#i just. stamps and kicks my little feet i wish the others got as much of a focus

[thoriffix]

i rly love the rqg fandom i do and i also do love zoscar but man.. sometimes i really wish there was as much of a focus on the rest of the party in the fandom as there is on zolf and wilde yknow

#gonna tag this as #fandom critical #just bc its vaguely critical ig #i enjoy zoscar! dont get me wrong! i love it as a relationship i think its very interesting for both of their characters #and i looove the fact that in all but name its p much a canon qpr?? like they havent called it a qpr but thats the impression i got #from how its been talked about etc #i just. stamps and kicks my little feet i wish the others got as much of a focus #particularly in fic thats where i notice it most #i dont rly have a point in making this post i dont expect it to Change anytime soon #and its really not like. That bad theres still a lot of extremely good content for the others #particularly art!! #but yea idk! i m thinkin! #rqg #adding that rbing this is ok!!

[waitimcomingtoo]

Mr. And Mrs. Swift

Pairing: Peter Parker x Black Cat!Reader

Synopsis: Peter accidentally causes you to lose your memory during a fight, and you forget that you’re enemies

Masterlist

“Spiderman.” You smiled as you landed in front of him. “Always a pleasure.”

“Ughhhh.” Peter whined and stamped his feet. “I hate you.”

“Mmmm.” You hummed as you slinked over to him. “Charming and witty? Your girlfriend is so lucky.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend. So ha ha.” Peter laughed tauntingly.

“Oh, I could tell. If you did, you wouldn’t be spending all your weekends with me dressed in a skin tight suit.” You said as you ran a long black fingernail down his arm.

“You’re also in a skin tight suit.” He pointed out.

“I know.” You winked. “Lucky you.”

“Why do you always have to come after me?” Peter sighed. “You know I have qualms about hitting women.”

“I take offense to that, Spiderman.” You pretended to be hurt. “You don’t see me as a worthy opponent because I’m a woman?”

“No. What I don’t see is me hitting a woman as a productive way to spend my Saturday.”

“I want to be treated like an equal, Spiderman.” You purred as you walked in a circle around him. “Don’t go easy on me. It’s insulting.”

“Fine.” Peter shrugged as he shot a web at your feet, sticking you to the ground. Just as you looked down at the web on your shiny black boot, Peter delivered an uppercut to your chin.

“How dare you hit a woman.” You gasped as you rubbed your chin. “You coward.”

“You told me to!” He defended himself.

“I know. You’re so easy to mess with.” You jutted your bottom lip out as you wrapped your arms around his neck. “Don’t think you’re getting any more shots in. I let you have that one, so I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.”

“It did feel kinda good.” Peter admitted. “You’ve been a pain in my ass for a while now.”

“I think New York is getting awfully crowded, don’t you agree?” You batted your eyelashes. “I could do without you on the streets. One less problem to worry about.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Peter replied. “But since I love our little encounters so much, I hope you still write to me after I put you in prison.”

“What a dirty boy.” You clicked your tongue. “Thinking about me in handcuffs? Naughty, naughty.”

“Thats not what I meant.” Peter blushed under his mask. “I mean I’m done with your bullshit. You and I have been fighting for years and it ends tonight.”

“Tell me, Spiderman.” You put your hands on his face. “How does it end? Do I get a happy ending?”

“No. It ends with me webbing you to a wall and waiting for the police to arrive.”

“Ooo. Kinky.” You winked. “Do we at least get a chance to say goodbye?”

“Why not? Black Cat, it’s been an honor being your enemy.” Peter said as he held out a hand.

“Spiderman, I wish I could say the same.” You smirked as you grabbed his hand. You yanked him towards you and kneed him in the crotch before twisting his arm behind his back. Peter let out a pained groan as you kicked him to the ground.

“Oh, you’re really gonna get it now.” Peter said from the floor. You stepped on his chest with your shiny boot to keep him on the ground.

“I have to say, Spiderman.” You smiled. “You look really good underneath me.”

Peter struggled to get your boot off of him with one arm and reached for whatever he could with the other. He spotted a lead pipe and shot a web at it, catching it easily once he pulled it towards him.

“You know, do you ever think that maybe we fight because-“

Before you could finish your sentence, Peter whacked you on the head with the pipe. You collapsed to the ground and laid limply on the floor.

“Because why?” Peter asked as he got up. “You didn’t finish your sentence.”

When you didn’t move or respond to Peters quip, he walked over to you and nudged you with his foot.

“Hello? Black Cat?”

Peter bent down beside you and shook you when you didn’t answer, but you still didn’t wake up. He shook your harder as he began to panic.

“Oh my God. Oh shit oh fuck oh balls oh no oh oh no oh no!” He gasped. “What did I do? I freaking killed her.”

Peter shook you harder before scooping you into his arms.

“Come on. Please wake up.” He begged as he patted your cheek. “I’m sorry I hit you with a pole. Please don’t die on me.”

Your head slumped against Peters shoulder as a raised bump began to form on your forehead.

“Show me your eyes, okay?” Peter pleaded. “Let me see your eyes. You always have on a different eyeshadow color when we fight. You probably thought I never noticed, but I do. I think brown looks the best on you. It brings out your eyes. Can I see them now? Can you show me your eyes?”

When you didn’t respond, Peter felt scared tears run down his face.

“Oh God. I’m going to jail.” He sniffled. “I’m a murderer. I committed murder.”

Peter took off one of his gloves and held his fingers to your neck, gasping in relief when he felt your heartbeat.

“Wait. You have a pulse!” He exclaimed. “Hallelujah! I didn’t kill you.”

He hugged your limp body tightly to his chest, feeling your heartbeat against his ribcage.

“We need to get you to a hospital. Come with me. Not that you have a choice.” He realized as he stood up. Peter threw you over his shoulder and held you tightly as he swung back to the tower. He climbed in through the window and carefully brought you over to the couch.

“All right. Nice and clean, nice and easy.” Peter said to himself as he set you down. He took off his mask and crouched down beside you as Carol walked into the room.

“Carol! Carol, please.” Peter stood up. “Could you put her in normal clothes for me?”

“Peter, I’m only going to ask you this once.” Carol said as she observed the scene in front of her. “And if the answer is yes, just nod. Don’t say anything.”

“Okay.” Peter said.

“Is that a dead body?” Carol pointed to you.

“No.” Peter assured you. “It’s my arch nemesis.”

“Your arch nemesis?” Carol raised an eyebrow. “Nobody says that.”

“People say it.” Peter scoffed. “I knocked her unconscious and I have to get her to a hospital.”

“Just take her to the medic here.” Carol told him.

“Then Mr. Stark will see what I did and take my suit away.” Peter whined. “But I can’t bring her to the hospital in her suit. Her identity will be exposed. So could you please change her into normal clothes?”

“Why can’t you do it?” Carol asked.

“I can’t knock her out and then take her clothes off.” Peter exclaimed. “Who do you think I am?”

“But you can knock her out.” Carol pointed out.

“It was an accident!” Peter protested. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Right. I’ll be right back.” Carol chuckled as she scooped you up. A few minutes later, she brought you back into the room with an Air Force t-shirt and jeans in place of your skin tight catsuit. Your white wig was gone, allowing Peter to see your natural hair for the first time. And best of all, your black mask was off, giving Peter a full view of your face for the first time. He walked over to you and hesitantly stroked your face with his thumb.

“Here.” Carol held you out to Peter. “Here’s your arch nemesis.”

“Thank you.” Peter smiled fondly as he picked you back up. “And don’t act like you don’t have one. We all have someone who we fight but also flirt with and hate but also want to kiss and stuff. Everyone has that.”

“Sure.” Carol eyed him curiously. “Update me when she wakes up.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded. “Thank you.”

Peter quickly changed into normal clothes and brought you to the hospital. He carried you to the front desk and got the attention of the lady sitting there.

“Hi. This is my arch- um. Sorry. This is my girlfriend and she hit her head.” Peter lied. “She’s been unconscious for about 20 minutes.”

“Is she allergic to anything?” The lady asked.

“I’m not sure.” Peter answered.

“What’s her name?” She asked.

“I’m also not sure.” Peter realized.

“You don’t know your girlfriends name?” The lady raised her eyebrow.

“Haha. I was just kidding.” Peter smiled tightly and tried to think fast. “That was a joke. Her name is Taylor.....Swift.”

“Your girlfriends name is Taylor Swift? Like the American singer?” The lady cocked her head.

“It’s actually an incredibly common name.” Peter lied. “More common than you think! Um, will she be okay?”

“With you, I’m not so sure. Can I get a gurney over here.” The lady called.

“Thank you. Can I come with her?” Peter asked as a nurse transferred you to a gurney.

“Are you family?” The nurse asked.

“Yes. I’m her husband.” Peter lied. “Mr....Mr. Swift.”

“Husband?” The nurse asked. “You look 12.”

“What can I say? Good genes. My father is Ralph Macchio.” Peter deepened the lie.

“Your father is the karate kid but you took your wifes last name?” The nurse began to catch onto Peters lies.

“Can we please just see what’s wrong with my wife?” Peter began to sweat.

“Yes. But since I don’t believe you’re actually married, you have to stay in the waiting room.” The nurse said before wheeling you off to the emergency room. Peter waited impatiently in waiting room until a doctor came and found him.

“Hello, Mr. Swift.” A doctor said as he approached Peter. “I’m Dr. Grey.”

“Thats so funny. Like the tv-“

“Don’t.” The doctor deadpanned. “Your wife fractured her skull. It looks like the result of a blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Do you know what happened?”

“I haven’t got a clue.” Peter gulped. “I just found her unconscious.”

“Well you’re lucky you found her in time.” The doctor said. “She’s in surgery now to repair the damage. She should be out in a few hours. We’ll know more once she wakes up.”

“Okay.” Peter sighed. “Thank you.”

An hour later, Peter was brought to the patient room where you’d be staying. He ended up falling asleep in the chair beside the bed. By the time he woke up, you sitting up in your hospital bed.

“Oh, thank God.” Peter sighed and wrapped you in a hug. “You’re awake.”

“Ugh, my head.” You groaned as you weakly hugged him back.

“You had surgery on your skull.” He told you as he stroked your hair. “Don’t try to move. Here. Drink some water.”

“Thank you.” You smiled gratefully as Petwr held a cup of water to your lips. After drinking the whole glass, you set the cup down and put your hands on his face. You pulled Peter into a long kiss, which made his eyes go wide. He kissed you back for a minute before pulling away.

“What the fu- excuse my language - what the eff was that?” He asked you as his cheeks went bright red.

“What?” You wondered.

“You just kissed me.” He whispered harshly.

“Yeah.” You furrowed your eyebrows. “Are we not together?”

“No.” Peter said. “Do you know who I am?”

“No. I just woke up from surgery. I don’t...I don’t remember anything.” You realized. You reached over to grab your chart, quickly skimming it to see what was wrong with you.

“Oh my God. I’m Taylor Swift?” You gasped. “And I settled for you?”

“Okay. I’m glad to see some of you has come back.” Peter rolled his eyes. “Do you really not remember anything?”

“No.” You rubbed your head. “What happened?

“I hit you with a pole on accident.” He admitted. “I guess you have some amnesia.”

“You hit me with a pole?” You asked. “Why?”

“Because I’m....” Peter trailed off when he realized this was the first time you’d ever seen his face. Even though you were his arch nemesis, he wasn’t about to lie to you after putting you in the hospital.

“I’m Spider-Man.” He confessed. “And you’re Black Cat.”

“That’s a stupid name.” You scoffed.

“You picked it.” He pointed out.

“I meant Spiderman.” You told him.

“Oh.” He blinked. “My real name is Peter. But, still. Do you remember any of that?”

“No.” You frowned. “I don’t know you at all.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” Peter flushed a little as he touched his fingers to his lips.

“I don’t know.” You said sheepishly. “I woke up and saw you, and my instincts just told me that I trust you. From the way I felt when I looked at you, I thought we were together. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right.” Peter shrugged, certainly not mad about the kiss.

“In my defense, you are sitting vigil at my bed side.” You chuckled.

“Yeah, that ones on me.” Peter smiled fondly as he took a seat on your bed.

“What?” You asked when you noticed the way he was looking at you.

“This is the first conversation we’ve had where you’re not trying to kill me.” He told you.

“Why would I try to kill you?” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“Because that’s what you always do. I’m your arch nemesis.”

“My arch nemesis?” You snorted. “Nobody says that.”

“People say it.” Peter said quickly. “Anyway, we’re enemies. Or, we were. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why?”

“Because now that I’ve seen your face, you’re kind of hard to hate.” Peter smiled shyly.

“Really? I’m looking at your face and I don’t think I’d have any trouble hating you.” You teased.

“I bet you wouldn’t.” “Peter chuckled. “I’m glad to see I didn’t knock the personality out of you. How much do you remember, anyway?”

“I can remember a few things, but they’re all random.” You shrugged. “I can’t even remember where I live.”

“Oh, that’s okay. You can stay with me until you remember. Do you remember the Avengers?” Peter asked.

“Is that the band that sings Hey Jude?”

“No.” He laughed. “They’re a group of superhero’s. They have a tower here in New York. You can stay there until you get your memory back.”

“Thanks, Spiderman.” You smiled softly. “I’m not sure how many people would do that for their arch nemesis.”

“You’re welcome.” Peter smiled back. “Maybe we don’t have to be arch nemeses anymore.”

Once you were discharged from the hospital, Peter took you home with him to the Avengers tower. He brought you to the spare room next to his and helped you get settled.

“You can stay here.” Peter said as he opened the door for you. “You have your own bathroom over here. And the kitchen is right down the hall on the left.”

“Okay.” You nodded as you took the room in.

“I collected some things from the girls in the tower.” Peter held out a stack of clothes and toiletries. “Um, there’s a sanitary napkin in there. For your...whatever.”

“Thanks.” You chuckled shyly as you took the pile from him.

“Mr. Stark wants to see you in the medical center when you get a chance.” Peter told you. “Just to make sure you’re really okay.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry. He’s a good guy.” He assured you. “He’s Iron Man. You can trust him.”

“Okay.” You nodded hesitantly and put your stuff down. Peter noticed how close you stayed to his side as he lead you towards the medical center, keeping your body as close to his as possible. Once he brought you to the patient room, he tried to shut the door but you quickly held it open.

“I could stay with you, if you’d like.” He suggested when he saw how nervous you looked.

“Yes please.” You said quietly.

“No problem.” He smiled warmly at you. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”

“Thanks Peter.” You swallowed as you looked around the room. The bright lights brought back a few buried memories that you wished would’ve stayed forgotten. A medic came in at one point and Peter held your hand as you had your blood drawn. You were hooked up to a an IV pole to replenish your fluids before the medic left the room. Tony came into the room a few minutes later with a clipboard full of your results.

“Bloods done.” Tony announced as he skimmed the lab results. “And I took the liberty to do a background check. Your name is Y/n Hardy. You were born in San Junipero prison to Felicia Hardy. Looks like you bounced around a few foster homes until you were captured by HYDRA at around 17 years old where you were-“

“Yeah I....I remember HYDRA.” You cut him off. “Did you find any family? Or a home address?”

“Last known address is an orphanage that closed down a few years ago.” Tony answered. Peter looked at you sympathetically and rubbed your back to comfort you.

“What about Felicia?” Peter asked. “Is there any information on her?

“Hmm. Life sentence.” Tony read off the chart. “Multiple life sentences actually. She-“

“I don’t want to know.” You mumbled as you kept your eyes on the ground. Peter looked at you sadly as he watched you accept this news. He’d only ever seen you as the confident, witty woman who could kick his ass at a moments notice. He had no idea how badly your past had roughed you up.

“I’ll leave you guys to it.” Tony nodded before leaving the room.

“Hey, at least we know who you are now.” Peter tried to cheer you up.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.” You laughed sadly. “Maybe it was better when I forgot all of that.”

“Look at it this way.” Peter said. “Now you get a chance to start over.”

“As what?” You looked up at him.

“Black Cat. The most notorious thief in New York. I know you lost your memory but I’m sure you’ll remember how to kick my ass.” He smiled at you.

“Why would I go back to fighting if I don’t even remember what I was fighting for?” You sighed. “I don’t think I want to do that anymore. I don’t want to be your enemy.”

“Okay. It’s your life.” Peter rubbed your shoulder. “You can do whatever you want with it.”

“I think I want to stay here for a bit.” You decided as you put your hand over his.

“Okay”. Peter blushed a little.

“With you.” You continued.

“Okay.” His blush spread all the way to his ears.

“Thanks for being so nice to me, Peter.” You said softly as you stared into his eyes.

“Well, I did hit you with a pole.” He chuckled. “This whole situation is my fault.”

“Yeah, maybe.” You laughed as well. “But you took the time to make sure I was okay. Judging by what Mr. Stark just told us, it seems like my life was not full of people who did that for me.”

“I’m here for you, Y/n.” He told you. “As much or as little as you need.”

“Thanks, Peter.” You mumbled as you grabbed a handful of his shirt. You pulled him down into another kiss, one he was ready for this time. He put his hands on your face and kissed you back, something he’d been wanting to do for a while now. When you pulled away, you smiled against his lips, feeling more you than you had in years.

“As much as I want this to continue, you should probably get some rest.” Peter kissed you one more time before grabbing your IV pole. “We can talk more in the morning.”

“Sounds good to me.” You smiled as he accidentally knocked your clipboard off the bed.

“I’ll come in to replace the bag in a few hours.” Peter said as he bent over. “The doctor said-“

Before Peter could finish his sentence, he heard a loud clang, followed by the sound of your body thumping to the floor. He looked at your unconscious body before looking at his hand, where he found the IV pole stuck to his palm.

“Oh shit.”

Tag List 🏷

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#peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x villain!reader #Peter Parker x black cat!reader #peter parker x you #peter parker enemies to lovers #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fluff #peter parker x vigilante!reader #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #marvel #spiderman

[shurisneakers]

harmless (xiii)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader)

Warnings: cursing, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, smidge of angst, guns, little bit of violence, obnoxious flirting, and kidnapping lol

Word count: 6.2k

A/N: welcome to chaos week >:) this is the first of three updates coming out this week (if i can finish the last one in time).  big thank you to my love @no-shit-sherl0ck for the kidnaped!reader idea, and that one anon who suggested the inator that’s used here. i know you wanted to see it in a zoo but i couldn’t really figure out a way to use that so i referenced it a bunch in previous chapters. oh and also @ginevranights​ for this specific imagery 

Previous Part  || Series Masterlist

Who the fuck kidnaps a villain in this day and age?

Saturday started normally enough.

Nat kicked Bucky’s ass in training, evening the score to 120 and 120. He blames it on the lack of sleep. She tells him that it’s his fault he stayed up late to binge watch 911 Lone Star.

He still thinks it was worth it.

The team’s sunshines and rainbows that morning. Someone had cooked up a batch of pancakes and fresh orange juice. Someone else burnt the bacon but left to feed his dog before anyone could complain.

Nat opened up the newspaper. Different sections went to different people until Bucky got stuck with the entertainment section. Fun, considering that he doesn’t even recognise half the names. He’d have to pretend to be interested until the next rotation.

He watches the orange juice levitate in front of him from the corner of his eye and just assumes that Wanda’s getting a refill even though she could have just asked him to pass it. He smells the next batch of bacon burning and figures that Clint is back.

Sam’s beside him, annoying him about how long it takes for him to read about which new celebrity relationship just ended and Bucky retaliates by reading even slower. Fuck you.

He’s on his second stack of pancakes absolutely drenched in maple syrup when the doors to the elevator open and Marie steps out, laptop in her hand.

An instant chorus of hello’s and invitations to have some charred bacon resound through the table. She politely declines them with a small smile, instead opening her laptop and placing it in front of Bucky without further ado. 

He looks at her questioningly, slowly swallowing whatever was in his mouth.

“An email for you.” She tuts her head towards it. “It has a video attachment of your friend.”

Bucky has plans to not watch the video in front of everyone, given that the content could range anywhere from you reading out fanfiction about him to a deep-fake of him singing a Whitney Houston song.

Both of which you have done before and would do again, without any hesitation.

“Aren’t you gonna watch it?” Wanda asks from across the table.

He slowly shakes his head no, cutting his stack into smaller pieces.

“If what’s in it is real, it’s important,” Marie stresses.

“What’s in it?” he inquires instead, hoping that the team would stop staring at him. If Marie was implying strongly that he needed to watch then something was wrong.

“Just watch it, man.” Sam’s statement has everyone agreeing with him. Bucky can’t refuse now, and if the team makes fun of him for the next month about how he looks good belting Greatest Love of All, he’s going to personally assassinate you.

He clicks on the email, noticing it came from a throwaway address. Probably untraceable, if the cards are played right. 

The video opens to grainy footage, which is stupid considering modern technological advancements. If this is one more of your stupid LARPing sessions, it could definitely wait till after lunch. 

But, he instantly recognises your silhouette strapped to a chair and suddenly the room feels very cold around him. His hand automatically clutches onto a bead from the bracelet you gave him that still remained tied to his left arm more often than not.

“Speak,” someone commands off camera.

“About what?” You sound annoyed, exasperated even.

“Why you’re here.”

“I’m here because you have unaddressed feelings of childhood insecurity.”

“I warned you to take this seriously.”

Bucky’s eyes widen slightly but his body relaxes the minute he reads the situation. 

The team’s crowded around him, he can feel it. His attention remains on the screen in front of him.

“Who even are you sending this to?” You don’t sound the least bit threatened. “My roommate’s not at home but my cat is and I don’t think she’d care.”

”You’ve made a complete joke out of villains everywhere. Fraternising with the enemies, the Avengers,” he spits the name with so much vitriol. “You’ve erased what it’s like to be truly evil. Turned us into a laughing stock.”

“If it takes one person to undermine your whole movement then maybe it wasn’t strong enough to begin with.” You look at someone outside the lens, face scrunching in distaste. “Also your costume’s ugly.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., can you trace this voice?” Bucky asks, receiving an immediate confirmation. “Figure out who it is.”

“On it.”

“Tell them. Tell them we are a serious threat and are to be feared.”

"No,” you say resolutely. “You’re an overgrown manchild. Go watch Teletubbies or something.”

“She does not give a shit,” Clint marvels at the situation, a piece of half eaten burnt toast between his fingers.

You didn’t. And if he knew you in the slightest, which he prided himself on at this point, you already had six different ways of getting out of there.

“She knows she’s going to be fine,” Bucky murmurs, returning back to take a bite of his pancakes. “She’s probably still there just to irritate him.”

He zeroes in on your wrist to see if the teleportation watch was still there but no, your wrists are bare. Guess you forgot.

“You have to.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how a real villain does it.”

“A real villain- what are you, gatekeeping the villain community?” You scoff. “You sound like a fuckin’ incel.”

“Just send them a message,” the guy bellows, hitting a table.

“She’s going to frustrate them to death.” An accurate observation, Sam.

“Okay, jeez, fine.”

Bucky just knows that you rolled your eyes at that moment.

He had faith in you, or in your abilities at the very least. While every wisecrack could possibly inch you closer towards harm, you probably wouldn’t be making them unless you felt completely secure in your situation.

“Help, I’m totally kidnapped and in danger. Save me because I can’t do it myself. This man is too powerful and strong and sooo scary.”

“Do you think she has a strategy?”

“Definitely.”

“You’re not worried, James?” Wanda asks curiously. “I thought she was your friend.”

“She is my friend.” He reaches over to take the jug of orange from across the table. “That’s why I’m not worried.”

“Are you going to fight the Avengers?” you interrupt his endless tirade. “Because that’s a stupid plan. You get how that’s a stupid plan, right?”

“Let them come. I’m prepared.”

“With what? A stick you found outside? A Nerf gun? Man, you’ve tied my hands with fuckin’ zip ties, you can’t be serious-”

“Shut up,” he roared and the stand shakes slightly from where he stamps his feet. “Our army is enough.”

“Wow,” you exhale. “I wish I had your confidence, I really do. I want to study you under a microscope.”

“I have reinforcements.” It sounds like he turns to the camera to address it directly. “This is a warning. Your friends have an hour to find you or things are gonna turn ugly. This is what real evil looks like.”

“Evil dresses in a dollar store Speedo, apparently.” The man pays you no heed, instead picking up the camera. “Hey, sarge, if you’re watching this, don’t bother. I’m fine, it’s not even the real me-”

The camera cuts to black.

“When was this video sent?” Nat looks at Marie, eyebrows drawn together.

“About ten minutes ago.”

Bucky clicks out of the email, determined to get at least half his breakfast in him before he left to see what’s up with your situation. A notification pops up immediately.

[email protected] just sent you an email.

A video attachment.

“We got another one,” Bucky informs the team, drawing their attention back to the screen from the informal conversation that had erupted between them about what they could do.

This time, there’s a subject line included.

Attack on the Clone.

"Ain’t that a Star Wars movie?" he asks, craning his neck to look at Clint.

"That's Attack of the Clones," Sam corrects. "Probably autocorrect."

Bucky narrowed his eyes in suspicion at him, jaw sliding outward before falling back into place. Enough times had Sam called him Fucky in the group chat and gotten away with it for him not to be wary.

“Or a code,” Wanda suggests, too many crime thrillers read and podcasts listened in her spare time. She occasionally brought them over to Self Care Saturday, introducing him to the world of true crime as a bit of light content while they snacked on chocolate chip cookies he baked. “Like the Zodiac.”

“For what?” Bucky peers over at her.

“All I remember from that movie is them rolling around a field together,” Clint mutters. “Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to save her.”

“I’m not saving anyone. Look at her, she’s fine.” Is he the only one who saw it?

When he’s met with skeptical looks and no other useful suggestions, he presses play on the video.

This time it's clearer footage. It hardly takes him a second to ascertain where it was.

"That's her lair." It showed the pathway leading up to the flat concrete building, exactly where the intercom should be.

There was a black Sedan parked haphazardly outside, engine still on judging by the sound of the radio blasting an AC/DC song. 

Within a few seconds, someone drags you from the entrance of the lair to the car, despite your very clear protests and opposition, shoving you inside before it takes off in full speed, tires screeching. 

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., track the car from that video. Check all the CCTV and surveillance footage from around the area that you can find," Bucky commands, taking a sip of orange juice.  

"Why would they send us that?" Clint pipes up. "They make their email untraceable but send us a video of the fuckin' abduction itself?"

"I don't know." Bucky shakes his head, setting his glass down. "She probably convinced them to."

It was an unusual scenario, he realised that. But his eyebrows lower in contemplation, his lip caged between his lip before a thought suddenly occurs to him. A laugh in disbelief almost escapes his throat ad he pushes it down with some freshly cut strawberries. 

"And they listened?"

"I don't think you realise how annoying she can be." He knows, though. He knows. "Bet they regret it, though. I should tell them to keep her for a little longer."

"Voice recognition registers voice to someone named Chad, better known by his alias Soul Crusher. Surveillance footage places the car about thirty minutes away. Exact location sent to your phone GPS."

Soul Crusher. That was worse than Dr. Strange.

"I can make that fifteen." Bucky shrugs, setting down his fork and knife. If his hunch is right, the team didn’t really have to get involved. “See you guys later.”

“Do you want any of us coming with you?” Wanda gestures to the crowd at hand.

“I got it.” He pushes away from the table, depositing his plate in the sink, dropping an extra piece of bacon on the ground for Clint’s dog. “She’ll be alright.”

They watch him trail out of the room briskly, heading up to his room to change.

“Is it just me or is he too casual about this?” Clint continues staring long after he leaves.

“Both of them are weirdos.” Nat pulls open the newspaper again, going back to the sport’s section. “Who knows what goes in their heads.”

“Can confirm that not a lot goes on in his.”

Without Bucky to retaliate or grumble, a Steve walking into the room, sweaty and shiny after training becomes the new subject of jokes that morning.

__

For the first time in months, he’s had to bring a weapon or two along with him. Two revolvers and a couple of knives kept out of plain view. He wouldn’t need more than that anyway.

True to his word, it takes only fifteen minutes to get there, thirteen if he didn’t stop for the chain of ducks that crossed the street.

He’s also dressed in a little more leather than he usually reserves for your meetings. A jacket that brings to act as a windbreaker and tightly laced up combat boots make him look like he either stepped off a runway, or more menacing than usual depending on who was looking.

The GPS points him to an old warehouse near a more subdued part of the city. It was abandoned by the looks of it, and had been for a while judging by the lack of upkeep. Prime real estate.

He pulls off his helmet, hanging it on the handlebar along with his backpack before kicking the stand into place. The bike’s a few metres away just in case they decide to blow something up.

Bucky looks up at the warehouse, assessing the most damage he could do to it if at all it was needed. That thing could barely stand on its own, a grenade would absolutely decimate it. That wasn’t good news for you.

He sighs once before putting on his death glare, straightening out his shoulders into a stature that screams stone-cold, and pushes the door open, gun raised.

A mini-army of people ranging from their early twenties to late thirties stood guard at the entrance, all with rifles pointed at him. He counts fifteen, maybe eighteen.

“Oh, hell no,” a voice erupts from the back, followed by the sound of his gun being thrown to the ground. “No one told me that he was coming.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, his death glare not shifting and Glock not lowering.

“I’m out.” The same guy raises his hands up to show he meant no harm, slowly brushing past Bucky as he squeezed out of the building.

“You got five seconds to leave before I shut this door,” Bucky gives the rest of them an ultimatum. Not like there was a point anyway. SHIELD was sending down some people to account for the one day rise in new morons. 

They all looked at each other, swallowing thickly before raising their weapons.

“I hope he’s giving you good insurance.” The second he finishes his sentence they all cry out in what sounds like a fucking war chant, launching themselves at him. 

______

“They’re here.” Someone presses his ear to the door as if the gunshots and screaming weren’t enough. 

“Brilliant. We’re ready.” Chad picks up the knife, running his finger along the sharp end. You try to see if you can use your Twitter-ordained powers of manifestation for a paper cut.

“How much are you asking them for?” You put forth a query instead, when it disappointingly doesn’t work.

“Asking who for what?” Chad stops his dumb intimidation tactic for a second. 

“You know,” you insist like it was obvious, “my ransom. How much did you ask them to pay?”

“We didn’t-” He looks around at the other people in the room for confirmation. “-we didn’t ask for any.”

“Because I’m invaluable?” Your head droops to the side in mock flattery. “Aw, you guys.”

“We didn’t think of it,” someone from the corner behind you speaks up, coming to the aid of their boss.

“Now that’s just rude.” You tut, shifting maybe an inch or two in your bounds to try and get more comfortable. “Leaving aside your lack of preparation, let’s just assume he bursts in here, desperate and ready to bargain. How much would you ask for?”

“Three million,” Chad says confidently, gathering a nod and sounds of agreement from everyone else.

“Are you serious?” Your jaw drops, a scoff escaping you. “That’s all?”

His self-assurance falters a little bit, you can see it under his 5 Minutes Craft mask.

“Three mill-” You stop mid-sentence. “With this wiring? Ridiculous. Make it ten, I demand it.”

“We’ll ask for fifteen mil,” Chad proposes, his teammates agreeing again, a little more delighted than last time.

“Ask for thirty, you coward,” you argued. “Thirty million and a jet.”

“You’re not worth that much.” The dipshit diagonal to you pipes up with his unwanted and, frankly, useless opinion.

“And you are?” You whip around the best you can. “Henchman number four?”

“Megedagik,” he informs, standing up a little taller now that he was given some importance. “It means ‘killer of many’.”

“Did you just say your name was Mega Dick?” 

“Megedagik,” he corrects.

You stare at him hard before turning away. “Alright, other than Mega Dick here, does anyo-”

A knife lands right next to your feet, driven at least an inch into the ground. You look up at the guy you managed to piss off within four sentences, his face now a beet red. 

“These are brand new, asshole,” you barked, shaking your shoes around. “You’re gonna pay if there’s even a scratch on it.”

“Permission to kill her?” Meg growls, casting a side eye at Chad.

The boss man looks at you thoughtfully, assessing the repercussions of what might happen. You raise an eyebrow.

“Slow and painful,” he settles. 

A small smirk makes its way onto your face. 

“Title of your sex tape,” you quip as the man in the corner storms towards you.

_____

It’s all a flurry, really. A bunch of inexperienced newcomers versus one of the most skilled assassins the world had ever seen? Ten minutes tops.

Bucky doesn’t do any serious damage. A couple of broken bones but only out of necessity, a lot of concussions, and maybe a bullet wound, or three, here and there. 

Most of the time he spends thinking about things that have absolutely nothing to do with what was going on. He forgot to take his laundry out of the machine. There was a biscotti recipe he had been procrastinating on trying. His succulents needed watering but he could do that once he was back. Was he wearing his good combat pants or was it the pair that had a hole in the pocket?

His left hand thrust outwards to shove someone away while he stuck his right hand into his pocket to check if it had frayed away. The person he pushed slams into a wall with a loud groan and no, his pants didn’t have a hole in them. 

He stops to take a breather, assess what was going on. There are bodies scattered all around, mostly writhing in pain from minor injuries. Someone very bravely stands up, hands posed in front of him in a regular fighting stance.

“You sure about this?” Bucky asks, reaching for one of the concealed knives he hadn’t had a chance of using yet. It twirls rather nimbly between his fingers for something so dangerous, the hilt finally landing in his palm for a sturdy grip.

The man takes one look at the knife before sitting right back down on the ground. 

“Good choice,” his voice drops to an octave lower than his self-esteem. He’s tired of this old routine but it works like a neat little party trick, often getting him the result he wanted. “Where?”

A few fingers point down the hall to the only room whose door was closed.

He makes sure to step over everyone who was lying along the way, ears tuned in to even the smallest of noises just in case one of them decided to attack him from the back. It doesn’t come.

He doesn’t bother creeping down the hallway. With all the ruckus that just went on outside, he’s pretty sure it’s obvious that they had an intruder. 

Bucky kicks in the large steel door with ease, given that it was barely hanging on its hinges. His gun’s raised, muscles tight, and senses on high alert for any immediate threats. 

It lands with a large thud, reverberating through the room. He’s reminded of your first meeting with him.

There’s a chair in the middle of the room with a person tied to it by a mixture of rope and tape. Others found themselves slithering around on the floor in a similar fashion, trying to get out of their bondages.

“Hey, James,” you call out, drawing his attention to you. You were sitting atop a table, legs swinging back and forth without a care in the world, a blade in your hand. 

“You okay?” He tucks the gun into his waistband when he realises that none of the henchmen are going to be going anywhere soon.

“All good.” You hop off the table with a little spring in your step. “Did you bring your bike? I need a ride back to the lair. I think I left the TV on when I was, you know, getting kidnapped.”

“You coulda teleported back home before all of this even happened.” Bucky does a quick assessment of your body to make sure there weren’t any bruises or anything of the sort. “Avoided the whole thing.”

“Don’t have the watch with me.” Odd, since he knows you consider it one of your essentials but it just fuels his theory further. “Besides, if I just quit before we started, they’d keep messing with me over and over again.”

“Do you want me to punch someone’s face in?” He glances around the room at the ones wiggling about on the floor like fucking worms. “I’d be happy to.”

“Nah, I got a few in myself.” You rotate your wrist, other hand still holding onto the knife. “You know what, maybe I’ll have another go.”

He simply makes a noise in acknowledgement before he places a hand on the hem of your shirt, gently reeling you back. “I think you fixed ‘em up real good. That’s enough for today.”

“Fine but only ‘cause you said so.” You huff, looking past him and at the weirdos on the ground. “You hear that? This man just saved your life. Say ‘thank you’.”

A muffled chorus of what sounded like appreciation echoed through the room. Bucky awkwardly looks around.

“Damn right.” You walk over to the guy in charge of the whole event, bending down to his level. “If you ever try to fuck with us again...”

You stare straight into his eyes, unblinking. You hold up the knife to his Adam’s apple. Chad doesn’t dare to move other than the thick swallow.

You raise your finger and flick him in the forehead. “Get a better costume.”

The corner of Bucky’s lip quirks upward.

“Let’s go, sarge,” you announce, standing upright again and making a motion to follow you. “D’you have an extra helmet I could use?”

“Yeah.” He had brought one along in his bag, assuming that you’d need one once he noticed the watch was missing in the footage.  

“Yay.”

The only storage space on his bike was under his seat and it’s just enough for an extra revolver. Clint asked him if it was his way of flirting with someone, give ‘em a quick spin around the city and then show them his gun. If looks could kill, Clint would be 7 feet under. 

“You sure you wanna ride it, though?” He cringes immediately when he realises what it sounds like, waiting for you to smack the innuendo in his face. “We could wait for SHIELD.”

“Don’t really have another choice, Bucky,” you say absentmindedly, strolling out the room as you tossed the knife behind you.

He frowns at your indifference but turns around for a second to look at Chad. The man in question looks back viciously, his grandeur from that morning basically deflated and left to die along with his reputation.

“Might wanna reconsider the name,” Bucky remarks, doing a quick sweep of the area once more. “Soul Crusher.”

He waits until both of you are outside the cell and the door is shut on the ringleader and his circus clowns, handlebar twisted out of place so that they don’t escape for the time being.

“One second,” he calls, touch gently lingering on your forearm to stop you without even thinking twice about it. A famously uncharacteristic move for him.

"Hm?” You don’t even look like you notice his action.

“You sure you’re good?” he asks seriously, actual concern slipping through the question. “Do you need medical assistance?”

“They couldn’t hurt me anyway.” There’s something strange about the way you say it, almost assuredly. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” he concedes, his hand darting back when he realises it was still on your arm. His eyebrows furrow when he realises how instinctively he had reached out in the first place.  He didn’t touch anyone, ever.

“What are we gonna do about them?” you inquire, stepping over someone on the floor to get to the exit.

“Marie told Agent Hill. They’re sending someone over.”

“They’re sending SHIELD for these wannabes?” Someone groans in protest from somewhere and you elect to ignore them. “Ew.”

“Just to make sure confidential information isn’t compromised in any way.” There’s a large bang that comes from the room they just left. Maybe one of them shot their teammate by accident. They were more than capable of doing it.

“I would never,” you exacted a little more solemnly, pushing the door open with your elbow to let the sunlight flood in.

“I know.” He doesn’t realise how dark it was in the warehouse until he steps out into the noon sun. “I’m pretty sure this is more about the fact that you were abducted.”

“For me?” The smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes the way he kinda likes. Something definitely felt off. “I love being class favourite.”

He doesn’t reply, a small grunt as he twists the handle of the warehouse door upwards, effectively jamming it. 

“Can I drive?” You bat your eyelashes at him innocently, disregarding the loud screaming that came from inside as those less injured probably regrouped for a last ditch attempt. 

“No,” he doesn’t hesitate in replying, handing you a helmet and buckling his own securely.

“But I just got kidnapped,” you complained, watching him swing a leg over the bike and straddle it. Okay then. 

“All the more reason for you not to drive right now.” He mentions for you to get on, squinting at the warehouse a few feet away.

“Fine, but next time I’m driving,” you grumble, climbing on the back.

“Do you even know how to?” His head is tilted to look at you from the corner of his eye, voice heavier on account of the obstruction on his face.

The door starts shaking violently and he knows for a fact that it won’t hold up for much longer. Some of those who he had knocked out probably had been shaken awake again for manpower. 

“I can learn.” You take a pause, mischief seeping into your next words. “You can teach me.”

“No.” He didn’t exactly practice what was considered safe, law abiding driving. He just got from one point to another and that’s all he cared about.

“Then I’ll do it myself.” You sound determined. “I’m going to leave a note for us in the lair.”

“You do that.” He revs the engine when something solid hits the metal door. As guessed, their usage of props to push it down faster was coming into play. “Now, can you hold on to something? We need to go.”

If only those idiots just realised that the windows covered by newspapers were right there, ready to be broken.

“Only if you promise to let me drive next time,” you say defiantly, drawing this whole ordeal out.

“Whatever,” he urges. “I promise. Now can we go?”

“Wait for it...” There’s a devilish smile on your face. “One.”

There’s a loud creak as the door finally gives way.

“Two.” The same people you left tied up in the room burst out, almost stumbling over each other in the process.

“Three,” he completes it on his own, not waiting for you to finish because God knows how long you’d stretch it out just for the drama.

Your excited screech of laughter as he narrowly misses a rod that gets thrown at him like a fucking javelin temporarily distracts him from the brain freeze he gets when your arms wind around his waist to hold yourself in place. 

There’s angry screaming and bullets that whiz past in an attempt to get him to stop but a swift turn around a corner, pulling the both of you out of their sight is enough to get rid of them. 

“We should get a few weapons and go back,” you yell over the wind rushing by, barely audible.

“You do that in your own free time,” he shouts in response, yanking you through narrower lanes and less popular streets.

“Maybe I will, you bore.” 

Still, you shut up for the rest of the ride, only grumbling when he stops the bike to tell you that no, you cannot let go just because you want to throw your hands in the air like in the movies.

You hop off when he finally pulls up on the street outside your lair, adrenaline still pumping through your veins. He waits patiently as you unbuckle the helmet, switching off the engine. 

“You gonna drop me off at my door too, now?” You snicker, fingers pulling off the helmet.

He looks at you for a second before dropping the kickstand into place and dismounting from the motorcycle.

“I was kidding.” You laugh, handing him your headgear that he shoves into his backpack. 

“You’re pretty capable of gettin’ abducted along the way.” An absurd notion, considering it’s a short path from the road to the door. 

“Oh, how chivalrous.” You let him tag along anyway, for his peace of mind. 

“My ma didn’t expect any less.” A couple of sharp lessons from Winifred Barnes and Bucky was nothing short of a damn angel. 

You knock on the door three times, crossing your arms over your chest as you waited. 

“Aren’t you the one with the key?” Bucky questions, one hand on his waist. 

The door swung open in the middle of his sentence revealing... you.

Another you.

“Nah, she has it.” Ex-Kidnapped-You raises your head in acknowledgement at Doorway-You.

“Ah.” He fucking knew it. An unnatural sense of smugness blossoms in his chest. 

“Hey,” the both of you said at the same time.

Doorway-You looked way more relaxed, a little less grimy and dishevelled but exactly the same.

“Buck, I see you met my other half,” the you from the doorway greets him. “Or other whole, actually.”

“Sure did.” He sends a glance at Ex-Kidnapped-You.

“You can go on in. Big first day, huh?” Doorway-You refers to the you beside him.

“You wouldn’t believe,” Ex-Kidnaped-You mutters, pushing past the entrance and disappearing inside.

“She gonna be okay?” His gaze trails after your clone.

“Oh yeah, just needs to recharge.” You turn around to make sure she’s fine. “She’s made of some pretty strong carbon, technically almost indestructible.”

No wonder ‘you’ said they couldn’t hurt you.

“Heya, sarge.” You draw his attention back to you. “Always good to see you.”

“Can’t really say the same about you.” 

“Ever the emotional repressor, Mr Barnes. I like this little leather show you got going, did ya wear it just for me?”

He shifts his balance to his other foot, feet slightly wide apart. “Take it that the clone machine finally worked?”

“I was in the middle of celebrating.” You sigh, recalling the events of that morning. “Teleported home for a second to get some champagne and when I came back she was gone.”

“Irresponsible.” He tsks, head shaking in disappointment. 

“Sorry I didn’t take amateur kidnappers into account for my risk factor analysis, Bucky,” you shoot back, pressing on his name for added annoyance. “Anyway, I did the responsible thing. I sent all the evidence I had to you guys.”

“Real clever.” Bucky looks at you in dry amusement. “Attack on the clone? Really?”

“Hey, always make time for a good pun.” You finger gun, lopsided grin on your face. “Did the team like it?”

“They thought it was a typo.” Or a code. He really had Wanda to thank for his big revelation. “Your video didn’t help either.”

“Don’t tell me they couldn’t make out it was me.” You laugh, crossing your arms over your chest.

He doesn’t reply, pursing his lip inwards in sympathy, but more so to conceal a smile.

The happiness drops from your face slowly, horror taking its place. “Don’t tell me they couldn’t make out it was me.”

“Good job, your machine worked,” he adds helpfully.

“C’mon, there were so many differences,” you whine, the success of your endeavour the last thing on your mind. 

“That is your literal clone,” he points out, only to see you- clone you- walk into the giant box in the corner of the room, bright green light emanating from it like a xerox machine.

“How could they not tell the original apart from a copy?” You look genuinely offended. Insane. “Not even Sam?”

“Guess you’re not unique enough.” A rise and fall of his shoulders signify his attitude towards this whole thing. “Think I like your copy better, too, actually.”

“You’re so mean.” You puff in disbelief. “I’m a 100% original. How many mad scientist teachers do you know?”

“Two.” 

“I don’t mean now, that’s not even the-” You poke at his rock hard chest. “You are so much more annoying than when I first met you.”

He thinks it’s good relationship development.

“I have to deal with you every weekend.” He watches your finger drop from his chest. “Picked it up along the way.”

“Boo hoo, talking like you don’t have deep, deep feelings for me.” You roll your eyes. “I see right through you, Bucky Barnes.”

“Can you see the part that couldn’t give less of a shit?” He gestures to himself. “It’s all of it.”

“You think you’re such a comedian, huh?” You narrow your eyebrows. “How did you know she was a fake then, huh?”

Busted.

“Probably ‘cause you didn’t talk as much today,” he dodges. “Actually had some peace of mind for a change.”

“You knew before you got there, you liar.” You push past his fabrications. “You figured it out before everyone else.”

“You literally put it in the title.”

“Yeah, but the rest of the team saw it too.”

“Rest of the team didn’t know you were building a goddamn clone machine for months.”

“You remembered that?” You pulled away, palm over your heart. “Oh, sarge, you paid attention to me.”

His nose twitches.

“You said it, like, eight hundred times.” He could use both his hands to count the number of references you had offhandedly made in the last three weeks alone.

“Why'd you go save me when you knew it wasn't real?” you continue to challenge relentlessly, knowing fully well that he was fibbing. 

“Because you fuckin’ peer pressured me. Had the whole team around me when you sent your little video during breakfast.”

“Just admit it,” you coo, ignoring all his justifications. “You noticed it was fake me right away but showed up anyway because you’re wildly in love with me.”

“No,” he says stiffly. 

“No as in you won’t admit it you have a crush on me, or no as in you didn’t know it was fake me?”

There was no winning this. 

“Good day to you.” He pulls the motorcycle helmet on to hide the expression that plain as day screamed the former of your two options.

“Also,” you bring up indignantly, “she even got to ride the fucking bike and I’ve been asking to drive it for months now!”

“We-” he chooses his words carefully. “-compromised.”

“Oh, you did?” Your voice lowers at the newfound information, interest piqued. “I’m gonna hold you to that then, whatever it is.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Absolutely does,” you huff. “A promise is legally binding. Blue’s Clues taught me that.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

“You’re my knight in leathery armour,” you swoon, switching sides immediately, “Kinda.”

“See you next week,” he says in farewell, determined to leave before you made it worse. “Try not to get killed by then.”

“Why, so you can do it yourself? Protective much?” You pull him back when he starts walking away, laughing slightly. “Wait a second, you weirdo.”

He sighs, staying put anyway, arms crossed impatiently over his chest.

You pull out the pen tucked behind your ear and slowly tap him twice on each shoulder in a makeshift knighting ceremony. “For your sacrifice.”

He rolls his eyes at the ludicrousness, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth.

You ignore his lack of enthusiasm, pressing your fingertips to your lips in a small kiss and then to his nose, given that it was the only part of his face you had access to.

“That was for your bravery.” You grin brightly at him and he sure as hell is glad he’s wearing the stupid helmet because he can feel his cheeks light up a bright crimson.

“Thanks.” His voice sounds gruffer than a second ago. He clears his throat.

“Now you’re my knight in leathery armour,” you fawn, nearly falling over yourself dramatically. “Let’s ride into the sunset together. I love you.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he calls out over his shoulder, turning away to return to his bike. “I despise you.”

“But you don’t.”

He really didn’t.

also i managed to fuck my phone up really bad so all proceeds from my ko-fi go towards getting it fixed

Next part

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #mcu fic #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky angst #bucky barnes angst #harmless fic #winter soldier x reader #Winter Soldier #bucky barnes #bucky

[ficforce]

Handle With Care

Shinmon Benimaru x F!Reader

SFW

No set timeline

Established relationship

The weather was particularly hot and on days like this, the Town was quieter during the afternoon. People were content to stay in the shade to drink and talk, even the children were willing to wait for the sun to move a little in the sky to cool things down before they played again. Y/N hummed softly to herself as she continued to knit a new blanket for the Guardhouse’s supply. It was an unfortunate fact that sometimes people’s homes got destroyed when someone turned Infernal but the Hikeshi always did their best to provide for their people.

