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looking-for-another-world · 4 years

Text

Not Alone

summary: Bucky spends Christmas alone at the compound. Or nah?

pairing: Bucky x reader

warnings: 18+, tiny bit of angst, mentions of family toxicity, cursing, explicit smut, dirty talk, like one allusion to reader being plus-sized, soft!bucky, really sappy - you have been warned

words: 6321

a/n: This is my entry for @honeyhan-123‘s HOLIDAY SPIRIT WRITING CHALLENGE. I had the prompt “Finding the perfect Christmas tree / decorating it” and looking back, I might have slightly diverted from that oops. This was so much fun to do though. This is literally my first finished piece of writing in years, so be nice to me, ok? Right, tmi. Anyways, this has gotten way out of hand in terms of how many words I wanted to write. I might make 3 separate files of it when I’m in the mood to figure out links, but for now here’s the entire fic in one. Enjoy! Also, I hope your 2020 is going to be amazing ❤💫🥂🎆

Prologue

As soon as Bucky stepped into the kitchen of the Avengers compound, his super soldier senses made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something’s wrong.

It was Dec 23, one day before Christmas Eve, and everyone except him had gone away for the holidays. Clint was visiting Laura and the kids, accompanied by Natasha (apparently, the boys had been nagging their mom for a solid 2 months whether Aunt Tasha would be staying with them), Wanda and Vision were traveling around Europe, Tony had taken Pepper to some little island in the Caribbean Sea, and Steve and Sam had booked a cozy, remote cabin in the woods to go skiing, hiking, getting drunk (well, Sam at least) and most importantly, getting away from being the Avengers for a few days.

Initially, Steve had Friday book the trip for three persons, but Bucky had refused. This was the first Christmas since many years that he was starting to remember who he was, really was, and although Steve was pretty much everything he considered home, he had preferred to spend Christmas where he actually came from.

In the end, Steve had reluctantly agreed, not wanting to push his best friend, but insisting that they at least spoke to one another on the phone every day. And so, Bucky had spent his day wandering the streets of Brooklyn for hours, fulfilling his best friend duty on his way home and telling Steve how much everything had changed and yet, strangely, still felt familiar. He could hear Steve smile through the phone; he felt the same. That’s when Sam had burst through the door of the hut, screeching “All I want for Christmas is you” next to Steve’s ear and ruining the moment. Steve had said his goodbye, leaving to stop Wilson from inhaling another bottle of Eggnog, and Bucky had wished him good luck with the bird brain. He returned to the compound, more mentally than physically exhausted, and headed straight to the kitchen, suddenly remembering that he hadn’t eaten something in hours. And there it was: A small puddle of water on top of the counter, as if someone had taken something out of the fridge and put it there for a moment. Only that there was no one to do that. He was supposed to be alone.

It couldn’t have been him: his soldier and assassin training had left him with an urge to leave everything neat and tidied; no traces. Silently, he made his way back into the hallway, calling the elevator and going two levels down, to the first level that was officially “Avengers territory”. Going back up, he searched every floor without coming across anything suspicious. And then, as the doors of the elevator opened to the 18th floor with a slight swoosh, he sensed it: There’s someone else on this level. He tensed up. His super soldier hearing going into overdrive, he snuck along the dimly-lit corridor until he heard them: sounds coming from the last room to the left, the entertainment room, stacked up with books, movies, consoles, a pool table, anything you could think of to pass your free time. He tried to hear more intently. The person on the other side of the door barely produced sounds; all he could make out was their shallow breathing. Someone with a normal hearing wouldn’t even have caught up on it.

Bucky conjured up a blueprint of the room: even if he could get through the door unnoticed, there was no place to hide. The whole design of the room practically screamed: “Look who’s coming!” His only advantage was the element of surprise. Trying to calm down his nerves, he took a few deep breaths and braced himself. Not wanting to have his arms in a position he could easily be taken hold of in, he stepped back, raised his right leg and kicked the door down, storming inside, met by a piercing scream and a loud splash as the bucket of ice cream you had been holding met the ground.

“(Y/N)?!”

“What the hell?!”

“Why are you here?”

“I fucking live here in case you haven’t noticed! Why are you kicking the goddamn door down like I’m some HYDRA agent trying to slit your throat?”

“Because-”, Bucky stops, guilt washing over him. Guilt and anger with himself. Even HYDRA wouldn’t be so dumb as to blow their cover like that, and they’d do a bit more than get the kitchen counter dirty if they wanted to make their presence known. “Because I thought you were one.” His voice is low now, almost a whisper, his eyes unable to meet yours, fingers fumbling with the hem of the coat he didn’t have time to take off. And seeing him like this, you understood: He thought someone had intruded.

You let out the breath you were holding. “I’m sorry, Buck. I wasn’t thinking. I should have let you know about my change of plans and that I’d be spending Christmas at the compound.”

His ears perked up at that. “You are? I thought you were going to visit your family.” You smiled sadly and now that his mind and body weren’t overtaken by adrenaline anymore, he took in your state for the first time. You looked pale, your eyes red-rimmed, like you had been crying. You were wrapped in the navy-blue blanket twice your size that Wanda had given you for your birthday. It went all the way down to your ankles where the legs of your sweatpants were peeping through, showing just a small stripe of skin before the fabric of a pair of green fuzzy socks covered your skin again. The ice cream you had dropped started melting on the ground, slowly dampening part of the expensive rug the pool table stood on, which you didn’t seem to notice. “What happened?”

You let out a mixture between a snort and an unconvincing laugh. “I talked to my mom on the way to the airport. She started complaining about how much I’ve been letting them down this year, bringing up things I didn’t even think were an issue anymore, and how she hoped I would pull myself together this time, for the sake of Christmas and our family. So, I figured I’d probably have a more fun time being alone in my room and sleeping for like 2 weeks than I’d have being with them.” The last part was meant to sound casually, but Bucky didn’t miss the twitch of your lips and how your eyes started to gloss over again. He wanted to say something to comfort you, but his mind didn’t know where to start and so he just kept staring at you wordlessly, which you took as a sign of annoyance.

“Don’t worry. I won’t bother you with that shitty Christmas music or candy or anything of that kind. I’m not gonna ruin your alone time. Just pretend I’m not here.”

He frowned at that, then, and as his tongue still seemed to be tied, he did the only thing he felt was appropriate: He put your arms around you and hugged you, hard, all-consuming. “I’m not worried you’re going to ruin my alone time. I like having you around. I’m sorry your family are like that, when they’re the ones letting you down.”

You’d liked to reply to that, thank him for his sweet words, but you were sure you’d start crying again the second you stopped biting down on your lip. So you reciprocated the hug as best as you could; after all you were lacking Bucky’s strength. Bucky squeezed you shortly and let go, and when your eyes locked again, you couldn’t help but mirror his warm smile. Jesus, this guy certainly made you feel things. No surprise you were crushing on him so hard.

“We’d better clean this up”, Bucky said gesturing to the now empty ice bucket head and your eyes widened as you noticed the mess you’d made. “Shit!”. Tony had spent an insane amount of money on that carpet, even for his proportions. He’d shoot you to the moon for that.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” Bucky jogged back to the elevator, returning a minute later with a wet cloth and a roll of kitchen towels which he handed to you. Getting to work, you suddenly became aware of how much closer than usually you two were. You could smell Bucky’s aftershave – something resembling cedarwood – watch the muscles in his arms flex as he tried to rid the fabric of its B&J make-over, study the stubble on his perfectly sculpted jaw, his hazelnut locks, his plump lips. Oh god, his lips. Just thinking about having those lips kiss every inch of your body got you worked up. Get a grip, for fuck’s sake!

“So you’re really planning on skipping Christmas? It’s your favorite holiday”, Bucky interrupted your thoughts, shooting you a glance to see you shrug your shoulders. “I don’t want to see my parents right now, and I can’t imagine celebrating Christmas on my own. So yeah, guess I’ll be taking a break from it this year.”

“You’re not on your own, though. You’re with me. We can celebrate.”

You felt a pleasantly warm sensation in your stomach which you tried to ignore, quirking an eyebrow at him instead. “You hate Christmas.”

“I don’t hate all of it, I hate what it’s become. I hate that most people care more about what useless shit is in their stockings or under the tree than about who they’re spending their time with. I hate how every shop starts putting up Christmas stuff before it’s even October. They don’t even call it “Christmas” anymore. I mean seriously, xmas? What’s that even supposed to mean?”

Despite yourself, a small giggle escaped you at how upset he could get about it all and realizing he had started ranting without wanting to, Bucky had to stifle a laugh as well. "Point I’m trying to make is ” he concluded “I wouldn’t mind spending Christmas with the right company.”

Oh, and that’s supposed to be me? Right company?“, you shot back. "Sure thing, doll. You’re like an expert on Christmas, I can’t go wrong with you. Also, I like having you around. ” He furrowed his eyebrows. “I’ve already said that, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, you have. But that’s okay, I like hearing it”, you laughed, your hand briefly touching his arm. You were becoming kind of needy, it appeared. Bucky didn’t seem to mind though, or at least he didn’t let it show.

Looking down, you noticed with an internal sigh of relief that the ice cream puddle had given way to the water and the kitchen towels. All that was left was a wet patch that would hopefully disappear overnight.

“Guess that’s as good as it gets”, you joked. “Thanks for helping me.”

“It’s the least I could do, after scaring the shit out of you.” He took the dirty towels from you. “Guess we’re Christmas buddies then” he grinned. It was surprising how excited he seemed to be all of a sudden, but you didn’t let yourself linger on that thought. “Well, as the official Christmas ambassador, I have to let you know that this place sucks. There’s not even decorations.”

That was true. The past weeks had been incredibly hectic, even more than in previous years, and since almost everyone would be gone over the holiday season anyway and Bucky had emphasized several times that having the tower turn into Santa’s village would most likely lift his dinner, rather than his spirits, Tony hadn’t bothered to put up decorations.

Bucky gave you an amused look. “I see you’re getting into it. Alright, what do we need?”

“You mean, like everything?”

“Yeah, like the ideal setting. Can’t be that difficult.”

You gave him a sceptical look. “Oh no, not at all. We just need the decorations, music, candy, ugly Christmas sweaters, stuff to bake cookies, a firepla-”

“Okay, okay, I take it back.” Bucky raised his hands in surrender. “This is too much. What’s the most important thing?”

“The tree”, you replied without thinking. “The tree is the most important, to me at least. When my dad used to tell me he’d be bringing the Christmas tree home tonight, I’d spend all day glued to the window of my room, waiting for his car to steer into the driveway. It’s the one thing we ever did as a family, all three of us, decorating the tree. Everything else would be pretty much Mum and me, since Dad would be out working. The tree is … it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without it.”

Inadvertedly, your brain had walked down memory lane to pictures of baubles in gold and red and purple and every color of the rainbow, mingled with the scent of fir and your dad’s bass voice singing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” to you while you were sitting on your lap, and suddenly another wave of sadness hit you and you had to fight back the tears that were starting to well up again. You swallowed thickly before looking back at Bucky and were met with an understanding look. He had noticed your struggle but chose not to bring it up again and you were grateful for that. Grateful for him.

There were a few beats of silence before the super soldier offered you a tentative smile and said: “So Christmas tree is your final answer?” Another giggle.

"That’s my final answer.”

Part 1

You woke up to a sky the color of granite. Gloomy light and heavy clouds. Your heart jumped a little in your chest at the prospect of another downfall of snow. What’s Christmas without snow, right? Too comfortable to get up right away, you snuggled back into your pillow and let your mind wander.

It was embarrassing, really, but thinking about spending the whole day with Bucky filled you with a mix of anticipation and nervousness you usually felt before first dates. Prior to your job interview last February, you had spent hours and hours hooked up on research about the people you might soon be working with – the fucking Avengers! -, but Bucky’s story, or at least what was known of it to the public, had fascinated and moved you the most. It was hard for you to wrap your head around how someone could endure the most appalling things you could possibly imagine, and that for decades. Someone like the ex-Winter Soldier could barely be human anymore, filled to the brink with hatred and disgust for the world and the people in it, that you were sure of. And then, when you got the job and got to know him – he was the exact opposite. Sure, he was careful and hard to read, especially at the beginning, but he was kind. He was funny. He was emphatic. He was a nerd. He was sweet. And when you moved in to the tower and the two of you spent more time together, your feelings towards him grew stronger, and you found yourself imagining waking up next to him, his lips on yours the first thing you taste in the morning. Cupping his cheek and watching his eyes crinkle when he flashes you his million-dollar smile. Stroking his hair while he reads his favorite passages out to you or rambles about how all the things he’s just discovering now are not quite as good as what they had back in the days, but some of them are not bad. Being pressed down by his weight as you get to explore all of his gorgeous body and find out what sounds he makes when he’s buried in you, filling you up, making you feel so good as you’re begging him not to stop because he’s hitting just the right spot and you never want to let go of him, so good, please Bucky, please don’t stop, oh God, I’m so close baby, fuck…

The loud buzzing of your phone jerked you out of your trance and made you sit up straight in your bed, your heartbeat thumping in your ears, cheeks heated, fingers you didn’t even remember putting there coated in your arousal. Breathing heavily, you stretched your neck to see who the caller was: Mum. Oh, hell no. In a sudden burst of resurging anger, you declined the call, threw your phone away from you and let yourself fall back against the headboard with an audible huff.

Finishing the job wasn’t going to happen after yesterday’s events started rolling in, so you forced yourself out of bed and into the shower, washing away the heat of your little daydream with water as cold as you could bear. Putting moisturizer on, you focused your thoughts on today. If Bucky still wanted to help setting up everything for Christmas, they should get started as soon as possible. An actual Christmas tree was a bit too much to ask obviously, but maybe they could find a fake one and some funny tree ornaments to go along with it? Sweaters shouldn’t be that much of a problem either, they practically threw them in your face around this time of the year. And the Christmas music could easily be taken care of by Spotify.

You started listing the essential ingredients for three or four kinds of Christmas cookies in your head when you left your room to get breakfast. Closing the fridge door, you tried to decide where and in which order to go to get everything you needed on time (or should you split up?) when you noticed the yellow, blue, pink and green dots on the cold metal surface, dancing around in a carefully studied rhythm like colorful fireflies. Frowning, you turned around.

The huge panorama windows were decorated with beautifully woven ice flowers up to almost half of their height and framed by several strings of Christmas lights, cheerfully blinking against the grey sky outside and bathing the living room area in a colorful hue. Now that you stepped closer, the living room looked different as well. The couches and armchairs were covered under thick and fluffy-looking plaids and pillows with different Christmas-themed motives; a very kind looking Santa Claus on one, a couple of reindeer holding cups of Eggnog and singing “Jingle Bells” on another and the slogan “Tis the season” in as much glitter as could be fitted on so small a space emblazoned on a third. There were decorations, too: a nutcracker next to the tv, an angel’s choir holding candles on one of the couch tables, a snowman, a sledge, a rocking horse, a squirrel in a scarf… You couldn’t even decide where to look first. Too preoccupied to take everything in, you didn’t notice Bucky’s presence until he cleared his throat. “Do you like it?” You turned around to meet him, dumbfounded and still trying to understand what was going on, even more so when you saw the sweater he was wearing: fir green and depicting a penguin wearing a Christmas hat. You let out an incredulous laugh. “Did- did you do all this?”

Bucky lowered his gaze briefly and gave you a sheepish smile. “Pretty much, yeah. I’d hoped you’d sleep in. Gave me enough time to set everything up.” Your mouth opened and closed, unable to find words. “I-“ “Wait!” he interrupted. “There’s more.” He outstretched a slightly shaking hand and seeing that you didn’t respond, hastily withdrew it. Finally though, your body and mind seemed to have rebooted, and you grabbed his hand with both of yours. It felt hot against yours, hot and slightly raw. Bucky shot a surprised look from your intertwined hands to your face and you could’ve sworn that his cheeks blushed slightly. Is this even real?

Squeezing your hands slightly, he walked past you and into the living room, pulling you with him. Around the corner, out of your line of sight, there was a slightly smaller lounging area with the best stereo sound system Tony could get his hands on and without tv, designed for the numerous occasions you fancied actually spending time with each other and being able to face each other when chatting or playing games instead of just staring at a huge screen in unison. Now though, the bean bags had been moved to the side and in the center of the room stood – a tree. Not just any tree, but a fir tree about 10 or 11 feet high, almost filling up the room with its size and emanating that unmistakable scent that always took you back to fond Christmas memories. Next to it, on the ground and on several of the bean bags Bucky had piled up a seemingly endless number of boxes containing Christmas baubles of all sorts, ranging from the traditional ones to typical Christmas motives, Disney characters, and even the most absurd things such as very small-sized fruits and vegetables.

You couldn’t remember when your heart had last felt so light and full. If Bucky’s hand hadn’t anchored you, you might have just floated up through the ceiling and into the sky. And why not? Who knew what else might be possible after all this had felt so much like a dream already? Giving yourself no time to think about overstepping boundaries and the like, you threw yourself into Bucky’s arms, feeling rather than noticing his strong arms instantly enveloping your frame. “Thank you.” Your voice was muffled because you had buried your face in the crook of his neck and because you were close to crying again. Sensing your state, Bucky started tracing soothing patterns on your lower back and mimicking his movements, your hands started stroking his broad shoulders. “My pleasure, doll.”

He held you like that for several moments, lightly swaying to and fro, taking deep breaths with you. And after a while, when you’d quieted down a bit, you noticed that not only your heart threatened to jump out of your chest; Bucky’s heart beat a lot faster as well, hammering against his ribcage so much that you could almost feel it against yours. You drew back a little so you could see his face and were met with a look you’d never seen on him before, a look that went straight to your groin. His hands tightened on your back, like he was afraid to let you go, and your nose lightly brushed his. And just as you were about to close your eyes… his phone rang.

The noise startled you so much that you jumped in his arms and Bucky let out an audible sigh. “That’ll be Steve. Be right back.” With that, he let go of you to grab his cell from the kitchen and you felt like someone had just emptied a bucket of ice water over you and snapped you back to reality. More than that, you did feel cold. Had your body grown used to the heat radiating off him so quickly? Also, and that was the most important: What the fuck did just happen?

Bucky returned about 10 minutes later and found you in almost the same spot where he’d left you, now sitting awkwardly on one of the empty bean bags, desperately trying to regain composure. His heart still fluttered from being so close to you, and as he wanted this day to be anything but awkward, he’d spent a good 7 of those 10 minutes away thinking about how to proceed. In a manner he hoped would come across as relaxed, he sauntered over to the closest bean bag and picked up one the boxes filled with baubles. “Soooo”, why was his voice so squeaky? “let’s get started, shall we?”

He couldn’t see your heart slightly sink in your chest because the magical moment had officially passed of course; he just had eyes for the warm smile you offered him in return. “Sure.” You got up to take hold of one the boxes as well when he remembered something. “Hang on.” You raised your head and could make out something slightly mischievous in his orbs. “I won’t be the only one wearing an ugly Christmas sweater.”

—

4 hours later, any sign of awkwardness or discomfort between the two of you had officially gone to the wind. As instructed, you’d put on the ugliest Christmas sweater you could find (an awful mix of pink and gold in the shape of a Christmas elf with actual bells that jingled whenever you moved), Bucky had put on some music and you’d gone about your business. At some point (probably after your fourth cup of cocoa with rum and Bucky’s third pint of Asgardian mead he’d snatched from Thor’s quarters), you decided to forego any sense of aesthetics and just put up as many ornaments as would fit on the tree. As a result, it now looked as if the slightest gust of wind would make it collapse on the spot, but you two were oddly proud of your work. Taking cocoa and mead with you, you decided to have a small break and moved over to the living room area.

There were a few beats of comfortable silence, Sinatra softly buzzing in the background. Then, out of the blue, Bucky asked you to tell him your favorite joke. You were too tipsy to question how he’d come up with that, so you pondered his request for a moment and then answered. “I hate Russian dolls. They’re so full of themselves.”

Bucky sat up on his spot of the couch and gave you an odd stare that made you wonder whether he’d understood you at all, and then burst out of laughter, almost spilling his drink in the process and making you laugh in return. You’d never really heard his laugh, just the occasional snort when he deemed something worthy of a reaction, but this was a sound made from the gods themselves and you could listen to it all day, every day, for the rest of your life.

Slowly, his fit came down to a low, melodious chuckle. “Honestly doll, sometimes I want to kiss you all over.” “Don’t hold back.”

The words had come out of your mouth before you could stop them. They didn’t remotely sound as teasing or nonchalant as you had meant them to. They sounded sincere, almost desperate. Because they were. And suddenly, as you watched Bucky’s expression falter, you felt remarkably sober again. Oh god.

Part 2

Carefully, Bucky stood up, moved over and sat down next to you. “Are you serious about this, (Y/N)?”

Heat crept up your skin, all the way from the swells of your breasts to your ears. You’d honestly never felt that put on the spot. Unable to answer, your gaze fixed the carpet, hoping that if you stared long enough, maybe it would do you a favor and swallow you whole. Bucky was now less than inch from you, close enough for you to smell his shampoo, his breath fanning the side of your face, making things only worse for you. Your heart sank deeper and deeper until you could feel it in your stomach, heavy like a rock. This day had been going so well. Why did you have to ruin it with your stupid inebriated brain? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And then you felt his flesh hand cup your face, softly turning your head to meet his eyes. Those beautiful, cerulean eyes. “Because I’d really, really like to kiss you.” Frowning, you shook your head, your synapses refusing to process that bit of information. You swallowed several times before you found your voice again. “Please don’t mess with me, Bucky”, you heard yourself whisper, at which Bucky violently shook his head. “I promise.” And then his lips were on yours and you kissed him back.

It started out innocently enough, slow, tentative kisses, allowing the other to back out in case they changed their mind. Only that he didn’t back out like you thought he would. And you didn’t back out like he thought you would. Realizing how effortlessly your mouths pressed against each other, how right his lips felt on yours, you gradually grew bolder. You turned slightly to mirror his position and your hands went up to his face, feeling the stubble on his chin and jaw before carding through the silky strands of his locks at the back of his neck. One hand in his hair, you let the other explore more of his body as you felt up his biceps, his back, his chest abs. A content hum escaped his throat which only spurred you on. One hand in his hair and one bunching up the fabric covering his chest, you pressed yourself closer to him. His grip on your face tightened as he opened his mouth and his tongue caressed your bottom lip. Greedily, you welcomed him in your mouth and let out a deep sigh as your tongues met for the first time and the two of you fought for dominance over the other.

