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#aaand this accidentally turned into a rant
lunanoc · 11 months
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the more i read through the early dmbj books with the hindsight of things that are unveiled as far down the line as queen's banquet the more i'm floored by the sheer amount of details that have been there from the start explaining and tying everything together so seamlessly
w h a t
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avatar-anna · 3 months
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The One About the Documentary
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i watched part one of the yolanda and selena documentary so you don't have to...and it pissed me tf off. anyway enjoy!
Harry Styles x Latina! Reader Masterlist
When his girlfriend asked to watch the documentary, Harry said yes, but hesitantly.
In all honesty, Harry didn't think Y/n would have any desire to watch it, but at eight o'clock sharp, she was on the couch armed with a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of coke, one for him and one for her.
"Can I ask why we're—"
"Shh! It's starting."
Harry settled into the couch, his arm around his girlfriend, whose eyes were glued to the TV the second the documentary began.
*.*
"So Yolanda's the only one who knew about this alleged affair?" Y/n said to no one in particular. "Yeah fucking right. I hope Chris Perez never watches this."
Harry covered his hand with his mouth to hide his grin. His girlfriend had a knack for talking about people she didn't know as if they were good friends.
Taking a handful of popcorn out of the bowl, he kissed Y/n's cheek. "I don't imagine anyone close to Selena is watching this."
Huffing, Y/n slumped back against Harry's side, angrily chewing popcorn. "I hate her," she grumbled, and he knew she wasn't talking about Selena.
Playing with a strand of her hair, he turned his attention back to the TV. "I know."
*.*
"¿Un accidente? ¿Fue un accidente?" Y/n all but shouted at the screen. Her brows were narrowed in an adorable glare, nose slightly crinkled in anger. "Are you kidding me? You shot her! In the back! Twice!"
Harry debated whether to intervene or stay seated on the couch. His hand reached for the bowl of popcorn in the meantime, taking a handful as he watched his girlfriend shout at Yolanda Saldivar.
"Lovey, maybe we should turn it off," he ended up saying.
Her head whipped around, her glare landing on Harry, though he knew it wasn't aimed at him. "Why?"
Why? he thought. Because you hate Yolanda and I'm not sure my arm can take anymore angry punches.
"You seem a little...heated?"
Y/n's eyes blazed. "Of course I'm heated! This whole thing is bullshit!"
Harry knew his girlfriend was passionate, it was one of the things he loved about her. And one thing Y/n happened to be passionate about was Selena Quintanilla Perez.
"I know that, and you know that, so why are we watching this?"
Y/n had sent numerous messages about the documentary in question when word first got out that it would be released. Fiery texts about how ridiculous it was that someone so horrible was making a documentary after all these years, about how no one would ever be stupid enough to take Yolanda's side, and so on. Harry, of course, was inclined to agree, but he also thought Y/n was merely ranting about the trailer. He didn't think they'd be sitting down to watch it. Honestly, he thought his girlfriend wouldn't have given it the time of day.
"I—I don't know, but I can't just not finish it," Y/n said. "I'm watching in protest."
Swallowing a laugh, Harry pulled his girlfriend back onto the couch. "Okay, then, lovey. Then sit down and let's finish it."
*.*
"Oh come on, Yolanda," Harry groaned, his voice nearly reaching Y/n's frustrated levels. "If all this evidence has been sitting in some storage unit for all these years, why is it only coming out now?"
Y/n was practically bouncing in her seat on the couch as the woman in question spoke. She shook Harry's shoulder with her hands, but he was used to it by now. This was a normal occurrence for any movie night.
"That's my point!" Y/n said. "She's evil. She'll be hard pressed to find an unbiased jury when it's time for her parole."
"You think she'll really be let out on parole?"
Y/n shrugged, her eyes on the television. "She'd probably be safer in solitary."
"Y/n!"
"What? It's the truth!"
*.*
"¡Bruja! ¡Mentirosa! Who the fuck is buying this? You admitted! ¡Me cago en la reputísima madre que te parió la reconcha de tu—"
"Aaand that's where we'll stop," Harry said, turning the TV off with a definitive click of the remote.
"Wha—Why? It's almost done!"
Harry ignored Y/n's protests and took her into his arms, taking her away from the TV and the couch and the popcorn, which she'd begun to throw at the screen in outrage. As he took the stairs up to their room, Y/n turned to begging, promising she'd behave and stop throwing popcorn, but Harry was having none of it.
"This is for your own good, lovey," he said. "It's not healthy to be angry like that."
"Oh, so I'm being irrational?"
Harry merely rolled his eyes. "Now you know I didn't say that."
"Well...You're...Put me down! I need to finish!"
"Not tonight, lovey."
Harry set Y/n on the bed gently. She crossed her arms and glared at him, but it was half-assed, and not entirely directed at her and still at Public Enemy Number One.
She gave him the silent treatment as they got ready for bed, but Harry knew it wouldn't last. His girlfriend had a short fuse, but the emphasis was on short. Y/n didn't stay mad for very long, she never had as long as he knew her. Harry gave it until he got to the second chapter of his book and the silent treatment would come to an end.
It took the third, but Harry smiled a little as Y/n held hos cheek in her hand and kissed the other. "I'm not gonna apologize for being angry," she said.
"I wouldn't expect you to. I know how you feel about Yolanda Saldivar."
Y/n hummed. "But, I apologize for the popcorn. And the excessive profanity. And for bruising your shoulder."
Setting his book down, Harry looked at his girlfriend, nothing but affection—and perhaps mild amusement—in his gaze. "It's okay. I hardly felt a thing."
"Liar," Y/n giggled. "But thank you for putting up with...I don't know, me, I guess."
Harry took that as his opportunity to kiss her properly. Y/n squeaked in surprise, cradling his face gingerly as he slotted his lips over hers. Laying her down properly on the bed, he hovered over her, his hand running along her bare thigh and up past her night gown. Because Y/n was the kind of woman who wore little nightgowns before bed.
That was how Harry knew she wasn't totally mad at him. She wore one of her shorter, more revealing ones. She had a couple that went down to her calves that weren't expressly for when she was pissed at Harry, but he knew—though the joke was on her, he thought she looked just as sexy in those.
Y/n wrapped her legs around Harry's waist, her arms twining around his neck as he kissed the shell of her ear, the curve of her jaw. "It's not 'putting up with,' lovey," he murmured. "You should know that by now. If anyone puts up with anyone in this relationship it's you."
Leaning up on her elbows, Y/n made Harry look her in the eye. "So we're both a little crazy. That's nothing new."
Harry just grinned down at his girl, admiring the soft look in her eyes, the amused arch of her brow, her swollen lips, and chest that breathed heavily. Y/n might have had a short temper, she might throw popcorn at the TV when it made her mad, and she might curse and hit him when she felt particularly outraged, but she put up with all of his quirks with a smile too, loved him for every single one. Harry took up most of their shared closet space—which he had a weird thing about color coding—he had a tendency to talk in his sleep, he had to sit on the same side of the couch and made Y/n move if she was sitting on it (though now she knew better), he often scraped the bottom of the rice pot into the sink before Y/n could save her favorite crunchy parts which drove her nuts, and he had the unfortunate habit of leaving the cap off his toothpaste.
