#hope you liked a little bit of kiley fluff

[raging-violets]

Under Pressure // Kendall x Riley // Big Time Rush

Summary – Kendall is stressed and under a lot of pressure and only one person can really understand how he feels, especially when it has to do with his father.

A/N: I’ve done something like this before but this one-shot hit me after reading a post about Kendall on tumblr and wouldn’t let me go until I finished writing it. So, in essence, this is a character study on Kendall, lol.

Set during 2x11 – Big Time Songwriters (though it just mentions it more than it being a plot point).

Words: 3069

TW: mentions of child abuse, deadbeat dad, neglect, parentification, parent death

Tightness stretched across Kendall’s shoulders, increasing as the seconds passed. So much so that he stopped to wiggle and stretch them every few steps. Nothing was making the boulders of his muscles melt away. And it probably wouldn’t until peace returned to him and that wouldn’t happen until his father left Los Angeles.

In the meantime, everything was fine.

He was fine.

He was fine.

He was so fine.

He was so not fine.

Kendall turned away from the mirror, pressing his hands into the sides of his head. He paced across the floor of the costume closet, hearing the distant sound of Gustavo’s screams. The screams only slightly accompanied by off-key notes slammed on a piano.

Not a good song writing day, if Kendall had to guess. Not that he even had to guess. The look on Kelly’s face when he arrived at Rocque Records that day was clear enough. The twitching of her eye only stopped long enough for her to ask, “What are you doing here? You’re not scheduled until tomorrow.”

“I just wanted to…” Kendall briefly closed his eyes. Thought hard for an excuse. He opened his eyes and glanced at the empty practice rooms nearby. “Get some guitar practice in. You know…” he blinked hard, forced a smile that was seconds from breaking. “See if we can spruce up the ‘Oh Yeah’ song.”

“Okay…” Kelly gazed at Kendall. Who wasn’t blinking as he continued to smile at her. “Stop it. That’s creepy.” Kendall dropped his smile. Kelly looked him up and down for a minute. “So long as you don’t destroy the place like you did when you and the boys were writing. Everything’s still getting patched up.”

Kendall nodded and backed away from Kelly, heading towards the practice room, stepping over the broken pieces of furniture and poster sized photos of Rocque Records bands that had been ripped off the walls, wincing as he did so. (And that was nothing compared to the wince that went across his and his friends’ faces when they say the bald patch in the back of his head after he’d ripped out the hair extensions he’d put in when dressed as a viking that day).

After a few steps, Kendall turned back as if he’d only just though tof something. “Hey, uh, do you know if Riley’s here?” He ignored the knowing smile that stretched across Kelly’s face before following her head tilt toward the costume closet. “Just…you know…Gustavo’s asking about the outfits for our videos so I thought I’d…y’know…check on it.”

“Uh-huh.”

So there he was, pacing, pacing, pacing, trying not to look at himself in the mirror. Because if he looked in the mirror, he wasn’t going to see himself, he was going to see him. The man who—unfortunately—had given him half his genes and DNA. The same man he had just seen not even an hour before and Kendall barely managed to get through that conversation without his brain exploding from the pressure of keeping his mouth shut.

He hadn’t been that angry since the all-out war he and the boys had when writing their song. But that was even worse; that was a song that needed to be written so it could go on the deluxe album per Griffin’s wishes. And even then, it was even more pressure because they were writing their first song to prove a point to Gustavo and they needed to like it so he would like it so Griffin would like it so that the fans and critics would like it and…

Kendall’s temples throbbed at the mere thought.

If things didn’t go well with the song, then they wouldn’t go well with the band, then all of that time they spent going to LA would’ve been…a catastrophic failure. Which would mean…everything in his life would’ve ended in abysmal failure.

His parents’ marriage? Ruined when his father became a professional hockey player and enjoyed that life more than being a family man. (Where he may or may not have cheated on his mom, Kendall still didn’t know for sure.). He ended up being the “man of the house” at a young age. Had to be the one in charge of anything and everything when his mom wasn’t there. Had to be another parent when he didn’t even truly know what being a parent was.

His mom? Worked as a waitress in a diner just to be able to afford groceries, rent, Kendall’s hockey and Katie’s lacrosse. She worked almost all day every day and he could barely remember when she got a full day off. Sometimes, Kendall wondered if his mom knew how to be a person again. Not a mom. Not a provider. But a person.

Katie? He walked her to and from the school bus every day, made sure she got into the house okay, consistently called in and checked on her while she was there. Took her to his hockey practices when he had no choice but to go and he watched her quietly sit in the stands, bundled up against the cold, sometimes falling asleep on the bleachers. (She got to know the staff at the arena very well, they were her first victims of poker playing).

His friends? They were always going to be by his side. He couldn’t remember the last time he wans’t. If they got detention he was either coming up with a plan to get them out of it or get him in it just so they could hang out. Anyone who dared tried to say anything bad about them (saying James had no talent, that Logan was a wimp, that Carlos was crazy) was met with potential death. The amount of times he’d gotten into fights with guys who tried to bully Logan or with bigger goons on the ice trying to smash James’s face in was enough to give him the nickname “Killer” early in his hockey career. He was nothing without his friends. So much so that even when James was mad about him getting the deal to go to LA to make music Kendall couldn’t imagine not having them with him.

Him? He had to take care of the cooking and housekeeping while his mom worked late into the night. Where he still had to do his homework, study for tests, worked as the captain of the hockey team, hung out and got in trouble with his friends, and keep his job at the grocery store. All the while he kept a smile on his face. He was loyal, compassionate, friendly, kind, caring, smart, and loyal to everyone around him. The people he loved and cared about. He helped Mrs. Magicowski with her yardwork when the time came, bringing her home some groceries when he was able to get some from the store. Giving up multiple areas of his life, growing up fast so that he could make his life a little bit easier for his mom and sister.

Any of that becoming pointless, becoming useless, becoming not worth it…was not a reality he wanted to live. And if that all came crashing down because he couldn’t get his fucking father’s face out of his head…he’d never forgive him.

Not that he ever would anyway.

The more he looked himself in the mirror, the more he saw his father’s face in his own. It was all he could do to keep from smashing himself in the face with a hockey stick just to knock his father’s teeth out. The idea made him smile in that way that had multiple people telling him, “Stop it, it’s creepy” more than enough times that day.

“What are you doing here, Hockey-Head? Aren’t you supposed to be meeting your dad?” Riley’s voice made Kendall turn. She moved into the costume closet, closing the door with her foot as she carefully maneuvered a surfboard through the door. She set the board on the wall and brushed her wet hair behind her shoulders. “You’re not going to tell Kelly and Gustavo I skivved off, yeah?”

Kendall smiled softly. “No, I won’t tell them.”

“Ace.” Riley peered at him closely then moved to sit on the arm of the couch. “I reckon you being here means your meeting with your dad didn’t go well.” She looped her arms around her upraised knees as he collapsed onto the couch next to her.

“Understatement of the century,” he replied. He flopped back, draping his arm over his face. Let out a heavy sigh, the weight on his shoulders only given a slight reprieve while lying down. “I could hardly stand looking at him.”

He could hear Riley hum softly. “What’d he say?”

“That he was happy to see me,” Kendall replied. He dropped his arm from his face, resting his hands on his stomach as he stared at the ceiling. Alternated looking at Riley then back to the ceiling once more. “That he was glad I took the time to meet with him. That I looked like I was doing well. He wanted to know everything about me.”

A bitter laugh ripped from his throat, as if it had been waiting in the wings for the right moment to strike. The harshness of his laugh, he saw, made Riley jump. She blinked over at him, eyebrows coming together in concern.

“My own dad wanted to know everything about me, like I was some random kid he’d just met for the first time.” The reality of the thought, sobering, settled right into Kendall’s gut. His voice was soft when he repeated himself. “To him I’m some random kid he’d just met for the first time.” Even quieter when he added, “He didn’t even apologize.”

“What do you want him to apologize for?” Riley asked. For a moment, Kendall shot her a ‘are you serious?’ look. The tension in his shoulders moved to his head, started to throb with his heart beat. She simply blinked back at him, blue eyes big and round as she gazed back at him, chin then resting on her knees.