Bucky’s hands wandered down your body to the hem of your shirt and his lips soon followed suit. You let out a whimper when he sucked at the sensitive skin of your pulse point, determined to mark you. You’d never really liked hickeys, but this was different. You wanted everyone to see, see what had happened between the two of you. While your hands tangled in his hair, his slowly made their way under the fabric of your sweater, exploring the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your belly, cool on your right side, burning on your left.

It was so much more than you’d ever dreamed of, almost too much to bear, and yet his touches only made you more impatient, more needy, more desperate to have him. “Bucky…” It was barely more than a sigh, but Bucky’s head shot up at the sound and his eyes met yours. “What’s it, sweetheart? Talk to me” You took a moment to take him in, tracing his glistening bottom lip with your thumb. “I need you.” Bucky pressed his forehead against yours. “I need you too, doll. So much. That’s why I’m so scared of messing up with you.” You took his face in your hands again and pressed a kiss to his forehead, his eyes closing at the sensation. “There’s no way in hell you can mess up with me, James. Don’t hold back. Take me.” Bucky let out a shuddering breath. “Please.”

It was like a switch had been flicked. Bucky leapt forward and buried you under his weight, making you sink into the soft cushions. Kissing you even more passionately than before, he positioned himself between your legs. The bulge in his pants now clearly noticeable, he started grinding down on you and the friction made you pool with lust. You let out an audible groan that made Bucky’s cock twitch. Steadying himself with his metal hand, he clumsily lifted your shirt up your body with his right hand so the fabric bunched up over your breasts. Eager to assist, you arched your back to unclasp your bra and pulled it up as well. Bucky’s hand immediately reached out to palm the newly exposed skin while his tongue darted out to massage your already swollen buds. He went from left to right and right to left, making you stick your chest out as much as you could, before suddenly taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking greedily on it. You cried out in pleasure and his dark eyes went to scan your face, lip drawn in between your teeth, eyes pressed shut, your breathing getting heavier by the minute. Too mesmerized by the sight of you, he didn’t notice your hand that wasn’t tangled in his hair move from his back to the front of his pants until you massaged his erection through the fabric, running your palm up and down his impressive bulge. He let go of your breast to take a deep breath and used his right hand to feverishly rub your clothed pussy, causing you to yelp in surprise. Your hand gripped his wrist, urging him to slow down. “Don’t want to finish off like that. Need you inside me.”

Bucky’s answer was an appreciative growl. He stood up, freeing himself first from the sweater that was becoming increasingly hot and then from his jeans and boxers. His size was impressive, the tip swollen and glistening with pre cum and you couldn’t help but rub your thighs together in anticipation.

“Uh-uh. Let me take care of that sweetheart.” His voice was now a husky whisper that sent shivers down your spine. Agonizingly slow, he unbuttoned your pants and pulled them off you, groaning when he got a glimpse of your drenched panties. Sitting back on his haunches, he pushed your knees apart and ran his palms up the inside of your thighs, then softly ghosted over the purple cotton, before hooking his thumbs under the waistband. “Show me your pretty pussy, (Y/N).” In one swift motion, the piece of clothing was gone, and Bucky let out a low hiss at the sight of your wet folds. “Fuck, doll. You’re ven more beautiful than I imagined.” You were at a complete loss for words, but Bucky didn’t give you time to respond anyway. He took a hold of his erection and coated in in your juices, your overstimulated body jumping at the sensation, before locking eyes with you and carefully sliding his tip inside you. You both let out a needy whimper when he filled you up, going deeper and deeper, your pussy obediently swallowing him, until he bottomed out.

Bucky was still on his haunches, giving you time to adjust to him, intertwining his fingers with yours. “You okay?” You nodded. “You can move.” Bucky started thrusting in and out of you, accelerating his pace when it became obvious that you were in as much pleasure as he. Soon, he was mercilessly fucking you into the couch, snapping his hips forward and pulling out until just the tip remained inside you, and then repeating his actions, over and over and over again. When he used his metal hand to draw circles on your clit, you were a whimpering mess beneath him, uttering incoherent curses and multiple variations of his name. You felt the familiar sensation build up in your gut and squeezed his hand to hold off, but he wasn’t having it, only increasing his efforts. With a muffled scream, you came all over his dick, your whole body shaking from the intensity of it. The sight of you coming undone combined with your cunt convulsing around his dick pushed Bucky over the edge as well and his thrusts became sloppier as he painted your walls with his seed and then collapsed on top of you, both of you panting and bathed in sweat.

—

Your second time together was slow and gentle, taking all the time you now knew you had, making sure to leave no inch of your lover’s body unattended to. The third time was rough again, Bucky fucking you against the shower tiles, cold water pouring down on you because you’d accidentally changed the setting when Bucky had lifted you and neither of you had noticed. The times that followed took place in various places of the Tower; the pool table where Bucky had found you the day before, the kitchen island, Sam’s bed (which seemed to give him a particular kind of satisfaction), in several of Tony’s cars, at one of the panorama windows, your front against the shining outline of the city (and the fake ice crystals) while Bucky took you from behind, all the while whispering sinful things to you that drove you insane, how often he’d sat in his room fucking his fist to your image, your plump lips that were just made for his cock, your curves that made your entire body jiggle when he drove into you, that beautiful ass of yours, imagining your sweet voice begging him to make you feel good. After all, it appeared he’d thought about you as often as you had about him.

—

You woke up to a rose-tainted sky and soft kisses peppered across the back of your neck, your shoulders and along your spine. You giggled into your pillow. Bucky’s strands brushing your bare skin gave you a tickling sensation. “You’re up early.” Bucky hummed into the crook of your neck, making your skin vibrate. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about before heading out for my run.” You turned around to face him, his hair tousled, eyes still glossed over from sleep. Nobody should be allowed to look that gorgeous. “What is it?”

“Steve and Wilson will be back from their trip in a few hours and they will pester me about my crush on you and whether I’ve finally done something about it.” He rolled his eyes and your smile grew wider. “What are you going to tell them?” Bucky reached for your hand and gently squeezed it. “I’d like to tell them that I asked you out on a date and that you agreed, but that wouldn’t be entirely true, would it?” You quirked an eyebrow. “So you’re asking me for permission to lie to your best friend?” Bucky laughed at that, that kind of laugh that made his eyes crinkle. “Y/N, would you like to go out on a date with me?”

You tilted your head to the side. “Depends. Does that mean we’re gonna have to sleep in separate beds again?” Bucky raised your hand to his mouth and softly kissed your knuckles, then he stretched his head and planted a kiss on your forehead. “No way. What do you say?”

“Yes.”

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gorogues · 4 years

Text

The Confusing History of Al and Al

Hi. It’s me again, trying to see if I have the history of Dr. Alchemy, Mr. Element, and the two Als down correctly.

-Showcase #13: Mr. Element debuts.

-Showcase #14: The same character reappears with a new identity, Dr. Alchemy, but he isn’t implied to have a split personality.

-Justice League #21-22: Dr. Alchemy appears as a member of the “Crime Champions”, teaming up with Felix Faust, Chronos, the Icicle, the Fiddler, and the Wizard. Again, there’s no implication of him having a split personality.

-Flash #147: “Our Enemy, the Flash”. Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy reforms. I believe that this is the first issue where his actual name, Albert Desmond, is revealed. His fiancee, Rita, is also introduced here. Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash tries to make Albert revert to evil (and more specifically his identity as Mr. Element) via hypnosis. Throughout the issue, Albert is described as having an evil side of his personality, but it still doesn’t seem to quite be an actual split personality.

-Flash #153: “The Mightiest Punch of All Time”. Eobard uses a machine to bring out the evil in Albert Desmond’s nature, causing him to briefly become Mr. Element before Barry uses a future device to return him to the side of good. Again, he still doesn’t appear to have a full-on split personality. In this issue, it is implied that Al and RIta will soon get married.

-Flash #166: Albert and Rita (now married) attend Barry and Iris’ wedding.

After this I get fuzzy on issue numbers.

-Albert Desmond becomes Mr. Element due to a pulsing star that is stated to have influenced his previous forays into crime. Also, he almost explodes and destroys the Earth. This is the first issue where Albert appears to have a full-on split personality, with Mr. Element and Albert Desmond acting quite differently from one another, behaving as separate individuals. Barry somehow solves Al’s star problem and allegedly destroys Mr. Element as a personality.

-Desmond becomes Dr. Alchemy for some reason (it’s been awhile since I read the issue) and tries to use green fire to burn everything. Again, Dr. Alchemy is implied to be a separate personality rather than just Desmond’s costumed identity, and Barry allegedly rids Albert of Dr. Alchemy by the end of the story. Also, he and Rita almost get crushed by a falling gargoyle at the beginning of the story.

-Albert and Rita attend Barry’s birthday party in a one-panel appearance.

-Flash #287-289: The debut of Alvin Desmond, Albert’s “psychic twin”, who frames Albert for a series of crimes before finally being defeated by Barry Allen and Albert Desmond, who uses his Mr. Element costume and identity without activating an apparent split personality.

-Flash vol. 2 #19: Alvin attends the Rogues’ party and turns Connie Noleski’s bracelet first into gold and then into pure platinum.

-Then there’s a two-parter where it’s revealed that “Alvin” is actually a physical manifestation of Albert’s evil side/split personality(ies) created by the Philosopher’s Stone. Wally West helps Albert to destroy Alvin. Rita does not appear; the two may have divorced by this point.

-Flash vol. 2 #71-72: A guy called the Alchemist shows up, having stolen the Philosopher’s Stone. He’s defeated by Wally and is explicitly neither Albert nor Alvin.

-Towards the end of Mark Waid’s run (during the “Dark Flash” arc) Dr. Alchemy shows up without explanation. It’s not clear if it’s Albert or Alvin under the hood, but he turns apples into gold before getting beaten up by Walter West.

-During Geoff Johns’ run, Dr. Alchemy made sporadic appearances, usually in Iron Heights and doing nothing but reading books. For awhile it wasn’t clear who was under the hood, but then an issue of Gotham Central revealed that he was in fact Albert, acting far more sadistically than he had anywhere else. (I wasn’t crazy about that; Alvin would’ve seemed much more appropriate.)

-And except for a few cameos, that was the last time Albert/Alvin appeared (until the upcoming run with him in it).

Is this right? If so, what in the world is going on in Al’s head? (This was going to be a question, but it got too long, so here it is.)

*** gorogues’ reply begins after this line! ***

Yeah, you've got the gist of it. Alvin also had a two-part story in Blue Beetle v1 #3-4 in 1986, and a cameo in Manhunter v1 #7 in 1988.

Albert had a major appearance in the Brave and the Bold v3 #7 in 2007. The Gotham Central arc was #28-31 (2005) so it was a fair-sized story, but I agree with you, Albert comes across as an absolute psychopath and I wasn't thrilled with that.

Albert or Alvin appeared as Dr Alchemy in Justice League of America v1 #219-220 in 1983 as well.

There's also a Silver Age Mr Element story AND a present-day Dr Alchemy story in Flash v2 annual #8 (1995). Presumably Mr Element was Albert, but it wasn't clear to me whether that Dr Alchemy was Albert or Alvin.

And there's a long-running story arc called "Silver Age" which ran through a bunch of books with that title (Silver Age: Justice League, Silver Age: Flash, etc) that had Albert as Mr Element. It's not clear when exactly those happened, other than sometime in the Silver Age.

Al and Rita apparently divorced off-panel, so we don't know when it happened. But I'd guess it was between her last appearance in Alvin's first arc and the arc in which Alvin is seemingly destroyed (Flash v2 #40-41). Thing is, we don't know for sure that Alvin was destroyed, because in that story with the golden apples (Flash v2 #152) he sure looks like Alvin...but Alvin was supposed to be gone by then. So it was either an art or a continuity error, or maybe Alvin wasn't really destroyed or he was later re-created.

Dr Alchemy had a significant appearance in Flash Secret Files and Origins #2 (1999), but it's not clear whether it's Albert or Alvin. His hair is dark like Albert's, but it's curly like Alvin's.

And then Johns muddied the continuity waters further by putting Albert into Barry's past in Flash: Rebirth and the 2010 Secret Files issue. In this new version of continuity, Albert was Barry's mean co-worker before Barry became the Flash, and he may have even been one of Barry's childhood bullies (it wasn't clear if that was our Albert or a random kid with the name). In the present, Albert made a sinister comment about Barry "I wonder if you remember me -- and if you're still angry about what I did to her", but we never found out who or what he was talking about because Flashpoint happened.

So as you may have surmised, the history of Al is kind of a mess and absolutely confusing. He's been a good man who struggles with evil impulses, he's been affected by an evil star, he's had an astral twin and the good/evil flowed between them, he's learned that the twin was merely a construct of his Stone to give form to his evil impulses, and he's been a completely amoral jerk who cares about nothing other than knowledge. I think there's some room to pick and choose how you interpret him since he's been so different over the years, but the way comics continuity is supposed to work is you take the most recent version...while knowing that it may change in the future. But I'm not going to lie, I stubbornly consider stuff like the Roscoe-possesses-Henry-Allen story at least sort of canon even though it was clearly erased with the Eobard-killed-Nora-Allen retcon, so I think the same can be done with Al if you choose.

What is clear is that Al has significant mental health issues, and possibly Dissociative Identity Disorder. He may have compartmentalized his negative thoughts or urges into another personality in order to rid himself of them or perhaps to deflect blame for them, and certainly the Philosopher's Stone is powerful enough to create a simulacrum of life to make that alter ego real (temporarily or permanently). If so, maybe the more amoral Dr Alchemy we saw under Johns is just his 'bad' personality having seized control, and maybe the original Albert is buried and can still re-emerge. I think that'd be an ideal solution to make sense of all the various continuities and leave room for a more nuanced Al who isn't solely amoral. I hope we see something like that when Al finally returns in a few months.

#longitudinalwaveme #Dr Alchemy #Mr Element #submission #words #long post #the more you know #queue

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sweater-daddiesdumbdork · 4 years

Text

Fall Back to the Jet

Summary- Bucky x Y/N (Steve, Natasha, and Sam features) Cap tells you to fall back to the Quinnjet, but you decide on another option. Lucky Buckys close by. Warning- Violence, swearing. Written for @hopingforbarnes 250 Writing Challenge. Congrats!!!! Prompt is in bold italiacs.

Word Count- 1.9k

It was all going smooth till Steve spoke directly to you in his com “Y/N, we have it from here, fall back to the quinnjet”

You were still the rookie although its been a year, and Steve was the Captain, No one defies the captain, except for you. You eyed the open doorway the hydra agent just went into, taking a deep breath as your resolve settled, you werent going to sit on the quinjet any longer while the rest cleaned up. Ducking into the dark doorway, you stalked down the stairs while hearing your name being yelled at in the com “Y/N, I TOLD YOU TO FALL BACK” Sorry Cap, not this time.

There are times in your life you maybe regret a decision, this was one of them. You thought the room was clear, sweeping your sights back and forth from the other end of a rifle, when there was a clip to the back of your head, knocking you forward and stupidly dropping your gun. “You Mother Fucker!” you yelp, and turn to face your opponent, twisting your head slightly to knock out the kink he put in your neck. He was well over twice your size, his meaty hands flexing to get around that slim column of your neck, you could see it in his eyes when he lunged at you, side stepping around him with a kick. It was like bouncing your foot off cement and didnt phase him much, smirking at you as he came at you again. “SHIT!” you state as you start blocking and trying to attack back.

“Bucky you got her?” Steve hissed as they barged into a lab and Steve threw up the shield, blocking the barrage of bullets aimed at the two men.

“Yea I got her” Bucky ducking behind the shield and once in a while lifting behind from it and aiming his own specially trained on targets rounds, he twisted away and went back out the way he came, using his vibranium arm to slam open doors to see them empty. “Come on Y/N, where the hell are you?” He snarled, until he heard you cussing out someone and the shallow sound of flesh getting pounded on. He hoped that it would be you doing the pounding, but when he opened the door, that certainly wasnt the case.

Bucky came into you looking twisted around the mans arm, and him slamming you down into the floor, doing your best to keep your head from being bashed in, attempting a kick into his face, his throat, just about anywhere to get him to release his hold. Blood ran down the side of your face from your scalp and your words were flying just as much as anytime youve ever been pissed off, regardless of the situation. “If you dont let me the fuck go you dick wilted asswipe, Im gonna rip your balls off and stuff them down your throat.” If Bucky wasnt scared as hell for you at the moment, he would have rolled his eyes at you, once he realized the way you were being flung back and forth wasnt gonna allow him to take a shot, he shouldered the weapon.Close attack it would be

Without another pause, Bucky strode forward, his strides wide and his metal arm slammed into the hyrdra agents side of the head, jarring his hand to open wrapped around your neck and you fell to the floor from a considerable height,snapping the back of your skull against the cement with a sharp cry. Rolling away from the two men clashing like titans above you. Bucky was shorter in stature then the hydra agent was, but much more quick on his feet, as well as being a super soldier, it wasnt exactly a fair hand on hand fight. Within minutes the agent was merely blocking the bone rattling blows Bucky was issuing, you were crawling across the floor to where you dropped your weapon, sitting back and putting it to your shoulder, waiting to get a clear shot.

Buckys silver hand wrapped around the back of the mans neck, the plates clinking as he tightened pressure and swung him around right in the aim of your shot, you lining hydra right up in your cross hairs, and pulling the trigger. Barnes turned his face away to keep from getting splattered from brain matter and blood. Loosening his hold, the hydras body, minus the top of his skull, collapsed with a dull thud. You lower the rifle and wince, placing your hand against your head. “Bucky... he got me pretty good.” Your vision going in and out at the moment.

“Jesus Christ Doll” He hisses as he sidesteps around the body and goes to you, his hands cupping your face to look in your eyes. “Can you focus on me?” You blink a few times and wide eyed stare right at him best you can.

“Hows that?” You question, grinning stupidly since your just glad Bucky got there in time. He frowned a bit and sighed, wrapping you in his arm to get you to stand.

“Steve, I got her, Im taking her back to the Jet.” He spoke, not to you though and you didnt bother trying to get an answer. With his assistance, you two hobbled, less with sleuth, but with plenty of pauses for Bucky to check to make sure the coast was clear, the two of you headed outside. Sam was already in the jet, waiting on the two of you.

“Steve and Nat are finishing up downloading the computer files, then they will join us. Come on Kid, I got a spot waiting for you.”

“She had her head hit pretty badly” Bucky stated as you two followed Sam inside, going to sit you down, a wave of nausea threatened to upchuck whatever breakfast was, which what was that again? Oh yea, bowl of Wheaties, you remarking to Steve and Bucky this morning across the table.

“Breakfast of Champs!” You werent exactly feeling like a champ right now.

Sam looked you over to, prying one eyelid open, then the other. “I think shes going to be okay, but once we reach the compound we will be able to take a closer look.” Bucky settled in beside you and you pried them open once more.

“Thanks for coming for me.”

It was this moment Steve and Natasha returned, Steve snapping past you without acknowledging you at the moment. “Get us home Sam” his voice clipped, and Natasha plopped down next to you, her eyes brimming with worry. “Hey, we win some, we loose some right? You also got a hard head, I know.” She teased, having sparred and tumbled with you plenty of times. Steve stayed up at the front with Sam for the moment, but once he was sure you were okay, back home, you were most likely gonna get one of the famous Cap speeches youve seen him dish out to other agents. For now you were content to lay your head on Buckys shoulder, his hand resting against his knee, palm up. Without hesitating, you weave your fingers with his and he gives them a gentle squeeze. It might amaze others just how gentle he could be with that vibranium limb of his. Not you though.

When the jet lands, you walk off, much more in control then before, but Bucky still hovers nearby and follows you into the medic bay. Quickly your head is checked over, a flashlight shining in your eyes, follow the finger, clean up the scrapes and blood. “Your gonna be dizzy for a few days, so nothing strenuous.”

In this moment, you were okay with that.

Steve came in, his demeanor still snapping in anger, but a touch calmer then before. He glanced at the medic and asked “Please, give us a few moments Ma’am, then you can have your patient back.” Bucky moved to take over bandaging the rest of you up as the medic left the room to the three of you.

He looked at you, hands moving to rest against his hips as he seemed to asses you. “I heard your okay, Y/N. Good, you gave your team quite a scare.” You did have the audacity to look a bit sheepish, but felt the need to defend your actions. “I know, I honestly thought I had him.”

“Thought, not good enough. Your still fairly new to the team...” This caused a look from you while Bucky patched up the back of your head as best he could. “So I think a bit more team building practices are in order Y/N. Until then, field work is off the table.”

“What? Steve, come on.” You go to push Bucky back so you can stand up, but hes firm, firmer then you can give him credit for. “It was one mistake, I made a bad call.”

“Yea, could have gotten you killed. Your always trying to think solo and you just cant. Were a team Y/N. We work together. Ive already made the decision.”

You kinda gape as Steve turns to leave, fuming. You swear your heads going to blow like in those old bugs bunny cartoons where it goes off like a train whistle. “That son of a bitch just benched me. BENCHED ME!” This time you manage to move to a stand, about to storm off after Steve, but Bucky caught your arm and sat your ass back down.

“Youve got to calm down before I can fix you up, Okay?” Bucky said calmly as he works diligently. His hands just as gentle as ever, you can barely even tell hes doing anything. You stay as still as you can, fighting back frustrated tears at the Captain benching you like this. Your tired and sore, your reaction just adding to your already bad day. “It was one mistake, one. I just hate always being told to go back to the jet when I could be helping you guys out. It was a bad call on my part, but fuck... I just wanted to be useful. I cant believe how bad this has turned into.”

Bucky is silent for a moment before he pulls back and studies your face momentarily, and sighs. “Listen, I will talk to Steve, okay? Right now hes just being a dick. He will give everyone else crap about not following orders, but damned if he does.” You wipe at your face to get rid of the frustrated tears build up and arched your brows, hopeful.

“You would really do that Bucky? If he says yes, I promise I wont mess up again.”

“Course I would, and let me tell you, Steve wouldnt have listened either.” He went to pick up the tools and waste sitting on the table nearby, and scrubbed his hands clean. “Let him just cool off, hes probably speaking in worry as well Y/N. He doesnt always show it, but your just as much family as the rest of us.”

Tentatively you go to stand, touching the bandages he finished securing gently and wincing. Without even asking he held out some aspirin that you popped immediately. “How about we go crash on the couch? You still owe me live commentary on that second little people going to drop some jewelry in a fiery hole movie. What was it again?”