She looked up when a shadow crossed over her and smiled at the man stood in her light, a bored-looking expression on his face, “You’re in my light, Benimaru.” She pat the space beside her on the raised walkway of her friend’s home and the Captain dropped down beside her, “I was going to come home as soon as I finished this blanket, my friend came back early so I wasn’t stuck babysitting all day.” Y/N watched as Benimaru picked up the corner of the blanket to take a closer look at her handy work, “Were you passing by or looking for me?”

“Looking.” Benimaru next picked up one of her needles and gave a small grunt as he accidentally dropped it onto the ground where it seemed to simply vanish, “…Shit. Sorry, Y/N.” He knew she hated when he messed with her tools, he glanced at her face and her soft sigh felt as bad as being told off, “I’ll make sure to pick some new ones up.”

Shaking her head, she finished off the row and put everything down on her lap, “It’s okay, they were getting a little blunt for needlework.” Benimaru watched her reach to the side and hold up her flask, the outside was cracked and the handle broken, “Could you get me a new one of these?”

He blinked at it in silence; wasn’t that one only a few weeks old?

Then he realised that she probably hadn’t had enough to drink, he’d watched her prepare the tea the previous night so that it would be perfect for icing but it seemed her effort had gone to waste.

“Sure,” it was then his crimson gaze caught sight of the tea stain on her favourite yukata, “Did you drop it all over yourself?”

“I was drinking it and then someone walked into me… it was just an accident.” She didn’t dare tell him that the guy who walked into her called her a klutz and gave her a shove - it wasn’t worth the man being beaten to a pulp over a flask and her clothing.

“Tch, they could have offered to replace it for you” He sat up straighter, “Who was it?” he knew Y/N was too kind to make a fuss; she was always letting things like this slide even when it wasn’t her fault. Benimaru wished she would get mad sometimes, she wasn’t weak in the slightest and nor was she shy. She was just too damn nice.

It meant that, sometimes, she was taken advantage of.

He had hoped that maybe it would stop once they became an official couple but it was just the same. “Benimaru, It’s okay, it was just an accident.” She reached over to stroke his cheek and he huffed, “Did you fix the bar you broke last night? I went and apologised for the mess this morning, the owner was still sweeping up glass.”

“Y/N?!” The man she has walked into rushed to help her up and began apologising for knocking her down, explaining that he had been wrestling with two of the other guys there. “We were just messing - you okay?”

“It wouldn’t have happened if that guy hadn’t have touched you…” She should have been firmer in telling the drunk to get lost but she had asked so nicely the man laughed and grabbed her again. “You’re too forgiving, Y/N. If I didn’t know you could handle it I would worry all the time.” Benimaru leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek, “I’ll get you a new flask whilst I’m out with Konro. The Twins found something suspicious so we’re gonna check it out.”

Once the hottest part of the day was over, Asakusa bloomed back into life and Y/N headed to the butcher to pick up something a little special - the Hikeshi had been working flat out and she figured they deserved a little something. Not all of the Hikeshi lived in the guardhouse; some of them had their own homes and families. They only stayed on the nightshifts, if there was a party or if Benimaru had totalled their house. Most of the time everyone liked to meet in the evening and share a meal; this often included wives, girlfriends and children. Dinner was often loud and fun but it meant the kitchen was always busy during the day.

Removing her shoes at the genkan and stepping up into the main room Y/N walked straight into another body. She let out a surprised yelp and fell backwards onto the floor.

The other laughed, “Not if he’s gotta refer to that cripple, Konro. If you can’t fight then just die, ya know!”

Smiling at the three grown men who looked like scolded kids, she shook her head, “It was an accident, don’t worry about it, okay?” Her elbow throbbed a little but it wasn’t worth mentioning, “I’m going to get changed then help out with dinner. You three make sure you don’t hurt each other.”

“Y/N, you’re too nice! Waka woulda kicked our asses.”

“You can have a free hit, we’re men, we can take it!”

Y/N waved them off, “You’ll have to do far worse than knock me down to get a reaction, boys.” It wasn’t that she wasn’t annoyed or that she didn’t want to knock their heads together - she just didn’t like to lose her temper over small things. Maybe she was too forgiving and maybe she was a bit of a doormat but she had people who liked or loved her to get mad on her behalf.

Placing the shopping down at the doorway of her shared room with Benimaru, Y/N removed her yukata and tossed it into the laundry basket before pulling out a fresh one from the drawers. She liked the colour of this one; she also liked that the twins had picked it especially for her to do chores in. It wasn’t like she had to help out around the Guardhouse but she liked doing it… she couldn’t slack just because her lover was the Captain.

Grabbing the shopping on her way toward the kitchen she hummed quietly to herself, grabbing the sliding door to enter she paused when she heard her name from the other side.

“Do you think she’ll notice?”

Another male voice scoffed at that, “Even if she does she’ll not do anything, she’s such a wet blanket - why’s Shinmon even with her?”

“Maybe she’s just a really good lay?” It was only two voices, surprising as the kitchen should have been busier but she recognised the voices as two of the new recruits. They didn’t know her… they had no right to be talking about her this way.

She had heard it before, people made fun of her, they tried to take advantage of her too but she could usually ignore it. Once she got in there she knew they’d be too cowardly to say it to her face.

“She suits him, Shinmon is pretty pathetic - sure he’s strong but he’s not cut out to lead.”

Y/N’s hands were shaking as anger coiled low in her belly, her usual calm demeanour cracking as they mocked the people she loved most. They could say what they wanted about her but that was her family and she couldn’t just ignore that. “Well, the poison I picked up should be enough to see the Lieutenant and kids off. Just gotta hope if weakens Shinmon enough for us to handle him - then we get the old gang back together and take the town. Fucking Hikeshi think they run the place.”

Her eyes widened as she heard their plan, her mind going blank as she dropped the bag she had been carrying and slid open the door to the kitchen.

x - -

Hinata and Hikage both sneezed at the same time and Hikage complained loudly, “Someone’s talking about us!” Hinata nodded and then they both let out a surprised squeal as the ground shook slightly. Running to Konro, they each grabbed his pant leg and looked up at the smoke rising in the distance.

“An Infernal?” Konro looked at Benimaru whilst placing his hands on the girls, “…The alarm isn’t sounding though.” They were already on their way back from investigating what they had thought was a White Clad hideout but turned out to be a secret club for a bunch of kids playing ‘gangs’.

“Not an infernal.” Benimaru answered and squinted at the sky, “There’s a lot of heat and I didn’t hear any explosions…”

“Y/N!” Konro yelled as he got through the crowd and started shouting orders to have everyone moved back, “You’re gonna hurt someone! The fire is already spreading out of control!” She didn’t seem to be able to hear him and he knew she’d never forgive herself for causing this much destruction, “We’ll fix it, Y/N, just stop!”

Benimaru and Konro seemed to realise at the same moment what was happening and Benimaru called up one of his matoi, “What set her off?”

From above it was easier to see that a large crowd had formed outside the Guardhouse, smoke billowed off the burning blue flag that hung by the entrance and he could see part of the wall of the Guardhouse was blown out into the street.

There were a few Hikeshi trying to stamp out the sea of blue flames before they jumped from house to house and in the middle was Y/N.

Benimaru hopped off the matoi once he was close enough to the ground, standing between her and two cowering men, “Y/N.” He hadn’t seen her like this before, he had heard she could get angry but he had never once witnessed it; the bottom of her yukata was burning from the intensity of her ability and her eyes blazed. The way her face contorted in rage was so different from her usual calm expression, all of her anger was on the men behind him, “Whatever they did I’ll handle it - you need to cool down before you get hurt!”

Her ability had one of the highest temperatures on record, she had burnt him on occasion and Benimaru knew that she could burn out fast, he could see her chest heaving already as her oxygen ran low. “Y/N!”

Benimaru approached her after getting a few of his guys to grab the two battered men Y/N wanted to cremate, he reached for her shoulder and just before he could touch her he felt a sharp pain in his stomach and stumbled back a few feet.

She sent two tendrils of flame towards the men behind Konro, they skirted past Benimaru and Konro to catch the clothing of her targets. They screamed in fear as their clothing burnt and the heat started to break through their resistance, the Hikeshi holding them let go immediately. Her hand raised to deliver the finishing blow - she’d lost her senses. All she wanted was for the two men to vanish, to stop existing so that they could never hurt her family again.

“Enough!” Strong arms wrapped around her, Benimaru’s clothing began to smoke within seconds - her yukata was turning to scraps the longer she used her ability, “Stop,” he said into her ear, “This isn’t you, this isn’t my sweet girl - you gotta stop.” He didn’t want to knock her out but he also didn’t want her getting tephrosis.

He was hugging her too tightly for her to finish her attack and instead she increased the heat around her to force him to let go; the buildings on fire nearby lit up more violently than before. “Let me go! They were going to kill you! They were going to poison your food! They didn’t care that they’d kill Konro and the girls too!”

“And you’re gonna burn down the town to punish two cowards.” He felt her stiffen and then her body relaxed against him, the air around her began to cool rapidly and the fires on the buildings began to shrink. “We’re safe, you kept us safe but this is enough.”

“B-Beni…” The man didn’t say anything as she hid her face in his neck and clutched at his coat, “I’m sorry, I… I just- I can’t lose-!”

“I know,” He murmured. Earlier he had wished she would get angry more often but not like this. Not to the point of destroying property and losing her mind, “It’s done… leave the destroying to me from now on.”

“I’m sorry…” She whispered, “I thought I was better than this.” Y/N really thought she had a handle on her anger; it had been years since she had reacted like this. She had lost her family as a child, her mother had infernalised and killed her father before she could be put to rest. Y/N had been angry afterwards, hating that people could burst into flames, hating that the Hikeshi couldn’t get there in time to save what she had left; when her ability came in she could hardly control it and caused fires whenever she got angry. It had taken nearly killing another family to make her stop and change.

To start forgiving people and letting things slide. “D-did I hurt anyone?”

“No one important.” Benimaru picked her up into his arms and turned his head to catch Konro’s gaze, “They were gonna poison us, I’ll leave them to you, Konro.” The Lieutenant nodded and Benimaru headed inside to look after Y/N.

The twins ran after the couple to help, grabbing Benimaru’s clothing whilst occasionally glancing back, Asakusa didn’t treat traitors well and the hearing how they planned to use poison didn’t go down particularly well. “Konro looks real mad.” Hinata giggled.

“They shouldn’t have made Y/N angry first.”

#fire force #shinmon benimaru #enen no shouboutai #enn enn no shouboutai #reader

[greenygreenland]

Dream A Little Dream of Me Pt. 2: Norman x Reader

-part 2 requested by anon

-kinda spicy??? because yeah but u can always skip that if u don’t like that stuff

-CHARACTERS AGED UP (so don’t call fbi on me lmaoooo)

MANGA SPOILERS/BRIEF MATURE CONTENT (at end)

WARNINGS: spicy/18+ (near the end, so you can SKIP if you’d like), arguing, death mentions, MANGA SPOILERS, etc.

Summary: It’s time to talk to Norman with Emma and Ray. Only issue is, he's not there yet, and his 'squad' is occupying his office.

PART 1

Time waited for no one. Its hands constantly ticked back and forth, once, twice, until you couldn’t recall how long you’d been staring at the clock. 

The first thing you did this morning was shoot out of bed and gulp down your breakfast. There wasn’t time to idly chat or greet every single one of your family members. You had a job to do, and that was to convince Norman that this 'Seven Walls’ plan was better. 

The office door stood before you like a timed bomb. It towered over you, made you feel small and helpless. What if you were too late? What if there was nothing you could do?  

An uneasy smile twitched on your lips. You had to stay solid for Ray and Emma. They relied on you, and you couldn’t let them down. “Ready?” 

Their eyes were bright with resolve you didn’t seem to have. 

“Yes.”

“’Course!”

Why were you so nervous? Just look at them, they were so confident that Norman would listen. But of course your Norman would listen, right? He wasn’t the type to brush you off or act all high and mighty. He was sweet, considerate, and wonderful. 

You sucked in a sharp breath to steel yourself. “Nor--?”

Three heads turned to stare as you opened the door. One was a woman with curly hair, another a tall guy in a suit, and the last one, a guy in a military vest.

Norman wasn’t at his desk.

The three strangers sat sprawled throughout the room. Two on either couches, and one in the back. Crumbs lay on the coffee table where stray pieces of wrapping fluttered about. A tea cup sat a little ways away from the wrappings, still steaming and piping hot. They had to have been here for quite some time. The lady raised a brow and glanced at the tall guy behind her. “Who are they?”

You and Ray kept straight faces. 

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m Ray.” Emma tried for a wobbly smile. “I’m Emma and this is (Y/n). We come from shelter b-zero-six-three!” You glanced at your companions, then back at the three adults in your path. The lady turned to the guy behind her again and asked another question, but you weren’t listening.

What were they doing here? Most importantly, were they dangerous? Sure, Norman trusted them (they were in his office after all), but was that enough reason for you too? He was revered as a god here, you reminded yourself. It wouldn’t be out of the park if he acted differently around these people. 

“Where is...the ‘Boss’ at the moment?” you respectfully inquired. The guy in the vest adjusted his position on the couch. He swung his feet off the coffee table dramatically and said, “The Boss is out of the office right now. He’s on urgent business.” 

You frowned. That didn’t sound good. “We’ll come back then. Talk can wait.” you decided. “Let’s--”

The vest guy stood up and the lady followed. Your chest tightened as he slowly turned to meet your eye. “No, wait a second.” He placed a hand on Ray’s shoulder and the lady set a hand on either side of you and Emma. They smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Why don’t you stay for tea?” the lady inquired. They steered you over to the couch and plopped you all together one after the other. 

You didn’t like where this was going. Urgent business? What could be so urgent that Norman would decide to leave so early in the morning? You folded your arms over your chest in thought. 

It's been taking me a little longer than expected to set it in motion. 

Norman mentioned a bit about his plan last night, but not in full detail. You recalled the brief mentions of a poison, as well as the obvious portion of genocide and degeneration of demons. But what else did he say?

I've decided to officially start tomorrow.

Your frown tightened and your fist clenched. Of course he would go out of his way to start the plan as soon as possible. He didn’t need distractions, much less people against his will. You remembered the smile he forced onto his lips. It was wry, and hollow, and fake, and everything that he wasn’t. 

Fortunately, I've always been pretty good at getting what I want.

You wanted to be angry--no, livid--yet the aching in your heart said otherwise. Norman did everything in good faith. All he wanted was to save everyone without spilling a single drop of blood. But did he realise the guilt he’d have to carry once his plan was complete? Did he realise how much blood would stain his hands?

You heaved in a subtle breath to compose yourself. “So,” you began. “What did you wish to speak about?” Vest didn’t seem to welcome your presence. He planted an arm on the coffee table and leaned across with that stare that could burn straight through you. 

The lady, on the other hand, sat at the edge of the couch with that giant piece of meat in her hand. You wondered if that was actually some regular type of meat. It was far too large to be a pig, much less a wild animal.

Was it just you, or were these guys kind of creepy?

“I’m Cislo,” Vest firmly announced. “That’s Barbara. That Egghead over there is Vincent.” The tall guy, or Vincent, poured three cups of tea. He silently made his way over and set them on the table. You politely nodded his way and picked up the cup, taking a good, long sip. 

Until you were sure these people could be trusted, you decided it best to stay quiet.

Cislo leaned farther over the table. You instinctively took another sip of tea. “Emma, Ray, and (Y/n), right? From Grace Field?” Ray was about to answer, but Cislo interrupted. “We’re escapees too y’know!” He hastily jumped up and planted a firm foot on the coffee table. “And for the record, our escape was way better. We kicked that farm’s ass!”

You slowly nodded with false amusement. “Is that so?” Vincent adjusted his glasses almost apologetically. He was the calmest out of all his companions, as well as the most polite. “Right.” He sounded distasteful. “You guys feel the need to childishly compete all the time... Please, accept my humblest apologies.”

Ray rolled his eyes. “Nah, you guys are amazing. Absolutely incredible. Show-stopping. It’s not like we could have done better, bra-vo.” You snickered behind your teacup and fist-bumped under the coffee table. He was trying to make you smile because he knew you were tense. And it worked. 

You took another sip of tea and glanced over the rim. From the corner of your eye, you spotted a mark peeking out at the top of Barbara’s tank top. Norman had the same one right on his chest. These three weren’t normal people, weren’t they? 

“Excuse me,” Emma said with a bright smile, “thank you so much for yesterday!” Oh right, you thought. Vincent was the the guy who treated Cristy and Dominics. “Yes,” you added. “Thank you, Vincent.” He returned Emma’s smile in a calmer manner and nodded. “The boss let me know about that. I wish the best for them.”

Emma’s smile brightened like the sun. “Thanks!” 

The back of your neck tingled uncomfortably. Barbara’s stare was creepy, and it didn’t help that Cislo had joined in. Ray and Emma inched closer to your sides.

“That’s well and all,” Barbara started, “but we’d like to know!” Cislo eagerly nodded. He leaned farther across the table and you inched backward into the couch. “Yeah, how about you tell us? What you wanted to talk about with that guy...” 

You raised a brow. “’That guy’?” 

The air thinned out as quick as one could say ‘Quidditch’. A bashful grin broke out on Barbara’s lips and her face went red as a cherry. “The boss of course!” she cried. “Minerva James!” She said ‘Minerva James’ like he was a god. Cislo mimicked Barbara’s bashful expression. “What did you want to talk about with...Nor--‘Norman’, is what you guys called him?” 

You didn’t have the strength to be question them. 

“Even if you try to hide it, you idiots love the boss.” said Vincent. Barbara rolled her eyes. “Shut up! You love everything he does too!” Vincent turned to you, Ray and Emma. “Because you’re long time friends of the boss, they can’t stop themselves from being nervous.”

Ah, so these three were Norman’s fan club. You scoffed to yourself.  

Cislo rounded on Barbara and Vincent with a newfound energy (seriously, where did that come from?). “I mean, aren’t you curious?” he inquired, clenching a fist in the air all dramatically. “When we came back from morning patrol, they were all making a fuss upstairs. Yesterday, the boss was a totally different person!” He clasped the sides of his head with a shout. “I thought, ‘what’s up with that’! I got super curious, and turns out, you guys are super good friends!”

Cislo stamped a foot down on the coffee table again. “What kinda guy is this ‘Norman’?” Barbara mimicked his elated expression. “Yeah, tell us!”

You glanced at Emma and she smiled as amiably as always. “Well, he hasn’t changed that much since back then.” She elbowed you. “Tell them!” You knitted your brows in confusion. “Tell them what?” She giggled and Ray playfully smirked. “That you’re his girlfriend.” 

“GIRLFRIEND?!” Cislo and Barbara screeched. 

You sent Ray a subtle glare, to which he smugly shrugged off. It was clear that he purposely said that to get a kick out of Barbara and Cislo. What a total--

“So you’re his girlfriend?” Vincent questioned, casually pushing his glasses up. “I didn’t think the boss would be ‘that type’.” You raised a brow. “What do you mean by that?” Vincent smiled and it was almost playful. 

“Well?” Barbara expectantly inquired, resting her chin in her palms. “What’s he like? As a boyfriend I mean?” 

You thought for a moment. Norman was kind, sweet, and gentle. He knew how to cheer you up when you were down, and he was a great cook. Sometimes, he thought too much about the little things, or became secretive and changed the subject. Sure it could be troublesome to bother with that, but it was just who he was. 

And you loved him for him.

“Norman is so soft and kind,” you began, “he’s smart too and smiles so sweetly. I’ve never met anyone else like him in my life.” A fond sigh left your lips that hung in the air. Just by looking at you, everyone could tell how unconditionally your love was. You were more than just his girlfriend, you were two halves of a whole. 

“He smiles sweetly?” Barbara echoed. Cislo blinked in disbelief. “‘Soft’?” They glanced at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter. You knitted your brows together questioningly. “Is he that different?”

“Stiff.” said Barbara.

“Cold.” answered Vincent.

“An emperor.” added Cislo.

That wasn’t a surprise to you, but for your siblings, it was earth-shattering. Ray spat out his tea and Emma let out a ‘WHAAAAAT’ that could have reached the heavens. Then Ray chuckled, and that turned into a stifled snicker. 

“So he’s stiff and cold?” you muttered, placing a hand to your chin in thought. Barbara nodded. “Yeah, kind of like how you were before we started talking about the Boss.” 

You almost chocked. Was it plausible that Norman took after your rock-solid façade while running this revolution? Logically speaking, it was normal, smart even, to make yourself known as an unshakable being. That was why you walked into this room full of strangers as quietly as you could. It gave you time to observe and figure out the little details in untested waters. 

And because you stayed headstrong and cool, others followed your example. 

Sometime in the conversation, Ray shared embarrassing stories about Norman with the occasional pitch from you or Emma. Seeing Ray and Emma smile over the old memories made you relax just a bit. It was refreshing to think about something other than fifty ways to save the world. The trivial, the peace, the mundane. Yes, you missed that.

A smile etched itself onto Barbara’s lips. “So even a long time ago, the boss was cool.” she noted. “Thanks, it was nice to hear so much about him.” You almost smiled at her. She and Cislo were nice to be around when they weren’t all up in your personal space. 

“He’s a good man.” Vincent stated. “He cares for his companions.” A grin broke out onto Cislo’s lips. “Not with a sweet smile or softly though. For the sake of all of us, he works without sparing any time to sleep. He saved us and made use of this ‘power’ we all have.” 

You carefully watched the way he and his companions shifted. As Cislo explained his time in Lambda, silence fell upon everyone’s shoulders. Lambda was far worse than any hell. Mass production was commonly practiced, and it worked to the benefit of the demons and doctors who worked there. Experimentation day by day. New medicine. New pills and syringes.

The very thought of that place made your skin crawl.

“He was a twleve-year-old brat,” Cislo stated. “But it was like I saw a god.” 

There was that word again. 

“The boss constructed a plan,” he added. “And the four of us, including Zazie, executed it. Until now, all five of us have been destroying and freeing the farms. It’s like I told you! We’re amazing.” His eyes carried a dark glint you didn’t like. “You don’t have to worry.” 

Oh, but you did worry. Not just for Norman, but the world he wanted to make reality. That look Cislo shared with his companions didn’t help. It was bloodthirsty. It was dark and filled with a deep hatred that sent shivers down your spine. They wanted this revolution, this chance for revenge, and they wanted it now.

“With the boss’s perfect plan and our power, victory will definitely be ours.” Cislo stared off into a horizon you didn’t care to see. “I can’t wait to kill every last one of them.” He broadly grinned. “Every time I kill a demon, I get this real nice feeling in my chest.” Barbara stared at the bare bone in her hand. “Me too. Whenever I eat meat from demons we kicked, this nauseous feeling just goes away.”

You stared at the bone with wide eyes. That wasn’t a ridiculously large leg without a reason. Demon meat. It was demon meat.

Ray followed your gaze uneasily. “Uh...then that meat you just had was demon meat?”

“You must be surprised!” she exclaimed. “I wonder if it was an employee from that mass-production farm we slammed the other day. It makes me sick, us being cattle to them. Even now, I still can’t forget.” She gripped the bone so tighty that her knuckles turned white. “Their eyes...that pain...that agony every. Single. Day.” 

She stood straight and bared her teeth. “Everyone here has the same enemy, but just killing them isn’t enough for me. I’ll slaughter them all and the Ratri clan!”

Emma pursed her lips together with wide eyes. Everyone in the room could see the blatant fear etched in her bright eyes. She worried, not just about the chaotic way Barbara pranced around with the bone, but for what was yet to come. If everyone else in the hideout were like Barbara, then would any of you stand a chance with fixing Norman’s estranged plan? 

The woman’s gaze sharply flickered from yours to Emma’s. “What’s with that face?” she demanded. “Are you sympathising with the demons Emma? Aren’t you happy?” 

Barbara leapt on the table. Her heel dug into the wood with an inhuman amount of strength. “I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t want to kill the demons. You’re cattle. They don’t care about you!” 

She ripped her gaze from Emma’s and met your own. You kept a straight face and stared right back with stone-cold eyes. “Oh, and that ‘talk’ you wanted with the boss.... I bet you were going to spew something like ‘change the plan’, weren’t you? How dare you betray us like that? If you think you’ll change his mind just because you’re his--!”

“Barbara!” called Cislo. “Stop it, you’re breaking the table.”

“--I don’t care who you are. Demons should be exterminated! Every single one of them until we’re the only ones left!”

“Barbara!” Cislo’s eyes were cold and dark. “Stop it.” His goal wasn’t to save anyone from unnecessary conflict, only to protect the poor table under Barbara’s boot. You eyed the table uneasily. Chestnut wood splintered and peeled against itself, burying the thick demon bone in broken chips. When Barbara begrudgingly stepped off the table, a clear dent sat where her boot had been. The poor table was helpless.

Just like you. 

Would convincing Norman be enough? If his followers didn’t see eye to eye with your ideals, then a new plan risked ripping the whole resistance apart. 

You steadily rose from the couch and smoothed down your skirt. “Thank you for the tea and the pleasant conversation.” Your voice was silky smooth. “I think it’s time we got off your backs.” You turned to leave.

“If you’re still thinking about changing the Boss’s plan, then I believe it’s time to reconsider.” Vincent announced. “You can’t stop it, it’s too late for that.” 

You paused in your step and glanced over your shoulder. For a moment, you were unrecognizable. You weren’t (Y/n) anymore, or that Grace Field kid from bunker B-zero-six-three. You were another player, another great mind in this sick game of chess. 

“Is that so?” you coolly inquired. “Well it so happens that working until the very last minute is a special skill of mine. The ‘Boss’ decided to hasten this ‘perfect’ plan, yes? Where is he?” 

The way you looked at everyone rubbed Vincent in the wrong way. It was like you were on a completely different level, cattle or not. You didn’t care what position you stood in because you would get it done, and for that reason, you were on a pedestal higher than Vincent and the rest. 

“The Boss went to meet them,” he slowly replied, “the demons.” 

You nodded in thanks. He knew that look, the one where your eyes glinted and shone with a quiet roar. There was only one other person whom you shared that look with, one other man who had those same, calculating eyes.

Yes, Vincent thought. You had the same eyes as the Boss.

-----

You hated waiting. After being on the run or constantly fighting to walk step after step, it didn’t feel natural to stand around and wait the day away for Norman to arrive. And so you sat in the hospital wing with Ray and Emma, staring at the sleeping face of Christy, who had yet to wake up.

Waiting was excruciating.

“Are you okay (Y/n)?” 

You met Emma’s worried eyes. They watered with unshed tears, as if she already knew the answer even if you wouldn’t acknowledge it yourself. You forced a comforting smile to your lips and gently squeezed her hand. You had to be strong. “Don’t worry,” you said, “everything is perfectly fine.” 

Ray snorted to himself. “You’re a really bad liar.” You shifted in your chair uncomfortably and slowly met his eyes. “No I’m not.” Ray huffed. “If you’re a good liar, then why did you act so cold around Vincent and the others? You only do that if you think it’s necessary, like the time we first met Yuugo.”

You shrugged absentmindedly. “Sometimes, it’s to let people know I mean business. The way Barbara talked to Emma wasn’t okay, but if I started an argument it would’ve made things worse.” Emma knitted her brows together. “So you acted distant instead?”

“Precisely.” 

Ray huffed again, this time more dramatically than the last. He was about to say something else, but a voice cut through the air. Norman was back. Norman was back.

In no time, you three caught up to him in his office. 

“Sorry for bothering you as soon as you got back.” you half-heartedly muttered. Ray sent you a curious glance you shrugged off. Norman kept his gaze to the window behind his desk and removed his heavy cloak. You watched the way he shifted from foot to foot. There was a sluggishness in his step so subtle that if you blinked a second too soon, you wouldn’t have seen it.

“You wanted to talk?” Norman inquired, keeping his back to the window. Emma made her way over to the couch with a nod. “Yeah, about a lot of things.” You and Ray followed, settling side-by-side. A ‘lot of things’ had to be the biggest understatement you’d ever heard. There were a few points in your new plan that needed to be addressed, and you were sure a five-minute talk wouldn’t suffice.

Ray folded his hands together. “But before that (Y/n) and I would like to know...” He sharply stared at Norman’s back. “What kind of plan do you have to ‘exterminate the demons without losing a single person’? Is it a civil war?” 

Norman whipped around and snapped his fingers. “That’s right!” he exclaimed. “You both always catch on so quickly.” The way he smiled in congratulation reminded you of your time at the House.

You were eleven again. Grace Field’s forest surrounded you on all sides, and Norman and Ray stood only a little ways away from you. They were arguing about something you couldn’t quite hear, and that was because you weren’t meant to hear it in the first place. Ray had yanked Norman by the collar so harshly that he stood on his tippy toes.

You didn’t understand why Ray had been so angry. Norman was just trying to figure out the best path to safety. It was for the future of not just you, Ray, and Emma, but for your family. All of them. 

Everything suddenly clicked. Ray had been angry at Norman because he had done something stupid just like now. Sure, it was smart, but was it worth the risk? Was it worth all the trouble to reach the goal he wanted?

Norman’s lips moved, but you couldn’t hear him. 

Objectively speaking, his plan was genius. A civil war utilising the demon clan Giran? There wasn’t a flaw in sight. No rips to break and no disruption between each consecutive step. The Giran clan didn’t care for humans, and the humans didn’t care for the Giran. It was an equivalent exchange. 

According to an old book you read, ‘humankind cannot gain anything without giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value had to be lost’.

In this case, that toll was the Giran clan. They would face their demise as soon as they clashed heads with the Regent Homes, leaving Norman and his team time to poison the helpless citizens of the Neverland.

But that wouldn’t work, not when demons like Mujika and Sonju existed.

“Norman,” you said. “Do you know about the demons who don’t regenerate despite not eating human flesh? If your plan succeeds, then you’ll have to find a way to deal with them.” Ray nodded in agreement. “Yeah, if there are a lot of demons out there who don’t need to eat humans, your plan will fail from the onset.”

The room went unbearably quiet. 

Norman placed a hand over his face in thought, and it was then that you realised just how desperate he was. “How...how do you guys know about that?” You frowned. That wasn’t an answer you expected. “Why do you say that?”

Norman began by explaining the differences in demon social statuses, then the whole ‘hunt’ for this ‘Evil Blood Maiden’, or Mujika. “They don’t know how we’ll revolt,” Norman thoughtfully said. “And it would be trouble for them if we got caught by the Ratri clan since you know their whereabouts.” 

He paused. 

“We need to track down and kill them.”

Your heart stopped. Kill Mujika and Sonju? You couldn’t do that. They saved your family when you all could have been left for the wild demons to eat you alive. They taught you all how to survive and thrive when you were all alone.

“Wait!” cried Emma. “Sonju and Mujika are our friends! They’re fine--they're our saviours--our friends! If we used their blood, then we wouldn’t have to worry about...about...” You placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to Norman. His eyes danced with a dangerous light. 

“I agree with Emma. Not just because they haven’t done anything wrong, but because they could be the solution.” You wrung your hands together. “Your plan is perfect, I admit. It doesn’t have a single flaw, but it’s not...right. We’ve thought of something that could work, something that doesn’t involve killing everyone.”

That look in Norman’s eye intensified. It held a quiet flame, yet burned brighter than any fire could. “Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?” he slowly inquired. “(Y/n), you know full well that this world isn’t as simple or kind as any of us hoped it to be. They’re demons, right?”

You saw Cislo and Vincent and Barbara in his eyes. They all had that same look, that same hatred for their hunters. But if only they saw what you saw. If only they hadn’t been to Lambda and met Mujika and Sonju instead.

“Don’t you think we should close our mouths and watch them go extinct?” Norman grimly added. “Do you think you can forgive them for what they’ve done?”

No, you couldn’t forgive them. Not after seeing Conny’s body in the back of the truck. Not after what happened to Yuugo and Lucas and all your other friends. The demons made you and your family suffer. 

Your throat constricted. 

You almost died by their hand more times than you could count too! But how could you blame them? How could you hate them all from the bottom of your heart when you saw the vast majority for what they really were?

Your fist clenched.

Demons had families too. Just like you. They struggled to survive. Just like you. They did nearly anything to make sure their kind lived to see another sunrise. Just like you. Most demons ate to live. Just like you. 

You shot out of your seat and threw a hand out. “You can’t kill a whole race!” 

Norman’s eyes widened. It was rare for you to lose your cool, much less, shout during a conversation. This time, you couldn’t do that, not when Emma’s eyes were sad and glossy, and not when Ray relied on you to make the right decision. 

You paused and thickly swallowed, gingerly fiddling with the hem of your skirt.

“You can’t just...you can’t just kill a whole race.” you echoed. “That’s genocide. Will you be able to sleep knowing that your hands will be stained with the blood of thousands? Millions?! History always repeats itself no matter where you go or what world you escape to! Why do we have to take vengeance when we could be the bigger people? Genocide won’t bring back the dead and it won’t solve anything either!”

“(Y/n),” Norman muttered, intertwined his hands with yours. “Has this been on your chest the whole time?” You nodded and he looked at you like you were far away. “Even if we do give the demons their blood, what guarantee will we have that they won’t come eat us anyway? The king and nobility have been doing this for the past seven hundred years, the same goes for Giran.” 

He released your hands and averted his gaze to the splintered coffee table. “If you were told not to eat (f/f), would you say, ‘understandable, have a great day’? You might have that self-control, but the demons don’t because they can’t sympathise with us. We are the prey, and they are the hunters.”

You heaved in a deep breath to steel yourself. “Then let’s run away, all of us beyond the Seven Walls to reforge the Promise!” Norman’s jaw went slack and he stared at you, baffled to silence. “Even though we don’t know what the human world has to offer? We don’t know if they’ll accept us or if we’ll have safe entry. How can you bet everyone’s fate on that?” 

Norman eyed the way you tightly gripped the hem of your skirt. He sucked in a sharp breath, as if what he was about to say would be the hardest thing he’s ever. “(Y/n),” he softly said. “You have to think realistically. Genocide or not, the world doesn’t care about what’s right or wrong. You, more than anyone, should know that.”

He was right again. You knew how cruel the world was because you were able to keep needless emotions from rushing to your head. You were cynical. You were tough. But that was only because you needed to be for your family. They looked up to your strength and your decisive decisions that always led them to victory. 

“If we don’t wipe out the demons,” Norman stated, “there won’t be a future where our family can smile.”

You firmly shook your head. “No, that’s no true. Ray said the same thing when we were at Grace Field, didn’t he? He thought only you, Emma, and I would be able to escape, but in the end, we took all the older kids with us. We survived this long, not because we cared about probabilities, but because we saw the path before us!” You needed him to understand--no, you were begging him to.  “It’s there, so why can’t you...why can’t you see what I’m seeing?”

Norman silently stood. His gaze left your own as he placed a hand to his chin in thought. “I don’t see any hope in this plan,” he honestly stated, “but for the sake of this argument, let’s concede and say that we can cross over to the human world and so on.” 

You heaved out a relieved sigh. At least he was considering. 

“Even then, the part about the Seven Walls is unclear.” He continued to explain a few different points, some you could dispute and others you had no answer to. But by the end of it, you were feeling great. There was hope.

“We’ve already found a way to reach the Seven Walls a year and a half ago.” you matter-of-factly said. “We have everything we need, and when the conditions are met, we can go at anytime.” Norman’s jaw dropped. “You--you found it?”

You nodded. “Yes. But like you said, there are a lot of uncertainties, so if you still need more constants before stopping the plan, then I’ll go and figure out the rest.” Norman’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”

You intertwined your hands with his and gave them a good squeeze. “If I come back and reforge the Promise, then you will have no choice but to stop the extermination of all demons.” He knitted his brows together in alarm. “Wait a minute.... What is this about ‘if’ you come back?”

“Regarding the risks,” Ray noted, “right now, we’re only aware of two things. We know how to get in, but not how to get out. It appears that most who went there never returned so--”

“WHAT?!” Norman cried, staring between you, Emma, and Ray. “What kind of crazy--that’s too dangerous!” You gently patted his cheek. “Well, if I don’t go, then you’ll have to carry a burden too big for your weak shoulders, right?” You giggled and it was like music to his ears. “We talked about this yesterday, and we’re all ready to go.” 

Norman gave your hands a shake. “How does that make it okay?!” You offered a comforting smile. “If the first Ratri did it, then so can we. Even though we don’t know it now, we’ll find it. We want to stop this extermination, right?”

Emma and Ray nodded. 

“So let us carry a bit of your burden.” A brief frown settled on your lips that didn’t slip past Norman’s line of view. “I told you this once and I’ll say it again: You don’t have to be a god and you don’t have to do everything on your own either. We’re here, right? So rely on us.” 

You wrapped your arms around his middle and pulled him close. “And for the record,” you whispered, “I know you’re hiding something.” Your breath fanned across his neck and he shivered. “You’re such a naughty boy, you know that?”  You pulled away. 

Norman’s wide eyes narrowed deviously as a soft smile rose on his lips. He made his way over to Emma and Ray, patting their shoulders amiably. “Be careful. I can count on you all to take care of each other, right?”

“Of course.” said Ray. 

“No duh, Norman.” Emma added.

“What she said.” you pitched in. 

Norman’s smile warmed as he led Emma and Ray towards the door. “That’s great to hear,” he said. “I promise to bring (Y/n) back before dinner.” Ray’s brows shot up. He let out a small ‘oooo’ and steered Emma out of the office at the speed of light. “We’ll stay out of your way then.” 

The door creaked close and the lock clicked in place. Norman slowly turned to meet your eye. “What was that you said earlier?” he lowly inquired, loosening his tie. “About me being a ‘naughty boy’?” It was hard to fight the heat spreading throughout your body when he looked at you like that. Like you were a glass of water to quench his thirst. Butterflies rose in your stomach and your breath caught in your throat. 

He was so alluring, so freaking hot that it made you freeze in place. Norman’s lips twitched up into a sly smirk, and it was then that you realised he was enjoying this.

Norman liked the way you got all flustered. He liked the way your cheeks flared up with red. And he loved the way you struggled to keep a straight face. There was mischievous glint reflecting in his eyes as he placed his tie on the couch and strode right over to you. 

Gosh, you wanted--no--needed him. Now.

You were practically panting for air and Norman hadn’t even laid a finger on you. He set your heart ablaze with a single glance and knew how to make you feel all lightheaded in the best way possible.

You paused in your step and your back hit the wall. Gosh dang it, why did you fall for that again? 

"You can't think straight." Norman noted, caressing your cheek. "But that's okay. You're always in good hands." Your breath hitched and Norman chuckled. It was low, it was attractive, it was hot. How could a cutie like him act like this when you were alone? Not even you could have expected this type of unexpected, not that it mattered though. After all, Norman knew how to treat you right.

“You’re so adorable.” he said, resting a cool hand on your thigh. “I wonder what will happen if I...?” You shivered under his light touch. How dare he act so cool. How dare he make you gasp and lean further back into the wall. His touch made your cheeks burn and your lower regions go warm. He gave your thigh a squeeze just to watch you gasp again. 

"N-Norman..." you moaned.

He smiled.

"You like that, don't you." His breath fanned across your cheeks. "You won't be able to stay quiet for long. I'll make sure of it." He leaned into you and your lips connected. The kiss was sweet and warm, but far from innocent. The bastard knew exactly how to make your knees buckle and your breath hitch. Somehow, it made you want more of him.

He bit at your lip and you yanked him closer. Kissed him harder.

Norman found himself snaking a hand under your shirt. He trailed over your sides with a gentle touch that made your back arch and your insides tingle. You liked it--no, you loved it. To have his hands on you and his body practically glued to you...

What more could you ask for?

Norman placed a hand on the top of your collar. "May I?" You nodded and he skillfully unbuttoned your shirt. As he pulled it over your shoulders, you squeezed your thighs together. You were wet. That much you just knew.

"Am I that irresistible?" Norman inquired. He didn't let you respond. Instead, he undid the clasp on your bra and gave your breasts a good flick. Norman watched the way you breathily inhaled.

You were so, so beautiful. An absolute masterpiece.

He experimentally fondled your breasts, squeezing and groping. If it could get any hotter in here, then you were sure it would've been a hundred degrees.

He didn't seem to mind though. Instead, he sucked in a short breath with a satisfied smile, as if your moans were the only thing he wanted to hear.

Norman's lips slammed into yours. He licked your bottom lip and you moaned. Moaned. Norman's cheeks reddened. He suddenly realised just how far he had gone. In the heat of the moment, none of you were able to register the fact that you were half-naked, or that Norman was dominant as fuck.

Don’t forget to reblog (do it for Norman!)

"You have such a gorgeous voice,” Norman slyly said. "Can you do that again?"

PART THREE

TIP JAR

#plz reblog #i'm begging at this point #do it for norman #tpn #tpn manga #yakusoku no nebarando #ynn norman #tpn norman #tpn ray #ynn ray #ynn emma #tpn emma #the promised neverland x reader #I'M SORRY OKAY #but like y'all #read pt 1 so like #ur also thirsty #the promised neverland

[danteinthedevildom]

Dude your stuff is absolutely amazing, I meant every word. And now I have the confidence to request something! So, in the anime MC is being portrayed as an actual sheep, which I still think is genius. But what do you think about “Sheep”!MC? Super short and cute, with the fluffy pink hair, totally harmless looking. Buuuut despite barely being able to fight, they’re always ready to attack a demon, even if it’s one of the brothers. I dunno, the idea of a tiny MC trying to punch Lucifer for insulting Mammon popped into my head like a month ago and hasn’t left me alone since lmao

I absolutely LOVE the concept of absolutely tiny MC always ready to go even though it's absolutely, probably a death wish, and I will go through, in extensive detail, the reasons why.

Note: this post is written for Gender Neutral MC and uses they/them pronouns!

+ In general, I like to imagine that demons are just Naturally Taller than most humans, so something like 5ft 10 would actually be super tiny to them. "Sheep"!MC being smaller than that would be a genuine novelty - they're so tiny, that's just... not something they really come across in the Devildom? Even baby animals are larger than them, in some cases, which really just highlights how helpless their new human charge is - but it would also quickly present itself to be a complete NIGHTMARE that none of them considered.

+ On the first day at R.A.D. Mammon spends ten frantic minutes trying to find a very, very tiny human in a crowd of comparably giant demons because he took his eyes off of them for one (1) second, and apparently that was long enough for them to scarper off. Who knew such tiny legs could move so fast!

+ Eventually, he finds "sheep"!MC cornered by demons. That's bad enough, of course, except then, as he nears them, he watches with abject horror (and a little respect) as the tiny human tries to headbutt one of their assailants. Surprisingly, it works - though that might be because they're on perfect height to get the demon directly in the stomach. Not enough to incapacitate them, but enough that the demon's surprised, which means now "sheep"!MC can run!

+ "Sheep"!MC does not run. In fact, "sheep"!MC does the complete opposite: they stand their ground and... okay, it's hard to tell through the thick curls covering their eyes, but Mammon's pretty sure they're staring the demons down? Okay. Little human's got guts. Which might become more than metaphorical if the little human doesn't run like hell.

+ In the end, he has to save them before they really do get gutted. Just a little pressure from his aura, a quick, snappy line, and bam - those lesser demons are running off with their tails between their legs (quite literally, for one of them). He absolutely expects to be thanked for saving them - how heroic, right? He actually did his job! - but instead, as he's gloating, they just. Stamp on his foot. It doesn't hurt (like, honestly, he barely even felt it), but the sheer audacity of it stuns him into silence. They even look mad at him!

+ This tends to happen... a lot, actually. By the end of their first day, there's a plethora of tales running about the academy of the tiny, frail human who keeps trying to attack demons. They even tried to bite one! The brothers think it's hyperbolic at first, but a rather shaken Simeon later informs them that it's completely true; he had to physically grab their cape a few times to stop them from leaping over their desk to deck a demon in the few classes they shared together.

+ Looking after "sheep"!MC is a full-House job. They have a tendency to sneak away whenever any of the brothers look away for even a fraction of a section. It's even happened to Lucifer a few times, much to his absolute bafflement. The truth of it is that "sheep"!MC's so small, it's very easy for them to get drawn into crowds and accidentally bumped away from the brothers. They don't always intend to get separated from them (though sometimes they definitely do), but when it does happen, they don't exactly... rush to find their caretaker again. In fact, they tend to just wander 'round the halls, chest puffed out and chin up, acting like they're ten feet tall and not just barely brushing hip-height on some of the larger demons.

+ Some of them have found out that it's actually better to just hold onto "sheep"!MC somehow. Whether that means holding onto their wrist (Mammon), their hand (Asmo), or their shoulder (Satan), they can at least feel the moment "sheep"!MC tries to slip away and tug them back towards them - often very grumpily, which leads to them very ineffectually trying to dig their heels in.

+ Naturally, they're not scared of the brothers, either. If anyone tries to pick them up, they will attack - often with kicks and punches, but also with vicious attempts to scratch at any bared skin and tug on hair. Most of them can ignore it or at least hold "sheep"!MC at arm's length, but it does mean they're squirmy as hell, which makes carrying them a challenge. Asmo's really the only one who still tries to pick them up for fun - the others mostly do it if they've tried to run away too much or if they need to get somewhere quickly - but even he's a little more cautious of it after getting his hair yanked a few times too many.

+ The sheer audacity of their bravery knows no bounds, and it's... kind of cute, sometimes. They've punched Mammon in the shoulder for being a dick before, and while it doesn't hurt, the fact that they do it without fear for their limbs - or their life, in general - is just. Amazing, actually. They don't even have qualms with gently kicking Mammon to make him budge up on the sofa, or trying to shove him off the bed with their feet when he takes up too much space (which doesn't work, ever, but it's hilarious, and sometimes he slides off the bed just to make them feel better).

+ What isn't so cute are the times they come between the brothers. That's... terrifying, actually. In general, y'know, when the brothers aren't actually going to hurt each other - when they're just being demons, and brothers, and there's no (permanent) harm intended - "sheep"!MC still comes in to defend the brothers they're closest to. Mostly it's Mammon, because of course it is; he's the one they spend most of their time with, and he's the one who gets targeted most. It makes sense that they jump to his defence, throwing cutlery if it happens at breakfast/dinner, or charging at the brother if they happen to be standing.

+ (Especially after they've finally gotten used to him enough to let him hold them at night, cuddled up in bed, because he sleeps better like that; when they're no longer trying to kick him away, and instead curl up in his arms like a tiny, tiny teddy bear.)

+ Sometimes, though, they'll stand before Beel when Satan's furious at him for emptying out the fridge again, or between Levi and Asmo when they're arguing about which thing is better, and it stuns them all enough that they just... stop. Even before they've fully accepted "sheep"!MC as part of the House, or before they've formed all their pacts. There's just something strange in seeing someone so tiny leap in, fully prepared to attack and defend, that ends most arguments without a fight.

+ Not that it happens all the time, though. Sometimes, if Lucifer's threatening to string Mammon up to the rafters, or if he's berating Mammon for something "sheep"!MC knows he didn't do, they'll really attack. And that's... that's not good. There's only so many times the Avatar of Pride can take a punch to the kidney, or side-step a headbutt, or grab them by the scruff before they can charge, before he starts to get pissed. Does this stop them? Of course not. Even with the full pressure of Lucifer's anger bearing down on them, they'll stand their ground and prepare for a fight.

+ The brothers, as they get closer to "sheep"!MC, often find themselves spending more time trying to diffuse situations or quickly squirrel "sheep"!MC away before things go south than they do anything else. They berate them, of course, as much as each of them can, but it never seems to stick. Because of course, half the time, "sheep"!MC's body leaps into action before their brain does. Half the time, they've moved without even realising it, head tucked down or fist raised, moving on instinct.