And there was the whole no-privacy thing because of his job, but that wasn't much of a quirk.
"I'm cool with it if you are."
Y/n smiled. "So you'll watch part two with me?"
"Hell no. But I will support you if you decide to scream at Yolanda and her fucked up family through the TV a second time."
"You're gonna regret that," Y/n said as she began to run her hands down Harry's broad shoulders. "Selena. Morning and night. Every minute of every day."
"That's...not a threat, lovey."
Y/n pouted. "Shit, you're right. I'll...only speak Spanish around you so you never know what I'm saying."
Harry's grin widened as he leaned down to kiss her collarbone. "I don't think you realize how sexy you sound, even when you're cross with me. Or your arch nemesis, for that matter."
"Well then I'll—"
"Face it, lovey. There's very little you could use to threaten me," he said, dragging the words over her neck. "Now let me love on you a bit before bed."
"What if I said no?" she asked, even though they both knew she wouldn't. Y/n just liked to be contrary for the sake of it.
"Well that would just be cruel to the both of us, wouldn't it?"
Finally relenting, Y/n slumped back against the bed, bringing Harry with her. She held the back of his head, her grip firm as she brought his lips to hers once more. Harry hummed triumphantly against her mouth, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. They eventually found themselves tangled together, Harry on his back while he hugged Y/n close to his chest. One hand was buried deep in her hair while the other kept a steady grip on her waist. He already knew each little sound she made, each reaction burned time and time again into his mind. But he collected each sigh, each graze of teeth like it was the first time, savoring it like this would be his only opportunity to ever kiss her.
Infatuated. He was infatuated with her. He loved when Y/n was loud and bright and opinionated, and he loved when she was shy and demure and unsure of herself. He loved the way she said his name when she was exasperated by something he did, and he was obsessed with the way she sometimes started speaking in another language without realizing it. He loved the way she loved him, so confidently, so tenderly—he loved that each devouring kiss seemed to say that she was just as infatuated as he was, that he wasn't alone in these intense feelings.
"Love you, bubba," Y/n murmured, the words getting tangled in their kiss.
"Love you," he replied.
It was all there really was to say.
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tiktowafel · 9 months
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Hey, I love your art style and your work on class 1B. I was just wondering if you have any recommendations for fics that are 1B centric, maybe even stories with someone like Setsuna as a main character. I love the MHA fandom, but it's sometimes hard to find those good stories with all the fan generated content, an I was hoping another 1B lover would know what's what.
thank you, and sure! i don't actually read that much fanfiction (my taste is rather narrow), but here are a few ones that i read and enjoyed! i'll put it all under the cut because my summaries ended up making this list kinda long lol
'Class 1-B' is Trending #1 in Japan - 9k words and absolutely hilarious crack oneshot with a lot of chatfic/social media elements. Tsuburaba accidentally turns one of Monoma's rants into an international meme, which results in 1-B becoming incredibly popular and the League of Villains being defeated in the dumbest way imaginable. the fic is restricted to AO3 users, since i don't have an account there i can't check if the link works but i really hope it does :'D
Adrift - long (13k words) and extremely angsty space horror oneshot with Setsuna as the main character. AU where class 1-B are a space crew and a mission goes terribly wrong, leaving Setsuna, the sole survivor, floating hopelessly in space and thinking about everything that happened. 10/10 made me feel extremely uncomfortable for the rest of the day
Mindfucker Has Closed the Chat - 9 chapter 17k words long very chaotic Monoshin chatfic (with one non-chatfic style chapter) where Monoma texts the wrong person and ends up befriending Shinso without knowing who he's talking to. the fic is tagged "attempt at humor" and i gotta say that the attempt was 100% successful, this thing is hysterical and i audibly laughed several times while reading it
Picture Perfect - i know i hardly ever talk about Kosen on this blog despite the fact that it's one of my favorite ships, but one day i'll post something about them i promise- anyway this tiny 2k word fic is pretty much what made me ship them. it's just... very good and very sweet yknow
Unlikely and Unusual - a oneshot collection made for one of those rarepair month events. it's not specifically a 1-B fic, but some of the oneshots feature 1-B characters and the ones i read are very cute :)
the one and only The Heart of a Hero - 345k words and recently updated after a long hiatus, basically a 1-B fandom legend. It has everything: drama, epic fights, romance, slice of life, character backstories, it's pretty much what BNHA would have been if it was about 1-B. A lot of things in it are inaccurate to canon because it was first written before the joint training arc even came out, but that just makes things more interesting in my opinion (dude i actually wish Reiko's quirk was like this in canon)! it's actually one of the main reasons why i got so invested in 1-B in the first place, i couldn't recommend it more!!
The author of THoaH has also written many other, shorter stories about 1-B, so their entire profile is worth checking out! my personal favorite out of these fics is I Want to Break Free, a 6k word oneshot focusing on Setsuna and her family.
and now for what is probably my personal favorite:
When Die Rolls Differ - 294k words and counting, canon divergence/butterfly effect fic where class 1-B is the class who gets attacked at the USJ instead of 1-A and becomes more involved in the main conflict of the series as a result. honestly i don't even have the words to describe it, it's so good, the character interactions and backstories, and the fights, and the humor, and the way 1-B students fit into the events that originally only featured 1-A characters, and the everything!! just!! dude!! it's amazing!! and there's so much love and thought and creativity put into it!! please check it out because this fic has my whole heart <3 it's also on a break right now, so you have time to catch up
aaand that's it for today! there are probably more fics that i like, i just can't remember them rn, so i'm planning on updating this post every time i remember a nice fic or find something new!
sorry this took so long i may have procrastination issues
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random Centaur Adora au slice of life ideas where everything’s the same she’s just half horse  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Adora’s usually pretty good at not getting spooked but when she’s relaxed sometimes Catra’s tail twitches and Adora thinks SNAKE!!! and all four hooves leave the floor
This always made Catra freak out too and the result was always mayhem
Centaur Adora is literally as strong as a horse
Her chowing down on everything she can each in ep 2 is now partly bc she needs a heck ton more calories
At first Glimmer assumes Adora is a brand new kind of genetically engineered soldier the Horde is developing and won’t listen to Adora’s claims to be the only centaur she’s ever seen. This is the new main driver for bringing her back to Bright Moon even though this time it’s a lot harder, Glimmer is determined to warn the Rebellion and give them a sample to study/find the weaknesses of before the… cavalry… arrives
The fact that Adora didn’t just break free and run off is even more blatant since she could kill either of them with one kick to the head. Her not tramping them during the fight for the sword is also pretty obviously a deliberate thing and the first clue she’s not actually an evil jerk
Bow and Glimmer totally forget to hobble Adora btw. She wakes up and looks down at her bound hands and back at her four other unbound limbs just like ‘seriously?’
