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quicksilverownsmysoul · 3 years

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Lifeguard on Duty

Summary: Warren was supposed to be looking for a summer job but when he sees you on the beach he decides to become a lifeguard. And hopefully confess his feelings for you

Word count: 2,376

Warren and Spencer were sitting at the lifeguard station spending lunch together. Warren had his legs kicked up in the small desk and Spencer leaned against the back wall, taking a deep breath of the shared joint. He was messing with the life preservers that lined the wall, he exhaled the smoke before passing it to Warren, moving to lean on the desk, staring out at the crowded beach. “Warren, why did you even take this job?”

“Cause I like the ocean.” Warren hummed, inhaling deeply and letting his eyes flutter shut. He wasn’t really supposed to be smoking up here but he was the only lifeguard on duty today. So goody two shoes Lance Norris, the posterboy for lifeguards couldnt rat him out. He flicked the rolled up stub out the window, watching as it sizzled out in the sand below. He stood up, exiting the booth and Spencer followed him. “Plus the view isn't bad.” Warren looked out on the women sunbathing in skimpy bikinis and the men swimming in insanely tight speedos

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Pervert.” Warren winked at him, turning back to face the beach crowd.

Warren wouldn't admit it but there was another reason he had taken the job. You. His dad had been hounding him to take a summer job so he had been out on the boardwalk picking up applications. He was planning on lying and saying he had gotten a job and then blowing all summer with Spencer but then he had seen you. He had stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you, he watched as you took the ramp down to the beach and made a beeline for the lifeguard station.

You greeted them with a wide smile and passed up a basket filled with lunch for the two lifeguards on duty. He felt himself smile as he took you in, watching as you made polite conversation with your friend before sitting down on the beach, a book in hand. Warren came to the boardwalk for a week after that to see if you’d return. And sure enough you came everyday to sit in the same spot and read. Watching the waves roll in before leaving a couple hours later. And every friday you brought lunch up to the lifeguard station, there were other days when you bought snacks for them. He figured out that you brought lunch on Fridays because your friend Mary had a shift that day, so you would bring something for her and her coworker.

So Warren applied and got in after passing the entrance exam and acing the physical. It wasn't too hard considering he used to do sports and much to the disapy of Lance, the head lifeguard, he made the force. He even had the dumb luck of working on the friday shift with your friend Mary. He was really nervous to talk to you and spend his first few shifts hiding away when you came to see your friend. But after a while Mary had had enough of his endless questions about you and introduced you both. He had nearly died when you said his hair looked pretty in the afternoon sun.

After that he tried to talk to you when he could. Making small conversation here and there and asking a million questions, but you didn’t mind. Answering every one and asking some of your own. After a few weeks he developed a friendship with you, though he wanted more. He had wanted more since the moment he had seen you if he was being honest.

He loved your beautiful (y/s/c) skin that soaked up the sun and the way your (y/h/c) shinned and blew in the wind. He loved listening to you talk about your latest book and even tried reading some of them so he could talk to you about them. Though he preferred to hear you talk about them instead.

But he was too much of a coward to voice his feelings so instead he hoped you would catch on, maybe take note of his flirting and longing looks for more. But it seemed you thought of him as just a friend. So he let the summer slip away, there were only a couple weeks left and still he was too nervous to confess. Wondering what would happen when summer ended.

Unknown to him you had developed quite a crush on the curly haired lifeguard. Even bringing him lunch when Mary wasn't there and slipping in little treats here and there. You walked down the beach, your wicker basket in hand, Warren saw you coming and leaned over the rail to the point where you thought he was going to fall over. His loose Hawaiian shirt fluttering around him, open exposing his suntanned chest to you. He whistled at you, making you laugh. “Hey, pretty thing.” He called out, as you got closer you could see him smirking at you from his perch.

“Hey you.”

He lowered his sunglasses giving you a coy wink. “What’s for lunch today?” He asked, reaching down to take the basket from your outstretched hands.

“Turkey club with a side of chips and a slice of cake for dessert.”

He licked his lips, rubbing a hand over his stomach. “You’re too good to me honey.”

You giggled, flushing at his pet name. “I know.” You both smiled at one another, so invested in your own little world you didn't even notice someone else was there until Spencer cleared his throat. You turned to look at him, breaking away from Warren who let out a groan at the loss of attention. “I’m sorry, I didn't see you there. I’m (y/n).”

“I’m Spencer.” He gave you a small wave and you returned it.

“It’s nice to meet you Spencer.” You both exchanged polite smiles. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were going to be visiting Warren for lunch. If I had I would have brought lunch for you too.”

Spencer opened his mouth to reply but Warren cut him off. “Don’t worry about him babe he was just leaving.”

“I wasn’t-”

Warren shot him a pointed look with a tight smile. “Just leaving.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, I get it.” Spencer shoved his hands into his pockets and pushed past Warren to go down the steps to the beach.

“I’ll see you later man.” Warren called out to Spencer's retreating form.

“Whatever.” He replied.

“He seems nice.” You said, shielding the sun from your face with your hand as you watched Spencer walk away. “Kinda cute too.”

Warren scoffed “Not cuter than me I hope.”

You smiled, crinkling your face up at him. “Maybe.”

Warren held his hand up to his chest faking hurt, as if your words had physically wounded him. “You’ve wounded me babe.”

You just laughed. “Well anyway I better let you eat lunch, I’ll see you around Warren.” You moved to leave.

“Wait!” Warren’s voice made you turn back around. He cleared his throat, lowering his voice back to its normal level. “Would you maybe wanna eat lunch with me?”

“But I only packed lunch for you.”

“I’m not that hungry ,anyway, I had a big breakfast. Maybe we could split it.” He gave you a nervous smile.

You pursed your lips, pretending to think over his offer. Warren was watching your every movement, waiting for your answer. “Alright.”

Warren’s face split open in a wide smile, he helped you up the steps and made a big show of pulling out his only chair for you. As you turned away from him he quickly shoved his trash out of view, kicking discarded candy wrappers into the corner and covering them with a bucket. “Wow, you really do have the best seat in the house.” You mused, taking in the waves and the way the sun bounced off the water.

Warren leaned against the counter, his back to the ocean, his eyes trained on you alone. “I really do.”

Talking with Warren was alway made time fly. He was so passionate about his interests that you could listen to him talk for hours on end. And he could say the same, he loved watching the way you talked with your hands and the way you talked faster when you were excited about something. Lunch had been finished long ago and the sun was already starting to set on the horizon.

“I’ve noticed you’ve never gone swimming.” Warren blurted suddenly. His eyes widened when he realized his statement could come off as rude and he quickly tried to take it back.

“No it’s okay.” You laughed. “I just never learned how.” Warren started at you with his mouth hanging open. “What?”

“You never learned how to swim.” He asked, a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips.

“I know I know.” You looked out at the ocean. “I always wanted to though.”

“Why don’t you let me teach you?” Warren proposed. “I’m a pretty good swimmer if I do say so myself.”

“Is that so?”

“I mean that’s what my lifeguard certification says.” He pointed at the hanging frame. A picture of warren hanging next to a sign that said certified lifeguard, and underneath in black sharpie, and an excellent swimmer.

You giggled. “Very impressive.”

“Seriously let’s go for a swim.”

“Aren’t you on duty Mr. Certified lifeguard?”

“Yeah but there no one here.” You looked out at the beach and Warren was right. The beach was basically empty, everybody leaving for home as soon as the sun had begun to set. “Come on, you know you want to.” Warren poked at your side playfully. “Come on, come on…” Warren poked you with every come on until you swatted his hand away with a laugh

“Alright fine!”

“Yes!” Warren took your hand and dragged you down the steps, tossing his Hawaiian shift over his shoulder to hand on the wooden handle of the lifeguard station. You both got to the edge of the water, the waves tickling your feet.

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“You don’t need one.” Warren wiggled his eyebrows suggestively making you rolled your eyes and hit his chest. You blushed as you undressed, nervous at how he would perceive you. But when you turned to face him his eyes were wide with wonder taking all of you in. “You’re beautiful.” He whispered, more to himself than to you.

You blushed, pulling him into the water. “Let’s swim already.” He laughed taking hold of your hand. He squeezed it as he felt you tense, the water now up to your waist. He tried to lead you further but you stopped, feet digging into the sand. He moved closer to you, putting your arms around his shoulders. “I got you.” You let him pull you further out, your feet leaving the ground as you both ventured deeper.

Warren tread through the water, his arms moving you both as you clinged onto him for dear life. Your eyes were squeezed shut, afraid that if you opened them you’d panic and struggle against his hold. Your legs were tangled with his, trying to imitate his movements. After a while you opened your eyes, Warren starring at you with a soft smile. You returned it, letting your head fall onto his shoulder, completely at peace in his arms,

“(Y/n)?” Warren asked, wetting his chapped lips. You hummed against his shoulder in response, encouraging him to continue. His heart was thumping in his chest but he knew if he didn’t say anything now he’d let the rest of the summer slip away. He took a deep breath,“I like you.” He blurted it out all at once, almost too jumbled for you to make out. But you heard it, head snapping up to meet his gaze. He watched your face for a reaction, but you just tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling him close. Warren’s eyes widened as his lips collided with yours, melting into your touch. Your lips still tasted like the chocolate cake from lunch, and it made the kiss that much sweeter.

When you pulled away you rested your forehead against his, breathing in his summery scent. “Does that mean you like me too?” Warren asked in an unsure voice.

“Of course I do you idiot.” You leaned your lead back to look at him clearly. “I’ve liked you since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Ditto.”

You rolled your eyes. “How romantic of you Warren.”

“Come on.” Warren mused, his lips brushing yours. “You know you love it.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.” You pulled him close again, your lips molding perfectly into his. Your fear of swimming melting away as you floated in the water with him, knowing that the rest of the summer would be spent like this. In his arms under the soft glow of the summer sun.

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starlightstevie · 3 years

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fics rec / january 2021

And I’m back with another fic rec! There’s some absolute goodies in this month’s rec - I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! Happy reading x

(* is smut)

*tale as old as time (series) by @spacelabrathor Beast!Thor x reader: Thor is a beast, prowling the halls of an empty castle alone, living a life of cold, barren solitude. Villagers visit once yearly to bring him gifts he does not seek, piling valueless trinkets at his gate they feel will keep him appeased. They hate Thor and Thor knows, someday, that they will breach his gates and come for his head. He wonders to himself, often, if he will try to stop them when they do. This year, though, the offering has changed. Thor finds not trinkets at his front gate, but a girl, and then everything begins to change.

COWBOY THOR COWBOY THOR COWBOY THOR by @inthorantine While not officially out yet, I am putting this here because everyone needs to read this! Kait has outdone herself and no, I will not stop talking about this for the next 500 years. Here’s some h/c to keep you going until it comes out! One | Two

*if I love you was a promise by @blueberrythor Thor x reader: Thor doesn’t consider himself a jealous man–there aren’t many who could compare to him, especially among mortals. He hasn’t had much reason to acquaint himself with the feeling. But watching you with Steve, even he isn’t immune to the sharp sting of jealousy.

*The Watching by @opheliadawnwalker3 Thor x reader (some Loki x reader): Reader has been dating Thor for about a year and is celebrating her first Yuletide on Asgard. But she’s unprepared for certain traditions that are expected of her. Or that these traditions also involve Thor and his companions.

*Desperate Measures by @lancsnerd Thor x reader: When an agent is affected by sex pollen and needs assistance, just how helpful will Thor be?

*passionate & burning by @peachyteabuck Thor x reader: You’re busy with working from home, but Thor has other plans for the day.