+ (There's often a difference between "sheep"!MC leaping to action like an anime gag and moving to someone's defence like a BNHA character. The first they can tell happening by "sheep"!MC's face; they might not show their eyes, but they're expressive as hell regardless, lips curling into wide snarls and tugging down into deep frowns. That's when they leap and someone grabs them, holding them in the air as their arms and legs flail uselessly, more put-on by their fighty nature than anything else. The second, though? That's preceeded by "sheep"!MC's face going blank. That's when they move so quickly that it's clear their body is moving on its own. That's when the brothers stand frozen in place, staring in horrified awe at this tiny, brave little human stepping into the path of danger over something the brothers could easily survive - but they definitely can't.)

+ The TSL competition really does almost lead to "sheep"!MC's death. They don't run, don't even think to; the moment they see Levi charge at them, even in full demon form, they stand their ground and snarl. Mammon almost has a heart attack that day - especially when Levi's attack hits them, and sends their tiny body flying back against the wall.

+ Brave little human, even after getting yeeted across the room, tries to get back up again. It's that stubbornness - the refusal to give up, even though they're clearly out of their league - that spurs Lucifer into action. He's impressed by them, if you'd believe it; most humans would cower just at the sight of a demon in their demonic form, and even less would try to go down fighting after such a display of strength. So he steps in, personally, and defends them with his full form out.

+ He doesn't expect a thank you, but it's still amusing, seeing them half-slumped on the floor, being worried over by Mammon, steadfastly ignoring the second-born to downright glower at him for stepping in. There's no question that they would have died hadn't someone helped, and yet still they remain stubborn. He's pretty sure they'd even try to kick him, if they had the strength left to do so; their leg twitches as if trying to do that very action, just before he leaves.

+ It's less amusing when it happens to him, however. When he's found them in the crypt, with Beel and Luke behind them, their stance wide as if hoping that will somehow hide Beel's gigantic form. No, their stubbornness is infuriating in that moment; a blow to his own pride, to see something so small and pathetic attempt to stop him.

+ But they won't move. "Sheep"!MC knows, logically, that they'll die if they take an actual, full-on attack from a demon, but there's fight in them and they don't intend to go down without one. Is it a little reckless? Maybe. Would it be better if they just stepped to the side? Probably. Would they make it through the year by keeping their head down, being good, doing as they're told? Absolutely. But they're not going to do that. And they will stare down Pride himself, knowing that they'll die, if it means they can say they tried.

+ After this incident, "sheep"!MC starts wearing a headband with little sheep horns on it, commissioned from Levi. He's not too sure why they used the pact to make him do it, or even why they asked for it, but it's a fun little project to do and even works as a bonding experience for them. On top of that, it suits them! Ack - no, wait, it's made them too cute - he made a mistake!

+ He's genuinely surprised to learn that the horns aren't, in fact, meant to make them look like a sheep - which earns him a punch to the side for suggesting, and a pretty stern pout - but are meant to emulate a demon form. He thinks it's because of him, for a moment - that he scarred them so much when he attacked them, they're trying to cope by... being what they feared? Maybe? - but then "sheep"!MC tells him the truth, and he loses it.

+ They think the horns will make them look more scary and less like they should be fucked with - not because they're scared, but because they're getting annoyed that demons keep picking fights with them. They think the horns look badass. Levi doesn't have the heart to tell them that it's the cutest thing he's ever seen.

+ Most of the brothers agree that the horns do make "sheep"!MC look cute, and that's even when most of them start using "little sheep" as a nickname for their human. They still stubbornly wear the horns, despite the nickname.

+ "Sheep"!MC is ridiculously stubborn. They're cute, and sweet, and that's just a genuine fact; when they're not being bitey as all hell, or trying to leap head-first into danger, they look like the most adorable little thing in all the Three Realms. Asmo even has a collection of photos and videos on Devilgram solely dedicated to dressing "sheep"!MC up in cute outfits, and it's ridiculously popular. But what those things don't show is how often "sheep"!MC will be belligerant over seemingly nothing. Why, yes, this does include agreeing to do a photoshoot for Asmo and then refusing to wear anything he picks because he implied he didn't trust them to choose a good outfit.

+ That's also led to some potentially dangerous situations, of course - such as "sheep"!MC purposefully ignoring Lucifer's advice not to eat something because he said it would be "in their best interest" not to, only to be told by a frantic Mammon a few moments later that what they're eating isn't human-safe.

+ Sometimes "sheep"!MC will let the brothers pull them into their laps, because they're small enough to actually fit comfortably there and have the brothers rest their chins on their head. It can even be nice! But they do have a tendency to use that position to their advantage - namely, to headbutt the brother they're sitting on under the chin when they're getting annoyed (such as if Levi's gloating/cheating at a game, or Asmo's playing too much with their hair, or Mammon's squeezing them a little too tight while arguing over whether or not he should let them sit in someone else's lap). It's one of the few ways they actually can hurt the brothers, but mostly because it tends to make them bite their own tongues.

+ If you want to imagine something hilarious that at the time was genuinely terrifying, please consider this: Henry 1.0, moving at speeds that give even Mammon a run for his money, appearing in the distance. Asmo and Solomon, in confusion slowly morphing into fear, turning on tail to run before the great beast can reach them. "Sheep"!MC, immediately widening their stance to take on the fuck-off huge serpent that has the second and third borns running for their lives, standing their ground, head tipped down to point their horns forward. Mammon, grabbing the back of "sheep"!MC's jacket as he runs past them, hauling them over his shoulder while screaming in terror, as they pound at his back and kick at his chest, demanding to be put down so they can fist fight a snake. A typical day in the House of Lamentation.

+ If Belphie thought killing this MC was going to be easy, he's dead wrong. It's not exactly a challenge, sure - they are still human, and still much smaller than him at that - but he wasn't expecting the counter-deception of getting headbutted in the gut when he opened his arms up for a hug. It's just enough to surprise him, and means he's a second too slow to grab them when they dart back.

+ By the time he does eventually grab them, he's panting hard, a little bruised, and very frustrated. Who knew being small could have its advantages? They're quick and nimble; a few times he thought he'd gotten them, only for them to dart off to the side or dive between his legs. They'd always land a hit, too, whenever that happened - which didn't hurt, but the one time they tugged on his tail did smart a little, and that was just... unforgivable.

+ "Sheep"!MC doesn't forgive, and they definitely don't forget. There's no easy getting back into their good books, even after the new timeline's settled. Belphie has to deal with getting headbutted a lot after that whole debacle's ended, even when he thinks they're actually getting along well. If he gets too close? They lash out with a fist. If he tries to reach out for them? Their blunt teeth dig into his flesh before he's even aware they turned around. If he's sleeping somewhere they've claimed as "theirs"? Well, that one varies, but he's been shoved off beds, kicked, and had water dumped on him. It'd be impressive if it wasn't so... annoying. But he deals with it. Only because Beel wants him to.

+ You may be wondering, "has "sheep"!MC ever punched the prince?" And the answer would be yes. It wasn't on purpose, the time it happened; Diavolo, sans Barbatos for once, had somehow managed to sneak up on the little human exchange student, and thought he'd have just a bit of fun. It's not exactly like he gets a chance to be a normal demon that often, after all.

+He'd reached out to very gently tap them on the shoulder, expecting them to maybe jump a foot in the air, or to shriek with fear, so that he could say "surprise!" and laugh as they realised it was him.

+ Instead, just before he could reach their shoulder, they'd spun on heel and socked him dead in the gut.

+ He'd been so surprised that he'd stammered out an apology, watched them walk off in an indignant huff, and only started laughing at the absurdity of the situation several minutes later, when Barbatos asked why he was standing gourmlessly in the hallway.

I could probably go on much longer, but the post's getting a little long, so instead I'll leave you with this:

I haven't drawn in like ten thousand years and it absolutely shows, but the moment I read the words "sheep"!MC, this is what came to mind - and I just had to try and give my best rendition to it because the thought was so fucking funny to me.

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios

[a-queer-seminarian]

So sorry if this is breaking news to anyone, but: the Bible is ableist. Its pages hold some really shitty stuff about disabled persons.

...AND it’s also affirming of the goodness and wholeness of disabled persons, just as we are!

it turns out that among the many authors of the many texts collected into the Bible, there were differing views around what we now call disability!

so whenever disability comes up in a given passage, i can’t keep my brain from immediately trying to sort it: is it a Good Text for disabled persons, or a Bad Text?

i try to resist that easy binary, because the answer is usually somewhere in between. that certainly seems to be the case for this week’s lectionary reading from Mark 9.

there’s so much wild stuff in Jesus’s little monologue in this lectionary passage, but let’s start with verses 43-47 (my rough translation incoming):

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it all the way off; it is better for you to enter into The Life impaired than, while having two hands, to go away into the gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it all the way off! It is better for you to enter into The Life limping than, while having two feet, be cast into the gehenna.

And if your eye should cause you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God one-eyed than, while having two eyes, be cast into the gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire.

oh lord, not the hell talk!! anything but hell talk!! this whole passage bristles with a million ways to misuse it. (homophobia cw: anyone else ever get told “if your sexuality causes you to sin, cut it off — this passage is proof gay people should be celibate!” just me?)

now, my focus is on what Jesus says here about disability, but as we talk about that, better ways of reading the text will come up. for instance, that last verse about how everyone will be salted with fire? to me, that suggests Jesus’ vision of this “gehenna” place does NOT = the standard Christian idea of hell. first off, it’s a place not of punishment, but purification — which is a word heavy with baggage these days...what if I say “reformation” instead? And if that’s the case, i imagine one’s stay there isn’t eternal — why bother reform people who are gonna be shut off in a fire-filled jail forever?

once those fires “purify” you, i imagine your stay is through and off you go into “The Life,” because you’ll finally be ready for it. so that’s one option for getting ready for The Life / The Kingdom of God — or, Jesus says, you can opt instead to get rid of the things that “cause you to stumble” in advance by......cutting off a limb or gouging out an eye??

now. i could be wrong but. if we start by taking this text as literally as possible, with physical stumbling and a physical limb-removal taking place......wouldn’t it be easier to avoid tripping if you’ve got two eyes to see obstacles with, two feet to step over potholes with?? even today when prosthetics are sometimes an option, there’s an adjustment period where you have to relearn walking.

so it seems that Jesus is making one of his trademark statements meant to subvert expectations -- the last will be first, the foolish are proven wise, and those with two feet are more likely to stumble. chances are, he’s not speaking literally. it’s not your literal foot or hand you should be chopping off -- it’s a metaphor for something else.

but before we consider what exactly it’s a metaphor for...where does this ironic little twist leave actually disabled persons? is it shitty of Jesus to be using disability in this way? is this like his “blind leading the blind” & “spiritually blind” comments elsewhere in the Gospels, where he stamps a disability with a moral judgement?

yeah, i do think it’s kinda crappy to use real disabilities for an object lesson, for hyperbolic effect, for shock value. “better to be impaired” (even tho, the subtext seems to be, It Sucks To Be Impaired) “than end up in Gehenna. Trade one terrible thing for a still bad but not as bad thing!” My impulse is thus to throw this passage right into the Bad Text box —except!

Except, i feel like this text holds some positive implications about how Jesus viewed disability, too. 

First off, there’s the implication that one can enter into “The Life” — abundant life, “the world to come,” God’s Kingdom — while disabled. (i wish that were just a given, but it’s not; it’s actually exciting to hear confirmed!)

In the Hebrew Bible (the “Old Testament,” the scriptures we share with our Jewish neighbors, the texts that Jesus would have read and known), the most common assumption about disability is unfortunately that disability = imperfection, and imperfection is something that should be kept out of contact with God.

Now, there are authors & stories within the Hebrew Bible that offer a counter-narrative to that assumption! Two quick examples: Exodus 4 establishes Moses as having a speech impediment, yet he has many close encounters with the Divine. Meanwhile, in Isaiah 56:1-8, God not only welcomes in eunuchs — whom Deuteronomy 23:1 forbade from entering God’s Assembly — but even gives them a place of honor there!

So Jesus’s perspective is not brand new; he simply continues the counter-narrative that other Jewish rabbis and prophets established before him. Still, it is significant that he takes the status-quo-subverting perspective that actually, disability and wholeness are not at odds!

While Jesus’s primary aim with this little passage is not about disability, his weird self-disabling metaphor does imply an attitude of welcome for disabled persons, in that he seems to take it for granted that disabled persons are not barred from The Life of wholeness and abundance he’s talking about.

It’s obvious to him that they don’t even need to be made not-disabled to get there! (Plus, there is no suggestion that once there, one regrows one’s lopped-off limbs or eye / becomes abled again.) This isn’t the only time Jesus expresses this idea of disabilities present in God’s Kingdom, either — my fave is the parable of the banquet in Luke 14 (i have a whooole video about that passage, if you’re interested).

Moreover, Jesus’s closing remarks about salt — which at first glance seem to be something of a non sequitur — can be linked to the Gehenna fire stuff when it comes to the theme of im/purity. Let’s look at that last verse of the lectionary reading, which follows right after Jesus’s claim that “everyone will be salted with fire”:

“Salt is good; but if salt becomes unsalty, with what will you season it? Hold salt in yourselves, and keep peace with one another.”

Another weird little riddle from our favorite riddle-master. unsalty salt? instructions to stay salty?

One way to read this is to focus on the purifying and preserving uses of salt — the way it can keep food from going bad, which was particularly important in a time before refrigerators. in the previous verses, Jesus told his disciples what to cut off — anything that impedes them on the way into abundant Life. Now, he tells them what to hold on to — the stuff that, like salt, clean out harmful things and preserve helpful things, thus enabling abundant Life.

So yeah. In naming something culturally considered an imperfection — disability — as something that can easily enter The Life, no problem, Jesus is making an argument for what is truly impure, what truly impedes wholeness. And it’s not disability! ...So what is it? What are these stumbling blocks that Jesus likens to feet, hands, and eyes?

To find out, we have to rewind to the start of the lectionary reading, a comment from the disciple John that actually kicks off Jesus’s whole spiel:

John informed him, “Teacher, we saw someone throwing out demons in your name, and we stopped him, because he wasn’t following our way.”

But Jesus said, “Do not ever prevent him! For there is no one who will do a powerful work in my name, and will be quickly able to speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us, is for us. Whoever might give you a cup of water to drink because you are in Christ’s name, amen I say to you, that one will not utterly lose his reward.”

The disciples have a certain way of seeing the world, and their actions against someone who is not one of them, but still using Jesus’s name to cast out demons, show us what that way is. They see the world in terms of us vs. them, in vs. out, one right way and many wrong ways. It’s this perspective that impedes them from supporting other people’s kin(g)dom-building work when it differs from their own.

But Jesus tells them they need to stop thinking this way, and start recognizing that there isn’t just one road to the Kin(g)dom, but many — and to quote Jesus’s words from other parts of scripture, you’ll know that someone’s work is good when it produces good fruit. This dude might be doing things differently from how they do it, but the fruits of his efforts are good — the casting out of demons, which frees people up for new life. So don’t stop him — support him! Be glad for his work!

To sum up the entire passage now that I’ve laid it all out and shown how the seemingly-disjointed parts of Jesus’s speech connect, I see his argument as something like this: “That dude you tried to stop is not against us; we can see that by the consequences of his actions, which are positive! His goals are the same as ours, so don’t hinder him just because his path is different from yours! Now, here’s an example of people/behaviors that ARE against us: people who cause little ones to stumble. And you know what you should do with such stumble-makers (or else the stumble-causing behaviors/attitudes)? Cut them off. Let go of anyone or anything that keeps you from abundant life, from the liberation God intends for all. Meanwhile, hold on to the things which purify you like salt — the things that liberate you to enter wholeness. Do it now of your own accord, or accept that it’ll happen later, and it won’t be very fun.”

To reiterate what all of that has to do with disability theology, I’ll share what my friend Laura said when I brought all these ideas to them. (Laura is the host of the Autistic Liberation Theology podcast, which i highly recommend for anyone who wants to hear more Bible stories told through a disability lens!)

Laura noted how common perspectives around dis/ability lead people wrong today, impeding our liberation. Our society teaches us that in order to function as whole persons, we need to be able-bodied (and neurotypical), and that the kinds of accommodations that disabled persons require limit their quality of life. When those ableist assumptions are the lens through which we view the world, that can “cause us to stumble” in the metaphorical sense — can impede us from loving ourselves and one another fully, and from fully participating in the diverse Kin(g)dom of God.

They offered two examples:

When a person with a mobility impairment that could be improved with a wheelchair avoids using that wheelchair because of internalized ableism, preferring the increased suffering that walking more than their body can healthily do over being “wheelchair bound,” that internalized ableism is a stumbling block keeping them from abundant life. Learning to let go of those beliefs, to use a wheelchair when they need to, will — contrary to that “wheelchair bound” language — bring liberation. 

Their next example imagined a parent who puts their autistic child through ABA therapy in order to get them to talk, make eye contact, and otherwise behave like a non-autistic person, due to the belief that autistic persons are missing elements of a full personhood, or that they can only live a happy life if they learn how to mask their autistic traits. However, in reality, ABA therapy brings the child pain and trauma — it impedes rather than enables their quality of life. Letting go of that need for your child to communicate through spoken language and otherwise behave like an allistic will make room for celebration of who they really are!

As Jesus’s comments in this passage imply, a disabled person can enter into “The Life” of wholeness and kinship that is the Kin(g)dom of God just as they are. To try to sever their disability from them would be the hindrance to that liberation. To deny that there are many ways to participate in the Body of Christ  impedes the incoming Kin(g)dom.

So let’s take this message to heart. Let’s consider what points of view, what assumptions about what is necessary for wholeness, are currently keeping us from abundant life, or causing us to stop others from their abundance-bringing work. It’s time to learn how to let those harmful assumptions go — and hold tight to the things that bring true wholeness.

For more on this text, check out my translation notes, which include a lot of commentary from D. Mark Davis’s own exegetical work.

For more on disability theology, you might enjoy my #disability theology tag on tumblr or my Disabled AND Blessed YouTube series. This video exploring the many different perspectives on disability found within the Bible is particularly pertinent.

Finally, what do you think? What good news do you hear in this Mark 9 text? What parts of it feel like a stumbling block for you, dredging up hurt or confusion?

#what do you think? #disability theology #mark 9 #mark 9:38-50 #bible translation #translation #reading and studying the bible #bible tag #long post #log #fall 2021 #lectionary

[roman-writing]

bring home a haunting (6/12)

Fandom: The Haunting of Bly Manor

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 33,876

Summary: Dani almost has her life together, when a familiar face arrives back in town after ten years. A childhood friends AU written with @youngbloodbuzz

read it below or read it on AO3 here

On Friday night, Jamie showed up at the O'Mara's doorstep with a rucksack over her shoulder like some sort of vagabond from television.

"Hey," she said.

Dani smiled, holding the door open. "Hi. Is that everything? Or do you need help bringing stuff in?"

"Nope. This is it," Jamie said, shrugging at the bag’s weight and looking bored.

"Is that her?" Dani heard a voice behind her and suddenly Carson was at her elbow. He grabbed Jamie by the hand and hauled her bodily inside. "C'mon!" he said excitedly, not waiting for her to take off her shoes in the entryway. "You're going to be staying in my room! I've made up an inflatable mattress and everything!"

Jamie shot Dani a plaintive look over her shoulder, but there was little Dani could do except grin and shrug. She closed the front door and trailed after them, Carson leading Jamie towards the stairs.

"Hold up, mate. Hold up," Jamie muttered. She tugged her arm free and Carson's face fell until she said, "Your mum will flay me alive if I tread dirt all through the carpet."

"I would do no such thing," Judy said from the kitchen.

Jamie ducked her head and gave a sheepish wave into the kitchen. "Hello, Mrs. O'Mara. Thank you for having me."

"Not a problem, honey," Judy said, sounding absent-minded as she continued stirring a large pot on the stove. "Make yourself comfortable. But — yes. Shoes off, please."

Jamie gave Carson a nudge and muttered, "Told you."

"Sorry," Carson mumbled. He waited just long enough for Jamie to toe off her boots until he seized her arm again and began the process anew. "Okay! This way!"

Sighing, Jamie let herself be dragged off up the stairs. Dani trailed slowly behind, pausing in the entryway to the kitchen and peering inside. "Do you need any help?"

Judy did not even glance up. She only turned and began arranging various ingredients on the counter to be chopped for the upcoming dinner. "No, sweetie. I'm good here. Go make sure everyone gets unpacked for me, okay?"

"Okay."

Dani didn't need much encouragement. She raced after the others and was out of breath by the time she reached the top of the stairs.

"Woah!" Tommy raised his hands when they almost crashed into one another at the top of the landing. "Don't wheeze all over me, or Eddie will think it's my fault you're dying."

Rolling her eyes, Dani slipped past him with a mumbled, "Excuse me."

Tommy trotted down the stairs without another word, already calling out for David in the garage and receiving a yell from Mike to not shout in the house — a request which was promptly ignored as David called out in return. Dani ignored them and continued along the hall leading to Carson's room. She passed Eddie's on the way. His door was ajar, but there was a piece of paper painstakingly scrawled in some alien language which probably contained secret words to keep pesky siblings out. Elvish, he'd told her numerous times to no avail. It's an Elvish riddle.

At the very end of the hall, the door leading to Carson's room — the smallest in the house — was wide open. Dani poked her head in, knocking lightly at the open door despite her blanket invitation to enter whenever she so pleased. Inside, Carson was sitting on the corner of his bed, bouncing up and down on the mattress, wholly unable to contain his excitement, while Jamie stood in the middle of the room still clutching her rucksack and looking utterly lost. True to his word, there was an inflatable camp bed carefully laid out on the floor and sheathed in a fitted sheet, complete with a pillow and duvet.

"Sorry for how small it is," Carson said, and his every second word was punctuated by a squeak of complaint from his thin mattress. "But mom said you couldn't stay in the older boys' rooms."

"S'fine," Jamie said.

Her hand was gripping the straps of her rucksack so tightly that her knuckles were white.

Dani noticed. "Hey, Carson," she said brightly. "Can you go get a towel for Jamie to use? She'll need her own for a shower while she's staying over here."

"Yeah! Sure!" Immediately Carson leapt to his feet and scampered down the hallway, his footsteps stamping down the stairs to where Dani knew the linen closet was on the ground floor.

Aiming a soft smile at Jamie, Dani nudged the door slightly shut behind her. It wasn't much, but it was enough. It shielded them from the bulk of the noise that was ubiquitous in the O'Mara house. "How are you?" she asked.

Jamie shrugged. "M'Fine. Good," she said, but her grip was firm and her accent was thick even around the various monosyllables she managed through her tightly held jaw.

"When's Nan coming back?"

Drawing a deep breath, Jamie said, "Two weeks."

"Like no time at all," said Dani. "Soon you'll be complaining that she's back and that you wish she'd stayed away."

That earned a laugh, brief and strained though it was. Jamie's eyes were darting around the room, taking inventory of the exits available to her — door, window, another window down the hall in the bathroom.

“Did she tell you why she was going back?” Dani asked in an attempt to keep Jamie’s attention on her, on the conversation, on anything but the big house that wasn’t hers.

Jamie shook her head. “Just said she needed to -” she waved her hand in a sharp dismissive gesture “- take care of things. Family stuff. I dunno.”

The total sum of what Dani knew about Jamie’s family back in England could have filled a thimble. She took a step closer and Jamie shifted her weight between her feet as though preparing to run at the slightest provocation.

"Sorry it's so loud," Dani murmured, keeping her voice low. "I know it can take a while to get used to."

Jamie blinked owlishly at her. "I don't mind loud."

"Nan's not loud."

"Maybe not when you're around. But with me? She hollers like you wouldn't believe."

Another step, careful not to tread on the corner of the duvet sprawled across the floor. "You know," said Dani slowly. "I live just across the street. Not like clear across town from your house."

"Only good part about this plan," Jamie muttered under her breath.

Dani stopped when she was only a pace away, close enough that she could reach out and gently urge the pack from Jamie's tense shoulder. "Do you wish you'd gone to England with her?" she asked.

Somewhere downstairs there was a crash, a yell, Carson calling out his apologies and being thoroughly rebuked by David. Jamie winced, but tried to hide it with a twitch of her head. Swallowing thickly, looking anywhere but at her, Jamie allowed the rucksack to be pried from her death grip and lowered to the floor.

"Not really," Jamie said. "Wish I could've stayed at your house instead, maybe. Quieter."

Dani's smile faltered. "I did ask, but -"

"- Your mum's proper mental," Jamie finished for her with a weak smile. "Yeah. I know."

Of all the empty rooms in her house, Dani couldn't think of a single one Jamie would fit into without seeming out of place. Every time Jamie stepped foot inside, the house seemed to draw its breath in dreadful anticipation. Or perhaps that was the narrowing of Karen's eyes as she followed Jamie's every movement with furrowed suspicion.

“You wouldn’t have liked it,” Dani said. “Staying with me.”

Jamie looked at her with a curious expression. “Why not? You’re there.”

Dani opened her mouth to respond, but the words got trapped halfway to her tongue. She was saved by Carson’s enthusiastic return, the sound of his running footsteps preceding him until the door burst fully open once more.

“I got two!” he said, slightly out of breath, and he held out two matching towels to Jamie. “Here you go.”

Wooden, Jamie took the towels. “Thanks.”

“Mom said dinner will be ready in about an hour,” said Carson, completely oblivious to the way Jamie stood, back too straight, shoulders too rigid. “Do you want to go mess with Eddie?”

A smile twitched on Jamie’s face, but was gone in an instant. “Tempting.”

“Hey, let’s let Jamie unpack, okay?” Dani said. Draping an arm around Carson’s shoulders, she led him from the room.

“But she doesn’t even have that much stuff!” Carson complained even as he let himself be guided away.

“I know,” Dani said, lowering her voice. “But you need to give her some space, bud.”

Carson scrunched up his nose. “Fine,” he sighed, then pushed Dani’s arm off. “I’m going to go bug Eddie myself, then.”

As he rushed off down the hall and kicked open the door to Eddie’s room, Dani bit back a laugh, hearing Eddie’s voice rise in complaint.

“Get out of here, Carson!”

“Put down your book. Nobody cares about your dumb fantasy riddles.”

“Hey! Let go! Hey!”

Dani caught a glimpse of the tussle inside Eddie’s room as she passed. Carson had grown enough over the last year that he was just about Dani’s height. Large enough that he was giving Eddie a run for his money. Shaking her head, she continued towards the stairs but paused, hand on the railing.

Down the long hallway, Jamie was framed by the doorway to Carson’s room. She was standing stock-still and shell-shocked, holding the towels as though they were a shield. As if she could feel Dani's gaze upon her, Jamie looked over and met her eye. Dani gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile, but Jamie merely blinked at her and lifted one hand in a blank-faced wave. Stifling down the urge to rejoin her in Carson’s room — close the door, shut themselves away for a bit, do something — Dani descended down the steps.

In the kitchen, Judy was chopping carrots. “Hey, sweet pea,” she said in a distracted manner when Dani wandered into the room. “How’re they going up there?”

“Fine,” Dani lied. Then after a moment she added, “I don’t think Jamie’s used to being alone.”

“Think it’s quite the opposite, actually,” Judy said under her breath. When Dani gave her an odd look, she just smiled and set down the knife. “Here.” She pushed a bag of potatoes across the counter towards Dani. “Why don’t you peel some of these for me?”

Grateful for something to do other than anxiously wring her hands together, Dani grabbed a big metal bowl and fished around in a drawer for the peeler. She carefully watched Judy move around the kitchen, mentally noting what she did and how. Every once in a while, she would be brave enough to ask about the recipe, and Judy would answer without hesitation, as if cooking a fully fledged meal was something normal and not something that one only ever experienced when away from home.

At some point Mike came into the kitchen from the garage to wash his hands in the sink. He gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing a beer from the fridge and sitting at a barstool across the counter. Dani would instinctively check every time he sipped at his beer, even though she knew he never had more than one or two a night. He nursed his drinks in a way she never saw at home. When asked or addressed directly, he would give an occasional answer. Otherwise, he lingered there for nothing than the quiet presence of their company.

Dani was just finishing up with the bag of spuds, aiming their peels into the metal bowl, when she saw Jamie sidle into the kitchen. She was uncharacteristically furtive as she took the barstool furthest from Mike, sitting on her hands to minimise her usual fidgeting even as her leg bobbed up and down and up and down in an agitated rhythm.

“Are you thirsty?” asked Mike. “We have juice in the fridge.”

Jamie nodded brusquely. “Juice is good. Thanks.”

Without needing to be asked, Dani immediately pulled out the carton of juice from the refrigerator and poured a glass. Behind her, Judy took the peeled potatoes and gave them to Mike for cutting into quarters. He rose from his seat and took the knife handed to him without complaint.

With a smile Judy leaned forward and said, “So, I understand Ruth’s gone back to Scotland. I just love Scotland.”

Frowning and picking up her glass of juice for a sip, Jamie said, “She went to Burnley.”

Judy seemed not to have heard, for she sighed wistfully, “I remember when Mike and I went to Scotland back in ‘68. We have pictures! Mike, get the pictures.”

Dutiful to a fault, Mike set down the knife and wandered off to a bookshelf in the living room. Meanwhile, Jamie said, “Burnley, Mrs. O’Mara. As in Burnley, Lancashire. As in England.”

But Mike was walking back with a photo album in hand, and Judy was gesturing for it with grabby motions. Sitting on the barstool directly beside Jamie, she opened the album and scooted closer to Jamie. “And here we are at Ben Nevis,” Judy pointed. “Would you just look at that scenery? Gosh.”

Jamie made a wordless humming noise behind her teeth, and Dani could see her trying desperately to not fidget while Judy continued flipping through the album, pointing out various pictures and places that Jamie had probably never visited in her life. Dani rounded the counter so she could peer over the top of Jamie’s head at the pictures, resting a hand on Jamie’s shoulder as she did so. Jamie glanced back at her briefly and mouthed, ‘Save me.’ Dani grimaced and shrugged apologetically.

“The Scottish Highlands really are the most beautiful place in the world,” Judy said, running her hands along a photograph of vast hills of heath and stone beneath a cloudy sky. “I’m so amazed your grandmother used to live there. I would’ve loved to have lived there.”

“She was from the Lowlands,” Jamie pointed out dully.

“Does her family have their own tartan?” Judy asked, completely oblivious to the fact that Jamie had spoken at all.

“I don’t know, Mrs. O’Mara. She doesn’t talk about her time in Scotland much. And I’ve never been.”

“Does she still have family living there?” Then Judy gave a little gasp and warmly grasped Jamie’s wrist. “You could go visit one day!”

Beneath Dani’s hand, Jamie’s shoulder went tense. From this angle, Dani couldn’t see the expression on her face, but Jamie’s voice was tight when she said, “Excuse me. I need to use the loo.”

Scrape of the barstool against the floor — squeal of wood and tile — and Jamie stalked out of the kitchen, her shadow extending down the hallway behind her even as she had gone out of sight. Dani gazed after her, chewing at her lower lip.

“Oh, boy,” Mike said, shaking his head. He stirred a boiling pot on the stove with a long wooden spoon.

With a sigh, Judy shut the photo album. “I’ve never seen that girl so reserved.” She gave Dani a fond teasing nudge to her shoulder. “You must be rubbing off on her.”

Dani couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. She much preferred the Jamie full of carefree raucous energy in comparison to — whatever this version was. The Jamie she knew wasn’t scared and silent. The Jamie she knew picked fights with people twice her size. The Jamie she knew had a loud and easy laugh. The Jamie she knew was confident and comfortable in her own skin. The Jamie she knew was none of the things Dani would ever use to describe herself.

Clearing her throat, Dani made a motion towards the hallway even as she edged towards it. “I’ll just -” But neither of the adults in the room were listening much. Judy had wandered back to the stove and was engaged in murmuring conversation with her husband. Dani took the opportunity to slip away, unseen.

The hallway was dark and empty. The door leading to the garage at the far end of the corridor was shut, behind it the sounds of muted music and laughter. Overhead, Dani could hear the stamp of feet accompanied by Eddie and Carson’s bickering. She walked along the corridor, letting her hand trail against the painted wall. She paused at the door leading to the basement, but a quick check inside proved that the stairwell leading further down into the ground was pitch black. Just as she was shutting the door, Dani heard a faint choked sound.

Passing by the linen closet, Dani stopped before the door to the downstairs bathroom. She tested the handle only to find it locked. Tentatively, Dani lifted her fist and knocked on the door.

Silence followed. Then the sound of a toilet flushing. A few moments later, the door opened and Jamie stood there, scowling. “I was actually going to the bathroom, you know.”

Dani lifted an eyebrow. “No, you weren’t.”

“How the hell d’you know?” Jamie asked.

Gesturing over Jamie’s shoulder towards the sink, Dani said, “You didn’t wash your hands.”

“Maybe I’m just a dirty pig, then.”

Dani shot her an exasperated look. “You’re not. You always wash your hands.”

Jamie’s voice sounded sharp when she spoke. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re -” she cut herself off.

Dani's brow furrowed in confusion. “That I’m what?”

“Nosy,” Jamie snapped.

Taken aback, Dani blinked. She stared at Jamie, whose hands were curled into fists at her sides, lips pursed so that the scar stood out white against her skin, the muscles of her jaw bunched up and straining even while she refused to meet Dani’s gaze.

“Do you -” Dani started to say, hesitant. “- want me to leave you alone?”

Jamie glowered at a spot on the floor but did not answer. Her shoulders were tense beneath the oversized flannel she wore, the top few buttons undone to reveal the coin necklace Dani had given her at Christmas two years ago. Dani turned to leave, to walk back to the kitchen and let Jamie gather up the pieces of herself in peace, but Jamie’s hand darted out, grabbing Dani’s and holding tight. Jamie still wouldn’t look at her, but her fingers trembled. Her palms were cold and damp.

“Sorry,” Jamie mumbled. “Sorry. Being stupid. It’s - It’s stupid.”

“It’s not.” said Dani. “It’s just two weeks. She’ll be back.”

Jamie nodded, the movement small and jerky, but she appeared entirely unconvinced. “Yeah,” she rasped. “Yeah. Sure. Two weeks.”

“And I’ll be here.” Dani readjusted their hands so that their fingers laced together, and she stroked her thumb across the back of Jamie’s hand. “I’ll be right here.”

The hallway around the downstairs bathroom was dark and a soft shadow was cast over Jamie’s face. Her eyes were dark, searching Dani’s face with tiny flickers of movement, as if looking for any hint of deceit. “Promise?” she breathed.

Dani smiled softly and squeezed Jamie’s hand. “Promise.”

They stood close enough that Dani could see the fine downy hair at Jamie’s temples and without thinking she reached up to brush back a stray curl that had fallen into Jamie’s eyes. Jamie inhaled sharply. There was an odd expression on her face that Dani couldn’t place. Not blank like before in Carson’s room, but just as difficult to parse.

“David! Tommy! I need you to set the table, please!” Judy’s voice called from the kitchen.

In answer, the garage door just down the hall burst open, and the twins barrelled through. Jamie and Dani both jumped apart, Jamie snatching her hand back while Dani tucked a lock of hair behind her own ear. As he jogged by, Tommy reached out to ruffle Jamie’s hair in passing. Jamie scowled and smacked his hand away. He laughed it off and continued after his brother.

“Wanker,” Jamie muttered under her breath, but already her posture was more relaxed. She no longer clenched her jaw like she wanted to snap a steel rod between her back teeth.

“Come on,” Dani laughed. “Let’s go get dinner.”

--

Trailing behind her mother in the botanical gardens, while colorful and beautiful, was not how Dani pictured spending her Saturday afternoon. What was supposed to be a day lazing around with Jamie and the boys had turned into Dani playing dress up at her mother’s whims and being dragged along to some corporate family friendly function.

It was going marginally well for the most part, she thought with relief. She smiled at the right moments, shook hands with her mother’s colleagues with a firm grip the way Nan taught her, she kept fidgeting to a minimum, and above all, she was quiet. Unsure of what to say and when to speak, but eager to make a polite unassuming impression in the belief that afterwards she could go to the O’Mara household and be free of this. She merely lingered behind her mother, her shoulders stiff and her placid smile frozen, as though she were a marionette doll made of porcelain.

Part way through the event, as her mother grew more distracted, laughing with her colleagues, drink in hand, Dani began to wander off. The temptation to stroll the paths lined with greenery and flowers pulled her away until she was far enough to settle into herself, to relax, to take in the beauty of the place as the sun shone overhead and warmed her skin.

She should bring Jamie here, she thought idly to herself. And though Jamie would hotly deny it, Dani knew of her soft spot for plants, her hidden talent for it, having spent much of the summer helping Nan tend to the backyard garden. She’d enjoy the spectacle and quiet, while murmuring criticisms in the same breath.

Further along the path, passing by a plot of vibrant flowers she didn’t recognize, her eyes met Roger’s. He was standing beside his dad who was talking animatedly to a group of coworkers. She had noticed him earlier but kept away, even if he was the only other kid she vaguely knew in attendance. She’d barely spoken two words to him in years, not since that day in the alleyway at school. She couldn’t imagine what she’d say to him now. He was tall and lanky after an unexpected growth spurt last spring. He saw her and raised his hand in a fleeting wave. She offered a faint grin back and a short wave. At the sound of his dad laughing obnoxiously loud, they both grimaced at the same time and turned away.

Dani groaned quietly, wishing Jamie was here to keep her company with her commentary, and hidden knowledge of every single plant and flower that caught Dani’s eye, her tone dry as though she were just making it up and hadn’t spent the past month with her nose stuck in a well worn gardening book.

Eventually, Dani’s path led her straight back to her mom, laughing and seemingly having a good time, but when their eyes met, Dani almost jerked to a stop. Her mother’s expression was hard and her smile tight at the corners. Immediately, a cold sweat spread across Dani’s skin and her stomach clenched. Her mom jerked her head, beckoning Dani over. All but holding her breath, Dani made her way over. When Dani reached her, Karen slipped a hand around her arm, fingers pressing hard and pulling her in close before turning back to her coworker to laugh at a comment, as though nothing was amiss, as if Dani’s heart weren’t suddenly racing and her shoulders weren’t bunching up incrementally.

Dani spent the rest of the event there, racking her brain over what she had missed over the day, of what she could have done wrong to have received such a look, but there were no clues. No other hints that had been somehow misstepped. Just a carry over from a bad week, where Dani had spent as much time as possible away. Away from a house that was a digestive tract. Away from her mom doing the dishes or making drinks with rough, jerky movements, like the objects in hand had offended her. Away from the chain smoking and lingering side eyes as though Dani was one step from being on the receiving end of a sharp-tongued lecture if something was misplaced or misspoken.

By the time the event was over and they were back in the car, the cabin silent from radio or conversation, Dani could feel the tension seeping from her mother in waves. Her hands tight on the wheel and her mouth pursed, not a word uttered about the day. Clenching her teeth until they hurt, Dani rolled down the window just to feel the breeze against her face, soothing against her skin and loose hair, but not enough to relax her fists in her lap and the cramped coil in her stomach, twisting tight like a spring the closer they got to home.

The moment they arrived Dani wasted no time slipping out of the car and into the house with her own keys, hearing her mom following close behind. Pulling off her flats to neatly set aside and starting towards the staircase, Dani had only just managed to dart towards the stairs when her mother finally spoke.

“Danielle, I’d like a word with you, please,” Karen said, stepping into the kitchen without a backwards glance, adding a stern, “Now.”

Holding her fists tight to her sides, Dani swallowed heavily, slowly following her mom’s path into the kitchen to find her peering into the fridge and pulling out a bottle of already opened wine.

“Yes?” Dani said quietly.

Karen didn’t speak. Simply poured herself a glass of wine before pulling out a rumpled pack of cigarettes from her purse. She lit one up with slow, almost leisurely movements that seemed so wrong in contrast with the tightness around her eyes. Flick and snap of a silver lighter, rhythmic as clockwork. Taking her first drag, she looked at Dani, smoke billowing from pursed lips as she sighed and lifted the cigarette once more.

“What am I going to do with you?” Karen said finally, her voice accompanied by a plume of smoke that wreathed her face.

Dani clenched her teeth. Swallowing down words that would make whatever she had done worse, Dani instead said, “What - what did I do?”

“You really have no idea, don’t you?”

Dani's eyes darted away to the ground, going over the last few hours as though her socks might have the answer. “No,” she said, “I - Well, I thought we were having a nice day.”

Her mother scoffed. The sound was so derisive, Dani wanted to stumble barefoot out of the house and into the one across the street where she knew Jamie and the boys would be. Holed up and waiting for her to come back and greet her with bright smiles.

“A nice day?” Karen repeated, her tone incredulous. Dani’s eyes darted up, blinking in confusion. “Danielle, you barely spoke to anyone. You wandered off by yourself. You looked as miserable as ever -”

“I wasn’t,” Dani said, her breathing turning shallow, “I was - I was -”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

Dani’s mouth snapped shut. Her mother exhaled, taking another long drag of her cigarette. Dani held her breath from the suffocating smell and smoke until it dissipated. She pulled her arms tight around her chest, watching her mom rub her forehead.

“I just don’t understand you,” Karen said, strained at the edges, frustration filing the lines of her face, “Why can’t you do anything right? What's wrong with you?”

Dani felt her face flicker with a flinch, and she had to duck her head to hide it. Hide the tremble of her mouth and the burning in her eyes. She bit into her lip to quell the feeling and swallowed hard past the lump in her throat until she was finally able to speak in the unbearably quiet room.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - I didn't -”

Karen didn’t respond. The room remained suffocatingly silent, though Dani could feel the sting of her eyes, a long, unyielding stare. And then, there was the sound of glass sliding against the marble countertop, her mother picking up her wine. She stepped closer to Dani, no sound from her stockinged feet, until she stood just before her. Dani hunched her shoulders, wanting to back away, but there wasn’t anything behind her to shrink and meld into.

“You aren’t to go anywhere for the rest of this weekend, do you understand?” Karen said. “You are to sit in this house, and do your chores, and think about your behavior.”

Dani stared hard down at the wine glass that dangled loosely in her mom’s grip, wine threatening to spill over the lip. The ashes that scattered to the linoleum floor from her cigarette near Dani’s foot. She clenched her teeth silently before eventually nodding.

Without another word, her mother strode past her. Dani listened carefully to her footsteps as she stood frozen in the kitchen, hearing the soft thud of feet on stairs, traveling through the floor across the ceiling, and eventually, the click of a bedroom door being shut. Dani stood, alone, listening to the sound of her rapid heartbeat. She swallowed down the spark of belligerence in her chest, drowned out by the trembling of her hands and the stutter of her breathing. All hope of escape to the home across the street slowly drained from her. With befuddled disbelief. With weary acceptance. As though this was the only inevitable outcome at the end of a bad week like all the other bad weeks.

Throat tight, heart a clenched fist in her lungs, like moving through a dream — one moment here, one moment there — Dani made her way upstairs. Time passed in snippets. Changing from her sundress into pajamas. Washing the misery from her face in the form of swollen red eyes and splotchy skin with water cold enough to hurt. Curling into bed and sinking into the comforters, her head aching and exhaustion seeping into her bones despite the afternoon sunlight and muted birdsong still slanting through the window.

Her eyes drifted towards her nightstand, towards the walkie talkie Eddie had given her after the novelty had worn off for Carson, but Dani immediately shot the idea down. The walkie talkie was too loud, too exposed, and the house was too silent and too still. She hadn’t heard a noise from her mother since the kitchen, not even when she had crept upstairs to her room.  

She sat up in bed, daring to cross her room and hover her hand over the door handle. Just as quietly as she’d been before, Dani opened her door and peered around the corner of the doorframe to see her mom’s bedroom door still firmly shut. Assured with the minor hope that her mom may have fallen into a midday nap, Dani eased out of her room and downstairs, careful to avoid creaking steps and floorboards.

The kitchen phone, which had once been a creamy off-white, was now a sickly yellow, stained by decades of cigarette smoke. The coiled cord was long enough to reach across the room, and further when Dani pulled the entire phone off the wall with its long translucent and stained cable. Phone in hand, she slipped inside the broom closet in the hallway just outside the kitchen. Leaving the door open a crack to let in just enough light to see, a long strip of golden light that outlined the dust floating in the darkened room, she sank against the back wall with her knees pulled up to her chest and dialed the number she had long since memorized.

It rang just twice before Mike picked up. “Hello, O’Mara residence.”

“Hi, Mr. O’Mara,” Dani said, her voice slightly hoarse. She held her hand against the mouthpiece and cleared her throat before speaking again. “It’s me.”

“Oh, hey bud,” Mike replied, “How was your day?”

“It was really nice,” she lied, “Is Jamie there?”

In the time it took for him to call for Jamie and the crackling sound indicating the handset switching between hands, Dani had sunk further into the wall, pressing her eyes shut.

“Took you bloody long enough,” came Jamie’s voice finally, “You free to come down from your tower yet? I’m going absolutely mad. Tommy and David won’t give it a fucking break, and you’re not gonna believe what Carson dared me to do.”

"Language please, Jamie," Dani could hear Mike sigh in the background, his voice fading as he walked away and left them to it.

"Sorry, Mr. O'Mara," said Jamie, not sounding sorry at all.

Dani chuckled breathlessly, a pressure easing somewhat in her chest. “Hey, um,” she started, her voice quiet, “I’m not sure actually.”

“What d’you mean?” Jamie said. There was a ruffling sound in the background, as though Jamie were settling into her spot and making herself comfortable.

“I mean — “ Dani’s voice cracked. She swallowed hard. “I think I’m - no, I’m - I’m actually grounded.”

Jamie groaned. “Christ, what’s she going on about now? Did you have a strand of hair out of place or something?”

“Something like that,” Dani murmured, the sound of her voice sounding off even to her own ears, a tremble under the words.

The line was quiet for a long moment. “Dani,” Jamie said, her voice taking on a quiet and serious quality. “What happened?”

Dani didn’t respond. Not when she was fighting back the thickness in her throat, feeling her skin pull tight around her knuckles from the grip she had on the handset and biting down hard at her lower lip. When Dani remained silent, there was sound again from the other line, crackling pops and the movement of fabric until there was the soft click of a door being shut.

“Poppins, talk to me,” Jamie said softly.

Once, the nickname had been a joke years ago in the expanse of snow as far as the eye could see, one that Jamie had gleefully revelled in when they returned to school with her endless teasing about Miss Blythe. But then it had stuck, slowly developing into an affectionate term that Dani privately savored underneath her good natured grumbling. Now, Dani had to swallow down a swell of tears at the sound of it.

“It’s just - um. You know. Mom.”

Jamie snorted. “Gathered as much,” she said, “What’d she do?”

“Nothing. Nothing, I’m just — “ Dani pressed the ball of her palm hard to an eye, rubbing away the burning there “ — I’m just really tired.”

“Aye, and I’m Queen Liz,” Jamie said, and her voice went soft again, “Tell me, really. You don’t get this worked up over nothing. I mean, unless you’re the one that’s actually gone mad.”

Dani chuckled again, but her grin slipped away just as easily. “I’m just tired,” she repeated, leaning her head back against the wall, “I’m tired of trying and not being good enough.”

“You are,” Jamie said with conviction Dani wished she could feel a fraction of, “You’re a better sight than any of us, that’s for bloody sure.”

“But, she’s — “ Dani swallowed hard against the ache threatening to burst from her chest, “This entire week, she’s just been — “

“A cunt?” Jamie offered.

“Mean,” Dani said, “She’s been mean, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. Like if I do it in the wrong way, she’ll — “ She cut herself off.

For all her absences and sharp words, her mother has never laid a hand on Dani. But the feeling of her mom’s hands pressing hard into her skin still burned into her memory with a lance of fear she was wholly unfamiliar with.

Jamie was quiet for a long moment before softly offering, “Do you need me to come over? I can have a go at her, if you’d like?”

“No. Please, don’t.”

“I don’t mind.”

“It’s fine, it’ll - it’ll blow over,” Dani said, “It’s fine. She’s just in a mood.”

The closet door swung open. Dani gasped, nearly jerking out of her skin as she jumped hard, her foot kicking over a broom. She scrambled to keep the phone in hand even as she tangled herself up in the chord to grab the broom and keep it upright. She blinked rapidly up at the sudden bright light cascading into the small room, only to see a shadowed form looming over her. Her eyes adjusted to the light until finally she could see her mom, standing in the doorway, glowering darkly down, the lines of her face deep and shadowed.

“Dani?” Jamie’s said, startled. “Dani, are you okay?”

