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kenjakusbrainstem · 1 year

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Like Father, Like Son (Kenjaku x Yuuji Itadori)

Contains: non explicit incest, immobilization, heavy spoilers for the jjk manga, Kenjaku-typical manipulation, the dreamscape from chapter 160 broke my brain and I needed to do something with it.

Hey <3 this idea has been popping around my head like a sad little ping pong ball for weeks now. I've wanted to write it but have been a little too nervous out of potential reaction to the content. I've scaled it back though, maybe at some point I will expand on the idea. Hopefully this finds an audience as I haven't seen much for it outside of Japanese artists on pixiv. Reblog or reply with any feedback, Thank you!

Yuuji Itadori wasn’t always a nervous boy, but after the events of Shibuya he tried to stay alert at all times. It had only been a few days since… everything happened. They had all lost and learned so much, finally coming up with some semblance of a plan, something to hope for.

Entering the culling games, though it seems Yuuji didn’t have a choice. They had come to the conclusion that several of them entering a colony would be the best course of action. Through all the planning however, Yuuji’s main focus was on making sure he didn’t let Sukuna take over his body. The stress of keeping him under control was mounting inside the boy, but his resolve was much stronger.

With their plan set, Yuuji and Megumi lay on the semi soft floor mats in the underground wrestling building Hakari had set up. Kirara had offered them a place to sleep in one of the observation rooms so they could be rested before venturing into the colony. They had no idea what to expect and it would be foolish of them to not be prepared mentally and physically.

However, sleep had been another thing keeping Yuuji on his toes. Ever since his fight with Yuuta he’d been having strange dreams that he could barely remember. The worst part was how important the dreams felt, like if he could just remember them clearly somehow they would help. It was starting to get to him, the way he’d rather always be on watch than actually resting.

With a plan as important as this, he had resigned himself to attempting to get sleep.

Yuuji lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling above him. He could hear the sound of Megumi breathing a few feet away. At least one of them was able to get some rest. Any sound other than that would cut like a knife through the silence that surrounded him and wake him up. He could be ready if he needed to be.

Closing his eyes he waited, eventually sleep overtaking his body.

If a sound in the silence had lulled him to sleep, perhaps the eerie silence returning had woke him up. It wasn’t something he had expected. While Yuuji tried to open his eyes, he found himself paralyzed. His limbs were too heavy to move and even his eyes disobeyed him, refusing to open. Fear sunk deep into his bones, even if this was just a dream, it was still a nightmarish scenario.

As he struggled internally for the ability to move, a soft sound broke through the silence. The pitch was wrong, deeper, but the humming of a familiar lullaby surrounded him. The familiarity shocked him, bringing him back to his infancy whenever he was being lulled to sleep as a baby. The memory rushing back to him, it was as if he were back there, in his mother’s arms.

Any dream he’d had of her though, was always slightly out of focus, like some kind of distorted photograph. He had been a baby though, just how reliable were the things he’d seen then?

“Good morning Yuuji,” a voice, the humming voice spoke. It was again familiar, frustratingly so, but definitely one that didn’t belong in this room.

Finally Yuuji’s eyes blinked open, expecting some odd dreamscape, but his eyes met the simple ceiling that he’d fallen asleep staring at. Turning his head, he was met with another shock, Megumi was gone. Frantically looking around the room, his eyes finally rested on the figure sitting on the floor right above his head.

The last person he had expected or wanted to see.

Kenjaku sat cross legged only a few inches above his head. The serene smile on the man's face was very out of place, Yuuji’s mind racing at how he could have gotten in here.

Again Yuuji tried to move his body, but his limbs were still stuck at his sides. A feeling of fear washed over him, the odds of this being a dream were still high, but somehow that still frightened him. This was unlike anything he had been dreaming, at least from the dreams he could remember. The frustrating feeling of his arms not moving was causing more panic to rise inside him.

“What’s going on?” Yuuji asked, his obviously panicked voice cracking as he spoke. He felt so confused and powerless, though asking seemed nonsensical, it was the only thing he could do. Yuuji was just relieved he could use his voice.

Kenjaku just smiled down at him, a hand falling to rest atop his forehead before sliding back and carding through his hair. The gesture itself would have been comforting had it come from anywhere else, anyone else.

“Shh no reason to panic, I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to spend some time with you and talk for a little, is that so wrong?” Kenjaku asked, tone making it seem like he was doing something completely normal. The obviously comforting gesture and words missed their mark.

Something about the way he spoke made Yuuji’s stomach turn. Anxiety mounted inside him as he looked up at Kenjaku. Panic was something he felt was very warranted, the strangeness of the situation was so unnerving. He’d only ever known Kenjaku as a monster, why would his mind conjure something like this?

“Where’s Fushiguro?” Yuuji asked. He was worried, their surroundings felt too real for this to be a dream, and if it were real, Megumi had to be somewhere.

Kenjaku’s eyebrows rose briefly before his face returned to the gentle gaze that burned into Yuuji. He hadn’t fully expected that to be something Yuuji would focus on, though after everything he’d heard about the boy, he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised.

It wasn’t that Megumi couldn’t handle himself, Yuuji knew he was more than capable in a fight. It was more that Yuuji couldn’t stand the thought of losing someone else. He needed, beyond his own safety, for Megumi to be okay.

Kenjaku chuckled to himself, hands stilling in Yuuji’s hair. He didn’t need the boy to understand the real reason he was here, this was more for his entertainment than anything else. It seemed Yuuji had taken much more from his father than he’d realized, the look of confusion on his face looked so familiar. His hands resumed their pseudo-comforting gesture in Yuuji’s hair.

“So worried about your friends, what a kind young man you’re growing into. Like I said, there is no reason to worry, Megumi Fushiguro is still sleeping and so are you,” Kenjaku’s soft voice soothed Yuuji’s worries as he spoke.

Somehow Yuuji could feel himself believing Kenjaku’s words, an implicit and unexplained trust filling him. There was no part of his rational mind that would have trusted a word Kenjaku said to him, but this was no rational situation. Despite all the signs that something was horribly wrong, Yuuji could feel more comfort blossoming inside him.

Part of Yuuji’s mind latched onto an odd thing Kenjaku had said: they were both asleep? So if they were asleep and this was a dream, could this be Yuuji's way of expressing his anxiety? Regardless of the cause, knowing Megumi was safe and that this wasn’t real did make him feel a little better.

That is, if he trusted Kenjaku.

The nails lightly brushing against his scalp felt good now too, Yuuji was beginning to notice. Their light touch gave him something to focus on other than the absurdity of the situation. He could see himself easily drifting off to sleep again if Kenjaku would only start humming again. Even without it, he felt his eyes drooping as he accepted the attention.

“What do you remember from your childhood Yuuji?” Kenjaku’s question surprised him, his eyes snapping open again. Despite the ever strange atmosphere, there was nothing but curiosity in Kenjaku’s voice.

Looking up through the darkness, it was kind of difficult to fully makeout Kenjaku’s features. THe others were unsettled by his appearance because he looked like someone they knew, someone Gojo knew. Yuuji had never met Geto Suguru though, he had only known Kenjaku to look this way. Maybe that’s why he felt less afraid. Even with the lack of recognition, Yuuji still felt some unexplainable pull to the man. The way shadows danced across his face in the dim light of the room almost made him forget the question asked of him.

“I was…a strong kid. Spent a lot of time with my grandfather,” Yuuji answered hesitantly, unsure of what to say. He had no reason to lie, even if this wasn’t a dream. Despite his honesty he still didn’t want to say too much, but Yuuji reasoned that talking about family was harmless.

The question was strange though. As far as Yuuji knew his parentage and youth had little merit in anything in this world. He wasn’t raised with Jujutsu like Megumi had been, he was just a normal person.

Or maybe this was just his mind's way of calming him down and forcing him to think of happier times. Times where the world wasn’t hanging on his choices.

As he fought within himself ,Yuuji could feel Kenjaku’s fingers slip further into his hair. The slow moving touch now caressing his neck with every brush through his hair. The touch made him shiver, bringing more strange feelings into his body to rest alongside even stranger form of relaxation.

“Wasuke was an interesting man, I’m not surprised you’ve turned out so much like your father under his care. Do you remember your father much?” Kenjaku spoke nonchalantly as he guided the conversation with ease as if he’d always spoken to Yuuji like this.

Everytime Yuuji started to relax further, Kenjaku would say something that made the anxiety fill him again. Why would Kenjaku, some strange sorcerer with evil plans, be on a first name basis with his grandfather?

Something felt even more wrong now than it had when he had awoken. The confusion made Yuuji’s head hurt as he tried to wrap his head around. What could have brought this on? As Yuuji’s mind scrambled to make sense of the strange questions, the hands in his hair stilled again.

“Am I making you nervous? I’m sorry Yuuji, that was never my intention. I just wanted to get to know you more, to learn about you from the source and not someone else,” the apologetic tone in Kenjaku’s voice felt genuine. It was like he actually wanted to offer even more comfort to Yuuji, as if he truly hadn’t intended to alarm the boy.

Or perhaps Kenjaku was trying to manipulate him.

Before Yuuji could process anything else he felt Kenjaku move. His arms went under Yuuji and wrapped around his shoulders, then he sat back up, bringing Yuuji up with him. Kenjaku effortlessly pulled him onto his lap. The strong, fast motion had placed Yuuji’s head on his chest with his arms wrapped tightly around the boy’s midsection.

There was nothing Yuuji could do as he still felt his limbs paralyzed at his side. For a dream he could feel a surprising amount of warmth radiating from Kenjaku. Like everything else from the man tonight, it was almost comforting and if it didn’t feel so wrong it probably would have been.

He felt Kenjaku’s legs come to rest under his own thighs, cradling his body like a mother holding a distraught child. Like a mother cradling her son's corpse.

Long strands of black hair tickled at Yuuji’s cheeks, the change in position only allowing him to look forward or up at the crook of Kenjaku’s neck. The man wasn’t looking at him, but staring off somewhere else.

Due to the angle, Yuuji couldn’t quite see that Kenjaku’s eyes were shut tightly as if trying to remember something important.

“Why are you doing this?” Though he was still immobile, Yuuji was barely able to force the question out. He desperately needed answers.

None of this made sense to him, regardless of whether it was a dream, reality, or something he had no concept of. The panic in his voice was more confusion than anything else. Though it was hard for him to sound panicked when he felt the deceptively comforting arms holding him so tightly. The firm embrace seemed to knock something loose in his mind, a set of strange memories drifting to the forefront of his mind.

No, not memories, the thoughts flooding into Yuuji’s mind were too incoherent to be considered a full memory. Flashes, tiny glimpses of the past filled his mind. His childhood and his infancy. A face he could barely recognize as his grandfather never kept pictures around. The haze in his mind that surrounded his early years parted for the briefest moment, allowing him to glimpse a stitched ring around the forehead of his mother as she held him.

The connection of these two people made Yuuji feel sick. If he hadn’t been dreaming he was sure he would have vomited. He couldn’t believe it, there had to be something else to explain it, perhaps a product of his own anxiety ridden brain mixing up two things he didn’t understand. Kenjaku and his mother couldn’t be the same person, could they?

“It isn’t often that I think about my past Yuuji, but I am human, it’s normal to think about. You’re helping me with that because you just look so much like your father,” Kenjaku said, every word pilling the confusion onto the boy in his lap. His words all but confirmed the conclusion Yuuji had come to in his mind.

Yuuji tried to move again, attempting to thrash around in the man’s hold, but once again it was futile. He wanted to run far away from the situation or go back to staring up athe ceiling with Megumi. Anything was preferable to this.

Despair filled his veins alongside the confusion and horror. He was helpless in this moment, at the mercy of his mother, the monster he’d been fighting. It seemed he just had to wait this out, but Yuuji wasn’t sure how much more of this his mind could take.

Yuuji hoped Megumi would wake him soon.

Keeping one arm wrapped tightly around Yuuji’s torso, Kenjaku slid a hand up to hold Yuuji’s chin. He turned the boy’s face so they were face to face. The look of fear more evident in his eyes than when they’d first met in Shibuya.

Looking down and meeting eyes, Kenjaku felt something odd inside of himself. While he was proud of Yuuji’s growth, as he mentioned that wasn’t the only thing that drew him to the boy. The soft hair and fear in his eyes reminded Kenjaku of Jin, Yuuji’s father.

While the man had just been a part of his plan, being able to play house with a little family for a bit had been enjoyable. Kenjaku never had any ill will to the man and had even allowed him a merciful death. It’s been quite some time since someone had been so delusionally in love with him.

“He was a good man, very kind not unlike yourself. Unfortunately love blinded him to the reality of his wife’s death, allowing me to take over. Unlike his wife, I was actually able to give him a son,” Kenjaku spoke proudly, as if he had truly done something special. Yuuji wanted to focus on the information about his father, but couldn’t separate it from everything else he was hearing.

Yuuji had expected more taunting, not reassurance that his father was a good man. He was very curious and a part of him wanted to ask more questions as his grandfather never had answers. This wasn’t right, seeking answers from a nightmare would only bring him more despair, and that was something he’d had enough of. He didn’t even know if this was true, it couldn’t be! It was too absurd, Yuuji reminded himself that this just had to be a figment of his stress ridden mind.

“You look so frightened still, maybe I can comfort you the same way I did your father,” Kenjaku’s words turn to a whisper as he studied Yuuji’s face more. He’d been too busy with the abrupt commencement of his plans that he hadn’t had time for himself. The guise of comfort that he offered had nothing to do with the boy’s comfort though, it was purely for Kenjaku’s entertainment.

Times like these Kenjaku almost wished he could have kept Jin Itadori around as some type of pet. Maybe he wouldn’t feel the urge to cradle his own son like this.

It was close enough though, this would have to do. Nothing had stopped Kenjaku from pursuing his wants before, why stop now?

Tilting his own head down Kenjaku moved, pressing his lips to Yuuji’s. The boy’s still lips were soft and warm as he pressed gentle kisses to them.

Kenjaku kept his eyes open, staring into Yuuji’s. He could see how distraught Yuuji was, the fear and panic evident in his eyes. It almost reminded him of Jin’s reaction to the first time they met after he had taken over Kaori’s body. The excitement of seeing someone so distraught at his will pushed Kenjaku forward.

Yuuji was frozen, even if he could move his body he was sure he wouldn’t be able to. All of his thoughts had stopped with the soft press of lips to his own. He was overwhelmed, everything that had happened combining together to leave him feeling void of anything other than panic.

Keeping his eyes open allowed Yuuji to look into Kenjaku’s as well, and it was a sight he would be able to forget. THe manic glee made his stomach drop, he needed to get out of here.

Kenjaku relished in Yuuji’s unmoving lips, snaking his tongue into Yuuji’s mouth. He could almost taste the dear on the boy’s tongue. This was exactly what he wanted.

Sliding his hand down to grip at Yuuji’s hip, Kenjaku pressed their bodies closer together. The heat from Yuuji’s body put him in a trance, he wanted to spoil him with his own essence.

The grip of the hand on Yuuji’s face tightened, forcing his mouth open. Kenjaku’s onesided kiss filled his mouth and caused a heat to course through his body. Even before finding out about Kenjaku’s identity this was something he never would have imagined. The feeling of Kenjaku’s tongue in his mouth pulled a strained moan from his throat, the sound muffled by their kiss.

“Itadori are you okay? Wake up already,” a voice called out from Yuuji’s side. Kenjaku didn’t react, hand still exploring his body and lips still insistently moving against his own. Maybe he couldn’t hear it, Yuuji wondered.

Trying to focus on the voice calling his name, Yuuji’s eyes snapped open, he hadn’t realized they were closed.