*my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand by @spacelabrathor Frontier!Thor x reader: Thor makes a home and a life for his family out on the rugged frontier of the Old West. The winters are unforgiving but he keeps them safe and warm. At night, their cabin glows with firelight and the warmth of their company. A small slice of their life together.

*survive the summer and its sequel *hungry for me by @peachyteabuck (Dubcon) Thor x reader: A stranger approaches you on a warm summers day.

*the fluffer (series) by @punani Masterlist 70′s pornstar!Chris Evans x black!reader: It’s the 70′s and the erotic videos industry is experiencing another boom after the risen popularity in the previous decade. The studio’s are hot, Gemini Flanagan is a brand, and you’re a newly hired assistant at Shaggin’ Studios. Chris takes a liking to you, altering your job description so that you get to work more closely with him. Is this all just physical, or is there something more?

*old flannel by @honeysucklesteve Chris x reader: an innocent night of lounging in his old flannel leads to not to innocent touches.

*sunday football by @honeysucklesteve Chris x reader: Chris sits you on his lap as he teaches you all about football.

*grocery run by @honeysucklesteve Chris x reader: Innocently wearing Chris’ shirt leads to you finding out just how much he can’t resist you.

*Captain by @chrissquares Nomad!Steve x reader: You call Steve a name that drives him wild.

*A Birthday Gift by @the-iceni-bitch Nomad!Steve x reader: The nomad crew have been holed up with you for months and tensions are high. Nat, being an unrepentant pot stirrer, decides to arrange a pleasant birthday surprise for you.

*let me come home to you (series) by @evansweaters Masterlist Alpha!Steve x Omega!Reader: After years at a dead-end job shouldering everyone’s expectations for you but your own, you’re finally free to be whoever you want, go wherever you want. That is, until a series of unfortunate events strand you in amber’s end, where the sheriff – and notoriously unmated pack alpha – decides to take you in.

*mountainside by @honeysucklesteve Nomad!Steve x reader: Steve needs something to give him a release and you do just that.

*steve needs to relax, good thing you’re here by @honeysucklesteve

*Such a Shame by @angrythingstarlight Steve x reader: You owe him for saving your life, the price is more than you were willing to pay, such a shame you have to force his hand.

*Captain Jealousy by @nony-bear Steve x reader: You and Steve have been keeping your relationship a secret to avoid public backlash for your age difference. However, after watching Steve flirt with a new agent at one of Tony Stark’s famous parties, your jealousy and frustration come to a head.

*A Christmas Compromise by @stargazingfangirl18 Ransom x reader: Even if you wouldn’t admit it to yourself, all you wanted for Christmas was Ransom.

*a man of god by @punani Priest!Ransom x reader: You’ve always been a good girl– attending mass regularly, never been touched by yourself or another, and the way that you dress? a naive innocence radiates off of you. even a man of god can’t help himself, not that he puts any effort into refraining from forbidden fruit.

*Naughty or Nice by @sweeterthanthis Ransom x reader: Getting caught nibbling on forbidden holiday treats.

*her cherry lips on his whiskey flavoured kiss by @cloudystevie Ransom x reader: The moment he met you, he knew.

Not My Style by @chrissquares Ransom x reader: With cold weather comes dry lips..

*In Good Hands by @ozarkthedog (Dark) Doctor!Andy Barber x reader: Your usual OBGYN Doctor got called away leaving Dr. Barber to administer your pap exam.

*Drowning by @savior-adriana Andy x reader: You love working as Jacob’s tutor in German. Not necessarily because you love the language or the teen’s attitude, but because it means you get to spend time alone with a certain Andy Barber once a week.

*Something Old, Something New by @sweeterthanthis Stepdad!Bucky x reader: To this day you couldn’t work out why he’d chosen your mother. They were total opposites, a mismatched couple if ever you saw one. Yet, you watched it play out – thinking, hoping, that he’d never go through with it.

*Beg for Daddy by @sweeterthanthis Stepdad!Bucky x reader: The thought of your mother passed out next door, the other side of your bedroom wall, did nothing to quell the intense hunger you felt for him.

*it’s the right time to roll to me (series) by @blueberrythor Masterlist Bucky x married!reader: Stuck in an unhappy marriage, you find solace in Bucky.

*about last week by @xbuchananbarnes Bucky x reader: You’ve been avoiding Bucky.

*need by @cloudystevie Bucky x reader: You’re horni for Bonky’s metal hand

Season of the Witch by @msmarvelwrites Bucky x reader: Your witchy abilities get you in quite a bit of trouble from time to time… But this time you don’t mind so much.

*The Bet (series) by @no-droids Part One | Part Two Poe x reader: There are 3 rules to the bet between you and your x-wing commander: No sex, No touching yourself, No orgasms.

*the shakes by @whistlingwillows Poe x reader: “It’s the Shakes, darling. Makes everything excruciating.” Or, you’re experiencing the terrible side effects of being horny and Poe Dameron knows just how to fix it.

Mornings with Modern!Poe by @okay-hotshot Modern!Poe x reader: You and Poe try to have some alone time while you wait for your morning coffee and tea to brew, only to have your child interrupt you and run away yowling.

frigid by @whirlybirbs Mando x reader: Din doesn’t like the ocean. You’re soaked.

Getting vulnerable with Mando by @cptnbvcks

*men of the bau: kinks by @luciilferss

open road by @gayprentiss Emily Prentiss x JJ Jareau: After retiring from the BAU, JJ and Emily decide to forgo an apartment in favor of an old sprinter van.

*Teacher’s Pet by @imagining-in-the-margins Professor!Reid x reader: There are only a few reasons to sign up for Criminal Psychology. You could be like the reasonable students and join the class because you are genuinely interested in the material, or you could be like the rest of us. That is, you could enroll in the class because the professor is a fine piece of ass fresh out of prison.

*Spencer taking you in the library by @spenciebabie

*of terrible coffee and late-night rides by @venusbarnes Hotch x reader: A collection of moments throughout your relationship with one Aaron Hotchner.

*fragrance by @whistlingwillows College!Hotch x reader: Plato said, “The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it's almost impossible to stamp out.”

*bitter end (series) by @whistlingwillows Masterlist Hotch x reader: Author Sarah Dessen wrote, “Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”

*Beard Kink by @reidsexualwriting Hotch x reader: Hotch with a beard has you feeling all types of ways.

*Lunch break by @arganfics Hotch x reader: You help Hotch relax after a tough day.

*Early Mornings by @mrvltwimagines Hotch x reader: The very rare mornings where you wake up and your boyfriend was still home and in bed were definitely cherished by you.

*Do you like that? Being in control? by @writefasttalkevenfaster Hotch x reader: You decide that Hotch needs a break from being in charge.

*Waking up Hotch with a blowjob by @writefasttalkevenfaster

Taking a day off with Hotch by @ssahoodrathotchner

*eat until your blood sings by @peachyteabuck Tony Stark x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Carol Danvers x Clint Barton x Thor Odinson x reader: Gangbang with the Avengers.

*Anakin Skywalker has a big dick by @anakinswhore

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generallybrontidefeelings · 3 years

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Stressed part 3

Title: Stressed part 3 (part 2)

Rating: NC-17

A/N: alternative name is “honey and the no good, very bad new job”. Big TY to @leias-rebelion for all her Marcus Pike thots. You are encouraging and wonderful and helpful and I appreciate you! NAGPRA is a real organization, as is the National Preservation Institute*. Valerian root tea is a sleep aid (the author has consumed a lot of it curtesy of her old shite job)

Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader, Marcus Pike x you

Summary: You were so excited to find a job in your field straight out of graduation - but it’s a little much.

Warnings: insomnia, bad work environment, some power dynamics, age difference, vaginal sex, a praise kink to high heaven, one (1) lil spank, a terrible pun I’m so sorry, two (2) quotes from Euripedes (for you bb)

You watch Marcus in his reading chair from your spot on the couch. His ankles are crossed, and he's engrossed in a thick dossier that's spread over the coffee table. He sighs loudly, scrubbing his face.

"Bet you wish you could teach for another year," you say, glancing past your laptop screen. He gives you a glare pursing his lips. You snicker at how his glasses fall down his nose a little.

You've been seeing each other for nearly a month. It was easy falling into a companionship with him: your friend, your supporter, your cheerleader, your lover.

"There's a whole new level of bureaucracy to deal with. It's," he trails off, folding his hands ok the arm rests of his chair. "It's an adjustment." He smiles.

You nod and tuck your legs under you. In silence you stare at the open, partially filled out FBI application on your screen. Sighing, you save the page, and close the window.

.....

Marcus talks you off the FBI ledge.

He asks you over dinner one Monday evening how the job search is going. You’re both seated at the butcher block kitchen island eating take out from his favorite ramen and dumpling place a couple blocks over. The end of your part time job at the college loomed; you’d negotiated to stay on the whole summer, but July was here, and you’ve been furiously sending out job applications to every part time museum job you could find in a seventy-five mile radius. The bubble of no real responsibilities you've been enjoying with Marcus is close to popping.

You cross your legs and tap your periwinkle toes against the island legs. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

He listens to your reasons for wanting to join the FBI, swirling his saké in the little tumbler. You can tell from the pull of his eyebrows he doesn’t like the idea - it isn’t that he hates it, it’s just that, you just graduated. Maybe a civilian job is a good idea to learn about what is happening in your field. You cross your arms unconsciously because it isn’t the answer you wanted to hear, but he’s right in a way. You hadn’t been one hundred percent sold on joining, and you knew if you did, it would require a wholehearted 'yes'.

“You know, I have a friend in the National Parks Services,” he says, reaching across the island to pull one hand free from its place wedged in the opposite elbow. Of course he does, you think, letting him fold your hand in his. “I could ask if he knows if they’re hiring in their NAGPRA division. What do you think?”

“I guess,” you grumble. He leans over and kisses the back of your hand.

“There's my girl.”

They aren’t hiring in their NAGPRA office. But the National Restoration Institute* is. And they’re only a thirty minute bus ride from your apartment.

You do two interviews, and they both go well. You click with Sandy, their hiring manager right away. Her blushing purple lip color reminds you of Jacaranda trees back in California. It seems like a fun, supportive environment. In a week you have a full-time job. Marcus goes the whole nine yards to celebrate: your favorite dinner, dessert of white wine and madeleines, a hard fuck where he holds your legs over one of his shoulders and told you how you're so fucking beautiful.

He waits outside the building with his hazards on to pick you up after your first day. Definitely not legal, you think, spotting him outside the building. Your mules clip against the hot DC pavement.

“How was it?” Your cheeks heat up when he threads your fingers together and kisses the back of your hand.

“I think…” you trail off trying to find the right words. Words for the odd comments one of the other girls in the office gave you: thank God, some help. Words to express how when you asked about training for curation the middle-aged woman getting your onboarding papers in order hummed and just said we’ll get to that eventually. “I think it’s going to be a learning experience.”

.....

The job sucks.

It starts out so nice - you’re part of the administration team in the office just to get started. It’s gopher work; answering phones, filing permits, etc. You and your desk-mate Sarah get along. She’s been there about five years and is glad someone is there to share the load. She helps you make sense of the training materials, and hands you some extra folders that you should familiarize yourself with.

“This is a budget spreadsheet. Shouldn’t this go to finance?”

“Sometimes I assist other departments when they’re short-handed. It’s good to know what everyone’s agenda is around here. There’s a lot of moving parts.”

It starts with being asked to stay late to help the community outreach department with something that has to get done today! You end up calling Marcus near quitting time and telling him you’re going to spend the night at your apartment because you don’t want to keep him up. He’s quiet, but says, okay, honey. Call me when you get home. I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.