“He couldn’t apologize for leaving,” Kendall said. “I gave him so many chances…and he couldn’t even mention how he’s been gone. He just kept asking me questions, things he would know if he was around. He couldn’t even remember how old Katie is!”

An even stronger throb of pressure.

Kendall clenched his teeth together, working to keep from exploding.

“He acted like he’d always been there and just forgot some things. Like we’d always been in LA, he kept talking about places to and things to see as if being out here was normal.” Kendall’s eyebrows came together when it hit him. “It’s normal to him. Because he’s been out here. He’s lived a life of luxury while we’ve been in Minnesota struggling to make rent every day. He’s been living the life anyone would ever dream of while mom was working from sunup to sundown and barely got a day off. And he was out here while Katie was the only girl in her class who didn’t have a dad to go to the ‘Daddy-daughter’ dance at school, so I had to take her!”

“Kendall—”

“And Mom had to deal with all the whispers and rumors of the other hockey moms. And she had to deal with a crappy boss at the diner just to take care of us. And taking me to my hockey practices and hockey games! And she wouldn’t let me quit them to work more to help her! All the while he was living in the lap of luxury as if he had no family to come home to.” He lurched to his feet, hands slamming into clenched fists. “I hate him!”

Lift off.

“I hate him for what he did to you!” Fury couldn’t describe the emotion that flashed over Kendall’s face. Swirled through his eyes. Riley watched him violently place; eyes wide as she slowly stood from the arm of the couch. “How he stood up there and made it so that the guy that abused you for years practically got off scott free. He stood there and told a judge that you guys were practically the reason for Robert to torture you all for so long and work you to the bone for your career just so he could make money!”

“—Kendall.”

Kendall turned to look Riley in the eye. “I hate that everyone knows what he did. That he knows you all didn’t deserve it and still tried to make it look like you were to blame. How he  made other people think Robert was just an innocent man who was stressed and worked out his stress in a bad way. I hate that he did the same thing to you that…” Kendall trailed off.

Riley took in a deep breath then bluntly said, “That’s not what’s bothering you.”

Kendall’s hands clenched once more, twisting in the air, as if he were wringing the neck of a hockey stick. Seconds away from taking it and slamming it over his knee. The thought made him smirk a little, wondering what his dad would think if they ever came up against each other in a hockey game. He wasn’t called “Killer” for nothing. Then again, his dad wasn’t called “Knuckles” for nothing either.

“What do you want me to say?” Kendall demanded.

“The truth!” Riley shot back. “How you’re really feeling! You fucking hate him; I know you do. But you don’t hate him for us, you hate him for you!” She jabbed him in the chest with her fingertip. “I hate him for what he did to you and Katie. And I don’t even know him! You’re his son and he did that to you! With Rob…your dad was just doing his job. But for you…he wasn’t doing his job as a dad.”

Kendall dropped his hands back to his sides, then folded his arms. He was silent for a long moment. “Do you want to hear how I got tired of hearing my mom cry every night? When she thought Katie and I couldn’t hear her? Where I saw her stressing out over bills and charges? Where I thought about dropping out of hockey because I knew how expensive it was? How I had to live up to his name over and over because it was all people wanted to talk about? How I always had to hear ‘you’re just like your father?’ and cringe inside? How much I don’t like to look in the mirror because I look like him? How I often wonder if my mannerisms are his or if they’re mine? How I hate how angry I am at him and that I hate how everything Gustavo’s ever said to me just reminds me of him? How, as much as I hate him, there’s a tiny part of me that wonders if this time…” he trailed off, his voice cracking badly, the pressure lessening. “If this time is the time he decides to stay? And I have to act like…like none of that happened? And I have to pretend like nothing’s wrong if he leaves again?

“ I don’t…I can’t…” Kendall brought his hands up to the sides of his head, grasped his hair. His chest heaved, tears trickling over his cheeks. “I can’t take the pressure.” He sank to the floor and pressed his face into his hands. Hated that he was crying and equally hating it was his dad that was making him do it.

He slid to the floor, bringing up his legs and hid his face behind his arms. Allowed the tears to flow as long as they would go. He felt Riley sit down next to him before she put her arm around his shoulders, resting her head against his.

They sat that way for a long time. He had no idea how long. All he could focus was on the throbbing in his back and shoulders that slowly ebbed away with each pulse of his heart. Starting off strong then simmered. A gesture like that, one that his mother usually would give him, would’ve sent him running. (More likely to the hockey rink, where he would’ve done laps until he was dripping with sweat and exhausted). But he simply collapsed into Riley’s shoulder, resting his head under her chin, in the crook of her neck.

“You’re lucky,” Kendall murmured. “Your parents are dead. They can’t let you down.”

Riley’s voice was flat. “Yeah, not being able to have them at any of our milestones…let alone to meet you…I have no idea what being let down means.”

Kendall sucked in a sharp breath, briefly closing his eyes. Was almost too ashamed to open his eyes again, afraid of the ferocity of the anger she’d deserve to throw his way if she wanted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”

She raised her hand, cutting him off. Not out of anger, but compassion. A tearful compassion that showed she completely understood what he meant and didn’t hate him for it. “Don’t be sorry, Hockey-Head,” she said. “This isn’t about me.”

“I don’t want him in my life.”

“You don’t have to want him in your life. Not just because he’s your dad. Just keep the people you want around.” With the hand by his head, she tapped him on the side of the head. “You’re in control of your life and who’s in it, Kendork.” He chuckled, lightly rolling his eyes at the use of one of her many nicknames for him. “Don’t give anyone else that power.”

Kendall nodded.

He brought up his hand and grasped hers, squeezing it.

His shoulders slumped.

The pain went away.

Relief.

He was fine.

Kendall lifted his head and looked at her. “How did you do that?” He asked.

Riley smiled.

Tag List: @partiallypearl @witchofinterest @mystic-scripture @darknightfrombeyond @arrthurpendragon ​

#big time rush #big time rush oc #btr #kendall knight #oc: riley jackson #fc: kaya scodelario #tw: child abuse #tw: deadbeat dad #tw: neglect #tw: parentification #tw: parent death #by: riley #this idea wouldn't leave me alone #hope you liked a little bit of kiley fluff #kiley #otp; kiley #otp: knight light #otp: hockey head and surfer babe

[botanistlester]

How to Flirt: Embarrassed Boy Edition

Summary: As soon as the first ever Cold Stone Creamery opens up in London, Phil knew he had to go. However, it wasn’t the ice cream that made him keep coming back, but rather the cute employee who looks dead in the eyes whenever he has to sing the tip jar songs. Word Count: 4,405 Warnings: Food mentions, cussing A/N: thanks so much to @greynihilism for prompting me this!!! I honestly love this SO MUCH. And of course thanks to @snowbunnylester for listening to me shout and for telling me to match our titles bc we are disgusting soulmates. I didn't edit this but i'm too excited about it so idgaf! Hope you like it! 

Voted best oneshot and second best fluff in the phanfic awards 2017!

Read it on AO3!

-   When a new Cold Stone Creamery opened up in London, it was the biggest thing since sliced bread. Literally everyone had to try some, to get some for themselves, that way they could boast to their friends and family how they got to try it.

Phil was guilty of this. He was a slut for only two things, and those were ice cream and new shops. So when he heard a new ice cream shop was opening up? Phil pretty much shit himself. He gathered all of his friends, sat them down, and explained the situation to them. He didn’t want to say he forced them to come with him, because he didn’t. He just calmly insisted that they come with him and didn’t let them leave the room until they agreed. No biggie.

That’s how he found himself inside of Cold Stone with Kiley, Charles, and Michael. Phil was the only one who was so excited that he couldn’t stop bouncing on the balls of his feet. His friends were chattering beside him, waiting patiently for the line to go down so they could finally order, but Phil was having trouble being patient. He wanted his ice cream and he wanted it now. There were still five people in front of him and he wanted to push them all out of the way so he could order his own ice cream and press his face to the counter glass like an annoying child.

Just as he was about to do that, something strange happened. Something that made Phil stop and stare at the workers with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth gaped open. He’d heard of it happening before, back when Cold Stone was just an American thing, but it had completely escaped his mind. Until now.