This caused you to laugh. “The Twin Towers? Sounds good Bucky”

@what-is-your-plan-today @official-and-unstable-satan @p8tn0lish

#hopingforbarnes250writingchallenge #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #steve rogers #sam wilson #natasha romanoff #mcu #marvel #writing challenge #amber writes

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bettsfic · 5 years

Note

hey betts! can you give us any insight into your new drafting process (the one you mentioned on Twitter?) those results have me green with envy

sure! this is going to be a fairly quick run-down because i have to start planning my classes here soon.

(anon is referring to this tweet)

required reading

shitty first drafts by anne lamott, which is where i modified my process from

on fear by mary ruefle, which talks about procedure and i may have taken the wrong meaning from the essay but basically, my entire process is about mitigating the fear innate in writers’ block by having a procedure in place to counteract it

tools

google docs (or some other word processor)

google calendar (or some other calendar app; i wrote about my scheduling process here)

toggl (or some other timekeeping app)

airtable (i’ve also used trello, but i like airtable better. ps big thanks to @electricalice for introducing me to it! it’s a lifesaver)

pre-writing

so first you need an idea. whenever i have an idea, even if there’s 0 chance i’ll end up writing it, i add it to my airtable, plus any notes or details i come up with. i also copy and paste any text convos i have about the fic, like if i headcanon something with a friend. (i used trello for this until recently; it works just fine and is a bit easier to use. airtable also has a kanban function though, along with other formats, so it’s a bit more flexible)

airtable is a project management spreadsheet software. i’m sure there are others out there, but i started fiddling with this one and haven’t looked back. it takes a little while to figure out, and you might have to google some things you want it to do that aren’t terribly intuitive.

my fanfic table, filtered by ideas, looks like this:

(you may have to expand to look at it, also note that the pretty colors are a Pro feature of the app and i’m still on my trial)

the idea here is to have space to store my ideas. let’s say i hang out with a friend and we started talking about fic, and i bring up i have an idea for a endgame coda but i’m not really sure where to take it, so we start headcanoning back and forth, and now i have a few scene ideas. i made my endgame coda card already right after i saw the movie, so all i have to do is open the app and jot down the main points of my headcanoning. now when i go home and start working on it, i can easily pull up our brainstorming session.

narrative outlining

i have never been an outliner or a planner. i’ve always been a pantser. i have a premise and i run with it, and that worked for me for a long time. pantsing has a lot of benefits: your story always surprises you! you can get really immersed! it’s certainly the more whimsical writing process.

but what i found was that i would often write myself into a corner, or lose steam once i realized what should have been a 10k fic was actually going to be 80k and i didn’t like the story enough to sit with it for 80k. i also spent a long time thinking about future scenes and writing them down but losing them later, or forgetting about them.

so i started doing narrative outlines, which are just me going “and then THIS happens” repeatedly and sometimes inputting “and something causes this other thing” until eventually i have the whole story written out. the goal of the narrative outline is pacing. all you have to do is get the major beats down. it doesn’t have to be good. no one is going to see it (unless you want them to).

ideally my paragraphs will be all around the same size. those are going to become my chapters. if a paragraph is significantly shorter than another, it’s likely that i don’t have that beat fleshed out yet. i call chapters “beats” because to me, each one should have its own arc, and end at a high or low point in the story.

in my fanfic airtable, i have a table for chapters. all chapters of all multi-chap wips go here, and i can filter out ones that are complete later.

the beauty of the chapters table is that it can connect to your ideas/wip table and vice versa so everything is kept together. i had 7 paragraphs in my narrative outline so i made 7 rows.

notice i also gave myself a due date. i don’t really like due dates, but i’m trying them on for now and seeing how it goes.

i copy and paste the chapter paragraph as i go into the “summary” field. then, as scene or line ideas come to me, i toss them in the “scenes/lines” field. I was in a car for 8 hours and coming up with scenes all over the place, and i needed somewhere to put them. if i didn’t know where they went, i put them in my idea table instead, and filed them later.

you’re still idea-ing, you’re still outlining, but now it’s time to write.

gauge

i make a folder for the fic and open a doc and label it ch1. then i copy and paste the narrative outline paragraph into the doc and separate it out by scene with an asterisk between each one.

here’s where the timesheet and calendar come in. i have a reminder on my calendar to schedule the following day, and on that schedule i put my writing time. when it’s time to write, i start the toggl clock. at the end of each week, i put in my time in my personal timesheet.

the first chapter or 10% of anything i’m writing tends to take longer than the rest, because i need to get into the story, and choose the voice and tense and tone and things like that. so i take however long i take to make what i call a gauge. in knitting, a gauge is the thing that determines the size of the piece. if you’re knitting a sweater, you knit a little square to make sure the sweater comes out the size you need it to be.

so i write the gauge and it takes however long it takes. sometimes i rewrite it a few times, test out POVs and tenses and description and whatever else. what i like best, what seems the most sustainable, is what i choose. i wrote 3 chapters of a novel in present tense and a childish tone before i decided it needed to be first person reflective and i rewrote the whole thing.

don’t get frustrated with yourself if your gauge doesn’t work. that’s what the gauge is for. you’ll know you’ve chosen the right voice if, by the end of your gauge, you’re really eager to keep writing.

down draft & punch list

so now you’ve got a pretty gauge to follow, and the rest is going to be an absolute mess. the down draft is exactly what it sounds like – you get the idea down. i personally believe you need to tell the story to yourself a few times in order to get good at telling the story, or to know what the story is. you’ve told yourself the story once in outline form, and now you’re just breaking out the scenes a little bit more.

the key to the down draft is not to self-edit. i’m not talking about going back and tweaking typos and shit, that’s fine, whatever. i mean doubting yourself structurally. like, oh shit, you forgot to mention that they took off their clothes and now they’re naked.

here’s where the punch list comes in, which is yet another table. (i’ve also used google tasks for this, because it pops up in a side window. either works!) a punch list is a to do list. instead of fixing things, you put the thing on your punch list and save it for the next draft. a down draft is all about speed and figuring out where all the pieces go. revising during the down draft only slows you down.

the punch list is my solution to the contrived advice “you can fix it later!” to which i always say, “BUT I WON’T REMEMBER TO FIX IT LATER I HAVE TO FIX IT NOW.” as soon as you think of something to fix, put it on the table. it may seem like it’s faster to fix things as you go. it is not. i promise.

this is all my punch list notes for all fics, which i then connect to my other tables/filter as needed. put everything in your punch list. it’s better to make a punch list item that you don’t end up implementing than forget an important revision note. if you end up putting the project down for a while, you’ll want to know what you’d intended.

up draft

in the up draft, you clean up the down draft. here, i take each document in a new window, put it on the right half of the screen, and open a new document to put on the left.

then i rewrite the whole fucking thing. i pull up my punch list and fix all the things as i go, to the best of my ability. here’s where the writing gets pretty and fleshed out. but still, it doesn’t need to be perfect. you have more revisions to go. it’s important to remember during this entire process that everything can be changed. nothing is permanent. you’re not writing in stone. there’s no cost to words or documents, so you can revise as much as you want.

it’s also worth noting that the longer your project, the more sectioned out your story will be. sometimes you’ll have a chapter on a down draft and another chapter on an up draft. sometimes you might down draft out of order just to make sure you get your ideas down when they occur. whatever works for you. the idea is that you’re constantly building spaces in which to put your stuff that can be easily found and implemented. the creative process is messy, so you need to make clean spaces to put the mess in.

while you’re up-drafting, you’re still idea-ing and outlining and down-drafting and punch-listing. maybe you don’t have the answer to a problem yet, but you might later. decision fatigue in the creative process is real. this process is designed to mitigate decision fatigue. there are only ever so many decisions to make at once when you expand out your process like this one.

and sometimes, sadly, the solution to a problem never happen. that’s okay. what you write might be flawed. in fact it should be flawed. flaws are what make things beautiful. all you can do is the best you can do, and if it’s not good enough for your tastes, you can learn from your mistakes and try again.

beta

sometimes i have a beta and sometimes i don’t, depending on how confident i am about the work. when i have a beta, this is the stage i send them my stuff. sometimes i tell them specific things i’m looking for, like just line edits, or cheerleading, or whatever else. sometimes i have questions about whether or not something is working. i tell them what date i intend to post and when i would like edits to be done by, and if they don’t get around to it, that’s okay. i can just hustle a little harder in the next revision.

dental draft

here’s where, per anne lamott, you check every tooth. i implement my remaining punch list items and beta feedback, fix pacing issues, typos, unclear sentences, etc. sometimes i do the side-by-side window thing for chapters that are particularly messy, and sometimes i just fix the existing doc. by now your story should be looking pretty good, or the best you can get it.

final read-through :) or additional revisions :(

for fic, this is the point where i hit it and hope. i copy and paste the chapter/fic into an ao3 shell with the tags and summary i’ve kept in my airtable, and do a final readthrough. i don’t do it in the original doc because seeing it in a new font and format usually makes me notice things i’d missed before.

for ofic, here’s where you might need more feedback and more revising if your piece isn’t working yet, or if you’ve submitted it a couple dozen places and haven’t had it accepted. while this process is thorough, sometimes pieces still aren’t working for whatever reason. don’t throw anything away, though. keep it, file it, log it in your airtable, and maybe one day while you’re driving an idea will pop into your head and you’ll be able to come back to it.

this was a really really quick run-down of an extremely long and complicated process, but it works for me! i probably wouldn’t have been able to do this even a year ago. it’s taken me a long time to cultivate this kind of discipline, and i’m still a work in progress. so if it’s too much or too structured for you, that’s fine. maybe you can take one or two things for yourself and try them out.

#writing advice #process #Anonymous

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Text

3 topics this time!

1.) I was watching Sarcastic Chorus’ video on Star Vs The Forces of Evil, and near the end there was a comment that stuck with me. “These ideas are present, but not fully explored. I like to call them the window shopping of ideas.”

And that was just such a perfect way of describing it. When I first heard it, I immediately thought of My Hero Academia and RWBY. And while both have this problem in spades, RWBY is much more obvious about it. Every single time RWBY introduces a concept they’ll look at it, try it on for a bit, and then dump it on the floor for other people to deal with, and then leave without buying into anything.

Raven? Dumped. Beacon? Dumped. Has anyone seen Tai? Glynda? Sun? Are the grimm still roaming around? Are we sure that Salem hasn’t yet retrieved the relic from Beacon? Wasn’t Nora supposed to get development? Are she and Ren still having problems? Shouldn’t Jaune be learning how to control his semblance better? Especially since it’s something so helpful? Didn’t Robyn need immediate medical attention? But she somehow survived? And is perfectly okay? How? Wasn’t she in a serious medical condition? Is Haven still in chaos? Where is Watts? Is he locked up? Or did he escape while the mains were throwing their temper tantrums? Where’s Tyrian? Where are all of the other students? All dumped. Little to no explanation, and off to the next shop.

2.) I disappeared for a bit after your recap because I was so purely infuriated with the last two episodes. Ironwood shooting Oscar feels ignorable to me in a way because it’s such an out of left field, ooc moment, that my brain is just refusing to acknowledge it. It’s horrible, terrible writing. And it feels a lot like shark jumping.

But as someone who started writing fanfiction in middle school, I get where they were coming from. They wanted a fall from grace story. Cool. Got it. But that takes time. If they wanted to do this properly, it should have been given much more time. Hit the topic episode 1 of the season and devote little time to anything else. The election? Scrap it. Overall it was barely relevant. Robyn. Skip it. Again, barely relevant. Don’t have Ruby&Co hiding info. That takes up time and attention. Have them put all of their cards on the table immediately. (It also serves to not make them hypocrites.) Give the teams another solution to save everyone. (At least a reasonably feasible one.)

Have the kids argue it out. Have Ironwood refuse to budge because they’ve already put too much time into the plan before Ruby and friends came along. Have Weiss go to her mother ask her to set up a meeting with the council to protest what Ironwood is doing. And have her gain their trust by revealing what her father has been doing. If you really want to do this in such little time, it’s possible, but you have to dedicate the time that you do have to it. If you don’t want to do that, and you don’t want to pace it out for another season, then scrap it. In the overall story for the show Ironwood being evil is wholly unnecessary. It adds nothing to the show. Especially since they’ve already done this twist.

You could also make it so that the Ace Ops were going behind Ironwood’s back to betray him to Salem. Have the ace ops getting along with the mains to gather information. You could also have had Ironwood going down a dark path since his reintroduction. Have him plant spyware on them. Have him in shadows. Have him looking menacing in scenes. Alluding to terrible things that he might be doing. Looking at secret files. Messing with the relic. But for the love of god, don’t do what you’ve done. It was messy and lazy. If you can’t (or don’t want to) devote the time and effort to make this work, then remove it from your story.

3.) There was an article about the fan backlash regarding Clover’s death. In it, it talked about how anyone upset was just a whiny woman who was upset that she can’t fantasize about two gay men. And that it wasn’t queerbaiting or burying your gays because Clover wasn’t officially canonized as such. And that the show has Bumblebee, so it can’t be doing either of those things. And I was so disgusted by it and the comments that followed that I had to get off the internet for awhile. There’s just so much wrong with that.

No, Clover was not said to be anything other than straight in canon. (He wasn’t said to be straight either, so…) However, if we are only going with what has explicitly been stated in the show; then I will not be accepting Bumblebee as a legitimate point for the show from the same people any longer.

Do they seem to be headed into a relationship? Sure. And I hope that it gets proper time and follow through. But if we’re only accepting relationships and sexualities by being told in universe, then you can’t use that as a shield. Because nothing has been said. The writers could change their minds, place them in relationships with male characters, say that they’re straight (you better not RT, do not take this as a legitimate idea to do) and act like nothing ever happened. But it wouldn’t matter, according to this logic, because they never technically canonized it. And I know that it’s a little different, given that we’re shown Blake and Yang having signs of romance feelings for each other, but by this argument, nothing matters unless we’re spoon fed information. And that brings me to my next point.

In the history of media wlw pairings have always been more ‘acceptable’ than mlm ones. Because there’s a history of denial and fetishizing them. It it’s women, then of course they’re all over each other! They’re women! With all those emotions and need for physical contact! If they’re in a relationship with another woman? That’s fine! It’s not a real relationship! They’re just playing! They need a man! And just imagine! Two attractive women being attracted to you, good sir! And imagine being such a studly man that these women change their sexualities just for you! Women are fickle after all! They change their minds all the time!

A man in a relationship with another man? Is seen as unnatural. Because straight men can’t fantasize about it. They can’t fetishize it. And therefore, there’s no need for it in media. They don’t want it there. And I don’t want to accuse the writers at RWBY of specifically thinking this way, but it is the way media tends to go. And while the lead characters are women, and a good amount of the fandom are women, there’s still room to question if this is what’s happening. The main leads are all young, thin, and conventionally attractive. Even when in a place that marked by how cold it is, the clothes are more for style and having the girls look attractive over function. The only one of them that looks even remotely clothed appropriately for the weather is Weiss. And when you get to the male characters, they’re either evil, dead, or given so little character that half the time they’re easy to forget. Because the story nor the writing is interested in men.

Also, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of the writing suddenly getting rid of characters that fans pair with Qrow. First Ozpin, then Ironwood, then Clover. You could probably make an argument for Tai being shunted off once that started to gain traction in fandom as well. It’s creepy.

(Sorry if anything is phrased badly. One of the problems I have with social things is that I never know if I’ve phrased something well enough to get my point across without being offensive. Still working on it, so let me know!)

***

Response under the cut!

1. absolutely love that phrase: “Window shopping ideas.” I feel like I may have heard it before, but not enough for it to stick. It really is perfect though. The story looks at something, seems to consider it seriously, maybe even tries it on… but in the end doesn’t commit. We move onto the next piece of clothing—or even the next store—without, ultimately, having achieved anything other than introducing the possibility of buying a new outfit (telling a cohesive story). One of the most common compliments I hear RWBY get, and one I agree with, is that it has so many cool ideas. The problem is this isn’t a tumblr post going, “Here are all my fun headcanons, random concepts, and nifty details vaguely held together by a broad plot.” Cool ideas alone isn’t enough to carry a mainstream story a lot of people are paying for, certainly not one as long and complex as RWBY has become. Granted, every story has window shopping to a certain extent. We can acknowledge that there are different levels:

Dropping Glynda is super understandable largely due to the issues surrounding her voice actress. Finding someone new for Qrow is one thing because he’s still actively a part of the plot, but if you’ve lost an actress for a character currently off screen, it’s tempting to just keep her off screen. I get that. It’s an arguably smart sacrifice.

Dropping Jaune’s development is somewhat understandable because we acknowledge that change within a cast this size has to cycle. Jaune got to improve last volume through figuring out how to heal that guy’s arm and amplify Ren’s semblance. So his development takes a backseat the next volume to make room for others’. Problem is…

Dropping something like Nora and Ren’s development is both Not Good and actively hurting the justification behind dropping other things (like Jaune). What did we learn about Ren and Nora this volume? Nothing. There was no insight into Nora like we were led to believe there would be. Ren obviously has a lot of stuff he’s trying to work through, but the story actively kept him from working through it by silencing him with a kiss. And the kiss itself? Great in regards to moving forward with their romantic relationship, but we already knew that relationship existed. We were clear about Ren and Nora being a couple up until Ren voiced hesitation… which, as said, was then ignored. The kiss achieved little in the grand scheme of things and, unlike something like Blake/Yang, doesn’t function to provide absolutely needed proof. Again, it’s good we got it, it just wasn’t done particularly well and was done in place of much more important development. I don’t need them to kiss this second because their moments in Volume 4-6 firmly established that they’re a couple. I do need to know more about who Nora is, whether Ren agrees with Ironwood, and why he’s so torn about this relationship that just the concept of hitting a fake version of Nora in battle makes him cry. (Because seriously, don’t they spar? That was clearly something much bigger than just not wanting to his his girlfriend.)

So… yeah. A lot of window shopping. Which connects to:

2. The fact that yeah, there was too much going on this volume which resulted in none of it getting the time it needed. We keep coming back to the question of “What is the point?” What was the point of resurrecting Penny if she wasn’t going to grow as a person, or help Ruby do the same? What’s the point of spending so much time on Robyn learning to trust Ironwood only for her to immediately reject him on the airship? What’s the point of devoting time to Qrow and Clover’s friendship if Qrow thinks so little of it he’ll team up with Tyrian instead? What was the point of framing Penny? What’s the point of spending SO much time showing justified and sympathetic scenes of Ironwood if you’re going to take a sharp right and randomly make him shoot a kid in the finale? What’s the point of the group being devastated by Ozpin lying to them if they’re just going to turn around and tell the same lies? Nothing amounted to anything. All the time we spent developing Thing A was dropped for Thing B. Continuing the analogy, the characters spent a whole volume admiring the red dress, checking the price, talking about reasons why this was the perfect purchase for them to make… only to turn around and buy a pair of pants instead, something we haven’t even seen them look at, let alone try on. The journey these characters took is entirely disconnected from where they ended up.

3. Oof yeah. All of that is a complex af topic that deserves more than my quick response… but suffice to say, anyone who believes that “wasn’t queerbaiting or burying your gays because Clover wasn’t officially canonized as such” fundamentally doesn’t understand what queerbaiting is. The whole point is that it’s NOT canonized. Like Blake/Yang remain. I admit 100% that Clover and Qrow were not teased in the same way that other potential queer couples have been (such as Dean/Cas in Supernatural), but there were a lot of hints and coding that encouraged a queer reading regardless and fans are right to point that out, regardless of what RT’s intentions may have been. Even if you don’t want to go that route, this volume still—quite obviously—encouraged a close friendship, something that in and of itself is chock-full of implications given the history of the buddy duo/opposites attract trope. Whether you read Qrow and Clover as platonic or potentially romantic, the end result is the same: two men embodied an intimate and gentle relationship (something rare for two “straight” guys) and then one was horrifically murdered off in order to “justify” the destruction of the one other friendship Qrow still has going. There’s a lot in there for fans to be upset with, especially when it was all set up so poorly. And frankly, until RT actually canonizes Blake/Yang, I’m not going to make any blanket statements about how they would never queerbait, not matter how lightly. Because you’re right. We don’t know what we’ll get in the future and no matter how seemingly obvious it is that they will enter a relationship at some point…we can’t swear that it will actually make it on screen. In which case everything we’ve seen—romantic hand-holding, intense blushes, going out on presumed dates—would enter the realm of really intense queerbaiting, which in turn would drastically color how viewers read Clover and Qrow. You proved with one couple that you’re willing to string viewers along… so why would we claim you weren’t doing the same here, even though it was a lot more subtle? As an on-going series it’s hard to make any definite statements about RWBY’s representation, but given how long it’s taking for their presumed, primary queer couple to get together (no matter how little time has passed in-world the writers are still making the fanbase wait years) and the history surrounding Clover and Qrow’s character types as well as the ending they got… I’m more than a little uncomfortable. Just like I was uncomfortable with the decision to make the first queer character a villain who blames her crush for those feelings, her abusive relationship, all while trying to murder her parents. That stuff hurts in a world where queer media is still both rare and often badly done. Even if next volume Blake/Yang becomes canon and RT has A+ rep moving forward, we’re still left for the next year with one queer coded character denouncing all his male friendships, one close male friend dead, and two women dancing around each other. Volume 7 has a lot of things that on their own aren’t necessarily that bad, but pull them all together and it paints a far worse picture.

(Also yeah, another anon mentioned how RWBY is popular because it’s not fanservice and I’m like, “Yes… but also no lol. I have things to say about how ‘We don’t do giant breasts or pantie shots!’ shouldn’t be the only bar we strive to meet.)

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #submission

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lovelylogans · 6 years

Text

lavender for luck: chapter four

see warnings here

art by neil

previous chapter | next chapter

Virgil had anticipated the move being absolute chaos.

The reality’s much worse.

He’s taken the beater of a car up to school, for now; the agreement is that he’ll drive it back and then get the bus back to campus, which is a pain, but seemingly the only solution. Virgil’s providing kitchen stuff and the materials for his bedroom, the rest is taken care of! according the groupchat they’d kept over the summer (which pinged in time nearly with his heartbeat) but Virgil’s been anticipating last minute runs to the nearest shop with the cheapest furniture.

He gets there first; granted, it’s towards the end of the day, and Virgil swings into the leasing office to get his key. He gets something at the Busy Bean, and then he waits. Virgil huddles up in his car, sweating (partially from nerves, partially from the heat) and triple-guessing every last move he’s going to make. He’s cased the street a dozen times, he’s got the potion necessary, he knows he’s likely as safe as it’s gonna be, but intellectually he knows how nocturnal college students can be; the potion may be good, but it’s not foolproof, and it won’t work on furniture.

He deems it safe when it reaches the witching hour, three in the morning—late enough that the bars are closed, late enough that people would be sleeping, late enough that police have likely given up on their rounds.