The next red flag comes when you let your supervisor know that you won’t be able to get through the folder of work today; but, you can finish it tomorrow. She tells you that if you want to work on it at home and log overtime she would be very grateful. You take it over to Pike’s and do a couple hours of overtime after dinner. Fine by him; he had a late conference call, so it worked out perfectly. After you have lazy sex where he draped over your back and thrusts heavily while clutching your breast to hold you against him, he asks if everything is going okay at work.

You rest your chin on your crossed arms, looking into his soft features, sated and drowsy. The beard suits him; you hope he never shaves it. “It’s more involved than I anticipated.”

“You seem more tired than usual,” he comments. “I know you just started, and it could be new job drain.” But. You hear it, even though he doesn’t say it. He kisses the nape of your neck and helps you under the covers before turning out the light. You don’t get to sleep for another couple hours - your brain whirs on numbers, and thinking up something easy to eat so you can work through lunch tomorrow. It feels like you haven't slept at all.

You opened a real can of worms - now taking some work home a couple times a week is expected of you. Time you usually spent decompressing and snuggling against Pike's warm body becomes over-time. It means you go right from work to bed, and massively screws up your circadian rhythm.

In the cupboard above the coffee maker at Marcus’s, there’s a new box of Valerian root tea - extra strength. He makes it for you every night you spend with him. It doesn’t help though. You still wake up feeling like your brain never turned off.

Sarah quits. On her last day she gives you a patronizing pat on the shoulder. Your workload doubles overnight, and now there isn’t any time for you to study the company’s stewardship training packet. There isn’t any indication they will hire another administrator, so you’re alone at the big desk making decisions you aren’t qualified or experienced enough to make, and it wreaks havoc on your nervous system. You and Marcus don’t have sex outside of a quickie over the bathroom counter for two weeks because you’re too overwhelmed.

The final straw comes when your supervisor asks you to take a proposal home and review it for an advisory board meeting. You try to tell her you aren’t comfortable with it - I've only been here six weeks - but you’re the only one available. Marcus sees the massive binder in your hands when you walk in his living room. He folds his reading glasses and rests them against his mouth, watching you with concern.

He finds you much later; laying with your head down on the coffee table, papers spread out, the laptop screen blazing. Your glasses lay upside-down and half folded. He sits on the couch with his knees against your shoulder. His hand is warm rubbing your back.

“Hey,” his voice is warm. “It’s two o’clock.”

You push back from the coffee table and lean against his knees. Your head hurts, and your eyes burn from the bluelight. In the still morning you sit together, Marcus rubbing your back, and you trying to process how you let this get away from you. A car rushes by on the wet street outside.

“I don’t think you’re okay." He rubs your shoulder, looking down at you. “This isn’t worth time and a half.”

“I just want to do a good job,” you say. It comes out so whiny. But why? How is this benefitting you? “But no matter what there’s more to do.”

“You are doing a good job,” he consoles. “But it’s too much. I’m proud of you for giving it your best shot though.”

His thigh is warm under your cheek. Your words slur as you form them. “I don’t feel good.”

“Come to bed,” he murmurs into your hair. You nod, and shut your laptop.

.....

You wake up to your alarm, and sit up in bed, bunching the sheet around your breasts. Your hair topples loose and puffy on your shoulders. Soft yellow light and the first rosy curls of the sun worm their way into the room, casting onto the wall above the headboard behind you.

“Good morning, sleepy,” Marcus calls from the bedroom door. He’s dressed, and holds two mugs of coffee in those yellow mugs. He delivers them to your side of the bed, perching on the mattress.

“Thank you,” you say, and take a sip.

“You’re welcome,” he says and rubs your thigh through the sheet. “You should take a couple days off.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You have dark circles under your eyes, and you need a good breakfast. I’m working from home today. How about I drive you to drop off the binder?” You purse your lips. He shrugs. “I need to grab a couple case files from the office too.”

“What if they say no?” Your voice sounds small. Marcus takes your coffee and sets both cups on the bedside table so he can gather you close to him. He’s warm and solid under your hands. He smells so good, when did he start smelling so good? You bury your face in his neck, and wrap your arm fully around his broad shoulder.

“Tell them only your professor is allowed to ride you that hard,” he says low in your ear, and it makes you shiver and giggle at the same time.

.....

Your supervisor sighs loudly when you tell her you need a couple days off.

“Can you just stay three hours? The phones have been ringing!”

You shift uncomfortably. “I really need to rest. Can one of the executive assistants answer the phones today?”

She grumbles, but she guesses someone else can today.

So Marcus takes you back to his place, helps you undress, and tucks you back in bed. You sleep a few more hours curled up in his pillow. It’s comforting to be surrounded by him. Throughout the day, you feel the exhaustion fade from your bones.

It's barely eight when he crawls into bed beside you in his pajama bottoms, and lifts his arm so you can sidle up next to him.

It’s hard to believe you’ve only been dating - or seeing each other...whatever - for a couple months. He was already so embedded in your life before this started, sharing your anxieties and concerns was easy. However, you had a nagging sense this might be too much for him. You tense in the sheets, suddenly feeling like you’ve overstayed your welcome.

“What’s wrong, honey?” You melt into his dulcet voice.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble into his chest. He runs his hand over the crown of your head and down to your shoulders. “You’ve been wonderful taking care of me. Making sure I sleep. But...it’s something you do for an old love. I’m sorry you’re doing it early.” Your cheeks burn.

“Don’t be.” He presses closer to you. “I like taking care of you.” You huff a little, a tear threatening the corner of your eye.

“‘It’s rotten work,’' you recite. Your tone is playfully self-deprecating. But Marcus leans over you and kisses right between your eyes.

“‘Not if it’s you’,” he finishes the quote. You run your hand over the planes of his stomach, feeling his blood pump.

“I can’t believe you know that,” you murmur happily. “You’re cheesier than I thought you'd be.”

“You’re just as mouthy as I expected,” he mumbles into your hair, but you can hear the smile in his voice. You tip your head up to look into his handsome face, and slide your hand down to find the waistband of his pants. “You’ve been so busy up here, baby,” he says, cupping your head.

"I know." You rub your cheek against him, trying to melt. “Can you help me get out of my head?”

“I can think of a couple things,” he moves to cover your body with his. You make room for him between your thighs, relishing his weight pressing you into the mattress. He nuzzles into your cheek before continuing. “Do you have the energy?”

“No, but I really want you to fuck me. I’m so tired of quickies,” you tell him while bringing your legs up to wrap around his waist. He hums in agreement and kisses you. He brushes his lips over yours, gently drawing you into it, before pressing his mouth to you, tasting you. He goes on like that, chaste presses onto your lips that linger when he pulls away to breathe. But you want more. So you tug on his bottom lip with your teeth.

He moans and pulls away. His eyes darken. “I’m going to eat you out. Then I want to try something. Okay?”

Your eyebrows scrunch. “What are you trying?”

He smiles warmly, kissing the tip of your nose before making his way down to push your legs apart. “Be patient. I’ll take care of you, baby.”

He uses his shoulders to keep your legs open and feasts, long and leisurely. He kisses your clit the same way he would kiss your lips before painting broad stripes with his tongue on your folds. His mouth is warm and wet. You thread your fingers into his hair and pet, whispering thank you, and that’s so good.

He pulls away, kissing inside your thigh. “Grab onto the pillow, honey.” You do as he says, twisting the case in your fingers. The action pushes your chest out a little and makes your skin tingle. He moans into you.

You’ve both gone too long without this. Marcus thought his hours were unusual - had secretly been anxious they'd be too hard on you - but yours were turning out to be killer. Part of him felt guilty. It was his suggestion to find a civilian job. But, he reasoned, if you had found the job on your own it still would have been awful. So he closes his eyes and focuses on making you feel good instead, on gathering your tang on his tongue and spearing into you to massage your walls. He squeezes your thighs while rutting his erection into the bedspread, content to give you attention for now.

You let out a yelping moan when Marcus slid a single finger into you. He thrust slowly to tease.

“Marcus, please don’t tease,” you mewl. He pulled the finger out, circling your entrance with it.

“Do you want to get out of your head or not?” You grinned at his teasing tone. “What do you say?”

You swallowed and took a deep breath, relaxing into the mattress for this. “Please, sir.”

“I love that,” he breathed into your thigh, sinking his teeth into your flesh. You mewled when he set his mouth against you again and sucked vigorously. His single finger pumped into you again. Just when you thought you were on the cusp, he pulled away to sit up on his knees between your legs. You trembled, on edge, and watched him wipe his wet scruff with the back of his hand.

“I want to try something, okay honey?” he asks. He maneuvers so one leg splays over his thigh. Reaching up, he takes one of your hands from the pillow, kisses your knuckles, and sets it on his knee. You feel grounded holding his strong leg.

“Go ahead. I’m ready.”

He lays a light smack on your clit that makes you yelp in surprise. Sudden, wrenching need floods your stomach - before you can beg him to do something he pushes two fingers deep in you, and doesn’t wait for you to adjust.

“Feel all right?” Your free leg thrashes as you moan loudly. “Can you answer, baby? Use your words, or I’ll have to stop.”

“Yes!” you cry out. “Keep going, please.”

His dexterous fingers brushing up against the soft place inside you that lit a fire in your stomach were heavenly. He pulled one of your ankles over his shoulder and kept up the blinding, warm assault on that spot within you all while rubbing circles around your clit. You could feel an orgasm speeding toward you. You clenched your stomach and fisted the sheets, letting your mouth fall open as you gave over to what Marcus was tugging out of you with his fingers.

Your inner muscles clenched hard around him but he kept up, teasing that spot attentively. The angle was different, triggering something urgent. You bucked hard as you came, shuddering and trying to stabilize on Marcus’ knee as wetness poured out of you around his fingers.

“Shit, honey. God damn.”

You take a shaky breath and open your eyes. His pajama pants are speckled with wet spots and so is the soft blue bedspread. The outline of his hard cock is visible. And he looks entranced, mouth parted staring at where his fingers are still being throttled by your body.

His voice drops an octave. “Spread your legs, baby, I need to be inside you.” He stands off the bed and pushes his pants to the floor. You part your knees dutifully, the wetness cooling your skin. Part of you doesn't register those are your legs - that your body accomplished a new kind of ecstasy. Your mouth waters when you see his erection bob, and anticipation sears through you. He pulls your leg around his hip and slides in with no resistance, filling you perfectly. He waits a moment for you to adjust to him, taking the time to kiss your cheeks and whisper praise into your mouth.

He fucks you in heavy strokes that build you back up to a crescendo. He pants softly in your neck while you stroke his back and thread your fingers in his hair.

“I knew you could do that,” he mumbles. “You’re so good for me. Letting me make you feel good.” His thrusts pick up as he hooks your leg down to frame your breast. You keen, lying still so you can feel every inch of him break you open. He finds your hand and threads your fingers together so he can press it into the bed. His thrusts get harder, deeper, hitting at the end of you and driving your voice out of you. You feel him get harder just before he finishes, the seconds-long stretch borders ‘too much’. When he comes, he puts his full weight against you and groans from his chest, gasping softly. He unwinds your leg and settles between your warm thighs. You turn his head to kiss him, sweeping your tongue into his mouth as he comes down.

“Is that what you needed?” he asks, kissing your jaw. “A good, hard fuck?” He rolls deeper into you when he says it, making you whine.

“Yes. You feel so good.” You squeeze around him and he rumbles.

“What do you say?” he asks against your lips. Your answer fills the quiet bedroom.

“Thank you, sir.” You lean up to his ear and kiss the lobe. "Thank you Mr. Pike."

“Mm, good girl,” he kisses your mouth again. He props himself on his forearms so he can look down into your face. Suddenly serious. You lean into his knuckles as he runs them across your cheek. “Thank you for letting me. I know how tired you’ve been.”