Thanks to her best friend never wearing shoes Adora’s really careful with where she steps, but not wanting to crush/get crushed is still the excuse they both use for Catra to spend a lot of time perched on Adora’s back
Before meeting Glimmer and Bow the only one allowed to get rides on Adora was Catra (and Rogelio that one time because no one else was strong enough to carry him)
Centaur Adora has the ‘nervous sleeping without friends’ thing and never gets used to sleeping alone so Glimmer just starts teleporting over right before bed
Glimmer draping herself dramatically across Adora’s withers
Bow LOVES braiding Adora’s tail and sometimes does that instead of stress cleaning (only with permission of course)
There are no other Centaurs on Etheria which really confuses Adora but the She-Ra mural is a centaur so she figures maybe there used to be more before all the fighting 
As She-Ra, Adora’s horse half turns white and grows to the size of huuuuge draft horse
Despite being half horse Adora never knew about horses in general and even after seeing one insists horses and Centaurs are completely different
The main difference is horses are just BETTER
Glimmer: How can you know you’re a Centaur and still NOT know what horses are?????
Centaur Adora: Nobody told me I was half horse! They just pointed at me and said ‘centaur’ and i heard the word and thought ‘oh well guess that’s me’
it turns out not knowing about horses is not actually a Horde thing
Catra, in thaymore: Uh, yeah I know what a horse is. who doesn’t?
Centaur Adora: I DIDN’T!!!!!
Catra: How could you NOT know what a horse is!? You’re entire butt’s a horse!
Centaur Adora: AAAAAAAHHH
aaand this puts a new spin Catra’s favorite catchphrase, much to Glimmer’s fury
Glimmer: She’s pronouncing it with an ‘A’, Bow. I can feel it
Bow: We have literally no way of proving-
Catra, @ centaur adora: Hay Adora~ >:3c
Glimmer, being restrained by Bow: SPELL IT ‘HAY’ AGAIN AND SEE HOW LONG YOU LIVE I DARE YOU!!!
Centaur Adora: what’s ‘hay’??
Adora freaks out a little when meeting Mermista since she considers them in same boat
After that Mermista starts going mermaid whenever there’s enough water around for it to be practical. She says it makes her water combat better but everyone knows she does it mainly just because of how Adora lights up every time she has a ‘hybrid buddy’
Visiting Plumeria awakened some old instincts and Adora almost poisoned herself trying to eat all the yummy flowers until Perfuma specifically made her an edible bouquet
Swift Wind thinks of Adora as his mom. His really really weird mom via like magic or whatever
Wanting the comfort of a herd was part of why Adora snuck out of Glimmer’s room in ep 2 when she saw ‘Horsy’ out the window
Obviously Adora can’t get rides on Swift Wind so instead he flies overhead with Glimmer and Bow and guides her as she runs. cue her complaining why the sword couldn’t have just given HER some wings too
Growing up in the high tech lift-based Fright Zone Adora never encountered staircases until joining the Rebellion. They are the bane of her existence. The only good thing Hordak ever did was build his evil lair without them
Centaur Adora laying down awkwardly to fit at the Rebellion’s council table
Later Glimmer makes sure her chair gets swapped for a pad so this isn’t so uncomfortable
Not only does Castaspella promise to make Adora a sweater she also takes measurements on her horse half to knit a matching blanket so she’ll be properly cozy
Adora pulls Glimmer and Bow onto her back in ep 2 while running from the monster and the rides never stop from there
When getting rides Bow’s very worried about making sure Adora’s not uncomfortable but he’s so nervous about it that he doesn’t hold on good enough and tends to slide off if Adora isn’t super careful
Glimmer on the other hand absolutely zero fear only glee when Adora gallops
She’ll also take any excuse wrap her arms around Adora so that also helps her never fall off <3
The two give Bow and Angella grey hairs by doing jumps and obstacle course races and other stunts whenever they get bored
Adora’s back, both human and equine, is speckled with tiny scars from Catra’s claws accidentally digging into her over the years bc Catra always refused to ‘sit’ on Adora, preferring to be always ready to jump off, paranoid Adora would stumble someday and fall and squash her, which you know, fair enough
Her new bed in Bright Moon is a problem for soooo many more reasons than just being too soft
Also, Glimmer never figures out how over a thousand pounds of Centaur managed to sneak into her hanging bed that first night
When asked Adora just shrugs hand says she’s a good jumper. Also Glimmer sleeps like a log
centaur Adora showing up in places no one who’s half horse should be able to becomes the new biggest meme of the rebellion
Since it’s physically impossible for either Glimmer or Catra to dip Adora while dancing they end up making her dip them instead, much to Adora’s complete confusion
Meeting Entrapta involves a lot of eager questions about Centaur physiology which Adora has no answers to and then a running catalog of all the ways Adora shouldn’t work despite somehow managing to until Adora is on the edge of an existential crisis
Glimmer hauling a hacked centaur Adora through the robot infested castle, drooping under the weight of her human half and praying Adora’s four back legs aren’t about to give out bc if that happens then they are f*cked
Entrapta also really likes lifting up Adora’s hooves/legs without warning to examine them and only Adora’s discipline saves her form getting kicked in the face
By the time of the prom Adora is so used to this she doesn’t even notice when Entrapta does it anymore
Also at the prom Adora sets aside the whole enemies thing long enough to go make a new hybrid buddy with Scorpia, who Adora counts in the club because one set of Scopia’s limbs are completely non-human
Scorpia is delighted to vent about how everything is built for people with fingers and arms that aren’t covered in a spiked carapace and listens sympathetically to Adora’s rant on staircases, even draws her a doodle of stick figure She-Ra crushing some evil steps under hoof  
Frosta is a dutiful host and uses her ice powers to make a ramp up to her throne so Adora won’t have to deal with a staircase of ice
She tilts the same ramp to get rid of Adora and Glimmer when they start annoying her later
Scorpia’s first time meeting centaur Adora: “Horsie~!”
Adora, the centaur, looking around hopefully: “WHERE!?”
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janiedean · 5 years
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so admittingly I don't know much about springsteen but your top 5/10 springsteen songs and why?
