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myafterlifeisbetterthenyours · 3 years

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How about a part two of Stella x owl reader? Fights between Stolas and Stella have become increasingly rare and his mood is improving, Stolas decides to ask about, unlike Stolas, Stella knows very well how to keep her piece of paradise a secret for now. Until one day y/n decides to visit Stella under the guise of business and to give his dear little owl a "luxury massage session", but things get a little out of hand when Stolas is caught with Blitzo. (you can ignore it if you want)

Stella with her Secret Owl demon S/O

Stella, for the first time in weeks, was having a good day.

They had actually become far more common in the weeks since your confession.

She had found herself being far less stressed as of late. So much so, she had only hadn't had a fight with Stolas in a full week.

She was relaxing in her study, enjoying a good cup of tea.

She was reminiscing on your night together, the next morning you had given her a small stack of letters.

They were all addressed to her, the condition of some of them implied they were written many years ago.

It only took a single letter for her to realise they were love letters.

Dozens of them.

She took her time, pouring over each letter. Taking in every word and detail. Emotions swelling in her chest as she read each one.

It was perhaps the most romantic thing she had ever seen.

The letters acted much like a record of your feeling for her.

It started from your more innocent affection for her as a child, all the way into your growing feeling for her in your youth, when you realised your feelings for her were beyond friendship.

And into your discovery of her betrothal to Stolas.

You poured your heart into each letter, telling her everything. Everytime you thought of her, how much you missed her, berating yourself for not just telling her how much you loved her.

You wrote about how much it pained you to remember you'd never get to tell her how much he loved her.

It was a roller-coaster of emotions. Some letters made her laugh. Others brought her to tears.

And by the end, she was clutching the letters to her chest. Her chest swollen with emotion as she experienced so many emotions all at once.

Her marriage with Stolas was... less than voluntary. The whole union being mostly political, arranged by there parents.

She had hoped love would bloom after Octavia's birth. But it hadn't, and after that she knew love was not meant to be.

But you, you genuinely loved her, for her.

You dedicated your life to being worthy of her.

You didn't want her for her status or wealth, you wanted her, for her.

She cood to herself dreamily, fantasising about your time together.

Her fantasising was cut short when there was a neck on her study door.

She quickly placed the letters into her draw before asking who it was.

Much to her surprise, it was none other then Stolas who entered her office. Her 'husband' looked about nervously, rightfully so, she supposed as he stepped in.

'Hello, uh, Stella.' He said nervously 'may I talk to you for a moment.'

Stella had a colourful collection of words she wanted to use at him. But instead she simply asked 'What do you want?'

Stolas cleared his throat, clearly not surprised by her callous tone.

Taking a few steps he began 'I've noticed this past few weeks you've been less... confrontation.' Stella's eyes narrowed, but she held her tongue.

'And I was just thinking, if perhaps we could come to an agreement.'

That actually peaked her interest. 'What kind of agreement?' She asked warily.

Stolas looked thrilled she hadn't thrown him out yet. 'Well, I was thinking we could put our differences aside, put the whole incident between us behind us. FOr Octavias sake.' He quickly cut in. 'Our constant arguing has taken quite the toll on her.'

Stella clenched her hands, he claws digging into her palm. 'For octavias sake...?' she asked incredulously.

Rage swelled in her chest 'How fucking dare you!' She told him through a scowl.

She pointed an angry finger at him. 'You, YOU! Cheat on me! Betray our marriage. Betray our family. And you want me to act like nothing happened. "For Octavia's sake"?'

She stood up, she couldn't even look at him. 'You disgust me. Tell me, would you give up your little fucking Imp? If it would make everything like it was, would you give him up?'

Stolas didn't answer, instead opting to look off to the side. Stella just sighed, shaking her head.

'Your a selfish, pathetic coward. Hiding behind your own daughter, what a disgrace.'

Before she could tell him to get out, there was a knock at the door. 'Who is it?' She shouted.

The door opened slowly, revealing one of the palace Imps. 'What do you want?' She asked harshly.

'T-theres a Lord (Y/N) here to see you. They say it's a business matter.'

Stella instantly perked up, holding back a smile as she rose to her feet. 'Thank you. I shall greet them personally.'

Getting up she walked past Stolas, not even bothering to give him a second glance.

She made her way to the entrance, and much to her annoyance, Stolas had seemingly decided to follow her, for some reason.

She quickly made it to the entrance, you were waiting there, anxiously adjusting your attire.

Hearing her approach you turned, your face lit up when your eyes layed apon her, Only for it to instantly dull upon seeing Stolas.

Still wearing a smile, you reached forward and took her hand before planted a gentle kiss upon it.

'Lady Stella. Its a pleasure to see you after so long. You still look as enchanting as when we were children.' You tell her, sending butterfly's through her stomach.

The moment was sullied when Stolas but in, 'Children?' The butterflies in her stomich instantly falling dead. 'Do you know each other?' He asked.

Before Stella could speak, you cut in 'Me and Stella were childhood friends.' You told him extending your hand. 'Its been some time since we've met in person.'

Stolas took your hand, giving it a firm shake. 'Is that so? Stella never mentioned you.'

'Well until recently' you rolled your head, your smile just holding back a scowl. 'I was beneath notice. I've only achieving my status relatively recently.'

'I was from a lower house, you see, a vassel of her family. And through that, me and Stella became friends.' You gave her a warm look, staring for several moments.

Stolas went to ask another question but Stella cut him off. 'You had business to discuss, did you not (Y/N)?' She asked.

You snapped to her, delighted to not have to talk to Stolas any further.

'Yes, i do' you said happily 'I believe a mutually beneficial arrangement could be made, between our houses.

'Excellent' she proclaims happily. 'It been so long since we've had any real business. And perhaps we could use the chance to catch up. It has been far too long.'

You looked at her fondly, before Stella turned, signalling for you to follow.

You did, turning to Stolas as you left 'It was a pleasure to meet you, your highness.' You told him, the slightest hint of disdain in your voice.

The two of you made your way to her study, you opening the door for her, giving a slight bow as she entered.

She giggled at your antics, before you followed her in, shutting the door behind you.

As soon as the door shut Stella instantly spun around and pinned you to the door, locking you in a heavy kiss.

'You have no idea how much I've wanted to do that.' Stella told you, after breaking the kiss.

You just chuckled before raising an eyebrow, 'oh, i think I do.' You told her playfully.

Stella just giggled, giving you a peck on the cheek. Pulling away she got up and went over to her desk.

You followed close behind, wrapping her in a hug. 'Now, now (Y/N), we have business to attend to.' She told you, patting your arm.

You just chuckled, 'Stella, I didn't really come here for business. I came to spend time with you.'

Stella was a little taken aback, mostly for not seeing it, as on reflection it was quite obvious.

Kissing her neck you slid your hands onto her shoulders, gently rubbing the muscles around her muscle.

Stella moaned at your touch, this only emboldened you, as your hands rubbed deeper and rougher.

Digging your fingers into her shoulder muscles. Stella released a flurry of moans, gripping her desk as you worked over her shoulder blades.

You moved down her spine, slowly undoing her dress as you went.

Reaching the bottom she turned to you, moving her shoulders, her dress fell, leaving her in all her natural glory.

You took her then and there, the two of you wrapped in passion, you held nothing back, releasing years of passion.

When stella became more vocal, you tried to get her quiet down, in fear ztolas might catch you.

As you got rougher, she just cried out 'I want him to hear!'

You went on for a while, after you finished, you held Stella close, the Owl demon curled up on your lap.

You preened your lover, running your hands all across her body before gently plucking any feather you didn't deem worthy to stay on your perfect mate. Afterwards the two of you got dressed.

You meticulously inspecting Stella, head to toe, ensuring she was perfectly groomed from head to toe.

The two of you leaft her study, ensuring no evidence of your little escapade was left behind.

The small collection of Stella's feathers, were delicately placed in your coat pocket.

You followed her into the garden, strolling through the large hedges that sat behind the Goetia palace.

Confident you where alone, you held Stella close, sharing a public display of affection.

You made it deep into the hedges, finding yourself beneath a large tree. It was a beautiful reminder that there was still life in hell.

You took her hand, you lead her beneath the trees majesty.

You pushed your body against hers, pinning her to the tree as you locked your lips with her's.

As you deepened the kiss, The distinct sound of snaping twigs drew your attention.

Snapping your head to face the noise, you found its source.

An Imp had fallen through the hedge, leaving a large hole in his stead.

You locked eyes with the Imp and sighed, 'well, this won't end well' you thought.

The Imp seem to think the same thing, before you both exclaimed 'Well, Fuck!'

Thanks for the request. I really love writing for both Stolas and Stella, as I feel there just isn't enough story centred around them as individuals. It always about there family or Stolas and Blitzø. But I really enjoyed the request. I hope you enjoyed.

#helluva boss #helluva boss headcanon #x reader #headcanon #helluva stolas #helluva boss x reader #helluva stella

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ambivalentmarvel · 4 years

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so the story behind this is that @sreppub arrived in my dms saying “sitcom starring two uppity, former rich guys and a regular poor college kid who follow up an online ad and become roommates” and i said something along the lines of “your MIND” and here we are. she does the art, i do the fic, and we both yell a lot along the way. read it on here or ao3 and enjoy!!

The Sitcom Supreme

If Peter or Stephen were around to hear Tony tell the story of how they all ended up rooming together, they would have plenty of objections, to which he would call them both dirty liars, to which they would gang up on him because they’re terrible and like that, to which he would probably throw up his hands in exasperation and/or make the mistake of engaging them in a debate, to which they would grin like wolves because, once again, they’re terrible and like that, but Tony’s the asshole who put up the Craigslist ad, so he gets to start—because he’s terrible and like that.

It’s a common trait amongst the three of them, what can he say?

The beginning of the story does not involve either of the other two, however. It begins with Rhodey, who is only occasionally terrible and like that. Rhodey has been Tony’s best friend since the tender age of fifteen. Considering Tony at age fifteen was a greasy little douche bag with too much money and a whole bunch of daddy issues that were somehow more obvious then than they are in the present, this is an impressive feat.

Where things start, Rhodey and Tony are roommates at MIT, which is Howard’s school of choice to shove his problem child onto. Tony is supposed to get a single dorm room, but there’s a cockroach problem in that building. Administration has to get creative, which is how Rhodey, fresh out of boot for the fall semester, gets saddled with approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of neglected teenage boy who has only kind of gone through puberty.

The first words out of Tony’s mouth are blunt: “Any chance you have plans to drop out?”

And Rhodey looks at him with a raised brow, efficiently unpacked and totally unimpressed with the enormous stack of Tony’s things wavering in the doorway. “You have any plans to quit being annoying?” he retorts, which set the tone for their entire relationship.

Tony loves him to pieces.

He’s the older brother he never knew he needed, yanking him by his collar from frat parties on the weekends and to his house for holidays because getting swamped by Rhodey’s six younger siblings is infinitely better than having to wear a suit and tie for Christmas dinner with six CEOs and maybe some senators, depending on the year. In return, Tony sees him through every finals week of his collegiate career, during which Rhodey gets so nervous he usually pukes at least daily and pulls so many all-nighters Tony memorizes the exact shade of red his eyes are at the end.

So, it’s safe to say they get along well. They get along so well, as a matter of fact, that when they stare at each other after their graduation ceremony for their Masters—a two-year process for both of them, and Rhodey receives two degrees to Tony’s four—surrounded by Rhodey’s family and Jarvis, Tony’s lips curl in a smirk Rhodey knows spells the best kind of trouble. “What do you say we keep the roommate streak alive, yeah? Howard’s building an office in New York, and I’m thinking of doing a doctorate at NYU.”

Rhodey’s brows raise, but he’s grinning, so Tony already knows his answer. “Depends. Are you still gonna’ snore?”

“Are you still gonna’ have a stick up your a—”

Mama Rhodes shoots Tony a look from where she’s trying to corral the rest of her kids.

“—butt?” he finishes with a sheepish glance her way.

Rhodey does not even remotely have a stick up his ass, but of the two of them, he features in tabloids far, far less, which Tony somehow uses to his advantage.

“You know it,” Rhodey replies, and so they find a fancy penthouse that Tony mostly pays for, with the excuse of Rhodey satisfying his part of rent via generally covering Tony’s ass to the best of his ability. And he has a lot of ability, honed from years upon years of Tony self-destructing at the drop of a hat, but there’s only so much he can do, especially as his military career just keeps flying higher and Howard just keeps pushing Tony harder.

A few sex tapes, especially wild benders, and crashed cars later, when Howard cuts Tony off and tells him, quote, “I won’t speak to you until you learn to do something other than disappoint me”, Rhodey very gracefully still shacks up with him in their considerably less fancy apartment.

This is all important to know, contrary to what someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange might say about Tony’s “long-winded” and “overly-complicated” storytelling tendencies because it explains exactly why Rhodey is a traitor.

Is Carol a very cool lady who could kick Tony’s ass? Yes. Is she sickeningly cute with Rhodey and not just because a smile from her makes him melt into a pile of fucking goo on the floor? Also yes. Does it probably make more sense for Tony to find roommates who will actually be around to monitor his—allegedly—poor mental health and self-care habits? Okay, fine, yes, but the bottom line is, Rhodey is moving in with Carol and abandoning Tony, and nobody said he had to like it.

(This is not strictly true, what with the approximately ten conversations Rhodey and he have had about his happiness and how, if Tony needs him, all he has to do is say the word and he’ll be back, but Tony has always had a flair for the dramatic.)

The whole idea is that Tony will find someone gone less than Rhodey with all his military business to enjoy having around the apartment. It’s technically a three-bedroom, but he and Rhodey use the extra one for storage. Fortunately or unfortunately, that storage area has become a lot of junk they go through before Rhodey makes his grand exit, and Tony suddenly has the option of having two roommates.

The ad is a low point, he can admit that, but there is a flaw in what Tony loudly calls Rhodey’s master plan to leave him alone to wallow in misery: Tony doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends, nevermind people who he’d want to live with.

“Rhodey. Honeybear. Platypus.”

“The nicknames are old, and you need to stop using them around Carol. She called me Platypus last night during sex, and it ruined the whole mood.”

“You poor thing.”

“She thought it was hilarious.”

If Tony has to lose Rhodey to anybody, by God, Carol is his first choice by a long shot.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Sourpatch—”

“I hate you.”

“—how am I supposed to find someone else to live with?”

Tony is thirty-two and regularly speaks out with all of four people: Pepper, Rhodey, Carol, and Happy. Unfortunately, Happy works in Stark Industries’ California branch and has stated rather firmly that he’s not interested in transferring to the city, Pepper wouldn’t live with another person for love or money, and the other two are spoken for.

It’s a terrible situation to be in, honestly.

“Craigslist,” Rhodey deadpans, fighting with some packing tape.

Tony feels his heart stop beating in real time from his place folding some of Rhodey’s clothes into a plastic tub. His head snaps up, and his jaw drops, absolutely affronted. “You would suggest that I, even disowned and stripped of my former glory—” Tony has several million dollars in the stock market, but that’s neither here nor there and isn’t much compared to the fact that he was supposed to be a billionaire. “—would stoop to looking for live-in friends on Craigslist?”

Rhodey looks up to meet his eyes, unfazed. He’s used to Tony’s antics after nearly two decades of friendship. “Well, I’m not moving out until you have at least one person guaranteed to take my place, so unless you have any better ideas, yeah.” He shrugs—just shrugs, as if he isn’t advising Tony to scrape the bottom of the fucking barrel in terms of reliable people to regularly fall asleep around.

It’s insulting.

“I’m not putting out an ad for a roommate on Craigslist,” he protests, shoving the next horribly colored polo into the tub with disdain.

That night, he tears up thinking about stopping Rhodey from being happy with Carol, and the post is up by the time Rhodey gets up—stupidly early, like normal—for his morning run. Along with his contact information and a few blurry pictures of the place, it includes a blurb about the circumstances.

Best friend moving out. Need a roommate or I will die of Sadness. His girlfriend is cool but hewas mind first. Carol, I am watching you. Two rooms open for business. But not sketchy business. You can just lve there. Current resident (me) is cool and very charming. I am a man. No dumb fuck offers. Thanks.