You brush your hands up his chest and sides.

"Again?" He licks into your mouth in response, finding your tongue. The second time is slow, but no less hard. You forget you have to breathe several times while kissing him. This pleasure is floating.

.....

Monday rolls around, and Marcus gives you a long kiss before he drops you off at work.

“You can do it,” he looks you in the eye when he says it.

You take a deep breath and pat your thighs, psyching yourself up. You put one of your most professional outfits on today - the kind of office attire that makes you want to have an office with floor to ceiling glass windows. The high-waisted trousers make you feel queenly. “I can do it.”

“Remember, if they push back-” his eyes take on a mischievous glint “-tell them ‘only-”

“‘Only my professor can ride me that hard,’ yes, I know. You’re horrible. And technically not my professor anymore.”

He raises his eyebrows at you. “You’re paying for that later.”

“Goodbye!” you say firmly, getting out of the car.

When you get home smiling from ear to ear, Marcus picks you up and kisses you like he can't believe you're home.

"Part time will be an adjustment," you say. His hands hold your waist. "But this will be better for me."

He kisses your temple and holds you wrapped against his chest as the golden afternoon makes the wood accents in his kitchen glow. You lay your cheek over his shirt, smelling the bergamot.

part 4

Thank you for reading lovelies!

tags: @leias-rebelion @honestly-shite @sarahjkl82-blog @danniburgh

#marcus pike x reader #marcus pike x you #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fic #the mentalist #stressed #stressed part 3

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letarasstuff · 3 years

Text

The Music of Love

(A/N): This is requested by several anons and it’s based on that post. I got a bit caried away, but I hope you like it 👉🏻👈🏻🥺

Summary: When Spencer’s daughter voices an interest in playing the piano, he is exatic to teach her. After all, it’s their music of love Wordcount: 1.3k

✨Masterlist✨ __________________________________

After the case with the autistic boy, who communicated with him over playing piano, Spencer found a new meaning in this particular instrument. He grew fond of it, started learning how to play it properly without just doing the math.

Though he now has a few years of training he also knows that his skills are mediocre. Nothing astonishing but also nothing bad. It’s nice enough to listen to, but it is nothing you get to hear at an opera or orchestra.

For Spencer this doesn’t matter. He found a new love within the piano. A love he really wants to share with somebody else. Nobody in the team ever expressed an interest in it, so the man keeps it to himself, enjoying his own music alone.

Then his daughter comes around and Spencer is ecstatic. Finally he is able to share all his knowledge as soon as she is old enough.

“Daddy, I wanna play an instrument. Carl at kindergarten said he plays the drums. But I don’t like them, they are pretty loud and so unorganized. Can I learn something different?” The day has come for him. As a responsible father he waited until (Y/N) expressed herself interest in something, he doesn’t want to force her to do anything she doesn’t like.

“It is disorganized, baby. Of course you can learn an instrument. Do you have any idea or do you want me to sign you in in anything?” Secretly Spencer hopes for one certain sentence.

“I want to play the piano like you, Daddy. Can you teach me?” The girl’s decision is made by two simple reasons: One, Spencer is her number one role model and (Y/N) wants to be just like him. Two, she is pretty shy and doesn’t do good with meeting new people, so it would be better to be taught by someone, who she already knows.

“Of course, Sweetheart. What about we start after lunch? When you eat everything up I will teach you, deal?” This kind of bribe has to be used around (Y/N) since she has a habit of talking so much she forgets to eat her food and stops being hungry.

After a short moment of contemplating she shakes her father’s hand to confirm that they have in fact a deal.

Lunch consists of several slices of fruits and a sandwich in the form of a dinosaur. Spencer saw a cookie cutter for sandwiches and he couldn’t resist buying it. Since he told Penelope about it as she spotted his dinosaur lunch one day (his daughter insisted on having matching lunches, so she knows she will eat the same thing as her father), she gets the little family another cutter, whenever she sees one in the store.

After she ate everything on her plate, Spencer sits down with her in front of the piano in his room, pulling her on his lap.

“Ok (Y/N), are you ready for the basics?” The girl nods. This is enough for the father to go on about the notes, explaining to her the differences and tangenting to a few fun facts on the side. She sits quietly beside Spencer, concentrating on his words and their meanings. “Do you want to play something?” “Can you show me a tune first, Daddy?”

He decides on something simple, playing a few notes from a children's song. After watching intently, (Y/N) plays the exact same notes. Spencer smiles. “You did really good today, Sweetheart. What about we continue tomorrow?”

From then on they practise on the piano everyday. Or rather any day Spencer is there in the afternoon after Kindergarten.

For several weeks now Spencer feels like he only comes home to sleep in his bed for a few hours. The team jumps from case to case, never being at home for more than two days in a row.

This also burdens everyone’s family life. (Y/N) lives with Penelopefor the most part, whenever her father is on a case overnight. One evening she asks her Auntie while picking at her dinner with tears in her eyes: “Auntie Penny, does Daddy not love me anymore?”

The tech analyst’s heart broke into pieces. Seeing her god daughter in so much emotional pain and not being able to do anything than trying to convince her she is so much loved, makes her sad.

“Oh no, my sweet sweet summer child. Your father loves you so much, he just has to be away so often to catch the bad guys and girls. He wants to make the world safer for you”, Penelope tells her while cradling the girl in her arms. A few tears escape (Y/N)’s eyes.

“But Charles told me today he is away, because he can’t stand me. Am I a bad girl? Was I naughty? I promise I will be better, when Daddy comes back.” It takes everything in the woman to not break out in tears herself.

She pets her hair and presses a kiss on it. “Charles is only jealous his father isn’t a hero like yours is. You weren’t bad or naughty, him being away is not your fault. He helps other people and you with his job.” (Y/N) looks up at the blonde.

“Daddy is a hero?” She asks in a small voice, streaks of tears still visible on her face. “The best out there”, Penelope confirms and hugs her tightly. “Now come on, your dino nuggies get cold.”

The next day comes with a great surprise for the small child. “(Y/N), your Dad is here to get you”, her teacher calls out for her. “DADDY!!”

“Hey Sweetheart”, Spencer picks his daughter up, holding her close. “You are back”, she murmurs into his neck, burying her head there. “I am. God, I missed you so much.” “I missed you, too”, she whispers.

“Come on, let us go home.”

On the ride back to their apartment (Y/N) is conspicuously quiet. But Spencer doesn’t pressure her. Maybe she just has to realize he is back. Maybe she is tired. There are a million reasons for a not talking child. Still, the father has a feeling in his gut that it is not that her nap didn’t last long enough.

“Hey, do you wanna practise playing the piano with me?” He asks her after settling down at their home. But (Y/N) does something that has never happened before: She shakes her head no.

Spencer is taken aback by her reaction. Usually she already sits on the chair in front of it before he even finishes his question. But today she isn’t in for it.

“What is it, Baby? Why are you so sad? Are you mad at me?” He crouches down in front of his daughter, who took a seat on the sofa. With teary eyes she looks up at him, since her father is still towering over her.

“Why do you don’t love me anymore? What did I do?” She knows she asked the same questions Penelope yesterday. She already told Spencer about (Y/N)’s worries. But these are the kind of words you can’t prepare for before hearing them.

“Sweetheart, I love you more than anything in this world. You didn’t do anything, there isn’t anything that you can do to make me love you less. I know I’m away a lot but I promise you, the next two weeks are just about the two of us. You aren’t going to Kindergarten, we are going to spend some time together, ok?” Tears threaten to fall down his face.

When Spencer heard about this boy being mean to his daughter, he was furious. But he knew there is not much that can be done. So he opted for showing this child that (Y/N) has the best father in the world. Immediately he asked for two weeks of vacation, which Hotch approved without even thinking.

“Just you and I?” The girl asks hopefully. After a confirming nod, she throws herself at Spencer, hugging him tightly.

“Do you wanna play now?” This time the question is met by excitement. Spencer sits (Y/N) down on his lap. Together they play a four handed piece of music, pouring all their emotions in it. Because they don’t need words to be said to feel each other’s mood. It’s enough to share a burning passion.

Taglist x child!reader:

@ilovetaquitosmmmm

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x child!reader #spencer reid x daughter!reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #fanfiction #x reader #reader insert #x daughter!reader #x child!reader

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1quastion-isitgrank · 3 years

Text

share this forever endeavor with you

wow this was down to the wire, but i finished my short fic for @jonmartinweek day 8! (title from “forever endeavor” by the altogether)

***

They got lucky. Three years later, and not a day goes by that that thought doesn’t cross Jon’s mind. To end up Somewhere Else, and not only that but to end up in a place where the powers hadn’t made a home for themselves on the edges of reality— it was more than they deserved. Well, more than he deserved. But against all odds, they were here. The first year had been tough— wounds, both mental and physical, needed to begin to heal, and the reality of trying to build a life for oneself in a world where you didn’t technically exist was an incredibly stressful and painstaking process. But again, they got lucky, and eventually they got everything straightened out. Martin began working at a local cafe, and Jon got a position teaching English at a nearby secondary school. They had jobs, a flat that they shared, even a cat— a tiny black kitten they had named Sable. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was good. They were happy.

However, that doesn’t stop Jon from waking up early one summer morning with a pit in his stomach, exactly three years since they had arrived in this place. Most days he can keep it out of his head— a combination of therapy and time doing wonders for his mind. Today was the exception, a twisted, corrupted anniversary. Three years to the day he had set unknowable horrors loose on other worlds, had looked a heartbroken Martin in the eye as he realized Jon had broken his promise, had taken them both away from the world they knew, forever. Most days he doesn’t feel the guilt, anymore, recognizing the truth: powers unknowing and uncaring had manipulated him in unimaginable ways, using him for their own will, their own desire for power. Today, though, it washes over him like a wave, twisting his stomach into knots and making it feel like he can’t breathe properly. He rolled over, hoping to find some comfort in Martin’s arms, but his boyfriend was gone. Not surprising for this time of day— Martin works a lot of early mornings— but his presence is especially missed today. Jon took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, willing the three year old memories to leave his brain.

A clatter from the kitchen startled him, but was a welcome distraction nonetheless. Martin always fed Sable before he left for work in the morning, but that didn’t stop her from trying to climb into and onto places she wasn’t supposed to be as soon as she thought she was alone. Jon sat up, reaching over to his dresser and grabbing a t-shirt, which he promptly pulled on. His hair had gotten long again over the past three years, and he quickly twisted it up into a bun before heading for the kitchen. As he turned the corner, he mentally prepared himself for whatever disaster Sable might have caused. He never had it in him to scold her for it, but he would have to clean it up. And yet, when he entered the kitchen there was no sign of the mischievous kitten. Instead, there was a flustered-looking Martin, kneeling on the floor and attempting to rearrange what appeared to be about half of their pots and pans so that he could fit them back into the cabinet. A bowl of pancake batter sat on the countertop, along with a pan that Martin had presumably had to pull out from underneath many others, causing the chaos that now spread out before him. Jon chuckled, about to make a clever comment (before kneeling down to help his boyfriend, of course), when he spotted something else on the counter that made his breath catch in his throat. It was small, but unmistakable, dark blue velvet and rounded edges. A ring box.

Of course, it was then that Martin looked up and saw Jon. “Christ, Jon,” he said, visibly startled. “I thought you were still asleep— I was gonna make breakfast for you, and—” A look of panic crossed his face, clearly remembering what sat on the countertop. He jumped to his feet, attempting to be inconspicuous as he glanced back at the counter and moved so that he was blocking Jon’s view of the box.