Frantically looking around he saw Megumi kneeling next to him. Only just now did Yuuji notice that he was still laying flat on his back and not cradled in the lap of…someone? The vague memory of the person in his dream made him nervous. His body felt warm, like there was a heat inside him he hadn’t experienced before. Accompanied by a throbbing headache, Yuuji couldn’t quite place why he was so relieved to see Megumi.

“You were making noises in your sleep again,” Megumi said matter of factly. It was apparently he was concerned, just refusing to show it. “Was it another nightmare?”

Yuuji pondered the question momentarily. This hadn’t been like the nightmares he’d had after Shibuya, he woke up in a cold sweat from those. Something strange had happened tonight but he had no placement for it. The memory of what had happened slipped right out of his minds eye.

“I don’t know, I feel like I might have actually had a good dream for once,” Yuuji wiped his eyes as he spoke. Looking around he could see that it was still dark in their room, maybe they would be able to get some more sleep. For some reason he had the feeling that there was something he should have remembered from his dream.

Megumi nodded, moving back to his own blanket on the floor.

“Well keep it to yourself, we need to actually get rest and I can’t with you just moaning over there,” Megumi muttered before covering himself up with a blanket and turning away from Yuuji. It wasn’t too long before he fell back asleep.

Yuuji laid back on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling above him. For some reason he felt less anxious about the day ahead of them. Despite not being able to remember the dream, it had to have been pleasant with how good he felt. He hoped that he could finish whatever relaxing dream he was having as he closed his eyes and waited for sleep once again.

#kenjaku #kenjaku x yuuji itadori #yuuji itadori #kenjaku x yuji itadori #jjk #jjk fanfic #dead dove do not eat #yuji itadori

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hughjidiot · 1 month

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Total Drama Level Up Chapter Four Sneak Peak

Chapter four of Total Drama Level Up is coming along nicely, and should be ready to go live next week around Easter. So here's a brief sneak peak for anyone interested.

The rec room was mostly empty when Wayne and Raj arrived. The only ones there this early were MK and Julia, seated at one of the many tables scattered about. Julia was on her phone, sorting through the numerous selfies she’d taken so far during the season, while MK had broken out a deck of cards and was engaged in a game of solitaire.

“Morning ladies,” Wayne said as he and Raj walked in, getting the girls’ attention.

“Uh, hey Wayne,” MK said, she and Julia giving them nods of acknowledgement. “Hey Raj.”

Having decided on the walk over that they might as well play since they’d used it for an excuse, the Hockey Bros made their way over to the ping-pong table. Coincidentally it happened to be closest to where MK and Julia were sitting.

“Sooo, what have you girls been up to since season two?” Wayne asked as he picked up a paddle.

MK and Julia exchanged glances, their expressions caught between confused and annoyed.

“Not much,” MK said simply, glancing towards the ping-pong table. “Turns out we don’t live too far from each other. We hang out every now and then, sometimes appear on each other’s livestreams.”

By now Wayne and Raj had taken their positions, the latter tossing a tiny white ball up and catching it repeatedly. They nodded at each other, and Raj served, sending the ball across to Wayne who swiftly returned it. The air became filled with the light, rapid taps of the paddles hitting the ball and the ball hitting the table.

“Cool, cool,” Wayne said, nodding. “Hey when I watched the season two finale back, Julia mentioned something about you guys starting a podcast?”

“We decided to put that on hold for a moment,” Julia said, feeling a pang of annoyance at being reminded of the plans she had made using her prize money. “Why the sudden interest in our personal lives?”

“Just being friendly,” Wayne said cooly, lunging to hit the ball back before it could sail past him. “You guys are Rajjy’s teammates and Raj is my bro, so that makes us like… teammates-in-law.”

“Not even close to how that works,” MK said flatly.

“Also we’re just teammates for now,” Julia stressed, craning her neck to fix Raj with a flat look.

Raj smirked at her in response, returning a powerful hit from Wayne.

“What about you MK?” He asked. “You get yourself a cool car yet?”

Julia sputtered and coughed, dropping her phone to the table with a clatter. Wayne guffawed, and even MK couldn’t help but snicker.

“Not that again,” Julia groaned, glaring. “Look, everyone has been taking that confessional completely out of context!”

“And what was the context?” Raj pressed.

“All I was saying that MK’s brain came up with a good plan! I was complimenting her for it!”

“So good that you’d date her brain for coming up with it,” Wayne said casually.

“Exac- wait no dammit!”

“How exactly were you gonna accomplish that anyways?” MK asked playfully. “Were you gonna do some mad science and put my brain in a jar? ‘Cause that might make driving a little tricky.”

“Don’t encourage them!”

Growling Julia stood up and started walking away, a still-chuckling MK following shortly behind. When she reached the door Raj finally missed a swing and the ping-pong ball went bouncing along the floor.

As the ball bounced in front of her, Julia raised her foot and brought it down fast.

“Oops, my bad,” Julia said bluntly, and left with MK.

Wayne and Raj stared at the crushed white disk on the dirty linoleum.

“Think we can reinflate it?” Wayne asked.

#hugh jidiot's fanfiction #total drama island #total drama fanfiction

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girltomboy · 5 months

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Last week's self help course was interesting enough but not actually super helpful. It kind of pissed me off at times because of its occasional corporate dick riding tendencies. It was a welcome break from work though (with free lunch), so that was something to appreciate it for. I finally gave M the bracelet I got for her and she loved it and thanked me and said she owes me a gift now but she doesn't 😭 I was the one who owed her a gift for her birthday plus last year's secret Santa when she got me an alien necklace even though she wasn't my Santa!

On Friday we finished early, so M and I had enough time to go to her apartment, listen to some coworkers' funny calls, make dinner and eat, go to a random concert at the Christmas fair opening, and drink mulled wine. We had Saturday plans, so we didn't stay out too long, but it was nice and fun to roam through the crowd with her and watch the concert.

On Saturday I woke up at noon so I only had enough time to eat something, take a shower, and roll 2 joints for me and M to smoke at her place 😭 the plan was to make mulled wine, but smoking together has been a long time goal of ours, and we finally had the opportunity, since her flatmate went home for like a month or two. We met up to go and buy mulled wine and Sunday breakfast supplies, mulled the wine, then her cousin came over to pick up some money she owed him. And then overstayed his welcome when he heard I was staying over AND we were gonna order food. And he also messed up our plans to order from this new fast food place we've been talking about for ages, and instead convinced us to order from the cheapest, worst place 🤮 I'm pretty sure I got some sort of skin allergy from that fake cheeseburger I had, and it wouldn't even be the first time. Like a few hours later I saw a spot near my mouth that looked like a hickey but obviously wasn't one. Idk if it's still there 🤡 but I'm never eating from that place again.

Anyway, M's cousin wasn't even getting our jokes and just spent a few hours drinking cider and eating a grilled cheese wrap, and gossiping about M's flatmate. When he finally left, M and I went out on the balcony to smoke and we couldn't stop laughing, we kept having the exact same thoughts at the exact same time, our one shared brain cell kept getting activated like a ping pong ball between our skulls. When we went back inside we had to put on the videos we'd watched with her cousin again because they were just too funny and her cousin's presence prevented us from appreciating them to the fullest extent.

So we spent like hours watching random funny videos on youtube, then we decided to watch a horror movie we'd been wanting to watch at the cinema for ages, but we could never find the right tickets for it. So we watched It Lives Inside, and it was probably the worst horror movie I've ever seen in my entire life, hands down. I will make a separate post about it, but god I don't think I've seen a GOOD like GOOD GOOD horror movie from this year so far. They've all been either just bearable or downright awful like I can't believe the current state of horror. Anyway, it was entertaining because we kept laughing at the translated captions, and it was bad enough to tire us out. Afterwards M kept asking me what else I wanted to watch, and I was already sleepy so I kept being like idk whatever you want, and we got stuck in this cycle of indecision, but we ended up going to sleep.

On Sunday we woke up at 8 then went back to sleep until 11, M scrolled through youtube looking at food and I played with her little hamster. Then we made breakfast, ate, watched some more youtube videos, and I left. I ended up smoking the second joint at home by myself, I ate some snacks I had from last week and played video games with my friends the whole evening. They pissed me off a lot, not just because of the game. At some point my bf yelled and I told him to shut up and he got more pissed off, which made me upset and I'm only gonna talk to him after he apologizes. Like I'm just not gonna accept that u yell when you're angry at a game, especially when it's your fault + you complain and hate it when other people yell. And he was like "I'm not gonna change how I react" and "expect to have other fights about this" umm I really don't think that's gonna happen lol. What do you think goes through my head when the person I'm in a relationship with says those things to me? Am I just gonna be like "okay! yay🤗" Like don't be surprised that I'm upset with you and not speaking to you if you downright refuse to work on your toddler reactions and also warn me of future conflicts? Ur gonna be fighting your own demons cause I won't be there for that

#im still not talking to him #he tried to call me this morning but im back to work and not in the mood #to delay my work just to not get an apology again #and have a strained conversation pretending that nothing happened and that im not upset #like i defend you behind your back to my family and you say this shit to me? i should tell him the opinion they have of him

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sassy-cass-16 · 3 years

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the absolute neck-splitting whiplash of going from Chris Pratt as Mario to Venom at a queer rave is going to kill me

#venom #Mario #Chris pratt #mario movie #venom 2 #this week has been a game of ping pong and my brain is the ball

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the-art-of-styles · 3 years

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Ping-Pong

✧ Harry’s a foster kid who always seem to get abandoned until this particular family stays with him, but he can’t seem to trust them. Aylin, the girl across the street, talks too much and her parents fight a lot more. Both of them want to just get out of their houses, and playing ping-pong on the town’s fair brings them together for years.

Word count: 2144

Warnings: — (for now)

Part I (you’re here!)

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

A/N: hi ! this will be a short story so there will be multiple parts, obviously lol. there will be a number on the beginning of each chapter which means what age they are. I know the description makes it seem a bit boring but honestly is fluff and stuff like that :) hope u like it

Harry's head vibrated as he was leaning against the window while the car seemed to be cruising through sky, sea, and land, fighting storms and a giant monster when in truth they were just passing a dirt road.

Lilian, who was sitting co-pilot, looked back with fireworks exploding in her eyes every time she saw Harry, while Dev squeezed his wife hand tightly, her cheeks burning from the prominent smile that adorned her lips, which has remained intact since they left the place where the foster kids wait for someone to take pity on them and take them home. A real home.

On the other hand, the emotion was the least throbbing in the being of the boy, because he has already lived this process twice, three counting now and he knows that it will end in dissolving the existing family—the family by blood and then later go back to the orphanage and repeat the same process over and over and over again.

Well that's what he thinks. How could he not? The two families who took him in threw him out again like a stranded dog in search of the warmth of real love. So no, Harry doesn't want to allow himself to get excited and think that maybe they will keep him (yes, as an object) and that maybe they will love him and that maybe he will love them and that maybe Lilian will make him cookies with a glass of milk when he feels bad or that maybe Dev would teach him to cook or do his homework and that maybe everything will be fine.

"We have a lemon pie waiting for you at home, we — we don't know if you like it, I hope you like it, we prepared it with a lot of love for you, Harry."

"We prepared?" Dev laughed and Lilian rolled her eyes in amusement. "It would sound better if you say that I prepared, don't you think?" He looked in the mirror at Harry. "Champ, the kitchen almost burned down! Doing a lemon pie! Can you believe it?"

The curly-headed simply looked directly at Dev in the rearview mirror and tried to smile at him, which did not work and managed to slowly hide his prominent smile, Lilian giving him another firm grip on his hand and smiling at him with sorrow because deep down they both know that Harry isn't going to trust them just like that. He has felt used, but he also think he's useless, people have abandoned him, he doesn't have parents or a real family, so they understand.

And they will wait for him to open up, because having a child on their own was something that, unfortunately, they could not fulfill.

Aylin's small hands covered both of her ears as she hid under the covers, without first making sure to close the door to her room. Her eyes were tight and a melody came from her lips that she sang every time this happened; but even so, the screams and loud words coming from the floor below her were not drowned out and managed to enter her brain.

It has been a full two weeks now where breakfast, lunch, and dinner were a big plate of arguments from her parents. Now, apparently, it also came in snacks.

Another sound was added to her brain, they were more murmurs and an engine being turned off, although the murmurs were not from her incredibly angry parents, but from some who were calm and trying to gain the trust of a new family member.

Curious as always, like a monkey hanging from a tree, she got out of it (that is, her bed) and went to the window where her big eyes filmed a new scene that she had never seen before: the Evans were getting out of their car with a boy in a black joggers and jumper, dirty sneakers, and a hat. Aylin's mouth parted slightly, surprised that the Evans had never mentioned a cousin or that they had a godson.

She doesn't know how long she was watching them, but she was fed up because now the only staging was the house across the street and the car parked outside was already inside the tiny garage.

Even her parents' screaming stopped, so she supposed that the hands of the clock turned the clock several times in a row and extremely fast; speed of light, up to.

Suddenly, her eyes caught how the same boy from a while ago came out and closed the front door ever so softly, squeezing his eyes a little as there was no longer any open space between the frame and the wood, placing a hand on his chest and releasing all the air in his lungs. Then, he put on the hood that came with his jumper and started walking. Aylin, with a smile on her lips, ran down the stairs and also left, obnoxious about the fact that her parents don't even care where their thirteen-year-old daughter will go alone, but that was already typical.

The truth is that lately she has been feeling lonely, her house no longer feels like home and love was not a prominent thing in her heart, so the opportunity to be with someone who is probably her own age coming at a silver tray for her is something she cannot throw away, so jogging and running short of breath to reach the boy, Aylin yelled:

"Hey! Wait! You! Wait – please!"

Harry stopped walking and turning his torso a few degrees and pulling his hood off, he made eye contact with Aylin, who was still jogging with one hand outstretched in a 'stop please I'm dying' sign.

"Um. . ." he started looking behind her in case Lilian or Dev sent the stranger after him. "Do you need help or. . .?"

"You arrived with the Evans, didn't you?"

"Er, yes."

"Are you their godson? Cousin? They never told me about a cousin," Aylin said the last more to herself, pursing her lips.

"Um. . . I'm—" Harry debated whether to admit that he was taken in from an orphanage or that he was a cousin — a godson, whatever. He thought that, thanks to past experiences, they will get rid of him in about three weeks, or a month, or even less, so: "I'm a. . . godson. Yes. That's what I am."

"Oh, cool!" It wasn't. Aylin's illusions of having a new friend were crushed like an ant walking through a crowd, because if he was a godson then he wouldn't stay that long, anyway, it doesn't hurt to befriend him in the time that remains. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. I wanted to walk— "

"Cool! Let's walk together. I'm Aylin. What's your name? There's this really cool fair at the center of the town, it has a loooot of cool games and cool stuff! Let's go there!"

". . . alone." Harry's word was lost with the wind as Aylin wasted no time in entwining her arm with his to pull him and walk with him while smiling from ear to ear for her new friend; on the other hand, Harry grumbled and what he wanted the most was to have duct tape to place it on the girl's mouth, she never stopped talking!

". . . And so the teacher farted and everyone laughed and— look! We arrived!"

The two (still with arms intertwined) were standing in front of the start of the fair: lots of people, perhaps everyone who lives here in this small town came and went, children with cotton candy or candied apples, teenagers joking with their friends and parents waiting for the adrenaline rush in their children's bodies to relax. Immediately one could see the great white ferris wheel, the biggest game of all.