It happened very systematically. A customer put a pound in the tip jar. The cashier, a pretty gal with blonde hair, yelled out “tip!”. And then, embarrassingly enough, they began to sing.

It was to the same tune of ‘I Kissed a Girl’ by Katy Perry, but a much more cringe version of it. Phil was mildly horrified and by the sound of it, his friends were trying to muffle their laughter into their hands. There were only four workers in the store and Phil found himself tracing his eyes over their expressions, wondering how they could possibly be so cheerful while singing something so horrifying.

“I mixed it in and I liked it; The taste of that Cold Stone ice cream. I mixed it in just to try it; I hope my boyfriend will like it.”

It was horrible, horrifying, in every single way possible. Phil didn’t understand how they could be so numb to the fact that they were singing something so embarrassing. And that’s when his eyes traced over the last worker, and his heart did a little flippy over thing.

The man displayed the emotions that Phil was going through, except he was broadcasting it with his facial expressions. It seemed as if he was in pain, his lips barely moving as he sang the words, a pretty pink colour dancing across his cheeks. He cringed when the group sang, “It mixed so good, it tastes so right, I’ll get a love it tonight,” and Phil couldn’t help but stare in rapt fascination at this man whose eyes screamed ‘kill me’. He had on the standard Cold Stone uniform - a red shirt, black apron, and khakis - and his hair was a mess of brown curls on his forehead. When he grimaced, a dimple appeared in his cheek, making him appear quite adorable despite his horrified demeanor.

For some unknown reason, Phil wanted to see him this embarrassed all the time.

It was over far too soon, lasting only about twenty seconds before they were going back to their work, the only reminder that it happened being the man’s pink cheeks. Phil didn’t know what he wanted in life, but he knew for sure that he needed to see that song again if only to see the way the guy mumbled the words like he would rather be anywhere else than here.

Soon enough, it was his turn, and then he was being faced with the brunette worker himself. He gave Phil a smile that was very obviously fake, that dimple caving in on his cheek.

“What can I get for you?” The man, whose nametag read ‘Daniel’, asked.

If Phil was an anime character, he would probably have approximately three sparkles in his eyes while cherry blossoms danced around them. He was enamoured and he maybe hated himself just a little bit for enjoying Daniel’s pain too much. He moved his eyes away from Daniel’s face and instead looked at the sizes of ice cream he could get. He furrowed his eyebrows when he noticed the weird names of the sizes. Like It, Love It, Gotta Have It? What kind of American bullshit was this. “Erm, I’ll have sweet cream in a Love It cup?” Phil asked unsurely. Was that how you were supposed to order? No matter which way he said his order in his head, it sounded so weird.

“Gotcha,” Daniel said, and then he was reaching into the ice cream container with two weird looking ice cream scoops and taking out a large amount of ice cream which was probably much more than Phil’s lactose intolerant ass could handle. “Toppings?” Daniel asked after a moment, and Phil gave him an alarmed look as Daniel dropped the glob of ice cream onto a slab of stone. Daniel sighed at him, not looking very amused. Phil reckoned he hated his job quite a lot. “You get two free toppings. They’re all listed.”

Phil took a moment to look at the toppings presented to him, licking his lips. What would be good with his ice cream? He was feeling some kind of fruit, but what else would be good with that? Without thinking about it, he said, “Strawberries and rainbow sprinkles.”

Daniel gave him a long look, his eyebrows furrowed, but Phil didn’t know what he was staring at him like that for. Was there something on his face? Was it because Phil was staring at him like he was a God? After a moment, Daniel shook his head slightly and scooped strawberries and rainbow sprinkles into Phil’s ice cream, mixing it together. Once he was finished, he scooped it into the cup and handed it to Phil. “Pay at the register,” he ordered, and even though he had been short with Phil the whole time, Phil couldn’t help but feel like he’d been blessed by the heavens for getting Daniel’s attention for even two minutes.

Now for the hard part: paying quickly and efficiently. Phil never liked paying for things, not because of the whole ‘losing money’ thing, but because he had the worst butterfingers in the world. It didn’t seem to matter what the situation was. If Phil had his wallet, he was bound to drop a bunch of money all over the place whether he liked it or not.

The cashier (the blonde girl that was definitely not Daniel) totalled his bill to an amount that should be illegal. Phil got out his wallet like any good samaritan would, and handed her his money. She took it, counted out the change, and tried to hand it back to him. Except, he missed a coin and watched as it clattered on the ground, his ears burning red again.

“There Phil goes again,” Charles says loudly, earning a laugh from Kylie and Michael.

He glared at them and bent over to pick up the coin, dropping it in the tip bucket. “Fuck off, mate,” Phil whined back, just as the cashier yelled out “tip!”

Just like before, the employees started to sing. Except this time, Phil was ready with a wide grin on his face and his eyes trained on Daniel. He didn’t care how weird he looked at that moment. He wanted to see Daniel, red faced and full of complete and utter embarrassment the entire song.

Daniel did not disappoint. Immediately, his face turned a bright shade of red and his head shot towards Phil to stare at him with furrowed eyebrows. They made eye contact as he sang unenthusiastically, giving Phil an unimpressed look. It was wonderful. He was wonderful. Phil didn’t doubt that he would come back here once more just to see Daniel look so flustered once again.

When the song ended, Phil was left gazing at Daniel as he turned back to his work, most likely trying to ignore Phil’s weirdness. He saw Daniel’s coworker nudge him, and just caught her saying, “You need to brighten up, Dan.” While Phil agreed that the grumpy attitude didn’t really suit the workplace, he also quite liked the way Dan tried to make it seem as if he didn’t care about anything, the way he was mortified every time a coin went into the jar. Phil liked it. Phil wanted to see it more.

Phil’s friends had to pretty much drag him out of the shop once they had all finished ordering. He didn’t want to leave, but they claimed he was being a stalker and forced him out the doors, shaking their heads at him.

“If you want his dick that much, just come back another day,” Kylie suggested, taking a spoonful of her ice cream and humming appreciatively. “Although I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with that guy. He seems kinda like a douche.”

“He’s so unenthusiastic,” Phil groaned, stabbing his spoon into his own ice cream. He hadn’t tried it yet so it was melting around the edges, leaking onto his fingers. “I love it.”

“You’re so strange,” Michael mused, earning agreements from the whole group.

Phil sighed. He knew he was strange, but he had fun like this so that was all that mattered. He finally took a bite of his ice cream, a large scoop so he could get the sprinkles and strawberries in his mouth at the same time. As soon as he bit down, he almost spit it out. “Eurgh!” He groaned, shuddering. “This is disgusting!”

His friends turned to look at him expectantly, peering into his bowl. Charles snorted. “Well, that’s what you get when you get sprinkles and strawberries together. What the hell were you thinking?”

“He wasn’t thinking,” Kylie pointed out. “He was too busy staring at Oscar the Grouch.”

“Don’t talk about my husband like that,” Phil said flatly, glaring at his friends over his ice cream. He was disappointed that he didn’t like his dessert after all that money he spent on it. But then again… “Looks like I’ll just have to come back to get a better ice cream.” He sighed, feigning disappointment, and he friends groaned at him.

“You did that on purpose,” Michael accused.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Now I know you’re lying about that,” Charles said, pointing his spoon at Phil. “Because you and me? We’re alike. As soon as we see a cute boy, we both lose our shit.”

The group laughed and Phil couldn’t exactly argue with that so he didn’t even try to. He smiled and continued to eat his gross ice cream, thinking about the day when he would finally be able to come back and see Dan once more.

-

True to Phil’s word, he showed up at Cold Stone again three days later. He hadn’t been able to get the cute grumpy boy out of his head the entire time and he knew he had to see him once more.

Trying to figure out Dan’s schedule was a gamble. He didn’t know when he worked, didn’t know the hours or the days, so he just decided to pick a time and go. If Dan wasn’t there, he could always try another day. Phil was persistent and stubborn. He wasn’t going to give up as long as Dan worked there.  And that was a fact, damn it.

God must have been helping a bro out because Dan was there that day.

He was frowning into the ice cream just like he was the other day, giving customers fake smiles and looking completely done with the place. He didn’t see Phil as he walked in, but Phil didn’t expect him to. If he was at work, he probably wouldn’t care about anyone who came in either. In fact, Dan was probably cursing at him for coming inside in the first place. But he didn’t care. He was there for one thing and one thing only.