Jon couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. He was the luckiest man in the world. “That’s alright, Martin. I’m up now, I can help.” He stepped over the pots and pans littering the floor, bringing himself nearly chest to chest with Martin. “Here,” he said, reaching past him towards the counter. He was only planning on grabbing the pan, just to mess with Martin a little bit, but a hand darted out to stop him.

“No!” Martin nearly shouted. “I mean— erm, it’s fine. I can— I can finish up, I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed, just— just go back to sleep for a little bit, okay?”

“Acting awfully suspicious, aren’t we?” Jon asked, smirking. “Are you… hiding something from me, Martin Blackwood?”

“What?” Martin sounded nervous. “What— why would you think that?”

“Oh, no reason,” Jon said lightly. He stepped back, turning around as though he was about to leave. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll go back to bed.” For just a moment, he turned back to face Martin. “You can just, uh, give me a ring, when breakfast is ready.”

“I can— oh!” Martin deflated slightly, looking rather defeated, yet he couldn’t seem to help the laugh that escaped him. “Fuck, Jon. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Sorry,” Jon smiled apologetically, “It was just sitting right there, and I—”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Martin said, still chuckling. “C’mere.”

Martin took Jon’s hand and led him out of the kitchen. He sat him down at their dining table before getting down on one knee in front of him.

“I’m still going to ask you properly,” he declared.

Jon nodded, his smile now in real danger of becoming a permanent fixture on his face.

“Right. Okay,” Martin said, almost to himself. Then, he pulled out the ring box, looking up at Jon. “So. I know how today can be for you. I know it’s hard, remembering everything that happened, and I know that there isn’t really any “fixing” it. But I thought, maybe, we could make today a different anniversary, too. Have some good memories along with the painful ones. Because, yeah, these past three years have been difficult, but I’ve also been happier than I’ve ever been, Jon, and it’s because of you. Whatever happened to us in the past, my life is better because you’re a part of it, and whatever the future holds, I know I want you by my side. You are the love of my life, Jonathan Sims. Will you marry me?”

Jon nodded again, more frantically this time, fighting the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “Yes. Of course, of course I will, I love you, Martin, I love you so much.” He slid out of the chair, sinking down to the floor so he could kiss Martin, wrap his arms around him, hold him tight.

They got lucky, ending up in a world where they could be free. Jon still wakes up once a year to memories of horrors that feel all too real. They both still have nightmares. Some nights they lie awake in bed, holding each other, neither saying a word but both knowing exactly the sort of thoughts that are running through the other’s mind. They also go on dates. Picnics, walks in the park, even the occasional theatre production. They cook meals together, creating everything from five star gourmet meals to charred piles of disaster. And, a couple months after Martin’s proposal, they finally exchange vows, and they definitely don’t cry. (They both cry.) It’s not always easy, but there’s still joy to be found, and find it they do. And whatever hardships come, they know they’ll always face them together.

#jonmartinweek2021 #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jon sims #martin blackwood #welcome to: the sappiest thing i've ever written #brought to you by: i should definitely have spent tonight doing hw but instead i wrote this #also if you've read chapter 3 of my only completed multichapter aziraphale/crowley fic and you notice any similarities..... no you didn't <3 #listen i'm a sucker for proposals not going as planned but still being sweet anyway what can i say

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janiedean · 3 years

Text

... the tyrion/sansa hairdresser/mortician au no one was expecting but happened

well @meri-vaahtoaa I TOLD YOU IT WAS GONNA HAPPEN TODAY AND IT HAPPENED, have a for now untitled tyrion/sansa mortician/hairdresser au inspired by this post with bonus guest star jeyne p. u___u don't look for angst, also extremely background mentioned jb plus jaime & bronn being themselves in the backstory, have fun u__u

This fucking teaches me to be drunk around both my brother and Bronn, Tyrion thinks for the umpteenth time as he keeps on walking - he needs a damned salon and he needs it now but he also had to get out of the neighborhood because like hell he’s going to risk running into anyone who knows his father. That’s the… least thing he needs, honestly, as if his life choices aren’t already something he has to fight for every other moment and he can’t fucking wait to be out of the house, which should be soon -

If he doesn’t get thrown out of his internship because of his horrible drunk choices.

Why did they have drinks together, why did they have drunk bets, why did he bet with Jaime that he would dye his hair bright blue if he stopped beating around the bush and confessed to the bartender that he’s been into her since they started coming to that specific place for drinks because he chickened out of it for months, except -

Except Jaime went and did it and it turned out that she actually had been looking back and Tyrion hadn’t been wrong in that assessment, but then he had to do it and he actually went and used a do it yourself dye and -

Well.

He honestly can’t go and start his apprenticeship with blue hair that’s also… well, not even professionally dyed, and considering the arguments that it created the least thing he needs is going somewhere he’d be recognized.

So, he’s plenty out of the neighborhood, but he hasn’t found someplace that felt… well, not extra fancy. The second-least thing he needs is extra fancy shops where people would send looks his way that he could absolutely do without.

Also, it’s fucking hot. Why did he do that in the middle of summer again? And why couldn’t he have bet something more reasonable - right, it was Bronn’s idea and they were drunk. Fuck.

He walks a bit more, wondering if maybe he should sit down and check on Google Maps if he’s ended up in the only area of the city that doesn’t have any, and then he sees one on the other side of the road - fine, he stopped because he wondered who names a hair salon Beauty and the Beast, but it costs nothing to have a look from the outside, right?

He crosses the street and walks up to the door.

First thing, the pricing list outside it looks… well, it’s not cheap, but it’s certainly not the ridiculous fares they ask where his sister goes to have her hair done, which is exceedingly good since he doesn’t want to spend a salary’s worth of an average office employee to get that blue crap out of his hair. He looks through the glass door - there is just one woman inside getting her hair done, which is also good because the least people around the shorter the wait, it certainly does look clean and while the pastel aesthetic is maybe a bit too much for his tastes - everything is a pastel shade, from the light yellow on the floor to the pale pink and violet of the chairs and the powder blue of the walls… well, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to it, and the woman on the chair is chatting amicably with the chestnut-haired girl doing her hair and doesn’t look like she hates being there or like she chose the wrong shop.

Also, it’s two PM and he knows this is going to take long. He can hardly afford to fuck around much longer.

He pushes the door open and walks into the shop.

“Welcome!” The chestnut-haired girl says, giving him a nice smile. “Sorry if I don’t come over, but if you sit for a minute my colleague will be back from her coffee break shortly.”

“Sure,” he says, “no hurry,” and he goes sitting on one of the pale violet chairs on the side - they’re comfortable, at least, and he considers taking out the book he brought with to pass the time, but then -

“Hello and welcome! Can I get you a glass of water” Someone else chirps from his side, and right, he did hear the door open -

Oh.

“Hi,” he blurts, staring into a pair of lovely blue eyes belonging to supposedly the other girl working here - she has long auburn hair styled in a french braid and is wearing a blue summer dress that pairs with her eyes perfectly and she’s smiling down at him as if she’s not horrified by his horrid dye-job, or by his presence in the first place, which is his general experience in this kind of shops, so - that’s good, at least. “And uh, thanks,” he says, realizing he is thirsty.

“Be right back! Sorry, I was taking my break but we have no appointments today, so I’ll be on your case very soon.”

She goes to the corner of the room and grabs a glass of water from a dispenser, then brings it to him - shit, he needed it.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Er,” he says, “I dyed that hair for a bet but I was called for an internship yesterday, and I start on Monday, so… I need a removal. If it’s possible.”

The girl leans closer, taking a good look at his hair.

“Hm,” she says, “it might take a while, but I think it’s possible. It’s not a very good dye job, if I can say so.”

He snorts. “Oh, you can. Please, I did it and I have regretted it every moment since.”

“Well,” she nods, “you’re lucky that most likely no one will show up for anything complicated today then. Jeyne, can you handle other customers in case?”

“Sure,” the chestnut-haired girl replies. “As if I don’t know you’ll have the time of your life.”

She rolls her eyes, then goes to a wardrobe in the corner and finds him a towel, tucks it around his neck and lowers a chair near the small sinks at the bottom of the shop so he can sit on it - he does, feeling extremely thankful that it’s extremely comfortable leather, and he can hear her tutting about bad dyes under her breath as she washes his hair once, twice, thrice, and her fingers feel really good on his scalp but he’s not going to think about that now.

“Just for the record,” she asks as she rinses it, “do you just want the dye to go away or do you want a cut, too?”

“Hell,” he says, “I need to look presentable. I suppose the cut can’t hurt.”

“Will do,” she chirps again, “and by the way, never use that kind of dye again. Not with hair this nice.”

Tyrion would have toppled off the chair if his head wasn’t thrown too far back for it to happen.

“I have nice hair now?”

“You can feel it,” she replies, “under all this… this,” she says, shaking her head.

“I know,” he says, “bad choices.”

“Extremely,” she goes on, rinsing. “But don’t you worry. I’ll have it fixed.”

“Really,” chestnut-haired girl says, “Sansa is a pro with that kind of thing. You’re in good hands.”

Oh. So her name is Sansa. It’s pretty, he thinks.

“Well,” he says, “I can’t wait to see how you manage it. I’m Tyrion, by the way. Figures you should know if I know yours?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she goes on, and gives his hair a last rinse. “Right, can you move forward?” He does and she dries his hair with the towel, then goes to find a mantel that somehow he doesn’t drown in. “Please,” she says, “on whichever free chair you prefer.”

He picks an empty one two spots away from Jeyne and the other woman and lowers it so he can sit down, and then Sansa raises it up again until his still sadly blue head is at the right height.

“Hm,” she says, grabbing a lock and feeling it between her fingers, “from what I see here you’re a natural blonde?”

“Sort of,” he shrugs. He is - his hair isn’t as golden as his siblings’, but it definitely is on that shade. Not that he ever bothered to look into it. “Wait,” he says, fishing into his pocket, and then he grabs his phone and shows her a picture Bronn took of him and Jaime during Tyrion’s latest birthday party which is about the only one of his he’s kept there where you can see his actual color very well. She takes it, squints, zooms on his head, then nods and hands him back the phone.

“Well,” she says, “we’re going to have to use a color remover to take out the blue pigment, then apply some more pigment to allow for the proteins in the hair to adhere to it. Then… yeah, possibly mix a few different types of toners to reach the goal of your natural hair color, and it’s going to take a while, but we should get there. Nothing that terrible.”

“Er,” he blurts, “how much chemistry did you have to study to get there?”

She smiles a bit wider.

“Yeah, I know, but some people don’t like if we talk like that. It makes it sound complicated, I’m told.”

“Not at all,” he says, waiting as Jeyne, who has finished the other woman’s hair, goes to the back room to presumably get Sansa at least the color remover, “not like it’s not… sort of my thing, too,” he says, and then he bites his own tongue - why did he ever do that, now she’s going to decide he’s a creep or something -

“Really,” she says as Jeyne comes back and hands her the remover, “do lean your head back. And what it is that you do?”

He takes a deep breath and tells her.

—

“Oh, so you’re a mortician?” Sansa says happily as she keeps on applying the remover to his hair, her fingers pressing along his scalp as she rubs it in. To her credit, she doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s creepy.

“Well, apprentice,” he shrugs, “but yeah, working on it. And starting an internship soon. Where I can’t… look like this. But yes. Just going through my degree - I had a final a couple days ago. Fuck, it was so embarrassing.”

“Did they judge your hair?”

“Called it apocalyptic, but I aced it.”

“Nice. What was it about?”

“Embalming, mostly,” he sighs. “All the chemistry about formadelhyde I had to learn.”

“Fun fact,” Sansa grins, “do you know they use it in clothing?”

… He somehow had not known that.

“What? Really? They forgot to cover that part.”