"There are so many games!" Aylin kept talking as the two of them walked through the crowd. Harry must admit that his mood improved a bit when he saw all the attractions and happy faces and the smell of candy, but he stopped short when he saw an unoccupied ping-pong table, when she noticed this, she looked at the boy and smiled. "You like ping-pong, huh?" He nodded. "Me too! Let's play!"

And so now the two of them were at either end of the table, paddle in hand, Aylin the black one and Harry the red one, the latter holding the white ball in his left hand, his tongue peeking out the side of his lips as he concentrated to make a good shot.

Although it's hard to concentrate when she keeps talking, and talking, and talking.

Some say it's a quality, others say it's irritating, but she can't help it, her tongue is never in a knot and words always roll down from it as easily as if they were made of butter. Aylin knows well how talkative she is, and there are times when she hates such quality because she does not know when to stop talking, and sometimes, inadvertently, she begins to talk about personal problems. . . like now.

They were both quite good at playing ping-pong, their wrists moved with fluidity and a technique that was not naive at all, the harmony of the game rarely was cut off and the ball rolled on the floor where one of the two had to come out chasing after it like an idiot.

"My parents have been arguing a lot lately. I mean, they always argue but now it's like a lot, everyday. Last night," ping–, "I heard them saying some things. I think my dad is with. . . you know. . . another woman,"–pong.

"They will probably divorce. I've seen it. . . in movies! Yeah. . . movies."

Aylin stopped the game by catching the ball and setting her paddle on the blue table. Harry frowned. "Why did you stop?"

"A-are my parents going to break up?"

Harry swallowed the accumulated saliva inside his mouth as he realized that Aylin's usually lively eyes had now passed away and a layer of tears was the only thing that made them shine.

"I, um, er, I mean, they probably will— not! They'll probably figure it, uh, out?" By then, the girl's cheeks had turned red as a watermelon and tears were already streaming down her cheeks like a winter storm, placing a hand over her mouth and running off, losing herself in the crowd.

Harry's mouth fell open in agape as guilt filled his heart. He wanted her to be quiet, but not in this way, so the only thing he could think of was to chase her, although it will be difficult to find her when there are hundreds of people running from one place to another and many loud sounds.

"Aylin! Aylin! Where are you Aylin?!"

Now he was getting desperate: according to the watch that was stolen from one of the houses he was in, twelve minutes have passed since he went out in search, but without being able to find the treasure. Thousands of situations and thoughts crossed his mind: she's lost, it's your fault, she was kidnapped, it's your fault, maybe she's dead, it's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault.

In the end, it seems like it's always Harry's fault.

Then he saw her. She was sitting on the ground, the darkness playing in her favor, her knees bent toward her chest and her arms hugging herself.

In the end, it seems that Aylin will always have to hug herself.

He hadn't even noticed when his feet guided him to one of the tent shops and now he had a cotton candy in one hand and a candied apple in the other. He had no idea where he got the money from; he just rummaged in his pockets and voilà! Money.

Harry sat next to her somewhat nervous, he didn't know what to say, or how to act, what he should think, less how to give her what he bought her. Aylin already knew of his presence, but said nothing.

"Ejm, I — I bought you this, I'm not sure if you like cotton candy more or candied apple. . . uh, which one?"

She sniffed her nose that looked like Rudolph the reindeer's nose and turned her head to look at Harry. Her eyes were swollen and from time to time she would shake from the force (and consistency) of her crying.

Slowly, with her index finger, she pointed, surprisingly shy at the cotton candy. Harry smirked because at least she accepted his ‘forgive me gift’. He kept the apple and the two of them silently began to eat the sweets.

And Harry thought that perhaps he wanted to hear her speak more, since now there was no sound between the two, not even of her breathing, nor of her thoughts. But at least she ate with him.

#harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #harry styles blurbs #harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #fanfiction

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hereforjj · 4 years

Text

First Kiss | JJ x reader

attn: some swearing, underage drinking, making out, some sex

word count: 2.0 k

I have never ever done this before. Soo like i have no clue what i'm doing i just started to write and what ever came out, just came out! So yeah here we go!

*Ding* as your phone vibrates, its Sarah inviting you to her house for the weekend to party and hang out. These last couple of weeks have been tough, you have been struggling with your family and really needed this time with some friends to get absolutely trashed.

It's now Friday and Sarah is on her way to come pick you up to go and party at her place. Figure 8 is the side of the island where you live, but you don't really feel like you fit in there. All the money, and clothes, and materialistic stuff are not really your thing. She pulls up and you bolt out the door heading for her car. “Open the trunk” yelling at her over the loud music blaring through the speakers.

Driving back to her house she is telling you all the people who are going to be at the party/ hang out tonight. “So Kiara is going to be there, John B, Pope, possible Rafe because he is lonely and annoying, and JJ too.”

“I'm so excited I miss the gang!”

“I turned my garage into a party garage and I have so many fun drunk games to play” Sarah said while clapping her hands excitedly.

“Me too! I want to get so wasted that I can’t remember a thing.”

“We will see about that.” Sarah said in a very sarcastic tone.

Everytime alcohol is involved, you automatically turn into the mother of the group and tonight you are making sure it’s you who is going to need mothering!

The car comes speeding down her driveway as both of you cannot wait for the others to arrive so you can get drunk as fuck tonight! Bottles on bottles are placed up on the bar table ready to be demolished by the end of the night.

Finally the whole gang arrives at Sarah's and the night can truly begin! You had brought Drunk Jenga, and “New Phone, Who Dis?” Everybody grabbed their drink of choice and sat around the folding table to play some drunk games.

A few rounds of Jenga go by and everybody really gets into the mood of intoxication. But you have noticed every once and awhile you would feel a pair of eyes looking at you from across the table. Maybe you were just paranoid or it was just the alcohol talking. As you look around you can clearly see JJ just casually looking at you and giving you a little smirk when you caught him. Was he like trying to flirt with you? You did think he was kind of cute. Blonde hair really is your weakness with guys.

A few more rounds go by and everybody is super drunk at this point. JJ stands up and heads to the ping pong table across the garage.

“Y/N, come on let's see who will win” JJ playfully yells at you.

“Bro I don't want to see you get your ass kicked” you VERY confidently say as you get up and stumble from your chair.

“You can't even stand up straight, and you think you can kick my ass right now? Ha very funny lets go” he says as he can't contain his laughter at you almost falling on your face.

You have one hand on your bottle of vodka and the other tightly gripping the ping pong paddle. JJ is intensely staring you down as he serves the ball to you and without hesitation you hit it 10 times harder back at him. “DAMNN Y/N, didnt think you had that strength in you.” At this point you are CERTAIN you have a thing for JJ Maybank and that you want him to be with you tonight.

The others are all playing more drunk games and laughing hysterically. JJ comes to your side of the table and whispers in your ear “i don't think they will notice if we went upstairs.” “yeah they won't notice we are gone” you said as he grabbed your hand and pulled you out of the garage and up the stairs to a little hang out. Your heart is racing and thoughts keep running through your head. ‘What is happening right now, am i really going upstairs alone with JJ? What are we going to do up here. I don't know but i kind of like it.’ You couldn't shut your brain off long enough to figure out what was really going on.

He found a switch that turned on these little twinkle lights placed all around the room. It was really cute and romantic. “I thought this would be a good place for us to go and be alone for a little bit Y/N.” JJ said as you both find a cozy place to sit down. “Yeah this is really nice up here. Super cute and a little romantic actually.” You have known JJ for a few months now, ever since Sarah and John B started dating, and you always thought that the blonde hair and cute eyed guy was pretty attractive. Confidence was not your strongest quality and always thought that you will never find a guy who liked you. At this moment in time, you were thinking you were wrong.

“So Y/N, ever since my crew and you guys have started to hang out more, I thought you were pretty cute and I would love to get to know you some more” JJ said nervously, but the alcohol in his system made him seem very confident with every word that came out of his mouth. “Really? You think I'm cute? Wow no boy has ever said that to me before” you felt some butterflies in your stomach as you have never heard those words come out of a boys mouth before. “I really do Y/N, you are beautiful and i would like to hang out with you more often and see where this can go” The alcohol in your body was really the saving grace here because without it, none of this would have happened!

Hours pass by as you two just sit and talk about life and all the things going on in the world. “Y/N, can i kiss you?” JJ asked in a very respectful tone. “Absolutely” you said very happily. He pushes his lips against yours very soft and slowly at first. It becomes stronger as time passes by. He lets his lips fall off yours, looks into your eyes, and goes right back in for a stronger more passionate kiss. You feel his tongue glide across your lip as you open your mouth slightly to let it in and feel him getting closer to you.

He reaches his hands up from around your waist to the back of your hair, giving it a big but gentle pull. You take your hands from his legs to the back of his neck and run your fingers through his beautiful blonde hair. This is the moment you have been dreaming about, your real and true first kiss. As time is passing on by and you are both passionately intertwined with each other, he lays you down gently and looks into your eyes and says quietly “you want to do this?” replying with a head nod he sits up and takes off his shirt and then places his hands behind your back to lift yours “up” he says and he grabs your shirt and pulls it over your head. You swear he can hear your heart beating out of your chest and the butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

He reaches back behind you to unhook your bra and throws it where your shirts lay. JJ takes in your body laying there in front of him. “Wow, you look amazing Y/N” he said in a light tone that really made you feel safe. You sit up a bit and place your cold fingers on the button of his shorts to unhook them and pull them down. You can start to see his bulge poking through his boxers as you pull down his shorts. Next you wrap your hands on the waistband of his boxers and pull them down as his dick springs out of them. He reaches down to push you down on your back. He then grabs your shorts and looks at you to make sure you are still ok with it. You give him a slight nod as you bite your bottom lip and he pulls your shorts down. JJ then goes back up your legs and pulls down your underwear and gives you a big passionate kiss.

You can feel him place two fingers down to your sensitive spot, you roll your head back as he lets his fingers enter you. Letting out a small moan and when you do, you suddenly remember your friends are right down stairs and try to silent your sounds. In one swift motion JJ pulls out his fingers and lets his member enter you. Slowing down his pace as he begins. Arching your back he places his chest against yours and lets his pace get faster and stronger. “Oh fuck. you’re tight Y/N” he says letting his thrusts get even faster. “I-im- im so close JJ” you say as breathing is getting harder to control.

JJ gets more and more rough as you are reaching your high. Next thing you know JJ releases inside of you as you reach your climax. Panting, he lays down right beside you and gives you a passionate kiss on the forehead. “Wow that, that was amazing” you said looking at him in those big beautiful eyes. “That was great Y/N! You were great!” Both of you catching your breath you sit up and say “maybe we should get dressed and head back down there to make sure they are all doing okay.”

“ahh man but I want to stay and cuddle with you all night!” he said in a pouty tone

“How about we go check on them and then head back up here!?”

“Okay fine! But let's hurry!” JJ said, trying to find his clothes he tossed around.

You both get dressed and head down stairs and back to the party garage. Everybody is up dancing around to the loud music still playing while taking huge swigs from their bottles of liquor. You whisper to JJ “think they noticed we were gone?” “Nah they are too drunk to realize we were missing.” he whispered back. Grabbing a bottle off the bar table, you make your way to the dance circle while JJ goes and hangs with the boys on their side of the dance circle. John B is glancing back and forth between you and JJ for a little bit and then blurts out “HOLY SHIT I THINK THEY JUST HAD SEX!!” Your face gets immediately red and JJ’s eyes get big as you look at each other. The room fell silent for what seemed like forever and then all of a sudden everybody started cheering and yelling for you guys! JJ gives you a big smile and you give him a smile back. He grabs your hand and leads you back up the stairs.

He yells back to everybody “drink some water bitches, and goodnight yall!” the hoops and hollers grow silent as you guys make your way back up the stairs to lay down for the night. JJ makes a nice fluffy fort out of all the blankets and pillows, the perfect size for the both of you to fit so comfortably. He wraps his arms around your body and pulls you in tightly, giving you a kiss on your cheek and whispering “goodnight Y/N”. “goodnight JJ” you said back as you turn and give him a little kiss on his nose.

#jj #jj maybank #outer banks #rudy pankow #jj outer banks #netflix #jj x reader #jj imagine #jj maybank x reader #I have no clue what im doing #im sorry #idk whats going on #outer banks netflix #rudypankow #jjmaybank

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tasteslikepepsicola · 5 years

Text

Somebody Else (Sodapop Curtis x Reader Part 4)

Part 3 - please read before proceeding to read this chapter

Y/N and Steve are together, and haven’t heard from Sodapop in weeks, everything should be going great for the new couple, but something seems wrong.

Word Count: 1,700+

Warnings: slight angst, mentions of drugs and alcohol

Authors Note: wow wow wow! I’m really sorry this took so long! I actually had half of this written a couple weeks ago, and decided I hated the direction I took it in, so scrapped it and had to start from scratch. I also started school, meaning I had less free time to write, and I just wanted to make sure it was perfect before I posted it. Next part coming soon! Thank you for supporting me <3 I love you. Oh! and ~ please send in some requests ~ I love to write for ideas you guys may have. Also, I promise the name will make sense eventually. Anyways, enjoy the story!

Tears stream down her cheeks and Y/N chokes back a sob, racing down the steps of the Curtis home as fast as she can, ignoring Sodapop calling and chasing after her. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t listen to a half-assed apology from him. She couldn’t feel his intense stare, or deal with the absolute hurt she saw in his eyes when she told him about Steve. Flashbacks replay in her mind through short montages. Steve grabbing her waist, pulling their bodies so close. Sodapops glossed over eyes as he drunkenly stared at her from across his dimly lit kitchen. The sharp, abrupt sound of Ponyboy startling her awake.

And most of all, the heartbreak in Sodapops voice when he told her, He has a part of you now. A part of you that you can’t get back. Something you can’t give me anymore.

She wanted to be mad, she really wanted to. She knew that his statement was dumb, outdated, ignorant even. But she couldn’t help but feel that deep down he was right. She lost her virginity to a boy she didn’t love, to distract herself from the boy she did. How could it get any worse than that?

She doesn’t stop running until she is at the end of his street, turning the corner when she slams into something, hard. She falls backwards, flat on her ass, and cradles her head that just collided with another runners.

Through the pounding noise and feeling in her head, she hears someone ask, “Y/N?” She rubs her eyes to clear them of the dizziness and tears that still fall.

“Steve?” she wonders aloud.

“Jesus,” he says, now noticing her tear stained cheeks. “What’s wrong, baby? Are you okay?” He outreaches his hand to her, helping her to her feet.

“Everything is so screwed up,” she says.

He pulls her into a tight hug, holding her as she lets herself cry into his shoulder. Neither of them says anything for a while, each enjoying the others comforting presence. It’s almost peaceful, until Y/N feels Steve pull away. She looks up at him, confused. She notices him staring past her, and when she finally turns around she sees Sodapop, about ten feet away, still catching his breath, staring sadly at them.

“Sodapop-” Steve starts, walking towards him. Sodapop immediately turns the other direction and Steve begins walking after him, fast.

When he reaches his best friend, Steve places a hand on Soda’s arm, in an effort to get him to stop.

“Sodapop please just wait a minute.” Steve says.

“Forget it Steve, I don’t have anything to say to you two.”

Y/N makes her way towards the pair, “Sodapop, please, we can work through this if you just listen.” She isn’t quite sure how she could be so angry at him and still not be able to face him walking away from her.

Sodapop turns around swiftly at the sound of her voice.

One last look of betrayal flashes through his eyes, and Y/N is at last, speechless. The two of them don’t need to say anything, because they both already know, there’s nothing to be said anymore. And so, she watches him walk away, again. This time, the world is turning, her feet are on the ground, and this is real. And the distance between them is only getting greater as he walks away from her, and she doesn’t follow after him.

