happening.”

Tayce nods rapidly in a promise as A’whora and Bimini emerge from the hall comedically draped in materials, like a child’s attempt at a dress made out of knitting and featherdown quilts. They all set about arranging everything to make their setup as comfy as possible, and as the film gets loaded up they get comfortable in their respective positions. Lawrence is at one end of the sofa, with Tayce in the middle and A’whora at her side, while Bimini sits on the floor with their back to the sofa because they’re quite happy sitting there with enough cushions and pillows. The big lights are turned off, the film begins, and the room is filled with the soft glow of the fairy lights and the hazy light from the movie and all Tayce can think about is A’whora, warm and soft and squashed up beside her sharing the blanket.

Tayce feels silly for being so disappointed. This was what she’d wanted- they’d talked about it. They’d addressed the fact that the kiss had happened, and now they were just…moving forward. Not making things awkward. Because obviously to A’whora, the fact it’s happened has made things awkward.

And that shouldn’t hurt Tayce as much as it does.

It’s hard to dwell on things for long, though, when she has block four flat ten’s very own Ant and Dec in her living room. Lawrence and Bimini keep her and A’whora giggling pretty much from the film’s first scene, and they all fall about screech-laughing when Bimini forces them to pause it on a shot of Liam Neeson’s hall in which there’s a horrific blob of a child’s painting on the wall that looks so cursed they just had to point it out.

It’s probably because Lawrence and Bimini are distracting her that Tayce doesn’t initially notice A’whora leaning into her at first until she’s pressed up against Tayce’s side. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary. They’ve always sat close before, but this time things feel different. This time it feels as if there’s little sparks of electricity between them, metaphorical manifestations of the anticipation Tayce feels of something she’s yearning to happen.

So when A’whora bumps her knuckles against Tayce’s, brings her hand over hers and laces their fingers together, Tayce feels as if she’s suddenly evolved into some ridiculous cartoon character; she can practically feel her eyes bulge out of their sockets in shock and she has to stop her jaw from dropping onto the floor. If her heart could comedically fly out of its chest it would. Tayce keeps her gaze steady and focused on the film, blocking out her peripheral vision and not even turning to see if A’whora’s looking at her too. Because if she is it would make everything ten times worse (better?) than it currently is, and Tayce’s head is already in a spin. They’ve held hands before. It’s not like this is different.

But it is. Before they hadn’t kissed. Before A’whora hadn’t told Tayce she wanted to sleep with her. Before all of Tayce’s feelings for her friend were cooped up into neat little boxes in her mind that were so full they were close to bursting, but now they have and now it’s After and so holding A’whora’s hand has gone from usual to extraordinary, routine to electric.

Tayce hopes A’whora can’t feel the way her pulse is racing because that’ll definitely let her know something is up.

She’s suddenly startled out of her overthinking by a tut of disapproval from Lawrence. “How many fuckin’ couples are in this film and there’s not one single lesbian?”

“Lesbians didn’t exist in 2003, remember?” Bimini deadpans, causing A’whora to giggle.

“Yeah, lesbians were invented in 2013 when Orange is the New Black aired.”

“Nah! When did Sugar Rush come out? Mind that programme on Channel 4? I remember watching that through a crack in the living room door when my parents thought I’d gone to bed,” Lawrence recounds excitedly, her enthusiasm at remembering her lesbian awakening making Tayce laugh and relate at the same time.

“For me it was Sophie and Sian. Remember on Coronation Street? They were my first lesbians.”

“At least you all got representation at some stage. If I wanted to see another pan I’d have to watch fuckin’…Kitchen Nightmares,” Bimini rolls their eyes, their joke making the girls howl with laughter and let out cries of consolation.

And then A’whora squeezes Tayce’s hand under the blanket.

Tayce thinks only for a second before squeezing it back, and subsequently doesn’t think before turning and looking at her friend beside her. A’whora shoots her a little smile that if Tayce didn’t know better she’d say was innocent, but the twinkle in her eye and the way she shuffles herself to lean closer against her and tuck her other hand into the crook of Tayce’s elbow makes her heart give a judder like she’s been crashed into from behind.

She supposes it’s only awkward if she makes things awkward, just like A’whora said. So when Tayce gently strokes A’whora’s hand with her thumb, it’s only to illustrate to A’whora that things aren’t weird between them. It’s not to see how the other girl is going to react to that at all. It’s not because being affectionate with A’whora just feels correct and perfect, the easiest thing in the world.

Tayce is holding her breath waiting for A’whora to do something else. Something to raise her hopes, something to show her that maybe she does want something to happen between them again. She wants the film to go on forever and give them infinite time in this no-man’s-land of comfortable tension, because when it ends she knows A’whora will probably just get up from under the blanket and slip away as if everything is back to normal.

When A’whora lets go of her hand, Tayce feels her hopes drop into the pit of her stomach, a rollercoaster coming to a dead stop. The ride is over.

But a second later she wraps her arm around Tayce’s waist, squeezes her close in a hug, and the ride begins all over again. Tayce’s heart rate spikes as she shifts a little, getting comfortable before bringing her arm around A’whora’s middle too and holding her right back.

It’s then that Lawrence’s voice makes Tayce snap her head away from the film, her glazed-over eyes having to focus on her friend who’s regarding her with a raised eyebrow. “Fuck’s going on under that blanket? You two fingering each other?”

Bimini snaps their head up and yells as Tayce tries to conceal the wave of panic that hits her, rolls her eyes and shakes her head and tells Lawrence that she needs to get her mind out the gutter. She’s sure that being called out will make A’whora flinch away, a woodland animal startled by a twig breaking, but she just giggles and buries her face into Tayce’s side all bashful.

God, Tayce wants to kiss her so much.

The film reaches the scene where Emma Thompson cries in her bedroom to Joni Mitchell, and the sniffing from the floor indicates she’s not the only one.

“Bimini! You said you hated this film!” Tayce laughs, nudging her friend with her foot.

“Yeah, but anyone who doesn’t cry at this scene is a hard-hearted bastard,” they reply, voice thick with emotion.

“Aww, BonBon. It’s okay, I’ve got a little tear as well,” A’whora murmurs from Tayce’s side. She huffs a sigh. “I can’t even believe anyone would fall for that pencil-skirt-wearing cow. I mean, she fucking manspreads and that’s supposed to be some sort of sexy come-on?”

“Aw, and like you could do any better?! We’ve all seen you trying to flirt, it’s embarrassing!” Lawrence cries in outrage.

Tayce is reminded of nights out earlier in the year when A’whora would talk to girls at bars and Tayce would always feel this inexplicable burn in her chest in response. She remembers the unfounded relief when A’whora would come back home to the flat with the rest of them, one-night-stand missions failed, and the churn in her stomach the times when she’d leave with a girl she didn’t know and sneak back into the flat at nine in the morning, ready to tell the others about her exploits from the night before which Tayce never wanted to hear.

She’s really fancied A’whora for a long time, now she thinks about it.

“I could so do better!” A’whora complains, and Tayce isn’t looking at her but she just knows she’s pouting.

Lawrence chuckles, tilting her head in amusement. “Go on then! What would your plan of action be, Miss fuckin’ Womaniser?”

There’s a pause before A’whora says, “Well I’d probably wait until we were both drunk on a night out, do tequila shots with them, drape myself over them, kiss them, then get them to take me back home.”

Tayce thinks she deserves an Oscar for the way she refuses to outwardly react to the way A’whora has essentially just described their kiss from that night out. Inside, however, it’s a different story. She’s not sure it’s possible for her heart to go any faster, and every cell of her body seems to buzz. She can barely hear Lawrence and Bimini laughing in response to A’whora’s comment for the way her blood’s roaring in her ears. Once the others stop paying attention and go back to watching the film, it’s only then that Tayce turns her head, raises one unimpressed eyebrow at A’whora who’s looking up at her with a scheming smirk on her face and a glint in her eye.

And right as she’s looking at her, A’whora closes her eyes and plants a kiss against Tayce’s arm then goes back to watching the movie as if nothing ever happened.

It’s at that point that Tayce feels her mouth dry up, feels something coil tight inside her and a throb between her legs. Something is going to happen the moment the pair of them are alone, she can feel it. There’s no way it can’t. In stark contrast to earlier, Tayce now wills the film to end sooner rather than later.

And it does. Finally. The credits roll, the Beach Boys are playing, and Lawrence slaps her thighs. “Well, that was a heap of shite!”

“I’ve still not forgiven Alan Rickman. God love the dead old bastard,” Bimini shrugs, heaves themself up off the floor and slides their phone out of their back pocket, scrolling busily. “Oh, Ellie’s asking if we wanna come join her an’ Anne for drinks. Apparently they’re in some boujie cocktail bar in town spending all their student loan and need responsible adults to stop them.”

“Why the hell are they asking us then?” Tayce quips, the giggle it elicits from A’whora sending a shockwave down her spine.

“I’m down to go meet them both. I’m already tipsy, might as well go the whole hog and get rat-arsed,” Lawrence says decisively, leaping up from the sofa and fixing Tayce and A’whora with an inquisitive glance. “You two coming?”

Tayce lets go of A’whora’s waist and stretches to make a point. “Nah, babe, I can’t. Got this essay due on Wednesday I’ve not started.”

Bimini snorts. “Yeah, I forgot. You’re dead on it and organised, in’t ya?”

Tayce pulls a face at them while Lawrence asks A’whora.

“Mmph. Think I need a nap before I even think about drinking any more, hun.”

Lawrence eyes them both suspiciously and appears to be about to say something else before Bimini tugs on her arm and distracts her. “C’mon then, let’s leave these two to be boring. Have fun, losers!”

Goodbyes are exchanged between them and Lawrence and Bimini finally leave, the fire door to the kitchen swinging shut and leaving the warm glow of the fairy lights, the blanket, the sofa, and A’whora gazing at her with that shit-eating smirk on her face again.