WELL THEN HERE WE GO (sorry this required a long answer) (also if I start going like ‘this is it bUT IN THIS VERSION NOT IN THAT ONE it’s because actually he has wildly different version of the same song XDDD)
*cough* *drum roll* videos for the first five + links for the others as usual xD
one: the ghost of tom joad
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I once ranted about this specific song in detail so here if anyone’s interested, but: it took me years to decide on which one was my favorite overall but then I went for tom joad because it has all. it’s a heartbreaking song that updates one of my favorite ever novels (the grapes of wrath) to current days situations and guys I swear to god the fact that he put to music tom’s speech to his mother in the novel at the end after rehashing the themes in a new light in the rest of it killed me and I want it tattooed, so. tom joad now and always thanks guys. I love this damned song to levels that are embarrassing as hell.
two: no surrender (in the live 75-85 version)
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so: no surrender is originally on born in the usa and actually it’s my favorite song from that record regardless - like, it opens side two and I remember that the first time I heard it was on a tape a friend’s dad (haha) had lent me bc he knew I was into bruce and he was too and I turned it to the second side of the tape and played it and I was like holy crap this is it but then I heard the acoustic live version from the following tour and guys. guys. if you ever had friends you fell out of touch with but still remember fondly and/or friendships you know that even if you don’t talk for a while you’ll always be close when you meet again this is.. just… idk it hit me like a punch in the stomach and it never left. I cried every single time he played it live when I went to see him. no regrets. I love this song sfm and the melancholy in the acoustic version just destroys me.
three: for you (acoustic piano version)
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I 100% realize this is probably a weird choice for top three, but: this was on his first album and the version on there is pretty damned good - it’s about a guy whose girlfriend tries to commit suicide and reminesces about their relationship - and you’d go like why, but: first of all he has some of his best lines in this (my electric surges free I just sdgsldjl) and the entire last stanza where he goes from where I found you broken at the beach to the end is just a knife into your heart, but this goddamned version here just goes and tears your heart out and stomps on it and I swear if there is one thing I want from bruce is that he plays this in front of me next time I see him live because for now I never managed and just - the slow piano kills me. I love it. the fact that when I asked brian fallon in a tumblr q&a his fave bruce song and he said this specific one just confirmed he’s a true intellectual. ;)
four: drive all night
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or: this is the love song. I just. the first time I heard this I fell off the chair or something and it was the studio version which is nowhere near as heartfelt as the live versions and I swear it’s just - it has very lovely lyrics that perfectly balance melancholy and hopeful and don’t make it saccharine, the fucking sax solo destroys me every single goddamned time I hear it and when you get to the end and he says that she has his love heart and soul it’s The Most Heartfelt Thing I Have Ever Heard In My Life Or Close To It and I just, I love drive all night with every inch of my atoms, bye.
five: badlands
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I ranted about this extensively yesterday here so I refer you to it for long rant about it, but tldr: this was actually the first bruce song I ever heard knowing it was by bruce - it wasn’t what got me on that train but it still was the first and like… I didn’t understand it for a long time bc my first run-in with bruce was a hit and miss but then I did and like, this song is basically quintessential bruce because it has all his themes rolled up into one, all the good stuff, everything that is good about his music and most of all live it’s a goddamned religious experience. 
so, that was for the top five, but top ten…
six: youngstown (click here for full rant from last year) which was a hard choice but this damned song slays me whether acoustic or electric and I love his use of language and how he built it and how he teaches you things in five minutes pretty much and how the music/mood matches the words in both versions and seems to mean different approaches but still doesn’t change the core of it, and is2g the last two lines and the second stanza and the line he recycled from the mahardige book he inspired himself with when he wrote this are just goddamned out of this world and like this one raised the ladder for years but I just, love it to pieces
seven: rosalita (come out tonight), or: bruce does serious and politics incredibly well but this one is just a delight from beginning to end, it’s fun, I could listen to it for a month without getting tired, it always puts a smile on my face and the entire last part where he tells her to inform her dad he has a record company now so no reason to hate that his daughter is with a moneyless musician is just… so… lovely and fun and lighthearted and I just really love this song a lot ;;
eight: highway patrolman or, there’s no way a top ten bruce songs has no nebraska material from me because nebraska Is A Damn Masterpiece and this one’s my fave off it, but tldr: the utter, absolute way this thing slays you with just voice and guitar and the way he makes you feel about the cop who ends up letting his brother with ptsd from vietnam escape after he accidentally kills someone is out of this world and I just, this one really has a way to make you empathize with the narrator and my heart ;_; (also the movie they made from it which is in that video is really good k viggo mortensen playing the brother with ptsd isn’t leaving me anytime soon)
nine: thunder road (rant attached to the link) or: this one is short and sweet but honest, it’s not The Definitive Love Song To Me just bc drive all night exists. this damned song is a masterpiece in itself. it’s flawless. it has the crescendo, it has the fact that at whichever moment in his life he sings it it works, ‘it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win’ is the most iconic line that ever ended a song or close to it and it’s exactly the kinda love song you wanna hear if you want realistic love song material and just, legendary. okay? legendary.
ten: american skin (41 shots), or: this actually is what got me into springsteen bc I borrowed the live album it was published on originally after my first try with darkness went so-so, I listened to it and was like ‘okay yeah he’s good’, then I got to this one and went like ‘wait a fucking moment this isn’t just good’ (count that I was twelve and understood maybe 1/5th in the english songs I heard), I actually looked it up, went like woah wait aaand listened to it for two weeks straight, bought the record, translated everything by hand, started reading about what the fuck was wrong with the circumstances for which it was written and here I am twenty years later dying over bruce and having been introduced thanks to him to 80% of his country’s societal issues or I’d have had no idea that early in my life. anyway: other than the sentimental value, it’s honestly out of this world good and the live version just nailed it way better than the studio that was released years later and I love bruce a lot, k? k.
thanks for letting me rant ;)
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tomoewantsdolls · 5 years
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I didn't mean for this to happen
- tomoewantsdolls
Written for Drarryland 2019 (so much fun!)
Rating: T
Wordcount: 733
Prompt: “Because of the anonymous nature of it, Harry or Draco accidentally buys the other in a charity auction for a date”
Sumary: It's a win-win situation!
Read on AO3
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“Remind me again why I let you convince me to do this?”
Pansy rolls her eyes in the most exaggerated way possible. It must hurt. “Don't be dramatic. It's a win-win! For one, you get to better your public image giving an obscene amount of money to charity, aaand you get a date.”
He scoffs, indignant. “I don't have to rely on this kind of thing to get a date.”
“Really? How long it's been?”
Ages.
It has taken years for people to begin to forget their past, or at least politely ignore it, let alone consider him as a partner.
“Let me see whom you have bid for.” Pansy peers over his shoulder; her stilettos allows her to do so with a spare inch. In the card he can only read the answer of the intended date to general questions regarding their interests and such. No names, as it's supposed to incentivise for higher biddings. “My interests” Pansy reads “are quidditch and hanging out with friends. Seriously Draco? How can that be interesting?” She clicks her tongue before continuing. “What I appreciate in my partner: Humour, and don't being afraid of calling me out if I'm wrong. That definitely you can do. Do you think it's…?”
“Woods?”
“The Puddlemere new Captain? I admit he's a fine specimen, but he's not whom I would choose being you, anyway… Seriously? Quidditch for work and quidditch in the free time? Such a bore.”
Pansy continues her rant but Draco ignores her in favour to check the bustling room. Britain's finest witches and wizards wear their best robes for The Event of the Year. And amongst them the ones everyone is willing to spend a huge amount of money for charities in exchange for a possibility to date, as only the highest bidder wins that favour.
There is Gabrielle Delacour, a true beauty, only comparable with that of her sister's, and a remarkable wandmaker.