It could use some work, but Tony’s never been great with words, even less so when he’s crying to rock ballads at two in the morning. He edits it when he wakes up, and by noon that day, it’s looking better.

At seven o’clock that evening, he receives one of two messages that actually work out.

Enter the first offender: Peter Parker.

Peter, Tony will learn, is nineteen, attending NYU—like Tony did, which is a sign, really—for a double major in biochemistry and physics, and has the worst luck of anyone Tony’s ever met.

Rhodey’s moving out in a week—he’s been putting off finding a roommate for a while, alright—and Peter has to legally be out of his dorm in three days. That is quite the predicament, and Tony, by nature, is a curious creature. He is not, however, one for beating around the bush. That results in a text that reads exactly this.

Tony: What the hell did you do?

He could hack through the university files, but explanations are always more fun with a personal touch that’s lacking in, say, an incident report. Tony watches a bubble with three blinking dots for a long, long time, and the reply is surprisingly sparse—sparse enough, in fact, for Tony to have more questions than answers when he receives it.

Unknown Sender: theres been a few things but the kicker was the fire

Tony: The fire?

Unknown Sender: i tried to make popcorn and the microwave blew up

Now that is some problematic behavior Tony can get behind. He amends the kid’s previously non-existent contact information.

Tony: How can they kick you out for that? That’s not your fault.

Roommate (?) Peter: it blacked out the power on the entire first floor

Tony: And?

Roommate (?) Peter: last month i got the blame for contaminating half the campus water supply

Roommate (?) Peter: so i was already on thin ice

Tony: Accidentally?

Roommate (?) Peter: idk sometimes things just happen to me

Tony doesn’t know how to respond to that. If Rhodey knew, he’d never let him live it down. He can hear his annoying laugh in his ears like a premonition—“Hah—Tony, speechless?”—but then there are the dots again and a simple message to follow the last, a touch pathetic.

Roommate (?) Peter: please let me move in

Tony likes him.

Peter shows up on the stairs of the complex thirty-six hours after Tony posted the ad with a backpack and a meager total of six beat-to-shit boxes. The backpack holds nearly all of his school supplies, which makes Tony, in retrospect, genuinely fearful for the integrity of his spine, and the contents of the boxes are sorted, as Tony will learn, into three categories that each have two boxes in them. The categories are fairly simple—clothing, necessities, and whatever other shit he could fit from his dorm—and leave Peter with thrilling possessions such as an entire collection of truly atrocious shirts with science puns on them, a gallon of hand soap, and any food he had in his cupboards.

Thankfully, Rhodey is out furniture shopping with Carol when Tony goes out to meet him, which solves the problem of Rhodey going into overbearing caretaker mode at the sight of a beanpole of a kid failing to manage their life successfully. As someone who has been made many a you-haven’t-eaten-a-meal-in-two-days-and-I’m-secretly-a-panicking-mother-hen casserole, Tony counts his blessings.

Tony waves. “Peter?” he asks, reluctantly changed out of his pajamas for the day.

The kid nods. “That’s me. And you’re Tony?”

“Guilty as charged. Want a hand with those boxes?” he asks, watching Peter lift three at a time.

“No, I got it,” he insists, and then the box on top slides out of his grip and onto the sidewalk.

Peter stares at it for a second before he lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Maybe I could use some help,” he admits, and with much struggle, the two of them, each with three boxes, waddle inside. There is a moment and only one moment where Tony thinks that it might be nice to have some extra assistance, but with another thought of the things Rhodey would do at the sight of a woefully inept college kid, Tony decides it’s for the best.

Tony leads the operation, considering he has the key and also knows explicitly where they’re going, and he would have to say his biggest complaint about the ordeal is that Sam, who lives in the apartment below Tony and Rhodey with Steve and Bucky, happens to open his door as they walk by.

Being an asshole, he has something to say about it. “Need some help, shellhead?” he crows.

Tony wishes he had a free hand to flip him off.

“Watch your back, Wilson,” he growls in return, a continuation of the beef the five of them have maintained since they met approximately seven years ago, when they all moved in on the same day and kept knocking into each other’s shit in the halls.

When they reach the top of the next flight of stairs and Tony starts to fumble with the key, Peter asks about it. “So—uh—who was that?”

“That was Sam. Part of the deal with moving in is that you harass him and the other two idiots who live with him. He also responds to jackass, douchecanoe, or birdbrain.”

“Birdbrain?”

“It’s an old joke. He had a rather—” Tony grunts, forced to set down his load to unlock the door, “—spectacular run-in with some pigeons a few years ago.”

“Oh.”

“They shat on him. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good nickname,” Tony assures him, throwing open the door with his arms flung wide for dramatic flair. “Welcome to Casa Stark. I mean, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker now, but if we’re hyphenating, my name goes first because I lived here first.” He holds up a finger as if to stall Peter, who has yet to speak from where his mouth is decidedly blocked by the aforementioned three boxes he is carrying. “And I know what you’re going to say—that Parker-Stark works better because it’s alphabetical—but that is where you are wrong because letters have no place in this house. Numbers are much preferred, and we play by seniority here, anyway.”

He gives Peter a meaningful look that he cannot see because, once again, boxes.

“More on that, by the way—”

“Hey, Tony?”

He cuts him off which is, objectively, rude, but Tony rarely gets along with people who aren’t a little curt with him from time to time. This is a positive sign, really, so he allows it.

“Yeah?”

“This can be Casa Stark-Parker, but can we get to somewhere I can set these down? My arms are, like, going to give out on me.”

Not even ten minutes in, and he’s already learned the art of bargaining. Tony’s proud, and he ushers him inside without any more monologues and a grin stretched across his face.

Peter, by virtue of moving in before Rhodey is out, ends up with the room that is no longer being used for storage. Tony has several questions for him, beginning with the fact that, despite the six packets of instant noodles he bothered to bring, he does not appear to have a mattress. Or a desk. Or a dresser. Or anything that’s supposed to go in a room.

His solutions for Tony’s concerns are as follows.

In place of a bed, he has two blankets, one to put on the floor and one to cover himself with. He was planning on sitting on the floor to do schoolwork instead of using a desk. And finally, he was going to leave his clothes in the boxes.

This is all relayed to Tony with an earnest gleam in his eyes and a smile.

Tony blinks in disbelief. Then, very eloquently, he says, “Kid, that is the saddest shit I have ever heard. Aren’t your parents helping you with the move to an apartment?”

The kid shifts from foot to foot, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing to the side.

Tony’s eyes narrow. As someone who is extremely well-versed in avoidance tactics, he feels very confident in saying that is definitely a fucking avoidance tactic.

“About that,” he begins, “first of all, I’m an orphan.” Jesus Christ. “Second of all, my aunt doesn’t exactly—uh—know I got kicked out of the dorms.”

That is all interesting information, to say the least, but luckily, Tony thrives under pressure.

“Alright. I can respect that.”

It’s not like he never hid anything from his parents. Evading his aunt is Peter’s problem, not Tony’s. None of this is Tony’s problem, really, except then he looks around the room and wonders which of Peter’s boxes are holding his two blankets.

Tony was concerned about Rhodey, but he can’t stop himself.

“But I’m also gonna’ level with you—you’re not sleeping on the ground. You can take the couch.”

The until I get you a proper bed frame and mattress goes unsaid, but sometimes things like that are better as surprises. It’ll be a fun housewarming gift, Tony thinks, and by the time the shipment from IKEA arrives containing both of those things and the aforementioned missing dresser and desk, there will be a third roommate to help put it all together, not that either of them know it yet.

That night, Rhodey and Carol show up with enough ingredients for lasagna to serve four, and Tony delights in showing off Peter as they cook because now he has a “super cool roommate too! Take that, Platypus.”

Rhodey glances to Peter. “If you’re being held hostage, blink twice.”

“Hey!” Tony protests. He is a perfectly lovable roommate, thank you very much, and he’s so offended, he’s not even going to let Rhodey know about his mission to furnish Peter’s room.

God bless her, Carol just laughs.

The four of them get along with surprising ease, considering Peter’s only been around for a few hours. Peter even tries to help with the lasagna, but Tony has a near-photographic memory and has not remotely forgotten the popcorn incident, however vaguely it was described.

“You just sit there and be a nicer person than Rhodey,” he urges him, and Peter nods, hiding his grin behind his hand at the argument that starts.

Once everyone is done, he and Rhodey get suckered into dish duty while Carol spirits Peter off to the living room, claiming she has to warn him about what he’s getting into. Tony doesn’t care enough to complain, and when her back is turned, he splashes a plate of suds onto Rhodey’s front.

Rather than rise to the bait, however, he raises his brows, slipping into what Tony affectionately calls his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode. “You have to be a good example for him, Tones.”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, did you just say—”

“I’m serious!” They keep their voices mostly down, but Rhodey’s rises a bit with the declaration.

“He’s nineteen—an adult, in case you forgot. He signed the lease all on his own and everything,” he hisses back incredulously.

He thought he dodged the bullet by not disclosing just how underprepared Peter is to live in an apartment, but Rhodey’s head dips. Tony braces himself for the part of his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode where he tells Tony he’s making a bullshit excuse and needs to get it together. “Don’t give me that. He’s a baby adult at best, and you know it.”

Yep, there it is.

“That’s still an adult!”

It is! Tony was on his own way earlier than nineteen. This is not a big deal, no matter how outlandish Peter’s circumstances are for moving out of NYU’s dorms.

“Watch his back.”

Tony scoffs. “It’s not like I was going to feed him to the wolves. I’m barely thirty—I’m not his dad.”

“Tony.”

Ah, the final, crushing blow of this version of Rhodey: his name—but with emphasis.

Tony sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “I solemnly swear I will not let him get up to no good.”

A beat. Rhodey squints at him, slowly lowering the plate he’s holding into the sink. “You told me you refused to read Harry Potter.”

Shit.

Back when the books were first coming out, Rhodey was insufferably obsessed with them, and Tony loves him, but emotionally, he couldn’t handle having Rhodey think he was willing to discuss anything having to do with the series for longer than thirty seconds. Thus, he read the books—everyone in the world was doing the same, okay, and he cannot stand being out of the loop—but lied to Rhodey about it.

And now, he’s been made.

Rhodey and he launch into a very spirited discussion that draws Carol and Peter back to the kitchen, and despite the vein throbbing dangerously in Rhodey’s forehead, the promise has been made.

The day after Rhodey moves out, he and Peter manage to flood the bathroom.

In Tony’s defense, he only promised to look out for Peter. He said nothing about curbing his own dumbass tendencies, and it’s not like Bucky’s bedroom is all that damaged by the leak that Tony fixes before it’s really even a problem.

He and Peter settle into a nice sense of camaraderie, and Tony, content with his situation, forgets to take down his Craiglist ad that, logically speaking, someone would have to dig to find at this point, over a week after initially posting it.

Then, he receives a text that is as simple as it is effective: Is there still an available room in the apartment?

Enter the second offender: Stephen Strange.

Ahem, Doctor Stephen Strange, technically, but Tony has six PhDs. Nobody sees him going around making people call him Doctor Stark, and that’s because it makes him sound pretentious and stuffy, both things Tony prides himself on not being. However, Tony likes to push buttons, and very little gets Stephen worked up as fast as someone ignoring his credentials.

It’s a fun set-up, really, but annoying the piss out of Stephen is something that comes a little later—Tony’s not there yet in the story.

He humors the text, and after getting a read on things, he bursts into the living room, startling Peter nearly off the couch. He’s been doing his homework there and on the coffee table in front of it because the Swedish have many things but fast shipping is, apparently, not one of them, not that Peter knows there’s anything to be waiting on, but he’s getting off-topic.

Peter lets out a short yelp and presses a hand over his heart, both things that Tony ignores.

“We have a situation,” he announces.

“I swear I didn’t do it,” Peter defends pleadingly.

Tony is trying to teach him that messing things up is expected and, especially in particularly magnificent cases, admired in Casa Stark-Parker, but it’s a work in progress.

“I know you didn’t—don’t be ridiculous,” he waves his concerns off. “We are talking bigger than setting things on fire by accident. I bring you, my young protege, the proposition of—” A pause for dramatic effect. “—another roommate.”

“Ooh,” Peter says appropriately, setting his textbook down to examine the texts Tony brandishes. He begins to scroll, but while he does, Tony figures he can go ahead and fill him in on the essentials. It’s a very juicy situation, after all, and he can’t help himself.

“His name is Stephen Strange. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he got into a pretty bad car wreck that messed up his hands. He’s trying to save money while he goes to physical therapy—he apparently has a chance of recovery, but it’s a ways off—and that includes downsizing on where he lives.”

“I mean, yikes, but that’s an oddly specific backstory.”

“I’m glad you think that too, but I am intrigued. I looked him up, and he’s a real person—has a basically flawless reputation, or at least he did before his accident. Thoughts?”

Please say yes, please say yes, Tony thinks. The chance of a competent human—not including Rhodey, who looks more put together than he really is next to the chaos Tony perpetually dwells in—choosing to live with him is too fascinating to pass up, and he needs Peter to see that too.

Peter shrugs. “I’m down if you are. How old is he?”

Victory!

Satisfaction floods Tony, but he tries to maintain his cool.

“Thirty.”

Peter blows out a long breath, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t anticipate moving into a nursing home,” he remarks dryly.

What a little shit.

It’s worth noting half the reason Rhodey left so easily is because he said he trusted Peter to keep Tony on his toes. Then again, that Tony likes being snarked at is a large part of why they get along so well despite only knowing each other for a matter of days.

“You’re the worst, Parker. I’m going to feed you to the hooligans downstairs. Steve has a monster appetite, you know.”

Peter hums, picking his textbook back up. “Not if I feed you to them first. And, Tony?”

“What?”

“Only old people say hooligans.”

Tony thinks about that one book, Give a Mouse a Cookie or whatever. Except in his case, it’s Rent a Teenager an Apartment, and Tony doesn’t have to adhere to the literary equivalent of a G-rating.

His response to the dig is creative and colorful, and Peter laughs.

Four days and a brief conversation at a coffee shop later—a formality he and Peter did not do and probably something Tony should’ve thought of as the older adult before giving him the address—Stephen’s team of movers invade the apartment.

The man himself stands like a drill sergeant at the last flights of stairs it takes to get to the apartment, arms crossed, beard wild, conducting activity.

Peter and Tony share their evaluations, peeking their head out from the doorway when it’s unoccupied by movers and Stephen isn’t looking their way. This involves quite a bit of ducking, but they are very careful not to be caught.

(Someone’s whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange later informs that “they were not at all subtle” and “were, in fact, very embarrassing”, but that’s how things with the three of them generally are, so Tony figures it was a good crash course to how life together goes.)

“He’s kind of scraggly,” Peter whispers, his head under Tony’s because he’s the shorter of the two of them, something Tony delights in refuting Peter’s quips about his age with.

“Kind of? He looks like a hobo.”

It’s true, okay? Facially, at least, the guy is a wreck. He’s not quite to Einstein levels of bad hair day, but he’s getting there.

“Be nice,” Peter chastises him. He’s gentler than Rhodey when he does it, but considering neither of them ever shut the hell up and they have thus bonded very easily over the course of their short relationship, it’s gotten to feel as natural as most of their interactions.

“All I’m saying is that I am happy to retain my place as the most attractive person in the apartment, okay?”

They’re forced to retreat from the entryway as another load comes through, and Peter looks at him disbelievingly. “Dream on,” he replies bluntly.

Tony gasps in offense.

Peter shrugs. “Look, I’m just gonna’ say it—you knew Rhodey before me, and now that I’m here—” he trails off, looking at Tony in faux-sympathy that doesn’t match the mischievous glint in his eyes.

While it is true that Rhodey is a fine specimen of a man—yet another reason Tony can’t, in good conscience, be truly angry Carol mooched him away from the bachelor lifestyle—Tony can’t cede that easily for the sake of his pride, and he scowls. “I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

They’re still bickering as the movers finish up and Stephen enters the apartment, dressed in what Tony recognizes as the latest from Armani and Tom Ford.

He may not get invited to fashion week anymore, but he still has taste, alright, even if Rhodey limits him to one designer purchase a month.

(Rhodey isn’t around to see what packages he orders now, Tony thinks but shelves the thought for later.)