So Tayce wastes no time in bringing a hand up to her jaw, leaning down and kissing her, and judging by the way that A’whora melts into her and lets out a little happy sigh of satisfaction she’s been waiting for it just as much as Tayce has. They fall together like it’s easy, as if both of the times they’ve done this before have been all the practise they need. A’whora brings her hand to rest against Tayce’s cheek as if she’s trying to somehow pull her closer than she already is, and her neediness makes Tayce giggle against her lips. In turn it sets A’whora off, and when she pulls away their faces are still close and there’s little smiles on each of them.

“What’s so funny, you little bitch?” A’whora smirks, her barbed words cushioned by the way she’s wriggling onto Tayce’s lap and bringing her arms up to circle around her neck just like she did the first time in the club.

“Just you’re kind of giving me mixed signals here, baby. Saying you don’t want things to be awkward and then moving to me the entire film,” Tayce mutters, keeping a playful smile on her face despite the fact her words hold entirely too much truth.

It clearly takes the wind out of A’whora’s sails because she casts her gaze down, pauses before speaking and looking at Tayce from under her lashes. “I didn’t mean that, I just meant…I want us to be able to do stuff and not have it be awkward afterwards.”

Oh.

This is a game changer. So A’whora doesn’t regret anything. She doesn’t want them to go back to the way things were- well no, she does, just with an extra little bit of something more added in. She wants the friendship they have but she also clearly wants Tayce like she wants her back, and the realisation makes Tayce squeeze her thighs together, anticipation now so high she feels scared for her blood pressure.

Tayce tries not to let her realisation show on her face. Instead she looks at A’whora with interest, raises an eyebrow at her in amusement. “What’s ‘stuff’, then?”

“Well, just like…if we’re both horny and in the same flat then it saves us having to swipe Tinder for hours on end only to find a girl with a boyfriend who’s looking to ‘experiment’ and never found another girl’s clit in her life, doesn’t it?” A’whora shrugs blithely despite the blush that’s hit her cheeks, her turn of phrase making Tayce bite back a smile. “Whereas I’ve been told I’m quite good at that.”

The twinkle is back in A’whora’s eye again and the combination of that, her smirk and her words make Tayce’s stomach do a somersault. She can’t let it show, though, can’t let A’whora see her crack so she blinks to maintain her composure, tilts her head with mock-curiosity. “Have you now.”

“Yeah. Could show you if you wanted,” A’whora grins brazenly back at her, shifting a little in Tayce’s lap and sending her into orbit. “Plus I can’t remember if I put on matching underwear this morning, so…you should come help me check.”

Tayce breaks the stalemate to throw her head back in a laugh. “Jesus Christ, Lawrence was right. You actually can’t flirt to save yourself.”

She watches A’whora’s face drop into a pout and instantly feels as if she’s kicked a puppy, so Tayce brings one of her hands up to rest on top of her thigh and gives it a squeeze. “Says a lot for how fit you are that it’s still working though, doesn’t it?”

The pout cracks into a scheming smile, and Tayce matches it before A’whora leans in and kisses it off her face. It’s more heated this time, that little undercurrent of intensity as Tayce runs her tongue over A’whora’s and hears her whimper against her lips. As A’whora pushes her fingers into Tayce’s hair Tayce lets her hands drift around to the small of her back, and the way A’whora keeps shifting needily in her lap only makes Tayce want her more, which she didn’t think was even possible.

“We’ve got a free flat, you know,” A’whora mutters in between little kisses, her voice low as she whispers against her lips.

“Probably a good thing. You couldn’t be quiet if your life depended on it,” Tayce teases, running her fingers over the waistband of A’whora’s sweatpants in an attempt to try and convey how much she needs her.

“Oh, you have no idea, babe,” A’whora smirks before pulling away, ripping her top out from where it’s tucked into her waistband and tugging it off, barely even giving Tayce a chance to react. She’s left in a little black bralet with Playboy logos along a white band at the hem, and Tayce feels her mouth go dry.

She’s really, really hoping A’whora put on matching underwear this morning.

But she’s still taken aback because after all- they’re in the middle of their living room, and any of the others could walk in at any given moment- so she can’t help the way her mouth drops open and the way she lets out a little shocked giggle. “A’whora!”

“What?!” A’whora smiles smugly back at her, clearly glad she’s got the reaction she wanted.

“We’re not shagging on this couch, are you insane?! It’s rotten! Kim Woodburn would have a fit if she saw it!”

“Oh, so we are going to shag?” A’whora regards her with one cocked eyebrow, and Tayce can’t help but mirror it. There’s a pause before she gives a small huff of mock-resignation, sealing their fate.

“God. We’re really doing the whole friends with benefits cliché, then?”

A’whora smirks affectionately at her. “Only awkward if we make it awkward.”

She holds out her pinkie between them and Tayce takes it with a resigned laugh, the childish nature of their promise contrasting deeply with the whole situation.

“C’mon then, bestie, lead the way.”

And as A’whora scrambles excitedly off her lap and Tayce takes the opportunity to smack her ass playfully, she feels her heart soar and her head grow light at the thought of being able to do everything she’s been thinking about doing for over a month with one of her best friends in the world.

She wonders why everyone seems to say that a friends with benefits situation isn’t a good idea. This is already the best decision she’s made in years.

#rpdr fanfiction #rpdr uk #ortega #me and you together #taywhora #uk2 #lesbian au #british au #college au #freshers au #roommate au #tayce #a'whora #friends with benefits to lovers #lawrence chaney #ellie diamond #bimini bon boulash #tia kofi

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a-hundred-jewels · 3 years

Text

cruel summer ch 12: i have these lucid dreams

Ao3 Wattpad

Summary: sabrina starr, pegasuses, and oh no! the fourth wall broke! do we have a carpenter in the audience?

Word Count: 9000 ish

Tags: Rachel Elizabeth Dare/Jane Penderwick, Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jane Penderwick, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Rosalind Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Martin Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick (senior), Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Annabeth Chase, Jeffrey Tifton-McGrath, Percy Jackson, Demeter (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Demigods, demeter!elizabeth penderwick, demeter!rosalind (second generation), demeter!batty (second generation), apollo!alec mcgrath, apollo!jeffrey (second generation), demeter!jane (second generation), demeter!skye (second generation), all of that's in no particular order, main focus is on jane because i love her and she's so so fun to write, tomsalind is there (and stuff will happen - i can't really say what, it will really be eventful though), yes of course there's solangelo, takes place right before Penderwicks In Spring, After Trials of Apollo, more tags to come??, Minor Swearing

Notes and Full Chapter below cut:

Hello everyone and welcome back! I'll admit, this is a little later today than I'd been planning to post (was hoping to get an early start), but hey! If the Puppet History season 4 finale can be late, then so can I!

First off, a massive massive thank you to waterbottle_stickers for being the best beta reader ever. This chapter would be a mess without you. Also, if you haven't already, please check out their enola holmes fic wherever you stray, i follow it's truly wonderful.

If you've been following me on tumblr, then you'll know that, in addition to reblogging an alarming quantity of good omens fanart, I've been making some plans for fics this month. The original plan from back in august was to post every day of the month, but... ahhh.... I just don't work that fast lmao. I'll have to be content with just posting a fair amount this month. Happy october! Anyway, stay tuned.

On this fine day, we've got two lovely QUEER fanfic recommendations that I'm very excited to share. Up first is one from the tumblr blog izzielizzie (which you should all absolutely check out! especially if you're into the one of us is lying fandom!). it centers around the skye/melissa pairing and their senior prom, which Skye is said to have only gone to last minute, and also wearing a lab coat, in a passage of the penderwicks at last. featuring some oblivious lesbians and also jane. once again a massive thanks to izzielizzie, as this fic is one of my favourites!. click here to take a look! (also keep an eye on her blog in general bc her penderwicks fics are awesome!)

The second fanfic is also one I'm very fond of, as it focuses on the siblinghood of skye and jane, which is one of my favourite topics on earth. check out rolling down the ancient high street by hanchewie/ramblemadlyon (tumblr and ao3 respectively) for the sibling antics of aroace skye and bisexual jane when the latter visits the former at her college in california! and, if you like it, ramblemadlyon has two other penderwicks fics from the past couple days that look fantastic as well, and that I look forward to reading.

This chapter is dedicated to my therapist, since I've decided this will be the month of oddly specific dedications. thank you for telling me to stop referring to cruel summer as my "trash baby" and help me recognize the true worth that it holds in my life.

Disclaimer: not my characters, you know the drill. Jeanne Birdsall and Rick Riordan are lucky ducks indeed. chapter title is (obviously) from "lucid dreams" by Juice WRLD.

FROM THE POV OF JANE PENDERWICK

The woods loomed around me, seeming as tall as buildings as they invited me in further. I took another step, the sharp pain of a pinecone digging into my foot barely registered in my mind. I kept walking. A crack sounded throughout the air, and, behind me, a tree splintered round its base and fell down, only inches away from crushing me dead, and completely blocking the path out.

Frightened, I began to run, looking for a way out of the forest. But no matter which way I went, there were only trees in front of me. Where was the path? Where was the grassy hill I had walked down to get in here in the first place. Had I even walked down that hill to begin with? Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I remembered coming here. I wasn’t sure I remembered waking up this morning, or going to bed last night, or anything besides existing in the forest. Who was I? What was I doing here? How could I get out?

Panicking, I stood in the middle of a clearing, looking frantically at the trees around me, trying to find something familiar. Nothing. I was exhausted. How long had I been here? An hour? A day? A lifetime? I collapsed at the base of a tree, sobbing as I tried to remember. Something. Anything.

Then, a voice echoed around me. “Welcome,” it said, and my mind went black.

I bolt upright in bed, a scream halfway out of my throat. I clamp it back, not wanting to wake my cabinmates. Thin light whimpers through the window--enough for me to see my white-knuckle grip on the sheets, but not enough to pass as daylight.

What time is it?

Our cell phones don’t really work here--that was one of the first things Miranda told us when we arrived, and Batty’s been gleefully lording it over us that her Mp3 player will still play music and, like, function, while our smart phones recline sadly in our duffel bags. That being said, I don’t feel quite brave enough to get out of my bed just yet and tiptoe over to the big analog clock that Rio bought at a pawn shop in Colorado. Maybe my phone will at least show the time.