Dan’s embarrassment.

The wait was even worse than it was the last time, but only because Phil didn’t have anybody with him this time. His jitters from being alone made his foot tap on the linoleum and his hand run through his hair at least twelve times. What was Dan going to say when he saw him? Would he recognize him? Would he give him a genuine smile this time?

Now, it was his turn, and Phil was probably going to throw up all over the frozen dairy. He stepped up and then Dan’s eyes were on him, all brown and beautiful and dead inside. He didn’t show any sign of recognition other than a raised brow. Just like before, he gave Phil an obviously faux smile. “What can I get for you?” he asked in that Southern drawl, and Phil melted just like ice cream that’s been sitting out in the sun.

Phil cleared his throat because otherwise he would probably sound like a child going through puberty again. He stared into those big brown eyes, trying to maintain eye contact, but broke it off as his cheeks became too painfully hot. It seemed that looking at Dan straight on was the same thing as staring at the goddamn sun for too long. “Sweet cream in a Love It cup,” Phil told him, and watched as Dan mechanically got his scoops and went to work. He had very large hands, ones with long fingers, and Phil watched with rapt fascination, wondering just what else he could do with those hands.

Dan coughed and Phil realised he was waiting on him once more, a look of boredom and slight annoyance on his features. Shaking himself out of it, Phil murmured that he wanted strawberries and blueberries in his ice cream. This made Dan’s lips twitch up, but he didn’t smile. “No sprinkles this time?” he asked in a voice that was slightly monotone but obviously with attempted enthusiasm.

A laugh ripped its way out of Phil’s throat. He was fully aware that he was laughing far harder than he should, especially with the looks he was gaining from the other people in line, but the joke caught him off guard. He hadn’t thought Dan would have remembered him at all, but here they were. Phil thought he fell in love just a little bit. “No sprinkles,” Phil agreed, watching as those big hands mixed his ice cream together. “Last time was a bit unpleasant. Hence why I’m here again today.”

Dan hummed but otherwise didn’t reply, scooping up the ice cream and putting it in the cup. He licked his lips and Phil watched in awe as he did so. He was too far in and Dan had literally not said anything of sustenance. Dan handed him his ice cream, forcing Phil out of his daydreams about pressing their lips together, of seeing that blush on Dan’s cheeks for an entirely different reason. “Pay at the register,” Dan said just as he did the first day. And then as an afterthought, “Thanks for coming in again.”

The words made Phil’s heart flutter a little bit. He was royally fucked. How could just five, polite words make him want to vomit flowers everywhere? God, Phil needed to get laid. Maybe then he could get over his unconventional crush on a guy he’d not even had a proper conversation with yet.

There was a different cashier at the register today. She had a shock of blue hair and her nametag read Dani. It had a sticker of a rainbow next to her name. Phil thought it was nice. She beamed at him as he paid (fumbling with the money as per usual) and her smile grew even wider as he dropped some change in the tip bucket.

She yelled out ‘tip’, and Phil just managed to catch the look of horror coming over Dan’s face as he realised what had happened. And as if matters couldn’t get any more embarrassing, the song had changed today. Phil watched with great pleasure as the employees began to sing in the tune of Get Low by Lil Jon.

“From the ghiiiiaaaa to the stone (to the stone) Til the fudge drips down that cone. Mix it on that stone. Thanks for the tip tip tip tip tip Thanks for the tip tip tip.”

It was wonderful. Just as embarrassing as before. In fact, it was probably moreso because of the way Dan’s coworker, a large man with bulging muscles, shimmied as if he had breasts. Phil snickered as Dan’s face turned an even redder shade than before, looking absolutely mortified. He glared at his coworker first before turning that burning gaze onto Phil.

It said, ‘Don’t you dare tip us again’.

Phil raised his eyebrows in return, a bright grin on his face. He hoped Dan knew that he would be back again.

The frozen dessert tasted much better that day, but Phil was halfway through when he realised he didn’t like blueberries. He would have to come back another day to get something better.

-

It went on like that for a few weeks. Phil would come in, order an ice cream that he knew he probably wouldn’t like, and then he would use that as an excuse to come back another time. Once he got coffee flavoured ice cream with gummy bears and peanut butter, but it was worth it to see the slightly disgusted face Dan pulled when he dumped them into Phil’s dessert.

He made it a game to see how many facial expressions he could pull out of Dan during his visit. He would order weird mixes. He would say dumb animals facts as Dan was mixing his ice cream together. He would put a tip in the tip jar and marvel at the fact that the store had a different song each day.

And then, of course, he would marvel at the way Dan’s glares turned more and more heated every time he put a tip in the jar.

There was no way that Dan didn’t know what he was doing. It’s not like he was being sneaky, after all. He had to have noticed the way Phil would stare straight into his eyes as he dropped change in the bin, the way he would stare the entire time Dan was mumbling stupid songs under his breath.

Phil wouldn’t call it antagonizing, per say. He was just interested in the blush that covered Dan’s cheeks, interested in those dead eyes, interested in those pretty pink (but chapped) lips. He was definitely interested in kissing those pretty pink (but chapped) lips, that’s for sure.

But one day, everything Phil knew and loved changed in a heartbeat.

“I’ll cash him out,” Dan told his coworker as he handed Phil his newest creation of strawberry ice cream with cinnamon and coconut.

Phil’s eyes widened and his heart stopped because Dan was staring him straight in the eyes, as if he was challenging him to a dual. Their eye contact didn’t break as they both made their way to the register, and Phil watched out of the corner of his eye as Dan took his gloves off. He was wearing black nail polish and Phil wanted to cry because he had never seen somebody so damn beautiful before.

Dan told him his total in a smooth voice and Phil grappled for the change. His wallet was steadily growing emptier thanks to the costliness of his new hobby, and he knew that he would have to pick up some more work hours sooner or later. “Aren’t you going broke?” Dan asked, and his voice wasn’t really snarky, but it definitely had an edge in it. “This place isn’t exactly cheap.”

Phil shrugged and handed the money to Dan, only managing to practically punch Dan’s hand as he did so. “I have a job,” he replied. And then, with hesitation, “Besides, where else would I go to hear such snazzy tunes after a long day?” With this, he took a few coins and went to put it in the tip jar, keeping his eyes trained on Dan’s face.

Just as he suspected, Dan’s eyes widened in horror. Before Phil knew what was happening, his hand was being knocked out of the way and his change went flying through the air. It landed on the floor with a pitiful clatter and Phil gaped at Dan and the way he was so much more flushed than he had ever been before.

“I- what?” Phil spluttered, and he was sure he looked just as flustered.

“Please don’t,” Dan said in a low, pleading tone. He leaned in closer to Phil so that nobody could hear them, not caring about the way that the other customers were most likely staring or waiting for them to finish cashing Phil out. “I don’t want to sing anymore.”

Phil’s heart stuttered in his chest. He was definitely in an anime, there was no doubt about that anymore. Internally, he was flipping out about how close Dan was to him, how he could see each individual freckle on his face, how there were specks of black and gold in Dan’s eyes. He wanted to grab Dan’s face and trace along his cheekbones with his thumb, wanted to connect their lips together and see if Dan tasted like the ice cream he served.

He didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, he swallowed and took a deep breath to clear his head. He couldn’t be creepy when he finally had his chance to shine. (Even though he probably already looked creepy, let’s be honest). “But I like seeing you sing,” Phil murmured, just as quietly.

There was surprise in those brown eyes and Dan jerked backwards in shock, his eyebrows raised. “What?”

“You get this cute blush on your cheeks and you look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here. It’s intriguing. I’d come by every day but I don’t want to seem desperate.”

Dan scoffed but it was obvious he was trying to play it cool by the way he crossed his arms over his chest. There was a pink tint to his cheeks again and Phil wanted to kiss them so badly. “You’re looking pretty desperate to me, Phil.”

For a moment, Phil was alarmed. How did Dan know his name? Had they met before? Had Phil introduced himself without remembering? But then he recalled that his friends had shouted his name very loudly before, and Dan had probably connected the dots. His heart did a little flip that Dan had remembered his name. “Well then allow me to be even more desperate,” Phil said despite the nervousness choking off his airways. He gave Dan a bright smile, hiding his shaking hands with the ice cream in his grip. Dan tilted his head curiously, but he had a guarded look in his eyes. Phil wanted to get to know the person beneath that expression. “Come on a date with me?”