*****

It’s been five weeks since Y/N saw Soda last. And besides the remaining longing for someone else, things with Steve had been going great. They had been going to the movies, taking long walks accompanied by longer talks, and Steve had even surprised her with a picnic in a grassy field that they had found on one of their walks. Y/N could feel herself starting to truly move on. For the first time in years, someone else was on her mind besides him.

There were only a few weeks left in the Summer, meaning it would be filled with the last parties of the season. On this particular Saturday night, Y/N was accompanying Steve to a party at Buck’s. She was wearing her hair straightened, (the way Steve liked it,) and a tight, square neck, red dress. She and Steve held hands as they walked into the party, one of many they had attended that Summer together. They scanned the room for Dallas and Two-Bit, who they planned on meeting there tonight. By now, they had established themselves as a bit of an it-couple, everyone wanted what they had. They were hot, happy, and from what everyone could see, they were in love.

Although, nobody knew the truth. Neither Steve nor Y/N had admitted their love for the other yet, and for no reason other than the presence of an unshakeable feeling that still, they were doing something wrong, like an inextricable weight they were carrying around.

The party was loud, crowded, and smelled of marajuana, boos and body odor. Before her and Steve became an item, Y/N rarely partied. Standing in that red dress, watching a game of beer pong being played by Steve, Jess, Two-Bit and Dally- Y/N found herself reminiscing about the Saturday nights she had spent curled up on the couch at the Curtis house. While everyone went out, she and Sodapop would stay behind, and just enjoy the others presence. She shook her head, clearing the thought from her brain. It was true that Y/N had been thinking about Sodapop less these past few weeks, but that didn’t mean from time to time something would remind her of him.

The music changed from upbeat and intense, to slower and sweet, as “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” by Paul Anka started playing. The room suddenly filled with couples making their way to the center of the room, beginning to sway to the beat. Steve finished his game with one last bounce of a ping pong ball, making him a winner. He cheered and high fived Jess, and then made his way over to Y/N, grabbing her hips and pulling her in for a quick kiss.

“Dance with me, beautiful?” he hums.

She smiles, taking his hand, and following his lead to the center of the room. As the beat picked up, he rested his hands on her waist, she hooked her arms around his neck, and stared up at him through thick eyelashes. They swayed back and forth, as he moved one of his hands to rest on the small of her back.

“Y/N…” Steve started.

“Steve,” she quipped back.

“I care about you so much,”

“I care about you too, hone.”

“There's something I want to tell you-” he started.

Suddenly, Y/N smelled an all too familiar cologne, and the boy who smelled like roses and gasoline made his way towards the crowd and past Steve and Y/N. She wondered if Sodapop saw them, was he coming to them? Her question was partially answered as Soda walked right by them, briefly pausing to put his hand on Y/N’s shoulder, in what looked like an attempt to make his way through the crowd better.

Steve and Y/N exchanged a glance, and she thought to herself, he must know what he’s doing. Why did he even show up here? He knew we would be here, and he hasn’t been to a party since...since that night. And he hasn’t talked to either of us since that day on the street outside his house...what's his motive?

And then, like a ton of bricks, it hit Y/N, that maybe he’s just here because its a party. That maybe, he actually didn’t see his two oldest friends, because that isn’t what they were to him anymore. They were all just strangers, and he came here to have a good time, maybe meet a girl, and for once, it wasn’t because of or about her.

No longer wanting to think about this awkward situation, and completely forgetting Steve was trying to tell her something, Y/N put her head on his shoulder, her eyes just barely being able to peer over him, as he held her so close.

The music was still playing, and more people continued to make their way onto the dance floor.

“Y/N?” Steve asked once more.

“Yes?” she questioned, not moving her head from its position on his shoulder.

“I- I love you, Y/N,” Steve whispered softly.

Y/N is stunned for a minute, unsure of what to say. She still had so much to figure out. No, she shouldn’t, it should be clear who she loves by now. But- why doesn’t it seem to be?

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sodapop leading some girl to the dance floor, her giggling, looking back at her friends with a blush on her face, as Sodapop grins with satisfaction. He had only been here for two minutes, how had he already found a girl thats drooling all over him?

And then, it's clear, Sodapop has moved on, and so should she.

Y/N takes her head away from Steve's body, and stares into his deep, green eyes.

“You love me?” she asks.

“I love you,” he repeats.

“I love you, too.” she says, as he breaks out into one of the biggest smiles she had ever seen him wear.

He grabs her hand, holding it up, intertwined with his own, and turns to the couple next to them, showing their hands, and loudly exclaiming, “She loves me!”

They look utterly confused, but his enthusiasm is endearing.

“Yes, I love you, so can you please come back to Earth and kiss me already?” she tells him, playfully grabbing him by the collar and making him look at her.

“Say it again.” he teases.

“Oh my god,” she rolls her eyes, unable to control her laughter.

“Say it, Y/N.”

“Oh my god! I love you Steve Randle, now kiss me you idiot!”

And finally, he connects their lips as the music dies, and the rest of the world fades away; so much in fact, that neither of them feels Sodapop’s burning gaze on them, and neither knows that his heart had just shattered into a million pieces.

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tb5-heavenward · 5 years

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The Ace Advantage

Being a sequel to An Elegant Escapade, concerning the friendship between John and Penelope, and the additional dimension of similar between Gordon and Kayo.

so we’re doing this thing again! art via the absolutely lovely @oolongteamix. I don’t know how this one’s gonna roll out, because I’ve only just lately come around to the idea of how I want to actually write it, but then, EE took me a whole entire year to write, and changed a great deal over its course. anyway! I’ve tried to kick this one back to life various times in various ways, when truthfully the best way for me to get anything written is just to start publishing. So here’s hoping.

part one - wardrobes and warnings

Wherein John is surprised by the proposition of murder and Kayo is wise in the ways of women. Gordon makes an inaccurate assumption. Penelope declares war.

Creighton-Ward Manor has guestrooms to spare, even when there are seven guests in total. It's probably just a coincidence that John's room happens to face the tennis court; that the high, white-mullioned window seems as though it's aligned perfectly with the center line, neat and bright and pointed straight at him.

The tennis court did not exist a week ago.

John's checked. Initially he'd just doubted his memory---it's been a long time since he last had occasion to actually visit Creighton-Ward Manor, and the fact that he didn't remember a tennis court may not have meant anything at all. But he'd gone back over the satellite footage, just on a hunch, and had been surprised when he only need to step it back by about a week to see the blank patch of lawn, now occupied by a regulation tennis court, neatly bounded in by perfectly trimmed hedges.

The freshness of the painted lines should've been his first clue, probably. Or maybe the fact that Penelope had made a very specific point of inviting the entire family for a visit in the first place. That's not entirely out of the normal, but generally Penelope saves her bulk invitations for later in the year, to provide a sort of surrogate winter for the Tracy family, confined as they are to an island in the subtropics, and lacking a great deal of seasonal variation as they do.

They also lack the sort of space that would be devoted to a tennis court, back home, although a tennis court is certainly the sort of thing that they might be expected to have, a standard accoutrement of the ultrarich. Instead they have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, which may or may not be redundant, considering they live in the middle of the South Pacific. But his brother is a gold medal Olympian for swimming, whereas John's only sort of a vaguely talented amateur at tennis, and not often home besides. So he's not especially bothered by the fact that they have a swimming pool instead of a tennis court.

So even if it's only a week old, and even if it he's just happened to notice it, initially John doesn't make particular note of the fact that Penny's had a tennis court put in. It's the sort of thing the English aristocracy might be expected to have. He's only even seen it in the first place because he happened to catch a glimpse of it outside his bedroom window. John plays, certainly, but he hasn't played since college. Specifically, he hasn't played since Oxford. Now that he thinks of it, the last time he played tennis, he played with Penny.

The neatly folded and pressed set of tennis whites on the quilted bedspread are slightly less subtle. The tennis racket leaning against the bedside table looks suspiciously like the one he'd played with in college, nearly six years ago now.

As he picks it up, attempting to approximate something like fond nostalgia, the door of the wardrobe in the corner of the room pops open and Penelope unfolds herself from inside it, and just about gives John a heart attack.

"Oh, do calm down, John," Penny chides, in answer to his rather undignified yelp, as though it's John's fault for not expecting that she would be lying in wait in the wardrobe. Her hands smooth over her immaculate white skirt, its pleats so sharply creased that her hands should come away bloody. Her shirt is similarly pristine, pure, snowy white, rouched in the front in a way that flatters her petite figure. Her wrists are bare of their usual gold adornments, and instead she's got a pair of terry cloth sweatbands. The gleam in her eyes is the sort that belongs to the kind of person who lurks in wardrobes as a matter of course.

She also seems absolutely unimpressed by the fact that he'd been about to hit her in the face with his tennis racket, not that he expects he would've actually managed it.

"What are you---what---why?" John demands, lowering the racket and glaring down at the Lady Penelope; dear friend, cherished companion, frequent and insistent intruder into the depths of John's private life.

"Because I didn't want your brother to see me coming in here," Penelope answers pleasantly, and crosses the room to pick up the shirt she's laid out for him on the bed. She gives him a critical once over, then holds it up to measure it against his torso, frowning slightly as she tugs at the shoulders of the white polo. She tuts softly for some reason he can't perceive, and then tosses it aside. "You're always broader across the shoulders than I remember, but never mind, this will do. Do you still serve right-handed?"

John's still snagged on the first point, though as Penelope picks up a pair of tennis shorts that suggest that she doesn't remember the length of his legs, either, he makes a note to make sure he points that out. "None of my brothers think you and I are a thing. No one's thought that in forever, so who cares if you're seen coming in here? It's your damn house. Everybody knows we're just friends." His brain catches up to the end of the question and he adds "And...I don't know, probably? Is that something that changes? I haven't played in years, Penelope."

Penelope rolls her eyes and crosses the room again, this time to prudently ensure that the door is solidly closed. "Not your brothers, your brother. Gordon. I put him in the room at the end of the hall and I can't chance him seeing me in here. I need your help."

"With what?"

Her answering smile is the sort of perfectly wicked expression that John's all too familiar with. It belongs to the version of Penelope that plots and schemes and pops out of wardrobes. It flashes up when she looks at the world around her, or more accurately the unfortunate people inhabiting it, and comes to the conclusion that she's been wronged in some way, and that the only course available is to enact vicious, bloody vengeance. Her hands clasp together before her, fingers interlacing in a manner that's almost prayerful. She's all purity and piety and sweetness and light as she answers, "Why, John, dearest. We're going to murder the little bastard."

The trouble had started, as trouble so frequently does, with Gordon. Because Penelope had said something, and Gordon had laughed.

Kayo sits cross-legged at the foot of her (four poster, canopied) bed, and watches a tennis ball popping up towards the vaulted ceiling, and then back down again. Gordon's lying flat on his back on the floor of her room, and she's not sure where he came by the tennis ball or why he's throwing it at the ceiling. It's almost a full twelve feet, straight up and back down again, and each and every time, her brother catches it without the slightest break in rhythm.

It's this sort of easy, casual athleticism that's gotten Gordon in this predicament in the first place. The fact that this is a quality that she and Gordon share is what has him trying to recruit her to his cause.

He's made his case, and he's made it seem pretty compelling, but there's a major problem with his proposal. Actually there are several, but one in particular stands out in Kayo's mind. She reaches out and snatches the ball out of midair, sandwiches it between her palms as Gordon sits up.

"You do realize that I don't actually know how to play tennis, Gordon?"

Gordon isn't concerned, and he breaks into a grin. "Ping pong, but bigger."

"I didn't think you played tennis, either."

Gordon shrugs. "How hard can it be? If Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward thinks she's good enough at the game to merit putting in her own damn tennis court, then you better believe I'm gonna make her prove it."

The timeline of events, as far as Kayo's been able to determine, started with a call between Penelope and Gordon, a few weeks back. The pair of them had both been occupied with fairly tedious elements of their respective occupations---an eighteen-hour stakeout in Belarus and the careful rehabilitation of a slowly rallying coral reef, respectively---and to hear Gordon tell it, they were just chatting to pass the time. Lady Penelope had idly mentioned that she was thinking of having a tennis court put in.

And Gordon had laughed.

Because---he had told Kayo, just the same as he'd told Penelope---it's a ridiculous affectation. A tennis court. Who did she propose to play with, anyway? He couldn't even imagine any of her society friends wanting to work up a sweat or risk breaking a nail, bounding back and forth after fuzzy neon balls. Specifically---well maybe, anyway, he doesn't actually quite remember, but the point is she'd definitely overreacted---he might've said "what the hell would you want with a tennis court?" It's possible that the emphasis laid on the you had been a rather disparaging sort. It's possible he'd made some comment about Sherbet getting more use out of it than Penelope would. It's possible these remarks were poorly received.

Penelope had frostily informed him that she had played in college, and that lately she'd found herself missing it and in want of some vigorous exercise. Gordon, occasionally capable of misreading signals utterly and entirely, had pointed out that her college career was six years ago, and that the whimsical and nostalgic want of a tennis court was only going to result in a great deal of wasted clay, for skills that had likely turned to so much more powdery red dust.

"Because women just love to be condescended to about their hobbies and interests," Kayo comments dryly, and drops the tennis ball back down, attempts to bounce it off Gordon's face. He's too quick, catches it before it hits his nose, and grins at her. Of all her adopted brothers, Gordon's the nearest to her own age, only a few weeks her elder. Still. There are certain subjects upon which Kayo is infinitely the wiser. "And why should she have to prove anything at all to you, exactly?"

Gordon has the audacity to frown and wave a finger at her. "Oh, no no no. No. No, you're not making me into the asshole here, Kay. She started it. She went ahead and had the damn thing put in just to prove a point. She sent me a picture, before the paint was even dry, and she said, and I quote, 'you're welcome to consider the gauntlet thrown'. A week later she invites the whole family out to visit. So, we're here. Gauntlet thrown. It's only gentlemanly to pick it up."

For all that they have athleticism in common, Kayo's not nearly as competitive as Gordon. Or, if she's competitive at all, then it's somehow in a vastly different way. Competition, for Gordon, is a matter of scorched earth obliteration. He prefers his games to be of the zero-sum sort, with a a clearly delineated winner and loser. It's not that he's a sore winner, exactly, as much as it is that he's an infrequent loser, and hasn't ever really learned the grace to go with it.

Her own competitions, or at least the ones that matter most, are mostly with herself. Right now, at least as far as tennis is concerned, she'd be no kind of competition for anybody. And she doesn't understand why her involvement is necessary in the first place, but Gordon had snuck across the hallway into her room before she could even start get get unpacked, and announced that he had a proposition for her.

"So why can't you just play a few games with her? If the gauntlet's been thrown, clearly she's ready and willing." And clearly she intends to kick your ass up and down the court, and as much as I'd like to be a participant, I think it would be just as fun to be a spectator. This is a thought Kayo thinks, but not one she expresses aloud. "What do you need me for?"

"Well, otherwise it wouldn't be fair! Men's and women's tennis. Tennises. They don't mix, unless its mixed doubles. Only way for it to balance out." He grins a wicked sort of grin, "D'you know, I think she's gonna partner up with John?"

"So?"

Gordon scoffs, "John. You know, my big brother, John? Tall, gangly critter? Lives about eighty percent of his life in space? About as coordinated as a newborn baby giraffe? Only been on Earth for about forty-eight hours, still hasn't got his land legs back? Even if Penelope does know her way around a tennis court, John for a partner is a liability, not an asset."

"Does John know how to play tennis?"