Talking to the Minister is Charlie Weasley, redheaded of course, but admittedly attractive, more than that if Draco is honest with himself. Tanned and muscular, his calculated movements hints those of someone who deals with unpredictable animals.
Draco cocks his head. That… could have been interesting, but his intended bid is for Oliver Wood, the acclaimed new captain of Puddlemere United, with an impressive record of victories.
The attention of the room is on him… and his interlocutor: the one and only Harry Potter, youngest Head Auror in history and a hairdresser nightmare.
The man knows how to wear a gala uniform though; Draco can appreciate a good tailor's job and wonders who the maker is and if he could ask them for a new robe. Someone who can highlight Potter's scrawny frame is a genius. He should ask Pansy, she has the ability to know these kinds of things. On the other side, Draco thinks, maybe that Auror training has paid off and Potter is now this side of slender. The right side. The expensive fabric seems to hug his chest and emphasize the muscles in his arms and thighs and… Merlin. Draco blinks and turns his head to look elsewhere. He can't help but twitch, uncomfortable in his own clothes. Pansy is still talking so he focuses on that and soon enough everything is in order.
“...This is the winning one, I tell you.” She said waving her shiny card. “I'm positive my bidding goes for the dragon tamer.”
“But he's a Weasley”
“You got eyes, right?” Well, he does indeed.
The man in question approaches Potter and gives him an amicable pat that would have crumbled lesser men. Potter's back holds the slap admirably, though. Draco can appreciate the tailor's fine job on the back of the jacket… and trousers.
“Attention, please! We are going to reveal the winners!” A thunderous rumbling of excitement fills the room. Pansy trembles by his side squeezing his arm. Suddenly he has a sense of foreboding that makes his stomach turn unpleasantly.
“Pansy…” he doesn't finish because in that moment his card explodes in a cloud of confetti and accompanying fanfare. He is barely conscious of some gasps and murmurs around him but he can only pay attention to the letters on his card:
 Congratulations!! Your bid is the winner for a date with Harry Potter! (Thanks for your generous donation)
Pansy leans over his shoulder. “Well, this is going to be interesting.”
86 notes · View notes
whiskeytangofrogman · 7 years
Note
Magic AU. Bitty is a baker who really messed up this maybe-not-recipe. Jack is a powerful but quiet demon who isn't sure what's going on, but there's pie.
Okay you sent this a literal year ago, but it’s finally done. Also, it’s 5k. 
I will post another, more refined version on ao3 (with betaing, even) in December, after NaNo, but please enjoy!
“Aaand… done.” Bitty shuts the oven firmly, and claps flour off his hands. He picks up the yellowed piece of paper from the counter, and scans his eyes over the recipe. He’d had to buy a few… weirder ingredients from the internet to get it done, but as long as it came out of the oven correctly, he’d get an A on his project, meaning that he would be officially done with his Bachelor’s degree in American Studies.
Now, to wait. The recipe said an hour, but Bitty’s oven was, obviously, better (though not by much) than a simple fireplace stove, and so he’d set it for thirty minutes, which was just enough time to finish that new movie he’d been watching.
Thirty minutes later, he pulls out a steaming pie, and grins. The crust is a beautiful golden brown (and all the symbols the recipe said were necessary stood out nicely, a darker, richer brown than the rest of the crust, unexpected but pleasant). “Perfect,” he mumbles to himself, setting it on the counter. He was tempted, all of a sudden, to cut into it. But it needed to be perfect for his professor, and she was a renowned stickler. He’d fail if it wasn’t perfect, and he didn’t have the money to buy the ingredients for another try. There were only so many places one could get rat tails for cheap.
He grabs a towel and throws it over the top, and the temptation goes away. He nods then, satisfied, and pulls out his phone. “Final project for history and culture: done. On to studying French.” He tweets, adding a nauseated-looking emoji at the end. He casts one last proud look at the pie, and leaves the room.
There was one slice left of the pie, and only a day left until it was going to spoil. Bitty had forgotten about it completely, between finishing his finals week, cleaning his house, and baking for the holiday season. When he’d finally gotten around to being able to rest, the last thing he wanted to do was eat more pie.
But he also wasn’t one to let such an expensive thing go to waste. “Oh well,” Bitty mutters under his breath, foregoing a plate and grabbing a fork. “I’ll just have to double down on that New Year’s resolution to exercise more, I guess.”
Bitty works his way through the now slightly stale slice while flipping through the channels on his small tv. There was nothing on, as per usual, and so he settled in to catch the tail end of a hockey game.
He’d played hockey in high school, but had stopped after his senior year. There wasn’t much of a place on college teams for someone so… slight. He sighed, shoving the last bite into his mouth and swallowing, hard. If only, if only. He frequently found himself wishing it was still something he did, this exact moment included. He’d loved it so much despite how mediocre he’d been.
At that exact moment, post-swallow and mid-reminisce, his tv began to smoke. “Shit,” he muttered, getting up. It was a cheap one, an old vacuum tube set he’d bought off Craigslist midway through fall semester when his last roommate had moved out and taken his nice flatscreen with him.
Bitty gets up and bangs his hand against the side, trying to get the fuzz to go away. The tv hisses, and then snaps back to clarity once more. He sighs, relieved, and turns around.
And comes face to face with a tall stranger, standing in the middle of his living room, smelling of sulfur and campfire burn.
He screams.
Half an hour later, one and a half beers, and a considerable amount of questions had calmed him down. Or, calmed him as much as he could be calmed.
Because this man? Was a demon, apparently, summoned through a mixture of Bitty’s pie (an old witch recipe) and his wishing. The recipe, the demon said, was notoriously difficult, and this anyone who managed to pull it off was entitled to three wishes.
Bitty was now entitled to three wishes. Because he’d accidentally summoned a demon.
“Do I have to sell you my soul?” The demon’s eyebrows twitch, and he sighs, dragging a hand down his face and looking altogether way too human for something apparently hellish in origin.
“For the third time, no. That’s part of the recipe.”
Bitty swigs down another gulp of now-warm beer (clutching a glass bottle in one’s hand so tightly one’s knuckles turned white wasn’t necessarily conducive to properly chilled alcohol) and tugs on the ends of his hair. “And I get three wishes? Just for baking a pie?”
The demon looks agitated. “Yes. Like I’ve explained three, no, four times now, it’s an old clause in the rule book, one we haven’t had to uphold in near half a millennium, and one we’ve been meaning to get rid of. His highness just hasn’t seen the need to,” the demon says, adding a glare. “Until now, of course.”
Bitty giggles, high pitched and sharp. This can’t be happening. I’m dreaming, he thinks. “Well then, fuck it.” He chugs the rest of the beer down, and slams it on the table. “I want to pass my class.”
The demon frowns. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“CUL 458. I want to pass it with at least a B.” 
The demon stares for a second, and then rolls his eyes. “You’ll pass it.”
“Cool, so two more wishes-”
“No, that’s not a wish. I already know you’ll pass it.”