She couldn’t respond, couldn't speak. Words trapped in her throat. Her hands began to tremble, and she had to look away from her mom’s unblinking gaze, eyes darting towards some spot just behind her, her vision going out of focus as her breath became shallow.

“Dani,” Jamie said again, slowly, knowing. “Is she there?”

Clenching her teeth painfully tight, Dani could only hum affirmatively in response, her head nodding faintly.

“Okay,” Jamie breathed, and then there was the sound of movement again. “Okay, give me ten minutes - fuck! Shit! Ed, move your shit off the floor! Useless fucking -!”

The dial tone cut off Jamie's steady stream of swearing. Heart hammering in her chest, Dani slowly lowered the receiver and replaced it back into the base, the sound of plastic clacking against plastic loud in her ears along with the shallow breaths she took through her nose.

Dani flinched when her mom finally spoke. “Why were you on the phone?" Karen asked, her voice calm.

Any other day, it’d be a simple question and answer. Any other day, Dani would’ve happily replied. Today, Dani couldn’t respond. There were no good options. No matter what she did, answer correctly or remain quiet, she was guilty either way.

“Was it Judy?” Karen said, folding her arms across her chest, leaning against the doorframe. Dani shrunk further against the wall, her hands clutching the phone in a white knuckle grip. “Or was it that Heron woman? Or that wild girl of hers? Jamie.”

Dani remained quiet, vision blurring as tears pooled into her eyes. The ensuing silence was agony until finally, Karen relented with a huff and held out her hand. Without missing a beat, Dani pushed the phone into her mother’s hands.

"Well?" Karen asked. She held open the door and gestured with the phone as if encouraging a dog to make up its mind at the threshold of the backyard. "Are you coming out of there or not?"

It felt like some sort of trap. As though the moment Dani tried to leave, a foot or wire would be waiting to trip her. She sank further back, shaking her head and clutching the base of the broom like a lifeline.

"Suit yourself," Karen sighed, and without another word she swung the door shut once more, leaving Dani trembling in the dark.

Dani jerked hard at the sound, feeling as though the walls could collapse atop her like a house of cards. For a terrifying moment, Dani struggled to breathe at the idea that her mother might bar the door and lock her inside, but all she heard was her own shallow panicked breaths and footsteps stomping away, until eventually there was the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing.

Dani curled onto herself, her hands trembling hard against the skin over her legs where she held on tight. Blood rushed through her ears as a slow ember grew in her chest, spreading through her lungs like strangling vines, like mistletoe around the roots of a tree. She pressed a hand hard to her sternum, her fingers digging into her skin through her shirt as though she could rip out the sensation, feeling her heart pounding through skin and bone. Unable to stand the dark anymore, the walls that pressed in closer and closer until she couldn’t suck in enough air to breathe, she stumbled to her feet and pushed her way out, tripping over her own legs to collapse against the opposite wall. She pulled her knees up to her chest, her eyes pressed tightly shut, and sucked in the fresh open air, gasping for breath that hurt with every expansion of her lungs.

Dani didn’t know how long she sat there, desperately settling her breathing, swallowing down the panic. Slowly the world lengthened out again from the single point of struggling for air. She exhaled, the pain dissipating from her lungs. She rested her head back against the wall, eyes opening to the lines of early evening light streaking across the ceiling, lethargically wiping at her cheeks. She pushed to her feet, and moved towards the bathroom for the second time today to wash her face. Brisk sting of water against her heated skin, grounding even as it hurt. After drying her face, she stepped out towards the foyer of the house, the floor cold beneath her feet.

There was an eerie silence now that her mother was gone. It should’ve been a comfort, being away from the sting of aimless anger and disappointment. When she glanced around however, she was eight years old again, and left to fend for herself in an empty, expansive house that felt like a creature that could swallow her whole. Like she could step into a room and find a door leading her to another room. And another and another. The house expanding and collapsing like a cage of ribs with every step she took until she could no longer find the exit.

Upstairs — a muffled thump coming from the second floor. Dani jerked, blinking up at the ceiling. Another thump, louder this time. Swallowing hard, Dani reached towards a stand near the door, pulling out a long, thin black umbrella with a pointy end, and started towards the stairs.

She walked slowly, ears pricked. Flinching at another loud thump, evidently coming from her own room, her frown deepened as she edged towards it, holding up the umbrella in front of her, as though wielding a sword. But when she slowly pushed open her door with her fingertips, her head peeking around the door as it swung open, she lowered the umbrella when she found the room empty, just as she had left it.

Dani stepped further inside, her frown slipping away to a dim sense of concern.

Another loud thump. Dani jumped and spun towards the sound. Her eyes went wide when her gaze landed on her window.

“Jamie!” she hissed, dropping the umbrella to the carpet with a soft thud, and rushed towards the window.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Jamie grunted from where she hung, fingers white as they gripped the window ledge between the small gap where Dani had her window open. Half her body clung to the meager amount of roof just below Dani’s window, her rucksack dangling from her shoulder as her brows furrowed and jaws clenched in concentration, her face red from effort.

Dani ripped the window open with a thud and grabbed at Jamie’s arms to pull her in, grumbling and grunting the entire time. “Are you insane?” Dani said when Jamie was safe enough to pull herself the rest of the way inside Dani’s room.

“Not since I last checked,” Jamie said, breathing hard as she tumbled inside, gripping her rucksack with white knuckles and her eyes wide with a sort of frantic wildness, like she couldn’t believe she’d just scaled the sheer side of a house. Her hair was a tousled mess, frizzy strands dangling in front of her eyes. Dani tisked and reached forward to push them off Jamie’s face with a scowl. Grinning wildly, Jamie dropped her rucksack to the carpet and twisted around to lean towards the window, stretching and shaking out her hands as she craned her head to peer outside with a whistle, “Christ, that took some work.”

Dani pushed past her to lean outside the window, eyes darting around with increasing disbelief. “How did you even get up here?”

“Climbed?”

Dani spun around to give her a look.

Jamie shrugged, wearing an impish grin. “Started with the tree, hopped over to the roof, and shimmied over. Easy as you please,” Jamie said, peeling her shoes off and shoving them under Dani’s bed. “Would’ve tried for that branch right by the window, but the bloody thing was too far to reach.”

Turning again to glance out the window to trace the path Jamie took, Dani felt her stomach plummet and her face blanch at the terrifying distance Jamie would’ve had to cross between the tree and the meager roof. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon. “You could’ve broken your neck!”

“I’m alive, aren’t I?” Jamie said, “How else was I supposed to sneak in?”

Dani huffed, crossing her arms. “You could’ve used the front door like a normal person.”

The look Jamie gave her was both amused and dubious. “Oh, sure, and your mum would’ve just let me inside with you grounded and all,” Jamie said, and gestured towards Dani, “And what about you? You know how long I’ve been hanging on out there, banging on the window?”

“That’s what you call sneaking in? She would’ve heard you anyways if she was home.”

Jamie paused. “Wait, she isn’t home?”

“No, doofus,” Dani said, “She left a little while ago.”

Jamie rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know that? I was busy dangling from your roof, thank you very much,” Jamie said, and then she was grinning again, her hands tucked into her back pockets, looking far too pleased with herself. “Hey, least I know I can do it now. Next stop: water tower, yeah?”

Dani glowered at her. “No.”

Huffing softly with laughter, Jamie arched an eyebrow and gave her a fond look. It hit Dani like a ton of bricks when the realization struck her, her face slowly falling.

“God,” she groaned, burying her face into her hands, panic settling in, “ Shit . I sound just like her.”

Laughing softly again, Jamie said, “Nah. I reckon you sound just like yourself.”

But Dani couldn’t respond, the image of mother’s glower and the painful grip of her hand pressed hard on her chest. The sound of the closet slamming shut and the ensuing darkness prickling at her skin until her fingers were shaking again as they dug hard into her face.

“Dani?” Jamie said softly.

Hearing her take a careful step closer, Dani curled into her shoulders. “I’m fine,” she mumbled, her throat thick.

Warm fingers grazed the skin of Dani’s wrists, so light that it almost tickled. “Dani,” Jamie said again, slightly firmer this time, more steady. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” Dani sucked in a ragged breath and nodded blindly, feeling herself lean forwards. Jamie’s fingers wrapped around Dani’s wrists into a firm, grounding grip. “It’s okay, c’mere.”

There was a gentle tug on her arm, and Dani went easily, sinking into Jamie, burying her face into her shoulder and wrapping her arms around her waist. Jamie pulled her in close, murmuring, “I’ve got you.”

Tears sprung in Dani’s eyes again, sinking further into Jamie. If Jamie noticed her shoulders shaking from the soft hitching gasps Dani was desperately trying to keep quiet, she never said a word. Just held her tight enough until it hurt, the pressure grounding in such a way that slowly, Dani’s tears ebbed away, leaving her breathing heavy, but steadier as the seconds ticked by.

Jamie’s hand rubbed her back in a soothing motion, the pressure of her arms gradually easing. “Better now?” Jamie asked, quiet and gentle.

Swallowing hard, Dani inhaled deeply, breathing in the soft familiar scent of soap the O’Mara’s favored and the faint hint of earth on her worn shirt. Dani nodded, a short up and down jerk of her head, and pulled her face away just enough from Jamie’s shoulder to murmur, “You always give the best hugs.”

Jamie chuckled. “S’what I’m here for,” she said with another brief hard squeeze, and then gently offered, “You wanna talk about it?”

Dani shook her head.

“No problem.”

With Jamie seemingly happy to remain where she was, Dani held on for just a moment longer, savoring the comfort from her best friend, until Jamie said, “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Poppins, but you weren’t planning on knocking me out cold with an umbrella, right?”

Dani laughed, a pressure valve releasing from her chest, feeling like she could breathe properly again. Jamie chuckled, and murmured, “There we are.”

“I thought you were a burglar or something.”

“A burglar? In North Liberty? Jesus, that’s considered grounds for a life sentence here, inn’it?”

Dani giggled breathlessly. “Something like that,” she murmured. They fell silent again, Jamie’s arms warm and steady around her like an anchor, until finally, Dani broke and said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t,” Jamie said, her voice firm. “Look, I know I’m a twat on the best of days, but you don’t ever have to apologize for something like that, all right?” When Dani didn’t respond, Jamie flicked her on the back of the head. “All right?”

Dani huffed and pinched her side in retaliation, pleased when Jamie twitched. “All right,” she said, finally easing away, her head ducked as she hastily rubbed her cheeks and under her eyes.

“Good,” Jamie said, and when Dani stepped away towards the umbrella, still not looking straight at Jamie, she added, “Sure you’re steady enough to handle that? Haven’t you heard umbrella’s are considered a deadly weapon?”

Dani picked up the aforementioned umbrella and brandished it towards Jamie as though to spear her through the stomach. “Don’t make me use this.”

Holding up her hands in a gesture of peace, Jamie chuckled and smirked, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Rolling her eyes, Dani left her in the room to stumble back downstairs and replace the umbrella in its stand. She stood there and exhaled heavily, pressing her hands again to her eyes to steady herself. When it finally felt like she wasn’t about to collapse into pieces, she made towards the kitchen and went about setting up the kettle on the stove to heat. Taking out the mugs that she and Jamie favored — one patterned with stars, the other with florals — she also reached further back in the cupboard to pull out a hidden old altoid tin that was packed with a ziplock of teabags. A treasure trove she had once scoured from Jamie’s house for times like these when she was over.

Leaning against the counter as she waited for the kettle to boil, her eyes landed on the kitchen phone that lay discarded haphazardly on the counter top. It laid on its side with the handset having fallen off the base, and the translucent cable unplugged and tossed to the floor. Her hand drifted towards her mouth, eyes unseeing as she bit her thumb hard enough to hurt.

The kettle whistled. She jumped, jerking her thumb away from her mouth at the shrill sound, and she rushed to pull the kettle off the stove and turn the burner off with a rough twist of her wrist. She exhaled heavily, steadying her racing heart, and began putting together their tea.

When she arrived back to her room, mugs of tea in hand, she smiled fondly at the sight that greeted her. Jamie had made herself at home, stretching out on her bed with one leg crossed over the other and an arm resting behind her head as she held up Eddie’s walkie talkie to her mouth, making grotesque noises.

“Edmund,” she drawled in a guttural voice, “I’m coming for you, Edmund. I’m gonna eat your eyeballs.”

Dani snorted. “Just because it worked once, doesn’t mean it will again.”

Rolling her eyes, Jamie rested the walkie talkie against her chest. “Worth a shot,” she sighed, and then her eyes brightened when she caught sight of the mugs in Dani’s hand. She sat up, discarding the walkie talkie beside her and made a grabbing motion towards the floral patterned cup, “Oh, you’re a star.”

Easing onto the bed next to Jamie, she handed the mug over and watched eagerly as Jamie’s mouth curled into a pleased grin, her hand fearlessly wrapping the burning hot mug with practised ease. But at the first sip, she froze, going stock still as her brow knitted together.

“Well?” Dani asked.

Lowering the mug from her mouth, Jamie frowned contemplatively down at the steaming beverage with pursed lips, faintly nodding. “It’s a talent you have,” she said, “Truly.”

Dani groaned, easing back against her pillows, raising her own mug — a smattering of silver stars against a dark blue backdrop — to her mouth, taking a careful sip of her own. “Tastes fine to me,” she muttered.

Laughing, Jamie nudged her leg with her knee. “Appreciate the effort though,” she said, “Didn’t even need to ask for any. And it’s the kind from home, too. Nan know you nicked some from her precious stash?”

“Maybe,” Dani mumbled into her mug, but her eyes darted to Jamie all the same at the mention of Nan, looking for any lingering tension of any kind in Jamie’s demeanor. All she found was a reserved quiet as Jamie sipped again at her tea without any complaint, though she wasn’t able to hide her mouth twisting in distaste as she rested her mug on the nightstand.

“I brought some stuff to keep us company,” Jamie said, grabbing her bag from off the floor and hauling it on her lap, digging her arm inside, “Unless you wanna go downstairs and watch something.”

“No,” Dani said immediately, shaking her head, “She could come home any second.”

“You sure? I’m sneakier than a cat,” Jamie said, “There’s plenty of places to hide, besides. She’d never know I’m here.”

Dani shook her head resolutely. “No, I want to stay up here with you.”

Smiling fondly, Jamie relented with a soft, “All right, then.”

She pulled out her transistor radio and switched it on, the sound of electric guitars and drums filing the room. Twisting a knob on top, the rough alternate music that Jamie loved cut off to a jumbled flickering of noise as Jamie sped through stations until landing on one they both enjoyed. It was only by staring at Jamie’s hands did Dani finally notice the inexplicable blue paint on her nails.

“There we are,” Jamie said to the sound of soft rock music, and set the radio on the nightstand next to her tea.

When Jamie settled back against the pillows, Dani grabbed her hand, inspecting the color. “Is this nailpolish?” she asked, incredulous.

Jamie sighed exasperatedly. “Told you. Carson’s fuckin’ fault,” Jamie grumbled, allowing Dani to inspect her nails with fascination, “Bet him he was too scared to paint his nails with Judy’s nailpolish and the cheeky bastard dared me to do it also if he followed through.”

“So —?”

“So, he’s rocking hot pink nails for the foreseeable future.”

Dani laughed, resting her head against Jamie’s shoulder. “I’d kill for a photo of that.”

“I’ll get it for you when I head back,” Jamie said, her mouth twisting into a mischievous smirk, “Blackmail has never sounded so good.”

Huffing with a soft laugh, Dani smacked Jamie’s arm. “You’re a menace.”

Humming softly, her smirk twisting into outright devilish territory, Jamie reached into her bag again and pulled out two books. “Also brought these with me,” she said in a suspiciously light tone. “Thought you might enjoy an evening of fancy entertainment.”

Narrowing her eyes, Dani reached with her free hand to inspect the books, and when she caught a peak of a familiar provocative cover, she yanked her hand back as if it had been scalded, jerking her head from Jamie’s shoulder. “Jamie!” she hissed, shuffling away and resting her mug on the nightstand on the other side of her bed as Jamie laughed loudly, “Why do you still have that?”

“‘Cause I haven’t finished it?” Jamie said, her voice turning up at the end as though she were answering a dumb question. The smile she wore and the glint in her eyes said she was taking great delight in the way Dani’s cheeks heated up. “You saying you aren’t interested? Brought it just for you.”

Dani scowled. “No, I am not interested,” she said, and warily eyed the way Jamie tossed the other, thicker tome on the bed to rapidly flip through the book, the yellowed pages fragile and flimsy in Jamie’s hands.

The book in question was one of those dirty dime paperbacks hidden at the top shelves of gas stations, the cover an artist's depiction of a blonde woman scantily clad in a dark dress on a bed. It was ancient and peeling in places along the edges, and above all, it belonged to David. Just a week before Nan had set off to England, Jamie had proudly and wickedly showed off her prize in her room to Dani, claiming to have found it peeking out from between the mattresses of David’s bed a few days prior. Dani had nearly ran from the room just from the sheer embarrassment of being in the mere presence of it, her face scalding red.

“How has David not killed you yet?”

“Still doesn’t know who nicked it,” Jamie said, and snickered, “Absolutely losing the plot, too. Keeps looking at Judy and Mike like they’ll strike him down any second.”

“Like I said: a menace.”

Jamie winked and smirked, “You love it.” And without warning, just as Dani was fondly shaking her head, Jamie opened the small paperback, muttered, “Now, where was I,” and began to read outloud.

“Jamie,” she groaned, feeling her face burn at the explicit content Jamie was gleefully reciting.

“Oh, hold on. This bit is good,” Jamie said in between breaths of laughter, “She was ready for him, her lips red and wet, her tongue a thing of raging desire —”

Dani smothered Jamie’s mouth with her hand. “Oh, my god, please stop.”

Laughing against her palm, Jamie pushed her hand away. “He almost died in the wonder of her kiss, of her surging body, and as he thru — shit, wait. Gross. Hold on, here’s a better part  —”

“Oh, my god.” Dani rose to her knees, grabbed the pillow from behind her, and pushed it into Jamie’s face. “Shut up .”

Jamie laughed wildly as Dani pushed her down on the bed, smothering her face just enough to make her stop. Dani held one hand down on the pillow as the other stretched for the book. At the graze of their hands, Dani dangerously close to ripping the book from Jamie’s grasp, Jamie yanked the book away from Dani’s reach. The bed shook as Jamie flailed her legs, squirming away, a foot threatening to push Dani off by her stomach. Laughing just as hard as Jamie, her sides twisting into a cramp, Dani pushed Jamie’s legs out of the way to straddle her hips and gain the advantage.

Jamie froze, her laughter cut off as she sucked in a muffled breath.

“Are you done?” Dani said between fits of giggling, her grip firm on the pillow over Jamie’s face.

Jamie was barely breathing, her ribs beneath her t-shirt expanding and shrinking with shallow movement. A spark of concern abruptly lit in Dani’s chest. She ripped the pillow from Jamie’s face, fearing that she’d maybe smothered her, but she was greeted with Jamie blinking up at her with wide eyes. Her face was flushed, her hair a tangled mess across the pillow beneath her, the coin necklace twisted around her neck.

“Did I almost just kill you?” Dani said, just short of panicking as she leaned closer to get a better look.

Her throat bobbing, Jamie’s eyes flashed across over her so fast, she could’ve imagined it. “I’m breathing, aren’t I?” Jamie said, chuckling breathlessly.

“Hardly,” Dani said dryly, sitting upright and folding her arms. “Now, are you done?”

Jamie smirked. “Maybe.”

Dani gave her a look and held out a hand. “Give me the book.”

Jamie rolled her eyes with a sigh so long-suffering that Dani snickered. “Yes ma’am,” Jamie drawled with another smirk, and moved as if to finally hand the book to her, but her hand froze midair with a considering frown that bordered on insolence. “But are you sure, though? Was just getting to my favorite part. Something about grabbing a pair of firm, creamy bre — “

“Ugh,” Dani groaned, ripping the book from Jamie’s grasp to toss across the room with a thud and pressed the pillow back to Jamie’s laughing face.

Pushing up and away from Jamie and the bed, Dani marched to her bookcase and pulled out a random book from a shelf. “Here,” she said, flinging it onto Jamie’s stomach without even looking to see what it was, her cheeks still burning, “An actual real book you can read.”

Jamie at this point had pulled the pillow from her face and sat up, dishevelled and fondly amused as she picked up the book to look it over. She snorted. “Mrs. Dalloway? Really?” she said, arching an eyebrow at Dani. When Dani gave her another biting look, Jamie aimed a wry grin at her as she tossed the book aside to grab the other paperback she had brought, waggling it in Dani’s direction, “I brought a backup, don’t you worry.”

Scowling, Dani dropped heavily back onto the bed without a glance in Jamie’s direction, swiped up Mrs Dalloway from the sheets and promptly buried her nose in its pages. “Your tea is probably cold now,” she muttered, ignoring Jamie’s soft snickers, her skin refusing to cool down.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Dani elbowed her hard in the ribs, smirking when Jamie grunted at the impact.

They finally settled after that, sinking into the bedding and pillows next to each other, lost in the world of their individual books. Music played softly to keep them company. Knees and feet occasionally knocking together, shoulders pressed up against each other. Her eyes became heavier as she read, the words blurring in and out of darkness as she sunk further into the mattress, easing her head on Jamie’s shoulder. While she couldn’t see her expression from this angle, she could picture Jamie’s eyebrows faintly furrowed in concentration, turning a page every so often, quietly engrossed in her book that Dani’s seen her cart around before: Valley of the Dolls.

“Is yours any good?” Dani asked.

Jamie’s shoulder shrugged under her head. “Suppose so. Unless you find reading about a couple of Hollywood actresses ruining their lives any kind of fun.”

Dani frowned. “Where did you even get it?”

“Came with the house. Found it in a box in the basement,” Jamie said, “It’s a bit barmy to be honest.”

Humming contemplatively, Dani glanced over the words on the page Jamie had open, finding what she saw nonsensical out of context. “Not the first time I’ve seen you read it though.” Jamie chuckled softly, but didn’t respond. “Can I read it when you're done?”

“Not really your kinda book I think,” Jamie said, a finger tapping on the edge of the pages.

Dani rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me smother you again.”

“Fine. You can have it now if you’d like?”

“It’s okay. You can finish first.”

“As you wish,” Jamie said softly.

They fell quiet again. Dani found that she couldn’t concentrate on the words before her, not with Jamie breathing softly beside her, or her curtains ruffling as the warm summer breeze wafted through her open window, or the music that played like white noise in the background. Her head drooped heavier onto Jamie’s shoulder until she finally let her eyes slip shut.

The next time her eyes fluttered open, the room was darker than she last remembered, the evening sun casting sharp streaks of light across her room. She was curled up on her side, facing the wall but she could still feel the warm length of Jamie next to her. Her eyes landed on the jar on her desk labelled ‘Travel Fund’ , and blinked drowsily at the dollar bill she hadn’t seen earlier that day stuffed inside.

Slowly, her head feeling heavy and sluggish still, she turned around and gazed up at Jamie. Expression set with concentration that seemed more like a scowl than anything, Jamie held up the half dollar coin attached to her necklace, rubbing it between the pads of her fingers while the other hand now held open Mrs. Dalloway. She already seemed to be at least twenty pages in and visibly struggling with the prose, but determined to continue. Then Jamie’s eyes flitted down to Dani and her expression softened.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Jamie said.

With a groan, Dani rubbed her dry eyes and turned on her back. “How long was I out?” she asked, her voice rough with sleep.

“Bit over two hours.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

Jamie shrugged, resting the book against her legs. “Reckoned you needed the sleep. Had a long day, and all.”

The smile Dani gave her was warm and affectionate, even as her stomach clenched at the reminder of the day's whirlwind of events. Jamie’s throat bobbed, and returned her gaze to the book. “Mind if I borrow this?” At the shake of Dani’s head, Jamie grinned, marking her place with a bookmark before setting the book aside. She visibly hesitated, before she said, “Your mum came home a bit ago, by the way.”

Dani’s stomach sank. “Oh.”

“Hasn’t come to check on you. I blocked the door just in case,” Jamie said with a short gesture to Dani’s bedroom door where clothes hung on a door rack and a chair that normally held clean laundry was propped against the doorknob. “Heard the tv on since she got in, and not a peep since.”

When Dani didn’t respond, didn’t move besides the clenching of her fists and stomach, Jamie calmly continued. “Ed checked in too. Wanted to see how we were doing. You know how he is; always worried. Scared of your mum too. Bit mental how you slept through that though. Thought Carson was gonna blow out the speakers with how loud he was banging on for us to sneak back over.”

Dani huffed out a laugh, and Jamie smiled down at her. “We missed dinner too,” Jamie said, “Ed said that Judy made us plates, so I ran over to grab ‘em and let her know I’ll be here for the night.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Dani pushed herself up, eyes wide. “But - mom. She - “

“Didn’t see me,” Jamie said, and smiled reassuringly. “She was asleep.”

“Okay,” Dani breathed, nodding faintly, panic quickly receding. She exhaled slowly, grateful for Jamie’s comforting silence, their knees pressing together. “I should - um. I should check on her. See if she’s okay.”

Jamie nodded easily. “I’ll come help bring up dinner.”

Dani swallowed hard, but nodded.

They slipped their way out of Dani’s room, and padded softly downstairs. The lights in the living room were off from where Dani could see in the hall, but for the evening sun and the flickering light of the tv cascading the room. Jamie slipped away to the kitchen, while Dani continued onwards towards the smell of smoke and wine.

Her mother lay sideways on the couch facing the television, breathing deeply as she slept, still wearing her clothes from earlier today, rumbled and wrinkled. A glass with remnant drops of wine sat on the coffee table next to a bottle and an ashtray littered with crushed cigarette buds. Dani swallowed hard, an anxious pit forming in her stomach just at the sight of her, but as she edged closer, eyes searching for any lit or forgotten cigarettes, she slowed when her eyes landed on her mother’s face.

Exhaling softly, Dani moved with the muscle memory of having done this a hundred times before. Reaching for the patterned throw blanket draped across the back of the couch, unfolding it to drape it across her mom’s sleeping form, careful to tuck her in with as little contact as possible. Frowning down at her, Dani hesitantly reached her hand out and shifted a stray strand of blonde hair out of her mother’s face. Karen shifted and Dani pulled her hand away, tightening them into fists by her side, but her mother did not wake.

Doing one more scan across the floor and couch, pleased to find no cigarettes in sight, she turned the tv off and gathered the wine glass and bottle, starting towards the kitchen without a backwards glance. But as she turned, she jerked to a stop at the sight of Jamie standing frozen by the entrance, two plates of food already in hand, eyes unblinking on the sleeping form of her mom, wearing a deep frown that shadowed her features.

Swallowing down a swell shame, Dani stepped closer into Jamie’s eyeline. “Hey,” she murmured.

Jamie’s eyes caught Dani’s, blinking owlishly, her shoulders taut and the muscles of her jaw corded tight. “See you upstairs,” Jamie muttered, and disappeared up the staircase without another word.

Biting at her lip, her stomach clenching, Dani continued towards the kitchen. She washed the wine glass and set the empty wine bottle away under the sink, trying to settle the worrying pit in her stomach from Jamie’s tightened expression, having made its return since the day before at the O’Mara’s. When she was done, she gathered two glasses of orange juice and returned upstairs to her room with a deep fortifying breath.

Jamie was already wolfing down her dinner, shepherd’s pie from the looks of it, not glancing up as Dani entered and blocking the door again behind her. She set Jamie’s juice on the nightstand beside her before returning to her spot on the other side of her bed where her plate was waiting for her.

“Is it good?” Dani asked, more just to hear Jamie’s voice again rather than the quality of food that she already knew would be hearty and appetizing.

Her mouth full, Jamie nodded with a grunt, not looking at Dani.

Ducking her head, her plate in her lap, Dani pushed around the food with her fork. “Sorry,” she said, her voice trembling.

Jamie froze beside her, her knuckles white around her fork. She slowly turned her head to stare at Dani. “What for?” she asked, her voice low and flat.

“Just -” Dani made a weak gesture towards the door, towards downstairs, where her mother slept. “- That.”

“No,” Jamie choked out. “I’m -” She cut herself off, falling silent for a long moment before dropping her fork to the plate, metal clanging against ceramic, and pushed the plate away on the bed.

Dani looked up at her, seeing that same darkened expression, her teeth clenched and her brows furrowed, working her jaw as though she was desperately trying to think of something to say. Dani glanced away, back to her food.

“It’s okay - um. Let’s - let’s just finish dinner,” Dani mumbled.

She could feel Jamie’s eyes on her, piercing and unblinking. When Dani finally forked a mouthful of food into her mouth, she saw out of the corner of her eye Jamie reached forward to pull her plate back into her lap. It was painfully quiet, besides the radio still going and the scrapping of their plates. Dani found that she could barely taste anything at all as she ate. Jamie finished her meal before her — she always ate as though the food might disappear at any moment — setting her plate aside on the table before leaning back against the pillows, knees pulled up to her chest, her hands dangling over her knees, clenching and unclenching. When Dani finished, sipping at her juice before moving to stand, Jamie spoke again, her voice quiet.

“Sorry.”

Dani froze. “Why?”

Visibly swallowing hard, Jamie rolled her head against the headboard to meet Dani’s eyes. At Dani’s frown, Jamie pushed herself up, crossing her legs and taking Dani’s plate from her hands to discard on her own before shifting to fully face Dani, her expression taut but determined.

“I told you that you never had to apologize to me for things like that, for your mum, and I — “ Jamie’s voice cracked, and she scowled down at her lap in response. Slowly, Dani turned to face her, mirroring her crossed legs and patiently waited, her heart thumping steadily against her ribs. Jamie inhaled slowly and caught her gaze again, her eyes stormy and vivid.

“You don’t ever have to be ashamed of it. Of any of it. Not to me,” Jamie said, but there was an odd pinch to Jamie’s expression, a darkened hue of shame of her own as she was unable to hold Dani’s gaze any longer, eyes darting down to her lap. “I just - what I’m trying to say is that I understand. I know what it’s like, what it feels like. More than you think.”

Slowly, Dani reached out and grasped one of Jamie’s hands to pull in her lap, unfurling her clenched fist to lace their fingers together, her thumb running over Jamie’s knuckles, feeling the grooves on her skin. Jamie exhaled slowly, quietly. The muscles of her shoulders easing from their tight coils.

“Told you, you wouldn’t have liked staying here,” Dani murmured.

Jamie’s eyes flashed up to Dani’s, intense and sharp, pinning Dani to the spot. “I meant what I said,” she said, “S’long as you’re here, that’s all I need.”

Words trapped in her throat, not knowing what else to say, Dani just nodded. Her grip on Jamie’s hand tightened. She felt the ghost of the pressure return in her chest before she pulled her hand away and curled on her side upon the mattress. Jamie followed her, facing Dani with a look of faint concern.

“So, she overheard you today?” Jamie asked quietly.

After a moment, fiddling with a strand of untwined thread from her comforter, Dani shrugged. “I don’t know,” she murmured, “She didn’t really say anything. She — ” Dani’s voice caught, memories of trembling in the dark “ — she left kind of right after.”

Jamie watched her quietly, her eyes traveling over her face as if searching for something. “Y’know,” Jamie started slowly, “You’re over all the time already, but you’re always welcome to stay with us whenever you like. If you don’t want to be here or you’re sick of the lads across the street. Nan doesn’t act like it, but she likes you. She wouldn’t mind.”

“I couldn’t - I couldn’t ask you to —”

“Dani,” Jamie interrupted, her grin soft, “We wouldn’t mind. Really.”

Dani could only smile, a warmth spreading across her chest as she reached a hand forward to link their pinkies. “Okay,” she murmured.

“And,” Jamie continued, a glint forming in her eyes, “If your mum catches you on the phone again, you just tell her it’s me. I can handle it.”

“That doesn’t really seem like a good idea,” Dani said, uncertainly.

“Look,” Jamie started, “your mum and I have an understanding. We don’t like each other, and to be honest with you, I couldn’t give two shits about it.”

Dani chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Keep that up, and she’ll probably never let me see you again.”

Jamie scoffed derisively and gave Dani a significant look. “As if she could keep me away.”

Sinking further into her pillow to hide her grin, Dani recalled Jamie scaling her house just a few hours ago. Without a word, Dani slid closer, rolling Jamie on her back to press her cheek against her shoulder and slip an arm around her waist. Jamie stiffened for a moment, and then sank into the sheets, an arm slowly moving to wrap around Dani’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Dani murmured into her flannel shirt, soft underneath her skin.

She felt Jamie’s thumb rub comforting motions against her shoulder, her other hand smoothing over the arm Dani had across her stomach, warm and grounding. “Anytime.”

--

The next morning, Dani woke to the slant of sunlight across her face. Jamie, no doubt having woken up with the sun, was next to her in bed when Dani blinked her eyes open, squinting in the morning light. She held a hot cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other, resting on an upright knee as she read. Dani would’ve thought that time had frozen from the day before if it weren’t for Jamie’s change of clothes and dishevelled hair from a night of sleep.

“Morning,” Dani murmured, her voice groggy, stretching her legs beneath the sheets. She eyed Jamie’s floral mug. “Did she see you?”

Jamie shook her head and flipped a page. “Waited ‘til she was gone,” she said, “Left a bit early too.”

“Oh."

It wasn’t often her mother left her behind for Sunday Church. It generally only occurred when she was upset with Dani more so than usual. The feeling left an acid discomfort in her stomach, and she curled further into herself to quell it. Seeing this, Jamie lowered her mug and her expression softened.

“Hey, more time for us to laze about, yeah?” Jamie said, her foot nudging Dani’s leg from above the comforter.

“I have to do chores,” Dani muttered into the sheets of her pillow.

Jamie’s mouth thinned. “Well, four hands are better than two as they say, or whatever.”

“I think the saying is two hands are better than —”

“Shut it. I haven’t finished my tea yet.”

Dani snorted, and was silent for a moment, before she said, “I really couldn’t ask —”

“Before you start banging on about it, I already did our dishes for you,” Jamie interrupted, her stare firm, “Let me help. Faster we finish, the faster we can get on with our day.”

In the end, it didn’t take much effort to convince her, not when Jamie was intent on being so sweet. It wasn’t often Jamie was so malleable and eager to help, and Dani found it to be remarkably charming and endearing, even as she awkwardly gave Jamie orders to get a head start on vacuuming during Dani’s hasty breakfast of cereal and tea. Jamie only fondly rolled her eyes as she trotted upstairs with the vacuum. They worked quickly and in tandem, Jamie’s radio blaring loudly as they cleaned that eventually Dani couldn’t help bobbing her head and singing along to the words. By midday, the house was clean and they were sweating in the humid summer heat. Before Jamie could even argue, Dani pressed a clean towel to her face and shoved her towards the bathroom to shower. Jamie laughed as she went, her smile brighter than it’d been in days.

Showered and dressed in clean clothes, the day was now theirs. The cinched feeling in her chest since waking up to her mother’s absence was loosened, but not entirely gone. It was the calm before the storm for when her mother returned. But until then, they spent the day much as they did the day before, holed up in Dani’s room with their books and music and endless conversation about everything and nothing.

“You need a bloody tv in here,” Jamie said at one point, tossing aside Mrs Dalloway in favor of returning to the dirty paperback Dani refused to look at, blessedly quiet this time.

When they overheard the unmistakable noise of the front door opening and slamming shut, Dani was all but shoving Jamie’s bag in her hand.

“What do you expect me to do? Jump out the fuckin’ window?” Jamie hissed.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dani hissed back.

They held their breath as her mom’s footsteps passed by Dani’s room and disappeared into her own with the click of the door pressing shut. And true to her word, Jamie did give off the appearance of a sneaky cat as she slinked quietly through the house with Dani behind her.

“You gonna be all right?” Jamie whispered, shoving her feet into her canvas shoes.

Dani shrugged, quietly easing the door open. “Nothing I’m not used to.”

Jamie frowned at that, but said nothing except for, “I’ll check in later. If you need me sooner, flash the porch light twice.”

Dani nodded.

“Chin up, Poppins.”

With a departing wink and grin, she was gone, jogging across the street. Dani grinned after her and silently shut the door. The house felt abruptly quiet with Jamie gone. A hollowed chamber where Dani could hear the echo of every sound and movement in the walls and floors. A drip of the tap. The groaning pipes. The whistle of wind through a window crease. Twenty-four hours alone with Jamie in her house, and it was like Dani had suddenly forgotten what the emptiness of it felt like.

A creak of a door opening sounded through the second floor. Dani stiffened at the noise and started towards the kitchen for anything resembling food. She was in the middle of preparing a simple sandwich when she heard the steps of her mother pad into the kitchen. Dani swallowed hard, knuckles white against a butter knife, her breath caught in throat, her ears pricked. She held herself still, as though she could camouflage into the walls, making herself as small as possible. Prey hiding from predator. Her mother moved behind her — the opening and closing of cupboards and fridge, the clink of glass, the opening of a bottle — and then, she was gone. Leaving a trail of smoke lingering in the air, never speaking a word. Dani started when the tv in the living room clicked on, the volume loud and oppressive. It was only when she was finally back in her room, the chair lodged under the doorknob, that could Dani breathe again.

She hid there for the remainder of the day with the company of her books, and the radio Jamie had inexplicably left behind. This she was used to. The silences of cold shoulders and the quiet of her room. But a few hours in the company of Jamie by her side, having grown comfortable with her presence in her room, it was achingly lonely and by the second hour, she was bored out of her mind. But then came the familiar voices over the walkie talkie to her rescue.

“Danielle?” came Eddie’s voice, “Danielle, you there?”

“Lower your voice, you knob,” hissed Jamie’s voice.

“Sorry,” Eddie mumbled, “Danielle?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Dani replied, curling up on her side.

“Everything all good over there? Do I need to climb a tree again?” Jamie asked.

“You climbed a tree?” Eddie said, puzzled.

“Not important.”

Dani chuckled. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just bored, I guess.”

“Tomorrow’s Milkshake Monday, you should come over,” Eddie said, “When you’re not grounded anymore, I guess.”

“Please, Dani,” Jamie added, “Dunno how Mrs. O’Mara does it. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, you’d think this lot never showered with the way they smell.”

“Hey! Shut up, it’s hot outside, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” Dani said, biting back a laugh.

“Oh! Is that Dani?” Carson’s voice appeared, “Dani, come over!”

“Christ, could you shu — “ Jamie’s voice cut off, as though she had taken her finger off the ‘push to speak’ button.

Dani quietly laughed, her heart warmed and aching with how much she already missed them, even if they were just across the street. They kept her company on and off throughout the rest of the evening. Jamie offered to sneak food over, until Dani had to reassure her she had enough to fill her for the night. Carson recited running commentary on the ongoings of everyone in the house, audibly disrupting them all until they brightened when they realized who was on the other end, saying their hellos. And near the end of the night, when Eddie had finally swiped back his walkie talkie, he murmured in soft tones.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Really, I’m fine,” Dani assured, refraining from sighing.

“Okay,” Eddie said, satisfied. “You should really try to come over tomorrow. We could have a sleepover too, and um — “ his voice trailed off for a moment “ — I miss you.”

Dani grinned softly. “Miss you too.”

By the next morning, Dani woke early, amping herself up with Jamie’s radio on low, set to a Top 100 Pop Hits station, praying for some semblance of bravery. But when she ventured from her room, she found her mother’s bedroom door already open, coffee already made, and her car keys gone. The house empty and eerily silent. She debated with herself for the next half hour. Eating cereal by herself in the kitchen, writing an absentminded note on a spare piece of paper to get milk for the next grocery run, until eventually she was reconnecting the kitchen phone and dialing a number that was written down on a note on the fridge.

It rang four agonizing times until the line clicked open and her mother said, “Hello, Karen Clayton speaking.”

“Mom? It’s me,” Dani murmured, and she swore she could hear a soft sigh from the other end of the line.

“What do you need, Danielle? I’m working.”

“I was - um. I was wondering if I could go over to the O’Mara’s today,” Dani said, her grip tight on the receiver, and hesitantly added, “To sleep over?”

Her mother was quiet for a long moment. “Is that what you called me for? You know how busy I am.”

“I know, I - I just wanted to ask, because — “

“Do whatever you want, Danielle,” Karen said sharply, and the line went dead.

Dani blinked in the quiet of the kitchen, listening to her heart thudding against her ribs and the dial tone until she slowly set the receiver back into the base. It took a minute for the unease to settle, unsure of what to do, unsure if this was some kind of trap. But the promise of finally escaping to the house across the street proved to be more enticing, and she was racing up to her room to pack. Another storm passed, as they were wont to do.

The smile Eddie greeted her with when he opened the door was bright and infectious. He hugged her tight and happily took her bag from her hand, already marching towards the staircase to haul it upstairs. Nearby, Jamie was leaning against the wall and smirking at her as she pulled off her shoes.

“Finally,” Jamie muttered, “He hasn’t shut up about it since last night. Like he hasn’t seen you in weeks and not a few days.”

“Please, like you didn’t miss me too.”

Jamie’s smirk widened. “Not a clue what you’re talking about.”

Carson came abruptly sliding out of the kitchen on his socks, a jar of peanut butter and a butter knife in hand. “Dani!” he said, holding up the jar and knife as though in victory, “It’s Milkshake Monday!”

Even Jamie smiled through the roll of her eyes. Somehow over the course of the summer, jaunts to Big Bill’s Diner for milkshakes and lunch had become custom every Monday. The twins would occasionally accompany them, as they were today, hauling out their bikes along with Jamie’s to ride across town to the ancient grease diner that half the time was populated by truckers passing through. As was usual, they all doubled up. Dani settled behind Jamie, standing on the rear pegs of her bike, resting her hands on Jamie’s steady shoulders while Eddie and Carson followed suit with the twins.

“Ready?” Jamie murmured.

“Good to go,” Dani replied, patting Jamie’s shoulder. “Giddyup.”

“Say that again and I’ll throw you off,” Jamie grumbled as Dani laughed, and took off behind the twins.

Like all Mondays before, they hunkered down in a booth with their milkshakes and lunches of burgers and fries. It all together felt like being able to breathe once more, sitting in between Eddie and Jamie, laughing at the twins’ teasing and Carson’s brain freeze. Jamie slouched low in her seat, quiet more so than usual, but always wearing a small grin every time Dani glanced her way. When she saw an open opportunity to steal a fry from Jamie’s plate, she reached out a hand just for a reaction, and laughed when Jamie slapped it away, grumbling good naturedly but her smile wider than before.

On the other side of her, Eddie slid his plate closer to her. “You can have some of mine,” he said with an eager grin, knocking their shoes together.

Jamie made a noise that sounded both like a scoff and snicker. “Knobhead.”

On the ride back home, Dani soaked up the afternoon sun and wind on her face, standing higher on the back pegs, pressing closer to Jamie’s back.

“You all right back there?” Jamie said as she peddled, mirth in her voice.

“Never better,” Dani replied, her grip tightening on Jamie’s shoulders.

--

Dani woke up squinting in the morning sun, almost expecting to see Jamie propped up on the pillows with a cup of tea in hand and a book in the other the way she had the other day. Instead, she rolled over and found the other side of the bed empty and cold, Jamie long gone for the morning. She was almost disappointed, but then she remembered: this wasn’t Dani’s house, nor was it Jamie’s. They were in Carson’s room where they had accommodated his bed for the night, seeing as it had more room to spare than a camp bed. They had both demurred at the idea, not wanting to take over Carson’s room, but Judy and Carson had insisted.

As quiet as possible, Dani rose from the bed and tiptoed around Carson sleeping soundly on the camp bed where he had sworn they’d stay up all night talking, but almost immediately fell asleep upon his head hitting the pillow. She opened the door to a quiet house. The boys rooms were still tightly shut, a gentle breeze blew through the open window on the landing, morning birds chirping outside, but there also were soft voices and movement down below. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Dani followed the sound downstairs towards the kitchen, and blinked at what greeted her.

Already dressed in her work clothes, Judy was manning the stove where a familiar kettle was heating up, and sitting hunched over at the counter barstool was Jamie, still in her pajamas, her hair disheveled. They both turned at the sound of Dani entering the room.

“Good morning, honey,” Judy said, smiling at her. “What are you doing up so early?”

Dani shrugged. “Just used to it.”

“An early riser like this one then, huh?” Judy said, nodding towards Jamie with an affectionate look. Jamie in response grinned thinly, her cheek resting against her fist. Judy waved Dani towards the barstools. “Go on, take a seat. Jamie’s teaching me how to make real English tea. I’ll get you a cup too.”

When Judy’s back was turned as she delved into the cupboards, Dani arched a brow at Jamie, grinning as she slid onto a stool next to her. Jamie rolled her eyes with a quiet sigh, but said nothing. Unlike last Friday, there was a relaxed slouch to Jamie’s shoulders as she sat at the counter, her legs still and her expression lethargic, but otherwise free of taut lines that so prevailed the previous week.

Dani grinned softly at the sight, and couldn’t help but reach up to smooth away wild flyaways from Jamie’s hair before leaning close to murmur in her ear, “Did you bring tea and your kettle from home?”

Jamie stiffened for a moment, before turning to scowl at her. “Sod off,” she murmured, poking Dani hard in the ribs, grinning when Dani jerked and swiped her hand away.

It was comforting, to quietly sit next to Jamie, still too tired to speak in full sentences as she listened to Jamie uttering soft, patient directions to Judy as she made the three of them tea. At the first sip, Jamie hummed appreciatively to Judy’s delight.

“S’not bad, Mrs. O’Mara. Definitely better than Dani’s,” Jamie said, failing to hide her smirk as Dani huffed.

Judy chuckled. “Thank you, sweetheart, I try my best,” Judy said, leaning on her elbows across the counter from them as she took a sip, “Not bad if I do say so myself. I’m going to have to get an actual kettle and real tea set, and then you’re going to have to show me how to make a real brew, as you Brits say.”

Jamie nodded and grinned. “If you like.”

Carson and Mike were the next to make an appearance in the kitchen as Jamie and Dani were in the midst of eating cereal and sharing a bowl of fruits. Mike gently guided a still half-awake Carson across the room before kissing Judy lightly on the cheek and helping himself to some fresh coffee. Carson was still bleary eyed as Judy handed him a bowl.

"Carson," Jamie said. When he glanced up she mimed throwing a grape at him until he opened his mouth and she chucked it across the kitchen in a clear arc. The grape smacked him on the cheek and went plonking down to the floor. Judy gave them both an admonishing look. Jamie grinned sheepishly in response as Dani snickered.

The day seemed to fly by after they’d had their breakfast and Judy and Mike set off to work. A whole house to themselves with nothing to do but to hang out and annoy each other. Dani was positive that Carson wasn’t as absentminded as he appeared as he shook his feet, lounging on the basement couch during a movie, a foot hitting Eddie in the head more than once where he sat on the ground, leaning against the couch. Dani was beside him, having found her spot first before Eddie plopped down next to her, refusing to move throughout Carson’s beatings.

Instead, Eddie leaned his shoulder against hers, his hands twitching as if restless with nerves. When she relaxed her hands on her stretched out legs, his arm inched closer, pressing against hers as he rested his hand oddly on the ground between them, his palm up and hands loose. It was like he was waiting for something. Or someone to grab hold of it. The realization made her roll her eyes, and she reached down to grasp his palm. Out of the corner of her eyes, his shoulders tensed slightly, but a small smile curled up his lips as he pushed his glasses up his nose. Dani fondly shook her head as their fingers linked together.

Jamie meanwhile sat in an armchair with Mrs Dalloway in hand, slouching low with a leg slung over an armrest, her foot bouncing lightly. Throughout the movie — some Monty Python picture from the year before — Dani couldn’t help occasionally sneaking glances at her. Her eyes drawn to the way Jamie fiddled with her coin necklace and glowering more so than usual down at the pages as she read, her jaw clenched. A strain had returned to her that Dani couldn’t place beyond the fact that her choleric disposition had made its triumphant return from Friday. But by the time the movie was over, her hand free from Eddie’s grasp as he moved to change the tape, Jamie caught her eyes, her expression relaxed to a faint smile. When Eddie asked Dani what she thought of the movie, she found that she couldn’t remember the plot much at all.

Later, during their fourth round of Uno around the coffee table in the living room that evening, waiting for dinner as Carson helped Judy in the kitchen, Jamie seemed more relaxed but no less ornery in the spirit of competition. When Dani was moments away from putting down another matching card, Jamie looked up from her massive sprawl of cards in one hand with her chin resting on her fist and said, “Skip me again, I dare you.”