Virgil takes a breath when the clock turns and dumps the potion in his hands.

Potion’s really the only most casual name for it; this particular potion’s supposed to be applied like a lotion. It smells of apple seeds, foxglove, elderberries. Certainly lethal if ingested, and definitely painful if Virgil touches any living thing. Really, the invisibility is only a side effect; this is meant to incapacitate people. He vows to himself to take a shower as soon as he’s done what he’s about to do.

Virgil takes a breath. He can, technically, do this. He doesn’t usually—it feels show-offy, he doesn’t quite have the finest of control with it—and he’s never really done it with things this heavy.

He closes his eyes, reaches down within himself until he can feel the crackling echoing up and down his spine, and holds up his hands. (He doesn’t actually have to do this part, but it kind of makes him feel like a superhero, so he does it. He usually uses the excuse of narrowing my focus but it is absolutely because it makes him feel like a superhero.)

The furniture, kitchenware, and bins of clothes began to float through the air and soar gently through the opened door on the balcony. Virgil keeps his breathing even and calm—if he panics, furniture’ll go flying, and that’ll be even more of a mess.

He lowers his hands when the last of it’s up, smiles to himself, and goes to climb the stairs to actually enter his apartment.

His stuff is lying in the midst of the living room floor; he hasn’t put a hole through any of the walls, and there’s no scuffmarks on the balcony door, so Virgil’s considering this a success. He flicks his hand, and his bedframe scuttles off to his bedroom to assemble itself as the pots, pans, and silverware leap to file itself away in the cupboards and drawers.

He’s careful not to touch anything, too aware of what he’d read this potion can do, even resorts to having the bed make itself and his clothes hang themselves in his closet, as he goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower immediately.

Virgil crashes into his bed around four, having carefully scrubbed off every inch of his body, before he groans, remembering the parking meter outside. He may be magic, but even he can’t circumvent the police from giving him a parking ticket.

Grumblingly, he descends the stairs, and goes to park it somewhere he can actually keep it overnight. At least, he meant to, and eventually just turned the car to the highway and booked it back to Ligerion. Better now than later, he figures.

Cora’s less pleased that he’s made the drive on no sleep and bullies him into taking a nap in her apartment above the diner, before sending him off with a gift card for a grocery store, for food only, you hear me? for HEALTHY food, too! and coffee to wait for the bus.

He gets to the apartment and spends the morning straightening out the last of his belongings before he hears a knock on the front door, and pads, barefoot, to the door.

He opens it to see Logan juggling a box, and Virgil steps aside to let him in.

“When’d you get here?” Logan asks, and Virgil shrugs.

“Earlier,” he says. “That’s not all your stuff, right?”

“Of course not,” Logan says with a sigh. “My mother’s terrorizing the local store staff and my father’s joined her. Apparently as we are two young men with good backs, they have assumed we can handle moving the heavy things ourselves.”

“They totally saddled us with all the work, got it,” Virgil says, mentally calculating the likelihood of a Logan freakout if he does the same magic in the midst of the day before deciding it’s probably not worth it. “Patton and Roman should be by soon, though, so it’ll be four young men with good backs.”

“Fantastic,” Logan says, and squints. “I’m next to you, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Virgil says, pointing down the hall. “Second door on the left. Patton and Roman have the right.”

The four rooms—two on the left, two on the right—are branched off from the living room and kitchen, each with their own bathroom. Which Virgil’s a little excited for, oddly—he’s so used to it at Ligerion, college was a bit of a culture shock for him.

Logan carts down his first box of stuff to his room as Virgil hunts after a doorstop.

He and Logan make two more trips up before a van pulls up, and out from it pours a Biblical plague of children.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Patton says, hands on his hips even as he’s exiting the car and lecturing two little girls who have already gotten into pulling on each other’s braids. “Pris, Poppy, go grab a box and stop bugging each other, okay?”

They roll their eyes in tiny unison but go to do as Patton says.

“I’ve brought free labor,” Patton says, gesturing expansively towards his eight siblings. “They��re getting paid in pizza and ice cream, so. Point Parker, Peter, Penny, and Piper to the heavy stuff, Pris and Pop say they’ve got dibs on decorating—my room only, don’t worry—Pat, could you help Pearl carry that ottoman, thank you—"

“Um,” Logan says, and proceeds to take the two nearest elder children, directing them towards his van as the other two split to grab some of Patton’s stuff.

“Run me through the roster again,” Virgil says faintly.

“Got it,” Patton says. “Me, Patton, I’m nineteen-almost-twenty. Penny’s just eighteen, Parker’s fifteen, Piper’s thirteen, Pris and Pop are ten, Patrick’s eight, and Pearl is six.”

Virgil shakes himself. “I’m never going to understand having that many siblings,” he decides.

“A-okay,” Patton declares, and gives Virgil a brief, one-armed squeeze of a hug. “How’s your summer been?”

“Good, boring,” Virgil fibs. “Cousins came to town, worked at the diner and with my uncle. Same old.”

Patton nods and he’s about to say more, before he swoops in to help the two littlest ones with that ottoman, leaving Virgil to grab a random box from inside the truck and haul it inside.

The big furniture has monopoly in the elevator, so Virgil’s suffering up and down the stairs hauling boxes for Logan and Patton when Roman pulls up—with his parents, and his sister.

Virgil sighs but accepts the box Roman thunks into his arms as a form of hello.

The apartment’s pretty spacey, compared to the dorm, but with sixteen people (Logan’s parents swan back in once the heavy lifting’s done with) it’s feeling a bit cramped. Virgil’s fighting the urge to hide in his room until everyone leaves.

Until there’s a tug at his pant leg, and Virgil looks down into the large brown eyes. It’s one of the little ones, Virgil thinks, but he can’t remember if it’s Pris, Poppy, or Pearl. Judging by size, probably Pearl.

“Um,” Virgil says. “Hi. Do you… are you looking for Patton? Do you need something to do?”

Pearl shakes her head, and stares at him, still wide-eyed.

“Oh,” Virgil begins, “kay. What’s up?”

Pearl makes a frustrated face, and the pulse Virgil gets from her is so strong that he barely even has to Look.

“Oh,” he says, “oh,” and then, fumblingly, makes a fist, thumb up, and circles it around his heart. “Sorry,” he says, careful to mouth his words carefully. “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

Pearl shrugs, and she signs I get it, mouthing the words too, but Virgil knows, somehow, knows the signs that match up to the words. Does he know sign language too? Is this something he just knows, now? Or is it just because he’s Looking?

“Did you need something?” Virgil tries, managing to sign you and need. Pearl looks at him, and he knows the sign, knows what she’s trying to say.

Patton says you know magic.

Virgil doesn’t know if that’s what Patton’s told her, if he’s mentioned tarot to Pearl, if he’s trying to make his sister believe, but Virgil’s a bit spooked. He glances up and down the hallway, before he crouches to her height, digging out a quarter. He learned this a long time ago.

“Ready?” Virgil says, and makes the coin disappear, quick, sleight-of-hand magic rather than Fae magic. Pearl giggles and claps, and he pulls it from her ear, and he makes a mock surprised face for her.

More!

“You want more?” Virgil says, focusing on keeping his face turned towards her, and manages to finger spell m-o-r-e, grateful that he’d memorized the alphabet.

She nods, and Virgil looks up and down the hall, before seeing Patton’s shadow in the hallway door.

No real Fae magic, then. Virgil wracks his brain, before he smiles.

Okay. A bit of Fae magic. But he’ll be sneaky about it.

“One coin, right?” He says, holding up one finger, and she nods. He twists it, makes a fist, holds his hand flat.

Her jaw drops, and she picks up the two coins. She makes a signal Virgil doesn’t need sign language to know—it’s a signal for again!

Virgil grins. “Okay,” he says, showing her his empty hands, before tapping the two coins she held, making a fist, and opening each hand to show another two coins. He passes a hand over hers, and the other two coins appear in her hand, making four.

Again! Again! Again!

“Again, huh?” Virgil says. “I’ll go bigger. Watch.”

One, two, three, four, shuffle from her hand to his without him laying a hand on her, and one, two, three, four supersized coins take their place, and one, two, three, four, he pulls two of them from her ears, and two from her mouth.

There’s a burst of applause, and Virgil looks over, Pearl’s head whipping around a moment after.

“That was good, huh?” Patton says, signing his words, too. Pearl nods.

“I told you he was magic,” he says. “Virgil, how about you show off later? Pearl, Pris and Pop might need a bit of help in my room, if you want—”

She scuttles off as soon as he signs the words, and he smiles after her before turning to Virgil.

“I didn’t know you knew coin magic too.”

“I know all kinds of magic,” Virgil says, standing up straight. “Is that all it takes to entertain a kid?”

“She’s cute now, but wait until she’s tired, she’s a terror,” Patton says with a grin. “I was just gonna check if you were all good with pepperoni or cheese pizza, and if you had a preference on ice cream flavor.”

“All good,” Virgil says. “And… anything with a lot of chocolate, I guess.”

Patton laughs and nods, making a note in his phone, before he heads for the more cheerful chattering in the living room.

Virgil pauses before he can go into his room, sighs, and turns towards the chattering too.

The activity’s died down a bit; Roman and Logan are arguing over what goes in which cabinet in the kitchen as Patton’s siblings sprawl over their furniture and carpet, and Virgil goes to unload the groceries Patton’s dad’s dropped off. Patton looks almost nothing like his father, who’s sitting at the breakfast bar.

“Virgil, isn’t it?” He says, and Virgil is suddenly very aware that the other clusters of parents are around him.

“Yes,” Virgil says cautiously, shredded cheese in hand.

“Did your folks roll out of town earlier?” He asks mildly.

“Oh, I—we drove down my stuff and they helped me unload, yeah,” Virgil lies.

“Should I get your parents’ number?” Logan’s mother, looking pinched, asks. “In case of emergencies, I mean.”

“My parents are dead,” Virgil says, unthinkingly, and there’s a collection of quiet, pitying murmuring. Roman’s mother looks ready to smother him. He hastily tries to wave it off. “I—I was five, it’s been a while. My uncle’s the one who raised me, he doesn’t have a phone, but my great-aunt does, I’ll give it to you—”

The parents all fish out their phones, and once they’ve got that information sorted, Logan’s dad says, “So, what’s your major, Virgil?”

“Plant sciences,” Virgil says, putting away the eggs.

“And what do you intend to do with that?” He continues. Virgil tries not to flinch—that dreaded question.

“Join the family business,” he says vaguely.

“And what’s that?”

Virgil smirks. “Anything anyone asks, we can provide,” he says. “For a price, of course.”

“Bit vague, isn’t it?” Logan’s dad says, suspicious.

“Father,” Logan cuts in, wearily.

“I’m just making conversation, Logan,” his dad says, defensively.

Virgil tucks away the milk and excuses himself out of that fun little conversation as swiftly as possible.

Patton ends up intercepting him to help with the pizza-and-ice-cream run and Virgil jumps on it—and Pearl and Penny do, too. Penny ends up sitting up front with Patton as Virgil keeps Pearl entertained by vanishing quarters and over again.

They get four pizzas and three quarts of ice cream and end up missing the departure of Logan’s parents, Roman’s parents, and Roman’s sister—Virgil’s kind of grateful that he doesn’t have to weather any questions from Logan’s dad anymore.

The sun’s long set by the time Patton’s family gets going—Patton’s siblings give him hugs, a few give him kisses on the cheek, and Pearl even doubles back to squeeze Virgil, hard, around the legs, before flitting off to her father.

Once the door closes behind them, it seems much quieter.

“This is our life for the next year,” Roman says, and Patton turns to smile at him.

“Seems like it.”

There’s a long pause.

“Do we want to eat a ton more ice cream?” Roman asks, and they congregate in the living room, flopped on the floor, dipping spoons in the various quarts, too strung out to actually talk.

It’s not a bad first day back.

The next morning, Patton makes them pancakes for breakfast. It’s kind of incredible; he doesn’t need to look at anything. He just knows the exact amount of flour and water and eggs he needs to have the precise amount of batter for a precise amount of pancakes. If Virgil didn’t know any better, he’d think it was magic.

Virgil is learning that you learn a lot about people when you live together. Virgil knew that Logan watched Doctor Who and BBC’s Sherlock prior to living with him, but he didn’t know that Logan had two variations of Elemental Table Songs memorized. Virgil knew that Roman could be dramatic and fussy about his appearance, but he didn’t know Roman took five minutes to do his (what looked like) perfectly coiffed hair. Virgil knew the most about Patton; but he hadn’t known how many recipes Patton could come up with on the fly, to mixed results.

The semester’s pretty tame, to start. Virgil’s classes are decent, and he thinks that he’s gotten the hang of studying and doing homework for college courses; he’s got his own little corner, deep in the stacks, in the desolate east wing of the library. The bright side was, no one really tended to go up there, so it was the quietest, least disturbed place in the library, and good for getting some peace and quiet.

Because it just wasn’t possible to get peace and quiet in the apartment.

Someone’s always wandering in or out; Virgil’s discovered that Patton has a penchant for stress-baking and cooking, which turns out well for the rest of them, but it means that Patton tends to be in the kitchen a lot, and always ready for a conversation. Logan’s always in and out, but believes firmly in keeping everything in its certain space; so when he’s in the living room, he’s relaxing, but if he’s in his bedroom, he’s either studying or sleeping. And Roman, being Roman, is noisy basically all the time.

They settle into it… faster than Virgil expected it to, really. Whatever odd truce from over the summer has held to them living together, and Virgil’s been ensuring that his comments are sarcastic, but not biting. Roman hasn’t been as inclined to argue, lately, and Patton actually admitted when he was having a bad day recently, and Logan… well, he’s Logan.

That’s just the start of the semester, though. There’s a sudden influx of rain in late August, and Virgil knows what that can mean; to a point, good. But there’s flooding warnings and there was a campus-wide email about various routes to take to avoid particularly risky areas.

It’s during such a stormy night when Virgil practically feels his ears perk up, and the other three react a moment later, Patton sitting up from the couch where they’d slumped to watch a movie.

“Do you all hear that?”

Virgil hears it. Virgil also understands it better than anyone else. He dashes over to the balcony door, ignoring Roman’s yelp of “Virgil, the rain!” and throws the door open, squinting out into the night.

And yes—down there, Virgil can hear the yowling, and he knows what that means. He curses under his breath, and storms back out into the apartment, only stopping to grab his coat.

“Virgil!” Patton calls after him, but Virgil ignores it, thundering down all four flights of stairs and opening the door.

“Hey!” Virgil tries to call out into the pouring rain, squinting.

There’s a louder cry, and Virgil starts towards the sound, crouching.

“I’m Virgil,” he shouts to the cat.

“ComSci,” she pants—computer sciences building, Virgil supposes, and she’s a long way from home—that’s across campus.

“Hi,” he says, and holds out his coat. “I—d’you want help? I can get you inside, where it’s warm. It’d be safer for the kits.”

ComSci tenses, before at last, she slumps, and Virgil carefully gathers her up in his coat, and takes the elevator, just to be certain he doesn’t jar her, shushing her whenever she makes a keening noise in the back of her throat, and opens the door.

“Virgil, what—” Logan begins, before blinking at his arms. “That’s a cat.”

“Well spotted,” Virgil says, already heading for his bathroom, managing to balance ComSci in one arm as he sweeps all of his clean towels into the other, dumping them into the bathtub as a makeshift nest, before carefully settling ComSci in the towels, tossing his coat to his hamper, and heading for his plant supplies.

Or, at least, trying, because there’s three gawping roommates in his doorway.

“Move,” Virgil says, and the other three look between each other.

“Do—what do you need?” Logan says, and Virgil huffs a breath, leveling a look at ComSci, who’s probably going to give birth in a fairly short amount of time.

“Towels or blankets you wouldn’t mind getting rid of,” Virgil says, trying to focus. “Plastic gloves, a lot of them, or if we don’t have that, um—an old toothbrush, if anyone’s got it?”

“Since when—” Roman begins, and Virgil turns to shoot him a glare over his shoulder.

“Got it, got it,” Roman says, following the other two in attempting to find the supplies as Virgil crouches outside of the bathtub.

Really, it’s mostly up to ComSci now—providing a warm, safe environment for her to give birth helped, and checking on each of the kittens is all that’s left now, but he does need the—

“Here, blankets,” Patton says in a rush, and Virgil arranges them around ComSci without disturbing her, and barely manages to catch the box of plastic gloves Roman throws at him, and Virgil shoves on a pair.

“Okay, since when are you a vet?” Roman asks at last, sitting down on Virgil’s bed.

Virgil shrugs. “I take care of the cats in town, I told you about Goose, remember?”

Time mostly passes with Virgil very aware of the other three watching him, and almost immediately, Virgil can tell it’s go time.

“Okay, here we go, first kitten,” Virgil says, watching ComSci like a hawk, just in case he has to assist.

“What’s gonna happen?” Patton says. “What do we have to do?”

Virgil shrugs. “Honestly? Just keep calm and be prepared if there’s anything abnormal. She’ll remove the amniotic sac and I don’t have to cut the umbilical cord, so—”

“Should I look up the vet sciences number?” Logan asks, and Virgil nods.

“In case of emergency, yeah, just get it ready,” Virgil says, and looks at ComSci. “You’ll be all right, and this’ll be over soon, okay?”

Birth is both a beautiful and terrifying thing. ComSci’s an absolute champ—Virgil barely has to help at all, beyond ensuring each of the (five) kittens starts nursing as soon as possible, ComSci grooming each, Virgil swapping gloves as often as possible.

When it’s done, and each of the kittens is quietly nursing, Virgil leans back, and huffs a breath of relief.

All of the kittens are healthy, and ComSci’s pulled through just fine.

“Okay,” Virgil says, voice soft, and actually laughs, a little.

“Everything okay?” Patton checks, voice hushed, and Virgil looks over for the first time since labor picked up to see the three of them, still clustered in the doorway.

“All good,” Virgil says. “Mom and babies are all healthy. We’ll let them rest here, for now.”

He rises to his feet and starts to wash his hands. Even though he wore gloves, birth is still messy.

“That’s… incredible,” Patton says, before immediately sneezing.

“Patton, your allergies,” Logan says, and immediately herds him out of the room. Presumably to take his allergy medicine.

“How many cat births have you done, exactly?” Roman asks.

Virgil, belatedly, pushes his still-wet-but-slightly-drying hair out of his face a bit.

“I dunno,” Virgil says. “Six or seven, I guess. It wasn’t a frequent thing.”

“It’s six or seven more than I’ve ever done,” Roman says with a shrug, and then he smiles at Virgil.

It’s the kind of smile that Virgil’s heavily aware of the fact that his hair is likely drying frizzy with all kinds of cowlicks, that his still-damp clothes are clinging to him in uncomfortable ways, that he’s been wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants. That he probably looks like a disaster, and that Roman, with that congratulatory, soft kind of smile, with something deeper in his eyes, that he looks… beautiful.

“Yeah, well,” Virgil says, and coughs, looking away.

“Do we have to do anything else?” Roman asks, peeking in on the kittens.

“Probably best to let them be for a while,” Virgil says. “I’ll check on ‘em more later.”

Roman nods, and then he looks at Virgil, before nudging aside a lock of his wet hair with a laugh, and Virgil holds his breath.

“You should probably change out of those wet clothes,” Roman says, smiling. “And maybe brush your hair.”

“Right, yeah,” Virgil says, mouth dry. “I’ll do that. Um.”

Roman blinks, says “oh!” and moves to the door. “You can, um. You can pick next movie, I guess, with helping the miracle of life and everything. I’ll make sure we’ve got enough popcorn.”

He closes the door behind him.

Virgil takes a moment and asks himself what the fuck was that? before he starts rifling through his dresser for pajamas.

They end up handing the kittens and ComSci over to the vet sciences.

Mostly because they don’t want to get evicted from their no-pets-allowed apartment, and also because Virgil wants someone to look after the kittens as often as possible, which they can’t do because of classes.

It also turns out that the number of stray cats has increased fivefold since Virgil’s gotten to campus, except the vet tech doesn’t phrase it quite like that. But Virgil knows.

Virgil quietly promises himself to go looking around to see if the cats want any help.

Patton tags along with him for the vet visits, most of the time, always making sure that he’s taken his allergy medicine, cooing quietly over the kittens, who open their eyes in no time.

“They’re so precious,” Patton says, hushed, and Virgil gives him a sideways glance.

“I like cats as much as you do, but you saw the lease. No pets.”

Patton sighs in regret. “I know.”

Virgil weathers the first wave of quizzes and tests and the first three-day weekend of the year comes up; he’s the only one staying in the apartment, and waves off any of their concerns by joking about the arcane rituals he’ll do under the full moon.

Well. “Joking.” He does actually want to finish up a potion that aids against forgetfulness, and it’s most effective when brewed under the light of the full moon, so, the only joking part of that is saying it’s a ritual, rather than a potion. But it gets them less worried about him, anyways.

So he gets three days to himself, from Friday afternoon to Monday evening. He spends it making that potion, meeting the variety of new cats, and otherwise doing absolutely nothing, scrolling through the internet and catching up on shows he’s been meaning to watch and cooking things that require the least amount of effort, along with sending a letter to Cora.

Roman and Patton join him in watching Coraline when they get back, which turns into marathoning Disney movies for the rest of the afternoon, just waiting for Logan to come back. Gradually, as Virgil watches, Roman and Patton entangle in a kind of snuggle pile on the couch, and Virgil wishes for Logan to be here so they can exchange some kind of glance about it.

It takes until they’re on their third movie (Tangled) when the door opens, showing Logan holding the heft of his bags.

“Hey, Lo!” Patton says, grinning, head flopping back to look at him.

Logan, not stopping his rapid pace to his room, says tightly, “I do not have the time to be sucked into your mindless ridiculousness at the moment.”

His door is shut with the kind of precise use of force that screams that Logan is upset.

Patton’s shrunk back into the couch cushions, before he moves to get up, clearly going to talk to him.

“Hang on, Pat,” Virgil says, from where he is on the armchair, separate from the pair of them who’ve turned to look at him. “I got it, this time.”

Patton hesitates, before he nods, and sinks back down into the couch. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Virgil says, and moves down the hall, where Logan and Virgil’s rooms are. Virgil drops into his room to pick up a couple things, before knocking on Logan’s door.

“I’m busy, Patton,” Logan snaps.

“Not Patton,” Virgil says, opening the door and shutting it behind him. Logan pauses to blink, and he’s not at the desk how Virgil thought he’d be, if he really was busy; he’s curled up on his bed, a thick book on his lap.