Bitty flashed the demon a confused look. “Are you omnipotent? Like god?”
The demon winces. “No. I just have slight… sight, for these sorts of things.”
Bitty shrugs. “Okay. Well, then I want to pass French.”
The demon nods, closes his eyes for a few seconds, and then opens them up once more. They’re glowing a pallid yellow, and he blinks a few times, the color draining back into black as he does. “Done. That one you wouldn’t have passed. How are you so bad?”
“Hey!” Bitty points an accusatory finger. “French is hard.”
The demon mutters something like not that hard, and opens his palm. “Your next two wishes?”
Bitty thinks for a second, and then frowns. “I don’t know.”
The demon groans, and stands. “I’ll give you a week.”
Bitty nods, and watches as the demon disappears as fast as he’d come, leaving the room smelling faintly still of sulfur, and now of ozone.
“Fuck,” Bitty mutters.
He wakes up the next morning, draped over the couch with his phone making indents on his cheek. The ”ping!” of his notifications had woken him up. Blearily, he sits up and unlocks the screen. He recalls the weird dream as he scrolls through Twitter, and snorts. “Musta been somethin’ in that pie. That’ll teach me to treat old recipes like they can store the same,” he says to himself.
There’s an email from his French professor, probably one letting him know that in order to pass, he’ll need to do the last minute extra credit paper, something he’d been prepared for since his final earlier that week. This was his last semester of the two year language requirement, and he’d been in danger of failing all semester.
He opens the email, and reads it over.
And then stares, and reads again. And again.
Somehow, he’d passed the final with enough points to land him at a respectable 73% in the class, just enough to pass.
The dream (or maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all?) came flooding back to him. There was no way in hell.
Bitty closes his email, and begins gathering the remnants of the previous night’s boozing to toss in the trashcan, the fuzzy edges of his dream twisting and fading until he’d finally convinced himself that it was a dream indeed, one born of stress and too much beer, and that the final grade he’d received was based not on a demonic encounter but on the ten straight hours of review he’d done the night before the test.
By the end of the week, he’d forgotten all about his weird dream. His last final had come and gone, and he was well into prepping the baked goods he’d promised his mom for his short trip back to Georgia before his last semester. His final batch of cookies was almost done when the one thing he’d convinced himself wouldn’t happen, did.
The demon came back.
Bitty didn’t scream this time, but only just. The demon looked much the same: human enough to seem normal until closer inspection, tall, brooding, and altogether much too handsome to be a creature from hell.
“Have you thought of your next wish, yet?”
Bitty groans, and slouches against the counter. “I thought I made you up.”
The demon stares at him. “Obviously not.”
Bitty clicks his phone off, and buries his face in his hands. “Look, I-” He sighs, and peeks through his fingers. The demon was watching him intently, eyebrows cocked. “I don’t know what I want, and I don’t want to die, so please don’t kill me for bein’ indecisive.”
The demon huffs. “I’m not going to kill you.”
The oven dings, and Bitty moves the demon out of the way, bodily. “Hang on.” He dons oven mitts, and pulls the tray out. The cookies, despite all of the work he’d put into making sure ol’ Betsy wouldn’t fritz out on him for this, are burnt.
Beyond repair.
Bitty resists the urge to screech. Instead, he slams his mitts down, and clicks the oven off. “I wish this damn thing wouldn’t burn anything. I don’t know how many times a week-”
“Done.”
Bitty stops mid-rant, and looks at the demon. “What?”
“Your wish. It’s done. Your oven won’t burn anything anymore.”
Bitty frowns, and looks down at Betsy. He stares for a moment, pondering, and then looks back up. “That wasn’t going to be my wish-”
“It’s too late to take back.” The demon interrupts.
“But.” Bitty glares. “I’m not mad.”
“So-”
“But I also don’t have a third wish.”
The demon looks even more cross now, eyebrows folded as far down his forehead as they’ll go, the inky black of his eyes only barely visible through his squint. “You’re incredibly annoying.”
Bitty’s protest fall on nothing but his kitchen appliances, as the demon disappears once more.
He sighs, and begins mixing a new batch of cookies, despite his flight leaving in less than four hours. If the universe was gonna give him an oven that never burns, like hell he’s gonna wait another week and half to try it out.
And, true to the demon’s word, the cookies come out a beautiful golden brown, the likes of which he’s only made once on his moomaw’s oven back home.
“Well, sure as shit,” he says, hands resting on his hips. Guess I can’t pretend it’s a dream any more, he thinks, picking up a perfectly crisped cookie and biting into it, letting the chocolate melt over his tongue while he thinks about what else he could possibly wish for.
The demon comes back a few days later, and Bitty’s sick of referring to him as the demon. “What’s your name?” Bitty hands him a plate and sits across from him across his island bar.
The demon looks puzzled. “Why?”
“Because I feed people,” Bitty says, taking a bite from his own plate. The recipe was an old family one he’d been playing with on and off since he got to college, but never had the oven to get the temperature just right.
Until now, that is.
The demon sets the plate on the counter, and delicately sits down, as if he’d never been in a chair before. “No, my name. Why does it matter?”
Bitty rolls his eyes. “Because I like to know who I’m working with.”
“You won’t know how to pronounce it.” The demon picks up a fork, and jabs it into the pie, the crust giving the smallest of satisfying crunching noises.
“Try me,” Bitty says, setting down his own fork onto a now-empty plate.
The demon utters a noise that makes Bitty lean back in his chair, and wiggle a finger in his ear, trying to get out a ringing that isn’t there. “Uh.”
The demon settles a look on him, cool blue eyes, normally void of any emotion, now showing a hint of smugness. “I told you.”
Bitty sighs, and stands up. “Fine. So what do I call you?”
The demon falls quiet, and when Bitty looks at him, he looks deep in thought. Bitty waits, quietly cleaning up the results of his latest test in the meantime. “Jack.”
Bitty rolls it over his tongue, mouths it quietly to himself. “Why Jack?”
“My name is equivalent to that in English, in terms of how common they both are.” The demon — Jack — shrugs. “Plus, I like the way it sounds.”
Bitty hums. “Fair enough, Jack.”
“Do you know-”
Bitty interrupts Jack before he can continue. “I don’t know what I want to wish for, yet. Sorry.” He feels only slightly guilty.
Jack’s gone before Bitty can even finish the sentence.
Jack comes back, again and again, every time with the same question: Has Bitty figured out his third wish?
And every time, Bitty gives him a slice of pie, or a cookie, or something. Eventually, Jack starts eating them too. And Bitty stalls for as long as possible, asking Jack relentless questions to make him stay.
Do you have horns? “No, not usually.”
Why aren’t you red? “I can be, if you want,” Jack says, his skin tone rapidly changing to match that of a particularly vibrant strawberry. And then back, because Bitty won’t stop laughing at him.
What did you go to hell for? “What do you mean?” Aren’t demons all sinners that went to hell? “No, I was born there, like you were born on Earth.”