Silence greeted him and Phil began to panic.

He set the ice cream on his counter so he could run his hand through his fringe and mess with his jumper, occupying his hands. It was a nervous habit he had picked up a while ago, one that seemed to be emerging right then. He had never been good at asking people out. “Of course, don’t think I’m forcing you into it. If you’re not interested, that’s totally fine. I’ll leave you alone and escape the country if you want me to. I just think you’re really pretty and I’ve wanted to get to know you ever since I first saw you singing that godawful Hollaback Girl remix-.”

“Phil,” Dan murmured. His voice was quiet and he was staring down at Phil through his eyelashes. He didn’t have an expression on his face. “You’re holding up the line.”

Phil’s stomach sank and he looked to his right to see that he was, indeed, holding up the line. People were watching him with annoyance written all across their faces. They were holding their wallets and ice cream and seemingly about ready to tear his head off. “Ah. I’m sorry. I’ll just. Yeah.” He did a little side-step, pointing towards the exit. But before he could make his getaway, there was a hand around his wrist, holding him in place.

“Come back tomorrow so we can discuss where we want to go on a date, yeah? My shift starts at three.”

And then, like a light had switched on, Dan was smiling. A real, actual smile, one that lit up the entire room. His whole face seemed to shine as bright as the sun, his eyes turning this gorgeous molten chocolate colour, his teeth straight and white. His dimple caved in on his cheek and his nose crinkled and Phil could feel himself drowning. He had never seen Dan smile like this before, so genuine and bright, and Phil felt as though he had seen an actual fucking angel grinning at him.

If he thought Dan was beautiful before when he was grumpy, then he was about a thousand times more beautiful when he smiled. Especially when Phil was the cause of that smile.

“G-great!” Phil stuttered, wiping his mouth off with his sleeve just in case he was drooling. He offered Dan his own grin and nodded, getting hair in his eyes like the bumbling fool he was. “I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

He turned to walk out of the store, melting ice cream in hand. But then he stopped, turned around, looked Dan right in the eyes.

He ignored the way Dan’s soft eyes slowly turned horrified as Phil dropped a coin into the tip jar, an enthusiastic ‘tip!’ ringing through the air.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phanfictioncatalogue #botanistlester #dan and phil #phan fluff #fluff #phan getting together #getting together #gettingtogether #strangers to lovers #humor

[dilkirani]

a better son/daughter

Summary: Exploring the effects of Fitz's relationship with his father throughout his relationship with his best friend, in three parts.

"You'll be better, you'll be smarter And more grown up and a better daughter Or son and a real good friend You'll be awake and you'll be alert You'll be positive though it hurts And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends You'll be a real good listener You'll be honest, you'll be brave You'll be handsome, you'll be beautiful You'll be happyYour ship may be coming in You're weak but not giving in" -- Rilo Kiley, "a better son/daughter"

A/N: Started writing this after the reveal about Fitz's abusive father. The first scene of the third part is set after that episode, but there aren't any references to the framework. I also wanted to address Jemma leaving after the pod in the context of Fitz’s father without glossing over her own trauma, so I hope that comes across. Thanks to @itsavolcano​ as always for the beta and for the help with the ending! She suggested "happiness and kids," so thank her for the fluff!

tw: verbal abuse mention, PTSD, panic attacks. 

Read below or at ao3!

--

i.  in the middle before we knew that we’d begun

Jemma has never suffered from panic attacks before but she recognizes the symptoms easily enough. She carefully charts the time and date of each occurrence, what she assumes the instigator has been, what it feels like: accelerated heart rate, trembling, sensations of smothering. Her lungs cannot draw enough air and she hates herself for it because she had, after all, drawn just enough air.

Her lungs had sucked up the oxygen meant to be shared and now she sits, back flat against her door, trying to hoard all the oxygen left in the world because she just can’t breathe.

When the attack passes, she presses her forehead against the side of her bed and cries, furious at herself because there’s no reason for her to be this weak. Her best friend is still recovering in a hospital bed because of what she’d done to him and the doctors told her he might never be the same. But she is perfectly fine.

She thinks, bizarrely, that she wants to go home. Not to her parents’ bright house in Sheffield, not to her cramped but familiar bunk on the Bus, but back to some amorphous feeling that’s already fading from her mind. Back to when everything in her world had been science and Fitz and cheap pizza at midnight, notes and schematics scattered along the floor. When her heart had been whole; when she hadn’t known it was possible to survive yet still feel the pressure of water drowning her every day.

Now, she cries so much the salt of her tears burns against the back of her throat and it tastes like inhaling the ocean. This is one truth she wishes she’d never learned.

++

Jemma drums her fingers nervously against her thigh. When Fitz had been in his coma, she held his hand, placed her ear against his chest to feel his heartbeat. Once, in a moment of weakness, she had crawled into bed next to him, holding him against her like her arms could keep him tethered to this world.

But now that he’s awake she retreats until there’s more space between them than there’s ever been. His confession mixes with her guilt until it’s a living, breathing entity that takes up all the space in his room.

When have they ever run out of things to say? When had their conversations ever been so one-sided?

“Fitz,” she says softly, speaking to him like he might disappear. Because what she fears more than anything is that he actually has. “Would you like me to call your mum?”

He turns to look at her for the first time since she sat down and shakes his head quickly, eyes wide.

“Don’t you think she ought to know?” Jemma persists.

Fitz stares at her as if sure she can read his mind but is refusing to. “Don’t w-w-want her to-to-to—” He cuts himself off with a growl, fisting the arm that’s not still in a cast into his bedding.

“You don’t want her to worry?” Jemma finishes for him.

Fitz nods, but he’s staring off again, no longer meeting her eyes. They sit like this in silence for awhile, until Trip stops by to ask Jemma a question. She excuses herself and her heart clenches painfully at the way Fitz looks so dejected.

She goes back to her room after helping Trip in the lab, not having the energy to spend more stilted hours with Fitz. He wants her with him all the time but he never seems happy when she’s around. To calm herself, she meditates on a list of her sins and thinks up apologies she’ll never be brave enough to deliver.

Dear Skye, I’m sorry for taking the last breath. I know how much Fitz means to you. I know I’ve been impossibly selfish.

Dear Coulson, I’m sorry I wasn’t smart enough. I’m sorry we weren’t field ready. I’m sorry I stole your best engineer from you.

Dear Linda, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know he’s all you have. I know I promised to take care of him in the field. I know you worried so much but you let him go anyway. I know you trusted me, and I know you never will again. I’m so sorry.

Dear Fitz —

But here her tears spill onto her cheeks and she can’t finish. There is no universe, she thinks, in which she can fully articulate what she feels when she looks at her best friend, when she hears him struggling to finish a simple sentence. There will never be enough words to fill up the space left between his smile and her scream.

And then there are times she looks at him, quiet and sweet in sleep, and feels a burst of anger because he made her take the oxygen, because he thought after everything she could just leave him behind, like she cares as little as his father had.

The self-hatred that immediately follows the anger is just another pinprick. She barely feels it.

++

“Hi,” Jemma says, letting herself into his hospital room. Fitz smiles at her and it’s like scotch tape over a pothole, but right now it’s the only thing holding her together. “I brought you a journal.”

She holds up a copy of Physics Review Letters, a recent issue she knew he’d been eager to read, before.

His eyes track her movements as she sits down in the chair by his bedside that’s become hers. She moves to hand him the journal, but he shakes his head, so she sets it down on the nightstand instead.

“La-la-ter,” he stumbles, and she thinks she manages to hide her disappointment well enough.

“Want to watch TV?” she asks, and he nods, settling back down against his pillows. She picks an episode of Doctor Who and when she starts nodding off in her chair, it almost feels like they’re healing.

++

The next day, Jemma steps into his room, determined to embrace a new, positive attitude. Fitz had always been a bit prickly, and being stuck in a hospital room was doing him no favors. But he is her best friend—surely she can think of something to ease his boredom and his fear. Despite what he thinks, he really is improving, and she’s done endless amounts of research on brain injuries. Perhaps she’s not a medical doctor, but she’s convinced she’ll be the one to help him.