Gordon waves this away as an irrelevant detail. "So what if he does? John walked face first into the patio door on the way back into the house before we headed down to the hangar this morning. John occasionally comes downstairs with his shoes on the wrong feet. I could beat John at tennis, blindfolded, with one hand tied behind my back and standing on one foot. It's Penelope I wanna see on the court, and the only way that's gonna happen---fair and square---is if you and me pair off against him and her."

Kayo begins to suspect that this is not actually about the tennis. She wonders if John's been press-ganged in a similar fashion---wonders if he realizes just what exactly this is about, if it's not actually about tennis. Knowing John, probably not.

And knowing Gordon, he's not going to take no for an answer. So it's not the answer she gives him.

"All right," Kayo says, and unfolds herself from the foot of the bed, stands up and stretches. "But you have to promise me that this is just going to be a few friendly games of tennis, Gordon. Don't take this too far, for your own damn sake."

Gordon bounces to his feet, with the sort of grin Kayo's seen from him before, the kind he employs when he doesn't think anything could possibly go wrong. "Please," he answers, as casual and unconcerned as only an absolute fool can be, "it's not like she's gonna turn this into a personal vendetta or anything. It's just tennis."

"This is a vendetta, John. This is not just tennis. This is war."

In John's opinion this is probably unnecessarily strong language for the situation at hand, but then, Penelope's been insulted.

John still hasn't gotten the particulars of just what exactly the insult was, but Penelope insists that there was one, and apparently the insult in question is ninety-percent of the reason she's had a tennis court put in.

There's also the objective fact that insults are just a part of Penelope's native dialect. She breaks off from her muttered declarations of war against his brother to slip back into her natural speaking voice, "Darling, honestly, do you happen to know if your bare torso is visible from space? I've England's climate as an excuse for the fairness of my complexion, but I do believe you might actually approach incandescence."

One learns to listen around this, and in fairness, she says it as she kneels on the bed behind him and continues to apply SPF 75+ to his shoulders and the back of his neck, because he's long since learned that he can't be too careful when it comes to sun exposure, even on a vaguely overcast day in England, even beneath tennis whites. "I don't know if I've ever successfully been able to explain to you just how quickly I can get a sunburn. And when I was twenty-three, you told me that freckles make me look like a twelve-year-old."

"Because they do," Penelope agrees placidly, and smears a palmful of icy cold sunscreen across his left shoulder blade, and then tuts at him disapprovingly when he shivers. "I suppose this is the least I could do, considering you've very kindly agreed to help me murder your brother."

"To beat my brother at tennis."

"To murder your brother at tennis."

"And why exactly do you need to murder my brother at tennis, again?"

"Because he doesn't think I can," Penelope answers, and John knows her well enough to know the steel in her tone, her utter and absolute determination not to let such an insult pass. Except---

College, Oxford, and the year he'd done overseas getting a linguistics degree, over half a decade ago. He and Penelope had made friends then, and have been friends since. When Penelope had played tennis, he'd been the one to play with her. And they'd been...fine. They'd played recreationally, just for fun and to get some exercise and because it had been nice to have something to do together as partners. But John would never have labeled tennis as a passion, not for either of them. They'd played against each other as often as they'd played together against others, and even then, John wouldn't have called Penelope competitive.

And while it might be an insult for Gordon to point this out, John's one of Penelope's closest friends, and therefore has the license to comment, "Well, but Penelope, I kinda don't think you can either? It's been...what, it's been six years since college? Have you even picked a racket up since then?"

Penelope tosses her hair, as sure an indicator as any of when she's about to disregard someone else's interpretation of reality. "Once or twice. But it's like riding a bicycle, John, it's not as though one forgets how. As a counterpoint, has he ever even picked up a tennis racket to begin with?"

There's probably something John should notice about the heat with which Penelope refuses to use his brother's actual name---but he's never been very good at that sort of thing, and remains focused on the practical problem more immediately at hand. "I don't know if it really matters---I mean, the game's not complicated. It's just ping pong, writ large, and Gordon's got the whole 'natural athlete' thing. And if he partners with Kayo---"

"I'm entirely certain he will."

"---then she's not exactly worth dismissing either. Gordon swims like ten miles a day. Kayo could probably bench press me if she wanted to. Penny, the pair of them kickbox for fun."

"If either of them kick you, I think it probably constitutes a forfeiture of the game."

"I think that might be the only way we could win."

Penelope sighs dramatically, and drapes her arms around him from behind, deceptively affectionate. "My darling, your brother is a cocky, overconfident, weaselly little shrew. I can't bear the thought of letting this lesson pass him by."

This is a list of objective facts about Gordon, but equally these are things about Gordon that John's learned not to try and change. But he's had the full quarter century of his little brother's lifetime to grow accustomed to him. Penelope's only had a measly half-decade, and it's possible that things like this just can't be taught, except by object lesson. It's possible that Penelope's going to be the one learning it. It's more than possible that John might like to see that happen.

"Okay, Pen," he agrees, reaching up to pat the hand she has still resting against his collarbone. She probably mistakes it for affection and not preemptory sympathy. She should know him better by now. "Let's get this show on the road."

#an elegant escapade #the ace advantage #some kind of creative doubt #the brotp rides again

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storybycorey · 6 years

Photo

You Miss Her Everything

author: storybycorey

rating: individual sections may vary, but for entire fic NC-17

summary: fifth part of the Bunsen Burner college AU which begins here

“I don’t wanna miss you anymore. Your hands, your mouth, your…everything, Mulder, I miss your everything…”

“Shhhh,” you whisper, missing her everything, too.

It’s the end of May and it’s been two hours.

Just the length of a movie, that’s all. A terrible movie though, the worst you’ve ever seen. Worse even than that bubblegum mess of a film her roommate recommended last week. Instead of watching, you’d entertained yourself by nibbling at her shoulder, naming each freckle aloud as you tasted it. Cinnamon Sprinkle, Scout, Snowflake, Nessie, Stardust… The credits had rolled before you were able to finish.

You want to finish. You can’t bear the thought there are freckles out there, unnamed and untasted and driving away in her sister’s old beat-up Dodge.

Two hours. It’s as if someone took infinite and crammed it all into a single minute, then took that and multiplied it by one-hundred-twenty.

On the bench beside her dorm, you sit, while used-to-be-freshman-and-soon-to-be-sophomores shuffle boxes around your in-the-way feet. You could move, you suppose, but consideration wouldn’t really vibe with the desperation angle you’re working right now.

It hurts though, right in your heart like the sharpened tip of an arrow would, and each thought of her sad, wet eyes pushes it deeper. You’re not going to survive.

She kissed you last night, pressed those rosy pink lips to yours and clutched the back of your neck like a life-ring. Which is stupid, because if anyone’s a life-ring in this relationship, it’s her. You’d sink if it weren’t for her, you’d drown in this ocean-ful of sea urchins and jellyfish and fraternity boys.

“It’s only the summer. We’ll be okay,” she promised, and you believed her. Dana Scully doesn’t lie. Her little body is packed with everything good in this world, and good things like her don’t lie.

You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay because Scully said so.

…

The two of you took pictures a few days ago with your roommate’s Polaroid camera, were silly and giddy and tragically in love. She teased you and accused you of being a terrible photographer, then pressed her favorites to her chest while holding back tears.

Sometimes you imagine your life as a Polaroid photo. Blurry and hazy, your insides not quite gelled. Until that perfect moment when everything falls into place, until a girl with bluebird eyes and fall-leaf hair shake-shake-shakes you into absolute clarity.

You lay the photos on your unmade bed, arrange them into groups. Times she was adorable, times she was infuriating, times she was playful, times she was breathtaking (really, they could all fall into that last group, couldn’t they?).

But there’s also another pile. One you save ‘til last. Times she slipped off her shirt and tucked her lip between her teeth and almost broke the camera with the milky white glow of her skin.

Christ, she’s beautiful.

She’s beautiful, and now it’s been eight hours.

Your roommate moved out this morning, hallelujah, leaving you to sulk your summer studies away in solitude. Pity parties are much more fun alone anyway. Sliding to the floor, you drag the bedspread with you, Polaroids tumbling into your lap like ping-pong balls on some horribly misguided game show. Mr. Foxxxxx Mulder, you’re walking away today with a fantastic set of prizes! An amazing array of anguish AAAAND a superb selection of sorrow! Congratulationsssss!

Clenched between your fingers is the last photo you took that day, blurred lily skin and rouge-colored nipples, and a look on her face that could bring you to your knees.

“C’mere,” she’d whispered, shy and sweet but sexy as hell. You’d dropped the camera then. The clunk of it had made her gasp, but then the way you’d tossed her back onto the bed had made her gasp even harder. She’d tasted like seawater that day, and when she came against your tongue, you were sure you were close to drowning. But no, she’s your life ring, remember?

You’ve read before about photographs as portals to the past, and you wonder what it would take to slip through plastic and emulsion and back into her arms. You wonder how many years of your life would be required as payment, for just one more taste of her skin.

She’s barely five foot two, but the space she’s left behind is the size of a city, a state, a whole goddamn planet. How can you sleep knowing it’ll be three months until her little hipbones jut against your thigh, ninety days before you suck a contrary-just-for-the-sake-of-being-contrary argument from her sticky lollipop lips?

You’re silently and pathetically losing your shit right now, aren’t you?

It’s been nine hours.

….

You must’ve drifted off to sleep, because you wake on the cold tile floor with a Polaroid pasted dramatically to your cheek. Your photo teleportation methods could use some work.

The phone rings. You’re bleary-eyed and moody. Go away you want to yell.

It rings again though, and somewhere, in the back of your not-quite-lucid brain, there’s a whisper, “There’s potential there, you idiot—can’t you see that?”

And that’s when you grasp it. You grasp that potential so hard, it’ll bear your finger-marks for days.

Across the floor you fly, yanking the phone from its cradle by the cord. Your high school baseball coach would be proud of the hook slide you finagle in order to catch it.

“Hello?” you gasp, frantically and a bit too desperately, but at least the line’s not dead.

A pause.

And then angels, harps, a goddamn heavenly symphony, it’s her. “Hi…it’s me.” Would it be too much if you started to cry? Yeah, yeah it probably would.

Still though. “Scully,” you practically sob. Christ, you’re pathetic.

Another pause. It’s long and heavy and filled with dread like a sewer pipe. The panic sets in. The sheer and utter terror. She’s been waiting to be miles and miles away, just to let you down gently. The captain of her high school football team, Dirk or Biff or some other equally disgusting jock-like name, was waiting on her doorstep, John Hughes-style, ready to sweep her off her feet. You’re going to vomit.

But then there’s something else. A sniffle. A sniffle and the faintest little whimper. And then a terrible, heart-wrenching whisper, “I miss you so much already…”

And right there, right on your filthy dorm room floor, littered with Polaroids and tears and Cheeto crumbs, your heart shatters.

“Scully,” you manage, “Oh baby, me too. So much.” And then you’re crying, you’re both crying, and screw using a photo as a portal. You demand this damn telephone line be your portal, because you need to be with her right now more than anything you’ve ever needed in your life.

“I thought…,” she chokes, “Oh god, I thought I could do this.”

She told you you’ll be okay. She told you that, and you believed her.

There’s a Polaroid wedged beneath your thigh, one from the very last pile, and you hold the slick plastic to your lips while you speak. “You can, Scully.” And oh, she can, she has to. She has to, because if your trusty little life ring can’t stay afloat, there’s no hope for you. “We can do this, we can. Don’t you remember telling me that?”

“But that was before you weren’t here,” she chuckles through a sob, “Before I had to watch Missy and her boyfriend and their melodramatic reunion, slobbering all over each other on the couch. Before I had to listen to Bill lecture me about helping Mom with dinner, when all I wanted to do was take a nap after the drive…”

She’s half-laughing, half-crying, and you want to comfort her and kiss her and shoot another few rolls of film while you’re doing it, because maybe, just maybe, that would help you not feel like you’re dying. “I wish I could hold you right now,” you whisper, “I wish that more than anything.”

“Me, too,” she murmurs back.

You breathe, and she breathes. And in the dark of your room and on the cold of your floor, you can almost imagine she’s beside you, that you’ve just made love and her icy little toes are inches from your shins, ready to burrow between. For ten minutes you breathe, until the hitches in her throat lessen and the gaping hole you feel in your chest doesn’t feel quite so gaping anymore. You’ve never been so in love that it physically hurts before her.

“I have to go,” she finally whispers. “There’s no phone in my bedroom, so I’m out in the living room. Dad would kill me if I accidentally fell asleep out here…long distance charges and all…”

You slide your mouth against that Polaroid photo, the plastic a poor substitute for her lips.

“I love you, Scully. So much.” It’s mindboggling just how much. It’s not even quantifiable. You can’t explain it away with an equation or a calculation or even a million Polaroid pictures. You love her so much you stole a Bunsen burner for her and now it’s worth more to you than anything else in the world, more than money or answers or even your long-lost little sister…

Her voice chokes. “Oh god, me too, you know that.” You look at her expression in that photo and she’s right—you do know that. Because a girl couldn’t look like that if she weren’t in love with you.

“Umm, okay then…,” you stall. You don’t want it to end, you can’t bear the thought of that dial tone taking the place of her voice, so you slowly pull the phone from your ear.

“Wait!” her voice-and-not-the-dialtone blurts out just as you’re about to disconnect.

“Yeah?” you gasp. A bit too eager, but you don’t care.

“Go check the Bunsen burner,” she murmurs, and then she’s gone.

You look at your watch. It’s been thirteen hours now.

….

You’d allow yourself to get all dramatic again, to sink back to the floor in a fit of self-pity, then languish there for the next several days or so, or at least until Professor Krasnowski threatens to fire you from your summer T.A. position, and boy, then you’d really be screwed.

You’d allow that, but your curiosity gets the better of you.

The Bunsen burner’s held a place of honor on your university-issued shelving unit for seven months now. You know some college official intended the shelves for books and most certainly not for stolen lab equipment, yet there it’s sat (along with other not-book things like basketballs and cassette tapes and the occasional pair of dirty gym socks).

You rise in the dim light to find it, taking care not to step on the Polaroids laid across your floor like stepping stones. Only it’s not there. IT’S NOT THERE, and a balloon of panic expands in your chest until you realize that something’s replaced it. That something is a folded up piece of paper adorned with Scully’s distinctive loop-de-loops. Your desk lamp is rickety but functional as you stoop down to read.

Fox (I know you like me to call you Mulder, but sometimes Fox seems appropriate, you know?),

I still remember the first day I saw you, hunched over a lab table and sneaking glances across the room at me, though you thought I didn’t know. I was captivated by you, do you know that? So different from every other boy I’d ever known.

When you stole that Bunsen burner, my heart did things it had never done before. It flipped and it flopped and it clenched within my chest like a fist. You may not realize it, but that’s the moment I fell in love with you.

Three months is going to feel like an eternity. So much longer and more painful than I’m ready for, and yet…

We can do this. We have to.

By now you see that I’ve taken the Bunsen burner, but only temporarily and only as a way of marking the time. There are six pieces to a Bunsen burner. Maybe you didn’t know that, but your ever-resourceful girlfriend (do you know how much I love to call myself that?) has learned it to be true. Six pieces divided by three months equals two (see? I’ve told you I was smarter than you!).

Soooo, just to make sure you don’t forget me, every two weeks or so, I’ll send you a piece. I’m just teasing—I know you won’t forget me—but it’ll be a reminder that I’m out here missing you, that I’m out here as broken and incomplete as that Bunsen burner is. And when that last piece comes back, do you know what it means? It means the Bunsen burner can be put back together again. More importantly, it means we can be put back together again, too.