I reach under my bed and fumble for my duffel, hooking my pinky through the zipper loop and yanking it out onto my floor. My phone’s in the front pocket, buried under two pairs of headphones, several gum wrappers, and some strawberry leaves (?????). A piece of gum peels off the screen as I disentangle my phone, and I mentally chide my past self for being so messy.

My phone does not turn on. Big clock it is.

I tiptoe across the cold tile and peer around the tree.

5:45 .

Jesus Pagan Christ.

It’s too early to wake anyone up (as I think this, Batty lets out a snore to rival any crabby Tyrannosaurus Rex), so I wrap a blanket around myself like a criminally attractive burrito, and creep out onto the porch, with my notebook and pen tucked into my shirt.

As long as I live, I will never get tired of summer mornings. There’s something deeply lovely about the soft light of the still-sleepy, pink lemonade sun, the quiet anticipation of the cool air, damp from dew and preparing for the upcoming heat. At home in Cameron, Skye’s woken me up many an early morning to go for a run or do soccer drills or for a grueling “Seven Minute Workout Except You Don’t Follow The Rules And Torture Your Sister by Making It Actually A Forty-Nine Minute Workout.” (But it’s okay, I’m not bitter). But, as delightful as those experiences have all been, I don’t think Skye really gets it. The beauty of the summer morning is not what it can do for your workout schedule, but rather in its gentle softening of an otherwise boiling day. It is to be appreciated in the way that I am now, sitting curled up on this frighteningly creaky porch (I mean, seriously, who built this?) and calling up the Sabrina Starr section of my brain to try and write away the residual panic from my nightmare.

Sabrina sighed as the plane took off. She wasn’t sure if she should have followed the voice in her head telling her to come here. Saying it out loud--even just thinking it--made it sound ridiculous. A dream, a voice in her mind. Barely more than a whim.

Worse than that, Sabrina wasn’t even sure where this whim was taking her. On a napkin in her pocket, she’d scrawled everything she remembered about the dream from the night before. The dark sky, lit only with spiderwebs of lightning, the shadowy figure huddled on a beach and soaked through with rain. The voice crying for help.

And a name. Aeaea.

After she’d woken up, Sabrina had looked up Aeaea, too tired to fully connect why the name felt familiar. Her heart had sunk further after reading the Wikipedia entry, and a breath of hopelessness had left her lips. According to the internet, Aeaea was not a real place. It had been the island prison of Circe. Fiction wasn’t new to Sabrina, and neither was mythology (she recalled an adventure spent with a ghost called Rainbow from a few years back).

Fictional places, though, were another matter. How could she get somewhere if she didn’t know where she was going? Was she trusting her gut with too much this time?

Sabrina folded up the napkin and put it back in her pocket. There was no point in worrying about that now. She’d looked at enough maps to make a guess at where Aeaea might be if it was real. When she got there, she could get more information. Sabrina Starr had survived this long in her career of rescues and whims. She could survive one more adventure. Worst case scenario, she said to herself, I spend a few days running around for nothing and have to brush up on my Greek.

She repeated it to herself like a promise. Worst case scenario, worst case scenario… Eventually, tired out from all her anxieties, and from trying desperately not to worry about what would come next, Sabrina fell asleep.

FROM THE POV OF RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE

“Okay, I give up. Tell me what’s wrong.” Annabeth’s voice startles me away from my plate of eggs, which I had been pushing around with a fork. Anxiety bubbles in my throat, just as it had been since I woke up, and food just doesn’t sound like a good idea.

“I--what?”

Annabeth waves her hand impatiently. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and I don’t think you’ve looked up once. Also you’re always hungry in the mornings, so unless you, like, ate an entire cow before I got here, this ,” she gestures to my uneaten eggs, “is unusual behaviour.”

I give her a look. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Annabeth exists as a part of multiple different dimensions at once, like she’s having four other conversations that I can’t hear, and is still ten steps ahead of me in the one I’m actually a part of.

Or maybe I’m just easy to read.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I don’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” I’m terrified.

Annabeth sighs. “Is this about the prophecy?”

“No,” I spear another piece of egg, and don’t eat it. “Maybe. Yes.” I feel like going back to my cave and staying there for the rest of my life. Waiting with a book and some paints for the prophecy to get bored and go away. Maybe I’d take Jane with me, or Nico, for some company. That sounds nice.

My plate is pulled away from me as I aim my fork again. “I can’t pay attention when you do that,” Annabeth huffs. I think I wouldn’t invite her to stay in my cave. She’s too on the nose when I want to mope. Then again, she says the same about me.

“Fine,” I turn and face her. “Let’s talk feelings.” Connor Stoll, who had been making his way towards our table, abruptly turns around and walks the other way. I should get Chiron to hire a therapist. Gods know we need it.

Further proving my point, Annabeth’s eyes widen a little, before she remembers it is I who will be spilling. (I make a point to corner her later. It’s a routine we have). “Wow. You broke fast.”

I nod. “I’m tired and you’re annoying.” (False. We both know it. Another routine). “Like you said, I’m nervous about the prophecy.”

Annabeth nods. “And?”

I frown. “What do you mean, and ? There’s no and.”

Annabeth frowns back at me. A mirror, a mime, an annoyance. The nerve to look disappointed in me. “I thought you were spilling, Red.”

I roll my head back and study the roof of the pavilion, which Annabeth designed, and slowly lean my head down to stare at the table. I really don’t want to have this conversation. I go along anyways. “I’m worried about Jane.”

Annabeth leans back, triumphant. “Ah, yes. Your girlfriend.”

Maybe if I try reeeeeeeally hard, I can activate the Oracle of Delphi and freak Annabeth out enough to make her go away. “ Not my girlfriend. You know that.”

“You called Percy my boyfriend for weeks before we actually officially decided.”

I wave my hand dissmissively. “That’s different, you guys were dancing around each other for like three years. You needed a bit of a push. Jane and I kissed once! Over a week ago! And nothing came of it.” We actually haven’t really talked about it. We’re in this sort of in-between zone where we spend a ton of time together, but don’t have a label for it. Honestly, it’s been nice.

Annabeth grins, apparently reading my thoughts. “You’ve been eating lunch with the Demeter cabin, like, every other day. I saw you doing archery together yesterday. Both of you were awful at it, but you stayed there for hours. I’ve never seen you focus on something that long outside of your paintings.”

I stare at the ceiling again. Maybe Annabeth designed it so that a single square foot of rock might fall down onto my head and relieve me from this conversation. “Yes, fine, we spend a lot of time together. But that doesn’t make us a couple, and has nothing to do with what I’m actually worried about!” I can see in her face that Annabeth is more serious now, and is about to fully listen to me, when Percy and Malcolm show up, sliding into the seats across from us, and clanging several plates of pancakes down onto the table in front of them.

“Made them ourselves! Wanna share?” Percy gives Annabeth heart eyes and a kiss on the cheek when she folds a large blue pancake into thirds and bites it like a burrito. I roll my eyes at them because they are a horrifying and disgusting couple and also I kind of want to be them when I grow up. Malcolm ignores them, instead turning to me. “Were you talking about Jane?” he asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose.

I frown. “Sort of. Why?”

He shrugs, sheepish. “You know. Just, uh, just wondering.”

I narrow my eyes at him, then Percy, who tears himself away from looking at Annabeth to sigh dramatically. “Malcolm wants to ask out Jane’s sister. You know, the blond one.”

I snort. “ Skye? Seriously?”

Malcolm looks vaguely offended. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Sorry, it’s not weird.” I reach over the table to pat him on the shoulder with my fork. “Perfectly normal teenage hormones.” He glares at me and I smile sweetly back. “I just can’t imagine Skye going out with anyone, that’s all.”

Malcolm stares down at his pancake, disappointed. “Oh. You sure?”

I nod, feeling a little more normal with my friends and less doom-related breakfast conversation. My eggs are past the threshold of “warm and appetizing” but I take a bite anyway. “Pretty sure. Jane told me that she’s aroace and, based on past occurrences, there’s a seventy percent chance she’ll punch anyone who asks her out. Anyway, why the interest? I didn’t know you guys talked.”

Malcolm shrugs. “We don’t, really. She just seems cool.”

Percy pipes in, “He’s been practically obsessed with her since she won that soccer game against the Nike kids and made them cry.”

I nod approvingly. “Well, Malcolm, at least we know you have good taste.”

Annabeth pats him on the head, ignoring his complaints that her hand is covered in blue maple syrup. “Better luck next time, brother of mine.”

Piper and Leo join us next, contributing an alarming volume of grapes and a single hardboiled egg to the breakfast display. Leo grabs a pancake and wraps it around some grapes, before taking a big bite. “I hear you’re discussing Malcolm’s romantic failures,” he says around the world’s worst breakfast burrito. Piper gasps in mock offense, then swallows the unpeeled hardboiled egg whole, like a snake. (This is a regular morning routine. She’s trying to work up to being a sword swallower, since her dad did it in a movie once and she thought it looked like fun). “ Malcolm, why didn’t you come to me? I could have given you a verdict within five minutes!”

“I wanted advice on whether I should ask out that Heaphestus boy two weeks ago and you told me to fuck off.”

Piper pouts at him. “That’s on you, you caught me at a bad time.”

Annabeth holds up a pancake with the air of a respected royal and we turn to her. “As delightful as this is, Rachel and I were initially talking about her romantic prospects and also her worries and fears, and I feel that we should get back to that before she slinks off and avoids the rest of the conversation.”

I glare at her. “Why would you bring this away from the very nice conversation we were having about everyone else’s problems? Do you hate me?” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, I’m just not letting you walk away from a potential breakthrough. Now, where were we? You were saying that you’re worried about Jane but it has nothing whatsoever to do with your relationship, or lack thereof.”

I give a long suffering sigh, and try to communicate telepathically with Piper that she needs to Save Me Now, but she’s looking at me in interest with her chin resting in her hands, her long fingers adorned with rings sent to her from her Mortal girlfriend, Shel, who bought them at a vintage punk store. The traitor. Defeated, I turn back to Annabeth.