“Virgil,” he says, and then, “I’d rather—I need quiet.”

“Of the three other people in this apartment,” Virgil says, “I think I’m the only other one who’d get it like you do.”

Logan hesitates, and clarifies, “I’d like to be alone.”

Virgil surveys him. He’s sitting in his bed to read, and Logan adheres strongly to the concept of beds for sleeping and sickness only. The blankets, snapping at Patton, the fact that he was away with his family, who Virgil knows next to nothing about, other than the tight tense line of his shadow, the things Virgil can tell from seeing him, touching him—

“Fine,” Virgil says, and sits down on Logan’s bed, next to him. Logan blinks at him, grip tightening on his book.

“Then we’ll be alone together,” Virgil finishes, and strings his earbuds in his ears, leaning back against the pillows and folding his hands over his stomach. Logan narrows his eyes at him for a few seconds, before slowly cracking his book open, taking a breath, worrying the page between his fingers.

Virgil hits play on the playlist when you need to chill out a bit but not enough to fall asleep, curated by Roman, and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Logan eyeing him, before starting to read.

He swaps the playlist partway through, to an audiobook, and Logan’s worked his way through three chapters before he speaks.

“I don’t like to fish.”

Virgil hits pause on the book and glances over at Logan, whose eyes are fixed on the book, a studious demonstration of avoiding eye contact.

Fine. Virgil can do that too. He returns his gaze to the ceiling.

“I’ve never liked to fish, not when I was a child, and I still don’t now. I like boat rides well enough, but I prefer when the boat’s actually moving somewhere. Fishing’s just… boating out to the middle of nowhere, and sitting, and waiting. Waiting for a catch was dull, seeing the fish hooked, throwing it in the cooler, and fileting them—it upset me. I would have liked it better if I could bring a book, could read on the boat, but I couldn’t. Had to watch the water, you understand.”

Virgil doesn’t—the Loch was never meant for fishing, so he’s never really been.

“During the summer family gatherings, it’s traditional for the men of the family to go out fishing while the women go and shop. We meet for dinner and eat whatever catches we get from the day. But see, I didn’t like to fish. I would have preferred to be left at the hotel to read, but that wasn’t an option, because I couldn’t be trusted alone. I would have preferred to go shopping with my aunts and my cousins, but that wasn’t an option, because I couldn’t mess with tradition.” Logan pauses, turns a page.

“It feels a foolish place to point to, as where the divide began, but it’s the clearest I can remember. I didn’t like to fish, and my parents never quite forgave me for it.”

Virgil stills. Falls completely and absolutely still.

“Well, no,” Logan says, frowning. “Perhaps not quite. The fall after my first fishing day, my parents received a call from my teacher because I’d had my pretend-wedding during recess to Allen Saylor. Maybe then. Maybe the fishing was the crack, and the wedding was the break. Maybe as soon as I turned to books instead of sports. I don’t know. What I know is that I am not the son my parents wanted. Expected. Whichever.”

Virgil aches to reach over and—what? Hug him? Reassure him? He isn’t good at this. He isn’t an emotions person. Neither is Logan, really.

“I know they love me—the kind of performative love, the sort of required love a parent’s expected to show to their child. I’m their eldest child, their only child. I know I should be grateful to have parents that at least provide for my wellbeing, ensure I get a head start in life. I am privileged in that, I know it. I don’t think I would have gotten into the PhD program without those advantages. But I… well. Outwardly, of course, they’re very okay with anyone different with them, the whole family is. However…”

Virgil glances over, out of the corner of his eye. Logan’s still staring at his book.

“You can’t tell Roman,” he says, his voice a facsimilie of calm, and Virgil’s eyes closed. He knows too well what Logan’s dad might have said. If Logan’s dad thought Logan was straight, and if he’d targeted Roman, the most blatantly out-and-proud member of their apartment.

“I see.” Virgil says, and looks over at Logan. “Would you like me to ruin his life for you?”

That startles Logan into a brief chuckle, and Virgil’s only half-kidding. But he’s happy it made Logan smile.

“A little, if you want,” Logan says, a smile clinging to the corners of his mouth. “Just a little, though. He’s still my father.”

Virgil nods, wonders what the subtlest thing he could get away with would be, mentally makes a note to send a letter to Uncle asking about it.

“Logan,” Virgil says, and Logan looks at him. Virgil takes a breath.

“You know we’re both really bad at this,” Virgil adds, as a preface. “But. You know that you worked your ass off, and that’s why you’re in the PhD program, right? It doesn’t matter that you went to really good schools. Tons of people go to really good schools and don’t make anything of it. Sure, it helped, and like, I’m not saying you’re not privileged, but. You’re the one who got straight A’s and all that, okay? You’re the one who decided to go after astronomy instead of, I don’t know, business, or something like that. The fact that you—you like astronomy, or you like boys, whatever. It’s what makes you you. It’s not something to be looked down at because it’s not traditional, or whatever the fuck. It’s what you like, and it’s your life, and you’re an adult, you can go about it however you want. Okay?”

Logan pauses, and says, “You aren’t as bad at this as you think you are.”

Virgil pauses too. “Well.” He starts. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” Logan says, and Virgil fishes one earbud out of his ear, offers it to Logan.

“You wanna listen to an audiobook with me?”

Logan accepts it, and Virgil turns on the Sherlock Holmes megacollection he got, mostly because Logan had recommended it so much, and he sees Logan smile and relax even more out of the corner of his eye.

When Virgil walks out of the apartment, Logan and Roman are arguing over routine.

The sight of them arguing isn’t really out of the ordinary; even though they’ve all grown closer, and their words aren’t quite as barbed anymore, they still fall into bickering easily, especially Roman and Virgil, and Roman and Logan.

When Virgil walks back in, two hours later, they’re still arguing.

Virgil stops, and says directly to Patton, who’s scrolling on his phone, “Are they seriously still arguing about the same thing?”

Both Roman and Logan stop, offended that Virgil hasn’t addressed them.

“Yep,” Patton says brightly, and looks directly at Virgil, also ignoring Roman and Logan. “You’d think they’d realize that the best approach is a combination of their methods, and that they’re fighting towards a common goal.”

“You’d think so, right,” Virgil agrees, flopping on the couch next to Patton as if they’re talking about someone miles away from their apartment, and not standing right in front of them. “You’d also think that if they learned how to put their egos aside, they’d make a really good team.”

Logan and Roman blink at him, startled, before swiveling to look at each other.

Roman offers a tentative, apologetic smile. Logan’s face grows slightly softer as he quirks a brow. It’s the closest to a truce they’re going to get.

“Good job,” Patton whispers into his ear, and Virgil jostles him fondly. “You started it,” he murmurs back.

They end up going for dinner, with Logan and Roman holding some kind of tenuous, delicate silence between them as they think it over, and as such speak directly only to Patton or Virgil. Which is an issue, because Virgil has a case of daydreaming, feeling his mind drift; the apartment complex, in one of its rare moments, is complaining about a hole in its walls somewhere.

“—can so do a handspring. What, I’ve never showed you?”

Virgil blinks at Roman, and demands immediately, “Show me.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Earnest-o de la Cruz.”

Virigl stabs his spoon in his direction. “Take that back.”

Roman holds up his hands apologetically, and says, “But we’d have to go outside, there isn’t enough room in here.”

“Outside it is,” Patton says decisively. “Where’d you learn to do a back handspring, anyway?”

Roman waves a hand. “Choreography for a show—I forget which. Somehow, I tripped doing a jazz square, but a roundoff into a back handspring? Got it in three tries and haven’t messed up since.”

They clamber down the stairs, and Roman finds a suitably grassy area. He wipes his hands on his jeans, gages the distance, and waves them aside.

And then, Roman runs, turning perfectly into a cartwheel, and flipping his body for the handspring, bouncing up at the end.

They all applaud as Roman bows at them cartoonishly, turning his wrists and bending almost down to touch his toes.

Virgil sees Logan, out of the corner of his eye, smiling much more than usual.

They’ve developed their chores patterns. Patton cooks, because he likes it, and Virgil takes dishes. Logan vacuums and sweeps, Roman wipes down the common surfaces and makes sure everything looks nice. They tend to all tag together on grocery trips and split the costs on food.

It works. Everything works. Virgil probably shouldn’t be as suspicious of all of this as he should be, but he just feels something on the air that something’s going to go wrong soon enough.

Something wrong blows into town with the autumn breeze, and when Virgil’s least expecting it. Logan’s looking over one of Virgil’s assignments at the breakfast bar, and they’re debating word choice as Patton checks over the supplies for dinner when there’s a knock on the door.

They share a frown, before Virgil hops off his stool and goes to open it up, only to stare, just a touch slackjawed.

“Hey there, squirt,” Gillian says, leaning against the entryway. “Miss me?”

Virgil regrets, immediately, that he’s wearing short sleeves. What he wants to ask is how did you get my address? and didn’t you run off to get married to someone seven years ago? and what’s gone wrong now?

He’s silent the whole time, and Patton appears at his back. “Virgil, who’s this?”

Gillian smiles, and reaches her hand forward. “Gillian Fae,” she purrs. “And may I have your name?”

That’s enough to spur Virgil into action. He knocks Patton’s hand off track, and says, bristling, “You may call him Puck.”

Gillian grins at Virgil. “You’re not so rusty, after all.”

May I have your name’s an old trick, the one the more traditional Faes would use; it would imply taking a name, and once a Fae had your name in the old days, it was essentially game over. Giving a partial name, or a fake one, and not taking their hand was an easy enough way to circumvent that.

“What are you doing here,” Virgil says stiffly, stepping subtly in front of Patton.

She shrugs, tucks her hands in her pockets. “I was in town, and I was bored,” she says easily. “Thought maybe my baby cousin’d want to take me for a spin, show me the sights.”

Virgil’s eyes narrow. “What’re you in town for?”

Her grin widens. “Passing through,” she says easily. “Gonna see Sally and the girls.”

Sally, Gillian’s sister, is as well-suited to the image of a wild Fae that Virgil is; that is, Sally basically resorted to becoming a domestic housewife and was thrilled about it, last he’d heard. Poor thing’d have the curse kick in soon enough.

“Keep passing,” Virgil says curtly, and goes to shut the door when Gillian’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist, and Virgil catches his breath instinctively.

But there’s no sudden wave of anger, or sadness, or anything.

“Now, Virgil,” she says, voice low. “Uncle Dee’d be so disappointed to hear about your lack of courtesy. What happened to Faes first?”

“Virgil,” Patton says, soft, and Virgil gives him a look, suddenly very aware of the three people in this apartment, and how unaware they were of his family history. And how badly things could fuck up if they heard.

He looks back to Gillian.

“Fine,” he says, and reaches for his jacket, shrugging it on immediately. “We’ll go to dinner. That’s it. Dinner only.”

Gillian smiles even wider. “Knew you’d come round.” He opens the door wider, and she struts easily down the hallway. “Must’ve be your mother’s side kicking in,” she calls back, and Virgil’s hand tightens on the door, before he looks at Patton, who’s looking at Virgil, full of concern.

“If I’m not back in an hour, call me with an excuse,” Virgil tells him, before he shuts the door.

Virgil doesn’t take her to the Busy Bean, or anywhere particularly nice. He takes her to the nearest fast food place, which turns out to be a Taco Bell.

She scowls at him. “Really?”

Virgil opens the door for her. “I said dinner, I didn’t make any promises about quality.”

She rolls her eyes, but flounces up to the counter anyways, turning the charm up to eleven. Gillian’s ten years older than him, and thereby ten years younger than Uncle; the fact that she’s thirty and has on a visible wedding ring is doing nothing to make the college-aged cashiers less fond of her.

Gillian orders a slightly absurd amount of food; Virgil gets a soda and a side of cinnamon twists, intent on not ruining his appetite for Patton’s dinner.

Her eyebrows arch, and Virgil shrugs, nudging the twists.

“I technically got something to eat,” he says, and goes to sit at a booth as she waits for her various combos. When she brings over her tray, Virgil leans forward.

“Why are you really in town, Gill?” He asks in an undertone.

Gillian snatches one of Virgil’s cinnamon twists. “I really am going to see Sally and the girls,” she says, and glances at her wedding ring in slight distaste. “Jimmy ran into some trouble, so.”

Virgil frowns. “I thought your husband’s name was Sean?”

Gillian laughs. “Ooh, hon, you’re behind the times,” she says pleasantly. “No, no. Jimmy’s the current fling. Well. Last fling, I suppose.”

Virgil sighs. He really doesn’t know why he expected anything different. She’s never really been able to keep her attention on one thing—as soon as she gets what she wants, she’s always turned her attention to the next thing. She and Sally are like night and day.

Gillian pauses, and adds casually, “Got some word from Dee too.”

Virgil’s eyes narrow. “No chance you’ll tell me the exact words?”

“Nada,” Gillian says cheerfully. “You understand him way better than I do, you’d puzzle it out immediately. Anyways, I’m swinging by to see him after this, to get some…” she trails off, and shakes herself. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway. Is it really so unbelievable that I’d wanna stop by to see you?”

“Gillian, I haven’t seen you since you married Sean,” Virgil points out. “Remember? You ran away from Fae house. You packed up most of the liquor cabinet with you. I helped tie together the bedsheets so you could climb down from one of the towers.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten I’d taken all of that old wine,” she says.

He’s probably not going to get a straight answer. He doesn’t really know why he’d expected any different.

“Anyways,” Gillian adds, thunking her elbows on the table. “Little cousin, off to go get enriched, or whatever. College, V, really?”

“I like it here,” Virgil says mildly. “I always liked school more than you did.”

She snorts. “School,” she says. “Right. That’s why you’re here.”

“Plant sciences major and everything,” Virgil says. “I could have brought along my most recent essay, I was editing it when you showed up.”

If he’s not going to get a straight answer, Gillian’s not going to get a straight answer.

They play that game for quite a while, before Gillian, eating as slowly as possible, says, “So, those boys you live with. Puck,” she sneers, “seems cute.”

“He’s my friend,” Virgil says, keeping his voice at the same mild level he’s kept it at their whole conversation. “I wasn’t about to let you take the name of one of my friends.”

“Virgil,” she says, flatly. “Friends?”

“A whole three of ‘em,” Virgil says, taking an obnoxious slurp of soda.

“Faes don’t have friends, Virgil.”

“Faes have siblings, too,” Virgil says, keeping the bite out of his voice. “And yet here I am.”

Gillian shrugs. “Maybe you do, and you just don’t know.”

It takes a while for what she’s saying to click, and Virgil grits his teeth.

“Right,” he says, calmly, and grabs his jacket. “That’s that, then. Have a nice rest of your dinner, Gillian, tell Sally and the girls I say hi.”

“Virgil,” she sighs, as if he’s the one being unreasonable.

“No,” Virgil says, turning. “No. You knew my parents, you know how much my dad loved my mom, you know that it—no. Have a nice trip. Tell Uncle whatever you want. Sorry about the situation with Jimmy. I’m leaving.”

He storms out of the Taco Bell, and, to his gratitude, she doesn’t follow him.

He manages to slow his pace, and enters the apartment, hangs up his coat, calmly takes a plate from Patton, and says, “I’m eating in my room.” before he makes his retreat.

He isn’t hungry.

Bizarrely, this is what infuriates him most.

It’s pasta with marinara sauce and garlic bread. Virgil loves pasta and garlic bread. But he’s lost his appetite because his cousin, who he hasn’t seen in years, blew into town and knocked him off his rhythm, and insulted his dead father, and—

“Knock knock,” Patton calls, opening the door just a crack.

Virgil blinks at him. “Oh,” he says, belatedly, and looks down at the dish. “Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” Virgil says, and scoots over a bit so Patton can sit down on the bed.

“Your cousin, huh?” He prompts gently, and Virgil grimaces.

“Our grandmothers were half-sisters.”

“So, distant cousin, got it,” Patton says. “Are you okay?”

Virgil grimaces, and says, “I mean, other than the fact that she tried to imply that my dad cheated on my mom and I have a secret sibling somewhere, it was, you know. The usual.”

Patton gasps, and that’s enough to open the floodgates.

“It’s not like he—they were twenty, when they had me,” Virgil snaps. “They got married when they were eighteen, it’s not like they even dated anyone other than each other, let alone—” Virgil cuts himself off, looks away, and takes a deep breath.

Patton’s hand settles on Virgil’s shoulder. “I didn’t know they were so young,” Patton says, softly, and Virgil laughs without humor.

“Yeah. Yeah, they—they met when they were in kindergarten. The way my Mom told it, that was it. People kept telling her not to, it was a bad idea to get involved with a Fae—my uncle included, actually—but they didn’t care. She asked him out, and she proposed, and they got married, and—well.” Virgil shrugs a shoulder. “I happened.”

There’s a pause. Patton puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, and asks, soft, “Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask how they died?”

Virgil pauses, blinks at him, and studies his hands. He lets out a long sigh.

“It’s okay if you don’t want—”

“No,” Virgil says. “No, it’s okay. Um. They think—the toxicology report said arsenic poisoning.”

Patton’s hand pauses from where it’d been running up and down his back.

Virgil smiles, humorless. “I guess that’s not really what people expect, whenever I say my parents both died when I was little,” he says. “People expect, I dunno. Car crash, or a plane accident, or something… something more common. But, um. We ran out of food in the house, that day. And my parents decided to order Chinese food.”

He remembers. He’d had honey chicken. Uncle had lo mein. His parents had split General Tso’s.

“My Dad thought it was weird—they put in these, like. These almond and coconut cookies in with the order. My mom liked to bake a lot, and we’d been working through her latest experiments. Uncle doesn’t like coconut, and I wanted something with chocolate. So they both ate two. I, um. I didn’t know until later that arsenic apparently tastes like almonds.”

“Virgil,” Patton says, soft, and wraps an arm around Virgil’s shoulder. Virgil tilts his head so it rests on Patton’s shoulder, but he keeps talking.

“Apparently, there was some kind of… vengeful boyfriend at the delivery place, I guess. We lived next door to his ex’s family. He didn’t realize—” Virgil clears his throat. “Didn’t realize he had the wrong address. And Uncle woke me up in the middle of the night, and put his jacket over my face so I didn’t—so I didn’t see anything—”

Virgil chokes up, then, has to let out a shaky breath and rub a hand over his face, until Patton pulls him so his face is in Patton’s shoulder. It hasn’t hit him, until now, how young his parents were when they died. Twenty-six sounds like an eternity year old when you’re six. When you’re almost nineteen? When his roommates are all (almost) twenty?

“That’s why you hate almonds?”

“That’s why I hate almonds,” Virgil confirms, voice muffled into Patton’s neck.

There’s a pause, and Patton asks, “Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“You, um. You said they think, when you were explaining all this. Do you think… something else happened?” He says. His voice is careful, and soft.

Virgil pulls back, and surveys Patton. “You’re a lot more observant than we give you credit for, you know?”

Patton shrugs.

“Basically?” Virgil says. “Yeah. It’s—” Virgil hesitates.

How does he explain the curse without unearthing the fact that he’s more magic than he’s already told Patton?

“It’s… a thing,” Virgil says, cautious. “I mean, it sounds really superstitious, and I… I’d rather not go fully into it, actually. But, um. The only time—literally, the only time—my uncle’s ever left my hometown was to visit us, before they died. And one of the last conversations I overheard from my parents was them telling my Uncle about how he needed to follow through with the will and take me in. They knew it was coming. All three of them did.”

I heard it coming, too, Virgil adds on silently, and I didn’t realize it.

There’s a long, long pause.

“Virgil,” Patton says at last, “that’s really fucked up.”

Patton swearing shocks Virgil into hysterical laughter.

“It is!” Patton squeaks, red-faced.

“No, no, I agree,” Virgil says, and wipes the tears of laughter from under his eyes. “Christ, I wish I was recording that. Roman’s never gonna believe me that you swore with an audience.”

“It’s never gonna happen again,” Patton declares, and picks up Virgil’s plate. “I’m gonna reheat this for you, mkay? And also find something sweet.”

He ruffles Virgil’s hair, and in that moment, Virgil desperately misses Cora.

When Patton goes to heat up his food, Virgil digs out a piece of paper and starts drafting a letter to her—letting her know Gillian dropped into town, but nothing else, and moving on to mention the various other things that have happened during the week.

When Patton gets back, balancing Virgil’s plate and a plate of chocolate cupcakes for them to share, Virgil finally starts to feel hungry.

Fall brings with it crisp breezes, Patton doing more experiments with apple-based dishes, and Logan’s birthday. Logan basically entreats them to eat the cake Patton has prepared, with minimal gifts, and an evening spent watching Cosmos, which Virgil thinks is a pretty good birthday. However, after that, it also means that fall brings Roman screaming about the fall semester theater performance.

He’s got a big role this time, bigger than last year, which is unusual for a sophomore. He’s already ensured that they’re all going to the show, and he often recites lines absentmindedly. It’s gotten to the point where Virgil kind of feels like throttling him whenever he starts reciting his second-act monologue.

When he gets home early from a cancelled lab, he sees Roman sitting on their balcony, legs under the railing so he can swing his legs back and forth into the open air. His back is tense, and Virgil’s moving before he can really think.

He opens the door to the balcony, and sits next to Roman, a bare breath of space between them, so they’re just barely not touching.

“Hey,” Virgil says, voice soft.

Roman huffs a long sigh. “Hi,” he mumbles.

Virgil licks his lips, and says, “You okay?”

Roman’s eyes slide shut, and he says, “I’m not cut out for this.”

Virgil blinks. “For… what?”

“Acting,” he says. “I—Virgil, it’s over.”

“You—what?” Virgil says, incredulous. “Roman. Listen to yourself. What could have possibly happened to make you think that your acting career’s over?”

Roman groans, and says, “The student paper show review.”

Virgil blinks. “I’m… confused,” he says cautiously. “The show hasn’t happened yet, what—?”

“The fine arts reporters want to make it a whole… series, following us from rehearsals to the show, or something,” Roman groans, head against the paper. “And they turned up to interview me today, and it was—”

Roman grimaces, and something in his eyes tips Virgil off.

“…someone who doesn’t quite like you very much,” Virgil finishes delicately.

Roman groans louder. “Understatement,” he gripes. “I—before we were friends—look, it was short and it ended messy—”

It clicks, then.

“Oh, God,” Virgil says. “An ex? Roman. You’re letting a bitter ex dictate if your acting career’s over? No one even reads the student paper.”

“Virgil, it’s not funny,” Roman says, and Virgil hastens to assure him that he’s not laughing.

“If future casting agents look up my name, they’re gonna see whatever article they write, it’s—”

“Okay,” Virgil says, letting out a sigh. “Okay, I get it. What’s this dude’s name?”