But when she sees him, she knows immediately that it’s going to be a bad day. He’s scowling and his eyes are shimmering with tears. She looks to where he’s staring and sees the copy of Physics Review Letters flung against a wall.

“Fitz,” she says, unable to completely hide the frustration in her voice. “Why did you do that?”

His voice is so quiet that she almost can’t hear him when she walks to pick it up. “I c-c-could-could... can’t—”

“Can’t what?” she asks softly, and she knows she’s using the tone of voice he hates but she doesn’t know how else to speak.

“Words,” he says, breathing out harshly and twirling a finger next to his temple, his new way of expressing frustration at the jumbled connections in his brain.

“Oh,” she replies, thinking that she might have known this would happen, wondering how it’s possible to know him better than she knows herself but still never seem to do the right thing.

Unbidden, an image of him appears, confessing a secret he might otherwise have died to protect. Maybe she doesn’t know him at all.

Jemma sits next to him, forcing a smile she doesn’t feel. “What if I read it to you?” she offers. “A physicist’s bedtime story?”

She had thought it was a fun, lighthearted, and reasonable suggestion, but Fitz clenches his fist in a way she knows means he’s upset.

“I’m n-not...a-a-a ch-ch—”

“—a child?” she finishes for him.

He won’t meet her eyes and suddenly tears are streaming down his face. She doesn’t know what to do—she reaches out to touch him, fingers barely grazing his arm.

“I’m-I’m-I’m just—”

“What, Fitz?” she asks, and every cell in her body is afraid of the answer.

“I’m worthless,” he spits, and she’s suddenly seventeen years old again, sitting in his dorm room and feeling like her heart has just been torn from her body.

“Fitz,” she breathes, finally finding the strength to grip his arm. “You are not worthless, and you never will be. You need to be patient with yourself. You sustained a serious injury and your brain needs to learn to make new connections. But you will.” She’s in clinical mode now, and she finds herself believing the authority in her own voice.

Fitz, however, looks unconvinced. Jemma feels desperation heavy and clawing in her stomach, feels sick with it.

That night, she prays. Perhaps to no one and nothing, but she prays nevertheless.

++

Fitz moves out of the hospital room and starts more intense physical therapy and TBI rehabilitation. She doesn’t understand why he seems to be making strides around everyone but her. The way he’d called himself worthless still rings loudly in her ears.

She takes him out to dinner and he complains the whole time. When she finally makes it back to her room and breathes through another panic attack, she discovers that she has no tears left. She considers the gaping empty feeling inside of her and thinks it’s always been there.

Two nights later, she’s come up with yet another plan to win Fitz over. In the back of her mind she wonders if this is a twisted repeat of when they’d first become friends, if he is as annoyed with her showing up at his room every day the same way he’d probably been annoyed by her following him around all the time at the Academy.

She pushes these worries away and grabs Fitz’s favorite snack, which she’d managed to procure earlier that day from a specialty UK store off-base. She smiles to herself, imagining his delight and the way his eyes will light up. Fitz’s sweet tooth is something she’d always chastised him for but secretly adored.

But when Jemma reaches his room she freezes, stunned at what she’s hearing. Skye’s voice filters softly through the open door, stumbling over the technical language of a physics article she recognizes from the journal she’d brought to him weeks ago. “Micrometer and larger scale positioning of the tip uses stick-slip piez-piezoelectric actuators, while microscopic positioning uses a p-piezoelectric single-tube scanner—”

Fitz laughs, not unkindly, and she can hear the sheets rustling as he presumably leans over towards Skye. “Pee-ay-zoh-elec-tric,” he sounds out, and it almost seems like he’s saying the word slowly solely for Skye’s benefit.

Skye groans good-naturedly. “I’m not saying that word again, Fitz. Also, is this a physicist’s idea of some kinky shit? Because if so, I don’t want to be reading it.”

“Wh-what? Of course-course not,” he replies, seemingly scandalized.

“Something about the tip and ‘stick-slip’ actuators? Are you sure this is a reputable article?”

Jemma hears Fitz scoff and then a slight tussle ensues, one Skye presumably wins because in the next second she’s sighing in resignation and picking up where she left off—“While in scan mode, the position of the tip in the xy plane is varied by tilting the tip as shown in Figure 3…”

Jemma looks down at the Scottish tablet in her hands and the truth she’s been avoiding for months slams into her ribcage like a gunshot. “It’s me,” she whispers to herself, suddenly adrift and a little bit dazed. She stands there, not moving, unsure where she has left to go. She absentmindedly sticks a piece of tablet in her mouth and the sugar tastes sour and heavy on her tongue. It settles in her stomach like a stone.

She finally turns to leave. She stuffs the rest of the sweets in the garbage. She takes several deep, clarifying breaths.

Then, she sets up a meeting with Coulson.

--

ii.  take me back to the start

“You’re my best friend in the world, Fitz,” Jemma sighs sleepily, snuggling further into his couch, her head almost touching his shoulder.

Fitz’s entire body seems to freeze, pen stopping mid-word, feet suddenly flat on the ground.

Jemma tenses and worries that she’s crossed some social boundary. She’s never been very good at picking up on people’s signals, but after a rough start she and Fitz had become incredibly close. To her, it didn’t seem like a revelation; they were together all the time.

“But if you’re not…well, I mean, naturally I don’t have to be your best friend—” she stumbles, face flushing bright red.

“No, no, it’s not...I just, um…” Fitz scratches at his neck, avoiding her eyes. “I’ve never had a best friend before, not really.”

Jemma grins at him. “Me neither! We probably never found anyone smart enough before.”

Fitz frowns, considering her words. “Someone has to be smart to be your best friend?”

“Well, not necessarily. But it’s difficult making friends when you’re always the youngest in your classes and no one else cares about your research.” Jemma shrugs; she’d actually never considered herself lonely before. There had been so much to learn and so little time. It wasn’t until she’d met Fitz that she’d even realized it was possible to have someone add to your life in a way you couldn’t achieve on your own.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Fitz mumbles, but he appears vaguely troubled. “You’re my best friend too, Simmons.”

She breathes out a sigh and leans back against the couch cushion. It feels oddly like an official statement has been made—like today, January 24, will be a day she looks back on as important as the day she defended her first dissertation, or the day she was accepted into the Academy. The day she has allowed her fate to be sealed together with prickly, grumpy, brilliant, funny Leopold Fitz. She should be nervous, in a way, but as she lets her head fall back onto the sofa she feels only sleepy and fully content.

++

Fitz groans, leaning his head back in frustration and rubbing his eyes tiredly. It’s the first time he’s ever had such difficulty with any project, so Jemma certainly understands his annoyance, but she doesn’t understand the way his hands tremble or his barely-audible mutterings of “half a brain” and “stupid.” She doesn’t understand why his usual enthusiasm for a challenge has been replaced by panicked breathing and tears hanging on his lashes.

She bites her lip as she hovers nearby. She had finished her part of the project ages ago. Or, thirty minutes ago, but as he tries material after material and gets nowhere, it starts to feel like an eternity.

“Maybe we should take a break?” she offers. “You haven’t eaten in awhile, you have to be feeling peckish.”

“I’m fine,” he mutters, just as his traitorous stomach gives an unpleasant growl.

“Fitz,” she says, smiling a bit. “We have plenty of time. We’re way ahead of everyone else. Let’s just take a break.”

He drops the tool he’s using in frustration. “It’s no use,” he says, refusing to meet her eyes. “I can’t figure it out, it’s way beyond me.”

Jemma scoffs, leaning against the lab table and eyeing him warily. “That’s not true, Fitz. We’re obviously just approaching it the wrong way. We’ll figure it out.”

“You might be able to, but I’m just...I’m just useless.”

Jemma gapes at him, unsure what to say. Fitz always had a bit of a temper and he tended to get frustrated more easily than she did, but he’d never just given up. She’s never seen him look so...lost and defeated.

Before she can process what’s happening, Fitz has left the lab in a huff. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until she sees water dropping onto her lab report.