“It’s just that, whatever ends up happening with this prophecy, I don’t want it to fuck her up, in the way the quests have sometimes done to us. Like, we’re used to this by now, but it hasn’t been a smooth road. I don’t exactly like going on quests, and at first I was really worried at the prospect of being included in a prophecy, since that’s fairly abnormal, but Jane was only made aware of her heritage a couple months ago! What if this turns out like Silena or Beckendorf or-or Jason, and the prophecy destroys her, and it’s all my fault because I’m the one who pulled her into all this?”

Everyone tenses up at the mention of Jason, but they continue to look at me with a mixture of concern and love that makes something soften inside of me. For the hundredth time, I think of how lucky I am to have these people who love me unconditionally. Even if they really, really need therapy.

“I know that I didn’t plan any of this, but we’re both tied in now, especially since both Chiron and I had the prophetic dream and I actually gave the prophecy that day in the woods, and, well, this isn’t her world yet. She’s only got a little bit of ichor in her, and she grew up knowing nothing of any of this. In a way, I did too, and I have no ichor, but I had clear sight. For me, it was ineffable, but she could technically leave any time, if it weren’t for the prophecy. She can leave, and I feel like it’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t change.”

“Oh, Rachel.” Annabeth reaches her arms out to me and I let myself be pulled into an embrace. “Jane’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”

Sabrina stood in line at the boat rental hut, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her face. It had not been a successful afternoon. For hours, she’d been searching the coastal towns near where her plane landed, looking for some trace of Aeaea, or anything else she’d seen in her dream. She was used to working with dregs. It was normal for her to have to squint a little at the evidence, have to shuffle things together around big holes of “Maybe,” like she was working a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

But this was something else.

Sabrina had read about places where mythology shaped the culture. Places where the tourist draws were events that had supposedly happened thousands of years ago, or creatures that only existed in grainy photographs and people’s imaginations. Hell, she’d met the Loch Ness monster. Was it insane for her to have assumed she’d be able to find the same kind of thing here? All her training and years of experience had told her that, if you sniff around long enough, you’ll find a conspiracy theorist or a slightly off-the-rails guidebook.

So far, though, Sabrina had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hunted around, searching up library catalogs, checking every store on the street. “Aeaea,” “Circe,” even “the Odyssey.”

Nothing.

The line edged along slowly, and Sabrina ran her hands up and down her arms. The air was chilly from its proximity to the cold sea water. There were three people in front of her now. She just had to wait a little longer, then she would have a boat and be able to explore these waters herself.

Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with all of these places. And Sabrina was going to figure out what.

Later, Jane and I are taking our time walking to the pegasus stables to watch the riding lesson that Rosalind has reluctantly agreed to let Batty take (provided that Percy, who’s teaching today, doesn’t let her fly high enough that she’ll die if she falls off, and that Batty wears all of the necessary protective gear). Jane looks lovely, wearing a sunshine-y yellow bandana that sets off her dark curls and warm sepia skin. She has on her Camp Half-Blood shirt again, and a short green skirt, and all of it should clash horribly, but it doesn’t.

We’ve decided to cut through the strawberry fields, and I swallow a sun-warmed strawberry while Jane tells me about the dream she had last night. I think back to my conversation with Annabeth this morning when she tells me of the dark woods and the feeling of drowning, the memory warping and the echoing voice. At some point we sit down in a patch of grass, a simple circle amidst strawberry plants with a couple logs where the campers and satyrs take their breaks when they work here. Jane finishes her story and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, only broken by the grunts of annoyance Jane makes while trying to get her plant powers to activate again. She’s been doing that a lot.

“Well that sucks,” I say finally. “Have you been having other dreams like it?”

Jane shrugs, the neon orange fabric of her shirt wrinkling on her shoulders. “One or two, I think. Last night’s was the first one I really remembered. ” She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. “I hardly ever remember my dreams. It used to upset me. I thought I was losing potential writing material.”

I laugh. It’s such a Jane thing to think, that I can’t help it. She goes quiet, like she’s reminiscing, and I picture a tiny version of Jane, sitting crossed-legged on her summer quilt, writing. I look at her now, scrunched up nose and big brown eyes. Oh gods, she must have been an adorable child.

“My mother used to say that my imagination was the eighth wonder of the world,” Jane says. She’s looking down the hill at the cabins, plant powers temporarily forgotten, and I remember her telling me about her mother, the first Elizabeth Penderwick, who came here and was a daughter of Demeter and loved opera. The Penderwick siblings’ beloved mother who died so young.

I move closer to Jane on the log. “I can understand why she’d say that.”

Jane smiles again, a little sad this time, a little absent, but full to the brim with love.

“Bet you she’s in Elysium,” I say softly. I explained the Underworld to Jane a couple weeks ago, and she’d gotten this same absent look on her face, that I now know means she’s thinking about her mother. Jane nods, now, then turns to me. “Could we talk about something else?” Her voice is quiet, her eyes a little shiny.

“Course,” I say. “Shall I regale you with tales of dimwittery at this camp in the years past?” I told her last week about the time some Hermes kids tried to order pizza to the camp, accidently causing Chiron to think we were under attack. Jane had nearly fallen off the bench laughing.

She grins now, but shakes her head. “Tell me what it’s like being an Oracle.” I give her a look. She’s asked me before and I never really know what to say. When I give prophecies, it’s like I black out. I’m taken over by another entity who shares my body. (“Like that lady in Suicide Squad ,” Leo had said when I tried to explain it to him once, but I’d refused to be compared to such a gods-fucking-awful movie). So, in a way, I don’t know what it’s like to be the Oracle.

As if reading my thoughts, Jane shakes her head. “Not that part. I’ve seen you all green and smokey, and I know you can’t feel it. I mean the other stuff. How did you know it was you? What did you have to do to become the Oracle? That kind of thing.” I relax a little. Jane’s asked me all sorts of weird questions about Greek mythology and the gods recently. She calls it “research for her book,” but sometimes I think she’s just nosy. It’s cute.

Jane shrugs and looks off into the distance. If you tilt your head a little you can kind of see the stables from here. We have fifteen more minutes to get there, according to my watch. I decide to take it easy. “Delphi is this weird ethereal spirit,” Jane continues, “but there’s also just everyday, Oracle you, who likes paint and denim and bagels.” At that, I laugh. “I actually don’t like bagels that much. I’m just late to breakfast so often that they’re usually the only things available.”

Jane pouts at me and plays with the bracelet tied around my wrist--the one she gave me. “You know what I mean! You know all this weird shit about me because my siblings don’t shut up at lunch, and I know stuff about you, like the denim thing, which I still think is funny by the way. But you’re also the freaking Oracle! Your dormant self lies waiting!” I laugh at her, and she rolls her eyes, but I see the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Rachel, that’s very cool!”

I give in. “Honestly, there’s not much to say, that’s why I don’t talk about it.” I pause. “Well no, it’s that a lot of the stuff beyond the obvious is actually sort of creepy and weird, and not in a good way. There’s stuff I try not to think about, is what I mean.”

The edge of her yellow bandana sticks up as Jane tilts her head at me. “That makes sense. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I shake my head. “No, it feels okay right now.” I mean it. Now that I’ve gotten into the swing of it, I do want to talk about it. Still, a small sigh escapes me. “I like being the Oracle, because that’s what brought me to a place where I feel like I belong and I have people who love me. It’s nice to know that I’m fulfilling my purpose in life.”

Jane pulls her knees up to her chest. “But?”

“But I also get lonely.” It comes out in a rush. “There are other oracles, but I didn’t know about any of them until the Apollo thing happened, and even then, they’re all supernatural beings--I know, I know, but not in the way I am. It’s not the same. Also, there are all these weird rules. Like I have to stay an unmarried virgin my whole life.”

“That’s fucked,” Jane says softly.

“I know! Chiron won’t even tell me why, just that it’s ‘the rules’” I let out an annoyed huff. “And, like, it’s not even that the idea itself bothers me. That’s pretty much what I was planning to do with my life anyway.”

“Same.”

“But it’s the principle of the thing!” I flick a strand of hair out of my face, offhandedly noticing that the tip of my pinky finger is slightly green. I ignore it. It’s not important. “Just because I don’t want to have sex or get married doesn’t mean it’s a fair rule to impose on me! Besides, why is it always the women in these things whose identities are tied up in who they do or don’t fuck? Last I checked, Grover didn’t have to sign an ‘I shalt not fornicate’ contract when he became Lord of the Wild!”

“Exactly!” Jane raises her hands and shouts up to the sky. “Don’t you fuckers realize we’re more than that?”

“The Hunters of Artemis, too!” I’m a jack-in-the-box, and something’s winding me up. “Thalia and Reyna send me letters all the time, and they seem really happy! Which is great!” I pause to emphasize the greatness of their happiness. My pinky is completely green, now. “But, they also had to make a stupid ‘ode of chastity,’ like I did!”

“Are you kidding me?” Jane’s hair flips as she turns to me. “I thought Artemis was one of the good ones!”

My voice lowers to a husky rumble, and I stare into the distance towards you, the reader. “In a broken system, there are no good ones. Abolish the police.” I clear my throat and my voice turns back to normal. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” My green pinky has begun to vibrate.

“Happens to the best of us,” Jane’s voice is light and nonchalant. “And yeah, I know. Pretty much all of the gods have skeletons sitting on their shoulders, but it just seems out of character for her. I thought all of Artemis’s groups were supposed to be safe havens, not oppressive structures in their own right.”

I frown. “Yeah you’re right, that is weird. I’d never thought of it much beyond the gods having weird rules, but I wonder if something bigger is at play. The gods might be fucked up in the way that regular people are, and are undoubtedly responsible for all sorts of crap. But then there's more personal things, like the ‘chastity vows’ the Hunters and I had to take, and the fact that Nico was initially outed by Eros, and the weird unexplained eye condition that Piper had during some of her quests that made her eyes a bunch of bright, Eurocentric colors, rather than their natural brown. All sorts of other stuff, too.”