Tony and Stephen met over coffee, and all three of them said hi to one another before the moving business officially began. However, there is a little stiffness in the air, make no mistake. It’s not Stephen’s fault, exactly, because he’s just kind of a foreboding guy, but still.

It figures that Peter would break the ice. As Tony’s found and will continue to discover, Peter is just as talkative as him. Granted, that trait usually appears in the form of rambling about something from class, but it’s not surprising that his natural passion for life comes through with someone about to be very, very involved in it.

“Hi!” he begins. “Are all of the movers gone now?”

Stephen raises an unimpressed brow. “Yes.”

His reply is seriously lacking enthusiasm, but Tony isn’t allowed the opportunity to jump on that as Peter keeps going.

“Sweet! Okay, so welcome to Casa Stark-Parker.”

Woah, woah, woah—timeout.

Tony frowns, raising a hand in a motion for Peter to stop. “I thought that was my thing?” he interjects.

“Well, it has my name in it, so it gets to be both of our things,” Peter replies, then furrows his brow, looking to Stephen. “Actually, since you’re here now, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker-Strange. Order’s based on who got here first, sorry,” he explains with a smile that Tony, now familiar with the fact that Peter has more to him than meets the eye, notes is a touch impish.

Tony is pleased to see, despite his generally wholesome appearance, the kid has at least picked up on the power of staking a claim.

Stephen blinks. His hands, Tony has noticed, don’t stop shaking, not even when he folds his arm across his chest, like a physical barrier between him and Peter’s excitement. “Okay?” he drawls slowly, confusedly.

“Tony’s rules, not mine,” Peter assures him as if he doesn’t just want the satisfaction of having his name not be the last in the line-up.

Tony scoffs. “Oh okay, so now we’re throwing me under the bus?”

“You have to take responsibility for your actions, Tony.”

“Oh, sure thing,” he replies, tone betraying that he does not, in fact, think any responsibility is at all necessary. He looks to Stephen, rolling his eyes. “Can you believe what I have to put up with? And it’s barely been a week.”

Stephen blinks again. “I see it’s a lot,” he says measuredly.

Peter gasps, unaffected. “Oh my God, we should make a sign for it,” he enthuses. “We can put it up on the door, and we’d be so much cooler than Sam and them.”

To say that Peter rose to the challenge of bothering their downstairs neighbors with zeal is something of an understatement.

Tony is, honestly, a fan of the sign idea, especially if it were to light up, but that is where Stephen cuts in, his hands still trembling as he gestures. “Can we slow down for a moment?” He looks carefully from Tony and Peter and back again, bearing the appearance of a man in the throes of realizing he has made a bad decision.

Tony knows that look well. It usually shows up when Rhodey agrees to one of Tony’s ideas and doesn’t realize just how badly constructed it is until it’s too late.

“First of all, I am fairly certain my car is parked illegally, and before we get too far, I need to fix it before I get towed. And secondly,” Tony watches Stephen’s lips curl in a self-satisfied, I-totally-think-I’m-better-than-you-even-if-I’m-not-technically-saying-it smile, “I am not here to be part of any Casa. I am waiting for physical therapy to work for me, and then I will be out of your hair. I appreciate being able to live here, but—”

Yeah, Tony’s had enough of that. Personally, he would like to thank Rhodey, who, in a way, begins and ends the story, and truly is the greatest best friend a man could have for teaching him how to properly deal with pompous rich people.

“Nuh-uh, none of that. If you’re living here, you’re a part of Casa Stark-Parker-Strange whether you like it or not.”

Stephen looks downright appalled that someone would dare to interrupt him, which, Tony knows from experience, is exactly the kind of shock rich people need to go through. He splutters for a second before he manages to get out a reply, “That was not in the lease.”

Tony spreads his hands as if to say what can you do? “And you didn’t mention in your texts that you were going to try to be a bump on a log, but here we are.”

Perhaps sensing the mounting animosity in the room or maybe just as excited as Tony to have someone to bother, Peter takes advantage of Stephen’s overwhelmed and bewildered state.

“First day with all three of us!” he shouts. “Picture!”

And before anyone can protest—including Tony, who would prefer to be documented in something other than a Black Sabbath tee and his work pants—Peter leans in with the camera on his phone ready to capture the moment.

In the resulting photo, Tony looks vaguely alarmed, Stephen looks pissed as hell, and Peter wears a grin that stretches across his whole face. The whole thing is blurry, and they eventually get it framed.

It’s a beautiful and fitting start to their time as roommates, and in the humble eyes of the asshole who posted the Craigslist ad, that is how the story of how they came to live together went.

#tony stark #stephen strange #peter parker #supreme family #iron dad #spider son #fic #tss #ambivalentmarvel #if you tag this st*rker you die by our blade

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galaxy-parchment · 4 years

Text

Nepotism at its Finest

I’m back on my bullshit, fellas! This time we’ve got something fun. A fic that I wrote based on another TMA AU, ‘Timeline of Theseus’, by @creativitycache. All you need to know is Jon has been the Archivist since he was 8 because time-travel shenanigans and now Elias is his reluctant dad, I would highly suggest reading ToT if you enjoy this fic and even if you don’t. This also hasn’t been beta-read because this is spoiler-y and my usual beta-reader hasn’t listened to TMA and honestly this is pretty self-indulgent.

Jon, despite being an Archivist for as long as he could remember, only got the ‘official’ title of Head Archivist once Gertrude finally died. He knew Jonah was the one that did it, but honestly, Jon was just glad he didn’t call in someone else to do his dirty work for once. He always hated when a random avatar barged in and somehow always left some kind of damage in their wake.

Working as an archival assistant wasn’t so bad, other than that. After a while, just to justify him hanging around the Archives all day reading statements, Jonah had given him a position as Gertrude’s assistant. Not that she ever asked him to do anything. It was just a formality.

At this point he’d given up on only reading statements that included people that were already dead. He’d take one over the newer statements, certainly, but the problem was that there’s only a certain number of people that have had supernatural experiences, and if they survived the encounter, they don’t tend to die as quickly as the ones that didn’t make it.

He still occasionally got odd flashes of things he never actually did, but it wasn’t like they had a manual about how his powers worked. Jonah just half-explained that it was probably something to do with his omniscience filling his head up with blanks that didn’t exist. The fuzziness and lack of detail certainly matched up with that theory. Just one of the perks of suddenly gaining knowledge powers at the age of 8, he supposed. At least he’d finally managed to get a grip on what exactly he Knew at random intervals. The Eye still liked to give him the odd unwarranted insight or two, but he didn’t mind all that much.

Strangely, though, he did ‘remember’ all of the assistants Jonah had chosen for him on his first day as the Head Archivist. Sasha, Tim and Martin, although for some reason Sasha didn’t look like how his ‘memories’ picture her.

—

Jon was weird, to be honest. Tim knew it the moment he walked in and saw the guy. Looked like he’d been raised by wolves then taught how to act like he was a respectable academic. Sure, he looked the part, but you could tell he didn’t care about being a ‘scholar’, he only cared about the statements.

He also obviously had some weird tension with Elias. Whenever Tim mentioned him Jon would always change the topic and refuse to acknowledge the man’s existence. He’d worked here for a while, though, probably just a standard ‘gradual resent for your boss’ scenario.

At least Tim thought that was it until Monday.

They were all in the break room, Jon included, eating their lunch, when Elias wandered in and gave them all a polite smile.

“So, Jon,” He said pleasantly, “I was wondering how you were settling in as Head Archivist.”

Jon glanced back from the coffee pot, “Doing fine, thank you…” he grumbled.

“That’s great to hear,” Tim could hear the condescending tone dripping from his voice, “I know that you’re not used to such an active role in the Archives, is all,”

“What? You don’t think I’m capable of the job? You didn’t need to give me the position you know, I can do what I need to do here without it,”

“Oh, goodness, no, you were fully deserving of the promotion,” Elias said, raising his hands in defence, a knowing smile on his face.

“And as I told you when you promoted me, theres no need to worry about me,” the archival assistants stayed silent and glanced at each other awkwardly.

Elias grimaced, “Is it really so bad that I just wanted to see how you were? I have every right to worry,” Tim didn’t know what the relationship there was, but that was definitely a weird thing for your boss to say in his books.

“Elias, I am 24 and an adult who’s been working here for a while, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Jon said sternly, turning to face him with his arms crossed. Okay, that was definitely a weird thing to say. Sasha hid her face in her mug and Martin was fiddling with his hands and staring at them.

“Fine, but you know where to find me if you need anything,” Elias sighed. He turned and walked out the door.

Jon scowled for a moment, the tension in the air thick. He suddenly marched up to the door and yelled down the hall, “You’re not my father, you know!”

Tim was about to ask what the hell that was about before he heard Elias call back.

“I have paperwork that says otherwise!”

Well, that certainly explained a few things.

—

The ‘break room incident’ was still a talking point among the assistants, but at this point it was mostly just Tim complaining that Sasha just didn’t get the job because of nepotism. Jon didn’t even have a degree of any kind, he just got a position as an assistant and then got the Head Archivist promotion.

Martin tried to connect with Jon, though. He’d heard about how all of the old assistants just went missing over time. That must’ve been lonely for Jon. So he brought him tea every day. Sure, Jon didn’t always drink it, but hopefully it helped him feel more comfortable with them.

He did give Martin odd looks occasionally, though, as if they’d known each other and Jon was trying to place his face. He certainly would have remembered meeting someone like Jon, though.

When he wasn’t reading statements, Jon actually came out and spoke to all of the assistants directly when he needed something, which was a bit odd. Not spooky odd, but still odd.

Jon was instructing Martin on some follow-up he would need to do at his desk when Elias made his second appearance of the month. The others stayed quiet, knowing how things went last time.

“Jon, I have some good news!” Elias said, unusually chipper.

Jon seemed unimpressed, “Do tell.”

“Peter and I are getting married!” Martin was about to congratulate him when Jon beat him to it.

“I give it three months,” he deadpanned, not taking his eyes off Elias, who seemed far less offended than Martin would have been in his situation.

“Give me some credit, Jon”

“You’re right, he never even replaced the vase he broke before the last divorce did he? Make it two.” Wait, divorce? Last divorce?

“He’s changed, really, he even said he’d actually replace it once it was official,” Elias defended. Martin spotted Tim in his peripherals jamming his face into his elbow to stifle his own laughter. Sasha had a not-so-subtle smile creeping onto her face.

“Oh, and let me guess, he also promised you he’d ‘start trying to really connect with Jon’ like he does every time, as if he doesn’t literally feed off of doing the exact opposite.”

“No, but he did-“

“No, wait, I’ve got it this time, he said that this time, he’d keep his voyages short and make more time for you!” Jon guessed, intently waiting for Elias’s response

“Yes.” He said curtly. What on earth was happening? Martin wanted nothing more than to be anywhere but this exact position, right next to both of his bosses having a family squabble.

“Let me guess, you came down here to tell me right at this moment because you need me to drive you? Of course,” Jon ran his hand flat across his head to give his hair the gelled flatness Elias’s always flawlessly maintained, “I’m Elias, I’m going to ask Jon to drive me and my fiancee to the courthouse for our tenth marriage! I can’t drive myself, though, because then Peter is going to insult my driving and then I’ll tell him that he has no place to do so since he doesn’t even have a license! Then we’re going to cancel and try again the next week!” He ranted in a tone that was obviously meant to imitate Elias.

“We’re going next Wednesday.” Elias said.

“Fine.” Jon replied without a second thought, turning back to Martin, who hadn’t realised he was holding his breath. Elias silently turned and headed out of the Archives.

The room was silent for a moment. Sasha spoke up first.

“Did you say tenth time?” She asked incredulously.

“Yes, and that’s only the legal ones. I’ve seen them ‘get married’ one night and the next they’ll swear vengeance on each other. Peter gives excellent Christmas presents, though, what with the insurmountable wealth.”

Tim barked out the laugh he was suppressing, “Jon, I just really want you to know, that is the funniest thing I’ve witnessed in my life, thank you,"

For the record I’ve changed a few rules of how the whole Jon situation works and I mostly just took the concept of adult Jon and Elias father-son dynamic and sprinted with it.

#galaxywrites #the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #tma season 4 spoilers #timeline of theseus #elias bouchard #jonathan sims #sasha james #martin blackwood #timothy stoker #season 1 archives crew #slight comedic lonelyeyes #as it should be in every tma fic that mentions either of them #fanfiction

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subtlereferencetomyinterests · 3 years

Text

I Taste Honey but I Haven’t Seen the Hive - Chapter Seven

Ao3, Masterpost, C.1 C.2 C.3 C.4 C.5 C.6

Relationships: eventual queer-platonic intruality, platonic dlampr.

okay. so. last time we heard anything out of me was *New Years*, Literally, and maybe i should’ve mentioned that I was taking a little hiatus, but oh well. i’m back now and i’m gonna post the last three chapters of this fanfiction as soon as I possibly can (so probably like all of them will be up by tmrw at the latest!!) to make up for my absence. but jokes on you, cuz I did actually finish this thing!!! >:P

(oh yeah, and there are no italics, thanks to tumblr’s copy/paste bulls//t. i continue to be lazy :3 if anything sounds stilted just imagine that theres an italicized word there and yeah.)

Warnings: cursing, sexual innuendo, discussions of sexuality, misunderstandings, Emotional Conversations, sharing a bed, mild body horror (remus’ existence lol), stress, h/c.

Word count: 7,967

The hallway was cold, and dark. It had been long-since abandoned of any life, with every door shut and each light dimmed- even Virgil’s. That day- the day of the meeting- had exhausted everyone enough to send them right to sleep mode.

Everyone except Remus and Patton.

Their heart-to-heart in the kitchen had dragged on a little longer than either had expected, letting night descend fully over the Mindpalace. Patton was the one to notice the time eventually, and drag his less-than-restful friend up the stairs with him- he could tell that the other was dead tired, though. His stubborn determination not to end the conversation didn’t sit well, but Patton couldn’t think what to make of it, and they really did need some sleep.

They reached Patton’s door first. He stopped in front of it, when Remus tugged his hand back insistently. He turned to him, letting out a confused hum, and was met with a scowl and a sigh.

Remus was looking even more resigned than he had when they first started talking that night. Patton waited, worried.

“This isn’t, um,” Remus exhaled, ragged around the edges. “This isn’t a pick-up line, okay, and I know that it’ll sound that way and I know that it’s me but. I really don’t wanna be alone tonight.”

Oh.

Patton’s heart ached- and his heart was big, it took up most of him. He felt the pain spread out from his center and into his fingertips and toes, hot and empathetic. Because how could he hear something like that, and not want to spend the rest of the night doting on the creature in front of him until that voice never sounded so small again, till he was as big and confident as he was meant to be?

“I don’t think I want to be alone, either,” Patton said.

Remus stared, his big scarlet eyes casting a faint glow in the dark. They were wide, cautiously hopeful.

“Yeah?” He muttered.

“Yeah.”

Patton opened the door, and led them both inside.

Remus shuffled around on the other side of the bed, but Patton was still, however much he wanted to squirm.

“Um.”

The movement stopped, and he flushed at the feeling of being watched in the dark. There really was no un-awkward way to say it, was there?

“Remus, since you’re staying, do you- um, do you mind doing me a favor?”

Remus, little more than a silhouette, propped himself up on his elbow, a tilt to his head. “A favor? Of course, anything for you, Pat,” his words were a purr, and Patton could envision the suggestive smirk on his face in perfect clarity. Patton felt another well of discomfort bubble in his stomach.

“Could you at least wear some clothes, please?”

There was a beat. Remus laughed, short and good-natured.

“Yeah, I sorta figured I would. It’s no problem.”

“Thank you,” Patton sighed, relieved.

“Don’t worry about it,” he paused, and that really would’ve been the end of it, but Patton had learned by then when Remus was about to make a joke. He took a little breath while the words were still clicking together in his head, and a grin crept into his voice. “There’s always tomorrow night to try this clothesless, eh?”

“I’m asexual,” Patton blurted, and he could feel the heat radiating from his face, though he didn’t even know why he was so uncomfortable. It was a joke, Remus was just joking. They were friends and Patton should’ve been used to it- but he’d already gotten so sensitive that night, and jokes like that always hit just a little different than the violent ones or the curses. It must have been a breaking point, or something.