I love you. So much.

Scully

You’re shaking, you realize. Shaking and grinning and fighting back tears.

It’s eleven at night, and you fall more in love with her with each passing moment. You’re the luckiest guy on the planet. One of these days your brain’s not going to be able to handle just how goddamn lucky you are.

Letter clutched tightly in your hand, you fall back to the bed and smile yourself to sleep.

….

It’s been nine days.

She’s called once more, the two of you giddy as schoolgirls, and the funny thing is you weren’t even embarrassed by that. Her voice in your ear is like the sweetest hard candy—she makes you hyper and jittery, bouncing off the walls, but all in the very best way.

Dana Scully is your sugar rush.

The crash when she’s gone is hard though, and that night, you may have run ten miles just to keep from crying.

But now, two days later, you’re standing in the hallway with a package in your hand, return address making you lightheaded. It’s only a piece of lab equipment, chill out, but it’s also so much more.

Once in the room, you sit on your bed. You don’t even pretend to be slow as you rip open her very meticulous, very Scully-like wrappings, and before you know it, out clangs a piece of metal, which rolls off your knee and onto your toe. “Shit!” you curse, grabbing it before it hits the floor.

There’s also a note (of course there is—this is Scully). Written on pretty blue stationary (again—this is Scully). Which you tear open immediately to read (this is Scully).

First piece! Are you excited? I am! It means we’ve survived so far. It means we’re that much closer to being together again! This is the Bunsen burner’s base, quite obviously. Only five more pieces to go!

P.S. I’ll call you on Tuesday night. Make sure you’re there! Ahab’s being super strict about long distance phone calls, and they’re cheaper after 7…

P.P.S I read a really interesting article about psychokinesis that I cut out and saved for you.

P.P.P.S. Melissa and her boyfriend are SUPER-annoying.

You shove aside a bag of sunflower seeds and a Playboy (hey, you’re very, very much in love but you are still a twenty-one year old guy here) and place the Bunsen burner base on the shelf. Then her pretty little note standing up tall behind it. You’re glad you’re not rooming with anyone now, because now that you think about it, you suppose this could be considered embarrassing.

…

She calls on Tuesday night just like she promised, is painfully far away from you and your needy fingers.

“I never finished naming your freckles, you know,” you tell her.

“Mulder,” she replies, in that voice that makes you want to kiss her face right off, “That’s an impossible mission. As soon as you’ve named the first three thousand there’ll be three thousand more to take their place.”

“Mmmm, sounds exactly like a mission I’d choose to accept from such a mysterious, sexy, tape-recorded voice.”

She chuckles, and just when you think the topic’s been closed, she starts back up again, “You knowww, there’s one right here…an unnamed freckle…” She’s speaking in a sing-songy voice that means she’s up to no-good, or in other words, something fantastic. You’re already panting by the time she adds in a whisper, “This tape…will self-destruct…in ten…seconds…”

Scully wants to play, and whadd’ya know, here comes that glorious sugar rush again.

“Umm, well …,” you stutter, “Freckle-naming isn’t an easy task, you know. It takes skill, inspiration. Why don’t you describe this unnamed freckle for me? So I can appreciate its personality, its essence.” Yeah, its essence, that’s good.

“Wellll,” she Cheshire cat-grins (you can hear the grin, and it makes you a little dizzy). “It’s small. Small and reddish-brown and just sort of…freckle-y. But the skin where it sits is soft. It’s realllly soft…” Ohhh, she definitely wants to play.

“Mmmmm… I bet it is, Scully. And where exactly did you say it is? For research purposes of course.”

“Ah, of course,” she replies, but then adds with a whisper, “Why don’t you guess?”, and you just about lose your shit.

“Well I mean, there are so many possibilities really, so many soft possibilities. Your cheek, your belly, the inside of your—“

“My breast,” she breathes.

“Jesus.” Your voice cracks like a fucking teenager’s.

“Right there,” she murmurs, “Right where it swells from my torso, that spot where the curve starts, you know?”

Oh, you know. You most definitely know. Her skin flushes there before anyplace else, you’ve learned. “You blush there. Your skin turns such of pretty shade of pink, Scully, and I love it.” She makes a noise that sounds distinctly like a purr. You wish you were there to run your nails along her arched-up kittycat back.

“Sooo?” she asks.

“Oh, a name, right.” You’re getting too distracted. “How about Cherry Blossom? Pretty and pink and perfect. D’you like that?” You’re such a moron.

“Mm-hmm, I do like that. D’you want me to find another one?” Her VOICE. It reminds you of those few times you’ve called a 1-900 number, only none of those voices had skin like an opal and eyes like sea glass, none were small enough to fit in your pocket, yet large enough to fill your entire world.

“Please,” you squeak.

“Another one on my breast,” she says all breathy and soft, “This one’s about an inch from my nipple though…” You’re hard inside your track pants by now.

The Polaroids are taped on the wall above your bed, and you find one with her breasts exposed. Running your finger over the plastic, you imagine you’re touching that freckle, that cute little freckle, that sexy little freckle, that most perfect little bit of discolored Scully skin, and you groan.

“Heaven,” you gasp. “I think I’ll name it Heaven.” Again, MORON, but maybe not so much, because she expels the sweetest little whimper into the phone. You wonder whether she’s looking at that spot right now, looking down at her nipple. Is her shirt off, her bra, is she oh christ is she touching herself? “Scully, god, I’m so turned on, baby. You’re making me—“

“Oh crap! They’re home!” she squeals. “I’ve gotta…I’ve gotta go, Mulder!”

She’s gone, and you’re left gasping for air.

You make do with a Polaroid picture and a sweat-slickened palm, the same way you’ve done for the past thirteen days.

….

She calls again on the eighteenth day, reads you passages from Shakespeare while you picture her high on a balcony, tragically beautiful yet forbidden to touch.

With your rogue-ish Romeo ways, you call her back on the twentieth.

“Mulder! No, you can’t afford it!” she scolds, but the girlish lilt to her voice tells you she’s charmed by your impatience. You’re sure it doesn’t hurt that Melissa’s in the background asking “Dana’s on the phone again??”

Conversations are mundane though. Well, no, you take that back, talking with Scully is never mundane—even discussing the weather with her is enough to give you chills. But let’s just say the conversations are cautious. There’s always some various Scully milling around in the background, ready with a judgement or a smirk or a tease.

“Can’t you call when you’re alone?” you whine.

“I’m never alone,” she sighs.

….

On Day Twenty-Four, exhausted from a game of hoops, you open your mailbox to find the next package. It’s been six days since you’ve talked to her, and you miss her like air. You’ve forgotten the smell of her skin in the morning, and that scares you.

Rubber tubing spills from the package like an old ‘snake in the can’ gag. Not like you care though. The tubing’s not what excites you. There, you see it, that’s what excites you—stationary almost as blue as her eyes, and curlicued handwriting almost as refined as her sweet little body.

Second piece, my gorgeous fox-eyed boy!

We’re getting there, aren’t we, day by lonely day. I just keep imagining that afternoon in your room, after you took those photos of me. I miss your mouth, I miss your tongue, and I should be embarrassed to write that, shouldn’t I? I’m not though.

P.S. Cherry Blossom and Heaven say hi. They miss you terribly…

P.P.S. I forgot to tell you, but I’ve picked up a couple extra courses at my local college for the summer—they’ll help boost my credits for next semester.

An hour later, you’re still smiling so wide that your cheeks hurt.

….

Another week.

She’s vacationing at her aunt’s house, you know this, so when the phone rings at midnight, you’re taken by surprise. It’s not like you have no friends, but none of your buddies would be calling at midnight. By midnight, they’re either passed out drunk or boning some chick or sitting pathetically on their bed reading conspiracy theories (oh wait, that last one’s just you). Midnight calls are reserved for bad news or girlfriends or, god forbid, both at the same time.

“It’s me,” she whispers, but she sounds okay.

“Scully, what’s wrong? Aren’t you at your aunt’s?” You whisper, too, just because it feels right.

“Everything’s fine, and I’m going to get in such big trouble if I get caught, but god, I just miss you so much. I miss you so much my bones ache, Mulder.” It’s hard to describe the sensation that comes over your body. She turns you to literal goo.

“Christ, Scully, me too. It’s killing me,” your gooey self whispers back. You hear her sniffle, and there’s a painful crack in your chest as your heart breaks. “Oh baby, I wish I could touch you right now. I wish I could kiss you.”

“Me, too.” Her voice is hitched and wet, and it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever known, being this far away from the other half of your soul.

“I have to go now,” she whimpers. “Seriously, I won’t make it out alive if someone catches me.”

“I love you, Scully.”

“You, too,” she whispers.

The dial tone is your most mortal enemy, you decide.

….

The next package forty days in marks a halfway point more or less. Three down, three to go.

You’ve filled your time as best as you could: twenty percent school, twenty percent work, twenty percent basketball, three hundred percent mourning the absence of her. Good thing you’ve never fully subscribed to the absolutism of formal mathematics.

The screw-like piece of metal smells like her, and you know that’s absurd, that her scent couldn’t possibly have transferred from her hands to a worn piece of steel. Maybe this is how it ends, you in the looney bin pressing pieces of a Bunsen burner up against your nose.

Torn wrappings join dirty laundry on your floor while you frantically unfold her note.

Halfway? Have we really made it this far? I’d like to think these last weeks will speed through quickly, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.

Today’s piece is a stopcock. Yes, you read that right, and I can hear you smirking from here. I tried to think of a dirty joke to accompany it, but that’s much more your genre than mine. I can’t stop myself from wanting your big, hard cock… See? No good.

I can’t though. I want to climb up onto your cock and ride you so hard… God, Mulder, I’m blushing writing this. If my parents knew the things their prim and proper daughter thinks about at night…

I love you, I miss you.

P.S. I swear, Missy and her boyfriend make out in front of me JUST to be mean.

P.P.S. I think I’m going to have the house to myself on Thursday night. Crossing my fingers… I’ll call you, and we can do naughty things like talk about stopcocks.

Your dick is hard and cupped in your palm, and you don’t even remember doing that. You come with a stopcock digging into your ribs and your girlfriend’s last name digging into your throat.

…

It’s Thursday night and it’s been forty-six days. You turned down Bloodsuckers From Outer Space for this. You’d have turned down an actual rocketship to outer space for this. Your priorities are well-defined: Scully first, everything else in the universe second.

You’d think this were a first date. You’d think you’ve never talked to a girl. You’d think you don’t already know that little mewling sound she makes when she’s about to come.

The phone rings. You may clap your hands with glee, but you’d never admit to it.

“Scully?” No hello. Hello is for people who aren’t broken in half. Hello is for people who are sitting on a couch with a girl’s tongue in their ear, not sitting alone on a so-short-your-feet-hang-off-the-end dorm room bed.

“It’s me,” she confirms. Her voice is husky, and your dick is already hard. “It’s… I’m… I’m alone.” You haven’t talked about this—what her aloneness necessarily means, what sorts of scandalous things could transpire as a result of it.

“Good, that’s uhh that’s good...” The uncertainty hits you then. You’ve waited all week for this, but have no idea where to go. “Are you ahh…how’s everything going?”

“It’s okay, just ummm… well, you know…,” she mumbles, shy and nervous and too far away.

“I don’t… uhhh… how should we… do you want to—?” Again, have you ever actually talked to a girl? You’re beginning to think not.

“God, Mulder… I don’t… I’ve never done something like this…”

“It’s okay, Scully… If you don’t want—“

Before you can finish, “Just talk to me,” she breathes. Yeah. Of course. Just talk to her, you idiot. Just talk to her.

Your voice drops, meets her down in that magical place where far-away girlfriends dwell. “Okay. Yeah, okay. Tell me… tell me what you need…”

If you close your eyes, you can almost feel her warm breaths at your cheek. “I just… I miss you,” she whimpers.

“Oh Scully...” You press the words into the hard plastic of the telephone, in hopes by some miracle she’ll feel them.

“I don’t wanna miss you anymore. Your hands, your mouth, your…everything, Mulder, I miss your everything…”

“Shhhh,” you whisper, missing her everything, too.

“I just wish…I wish it were you…I want it to be you when I...no, never mind…” You picture her cheeks flushing, the sharp curve of her chin tucked down into her chest, and you wonder just how much longer you’ll be able to live without her.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Scully… it’s just me. Leave the embarrassment to those of us named after fuzzy little forest creatures, okay? Just talk to me...” She giggles. You’d trade a bit of self-deprecation for a Scully giggle any day of the week.

“It’s just that…when I…god…ummm, you know…when I do that, I just can’t… because it’s not you, Mulder…it’s not you, and I want it to be. So much.” Just the thought of her touching herself, wishing it were you... Are you absolutely, positively sure that portal concept was invalid?

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay…,” you shush, “I want it to be me, too.”

“Will you… will you tell me what to do? Tell me how to do it…so it feels like you…?” This. This is one of those scandalous things you tried not to hope would transpire.

“God, yes… Yes, oh definitely yes, Scully. Let’s make you feel good, baby.” You’re a bit enthusiastic apparently.

“M’kay.” She’s really just as sweet as can be.

“So…ummm…where are you? You don’t have a phone in your room, right?” Gotta be able to picture this, gotta get the details right.

“On the couch,” she whispers, “Oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this…”

“Shhhh, I love that you’re doing this. I love it. Do you have any idea how much you’re turning me on right now?”

“Yeah? Really?” There’s that breathiness in her voice again, god help you.

“Yeah. Really. Like really really.” Nothing’s even happened yet, and your hard-on is about as impressive as it gets. “I want this for you, Scully. Making you feel good makes me feel good.”

“Oh baby,” she whines, and your knees go weak.

“So, ummm… what are you wearing then?” You try your very hardest not to make that sounds sleazy, but probably fail.

“Well, ahhh… god, this is so embarrassing…” Her flushed little face…

“Fuzzy little forest creature, remember? This is me, Scully.”

“You’re right, I know. Ummm…” Her voice turns soft, sexy. “I’m wearing the red… the red bra and panties, the ones you bought me…”

Your response is a garbled sort of mess of the words fuck me.

“I had them on all day, Mulder,” she whispers. There’s absolutely no stopping your hips from thrusting into the stale air of your dorm room right now. “Beneath my clothes… while I sat in class, while I studied at the library, while I watched “Jeopardy” with Missy… just thinking about tonight… about you…” Your groan is embarrassing honestly, but hell if you can do anything about it.

“Shit, Scully, are you trying to kill me?” She giggles again, and look, another thrust. “I bet it felt naughty though, didn’t it? My naughty little schoolgirl…”

“God Mulder,” she gasps in that way that means you’ve both shocked and excited her. “Ummm I mean, god… yeah, it did… it felt erotic, naughty… I wanted you to see me so bad…” And you can see, her in that red lingerie on her Daddy’s nice couch, just like one of Matisse’s odalisques.

“Remind me… Tell me how sexy you look… Describe yourself...”

“Mmmm, god… ummm okay… so the bra… do you remember? It’s got this beautiful scalloped lace—“

“You, Scully, tell me about you.”

She waits a few beats before continuing, sharp little breaths echoing in your ear. “Okay… yeah… okay… well, my breasts… they’re… they’re pretty… I mean… the lace…it make their curves look so pretty… D’you like my breasts, Mulder?”

“Yeah, oh hell yeah.” You look down to see the hard ridge of your cock, pressed painfully against the fly of your jeans. It turns you on, how hard you are, and maybe that’s weird, but you’re entirely incapable of rational thought when the girl you love asks you whether you like her perfect pink breasts or not. “I love your breasts, I adore them...”