++

Jemma gives him approximately 45 minutes to stew on his own before she can’t take it anymore. She’s pretty sure having a best friend means being supportive of them, even if you’re not entirely sure what to do or say.

She lets herself into his dorm room, having memorized his code long ago, and finds him sprawled across his bed, head buried underneath a pillow.

“Hi, Fitz,” she says, approaching him more tentatively than she has in over a year. “I made you a sandwich.”

Fitz doesn’t move; she’d think he were asleep if she couldn’t sense the tension radiating off of him. She holds the sandwich out in front of her, although he can’t see.

“I’ve been experimenting. This one is quite good, I think. Prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella with a bit of homemade pesto aioli. The first batch of aioli tasted a bit off, but I think I’ve finally got it right.”

It’s awkward and silent for another moment until Fitz turns around to face her. He does so slowly, as if reluctant, and she struggles to hide a grin. She might not know why Fitz is suddenly so upset, but the surest way to his good spirits has always been food.

He takes the sandwich from her without saying anything, inhaling before he takes his first bite, and the obvious pleasure on his face sends a tingling feeling down her spine.

They sit in silence, each eating half of the sandwich, until he brushes crumbs onto his floor and mumbles an apology.

“You don’t have to apologize, Fitz,” she reassures him. “I just...I didn’t know how to help. Or why you were so upset.”

Fitz picks at invisible lint on his pants, not meeting her eyes. He takes a deep, fortifying breath before saying something he’s never admitted to anyone: “My dad used to say...he always said I was st-stupid and useless. Said I’d never amount to anything and I was this huge dis-disappointment. Sometimes when I can’t figure something out I get...I’m afraid he’s right.”

Whatever Jemma expects him to say, this is not it. She doesn’t know how to respond. She has the oddest sensation in her chest, as if her heart is actually breaking.

“Fitz,” she breathes, feeling both honored that he’s trusted her enough to tell her and terrified that she won’t be able to say the magic words to make it all better. “I-I’m so sorry. Do you...do you still talk to him?”

“Nah,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, and it’s this gesture, as if what he’s confessed is nothing, that really does break her heart. “He left when I was ten. Me and my mum haven’t heard from him since.”

“He’s...he’s an absolute wanker,” Jemma hisses, clenching her hands into tight fists. Fitz looks up then for the first time, mouth hanging open.

“What?” she asks, flushing under his stare. “I curse!”

There’s another pause and then suddenly Fitz is laughing and he can’t stop. He bends over, wheezing, until Jemma starts to seriously worry that he’s going into hysterics. He finally calms down, brushing tears from his eyes and looking up at her with such gratitude that she feels guilty.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling softly at her. “I needed to hear that.”

She smiles back at him tentatively. “I mean it, Fitz. You’re the smartest, most interesting person I know. Even if you weren’t, what he said to you is simply inexcusable. He didn’t deserve you.” She throws her arms around him then, pulling him towards her and sighing when he wraps his arms around her as well.

“You’re my best friend in the world,” she says. “I could never think you were useless.”

She can feel him relax against her, almost imperceptibly. They sit like this for awhile, embracing much longer than they ever have in the past. In the back of her mind, she worries that she hasn’t said enough. She’s never been close enough to anyone to be entrusted with this kind of information, and she’s afraid she’ll never be able to articulate everything she’s thinking in this moment.

She hopes, as they break apart and opt for marathoning television for the evening instead of working on their project, that somehow her presence will be enough. She fears, more than anything, that it won’t be.

--

iii.  the end of the beginning

Jemma walks into their bedroom, shutting the door with extra care. She needs every second she can get to process and plan her words, although she knows in the end they’ll spill out of her haphazardly. She can smell the burnt metal against her skin and it makes her stomach roil.

Fitz is sprawled across the bed and she thinks he’s asleep until she sees his eyelashes flutter. He smiles shyly up at her and her heart stutters, beating out a rhythm that’s long ago become a unique response to his presence.

Jemma sits on the edge of the bed and he moves to curl instinctively to her side. She runs her fingers through his hair and smiles at the way he nuzzles even closer. Sometimes, she wants to keep him all to herself, and other times she finds herself strangely heartbroken that no one else is allowed to experience Fitz as she does. How can people truly understand happiness, she wonders, if they’ve never been enveloped in his arms?

She sighs softly. More than anything, she wants to fall asleep for days. But for some reason, today is the day she can no longer choke down her words. “Can we talk?” she asks, voice barely a whisper. “About...about after the med pod? Before I left?”

Fitz stills like a frightened animal, eyes scanning the room as if he’s unsure which of them will bolt first. “We’ve...but we’ve talked about it, Jemma.”

“Not really,” she replies, continuing to smooth his hair down methodically. “It’s always been too raw. It still feels too raw, but it’s safe now, isn’t it? You won’t leave now.”

He breathes out an incredulous laugh. “Where would I go?”

“Do you remember when I brought you that physics journal to read?” she asks, ignoring his question and the way it pulls at her heart. She lies down on her side then, reaching for his hand.

Fitz cringes and looks away. “Jemma,” he says softly, “I’m sorry. I know I treated you—”

She cuts him off by tugging on his hand, drawing his attention back to her. “You don’t have to apologize, Fitz. That’s not why...that’s not why I brought it up. I just…” She turns until she’s on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

“I was trying to help, but I didn’t know how. I was having panic attacks and I felt so guilty and confused and then you...you said you were worthless, and all I could think about was what you told me at the Academy, about your father. I loved you, Fitz, even if I didn’t know then in what way. I loved you so much and I made you feel worthless.” She breaks off in hiccuping sobs, covering her eyes with her hands and realizing that this wound in her heart has never fully healed; it’s just scar tissue formed over scar tissue.

“Jemma,” Fitz murmurs, pulling her hands away from her face as gently as he can. “You didn’t make me feel worthless. It wasn’t—it wasn’t because of you.” He brushes her hair back from her face and swipes a tear away with his thumb. “I was trying too hard to be the same. I’ve always felt I had to be smarter and better for you, and at that moment I just...couldn’t accept what had happened.”

“But do you remember when you told me about your father? At the Academy?”

Fitz curls into her; his arm drapes across her waist in a protective cocoon she never wants to leave. “‘Course I remember,” he says. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

“I didn’t know what to say, Fitz,” she whispers, increasingly panicked. “I didn’t know how to help and if I’d said the right thing maybe I wouldn’t have made you feel worthless later and you wouldn’t doubt your own worth now.”

Fitz places a kiss high on her cheekbone and she can feel him smiling against her face. “Of course you didn’t know what to say. We were kids, and you weren’t a psychologist. But you were my friend and you helped me.”

He brushes another kiss along her jawline, dusting over her lips. “I don’t think I can ever tell you what it meant to explain about my dad and to have you immediately defend me.”

Jemma faces him, incredulous. “Of course I defended you! It’s unspeakably awful what he did to you and if I ever—”

He cuts her off with another soft kiss. “Sometimes you know things intellectually, and sometimes you just need to hear your best friend in the world say that your abusive dad was a wanker and didn’t deserve you.”

Jemma laughs then, burying her head into his shoulder and breathing in his heady scent. “Still,” she says after a few moments of quiet, “I’m sorry I left the way I did.”

Fitz sighs, closing his eyes and gripping her to him. “And I’m sorry I never gave you a chance to explain. I’m sorry I was so focused on myself that I didn’t realize at the time how much you’d been hurt by the pod and everything that happened after.”

She nods against him, bringing a finger up to trace along his chest. There’s one more thing she wants to ask him but she worries now is not the right time, that all of the betrayals are too fresh in his mind.

“I can feel you thinking,” he says after a few minutes of silence have passed and she can’t help laughing. She leans over him, propping her head against her hand and staring at his eyes, somehow the color of the ocean and the sky and yet more beautiful than any of it.

She bites her lip, considering. “Do you think you might, someday, think about...that is, do you see yourself wanting kids?”

Fitz pushes himself up so that he’s leaning against the headboard, and she whines instinctively at losing the contact. He furrows his brow. “I s’pose I hadn’t thought much about it. I think...yeah, in an abstract way, but it always felt far off. I guess... I always assumed we would, though. Why? What about you?”