Dani raised her eyebrows, and shrugged with an air of nonchalance. “If you say so,” she said, playing a Skip card.

Jamie flung her pile of cards on the table. “For fuck’s sake,” she grumbled as Dani laughed.

“You just ruined the pile!” Eddie groaned, with the fewest cards left in his hand, “We have to start over now.”

“Oh, shut your hole. You already won last round,” Jamie muttered, leaning back on her hands.

“Not my fault you’re just a sore loser,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes as he gathered the cards into a neat stack.

“Keep talking, and see what happens, Ed.”

Dani sighed exasperatedly. “Okay, I think we’re done with Uno.”

“Thank Christ,” Jamie breathed and rose to her feet, marching away towards the stairs. Dani watched her go with another sigh.

“Does she always have to be so grumpy like that?” Eddie asked.

“She’s had a rough couple of days,” she said, frowning at him.

Eddie snorted, and muttered under his breath, “Didn’t seem like it.”

Dani gave him a look that he shied away from. “Okay, okay,” he mumbled, “I’ll go easy on her.”

“I’d really appreciate that,” Dani said softly, and pushed his glasses up his nose.  

He grinned at her, his cheeks tinted pink, and then inhaled sharply, looking down at the cards in his hands. “So, I was thinking tomorrow we could go get some ice cream together or something.”

“Ice cream? Yeah, I’d love to,” Dani said, “I’ll ask Jamie later.”

Eddie’s grin fell slightly as he looked back up at her. “No, I meant - I meant just the two of us.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard, and for a brief moment, Dani felt like she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. “Yeah, like a da — “

A loud slam from upstairs shook the house. They both jumped at the sound, eyes wide.

“You fucking -!”

Thunderous footsteps ran across the top floor and down the stairs, stomping with every step. Dani and Eddie rose to their feet to follow the sound in the hallway.

“Get back here, you little shit!”

There was the distinct sound of Jamie’s laughter, wild with adrenaline and panic as she came crashing down the stairs, jumping across the last few steps and nearly collapsing over as she hit the ground.

“What on earth is going on?” Judy called out, appearing from the kitchen with Carson, eyes wide with her hands on her hips.

Jamie didn’t stop, rushing past them all towards the front door, ripping it open to bolt outside barefoot, her flannel and hair flying behind her. One of the twins — undoubtedly David — came thundering down the stairs after her, his face apoplectic and red, racing after her outside and down the street. Dani stepped towards the open door to watch them sprint around the corner and out of sight. Dani pressed a hand to her mouth to suppress her laughter as the others stood next to her in the doorway in bewilderment.

David may have been a whole foot taller than Jamie and then some, but Dani had every confidence that she could outrun him, especially with the dirty paperback she spied clutched in Jamie’s hand spurring her on.

“What in the Sam Hill was that all about?” Judy said, her arms crossed.

“No idea,” Dani replied.

Tommy came up behind them, laughing hard as he clutched his sides, and leaned over them to yell, “Told you it wasn’t me!”

--

“What,” said Dani, squinting down at the sheet in front of her, “is a cleric?”

They were sitting on the ground around the coffee table in the O’Mara’s living room. Eddie had claimed the couch as his throne and had surrounded himself with pages and notes, pencils and erasers, little cardboard tokens and a set of three big books, one of which was open and perched on his knees. On the table, he’d spread a large sheet of paper with grid lines drawn in pen.

It was the only vaguely quiet place in the house apart from the basement, which didn’t have a big enough table to fit them. Judy was baking in the kitchen and had shooed them out of the dining room. Meanwhile, Tommy and David were blasting music upstairs in their shared room. Whenever Mike would stand on the stairs and yell for them to turn it down, the twins would comply for exactly thirty seconds before ramping the volume back up again. Even now, Dani could hear a rhythmic thumping bassline through the ceiling.

Eddie pushed up his glasses. “It’s like a cross between a Fighting Man and a Magic User. You can wield non-edged magic weapons and heal people in your party.”

“Non-edged? Why non-edged?” Dani pointed to the couch. “And can you pass me a pillow?”

“Sure. Here.” Eddie tossed her one of the cushions, which she promptly sat upon and crossed her legs. “It’s just in the rules. I’ve also made you guys level three, so Carson can actually do some damage in a fight.”

“Do I get a sword?” Carson asked excitedly, brandishing his pencil as though it were a weapon.

“You’re a Magic User. You can only use a dagger and spells.”

“Nice! Spells!” Carson pointed the pencil at his brother. “I cast: slap you in the face.”

Eddie frowned. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“I thought you said you were controlling the monsters, though.”

“You did say that,” Dani agreed.

Rubbing at his forehead, Eddie sighed. “I’m the Dungeon Master. I control the story and the monsters.”

“And I control the magic called: slap you in the face.” For good measure, Carson chucked his pencil at Eddie, who ducked so that the pencil bounced against the back of the couch.

“Watch it!”

Carson made a face at him. “Don’t be such a baby!”

“Yeah, that’s your job,” Dani said with a grin.

“Hey, Jamie,” said Eddie. “Come play with us. We need another person for the party.”

Like some sort of cat, Jamie was seated on the back of the other couch that was pushed up against the wall. She leaned her shoulder against the wall, one leg outstretched, the other knee balancing a battered paperback. Every now and then, Jamie would glance furtively over the top of the book towards the windows that showed the front lawn and the street beyond it.

“Don’t want to,” Jamie muttered, scowling back down at the book in her lap.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re not even reading. You’ve been on the same page for ten minutes now.”

In answer, Jamie turned a page.

“C’mon. You can be a Fighting Man.” Eddie held up a character sheet with a bunch of painstakingly pencilled in numbers that he had added earlier that day while Dani watched and chatted with him. “You like fighting.”

Aiming her glower at him, Jamie growled, “Fuck off.”

“Look at that: perfect for the role.”

“Do I get to be evil?” Carson interrupted. “I want to be evil.”

Eddie ignored him. “Danielle, convince her to play with us.”

“She doesn’t want to play, Eddie,” Dani replied.

“Yeah, but she always listens to you.”

“I can hear you,” Jamie snapped.

“If you’re not going to play, why are you even down here?” Eddie asked. “You can always just hang out in Carson’s room if you want to be alone.”

Jerking her thumb towards the ceiling, Jamie said, “You think I can get a moment’s peace with Tweedledee and Tweedledum bangin’ about up there?”

“The basement’s quiet, though,” Carson pointed out.

Dani could see Jamie’s lips purse together, her brows still furrowed and her shoulders tense. Outside, a vehicle trundled down the street and Jamie’s head jerked up to follow it only for her to slouch sullenly once more.

The basement was quiet, but it didn’t have a clear view of the road.

"Let's just -" Dani smiled as broadly as she knew how towards Eddie and Carson "- play. All right? And let’s leave Jamie alone."

Begrudgingly, Eddie picked up a few cardboard tokens and began setting them out on the paper grid map. "Fine. Do you have names for your characters?"

"Uh," Dani glanced down at the sheet again. She couldn't visualize what her character looked like in the slightest. A priest, perhaps. Black robes beneath a set of medieval armour with a patch of white collar showing through. Grimacing, she said, "Dani?"

"You can't have it be your own name."

"Why not?" Carson asked. "Carson the Wizard has a great ring to it."

"Oh, my god," Eddie groaned and rested his forehead on the open pages of his manual. "Can you please take this seriously? Just for two seconds?"

"You want me," said Carson, "to pretend to use magic, and also be serious about it? Are you stupid?"

"Okay. Fine. Fine!" Eddie lifted his head and spread his hands in a sharp gesture. "Your characters are you. Just you with your own names but with powers. Now, can we please play?" When both Dani and Carson nodded, he sighed, "Finally. All right. The two of you are descending into the bowels of a long-forgotten ruin -"

They played. Dani kept forgetting the names of her abilities and how to perform them, but she did her best. She spent most of the time being distracted by the too quiet way Jamie was sitting behind her. More than once Eddie had to call her name to get Dani to stop looking over her shoulder at where Jamie was fiddling with the pages of a book or staring out the window.

"Danielle."

Dani started and turned back around. "Sorry," she said again. "Sorry. I - uh -" Turning over the character sheet, she re-read her list of actions. "I use Turn Undead?"

Eddie mimed an explosion emanating from the little token that denominated her character, pushing aside various other tokens that surrounded it. “With the strength of your conviction and the name of your god’s name upon your lips, you show your holy symbol and the skeletons around you crumble into dust in a blaze of light! All except -” he lowered his voice dramatically, pushing forward one of the tokens, “- for one.”

“Oh, shit,” Carson whispered, eyes wide, utterly rapt.

Without warning, Jamie scrambled from the back of the couch, half falling to the floor and racing to yank open the front door. All three of them — Eddie, Carson, and Dani — jumped in surprise, turning to stare as she ran from the house.

"What's gotten into her?" Eddie muttered.

Craning her neck, Dani pushed herself upright and peered out the window. A familiar truck had pulled up to the curb out front. She couldn't hear what was happening, not over the noise of Tommy and David's music, but she could see Nan pushing open the driver seat door and laboriously stepping out onto the pavement. Jamie was lingering at the other door, its window rolled down so she could lean on her elbows and exchange words with her grandmother.

"Oh! Mrs. Heron's back!" Carson said, abandoning the game of dungeons and dragons in favor of trotting off to the kitchen and hollering, "Mom! Mrs. Heron's back!"

Whatever Judy replied was lost as Dani wandered over to the open front door. She hesitated at the threshold, watching as Jamie's posture rapidly shifted from tense to relieved to tense all over again. Nan glanced up, saw Dani standing there, and gave her a tired looking wave. Dani returned the gesture, but Nan had already turned her attention back to Jamie, murmuring something that made Jamie's head jerk back as though she'd been physically struck.

Behind her, Dani could hear Eddie muttering to himself. She turned to find him cleaning up the coffee table. With a grimace, she returned to the living room to help him. "Sorry," she said as she shuffled together all of the various pieces of paper into a neat stack. "I was having fun. I swear."

"Mmm," said Eddie, sounding unconvinced.

"Do you want to finish the story tomorrow?" Dani asked and she handed over the pages.

Before he could answer, Nan limped through the front door. In one hand she leaned her weight heavily upon the polished wooden cane, but in the other she cradled in the crook of her elbow what appeared to be a bundle of blankets.

"Jesus Christ," Nan winced when she first stepped inside, aiming a sour glance up at the ceiling. "And I thought Louise's house was a racket."

"Hi, Mrs. Heron," said Eddie, packing up the last of the game along with his books. "Did you have a nice trip?"

"Loaded question, that one," Nan replied dryly. "Best answered over a cup of tea, I think."

"I heard the word 'tea.'" Judy emerged from the kitchen. She wore a flour-splattered apron and a smile as broad as it was warm. "Welcome back, Ruth. Long flight?"

With a grunt, Nan corrected her, "Flights. Plural. And I would kill for a half decent cuppa."

"I make no promises about decent, but Jamie’s been teaching me, so it will be tea."

"Ta."

Nan smiled wearily at Judy before she crossed the living room and lowered herself onto the same couch Jamie had been waiting on all day now. She groaned lightly, her movements stiff, treating the bundle of blankets in her arm as though it were a swaddling of gemstones. Outside, the car door slammed shut. Jamie stomped up the walkway towards the house. When she came inside, she paused to wipe her bare feet on the mat.

In puzzlement, Dani glanced between her and Nan. Ever since last night, Jamie had been a cluster of nerves. All short syllables and tense jaw. If anything, she seemed more ill at ease than before.

Carson came back into the living room, greeting Nan cheerfully before he got roped into helping Eddie carry everything back upstairs. Rolling his eyes, Carson nevertheless let his arms be piled up with books. As the two of them went up the stairs, Carson yelled for Tommy and Eddie to turn off the music since they had company. At the noise, Jamie's fists clenched at her sides and Dani could see the way her throat worked when she swallowed.

"You're awfully quiet," Nan said with a nod towards Dani.

"Sorry," said Dani.

Nan rolled her eyes. "I see that good for nothing mother of yours removed some of your spine in my absence. After all my hard work, too." She tutted, shaking her head.

Dani blinked. She opened her mouth to reply, but then the bundle in Nan's arms squirmed. When Nan set aside her cane and began to bounce the bundle up and down in a gentle rocking motion, Dani blurted out, “You have a baby?”

Nan looked at her as though she’d grown an extra head. “Don’t be daft. He’s not mine. Well -” she frowned off into the middle distance. “- As much as she’s mine, I suppose.”

Jamie’s stiff scowl deepened when Nan gestured towards her. When Jamie muttered something acidic under her breath, Nan said waspishly, “Speak up. If you’re going to say something unfortunate, you might as well be loud about it.”

Jaw clenched, Jamie lifted her voice enough to be heard. “I said: I can’t believe you didn’t even tell me that’s why you were going.”

“Wasn’t aware I needed your permission,” Nan drawled. A tiny hand worked its way free of the blanket and grabbed at her chin. Nan leaned her head away with a sigh. “Enough of that, you fussy fannybaws.”

Dani rose up on her toes as surreptitiously as she could in an attempt to get a better look at the baby, but she immediately sank back down to her heels again when Jamie snapped, "What about Denny?"

Nan's expression was hard as flint. "He's eighteen and long gone. Don't waste your breath on the likes of him. Too much like your father, he is."

"And whose fault is that, then?"

Nan glowered and it were as though any vestigial warmth in the room was sucked out of the house. Eyes wide, Dani held her breath, wishing she could sink into the floor. Anything to not be privy to this conversation.

"Now, I've had a long few weeks," Nan said coldly, "And I'm in no mood to tussle with you today. If you're that keen for a smack, we can talk tomorrow after I've had a sleep."

There followed a moment of agonizing silence, in which Dani tried to appear as unassuming and insignificant as possible. She looked at a spot on the floor and remained very still until — without another word — Jamie stormed off down the hallway. Just as she stalked out, she nearly ran into Judy, who was emerging from the kitchen with two steaming mugs in hand.

"Woah!" Judy swerved to narrowly avoid barrelling straight into seventy pounds of distilled ire. She stared after Jamie and shook her head when there came the crash of a door being slammed. Turning to Dani, she asked, "What on earth did I miss?"

Dani shook her head. Meanwhile from the couch Nan made a noise halfway between disgruntled and exhausted. Judy crossed the room to sit beside her on the couch, and as she handed over one of the mugs her eyes widened. "Oh," she said with dawning realization. Her mouth retained a round drawn out moue, and her eyes moved from Nan, to the baby, to the hallway where Jamie had just stormed off, and back again. "I see." Then she added, "Do you want me to add some whiskey to this?"

With a snort of laughter, Nan took the mug, careful to manoeuvre her hands so she wouldn't spill a drop on the all important parcel in her lap. "Normally I'd say yes, but I need to drive us home later."

"Well, the offer stands. I can drive you and Jamie home," Judy murmured around the lip of her own mug, "And it seems like you need it."

"It's not all that bad."

Judy gave Nan a look.

Nan sighed and took a sip of her tea. "Maybe that bad."

"Your daughter -?" Judy asked, trailing off without finishing the question.

In answer, Nan hummed and though the sound was wordless it carried all the bitterness she could muster. "The one and only."

"Louise, right? And what about -?" Judy made a covert motion with her free hand that Dani did not quite understand.

Nan seemed to get the message however, for she shook her head. "No. Someone else."

"And he's -?"

"Around?" Nan finished for her and then let out a bark of laughter. "No, I daren't say he is.”

Dani fidgeted, and suddenly two sets of adult eyes were upon her. Judy seemed a bit uneasy, clearing her throat and crossing her legs at the ankle.

“Dani,” said Nan. Her voice had softened somewhat, but her expression was unreadable. “Go get Jamie, love.”

With a nod, Dani turned heel and left, grateful for an excuse to depart the room. Behind her Judy and Nan struck up their conversation once more, but their voices were lowered to covert murmurs and Dani did her best not to listen. The music from upstairs had been turned down, and as she passed by she could hear Mike descending the steps and the O'Mara boys bickering in the backdrop. Dani ducked her head and hurried further along.

The hall leading to the garage was empty. Fumbling for the light switch, Dani flicked them on. Dim light flooded the narrow corridor. As she approached the garage, she could hear the sounds of banging, metallic and intermittent and not wholly loud. As though someone were carelessly casting aside tools in search of something else. Slowly, she opened the garage door and poked her head inside.

Jamie was crouched before her partially dismantled bicycle — the one she had scavenged years ago. Her back was to the door and she rummaged through a battered red toolbox that collapsed outward with trays when opened. Jamie tossed down a socket wrench, then picked up another, holding it up to her bike to see if it would match whatever fitting she was hoping to loosen.

Dani shut the door behind her as quietly as she could, but the click seemed to echo through the garage regardless. Items were scattered about on the cut concrete between them. A grease-streaked towel here. Remnants of a woodworking project here. Jamie seemed to take no notice in Dani's presence, though she must have known she was there. Dani's hand lingered on the painted texture of the door, hand bunched up at her back before she pushed herself forward. Jamie's head remained bowed over her work, shoulders hunched, movements sharp. When Dani stood close enough that she could reach out and touch her — could but didn't — she stopped.

"It's nice to have Nan back," Dani ventured.

Jamie hummed in answer but said nothing.

"I missed her," said Dani.

For a moment Jamie's movements stilled. When they started back up again it was with a vengeance, as though Jamie could take out all her frustrations on the old bike frame. "Wish she'd stayed back there," Jamie growled.

"That's not true," Dani said softly.

She could see the way Jamie's ribs expanded against the fabric of her t-shirt with a deeply indrawn breath. Her hand seemed to be trying to throttle the life out of the socket wrench, white-knuckled and tense. Then she began loosening the bolt that held the bike's back wheel in place. "Don't know why she had to go around sticking her nose into other people's business," Jamie said. "Again."

"Is that what you want?" Dani asked. "For her to have left you alone in the first place?"

"Maybe. No. I don't know," Jamie snapped.

She still hadn't looked up from her work, still hadn't so much as glanced in Dani's direction. The bike hardly needed the attention. Over the years she and Mike had spent so much time tinkering over the thing that it might as well have been entirely new but for the base frame. And even that had been given reinforcing and several new coats of paint. It was, Dani understood, never about Jamie really wanting to fix something — a bike, a car, turning a new handle for an old chef's knife. It was just something for Jamie to do with her hands.

Dani slowly placed her hand on the arch of Jamie’s back, feeling the muscles bunch up beneath her palm. “Then what do you want?”

She let her hand slip away, falling back to her side when Jamie answered, “For things to go back to the way they were. No excitement. No yelling. No new baby. Things are going to change because she -” Jamie grunted as she twisted at the socket wrench “- had to go and ruin it.”

“Not all new things are bad,” Dani pointed out, but Jamie wasn’t having any of it.

"I don't want -" Jamie said stubbornly "- another brother. This one's probably only half related to me anyway."

Dani crossed her arms. “Hey, that’s not fair.”

“True though,” Jamie replied with one of those bitter grins of hers.

“He’s just a baby. It’s not like it’s his fault.”

That logic seemed to bounce right off, for Jamie just shrugged and lifted the tire away, setting it down on the ground. "Doesn't matter. Still has consequences, doesn't it? People talk. People always fuckin' talk."

"Nobody cares," Dani said firmly. "Who is going to find out, anyway? He's too young to go to school. We'll have graduated by the time he even learns to use full sentences."

Jamie laughed and it was a breathless, incredulous kind of sound. She shook her head, looking over her shoulder at Dani with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Think Nan's going to be the one taking care of him? 'Cause she's not." Jamie pushed at her knees and rose to her feet. She tapped the socket wrench against her own chest, her hands smudged with streaks of dark grease. "That'll be on my head, soon. Just you wait."

Frowning, Dani held her ground. "She isn't going to just up and leave you alone with a baby, Jamie."

"Yeah. Sure. Right."

"That's a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"Is it?" Jamie took a step closer to Dani, but she was pointing towards the garage door with the wrench. "Last time, I was the kid, and mum up and left, and Denny was off doing fuckall, and dad was too busy in the mines to remember he still had kids! And then she -!" Jamie stabbed the wrench towards the door again as if brandishing a weapon, "- comes 'round like she's saving the fuckin' day! And I’ll be the one left holding the can! Again!”

It took a moment for Dani to find her voice, to put together the pieces of what Jamie had revealed — glimpses of a past that she normally held so close to her chest like a fan of cards now tilted just slightly, just enough to peek — to say, “You won’t.”

If anything Jamie seemed puzzled by this response. Her brows furrowed and she blinked. “What -?”

“You won’t,” Dani repeated. “Because you’re not there anymore. You’re here.”  

Jamie opened her mouth to reply, but no noise came out. Her hands were fists but the lines of her face softened somewhat. As much with bewilderment as anything else. As though Dani had tripped her along the war path. As though the wind had been directed right out of her sails.

"You're here," Dani repeated, voice softer now. She reached out to touch Jamie's wrist, curling her fingers around a notch of bone leading to her hand. "And Nan isn't going anywhere. And neither are you."

"You don't know that," Jamie breathed.

Dani's hand drifted down until her finger grazed the handle of the socket wrench. She gently urged Jamie's grip to slacken until she could take the wrench and set it down. "Maybe not," Dani said. "But you have today. Focus on today. Not tomorrow. One day at a time."

Swallowing thickly, Jamie nodded. Dani waited, but Jamie simply stood there, silent and uncertain. Two weeks ago, Dani might have asked if Jamie wanted her to leave, if Jamie wanted to be alone, but now she took Jamie by the hand and tugged her softly towards the door leading back into the main house. Jamie's fingers still held a slight tremor; she allowed herself to be led along. When Dani took the first left as they entered the hallway, Jamie's brow furrowed.

"Where are we -?" she asked as Dani pushed open the door leading to the downstairs bathroom.

Dani switched on the sink tap, setting the water to warm. "Need to wash your hands."

For some reason, Jamie must have thought that was funny for she laughed, a short, breathy sound.

She could have easily washed her hands herself, but she let Dani urge her hands beneath the warm steady stream, let Dani lather a bar of soap between their sets of hands. Streaks of grime were swept down the drain. Dani hardly noticed how close they were standing — their sides jammed together, their knees knocking together — focusing instead on letting the water stream over their wrists and knuckles, focusing instead on twisting the tap shut and drying Jamie's hands with a towel. She half expected Jamie to pull away, to laugh and say she could do this herself, but Jamie didn't. And when Dani glanced up, hanging the towel back on its hook, Jamie was watching her with that blank expression of two weeks ago. As though Dani had happened upon her in a dream.

"You okay?" Dani asked. She wiped any residual water from her own hands upon the front of her shirt.

Jamie nodded, but her smile appeared forced. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Dani searched her gaze, but Jamie’s eyes were steady and unblinking. She was about to ask again, insist even — ‘Tell me. Don’t hide from me’ — but then Jamie was straightening her shoulders and walking back into the hallway. For a moment Dani hesitated, gripping the front of her own shirt, before she trailed after her down the corridor and back into the living room.

Nan and Judy were sitting on the far couch pushed up against the wall, while Mike had taken one of the armchairs nearest his wife. Empty cups of tea were littered across coasters on the coffee table. The adult’s conversation paused when she and Jamie walked into the room, but resumed once again when it was apparent that Jamie was only moving to sit on the other empty couch. Jamie dropped down onto the cushions, feet splaying out and arms crossing, but she was here.

Dani shot Nan a questioning look, and Nan gave her a slight nod as thanks. The pleasure at having done something right buzzed straight down Dani’s spine — a heady mix of elation and relief — and she took a seat beside Jamie.

“Go on, then,” Nan held out the baby to Jamie. “Take him.”

Looking horrified, Jamie leaned away. “I don’t want -”

“Jamie Katherine Taylor, if you think I won’t scalp your arse in front of all these people, you’re dead wrong. Now, take him.”

At the sound of her full name being used, Jamie’s face went an ugly shade of red and splotchy all over. It was only the second time Dani had ever heard Nan use Jamie’s full name before, and the first time had similar effects. Jamie’s throat worked and slowly her face lost its flush of anger, and finally she rose from her seat, reached out and let Nan place the baby in her arms. Then, she slouched back against the couch beside Dani, keeping her eyes sullenly on the squirming bundle in her lap. Dani’s hand crept over as surreptitiously as she could manage and she simply rested it against Jamie’s leg, hoping that it might be a comforting weight. And gradually the tension in Jamie’s shoulders eased.

After a moment of awkward silence, Judy remarked, “Katherine’s a lovely name.”

Jamie shot her a look that should have left Judy maimed on the floor, but she said nothing.

“Not my first choice,” said Nan, settling herself back against the opposite couch and rubbing at the dark circles beneath her eyes. “But Louise was insistent.”

“And is Jamie short for anything?” Judy asked.

Jamie shook her head at the same time Nan said, “No. Just Jamie. After my brother.”

Leaning over to get a better look at the baby in Jamie’s arms, Judy said, “Well, we’re going to have to think of a nickname for this one, anyway. ‘Mike’ is already taken.”

On the sidelines, Mike smiled apologetically and shrugged.

Under her breath Jamie muttered, “Can just call him ‘Bawbag’ and be done with it.”

Nan smacked Jamie’s ankles with her cane.

“Ow!” Jamie hissed, jerking her foot away and glowering at her grandmother.

“Be nice to your brother.”

Jamie rolled her eyes. Her knee bounced up and down — as it always did when she sat still for too long — and the baby grabbed at her hair with greedy hands. With a wince, Jamie stopped jiggling her knee and bowed her head down. “Fuck’s sake. You too?” she muttered under her breath, low enough that Dani was the only one who could hear. “Let go.”

Reaching over, Dani helped pry apart surprisingly strong little fingers from around Jamie’s hair. Every time it seemed they managed to get him to let go, his other hand would grab at her again. Eventually Dani let him grasp at her individual fingers instead, and Jamie was finally free.

“What about ‘Mac’?” Judy said. “That’s a Scottish thing, isn’t it?”

Nan made a face like she’d bitten into a lemon. “That’s even worse than just ‘Michael.’”

“Well, what’s wrong with plain old ‘Michael’?”

“Everything,” said both Nan and Jamie in unison.

“Hey, now,” said Mike, wounded.

As they lobbed nickname ideas back and forth, Dani leaned her shoulder against Jamie’s to look down into her arms, where the baby was squirming against the restraints of his blanket. He had a red and scrunched up face and a shock of dark hair cowlicked to his head. Dani tried to tuck his arms back into the blanket, but he wormed his way free despite her best efforts. When his eyes weren’t closed, he blinked as though against a bright light, turning his face in an attempt to hide from it, but the moment Dani covered his face with the blanket he pushed at the fabric in a fit of fledgling pique.

“You really are fussy,” Dani murmured, but she smiled and tugged the blanket down over his face again, biting back a snort of laughter when he pushed against her hand with a wordless whine of complaint. Without glancing up Dani said, “What about ‘Mikey’?”

The conversation died down and everyone turned to look at her. Dani blinked up at them, still half bowed over Jamie’s lap so that their shoulders were pressed up together. The baby had grabbed hold of her hand between both of his now and was see-sawing her fingers back and forth. She kept her wrist loose and gave him free rein.

Her suggestion lingered in the air as they all mulled over the name. Judy tilted her head slowly back and forth as if weighing between options. Jamie’s frown had vanished. And Nan was contemplatively stroking the polished head of her cane, lips pursed in thought.

“The least worst option I’ve heard,” Nan said finally.

“Better than ‘Mac’ anyway,” said Jamie. “Or Michael.”

“Oh, aye.” With a sigh, Nan sat back and waved towards Dani. “Mikey it is, then.”

--

With the arrival of Mikey, summer began to wane at what felt like an increasingly steady state. Dani spent the time jumping from house to house to house, carrying her polaroid camera everywhere she went, not wanting to miss a thing. Not when it felt like they were all on the precipice of jumping into the unknown, the gilded halls of high school hot on their heels.

Those last few weeks were spent glued to Jamie and the boy’s sides, avoiding home as much as possible. Days were spent finally learning how to drive with the help of Mike, white knuckled around the steering wheel of his car while being egged on and teased with Jamie and Eddie sitting in the backseat, and doing much of the same when one of the others were in the driver’s seat. Dinners were spent around the O’Mara’s dining table and evenings huddled around the coffee table playing Eddie’s dungeons and dragons game — Jamie had finally been roped into playing as a Fighting Man with an uneasy amount of bloodlust and mischief in her eyes. There were also the occasional sleepover nights spent in the O’Mara’s backyard under the dark sky telling scary stories with Jamie terrifying them into sleepless nights over ghost stories from England.

And then there were days spent at the railway cottage. When Jamie insisted on spending as much time as possible away from the house, sprinting the days until the porchlight flickered twice as Nan called them home. They spent their time walking along the railway tracks, biking past endless corn fields in the evening sun, and chasing after summer storms, watching darkened swirling clouds that almost seemed to glow as they passed over corn fields.

The one day they got caught up in the edges of a storm, getting soaked to the bone by the flash of rain, Jamie had laughed and said, “Is this really what storm chasers do?”

“What do you think, idiot?” Dani had said over the crash of distant thunder and wind.

“Think I’ve got a knack for it,” Jamie replied, hands on her hips as she stared at the vortex of clouds, “Reckon we’ll finally see a tornado this year?”

Dani rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt before she dragged Jamie back home to the cottage where they spent the next few days shivering fiercely to the sound of Nan’s scolding.

For the times when Nan put her cane down so to speak, they were at home helping watch Mikey. Jamie still hadn’t truly taken to him, her mouth twisting with distaste for every lesson learned on feeding him to bathing him to changing his diapers, but she never spoke another word of disdain. At least, not in front of Nan. Her grumbling of sleepless nights due to Mikey’s growing teeth pains were reserved for Dani only. Though there were days where Dani would find the pair of siblings in the midst of a staring contest as Jamie fed him, as though they were having a silent conversation. Dani was sure to capture the moment the second she could with her polaroid.

Dani on the other hand was enamored. Helpless to big brown eyes that stared unblinkingly up at her, his wordless baby babble and bright laughter when she tickled his sides, his hands grasping at anything to hold as they wriggled around determinedly. Dani and Jamie learned very early on to keep their hair tied back whenever he was in a grabbing mood. The first time Dani managed to rock him to sleep, she was so surprised that she nearly didn’t want to hand him off to Nan to put him down in the crib she had gotten secondhand from Judy.

The boys meanwhile were in the state between being terrified of even sneezing near Mikey and utterly fascinated to be in the presence of a baby for the first time since Carson had been born. Carson himself nearly vibrated out of his seams of having a baby to introduce so many new things to, and specifically with the relief of not being the youngest anymore. Eddie in particular was near bugeyed the first time he held him, frozen solid to the couch in fear of being flayed alive by Nan as though with one sudden movement Mikey would go flying from his arms.

It was a summer Dani would be hard pressed to forget, but eventually it eased to a close and by mid-August, high school came calling. None of them were eager or thrilled for the start of the new school year, especially one in an unfamiliar environment, particularly Carson who would be the only one left in middle school. His mood became morose the closer the day came, quiet and ill tempered that even Dani wasn’t sure what to say beyond the fact that nothing outside of school was going to change. Not even Eddie knew what to say or even felt the need to say anything at all, but to reassure Dani with a roll of his eyes that Carson would be all right eventually.

The only thing that seemed to ease the tension from Carson’s shoulders was the day before school was to start when Jamie took him aside by the shoulders at the river, walking him a few feet away and talking in soft tones that Dani couldn’t hear. She watched them with a fond soft smile until they eventually returned, Carson sitting heavily next to Dani with a sigh and swiping away Jamie’s hand with a faint scowl when she ruffled his hair with a smirk.

Later, when Dani asked her what she’d said to him, Jamie only smiled faintly and shrugged, murmuring, “What I wished someone told me, I guess.”

Jamie didn’t elaborate, and Dani didn’t feel the need to ask, grasping Jamie’s hand with a grin.

The first day of high school felt like walking into a strange new land. Unfamiliar hallways and unfamiliar faces of upperclassmen. Tommy and David left them in the dust the moment they stepped foot on campus with mocking grins and calls of good luck.

“Some help they were,” Eddie muttered with a scowl, his knuckles white against the strap of his satchel as his eyes darted around nervously.

Jamie snorted. “Did you really think they weren’t gonna be dickheads about it?”

“Well - I -”

While Eddie floundered for a response, Jamie rolled her eyes and led them inside.

By the end of the day, Dani could proudly say that she’d only gotten lost twice, and hadn’t verged on some sort of internal meltdown when she ended up only sharing homeroom class with Eddie. For years, eight hours a day, five times a week, she’d had both Eddie and Jamie by her side during school. Being a freshman alone was already nerve wracking with the way upperclassmen would sneer at them in hallways, but this all together felt sacrilegious to Dani’s routine. Jamie had only huffed and shrugged helplessly before darting to her own class as Eddie led her away by the hand.

It was easier as the week went on. Learning all her teachers' names, discovering she shared most if not all classes with Jamie and Eddie in some form or another. By Friday, she had memorized hallways and the locations of the nearest bathrooms, and learned that North Liberty High took its extracurriculars seriously, for being as few as they were. During lunch after her lone AP English class she had by herself, the main hall leading towards the lunch room was lined with small booths displaying various sports and extracurriculars to sign up for. Dani lingered near a few, biting her lip in consideration as she held her books close to her chest.

There weren't many she was particularly interested in, though she knew her mom expected her to thoroughly fill her schedule and future resume for university. Volunteering for some kind of charity or community work had been one thing she’d been considering, along with tutoring and student council. When she neared the booth for cheerleading, her shoulders tensed and her stomach tightened, her eyes landing on a group of girls hovering around the booth already in their uniforms in the school’s colors of blue and white. Swallowing hard, Dani ducked her head to avoid eye contact and sped past them, hearing their ring of soft laughter and conversation as she went.

In the end, Dani ended up picking up pamphlets for the clubs she was vaguely interested in, along with a Young Democrats of America and Model UN pamphlets for Eddie, and after much deliberation, cross country and track and field pamphlets for Jamie. Just as she was about to pull open a door dividing the different wings of the school, it was opened for her and she looked up to see Roger smiling thinly at her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled and walked past him. She only made a few steps down the hall when she realized he was following close by. It wasn’t really anything untoward. They shared the same AP English class much to her surprise, and there was only one way from class towards her locker and the lunchroom and it was down the same hallway they walked now.

“Um, hey,” he said, stepping next to her, his thin frame slouched and swallowed up in his oversized flannel, his hands buried in his jean pockets.

Dani blinked up at him in surprise. “Hi,” she replied with the rising awareness that this was already the most they’ve spoken in years.

“Never realized how ambitious you were,” he said, offering her a faint grin.

“Sorry?”

He gestured towards the pile of pamphlets in her hand. “You just - you have a lot you seem interested in.”

“Oh - um. No, some of them are for my friends,” she murmured, pulling her books and papers closer to her chest, not looking at him.

“Right. Eddie and Jamie.”

“Yeah.”

He was silent for an awkward moment as they walked. “What clubs are they interested in?”

“Um, Eddie’s been getting really into foreign affairs recently, and Jamie’s really good at running so I got them some politics and track stuff."

“Cool. And - uh - what about you?”

This was by far the strangest conversation Dani’d had in forever. “Volunteering. Student council. You know, the boring stuff no one really cares about.”

“Right,” he said, chuckling.

She floundered for a moment before asking, “And you?”

“Track, maybe,” he muttered with a shrug. Dani gave him a puzzled frown, knowing very well he was nearly as bad as Dani was at running. Before she could question it further, he scratched the back of his shaggy brown hair with a sheepish expression, “My dad wants me to join a bunch of stuff like yours, but I...I kinda hate it.”

“My mom too, actually,” she said, and they both shared a commiserating look.

They were silent again for another painful second when, without warning, Roger asked, “Are you going to Homecoming?”

Dani froze, jerking to a stop to blink up at him. “What?”

He seemed abruptly and unusually shy as he stopped next to her, his cheeks pink as he slouched further into the bunch of his shoulders. “I mean - I’m not - ” he started, and exhaled sharply, “I just mean it’s our first for high school, right? I just wanted to know if you were planning on going.”

Dani blinked up at him, lost for words. She was nowhere even in the realm of thinking about Homecoming, much less planning on attending it, not when it was still over a month away, but the way Roger was shuffling his weight from foot to foot sent a shock of anxiety down her spine to her heart, jumpstarting it into a pounding rhythm.

“Are you -? I mean - Is this -?” Dani gestured between the two of them.

His eyes widened. “Oh — no, I’ve been thinking about going, and thought — I guess I thought it’d be cool if I knew someone nice was going, too,” he said, shrugging helplessly, “No one really talks to me besides Sterling and Jackie, and well - you know how they are.”

“Oh,” she murmured, and swallowed hard, shrugging. “Yeah, um - I might go. I don’t know.”

Roger nodded as they continued walking, scratching again at the back of his head, his cheeks turning near scarlet as he asked, “Do you think Jamie would go?”

“Um,” Dani murmured, and tried to picture Jamie in a dress under cheap dance lights, looking absolutely miserable, and had to refrain from laughing incredulously at the image. “I’m not sure.”

His shoulders slumped, looking oddly dejected as he sighed. “Right,” he murmured, and then slowly paused, frowning as his eyes zeroed on something down the hall.

Dani followed his line of sight to see Jamie’s familiar form hunched over in front of Dani’s locker, the lines of her back coiled tight and unmoving. Sterling and Jackie hovered next to her, both wearing wry smirks. Huffing loudly, Dani marched over with a scowl until she was close enough to hear the tailend of Sterling’s remark.

“ — don’t see what the big deal is. It’s just a couple of bucks.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that she can barely afford new clothes in the first place?” Jackie said with a cruel smirk, somehow already wearing a cheerleaders uniform, her hair pulled into a bouncy ponytail.

Clenching her teeth, Dani pushed her way in front of Jamie to face Jackie and Sterling, forcing her mouth into a thin smile. “Hi,” she said, an air of faux civility and sweetness to her voice, “Is there something you two needed?”

Neither of them seemed truly surprised to see her. Jackie rolled her eyes and said, “This act is getting a little old now, don’t you think?”

“I could say the same thing,” Dani said, nodding agreeably, her eyes sharp on them both. “Now, are you done? Or can we help you with something?”

Sterling shrugged. “Was just asking Taylor to borrow some cash for lunch,” he said, as though his family wasn’t one of the wealthiest in town, “Promised to pay her back, but she had to start kicking up a fuss about it — ”

“Ever stop to think about how she might have a good reason why?” Dani interrupted with a pointed glare, acutely aware that Jamie hadn’t so much as moved an inch and breathed a word behind her.

Expression darkening, Sterling took a step forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Jackie snorted. “Look at you, Clayton. Knight in shining armor,” she drawled, smirking as she crossed her arms and tilted her head at a mocking angle, “Your mom know you’re still playing babysitter to this loser? Or has she finally started regretting you being born yet?”

Dani’s knuckles went white around her books, her teeth clenched painfully tight as she felt her face and ears go red hot. A growl and metal clanging on metal sounded behind her. Before Dani could react to stop whatever violent reaction that was brewing from Jamie behind her, Roger’s tall frame stepped beside her.

“Hey, what are you guys still doing here?” Roger said, frowning at Sterling and Jackie, “We’re gonna be late for the lunch line.”

Dani blinked up at him, her jaw still wired tight, her breath shallow.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Sterling leaned heavily against the lockers and gestured towards Dani and Jamie. “I’m just trying to get some cash for extra, man.”

“By stealing it from us?” Dani grumbled.

“To borrow,” Jackie amended in an acerbic bite.

Dani raised her eyebrows and gave her a caustic smile. “I’m sure,” Dani said dryly, “Just like all the other times you borrowed our lunch money, right?”

Arching an eyebrow, Jackie looked to Roger. “Roger? Are you going to help us or what?”

Roger seemed to freeze in place, blinking down at Jackie and Sterling with a frown. Dani swallowed hard, any inkling of irate feeling sinking down the drain to be replaced with unease. Roger’s gaze darted towards Dani’s, holding it for a moment before flickering over her shoulder to Jamie, and to her surprise, she found a pool of shame dimming his eyes, his cheeks pink. He ducked his head briefly before pulling up straight to his full height, his shoulders pressed back and his expression hardened, looking very much like the same angry, violent boy he used to be. But instead of aiming it towards Dani and Jamie, he was looking directly at Sterling and Jackie.

“No,” Roger said, “I’m not.”

Jackie scoffed, wearing an incredulous smile. “Excuse me?”

“They’re not giving you any money. You’re wasting your time,” Roger replied, and crossing his arms, he added, “And mine.”

“Don’t be like that, man,” Sterling said, “I just need an extra five bucks or whatever.”

“If you want to clean out the schools stash of snacks that bad to resell later, then I’ll fucking buy it for you,” Roger said impatiently, “Now, can we go?”

Jackie rolled her eyes again. “Fine.”

Pushing off the lockers, Sterling grumbled something under his breath that only Jackie and Roger seemed to hear. Jackie snickered as Roger huffed, grabbing Sterling by the shoulders to frog march him firmly away. The trio left without another word, leaving Dani and Jamie to stare off after them as though the last five minutes never happened. Just as Dani was about to turn to check on Jamie, Roger glanced over his shoulder and gave Dani a faint apologetic grimace before disappearing around the corner. She blinked after him, blindsided once again.

Dani shook her head and spun around to face Jamie, eyes darting over her with a concerned frown, but Jamie wasn’t even paying her attention. She was hunched over the padlock that kept Dani’s locker securely shut, spinning the dial with jerky, agitated movements, her shoulders coiled taut, the muscles of her jaw sharp, and her brow darkly furrowed.

“Are you okay?” Dani asked, her hands twitching to reach out and grasp Jamie’s arm.

“What’s your bloody combination again?” Jamie muttered, pulling roughly on the lock, growling when it didn’t open, “Keep fuckin’ forgetting.”

Dani slowly wrapped a hand around Jamie’s wrist, and immediately Jamie’s hands went still and her shoulders slumped. With a sigh, Jamie eased aside and let Dani handle the combination.

“I’ll write it down for you later,” Dani murmured, pulling open the lock and swinging the locker open to shuffle around her various textbooks.

“Sure,” Jamie muttered, leaning her shoulder against the lockers. Dani caught her gaze and they exchanged small grins, but a faint hint of worry clouded Jamie’s eyes, “You all right? What Jackie said — Christ, I know she’s a cunt, but that was — ”

Dani huffed out a soft laugh. “Nothing I haven’t really heard from her before,” Dani said, shrugging when Jamie gave her a look. “Roger was unexpected though.”

Jamie snorted. “Sure.”

“Honestly kind of surprised you didn’t blow up at them this time.”

“Wanted to,” Jamie said darkly, glowering at the floor, “If you hadn’t shown up - or even bloody Roger - it wouldn’t have been pretty, believe me.”

Dani smiled softly at her. Ever since the brawl from two years ago, Jamie had been on a lengthy streak of good behavior at school, intent on keeping her promise of no more fighting to Nan this time. A surge of pride rushed through Dani, even as she watched Jamie shove her own books into Dani’s locker.

“You realize you have your own locker, right?”

“Yours is closest to the side entrance.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t realize you had a super special entrance to sneak in and out of it.”

“Excuse you, I have done nothing of the sort.”

“Yet.”

Grinning cheekily, Jamie winked. At Dani’s laugh, she chuckled with a pleased smile. “Hey, you want to come over after school? Got something to show you at home.”

“Oh? Is it a surprise?”

Jamie shrugged. “Something like that.”

Grinning, Dani gestured to the bag she had shoved earlier this morning into her locker. “Good thing I packed, then.”

Peeking inside, Jamie nodded with an impressed grin. “Thought ahead, have you? Girl after my own heart.”

Dani snorted. “Shut up.”

At that moment, Eddie marched up beside them. “Hey, there you guys are. We’re late for lunch.”

Jamie sighed. “Why’s everyone banging on about lunch today. Jesus.”

Eddie shot her a puzzled frown. “Because I’m hungry?”

With a conceding hum, Jamie nodded. “Fair point,” she said, and dug into her jean pockets for change, “I’m making a run to the corner store, you lot want anything?”

“Beef Jerky,” Eddie immediately answered.

“Can I come?” Dani asked in lieu of an answer.

Jamie shot her a teasing grin. “You going deaf now, too? I said ‘run’ to the store.” Rolling her eyes, Dani shoved her lightly into the lockers. Jamie laughed goodnaturedly. “All right, crisps and Toastettes it is.”

--

At the end of the day, while waiting for Jamie to unlock the chains securing her bike, Eddie gestured to the bag Dani had slung over her shoulder. “Are you going to Jamie’s again?”

At Dani’s nod, Eddie failed to conceal the disappointed slump of his shoulders and his frown. Guilt swirled in Dani’s stomach, knowing she hadn’t spent as much time as usual with Eddie since Mikey arrived, too enamoured and eager to help Nan and Jamie.

When Eddie didn’t say anything more, Dani dug in her bag and pulled out the two flyers she had gotten for him. “I got these for you though,” she said, holding them out to him, “I know you already had your sights on baseball and tennis, but I wasn’t sure if you saw these.”

Eddie’s expression softened as he took them and looked them over. “You remembered,” he murmured, looking up at her, his smile bordering between fond and awed.

Beside them, Jamie snorted. “Hard not too with the way you’ve been going on about the election and this Carter fellow.”

Pressing his mouth together, Eddie gave Jamie a look that she smirked at. He shook his head and turned back to Dani. “Thanks, Danielle,” he murmured, and then paused, his eyes darting between her own, frowning in the same way he usually did when trying to solve a complicated math equation. And then, without warning, he leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek.

With the way her cheeks burned, Dani was sure she was just as red as Eddie as he quickly recoiled away, his eyes slightly wide. He roughly cleared his throat and began to stumble backwards, somewhat dazed.

“Talk to you guys later,” he said with a weak wave of his hand, and without waiting for a response, he spun around and speed walked away off campus down the block.

Dani was still blinking wide eyed after him when Jamie whistled low beside her. “Dunno about you, but that was like watching a car wreck in slow motion.” Huffing, Dani elbowed her hard in the ribs. Jamie grunted, jerking away into her bike, grumbling, “All right, you can just walk home, then.”

“Don’t,” Dani said, biting back an embarrassed laugh, “He was just being sweet.”

“Oh, he’s sweet on you, all right,” Jamie muttered as she hopped on her bike, and before Dani could even begin to process that, Jamie gestured behind her, “Hop on, we don’t have all day.”

After a moment of hesitation, Dani did as she was told. Patting Jamie’s shoulder when she was settled, Jamie promptly took off down the street in the direction towards the railway bungalow. On the way, they stopped to pick up takeout from Big Bill’s and about twenty minutes later of biking through suburbs and past fields of grass and corn, they reached Jamie’s home. She peddled them directly towards the back of the house where they hopped off, leaving the bike resting against the side of the house.

“Okay, where’s my surprise?” Dani asked, eyes darting around.

Chuckling, Jamie waved her over. “This way.”

Leaving her bag resting on the grass, Dani followed Jamie as she led her towards the trellis’ that bordered along the length of the house beneath the porch. It was a beloved spot of Nan’s to grow flowers, but this year she had bestowed Jamie the gift of trying her hand of growing her own from seed to colorful blossom. Despite the years Jamie spent helping Nan in the garden, working as her assistant for the more strenuous work of digging soil and ripping out weeds, Jamie had never gone without Nan’s guiding hand. For the longest time, Jamie had operated under the belief that Nan didn’t trust her to not kill her prized vegetable plots or flowerbeds, but this year had been a surprising change.

Every day since spring, Jamie had tended to her patch of flowers with more care and patience than what Dani was used to seeing, and when Dani neared the trellis, she knew the effort had been worth it. She gasped softly at what once had just been creeping vines and vibrant, heart-shaped green leaves was now bursting with an abundance of bright blue flowers in the shape of trumpets.

“Jamie,” she breathed, stepping closer, eyes wide in awe, “They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Jamie murmured, hands deep in her pockets, appearing unusually shy, “Took their sweet time to bloom, but here they are: morning glories.”