Roman looks at him sideways, suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I’m gonna take care of it,” Virgil says patiently. “I just need a name, Roman.”

“How are you—?” Roman begins, looking sideways at him.

“Just the name,” Virgil says. “You just worry about the show. They’re gonna be raving about you, okay?”

Roman squints at him, before he says at last, “Tristan. Tristan Howard.”

Virgil nods, name settled in his head. “Okay,” he says, and pats Roman on the back. “It’s gonna be fine, I swear.”

Patton comes home, soon enough, to take care of the rest of Roman’s frayed nerves, and Virgil dials a number.

“Virgil,” Uncle says pleasantly. “To what do I owe this completely normal call?”

Virgil grimaces. He really doesn’t ever call Uncle, but it’s important.

“Can you check one of the grimoires for me?” Virgil asks. “I’ve got some business to handle here.”

He can hear Uncle’s smile over the line.

Virgil’s got his headphones on.

See, usually he studies in the library, but today, he’s found a pretty decent booth in the basement of the student center, which also happens to be the floor where the student paper is housed. He’s glancing through one of his textbooks, but only performatively; his eyes keep glancing to the glass door that blocks him off from the amateur news room.

When Virgil spies a blond head he’s seen in social media pictures, he shuts his textbook with a snap and follows after him.

They wait for the bus. Well, Tristan waits for the bus. Virgil hovers a while back, and follows him on, settling in the seat next to him and nudging off his headphones.

“Tristan,” Virgil says pleasantly, “Isn’t it?”

Tristan looks at him sideways. “Uh, yeah. Have we met?”

“We have a mutual friend,” Virgil says easily. “Actually, I’d argue he’s really more my friend than yours. Roman Prince.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tristan says lazily. “Right. Friends, I get it. He gets clingy, so good luck with—”

Virgil doesn’t rise to the bait, though he does take a moment to wonder why Tristan jumped to thinking he’s Roman’s boyfriend. “That’s not really what I came to talk about,” Virgil says, and takes off the glove he’s kept on his right hand, outstretching his now-bare hand. “Virgil Fae.”

Tristan shakes his hand, and freezes, immediately. Virgil can feel the pins and needles arcing down his arm, and by the way Tristan tries to jerk away, he feels them, too. But Virgil tightens his grip on Tristan’s hand, and leans in so he’s talking directly into Tristan’s ear, no chance of eavesdroppers.

“Listen to me very closely and if you follow directions we’ll only have this conversation once,” Virgil says lowly. “If you attempt to intentionally sabotage Roman, then I’m going to have to have a conversation with the Provost. For an English major, you’d think you’d understand about the risks of plagiarism and offering essay writings to your friends for—what was it, again? Fifty dollars for three pages? I think being placed on academic probation might put a little damper in that scholarship of yours, won’t it? Not to mention stealing and selling those test answers for your political sciences course. They’ve been looking for you for a long time. I could only imagine that an accusation this serious would impact your plans for the future pretty heavily, wouldn’t it?”

Tristan makes a whimpering noise in the back of his throat. His eyes widen in alarm, and he tries again, making an even louder noise.

“You’ll find that you can’t talk anymore,” Virgil says, calm. “Don’t panic, it’ll wear off by midnight. Just a warning. Your vocal chords will recover by midnight. If you do try to cross me… well. No one’s going to care what you have to say. And you’ll never even be able to try. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Tristan’s eyes look like they’re going to pop out of his head.

“Of course,” Virgil continues, tightening his grip on Tristan’s hand so he can feel the bone creaking under his fingers, “If you, say, actually follow some journalistic integrity and don’t let your emotions get in the way of your reporting, and write about how integral Roman is to the excellence of the show, along with the glowing recommendations of his character that he deserves—well, I suppose I’d be able to keep my mouth shut for a bit longer, wouldn’t I? And you’d be able to open yours back up again.”

A higher-pitched noise.

“And be sure to let your lackeys know too,” Virgil adds, voice pleasant again. “We’d have to have another little chat if you try to go through them. You’re fine arts editor, you have some kind of sway, so don’t try to wiggle around this. You won’t like what happens if you do. Clear?”

He nods.

“Good.” Virgil lets go of his hand and slides out of the seat., tugging the glove back on. “It was nice meeting you, Tristan,” Virgil says. “For your sake, I’m sure you’d prefer if we never had to again.”

Virgil walks down the aisle and gets out at the stop, nudging his headphones back over his ears with a smile.

Roman emerges from the hall leading to backstage, sweaty, makeup messy, and beaming a mile wide.

“Roman!” Patton squeals, dabbing hurriedly at his eyes with a tissue, and intercepting him in a hug.

“Don’t tell me you cried, Patton,” Roman says, grin never faltering.

“You didn’t tell me you died,” Patton defends, and Logan shuffles around so they can hand over the massive bouquet.

“From all of us,” Logan adds, hasty, at Roman’s surprised look.

“It’s lovely,” Roman says, and sniffs delicately at the bouquet (alstroemerias, birds of paradise, gardenias, white heather, purple irises, orange lilies, snapdragons, yellow and orange roses, statice) and directs his full-wattage smile at Virgil. “This is a whole essay of flower meanings, isn’t it?”

Virgil shrugs his shoulders, and says, “You did good, Princey.”

Roman smiles at him, a little softer, before he laughs and wipes at his face with his sleeve and fans himself.

“I’m gonna have a stage light tan, I can feel it,” he says, with a dramatic huff. Patton, teasingly, starts fanning him with his program, and Logan and Virgil chime in, Roman pretending to toss his hair and leaning into the meager breeze.

“Oh,” Roman adds, brightly, “um, you three can come along to the cast party, if you want, but—” he glances over his shoulder, and leans close, adding in an undertone, “Honestly, I’ve dropped by the last two nights and it was… not your usual scene, so—”

“So skip it.”

Virgil blinks at himself—the words kind of jumped out of his mouth, and now the other three have turned to stare at him.

“Skip it,” Virgil repeats. “You’ve dropped in the past two nights, you can cut this time. We can—we can go out for breakfast for dinner, or something, and—do what you want.” Virgil trails off, and adds lamely, “If you want to, I mean.”

Roman pauses, considering, and grins wider.

“You know what?” Roman says decisively. “That sounds awesome. I’m super in, I want waffles. Are we doing I-Hop or the diner near Broadway?”

They end up piling in Patton’s car and going to the diner, all cramming into a booth that’s probably meant to seat two people, perusing the menu as Roman uses some wipes and scrubs free the makeup that’s caked to his face, as well as loudly debating what variety of waffles he’s gonna get with Logan.

Virgil, currently pressed between Patton and the wall, could only hide his smile behind the diner menu.

“—see, you mention that adding fruit would technically make it healthier, but it’s still full sugar,” Logan points out.

“Yeah, but extra fruit,” Roman says.

“Do you think a chocolate milkshake and double chocolate chip pancakes is too much?” Patton says thoughtfully, tilting his head at the menu, and Logan turns his exasperated gaze to him.

“We’re celebrating,” Virgil says, firm. “Go for it.”

“Then you complain to Virgil when you get a stomachache,” Logan says, and Virgil smirks at Logan.

“Come to me if you have a stomachache, I’ll have something for it,” Virgil says, and Patton grins at him, knocking their shoes together under the table.

When their drinks come, Logan lifts his glass and says, “To Roman. Congratulations on your make-believe going well.”

Roman snorts, clinking his glass against Logan’s. “Thanks, George Loony.”

“To Roman,” Virgil and Patton echo, and Roman rolls his eyes, but a pleased smile clings to his mouth nonetheless.

They order obscene amounts of sugar, even Logan, and each of them steal bites from each other’s plates, elbows knocking together, Roman’s post-show high making everything seem hilarious, Roman telling elaborate backstage tails and nearly knocking Logan in the head with each gesture that would make Virgil start laughing, and then Patton would start laughing, and no one could ever stand to hear Patton’s laugh and not laugh along, so they could barely get through a sentence without laughing at each other.

It hits him as Patton’s laughingly trying to box out Roman from stealing a bite of his pancakes when it hits Virgil.

He’s happy. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy in his whole life.

Virgil smiles wider and, sees Roman uses the distraction Patton’s giving him to steal a bite of Logan’s French toast. He sends his fork into the fray.

Winter finals, the second time around, are oddly less stressful than last year’s.

For starters, Patton’s more involved, this time, so he butts in whenever he and Logan look “too stressed,” which mostly means that Virgil’s baked goods intake goes up exponentially.

Somehow, some way, Patton’s somehow managed to get Cora’s recipe for jam tarts, which is mostly monopolized by Roman and Logan, but he also gets the same brand of butterscotch candies Cora always gives Virgil.

Virgil pops one into his mouth immediately. “How did you…?”

Patton shrugs. “I checked an envelope before you sent her a letter, I figured asking her about the tarts would be good, considering Logan and Roman eat them basically immediately. She’s really nice.”

Virgil smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Auntie C’s the best.”

“She sent me a few other recipes too,” Patton says, and hands over the letter. Virgil touches the familiar curve of the D in dear, and vows to himself to write a thank-you note to her for responding to Patton.

“You miss her a lot, huh?” Patton prompts, and Virgil shrugs.

“Uncle’s… well, Uncle, he’s, um. Kind of hard to describe, I guess,” Virgil says vaguely. “Basically, the whole concept of, like, parenting… Uncle made sure I had a room and clothes and that kind of thing, but Cora’s the one who bullies me into eating my vegetables and cleaning out my backpack, and stuff like that.”

Patton smiles, and Virgil points out a fudge recipe before he starts doubling down on studying for his lab final.

“Oh, my God,” Roman’s exclaiming when Virgil walks into the apartment, “you’re not actually being serious, are you?”

“I do not like to sing,” Logan says flatly.

Virgil squints at them, clinging to his coffee he’d snagged from the Busy Bean.

“Are you singing at eleven at night,” Virgil rasps. Finals are killing him.

“Roman is attempting to goad me into singing,” Logan informs Virgil from the midst of his paper hurricane, laying waste to the vast majority of their living room. Virgil picks his way through the spots their carpet peeks through, and perches on an armchair, digging out his laptop.

“It’s almost Christmas, Mr. Grinch,” Roman protests, a certain manic light in his eye that meant he was probably procrastinating. “Or should I say Mr. Grouch?”

Virgil boos.

And then Roman swivels and beams at him.

“You could join in!”

Virgil snorts, then. “No way,” he says.

“You can’t be worse than Logan,” Roman says reasonably, and Logan scowls at him more, before tugging on his hair, making the tufts and cowlicks of Logan’s usually-neat-now-disastrous hair stick up even further, as he looks at his astronomy study guides.

And very suddenly, Virgil gets what Roman’s supposed to do. Okay, sure, he might Look a bit deeper, but, whatever. He gets it now.

“Okay, whatever,” Virgil says with a long sigh. “I don’t know many carols, though.”

Logan looks at him, grumbles a bit under his breath, and Roman grins, before trampling over several of Logan’s paper, handing over some music.

“You printed out sheet music for this,” Virgil says, and looks at Roman. “Roman, you know I don’t know how to read music, right?”

“It has the words on it,” Roman says, and gasps. “I nearly forgot Patton!”

Virgil and Logan both exchange a long-suffering look, before looking at the music.

And then Virgil squints at the lyrics.

“Oh, God, he wrote the lyrics himself,” Virgil mutters, and Logan and Virgil only have enough time to exchange a panicked look before the other two (bubblier) occupants of the apartment come forward, managing to find their places in the apartment.

Okay, it’s probably true that Virgil could be better at singing than Logan. Because Logan seems to modulate in an entirely monotone voice for each lyric Roman’s tried to write.

To put it gently, it immediately goes off the rails. For Roman.

For Logan, hearing Patton and Virgil sneakily change the lyrics and mutter side remarks makes him actually smile, for the first time in days, in the midst of all the stress and panic.

For Roman… it is less fun.

“Roman,” Virgil says. “Roman. Bubba gump shrimp?”

“What could that possibly have to do with us?”

“It doesn’t even make sense—”

“It’s finals week,” Roman declares, flustered, “Nothing makes sense.”

Virgil pauses, shrugs, and concedes that point.

Until Roman, Logan, and Patton all decide to pull some sappy shit.

“And an emo who’s now our best friend.”

Virgil wishes he wasn’t blushing so bad, and shoves off Roman when he loops an arm around his shoulders and musses his hair, crooning the line over and over in his ear.

“Get off,” Virgil grumbles. “God, you’re so annoying, are there any other stupid plans to break finals stress?”

“Well,” Patton starts, and Virgil turns in time for the lights of the apartment to go out, save candle light.

Candles on a cake.

“Roman’s exhaustingly dramatic, and has such planned this part,” Logan says dryly.

“Happy early birthday, Virgil,” Patton says, grinning, and Virgil falters.

“I,” Virgil begins, and clears his throat. “I, um. None of you are gonna sing happy birthday, right?”

“You are incorrect,” Roman declares, and leads the song, all noisy and full-hearted. Virgil and Logan both share long-suffering looks.

Virgil huffs out the candles as soon as the song is over, and Patton sets the cake down on the counter to pull Virgil into a hug.

“Happy birthday, Virge,” he says, warm breath huffing along Virgil’s ear, and Virgil smiles into Patton’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Patton.”

“Cake, cake, cake, cake,” Roman chants, and Patton laughs, pulling back, before digging around for a knife and plates.

Roman cuffs an arm around Virgil’s neck and musses his hair, again, and Virgil snorts this time, shoving him off, and Roman shoves back, just a little.

“I can’t believe you’re such a baby,” Roman teases. “Just nineteen, and not even nineteen yet!”

“Shut up,” Virgil grumbles. “I can’t help that I was born.”

“Accurate,” Logan says, and Virgil rolls his eyes at him.

“But,” Logan says. “As improbable as it is, I’m glad that it was you that was born.”

“Aww,” Roman says, immediately ruining the moment. “Logan, that’s really sweet!”

“Speaking of sweets,” Patton says, grinning, and Logan groans, even as Patton hands him his plate.

“Thanks, you guys,” Virgil mumbles, accepting the plate from Patton and immediately shoving a forkful in his mouth, before freezing.

“This is Cora’s recipe,” he says around the mouthful of cake, and Patton smiles at him.

“Yeah, she sent it with the jam tarts and stuff when I mentioned maybe doing something for your birthday,” he adds, casual. “Which, also, hang on.”

Patton goes off to his room and returns holding some familiar stationary. Virgil sets aside the cake and opens it.

Dear Virgil,

Happy birthday! Well, early birthday, I’ll see you on your actual birthday. That Patton boy (I told you I liked him) asked for some recipes. He told me more about those boys that you live with, and I’ve certainly been seeing more and more about them in your letters. You’ll have to tell me everything about them when you get home.

Hugs,

Auntie Cora

Virgil smiles a little and carefully folds the note, sticking it in his pocket.

“Okay,” Virgil says. “Cake, and we’re watching Nightmare Before Christmas, and then we’re all studying.”

Patton bumps hips with him, and Virgil crashes onto the couch, ready to binge on sugar and forget his studies, just for a couple hours, smiling privately to himself.

Our best friend.

“How were finals, then?”

Virgil shrugs, takes a sip of the butterscotch milkshake Cora’s considering adding to the menu. “Okay. I didn’t flunk anything, I don’t think.”

“The height of achievement,” she says dryly. “I’m sure you did fine. Great, even.”

She pauses, and adds, “How about those roommates of yours? They feel good about everything?”

“You aren’t as subtle as you think you are,” Virgil says, equally dry, and adds, “They’re pretty sure they did well. Roman was kind of worried, he had to take some kind of econ course this semester, for whatever reason, but he’s probably pulled through it okay.”

“Roman’s the theater one, who loves my tarts,” Cora checks, and Virgil nods.

“Logan’s the astronomy one who loves your tarts,” Virgil adds dutifully, “and Patton’s the teaching one who asked for the recipes for your tarts.”

“It was sweet of him, to ask about all that,” Cora says.

Virgil talks around his straw so he doesn’t smile. “Pat’s the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.”

Cora smiles enough so he doesn’t have to, and Virgil scowls at her, just out of habit, not out of any actual emotion.

She smiles, and says, “Every time you come home, I can tell those boys are bringing you out of your shell, you know. They’re good for you.”

Virgil shrugs. “I guess,” he says.

“You know,” she prods, and Virgil allows himself to smile, just a little.

“Guess I do,” he says, and she swats him affectionately with a dish towel.

“This should go on the menu,” Virgil adds, tapping the glass with his pinky. “S’good. Did you make ice cream outta this, or crumble up the candies somehow?”

Oh God, it’s happening. His accent’s getting increasingly southern-sounding, the way it always does whenever he spends a lot of time with Cora.

“Ice cream,” Cora says, tucking her towel back into her apron. “You’re changing the subject.”

“Am I?”

“Don’t act cute with me, Virgil Owens, you’re getting shy,” she says teasingly. “Bashful, even.”

Virgil grumbles into his shake, “You’re my great-aunt, you’re not supposed to mock me.”

“That’s what family’s for, hon,” Cora says.

Virgil wrinkles his nose at her, and she smiles at him, ruffling his hair before she tugs out a notepad.

“Okay,” she says. “So, for Christmas dinner, I was thinking…”

When Virgil tows in his duffle bag, intent on going straight to his room and going to bed, he does not at all expect to see two of his roommates making out on the couch.

Virgil yelps “Holy SHIT,” and swiftly pivots around, cheeks burning, as he hears scrambling behind him.

“I—sorry,” Virgil says, “I didn’t—I—wait,” he says, and it clicks, and he pivots back around to narrow his eyes suspiciously at Logan, looking conspicuously ruffled, who’s adjusting his glasses back on his nose. “Since when?”

“It’s recent, George Gloomy!” Roman squawks, buttoning the top few buttons that had come undone. “Would it kill you to knock?!”

“I didn’t realize I had to knock on my own apartment door!” Virgil nearly yells, feeling his cheeks burn redder and redder. “You’re in a common area!”

“You—you said you were going to be home tomorrow,” Logan says. “I assure you if we’d known, we wouldn’t have—”

“Well,” Roman says, with a thoughtful tilt of his head, and Virgil takes a moment to bury his face in his hands, take a deep breath, and emerge.

“Okay,” Virgil says, and gestures vaguely at them. “When—how—did this…?”

Roman and Logan exchange a glance, and Logan says, awkwardly, “Um. Today?”

It takes a few seconds to click. “Today,” Virgil repeats.

“We started arguing about jelly flavors,” Roman says sheepishly.

“And it turned into… desecrating our couch?”

“We were arguing about other things too,” Logan says, shooting Roman an irritated-fond kind of look, and oh, wow, how had Virgil never noticed the increasing amounts of fondness in that look?

“It’s been building for a while,” Roman says, smiling sideways at Logan, “And, um. It’s just—we’re trying to see how it goes, for now.”

“We don’t want things to become,” Logan says, and fiddles with his tie. “Strange.”

Virgil nods, slowly, and says, “No more making out in common rooms.”

“Absolutely not,” Logan agrees in a rush. “We won’t.”

“Well—”

“We won’t,” Logan says, giving Roman another look, this one more irritated.

“Okay,” Virgil says, and nods. “I’m gonna. You two are gonna be the ones to tell Patton, and everything, but, um. I’m gonna… unpack. If you two continue doing… that… please go to Roman’s room. At least for tonight.”

Virgil goes immediately to his room and tries to quash the weird squirming his intestines seem to be doing.

The next morning, when Patton’s finally back, Logan calls them awkwardly into the kitchen for an apartment meeting.

Logan takes a breath, before he tilts up his chin. “Roman and I will not be joining you for dinner this evening.”

“Okay,” Patton says, slow, glancing at Virgil, who doesn’t glance back.

Logan takes another breath, and continues bluntly, “Because we’re going on our first date. Roman and I are… dating. Now.”

“Oh,” Patton says, and his eyes get as round as quarters. “Oh, wow. How long has this…?”

“Not long,” Roman says hastily. “Just yesterday. Virgil, ah. Virgil kind of walked in on us kissing in the living room.”

“Please don’t do it again,” Virgil says, as if he hasn’t replayed the moments before they sprung apart in his mind fifteen hundred times.

“Of course,” Logan says, equally as hasty as Virgil. “But. Ah. We figured we should… make sure everyone’s on the same page.”

“Wow,” Patton says again, and asks, “So, like. Is this serious?”

It’s a fair question. Roman goes through flings like frat boys go through vodka, and for as long as Virgil’s known him, Logan’s never breathed a word of a single romantic outing.

Logan and Roman exchange a glance, blush, and break their gaze.

“We’d like it to be, yeah,” Roman says, in a quiet, shy voice.

What happened? Virgil wonders, and he absolutely aches to Look deeper, to find out what the catalyst was to swap bickering to kissing, what made them finally absorb how well they could work together. But he can’t—they’re his friends, and it’d be an invasion of their privacy.

Plus, the weird wiggling in his stomach starts up again double time when he considers Looking for that.

Patton smiles, wide and sharp, and wrong.

“Then I’m very happy for you two,” he says decisively, and stands up, pushing away from the table. “What are you two lovebirds doing on your date?”

Apparently they’re going to be pretty tame—dinner and a movie, and it ends up that Patton is in Roman’s room, and Virgil ends up in Logan’s, and he gets to ask the question he’s wanted to ask.

“So, how the hell did that happen?”

Logan’s holding up one of his numerous button-downs against his chest, and he glances at Virgil, before he looks back to the mirror.

“I,” Logan begins, and there’s a tinge of pink on his cheeks. Logan’s blushed more in the past day than he has in a year. “Well, we were—we were arguing about jelly flavors, you know, whichever one we’d get on our next grocery run. And—well—” he pauses, and says, “Do you remember, when Roman and I were bickering that one time, and you and Patton were on the couch, and he went out to show off that he could do a back handspring? And you and Patton mentioned something about us both fighting to reach a common goal, and that we made a good team?”

“That was a fun day,” Virgil says, sarcasm thick in his voice.

“Anyways,” Logan says pointedly, “I—I don’t know. It was a combination of things, I suppose. We complement each other, I’ve grown to trust him, we—we—“ he flushes, and adds, with only some of his usual dignity, “Roman is conventionally attractive, which helps, and—”

Virgil wrinkles his nose and waves a hand. “I’ve heard enough.”

Logan getting ready for a date, it turns out, is hilarious. Well. It would be hilarious, if Virgil can stop feeling the weird squirming in his stomach, or if Logan wasn’t so genuinely nervous and all… butterflies in the stomach, puppy love about it. It’s a state that’s just unnatural to Logan’s state of being.