Jemma smiles up at him. “Yeah,” she replies. “Not soon, but someday. Honestly, I never really thought about it until you. But I’d like to, with you.” She pushes her fingers into the sheets, giving him a nervous half-smile. “I was uh...afraid to bring it up with you. I didn’t know if you felt...with your father and all.”

“Oh,” he says, nodding. He doesn’t say anything for awhile, just leans his head back against the bed. Just when she’s about to ramble something, anything, he clears his throat. “I’ve worried, sometimes,” he says. “About not having a good father figure growin’ up. But my mum is...I think she’s been the best example of parenting anyone could have.”

Jemma nods, feeling her eyes fill with tears at just the image of Fitz, small and safe in his mother’s arms.

“And we’d be together, yeah? I’ll just follow your lead.” He grins at her and she smiles tremulously back before throwing her arms around him and squeezing so tightly he gasps.

“I love you so much, Fitz,” she whispers, some dark, tight feeling in her chest finally unspooling, all these years later.

“I love you, too,” he replies, placing the gentlest of kisses against her forehead.

With all the insanity swirling around them, it’s still the best sleep she’s gotten in ages.

++

“You’re not panicking?”

“No, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay, maybe a little. A lot. No, a medium-sized amount.”

Jemma laughs, her voice light and carefree. “I’m maybe a little worried, but not much.”

“Really? We’re about to have a real, live human baby and you’re not panicking about it?”

She shakes her head fondly, wrapping his arms around her belly and leaning back against his chest. The sunlight warms her face and she’s tempted to fall asleep right here on this park bench. “I’m pretty sure I’ve survived worse pain, I know I’ve survived worse sleep deprivation, and you’ll be there the whole time.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, flattening his hands against her stomach and concentrating on any movement. “I’ll be there the whole time.”

Jemma places her hands over his, fingers playing with his wedding ring. “Fitz,” she says finally, unsure how to get the words out without drowning in how much she loves him, “I trust you more than anyone in the world. You’re going to be the best father, and I’m so ready to do this with you.”

He drops his face down into her hair and she can feel dampness seeping onto her scalp. He pulls her even closer, impossibly gentle. “I’m ready too,” he says, breath tickling at the back of her neck. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

Jemma squeezes her eyes shut then and doubles over in pain. Fitz’s panic has already rocketed back up by the time she straightens, throwing him a strained little smile.

“That’s good to hear, because I think she might be coming early.”

“Oh, shite.”

++

“Daddy!” his four-year-old daughter shrieks, running to him from across the playground. He leans down to catch her, swinging her up as she giggles.

“Push me on the swing, daddy! Higher this time!”

Fitz frowns as he carries her over to the swingset. She squirms in his arms as soon as they near the swings, so he lets her go and watches her run off.

“I don’t know, Rosie,” he says. “We went pretty high last time.”

Rose settles herself in the swing, trying to kick herself into motion, and pouts at him. He’s tempted to close his eyes, because otherwise it’s just too difficult saying no to her. “Mummy said I could go higher,” she answers, and really he can’t believe how unfair it is that they’ve brought a miniature Jemma into the world.

He watches her carefully, putting his hands on his hips. “Fine. But we’re going to calculate the path using the law of conservation of energy like we practiced, okay? Just to make sure we’re safe.”

Rose nods solemnly. “Okay, daddy,” she acquiesces, and he has no doubt that it’s only a matter of time before she’s rolling her eyes at him like her mother.

She squeals with laughter as he pushes her, urging him to take her even higher. She’s so light against his hands that he feels like he’s barely pushing, and yet she’s swinging so far away from him. His brave little girl, who someday will want her own adventures. He hopes by that point his heart can handle watching her go.

++

Rose has worn herself out so completely that she refuses to budge from the car until he offers to carry her inside. She’s asleep almost as soon as he lifts her up, small puffs of air feathering against his neck.

Jemma smiles widely at him when he walks through the door, brushing a kiss against his lips before he takes Rose upstairs to her room. She doesn’t seem to notice as he transfers her from his arms to her bed, curling immediately around her stuffed monkey. He brushes the hair out of her face gently before leaving to find Jemma.

“Your mum brought over some dinner, but she couldn’t stay,” Jemma says when he’s back in the kitchen. She carefully spoons some pasta onto his plate while he fills glasses with water.

“That’s too bad. Maybe I’ll take Rosie ‘round tomorrow.”

Jemma sets his plate down and sits next to him, sprinkling some pepper over her own dish. “I have the day off tomorrow, actually. Maybe we could go by in the morning for breakfast with her and then leave Rosie for the day. Your mum was not-so-subtly insinuating that she hadn’t gotten to spend much time with her lately.”

Fitz looks up, delight lighting up his features. “You have the day off tomorrow? Why?”

She smirks at him. “Because I asked for it off.”

Fitz frowns, trying to quickly figure out if he’d missed an anniversary or other important date and Jemma laughs like she’s read his mind.

“Fitz, when have you ever forgotten an important date? Aren’t you the romantic one?”

He can’t help his scoff and accompanying eyeroll, but there’s no bite behind it. He grabs her hand, tugging until she scoots her chair closer to him.

“This is great,” he says, placing a kiss to her forehead. “Do we have any plans?”

Jemma smiles, taking a bite of pasta and chewing thoughtfully. “I have a couple of ideas. It’s meant to be a surprise though.”

Fitz scrunches up his forehead in a way that she finds particularly adorable. “Why’s it a surprise though? Jemma,” he whines, and she can’t help the “Ugh, Fitz!” that escapes her mouth.

“I don’t know why I even bother trying with you,” she huffs. “I wanted us to enjoy a day all to ourselves because things are about to get a lot more hectic around here.”

He tilts his head, analyzing the gleam in her eye but not making the right connections. “Please don’t tell me you accepted another assignment from Coulson. That man does not understand a proper work/life balance.”

“Nope!” she replies gleefully, spearing another bite of pasta. “This one is all your fault.”

“My fault?” he asks, incredulous, but then she drags his hand down to her still-flat stomach and her smile is so bright it could light up the world.

“Oh,” he whispers, breath caught in his throat. “Oh.” His fork clatters against his plate, and he reaches down with his other hand, pressing against her stomach as if he could feel anything yet. He looks at her in awe and she suddenly has the strangest flashback to his tremulous smile when they’d found an antiserum for an alien virus. It’s the same potent mix of relief, wonder, longing, and transcendent love, and seeing it once again on her husband’s face brings tears to her eyes.

“So you’re happy?” she asks, knowing his answer but needing to hear him say it anyway.

He laughs, drawing her to him in a lazy kiss. When they break apart, he trails kisses along her forehead, nose, down her jawline, until he’s resting his head against her shoulder. “Yeah,” he breathes, “‘m so happy.”

Jemma slides a hand through his hair, wondering how it’s scientifically possible for her heart to continue growing without splitting wide open. “Maybe you can try not to spoil this one as much,” she jokes, and feels his laughter reverberate through her.

“I do not spoil Rosie,” he insists, but Jemma just rolls her eyes and pulls him back towards her for another kiss.

That night, after they’ve fed Rose and struggled with putting her back to sleep, they both collapse into bed, perpetually exhausted.

Fitz turns to Jemma, smoothing down her hair and resting an arm lightly across her body. “It’s scary and difficult,” he whispers, “but I’m so glad we’re doing this.”  

She smiles, a melancholy wistfulness settling across her face. “Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell myself that things will be okay. That all of that heartache and pain will be worth it in the end.”

“Yeah,” Fitz agrees, considering. “But it’s not the end, is it? It’s just the beginning.”

Jemma twines her fingers with his and settles her head over his heart. The steady beat is the most comforting sound in her universe. She thinks about how lucky she is, to have created her perfect family from grief and tragedy and friendship and love deep as the ocean floor. How lucky she is, to have every day feel like the beginning of the rest of their lives.

#fitzsimmons #fsfic #fstag #thefitzsimmonsnetwork #angst with a happy ending #for real the ending is super fluffy #tw: verbal abuse mention #tw: ptsd and panic attacks #leo fitz #jemma simmons #little bit of daisy johnson #also featuring excerpts from Matt's phd dissertation! #which was not published in PRL but some of his other stuff was! #but being included in fanfic is a much higher honor I'm sure #Perthshire or bust #rani writes things