Dani slowly reached out a hand to gently run her thumb across a blue petal, the texture smooth to the touch. “Jamie, this is amazing,” Dani said, smiling wide at her, “I’m so proud of you.”

A pink tint creeped across Jamie’s cheeks, and she ducked her head to hide it. “Thanks, Poppins,” she murmured with a shrug, “Just a bit of flowers.”

“Your first,” Dani said, her smile fond. “You should be proud.”

“Guess so,” Jamie said, finally looking up, grinning shyly at Dani.  

And just then, the back door swung open to reveal Nan with Mikey in her arms. “There you two are,” she said, and tisked when Mikey began to wiggle at the sight of them, “You daft numpty, d’you want to break your skull?”

With an exasperated sigh that only Dani could hear, Jamie bounded up the porch steps to take Mikey from Nan’s arms. “All right, quit your fussing about,” she said over his wordless whines until he settled comfortably against her shoulder, grasping at her necklace.

Nan harrumphed. “Made for each other, the both of you,” Nan said, shaking her head, “Been giving me trouble all day.”

As Jamie visibly struggled to refrain from scowling, a tight pinch at the corners of her mouth, Dani grabbed her bag and started towards them, smiling warmly at Mikey. “That doesn’t sound right, he’s an angel,” Dani said, lightly grasping his free hand for him to hold and swing around.

Jamie snorted. “Only when you’re around,” she said, gently pulling the chain from his hands just as he was about to pull it into his mouth, “Think he likes you more than he likes us.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Dani said, giving her a look, but when Mikey began to lean out of Jamie’s arms to reach toward Dani, Jamie arched an eyebrow at her. She breathed out a small embarrassed laugh and let Jamie take her bag for Mikey to reach his way over into her arms. She smiled warmly at him and kissed his cheek, “Hey, sweet thing.”

His response was to stare blankly at her, raising an inquisitive hand towards her face, his fingers poking at her jaw and cheek. She pulled his hand away where he then rested his head against her shoulder to gnaw at her shirt.

Jamie chuckled, and said to Nan, “See what I mean? Think we just leave him with her and call it a day?”

Nan glared witheringly at her. “You best watch yourself. I’ve had enough of your cheek to last me a bleeding lifetime,” she said, and turned to enter the house.

“Doesn’t bloody know how to take a joke,” Jamie grumbled under her breath, watching Nan go.

“She just needs some food,” Dani said with a teasing grin, “Isn’t that the way to a Taylor’s heart? Food and a nap?”

“She’s a Heron,” Jamie muttered, “Don’t think they have hearts.”

Dani gave Jamie an admonishing look and kicked at her shoe before following Nan inside. Slightly abashed, Jamie huffed behind her as they chucked off their shoes.

“We brought you food from Big Bill’s,” Dani said to Nan in the kitchen where she was at the sink cleaning a feeding bottle.

“Still trying to butter me up, I see,” Nan said without glancing her way, faint amusement in her tone.

“It was Jamie’s idea.”

Nan paused at that, silently arching an eyebrow at her. “That right?”

Jamie muttered something under her breath behind her, but nonetheless pulled the brown takeout bag from Dani’s bag where it was keeping warm and dropped it on the kitchen table that wobbled under the sudden shift of weight. Without looking at either of them, she pulled out a container from the takeout bag and left it on the table.

“Steak and potatoes,” Jamie murmured, and without another word, she marched back outside with both bags in hand.

At the sink, Nan pressed a hand to her hip and shook her head. “That bloody girl,” she said, voice free of her normal cross disposition, sounding more nonplussed than Dani’s ever heard her.

Dani offered her a faint smile, shifting Mikey more comfortably in her arms. Nan sighed and waved her off. Dani left her with one last smile and returned to the backyard to find that Jamie had spread out a blanket in the grass for an impromptu picnic, already in the midst of wolfing down her burger and fries. Dani plopped down next to her and let Mikey roam free on the blanket as she unwrapped her own burger. They ate silently together, listening to the soft breeze blowing through the trees and tall grass in the fields surrounding the property. Jamie finished before her, as she usually did, balling up her empty wrapper and used napkins back in the bag before lying down with her head perpendicular to Dani's crossed legs.

“That’s not good for you, you know?” Dani said in between bites, “Lying down after eating.”

Jamie waved her off, her eyes closed. “I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it later.”

Dani smiled fondly down at her, making sure to keep an eye on Mikey as he wobbled and rolled on his stomach and sides. When she finished eating and cleaned up, she reached inside her overnight bag and pulled out Jamie’s pamphlets.

“I got these for you,” Dani said, resting them on Jamie’s chest.

Jamie peaked her eyes open, picking up the flyers to look them over, and grinned wryly. “Thought you’d forgotten about me with these.”

Though there was no bite to the words, Dani still frowned at her. “I wouldn’t forget you.”

Jamie chuckled softly. “I know,” she said, and waggled the flyers in Dani’s direction, “But you’re forgetting track starts in spring.”

“But there’s cross country in the fall,” Dani said, pulling down the track and field flyer to reveal the cross country one beneath.

“Cross country is a whole other animal.”

Absentmindedly grasping at strands of Jamie’s hair and starting to braid it, Dani said, “Mr. Roberts did say you were the best runner he’s seen in years. Don’t you remember him saying something weird once about you having fast feet to make up for your height?”

Jamie swatted at Dani’s leg. “Shut it,” Jamie grumbled as Dani laughed, “Besides, Roberts also once said I was the bane to his existence, so y’know, pinch of salt.”

“At least think about it? I just - I know you’d be really good at it,” Dani said.

Catching her eyes, a lingering tension around Jamie’s eyes softened and she slowly smiled, “Fine,” she said, “I’ll think about it.”

With a pleased, wide smile, Dani affectionately and gently tugged on the braid she’d been working on. Jamie’s head followed the movement and she sighed goodnaturedly, swiping away Dani’s hand.

“What about you, Miss Overachiever?” Jamie asked, “Still thinking of joining those mad amounts of clubs you mentioned.”

“Probably,” Dani shrugged noncommittally with a small frown, tearing her eyes from Jamie briefly to watch Mikey who had somehow managed to crawl near the edge of the blanket, trying not to think about the one club she didn’t stop to contemplate, “Not all of them, though.”

They were silent for a moment, until Jamie nudged her in the leg. “Hey,” she murmured, drawing Dani’s eyes back to her, “What’s with the face?”

“What face?”

“Your ‘thinking too hard’ face.”

Dani didn’t respond for a long moment, until she softly said, “Mom wants me to join the cheerleading squad.”

Blinking up at her, eyes wide, Jamie said, “She does remember you’ve got lungs like a dried grape, right?”

“Who do you think buys my inhaler prescriptions?” Dani laughed, then sobered, “I just - she was one when she was in high school. I guess she just - she wants the tradition to pass on.”

Jamie went quiet again, wearing a considering frown. “Well, she’s shit out of luck,” she said finally, “As intriguing as the sight of you in a cheerleader uniform is, I don’t need you dropping dead on me from an unfortunate and avoidable asthma attack.”

With a roll of her eyes, Dani flicked her in the head. Jamie laughed and swiped her hand away again.

“You know, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Jamie said.

“I know.”

“I’ll have a go at your mum if I have to.”

Dani laughed. “I know.”

“Good,” Jamie said, grinning impishly, “Just s’long as you know.”

They fell silent again, enjoying the quiet and Mikey’s murmured babbling. At the sound, Dani looked up at him and slowly cringed.

“Jamie?”

“Mm?”

“I think Mikey’s eating grass again.”

Jamie shot up to her feet from the blanket like a compressed spring let loose. “For fuck’s sakes,” she grumbled and pulled Mikey up to reveal that indeed, there were strands of grass stuck to his mouth and clutched in his tiny fist.

Dani laughed quietly as Jamie strode past her to delve back inside the house without a backwards glance, fussing over Mikey and brushing away grass from his mouth and hands, grumbling the entire time.

“You keep this shit up, and I’m not bringing you with me to the garden again, d’you hear me?” Mikey babbled in response. “Oh, yeah? Try me, see what happens. No bullshit, I will feed you to the vultures.”

Even as they disappeared inside the house, Dani could still hear Jamie’s muffled voice through the open windows and screen door, scolding Mikey the entire time. She smiled wide to herself, a surge of fond warmth spreading through her as she laid down on her back and listened. While waiting for their return, Dani pulled out Valley of the Dolls from her bag and read a few passages in the interim. After making it three pages further in, she heard the screen door swing open once more and dropped the book to her stomach to crane her neck to see Jamie quietly murmuring to Mikey as she showed him her morning glories.

Dani smiled softly at them, curiously watching as Jamie snipped a single bloom from the vines with a pair of shears, tucking the bloom in Mikey’s collar and tossing the shears onto the porch with a thud. Jamie didn’t meet her eyes as she returned with Mikey to the blanket, sitting cross legged and placing Mikey next to her. In addition to the morning glory tucked in his shirt, he now adorned a pale blue striped sun hat with a ribbon tied under his chin to keep it in place.

“The kid has something for you,” Jamie murmured with a faint smile.

Chuckling, Dani plucked the blue flower from Mikey’s shirt and brought it to her nose, grinning wide as she inhaled its sweet scent. “Thank you, Mikey,” she said, looking directly at Jamie as she smoothed a hand over Mikey’s back as he began to squirm away again. “You really didn’t have to do that, you know.”

Jamie ducked her head and shrugged. “Wanted to.”

Smiling to herself, Dani took one last smell of the blossom and inserted the stem into the pages of her book next to her bookmark. She folded the book shut, careful not to press on the petals. Setting the book aside, she tilted her head up to Jamie, watching her absently pull at grass as she looked off into the distance.

“You know what’s super funny?” Dani asked. Jamie grunted to indicate she was listening. “You sounded exactly like Nan just now.”

Jamie shot her a dirty look and Dani burst out laughing.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Jamie groused, flinging tufts of grass over Dani, “I snip off one of my hard earned flowers for you, and this is how you repay me?”

“I said it with love?”

“Uh huh. You’re just as bad as him,” Jamie said, jerking her head towards Mikey with a scowl.

“He’s just a baby, he’s not that bad,” Dani said, “He’ll get better once he grows a little more.”

“Oh, sure, and the bigger he gets the more we run out of room,” Jamie said, gesturing broadly towards the house, and groaned, lying down on her back to rest her head on Dani’s stomach and mumbled, “Barely had enough room as it is.”

Dani chuckled, reaching up to pat Jamie’s head, and ending up running her fingers through tangled curly hair.

“I see what you’re doing and it’s not working,” Jamie said, her voice already languid as Dani gently ran her nails over her scalp.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They fell silent again, watching the clouds and a plane pass overhead, leaving a long trail of water vapor behind.

“If you could have any kind of house you wanted, what would it be?” Dani asked.

Jamie huffed. “Silly question, inn’it.”

“Simple one, really.”

Jamie was quiet for a long moment, the silence filled with Mikey wandering back towards Jamie to rest against her chest. Peering down, Dani watched fondy as Jamie seemed to absentmindedly bring her hand up to run it over his back as he cooed and babbled. Finally, Jamie murmured, “Hard to see myself anywhere but here to be honest.”

“Really?” Jamie hummed affirmatively. “Not even just to make something up?”

Jamie shook her head and grinned faintly up at her. “What would be the point? S’never gonna happen anyways.” Dani opened her mouth to reply, but couldn’t find the words, not really knowing what to say. Seeing this, Jamie gave her a reassuring smile. “What about you? Any dream houses on your mind?”

“Nothing special, I guess,” she said, shrugging and mulling it over. “Two floors, maybe. White exterior. Blue shutters. A corner to read in with a big comfy chair and shelves for my books. A garden in the backyard like this one. An office space to work in. Room to have friends and family over.” She paused, worrying at her lower lip, her fingers twisting gently in Jamie’s hair. “I’d want it to be warm and welcoming. To smell clean like flowers and fresh laundry, and be a safe space for anyone who needs it.”

“Christ, you’ve really thought about it, huh?”

“No. Not really.”

“Must’ve come from somewhere.”

“Maybe.”

The screen door swung open with a creak along with the tap of a cane against wood, and they both craned their heads to see Nan on the porch watching them with an expression Dani couldn’t read, blank save for the faint furrow of her brows and tilt of her head. “I’ve got a pot brewing, loves,” she said, her voice abnormally soft, “Pop him in his crib and come get a cuppa when you’re ready.”

And without another word, she returned inside the house, the screen door banging behind her. Peering back down, Dani saw that Mikey had fallen asleep on Jamie’s chest and that Jamie was watching him with a faint look of panicked wonder. As though feeling Dani’s stare, Jamie’s eyes darted up to her and the expression promptly vanished.

“Not a word,” Jamie grumbled, carefully gathering Mikey in her arms and sitting up.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dani replied with a grin, already reaching inside her bag for her polaroid.

--

It was a rare day when Judy came over to Dani's house. Yet when Dani put on her shoes and called out her goodbyes on the way out, Judy had said she would walk her across the street.

Dani blinked up at her in confusion. "It's okay, Mrs. O'Mara. It's not far. I walk alone all the time. And Jamie walks to school by herself."

"Now, don't get me started on that," Judy warned, leaning over to pull on a pair of flats. "Anyway, I need to give back your mother's salad bowl."

Wondering why Judy didn't just give it to her for transportation across the street, Dani shrugged and waited. The boys had gone off to their various extracurricular activities, leaving her with little to do in their absence unless she wanted to trudge halfway across town to Jamie's house. Tempting an idea though that was, her mother had given strict instructions for Dani to be back home by five and it would take forty minutes to make it all the way to the railway cottage on foot. Another time, maybe. Another night.

Judy disappeared into the kitchen briefly — bang of cupboards and sauce pans — until she reemerged with the aforementioned salad bowl and a tupperware container full of leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Dani eyed the tupperware with puzzlement until Judy pressed it into her hands and made shooing motions towards the front door.

Bemused, Dani shuffled out of the house and across the street with Judy at her side. She tested the handle of her own front door, determined she did not need her key, and ushered Judy inside with a murmured, "Come in."

"You're late," her mother's voice called out from the distant kitchen.

Shoulders hunching, Dani winced. She started when she felt Judy's hand on her back and glanced up in surprise when Judy lifted her voice, "Sorry, Karen! My fault! She was helping me clean up!"

There was the squeal of a chair being pushed back followed by footsteps, and Karen walked into the living room still wearing her work clothes. The blouse was untucked slightly from her skirt and her hair had slipped somewhat free of its usual bun, giving her a rumpled relaxed appearance. Her pale eyes moved between Judy and Dani before she smiled thinly and gestured them forward.

"You didn't need to walk her over, Judy."

"It's fine," Judy insisted as she continued further into the house. "Really. I wanted to give this back to you."

Karen took the glass-etched bowl that Judy held out to her. "Well, thank you. That's very kind. Would you like to stay for a drink?"

"Oh," said Judy. "Yes. Sure. Just a small glass."

Dani watched this interaction in silence. She still stood by the entryway, hand holding the door open. When her mother gave her a look, Dani ducked her head and shut it, careful to not make too loud a noise. Quiet hitch of the latch. By the time she removed her shoes and arranged them neatly by the door, her mom and Judy had already disappeared into the kitchen. They didn't even glance in her direction when she came in after them. Making a beeline for the fridge, Dani stored the container of food in the back for later, hiding it behind a shuffle of condiment jars.

Her mother was reaching into a cabinet for another glass and a fresh bottle of red. An empty bottle already stood beside the sink. From Dani's position by the refrigerator, she could see several more clustered on the floor, hidden behind cabinetry and in front of the door leading to the garage. Conquests from earlier in the week.

Shutting the fridge door, Dani mumbled, "I'm going to go read in my room."

"Okay, sweetie," Judy replied brightly, though she was idly tilting her head to read the front page of the newspaper sprawled across the square dining table.

On her way past, Dani paused. "Um -?" she hesitated, glancing at her mom, who was twisting the cork free from the neck, and then at Judy. "Can I come over again tomorrow?"

The cork came free with an expert pop. Her mother's mouth opened to speak, but before she could do so Judy smiled and said, "Of course, you can."

Dani's eyes darted to her mother, but Karen was merely pouring healthy glugs of burgundy wine into the two glasses. Not waiting to be denied this opportunity, Dani quickly slipped away. She retreated up the stairs, only to stop at the very top. There, she turned back around and crept back down a few more steps, avoiding all the boards that creaked and groaned, until she sat atop her favored step, where the sounds of the kitchen and living room could be heard best.

"I'm sorry she's such a bother," she heard her mother saying. "I keep telling her that she can't spend too much time over at your house. That you have other things to do."

"Nonsense. She's always welcome," said Judy, sounding like she actually meant it. "The boys love her. And besides, I appreciate having a little more estrogen around the place."

"If you say so," Karen murmured. There was a pause, a chair being moved, followed by, "I don't know how you do it, honestly. Four boys? Most days I don't know what to do with one girl."

Judy laughed. "Well, Mike's a godsend, let me tell you."

"Mmm," Karen hummed around a sip of wine, a sound that was all too familiar. "Definitely would be easier with someone else to lighten the load. Sam wasn't the best candidate for the job — not by a long shot — but at least he kept her occupied."

There followed a pause, then Judy asking almost too softly to overhear, "Does she talk about him much?"

At that Karen snorted. "No. Thank God. Though for the first year after he died it was 'Dad this' and 'Dad that.' Like he was still around to give her permission or excuses."

"Kids," said Judy, "can bounce back pretty quick, but they still need time to adjust. And she's adjusted just fine, by the looks of things."

"Better than I have, if I'm being honest," Karen said. Clink of glass against the table. "Sometimes I still come across his things around the house. Right when I least expect it. When I’ve thought I’ve finally forgotten all about him. Then suddenly there’s little pieces of him scattered around like — I don’t know. And then it’s like he never left.”

Judy's answer was gentle. "You're doing great. And, you know, Danielle isn't the only one welcome to come over when she wants company."

Dani couldn't remember the last time she'd heard her mother laugh — really laugh — even if it was wobbly, weak, even if her words were already starting to slur slightly. Karen cleared her throat, then Dani could hear the familiar sound of another glass of wine being drained and poured.

Shuffle of the newspaper beneath a set of hands. "Is this today's?" Judy asked.

Karen hummed, the noise rounded as it echoed in a glass.

"Is it baseball season yet? I can never keep track." Judy turned a few pages of the paper. "The boys have been driving me mad at the house this summer, and Mike promised to take them to a game."

"Never was one for sports," said Karen. "Did you read about the latest news from the Courts?"

"No?"

"Well, I have a friend who's a clerk there. You know Graham?"

Crinkle of the page and a noise from Judy indicating that she did indeed know a man by that name.

"At the gardens a few weeks ago," Karen continued and Dani's stomach swooped at the memory of the corporate function at the botanical gardens, "we got to talking about this Pilcher case."

"The sodomy one?"

"Yes, that one."

"I thought it'd already passed? Reynoldson was pretty clear about it."

"Well, Graham says that they're already slammed with appeals. Says that it's just a matter of time until they repeal more than that."

For a moment there was silence. Dani had very little idea what they were talking about — she made a mental note to look up the word ‘sodomy’ later, or perhaps ask Nan — but she listened for any clues.

“I don’t see how that has much to do with us,” Judy said.

“Soon they’ll be teaching queer nonsense in schools, and then it will have something to do with us.”

“They’re teenagers, Karen. The twins are turning seventeen this year — God help me. You remember what that was like. You think they don’t already have some idea of that kind of thing?”

“If they do,” her mother said in those cool clipped tones, “then it’s because of bad influences. And if it’s been taught, then it can be untaught.”

Judy sighed. “I suppose. Thank you for the wine. I should probably get back. I left Mike to finish prepping dinner, but I’ll need to make sure the kitchen isn’t on fire.”

Karen’s answering laugh had returned to the usual stiff and reedy variety that lacked any real joy. There was the scrape of chairs and the rustle of the newspaper pages against the wooden tabletop.

“Oh, no. You don’t have to,” said Judy. “I can show myself out.”

“You sure?”

“It’s fine. I’ll see you on Sunday!”

Footsteps down the hall. Judy came into view at the bottom of the stairs as she walked towards the front door. Dani was frozen in place like a deer in the headlights. She held her breath and remained still, as if moving would draw the attentions of a shark parting the waters. Judy paused at the base of the steps to glance over her shoulder back towards the kitchen, patting at the rear pocket of her jeans to check for keys, but she stopped when she caught sight of Dani further up the stairs, crouched and wide-eyed.

Dani’s heart pounded in her chest. It had been years since she’d been caught eavesdropping. Scampering up the stairs at the last second always ended badly. Flight was as good as proof of guilt.

Judy lifted her hand in a brief wave and offered Dani an anemic smile. When Dani did not return them, Judy continued on her way and she was gone.

--

Dani heard a tap at her window. She ignored it. Just that old tree branch that had grown too close and brushed up against the side of the house when there was a breeze. She wished her mother would hire an arborist to come trim it, but knew she would probably be the one to go over to the O'Mara household and ask to use some tools to do it herself. Most likely Eddie and Jamie would leap at the opportunity to help. And maybe Carson, though chances were he would just stand by Dani's side while they craned their necks and watched the other two risk life and limb to do this menial task.

Another tap. Louder this time. Heavier. Dani frowned and rolled over in bed. The air was utterly still and the tree branch was unmoving. She blinked, startled, when the tap came again and she saw something plink against the window and fall back towards the ground. Throwing off the sheets, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and crossed the room to open the window and poke her head out into the night air.

"Took you long enough. Bloody hell."

Dani gripped the windowsill and hissed, "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Jamie gestured to the ground around her. "Hurry up and come down."

"What?" Dani said, incredulous, and froze when she thought she heard the floorboards creak outside her room. She held her breath, looking over her shoulder and listening to her mother stumble past. Karen was murmuring to herself the way she did when she’d indulged in one glass too many.

Dani should have checked on her. She should have checked for the smoking butts of cigarettes between the couch cushions. She should have cleaned up the mess of a kitchen. Wine-dark rings on the table. The residue of a glass and stem.

Instead, she turned back to the window and said in a low voice, "Give me a sec."

Gripping the hem of her nightgown, Dani pulled it over her head and tossed it onto the bed as she crossed the room. She opened a chest of drawers and tugged on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweater. She was pulling her hair back with a hair tie when she cautiously opened her bedroom door and, as quietly as she could, shut it behind her and sneaked down the stairs. She held her breath the whole way down and carried her shoes in her hands out the front door.

Jamie had moved around the house and was sitting on the stoop. She twisted round when Dani sat beside her. "Don't know why you're so nervous," she said. "Your mum sleeps like the dead after she's had a few."

Sighing, Dani pulled on her shoes. "Wish Nan slept that soundly. If she finds out you're out tonight -"

"She won't," Jamie said.

Dani paused in the act of lacing up her shoes to give Jamie a significant look.

Jamie rolled her eyes. "She had a glass of sherry. Plus, Mikey’s been driving her mad the last few evenings. She’ll be out like a light tonight."

"Hmm." Dani finished the final lace and leaned her elbows on her knees. "So, what are we doing?"

With a devilish grin, Jamie held up a set of keys and shook them. "Care for a drive?"

Dani's eyes widened. "You didn't."

"I did."

"She's going to be so angry."

"Only if she finds out."

Dani arched an eyebrow. In retaliation, Jamie knocked their ankles together. "C'mon. I bought us tickets and everything."

"Tickets? To what?" Dani asked, but Jamie was already standing and offering her hand, and Dani was taking it, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet and dragged along to the street.

"One of those outdoor picture theatres," Jamie said. She let go of Dani's hand when they reached the run down old truck that Nan had bought off of a local farmer when they'd first moved to town. Rounding the truck to yank open the driver's seat door — nobody ever locked their car doors in North Liberty; most people hardly locked their front doors in North Liberty — Jamie said, "Said you wanted to go to one of those, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did," said Dani, pulling open the passenger's side and sliding up into the high seat. "But I didn't think anyone was listening at the time."

"Well, I was." Jamie slammed her door shut and stuck the key into the ignition before buckling up. She glanced over at Dani to check she had her own seat belt on, then stamped on the clutch and turned the key. The engine sputtered to life. Jamie flicked on the headlights, put the truck into gear, and pulled away from the curb as though she'd done this a thousand times and not only twenty.

"Have you and Mike been practising without me?" Dani asked, watching the smooth ease with which Jamie shifted gears.

"Nah," said Jamie, not taking her eyes off the empty road. "Nan's been having me drive her places. Says her leg's been acting up."

"Ah, yes. The old war wound," Dani said dryly.

Jamie snorted derisively. "What rubbish. Probably just got trod on by a horse, the daft cow."

"You're very brave when she's not within earshot."

"So're you, you fuckin' hypocrite."

Dani grinned, letting herself settle into the worn seats, the old leather cracked with age and overexposure to sunlight. Whereas her mother's car was always a warren of old wrapping papers and receipts, loose pages and empty water bottles that smelled of vodka, Nan's truck was incredibly tidy. There was nothing to tangle up around Dani's feet when she stretched out her legs. An air freshener in the shape of a pine tree dangled from the rear view mirror, and there were tell tale signs of a rag that had been used to dust the dashboard. Jamie's handiwork at Nan's insistence, no doubt.

"Where is this place anyway?" Dani asked as Jamie shifted into fifth and sped up on the motorway. The ground was eaten up by the tires. The glow of the stars was faint compared to the glare of the truck's headlights parting the gloom.

“Grandview.”

“Grandview?” Dani repeated. “That’s, like, an hour away!”

“I promise to get you home before dawn,” Jamie drawled.

"You'd better. I don't want to turn into a pumpkin."

Jamie snickered. "Awfully cute pumpkin, though."

Dani pushed Jamie's hand off the gear stick. "Shut up."

Jamie let her hand be shoved aside, using the momentum to reach for the radio and flick it on. "Find us something, won't you?"

Dutifully, Dani leaned forward and began fiddling with the dial, sliding through frequencies until she landed on a station. "This one all right?"

Jamie shrugged and rested her hand back on the gear stick. "Your choice, inn’it?"

"Yeah, but I want to make sure you like it, too."

Turning her head quickly, Jamie flashed her an indulgent smile before staring out at the dark stretch of straight road before them. "Long as you're enjoying yourself, I don't mind much. Any music's fine."

For a moment, Dani said nothing. She let the grind of guitars play out for a few seconds, then reached out for the radio again, turning the dial until she found a pop station she actually liked. She furtively checked for a reaction, but all Jamie did was tap along to the rhythm against the steering wheel.

The inside of the truck was boiling, but neither of them bothered with the air conditioning. Dani cracked the passenger side window and leaned her head against the frame to let the warm August air pull across her face. Jamie already had her window rolled down, one elbow leaning against the open gap while she steered with one hand. Dani did not realize she was staring at the way Jamie's messy brown curls were tousled by the fast-moving air, until Jamie stole a glance over at her and grinned.

"See something you like?"

Dani smiled and looked back down the stretch of road before them. "You wish."

Jamie did not answer. Instead, she leaned forward and turned up the volume until the music drowned out the rush of the night air. Dani tucked a stray curl of blonde hair behind her ear and studied the roil of clouds in the sky. The night was humid and tense, as though the heavens were holding their breath in anticipation.

"Should be a big storm," Dani said idly over the music.

Jamie hummed, then replied, "Paper reckons it'll break on the weekend."

"You sure this isn't one of your hare-brained schemes to chase storms again?"

Jamie rolled her eyes. "If it were, I'd've dragged you out tomorrow instead."

To this Dani conceded with a shrug and nod. Outside there called a roll of distant thunder across the plains, but no matter how much Dani craned her neck she couldn't see any lightning.

By the time Jamie pulled off highway 61 and turned down a few back roads, they had switched radio stations three times in search of songs to sing along to. Music blared from the open windows as they drove along, dust and laughter and mismatched singing curling in the wake of the truck's tires. Dani turned down the volume when she saw a big screen looming over a field, its surface already flickering with light.

"Are we late?" Dani asked.

Jamie turned over her wrist to check her battered old watch. "Nah. Two minutes. Tops. Right on time, really."

A bored-looking man at a farm gate checked the tickets Jamie handed over with a flashlight. He shone the light in their faces, and Dani flinched away from the sudden brightness.

"This is an R rated movie, Miss," he said.

"Yup," said Jamie. "Knew that when I bought the tickets."

For a moment Dani was afraid he was going to ask them for some form of identification, but then he just shrugged and pulled open the gate. Jamie gave him a lazy wave as they passed, which he returned, shutting the gate behind them.

Dani was still blinking purple spots from her vision when she leaned forward in her seat. "Jamie."

"Hmm?"

"What movie are we seeing?"

"The only movie that was playing," said Jamie. "Carrie."

Dani's brows furrowed in thought as she tried to recall the premise of the movie. She vaguely remembered seeing an ad in the paper with the title, but she hadn't seen a trailer.

A horror film, she knew. The last time she had seen a horror film, Tommy and David had made them watch The Exorcist in the basement. Carson had spent practically the whole time with his eyes covered by a pillow. Eddie had pretended to be unaffected, but every now and then he would grip Dani's hand and his jaw would clench as he swallowed. For her part, Dani kept waiting to be scared, waiting to feel the same thrill of fear that so clearly gripped the others, only to be vaguely disappointed when the anticipation was greater than the punchline. Or the pea soup, as it were.

"You all right with scary movies?" Jamie asked as she backed into a space beside a row of other already parked vehicles and killed the engine.

"They're okay. I haven't seen many," Dani answered honestly. "I think a better question is: why are we parked backwards?”

With a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows Jamie reached over the back of the seat into the cramped storage compartment between them and the base of the truck's bed. After a bit of rummaging around, she pulled out a pillow and a blanket. "Let's go," Jamie said, jerking her head towards the bed behind them. "I think it's about to start."

Grinning, Dani opened the passenger door and followed Jamie around the back of the truck. Jamie had already hopped out and opened the tray so that they could clamber up inside. It had been swept clean, not a speck of dirt to be found by Nan's critical eye. Jamie tossed down the pillow against the back and sat, peeling back the blanket to leave a clear space beside her. Dani took it without a hint of hesitation, pulling half of the blanket over herself and wriggling closer to Jamie so they could share.

The film had already been running for a few seconds. They’d missed the opening producer’s logo. On screen a group of girls was playing volleyball at school, and all of them were blaming the titular character for being bad at sports and making them lose.

Jamie nudged her side gently. “Didn’t know they made this movie about you, Poppins.”

Dani nudged her back not as gently. “Shut up.”

Jamie just snickered. As the title sequence began to roll across the visual of a locker room, Jamie pointed up at the screen. “Think I saw a tit,” she said.

Dani rolled her eyes. “Is that all you think about?”

Unabashed, Jamie just shrugged. “Usually. Yeah.”

Water and blood was running down a girl’s naked thigh on screen, but Dani hardly noticed. She was too preoccupied by the way Jamie's legs tangled up in her own, both of them wearing shorts. Skin against warm skin. When Dani rearranged her ankles to a more comfortable position, Jamie didn't even glance over at her, simply shifted so that Dani's calves were between both of her own, the two settling against one another. One of their shoulders overlapped. Dani could feel part of Jamie's chest rise against the base of her shoulder blade with every inhalation.

"Is this comfortable?" Dani murmured.

Jamie shot her a quick grin. “Yeah. ‘Course. You?”

Dani nodded. On screen Carrie was in the principal’s office, clutching folders and papers to her chest. “Wish I got a week off of gym class,” Dani said under her breath.

Jamie laughed and Dani could feel every movement. “At least your mum’s not as nutty as this one.”

Dani hummed in agreement but said nothing and the film rolled on. Most of what Dani knew of horror films involved chainsaws and sharks and priests chanting Latin at possessed girls. To her, chainsaws were useful tools. Sharks were all but nonexistent apart from a concept that involved distant oceans. And she had yet to come across a possession no matter how many times Jamie claimed Jackie Pullman was the Antichrist.

This was different. This was a quiet suburban district. This was familiar hairstyles. Familiar midwestern accents and familiar clothes. A school that might as well have been filmed on their own campus, and the kind of crude bullying classmates that made her wince. A mother dragging a daughter through the kitchen and locking her into a closet until she screamed, pounded at the door with fists and wails, voice raw, begging to be let out until she broke. Tremor and prayer and—

“Hey.”

Jamie’s voice jerked Dani from the screen. She was tense all over and squeezing Jamie’s hand tight enough that her own bones creaked.

“Sorry,” Dani mumbled. She tried to pull her hand away, but Jamie held her fast and warm.

“We can go,” said Jamie. “If you want. We can just go.”

Dani’s eyes darted back up to the screen, but the scene had passed. Mrs. White was accepting a kiss on the cheek from her daughter before bed and Carrie was crying into her own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

They could leave. It didn’t matter that Dani had been wanting to go to an outdoor picture theatre for the pure novelty of it. It wasn’t about watching a movie. Jamie would laugh it off and drive them back without even making Dani feel bad about it. They could take the long way home. They could wend their way back, lazy as you please, letting the August wind guide them. She could watch the way Jamie's hair caught the breeze, the way her face was lit up by the rare passing car. She didn't need an excuse to drive with Jamie for hours with no destination in mind, nowhere to be tomorrow, nothing but road ahead and road behind, long and straight as far as the eye could see.

Still, Dani shook her head. “It’s fine,” she insisted. “This is fine.”

In the night, in the soft light of the large screen stretching over a field, Jamie’s eyes were dark. The faintest glint of the screen reflected when she blinked, studying Dani’s face, her own expression inscrutable. Then Jamie smiled. "Right, then."

She shifted and for a brief moment Dani thought she was going to pack them up to leave regardless, but Jamie only moved around enough so that she could slip her arm around Dani's back, her hand lingering at Dani's waist. "Offer still stands," Jamie said. "Whenever you like."

There was a snarky remark on the tip of Dani's tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. Not when Jamie was being sweet. She relaxed against Jamie’s arm with a sigh, letting her head lean against Jamie’s shoulder as they settled in for the rest of the movie. The premise only got more ridiculous. Somehow it was better with the supernatural elements. Less real. Carrie moving things with her mind. Carrie being less of a girl and more of a spectre. Dani actually had to bite her lip to hold back a snort when the bucket of blood dropped on her prom date and knocked him clean out on the floor.

“Bit silly,” Jamie said with a huff of laughter. She was a line of warmth against Dani’s flank. Her hand hadn’t moved from its spot at Dani’s waist in what must have been an hour.

“It’s the hose that gets me,” Dani said, miming it with her hand in Jamie’s face. When Dani dared to tap at Jamie’s nose, Jamie stuck out her tongue and Dani jerked her hand back with an amused squeak. Flames leapt up the twenty foot tall screen, shrouding Carrie in gruesome reds, but Dani was too busy wriggling away from Jamie's treacherous prodding at just the right place on her side that always made her squirm.

The first drop of rain splattered against the blanket and at first Dani thought it was a moth attracted by the soft light. The next drop of rain however landed on the back of her arm. She jerked, looking up at the sky. At first the sound of rain falling was drowned out by the shrill shriek of violins, but a flash of lightning and the roll of thunder was impossible to miss.

“Weekend my flat arse,” Jamie swore, sounding more like Nan than ever as she and Dani both scrambled from the bed of the truck.

“Pillow!” Dani pointed even as she carried the blanket in her own arms.

Swearing again — the rain was coming thick and fast now — Jamie stood on the tire so she could reach into the truck bed and snatch up the pillow. They clambered back into the truck, drenched and laughing. Jamie’s hair was plastered to her face and neck like trails of black ink, and Dani raked a hand through her own hair to get it away from her face.

“This is better than the end of the movie anyway,” Jamie said with a broad grin. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her white shirt might as well have been invisible from the way it clung to her frame.

Dani reached out and plucked at the sleeve of her t-shirt, laughing, “You look like you just jumped into a lake.”

“Think you’re any better off?” Jamie asked. She winked, brushing Dani’s hand off so she could start the engine. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Rain pummeled the roof of the truck in a steady downpour broken only by the occasional flash and crack of the sky overhead. Jamie nursed the truck along, leaning forward in her seat and craning her neck for a glimpse of lightning forking across the sky in favor of speeding down the road, while Dani rubbed the wet from her hair with whatever dry parts of the blanket she could find.

“Do I really look that bad?” Dani asked.

“You saying I look bad?”

Glancing over, Dani let her eyes wander across the stretch of wet fabric across Jamie’s shoulders. “No,” she said, clearing her throat. Then she added, “The jeans are uncomfortable though.”

With a grimace, Jamie shifted in her seat and tugged at the line of her too short jeans with her spare hand. “True that. Should’ve worn a skirt.”

“You don’t own a skirt.”

“Just because you haven’t seen me wear a skirt,” said Jamie. “Doesn’t mean I don’t own a skirt.”

“I want to see it when we get back.”

“Tomorrow,” Jamie said. “And you’ll make me cups of tea for a week as payment for when you lose.”

Dani stuck out her hand. “Shake on it.”

Gamely — and careful not to take her eyes off the road — Jamie reached out and shook Dani’s hand. As Dani was about to retract it however, Jamie tightened her hold with a grin. “And what do you want if you win?”

“Is this your way of saying you don’t actually own a skirt?” Dani asked, and she teased at the soft underside of Jamie’s wrist with the tips of her fingers.

Jamie tangled their fingers together to get her to stop. “No. It’s my way of asking what you want to do next time.”

Smiling, Dani said, “See another movie?”

“Done.”

Jamie shook her hand firmly once more, then let her go.

--

here take some memes

#the haunting of bly manor #thobm #damie #dani clayton #jamie taylor #bring home a haunting #cfau #roman writes

[nyxdelanuit]

It Started With a Postcard (Sero x F! Reader)

This is my contribution to the BNHarem’s penpal event! This event is nsfw so be warned! I had a lot of fun with this collab <3 

Please see the Penpal Masterlist to see the other characters! 

Warnings: smut, nsfw themes below!

Sero stood outside his apartment, staring down at a flowery postcard in his hand with an apprehensive gaze. The early afternoon sun warmed his shoulders, reminding him that he was still stood outside of his modest house. He brought the mail inside, kicking off his shoes at the door. Bills and various coupons were glanced over quickly before his eyes returned to the stiff postcard. The other mail was inelegantly dropped on the kitchen counter. Sero’s eyes scanned the delicate writing as he rummaged his kitchen for a drink. The handwriting was rushed and messy, but still a softer hand than his own.  

It had been a spur of the moment kind of thing, signing up for an anonymous penpal. He had been passing through a stationery store on his way home from patrol, preferring the calm walk home instead of flying above as he did for work. It allowed him to leave a lot of the tension of his job outside of his home as he watched the calm masses meander through the streets in the dying light. He had passed the shop many times before. There was just something that pulled to the shopfront that day. The scent of wooden pencils and lightly perfumed paper leaked out onto the streets, likely from the kiosk placed in front of the encompassing window. He knew it was a ploy to get more out of a dying business, selling a penpal package with bundled paper, envelopes, stamps, and a single postcard. There were spaces to fill out his information, and all letters would be sent through the shop. It had been tempting at the time, the opportunity to talk to someone who didn’t know his hero persona.

It had gotten tiring throughout the years, being the backbone of his friend group. Bakugou didn’t have the emotional intelligence to comfort their friends, Kaminari and Mina were too reckless and blase, and poor Kirishima was ironically too soft. So it had fallen to him, the voice of reason. The one everyone called at three in the morning when the weight was too heavy for one of his friends to hold alone. He had carried it all for years, not stopping to wonder who would hold him together while he supported everyone else. He just had to shrug it off with a smile, as they expected.

But now, the unassuming postcard in his hand offered something different. This person expected nothing more from him than a letter. He didn’t have to be Sero the hero, or Sero the strong one, he could just be Sero. His eyes roamed over the postcard once more before he searched the house for the bundle of paper he purchased. He flopped down onto his couch, picking out a soft grey piece of stationary and leaning over his coffee table to write.

For the first time since high school, Sero struggled with his words. His sentences were awkward and stunted and he floundered over what to say. It was harder than he remembered to start up a conversation with someone who couldn’t instantly reply. Even more so when he was trying to be vigilant about not letting his penpal, Y/N, know about his hero work. Everything he put down about his life felt vague and he hoped his new penpal would overlook his obvious avoidance of the topic.

It took a few days before Sero received a reply. He couldn’t excuse the excitement he felt at the soft envelope in his mailbox, stamped with the stationery store’s address. Sero briefly wondered about who his penpal could be, it would have to be someone within his patrol area. The store was locally owned after all. Perhaps he had even saved his penpal before.

While Sero’s letter had been subdued, neutral in both color and tone, his penpal was decidedly exuberant. The paper itself was awash in pastels with a light littering of designs, neither dark enough to obscure their writing. He noticed the writing was less hurried, but not much neater. It helped anchor Sero to the idea that it was another person on the other side of this letter, something as little as not having the best penmanship was oddly endearing.

His name ‘Hanta’ curled in a delicate slant at the top, causing the breath in Sero’s lungs to hitch. He had forgotten he hadn’t signed his full name, too worried that his penpal would connect it to his hero life and put him on some sort of pedestal. His penpal wrote significantly more about themselves than he had, but didn’t seem perturbed at his reluctance.

They worked a job they were okay at, they lived modestly within their means, they saw their friends often enough, and they met with their parents once a month for dinner. They were happy, but they wished for something to break up the monotony, therefore they signed up for the penpal service. Even though the topic was a bit dull, Sero saw the life behind their words. Humor laced their words and although Sero wasn’t quite happy about the self-deprecating tone, he could work with that. Your name was signed at the bottom, a messy smiley face scrawled just next to it. Without thinking, he brushed his thumb over the doodle, the smile blurred but still bringing a smile to Sero’s face.

There was no hesitance this time as he picked a more playful stationary. The words seem to flow onto the paper with no thought, he had forgotten how nice it was to just communicate with someone with no pretenses.

Weeks passed this way, and people could tell there was a little more pep to Cellophane’s step. He was more eager to get home, a new letter appearing in his mailbox every few days. Truth be told, he hated the wait. Every word poured out to pages made him feel closer to his mystery friend. He paused today, walking through the busy streets. Did he consider his penpal his friend? In every way you could consider someone you know only through words on paper, he supposed he did. Throughout the months of writing, there had been no lack of conversation. They shared in each other’s good fortune and even a few less fortunate events. Sero looked forward to their letters even more than Kaminari’s occasional club invites. Even now as he dodged his neighbor’s attempts at conversation, all he could think of was the softly scented envelope he hoped was waiting for him.

His hopes were rewarded. Sero glanced sheepishly at the growing piles of neglected mail on his counters as he cradled the letter to his chest. He wasted no time reclining on his couch and opening your letter. He wondered, not for the first time, if you sprayed some sort of perfume on your letter or if that was just the scent of you. Either way, it had become a comfort to him. There was no stopping the grin that dominated his face as he laid back onto the couch, intently running his eyes over your words. You always made sure to respond to everything he said, Sero had no idea the last time he felt this seen.

He was already moving to pen up a reply before he noticed your signature smiley face was missing from the end of the letter. Instead, penned in a shaky hand,

‘Call me sometime, Hanta. XXX-XXX-XXXX’

Sero stumbled over his feet trying to get up, ultimately ending up in a heap on the floor. In his haste, he struck out with his tape, pulling his phone from the counter into his hand. He quickly unstuck the tape and tapped open his contacts. Once your contact was filled out, the empty picture stared Sero in the face. His fingers seemed to move on their own, pressing the phone icon softly. It finally registered as the dial tone rang through his silent house, his hands fumbling to get the phone to his ear.

You picked up after two rings.

“Hanta!” His heart swelled as he realized he wasn’t the only one eager to talk, not to mention his given name falling so easily from your lips.

“Wow, do you have some sort of psychic quirk?” He chuckled into the phone. Neither of you had disclosed your quirks as of yet. You returned his laughter nervously.

“Oh definitely, I haven’t been answering every unknown number the past two days with your name or anything.” Sero settled himself on the floor, his free arm stretching up over his head. The sun streaming through his window, the particles in the air lit like tiny embers as they drifted. It felt as if his grin was etched into his face with how much he was smiling. He almost missed the silence that stretched on as he tried to imprint your voice into his head.

“Oh, sorry. I just got off of work, why don’t you tell me how your day went while I unwind a little?” It almost felt as if he was floating as you prattled on about the mundane happenings of your day. It was so normal, so nice. He forgot how nice it was to just live for a minute.

“Hanta?” He hoped you couldn’t tell the way he choked on his breath every time you said his name. “You just got off of work, how was your day?”

“Well I’ve got a few hours to rest before I’m on call, but today was pretty low-key as far as they go.” It felt natural to tell you about his day that he didn’t notice his slip up. It wasn’t as easy as it was on paper.

“On-call?” Sero cringed as you questioned. “Like at a hospital or something?”

”Something like that.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He heard you hum an affirmation, but to his surprise, you didn’t push any further.

“Sounds kinda rough, Hanta. I know I’m pretty cranky when my schedule gets changed.” He appreciated how you kept trying to get to know him without pushing the things he wasn’t ready to share. “And it must be some commute if you work in something like a hospital. There aren’t any close-by. Oh, sorry, I guess I’m assuming you live nearby since the paper shop is local.”

“Yeah, I do. Live nearby, I mean… and the commute isn’t terrible.” Sero muttered awkwardly into the phone.

“I wonder how many times we’ve passed each other without knowing.” Your voice came out a little breathlessly as if you were daydreaming on the other end.

It was easy for Sero to fall into you. Hours passed by as the two of you talked about anything that came to mind. He had barely even noticed the shadows growing deeper as the light faded from his house, until only darkness remained, cut by a singular beam of light from the bright moon. He was fully content to talk to you all night, provided that he wasn’t called into work. At least he was until your yawn cut through your voice.

“I didn’t realize it was so late. Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?” Your voice was getting exponentially drowsy with each minute that passed.

“I’m already on-call, you should get some sleep though.” He chuckled softly into the receiver. Your sleepy voice was adorable.

“Hanta! You shouldn’t have let me blather on instead of letting you rest.” You tried your best to reprimand him, but it only brought forth another soft chuckle.

“I’ll be fine. It was worth it to talk to you, anyway. Now go to bed. Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Hanta.” Your voice was barely a breath, and Sero was reluctant to hang up.

It became a nightly ritual between the two of you. Sero called whenever he got off of work, and the two of you talked throughout the night. He insisted you stay on the line even as he made dinner. Sero gave good advice on your shitty coworkers, and he told you stories about his eccentric friends to fill the empty space. You had even tuned into a show together, commenting about the bad storyline and cheesy acting. Every night, Sero would wait for your yawn and wish you a goodnight. You had buried yourself in his heart, and he was in no hurry to remove you.

You were convinced you had worried a path in your floor. Sero’s calls were never on a set schedule, but he had called you every night for over a month, and it was passed the time you usually fell asleep on him. There had been no word from him all day, not even a text to say he’d miss your call.

Sero got back home late. It had been the worst day that he’d had in a while. He was called for assistance rescuing people while some of his more combat-oriented heroes took on a villain, but there had been heavy casualties. All the tape in the world couldn’t fix someone crushed by the rubble. Sero knew that too well now.

His body moved on muscle memory. He had already changed out of his gear and showered at the agency, so he simply kicked his shoes off and stumbled to the couch. There was no thought to it as he dialed your number.

“Hanta! Are you okay?” The panic in your voice floored him.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of how late it was. Did I wake you?” The somber tone of his voice shook you.

“It’s fine, did something happen?” Sero sighed into the phone, choosing his words carefully.

“My work involves helping people, but I wasn’t able to save all of them today.”

The two of you talked into the early hours of the morning. Sero felt everything spill over as he spoke, and you somehow took everything in stride.

“...And I couldn’t do anything.” Somehow his chest felt lighter and tight all at the same time.

“That doesn’t mean that your work isn’t important anymore. You make a difference. A big one.” Was this how other people felt when he was on the other side? It didn’t stop hurting, but knowing that someone was there carrying the weight with you was more than Sero could have hoped for.

Life returned to normal after that, with the exception that Sero started being a little more forthcoming with how his days went. You still didn’t know his exact occupation, but you knew enough to help on the rough days. It only made the feelings Sero had for you more intense. Even though the two of you talked every night and sent little text messages throughout the day, neither you nor Sero stopped sending little letters to each other.