Remus shifted again, laying on his back. Patton wondered if he’d made things awkward.

“Oh,” Remus said, “Oh wow, that makes so much sense!”

“It- It does?” Patton sat up, staring at the other with a mix of surprise and relief. Remus blinked up at him, nodding.

“Well, yeah, that explains why you get so squirmy whenever anybody even implies something to do with sex. I always thought you were just, like, a prude.”

Patton ran his hands over the comforter that pooled around his legs, shrugging. He wasn’t nervous, so much as he was fidgety. “Well, maybe it was some of that, too,” he joked.

Remus snorted, rolling onto his side and catching one of Patton’s hands in his own. He held it, playing with Patton’s fingers like he was trying to focus.

“Hey,” he sighed, heavy, “Sorry.”

“Huh? What for?”

“C’mon, you know,” Remus gestured around with his free hand, “All the jokes, and all the times I hit on you, like, graphically. I was kidding, obviously, it was just that you always had the best reactions. If I’d known why, I mean. I don’t know if I’d have actually stopped, but whatever. Different time, different me. I’m stopping now, kay?”

Patton’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t- He wasn’t trying to make Remus stop, that wasn’t fair. He knew how important staying true to himself was to Remus, and if he’d actually managed to guilt-trip any of that away, he didn’t think he’d forgive himself.

“Oh, it’s really okay, I mean- I know you like talking about stuff like that, who am I to say you shouldn’t?”

“You never said that, actually.”

Patton nodded, even if Remus couldn’t see him, and even if he was pretty sure they were on different pages. “Exactly. You shouldn’t go changing just to make me comfortable, I’ll get used to the jokes! I guess I just wanted to know that they were, which, obviously yeah, but… um, I’m bad with knowing what tone is which, sometimes, so-”

“Ugh, Patton,” Remus was laughing, leaning up and grasping tighter around Patton’s hand, with a tone that said plainly: please shut up. Patton did, biting the inside of his cheek. “Look,” Remus huffed, “I know what you’re trying to say, and it’s real sweet that you’re so worried about this, but it’s not exactly like I’m telling you that I’m reinventing myself. I’ll definitely keep saying plenty of horny shit, trust me, I can just drop it with the comments about ya. It wouldn’t even be funny anymore; fucking with people is cool, right, but making someone I actually like feel ‘icky’, or whatever, isn’t really the same thing. It’s no big sacrifice trying to make you feel safer with me, got it?”

Remus’ eyes were on his, glowing with concern. Patton felt his face flush for an entirely new reason, nothing to do with embarrassment.

“You want to make me feel safe?” Patton grinned, just this side of giddy. “That’s a new one.”

Remus made a vague grumbly sound; it shouldn’t have been as cute as it was. “Yeah, okay, so what if I do?”

“It’s okay if you do. It’s sweet.”

“Maybe it is. Besides, you aren’t the only aspec side around,” he shrugged, “I’m not too big on the dating side of things, myself.”

Patton’s smile widened. “Thank you. I mean, for understanding, and… getting me out of my own head about all this.”

“I gotcha,” a claw traced over Patton’s knuckles, idly, “No need for thanks.”

“I’ll give it anyway, you know that.”

Remus snorted. “Mhmmm.”

With the remains of embarrassment finally fading away, Patton yawned, and remembered just how tired he was. He laid himself down finally, relaxing as his back hit the mattress. No sooner after he’d done so, Remus was letting go of his hand in favor of curling around him and setting his head on Patton’s chest.

Patton would be lying if he said it wasn’t a relief, feeling the other unhesitant to curl up against him still. He looped his own arms around the smaller figure, practically on top of him, and traced patterns against Remus’ back.

In hindsight, Patton couldn’t remember ever falling asleep so easily.

The morning after, there was a crisis. A Thomas-crisis, and an emotional one, which set Patton up for a busy, busy day (or morning-through-afternoon, but it was well more than enough work for one day). The one upside to the whole mess was that he didn’t have to deal with it alone, because emotional distress fell neatly into Virgil’s area of expertise as well as his own.

At some point, you’d think they’d get numb to the endless dilemmas every other day, but with each new outing it got clearer and clearer that panic was just a part of life. Most weeks had at least one incident; there would be a mistake at the post office that needed to be worked out in person (which Patton didn’t mind, really, but Virgil hated, and Roman thought was a waste of time), there was an event for a friend of a friend that for some reason they were socially obligated to go to (which no one liked but Roman, who always thought they were one person away from being ‘discovered’), or- the present situation- there were pre-established plans that all the sides had somehow forgotten about until they were shoved into it at the last second.

Patton jolted awake with a gasp, the urgency of his human throwing him out of sleep. It was a full two hours later than he usually woke up, something he would’ve loved to appreciate on any other day. His bed was already empty- the warmth of another person still there, the covers still scrunched, but empty- which did serve to make his morning routine quicker. He dressed with a fervor that he couldn’t even place, manic exhaustion already soaking into him and making plans to stay there all day. It was going to be a rough one, being around people.

But, Patton knew it wouldn’t be hard to ignore all that, for a little bit at least. There was still a bright side, and that side was Virgil! Who he got to spend all day with! Working, sure, but still- work done with a loved one is never work at all.

“Yeah, I don’t know if that rings true, Pat,” was Virgil’s response to the sentiment, when Patton told him.

“You’re smiling,” Patton said, because he was.

“What?” Virgil covered his mouth, “No, I’m not- shut up.”

“You believe me, I know you do. You looove me.”

“Says you,” his mouth may have been covered, but the crows feet under his eyes creased more. His shoulders were just a little less tense, too, enough to tell Patton he was right.

That morning wasn’t great, but, they made it better.

Remus had woken up in a lot of places that were decisively not his bed. The floor? Sure. The imagination? Oh, absolutely. Underneath furniture, on top of furniture, and on counters- anywhere lie-down-able, been there and done that. Just for the fun of it, really, and a nice shock to whoever found him curled up in the sink or beneath cabinets. He was used to a crick in the neck or a splotch of red, rough carpet print on the side of the face.

So he didn’t really know why, waking up in someone else’s bed, he jolted out of it so quick, he looked like he’d been electrocuted. Or why, after scrambling out of Patton’s arms with whatever carefulness he could manage, he bolted from the scene entirely.

Remus began the slow process of piecing it together after he all but slammed the door behind him, trembling and cursing his way down the hall. He dragged away from Patton’s room and let his back hit the wall, sliding to the floor with a kind of hysteria he could only describe as itchy-vomity-terrifying-amazing.

He did itch at his skin, he was feeling a bit sick, a bit scared, but he thought he might’ve been grinning anyway, so the description fit well enough. Except, nothing was fitting actually well, right then.

The closeness. The attention. The fact that he’d spent eight hours of sleep getting a full dosage of both those things. The fact that it had been more of both of them than he could remember getting, ever. Of course he’d scrambled away- how else could he react!?

Remus didn’t get overwhelmed. Except, apparently he did! What another fun surprise!

A door creaked open down the hall (thank God not Patton’s). Remus felt the eyes on him, and looked up- manically, he looked well and truly manic.

Logan blinked at him. He looked a lot like an owl in the mornings, Remus noted. One of those smart ones, obviously, not one of the ones that fucks around counting licks on a lollipop.

Logan cleared his throat.

“Remus? Is everything alright?”

Remus shrugged, grinning. “Maybe! Who knows, though, right? It’s a lot, you know?”

Logan did not know, and said as much. Remus only laughed, letting his head hit back against the wall in the process.

He still felt warm, inside and out, after all that cuddling. It was weird, good-weird, but still so new. And, like he said, a lot. He’d felt that kind of warmth before, but definitely not as much- and he knew he needed to distract himself before he went crazy. Or, before his rattrap of a brain ruined the maybe-possibly good feelings for him.

“Hey, any chance you’re busy today?”

Logan hovered in his doorway for a minute before ultimately deciding to step out, probably determining the interaction as a prolonged one. He didn’t look too put-off about it, though.

“A very high chance,” he said, “But for now I am not. Is there something you need?”

“A distraction.”

“Ah.”

“So, you up for it?” Remus pulled himself up from the floor, popping a few joints. “At least for the morning, yeah, Geek?”

“Of course,” he smirked, “Provided you can call me by actual name at least once in this conversation.”

Remus grinned, probably coming off more relieved than he intended. “Eh, we’ll see about that one, Dweeb.”

Logan met him halfway down the hall, not looking at all surprised by the response. He looked, if anything, amused. Remus found himself remembering very abruptly that the two of them got along, were probably friends, and somehow that fact was still novel to him. Or maybe it was the mood. Probably both.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Logan reasoned.

“Oh, sure.”

“What were you thinking we should do, anyway?”

Remus raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“I’m afraid that’s off the table,” Logan told him.

“Aw, fine. Surprise me, then.”

“That will be hard.”

Remus laughed, unsteady and shrill.

“C’mon, I know you’ve got it in ya.”

Logan smiled, just-nearly-almost mischievous. “Well. I’ll see what I can do.”

And for just a second, some of the panic slipped away, leaving behind that strange warmth.

Patton didn’t exactly let Janus know he was coming by. It had been a long day- or, a long five hour period between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon, but still, the idea that there was any day left at all made Patton want to melt into the nearest soft object and never get up.

When Patton needed to melt, he went to Janus’. Maybe it was the big armchairs; maybe it was the comforting, gooey little white-lies that soaked the atmosphere of his room; maybe it was the fact that his voice was so very easy to fall asleep to. Most likely, at least part of it was because he always seemed to enjoy taking care of people, anyway.

It was a nice combination, and exactly what was needed. Patton could apologize for not knocking later, ideally when he wasn’t falling asleep where he stood.

“Janusss,” he groaned, by way of greeting, and promptly collapsed onto the nearest soft surface while the door swung shut behind him.

Janus blinked at him from across the room, surprise lasting for approximately three seconds. He turned around, and sighed.

“Well, hello to you, too.”

Patton hummed, drearily.

“You look cheery,” Janus quipped, “Anything you’d like to talk about?”

The question was spoken lightly, but not insincere. Patton lifted his head enough to smile tiredly at the snake. He shrugged, for the room was working it's magic already, as was the easy company to be found there. Stress was easing away, in small bits, evaporating into warm shimmers under his skin. He had no doubt that Janus was doing some of it on purpose, as soon as he’d noticed the mood Patton was in, giving him a blanket of speckled reassurances (which were, as Janus insisted to him time and time again, just a tiny, harmless breed of pleasant lies) in an almost-literal way.

Most things about the sides’ rooms were like that. Almost-literal; concepts that crept their way into the physical world, if only slightly. Janus was the best at those kinds of things, though.

“’S just been a tiring day, y’know?”

Janus sat beside him, toying with some spare yellow strings, weaving and unweaving them almost carelessly. “I do.”

“A tiring night, too,” Patton added, an afterthought, but he found as he said so that it was true. Long in a good way. An impactful way. It felt like something important had happened, something that changed, but he didn't quite know what. It was still just as draining, though.

Janus raised an eyebrow, but he did not pry (even if he most likely wanted to).“So, you’ve come here.”

“Do you mind if I just rest in here for a bit?” He said, as he’d already gotten quite comfortable.

“Why don’t I do you one better?”

Patton hummed confusedly, but Janus had already begun urging him to sit up. The snake waved a hand, filling the room with light, swirling piano music. At once the air seemed to grow fuzzy, spicks and specks of what looked like golden glitter floating around- not unlike from the distortion Patton’s own room gave him when he was happy. Janus smiled down at him, summoning a neat little tea set on a tray and fixing them each a cup of the swirling, caramel-colored liquid.

Patton sighed happily, taking the teacup he was proffered and thanking the lord for whatever he’d done to deserve a friend like Janus.

Janus sat beside him, balancing the tea tray on an end table, and let their shoulders bump. He wasn’t a touchy person, exactly, but he allowed for a conservative amount of casual intimacy. Occasionally, and in an unspoken way, but still.

The atmosphere had exactly the intended effect. Patton felt paradisiacal.

“Gosh, what would any of us do without you?”

Janus hummed. “You’d most certainly perish.”

Patton laughed, his chest lighter already.

Remus felt good for about ten seconds after leaving Logan’s room and letting the guy get to work, fresh off the good morning he’d had. Then, very promptly, the weight that the remaining hours of daylight carried dropped onto his shoulders, and he would’ve been perfectly willing to claw his brain out to get a moment of reprieve from the whole barrage of irrational terror worming around in it.

Remus didn’t know why it was so bad that day (well- he had a guess, but thinking about it obviously made it suck worse, so). What he did know was that he needed someone to keep fucking distracting him, and that someone could under no circumstances be Patton.

Luckily, avoiding him wasn’t hard- he was still busy, and Remus had a feeling he’d need a rest once Thomas’ crisis was over, anyway- but that didn’t do much to solve the other half of Remus’ problem.

He needed something big, loud, and most importantly, not solo. He needed someone that could take up a whole room just as easily as himself, with endless energy to bounce back and forth, back and forth, until neither of them would ever worry about anything other than the moment and whatever it was they would do together…

Oh, god fucking dammit.

Remus sunk out to the Imagination. No, not his. The opposite half.

He rose up into more than a blank canvas, but less than a finished work; a vibrant world with gaps and white spots. He might’ve taken the time to look around, but- unsurprisingly- his brother was in front of him, accosting him, immediately. Seriously, it was like he’d teleported.

“What are you doing here?” Roman snapped, his hands, still splattered with ink, landing on his hips.

“Aw, so now I’m not even allowed to visit my own flesh and blood, and other various parts?”

Roman scrunched his nose up. “No, you aren’t allowed. This is my room!”

Remus- as he always did when someone said he couldn’t do something- cackled.

“I’m serious!” Roman whined, “I’m busy!”

Now, he said that, but Remus knew from personal experience that if Roman wanted him gone, he could’ve forced him out without too much issue- or worse yet, attacked him outright. He didn’t seem to be about to spring, though, not looking any worse than annoyed, so Remus happily decided that this interaction fell into the normal-and-healthy-sibling-bickering category instead of the unfortunately familiar would-genuinely-commit-fratricide-if-possible category.

He grinned. “Yeah, and I’m bored!”

“Not my problem, and you’re still in my room.”

“What, worried I’ll gunk up all your magic ponies and Yellow Brick Roads, or whatever it is you like to play with around here?”

“Yes, I am!” Roman scowled, but it looked a lot like he was straining his jaw not to laugh. “And you know I don’t make those, you fiend, I made a unicorn once and that was only because Logan wanted one.”

“You’re shitting me if you say that you weren’t the kid who always wanted a pony, Ro.”

“Well, how’s a pony any better than a thestral, which I seem to remember someone getting all excited about when we first read the-books-that-shall-not-be-named?”

“Ooh! Good idea, we should abso-fucking-lutely make those!” Remus wandered past his brother, looking around at the half-finished scene that he’d walked in on. It was sunny, pleasant- all around very vanilla, but there was at least a sense of adventure thrumming under it that gave the place a kick. With some work, it could actually be, like, fun! “Ever see somebody die? Don’t worry, I can help with that.”

Roman turned to him, looking hilariously incredulous with what was happening.

“Um? Excuse me? This is my domain,” he blinked, and a smug smirk crossed his lips. “Which means that you don’t have the power to make anything here! So, ha!”

Oh, right. That made a lot of sense, actually. How had he forgotten that? It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d tried to make something with his brother, right?

…Wow. That had no business hurting as much as it did.

“Uh- Remus?”

His head snapped up, a smile with too-many teeth already strained across his face. Remus’ head was scattered enough, coming here wasn’t supposed to make it worse.

“Sure, okay- there’s gotta be some way for us to build stuff together!”

Roman stared appraisingly at his sibling, apparently thinking before he argued for the one and only time in his life. He tilted his head in confusion, perhaps worry.

“I- well-” Roman glanced at what he’d been making, and down at his hands. “I’m sure I could, perhaps, let you have power here. Just this once.” He huffed. “It’s my room, right? So there’s no reason why I couldn’t do that, if I wanted.”

“Do you?”

“Ugh.” Roman rolled his eyes, perfunctorily. “Fine. I don’t know what’s up with you, but I’d rather you be your normal weird-self than… whatever this is,” Roman stuck his hand out, his chin raised like it was a challenge. “Good?”