What is with Virgil, right now? It’s probably because of the curse, or something. That’s probably it. Love’s antithetical to a Fae.

Patton and Virgil see Roman and Logan to the door and wave them off. As soon as they’re gone, the grin drops off of Patton’s face with a near-dangerous level of force.

Virgil hesitates before he carefully pokes Patton in the shoulder.

“Wanna order pizza and watch Steven Universe, or something?”

Patton wraps an arm around Virgil’s shoulders, and the sudden brush of Patton right now—sad—washes over Virgil like an unexpected wave, sinking him so he can barely breathe.

“I love Steven Universe,” Patton says.

They end up ordering a slightly ridiculous amount of food, all-out—mozzarella sticks, and greasy pepperoni pizza with cheese-stuffed crust, and brownies. They go back to the start of Steven Universe, and Virgil takes a breath.

It’s like Patton’s first reading—his need for touch right now is like an air horn in Virgil’s ear.

Virgil pauses, before he carefully rests an arm over the back of the couch.

“You okay?” Virgil mutters, gruff, and Patton lets out a wet laugh, before leaning on Virgil’s shoulder.

“Memories,” he snuffles into Virgil’s shoulder, and Virgil squeezes his shoulder, before he takes a breath.

“It feels… weird,” Virgil says hesitantly. “Right? Like, it’s not just me.”

“No,” Patton says, soft. “No, it’s not just you. I—” He swallows, and says lamely, “Yeah.”

Virgil tries his hardest not to cringe at himself as he says, “Do you want to, like. Talk about it?”

Patton pauses, and he squirms, and he looks at Virgil with a nearly defiant look in his eye.

“I like ‘em.”

“Who?” Virgil says, before it clicks. “Them. Oh. Oh.”

He tries to calculate that in his mind, and what comes out of his mouth next is, “You can do that?”

Patton flops back against the couch. “They wouldn’t,” he says.

“Patton,” Virgil says. “Are you kidding? They—I mean, talk with them about it, but—”

“What if they think it’s weird?”

“Then you and Logan swap rooms, and you can just interact with me,” Virgil says determinedly. “But I mean—it’s Logan and Roman. And you’re… you. Anyone’d be lucky to have you. Okay?”

Patton hesitates, before he rests his head on Virgil’s shoulder again.

“Virge?”

“Mhm.”

“People’d be lucky to have you too, you know?”

Virgil starts, and says, “No. Oh, no, I’m not—no. No dating in the cards for me. I can’t—I’m not doing that.”

Patton blinks at him. “Is it okay if I ask why?”

“Just,” Virgil says. “No. I’m not—I’m not dating anyone. Not now, not ever. Let’s watch Steven Universe some more, okay?”

Patton pauses, surveys her, before relaxing back against Virgil’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says quietly.

Virgil stirs a bit on the couch with the murmuring of quiet voices.

“—gil told me I should probably tell you two, so. Now you know.”

A long pause. Virgil stays still, and continues breathing deeply.

“You don’t have to—I mean—” Patton says, hastily. “I just—I thought you guys—I don’t wanna pressure you or anything, I just—” Patton groans. “I’m going to go run away now, I—”

There’s a sudden silence, and Virgil opens his eyes a slit, in time to see Logan pressing his lips against Patton’s.

“Oh,” Patton squeaks, soft.

“Yeah, oh,” Roman says in amusement. “Let’s go to my room to talk about it, I don’t wanna wake Virgil up.”

“Okay,” Patton says. He sounds dazed, like it’s some kind of daydream. “I’m—you’re okay with this too, Roman?”

“Get over here, pretty Patton,” Roman says, and Virgil keeps his eyes shut for this part. The squirming’s kicked up tenfold.

When he hears Roman’s door shut, Virgil gets up from the couch, curls up in his bed, and tries and fails to go to sleep.

When Virgil is nineteen years old, he realizes he’s going to kill his three best friends in the world. And that his twelve-year-old spell had worked, against all odds.

Faes fall fast and hard. Intellectually, Virgil knows this. It could be part of the curse, part of the magic that’s hopelessly intertwined with Fae DNA, it could just be a part of simply finding someone who didn’t ostracize them for their family history.

It’s three am, and none of them had been able to sleep, and all of them are sleep deprived and stupid and too young when Virgil realizes he’d twisted the other three into being, and he’d be the one to doom them all.

Roman was twisting Patton around the kitchen floor in a grandiose waltz to stupid middle school pop music as Patton slipped on socked feet and Logan sat perched on the counter, sipping coffee from his periodic table mug and keeping a close eye on the toaster because of Logan’s particular misfortune with cooking, and Virgil was about to be a murderer.

The first stupid, stupid thought in his head was, if that spell worked, which of them got the good kisser part?

The second thought in his head was that, rather distantly he was starting to notice that he was panicking. None of them seemed to notice how hard Virgil’s world had just flipped its axis, how quickly his stomach bottomed out and how the panic was starting to wrap around his ribs, choking him. Which was probably good.

He doesn’t know how he gets through it. He doesn’t know how he sips his cocoa and eats his buttered toast and doesn’t tip them off that something is terribly horribly wrong, because he’s such an idiot to have done that, Christ.

His mouth joins in with the chitchat as some kind of plan whirls around in his brain. Because what’s he gonna do, tell them?! That’d go over great, and probably get him sent straight to the psychology offices. Not even mentioning the fact that loving them would kill them, not even mentioning that, what kind of people would ever be with him like that? Why would Roman and Patton and Logan, exploring their new relationship together, fold in Virgil? Why would Roman? Why would Logan? Why would Patton, who deserves everything good and kind and soft in the world, get involved with someone like Virgil? Friends, fine, they’re all friends with other people. But—dating? No. No way. Virgil can’t do that to them—not even including the fact that Virgil loving them would kill them.

Telling them isn’t an option, then, not at all. Nothing. Nothing about his family history, nothing about the curse, and nothing about Virgil loving them.

So, what? Ignore it? That wouldn’t help either. Now Virgil knows, he’s going to obsess over it, he’s going to stare at them and moon over them and pine after them, which would be digging their graves deeper and deeper with every sappy thought and kind thing Virgil would do for them. He can’t just ignore it and exist with them there, he can’t ignore this.

Jesus Christ, Virgil is an idiot. How did he not see any of this before? It’s not like he fell in love overnight. When did this start? The birthday celebration? Settling in the routine of living together? Move-in day? Or did it go back even further, from the moment that they reached their hands out to him in forgiveness and friendship? Did he fall in love the instant they showed him some kind of kindness?

Or had he, twelve years ago, doomed himself to falling in love with them as soon as he declared the spell to be complete? Had he forced them into being? Were they even real?

Virgil shakes his head, hard, to dislodge that certain thought.

“Virgil?” Patton asks, blinking at him. “You okay, buddy?”

“I,” Virgil begins, and gulps. “I—I think I’m gonna go to bed, actually. This has been working on me.”

“Well, if it works on someone, it may as well work on you,” Roman declares, and waves a hand at him. “Good night, Good Night Gloom, sleep well.”

“Let us know if the sound bothers you,” Logan adds.

“Right,” Virgil says. “Night.”

Virgil turns tail to go to his room, sits on his bed, and feels his eyes focus on the duffle bag tucked haphazardly into his closet.

Oh.

Oh, of course.

#my post #text #lfl #my fic #my fanfic #ts-storytime #ts storytime

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cheshiresense · 6 years

Text

What if: the Gotei 13 offers Ichigo the creation and captaincy of the Fourteenth Division?

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Pinglist: @queen-sands

It takes Kisuke a full seventy-two hours to finish plastering all of District 78 with seals powerful enough to knock a herd of evil rampaging elephants off their feet but that’s just the first layer. He doesn’t have that much reiatsu to expend continuously though, which means he needs a break.

Ichigo of course is still working. The gods forbid he retains the stamina of even just your average Shinigami captain.

He ends up collapsing into one of the camping chairs Ichigo must’ve brought while Kisuke was busy elsewhere. They’re set up at the edge of what will one day be their headquarters, and there’s water and some snacks waiting for him as well, which he dives into gratefully. The spot also gives Kisuke a nice view of Ichigo carting charred debris and rubble to a few separate dumpsters stationed in front of an open Garganta. A few well-aimed Getsuga Tenshous from earlier reduced the remaining buildings to heaps of splintered wood and stone, which helps fit them into each metal container more easily.

Kisuke spares a moment to admire the amount of control Ichigo’s gained in only a few short years once he put his mind to it. The Garganta holds steady even when Ichigo Shunpos from one side of the area to the other, and even three days in, he easily lifts a piece of cement wall like it weighs nothing. He’s shrugged out of the top half of his Shihakushou, letting it pool around his waist, and while he’s sweating and his muscles flex every time he gathers up a new load, there’s not a speck of strain anywhere in the fluidity of his movements.

He’s staring, Kisuke realizes ruefully, and gives himself a mental slap while reciting a mantra he put together a good few years ago - young, former student, screwed over his soul, used him as a weapon, young.

Rinse and repeat until it sticks.

He sighs and tosses his hat onto the foldable table beside him before leaning back and putting up his feet. There’s a stack of files on the table so he picks those up to distract himself. The paperwork is familiar, giving him flashbacks to those captain days he certainly doesn’t miss, and it makes him smirk-- he wonders if Kyouraku would take his bet for how long it will take Ichigo to set his paperwork on fire.

There’s a pen and a slip of paper with Ichigo’s rushed scrawl tucked in the first folder, on which he’s already marked down the end figures for everything he’s had to pay for so far. Thankfully not much yet, but it’s good that he’s keeping track. Kisuke remembers the first time Yoruichi dumped the Second Division’s entire monthly budget on him and he made the mistake of putting it off for later - that was a mess and a half to untangle, and it got him in trouble with Yoruichi, the Ninth, and the Soutaichou-- never mind that it wasn’t even supposed to be his job to begin with. But it taught him the importance of keeping accounts and being mindful of any outgoing expenses, especially when it became clear Yoruichi wasn’t going to stop foisting the management of their finances off on him, so he’s glad to see Ichigo hasn’t neglected it so far even if it might not seem particularly essential just yet.

...Then again, Ichigo did more or less raise his sisters since their mother passed. Quite possibly, he learned the importance of savings and proper budgeting a long time ago.

Kisuke shuffles that file to the bottom. He lingers briefly on the outline of the partially drawn Fourteenth Division insignia before moving past that too. He spends just enough time on the folder of blank profiles to fill one out for himself and another for Ichigo, mostly basic information that the Gotei already has and a bit more that they don’t but never more than the bare minimum. He makes a note to advise Ichigo to ensure the same for the rest of their squad.

There’s a couple more blank pages, and after a moment, Kisuke takes one and begins sketching out a rough idea of some building plans for their headquarters. Administrative building, captain’s office at the top, lieutenant’s right across, senior seated complement’s scattered a floor below. Private quarters for each. A few communal areas, more offices on the ground floor, front desk off to the side, never directly in view of everyone and their dog coming in through the front doors but with a perfect line of sight for anyone manning the desk to carry out a surprise attack should someone uninvited attempt to sneak in.

Barracks, big enough to accommodate a full-sized squad even though Kisuke is fairly certain they won’t have anywhere near that many people anytime soon. Training grounds, more than one. After a moment of deliberation, Kisuke leaves the farthest right area - past where the future barracks would be - blank. He thinks Ichigo might’ve already had the same idea so he should leave some space for it.

There’s forest area all along the back. Kisuke marks that down for where he wants his promised labs to be. A Senkaimon connecting them to his office will have to be anchored in place, perhaps in a separate (hidden) room on the top floor of the admin building. It’s technically illegal but it isn’t as if Ichigo will care.

That’s more or less all the basic requirements for a Division’s headquarters. Even the labs aren’t strictly necessary but Ichigo was right-- Kisuke might actually go into withdrawal or at least blow something up if he’s no longer allowed his own projects to play with.

But other more personal touches can be added at a later time. Maybe separate apartments-- Ichigo will probably want his own place outside of the barracks or the office’s adjoining bedroom, and Kisuke will too. And tunnels of course. Underground safe rooms. Underground workspace and training grounds. Underground everything, in case of a siege and the enemy actually manages to breach the walls. Speaking from experience, Kisuke does not think he is overreacting. It isn’t paranoia when your very existence is about to make some very powerful people very angry and very scared. Besides, Second Division headquarters is similarly outfitted and they’ve never been accused of treason or threatened with execution.

He sets the blueprints aside for now. They’re only a first draft, and Ichigo will want to add his own input.

He glances up again at the sound of approaching footsteps, then reaches down to retrieve one of the bottles of water and tosses it to Ichigo. “Are you finally taking a break?”

“Not all of us have ancient bones to rest,” Ichigo retorts around a grin before guzzling down half the bottle and then dumping the rest over his head. Kisuke very firmly keeps his eyes on Ichigo’s face and no lower, which isn’t exactly a hardship but… well, there’s a lot of bare skin on display.

“You’re finished with the seals?” Ichigo asks, looking around, eyes going half-mast and distant in a way that means he’s feeling for the wards.

“Only the first layer,” Kisuke sighs, levering his legs off the footrest and back onto flat ground. “I’ll need more time to build up all the defenses to an acceptable level, and that isn’t even getting into the seals that can’t be tied in until at least the walls of our compound have been built.”

“...They’re really strong already,” Ichigo murmurs after a moment, blinking back into the present. The look he aims at Kisuke next is full of a genuine sort of admiration that makes Kisuke want to preen and blush and bask in it all at the same time. “You’re kind of amazing, Kisuke.”

Kisuke clears his throat and busies himself with stacking the files onto the table again. “My Kidou skills should hardly come as a surprise to you anymore, Ichigo, or did you forget how I won our last… oh, twenty spars?”

“Shut up,” Ichigo huffs, moving to flop into the other chair. “Hadou and Bakudou are different than this stuff. I don’t see it as much. I don’t think most people even know how to do it.”

Kisuke allows himself a moment of smug pride. “Well, you’ll be seeing plenty of it from now on. But I do need some rest before I get started on the next layer.”

“Yeah, of course,” Ichigo agrees more seriously this time and waves a dismissive hand. “We’re not in that much of a rush. If anybody does come to try and stop us this early on, it’s not like they’ll be able to get the drop on either of us.”

True enough. It’s when Ichigo begins bringing in other people - possibly civilians - that they’ll have to worry. But for now…

“Then,” Kisuke continues, catching Ichigo’s eye even as he reaches for his discarded hat. “If you don’t need me for anything else right this moment, I have some business to wrap up elsewhere. I should be back by the end of the day at the latest.”

Ichigo looks curious but he doesn’t ask, shrugging instead and digging into the bag of snacks he brought. “Sure. I did drag you out here pretty suddenly.” His expression slants into something more concerned. “Just make sure you actually catch a nap or something too, okay? If you collapse on me, I’m gonna hold it over your head forever.”

Kisuke smirks even as he puts his hat back on and stands. “With the number of times you’ve fainted into my arms after a fight-”

“I did not faint!”

“-I don’t believe I’ll have anything to worry about.”

He catches the empty bottle Ichigo hurls at him and throws it back, still smirking. “A Garganta to my shop, if you please, Ichigo.”

Ichigo rolls his eyes but snaps a portal open for him all the same. “Get outta here. Don’t start the end of the world or something while you’re gone.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Kisuke says dryly before stepping through, the mouth of it closing behind him. He has more than enough reiatsu still to forge a simple path under his feet, and the single tunnel of invisible turbulence guides him through the darkness. It only takes a few minutes of travel before the tunnel ends and the Garganta opens again to reveal the foyer of his shop.

Ichigo really has gotten very proficient with this kind of transportation.

The place is empty, not that Kisuke expected anything else. Tessai should still be visiting with some old friends, and Yoruichi hasn’t come by in months. The kids… Actually, Kisuke should probably stop calling them that. They finally grew enough to demand to go to college a few years back when Karin and Yuzu graduated high school, despite the fact that Kisuke could’ve easily downloaded information on pretty much any subject they would’ve wanted to know about into their internal databases. But they insisted, and last Kisuke heard, they were doing well in Todai.

He makes his way to the kitchen, picking up the portable phone on the way before putting the kettle on. He sets the phone on the counter, turns on the speakerphone, and starts rummaging for the tea as he waits for the call to connect.

“Kisuke?”

“Yoruichi-san,” Kisuke greets airily. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope I haven’t interrupted anything.”

He automatically tunes out the next three and a half minutes of Yoruichi recounting her latest exploits with Sui-Feng. It’s probably terribly petty of him but Kisuke’s never been particularly interested in the zealous mess that was Sui-Feng catering to Yoruichi’s whims, no matter how funny Yoruichi thinks it is.

“It’s good to hear the Second Division is doing so well,” Kisuke interjects after he tunes back in in time to listen to Yoruichi tell him about the new group of Academy graduates they just took in. “Will you be taking over their training or will Sui-Feng-san be making them regret ever stepping foot in the compound?”

Yoruichi cackles over the line. “You say that like I won’t make them regret that. But yes, Sui-Feng asked if I could train them, get’em up to snuff. I’ll even go easy on them the first week.”

“How fortunate for them,” Kisuke says drolly because he knows better than most how difficult a taskmaster Yoruichi is when she’s serious.

Yoruichi chortles again, and Kisuke’s hands hover briefly over the tea set he just took down.

It’s been a long time since he last heard his best friend laugh so freely.

“Well then?” Yoruichi prompts, her mirth fading a little. “That’s all the news on my side. Did you call just for an update or did you need something?”

Has something happened goes unspoken but not unheard.

Once, he could’ve called just to call.

“Nothing urgent,” He replies. “But I was wondering if you could make some time to come visit little old me today. Tessai-san too, if you know where he is. Otherwise, I’ll call him after this.”

There’s a beat of silence on Yoruichi’s end before her voice comes back on, casual in a way that only Kisuke and Tessai would be able to tell it isn’t entirely genuine. “Of course. I know where he is. I’ll swing by and pick him up. Twenty minutes?”

“See you then,” Kisuke agrees. “My regards to Sui-Feng-san.”

For once, Yoruichi only scoffs, amusement twined with an exasperated sort of skepticism because she’s never been any kind of oblivious in her life. But all she says is, “Right. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from you.”

Kisuke hums noncommittally in the face of that bald-faced lie, says goodbye, and hangs up. He carries the tea tray over to the dining table and keeps each cup and the pot piping hot with a touch of his finger.

Then he waits.

“So what’s this about?” Yoruichi asks briskly, cutting to the chase after only a perfunctory sip of Kisuke’s tea. Tessai says nothing but he too looks at Kisuke expectantly, with only a slightly worried frown creasing his brow.

“Nothing overly important,” He repeats. He absently swirls the tea in his cup, catching a faint glimpse of his reflection in the pale green liquid. “I assume you’ve heard of Ichigo’s promotion?”

“I dunno if you’d call it a promotion,” Yoruichi snorts, looking amused. “But Kyouraku slapping the kid with a captaincy and his own division? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing half the Gotei has been talking about recently. Or at least they’ve heard the rumours.”

Tessai nods in agreement. “The Kidou Corps even received instructions to begin setting up the standard privacy and protection seals around the empty compound that has been assigned to the Fourteenth, but Kyouraku-soutaichou rescinded that order a few days ago. The Kidou Corps has been told to wait.”

Kisuke has to hide a smile behind his cup at that, but also a surge of possessive annoyance at the thought of anyone messing with the seals he’s already started constructing. Ichigo will have some explaining to do, but the Kidou Corps won’t be necessary this time. He wouldn’t mind if Tessai offered to help but there’s no way Kisuke is letting a bunch of nameless Shinigami lay a finger on his future headquarters’ defenses.

“There’s no set date for the induction ceremony yet,” Yoruichi adds. “But the haori’s all but got Ichigo’s name stamped on it.”

“Yes, and that’s what I wanted to discuss.” He pauses, then looks up, first at Yoruichi, then at Tessai, feeling strangely calm and centered in this one moment, with a thread of pride drumming steadily underneath. “Or not discuss. I’ve already made my decision.

“I’m planning on closing the shop,” He announces without fanfare as he reaches for the teapot, heedless of the way Yoruichi’s eyes widen and Tessai stiffens. “Ichigo has asked me to be his lieutenant, and I’ve accepted. I won’t have time to do that and spend my days in this shop waiting for the next Shinigami in need of my particular brand of expertise to show up on my doorstep, and if I won’t be living here anymore, it isn’t wise to let this place sit and gather dust. I’ll inform Kyouraku-soutaichou of course, but I thought I would tell you two first. I know some of your belongings are still in your rooms here, and Jinta and Ururu’s things will have to be boxed up and either placed in storage somewhere or shipped out to their apartment, but you’ll have the next week or so to move it all out before I begin dismantling the place.”

In the ensuing silence, the kitchen clock seems to tick especially loud. Kisuke savours his third cup of tea slowly.

Hmm. Does Inuzuri have a tea shop? Probably not. Well, there will be if Kisuke has anything to say about it.

“You’re… going to be the Fourteenth Division’s new vice-captain,” Yoruichi finally says.

“Yes,” Kisuke smiles winningly in her direction. “Ichigo came straight to me after meeting with the Soutaichou. Apparently, I was his first choice. How could I refuse?”

If there’s supposed to be a sting in his words, he thinks he hides it well.

Yoruichi’s eyes still narrow, cat-like and calculating. “You used to be a captain, Kisuke. Isn’t lieutenant a step down?”

“Well, I was also a fugitive,” Kisuke reminds her sardonically. “And that was probably at least ten steps down, but I managed, so I’m sure I’ll settle perfectly well into a lieutenant position.”

“That’s still not-”

“I never wanted it,” Kisuke cuts her off, and he could probably count on one hand the number of times he’s done that over the course of their lives and still have fingers left over. But he meets her gaze steadily, and he doesn’t blink, and the truth of those words ring between them for the very first time since Yoruichi signed him up for the captaincy trials, harsh and heavy and loud even though Kisuke never even raised his voice.

Tessai sits stone-still off to the side, his hands motionless around his own empty teacup. Yoruichi hisses out an irritated breath, sounding more cat than woman, but for once, there’s a frozen indecision in her expression that suggests she doesn’t know what to say.

“I prefer being a lieutenant,” Kisuke says eventually when the silence stretches too long. He lets his voice lighten to chase away the tension from before. He didn’t actually mean for the conversation to dig into issues best left in the past. “I’m more suited for it. And someone has to keep Ichigo out of trouble, right?”

A pause, and then Yoruichi makes a disbelieving noise at the back of her throat. “You’re as bad as he is, and he’s as bad as you. If anything, you two will be neck-deep in trouble together within the month!”