“Wow!” Jane says, sitting up straight on the grass. Her hand moves from where it was resting in her lap to cover her heart. “It’s almost like a bunch of genuinely good and inspiring material, such as including prominent queer people and characters of color in fun children’s fantasy, as well as having an immortal group of warrior women who support each other and are free from the gaze of men, was taken into the hands of a cis white man armed with unchecked misogyny and a fair amount of white Twitter feminism, both of which really showed when he tried to create an inclusive and empowering book series for children! Like yeah, it had its moments, and definitely some good characters, but overall, a lack of meaningful research in certain areas really made it fall flat!” Once again, I stare through the bindings of URLs and internet coding, now joined by Jane as we lock eyes with you, the reader. This time, we hold eye contact for nearly a minute, giving you time to read and process the long tangent spat out by this fanfic’s author, who, if we’re being honest, has gone just a tad off the rails right now. Finally, Jane and I look away from you, and resume our roles as fictional characters, still shaking off that strange cloud that comes with staring into the soul of those who give you life.

“Ugh, what’s going on with me today?” Jane groans at the same time I mutter, “What’s Twitter?” We turn to each other, blinking in the sunlight, then grin. This is normal. We’re fine. Jane looks up at the sky again. “I wonder if the gods are watching us. Maybe we should make them think we suck so they’ll leave you alone.”

I laugh as she sticks her tongue out, grinning wickedly at a nearby cloud. “Better yet, make them think we’re too powerful to be messed with,” I say. Jane sees me watching her and opens her mouth, sucking the cloud in between her teeth. The sky seems bluer in the space where it had been, and Jane’s eyes glitter with mirth as she swallows. “Mmm, tastes like sugar.” I giggle, feeling a small shiver on the top of my head. When I peer up, I see another cloud has floated over to me. I open my own mouth, and take it in, just as Jane did hers. “Sugar, yes. But there’s a touch of blood, too,” I say. Jane nods sagely. “What were we talking about?”

“The inherent misogyny in much of Greek mythology and the world of Camp Half-Blood in general.”

Jane nods again. “Right. A very important topic. It makes it weird when I’m writing sometimes. You know, cause I want to bring in Circe and Zeus and Apollo and all these fascinating characters, but there’s just so much bad stuff tied up with them that comes up when I research.” She looks down at our feet, which are standing in the midst of a strawberry patch. We seem to have been walking, crushing sweet summer strawberries as we go, which is odd because I don’t remember getting up. “You know Rachel, I’m feeling a bit strange.”

I look at her, and see an odd blankness in her warm brown eyes. “Now that you mention it, Jane, so am I.”

“My thoughts and words are my own,” Jane says, “But there’s something up with my body. I can’t really feel it.”

“I agree, I’ve honestly gone a bit numb.” I try to glance down at my fingers, wondering idly if they’ve gotten any more green, but find that my neck won’t bend.

Jane’s eyebrows furrow. “Yet, at the same time, I feel as though I could do anything. Grow another grass blade. Grow a flower. Grow a tree. Bend the world to my will if I wanted to.”

“Or is it the world bending me to its will.” I grin at my own philosophical point, but find that the smile won’t go away. Pretty fucking inconvenient, since the next thing I was going to bring up was part of the whole serious misogyny conversation. I decide to go for it anyway. “And I’m not the only one with weird rules!” Jane nods, as if this is a perfectly normal segway, and the only extraneous thought that floats through my mind as we find ourselves walking down a hill is how unfair it is that she still has control over her neck and I don’t. “Remember when I told you about the Hunters of Artemis?”

“Oh yeah! Your friends Reyna and Thalia, right?”

“Yeah, them! They send me letters sometimes, and seem really happy, which is great.” I pause, meaning to add emphasis, when I’m hit with a great sensation of deja-vu. “Wait a second, we already talked about this, didn’t we?” I try to remember, but something in my mind is rapidly melting. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything.

“Jane?” My voice quivers, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh gods, please let this be a dream. For a moment, I try to convince myself that it’s the Oracle of Delphi taking over, just like she did the other day and generally does a couple times a year. But I know that I’m lying. This is not what that feels like. “Jane, where are you?” I can barely move my mouth to say the words. I can feel nothing but the frozen fear of paralysis, of lost control. When I open my eyes, this other thing in my body has brought me to the edge of the forest. “Jane? Jane?” She could be right beside me, unable to speak, and I wouldn’t know because I can’t turn my head, can’t move my eyes, can barely even hear right now.

It’s okay, something says.

“Jane?” It’s not her voice. It’s no one’s voice.

It’s okay. You’re home.

With every cut the wooden oars made through the choppy ocean water, Sabrina knew she was getting closer. She could feel it in her bones, in her brain, a little voice that whispered in her ear. It had been three hours. Her body was worn down, energy levels dipping dangerously low, when she felt something scrape the bottom of her boat.

A rock.

Frantically, she peered through the fog that had begun to surround her boat a mile ago. The island. Had she finally made it?

As if answering her call, a peel of thunder rang out, and Sabrina’s boat began to fill with rain that pounded down from the sky. The storm from her dream. She rowed even faster, then, fear sparking a renewed strength in her tired muscles.

Just as Sabrina was about to reach the shore, a massive wave crashed over her, and her boat capsized. She came back up, sputtering, holding her sopping wet bag above her head. Another wave swept against Sabrina’s face, and she found herself spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. Finally, she washed up on the shore, heaving breaths raking through her lungs.

Sabrina blinked, pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was real. She was here.

She had made it.

FROM THE POV OF ROSALIND PENDERWICK

It’s been a pleasant day so far. Breakfast with my siblings and some of the Demeter cabin (though Jane did seem a bit absent-minded). Miranda, Florien, and Rio convinced me to practice some plant magic with them for a couple hours and I built up to growing a small sunflower. Lunch (again with Jane seeming distracted, though Rachel ate with us this time, which appeared to help). Then, Skye and Jeffrey disappeared with some of the older campers (supposedly for a regular game of soccer, but the unsettling gleam in their eyes had me doubting that was all there was too it), Jane and Rachel went to take a walk in the strawberry fields, and Batty and I were left to prepare for a pegasus riding lesson. If it had been up to Batty, the latter could have easily taken up the entire afternoon, but changing into durable pants and finding a bandana can only take so long.

After a somewhat restless hour, during which I grew three peonies and Batty rhapsodized about the stable of unicorns that another demigod camp apparently has, Batty and I arrive at the stable. We’re ten minutes early, and she’s been talking a mile a minute the whole time, not stopping from before. I swear I now know as much about pegasuses as she does. According to Rachel, the teacher today is Percy, her friend, who’s very responsible “when he puts his mind to it.” I wasn’t sure how to tell her that’s actually not very comforting, but Batty looked so excited and I figured there will be plenty of other people there, so. Why not. She’s been spending so much time there anyway.

Needless to say, I very much regret my decision now.

The stables are modest, made of wood and painted green, and I’ve been there several times by now. There’s a long line of stalls visible when we first walk in, but Batty skips straight to the far end, where a massive pegasus the color of a carrot pokes its head over the door and nuzzles Batty’s hair. She looks up at me with a smile that could melt anyone’s heart, and pats the horse on the nose. “Rosy, this is Queen Lotus Flower. Percy said we have a impenetrable bond.”

I look at the two of them with a questioning gaze. How can they both have the exact same puppy-dog eyes? I swear to god. The gods. All of them. “Batty, sweetheart. That horse is like ten feet tall.”

She nods enthusiastically. “I know, she’s so much taller than any other horse I’ve seen. Percy says she has the biggest wingspan of any horse at camp.”

I nod, slowly, wondering why my sister picked the biggest pegasus to fall in love with. At that moment, Percy pushes the door open. “Hey Batty! Ready for your lesson?” Batty leaves her post by Queen Lotus Flower to wrap her arms around my waist and nod. I look Percy over. He’s a few inches taller than me, with brown skin and curly hair. A beaded camp necklace, orange tshirt, and jeans. Weird arm tattoo aside, he’s one of the most normal-looking people at camp. I’ve only met him a couple times before, but, my nerves over Batty flying around on massive horses aside, I do trust him. Rachel seems to have a good taste in friends. Also, Batty likes him, and she’s still shy around a good number of Skye and Jane’s friends back in Cameron.

For the next few minutes, I watch as Percy instructs Batty on buckling Queen Lotus Flower’s giant saddle and looping the bridle over her nose. Not wavering a bit from the “lesson” aspect of all this, he steps back to let her show what she’s already learned from hanging around the stables so often, only stooping in to guide her when she gets confused. As the minutes tick by, more people show up for the lesson: three other students, and a good sized crowd of people who just like watching the pegasuses. By then, I’m seated on the grass outside the stables, soaking in the blistering sun and watching as Percy (seated atop a wiry black pegasus who Batty pointed out as Blackjack) darts around the large dusty enclosure, making final preparations for the lesson.

Skye and Jeffrey show up then, and sit on either side of me. I want to ask them where Jane and Rachel are, but they’re talking non-stop about a game they just played in the woods with some of the other campers, only switching the subject when Percy and Blackjack return and they begin discussing whether or not it should be scientifically possible for a horse to fly.

Just as Batty and Queen Lotus Flower begin a gentle trot around the enclosure, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear the familiar sound of Tommy’s chuckle. “She’s got a weird knack for that,” he says. I nod, grinning.

It’s been good with us. We’ve had breakfast together a few times, even played a game of basketball one afternoon. Our conversations aren’t the same as they used to be, and there’s a sense of newness that feels cold and strange every so often. But it’s good. It feels right. At least for now, this feels like where we’re supposed to be.

As Percy starts demonstrating how to take flight, I look around again. Jane and Rachel still aren’t here. They promised to come. (“For moral support!” Jane had said. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rachel had added with a smile). I try to push it out of my head. This lesson is a big deal. Batty’s going to be flying.

She leans forward on Queen Lotus Flower’s neck.

They begin to run, moving together like a single being.