Sero was rummaging through the leftover bits of his penpal package, trying to find a good piece of stationery to pen his next letter. His frown marred his face as dull, formal paper littered the bottom of the box. It would have seemed silly to him at the beginning of your correspondence, but he wanted everything to be perfect in his letters. He had saved every one you had sent, after all. If you were doing the same, they had to at least look like they were worth saving.

Sero wandered into the stationery store, sunglasses perched on his face and a practiced neutral expression on his face. With his hoodie bunched up around his oddly shaped elbows, the only recognizable feature Sero seemed to have was his trademark grin. If he could get in and out without being noticed, he would be able to get a letter out tonight instead of tomorrow morning.

If drumming up business was the reason for the penpal event, it sure seemed to work if Sero was any judge. He wandered through the aisles, stopping often to look at delicate papers with seasonal decorations. He noticed with a flush that all papers in his grasp were soft and floral, reminiscent of new spring love. In an effort to shake those thoughts from his mind, he watched the other patrons roaming the store. Any of them could be you, passing by without even knowing. One customer in particular had caught his eye, thumbing papers in soft greys and a pale yellow clutched in her hands. How lucky he would be if you were anything like her. He realized a bit later that his distraction had only led him deeper into his daydreams, so instead, he browsed the rubber stamps and stickers towards the end of the aisle. Would you like it if he placed stickers on his letters? Which ones would you like? Maybe the delicate cherry blossom stickers, or the pack with puppies? Did you like a specific character?

He had been so lost in his thoughts, he almost missed the ring of the vaguely familiar voice from the front of the store. He heard it every night, but never this clear. Who else could it be but you? He rushed to the front of the store, the bell chiming as it fell closed. He had half a mind to follow you into the street, seek you out finally. Maybe then he could get you out of his head. But the shopkeeper had called to him, noticing his armful of papers, and Sero knew it was too late. Even if he left now, he wouldn’t be able to pick you out of the crowd. Next time he wouldn’t hesitate.

It was easier to admit on paper. Sero wrote to you that night about how he thought he may have just missed you earlier, and how he had started thinking about meeting up. His hand trembled as he wrote about he was a bit nervous about how much he liked you. He finished the letter quickly, sealing it in an envelope and placing it in the mailbox before collapsing in bed. No taking it back now.

It had been quiet for days, and Sero was starting to feel on edge. He liked the days where there wasn’t much to do, it meant that everything was safe and he was doing his job, but multiple days in a row meant trouble. It didn’t take long for his hunch to be proven correct. Glass shattered onto the streets, metal crunched against metal, and Sero moved as fast as he could push himself to go.

Thankfully a few heroes had been nearby to assist Sero with the robbery-turned-mass-destruction. It took them longer than Sero liked, but the villains were subdued. With the criminals apprehended, Sero focused on the cleanup. He had no more than a few scratches, but he was worried about all those that may be trapped in the toppling buildings. A few buildings sat askew, steel beams exposed like snakes reaching out into the sky. It was fairly easy for him to stabilize the buildings, swinging around with his tape like a spider cocooning its prey. As each building was stabilized, he quickly scanned through the halls, escorting any remaining citizens out of the building and past the danger zone. He worked methodically, moving down the street and clearing each building before the next. Compassionate, yet logical. He couldn’t let the recent memory of his losses skew his current predicament.

Those thoughts had swum through Sero’s head until a harsh squeal accompanied by a metallic groan met his ears. He wasted no time jumping into action, flinging himself through the sky to the source. There you hung, dangling by increasingly sweaty hands as you desperately tried to get a better grip on the slowly sagging steel girder. Sero’s heart beat erratically against his chest, but his body moved on instincts ingrained in his muscles.

It always looked so smooth in the movies when the hero swoops in to save the girl. The girl would stare up at the hero in admiration as they glided through the air, as graceful in the sky as a bird. That’s not how you felt. Cellophane’s body collided against yours like a truck, pushing the air from your lungs. Your whole body lurched against his as he scooped you up. The crashing of the beam behind you echoed in your ears, you couldn’t begin to imagine what would have happened if he had been even a minute later. Cellophane may have swung through the air like he was made for it, but your body was jostled by the air beating against your face. The helmet seemed a really wise choice at the moment. As you struggled to grip onto his form, you felt the phone in your pocket easing it’s way out.

“Hey, stop squirming. I’ve got you.” Cellophane spoke to you calmly, but all you could think of was the phone that was about to shatter across the pavement far below you. Your hand reached out to grasp at the device, grasping around thin air. “It’s just a phone, you can get a new one.” Cellophane tried to comfort you as you watched the glittering of your phone exploding and becoming one with the debris of the street.

“No, I have to be there when Hanta calls!” You cried out. Today had already been hard enough, and in your frightened state, all you could think of was how Hanta would hate you if you ghosted him. Cellophane’s chuckle rumbled through where your chests touched, and you couldn’t help but smack his shoulder lightly. “It’s not funny.” Tears gathered in your eyes, all these emotions were too much for you.

“I think Hanta won’t mind if you miss a call, Y/N.” He cooed. You were startled as the tears escaped your eyes.

“Hanta?” His grin was visible through his helmet as he clutched you a little closer to his chest.

“Gotta say, this wasn’t what I was thinking of when I said I wanted to meet you.” You manage to loop your arms around his neck and pull him closer, causing him to veer off course slightly. He righted himself with a nervous chuckle, landing gently on a stable rooftop nearby. “Sit tight for a bit and I’ll come get you, okay?” You could only nod numbly as he propelled himself back into the sky.

Sero may have rushed through his work, knowing you were waiting for him as the chill of the night started to set in. It had been a long time since he felt such a thrill soaring through the city. He circled lowly around the building, coming up behind you as you swung your feet off the edge of the building, staring up at the night sky. He plopped down beside you, removing his helmet and fidgeting with his sweat-slicked hair.

“So… come here often?” Sero pulled a startled chuckle out of you before you leaned onto his shoulder.

“Good one Hanta. Or should I say Cellophane? Now I kinda get why you were so reluctant to tell me your job.” You returned your sights to the sky, a little nervous to look him in the eye.

He stood then and offered you a hand. “Sero Hanta, hero name Cellophane, at your service.” He grinned down at you, and you took his hand to help you stand. You toed the ground with a flush.

“So should I call you Sero then?” It was Sero’s turn to blush.

“Actually, I was hoping this wouldn’t change much between us. I like it when you use my given name.” You nodded, finally looking into his eyes.

“Then you should use mine, too!” Your joined hands still sat between you, and although Sero had realized, he simply gave it a soft squeeze.

“Well, my place is nearby if you want to get cleaned up?” He offered awkwardly. You were suddenly and intensely aware of how all the dust and dirt clung to your skin.

“That would be wonderful.” His smile turned mischievous as he pulled you to his chest, not giving you time to get nervous as he vaulted the two of you off the roof. You had half a mind to scold him, but you were too focused on enjoying the ride. Seeing the city you lived in, the streets you walked every day, from a bird’s eye view was not something you would forget anytime soon. The biting wind stung your eyes, but you couldn’t bring yourself to close them.

To your surprise, Sero deposited the two of you on his balcony. Why waste time with the front door when he could meander through the sliding door? He quickly ushered you through his room. He tried to at least. You were having too much fun pretending your legs were jelly and trying to get a glimpse of his room. It was nice to know that the light-hearted chemistry you had felt over the phone was more than present in person by the way Sero was laughing along with you instead of kicking you out.

The two of you settled into his living room, cold drinks in hand as you tried to catch your breath from the whirlwind of a day. Sero seemed to be keeping an eye on you, and you wondered if he was simply looking for any lingering unease from the attack or if he was as enamored with you as you were with him.

“The bathroom is down the hall, you should get cleaned up.” He broke the comfortable silence, motioning to a door behind you. You shook your head vehemently.

“Oh no, Mr. Hero, sir.” You giggled at him, “You worked a long and hard day, I can wait.”

“You’re the guest!”

“And I’ll be a damned good one and let you go first.” Sero huffed at you before conceding, tossing you a remote to the television as he passed.

“Fine, but next time you go first.” You gasped as he disappeared behind a door.

“Oooh, so you already think there will be a next time? Hanta, I took you for a gentleman!” You jeered at him playfully. Even with the door closed, you could hear him groan.

“Shush! I have neighbors ya know.” He tried to sound put-off, but you could hear the laughter in his voice. To his credit, he didn’t make you wait very long. Steam rolled out of the bathroom as he walked out, still toweling his hair. You tried not to stare at the way his shorts hung low on his hips or the way his shirt stuck to his still-damp skin, but there was no good place to look that wouldn’t make it obvious. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice your conundrum, simply gesturing to the bathroom.

“It’s all ready for you, I’ve put out a towel you can use. Feel free to use any of my stuff, although it might smell as nice as you’re used to.” You thanked him softly as you escaped into the bathroom to hide your flush. The water still ran warm from Sero’s shower, and you were quick to strip and step into the stream. You watched in fascination as all the day’s mess ran down the drain, a sickly grey.

Sero waited for you on his couch, still pristine. He frowned, realizing that you had probably stood the whole time as to not dirty his furniture. You were too stubborn for your own good, it seemed. He mindlessly flipped through the channels, wondering vaguely if he should just watch one of the many shows he neglected. It wasn’t until he heard the soft padding of your feet that he pulled himself from his thoughts. You stood at the entrance of the hallway, covered only by the fluffy towel he had left for you. Your face was fully flushed, and Sero tried to convince himself it was only from the shower.

“My clothes are completely wrecked, do you have anything I could change into?” Your voice was soft and reluctant, and Sero was quick to pop off the couch, slipping slightly in his haste to help you once again. He tried to slip past you to his room, but he couldn’t help stopping as your skin brushed against his. You looked up at him, eyes wide and questioning.

Sero prided himself on his control. Out of all of his friends, he was known as the level-headed and logical one. Even so, that restraint only went so far. Seeing you in such a state of undress, looking up at him so earnestly, it broke the dam holding back his desires.

His hands tangled in your wet hair, pulling your lips to his with bruising force. You gasped into his hold, dropping the towel as you draped your arms around his neck. Clothes were forgotten as his hands traveled down your neck, moving your head to fit against his better. His tongue traced against your lips with agonizing slowness, but his hands held no such restraint. His rough fingertips drifted down your neck, ghosting past your nipples as they made their way to your waist. He didn’t hesitate to lift you by the thighs, making you anchor your legs around him.

Sero staggered to his room, never once compromising his hold on you. His body followed you down onto his bed, not letting his lips leave you for more than a moment. When he finally broke away, eyes hazy with lust, he gazed down at you.

“Is this okay?” He wanted you to be sure. You were, especially after his question.

“Yes, Hanta. I want you.” Your voice was heavy with your desire, driving him to strip his shirt with an urgency he rarely felt outside of work. The fabric flew into the darkness of the room and his lips were on you shortly after. He let his hands roam now that you were in his bed, kneading experimentally at your breasts. You pushed your chest into his hold, encouraging him to give you more. Your hands found their way to his navel tracing down the path of dark hair. Sero was already straining against the fabric, and you softly swirled your fingers over the tip. He groaned darkly against your mouth, pulling back to rip the shorts off of his body. His lips descended on your chest, harsh nips and soothing licks raining down on your skin. You were so focused on the way he wrapped his lips around your nipple that you hadn’t noticed his hand grazing your skin down to your core. Sero swirled his tongue around your nipple, lavishing the other in rough pinches and soothing circles.

Your back arched off the bed as he spread your folds, skimming over your clit. You bucked against his hand, desperate to feel his fingers against you.

“You’re so wet for me.” He panted against your chest, staring up at you with dark eyes. “Did you think of me after our calls? Did our talks make your heart race like they did mine?” You nodded helplessly.

“Please Hanta.” You begged for his touch and he was too enamored with you to resist. His finger entered you deftly, his palm rough against your clit.

“I had hoped so, ya know I liked you even before I saw your face. Now I know how good you look, I don’t want to let you go.” He finished his breathy sentence with a nip to the underside of your breast, making you squirm against him. He moved back to watch you, adding another finger and then two. The squelching noises coming from his fingers would have normally embarrassed you, but you found yourself lost in the way that he stared at you like an oasis in a desert; like you were something he had been waiting for so long to indulge in. “I already knew you must be beautiful, just from your voice, but fuck, you are so much more than I could imagine. I think I could be happy to spend the rest of my life in this bed with you if you kept looking at me the way you do now.” His hand retreated from your heat, and your body tried to follow. “I’m sorry, I can’t hold back anymore.” He panted, fisting his weeping length before sliding it through the slick collected between your legs.

It was a sweet stretch as Sero sunk into you, a few thrusts before he was fully seated inside you. You reached for him, scratching at his shoulders as you tried to roll your hips up to meet him.

“Fuck, babe. You’re pulling me in so good.” He groaned, placing sloppy kisses across your shoulder. He pulled out to the tip, teasing himself as much as he was teasing you, before slamming home with a lewd smack. Your keening moan set him off, pistoning into your tight cunt without remorse. His fingers dug into your thighs as he tried to angle them higher without slowing. Sero’s hands slid up to the underside of your knees, almost bending you in half as he rolled his hips viciously, grinding up against your engorged clit with every thrust.

“I can’t get you off of my mind. F-fuck, I can’t let you go now. You’re stuck with me.” His hips stuttered against you as he spoke, slowing down to edge himself. The slowed pace had you writhing, not able to buck up against him well in this position. He chuckled softly, his breath hot on your skin. You were so focused on chasing your high, your eyes shut tight and head thrown back, that you barely noticed the tearing of tape coming from Sero. He deftly crossed your legs, attaching the tape to his headboard off to the side in a way that still allowed him to see your face. “Goddamn, babe, you’re so tight like this.” His breathing was erratic as he placed his newly-freed hands on your ass, separating them until he could clearly see himself sinking into your warm cunt. You gasped under his intense gaze, clenching around his cock. The veins were clear in his neck as he tried to hold himself back, his voice caught in his throat.

Then he snapped, a low groan resonating throughout the room. He was all fast, demanding thrusts and blissful praises. You responded in kind, wordless wails of pleasure and breathless gasps. “I’m not gonna be able to last much longer. Cum for me, baby, please.” He pleaded with you, his voice gravelly and needy. His calloused fingers found your clit easily, rubbing figure eights just on the right side of pain. Your legs struggled against the tape as you tried to grind yourself more on his length, pushing his cock into the spongy area that craved his attention. You felt yourself wind up, breaths shallow as you stayed rigid against his passion, desperate for him to keep rubbing against that spot. Your head was swimming with the lack of oxygen as you held your breath long enough for the tension to snap. Sero’s head flew back with a moan as your walls started to drag him further in, constricting his cock with an encompassing ecstasy. He sped up, keeping you on the precipice of over-stimulation. With a final wet smack, he sheathed himself within you, pulsating as the warm ropes of his cum branded your insides.

He stayed within you as he gently removed the tape from your skin, leaving soft kisses on every reddening section of skin. His hands rubbed soothing circles into your thighs, moving down to your calves. “Are your legs sore? I probably should have asked sooner.” He looked a bit ashamed as he asked, only relaxing once you shook your head. “Good.” He pulled out of you slowly, your combined fluids steadily flowing from you.

He quickly ran to his bathroom, grabbing a washcloth and wetting it with warm water. Once he returned, he returned to his spot between your legs, delicately wiping up all remnants of your fluids. His touch was careful against your swollen sex, and the warmth soothed away any ache that may have remained. He cleaned himself quickly after, only settling himself in bed once he deemed you were taken care of. Once he collapsed onto the bed, he pulled you onto his shoulder.

“So… would it be presumptuous of me to call you my girlfriend?” A thread of nervousness weaved through his voice as he tucked your face away from his flushing face. You allowed yourself a tired giggle.

“I think that’d be nice, Hanta.” He shuddered at the feeling of your breath against his neck.

“Oh, great! Well then, does my beautiful, caring, amazing girlfriend want to stay the night.” You could feel his grin against your head and couldn’t resist the one on your own face.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I don’t have work tomorrow, so why not.”

#sero x reader #sero hanta smut #bnha x reader #mha x reader #nyx writes #bnharem collab

[blackteaandbones]

This scene has been rattling around in my head as part of a grander fic for ages, and tonight, out of the blue, I got the irresistible urge to write it down. It’s very rough and mostly unedited, but I had fun writing it, so I’ll share it here in case it might be fun for anyone else. No idea if I’m going to do anything else with it or not yet.

Clarke/Lexa

Winged Clarke AU - Basically, what if the sky people were actually sky people (genetic experimentation, mutation, whatever, this is rough, okay?) and instead of leaving Earth, had formed their own clan, loosely allied with the mountain.

*******

The commander was leading another hunting party.

Clarke watched her from the safe vantage point of a very tall, very leafy, tree. Trikru hunters had a bad habit of shooting trespassing Skaikru on sight. Their bows were small, but the arrows were poisoned. Even a scratch could kill. Clarke shouldn't even be here. The boundaries were clearly marked, and the penalties for crossing them well known.

But Clarke had a problem, and that problem was going to get her killed.

“You know she's going to shoot you, right?”

“Shhh!” Clarke hissed at Wells, perched on the branch beside her. They would have been sitting ducks if not for the protection of the canopy. Wells' wings were black against the silvery bark and green foliage and Clarke's were bright white and gold. Neither of them were dressed for camouflage either. The light, tightly woven fabric of their smocks and trousers was perfect for lazing around in their mountain-top aerie, not so much for sneaking around in Trikru territory. Clarke would have worn something more appropriate, but then she would have had to explain why she was in scout gear, and that wasn't a conversation she wanted to have with her mother.

“This obsession is embarrassingly one-sided. She doesn't even know you exist.”

That wasn't exactly true, but it might as well have been, and they both knew it.

Wells was the only person Clarke had ever told about the unexpected storm that had blown her off course when she was barely fledged, and the Trikru net-trap that had snared her when she tried to land. The last thing she had expected from the scrawny, big-eyed child who found her hanging helplessly from a tree in a  tangle of knotted rope was mercy. Trikru were the monsters in every story their parents told them about the ground. Clarke had been sure she was about to die, but instead of killing her the girl had used her tiny child's knife to cut Clarke free and let her go.

Clarke had flown away with her life and a hopeless crush on a nameless stranger who grew up to be the feared and ruthless Commander of all twelve land-bound clans.  

She doubted the other woman remembered their one meeting as fondly as Clarke did. Or at all.

“If you really want to die today, there are less pathetic ways to do it.”

“I agreed to let you come,” Clarke reminded him.“I didn't say you could talk.”

Wells snorted. “You didn't agree to anything. I followed you.”

“You're free to leave at any time.”

“And let you die alone?” Wells shook his head. “Sorry, I need to be there to say 'I told you so' right before she skewers you on that fancy sword of hers.'”

“Hah, ha.”

The Hunters were on the trail of a pack of Reapers. Clarke and Wells followed at a safe distance. If Wells had actually asked, Clarke would have struggled to explain why she kept coming back. Skaikru wasn't directly involved in the war between the Land-bound clans and the Mountain, but their treaty with the Mountain meant the other clans had condemned them as traitors and spies. Clarke shouldn't be anywhere near Trikru territory, but she could never stay away for long.

They smelt the Reapers before they saw them. Reapers fought in a pack, but beyond that very little of what made them human remained. The commander's group outnumbered them, and they were experience hunters. It should have been a rout, but before they could fall on the ragged group, an ominous horn blared in the distance.

Everyone froze.

And then a second pack of Reapers came boiling out of the trees, followed by a rolling cloud of poisonous green smoke. Clarke and Wells took off in a flurry of feathers. Acid fog was the Mountains weapon. Skaikru may have been their allies, but the fog didn't discriminate, and there shouldn't have been any Skaikru in that part of the forest. They rose to a safe height above the tree tops, and Clarke backwinged in place, waiting for the Hunters to break cover. The acid was coming from the North, and the Reapers were in the East. There wouldn't be time to fight through them before they got caught in the fog. South was the cliffs. So their only way out was back the way they came, to the West.

A second horn belled through the trees, and another blanket of fog started trickling in from the West.

Wells doubled back when he realized Clarke wasn't following him. “Clarke? We have to go, now!”

Clarke didn't answer him, searching the trees below them for any sign of the Commander.

“Clarke!”

There. A small group ran out of the trees towards the cliffs. Clarke swooped down before Wells could stop her, landing in a tree at the edge of the forest. She couldn't leave until she knew she was safe. There was still a way out, a rapidly narrowing path West along the cliff, between the forest and the drop off.. The Commander's group was nearly there, but then more Reapers fell on them from the trees. Clarke watched with her heart in her throat as the commander put herself between her hunters and the Reapers, drawing their attack down on her and leaving the others a clear path while she was forced back, step by step towards the cliff until the fog rolled in and cut her off.

First one Reaper, and then another fell under her sword. She took the last one out with a backhand cut across the knees and then kicked him over the edge. But by then the fog was all around her and closing in fast. One one side, Trikru, on the other, Reapers, and neither of them could get through the acid to save her or finish her off. Clarke could see her evaluating her situation, and when she looked thoughtfully over the cliff edge, Clarke knew exactly what she was thinking.

Wells landed beside her, turning her around to face him with a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, there's nothing you can do now.”

Clarke shrugged him off. “She's going to jump.”

“So what?” he snapped. “Clarke, I know she saved you once, but that was over ten years ago! And you were kids! You don't owe her anything.”

Clarke ignored him.

The rest of the hunting party was shouting and pointing, trying to find a way around the fog bank that had separated them from their leader. The reapers were jeering and laughing from the other side, shaking their weapons and stamping their feet, sharpened teeth bared in sickening grins. Clarke's stomach turned. She couldn't watch this.

“Hold this,” she unbuckled her small travel bag from the belt at her waist and shoved it into Wells' hands.

“What are you doing?”

Clarke opened her wings with a snap. “Don't follow me.”

“There's nothing you can- damnit Clarke!” Well's wild grab for her missed, and Clarke threw herself out of the tree before she could change her mind. The wind blowing down from the mountain lifted her up above the fog, but the rising gas still burned in her nostrils. She pulled her scarf up over her nose and flew higher, heading for the cliff.

The Commander was still there, balanced on the edge where the crumbling ground met the sky. She was nearly obscured by the fog, but her cloak was a bright slash of red against the acid green that surrounded her. Arrows sliced through the sky. The reapers had spotted Clarke. She heard a whistle and a thunk, and one of them dropped like the stone that had smashed into his temple at terminal velocity from a well-aimed sling.

Wells still had her back.

Clarke was going to owe him big time after this.

She flew faster. There was no time to take evasive action. Her only choice was speed. She took a deep breath of clear air and dove through the encroaching edges of the fog, hoping she could make it through this with most of her skin intact. It was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing she had ever done. And she didn't care.

She couldn't let her die.

She wouldn't let her die.

Burning feathers had a very distinctive smell.  Almost there. A spear tried to skewer her, and she tipped her wings to avoid it, losing precious time. There was a shout from the hunters. Clarke heard the word Skaikru, along with what she could only guess were several variants of let's get her!

She really wished they wouldn't. She was trying to save their infamous leader here.

The last thin curtain of fog cleared and then she was staring into familiar bloodshot green eyes that widened in disbelief in the split second before Clarke folded her wings and dropped, reaching out to catch hold of whatever straps and edges of leather armour she could wrap her hands around before slamming into the commander and carrying them both off the edge of the cliff.

It wasn't falling. Quite.

Clarke beat her wings against the added weight; trying desperately to slow their decent. Her shoulders and back burned, and pain shot through the muscles keeping them aloft. Even the biggest and strongest Skaikru couldn't fly with more than a light pack or the smallest child. They just weren't built for it.

Clarke wasn't particularly big or strong, but she was stubborn.

Her passenger only struggled for a moment before going limp. Clarke appreciated that. This was hard enough without flailing limbs to contend with. She really appreciated the lack of a knife in her gut too. Stabbing your ride when you're several hundred feet in the air might be a stupid idea, but there was no accounting for instinct in life or death situations, and Clarke was the one who'd done the grabbing. She was very glad the commander wasn't that dumb, and not only because it was currently keeping her insides knife-free.

She would have been really pissed off to find out she was in love with an idiot.

The ground was coming up a good deal faster than Clarke liked. She ignored the aching protest of her wings, flaring them out to catch the air in a last, agonizing bank before they hit the dirt together and rolled, landing in a tangled mess of bruises, burns and broken feathers.

#clarke/lexa #clexa fanfic #Clexa #My writing

[darktammy]

The right kinda of love (ch9)

{Warning: loving making smut I guess you can say. Enjoy my readers.}

Tag: @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @bss-babygirl @living-the-life-1996 @moxleybabe @sassymox @wrestlersownmyheart @lghockey @fabulousrockstar @bluepunkrock

Later on that night Y/n was sitting by the pool. It was late and she was exited for tomorrow morning. She couldn’t wait to meet up with Cassidy for their trip. While she was thinking about all the things they can do she felt someone kick the side of her arm. “Hey how are ya?” Jon ask. “I’m fine just enjoying the night sky for now. Then I’ll get some shut eyes because in the morning I’m heading out.” She told him. Jon nodded as he sat down next to her. “Hey I’m sorry about what I did, I was only trying to protect you that’s all.” She nodded. “I know and I’m sorry too. Most of all I’m so so sorry about your sister Rebecca. I didn’t mean to say all those things.”

You told him as a small tear fell from your face. Jon nodded. “No it’s alright, I just didn’t think she would change. Every time I try to help her, she would always fall back into the same dark hole.” Jon said as he look up into the sky. “I still wish I could have help her out more.” He said. “You did all you could Jon. Remember you can’t always help them when you have your own life. Plus they need to help themselves because if they don’t then they're just going to be weak.” Y/n told him. Jon nodded his head as he look over at Y/n with a smile. Y/n move over to Jon giving him and hug.

The next morning came and you was at the airport. You told Renee and Jon that you was going to take a taxi there due to the fact that you didn’t want Jon to see you with Cassidy. You walk all the way the exit that showed one the ticket. You look around to see if you can spot him. “Damn it Cassidy where are you?” She said starting to worry herself. Then after a few minutes she felt some strong arms hugging her from behind. “Hey they're my sweet strawberry.” She turn around with a smile on her face. “Cassidy I thought I’ll never see you.” She said as she hugged him, Cassidy took Y/n hand as they walk to their flight.

While on the airplane Cassidy had his shades on making Y/n smile. She took them off just so she can see his light brown beautiful eyes of his. He smiled at her as she look up into him. “I heard that you're not suppose to look into your eyes. If you do then that means you're in for a fight. Is that true?” She smiled at him. He lean in and whisper into her ear. “Let’s find out when we get there.” He wink at her with a smile.

One the plane landed they both got there bagging then got a rental car. Cassidy drove the car all the way to the farm house where his grand parents once lived. Cassidy park the car seeing the smile on her face. “OMG!! This place is so pretty.” She said getting out of the car. She look around to see the big blue barn house on the far left while on the right you can see some of the cows. “This place look great Cassidy.” She said. “Oh yeah then you're going to love the barn house once we unpack.” He said. She smiled as they both walk into the house.

She meet Cassidy grandparents for the first time. Such lovely kind people as they welcome her in with open arms. Once they settle in the same bedroom the both laid down on the bed. “So looks like where sharing a room.” Cassidy said. Y/n laugh as she look up at him. “Yeah sound like fun.” She told him.

It was late in the day so Cassidy was helping his grandfather move some cows back into the barn. Y/n watch him without his shirt on which had her turn on a little. She keep her eyes on his body seeing his arms flex as he pulled the cows rope. Y/n watch him as her smile came on her face. Cassidy stop to look over at her. “Ya wanna help me out?” Waking Y/n up from her daydream. “Uh I’m sorry what?” She ask making him laugh. She look down embarrassing herself.

It was night time and Y/n was done taking a shower. She wrap herself up with a towel as she walk out of the bathroom. She dry herself then she put on her nightgown now knowing she’s not staying at Jon and Renee’s home. She laid in the bed as she smiled. “Going to bed so soon?” She look over to see Cassidy standing by the door. “Well I mean all this excited me got me a little tried.” She said sitting up in bed. Cassidy took his pants off and toss them in the hamper. Then he walk into the bathroom she smile as she tried not to fall a sleep. A few minutes later Cassidy walk out with his towel wrap around his hip. He look to see Y/n was already a sleep. He walk up to her giving her a kiss on forehead. “Goodnight sweetheart.” He told her.

In the morning Y/n smiled as she ate the morning breakfast that Cassidy’s grandmother made. “My dear were heading into the city for somethings if that’s ok with you?” She nodded. “Sure I would love to.” She told her. Cassidy walk in as he see breakfast ready. “Thanks grandma.” He gave her a kiss on her head. After breakfast was done Y/n got into the car with his grandmother and they drove off. “Boy she’s nice.” Cassidy look back at his grandfather. “Yeah she’s nice she’s a keeper.” Cassidy laugh as he help his grandfather out with the chores on the farm.

Y/n was helping the woman out with a few things in the supermarket. “So my dear how long have you both been dating?” She look at Y/n. “Oh no I mean we work together but where not dating.” She told her. She nodded as she walk with Y/n. “Well his a good boy I know that for sure. I mean the last women he was with was a big mess.” Y/n look at her. “Who was the other woman if you don’t mind me asking.” Cassidy’s grandmother smiled as she look at her. “Oh this woman was name Penelope oh my she gave him a hard time. She was always thinking about herself never wondering if he was ok. She was hell for him.” She told her. “But it don’t matter because I now can see that smile that I missed so much.” Y/n smiled at her as they finish up their food shopping.

Cassidy was walking around his room until his phone rang it showed Penelope, he sigh as he answers. “Yeah?” He said annoyed. “Well hey I see you left without me, so what’s up you went back to the farm with your grandparents?” Cassidy smirk, “Nah I’m here with my mother and she really hates you.” He said. She laugh as she look down. “Hey listen when you get back I’ll be waiting for you, I mean after all Cassidy we all live in the same apartment building right?” He shook his head after seeing Y/n parking the car. “Yeah Penelope I got to go bye.” Cassidy end the called. “Cassidy! Hey Cassidy damn it!” She said stamping her feet.

Y/n helped the grandmother with the bags as Cassidy came down taking the bags out of his grandmother hand. “I got it you should sit down and relax.” Cassidy had put the bags down on the table. “Oh you do so much.” She said walking away. Y/n started taking the stuff out and putting them away. Cassidy walk over to Y/n as he put his arms around her hips then he lay his head on top of hers. “I’m happy that your here Y/n. That means a lot to me.” She smiled as she puts her hands on his arms. “I’m glad I’m here with you Cassidy.” She smiled.

Renee was sitting on the couch drinking water. “So how is everything so far?” Y/n smiled as she sat down on the bed. Everything is fine. I mean I love it out here. I mean it’s like a breath of fresh air.” She laid down on her bed. “Well what did you two do, I mean did you guys do it yet?” Y/n look at her phone confuse. “What no I’ve only been here for like three days and nothing.” She told her. Renee laugh a little. “Oh Y/n you and I both know your head over heels for this man. I think you should tell him how you feel. Let him know but try not to show it please I mean come on you both are sharing the same bed.” Renee told her. Y/n smiled as she look up at the ceiling. “Yeah got it sis I’ll let you go, and yes I will be there with you so that way I know the sex of the baby. Love you sis.” Renee said the same as they both ended the call.

Y/n got up and look out the window to see Cassidy helping his grandfather fixing the trunk. She watch him without his shirt on, which turn her on. She spent three days with him sleep in the same bed with him. Watch him walk around with a towel on which turn her on more then she can count.

Cassidy look up at the window and wave at her, Y/n wave back as she bit her bottom lips. She move away as she start to breath heavy she was turn on once again. Feeling her nipples as they both are hard. She knew she was wet from seeing him. She slowly moves her hand down her pants. She moves both her finger down between her clit. She saw already wet from just thinking about him. She start to rub herself softly as she close her eyes all she can see was Cassidy. Seeing his face, his body watching him getting close to her like that. She quietly moan under her breath as she though about him touching her. Feeling his lips on her body. Beginning him not to stop the madness that she’s feeling. She whisper to herself. “Oh Cassidy please don’t hold back.” She told herself. She moves faster and faster until she finally it’s her high. Her body shakes as she finally move her hand away as she was out of breath a little. “Oh god I need to clean myself up.” She said walking into the bathroom.

It was late at night Y/n was sitting inside the barn house watching AEW. She heard Cassidy walk in. “Hey there you are. It’s raining outside I think we should be inside the house.” He said sitting next to her. “Nah I love the rain its calming makes me feel happy.” She told him. He nodded while he put his arm around her. “Hey Cassidy?” She said putting her phone down. Cassidy look down at her. “Yeah?” He told her. Y/n had a nerves look on her face. “Will it be odd if someone told you that they care about you?” Cassidy look at her confuse.

Y/n laid on her back while she look up at him. “Hey I really wanna tell you something Cassidy.” He smiled as he move right on top of her. “Cassidy I…love….I love you so much.” She told him making Cassidy lean in giving her a deep passion kiss. Y/n wrap her arms around his neck. Cassidy broke the kiss as he pulled her shirt over her head. Then he rip her bra off as she giggles. Cassidy had a smile on his face then he grab her breast and start to suck on her nipple. Y/n start to moan with pleasure. Slowly Cassidy was bitting lightly on her nipple as he heard her say his name a few times. “Oh Cassidy yes please.” She begged him.

Cassidy lefts his head up as he start to pull her pants off. Now seeing her in her panty he smiled. “How should handle you Y/n uh?” She was confuse at his words. “After you wave back at me I ran up stairs to see if you can help out but, instead I got to see a free show.” He said leaning in. “It was so fucking hot that I got hard so fast that all I can think about was doing this.” Cassidy rip her panty off as he open her legs. With out warning he spat in his hand lean in and start to kiss her clit while sticking two fingers inside her. Y/n start to man loud as she put her hand on her head.

Y/n look down at Cassidy as she watch him eat her out like a mad dog. Like he never ate anything for days. She keep moan out his name as she move one of her hand down to his head. Cassidy start to pump start in while he lick her clit. “Oh…god…yes…I’m getting close please…d.don’t…st…stop!” She yelled out. Cassidy stop what he was doing pulling his finger out her making Y/n look up him confuse. “What the hell?!” She said. Cassidy smiled as he undone his pants. Slowly he pulled his pants down. Then she saw him fully hard and ready. She smiled as she got up on all fours. “Does my little girl want his?” She smiled as he crawl up to him. “Yes daddy.” She said smiling up at him. Slowly she took his cock into her hands and slowly stroke him making him moan. “Oh baby.” Cassidy whisper. Y/n slowly start to put him inside her mouth slowly sucking him with enjoyment.

Cassidy start to feel excited while she keep bobbing her head back and forth. Her hand wraps around his hard cock making him look down at her beaming with joy. Cassidy grab a fist full of her hair as he lean back in an angle just so he can pump himself into her mouth. Y/n look up at him looking happy as she felt him hitting her throat. After a few more pumps he stop letting her head up then kissing her. “If I keep that up then I would have came.” Cassidy told her. She nodded as she kiss him right back.

Cassidy turn Y/n around making her get on all four as she look back at him. Cassidy stared at Y/n while entering her slowly. She start to moan when he enter her slowly. They both moan at the same time Cassidy not wasting anytime thrusting Y/n. Y/n look at Cassidy heartfelt gazed in her eyes. Cassidy keep his eyes on her while pumping her. “Oh god Cassidy I love you so much.” He stop pulling out of her making her whine a little. He grab her making her lay on her back. He force himself back inside her once again. Y/n yelled his name out again. They both glanced into each other eyes.

Cassidy was trusting Y/n hard making her moan loud. She felt the strong emotional connection with Cassidy while he focused on her. “Oh Cassidy…oh you feel so good inside me. I don’t want this to stop please.” She begged him once again. Without one word Cassidy start to slow down while he lean in kissing Y/n on the lips. What they both felt together was the stars finally alone with one another. Their love has finally shown for each other. They both caress each other with love nether one will to submit. Y/n was already feeling herself getting close. She tap Cassidy hard on his arm. “Oh god Cassidy please… I’m coming I’m so close.” She cry out. Cassidy without thinking start to thrust harder, faster just so he too can come alone with her. “Hold on babe I’m getting close.” They both watched each other as they both hit their climax together while the sound of thunder was heard.

Cassidy look down at her with a smile on his face. “Please tell me you enjoyed that?” He ask. She responded “I love it baby.” She kissing him on the lips.

#orange cassidy #orange cassidy smut #Jon moxley #Renee young

[applepi-1]

Friends to lovers- Ushijima

Summary: You and Ushijima grew up together, until one day you had to move, and years later you reunite!

Warnings: Fluff

--

Before Ushijima moves next door to you, you always dragged your way home. Another day of hell, school was hell in this situation. Ever since kids found out, your mom died giving birth to you, they always called you a monster. A murder. Which caused bullying. You never understood how it was your fault. And then, at age 11, everything changed. He moved in. You ignored him best you could, not understanding why he tried to befriend you, I'm sure he heard people talking. But one day, you had to bump into him as you dragged your bag beside you, like always. "Y/n!" You stopped looking at the boy in front of you. "What happened? Your limping." You froze, wincing as he touched your arm.

"I-I fell down the stairs." It was true, you did fall, but not on accident, nor on purpose. I'm sure the kids who did it, it was attentional.

"My mom can fix you up, she fixes me up when I get bruises from volleyball." He plays volleyball?

"It's fine, I usually get my dad to do it." You lied, trying to walk past him, only to wince when you put pressure on your foot.

"Isn't your dad out of town? Come on, I can help." You didn't protest to let him bring you to his mom. And that's how the beautiful friendship started.

For two years you and Ushijima had been friends. You were still getting bullied whenever Ushijima wasn't around. And your father was sick of you dragging your feet to your room, and seeing you put up a fake smile for him.

"Y/n, can I talk to you?"

"Yeah." You stopped on the stairs looking down at him.

"I got a promotion, we have to move." You felt your world fall.

"But... I-I don't want to move, I-I like it here."

"Sweetie, you're getting bullied every day. You don't like it here, you just don't want to leave Ushijima. But, I think it's best, I already accepted the job. Pack your things, we leave tonight. Once you're done, say goodbye to Ushijima." With that, your father left. You felt everything fall apart. You packed your stuff and then made your way to Ushijima.

"Oh, Y/n, he's in his room, dear." You smiled and walked up the stairs knocking on his door.

"Come in." You opened the door and smiled seeing him reading.

"Oi, Nerd." He looked up at you, confused once he saw your tears.

"Y/n? Something wrong?" You walked over sitting in front of him, sighing.

"W-We're moving... Toshi... My dad told me we're moving..." Ushijima's face fell.

"What? You can't leave."

"I don't have a choice..." He pulled you into his chest, you sighed and nuzzled more into him. "I don't want to leave you."

"I don't want you to leave either. We can still mail each other, yeah?"

"Yeah, we can."

"Y/n, your fathers here dear, he says time to go." You sighed and looked at Ushijima. His mom left y'all two alone again.

"I'm gonna miss you Toshi."

"I'm gonna miss you, n/n." You looked at him again, quickly but slowly placing your lips onto his. Before pulling away, placing a bracelet into his hand.

"I'll come back for that." He looked at you and smiled, kissing you slowly. "I'll come back for you." You quickly pulled away and got up, walking out the house, and into the moving truck. You looked up at his room, "Goodbye, Ushi."

--

You were happy with your new school, at least the first year was okay until they found out about your past, you made a friend and trusted her with the secret, which you found out was a mistake. Only deference now, the bullying got physical. "Y/n, can we talk?" Deja vu hit you like a ton of bricks.

"Yeah?"

"We're moving home." You smiled and wrapped your arms around your neck. "You got into Shiratorizawa. Go pack." You immediately ran to your room grabbing a piece of paper, after the 5 years of being gone, during year 3, you and Ushijima stopped writing at the same time, weird, huh?

Dear Toshi,

GUESSS WHATTTT???? We're moving back, baby! You heard me, I get to see and Mama Ushijima again, I miss you guys so much, I'll be staying in a dorm at Shiratorizawa, so you have them to thank for getting me out of this helllll. I miss you so much, Toshi, I can't wait to see you. I hope everything's going well at school! And in volleyball. I saw you on tv, you were amazing! And JESUS you got so Tall, I'm going to look so short being next to you now, thank you, big idiot. See you soon, buddy. I miss you. I know I said that many times writing this, but I do. I hope you still have my bracelet, I'm coming home!!

Love, Y/n

You put the paper into an envelope and quickly wrote down your address than his, before putting a stamp on it and mailing it to him. After that, you packed and got into the moving truck, goodbye hell.

-With Ushijima-

Ushijima was helping his mom move things around when saw the mail. "Hey, mom, you got mail!" He yelled so she could hear him from upstairs. "Mom!" When she didn't reply he got it for her. He looked down it stopping when he saw one for him, his mom came out of the bathroom and looked at him.

"Everything okay, you look pale." He looked at her then down at the envelope.

"I... you remind Y/n, right?"

"L/n? Yeah, they lived next door to us, why?"

"I... I got a letter from her." She smiled at her son watching as he opened it, reading over your words. "She's moving back... she'll be going to Shiratorizawa with me, and... she saw me on tv." I miss you too, Y/n.

--

When you guys made it back to your old home, your dad helped you move into your dorm, before going home to unpack his stuff. Your first day of school was okay, you never ran into Ushijima though. That was the 5th day. You got lost looking for the gym, running into someone, you fell on your but, sighing. You looked up seeing a guy with red hair and red eyes, hey! "Your on the volleyball team, right?" You asked suddenly, jumping up to your feet.

"Yeah, I'm Tendo. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I was looking for the gym. I'm actually looking for someone on the team." Tendo looked at you confused.

"I can show you if you like."

"Thank you! Hey, they call you Guess Monster right? That's so cool!" Tendo looked at you weird, you're the first person to call it cool. Once you both reached the gym you scanned it, spotting the person you were looking for. "Jesus, he got tall." You mumbled, but Tendo heard you. "Toshi!" The tall boy stopped moving, breathing, he thought he was gonna faint. He turned around and looked at you, standing next to Tendo. "Thank you, Tendo found him." You bowed a little before walking to the big guy. "Damn, I was right, I'm like a midget compared to you now." You held up a hand to how tall he was compared to you.

"Still short." You hit his arm, everyone watched their captain confused.

"Still, picking on my height I see. How've you been?"

"I've been good, you?" You froze, you wanted to say fine, but... you could never lie to Ushijima, not since you became friends that is. "Y/n?"

"I ah, been better, to be honest. Just glad to be home. I saw your mom yesterday, still so pretty." He laughed, the team's eyes widen, he can laugh?

"Yeah, she talks about you too. She misses the weird crazy girl who use to come over."

"Ah, I missed her too, and I am not weird." You kicked his leg lightly laughing a little. "I missed you too, you know. You big, giant, idiot."

"I missed you too." He ruffled your hair making you roll your eyes. "How's your dad?"

"Ah, he's good. I was so happy when he told me we were moving home."

"Yeah, I got the letter, oh and." He took the bracelet off his wrist. His teammates asked why he always wore it, he always replied he was saving it for someone special.

"You actually kept it."

"Well, you said you would come back for it." You both smiled, you looked up at him, and your eyes widen.

"Toshi."

"What?" You pouted a little.

"I never got a -I haven't seen you in so long, I missed you- hug." He rolled his eyes and laughed a little. The team all thinking the same thing, Does he know how to hug? Their thoughts ending when they saw him bent down to hug you, you wrapped your arms around his neck smiling softly. "I missed you, Toshi. I wish you were there for me.." You admitted into his neck.

"I wish I was there too. It sucks ready home sad it was over there, and not being able to do anything." You both backed away and smiled softly.

"I'm sorry I stopped writing."

"I'm sorry, I stopped too."

"Nah, you've been busy, by the way, you are amazing."

"I know, you said so in the letter."

"It never hurt to say it before. I still remember the 10-year-old who'd run up to me, and go 'did you see that? Wasn't I amazing'!" He rolled his eyes again, the team felt weird, seeing their emotionless captain in front of them, showing emotions.

"I was 10."

"Eh, you were adorable."

"Were?" You laughed at his face.

"Yeah, now you're hot or cute. Or both, can a person be both? I don't know." He looked down at you in awe. "What?"

"Still the same old, Y/n." You smiled a little.

"Aren't you suppose to be practicing?" His eyes widen, completely forgetting about his teammates.

"I am. I'll walk you to your dorm after."

"Good, because I'm sure I'd get lost again." You both laughed before you walked off the court, watching them play, he was even better in person. Now you see why he is the captain, and why they call Tendo, the Guess Monster. Once it was over though, he kept his word, walking you to your dorm, both laughing as y'all caught up. You stopped at your door smiling.

"You know... after almost 5 years, I couldn't stop thinking about the girl who gave me my first kiss." You blushed and looked down, to be honest, you thought about it too.

"Yeah, me too." He cupped your cheek smiling down at you.

"You know, seeing you brings back so many feelings, and I just... Can I kiss you again? This time, without feeling like it's goodbye." You smiled and nodded your head, he leand down kissing you softly. You smiled into the kiss, standing on your tippy-toes trying to help. Kissing him now, was soft, slow, and passionate all in one. "I love you, Y/n."

"I love you too, I'm glad you show emotion towards me."

"I always had a soft spot for you." You looked down at the bracelet you wore, Ushijima never asked for it back, he had something better, he had you. The real thing.

#haikyuu #ushijima x you #childhood #tendo #friends #kisses #goodbyes #reuinion #fluff

[jilyesplz]

Saving Seats and Sugar Quills

Some TLAT!Jily fluff from after they get together because I’m currently writing angsty scenes and this is what’s getting me through. Also, because it’s been seven years and We Deserve This.

Inspired by this scene:

On the first Friday of her relationship with James Potter (because that was how she measured time now, apparently. Merlin and Agrippa.) Lily Evans ate breakfast with Sirius, Mary and Pete. James, Donna, and Marlene were at Quidditch practice, and Remus was busy tutoring… someone, though Sirius was too busy shuddering theatrically to explain who.

It was the first meal in six days that she’d eaten without James. She ached like she was missing a limb.

Agrippa.

They finished breakfast quickly and got to Charms early as a result. By unspoken mutual agreement, the four Gryffindors spread across an empty row of five desks, Pete next to Sirius next to open seat for James next to Lily next to Mary. They continued their debate about last night’s Harpies victory against the Cannons (a well-deserved clobbering, said Mary and Sirius; a disgraceful mockery of refereemanship, said Lily and Pete) across the gap.

Their conversation was prematurely interrupted, however, when Roger Diggory appeared and slid into the empty middle seat.

Lily blinked. “Sorry, we were actually saving…”

Roger did not seem to hear her. “So glad I snagged you! These silent Invisibility charms are kicking my arse. You’re going to save my life today, Lily.”

“But…” Lily tried to catch Sirius’s eye—surely telling people where they could and couldn’t sit was much more up his alley than hers?—but he just raised his eyebrows in amusement and turned to chat with Pete.

Of course. Because it was class. In five minutes they wouldn’t be able to talk to each other anyway, so it didn’t matter where they sat…it was pathetic that she was going to miss him.

Realizing she was being horribly rude to Roger, Lily forced a smile and nodded. “Sure, I’d be happy to partner up. The trick to Invisibility charms is just…”

The door opened behind them and Lily’s head whipped around immediately, train of thought stopped in its tracks.

James Potter strode through the door, bag hanging off one shoulder, tie off-kilter, hair wet from a shower and even messier than usual. Lily melted.

Her boyfriend scanned the room, then made a beeline for her the moment their eyes met. When he reached her desk he leaned down, seized her face in his hands, and kissed her hard. Lily’s eyes fluttered closed as their mouths moved together, and her lips seemed to read words from his: Missed you. Want you. Need you, Snaps.

It no longer seemed absurd that she should miss him from across a classroom. Suddenly it was ridiculous to imagine she could do anything else. When his tongue brushed across her bottom lip and she had to hold in a sigh, Lily broke away, flushing much too deeply for 9am Charms.

“Hi,” James murmured, and Lily smiled.

“Hi.” She bent to reach into her satchel and produced a brown paper bag. “Breakfast?”

James groaned aloud, then sat down on her desk. He swung to plant his feet on the edges of Lily’s seat, trapping her between his legs and nudging her thighs with his toes. “I knew you fancied me.”