Remus grabbed his hand (and did not buzzer him, or slime him, even though it would have been so easy- because they were having A Moment and even he could appreciate the sanctity of something like that).

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

Roman, as it turned out, was able to tolerate Remus for a whopping six hours, right up until five p.m., and only shooed him away in order to finish the project that he’d more-or-less happily dropped when Remus stopped by. So Roman wasn’t the worst brother in the world, Remus acknowledged. He then resolved to never, under any circumstances, say that to Roman’s face.

The door to the Imagination shut with a click. The sound matched almost perfectly with another, sharper one down the hall, what Remus recognized as Janus’ door closing. He glanced up with a grin, wondering if he could maybe get Snakey to distract him for a while- only to lock eyes with precisely what he needed distracting from.

Patton smiled at him. He looked tired, relaxed, and raised a hand in some semblance of a wave. It would probably be a great opportunity to unwind together, talk stuff out, and definitely curl into each other on the couch.

Remus wasn’t going to take that opportunity, though.

Remus stared back at Patton for all of three seconds, the grin sliding off his face, before barging through the nearest door and slamming it behind himself.

Shit. Fuck. What the hell did he do that for? It was just Patton, Remus knew Patton; there was no reason to be jittery enough to bolt from him twice. There was no way Patton wouldn’t think he was mad- which he wasn’t, even if he barely understood why he was losing it, he knew it wasn’t anger. But Patton wouldn’t know that, and he’d cry, probably, and Remus wasn’t sure if he was good enough at comforting people to fix it after. Christ, maybe he couldn’t fix it, maybe he’d still be too keyed up to talk to Pat, even if he started bawling!

“Hey? What the fuck?”

Remus spun around, and yeah, he could’ve guessed whose room he ended up in without the gravelly voice to give it away, given that little spiral. A surprised-looking Virgil stared up at him, sitting cross-legged on a spiderweb bedspread.

Remus ignored the thin layer of anxiety still rolling under his skin (now that he could place it), and shrugged, sliding until he sat on the floor.

“Oh, hi,” he said.

“Yeah, hi to you too, but my question still stands:” Virgil clapped his hands together, “What. The fuck?”

Remus considered a few possible snarky responses, but found that most of them were pretty pathetic. Besides, evading vulnerable situations was more of Janus’ thing, and Remus didn’t want to steal his bit.

“I’m hiding like a little bitch, so don’t kick me out, or I’ll maul you.”

Virgil’s eyebrows went up, but the surprise in his face was being replaced, slowly, by confused resignation. “Okay, cool. Why here, and why me?”

“First door.”

“Yeah, that’s about my luck,” he blew his bangs out of his face, “So like, you’re not gonna go anywhere else?”

Remus thought about it, but it was an easy choice. If he was gonna whine to anybody about something like this, he decided, it’d probably be Virgil. Virgil was good with fear, he was good with Patton, and he was good at making fun of shit if a conversation got too serious.

“Nah. Sorry, Emo Boy, but I’ve already annoyed Logan and my dipshit brother today. Looks like it’s your turn!”

“What about Janus?”

“Eh, he’s a live-in therapist for the rest of you already. I think I’ll give him the day off.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, sighing with all the exasperation of a teenage burnout and not a thirty-year-old metaphysical humanoid.

“Okay, okay- and why’s Patton off the table? He, like, actually enjoys helping people,” Virgil glanced down, scuffing the carpet with the side of his foot. “He’s good at it, too.”

“Yeahhhh,” Remus locked his teeth together, inhaled through them, “About that.”

“What, aren’t you two all close now?” Virgil frowned, “I fuckin’ saw you guys at the meeting yesterday, you were so on top of each other, I feel like I forgot that you were two separate sides,” to anybody who didn’t know him, the way he talked about it would sound harsh. Remus, however, knew exactly how soft Virgil really was- the fucking poser- and that that shit? That was pure encouragement, raw as a bloody, bloody steak.

Which, of course, only made Remus wince again.

He flopped sideways onto the floor, groaning. “Yeah, we’re close. That’s- I think that might be the problem?” That sounded right, almost, but just wrong enough to feel icky and annoying. “Ugh, I don’t know. So I just ran!”

There was a beat.

“Wait a second,” Virgil’s voice was tight- oh that bitch, he was laughing! “You’re hiding from Patton?”

Remus huffed. Okay, so maybe it was a little funny, he could appreciate that- but! He was still upset about it!!

“I mean, what has he done to scare you off?” Virgil pressed, “Too many compliments? Did he hug you too hard? I know the dude can be a lot sometimes, but-”

“Okay, ok-ay,” Remus couldn’t help it, he managed a laugh at it, too. “It’s ridiculous! It’s fucking ridiculous and he’s not even the problem!”

“Then what is the problem?” Virgil was snickering, “And don’t say that it’s you, dude. At least one of us around here has to not hate himself to hell and back, and you’ve defended that title for too long to lose it,” he cleared his throat right after he said it, sitting up straighter and trying to look like he hadn’t just been laughing like a huge dork. “Not that I’m, like, worried about you or anything.”

“Aw, you so are,” Remus stared up at the ceiling, grinning despite the ache in his chest. “But no, it’s not that. He thinks I’m awesome and he’s right, so don’t worry.”

Virgil leaned over him, staring upside-down at Remus. He squinted.

“Hey, this a serious problem?”

“I guess so. You can joke about it, though.”

“Cool. Um,” Virgil pulled away. Remus sat up, watching the trait cross one leg over the other, flip them, then tap his knee one-two-three-etc. times. He chewed on his lip. The whole nine yards of a classic Focused-Virgil Face. “Okay. You can tell me about it, seriously. I’ll try to help, or whatever.”

Remus blinked at him.

“Don’t- Jesus- don’t make a big deal out of it, dude-”

“Oh, I am.”

“I don’t even have a choice, okay, you’re the one who-”

“You’re so sweet, Virgey!”

“Remus, I swear to God, repeat that to anyone and I…”

Virgil trailed off. Remus pouted at him, dramatically, his eyes practically glowing with mischief. “C’mon, aren’t you going to threaten me?”

“I was, and then I remembered that you’re like, actually into that kinda stuff, so. No. Nope, I’m good.”

“Fine,” he shrugged, “Looks like you’re resigned to just hearing about my feelings, instead!”

Virgil rolled his eyes again- of course he did- but there was no hiding the way he went quiet, patient, you could even call it attentive.

It was an offering, one that Remus didn’t hesitate to take.

Patton left Janus’ room in a good mood.

He was in a considerably less good mood when, as soon as he’d left, Remus saw him and scrambled away like Patton was about to attack him where he stood- wide-eyed with fear and everything.

Patton swayed in the hallway for seconds after, uncertain about a lot of things suddenly.

The room Remus had run into had definitely been Virgil’s, not his own, and for a moment Patton entertained the idea of just going up to knock. He dropped that thought quick, realizing that if he really wasn’t wanted, then he definitely didn’t want to confirm that he wasn’t wanted.

He might have gone back to Janus- Janus was smart, Janus knew how to explain things and solve problems and comfort people- but that was scrapped, too. He’d taken up plenty of the snake’s time already, firstly, and secondly… No, yeah, Patton already knew just who he needed to see for something like this.

Logan set aside his laptop as soon as Patton walked into the common room, a surprisingly perceptive gesture for someone who claimed to be bad with feelings. Or maybe Patton had just gotten rusty at hiding them.

“Hi,” he greeted, wobbly.

“Hello,” Logan said, “You look upset.”

Patton stared at the wall just above his friend’s head, and nodded.

“Can I help?”

He paused. It was a bad habit- one of many!- but feeling unwanted by one side made him wonder if, maybe, he was unwanted by everyone. The thought formed a lump in his throat and had guilt pooling in his gut, but this was Logan. His best friend, the person he had gone to because he always knew just where he stood with him. If Logan didn’t want to help- no, because he always wanted to- if he couldn’t handle helping, then he would tell Patton that. He always did.

“I think Remus is upset with me,” Patton blurted it out quickly, just so he didn’t have to hear them. Logan vanished his laptop at once, gesturing to the spot beside him on the sofa. Patton sat with him, smiling feebly.

“Has he said anything of the sort?”

“No,” Patton picked at the sleeve of his sweater, “He didn’t really have to. He kind of… ran away from me?”

Logan’s eyes widened behind his frames, almost imperceptibly. “I see.”

“I don’t even know what I did,” Patton flushed with the admission, because of just how true it was. He had no idea what he did, and still he felt blame settling over him like a well worn blanket, and all that he could do was hope it wasn’t as bad as the last time. “I feel like I should know this stuff by now, shouldn’t I?”

There was a pause, as Logan processed the words carefully, seemed to turn them over in his head.

“Be careful not to jump to conclusions, Patton. He typically freely expresses how he is feeling at any given time, so even if his actions seem to say otherwise, it’s entirely possible that he’s not upset with you,” Logan smiled reassuringly. “I find that most of his actions are meaningless. He’s a very weird creature.”

Patton managed to laugh at that. Logan leaned their shoulders together, a little pride flashing in his eyes, as he continued. “He did seem to be ‘out of it’, in a manner of speaking, when we spoke earlier today. It would make sense if that had worsened over the past few hours, and now he’s just particularly flighty. All in all, I wouldn’t read too much into it, if I were you.”

Patton nodded, resolutely not mentioning that they’d spent the night together, however relevant that was. He knew it would sound paranoid to imply that their intimacy had backfired, or come too quick- because Patton was paranoid, and certainly a little neurotic, and the less he voiced it the better.

Instead, he followed the advice he didn’t believe, and let himself rest against his friend. Logan had laced their fingers together; it wasn’t as comforting as it usually was.

Logan was only so touchy when it was for the sake of others, and almost always that ‘other’ was Patton. A fact that made the needy trait feel amazingly special most of the time, but on nights like that… More than anything, he felt greedy.

“I’ll ask him about it,” Patton promised, because he knew that was what Logan would suggest (even if the idea made him more than a little dreadfilled). “Maybe I overwhelmed him. He’s been cuddly, so I thought…” Patton shook his head, bile hitting the back of his throat as the realization collapsed upon him. “That’s probably it. I must have took it too far.”

Logan didn’t pry, but Patton could feel his concern mount just as well as he could see the frown on his face.

“Talking to him will be the best course of action,” he said plainly. “For the time being, though,” he released Patton’s hand, wrapping his arm loosely around Patton’s waist and leaving it there. “It might be beneficial for you to receive more reassurance. Is this alright?”

“Yes,” Patton ducked his head, knowing full well how obviously relieved he sounded, “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me, I’m happy to help,” Logan told him, and he had no doubt that it was true. Still, it always surprised him anyway- and that at least was a good thing about a friend who was so reserved. The pleasant surprises.

Patton sat up enough to rest his head on top of Logan’s, a position that was almost but not quite cuddling.

“I sincerely hope,” Logan muttered, “That everything will be alright for you.”

Whether he was speaking only about the Remus situation or not was unclear.

“Me too.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s very difficult to stay upset with you, if he truly is so. In my experience, at least.”

Patton sighed. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Of course. Your happiness is-... you, are very important to me, and I can only hope that you’ve made a friend that values you as much as I do.”

Patton knew what he meant by it. Both he and Logan were acutely aware of how different they were, and how little they matched with each other. Patton couldn’t understand him- not wanting to be showered in love, enjoying silence and a little bit of alone time, needing space. He knew that Logan didn’t get him, either- didn’t know why he cried all the time, or why nothing ever seemed to fix him for good, or why he said so many things that went without saying. They still struggled with each other’s languages, sometimes, but they’d gotten miles and miles better with it over the years. Sometimes Patton thought that the only way they’d become so close was sheer willpower, pushing past each misunderstanding and argument just because they liked the challenge of it. Determination was always a common thread between them, whatever differences they had.

They had to have boundaries, then. Logan might not hold Patton on his worst days, but he’d give him notes and gifts and bring him water, food, things that he neglected for himself. Patton didn’t have any of the right words to talk Logan down when things got bad, but he was always there to cheer him back up when he was ready again. Neither of them understood each other, and maybe they never would, but they cared. Even if they couldn’t be what the other needed, they cared, and that was all they had to do.

So even if Logan couldn’t fix things, Patton thought, he still did a hell of a good job patching them up.

“Hey. Hey!”

Patton turned around with a jolt, his fingers going tight in the blanket about his shoulders. How long he’d been downstairs, he didn’t know- but he knew that he was really, very tired, and now was left blinking and confused at the person accosting him with so much energy.

“Um, hi,” Patton tried.

Remus had run up to him at once, and was just as suddenly seizing both of his hands. Patton might have taken a moment to appreciate the touch, but with just one sentence that positivity crumbled:

“I need to talk to you.”

Patton shoved a plastic smile onto his face. He always felt a little icky to be faking it, but with Remus, the shame was especially thick. Still, it was only instinct.

“Okay.”

Patton opened the door; the Duke marched in without waiting for invitation, and he followed.

Dread dripped down his spine like melting ice cubes. This is fine, Patton told himself firmly, once they were both sitting feet apart on the bed. He refused to think too hard about what the distance meant- if it meant anything at all, or if he was only being ridiculous.

“Sorry about today,” Remus began, “Really. I was freaking out for the stupidest fucking reason. You’ll laugh when I tell you!”

Patton didn’t laugh, but he smiled a little more wholly. If Remus was upset with him, the apology must’ve meant at least some of that had faded away. Probably.

“It’s okay, Mess,” the nickname rolled off his tongue easily. Remus grinned at him, but it was somehow more manic than usual.

“I probably got you all worried over nothing, bolting on you before you could wake up- and then again earlier, right?”

There was a pause, as Patton tried to decide if the question was rhetoric or not. When the silence stretched on uncomfortably, he found himself nodding.

Remus huffed out a breath, rocking back and staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I- I’m still working at the whole self-improvement thing, ya know? That probably doesn’t make it better, but- I’ve never really had a reason to try and be, uh, considerate. Janus never really cared if I was a bitch, and nobody else ever mattered, and that- yeah, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.”

His voice was raspy, low and thick in a way that it almost never was. Patton tipped his head to the side, confused. Remus looked- and sounded- awkward, an expression that was not at home on his face.

“Wait, um- so it wasn’t anything I did? You’re not upset with me?”

Remus looked at him like he was crazy (ironic, that).

“Upset with you?” He crowed, “Why the fuck would I be upset with you?”

Patton flushed; he laughed embarrassedly, or maybe in relief; he toyed with the sleeves of his sweater.

“I didn’t really- I don’t know, but I was worried that I’d, um, overstepped some boundaries last night, and maybe made you uncomfortable.”

He was only kind of looking at his friend, from out the corners of his eyes. It was still easy to see the way Remus went from confused to amused, and then burst into cackles.

“You- You- Me? Morey, please, it takes a lot to make me uncomfortable- if that’s even possible, actually- and you sure as shit haven’t figured out how to pull it off yet. Sugar, I asked to stay with you!”

The relief flooded Patton all in a rush, and he felt himself finally relax. With Remus laughing and joking and being his usual (sweet, impressively sweet, surprisingly so) self again, it all started seeming a little silly. Remus must’ve seen him coming untense, folding down the same way accordion-pressed paper sprawled out when it was released from a bored student’s hand, because his gaze went warm, like something had finally clicked into place in his head. A problem solved, and what a wonderful solution it had come to- that’s what the look said.

Patton met the smile just as brightly when the Duke shifted over some of the distance between them, taking up both of Morality’s hands in his own yet again.

“Well, since it wasn’t something I did,” Patton said, “Then what was the actual problem?”

Remus didn’t look too upset at the question, but he was glancing down, up, sideways- his pupils flitted around the room without really touching on anything for too long; it wasn’t often that he was so obviously thinking something through. His fingers flexed, face a little pink, and he hesitated before answering:

“Okay, it’s like I said, right? I don’t- I’ve never needed to try to be anything for anybody before. I mean that I never wanted to do things in a conform-y way, obviously, but, I never wanted to be considerate, either,” he smirked down at their tangled hands, shrugging. “I don’t think I’m doing too bad for a first try, to be honest- but that’s not the point, the point is- this is… new.”