“Well,” Sansa says, “I used to crash fashion school lessons, my brother’s boyfriend snuck me in. I learned a lot. I think it’s because of the preserving qualities, though I’m sure it wasn’t… all of it.”

“I mean,” Tyrion blurts, “it’s a preservative but it’s also a disinfectant. Destroys bacteria and their food supply, and it’s a dehydrator, there’s a reason why we use it that much.”

“Hm,” Sansa nods, starting to put aluminium stripes on his hair - fuck, he looks ridiculous like this, “one wonders why you don’t just use alcohol then? Because I thought it was kind of carcinogen.”

Well, she did listen to those lessons for sure.

“It’s cheaper,” Tyrion sighs, “a lot cheaper. It cuts costs. Guess I’ll resign myself to the cancer risk.”

She snorts. “Please,” she says, keeping on placing those stripes carefully, “I’m pretty sure that’s exaggerating a bit. There, they should rest for half an hour. I have to place a few calls now but if you want to read while I’m at it feel free to, just don’t move your head around too much.”

“Roger that,” Tyrion nods, and settles back in the chair.

He has a feeling it’s going to be long, but at least she’s very good company. Jeyne looks about to say something but then another woman comes in the shop and she goes to greet her, and Tyrion goes back to his Chinese sci-fi book that he’s really enjoying and hopes that at the end of it he doesn’t have to shave his head because that dye was that bad.

—

Half an hour later, after washing away the remover, Sansa has moved on to applying the first round of pigment to his hair - the blue did go out, but it still looks…. well. Bad. He can see it just looking at it in the mirror.

“So, she says, “is your internship at a funeral home?”

“Yes,” he replies, “it’s during the last six months of the degree, then you write your thesis and you get your license, and honestly, it’s a nice funeral home. I hope they hire me for good. Anyway, it makes sense. We need to have… experiences with, uh, cases, you know, uh -“

“You can say bodies,” Sansa grins brightly, “it’s fine. I know what you do in funeral homes.”

“Oh, thank God,” he blurts. “I’m sorry, uh, people tend to get queasy when I mention them. The bodies, I mean.”

“That sounds nonsensical,” Sansa shrugs, “what do people think happens when they die? Anyway, you can absolutely say that. Hm, here we go, I think these can stay. Another… yeah. Half-hour, forty-five minutes? Get yourself comfortable. I’ll go mix those toners meanwhile.”

Oh. Right. The toners. Fuck, he can’t wait for this entire dye business to be over. Honestly, he hasn’t done that when he was fifteen, he should have stuck with it.

He grabs his book back and starts reading it again, except that he finds himself wishing he could chat with Sansa some more and he needs to get that thought out of his head right now, no reason to set himself up for failure.

He reads on.

—

Later, she’s washed his hair again and she’s still mixing the toners.

“Yeah,” she says, “I think this need a bit more work, but I’m curious. Is there anything you don’t like about your school? Because you sounded really excited before.”

Did I, Tyrion thinks, but then again… he almost never talks about it to anyone except Jaime or Bronn because everyone else thinks it’s morbid, and somehow this girl who owns a wholly pastel shop actually seems to enjoy discussing the topic, so why the hell not?

“I mean,” he says, “I think we should do autopsies.”

“Oh, you don’t? I’d have expected it.”

“Eh,” he shrugs, “me too, and I think we should for, you know, completion and so on, but we don’t, so I guess I’ll read up on it.”

“But,” she says, “hypothetically,” and she’s kind of smiling slyly, what, “let’s say that someone wakes up while embalming them. What do you do then?”

“I mean,” Tyrion replies, slowly, “I think there’s a pretty huge difference between a living body and a dead one?”

“Sansa, please,” Jeyne says as she combs through the hair of the other woman, who looks… a tiny bit disturbed, but neither Jeyne nor Sansa are, so… who cares. right?, “never mind that you need a bit more toner, but I think there’s a thing named rigor mortis that’d make it pretty fucking obvious.”

“That,” Tyrion replies, “also if one gets stuck in a fridge for a few days I think you’d be dead anyway. Not to be, you know, morbid.”

Sansa mixes a bit more toner and smiles wider. Right. She was so fucking with him. “I mean, you did pump them full of carcinogen just before, right?”

“Right,” he laughs as she tells him to lean back and starts applying the toner to his poor roots, “we did, technically.”

“Just stay still,” she goes on, “it’ll be another hour, I think. Then I can cut.”

Well, he decides, at least this entire process is being not overtly miserable.

He leans back and lets her apply the toner and then cover it with the aluminium stripes all over again.

—

“So,” she says later while Jeyne is going through the third client of the day and he’s sitting on the chair again after his hair was thoroughly rinsed and washed for the umpteenth time — he lost count, honestly, but now it does look like his usual shade, sort of, he thinks, “can I ask what was this infamous bet about? Also, I can see your hair is naturally wavy — should I just trim the edges? Because I can see you cut it yourself and it’s not bad but you kind of hacked at them.”

“Er, yes,” he says, “sounds good. Wait, naturally wavy?”

“It is,” she says, “I can recognize it.”

“I, uh,” he coughs, “I don’t think I ever had it long enough to notice?”

“It’s the exact same as your brother’s,” she shrugs, “just a bit darker, but again, this should tide you over for a while. I mean, by the time it wears off whatever travesty you did to your hair in the first place should be fixed and it’ll be as before and no one will notice.”

“Then - I guess you can trim only and I’ll see,” he says, his throat suddenly feeling dry. No one ever compared him to Jaime in that sense without making it… well. About how he’s not the person with the good looks in the family, so this entire thing is just - weird. “Anyway, uh, you can ask about the bet. I mean, it’s just embarrassing.”

“I’m listening,” she says, cutting the edges of his hair slowly, and surely she puts a lot more thought it in than he does while cutting it, but then again… it’s her job and he learned because he didn’t want his father’s barber to go near his head.

“Er, so,” he clears his throat again, trying to figure out how to tell her the sanitized version of it while sparing her from all the family ugliness, “I was out drinking with the brother and the best friend at the same bar we’ve been going to for months because they have good drinks and the brother absolutely had a crush on the bartender, except that he came from a, uh, toxic relationship, let’s put it like that, and I thought he wasn’t going to fess up ever, so - we were drunk and it came out and I said of course I’d dye my hair that horrid color if he fessed up to her and like, I thought he never would but he actually went and did it and — yeah. I mean, glad for him that it went well but not my greatest moment.”

“Aw,” Sansa replies, keeping on trimming, “I like a nice love story. I imagine he doesn’t share our interest in formadelhyde.”

Why does his heart beat a tiny bit faster when she says our interest?

“No,” Tyrion shakes his head, “he’s more into nerding over Middle Ages weapons, but at least he didn’t tell me Six Feet Under was boring, so.”

“I loved that show,” she replies, “who’d say it’s boring?”

“It’s my favorite,” he shrugs a bit as she puts away the scissors. “And a lot of people, but it seems like you have good taste.”

She nods as she grabs some lotion that she supposedly has to pass into his hair before drying it. “And what about you?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, he had a nice love story going into port, so what about you?”

“Er,” he hopes he’s not blushing, fuck, he’s usually not — he doesn’t fluster, fucking hell, “I — really am not looking. My family kind of… fucked up the only serious relationship I had going for me and most people get put off at the whole I want to be a mortician thing, so.”

“What kind of family fucks up relationships for other people?”

“The kind we come from,” he sighs, “but at least he’s out of that circus and I’ll be the moment I graduate.”

“Nice,” Sansa nods, “now just hold on a moment and I’m drying it.”

He nods — she grabs an hair dryer and starts blowing it and yes, he can see she got the exact shade right now that it’s not wet anymore, and — well, of course it’s her job to make it look good but the more she proceeds the nicer it looks, and now he can vaguely see what she meant when she talked about natural curls, and also… it feels fluffier? Lighter? He has no fucking clue, but the moment she’s finished — well.

“Fuck,” he admits, “I don’t think my hair ever looked this nice in my entire life.”

She grins. “I know how to do my job. Another moment.” She sprays some more lotion on her hands and runs it through his hair again. “This was just for a bit of nutriment, but there you are. You know, if you treat it a bit more nicely you might not need it me to make it look good.”

“Yeah, well, and what if I’d like to come back here instead?” He blurts, not knowing what the fuck he’s aiming for, but then she grins back a bit wider.

“I always like making new clients,” she replies, “especially when they’re cute and they don’t only want to talk about the gossip in magazines. That gets boring after a while.”

Wait, did she call him cute?

“Tell you what,” she keeps on as she takes the mantel off him and waits for him to get off the chair and follow her to the counter, “let’s say I don’t give all new clients a ten percent discount but I do give it to the ones I like.”

What the fuck —

“So, here you go.”

She hands him a receipt… with a fifteen per cent discount. “But you have to promise me you won’t use that crap dye anymore. That’s probably more cancer-inducing than formaldehyde could ever be.”

He has to laugh at that.

“Fair,” he says, “I won’t. Maybe I’ll come back before my last final. It’s two weeks from now,” he says, slowly, “I might want to look good for it. As much as it goes, anyway.”

“Oh, I’ll make you look incredible, don’t you worry.” She takes his card, swipes it, hands him the POS. He’s sure he doesn’t let it drop just out of sheer force of will. The payment goes through, she gives him his receipt and he pockets it, his hand still sweating —

“I’ll see you to the door,” she goes on, and she follows him out.

“So, Tyrion,” she grins again, “see you in two weeks?”

“Oh,” he replies, “absolutely.”

“And let me know how the internship thing works out. I like to know what’s up with the clients I like,” she winks, and then she leans down and kisses his cheek before going back into the shop.

Tyrion just stands there dumbfounded and only takes a few steps from the shop, and he didn’t mean to eavesdrop but he hears Jeyne the moment he starts walking away and —

“Sansa, I know you said you’d be forward after that asshole Harry, but I never saw you being that obvious. You really liked our mortician or what?”

“So what?” Sansa replies, and Tyrion thinks he’ll faint. “No point in playing hard to get and all. When he comes back I’m absolutely asking him out for coffee or something. I did like him.”

“Good for you,” Jeyne replies, “he seems nice and you deserve a nice guy. Even if that dye was a really crap choice on his part.”

“Oh, if I have a say in it no bad dye is ever coming near that hair. It was so nice,” she replies, and at that point he leaves because he really shouldn’t be doing this and he will faint, but —

But he smiles to himself all the way home.

He thinks he’s never looked forward to a final that much, and if she does really ask him out for coffee, no way he’s being an idiot and saying no.

And if he’ll brush up on cool embalming facts before then, well, you can’t blame him, right?

End.

#sanrion #tyrion lannister #sansa stark #jeyne poole #sansa x tyrion #those are the tags i suppose???#my fic

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mayraki · 4 years

Text

“the right path” - jj maybank

popeheywrd’s gif!

summary: two strangers start to expierence the déjà vu effects often. the only thing that they aren’t noticing is that it only happens when the other one is around.

MASTERLIST

check out my current jj maybank x oc series! -> “don’t mess with the troublemakers”

Some people don’t like to believe in destiny. They think that each one of us has to work hard for what we want and that’s how it’s going to come into your life. Not because the universe has a plan for you, hard work and passion is what garantes you a proper and happy life. She didn’t think that was a half wrong, you do need to work hard, but is nice to have a little bit of fun in life and think that there’s something else out there than just living. There has to be something out there, something that explains the things that happens to you or what you go through.

But, wondering didn’t stop her from living every day like it was the last one and embracing every little thing that happened to her without stopping and asking herself why. She was always having fun on the beaches of Outer Banks with her best friends, or just walking around going nowhere. Summer was there to be enjoyed, so she was going to enjoy every little second.