“Eh. I’m really just in it for your body.” She kissed his knee softly, and he grinned and tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear.

“That excuse would work better if you weren’t fattening me up, Snaps.”

“With this?” She shook the bag. “Cottage cheese and vegan bacon, Love. Why, what were you expecting?”

“Ha.” James pulled the bag from her grip and ripped it open, then groaned with pleasure when the scents of kippers, biscuits, marmalade, and (mercifully non-vegan) bacon hit his nose. He tilted her chin up with two fingers and kissed her again. “You’re God’s gift to mankind.”

Lily smiled. “You don’t believe in God.”

“I believe in kippers.”

“Do you believe in sharing kippers?” Lily reached for the bag, but James caught her hand and trapped it against his thigh.

“Not when you were luxuriously eating breakfast while I ran kipper-less sprints!”

“Not with me, Git. Two of my best mates were out there running kipper-less sprints with you. Because of you.”

“But Shack and Price are small and dainty. I’m a growing boy.”

Lily laughed. “I’m telling Donna you called her small and dainty,” she threatened, and James blanched.

“My body won’t be as fun in multiple pieces.”

“Well, now, that depends on the pieces.”

James swallowed hard. Lily blinked innocently up at her boyfriend, blushing just a little. The effort of hiding her smirk made her cheeks hollow out, auburn eyelashes fluttering as she looked up at him from practically between his legs…

James shook himself. He pulled his legs off her seat and stood up, looking, a little wildly, for something else to focus on. His eyes landed on Flatface.

He rapped on Diggory’s desk with his knuckles. “Oi. Out of my seat.”

“James!” Lily blushed furiously. “Roger, he’s kidding.” Diggory, who had immediately started to pack up his stuff at the Quidditch Captain’s command, paused and looked between them.

“He isn’t,” said James. “Move.”

“I got here first,” said Diggory, emboldened by Lily’s defense. “Find another spot.”

“Where?” James inquired. “’Cause I’d sit with your girlfriend, but I heard Alexa Kyle chucked you for my best mate. Who, incidentally, is to your left, in case you’re still confused about what makes this my seat.”

Diggory’s ears turned red, and Lily glared at her boyfriend. “Ignore him, Roger.”

James shrugged. “Sure, ignore me. I hear the Toadies are overrated anyway…”

“Git!” Lily cried, but Diggory stood up and shuffled away, tail between his legs.

“I love Hufflepuffs.” James slid into the seat Diggory had vacated and grabbed Lily’s desk, yanking it a foot closer to his so he could rest his arm on the back of her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, but she was not, he noted, annoyed enough to scoot away again.

“You’re never doing that again,” she told him firmly.

“Course not,” he agreed, grinning. “Flatface learned his lesson.”

“To anyone! So mean. You’re Head Boy, not emperor…”

“Snaps, he knew he was taking my seat…” James grabbed her elbow with his free hand, thumb stroking the soft skin.

“Because he needed my help with silent Invisibility Charms!” Lily swatted at his hand, or meant to, but somehow their fingers ended up interlocked.

“I could need your help with silent Invisibility Charms.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Step One: take out cloak. Step Two: put on cloak. Step Three: give Roger his seat back.”

James laughed, and Lily wished she loved the sound just a little less. He settled into a very self-satisfied crooked grin, and the hand on the back of her chair lifted to rub the place where her neck met her shoulder. His thumb dug into the base of her neck, finding a knot and working it out.

Lily’s head rolled back, eyelids fluttering, and she couldn’t hide a tiny little moan that immediately reminded James of last night. “Still want me to leave?” he murmured.

Lily bit her lip, trying to muster the last of her willpower, then sighed and slumped into his arm. “I might as well get ‘Property of James Potter’ stamped across the front of my robes.”

“Would you? That’s so hot…”

“Git.” Lily grabbed his tie and tugged him in for a kiss. “I missed you.”

“Mmm…” He hummed against her lips, one hand finding her thigh and the other tangling in her hair. “Quidditch is stupid. Quitting tomorrow. Shack can be captain…”

“She’d be a significant improvement in the generosity of spirit department,” said Sirius loudly, and both Head students whipped around to see him watching them with a very self-satisfied smirk.

“Have you been staring at us this whole time?” James asked. His best mate’s smirk widened.

“Oh God, you wanted James to kick Roger out,” Lily realized. “That’s why you let him sit there, you weirdo…”

Sirius grinned. “This,” he declared, indicating both of them with a regal wave, “Is seventy-five percent my doing. Am I not entitled to enjoy the fruits of my labour?”

The Head Students shot him identical glares, but Sirius just smirked and took a bite of a Sugar Quill. Lily sighed and reached a hand across James’s desk, palm up. “You could at least share your candy with the zoo animals.”

Flitwick clapped tiny hands together to summon their attention, so Lily never did find out what had made both boys smile.

#jily #lily evans #james potter #tlat #the life and times #marauders #sirius black #i love my kids #fuck carlotta meloni #i want sugar quills to exist in real lifee

[azurika-writes]

Starstruck

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: you win a competition for a tour around the compound with a group of other winners and a meet and greet with the Avengers afterwards. You’re there to meet your idol, Bucky Barnes but he gets swarmed by other people who are there to meet him and so you almost miss your chance, until Steve Rogers sees the desperation in your face, he comes to your rescue. 

Warnings: this is a slow burn one shot, Bucky is your idol, language, Tony can’t mind his own business for a minute and is rude, sweet Bucky :)

Words: 4,215 (holy shit)

Authors Notes: I don’t know why this is so long holy shit, it’s my first slow burn fic I’ve written so far instead of drabbles. This idea came to me in a daydream and I don’t know if anything like this has previously been written but regardless, I hope you enjoy and feedback is more than welcome as always :)

It was a big day for you, full of excitement and nerves as you glanced down at your VIP pass. It wasn’t often you won these competition things, and you don’t really know why you participated, maybe it had something to do with a certain superhero that was listed to be apart of the special meet and greet or maybe it wasn’t that reason but you’re glad you did as you were one of 5 winners. Winning a special tour of the Avengers compound and then meeting the superheroes in the flesh afterwards. 

You were most excited to meet one particular superhero. The one with the black and gold vibranium arm and the shaggy hair and a full-grown beard covering his adorable cheeks. The one you’ve read and studied so much about the last couple of years. 

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Former veteran soldier, former Howling Commando, survivor. 

You surprised yourself because, history books, you would normally find quite boring, but knowing he was apart of that era made it all that more interesting and you became hooked, infatuated even as you researched every detail about the war he was apart of, understanding what he had to endure during his time in captivity, the ins and outs of his and Steve’s friendship, the good and the bad. The further you dug into his life, the more your heart clenched tightly in your chest. 

The more recent interviews of him, you wouldn’t believe he was once a different man. You half expected him to be this closed-off person with no interest in the public whatsoever but to your utter shock and surprise, Bucky was so down to earth. Paying close attention to the interviewer’s questions. Answering them in-depth with so much philosophy behind his words. You watched hours upon hours of YouTube videos of Bucky meeting with fans, he took pictures and smiled for the photo. Autographed their merchandise. Bucky was always smiling, despite everything he had been through. You followed him on Instagram and Twitter. He’s never noticed you, but some other lucky fans were noticed, it didn’t bother you because you preferred not to have the attention, you looked forward to seeing his posts, stories and tweets he puts up for the world to see.

You admired him. You wanted to tell him face to face just how strong he was. The strong soldier has endeavoured so much in his life. Hydra stealing his freedom away from him, turning him into their own little puppet. He deserved this peaceful life he was being given. 

You wanted to meet Bucky Barnes and here was your chance, you just hoped you wouldn’t trip over your words once you finally did. You held the folder that contained handwritten stories, artwork and letters of encouragement that you wanted to give to Bucky as a gift and a picture you wanted to be signed under your arm. 

You hung the pass around your neck as you waited with the crowd outside the large black iron gates. A muscled and tall security walked over a few moments afterwards and asked for everyone’s names, checking them off the piece of paper he had in his hand on a clipboard.

“Please pay attention to any instructions you’re given. Please stick together. Do NOT venture off on your own. If you do NOT comply with any rules, you will be asked to leave. Any questions?” The security guard asked and there were mutters of no’s from everyone in the group. “Alright, follow me please.” You all followed the man in silence, occasionally glancing at the other people.

The iron gate that was hinged upon two stone pillars opened easily and quietly. And once everyone was inside, it was closed with an echoing ‘clang’, momentarily startling you. The security guard walked ahead and led the group up a really long pebbled footpath. The bright green grass on either side of the path was littered in gorgeous flowers and blossoming cherry blossom trees. Your feet scuffing across the stones as you walked, taking in the scenery around you. The place was absolutely magical, if someone was to describe it to you, you would think they were just fantasising. Something that you would absolutely do As you continued walking, to your left was a large space where the quinjets were receiving their maintenance from engineers. The large A on the front of the building came into view. The place looked enormous, larger than you ever expected. 

You almost stumbled into the person in front of you. It was only then you realised everyone had stopped walking and was waiting near the doors.

The security guard turned around one final time. “Alright everyone’s attention, please. As I mentioned previously, please stick together. Do not be tempted to break away from the group and roam around by yourself. Please abide by these simple rules. Other than that, have fun and enjoy your experience. Mr Stark himself will take the guide over once you’re inside.” And with that, the guard flashed his key-card and the large glass doors opened. He stepped aside and motioned for everyone to go in. 

The lobby was probably the biggest you’ve ever seen imaginable. Even pictures from Pinterest couldn’t compare to the sheer size of this. The floors and walls were marbled. Workers behind their desks typing away on their computers and phones ringing off the hook.

The ding from the elevator caught everyone’s attention. Excitement bubbled up within you. You knew it was most likely to be Mr Stark since he was going to be the tour guide from here, but something in you wished for a moment it would be Bucky Barnes. 

But when the doors opened on the lavished elevator, it, of course, wasn’t. You hoped your disappointment wasn’t too noticeable. 

“You’re the groups of winners?” Tony wondered, pulling up his tablet to check the list of names. He called each name out one at a time to receive a stamp on their wrist. Once everything was validated, Tony led the way. The group following him closely but quietly. 

“As you folks can see, this is the lobby. We currently have over 10,000 staff employed in this area alone with over 200 security guards.”

“Why do you have so many?” A man from your group asked Tony. 

“Because we’re the Avengers, you don’t know who is out there to harm there. Hydra could walk through those doors at any given time. Moving on.” Tony walked towards the staircase, he explained it was because of maximum weight capacity in the elevator. The stairwell was echoed and so many stairs. You were quite winded when you got to the top.

“Are you alright there, Y/N is it? Do you need a medic?” You didn’t know whether Tony was joking or being serious, but you took quite a few deep breaths and shook your head no. 

“Alright. So welcome to the main floor. Here we have the common room, debriefing room, offices, a kitchen and numerous bathrooms along the hall.” Tony explained, pointing to each doorway down the long and narrow hallway. This was the floor of the common room? Bucky Barnes could be here, he could be through those doors, and that thought alone made your heart jump in your throat. 

“What is the common room used for?” A younger lady asked Tony. 

“The common room is where we, The Avengers hang out, unwind and relax after kicking ass. Follow me.” 

In the near distance, you could hear hushed voices as Tony led the group into the actual common room. It was empty besides two people; Clint and Natasha. Two superheroes you easily recognized.

“I wonder where Bucky is?” You leaned in and asked the girl standing next to you. She smiled back politely, “I haven’t seen anyone yet. They are due for the meet and greet right?” She asked you. With a nod of your head, you noticed Tony had stopped talking and was looking in your direction. 

“If you two are done with your conversation.” You both muttered an apology. “This is Natasha and Clint, our finest heroes. You’ll meet them and everyone else a bit later, let me show you the kitchen area.” Tony led the group further into the compound. The architecture was just incredible and out of this world. It was something you never really expected.

Tony showed you every nook and cranny of the compound; The indoor swimming pool with sauna and jacuzzi, the gym on the lower floor, the sleeping quarters one or two floors up, and he showed you the helipad where the quinjets received their maintenance and checks before takeoff. 

“Have you guys enjoyed yourselves?” Tony asked as he led you all once again into the common room, where this time more voices were heard. Everyone answered incoherently but you decided to keep quiet, afraid of getting told off again by Tony. “It’s been a pleasure having you.” He sighed, stopping just outside the door of the common room. “Now is the time you’ve been waiting for. You will have a chance to meet each superhero and please, don’t be shy. They are not as scary as they seem.” Tony winked, opening the door and motioning for all of you to walk through. As you were about to walk through, Tony grabbed your wrist and held you back. For a moment you were worried you would be denied this opportunity to meet your hero, “Are you alright? You’ve been the quietest out of the group.” Tony consoled. 

“I’m fine, I’m just taking everything in.” You smiled and Tony nodded, letting go of your wrist, allowing you through the door and once you did and made eye contact with those baby blues, you almost died. You became starstruck and it was almost impossible to peel your eyes away from him. In a line next to him stood the Avengers in their casual clothes, each with a glowing smile on their faces as they saw the pure shock on the group’s faces. 

“Hi and welcome!” Wanda smiled ushering everyone forward.

“Hi, Wanda. I’m your biggest fan.” One of the girls gushed as she stepped towards Wanda, tears running down her cheeks. You watched the group approach the one superhero they wanted to meet the most, you didn’t anticipate 3 other girls would approach and crowd Bucky so quickly. But the guy took it well, smiling and talking to them as he answered their questions, they were giggling and no doubt flirting. You stood back awkwardly, unsure about what to do. 

“Hey, kid. Are you gonna meet anyone?” Tony asked amused as she stood next to you, pushing his glasses up his face. 

“He’s kind of occupied.” You chuckled, your eyes wandering over to Bucky. 

“Yeah, he usually gets all the ladies.” Tony chuckled, stepping away to help someone. 

Your heart sank into the pit of your stomach as you noticed more and more people were now waiting to meet the former Winter Soldier. He was a lot more popular than you had realized, and it was just a realization that maybe you weren’t meant to meet him. You instead chose not to waste this once in a lifetime opportunity and decided to approach Steve Rogers who was free from a crowd and he was your second favorite superhero.

“Hey!” He said smiling as you approached, his perfectly lined teeth on show. His T-shirt was pulled across his broad chest. Steve stretched a hand out for you to shake.

“Hi! How are you?” You asked politely, returning the firm handshake. His hand was silky smooth like he had dipped them in a butter dish prior to meeting everyone.

“Can’t complain. Got a few days off to enjoy the sunshine. What do you have there?” He pointed to the folder that you had under one arm. 

“Oh, it’s kind of embarrassing but these are some things I wanted to gift to Bucky Barnes, but it looks like I won’t meet him.” You chuckled sadly, looking down at your feet. 

“He’s the popular one with these greets. He really outshines us all, I’m sure he would really appreciate it though.” Steve comforted but knowing time was running out and people just kept swarming him. You pulled your lip between your teeth, desperately willing yourself not to let your true disappointment show, but you couldn’t help it. You would never get this opportunity again and Bucky was impossible to reach out to on social media with over 50 million followers on Instagram and a whopping 20 million on Twitter. Even if you did reach out, there were too many people trying to reach him, your messages and tweets would be swallowed. This just annoyed you since you were only a couple of feet from the man you’ve spent a long time learning everything about, sympathizing with and he was still out of reach. 

Steve had been looking at your contour of emotions while you remained quiet. The folder under your arm was thick, he knew you were a genuine fan of Bucky’s and not just some fan girl who was here to flirt and try and get a hold of his personal number or request a follow on social media. 

“May I take a look?” Steve asked, pointing to your folder. His voice startled you slightly and you nodded shamefully. There was far too much dedication in that folder and you were sure he was going to lecture you for being too invested in Bucky when Bucky didn’t know who you were. You passed him the folder and Steve quietly looked through, you watched his eyebrows rise and fall on occasion and small smiles here and there. You swallowed the lump in your throat and bounced on the balls of your feet. 

“Alright, guys. That’s it, time is up! I really hope you all had a wonderful experience and could I please ask you all to calmly exit the common room and I’ll meet you in the hallway.” Tony spoke up and you panicked. Bucky was still laughing and joking with the girls and it was a moment lost. But Steve still hadn’t given you your folder back and you knew he must have heard Tony. 

“See you later ladies!” Bucky called out to them as they waved and blew kisses. You heard Bucky chuckle, “Man I thought they’d never leave.” He told Clint before walking out after the group.

“Uh Y/N?” Tony started but Steve looked up with glossy eyes. 

“Wait Tony, I’d like to keep her a while longer, don’t worry I’ll show her out afterwards,” Steve said, Tony was confused and you were confused, was there something he found in that folder that bothered him? Were you in trouble? Oh god, maybe your letters were too personal.

“Alright, freezer burn. Rest of you follow me please.” 

One by one the avengers left, except for Steve. You were still standing in front of him awkwardly, your heart beating a thousand beats per minute. You noticed he was now taking his time flicking through your folder. 

“This is really beautiful.” Steve complimented, he made sure Bucky was out of earshot before he continued, “You’ve spent so much time on this, your dedication, you really meant every word you think about him don’t you?” You knew he was referring to one of your many letters of encouragement, reminding him he’s human and a good man. 

“I meant it.” You replied sheepishly.

“You should meet him, Y/N. He would love this so much.” 

“I can’t. Tony has already kicked everyone out.” You chuckled, reaching for your folder but Steve wasn’t giving it back just yet. 

“And I’ve already told him I wanted to keep you a while longer. You’ve clearly come here to see him and it’s only right you did. FRIDAY, where did Barnes disappear to?” Steve asked the disembodied AI.

“Sergeant Barnes is in his room, Captain Rogers.” Steve sighed and rubbed his neck. 

“Please tell him to come back to the common room.” 

“Yes sir.” The AI responded almost immediately. 

“Cap? Can I have a word?” Tony walked through the door with his arms folded. Steve nodded and handed your file back to you. 

Your heart rate was still accelerating at a dangerous speed once you were left alone in the common room with your folder clutched to your chest. You were still worried Steve found something that might have bothered him, you were confused why he wanted to keep you behind while everyone else had to leave and you didn’t understand why he wanted you to meet Bucky so badly, you were already given the opportunity and it didn’t happen. 

Your thoughts froze when you heard heavy footsteps in the hallway and a tall, muscular figure round the corner with his hands shoved in his pockets. His eyebrows creased together when he saw it was just you in the room and not Steve. 

“You’re still here?” Bucky asked, his eyes narrowed and you gulped, nodding your head. “Not keeping you hostage is he?” He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. A smile grew on your face as he stepped closer to you. The purest of blue eyes you’ve ever seen in your life and they were looking right at you, one side of his shaggy hair was tucked neatly behind his ear and from this distance, you saw the dog tag chain around his neck and the tags clanking under his black Henley. This was your last opportunity to say what you wanted, to give him this folder, you knew you wouldn’t get this chance again and you were grateful to Steve for helping you out. 

“I um… sorry I’m a mess.” You chuckled and blinked the tears away. It was like a reunion you weren’t really prepared for. 

“It’s okay, let’s take a seat.” He motioned to the couches and you followed him. He sat on the coffee table opposite you and once you were ready and collected, you spoke more clearly. 

“This is for you.” You handed your folder to him and he took it gracefully. “I um…” your voice came out shaky and nervous but you kept going, “I just really have to tell you that I think you’re wonderful, a true hero, one of my heroes and um, I never really thought I’d get this opportunity to meet you in person and definitely not, um one on one, this really means the whole world to me.” Tears were starting to run freely down your cheeks at this point and Bucky sighed happily.

“You know, I’m extremely grateful for wonderful people like you. I noticed you when you walked through the door but unfortunately, I got swamped and I felt kinda bummed out myself that I didn’t even get to say hi. Thanks for coming here today and staying behind. I’m really glad you did and thank you so much for this.” He waved the folder in his hand. “I’ll definitely take a good look through it later in the privacy of my own room.” He smiled. 

“I do have one thing for you to sign if that’s okay?” 

“Yes of course!” He shifted on the coffee table slightly and the wood cracked under his weight. Your hands immediately covered your mouth as you tried to suppress a giggle. 

“If anyone asks… that wasn’t me.” He chuckled and stood up, choosing to sit next to you instead. 

“What happened to the coffee table?” Tony asked as he reappeared through the doors. “You’re here an awfully long time Missy.” Tony pointed accusingly at you. 

“Sam did it and leave her alone Tony. She has Steve’s permission to be here as well as mine.” Bucky glared and your cheeks heated up. “What did you want me to sign, doll?” Your heart almost choked on its own blood vessels at the pet name you knew very much about. It was more common in the 1940s and you wondered if Bucky or Steve ever used it today as an endearment to their women. 

“Make sure she’s gone so-”

“Fuck off Tony. Excuse my language, doll.” God, was he trying to kill you?

“You... you called me ‘doll’.” your breath got caught stuck in your throat. 

“Twice.” He winked.

Tony muttered under his breath as he left the common room with a weird looking android following him. Once you collected your thoughts, you pulled out one of your favorite pictures of Bucky that you had printed off the internet and handed it to him. Bucky reached into his pocket to pull out a sharpie and pulled the lid off with his teeth as he signed it. Your eyes slightly wandered over to his metal hand, it was the black and gold you loved so much. You remembered reading into so much detail about the different bionic arms, this one was made in Wakanda by Shuri herself with a lot of features that weren’t disclosed to the public. It looked more comfortable than the old silver arm with the red star which symbolized Hydra. 

“There we go!” His voice startled you. Your eyes shot up to meet his own and you blushed under his stare. 

“Th-thank you so much.” You stammered. Feeling hotter than a cookie baking in the oven. 

“You’re welcome!” He smiled, clipping the lid back on the sharpie. 

“Again, I really do appreciate this. Thank you for being so humble and I hope you find the letters encouraging.” You grinned looking down at the signed photo with a long message scripted on the back that you’ll read a little later.

“Well as I said, I really appreciate you for staying behind and for the folder. I can’t wait to look through it.” 

“Could I… could I be cheeky and ask for a quick selfie with you?” You bit your lip nervously. You were prepared for him to say no and that you had outstayed your welcome, so you were a bit surprised when his face lit up like a Christmas tree. 

“Yes!” You pulled your phone from your pocket and brought the camera app up. Bucky scooted in closer to you. “Tag me in it so I can add it to my story.” he smiled for the camera and you clicked the button, checking the photo to make sure it was good. You thanked him for the hundredth time.

“Okay, but I doubt you’d see it.” you chuckled and stood up, putting your phone back into your pocket. 

“Why’s that?” He deadpanned and you chuckled. 

“Um, sir. I don’t know if you know this but you have like 50 million people following you and probably 100 million DMing you to try and talk to you.” 

“Hmm. You’re right, maybe I’ll have to try and find you then.” He winked and before you could react, Tony reappeared. 

“I’m leaving,” you told him before he made another snarky comment about you still being there. 

“If you’re ready, would you please follow me.” He started to walk towards the door but you, for some reason kept still in your spot, contemplating whether to throw your arms around his midsection and give him a hug or walk away and regretting not hugging him. You went with the first option, and Bucky, seemingly reading your mind already had his arms opened wide and embraced you gracefully. They were big and strong, just like you had anticipated. His cologne was like sandalwood and vanilla, mixed with spearmint. Daring yourself further, you reached up on your tiptoes and kissed him quickly on the cheek. 

“Thank you, Bucky. It was a pleasure meeting you.” you smiled, pulling away from his embrace. He nodded curtly towards you. Tony huffed impatiently by the door and you reluctantly walked away from your hero.

Tony led you to the elevator since it was just the two of you. You felt the need to apologize for outstaying your welcome.

“Mr. Stark I’m so sorry for staying longer I-”

“Don’t stress kid. Cap explained everything, and don’t worry I almost guarantee Barnes will be in touch when he gets to the end of your folder.” you smiled but knowing that wouldn’t be true. Bucky probably wouldn’t think about you again after today. After all, he did receive hundreds and hundreds of gifts each week. 

The lavished elevator dinged and you stepped out in sync. Tony nodded to the security guard and you handed your VIP pass back to him before he opened the large glass doors for you to exit. 

“Thank you again, Mr. Stark.” You walked out, taking one last look of the compound before walking down the long pebbled path once again. Once you reached the iron gates, you gave the first security guard your name and he ticked you off the list, opening the gates and allowing you to exit. 

“Have a nice day, Miss.” He said and you nodded with a small smile. You walked further down the sidewalk and stopped. Turning the photo Bucky had signed for you. Smiling greatly as you read it.

Dearest Y/N,

It’s not often I get fans like yourself. You’re truly one in a million and for the record, I’m glad Steve kept you behind, I’m glad he connected us. We will meet again soon, doll. Until then, please keep safe and please keep reaching out. I notice more than you think.

Best regards,

Bucky

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barns imagine #bucky imagines #bucky x you #bucky imagine #bucky x reader #your idol #starstruck #slowburn #one shot #imagines #tour of the compound #meet and greet #steve rogers #tony stark #avengers au #bucky barns x reader #bucky barns fanfiction #bucky barns fluff #bucky barns fic #bucky barns #slow burn one shot #4k words #azurika-writes #bucky fluff #modern au #vip

[choruscas]

suptober day 05: daydream

please let me know if you’d like to be added to my tag list! (or removed if you prefer) it tags you in all my short stories like these so you never miss them!

 librarian!castiel, mechanic!dean

Castiel’s tongue drew lines and circles all across Dean’s body. The pleasure was immeasurable to anything the mechanic had ever felt before in his life. Sure, there had been good one night stands, (Rhonda Hurley, Aaron Bass, just to name a few) but none of them have ever made Dean claw at the sheets, drawing blood from his lips from biting down too hard, and crying out pathetic bubbles of their name before. 

His bare broad shoulders came down to cradle Dean with his hands as he prepped him, caressing his fingers around the ring of muscle and Dean arched his back into the teasing touch. Their chests touched, leaving no space between them, and Dean dug his face into the man’s collarbone, crying out against his skin. Castiel hushed him, reassuring him that he’ll be alright and that he won’t be hurt. Castiel made sure to tell Dean that if anything was too much, he had to tell him. Dean bobbed his head up and down, agreeing to his deal.

It was everything Dean ever dreamed of since his brother went to Stanford and he decided to move to California with him. And so much more. His blown out pupils, the way his left eyebrow raised in dominance, the smell of his beaded, shiny skin, the taste of his plump lips and curling tongue.

“Dean...” his tender whiskey voice called out shuddering against his skin in the pale moonlight of Dean’s apartment. “Dean... Dean...”

The mentioned smiled, love-sick and gooey from the voice of an angel calling his name.

“Dean!”

He cocked his head to the side, expecting to be faced with the smoky blue-eyed man with the best body ever, but instead he was faced with the ugly, mop-haired imbecile he got stuck with.

“Jesus Christ! Warn a man before you go all fuckin’ ninja on me.” Dean held his hands up, trying to protect himself.

“Don’t tell me you were daydreaming about the librarian again.” Sam bitch-faced, looking at his brother whose face was tinged pink.

Dean scoffed, accusatory. “I was not! I was... studying that sign over there.”

Sam looked over to the sign, right above the librarian’s head, that read “BE QUIET AND COURTEOUS PLEASE!” in big, bold letters.

“Yeah, sure.”

The librarian stood up from his front desk and walked to the back room. Dean opened his mouth to say something but disappointingly closed it back as he saw the man had left.

Sam stomped his foot. “Did you even hear what I said?”

The mechanic shook his head, looking up at his seven foot tall Big Foot of a brother. “Of course I did, don’t put your panties in a wad.”

“So you agree?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“I said: ‘are you ready to go?’, Dean.” Bitch face 2.0.

The older brother thinned his lips and stood up from the totally-didn’t-chose-this-one-to-watch-the-hot-fucking-librarian’s-shoulders-work-their-magic table, and followed Sam to the check-out desk.

Outside, the leaves were turning into a polyester-like orange, and the smell of Castiel’s pumpkin candle filled the library with the delicious smell. Every month, he changed out the candle, depending on the month or season or holiday. It was the crisp, early month of October, so the scent was fitting, like it normally was.

Dean stood on his tip-toes, brooding over Sam’s shoulder. “Whatcha checkin’ out this week? My Little Pony? Jesus Christ, last week it was Hello Kitty, now this week... you gotta little girl stuck in your noodle or somethin’?” he smiled mischievously.

Sam shucked the hair out of his face. “God, Dean. You’re so annoying.” he shook his head back and forth.

Just as he was finished saying his sentence, Dean pondered over to the entrance, decorated with festive fall colors of orange and gold. It was mostly portrayed towards children, as the cheesy slogans and brightly smiling characters popped compared to the rest of the place. It was all done by Castiel himself, as Dean had cautiously watched him climb up the ladder last week to staple the decorations on the doorframe. He’d never admit to this — just ask him — but he secretly hoped that Castiel would have fallen during that time so he could catch him, and hit him with the ol’ “you fell for me” trick in the book. However, Dean had learned that day that Castiel was very flexible and agile, so unfortunately, his wish was not granted.

“Hello, Sam.” a very familiar voice spoke out, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to spring up like flowers. “Dean.”

“Hi, Castiel.” Sam smiled, being sincere and actually a modern, civil person like Dean should be doing right now, but his embarrassment succumbed him and he did not make eye contact.

He soon learned that the carpet’s color of mushy pea green was very ugly.

“Hey...” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. The dude just had a wet daydream — hold up, is that even possible? Dean didn’t know, he just made it up — about the man. How on earth was he supposed to look at those piercing blue eyes he wished he could see closer? Possibly a little more bare, too.

Dean finally got the courage to look up to see Castiel scanning and stamping the books Sam had given him. Upon closer inspection, (granted, not from ten feet away like a total stalker) Castiel’s skin was still tanned from his beach trip to see his older brother in San Diego had still given him the same affect that it did in June. God, to see that bare chest.

Look anywhere but the librarian, dumbass. Wait no, that’ll make you look like a fucking idiot. Make subtle eye contact. Yeah. Subtle.

“Uhm, your decorations look nlice.” Dean smiled, bouncing on his feet.

“They look what?” Castiel pondered, looking up from the cash register, his face confused and his head tilted.

“Nice! I meant mi— no, nice. Nice is what I meant. They look nice.” he sheepishly looked around, heat rising in his face and tinting his ears with pink.

Sam, on the other hand, was getting a good kick out of it.

“Oh. Thank you. It’s made quite a few children happy and parents have smiled at me, so it was worth it.” The librarian politely nodded.

“Yeah, I bet that’s what the adults were smilin’ ‘bout...” he muttered underneath his breath.

“Do what?” Castiel responded, leaning his head slightly forward.

“Oh! Uh— nothin’.”

Castiel gave him a curt nod. “Okay. Well, thank you guys for coming! I hope to see you next Friday again?”

Sam snapped his fingers, and Dean practically hid behind his stump of a brother. “Oh. Speaking of which, are you busy this weekend?”

What the fuck?

“Unfortunately, yes I am. I’m visiting my brother again because he would like me to meet his new dog.” he smiled thinly, his eyes squinting, and Dean’s knees buckled.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Dean is free all this weekend, so I was tryna get you guys to hang out.”

Dean stepped on his foot and gritted his teeth. Again, what the fuck?!

“Well, I’ll still be here next week. So maybe he can formally ask me next week instead of through a messenger.” Dean peered over to see that Castiel’s face has blossomed with blushes, and he was nervously twirling and clicking a pen in his hand.

“Sounds great. See you, Castiel!” Sam called out, walking away from the desk and towards the entrance where they were supposed to leave.

Dean courageously eyed behind him to see that Castiel was staring at him leaving, and he waved to Dean and he sheepishly and embarrassingly waved back. “Alright, Sammy, you’re a fuckin’ idiot, I know that. But what the fuck was that?”

“I just got you a date with the hot librarian you daydream about.”

(tags below)

@potato-painter

#suptober #suptober20 #day 05 #day 5: daydream #daydream #daydreaming #dean winchester #mechanic!dean #castiel #librarian!castiel #sam winchester

[ink-feathers-and-paper]

Accepting help

Original Work: The Hurricane

The characters and the story belong to me.

Prompt: Sicktemper 2021 - prompt 23) Ear infection

Number of words: 3458 words

Notes: yeah, I know, it's not September 23 yet but I never do the prompts in the right order anyway... and I didn't want to wait to post it.

Oh, and English isn't my first language, so if there are any mistakes please tell me!

...

Blue was blind. She lost one eye to illness as a child, the other in battle. That wasn’t a fatality in itself. In fact, she didn’t really care about it, she was living fine without sight. She relied on her other senses to hear, smell, taste and feel the world around her. It was how she lived the world, her way, and it was perfect as it was, she didn’t need an extra sense.

Especially when losing her sight meant that she gained so, so much more.

And, oh, wasn’t magic a wonderful thing, letting her feel the presence of everything and everyone around her? From the smallest ant to the biggest of dragons, all had a presence that she could feel.

And that wasn’t all! She was linked to Earth – oh, her dear mother Earth that gave life to her and her people, created them from the back rocks and red sands of her Desert – and thus the ground itself, the one under her feet, was alive and singing to her, chanting for her, humming sweet nothings in her ears.

Yes, magic was wonderful, and Blue’s ears could hear it all and more.

So, when one day she couldn’t hear anything, she frowned.

What’s wrong? she asked, but she got no answer. Of course. The Earth may be alive and sentient, She still was nothing but earth. With no way to hear Blue’s prayer, no way to answer her. Blue could, but She could not.

Perhaps She is just moody today, though Blue with a shrug. It happened sometimes, that magic didn’t want to be seen, heard of felt in any manner. It didn’t make Blue’s life any easier, but she could deal with it.

It never lasted anyway.

Her right ear – the one that was burned – was hurting, but perhaps she just wasn’t used to silence.

Or perhaps the foxes are playing? supposed the young woman a few days later. The magic was still silent, and Blue was getting antsy. Young kitsune foxes fed on the ambient magic and sometimes took a little bit too much.

But she couldn’t feel them anywhere. Where they were usually stood a beacon of magic, in the shape of a fox. Yet she couldn’t hear them anywhere.

They must be gone, they realised they took too much from this place and left to feed elsewhere. They will be back when the magic will be fully replenished.

Still, she missed her companions.

Using magic was getting harder and harder, more tiring each time. It felt like most of it wanted to pool in her head, near her ears, but she needed it elsewhere, so she steeled herself and made it bow to her will.

Days passed, and still nothing. Blue’s other ear was hurting too now, she was tired. Even the smallest of spells took a lot out of her and oh, what if she was losing her magic? – that would explain so much!

(Blue was scared.

She didn’t know what she would do if she lost her magic. Losing her sight was nothing in comparison to what it would mean for her.

Losing her magic would destroy her like nothing ever did before

And she wasn’t sure she could get back up from something like that.)

“Okay, are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?” asked Youko.

Her friend sounded worried, but her voice was faint as if she were talking from all the way across the room and not sitting just beside her.

“Oh, hi. When did you come back from your mission?”

Her hair still smelled like the sea, like iodine and warm sand. Even a princess like Youko had to do her part in the reconstruction of the Empire. Especially Youko, actually.

“Last night. I wanted to see you, but I was so exhausted, I just collapsed on my bed. Thank goodness I managed to change and shower, Arashi would never let me live it down otherwise.”

Blue giggled. Arashi once came back from a mission so exhausted that he had fallen asleep in his bed, dirty boots, and bloody clothes and all. When the redhead had woken up, he had been horrified to discover that he had brought bedbugs back from his mission. It had taken him a month to fully get rid of them.

Of course, Youko had found this hilarious, and Arashi had been looking for revenge material ever since.

“But, hey, enough about me. Are you okay? You look sick.”

And, if she were being honest, Blue felt sick, too. But it couldn’t be that, her magic protected her.

“I’m fine, I just… didn’t know you were back.”

“You didn’t?”

Blue could imagine her expression, all right. She had seen it so many times before, when one of their friends got injured and didn’t tell her. Wide coppery bronze eyes lighting up in worry and anger and why didn’t you tell me sooner, you bloody idiot?!

(Why do I have to fucking guess when you are injured? I am the team medic for a reason, for fuck’s sake! Come to me!)

“I’m tired,” deflected Blue. “I overexerted myself, I think.”

“… then what are you doing out of bed?!”

Blue didn’t have a chance. Youko manhandled her onto her shoulder (darn, her friend was so strong for a so-called healer!) and carried her potato-bag-style to her room despite Blue’s protests. They grew weaker and weaker as laughter shook her shoulders and the woman resigned herself.

Youko kicked the door of her apartment open with more force than necessary and dropped her captive on the bed. “Phew, you’re heavy! You should exercise more.” Blue protested as she tried to get up but Youko kept a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t you dare move, you hear me? I’m coming right back.”

“I have duties!” protested the dark-skinned woman, fighting the hand that pinned her to the bed. “I can’t just drop them all like that.”

“Sure you can. Bedrest, doctor’s order. Don’t make me use my authority as a princess on you, Blue.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Watch me.” Her friend’s voice got softer as a hand gingerly brushed over Blue’s tightly curled hair. “You are not alone in this, you know this, right? Let me take care of a few things for you. Everyone’s in town. My brothers, Arashi, Ankora… we can help too… if you’d just let us.”

Blue felt a wave of gratitude wash over her. She grabbed her friend’s hand and squeezed it.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and Youko softly kissed her forehead.

“Thanks for letting me take care of you.”

Exhaustion washed over the Mage, and Youko hadn’t even reached the door that she was already asleep.

The next time Blue woke up, she was in too much pain to ignore. She groaned as she tried to stand, but she felt dizzy. She had the mother of all headaches, her throat was dry, and her skin was warm and clammy.

Her ears held the worst of the pain, and when Blue lifted a hand to her head, she had to bite a pained gasp. Her right ear, in particular, was hot and wet under her touch, strange-smelling liquid oozing from it. The whole room smelled like it, actually, her pillow was soaked in it. Yuk. It didn’t look good

(Ha! Blind reference!)

She was sick. Sick. Had probably been for days. What an idiot, she admonished herself. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

And she didn’t realise, didn’t tell Youko.

Oh fuck.

Youko was going to murder her. Gleefully. She was going to cut her into pieces, stamp on them and then burn whatever remained. And she was going to dance on her ashes.

The dark-skinned woman tried to stand up, but her energy had abandoned her and she fell back on her bed with a pained moan.

Great. Couldn’t get up, nobody to hear her call from the corridor and no way to call for a servant either. Blue had requested – demanded actually, you could do that when you were best friends with the Imperial family – for no guards to stand at her door nor servants assigned to her room.

They would always treat her like a fragile thing as if she were made of glass. As if being blind hadn’t kept her from fighting in two bloody fucking wars, as if being blind made her inept to live for herself.

It infuriated her.

Well, in five years, it would be the first time she would regret that particular decision.

The woman sighed and tried to summon her magic. She could call for one of the foxes to deliver a message for her, or…

Her magic sizzled and snapped. Blue cried out, more from the surprise than the pain, and rolled off her bed and on her feet, all weakness forgotten.

She was a trained soldier, and if the last years had made go soft, some instincts were hard to kill.

She stood in her bedroom, raised elbows and ready to fight for her life. She strained her ears, but everything was muted. She tried to feel the earth under her bare feet, the vibrations of the air on her skin.

But there was no one in her room… or no one that she could find or sense. And considering how fucked up her senses were, she couldn’t fully trust what they told her.

“Show yourself!” she panted. She tried summoning magic once again, but her power reared up and snarled like a wild horse. Dread pooled in her gut. “What have you done to me?” she screeched.

The smell of illness cloyed the room and her nose, her ears were out of commission and her magic didn’t answer her.

For the first time in forever, Blue wished she could see. She wished she hadn’t been amputated from a sense, because it made her oh so dependent on the others and she couldn’t function without them.

She was fine without sight, but no sight and no hearing?

That would be the end of her world, chose one or the other, not both.

Weakness started to creep back in her, dizziness filled her head, and Blue fell on her knees.

“Blue!”

Arashi.

“Blue, what’s wrong! Your magic is all worked up!”

A hand on her forehead, a curse. The man scooped her up and Blue didn’t even think to protest.

“Fuck, you’re burning up. Hold on, okay? Hold on.”

Blue barely heard him. She fell in and out of consciousness as Arashi carried her to Youko’s apartments.

(They were closer to her rooms than the infirmary.

Oh, how many times did she end up there coming back from a mission or after a spell gone wrong?

How many evenings did their little group spent there, finally together after months apart, chatting and laughing in the night – forgetting everything but each other – until the sun rose and they had to prepare for yet another day of war?)

Blue could faintly smell medicinal herbs and remedies. She could hear Youko fuss over her, her skin smelling of lavender and her still-wet hair of tea tree. Long strands brushed over Blue’s bare skin, fresh and wet, and Blue sighed.

When she woke up, she was in Youko’s bed, surrounded by her smell and old books. A young kitsune fox was sleeping on the pillow next to her, its tail brushing over her arm repeatedly. It was still too young and weak to appear on the physical plane. It could only exist in the magical plane, for now, making it invisible to nearly anyone but her. Good, my magic sense is back.

It had probably been drawn to the buzz around her head, where the Healer was working her magic, her hands on Blue’s ears. Normal healing magic, that could only accelerate healing – not her battlefield one.

(The one that could reverse time on wounds and then re-apply them on enemies.

The one Youko had inherited from her mother, and now she was the only living being in the world who could use it.

The one that nearly took Youko’s life.)

Blue still opened her eyes when she woke, they weren’t sealed shut by injuries after all. Youko had done a great job at healing the burn on her face, she just couldn't save the eye.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” Blue croaked. Her friend laughed.

“I can guess. You had quite a high fever, you’ve slept the whole day off! Didn’t even wake up, just grumbled something as I healed you and immediately went to sleep. It’s early in the morning if you wanna know. Arashi brought you yesterday night.”

“Oh.”

So much work to catch up on! cried Blue in her mind.

“You have an ear infection.” Youko continued. “The right’s worse than the left, it started there. Your magic was completely focused on it, it tried to heal it but, well… it’s not your speciality for a reason. It helped slow the infection down, though. Blue… why didn’t you tell someone that you felt off? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Blue felt her throat tighten up. “I… didn’t realise, I guess. I was too caught up in my work, too… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Sight. A hand in her hair, brushing it back, and Blue leaned into the hand. It was warm, it smelled of lavender under the sting of medicinal herbs and remedies.

“Headslut,” Youko teased, even though she was the same. “I’m gonna ask Ryuu to give you days off. You can’t keep going like that, Blue…”

The dark-skinned woman stood up on her elbows. Ryuu was the consort of the actual Empress of the Guryong Empire. He also was Youko’s older brother. He was in charge of the army and the safety of the Empire. His wife, more diplomatic, handled the politics.

“I can’t!” growled Blue. “You know I can’t, else I would’ve asked someone already. It’s just… I am the only one who can sense magic like I do, Youko. No one else can even begin to imagine what I feel, hear, taste, feel and, yes, see! I am the only one who can detangle those thousands of hundreds-year-old spells through the city and the Empire! I can’t stop ‘till it’s done because my work makes the matrix of spells unstable, and who knows how long it will last? I can’t just drop it like that.”

Youko hummed in answer. Her hands went straight back to Blue’s ears and she started healing again. Neither woman spoke for a while. Then, the Healer sighed.

“I am the only one who has inherited my mother’s power. I am tasked with keeping her legacy alive, her knowledge, her art alive. Did you know she had three full libraries of notes? As well as four labs, only two assistants that knew a tiny part of her projects and over ten ongoing experiments when she died. I had to pick that all up and, well, continue her work. She took some of her secrets with her to the grave, too, so each time I do something, I don’t know if I have all the information… and if it will explode in my face or not.”

“How many times did it explode in your face?”

Youko giggled. “More often than I’d care to admit,” she said. “My point is, we all have tasks that only us can do. And yet you don’t see us neglect ourselves. I try to finish my mother’s life work. Arashi’s the only ambassador we have that can get in contact with the Demon Realm. Soren’s head of intelligence, but now he’s also head of the council and has to give advice to Ryuu. Ryuu, Blue! Do you know how hard his skull is? You have to fucking hammer your point home for him to actually listen to you, and he’s doing better since our teenage years! How is that possible?!”

She stomped, throwing her hands around while she ranted. Blue laughed.

“You know, I think he’s doing it just to mess with you.”

“I know! That’s the worse part of it all, I know he’s just pretending, and I hate that he still manages to make me mad!”

“He’s your big brother, he’ll always be annoying.”

“He’s the absolute worst,” Youko grumbled, but Blue could hear the fondness in her voice. “There,” she added suddenly. “All healed up. But I’m keeping you there for another day, ‘else I don’t think you’re going to follow my orders.”

“Which are?”

Youko grabbed her face with two hands and rested her forehead against Blue’s. “Bedrest. Strict.”

“Hmph!”

“I’m nod kidding. I’m gonna stay in this chair, just next to you, to make sure you don’t leave this bed. And it sucks, because I can’t do my work here.”

They were in Youko’s bedroom, no one wanted her to blow this wing of the palace up. The mental image of a restless Youko, away from her labs and books made Blue laugh.

“Forced vacation for the both of us, then, I guess!” she teased. “Can’t be that bad.”

“Aaaargh! You know what, I take back what I said about Ryuu, you’re the worst.”

“Yep, that’s me, your oldest friend!” said Blue cheerfully. “You’re stuck with me until the end, deal with it!”

Youko whined as if she were dying, and Blue laughed. She had forgotten how good it felt to just hang out with a friend and not working beside one another. It felt like a breath of fresh air after a long time inside, a whiff of spring after a hard winter.

“Wait, I was in the middle of my lesson here, why did you interrupt me?” Youko suddenly slammed a hand on her forehead. “Nice diversion here, Blue,” she said with false venom. “Uuugh, I hate you, I don’t remember where I was now!”

“At the part where you are working on the projects your mother left behind.”

“Oh, yeah, right, thank you. I love you again.”

“Yuk!” Blue stuck her tongue out in disgust. “Thank you, but no thank you!”

“You’re impossible” the other deadpanned. “How am I friend with you again?”

“I struck sand in your eyes and you hit me with a book in retaliation.”

Youko teared up. “… fuck, and that’s my tamest friendship. I’m a lost cause, aren’t I?”

“Yep!” Blue popped the ‘p’ childishly. “But we can be lost causes together, so it’s alright.”

“Thank you. Oh, well, back to what I was saying. I hired more assistants, you know? Didn’t want to become stuck in my work as my mother was, I’d end up crazy. I needed help anyway. My point is… you don’t have to do this alone. You could, you know, teach someone.”

Blue blinked.

“Youko, I’m blind.”

“And? That’s never stopped you before, has it?”

“Losing my sight was what allowed me to start sensing magic as I do. My magic sense, it… I only obtained it because I had to develop all my senses to make up for blindness.”

“And your brain gives it the form of sight, I know.” finished Youko. “But that’s not what I was saying. Your students – if you take students, which I strongly recommend– they don’t have to see – sorry, sense – the world like you do, but if they can sense what you sense in their own way, then they could help you.”

It felt like a breeze on her skin, the smell of spring, the earth after rain. So many possibilities, so many opportunities. How did I not think of this sooner?!

Her friend was still piling up arguments to try and convince Blue to take apprentices, the dark-skinned woman lifted a hand to interrupt her.

“Youko, you’re a genius.”

“… I am?”

Blue hated that tiny voice, that doubt weaved in it, with a passion. Her friend was so intelligent, and yet she thought herself below average. If only she had not spent her life comparing herself to her siblings, perhaps she would have more confidence in herself.

“Of course you are. And you know what? I think it’s worth a shot.”

Youko gave a watery chuckle. “You’ll do it?”

“Yes. I’ll make a stop by the Academy at the end of the week, perhaps talk with the other Mages. They might know someone. But only if we start spending some more time together. It’s been too long since our group had a game night.”

Youko laughed. “Of course. First night tonight with Arashi and Ankora?”

“Oh yeah. I know the perfect game.”

Sometimes, you just have to accept the fact that you need help… and that it’s not the end of the world, Blue mused. And that it’s good to have friends. Now, let’s show ‘em who’s boss.

#The Hurricane #original story #original character #oc #sicktember2021 #ear infection #fiction #do not repost somewhere else (ask and credit!) #english #Original Work #sicktember #Original Work: The Hurricane