Patton opened his mouth, reassurances rushing to the tip of his tongue before he was hastily shushed.

“No, look, there’s a difference between being a pushover and just being fucking nice to the people you care about. That’s the problem- or I thought it was a problem, in my dipshit lizard-panic brain this morning- right? I’ve never wanted to do anything for people, because I didn’t need them anyway. I figured I didn’t, I guess, cuz I could survive without ‘em- it wasn’t like I had a choice, but I got on fine. Not to be too… I don’t know, pathetic? Who cares, but- I never knew anything different.”

Patton’s eyes went wide and watery, like the blue of his irises were soaking into everything else and leaking, leaking, leaking. He was squeezing Remus’ hands a little too tight, certainly, and he just wanted to hug him so bad- but despite his words, Remus didn’t even seem to need it. He looked back at Patton, huffed a sigh, looking just plain amused.

“So this hit me when I was talking to Virgil, about ten minutes ago,” he started, “That I woke up today, with you, and I had this thought like… Fuck, I don’t ever wanna move again. I could starve and then start to decompose and probably rot into bloody mush, but I’d probably still be perfectly happy- which is weird, because starvation is easily one of the boringest ways to die, I could go out so much cooler- but, it was more the fact that I was with you, and uh. So, so I thought that- which is so dumb and sappy- and it surprised me so bad that I just ran. And after I had, I was so freaked out, I didn’t even remember why for!”

He took a deep breath, something that he hadn’t done for that entire ramble. Patton got the sense he still wasn’t finished though, and waited patiently.

“I never needed anybody caring about me for me to be okay- the screaming and the fleeing and all that was fine, it was still a reaction. But I think I just realized that I couldn’t go back to that, now.

“Because of you. I knew I liked you, but it never clicked that things would probably suck without you by this point. More than that, I guess- it hit me that just because I can take care of myself, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fucking blow. That I don’t- I don’t want to be so independent again, okay? That I don’t wanna be alone anymore.”

And he couldn’t help it at all; Patton did hug him, then. He pulled him against his chest as soon as he noticed the words going choppy, choked, and halting. He let go of Remus’ hands, in favor of tangling his fingers in the Duke’s hair and carding through it.

Remus met the embrace with just as much fervor, curling up into the bigger trait. Yet somehow, he wasn’t crying yet.

“Hey, hey, I’m alright,” he murmured, “I mean, don’t let go, obviously- but I’m okay. I had all day to panic! Which I definitely did, by the way, because my whole worldview got screwed over. Finally know how you feel, I guess,” He was joking, Patton could hear his smile. He laughed. “But I got it out of my system, and ya know what I realized after that?”

Patton hummed attentively, letting Remus pull back just enough to see his face.

“I said, ‘okay, I’m processing that, and it doesn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter because I only realized that maybe I need people once I already had them, and- no offense- but you don’t really seem like the abandoning type. The opposite, that’s what you are.”

Patton beamed.

“Of course not,” he swore, pressing the words out as though intensity alone could make them more true, more pure. “Never, not ever.”

“Good,” Remus said, “Cuz I’m hanging on to ya, Pat. As long as I can.”

Chapter Eight

Taglist: @shrimp-crockpot @glitter-skeleton-uwu @donnieluvsthings @intruxiety @thefivecalls @did-he-just-hiss-at-me @gayformlessblob

#sanders sides #ts #intruality #my writing #qpr intruality #remus sanders #patton sanders #ts fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction

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classic80sand90smovieloves2 · 4 years

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Meeting and Dating Sticks

(My gif)(requested by anonymous)

- As a kid, you spent ever summer visiting your grandma and grandpas farm. It was the highlight of your year but there was something there that you wished you could avoid... Sticks.

- Ever since you were little the farmhands son would harass you, always trying to scare you, tease you, push you around. He infuriated you growing up and was the one thing you couldn’t stand about visiting your grandparents.

- He was also one of the first things that came to mind when your parents asked if you’d be willing to stay with them for a while as they packed up your old house. You’d be moving to the countryside not too far away from the farm as soon as they sold it.

- You figured that Sticks had to have grown up by then, you hadn’t seen him for over a year and who were you to turn down staying with your grandparents. You were... partly right.

- Stanley and Sticks picked you up from the bus station allowing you to get your first good look at the country boy “all grown up”. He’d gotten handsome was your first thought but the sentiment was lost the instant he opened his mouth.

“So the city slicker returns.”

- Immediately, you knew this prolonged visit wasnt going to be as peaceful as you thought it would. During your car ride, Sticks was relatively calm but after you got to the farm and were done settling in...the games began.

- Throughout the week, you were met with pranks, teasing, and all different annoyances. It seemed like Sticks genuinely just enjoyed seeing you get all worked up, and boy did you hate him for it. The thing you wanted most in the world was to wipe that smile off his face. But then things changed, well, not completely.

- It was a normal day, you’d been wandering around the farm trying to find something to do when you heard something in the barn. You figured something had fell over so you went inside to pick it up and maybe hang out in the straw for a while. When you went inside there was nothing seemingly out of place so you just went about hopping on the straw and exploring the bales.

- That was when Sticks popped out, scaring you half to death and laughing loudly as you shrieked. You yelled at him angrily, pushing him down while also managing to take yourself with him as you lost your footing. You ended up halfway on top of him and half poked by the straw.

- His laughter calmed as you realized his hands were on your sides, catching you before you crashed onto him. He didn’t seem all too fazed, aggravatingly content with your current situation. You quickly stumbled your way up and out of the barn, your cheeks burning hot as you made your escape.

- It was with abject horror that you realized you were falling for him. Slowly but surely you were noticing the redeemable qualities about him and disgusting yourself with those very same thoughts. Although you had to admit, he’d dialed down his pranks after the barn incident. You weren’t sure what it meant but you hoped it was good.

- Every now and again you’d catch his eyes on you, it felt as though he knew your secret and it bothered you to no end but you couldn’t risk confronting him. You couldn’t let him have a chance at embarrassing you even further. So you let him watch you and minded your business, keeping your distance as you tried to forget what your mind was pushing you to think about.

- It was a week or so later, you were walking by the cornfield when all of a sudden you were pulled in through the stalks. You shrieked but immediately clamped your mouth shut as you saw who it was. Guess who. He grinned even as you slapped his chest.

“What was that for!” You yelped, adjusting yourself as your heart attempted to slow itself down.

“I wanted to show you something.” He told you.

“And scare me half to death.” You glared

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” he scoffed amusedly. “Close your eyes.”

“Then how will I see what you want to show me.” You rebutted.

“Just close them, alright?” He said and you could have sworn he was nervous.

- So you closed them and waited. You were about to open them again to ask what he was trying to pull when something warm pressed against your lips. Your eyes flashed open as he quickly pulled away, watching you warily as he awaited your response. You weren’t sure what to say so you said nothing and began to walk down the trail between the corn.

- He called after you, hightailing it to catch up. Once he was at your side he apologized for everything, even the kiss, awkwardly stuttering his way through a confession of his feelings as you continued to walk. He pleaded with you not to tell anyone, telling you again that he was “real sorry for even trying”.

“Don’t be,” you finally said, taking a glance at him before hesitantly kissing his cheek and disappearing through the corn. You didn’t see it but the instant you were gone he jumped around, hidden behind the stalks with a massive grin on his face.

- Your first actual date was in the barn, he surprised you with a little set up in the loft. A soft blanket, food, music playing through a busted up radio; you had to admit, it was adorable. The two of you shared a real kiss and just like that the city slicker and the country boy were an item.

- You probably keep your relationship a secret from your parents and grandparents for a little while. You aren’t sure how they’ll react so you figure you’ll just see what happens between you two first, no sense making waves when you aren’t gonna surf.

- Theres not a lot of pda in your relationship mostly because he doesn’t want to get in trouble with your folks.

- He probably really likes cuddling but refuses to admit it because he’s a tough farm boy.

- Comparing accents and what you call things when you’re bored.

- He’s a fan of metal bands so you spend a lot of your time listening to them yourself.

- Every now and again he’ll ask you to help him cut his hair. You’ll sit on his bathroom sink and trim it while he rests his head in your lap.

- Sitting next to him for meals and secretly, purposefully brushing each other’s hands when passing food. Once in a while he’ll reach over and hold your hand under the table.

- Sticks kind of grew up differently than most kids. Where others were allowed to just be kids, he had to be grown up and much more responsible. Because of that, you’ll sometimes catch him acting like your father, telling you to do, or not to do, this or that.

- He’s always willing to help but usually teases that you owe him whenever he does.

- Anytime you walk away his eyes follow you until you’re out of view. Sometimes it’s subtle glances, other times not so much.

- Sharing looks with each other when things get weird.

- Accepting his father and his odd sayings wholeheartedly.

- His dad loves you almost as much as he does, platonically of course.

- Old habits die hard, right? He still likes scaring you but definitely doesn’t do it quite as much as he used to. He also likes telling you scary stories rather than trying to jumpscare you all the time.

- A part of him likes telling you ghost stories because they put you on edge and let him be your knight in shining armor, holding you close whenever you actually get scared.

- You’ve gotten used to his teasing by now so his incessant need to “occasionally” make your blood boil doesn’t affect you too much anymore.

- Teasingly stealing his gloves or hat when he’s not looking in retaliation.

- Resting in the straw together, you can’t remember how many times the two of you have fallen asleep in the barn.

- Whenever you’re ready to leave he tenderly picks pieces of it out of your hair, giving you a little smile as you peck him on the lips in return.

- Helping him with his pranks if they seem harmless enough.

- Occasionally helping him with his work so that he doesn’t kill himself trying to do everything by himself.

- Sometimes when you visit him while he’s working he’ll just start explaining what he’s doing or how something works. You never knew you could learn so much from just deciding to see your boyfriend.

- Kissing in the corn fields.

- Sneaking into his house late at night.

- Always stands behind your chair whenever you’re sitting. He does it so much that it feels weird not having his presence behind you whenever you’re somewhere without him.

- He always stands up for you no matter who he’s defending you from.

- He’s very protective, always keeping an eye on you or keeping you close. Whenever you’re encountering something he doesn’t like he’ll keep you behind him so that he can defend you if need be.

- Hes really good at comforting you whenever you’re worried, sad or scared; more so when he isn’t the direct cause of it.

- Eating pie together.

- Watching the stars or clouds (depending on the time of day). You lay your head against his arm as the two of you lie on your backs in one of the many open fields around the farm.

- Going on long walks together.

- Your grandparents probably don’t like the idea of you going off on your own so they made a rule that if you want to go somewhere in town you need to bring Sticks along completely unaware of the irony.

- Piggy back rides.

- Really likes getting kisses on the cheek. There’s just something so nice about it especially if you just do it out of nowhere.

- He probably still, jokingly, calls you “city slicker” but when he’s actually trying to use a pet name he’ll just say hon, darlin, missy or some kind of name that means something in your relationship.

- He probably built you a tire swing at some point so the two of you visit that and play around on it when he isn’t working.

- He likes listening to you read or talk while he does menial tasks. It makes his day a little less boring and let’s him appreciate how nice your voice is.

- He picks you little wild flowers he finds while working. Sometimes they end up a little wilted before he can give them to you but you appreciate the gesture.

- It’s pretty easy to get him worked up so fights happen... I wouldn’t say often but certainly not rarely. He’ll raise his voice but never quite yells at you, he just can’t bring himself to do it no matter how mad he gets in the moment.

- It doesn’t take long for the two of you to make up. Most of your fights are petty arguments just...louder. You’ll both apologize and hug and that will be the end of it.

- Sticks isn’t a very jealous person but he has his moments. Whenever he does get jealous the main reason behind it is his own insecurities. He can’t help but think it would be easier for you to date anyone but him. You wouldn’t have to deal with evil scarecrows or strange dads or dumb farmboys that don’t even work on their own farm.

- You always reassure him that you don’t want anyone else but him. He’s the only farmboy, the only boy at all, that you could ever love.

- He likes you, the real you, odd quirks and all. In fact, he finds the strange things about you kind of endearing in a way. It gives him more to learn about you and love.

- Even though he doesn’t say it very often, he really does love you. He never realized someone could make him as happy as you do. You really changed his life for the better.

#goosebumps headcanons #goosebumps headcanon #goosebumps imagine #goosebumps #scarecrow walks at midnight goosebumps #sticks imagine #sticks headcanons #sticks headcanon #sticks goosebumps #90s tv show #90s imagine #90s tv show headcanons #90s tv headcanons #90s tv show imagine #90s tv series

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babysizedfics · 4 years

Note

It seems that for the little accidents, big developments Logan and Patton have kinda switched mindsets in a sense? Patton now feels Virgil likes Logan more than him. there is something i have started to notuce though. it seems the bond between roman and his caregivers at least to me seems slightly weaker than the bond virgil has with his cargeivers and i was wondering if he has picked up on that?

very astute observations anon!! this is all intentional

I talk about my thoughts behind the fic and it’s finale which might be seen as spoilers? idk but just to be sure im tagging with 'little/big spoilers' for anyone who wants to be cautious ^.^

Also it got quite long sorry

I knew from early on that I wanted Logan and Patton’s character arcs to be quite the opposite from each other

Logan was unsure of his role in the boys’ littlespaces at the beginning of the fic, but was reassured by Patton and by the end of the fic (I think you can already see) is going to be quite confident in his caregiving abilities and role as a mom

Patton on the other hand started out as being incredibly sure of himself as a caregiver - it is only natural since he is literally the designated paternal side, and he has been Virgil’s CG for three months. But by the end of the fic he will start to question whether he is a truly good caregiver.

Theres a lot of reasons for this but the main ones are that he feels responsible that Roman didn’t feel he was a part of the family, and he feels he has failed Virgil by not realising that he was being bullied online (and he believes Virgil must not trust him if he didn’t tell him that without Logan’s pushing)

And the inciting incident for all of this is that moment when Virgil regressed younger from wearing a diaper and became attached to his Mama rather than his Papa. This is actually because being pushed into such a young headspace made him imprint on whoever was with him at the exact moment he slipped younger. The reason why I wrote Patton leaving the room to wash his hands after the diaper change is because I wanted Logan to be the first person Virgil saw when he was suddenly pushed into that tiny baby headspace.

So Virgil hasn’t actually overcome his separation anxiety (this is the point that i thought would be most spoiler-y). The characters in the fic believe he has suddenly overcome it due to not being attached to Patton that evening - Patton’s narration even states it outright: “Virgil had seemingly overcome his separation anxiety”. But he is an unreliable narrator. Virgil has not been cured of his separation anxiety overnight, he has just shifted his attachment onto Logan for as long as his smaller headspace will last.

The bond between Roman and his CGs is definitely less defined than Virgil’s relationship to them, and this is one of the reasons he feels so insecure in his place in the family. Plus, we will see an anxiety of his addressed in the final chapter which will explain his desperation that Virgil still wants to be brothers.

The caregivers are not favouring Virgil intentionally at all, but they have spent much more time looking after Virgil than they have Roman. By the time Roman becomes a little and starts being included in the little activities, Patton has been a CG for two months and Logan for one month. There was a lot of baby bonding in those few weeks that he missed out on. Pat and Lo are learning to adapt their caregiving methods to be more inclusive of Ro since he is so different from Virgil when little, but they will get better at looking after their little prince.

Patton is already starting to make an effort towards this by researching how to make older siblings feel like they stll belong in the family (in the last chapter it was mentioned that Patton had been reading up on ways to make Roman less jealous of his baby bro) and by suggesting to Roman that they bake together on their own - this will become a weekly routine for them that really helps Roman to feel included as a member of the family.