Jack’s answers are reluctant to come at first, he grumbles about how he shouldn’t be answering any of this, and then answers them anyway. He starts to stay longer each time before he asks Bitty if he’s figured out his third wish, and lingers before disappearing.
Bitty, for all he’s been trying not to, is liking Jack more and more by the day.
On the fourth, maybe fifth time Jack appears, Bitty’s back home in Georgia. It’s Christmas Eve, and he’s nervous for tomorrow. All his relatives come over to the house, and though they love him, they don’t understand him.
It’s “the gay thing,” as his mom’s uncle calls it. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” is a motto in their family, when applied to him. They don’t understand it, and he still gets asked about a hundred times every Christmas if he’d found a girlfriend yet, despite the fact that he’d been out for half a decade now., as if one day he’s just going to decide he’s not gay anymore.
He thinks he hates Christmas.
He’s in the kitchen, kneading dough brutally, when Jack appears beside him. Bitty tries to smother a shriek.
“Have you-”
Bitty throws a towel at him. “Be quiet,” he hisses, glaring. Jack looks taken aback, but he stays quiet.
Bitty sets the dough to rise until morning, and tiptoes back to the guest room, gesturing for Jack to follow.
Jack does, footsteps not even making the wood of the old house creak in the slightest, something Bitty had only achieved after years of living here and sneaking out at night, a practiced sort of silence. Bitty’s almost jealous.
Bitty shuts the door behind him as silently as he can, and wheels around to face Jack. “What are you doing here?”
Jack looks confused. “The same thing I always am?”
“How do you know where I live, though?” Bitty folds his arms across his chest.
Jack’s confusion grows, visibly. “What? It’s you.”
Bitty makes a noise in the back of his throat that prompts Jack to continue. “I don’t need your address. I just find you, and go there.”
Bitty frowns. “Oh.”
Jack looks around the room, and then sits on the bed. He looks… worn, in a way that he usually doesn’t. It’s only been a few weeks, but Jack looks five years older, and tired. Bitty sits next to him. “Are you okay?”
Jack’s eyes settle on Bitty’s own. “No,” he answers, blunt.
Bitty takes in the rings around Jack’s eyes, how rumpled he looks. He looks… human. “What’s wrong?”
Jack drops his eyes, and fiddles with the edge of his suit jacket. He always wears the same thing, a gray suit over a light blue shirt and black tie. It brings out the blue in his eyes, Bitty notes, and then promptly tries to forget. “Demons shouldn’t… be on earth. This long.”
Bitty’s concerned frown gets deeper. “Why?”
“We’re not meant to take this long. I’m supposed to get what I need from you, and then go back for the rest of my life.” Jack meets Bitty’s stare again. “We only get one contract in our lives, and it’s never supposed to take this long.”
Bitty feels guilt sink in his gut, twisting his insides ragged. “Oh.” He settles a hand on Jack’s cheek, and rubs a finger under Jack’s eye, as if he can smudge the circles out. “You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want to pressure you.” Jack’s eyelids flutter closed, and he lets out the smallest of sighs. “The magic won’t work right if it’s not something you want.”
Bitty gnaws at his bottom lip, thinks. He still doesn’t have an idea for a wish, and it only makes the guilt worse. “I’m sorry.”
Jack opens his eyes, but doesn’t lean away, doesn’t push Bitty’s hand away. “Don’t be,” he whispers.
Bitty feels like they’re on the edge of a precipice. He leans in.
Jack meets him halfway, and they’re kissing, soft, slow. Jack’s hand finds Bitty’s hip, slides up under his shirt. Bitty cups Jack’s face, fingers curling through the strands of Jack’s hair.
And then it’s over. Jack pulls back, looking startled. He stands. “I have to go.”
Bitty reaches out a hand. “Wait-”
Jack’s gone, with an audible pop, and the air is sucked out the room, leaving Bitty alone. He presses his fingertips to his lips, and thinks.
Jack doesn’t come back until the day before the new semester, almost two weeks after Bitty gets back from Georgia. He looks even worse now.
“Hi,” Bitty says, and hands him a plate. “Try this.”
Jack is silent, but takes the plate and sits down. He makes a noise of approval at the spongy cake, uniced but dusted with powdered sugar. “S’good.”
Bitty smiles. “Thanks.”
Jack finishes the cake, not offering up anything more until he finishes. He opens his mouth to speak, and Bitty holds up a hand. “Wait.”
Jack frowns, but lets him continue. “I’ve been thinking. About my wish.”
Bitty’s fingers tap against the edge of the counter. Truthfully, he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since Jack left last time, running through his mind all of the possibilities. He could wish for anything in the world, and Jack would give it to him.
“Do you like hell?”
Jack lifts an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Just answer it.”
Jack shrugs. “It’s alright. Cold.”
Bitty hums. “I want-”
Jack interrupts him this time. “You don’t.”
Bitty gives him a look, frustration creeping in. “What?”
“Whatever you’re about to wish for, you’re doing it because you feel guilty.” Jack stands, and meets him on the other side of the counter. Bitty had known Jack stood over him since the first time they met, but he hadn’t realized how severe the height difference was until now. Jack towers. “Don’t say what you’re about to say.”
Bitty steps closer, angry now. “You can’t stop me from wishing for what I want.”
Jack leans down. Over the course of the several months since Bitty’s pie incident, Jack had gone from emotionless, robotic, to something more, something emotive and less and less other. He looks angry now, and Bitty’s never seen this one. “I can’t, but I’m asking you don’t.”
Bitty huffs, and pulls him down. Jack meets him easily, submitting to Bitty’s angry kiss. Bitty pulls away. “Fine.”
Jack’s lips twitch into the smallest of smiles. “Good,” he says, and leans back in.
Jack stays for the longest time yet, before he says he has to go. It’s been almost an hour of talking mixed with more, and Bitty doesn’t know what to with their newfound closeness.
Jack disappears, leaving Bitty sitting on his kitchen counter, dazed, confused, and a little bit in love.
Jack comes back, again and again, but he stops asking Bitty if he has his wish. He spends longer at Bitty’s side each time, learning how to bake, watching movies.
He looks worse every day, by small increments.
Jack doesn’t seem to mind, but Bitty’s guilt only grows. He can’t think of a third wish, and he’s too selfish to try, because if he does, Jack will be gone, forever. He’s told Bitty he goes back to hell, and “gets unmade,” which Jack makes sound boring. His purpose, Jack says, once filled, makes him useless, and so he’ll disappear. “It’s the way demons are,” he says, false cheer in his voice.
Bitty’s terrified by the idea.
Jack stays over more and more, and falls asleep despite telling Bitty demons don’t technically need to. He looks like he does, though, dark circles under his eyes almost purple, clothing in disarray, though different every time, now. Jack shows up in t-shirts more often now, and Bitty comes to find he has terrible fashion sense.
It’s three in the morning the first time Bitty realizes he’s in love with Jack. Jack’s arm is curled around his middle, skin warm against Bitty’s bare chest, soft breath making the back of his neck tingle.