Just as they burst into the air, Batty’s euphoric smile lighting up the sky, Katie grabs my shoulders from behind. I shush her so I can lean forward and watch Batty silhouetted against the pegasus’s wide orange wings.

“Rosalind. Rosalind, guys. ” Something about the panic in Katie’s voice makes me turn around. Her usually tied back hair is loose and her clothes rumpled, giving the impression that she was dragged out of bed for this. (Some part of my brain distantly remembers her saying she was going to take a nap). Skye and Jeffrey turn around, too.

“What, what’s happening?” I reach out my hands, trying to calm her as she collapses into a squat, breathing heavily.

“Billie… found me in the cabin… had been looking for you guys… been running all over the camp… lucky I remembered about the riding lesson…”

Jeffrey leans over and puts his hands on her shoulders. She stares down at the dirt while her breathing levels.

“Katie, what are you saying? Why were you and Billie looking for us?”

She looks up, and I see that her forehead is drawn into well-worn creases of worry. “Jane and Rachel have gone into the woods.”

Something was wrong. Sabrina crouched on the wet sand, straining to see through the heavy rain. In her dream there had definitely been someone else on the island. She remembered the hunched figure, the sound of sobs leaking through the rain.

But she’d circled the shore at least twice by now, and there was nobody to be found. “Am I late or something?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she’d gotten that dream It felt like it had been sent to her. Why did it show a person when there was no one?

Sabrina sighed and began to traipse inland, tucking a knife in her pocket. It wasn’t a big island, and she might as well find some shelter aside from her boat, which was now overturned somewhere on the beach. Circe lived here, didn’t she? There must be some sort of roof, especially if this kind of weather was standard.

Or maybe this was just a random island and there was no Aeaea and Sabrina’s dream had just been the unhinged work of her unconscious mind.

There was a small grassy hill set aside from the sand, which Sabrina crawled up with the determination of a dying warrior. Something was pushing her back. An invisible force, a last crumb of survival instinct, plain old fatigue, she wasn’t sure. But something wanted her out of here, and it pushed back harder and harder as she climbed.

She let out a cry of frustration, clawing at the ground, at the air, at whatever this goddamn thing was, and found a renewed burst of strength that pulled her to the top of the hill. Once there, the force that pushed back ebbed a little, like it was giving up. Sabrina let herself relax, and simply took in the view for a moment.

The hill she lay on top of gave way to a deep valley, sprawling and green. In one corner, there was a cluster of trees that looked healthy and comfortable, despite being on a random Greek island in the middle of the ocean. A modest garden lay next to it, somehow appearing unaffected by the rain, and a narrow river wound around the whole scene.

There was also a house.

Sabrina wasn’t sure what she might have expected from the lair of an infamous Greek enchantress, but it wasn’t this.

She hauled herself up on the hill and started down, rushing through the rain onto a wide wooden porch. There was a large stone vat of something dark and crumbly, with a heavy looking staff of sorts leaning against it. The door to the house was short, and Sabrina heard it scrape on the floor when she pushed it open.

The scene awaiting her was surprisingly cozy when she stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth and rows upon rows of little viles arranged on a set of shelves beside it. A broom leaned against the wall. Sabrina looked around, noting the way that the rain didn’t make any sound as it thrashed against the roof and window, and the almost drug-like stupor that threatened to take over her brain, whispering that everything was fine, she was safe, nothing bad could happen to her.

Sabrina had encountered hypnosis before, and it only ever made her more jittery.

There was an open hatch in the floor with stairs that lead into darkness. She followed them down, feeling the air grow cooler with every step. Sabrina was quiet, taking tiny steps on her toes, and wincing when one of the stairs creaked. She didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. But there were no arrows flying up from the space below, no sounds of footsteps or slashes of swords.

Sabrina stepped onto a dirt floor and let herself exhale, shuffling along until her toe hit something hard. Only seasoned reflexes made her reach for the knife in her pocket instead of crying out in fear. She knelt down and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what she’d hit.

A leg.

She frowned, shaking it until she heard a low growl. “Stop that.” She stopped.

“Who are you?” Sabrina leaned closer. If they hadn’t killed her yet she was probably safe.

Instead of answering, they reached out a hand. Sabrina could see a gold ring on the thumb that glinted in a little sliver of light that had crept down from the room above. “Pull me up,” the figure said. “I’ve been paralyzed by the witch.”

Helping the stranger sit turned out to be no simple feat. They were tall and muscular, wearing a cape and a heavy metal chest plate. “The witch?” she questioned, propping them up against one of the cellar’s dirt walls. Her eyes were beginning to adust to the dark, and she could just make out their sharp chin sticking out as their head lolled back.

The figure made a noise. “The witch, the sorceress, the woman. Whatever you want to call her. I figure she sent you down too?” They snorted. “Good luck. I told Zeus not to sent mortals, but does he ever listen? You’re gonna die.”

Sabrina tried to piece together what she could from all this. The witch must be Circe, unless she’d wound up on an entirely different island. And if Circe was going around paralyzing people, then something must be going on. She must be hiding something. As for the person in front of her, Sabrina wasn’t sure who they were. By the way they talked about Zeus, and casually said “mortals,” she’d guess some sort of god? As if that narrowed it down. She’d have to be careful.

“Why did she paralyze you?”

Another weird gutteral noise. “She didn’t like my offer. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

She was growing impatient. Why’d he have to be so vague? “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why he always sends me. I don’t think he trusts me. He’d rather me stay her paralysed in the basement of a witch than come back home.”

Sabrina let out an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t working and she needed answers. A whole coast of people with mythology-shaped holes in their memories awaited her. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific. I don’t think we’re on the same page.”

The figure sounded confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you know who I am?”

She leaned forward and inspected them in the darkness. “No. No I don’t.”

They slid their eyes down to her face. “I am the god Apollo. I came here for Circe and she did this to me.”

“What? Why?”

The stairs creaked behind Sabrina and she felt a long nail drag up her back. “I just want to be left alone,” said a voice as deep and powerful as the smell of red wine. “You don’t mind, do you?” Before Sabrina could grab her knife and turn around, before she could even scream, strong arms had surrounded her shoulders and a hand was clamping a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Shock made her breath in, sharply, and she smelled the sweetness of sleeping drugs.

A heartbeat, a brief struggle, and Sabrina Starr was gone.

#cruel summer fic #cameron writes #the penderwicks #penderwicks #camp half blood #camp half-blood #rachel elizabeth dare #jane penderwick #rosalind penderwick

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rosethornewrites · 4 years

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Fic: The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste, ch. 16

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Lila Rossi, Jagged Stone, Plagg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine, Penny Rolling, Anarka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Juleka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire, Chloé Bourgeois, Wayhem, Nadja Chamack, Nathalie Sancoeur, Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Tikki, Fang, Principal Damocles, Caline Bustier, Ms. Mendeleiev, original minor character, Alec Cataldi, Lila Rossi’s Mother, Sabrina Raincomprix, Roger Raincomprix, Mylène Haprèle, Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste’s Bodyguard, Nino Lahiffe, Nooroo

Tags: Lila Rossi salt, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Teenage Rebellion, Swearing, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Crack Treated Seriously, Lila Rossi’s Lies Are Exposed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Luka Couffaine Needs a Hug, Paparazzi, Parentification, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Gabriel Agreste Needs an Aneurism, Uncle Jagged Stone, we’re all queer here, the spirit of punk is sometimes just being allowed to be yourself, Kagami Finds Her Groove, punk rock fashion, Savage Kagami, Marinette protection squad, Good Parent Sabine Cheng, Good Parent Tom Dupain, Protective Kagami Tsurugi, Protective Luka Couffaine, Bisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Pansexual Luka Couffaine, Sharing a Bed, Pet Names, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Instagram, Bullying, Social Media, Anxiety, Makeover, Hugs, will cure your acne, Face Punching, Bad Ass Juleka Couffaine, Rumors, Protective Juleka Couffaine, Protective Adrien Agreste, Lawyers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, accountability, mental health, Jagged Stone’s well-paid pet shark, How to Make the Evening News, Sexy eyeliner for days, one fish two fish Lila is a screwed fish, How to have fun and piss Gabriel off, Fuckery, sweet litigious karma, Alya sugar, lawyer shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, Schadenfreude, Bad Ass Alya Césaire, Gaslighting, abuse denormalization, Jagged likes his lawyers like he likes his pets: toothy af, Blood in the Water, Everything you didn’t know you wanted and some things you did, Gabriel Agreste is shark bait, Denial, Consequences, Principal Damocles salt, caline bustier salt, the impotence of Gabriel Agreste, snarky Nooroo, lies and the lying liars who tell them, Lila’s brain is a narcissistic hellscape, Lila’s mind is built like an Escher piece, Alec Cataldi salt, Adrien Sugar, wholesome salt, Fu Salt, Kwami Shenanigans, Nooroo is a little shit

Summary: Kwami Omake

Notes: This is the last chapter already written, and next week is finals week at my institution, so I won’t have time to write more just yet. I’ve been getting in snatches of paragraphs for a different fic (for The Untamed), but I now feel more motivation for this fic. Some crap went down a few months ago and made writing for ML hard for a while. As it turns out, wonderful people creating fanart for it is inspiring af.

AO3 link

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Tikki was almost falling asleep after the excitement of the morning when suddenly Plagg was in Marinette’s bag with her. She only barely managed to stop from letting out a startled cry.

“Plagg!” she hissed, glaring. “If my holder—”

“That’s why we need to go talk somewhere else, Sugarcube.”

Plagg was, at least, keeping his voice down. Small favors.

She scowled. “We’re not tempting Mme. Mendeleiev again. It was bad enough last time!”

He rolled his eyes. “Ugh, fine. We stay in the walls and floors until we find an empty room.”

“You had best hope there isn’t an Akuma Alert while we’re gone.”

It was unlikely, given that Marinette hadn’t had a chance to purify the Akuma Mme. Mendeleiev had captured. She likely wouldn’t even notice Tikki was gone, as Alya was sticking to her like glue, still occasionally crying when her guilt overflowed.