“C’mon! It’s the first party of the summer! We can’t miss it!” She said to her best friend, while the two of them were walking to the beach on the morning of that Saturday.

“You go, tomorrow I have to wake up early. Mom wants me help on the store since summer started.” Her friend said before shrugging her shoulders and letting out a big sigh.

“You’ll get back to your place early, I promise you!”

“I want to go. But you have to convince my mom, you know if I ask her she won’t let me.” She said once the two of them walked into the beach and her feet touched the warm sand.

“You got it!” She turned around to face her and walk backwards. “You know your mom loves me.” A smile appeared on her face but when she stared to look around and every single detail her eyes were seeing were familiar, she quickly stopped.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t know.” She said while looking around. “I’m having a déjà vu.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, oh my god, why isn’t it stopping?” She started to walk backwards again to try to stop.

“Wait! Be carful Y/n!” Her friend yelled but it was too late, her back had already hit a wet body. She quickly turned around while the déjà vu was still going, but as soon as her eyes locked eyes with a pair of blue ones, the feeling went immediately away.

The blonde guy she was staring at had the same surprise expression she had. Since his body was wet she figured he had been in the water, he was holding a surfing board while still making eye contact with her.

“JJ!” She heard a guy say behind him.

“I’m sorry... for bumping into you.” He said still surprised.

“It’s my fault, I was walking backwards.” She said shaking your head.

“Me too.” A little smile appeared on his face while the guy that called him before, appeared next to him.

“You ready to go bro?” He asked.

“Yeah man, let’s go.” He said without breaking eye contact with her. “Sorry, again.”

“Me too. Have a nice day!” She said when he and his friend started to walk away.

“What was that?” Her friend asked when she walked closer to her.

“I have... no idea. But it was fucking weird.”

“Tell me about it, from where I was standing, for the way you two looked at each other it looked like two friends who reunited after 40 years of being separated.”

She turned her head to her friend confused. “You need to stop watching romantic movies.”

“Why are we here again?” JJ asked once he and Pope entered the store.

“Kie gave me a list of things to buy for the party tonight.” He said while checking the little paper he had on his hand.

“What is there to buy? We already have everything, beer, some blunts, that’s it.” JJ shrugged his shoulders but Pope didn’t answered, he was already walking more deep into the store. JJ followed him but he was not paying attention to the shelves next to him, he was looking down while his fingers were playing with his lighter.

“Do you think this is it?” Pope asked him while showing some bag of chips. He looked up and just nodded uninterested.

“Hey! Y/n! Wait up!” JJ and Pope heard coming from the other side of the store.

“Shit, it’s happening again.” JJ said after his eyes started to recognise every single detail that they were seeing. Like it was happening for the second time.

“What?” Pope asked confused.

“I’m having a déjà vu.” He said looking around trying to brush it away.

“Is it over?” Pope asked but JJ shook his head. He started to walk away getting worried because it was not ending. Usually, when it happened to him it lasted seconds, and it was not like he got them often, but for some reason this couple of days he was getting them more and more, and they were longer.

“JJ, where are you going?” Pope asked once JJ was getting closer to the end of the aisle.

“I don’t know-”

“Y/n, is it happening again?” JJ heard close to him.

“Yeah, what the fuck-”

JJ suddenly stopped when he saw the girl from that morning. She was was facing him backwards but it wasn’t difficult for him to recognise her. The feeling of weirdness around him was slowly going away but when she turned around and they both locked eyes with each other, it completely went away.

“Hi again.” She said with a smile.

“Hi.” That’s all JJ could say. The déjà vu went away but the weird feeling was still there, the feeling of something else going on.

“This is weird.” She said softly without breaking the eye contact with him. She was still wondering what was happening to her. It wasn’t common and the fact that the both the times it happened, the blonde guy was there.

“Weird in a good way or a bad way?” JJ asked.

“Still trying to figure out.” She nodded looking around for her best friend. “Uhm, I lost my friend. See ya.” She gave him a little wave before walking away and leaving JJ there, with questions on his mind.

“I mean! You have to be honest with yourself! It happened to you two times today and the blonde guy was there. Coincidence? I don’t think so.” Her friend said while she was looking for something to wear to the party on her tiny closet.

“That’s some movie shit. I probably have low iron or something like that. I’m going to google it.” She said when her back hit the bed.

“I already did.” Her friend said and a little smile escaped her mouth.

“You’re always a step ahead.”

Her best friend joined her on the bed. “It said a lot of things. But what caught my eyes is that maybe, it means that you’re going on the right path in life.”

“What does that mean?” She asked confused before sitting down.

“Think about it! “The right path”? C’mon, it has to be with the blonde guy!”

“Huh? I’m not following you.”

“Y/n! It means that that guy is your right path!”

She furrowed her eyebrows confused and then shook her head. “You seriously need to stop watching romantic movies.”

“The universe wants you two to meet. That’s why you get déjà vus and they stop when you see him. It’s obvious!” She lifted her arms into the air.

“You’re crazy!” She got up from the bed. “Let’s just say that the universe wants me to meet this guy, why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s your soulmate.” She said quickly.

“That’s it.” She said after shaking her head. “You’re binging all the Marvel movies with me. No more romantic ones!”

She loved the loud music. How her body moved to the rhythm, and the slight air blowing around her body. Parties on the beach was her favorite thing to do on the summer, surrounded by friends and having the best time. Nothing was ever wrong.

She noticed her cup being empty so she waved to her best friend letting her now that she was going to get it refilled.

As soon as she turned around, she locked eyes with an old friend.

“Kie!” She yelled.

Kiara Carrera. Her family owned The Wreck, one of the most famous restaurants for tourists, they both met when she worked for her father on the restaurant as a waitress, but soon having to let it go since it was too much for her and her other job. But on the little time she was there, they both became good friends and loved every single moment they spent together as co-workers.

“How have you been?” She asked once they broke the tight hug.

“I’ve been doing great! Well, at least since summer started.”

“Things aren’t going so well at the Kook academy?” Kie shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’m here to save your horrible days.” She let her arm go around her shoulders before leading her to the dance floor where her best friends was.

The three of them were dancing like there was no tomorrow. They looked like three drunk girls since they started to dance weirdly, but the truth was, they were having the time of their lives and not worrying about anyone around them. But when their feet couldn’t anymore, Kie let her arms go around the other girls’ shoulders and walk them to the side of the beach.

“C’mon, I want you two to meet my friends.”

“Please tell me you didn’t meet that at the kook academy.” She said with a disgust expression.

Kie let out a tiny laugh. “Only on my worst nightmare. No, they’re cool.”

While the girls were walking to the where the boys where, JJ and John B were teaching Pope how to roll the perfect blunt.

“No dude!” JJ yelled. “You have to lick it just a little bit! Not lick it until you no longer have saliva in your mouth!”

“Alright! Alright!”

“Now gently roll it with your thumb.” John B said. “I said gently!”

“Not so fast!”

“You want to break it?!”

“Seriously guys, you would be great teachers.” Pope said sarcastically.

“Hey guys!” The three guys heard Kie yelled behind them.

JJ blinked but when he opened his eyes he had the same weird feeling of déjà vu. “Fuck, not again.”

Some guys were yelling because they just won a game of beer pong so she turned around to see where the noise was coming from, but quickly stopped when the same feeling appeared.

“Are you having it again?” Her friend asked. She nodded. “Alright! Come here!” She grabbed her arm and quickly pulled her friend to JJ, who was weirdly looking around like she was.

“Is everything ok?” Kie asked when she saw how the two girls quickly walked to her friends.

The moment JJ and her locked eyes with each other when her friend positioned her in front on him, the déjà vu went away like a spelling breaking.

“Is it gone?” Her friend asked.

She slowly nodded. A little smile appeared on her face while he was confused on why every déjà vu always disappeared when the girl showed up.

“Shit.” She softly said.

“This is Y/n. And you are?” Her friend asked for her.

“JJ.” He said with a smile while shaking her hand.

“Nice to finally meet you.”

“Weirdly, it doesn’t feel like this is the first time I met you.” JJ said and she let out a tiny laugh.

“Oh, this is perfect.” Her friend said softly with a smile on her face while the rest of the pogues were staring at the situation confused.

Maybe her friend was right. Maybe the universe was trying to tell them something. It wanted them to meet. They couldn’t deny it, the fact that they both had the same weird feeling when the other was around couldn’t be coincidental. Maybe, everytime they were around, everytime they touched each other or the looked at each other, it was, in fact, their right path.

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readingaway · 2 years

Text

End of the Year Reading Tag

I was tagged by nobody

did you reach your reading goal for the year (if you had one)?

I started the year with a goal of 150, I think. And I raised it to 225 in July-ish. I surpassed it a couple months ago.

what are your top 3 books you read this year?

Uh... I’m having trouble thinking of stand-out reads right now. I’ve been so busy, incredibly stressed out, and reading in a wider array of genres and reading books that I either have been planning to get to for a long time or that I picked because they met some goal. (ex. expanding genre experience or considering texts I could use if I get a teaching position)

So three books I read this year that I know I loved, that weren’t re-reads... Saga, Vol 3, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and Yolk.

what’s a book that you didn’t expect to enjoy quite so much going in?

Yolk. For some reason it’s usually listed as YA despite being about women in their twenties (I’m getting mad the more I look at these listings,) and the way it’s written is... not roundabout but it starts very shallow and then wades in deeper and deeper. I wasn’t enthralled at first, though I was still drawn in a lot more than I was into some other books I read or tried to read this year.

were there any books that didn’t live up to your expectations?

Oh plenty. The most recent one was On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sometimes literary adult fiction is this way, but I don’t want to spend half of the book on sex and it seemed to me that half of the book was sex and thinking about Little Dog’s first relationship.

(Honorable mention: Get a Life, Chloe Brown which I thought was going to be cute but ended up being entirely dependent upon the reader being allosexual in order to understand why the book was almost entirely “omg I’m so attracted to them, they’re so hot, sex sex sex” and it was insane because even though the characters do develop a relationship, it still felt empty.)

did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favourite?

I re-read the Dance of Thieves duology, The Martian, the Six of Crows duology, Red, White & Royal Blue, Summer of Salt, and some seasonal favorites: The Graveyard Book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Pumpkinheads, and A Christmas Carol. I can't quite pick a favorite.

did you dnf any books?

Yes, five. The Wings of the Dove, The Returning, The Valley of Fear, Fishnet, and The Matzah Ball.

*Six. I marked The Grace of Kings as read because I sunk so much time into it but I only made it about a quarter of the way in before I gave up.

*seven. I forgot about Mistress Pat.

did you read any books outside your usual preferred genre(s)?

Yep. The biggest expansion in my reading was my first foray into the Western genre. The book I chose was a clunker and I have a lot of problems with the tropes as I know them, but I’m planning to read a few more westerns to get more familiar with the genre in 2022. It’s hard to use aspects of a genre that you like or to really engage with or challenge or change a genre that you aren’t familiar with in its normal or “true” form and I have some ideas that interact with the genre or that might rip off of common aspects and tropes.

what was your predominant format this year?

Still audibooks. But I’ve read more physical books this year out of necessity (difficulty obtaining books, there isn’t an audiobook or a good audiobook, graphic novels, or I wanted to really have a reading experience. I also have a lot less time and opportunity to listen to audiobooks in my current situation and with my new job.)

what’s the longest book you read this year?

Les Miserables. I deserve a medal and I only listened to the audiobook.

what are your top 3 anticipated 2022 releases?

the third Beartown book by Fredrik Backman, I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston, aaaand I don’t know what else at the moment.

what books from your tbr did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?

Most of my TBR.

Tagging: @backlogbooks, @softironman, and anyone who wants to do it.