Well she’s not wrong. It’s probably not even going to take a month for Central 46 to catch wind of what they’re doing.

Kisuke shrugs. “Most likely, but at least it’s been historically proven that we’ll be able to get each other out of trouble as well, so we’ll be fine.”

Yoruichi rolls her eyes, and Tessai’s shoulders finally lose their rigidity again.

“We’ll have to get rid of everything in the back if we’re closing the shop,” Tessai says instead of adding his own opinion to Kisuke’s decision. “Should I donate it or…?”

“Have a sale,” Kisuke suggests. “I can keep the shop open for up to two weeks. Spread the word that everything will be fifty percent off. Donate the rest if there’s anything left at the end.”

Tessai nods, clearly already making plans for that in his head.

“Do you have a place to move into though?” Yoruichi asks, pouring herself some more tea. “Since Kisuke’s kicking us out.”

She gives Kisuke a sharp grin, all teeth, but the accusation lacked bite so Kisuke doesn’t let it bother him. Besides-

“They gave me my old set of apartments back,” Tessai admits, and the look he sends Kisuke is almost apologetic. “And the current Kidou Corps Commander, he was my former Third, and he’s been asking if I want my old position back. I’ve refused so far. It’s his now, and he’s good at it. But… I’ve been helping them with training and some of their missions. I wouldn’t mind returning to that, and Hachigen-san has been doing the same.”

Kisuke nods. Yoruichi looks between them before jabbing a finger at him. “You already knew. Of course you did.” She frowns. “I didn’t know. I’m losing my touch.” She scowls at him. “I guess you also know I’ve resumed Clan Head duties then?”

Kisuke arches an eyebrow. Yoruichi rolls her eyes again. “Right. Fine.” She sighs. “I’ll move my stuff out in the next few days. I suppose we’re all going back then.”

There’s a moment where they all just look at each other, a hundred years and change playing through their minds.

“We’re the stupidest fuckers in the world,” Yoruichi mutters with uncharacteristic vulgarity even for her, downing the rest of her tea in one gulp. “And if we get exiled again, I’m gonna kick my own ass for actually being this fucking dumb.”

“At least with Kurosaki-dono around and Kyouraku-soutaichou in charge,” Tessai says with a faint note of amused resignation. “Something like that would not be as likely.”

Yoruichi scoffs but doesn’t refute it. Tessai clambers to his feet, nodding to Kisuke. “I’ll get started on that inventory then, Boss.”

Silence resumes in the kitchen with Tessai’s departure. Kisuke offers Yoruichi the last of the tea, and when she shakes her head, he pours the rest for himself.

He still needs to make a trip to the bank. Then he should come and pack up a few pillows and blankets, maybe find a tent-- the shop probably has one. He has a feeling Ichigo will be working through the night, and it feels wrong to come back here to sleep while Ichigo’s still out there.

“Just tell me one thing,” Yoruichi says abruptly. Kisuke glances at her and finds her watching him with unblinking feline eyes. “You didn’t accept the post because you feel you owe the kid, did you?”

Kisuke… well, he thinks back to that conversation not even four days ago, to the honesty Ichigo offered him, to the expectation that Kisuke wouldn’t let him down, to you’re my first choice.

To the trust inherent in all those things.

Debts are fickle. Once paid off, there’s no guarantee of further loyalty.

But Ichigo trusts him enough to name Kisuke his Second, to want no one else for the position, to offer him equal standing in a plan that might just revolutionize Soul Society-- how can Kisuke give him anything less?

“No I didn’t,” He tells Yoruichi, and it’s a truth he’s glad to feel down to his very bones.

Yoruichi stares for a few seconds longer, and then her features soften into something warm and knowing, and kinder than Kisuke’s seen aimed at him in a good long while.

“Alright then.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, Kisuke,” Yoruichi stretches, limbs going loose and lazy as she cracks a fanged yawn. “Alright.”

Later, Tessai puts it into words, straightforward and to-the-point the way Yoruichi wasn’t.

“Is this what you want, Boss?”

“...Yes.”

“Alright then.”

[Part 5]

#bleach #uraichi #urahara kisuke #kurosaki ichigo #shihouin yoruichi #tsukabishi tessai #myscrap #gotei 14 verse

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consecotaleo · 6 years

Text

Boku No Hero Academia Light Novel Vol. 3 -- Unofficial English Translation -- Chapter 2: “Dramatic Makeover”

T/N: Here’s a Chinese > English translation for the second chapter of BNHA Light Novel Vol.3. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a lot of banter, honestly. I really enjoyed the teachers’ interactions in the first chapter.

I’m hoping to see a proper Japanese > English translation at some point, especially to see Chapter 1 fully fleshed-out. At least for this chapter, the Chinese translator expressed that they like Todoroki a lot and paraphrased less on his parts.

Disclaimers

Some parts were paraphrased by the Chinese translator. // ‘Quirk’ and ‘personality’ are the same, so there might be mix-ups. // It’s difficult to handle verb tense in Chinese. Hopefully I didn’t mess up the order of events too much. / Names. Honorifics don’t translate well. The Chinese characters were weird. “why is he talking about rice fields” “nvm that’s Iida”

BNHA Light Novel Vol.3 Translations

Complete list here

Chapter 1: “Cheers!” – After UA home visits, the teachers go out for drinks. Focuses on All Might and Aizawa.

***Chapter 2: “Dramatic Makeover” – Class 1-A moves into the Heights Alliance dorms. Todoroki-centric, interspersed with scenes from the other students.

Chapter 3: “Crisis”: An unexpected visitor comes to the 1-A dorms. Part One, Part Two

Fantasy AU, translated by aitaikimochi: Set in the alternate universe from the anime S2 ED

Manga References.

You should reread Chapters 98-99.

The Hideout Raid arc or wiki page

Chapter 98 or wiki page – moving into the new dorms

Chapter 99 or wiki page – best dorm room competition

Chapters 53 & 68 or wiki page on Todoroki’s mother.

(The students are about to move into dorms.)

Chapter 2: Dramatic Makeover

Yaoyorozu, who’d grown up utterly pampered in a palace-like home, was now packing for life in the dorms.

Her mother eyes the ten packing boxes with some trepidation. “Are you sure you’ve packed enough?” she hedges. “Did you bring a proper tea set? Make sure you have enough to serve the entire class – it’d be terribly awkward if you ran out of cups.” Then, “You did bring some formal attire, I suppose?”

None of this was necessary for learning at school, so Yaoyorozu obviously had not. “Better safe than sorry!” her mother insists. The house servant agrees, suggesting a few more packing boxes to fill with various luxury items.

Yaoyorozu contemplates it for a while, but eventually refuses, thanking her mother for her consideration.

“My daughter is growing up,” cries her mother.

Yaoyorozu is plied with a dozen boxes of fancy books and bookshelves, a gift from her father. Books are her absolute favorite. Yaoyorozu brushes away the tears that well up. It was time to move forwards to dorm life.

In mid-August, the students of Class 1-A assemble in front of their brand new home.

The atmosphere is heavy as they file into the dormitory, Aizawa-sensei’s lecture weighing on everyone’s minds**.

** See chapter 98 or wiki page for context

Once Aizawa-sensei has finished the building tour and everyone’s received their room assignments, it’s time for the students to unpack and decorate their new rooms. But as Yaoyorozu waits at the elevators with everyone, Aizawa-sensei calls out to her. “Oi, these rooms are too small to fit more than five or six boxes of stuff. Pick out what’s most important and send the rest back.”

“Eh, really?” Yaoyorozu flounders.

Meanwhile, the elevator dings at the 5th floor. Todoroki emerges and advances to his new room – only to halt. A small “ah” escapes him, then silence. Finally, in barely a whisper, “No… no tatami?”

Todoroki had already seen from the earlier tour that the rooms were Western in style. But having been raised in a traditional Japanese house, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his living quarters should be the same. Since students weren’t required to use the standard dorm furniture, Todoroki had brought his own.

“…” After rearranging his furniture for a while, Todoroki peers around the room with a grimace. No matter how he looks at it, the Western room and Japanese furnishings clash horribly. And the veranda… Sure, he’d gotten used to the verandas at school, but to have one in his own room seems terribly wrong. The cloth curtains (in lieu of shoji screens) also make him a bit uneasy.

Todoroki quickly finishes unpacking his sparse belongings. With nothing left to do, he flops onto the (strange Western) bed. He just can’t get used to any of this.

“From now on, I’ll be falling asleep and waking up here,” Todoroki declares to the room.

He’d been waiting to escape the ‘care’ of his damned father for years, but hadn’t expected the day to come so soon. The thought of his father brings a stormy expression to Todoroki’s face. He sits up on the bed, shaking his head as if he can forcefully eject his negative thoughts.

To try to alleviate his sore mood with a bit of fresh air, he opens the window and takes a deep breath. A vast forest stretches out beyond his vision, interspersed with the occasional UA building. But even the magnificent view from the top floor can’t dispel Todoroki’s unhappiness. He turns back to his new room and retrieves a dusty photo album. He tugs out a single faded photograph – his mother, beaming at the unmarred baby Shouto cradled in her arms.

Before, when Todoroki looked at this photo, he’d be hit with a wave of regret and fear that his mother would never smile the same way again. But no more. Now he knows that his mother is still full of laughter**. The picture soothes his troubled heart.

** See wiki page on Todoroki’s mother

Todoroki is beginning to feel much better when a gust of wind snatches the photo from his hands. The photo drifts out into the forest.

He rushes out of the dorm. How will he find a single photo in such a huge forest? He scours the ground, the trees, the UA buildings. “Where the hell did it go,” he mutters, a frown etching itself back onto his face. In the distance, he suddenly hears a mechanical clanging.

“?!” Out of nowhere, a small object comes hurtling into Todoroki’s (hastily-raised) wall of ice and falls to the ground with a thunk. It appears to be a large fist-sized gadget of sorts. “The hell is this?”

“That’s my baby!” a feminine voice retorts back. Ah, it’s the inventor girl from the Department of Support. Her performance in the UA Sports Festival had certainly been something. Not wanting to face the same fate as Iida, he offers the handful of machinery back to her.

**bold = originally in English

** See wiki page for Hatsume Mei

Hatsume thanks him with a brilliant smile. She’s about to go off on one of her advertising spiels when one of her inventions zips by. A few others zigzag about in the distance.

“My baby! Wait up!” In the blink of an eye, Hatsume vanishes from view to chase down her precious machines.

“Hold up, there’s one over there too,” Todoroki points out. It’s finally dawned on him that she’s referring to her inventions.

“Help me catch it!” Hatsume yells over her shoulder.

“… Hah? Oi!” But his cries are lost to the wind. Todoroki flounders a bit, stunned.

Your machinery may be very important to you, but I’m also looking for something precious to me, Todoroki gripes. An especially strong gust sends a flurry of leaves up. His anxiety spirals up as well. In the time he’d wasted just now, the photo could have flown off even further.

He sends a wall of ice in the direction of the machines to freeze them in place. That settles that. He heads off to resume looking for the photo.

But more clanging and whirring reaches his ears. Are there more gadgets out there? Todoroki is at a loss.

Suddenly, Todoroki recalls Iida’s response to the Bakugou Rescue Squad. Though Iida hadn’t agreed with the group’s reasoning, he’d joined to make sure he could watch over and protect everyone.**

** See Hideout Raid arc – Summary – Infiltration Preparation

Iida is a serious student and responsible class president. Had Iida been placed in this position, he wouldn’t hesitate to lend a helping hand. And as a prospective hero, Todoroki obviously can’t turn down a person in need. He turns back towards the machine whirring. Though the lost photo is dear to him, he take the time to freeze the other gadgets.

(Oblivious to the events outside, Iida is in his room, organizing his book collection.)

Finally, Todoroki captures the last gadget. Some belated introductions are exchanged. Hatsume sheepishly admits that she’d tripped and triggered the power switch for the gadgets earlier, when she’d been unpacking her own room.

“Did you really make all of these?” Todoroki is rather awed. “Amazing!”

Fluffed up with pride, Hatsume restarts her earlier spiel on her inventions.

Todoroki listens with half an ear. “Is this all of the machines?” he suddenly interrupts.

It turns out they’re missing one. This particular invention is barely the size of a prune, but weighs a ton. It’s designed to latch onto villains so they can’t escape under the added weight, Hatsume explains.

“Well, if it’s that heavy it can’t have gone far, right?” Todoroki offers hopefully.

“I’ll look around, then!” Hatsume agrees. “My quirk is ‘Zoom’, so I can see objects up to 5 kilometers away!”

“I’ll check any blind spots,” Todoroki decides. He heads off. Then he backtracks. “Hey, if you see a photograph with that ‘Zoom’ of yours, can you let me know?”

“A photo? Ah,” Hatsume’s eyes light up in understanding. “So you were looking for something! Sure!”

A voice suddenly cuts into their conversation. “Hey, what are you youngsters doing out here? Shouldn’t you be unpacking right now?” It’s Recovery Girl, who’s out for a stroll.

Hatsume explains the situation, and Recovery Girl offers to look over Hatsume’s blind spots with Todoroki. But after they peer into the nearby nooks and crannies and decide to move on, Recovery Girl trips over some tree roots. Todoroki rushes to catch her, but she rights herself.

Noticing Todoroki’s outstretched arms, she smiles warmly at him. “You wanted to help me? Thank you, young man!” She adds, good-naturedly, “I trip rather often anyways though, since I’m getting old.”

Recovery Girl considers Todoroki for a moment. “Really, Endeavor’s son is already this grown up!”

“Ah…” Todoroki scowls at the mention of his father’s name. This goes unnoticed by Recovery Girl, who begins rambling about the Endeavor as a student, and his aspirations to be the greatest hero.

But all Todoroki could hear was that terrible, hated rumbling voice, “In my place, to fulfill my dreams, you will surpass All Might to become the greatest hero.”

“I don’t want to hear about that guy,” Todoroki cuts in. Recovery Girl is immediately apologetic.

An alarm goes off, coming from the direction of the road. Recovery Girl heads over to assess the situation, while Todoroki heads deeper into the forest.

He stumbles over something. It’s a prune-sized machine. Todoroki gives it a tentative tug. It’s quite heavy. Well, this is definitely the right one.

Todoroki yells out that he’s found the gadget. The sound is buried under a sudden cacophony of mechanical clanging.

It appears that one of the gadgets has captured Recovery Girl in some steel rope. Hatsume speculates that some of the circuitry must have been damaged when the gadget fell, and it mistakenly set Recovery Girl as a target.

Recovery Girl had tried to evade the machine earlier, but she’d tripped again, allowing the rope to snag her.

Todoroki valiantly attempts to free her. Unfortunately, he gets tied up as well. Now dangling together with Recovery Girl, escape attempt thoroughly botched, he apologizes profusely.

(read Aitai’s Japanese > English translation of the following scene here and here)

Kirishima Eijiro. Todoroki hadn’t ever really spoken to the boy before they’d teamed up to save Bakugou. But they’d shared the frustration of having the League of Villains snatch away Bakugou in front of their noses. For Kirishima to have his dear friend whisked away, without getting the chance to do anything about it – well, Todoroki could certainly empathize. This frustration was what drove the students to form the Bakugou Rescue Squad, anyways.

In the current situation? Kirishima would probably act according to instinct, complete with a ‘manly’ desire to help others…

As it turns out, Kirishima is presently on the 4th floor, helping his next-door-neighbor Bakugou unpack. One of Bakugou’s boxes had gotten mixed in with Kirishima’s luggage earlier. When Kirishima dropped off the box, he’d decided he might as well help out.

“Hey Bakugou, what’s this stick?” Kirishima inquires. “Some weapon?”

“That’s for mountain climbing, dumbass.” Bakugou snaps. “Why are you such a pain in the ass? Go the hell back to your own room.”

At Bakugou’s scrunched-up scowl, Kirishima just laughs, unfazed. “Hey now. Two is better than one, right? When we’re done with your room, let’s head over to sort out my room too!”

“I bet, you lazy ass! You’re just slowing me down!” Bakugou doesn’t put any real weight behind his harsh words.

Rescuer and the rescued. The breeze drifting in through their new home scatters the vestiges of unfamiliarity between the two.

Todoroki attempts to break the ropes. Unfortunately, the more he struggles against the unyielding steel, the higher he and Recovery Girl get hoisted up by the ropes. Hatsume’s remote control isn’t working either.

“Damn… in a time like this… if only Yaoyorozu was around!”

Like Iida, Yaoyorozu had also disapproved of the Bakugou Rescue Squad, but had joined them to make sure no one would engage in combat.

With her ability to stay cool-headed in any situation and her superior knowledge and strategizing – if it was Yaoyorozu, she’d definitely be able to come up with a solution!

Meanwhile, Yaoyorozu is still on the 1st floor trying to cut down on her luggage.

“Silverware… it can go.”

“For paintings, just one will suffice.”

“Shoes… three pairs is enough, right? Ah, but I really need a pair of heels. There’s just no room! I’ll just have to go with the bare minimum for everything. Screw it, one pair of shoes it is.”

Todoroki racks his brain for ideas. He could possibly use either side of his quirk to deal with the rope, but Recovery Girl could get seriously hurt in the crossfire.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to dismantle the machine,” Hatsume finally says, defeated. “I’ll go fetch some tools from the workshop!” But as she turns to leave, the two captured begin flailing about violently.

The offending machine – unwilling passengers and all – begins to roll away, along the road. Hatsume makes to send her other gadgets after it, which is totally ineffective and nearly gets her caught as well.

“Oi, don’t mess around,” warns Todoroki.

“Go call a teacher,” Recovery Girl decides. Meanwhile, Todoroki’s getting swung about. He eyes something ahead with trepidation. The gadget is approaching a large, deep pit, one that was used by the second-years for practice. And now they’re on track to go tumbling into a bottomless chasm. If they fall in with the huge machine, it can only end in tragedy.

Todoroki can no longer conceal his anxiety. The machine is still making for the pit with speed. There’s no time to call for help. Should he take a chance with his quirk? No, but… What to do?

As he becomes increasingly panicked, the face of his friend comes to mind. Even in a life-or-death situation like this, Midoriya would never give up! Todoroki recalls when they’d tried to save Bakugou while All Might and All for One were fighting. Though there had seemed to be no way to get to Bakugou, Midoriya had come up with a way to succeed.

Todoroki regrets that his own deep-seated, long-standing hatred against his father had caused him to lash out at Midoriya, his friend.

On the 2nd floor, Midoriya is quite upset. Over what? The order of his All Might figurines, of course. Disregarding daily necessities, All Might paraphernalia had taken up a good half of Izuku’s luggage. Position, order, and angle all must be considered…

Todoroki is still desperately trying to figure out what Midoriya would do in this situation. Finally, he comes up with something. He yells out to Hatsume, “Toss the heavy prune gadget to me!”

“Hah?” Though confused, Hatsume retrieves the small gadget. “Wait! Do you really want me to throw this over?!”

“Yes,” Todoroki confirms. “Aim for my mouth!”

Using ‘Zoom’, Hatsume lines up and (nervously) sends the gadget sailing over.

Todoroki catches it with his teeth and swings his body to the side. The altered center of gravity makes one end of the machine lift up. The machine attempts to advance with a single set of wheels and eventually topples over, precariously close to the edge of the pit. Todoroki dives under Recovery Girl to cushion her fall onto the road.

“Whew, that was close!”

Todoroki just winces at the weight in his mouth, still pinned under Recovery Girl.

The runaway machine finally shuts down after some loud clattering and Hatsume rushes over to check over the finally freed hostages. Todoroki finally spits out the small gadget and confirms that he’s fine.

“I’m okay as well,” Recovery Girl concedes.

“Great!” Hatsume beams. “And using the weight of the heavy prune gadget to unbalance the runaway machine was brilliant! What valuable data!”

“Can we get these ropes off first?” Todoroki asks dryly.

So Hatsume runs off to the workshop to fetch some tools, returning with Power Loader. Finally, they sever the steel ropes and free Todoroki and Recovery Girl. Power Loader immediately begins chastising Hatsume.

** See wiki page on Power Loader

“Oh right!” Hatsume, who had been quietly been nodding along to Power Loader’s berating, suddenly reaches into her pocket. “I found this in a tree on my way back. Is this what you were looking for?”

It’s the photograph of Todoroki and his mother. A brilliant smile stretches across his face, and he thanks Hatsume profusely. She rummages in her pile of machinery until she emerges, triumphant.

She offers a strangely familiar basketball-sized barrel as a gift to Todoroki. “Let me know what you think after you’ve played with your friends!” Hatsume and Power Loader then start on the task of moving away all the machinery.

Recovery Girl is about to address Todoroki when she notices a gash on his cheek. When Todoroki had dived under Recovery Girl to cushion her fall, he’d ended up scraping his face on the ground.

She fixes him up with her quirk and pulls out some candy. “Here’s some soft candy, eat up! Thank you for saving me. Hard-working children get more rewards!”

“It’s nothing.” Todoroki ducks his head, accepting the considerable pile of candy. “Any of my friends would have done the same.”

Todoroki startles a bit. Just a while ago, these sorts of thoughts would have never entered his mind. But he acknowledges and accepts the changes to his mindset as personal growth.

Coming to UA had been really good for him.

At Todoroki’s gentle expression, Recovery Girl cheerfully responds, “True, true. You and all your classmates are working hard. It’s true now, and it was true in the past. Not a single person is slacking off. But to occasionally recognize and applaud your own efforts? That’s perfectly okay!”

“Okay.” Todoroki puts a piece of the candy into his mouth. … Did my father also work hard at UA? He shakes his head to banish the thought.

Recovery Girl asks how moving into the dorms is going. Todoroki recalls his strange new room. He just can’t seem to get used to it.

Upon hearing this, Recovery Girl drags him off to the off-campus junkyard. “I think I have just the thing for you!”

When they get there, Todoroki’s eyes light up. In the corner are some apparently brand-new tatami mats, shoji, and traditional furniture!

“Even though these were used for a class, no one will mind if you take them. I’ll contact the teacher to let them know,” Recovery Girl reassures.

“You have my heartfelt thanks.” Todoroki bows and sees Recovery Girl off, then returns to the dorms. What a day. He lets a deep sigh of relief escape him.

He’s opening the brand new doors to his dorm room – in a brand new chapter of his life. Though there are some things he won’t be used to, Todoroki is certain it’ll be okay if it’s at UA.

Now, time to start remodeling! He rolls up his sleeves.

–– End of Chapter 2 ––

Chapter 3, Part One

tl;dr “Yes,” Todoroki confirms. “Aim for my mouth!”

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #todoroki shouto #bnha light novel #translation

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