They did have to have a conversation—their holders had managed to get rid of the threat of the liar, but there were other issues to address. Namely the way his holder’s father was likely to react to what was happening as it continued. It wouldn’t do for Chat Noir to be on lockdown, after all.

They were able to make their way to the locker room and into an empty locker without any issue.

“Have you been reading the news?” Plagg asked once they had ascertained they wouldn’t be discovered. “Good ol’ Gabe tried to fire Lila a second time. Forgot he already had, I guess.”

Tikki frowned, not sure whether that was a good development. “So he’s irrational over it?”

Plagg snorted contemptuously. “When’s he not irrational, is more the question. Just more so than usual. My kid deals with way too much shit from that man.”

She was well aware of that, having heard enough through Marinette, who had always wondered how to help—both Adrien and Chat Noir, at that, since she was aware both had awful home lives but had no idea they were the same home life.

In many ways, Gabriel Agreste’s latest act of assholery was a blessing in disguise if it finally made Plagg’s holder snap and actively seek help. The boy was far too passive, and it was nice to see him finally put his foot down.

That it had involved an attempt to force him to date his “muse” the Liar was beyond the pale and more than a little creepy, in Tikki’s eyes. Sure, in some centuries their holders and all their friends would be married with kids by now, but allowing kids to grow more was a civilized move and a boon of modern society.

“If he likes her so much, he can date her,” Plagg commented.

Tikki had to suppress a smile at how in tune he was with her thoughts, truly her other half. “It’s illegal now.”

“Like Gabe cares about illegal,” Plagg scoffed. “The man’s a moral abyss. It’s shocking Adrien is such a good kid given his sire, but I guess it’s a good thing he’s had little involvement in his life beyond donating sperm.”

“Plagg!” Tikki frowned at him; that was taking it a bit far. Or at least she hoped it wasn’t that bad. “I hope you don’t talk like that around your holder.”

“I wish,” he muttered. “But no, the kid still hopes for his dad’s approval. Though from recent events that might’ve waned a bit.”

That was probably as good an opening as she was going to get.

“Recent events that might compromise your holder’s identity. His dad is obviously a loose cannon, and while it’s good the Liar was taken out, we need to counsel our holders to get the rest taken care of and their lives stabilized. Otherwise Hawkmoth could win.”

“Yeah, I know. But no Fu.”

Tikki already knew all the arguments he could bring up there, and she agreed with them. The man had trauma, certainly, but he kept making mistakes based on them that were hurting the kids. She had expected he would mentor them, not hide in his massage parlor and expect them to learn to swim on their own.

“Agreed. He’s prone to panic and bad decisions.”

Plagg looked briefly startled, but grinned. “Ah, always knew I’d create a rebel out of you, Sugarcube.”

She rolled her eyes affectionately. “I trust our judgment better, is all.”

“Been waiting a few millennia to hear you say that!”

He preened, and Tikki fixed him with an unimpressed stare.

“‘Our,’ Plagg. I know better than to trust yours alone. The dinosaurs, Atlantis…”

“Yeah, yeah. Make a few mistakes, everyone reminds you of them forever.”

Thankfully he knew better than to argue or mention her own. She hated reminders of her own failures, particularly the one that had gone beyond its target and through the millennia to the present. Tikki hadn’t expected the creation of abnormal cell growth to take on a life of its own… but maybe that was why she so rarely let herself lose her temper.

Plagg yawned widely, as though putting on a show to distract her, knowing she needed it.

Stinky Sock, always being so observant, making himself likeable.

“They’ll all be at Pigtails’ place tonight. We can plan more after we know their plan, right?”

Tikki hid a smile. “Let me guess. It’s naptime?”

He smiled. “You know me so well.”

She considered for a moment.

“Mind making a pit-stop along the way? I can purify that Akuma so my holder doesn’t have to worry about it.”

“Ooo!” Plagg brightened. “I wonder if that teacher has any of that delicious magic cheese…”

“Ugh, Stinky Sock. You and your cheese!”

Still, she felt the anxiety of the day start to ease at his antics as she led the way to the science room.

As it turned out, there was cheese, and a very pleasant teacher who actually apologized for trying to capture them and wished them luck fighting Hawkmoth. She even had a cookie for Tikki.

Life was good.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfiction #my fanfiction #The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste #plagg #tikki #tikki and plagg #ms. mendeleiev #gabriel agreste #gabriel agreste’s a+ parenting #gabriel agreste is an idiot #master fu salt #alya cesaire #ml salt #miraculous salt #kwamis

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desdemonafictional · 3 years

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2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020.

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020.

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast.

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

#2020 retrospective #fanfic

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strongerwiththepack · 4 years

Text

It Was The Only Way (3/3)

See this is why I don't write multi-chapter fics, I am highly unreliable. Sorry for the extremely long wait for this conclusion guys. This chapter just refused to be wrangled. At least it's done before the end of October so that's something.

This is probably the first fic I've done major editing to. Like there's around 800 words sitting in the document that I cut out/entirely re-wrote and that is not something I do. If I actually manage to get words written, that's what is getting published usually so this was an interesting change.

Pen&Ink Week and Fluffember are fast approaching but I did plot out a few other Whumptober prompts that I'd like to go back to so who knows what'll come out next. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

Tw for Strong Language.

Part 1 | Part 2

FF.Net | AO3

Whumptober2020: No.3 My way or the highway

“How could Gordon have been so stupid?” Scott grunted as Virgil flew Thunderbird 2 with them and Kayo to the coordinates.

They thought Gordon had been caught trying to place trackers on the vehicles before they left. The news from John made Scott’s head spin. Gordon had been making a plan to get taken this whole time?

“It was stupid.” Virgil grit his teeth, equally as worried for his usual co-pilot. “But if he hadn’t, we would’ve lost Alan for good.”

“We don’t even know if he’s with Alan.” Scott rubbed his head in frustration. “So much could’ve gone wrong. Can still go wrong.”

“We’ll find them.” Kayo reassured from behind. “Just keep your heads, we’re leading this operation.”

Scott nodded and steeled himself in preparation. What’s done was done, they weren’t going to make the same mistake again.

Alan and Gordon eventually moved to sit back against the wall of their little cell. Alan was feeling more than a little embarrassed now that he was down from those torturous chains but Gordon didn’t seem to mind. His older brother kept his arms wrapped around Alan as they got comfy against the wall.

Now that he actually had one of his big brothers here to reassure him, Alan was feeling a lot more clear-headed.

“They got you too, huh?” Alan mumbled eventually.

“Oh, uh yeah.” Gordon grunted. “We were trading to get you back and it, uh, didn’t go well.”

“Sorry.” Alan mumbled.

“Hey, hey.” Gordon prompted rubbing on his arm. “Not your fault, okay kiddo?”

Alan hummed in supposed agreement. He still felt stupid for getting caught.

“The others aren’t going to find us, are they?”

It had been playing through his head from the moment he’d been coherent enough to realise Gordon wasn’t here to rescue him. The chains had been agony and before Gordon had arrived, he’d been sure he was going to die.

He only had vague flashes of Gordon trying to get him down through pain-fogged memories, but the pain had numbed slightly now. Every jostle sent a stab of pain to his shoulders and sides, but it wasn’t the constant agony of before.

It took him a while to realise that Gordon had been captured as well, that he wasn’t getting out of this yet. The fact that his brothers hadn’t been able to find him before made him think it was unlikely they were coming now either.

“They are Alan.” Gordon reassured through his spiralling thoughts. “Don’t worry, I had a plan.”

Alan just nodded into his brothers shoulder. He hoped that was true.

The door banged open making both the boys flinch at the abruptness. The suit-clad man walked in with at least four other men flanking him from the back. He seemed more dishevelled than Alan had yet to see him. There was an expression of fury on his face and a cocked gun in his hand that made Alan tense.

Gordon was on his feet in seconds, blocking Alan’s view as he stepped protectively in front of him. Alan wanted to get up as well, he really did, but his arms were not cooperating, he just didn’t have the energy.

“Time to go boys.” The man snarled. Guns were levelled at them and one of the lackies grabbed Gordon pushing him forward by the shoulder. There wasn’t much his brother could do with 5 guns pointed at them.

“Move it!” The guy shouted at Alan brandishing his gun and Alan was snapped out of his daze.

He tried to get up, but it was slow. Slow enough that one of the men grabbed him by his t-shirt collar and yanked him up off the floor. Alan cried out as pain flared in his shoulder. He stumbled trying to get his feet under him as he heard Gordon shouting from ahead of him.

“Hey!” his brother snarled. “Leave him alone.”

Alan finally managed to stumble along beside the man dragging him and caught Gordon keeling over as he was sucker-punched in the gut.

“Shut up and move it.” The guy holding Gordon shouted before shoving him roughly forward while his brother was still recovering from the abuse.

Alan wanted to defend his brother, but he was barely keeping his legs moving as they were hurried along through a windowless corridor. Why were they in such a hurry? Were they getting rescued? Alan sure hoped so.

They were led up the stairs and into chaos. People were running everywhere, files and papers were being packaged. There was gunfire in the distance. Through a window Alan caught sight of stars in a cloudless night. He really didn’t have any idea what time of day it was, or even what day it was at all for that matter.

They were soon being led out of what he assumed was the back of the building and there was the familiar sound of helicopter rotors. He saw Gordon still at the sight of the vehicle and become more resistant to the pulling arms. Alan felt the same way. He was finally getting rescued and they were about to lose their chance.

“Hey!” A voice shouted from behind them and Alan had never been so thankful to hear his big brother. He was abruptly twisted around and pulled into his captors’ chest. The tip of a gun was placed against his temple and he froze, fearful eyes finally landing on his eldest brother.

Scott’s face was a picture of fury, Virgil stood stoically at his side and Kayo flanked them with a gun of her own. He twisted his head to see Gordon in a similar predicament to himself. Scott was here now, they’d be okay. This is what he’d been waiting for.

“Well Scott.” The man shouted over the whine of the helicopter. “Looks like we’re at another stand-off. That didn’t end quite so well for you last time.”