Also, Roman’s behaviour when little is so bubbly that the CGs don’t always notice when he is feeling left out, because he tends to hide his negative emotions by being even more playful and louder

So yeah, I have planned out some pretty extensive emotional journeys and arcs for the characters to go through and they very purposefully do not all line up! This fic presents the most important part of Logan’s arc I think? Roman’s arc peaks just before LABD in another fic I have planned, Virgil’s arc is quite ongoing, and Patton’s arc really only starts at the end of this fic. And this isn’t ecen considering Janus arc too... (I’m undecided on Remus, but he’ll probably have one as well)

I really want to be able to address each of the characters’ journeys naturally and am spreading them across multiple fics to give each one due attention so it’s definitely a long-term writing project!

as always i did not have to go that hard when talking about my writing but here we are again

#little angst #little/big insights #little/big spoilers #little accidents big developments #little/big series #asks #anon

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punkcryptids · 3 years

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ramble

this is the one form of social media i can vent on and be confident no one is gonna find it, it won’t start drama and i can just go the fuck off

i have this ex friend right? really mf toxic, i cut her off last year n shit is all good, right?

anyways, last week i found out she has been consistently posting abt me on her tik tok, just indirects, since aT LEAST may, probably longer. and i told her the fuck off, made my own shit behind “obsessed” by mariah carrey, after some comments back n forth, the whole incident is said n done, she blocks me. ok cool

here i am, finding out the bitch is *still* making indirects. its a lil less obvious, so of course there’s the possibility it’s not me but knowing the situation im p sure it is-- the caption was like “if you side w someone because they’re crying but dont care about what they did, i hate you” or something like that. and im just at my wits end dude,, (a tiny bit of context; our friend group completely left her when i did, n all of them commented on my video + people who were kinda in our friend group but not completely if that makes sense-- one of the kinda in the group ppl commented on her video n she responded “wtf did i ever do to you” so thats why i think the caption has to do w me)

it doesnt make me as anxious as it used to but it makes me angry dude. n the indirects were really fuckin wild. im not tryna explain the situation too much because it was a whole year of verbal/mental abuse that i somewhat tuned out because *trauma*, but she was making wholeass posts abt my relationship. thats what is was, each n every time.

makes sense bc it was the whole fucking issue when we were friends, but they were straight lies. shit abt how he cheated on me and-- she KNOWS its not true. SHE KNOWS, the whole issue is she was overly involved in my relationship because we were both her best friends.

the whole reason this incident happened in the first place was because two days before i made my thing calling her out, she posted ANOTHER indirect. idk how many of yall are on tiktok, but it was the trend “introduce yourself as why you and your ex bsf dont talk” and gUeSs wHaT iT SaID?? “i dont like when my friends get cheated on”. its amazing the mental gymnastics she has to go through to feel correct in the situation. AMAZING. making up whole ass events that didnt happen (when we had our lil confrontation she cited him cheating on me when WE WERENT TOGETHER dnkjfheifjoewi)

god this probably reads so weirdly because its a random insight to a situation without full context + it jumps all over. im sorry about that i just physically cannot dude. im a legal adult next year, class of 2021 babey and it fucking blows my mind theres still this middle school drama bs going on. and i cant do shit, because all she will do is block me when i call her out on her bs and then continue to post abt it. when it first happened it made me feel happy and relieved that i stood up for myself for once but then finding out shes doing the same shit shes just a fucking coward.

ig whats sending me more is the one comment she left on my video was “bell would you like to say this to my face” n then BLOCKED ME N CONTINUED TO SHIT TALK I-

i know i need to work on letting it not bother me-- she will talk her shit, she will spew her lies, and at least all of the people who were there for the situation know shes wrong-- n thats all that matters. but anxiety is a bitch sometimes. plus i guess it just hurts, she was such a gaslighting, manipulative person n it fucking hurts to see her lie and turn that shit on me. esp because my mind is littered with mental instability that i will start to bELIEVE IT HDhnfiujfo. it makes me mad that i have to deal with the trauma she gave me n she gets to sit there making tik toks lying about what happened to strangers online to validate her. what bothers me even more is it wasnt even about our relationship really. it was just about MY relationship with my boyfriend which feels so fucking weird. especially bc half of her tiktoks are directed at calling me a bad person (+saying how much better she is than me lmao) n missing my bf (who she calls her “brother” even though she gaslit him and manipulated him all the same djifhbdi) and the other half is like she misses me ??? considering the latest indirect (before she blocked me) was abt why we arent friends anymore

i cannot stress enough how fucking done i am. it stresses me out because i cut her out of my life so i wouldnt have to deal w it and i feel like i cant escape her and i hate it i want to move out of this fuckign town so i never have to have the possibility of running into her

but if i do run into her you bet your ass im calling her pussy ass out >:)

also shoutout my therapist who will get the run down (probably a summary of this post) of this situation tomorrow hehe

#rant #vent #toxic friends #ex friends #mentally drained #therapy

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solara-bean · 4 years

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This is the very extensive and detailed rant of a fed up black, female student of class 2020

-You are free to scroll past this if you want. I really just needed to get this off my chest. But if you have advice or are experiencing a similar situation, feel free to message me-

So first off, I haven't liked going to school since I was 9. And highschool has only deepened my loathing of it. But maybe I don't hate school in general. Maybe I just hate the schools I've gone to ( 4 in total ). This rant is about highschool specifically. Perhaps what I'm about to type is normal and I'm overreacting. But I'm tired of not talking about my problems because I'm worried that I'll sound like an ungrateful brat. Typing/ writing about my issues makes me feel better. And I really need to feel better.

So here are the main points in order of severity: Low income, Advisory, Graphic Arts and Discipline/Work Ethic

Low Income:

I've only ever gone to low income schools in my neighborhood. I hoped high school would be different but thanks to the crappy education of my old school and an even crappier selective enrollment test score, I couldn't get into the schools I wanted. Then again my single mother probably couldn't afford those other schools anyway.

My highschool shares a building with another highschool. And unfortunately they called dibs on the best features and have control of the heating and ac. We don't even have our own gym. We also have the least amount of space with the smallest class being mine of 144 seniors. So there's a lot of packed classrooms.

Speaking of having way too many students, recourses are slim as a result. Our best equipment, chromebooks, need to be reserved weeks in advance by the teacher and even then they still may not be able to get enough of them for their class. Said chromebooks can often be missing keys, not work at all or be stolen easily because of their small size.

A few other issues are terrible lunches ( I've been bringing lunch from home since sophmore year), very limited field trips, mice infestation, very few clubs ( if we have any idk ) and teachers have to pay for just about everything class related.

Advisory:

Advisories were created to prepare us for greek life in college. I honestly think it's to keep everyone in check but ok. Even so I have absolutely 0 interest in anything frat or sorority related ( no offense to those who do ) as well as many of my classmates but advisory is mandatory.

My first 2 years of advisory were hell. Most of my advisory sisters were either people I'd never talk to because we weren't in the same class, had nothing in common or they were straight up terrible people. I should mention that freshman year has the worst students because about 30% don't make to the next grade or just transfer. Most of my advisory sisters I had problems with were in that 30% ( a few had already repeated ).

Since I kept to myself there were very few incidents were I was put into a tense situation with them. The main conflicts involved our advisor, who I guarantee you was not the problem. She was essentially a poor, white, optimistic, young math teacher from out of town that was thrown to the slaughter. And my cowardly self watched not wanting to be next.

She ended up leaving by junior year so what was left of my advisory merged with another and got a new advisor. The only downside is that our new advisor is a firm believer in " sisterhood " and no cliques ( even if you converse easier with a certain group of people and advisory is already a forced clique in itself ). Maybe I'd be more up for advisory events , which we rarely have , if my advisory experience wasn't sullied so early on.

Graphic Arts:

The reason I chose my school was because it had an art class. In seventh grade I knew I wanted to have a career in art and that my talent was lacking but had potential. So you can imagine my horror when I learned that the art teacher had left once I'd gotten there.

I was sad but stayed positive and even highly recommended them to get another art teacher. Then by sophomore we got an art after school program ( 4:25 to 6 twice a week ). I managed to keep my grades the same and take the classes every week for the entire school year. I only missed about 4 days total. For once I actually enjoyed staying after school.

The class taught me so much and I didn't have to wait for the summer to take an art class downtown. Even better I got to interact with other young artists of my race ( there was usually only one other black kid at the summer classes ). Everything was finally looking up.

Then the art galleries happened. The school hosted one per semester. I brought my art to display but I couldn't stay cuz of a shitload of math homework. I got complimented the next day but still regretted not staying. So I vowed to attend the next one with even more pieces than before.

The night finally came and I was hyped. Me and two seniors were in charge of doing caricatures for free ( one senior gave me a dollar tho ). I had fun with that but noticed something weird...none of our art was displayed.

Apparently they cut it out for time along with the theatre clubs performance. And I would've been fine with that. If my family hadn't come.

The icing on the cake was when they turned off the lights in the hallway where we were drawing the caricatures so they could start the show for the performing art groups. I couldn't contact my family until the show was over and booooiii were they pissed. Especially my mom. I was more sad than anything. I had a feeling my school valued the performing art more and this just proved that. At least now we have an actual art class. And my art teacher is awesome and supportive as hell.

Discipline/ Work Ethic:

These are together cuz they've equally fucked me up. Don't get me wrong. I have a 4.2 gpa and 0 detentions.

The problem is my classmates.

I have been to soooo many class/school meetings about behavior and grade issues over the past 4 years. One of which a staff member said " now i know all of ain't bs-in' but why aren't those people helping the ones who are."

Like wow! Thanks. I hate it.

I'd be happy to help my fellow classmates. It's just that their version of help is cheating off my tests and copying my homework.

So yeah my bad. I've been sooo selfish.

I can count on my hand the amount of times I've been told that I'm doing a good job directly and not in front of a class as a way to embarrass them.

This year behavior was so bad that they made a competition to see which advisory would get the least demerits. Big mistake. My heart goes out to all the poor well behaved students who lost because of a few advisory mates. It only takes one. The record for most demerits in a day was 30 I think.

I forgot the competition was going on at some point cuz I've only gotten 2 demerits in 4 years. My advisory won second and we played the waiting game for our prize only to have a pizza party with 17 other advisories. The winning advisory was salty as hell. But hey we got free lunch at least.

I managed to get good grades simply by doing everything on time and having no social life. This was by choice really. I promised myself I'd do better in college but now I gotta study for ap.

It was actually ap literature that gave me a new perspective on my classmates work ethic. We were given a lengthy reading assignment but the due date was stretched by two class days and the weekend. Even though I'd been mentally drained lately ( by lately I mean since the 1st week of school ) and had other work to do, I completed it with slightly less annotations.

Upon the due date I discovered that I and one other classmate completed the reading. Even the valedictorian didn't do it!!! And this wasn't a one time thing either.

In fact my class is notorious for never doing work on time. I'm talking completing-a-project-in-the-class before-the-it's -due- for bad. And some people I understand. Some of them really need help and resources. But every one else. Excuses excuses. The extended due dates gave me extra free time but it made the work I completed on time feel pointless. Like I could've just not done it and not face any consequences.

I tried that and was stressed out all day to the point of doing the work anyway. School's got me whipped I guess.

So if I hate highschool so much why do I go on time everyday, miss at most 3 days a year, do my work, behave myself and study??? Simple. I'm trying to get out. Having a good gpa and test scores will get me more scholarships cuz God knows my mom can't afford art college ( I got into my first choice so yeah:). Really highschool has just been a means to an end.

I've had my good days and have made some friends but I really just wanna run to hills with my diploma in hand. And thats what's kept me going. But now we're quarantined.

And my school has decided to make work optional.....and I have all A's......

Needless to say I've barely done any work at all. If we never have to go back theres a good chance I won't. I'm so numb at this point that I don't care that we may not have a prom ( aka the only dance I was ever going to go to ).

I'm just done. Done and fed up.

But thank you to my mom, family, bestie, teachers and my classmates that actually want to have a future for keeping me going. If I don't completely give up it's thanks to you. Future me, I hope you get everything you want at art school:)

#school #highschool #class of 2020 #2020 #senior year #rant #lomg rant #if anyone wants to share their shitty highschool experience feel free #i actually left a lot of stuff out #like the freshman year camping trip #and social media drama #and spanish class #ughh im getting flashbacks #if you read this thanks it means a lot😊💗💗💗

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minecraftoworymode · 4 years

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picked a whole bouquet of whoopsie-daisies the other day reading some Very badfeel content so to cheer myself up here’s some super self-indulgent ramblings about romeo recovery post-s2

“YOU CAN DANCE IF YOU WANT TO YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY BEHIND” or how romeo learned to stop worrying and indulge in the ““feminine”“ shit in life

when romeo transitioned he scrubbed everything that could be potentially viewed as feminine from his appearance and behaviour. while he did everything he could about the former (hairstyle, clothing, body language, voice), it didn’t feel like enough bc he couldn’t change some things that ppl used to be jerks- his frame (short and lithe), his family, his being trans- so he made up for it by trying to “act” like a “real man”. this unfortunately meant he was super vulnerable to manipulative alt-right indoctrination tactics (”we will validate you as a man as long as you endorse our assholery and share our shitty beliefs about what it means to be a man”) and he was on the verge of getting sucked into gamergate ideology when [THIS LORE IS ANOTHER POST] and hey, now the world is minecraft. u dont gotta perform gender roles for villagers they dont care. xara will not only actually eat ur liver for pulling The Bullshit but when you are kind she smiles, so bright and warm, and it is very very nice so maybe you should keep on doing that. n fred? fred is chill with their Everything in a way uve only ever Dreamed of. romeo marinates in this sauce for a couple centuries and comes the closest to being comfortable in his own skin he’s ever been.

however,

after the Incident he slam-dunked himself back into the hypermasculinity juice bc it was a mindset “safe” from feeling pain, whether his or others’. n since the worlds the admins created dont have the same ideas of gender as the world they came from, once he’s been dethroned romeo has a particularly hard time adjusting wrt That on top of all the other 2750347502730 issues he has to face

anyway flash forward a couple months of being incredibly volatile bc he now has to confront all the terrible things he did and how Dare u make him do that and maybe if hes nasty enough he can provoke someone into killing him and saving him from having to unpack All Of That- (note from @simple-mooshroom-herder: Xara and Jesse at least grasp that Romeo will probably burn himself out on this bullshit eventually and the best thing to do is interact with him with a certain level of healthy detachment. Eventually he'll see that theres no "getting out of this" and he'll start to do the Work but until then its very frustrating to see that tactic take him nowhere.)

- one day petra notices how he’s constantly staring at all the ppl wearing cute dresses in beacontown and at first she thinks he's being creepy but then realizes that he's not being creepy and actually she knows exactly how he feels bc she also used to look at ppl wearing clothes super not suited for combat like that, like she wished she could wear them too, like if she just didnt have to keep up this image of the Warrior who is Not Soft Ever-

n ok. listen. these worlds have been specifically engineered to be better and kinder than the one the admins came from, and when people mess up- even REALLY mess up- people are generally not only willing to forgive you but support you as you try and get better. it’s instinctual for communities to respond to misdeeds with rehabilitation and reconciliation, rather than retaliation and renunciation (tho its not an overnight thing and it generally takes 1-3 people to spearhead the process, esp if the actions have affected a large group of people). like. ivor created something that almost destroyed the entire world, not just beacontown, yet by the end of season one he’s grown to be a part of the team- n its not just jesse & co being forgiving here, bc when ivor made his s1 build with 3 lava source blocks people objected to it, but by s2 he not only has lava in his build but a giant lake of it. (im assuming the fences around said lake are coming eventually, bc safety is still important, but the implications im choosing to take from this are a) despite almost ending the world people let him into their lives anyway and b) the community not only grew to accept but encourage his self-expression.)