“My nipples…,” she whispers, “I can see them through the lace… They’re hard….” Your hand finds its way into your pants, how can it not?

“Pinch them, Scully, the way you like me to do. Brush your knuckles over them, baby…” Her little whimper, Christ, her little whimper.

“Does that feel good?” You want her to feel good. That’s become your sole purpose in life right now, to make her feel good.

“Yeahhhh…,” she murmurs, “More though… tell me what else… tell me what you’d do…”

“I’d… ughh… I’d slide my hand down… Do it, Scully, slide your hand down… I’d slide it down inside your panties slowly, real slowly… Are you doing it?” Your own hand in your own pants feels nothing like hers, but it’s still good, so good.

“Mmmhmmm…”

“I’d slide it down past your curls, brush real soft against your clit the way you like, remember?” Her clit, it’s sensitive, can make her jump with just the slightest, barest touch.

“Yeah… it’s… god… god, I’m really wet, Mulder…”

Another thrust, this time a big one.

“So wet for me, right, Scully? Does it feel good?” Your eyes are locked with hers, even though hers are coated in plastic and hanging on a wall.

“Yeahhhh…,” she breathes.

“D’you wanna… wanna taste yourself? Pretend you’re me. Christ, my mouth is watering… lick your fingers and tell me how good you taste…”

“Jesus, Mulder, I don’t know… I’ve never…”

“Please… please, baby…” Are you begging? You don’t even know anymore.

“Okay,” she whispers, and you can hear her, the delicious sound of her tongue and her lips on her fingers. You squeeze the base of your cock before something disastrous occurs. “It’s salty, tangy… god, it’s really sexy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, fuck yeah, it’s sexy. Now go back down, now that your fingers are nice and wet, go back down and rub your clit a couple times, just a couple though, then slide a couple of them in….” She moans, and you can’t help but moan yourself, moan and spread your pre-cum around with your thumb, the same way she does so well, only yours doesn’t have coral pink polish painted so nice on your nail.

“Now stroke, baby, stroke your fingers in and out, but curl them, you know how I do? Curl them up until you find that spot… god Scully, I wanna touch you so bad… did you find it? Did you find it yet?”

“Mmmmyeah, yeah, just like you, Mulder… mmmm it feels good, but… but… need more... Tell me about you… what are you doing? Are you hard? Tell me….”

“I’ve been hard all day… just thinking about you… about you and about this… Touch your clit now, use your thumb and rub your clit. In little circles like I do… See if you can pinch your nipples a few more times…” Her nipples, sweet and hard behind that latticework of lace…

“Oh… oh… god, it’s so good… Mulder, touch yourself, get yourself off… I wanna hear you…”

And then there’s just breathing, just hot whooshes of air and blurred, slick hands and soft sounds from her throat and your voice whining her name so many times it’s not even her name anymore, just six jumbled letters of need and of lust and of wildly clenched teeth. And then, then, that little mewl, that sexy little mewl that would bring tears to your eyes if you had any more brain cells available right now to do that.

“Oh goddd,” she chokes out, “Oh god, Mulder…,” then you’re coming, too, slickly and messily, hundreds of miles away.

It’s the widest your smile’s been in forty-six days.

“Scully,” you can’t help but add, after you’ve both calmed down, “That was so much better than talking about stopcocks.” She giggles (again), and you sit, for ten minutes you sit, closing your eyes and listening to her breathe and rubbing a Polaroid picture with your thumb.

It makes you ache, but it’s one of the most beautiful ten minutes of your life.

….

You start counting backwards after that; each day the number gets smaller. Psychology would tell you it’s easier that way—you’re still not sure you agree.

With thirty-five left, Joe Benasheck from two rooms down bangs like a buffoon on your door. He tosses a package at your chest. “Dumbasses stuck it in my box instead. Hey, ya got any beer?”

You’re an asshole and don’t even care when you slam the door in his face.

A small metal tube this time. When you fit it onto the stopcock, the burner looks almost complete. Does getting a little emotional make you a total wuss or just a partial one? She’s taken your heart and twisted it inside out, supplied you with emotions you didn’t even realize you had.

Her note, this time, is written in red. You wonder whether you’ll ever see the color red again without thinking about last week. You hope not.

My fuzzy little forest creature,

It’s hard to believe we’re only about a month away, isn’t it? We’re getting there! This fourth piece is called the collar, and though I’d like to be witty, I’ve got nothing too clever to say about it.

God, Mulder, I just keep thinking about that phonecall, keep thinking about you and how you sounded and how you made me feel. It was amazing…

You’re the most special thing that’s ever existed in my life. I need to make sure you know that.

P.S. I love you.

P.P.S. My cousin Leslie’s coming for a visit this week!

P.P.P.S. Bill is a dick. That’s all.

You’re about to toss the packaging when, lookie here, another envelope slips out. Three photos and, even better, another note. You’d almost think it was your birthday.

As a bonus this time, thought I’d send you these.

Three more unnamed freckles (well, actually four—there are two in one of the photos) in need of your superior freckle-naming skills.

I think when I return, we may have the need for a proper naming ceremony, dont’cha think?

Three slick photos offer peaches and cream skin with perfectly imperfect caramel-colored sprinkles. You grin. Freckle-naming ceremony indeed.

….

Penny. That’s the first. From what you can tell, it’s near the bottom of her ribs, right where the curve takes a dive towards her pelvis. The brightest, shiniest heads-up penny—flawless enough to bring you luck for a year.

Second, the Gemini twins. Double the freckles, double the desire to slip inside that photo and kiss her downright silly, right there on her thigh just inches above her knee.

The last. This one requires some thought. Only after in-depth scrutinization do you determine it’s on her rear, on that cute little ass that fits itself into your palms like play-do. Aurora, goddess of the dawn. You hang it on your wall so it’s the first thing you’ll see each morning.

….

It hits you two days later. Lying in bed and tracing lazy, looping curlicues on your stomach (her handwriting is prettier), eyes meandering from one blurred photo on the wall to the next.

Aurora.

How did she take that photo? She’s small and she’s flexible, can curl herself into the cutest of pretzels, but how did she take that photo? The angles are all wrong and the shadows not right. You look ridiculous, you know this, but you try and contort yourself into position for a photo like that, then fall, ungracefully and unceremoniously, flat on your ass.

Or are you just paranoid?

….

Thirty days left the next time she calls.

There’s longing in her voice when she tells you she misses you.

She coos at your freckle names, tells you there are so many more just waiting for your skills, tells you there’s one in a private, special place she didn’t want to take pictures of, tells you you can name that one when you see it in person.

By the time you hang up, you’re as giddy in love as you’ve ever been. You pull down her notes and read them all twice (maybe three times, but who’s counting?), trail your fingers wistfully over the photos taped mish-mash up on your cinderblock wall. You run five miles and pretend there’s still not a niggling, bony finger poking you in your ribs.

Day-na Scul-ly Day-na Scul-ly Day-na Scul-ly Day-na Scul-ly. You breathe her name with each hard pound of your feet.

….

You call her the following day. You know you’re not supposed to. You know Daddy has strict telephone rules, and on top of that, you’ve barely got enough money in your account for the rest of the week. But you call her.

Her brother answers. “Dana’s busy.” Without even knowing, you assume this must be Bill. She’s right. He’s a dick.

“Please, just for a minute. There’s something I need to ask her.” You make it a habit not to bargain with dicks, but this is a special circumstance. Scully is always a special circumstance.

He snorts in your ear, then slams down the receiver. “DANA, PHONE.” Wow, must be an absolute joy living in a house with that.

But her excited squeal makes up for it. “Mulder!”

There—that’s what you needed to ask her. The delight in her voice takes that niggling, bony finger and squashes it into the dirt.

“Hey,” you tell her, “I know I’m not supposed to call, but I’ve just been thinking about you. All day. I couldn’t help myself…” There are twenty-four hours in a day, and you’ve been thinking about her for a solid twenty-five. Even the most standard laws of time and space deviate when it comes to Dana Scully.

“Aww, me too,” she purrs. Her voice is echo-y, like she’s cupping her hand around the mouthpiece to keep quiet.

You hold the incomplete Bunsen burner tightly in your lap.

“Can you talk for a bit? I just… I just want to hear your voice. Recite me the periodic table again. You know what those elements do to me, baby…” She could read you the entire phonebook, and you’d still be begging for more.

She chuckles. “Yeah? Do alkalines make you horny, Mulder?” Again with the soft, echo-y voice, but who cares, she’s playing with you.

With a cute made-up tune, she begins. “Hydrogennn, Lithiummm, Berylliummm, Boronnn…” You’re just about to settle in for the ride when she pauses. You hear a commotion in the background—male voices, her muffled giggle, then she’s back, speaking even more quietly. “Ummm, I wish… I wish I could, Mulder. I want to, I do. There’s just… it’s just not the best time right now.”

Again in the background, a male voice that’s not Bill’s saying her name, then a shush from her she tries quite obviously to hide. “I’m sorry, I’ve really got to go,” she whispers. “I’ll… I’ll call you in a couple days though, okay? Just like we planned?”

There’s a buzzing then, one that starts in your ears and spreads—to your torso, to your arms, to your legs, until you’re entirely consumed. “Yeah, okay, yeah… whatever…” You hang up before she’s even able to respond.

The Bunsen burner slides from your lap and crashes to the floor. You don’t even care.

….

One of Bill’s friends maybe. Or her brother Charlie. No, Charlie’s studying abroad this summer, she told you that. Melissa’s boyfriend. Melissa’s friend. Just some random dude who happened to wander into the Scully house that day. An amazing, hotshot stud who doesn’t live in a dorm room with a worn-out leather couch, who doesn’t have a collection of underground conspiracy rags, who doesn’t jack off to Polaroid pictures and lab equipment because he doesn’t need to, because he’s got the real thing right there in front of him.

You’re being overdramatic.

Or are you? You can’t fucking tell anymore.

Her face up on your wall—sweet and loving and so damn trustworthy. You’re an asshole to even suggest otherwise. She wouldn’t do that. She loves you. She’s told you that again and again and again. She’s shown you. You pull down her notes and read them again. Then again. They’re worn from how many times you’ve read them. …the moment I fell in love with you… my fuzzy little forest creature… you’re the most special thing that’s ever existed in my life… I love you.

No, she wouldn’t do that. You know her. You’ve lived in each other’s back pockets for seven months. She’s lived out of your back pocket for two months since then though, your mind supplies.

NO. She wouldn’t do that. You flop onto the couch and remember your first kiss, right on this very spot of leather. And then another first time, here again, her pale skin laid out as an offering. The way she sounded, the way she became your entire world in just the barest blink of an eye.

Your dick is hard.

You want her.

You know she wouldn’t do that.

You pull yourself out of your sweats and spit into your palms, then pretend they’re her hands when you bring yourself to release.

She wouldn’t do that.

….

Twenty-seven days left. She calls, just like she’d planned.

You consider not answering. She doesn’t deserve your desperation, your paranoid, wish-washy twist of the truth. But you have to answer—it’s Scully.

“I’m sorry… about the other night,” she tells you.

“Who was he? Who took that photo? Why don’t you love me anymore?” you should ask, but you don’t. Instead you say, “No problem.”

But then she’s sweet and Scully-like and says all the right things.

You catch yourself bantering, you catch yourself flirting, you catch yourself forgetting just what exactly the issue was. She ends the call by finishing the periodic table for you, and by the time she’s to the Lanthanide series, you catch yourself right back in love with her, maybe even more than before.

You knew she wouldn’t do that.

….

Joe Benasheck again, bragging about his hot as hell girlfriend in the dining hall. You begin to regret not just grabbing your dinner to go.

“Yo Mulder, you were dating that little redhead, right? The geeky science one?” You suddenly feel like punching someone.

“Her name is Dana Scully,” you grind through your teeth.

“Yeah, that’s right, Melissa’s baby sister. Melissa’s in these pics, too. Denise sent ‘em to me from her trip.” He passes some photos across a pile of soda cans and used napkins. The only person you care less about than Joe Benasheck is his girlfriend Denise, so you barely give the photos a glance. Until…

Her red hair glows, shines like a campfire on a blue-dusk night. “Ain’t Denise hot?” Joe’s asking, but you’re not listening, you can’t breathe. There’s Melissa kissing some guy, there’s apparently Denise, and then there’s Scully… with another guy. His arms are around her waist, his chin on her shoulder, and she’s laughing that laugh that sounds like your mother’s seashell windchime. You don’t even have to be there to hear it.

Joe calls you an asshole when you throw the photos on the ground, but you’re already out the door.

….

Sixty-eight days. Three weeks left.

You try to be mad. You try to hate her. You try to call her a bitch and a slut. But you can’t. You can’t because she’s Scully. She’s still Scully. So instead you turn the names on yourself. Idiot. Loser. Pathetic and delusional and hopeless. Failure.

The fifth package arrives. It sits on your desk while you wage an internal war. Open it, burn it, hold it to your chest and cry for the next thirty-six hours or so.

You’re weak and you know it as the wrapping hits the floor. Out rolls another metal tube. It fits right into the first, up on your shelf. Your fingers shake while you unfold her note, delicate as always. Remember when you and Samantha used to do origami? You were always the clever one, showing her over and over again how to make a valley, yet mountain after mountain she’d fold. You’re not so clever now, are you? Your hands are still shaking.

I can’t believe it, can you? We’re almost there. Today’s piece is the burner tube—fits right in there on top of the collar.

This is the very last package, I just realized. Because the next piece I’ll deliver in person. Oh Mulder, it’s getting so close, I can taste it. Classes finish the end of next week, then it’s time to start counting the days… I just keep imagining seeing you for the first time. I don’t think I’ll be able to run fast enough to jump into your arms, so I hope you’ll be ready…

Hey, is everything okay? Things seemed a little “off” the last time I called. I love you more than anything, please know that. Okay?

P.S. I’ve been reading some really fascinating material about relativity and Einstein’s twin paradox recently.

P.P.S. Bill wrecked his car. My parents are so ticked off!

P.P.P.S. I’ll call at 8 on Wednesday—don’t forget!

You fall asleep and dream of a thousand origami cranes, folded from pretty blue stationary, going up in the flames of a Bunsen burner.

….

The next day, you almost get fired for bailing on a meeting with Professor Krasnowski. You must sound as pathetic as you feel when he calls though, because he lets you off the hook and tells you to get your butt back in tomorrow.

You spend the day taking apart then fitting back together pieces of stolen school property, trying to decide how many pieces back she stopped loving you.

….

You’ve watched the phone since 6:00. It’s Wednesday, and it’s been seventy-one days.

Eight o’clock on the nose when she calls. On the nose, on her pretty sloped nose.

You glare at the phone, glare at it with tears in your eyes and a guilt-trip on your shoulder. Why are you the one feeling remorse here? You sit on your hands to keep from answering.

She calls again in fifteen minutes, then thirty, and a final time in an hour.

She calls a few more times over the next couple days, or at least you assume it’s her. You’ve basically stopped answering your phone altogether.

You vacillate between loving her so desperately you can barely breathe to hating her with an almost violent sort of numbness. You went skiing a few years ago, stayed out in the snow until your feet lost all feeling. It was fun to see how many things you could kick without pain. The bruises bloomed a few hours later though, and hurt like hell for a week.

They’re there now, those bruises, beneath all the numbness, just waiting for the blood to start pumping.

Joe shows up at your door a few days later. “Denise got a call from Melissa Scully, says her baby sister’s worried about you.” You grunt disgustingly in reply.

Good, let her be worried.

….

Seventy-nine days.

You should’ve expected this. Should’ve stopped checking your mail, school notices and magazine subscriptions be damned.