“You have your money, you have the blueprints. Let them go and we’ll let you leave.” Scott countered.

The man chuckled darkly, a hint of madness in his tone that hadn’t been there before.

“You stupid fucking Tracy’s.” He seethed. “I had everything planned out and you fucking ruined it!”

The man was shouting now and Alan flinched at the volume. Gone was the smooth-talking man from before. He was unravelling and Alan didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. From the tightening of Scott jaw and the fear in Virgil’s eyes he was going to guess the latter.

“Now.” He heard Kayo shout sharply into her comm.

And then there were shots ringing out. Alan felt his captor slump bonelessly into him. He couldn’t catch himself as he fell forward at the abrupt loss of something holding him up and then Gordon was there, dragging him up, slightly awkwardly since his brothers hands were still handcuffed. He grunted at the pain but as shots fired into the ground around them, Alan realised the urgency.

“GDF Snipers.” Gordon supplied hurriedly, apparently reading his confusion. They ran but a shout behind them made them turn.

“Enough!” The leader had apparently run for the helicopter in the commotion, abandoning his hostages in an attempt to escape. He stood at the open door even as the helicopter began to rise. Time stood still for Alan as he watched him raise his gun and take aim, right at him.

The shot rang out with a chorus of laughter and Alan found himself being tackled to the ground. His vision whited out in agony as his shoulder hit the ground awkwardly and his entire abused body was jarred. He lay gasping, trying to orient himself as the weight on-top of him crushed him.

Someone was calling his name but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe enough to reply. And then the weight was no longer there, and he heaved a deep breath before choking as pain spiked at the movement. Scott’s face came into view.

“Hey sprout.” Scott smiled but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’re okay, just take slow breaths okay?”

As Alan complied with the instructions his head began to clear. He felt Scott pulling at his t-shirt and saying quietly, panickily. “This is a lot of blood.”

What he heard next made him shoot back to awareness. “It’s Gordon’s.”

That was Virgil. He twisted his head to the side, seeing Gordon laying next to him with Virgil hovering over him. He hastily sat up, gritting his teeth at the pain.

“Gordon!” He sobbed worriedly.

“Alan!” Scott fretted. “Lie down, you’re hurt.”

Alan looked down at himself. There was blood covering his t-shirt. Gordon’s blood. His brother had jumped on top of him. Had been shot for him.

He tried to crawl over to Gordon but his movements were uncoordinated. Adrenaline was leaving him and black spots were forming in front of his eyes. His arms were shaking as the trauma of the last few days caught up to him. All he could focus on was the blood covering his brothers torso as his body finally gave out. He was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

“Alan!” Scott shouted as he watched his little brother collapse, lunging to catch his head and gently lowering it onto the grass.

Scott froze for a second, hands still cushioning his brothers head as he waited for his brain to catch up with him.

“Basic checks Scott.” Virgil barked from where he was working to stabilise Gordon. “Pulse, airways, check for injuries.”

Right. He snapped back to focus. What the hell was he doing?

He lay Alan out flat and worked on auto as he checked his brother over. This was all catching up to him. Seeing his little brothers held at gunpoint. Having to negotiate for their lives with that insane man again.

Thankfully, the GDF had actually backed them up this time. Hearing the shots from the snipers sent fear through him, Alan and Gordon were in the line of fire. As soon as the gunmen started to fall though Scott felt hopeful.

He watched as Gordon dragged Alan to his feet, pulling him forward as they ran. He thought that was it. That they’d done it.

And then he saw the kidnapper take aim. He was too far away. The shot rang out and Gordon tackled Alan to the ground. They didn’t move.

He and Virgil sprinted the rest of the distance to their brothers. Kayo was covering them as they went. He and Virgil gently rolled Gordon off of Alan and the older blonde scrunched his face up in pain. There was a lot of blood.

Scott knelt down next to Alan, his brother was taking panicked gasps and pain was clear in his eyes. Scott reassured even as he pulled up Alan’s blood covered shirt. There was no wound. It’s Gordon’s. Virgil had said from beside him.

Virgil already had gauze in his hand and pressed it against the wound, Gordon cried out at the pressure. Alan had panicked at Gordon’s cry of pain and now here he was, frozen, with an unresponsive Alan. His baby brother that had been missing for days now.

He’d just finished his checks when Kayo was back them. “The GDF are pursuing the leader. We need to get out of here. Can they be moved?”

An outsider would have thought her words uncompassionate, but Scott could hear the tightness, the worry. Kayo coped by keeping her mind on the mission until they were all safe.

“Alan is breathing with a strong pulse, he should be fine until we get to Thunderbird Two.” Scott reported to his more medic-minded brother.

Virgil nodded, packing up his supplies. “Gordon’s not doing great but there not much I can do for him out here.”

“Hey!” Gordon grunted from the ground. “Gordon is doing just fine, let’s just get out of here.”

“Okay fish. This is going to hurt a bit though.” Virgil replied grimly. “You got Alan Scott?”

Scott nodded and easily hoisted an unconscious Alan into his arms, kid was always light but he seemed like skin and bones right now. It just made Scott more eager to get back to Two.

He heard Gordon cry out as Virgil lifted him off the ground and winced even as they quickly made their way back to Thunderbird Two. Kayo flanked them, on guard as always.

Scott deposited Alan gently onto one of the pull-out beds in Two’s medbay and started hooking up every machine he could get his hands on. Once the heart-monitor could be heard steadily beeping and an IV for fluids had been inserted Scott let himself calm down slightly.

He ran his hand though Alan’s hair as he looked over at the other bed. Virgil was frantically rooting though drawers as his ship rumbled around them, Kayo at the controls.

“Can I get a hand Scott?”

Scott only spared a second to assure himself Alan would be fine before he was on his feet. “What do you need?”

“I need to call ahead to the hospital, just keep him talking and watch his vitals.”

He walked round so he could see Gordon’s face at last. His brother gave him a ghost of a smile. “Good thing my guardian angel is an overachiever, huh?”

Clouded by his worry Scott felt some of his previous anger come back. “What were you thinking Gordon?”

Gordon winced. “I was thinking we needed to find Alan.”

“It was stupid.” Scott hissed. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

“Well it worked, didn’t it?”

“You got shot!”

Gordon peered over at Alan with sad eyes. “It was worth it…”

Scott found it hard to argue as he glanced at his littlest brother. Alan being missing had been his own personal hell. He can’t deny he would’ve done something equally as stupid as Gordon if this had gone on any longer.

Scott startled as machines starting blaring and whipped his head back just in time to see Gordons eyes roll back into his head. Virgil was suddenly pushing him out the way and Scott could only watch as Virgil started CPR. He could only watch as Gordon’s heart tentatively started beating again. Could only watch as he and Alan were rushed away into the hospital.

The first thing that hit Gordon was the familiar anti-bacterial smell that meant he’d gotten himself into some sort of trouble. The scratchy sheets beneath him confirmed that thought. He peeled his eyes open to be met with the stark whiteness of a hospital room.

He blinked the fog away from his brain and shifted on the bed, sucking in a sharp breath at the pain the movement caused. Predictably enough there was a worried older brother leaning over him in seconds.

“Scott?”

“Gordon! How’re you feeling?” When Gordon tried shifting again, his eldest brother lay a hand on his shoulder. “Just lie still Gordon.”

“What happened?”

He was definitely in a hospital and that means it had to have been serious. They’d gotten much better at dealing with injuries on the island over the years. Virgil took every course he could without actually becoming a certified doctor and although no longer practising, their Grandma wasn’t going to be kept at bay when it came to looking after them.

So yeah, over the years they had moved away from the major security risk that was hospitals. If they were in one now, something major had gone down.

“You don’t remember?” Scott asked worriedly

Gordon wracked his brain for the last thing he remembered before realisation overtook him and he shot up.

“Alan!” He was propped up for all of 2 seconds before his arms gave way and he crumpled back into the bed with a groan.

“Hey, hey, take it easy Gordon, you’re hurt.”

“Where’s Alan?” He asked in panic even as he was still recovering from his tumble.

“He’s right over there.” Scott gestured as he moved out of the way so Gordon had a clear view. “And if you don’t calm down, you’re going to wake him up.”

Gordon sighed in relief. Alan, although currently sleeping, looked a lot better than when he’d last seen him. Virgil was also sitting by their littlest brothers side, although his eyes were focused on Gordon.

“He’s fine Gordon.” Virgil’s soft baritone met his ears. “Are you okay?”

Gordon sighed and winced as he felt his injuries. “Yeah.” At the disbelieving looks he added. “Well as okay as someone who got shot can be I guess.”

“You scared us kiddo.” Scott said in that tone that always made Gordon feel guilty.

He sadly looked over to Alan once again. “Yeah I know the feeling. Sorry.”

He’d rarely felt as scared as he had when Alan had been missing.

“Did you catch the guy?”

“Not yet. The GDF are on it though. Kayo’s with them now and John’s lending his usual hand.”

Gordon knotted his fist around the bedsheets.

“It was bad Scott. It was so so bad.”

He would never forget how broken Alan had been when he’d found him. It made tears spring to his eyes as he cursed the unfairness of it all.

“Alan’s going to be okay. He was awake earlier. More worried about you than himself to be honest.” Scott smiled. “He’s definitely got that classic Tracy family gene.”

Gordon smiled as well but sobered quickly.

“He shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Scott frowned looking over at Alan again. “No, he shouldn’t have.”

Scott’s expression turned pained. “What you did was so unbelievably stupid Gordon, and we will be having an in-depth discussion about it when you’re feeling better.” Scott gave him a pointed look. “But we wouldn’t have found Alan without you.”

Gordon had to choke back tears again.

“You did good Gordo.” Scott said quietly as he gently ran his fingers though Gordon’s hair. “Now get some sleep, we’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Gordon was too tired to argue. He was sure he was still hopped up on a world of drugs so, now knowing his family was safe, sleep came easy.

fin.

#whumptober2020 #no.3 #thunderbirds are go #fic #my fic

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