“Shit,” Bitty whispers, frozen. He’s in love with jack. He loves Jack.
Jack, who can’t lattice a pie for shit, who thinks yellow running shoes and green shorts are acceptable as an outfit. Jack, who’s laugh sounds halfway between a high pitched giggle and goose honk and is still endearing anyway.
Jack, a demon who will disappear once Bitty gives him his third wish.
Bitty starts to shake, anxiety building and choking him. He doesn’t know what he wants, he can’t want anything because what he wants is Jack, here, alive, and for the rest of his life.
Jack stirs beside him. “Bits?” His voice is sleep rough. He props himself up on an elbow. “Y’okay?”
Bitty nods, fighting back tears. “Bad dream,” he mumbles, squeezing his eyes tight and trying to make his internal chant of Jack is going to disappear and you’ll never see him again stop.
Jack leans down, and presses a soft kiss on Bitty’s temple. “M’sorry.”
Bitty turns in his arms, pulls him into a real kiss, and tries to put all the feeling he can into it. “It’s okay.” he whispers back, stroking a thumb down Jack’s cheek. “It’ll be okay,” he says, trying to convince himself of something he knows he can’t.
Bitty withdraws. He can’t do this anymore, can’t hurt Jack like he has been. The longer Jack’s on Earth, the more ragged he becomes., the more sleep he needs, the more food he eats. It makes him better temporarily, but Bitty knows it’s only a band-aid. He has to make a decision.
But for Bitty to end that, he’ll also be ending Jack entirely. Jack begins to notice when Bitty withdraws, begins only visiting every other day, and then once a week.
Bitty makes it to finals week before he breaks. Jack’s visiting for the first time that week, and he’s pale. His hands shake, and he sounds like he has bronchitis, voice scratchy and a cough constantly lodged in the back of his throat.
Bitty breaks down, tears flooding down his cheek as he curls into a ball. Jack looks alarmed, tries to soothe Bitty in between coughs. “Jack, Jack stop.”
Jack pulls back.
Bitty wipes his cheek. “We need to talk about my wish.”
Jack sighs, and folds his hands in his lap. He looks resigned. “I know.”
Bitty draws a shaky breath inward. “I don’t know what I want, but I need to want something.”
Jack nods. “I know.”
Bitty scoots closer, and twines their fingers together. “Please, tell me what to do.”
Jack shakes his head, smothers another cough. “I can’t. I can’t influence you like that.”
Bitty pushes Jack’s hair from his forehead, locks their eyes. His skin is clammy. “I wish you could stay.”
It’s like the room freezes. Jack sucks in a breath.
It’s then Bitty realizes what he’s said. “Oh, no.” He’s panicking. “That doesn’t count, does it?”
Jack stares at him, and then gulps. “It can. If you want it too.”
Bitty stares back, mulling it over. “What would that mean for you?” He can’t believe he hasn’t thought of this possibility, of using his wish to make Jack whole again. “Will you be sent back?”
Jack frowns. “I… don’t know. No one’s ever done that. No one’s ever taken this long.”
Bitty squeezes his hand. “Please, tell me it would work.”
“I don’t know.” Jack pulls his hand back. “I have to go. I’ll… I’ll be back.” To the sound of Bitty’s protests, he disappears.
Bitty barely makes it through finals. His grades aren’t amazing, but he graduates. His parents come up for the ceremony, but he can’t even muster up enough cheer to enjoy it. He answers every question about campus, about the football team, all in a voice void of any emotion. His mom gives him worried looks all throughout, and finally pulls him aside after what’s supposed to be a celebration dinner, but feels more like a funeral.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” She looks concerned, in a way only a mom can. “You just graduated, aren’t you happy.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m just tired, I guess.”
She smiles, sadly. “You upset it’s over?”
Bitty winces. He’s not upset school is over. He probably killed Jack with a careless word, and there’s nothing he can do to get him back. “Yeah,” he lies.
She pulls him into a hug. “It’ll feel better eventually. You got that job at the bakery lined up, don’t you?”
He nods in agreement, but doesn’t think it’ll ever feel better.
He pulls up a list of romantic comedies a friend from one of his economics classes had given him a while ago. Adam had said it was his “cheer up” list, and Bitty finds himself, if not feeling better, at least distracted.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t at your ceremony.” Bitty yelps, pauses the TV, and turns around. Jack’s there, behind him, dressed in another suit.
He looks the worst he’s seen yet. His skin is pallid, and he looks starved. Bitty’s eyes burn with unshed tears just looking at him.
“Jack?”
Jack smiles at him, a wide smile Bitty’s never seen before, still tired, but alive. “I’m sorry I took so long. I had to do some research.”
Bitty hops off the couch, and wraps him in a tight hug, which Jack returns happily. He’s lost weight, and Jack’s arms around him return his hug weakly.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” He looks up at Jack. “How long do you have?”
Jack’s face drops into confusion. “What do you mean?”
Bitty looks away. “You have to go back, right?”
Jack puts a hand under Bitty’s chin, and tilts it upward. “Tell me your last wish.”
Bitty shakes his head, eyes refusing to meet Jack’s. “I can’t. You’ll be gone.”
Jack repeats himself, more forcefully. “Tell me your last wish.”
Bitty shoves backward. “No! Jack, if I do, you’ll be gone.” He leans against the back of the couch, and folds his arms across his chest.
Jack kneels, and forces Bitty to look at him. His blue eyes are wide, pleading. “Bitty. Bits.” He grabs Bitty’s hand. “Eric. Please.”
Bitty gives up. He can’t do this anymore, can’t cause Jack any more pain. “I wish you could stay.”
Jack grins. Before Bitty’s eyes, Jack’s skin flushes back to a healthy tone. The exhaustion he’d been wearing like a cloak for the last few months falls off his shoulders. In less than a minute, he looks like the Jack from the first time Bitty saw him.
Bitty drops to his knees as well, takes Jack’s face in his hands. “How?”
Jack pulls Bitty into a kiss, and if Bitty wasn’t already on the ground, the sheer force of emotion wafting off Jack would have put him there. “Your wish.”
Tears spring to Bitty’s eyes, happy this time. “You can stay?”
Jack stares at him for a second, and then nods. “For as long as you’ll have me.”
Bitty pulls him in. “Forever,” he whispers.
Jack explains to him that he’d had to search through records of previous deals. There had only been one wish made before, asking for a demon to stay on Earth, after much the same situation had happened as Jack and Bitty’s. “There was precedent for it,” Jack says to him, after telling him the story. “All I had to do was ask.”
Apparently, not many demons fell in love with humanity (with a human, to be more specific) the way Jack had.
Jack gets more and more human as the days pass. One day he wakes up, and the faint rings of etchings into his skin, the marks that made him demon, have completely faded. Bitty hadn’t been able to see them, but Jack knew what this meant. Bitty’s wish had come true.
Next Christmas, he brings Jack home, and when his aunt asks where Bitty found such a good man, they share a small, secret smile. “I wished for him,” Bitty says, and leaves it at that.
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