The sky blue envelope mixed amidst the whites is physically painful. You let it sit there at your desk for hours. Maybe it’ll be slowly devoured by the newspaper clipping convention currently taking place on your blotter.

But you watch it, allow it to occupy just the tiniest corner of your vision for most of the afternoon. Pretending not to care all the while.

When you sit on the couch, it reminds you of her.

When you lie on the bed, it reminds you of her.

When you look at your wall, it reminds you of her.

The photos are still hanging. You can’t take them down. They’re the only way you can get yourself to sleep, gazing at her freckles, traveling back in time to that afternoon with the camera, before there were days to count down.

You open the letter only after successfully dribbling the basketball two hundred times in a row. Your downstairs neighbors hate you.

Fox (this feels like one of those times first names are necessary),

You’re scaring me. What’s going on? I’ve tried calling several times—didn’t you remember Wednesday night? Missy checked with her friend Denise, whose boyfriend says you’re there and are fine…

Please, if I’ve done something or if someone’s done something… Please. I haven’t been able to sleep worrying about you. There’re only a few days left, we can do this!

Call me collect, reverse the charges. Please. I need to know you’re all right.

I love you,

Dana

P.S. I really love you.

P.P.S. I really, really love you.

P.P.P.S. Are you getting the picture yet?

….

You don’t call her. You can’t. Each time you reach toward the phone, his hands are there, sweeping back her hair, whispering in her ear. You get an almost perverse pleasure out of imagining it. She’s been too good for you from the start. She’s a bright and shiny little sportscar, all devastating curves and crisp, clean lines, and you’re a broken down pickup, your bed sagging low from all the excess baggage. The two of you could never have shared a garage for long.

It helps to tell yourself these things. Helps you sink more deeply into those dark and melancholy waters.

But then there’s my fuzzy little forest creature, and there’s Cherry Blossom and Aurora, and there’s god, I’m really wet, Mulder, and you find yourself afloat all over again.

You’re going to lose your mind.

You’re going to lose your mind, and there’re only eight days left.

….

Another dozen phonecalls over the next several days (god forbid there’s someone who really needs to talk to you), so many you consider unplugging the phone, except no. Severing that final connection seems unimaginable. There’s something comforting in the ring every few hours, something life-affirming in the knowledge that she’s feeling this just as constantly and consistently as you are.

The thirteenth time, you answer. She catches you at a weak point, when for a moment you wonder whether you’ve gotten it all wrong, you wonder whether you’re hurting her just as much as she’s hurting you.

Only it’s not her after all. It’s the guy who works at the dorm lobby desk, chewing you out for letting your mail stack up for the entire past week, threatening to throw it all in the dumpster.

He gives you the ol’ evil eye when you retrieve it, but you and the ol’ evil eye are good friends by now, so you ignore it. Life’s been giving you the ol’ evil eye for years.

And there it is. That little envelope of sky peeking through the pointed paper clouds just like you were dreading. Were you really though? You suspect you may actually have been hoping, but are quick to deny it. Regardless, it’s there, and your fingers tremble to hold the stack as you make your way to your room.

You stare at it for a while, lay it on the very bed you’ve kissed her upon too many times to count, and stare. A month ago, you’d have been ripping it open with your teeth. They ache now, your teeth, ache from the clenching and unclenching you’ve taken up at night. Despite everything, you still miss her like hell.

It slides open, almost too easily (shouldn’t it hurt?), and you read her words with barely-there tears in your eyes.

Mulder. God. I’m beside myself. What is going on?? Please! Please talk to me, call me, write me, anything! I don’t know what I’ve done or what’s happened, and it’s tearing me apart inside. I walk through my days either completely dazed or fighting back tears. You’re my other half, you’re the rest of my Bunsen burner—I can’t bear the possibility that I’ve lost that. Please. I’ll be there on Saturday, but please, baby, I don’t want to wait that long. I need to know we’re okay.

Please.

Her handwriting, it’s more jagged than usual, and for some reason that hits you more acutely than even the words themselves. Your Scully—she’s beautiful calligraphy; she’s not chicken-scratch. Are you what’s done that to her?

No. No, she’s done it to herself.

But what if you’re wrong?

Without thinking, without considering the what-if’s and the why’s, you pick up the phone and dial. The thought of hearing her voice sends shivers down your spine, if you’re being honest. It also scares you shitless.

It rings. And rings and rings and rings. You wait through eighty seven rings, one for each day you’ve been without her. Each one hurts worse than the last.

….

It’s Saturday, and it’s been a lifetime. Zero days left.

You don’t know how you feel anymore. Numb—that’s how you feel. You hate it. The last few weeks have been torture. Your body can’t take the ups and downs and arounds for one day longer. You need to know. As heart-wrenching and painful as it will be, you need to know.

You don’t know what time to expect her and so you wait. Like a sorcerer before his crystal ball, you conjure things up—anger and fury and rage. Swirling in your head are images of his chin on her shoulder, sounds of his muffled voice in your ear.

But then there’s also her desperate scrawled please, her pale white skin adorned in rose-red satin, that freckle you have yet to name.

You took down the photos this morning, pored over each one for hours it seemed, felt aroused, then not, then aroused again. It will kill you if she’s not yours anymore. It will kill you even more if you’re the reason for that. It’s like riding a bike—pedaling your hardest, hardest, hardest toward the hill, then changing your mind at the very last minute, pounding your brakes like crazy when you crest over the top, only it’s too late and you’re speeding down so fast you can’t even breathe, but there’s nothing you can do. Because you did this to yourself. You did it to yourself.

You remember likening your life to a Polaroid photo. Your existence right now, it’s just a mixture of chemicals, it’s undeveloped emulsion, it’s color without form.

You need to be shaken. Badly.

You still love her.

….

The knock on your door is timid, as much as a knock can be. It sounds like her somehow.

You’ve waited ninety days for this moment.

You gather up your armor—your stoic-straight face and your sarcasm—layer it nice and thick. But it isn’t enough and you know it. You’re destined to crack.

Your heart pounds as you face the door (you fucked her against that door one time), fingers shake as you twist the old brass knob (she squealed when the metal touched her skin). The hinges squeak as you pull.

And then she’s there, after three months of not being there, after Polaroids and freckles and stopcocks, after questionably-taken photographs and muffled phone conversations and photos with a girl named Denise. She’s there.

“Mulder,” she gasps. “Oh my god, Mulder.” Her face, christ, her face. An angel, a Renaissance painting, and all you can do is stare.

Shake.

“My god, I’ve been so worried.” She crumbles then, before your very eyes, falls forward and catches herself with your body. You can’t move. There’s concrete flowing through your veins. Her hair is tickling at your chin and you want to die.

She notices, lifts up her eyes (you’d forgotten how blue they are, in three months you’d forgotten), raises her warm little hand to your jaw. “What’s going on? Please,” she whispers, tears running desperately down her cheeks.

You almost crack—you’ve never felt anything as perfect as her hand there—but then you see his face, Biff or Dirk or whoever, hovering above her shoulder and grinning. “No,” you breathe. Your concrete legs shatter, and you pull yourself away. She stumbles in your absence. “NO.” you say again.

“Mulder, what—?” she sobs, but you don’t even allow her to finish.

“Who is he, Scully? WHO IS HE?” You bare your teeth like a wild animal’s, and her eyes go wide.

“Mulder, you’re scaring me. Who is who?” Ninety days ago, you never pictured this. You never pictured her with tears in her eyes and cowering against your door, you never pictured the most perfect relationship of your life falling like sand through your fingertips.

“That photo, of that pretty little freckle on your pretty little rear, Scully. Aurora.” You say it with a snide sort of sneer. “Who took that photo, Scully?”

“I don’t know what… I took it—for you to name, remember? Mulder, WHAT IS GOING ON?” Her face is still the most breathtaking thing you’ve ever seen, even now, even while she’s lying through her teeth.

“Been taking gymnastics classes, Scully? Or yoga, maybe yoga? Is he some hippy-dippy into yoga?” You can’t stop yourself. You’re a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering speed and snow and anger with each passing second.

“I don’t understand…” She sits tentatively down on the bed and curls her arms around her torso. “I took gymnastics as a kid, is that what you mean?” It’s a protective measure, what she’s doing, and for some reason that makes you even madder.

“The PHOTO, Scully, how did you take that photo? Listen, I know you’re flexible, I mean I’ve seen it, right? But that angle? C’mon, I’m not stupid.” You leer disgustingly at her. You want to throw up. You want to punch yourself in the face, then get down on your knees and beg her to make it all better.

“What? The… the photo?” The confusion on her face lifts, is replaced by understanding, relief. “My god, is that was this is about? A tripod, I used a tripod—Melissa’s into photography, and she has a tripod. In fact, you should’ve seen me trying to get the positioning right. It was so absurd—“

Shake.

NO.

No, it can’t be that easy. She thinks she’s off the hook, but it’s about more than just the photo, and she knows it. “Ahh, a tripod,” you interrupt. “Convenient, huh?”

“Yes…,” she hesitates, “It was convenient. I still don’t know what you’re getting at here. God, I’ve missed you so much. This isn’t the way this was supposed to go…” You can’t listen to her, can’t hear that pleading tone right now, can’t look at her expectant, flushed little face. You tear your eyes away to land on your shelf, and that was an even worse idea. Just one piece left, one she’s probably got hidden in her bag, just one more ‘til the burner’s complete.

“Okay, then what about the guy?” you tear back into her, trying to ignore the gashes your teeth are leaving on her neck. “When I called—the guy you didn’t want me to hear?” You try your hardest to hold onto the anger, you grip it in your sweaty, balled up fists, but his face, his fucking face, and her laughter, and the way she kisses with her whole body, the fact that she could’ve done that with him… You feel yourself cracking. “His arms were around your waist, Scully, they were around your fucking waist, his chin was on your shoulder…” You choke back the tears fighting valiantly to escape.

“You’re not making sense. What guy? Around my waist? You haven’t seen me for three months. My god, Mulder, I don’t understand what’s happening!” Why? Why can’t you just let this be? She’s here now. With you. Her arms would be around your waist right now if you could just leave this alone.

Shake.

But you can’t. Never in your life have you been able to leave something alone. “In the damn picture, Scully! With Joe Benasheck’s girlfriend, Diane or Denise or whoever the fuck she is, HIS HANDS WERE AROUND YOUR WAIST.” You’re pacing, trying your damnedest to outstep the hurt and the pain rising so close to the surface, you can barely breathe.

She looks at you, brings her hand to her mouth and makes a neat little ‘o’. “Oh, oh my god. Oh, Mulder. You saw those pictures? Oh, Mulder, god… oh, I’m so sorry.” She’s coming toward you, reaching out her arms (weren’t you just wishing they’d fit around your waist?), but you panic, stumbling away from her. If she touches you, it’ll be all over.

“So you admit it then!” You try to sound angry but you fail. Instead you sound broken, utterly defeated. This whole time you’ve held onto the tiniest sliver of hope, that it wasn’t true, that she wouldn’t do that. Your back hits the wall. There’s no escape.

She touches you then, tucks her hands into yours and squeezes. You want to flinch, but Christ, it just feels so good. It feels so good, your knees feel weak.

Shake.

“NO. Mulder, listen to me. LISTEN TO ME.” She ducks her head until you’ll meet her eyes but you pinch them shut—it’s the only way to keep from crying. She continues anyway, “The guy in those photos, on the phone—that was Leslie. Don’t you remember? Look at me.” You open your eyes and look. “I told you about him. He’s my COUSIN. My cousin! He’s… he’s just like that. Always giving bear hugs and being silly… It’s… it was just my cousin… Oh my god, Mulder. Is this why—?” She lets go of your hands to stroke your cheek.

Shake.

“Leslie is… a guy?” you ask meekly. “This whole time I assumed…” You trail off into nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway.

“It’s…,” she chuckles, “It’s a family name. He hates it. Jesus, Mulder, I can’t imagine… what must have been going through your head. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” Her fingers slide through your hair, and you can feel the chemicals beneath your weary plastic surface beginning to swirl.

Shake, shake, shake.

“So there’s not someone else? That’s… It wasn’t true?” Emulsion beginning to gel, colors dragging sluggishly into focus…

She’s petting you now, running her fingers over your chest like ten little caterpillars. Outlines slowly defining…

“Oh, Mulder. No, baby, no. I couldn’t even imagine. You’re… you’re my everything. My fuzzy little forest creature, my fox-eyed boy, the final piece of my Bunsen burner…” She lifts to her toes and kisses you softly beneath your jaw. Then again on your cheek and again near the corner of your lips.

Shake, shake, shake.

And then, in one glorious breath, you snap suddenly into focus. Your entire world becomes clear. You look down at her upturned face and feel the way Hubble must’ve felt, realizing the universe is still expanding, realizing everything was borne of one single, solitary point.

She is that point.

Your universe.

Your Big Bang.

“Oh Scully,” you breathe.

You grasp her jaw and pull her to your mouth, kiss her the way you’ve dreamed about for the last ninety days, kiss her the way you wish you could’ve kissed her with each package, with each pretty blue note, each cold metal piece of the puzzle. She whimpers, and you think she may be crying, you know you’re crying, but none of it matters. Because she’s here, finally, after so long being anywhere but.

“The Bunsen burner,” she mumbles against your lips, “The outer cone. We have to put it together…”

Your hands are working their way beneath her sweater by now, your hungry, hungry hands. She’s smooth and soft, and her leg wrapped around your thigh is the best thing since sliced bread. “It can wait…,” you murmur.

“No,” she gasps, “No. I think it’s important.” She tugs away, and you do your very best to chase after her. She’s quick though, reaching for the Bunsen burner and pulling a package from her purse, holding it out to you like a carrot on a stick.

You grab for her, spin her around so her back is to your front, slide your arms around her waist and rest your chin upon her shoulder. “Mulder!” she squeals.

“It’s my turn,” you breathe into her ear, and she shudders. You work together to unwrap the package, ripping off paper and dropping it to the floor. She peppers your neck with kisses as you lift out that final, finishing piece.

“Oh, Mulder,” she murmurs, pressing back against you, helping you fit it into place. The most delicious chill slides through your body.

You turn her in your arms, ready to kiss her senseless, when she stops you. “There’s a note, too,” she whispers. Of course there is. This is Scully.

Placing the burner back up on the shelf, you fish back into the package for an envelope. “You have no idea how much I love your pretty blue paper, Scully…,” you say when you’ve found it, and she giggles. With trembling fingers, you slide out her note.

Mulder, Let’s never be apart again. Never.

You couldn’t agree more.

She looks up at you with her blue-as-stationary eyes (it finally dawns on you why you loved that paper so much) and runs a nervous tongue along her plump-as-a-berry lips. You smile, then tumble her down to the bed. With barely-uttered words and a hungry, needy mouth, you take back all those unanswered phone calls, you personally respond to each unreciprocated note. You peel back her clothing and commit her pretty-as-a-photograph body to memory. The Polaroids were incredible, but nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to the real thing.

You welcome back Cherry Blossom, you welcome back Heaven. You welcome back Penny, the Gemini twins, and Aurora. You press a kiss to each of those freckles on her shoulders and search out the one she told you was hidden in that private, special place. Then, with her hands in your hair and your tongue sliding through her folds, you name that one, too. Mine.

….

It’s the end of August and it’s been zero hours.

Zero minutes, zero hours, zero days. You’ll never be apart again. You know why? Because Scully said so. And Dana Scully doesn’t lie—her little body is packed with everything good in this world, and good things like her don’t lie.

#You Miss Her Everything #Bunsen burner series #my fic #the whooooole thing

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