BUT ANYWAY before i go off on that even more one day petra and romeo basically put on an impromptu fashion show in jesse’s house (bc their house is huge and, kind of perfect for a fashion show, and also right next to the order hall’s armory whence they stole a bunch of fancy swords to match the outfits) n theyre having a blast until the hero in residence , returns to their residence (and with COMPANY) n romeo is absolutely Mortified- caught red-handed showing feelings of an almost human nature, oh my god, this will NOT do- n this whole grand soliluquy of shame and excuses and apologies grabs the steering wheel of his tongue but he cant even spit a single syllable out bc jesse and lukas almost immediately dip leaving romeo panicking for a second before they come back with their inventories FULL of cute outfits, including a billion skirts and dresses, some of them are even enchanted so theyre like. super shiny or constantly flowing or things like that.

this actually ends up spiralling into a town-wide... not quite fashion show bc there's no runway or anything, everyone just shows up in their cutest/coolest outfits .. fashion convention?? Anyway several people come up to him and compliment him on his outfit casually before continuing along, not recognizing him not only bc of how hes done his hair and makeup n what hes wearing but he just seems... so happy (he might be wearing something on his head? like a headpiece or hat or something? but also maybe not hmm)- whoever this is, he's not hunched over like he's got several centuries' worth of sins crawling on his back he’s not trying to shrink and make small a human-shaped apology for the simple fact of his existence not dragging his feet like hes ready for, dreading, a hundred mile trek through the desert repenting hes just. hes literally just Vibing

anyway he's mostly been silent or just providing very quiet "thank you"s but when it turns out that some people showed up ready to play music and there's a song that he knows he literally cant help but start jamming out its the GOod Stim everyones a-dancing and a-jiving and some people start to sing and so of course he does too (the healing power of dancing and singing in cute outfits.... unfathomable) but. ppl recognize his voice

and after a few seconds he notices how quiet it's gotten all of a sudden n everyones looking at him like "oh shit thats the admin" and honestly his heart breaks. visibly

but

then someone starts singing, so quiet it takes a moment for him to hear over the sound of an encroaching panic attack (oh god he has airpods in), but when he looks over theyre smiling - theyre smiling at hiM???? AND IT DOESNT EVEN LOOK MEAN??- and doing this very simple step, that he catches onto just as easily as he matches their singing (its a fairly common little tune n dance)

theyre like standing like a good few meters away but as they take turns with lines in the song they slowly inch closer

and he thinks hes starting to recognize the dance that the steps theyre doing is from but at the part in the song thats coming up ur supposed to allemande left and even tho theyre like, less than a meter away now literally no one has really wanted to get close to him, let alone actually touch him, so hes totally expecting them to be like 'psych' and humiliate him in front of the entire crowd-

BUT THEN THEY ACTUALLY GO FOR IT???

he completes the step without even thinking about it n continues onto the next in this state of dull bewilderment where there is but one braincell active in his head and it is just going, in a very tiny voice, "danser?"

- when they linked arms the person briefly seemed surprised that he didn't like, chew their arm off or anything (he had. kind of snapped at people a few times during the past few weeks), but then their shock turned into a wide smile and they sort of- nodded? at someone over his shoulder like 'come and join us, it doesn't look like he's going to kill me after all you guys can put the eulogy writing on hold'

what rly makes his heart do the confused and hopeful conga is that this isnt even anyone romeo knows, its a total stranger. or- like- he saw them while he was pretending to be jesse he just didnt care to get to know them beyond ‘name and gimmick’- its not even someone who has any reason to think he'd be cool to befriend its literally jsut someone taking a chance on him (tkae a chance take a chance take a chance take a cha)

afterwards hes like "i should thank jesse for putting you up to that, it was fun" and theyre like "what? jesse didn't "put me up to" anything, dude, you just looked super choked. * something something surfer lingo who would i be if i just left someone to feel bad when they could be having fun dancing you know?*"

he H

#ng+#msg #i said this was super self-indulgent and i was not lying #i call ng+ my mcsm project and thats literal

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surreal-honeypot · 5 years

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Parkner Week Day One Title: Two Dumbasses Prompt: Identity Porn

Character Tags: Harley Keener, Peter Parker, background Tony Stark, mentions of Pepper Potts, mentions of Natasha Romanov

Relationship Tags: Harley Keener/Peter Parker, background Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, technically pre-slash

Additional Tags: Day One of Parkner Week, Parkner Week 2019, Identity Porn, Panic Attacks, It’s not super explicit, but be careful anyway, Minor angst, not Endgame compliant, not Infinity War compliant, and theres a mention that implies that its, not CACW compliant, but its a blink and you miss it type of thing, its not the best work I’ve done, but read it anyway

Summary: Harley had been trying a multitude of different ways to get Spider-Man to reveal his identity to him, all with varying amounts of success. In which Peter is tired, Harley is sneaky, and Tony is amused.

It wasn’t meant to end like this, Peter thought bitterly, looking down from giant net that he was currently trapped in, glaring down at the figure smirking below him.

Peter had imagined many ways for his most current conundrum to have ended, but this had never been a part of one of his daydreams, oddly enough. But of course, dramatic endings have dramatic beginnings.

I--II--II--III--II--II--I

“Oi, Parker! Did you hear?” Harley collapsed into the chair next to Peter, a manic grin on his face.

“Hear what?” Peter was dreading the answer, especially as he had a feeling he already knew.

“Spider-Man got hurt two days ago, and since then no one has sighted them. You know what this means?”

“That Spider-Man needed a break?”

“No! Well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.”

Peter raised an eyebrow, working to put all of his judgement into his expression. Harley had been obsessed with the identity of Spiderman ever since he came to New York a couple months before. Why, Peter wasn’t quite sure, but he did know that it was quite inconvenient for him.

Harley had been trying a multitude of different ways to get Spider-Man to reveal his identity to him, all with varying amounts of success. Harley’s most recent attempt had been to corner him. Peter wasn’t quite sure how Harley had been planning on accomplishing that, considering that he could walk on walls and was able to web sling, but he had shrugged it off, figuring that Harley couldn’t get into that much trouble.

Oh how wrong he was.

Mr. Stark always liked to claim that Peter gave him gray hairs and that he was a trouble magnet, but personally, Peter thought that Harley was far worse than he was.

In a single night, Harley had gone out to find Spider-Man, and nearly managed to get shot by showing up at the most inopportune moment, and then somehow followed him to the next crime scene (Peter had no clue how he had managed that, Harley definitely wasn’t fast enough to keep up with his web slinging) and managed to get a black eye and a shallow cut on his chest from where he had nearly been stabbed.

Peter had been one injury away from a heart attack.

“What this means is, if Spider-Man was injured enough to be out of the count for a few days, then the wound was probably bad enough to warrant a hospital trip! We’ve seen him get shot and run into burning buildings before, and still come out the next day mostly unscathed. So if his healing factor couldn’t take care of it overnight, then it was probably bad enough to warrant a hospital trip. Hospital trips mean hospital files.”

Peter stared flatly at the dumbass sitting across from him.

Now, it should be known that Peter is most definitely not used to being the voice of reason, but between the two of them, Peter most certainly didn’t do quite as many stupid things--even if Harley would refute that. Harley had this chaotic energy that Peter had been drawn to ever since he arrived, but unfortunately that chaos extended to his actions as well as his attitude. This means that Harley was unpredictable and as liable to be a dumbass as he was to be a smartass.

That having been said, Harley was quite easily one of the most intelligent people that Peter had ever met, and considering that he went to Smart Kid School™ and knew Tony Stark and Shuri, that was saying something. The logic used was sound, and technically Harley wasn’t completely wrong.

There were still dark bruises up and down Peter’s back that made him sore when he moved, but he probably could have gone out the night before if Mr. Stark had let him (“Pete, your wrist is fractured in two different places, you’re a giant bruise and you had a panic attack last night. You are not going patrolling. Aunt Hottie would kill me. FRIDAY, lockdown on the Spiderbaby.”).

Peter’s most recent villain, a large man who insisted on dressing up like a rhino--why did Peter always get the weird ones?-- had thrown a bridge at him. A bridge! While it wasn’t enough to kill Peter, it was enough to hurt him, and more importantly, it was enough to send him spiralling into a panic attack as he remembered the last time he had been surrounded on all sides by rubble, as the air in his lungs constricted, as--

Peter cut off that thought abruptly, taking a deep breath.

Mr. Stark had ended up carrying Peter back to the tower and getting him treated in the private medical wing. Because of this, Peter knew that Harley’s search of local hospitals wouldn’t bear fruit, but there was something a bit more pressing that Peter was wondering about.

“Assuming you’re going to do what I think you are, isn’t that, like, a major invasion of privacy?”

“Aw, c’mon Pete! Live a little!”

The irony. Peter carefully kept any expression off his face and stared at Harley, hoping to stare him into submission. Harley stared back.

“Do you have a better idea? If not, I’m going to continue on with my idea. Besides, I can just have Friday sort through them. Things like their approximate age, sex, and the type of injury.”

“I’ll tell Ms. Potts. You know how she’d feel about another PR incident.”

Harley gasped dramatically.

“You wouldn’t!”

“I won’t hesitate, bitch!”

“Tony would be on my side.” Harley muttered petulantly, rolling his eyes.

Peter personally wasn’t so sure about that, as while Mr. Stark probably wouldn’t care about the invasion of privacy, he did care about respecting Peter’s boundaries. But then, looking up random people’s hospital files wouldn’t exactly be violating Peter’s boundaries. So maybe Tony would--

Peter’s thought was rudely interrupted when Harley started speaking again.

“If you won’t let me violate people’s boundaries and you won’t tell me who Spider-Man is, then what do you suggest?”

Not for the first time, Peter considered just telling Harley that he was Spider-Man. When Harley first arrived, Peter hadn’t trusted Harley enough to tell him, but now they were friends--God, Peter wanted to be something more--and Harley already knew that Tony and Peter both knew Spider-Man. It wouldn’t be a huge jump to tell Harley.

The only thing stopping Peter at this point was pure and utter terror. They’d been friends for a couple months now, and it had gotten so that Peter got increasingly anxious every time he even thought of telling Harley his secret. Mr. Stark had told Peter in the beginning that Harley was trustworthy, that it would be easier to just get it out of the way. And Mr. Stark was right. Not that Peter would ever tell him that.

Peter knew that the longer he held it off, the worse it would be, the more upset Harley would be with him. He knew that, damn it!

In the same way, Peter knew that if Harley kept on going the way he was, he would figure it out eventually even without Peter telling him. Peter knew he would have been found out when Harley had tried to corner him if it wasn’t for the voice modulator and his attempt at a quick exit, and he would have been found out before that when Harley had tried to hack Mr. Starks files if Mr. Stark hadn’t actively kept him out.

Peter knew all of that, and yet.. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Harley.

It was because of this, that Peter agreed to help Harley catch Spider-Man. He just hadn’t been expecting it to work.

That was how he got into the mess that he was in currently.

Mr. Stark would laugh his ass off when he heard about this. Peter could just imagine the I Told You So’s now. Sigh. I--II--II--III--II--II--I Harley was laughing his ass off.

Peter was such a dumbass.

I never thought it would end like this, Harley thought gleefully, looking up at the caught Spider-Man.

“Well? Are you going to let me out?” Harley looked up at Peter--ahem, Harley looked up Spider-Man with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Now, why would I ever want to do that?” This was priceless.

Peter glared at Harley through the mask, his eye goggles narrowing. Harley would never tell him this--that was a blatant lie, he would 100% tell Peter this--but he didn’t look any less like a drowned kitten when he was an angry Spider-Man than he did while he was an angry Peter Parker.

Adorable.

Peter must have seen something on Harley’s face, because his eyes narrowed further, making it look like he was squinting and he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Now then, Spidey. I have you caught in my net, my web if you will. Now, you will tell me what I wish to know!” Harley decreed dramatically, making a fist and raising it in the air as if he was a mobster in one of the books Nat liked so much but pretended to hate.

Harley was expecting a bit of resistance, for how much Peter had tried to keep the secret from him, so he was somewhat surprised when Peter just sighed and nodded before peeling off his mask.

“Huh. I was expecting that to be harder.”

“That’s all you have to say? You’re not surprised at all?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Peter, I love you, but you’re really bad at keeping secrets. I’ve known since a few days after I got here.” Harley froze as he realized what he said, before desperately hoping that Peter took it the wrong way. Friends tell each other they love each other all the time, this was just like that, right?

This was not just like that. Harley had been pining after Peter ever since he saw him, and before that he had been pining over Spider-Man. When he first came to New York, he had genuinely had plans to unmask him, and (if in the right age range and cute) woo him.

Those plans came to a halt when Harley met Peter, before immediately starting up again once he saw the suit lying on Peter’s bedroom floor. To Harley, it had been a race to see if he could unmask Peter before Peter told him, or if Peter would tell him first. It had been a race that Harley was expecting to lose, but then months passed by without a word, despite what Harley had thought was the best friendship he’d ever had developing, despite the fact that Harley did not try to keep it a secret in any way whatsoever that he was trying to find out Spider-Man’s identity.

And it had hurt a little bit, to know that Harley was trusting Peter with more and more of himself every single day, while Peter only gave one facet of himself to Harley. Harley waited it out though, forced himself to be patient, only for this extremely anti-climatic moment.

To put it lightly, Harley was a bit upset.

“If you knew all along, why didn’t you confront me about it? Or more importantly, why did you keep trying to unmask me?” Peter studiously ignored the works “Peter, I love you, but…” ringing in his ears. Despite that, he was one hundred percent certain that there was a tomato red blush covering Peter’s cheeks.

“Nuh-uh. I’m not the one captured in a net here. I’m the one who get’s to ask questions, thank you very much.”

“Alright. Shoot.”

Harley hesitated.

“Why-” Harley paused again, not sure how to word--how to say--the question without sounding vulnerable, before he decided fuck it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Peter was silent for a long moment. Anxiety was starting to creep up Harley’s throat when Peter started to speak, his voice quiet and more serious than Harley had ever heard it.

“Did you know that I never told my Aunt May, who I’ve been living with since I was four years old? The only reason she found out was because she came in while I was taking the suit off.”

Peter went quiet. Before Harley could reply, Peter continued.

“Did you know that my best friend, the only friend I really had from Kindergarten until Sophomore year, didn’t find out until he saw me crawling in through my window while waiting for me to get home? Did you know that I never told Mr. Stark either, but that he put the pieces together and then showed up in my living room. I’ve never told anyone, Harley.

“But I wanted too. When you first arrived, Mr. Stark told me I should just out and tell you, that it would be easier in the long run. And he was right. Of course he was right. But I didn’t know you, and then we became friends, and I liked you so much, and then suddenly I realized that it was too late. It would seem weird if I told you, after we had been friends for so long and you have made so many attempts to find out Spider-Man’s identity. And I was afraid. I was so so afraid that you would hate me. And-”

Harley cut off Peter’s rambling by taking down the trap, letting Peter fall to the floor still in the net.

“You dumbass,” Harley mumbled, reaching into the net to grab Peter’s hand and pull him up and then hugging him to his chest, hoping that this wouldn’t make things weird.

Peter stood stiffly, trying to ignore the bruises that had suddenly made their presence known once again as he hugged Harley back. They were all that was left of the bridge incident thanks to his healing factor, but falling to the floor in a net didn’t feel the best.

“Pete? You’re standing weird.”

“Oh, its nothing, don’t worry about. I just had a bridge dropped on me the other day--”

Harley’s face went pale as the implications hit him and he flung himself away from Peter, his eyes roaming up and down Peter’s body, trying to find the injuries. Harley had known Peter was Spider-Man for months now. Why hadn’t he realized that the aches and pains that Spider-Man acquired were Peter’s as well?

“Hey, it’s fine. Look, see? I’m fine. I only have a few bruises, and I got out of it okay, right? Harley?”

Harley took a deep breath before hugging Peter again, an intense fear coating his insides. When Harley had first found out, he could only think about how convenient it was that both his crushes were the same person, and after that his thoughts shifted to how he could woo Peter (which he had admittedly not gotten very far on) and more importantly, get Peter to trust him enough to tell him the big secret. He had never really thought about what happened when Peter went out, because it was Peter. Peter was Peter, it had never really actually occured to Harley that it was Peter going and fighting thugs and kicking ass.

Sure, Peter was Spider-Man, and Spider-Man fought the bad guys, but and although Harley had connected points A and B, and points B and C, he had never actually connected A and C. Whenever he saw Peter after he'd been out Spider-Manning, he'd never seemed all that injured. What if Peter had died out there?

This firmed Harley’s resolve. Peter wouldn’t die without Harley asking him out, without Harley giving it his best shot.

“I really like you. Do you want to go out?”

Peter pulled back slightly, a surprised look on his face as he met Harley’s eyes, before a warm smile swept across his face.

“I’d like that.”

Harley smiled. I--II--II--III--II--II--I Peter was right. Tony did laugh his ass off when he heard what happened.

#Day one of parkner week #parkner week 2019 #Marvel #Fanfiction #Marvel Fanfiction #Harley Keener #Peter Parker #Harley Keener/Peter Parker #Panic attacks #Minor angst #not endgame compliant #not infinity war compliant #not cacw compliant #Its not the best #but read it anyway

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