#tag games

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tester2080 · 3 years

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The Leaving Cert is an awful system.

09/09/21

In case you are not from Ireland, the Leaving Cert(ificate) is the exam system that determines which uni we can get into. Rather than having a GPA via continual assessments or any sort of entrance exam or letter of application we simply have one set of exams. There are obviously other exams (such as the christmas and summer exams in other years), however, the Leaving Cert exam is the only one that matters.

When you take a subject you can either do ordinary or higher level. Ordinary level is easier but rewards less points, and higher level is more difficult, but rewards more points. A H1 is worth 100 points (except for HL maths which is 125) and is given if you get between 90 and 100%. A H2 is 88 points and 80-90% and so on. An O1 is 90-100% in an ordinary level subject but only 56 points. There are some weird changes to the system when it comes to medicine but I won't get into that right now. Universities award places based solely on the points you receive. This leads into the first problem.

Whilst the education experience is a multi year process (6 years in secondary school in our case), what determines your uni course is a single event, often just a single week out of many years of learning. This is insanity and leads to so many obvious problems. A person could be getting H1s throughout the year and forgot to study just one topic and end up with a H3 in the leaving cert at the end, and a H3 student could get lucky and study a topic that happens to come up and get a H1. Even a single grade can be the difference between getting into the uni you want and losing out. The leaving cert does not measure you abilities as a student, your effort, or even sometimes your ability. The leaving cert measures your memory and how well you can perform on the day. You getting 100% in every single subject for the past 6 years and a family member dies a few days before the exams and it absolutely ruins your mental state? Too bad. In the eyes of the university you are not a good enough student. You are a perfect student but got a bit nervous and stayed up a bit late the night before to get some extra study in and are tired the next day? Too bad. You've been getting 625 in every set of mock tests but on the day your mind goes blank with the incredible stress, the knowledge that one test will determine the rest of your life? Too. Bad. There are no exceptions to the hand of the points system and claw of bad luck. You cannot explain to the uni. They. Will. Not. Care. Nothing else is taken into account. Students will have bad days. That's just life, we're all human. However that must be accounted for. Nobody should miss out on their life's dream because of a single day. That is absolutely absurd.

When you ask someone what education is about t. There is a filter type system for different categories of posts and all that, so if you're interested in what I have to say, I'd recommend going there for the better experience. I also have no fucking clue how to use tumblr sof you ask them what the leaving cert is about they will say it's about getting into uni. Clearly there is a disconnect here. Where has education become so distorted that now it is nothing more than a way for universities to quickly and easily judge us? Education must be about teaching children, not for some uni test, but simply so they can become more knowledgeable, so they can get a thirst for information, so they can locate their strengths and weaknesses, so future generations can live better lives than we will. University selections must be nothing more than an afterthought. It is even worse when the leaving cert is a horrendously stressful system. We put ourselves through sometimes 6 years of stress and bad quality of mental health to make it easier for universities??? What a ridiculous idea.

The leaving cert isn't even a fair way to judge students. Here, I'll be able to determine how good you're likely to do in the leaving cert with two simple questions. Do you have a good memory? Are you good at maths? If you answered yes to both, the chances of you doing well are very high and if you answered no to both - well - the chances aren't quite as good. A huge amount of the leaving cert is simply a memory test. I know the state will talk constantly about how rote learning is discouraged and all that, but realistically that's not the case. Take for example the English paper. You get to know which poets might come and which poems you can use before the exam. This mean your teacher can simply write you a good sample answer and if you can remember it, that's at least a H2 for that part of the exam. And as for being good at maths - if you're good at maths you already have 3 subjects which you can say with reasonable certainty you will be good at - maths, physics, and applied maths. Students who aren't good at maths have nothing like this unless they are fluent in several languages. A big problem when you arises most of the non maths subjects are based on memory, and the ones not based on memory are based on maths. History? Memorising essays. Irish? Memorising poems. Biology? A lot of memorising. Physics? A lot of maths. Accounting? A lot of memorising. This continues throughout basically all the exam subjects, with only maybe one or two exceptions. I know someone who hasn't even started 5th year, and yet they already know they're screwed and have basically given up on their first choice course because they have dyscalculia and a terrible memory. They can try as hard as they want, study as hard as they can, but realistically, they aren't going to come close to someone with a good memory and are good at maths who put in the bare minimum effort. It's bizarre too, given the amount of jobs that don't require either maths or a good memory.

The subjects you can study in the leaving cert is also extremely limited. You have to study Irish, English, Maths, and a third language. In public schools you then basically have the option of History, Geography, Accounting, Business, Economics, Art, Music, Religion, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and DCG. There are no electives to try out things similar to careers you might be interested or anything like that. Now those that plan to go into business will be happy I'm sure, however, for most other people, the subjects have very little in common with the career you want to do. You're doing law? I suppose a business subject might somewhat help??? You're doing computer science? Maths is kinda related. Medicine? Biology sure, perhaps a little bit of chemistry? But at most 2 out of your 6 subjects will actually be any way relevant to your career. To make it even worse, public schools have subjects in blocks. This means there will 3 blocks of subjects and you pick one from each block. You're super good at both physics, chemistry, and business? Well too bad, there's a very high chance you won't get to study all 3, and you'll have to pick up geography or some other subject you have no interest in. In some cases all 3 of the subjects you like may be in the same block, meaning you'll have to pick up 2 subjects you have no interest in and will likely be worse at. Once again, simple luck plays a huge part in the leaving cert. Going into 5th year, the subjects you're allowed pick will likely change your eventual points by around 30 or possibly more. Furthermore, private schools provide a massive advantage, often with your chance of getting good grades being around 4 times higher. You were born with well off parents? Congrats, here's an extra 100 points have fun. Absolute insanity. The leaving cert is really just determined by luck every way you look at it. Now obviously luck plays a part in everyday life too, but the leaving cert basically caters to the lucky, and a whole lot could be done to reduce the benefit they have based on luck alone, rather than quality of character, or time studied, or effort put in, etc.

I suppose I've reached the stage where I should stop complaining and start giving actual suggestions for improvements then. Fine. Firstly, remove the idiotic one exam process. Instead have some sort of GPA system with continual testing, so it shows how good a student is on average, not just on their worst/best day. Increase the amount of uni places available so that getting into the uni and career you want becomes more of an afterthought, rather than a constant stress looming over you. Add more subjects and electives that will be relevant to the career the student is planning to go into. Make learning and discovering your strengths and weaknesses and just enjoying life in general a main focus. Give students time to relax and do sports outside of school, even in 6th year (which is something basically impossible to do under the current system). Allow the tests that determine the GPA to be open book. Make understand more important than simply memorising. Remove the subject block system so students can do all the subjects they actually enjoy and are good at. I believe that the single test system is one of the reasons that private schools perform so well, by removing that, I believe the scores wouldn't be so far apart. However additions restrictions, or even total banning, of private schools could be implemented. After all, surely everyone deserves the same quality of education. These are children and teenagers for gods sake. There shouldn't be a heirachy of education based on their parents wealth. All students should be given the same opportunities. Private schools largely do better due to having better teachers. There currently isn't a large enough supply of very good teachers to go around, and the private schools can simply buy up the majority of good ones. We should pay teachers more, a lot of people thinking about careers may be dissuaded from teaching, despite having a passion, due to the low pay. Many good teachers also go to places like Dubai thanks to the better pay. Overall in society, teachers are sort of dismissed as a profession, and if we wish to improve the lives of the next generations, this must change.

#leaving cert #leaving cert 2021 #ireland #rant #complaining #politics

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richincolor · 3 years

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New Releases

A whole slew of books coming out this week, many we've been looking forward to for a while. I can't wait to add some of these to my TBR pile.

Perfectly Parvin (Perfectly Parvin #1) by Olivia Abtahi G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Parvin has just had her heart broken when she meets the cutest boy at her new high school, Matty Fumero–with an emphasis on fumero, because he might be the smoking hot cure to all of her boy troubles. If Parvin can get Matty to ask her to homecoming, she’s positive it will erase all the awful and embarrassing feelings He Who Will Not Be Named left her with after the summer. The only problem is Matty is definitely too cool for bassoon-playing, frizzy-haired, Cheeto-eating Parvin. Since being herself has not worked for her in the past (see aforementioned relationship), she decides that to be the girl who finally gets the guy, she should start acting like the women in her favorite rom-coms. Those girls aren’t loud, they certainly don’t cackle when they laugh, and they smile much more than they talk. Easy enough, right?

But as Parvin struggles through her parent-mandated Farsi lessons on the weekends, a budding friendship with a boy she can’t help but be her unfiltered self with, and dealing with the ramifications of the Muslim Ban on her family in Iran, she realizes that being herself might just be the perfect thing after all.

The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim Quill Tree Books

To cure her post–senior year slump, made worse by the loss of her aunt Sonia, Noreen is ready to follow her mom on a gap year trip to New Delhi, hoping India can lessen her grief and bring her voice back.

In the world’s most polluted city, Noreen soon meets kind, handsome Kabir, who introduces her to the wonders of this magical, complicated place. With Kabir’s help—plus Bollywood celebrities, fourteenth-century ruins, karaoke parties, and Sufi saints—Noreen begins to rediscover her joyful voice.

But when a family scandal erupts, Noreen and Kabir must face complicated questions in their own relationship: What does it mean to truly stand by someone—and what are the boundaries of love?

Check out Crystal's Review: The Marvelous Mirza Girls

Made in Korea by Sarah Suk Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

There’s nothing Valerie Kwon loves more than making a good sale. Together with her cousin Charlie, they run V&C K-BEAUTY, their school’s most successful student-run enterprise. With each sale, Valerie gets closer to taking her beloved and adventurous halmeoni to her dream city, Paris.

Enter the new kid in class, Wes Jung, who is determined to pursue music after graduation despite his parents’ major disapproval. When his classmates clamor to buy the K-pop branded beauty products his mom gave him to “make new friends,” he sees an opportunity—one that may be the key to help him pay for the music school tuition he knows his parents won’t cover…

What he doesn’t realize, though, is that he is now V&C K-BEAUTY’s biggest competitor.

Stakes are high as Valerie and Wes try to outsell each other, make the most money, and take the throne for the best business in school—all while trying to resist the undeniable spark that’s crackling between them. From hiring spies to all-or-nothing bets, the competition is much more than either of them bargained for.

But one thing is clear: only one Korean business can come out on top.

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean Flatiron Books

Izumi Tanaka has never really felt like she fit in—it isn’t easy being Japanese American in her small, mostly white, northern California town. Raised by a single mother, it’s always been Izumi—or Izzy, because “It’s easier this way”—and her mom against the world. But then Izzy discovers a clue to her previously unknown father’s identity…and he’s none other than the Crown Prince of Japan. Which means outspoken, irreverent Izzy is literally a princess.

In a whirlwind, Izzy travels to Japan to meet the father she never knew and discover the country she always dreamed of. But being a princess isn’t all ball gowns and tiaras. There are conniving cousins, a hungry press, a scowling but handsome bodyguard who just might be her soulmate, and thousands of years of tradition and customs to learn practically overnight.

Izzy soon finds herself caught between worlds, and between versions of herself—back home, she was never “American” enough, and in Japan, she must prove she’s “Japanese” enough. Will Izumi crumble under the weight of the crown, or will she live out her fairytale, happily ever after?

On the Hook by Francisco X. Stork Scholastic Press

Hector has always minded his own business, working hard to make his way to a better life someday. He’s the chess team champion, helps the family with his job at the grocery, and teaches his little sister to shoot hoops overhand.

Until Joey singles him out. Joey, whose older brother, Chavo, is head of the Discípulos gang, tells Hector that he’s going to kill him: maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. And Hector, frozen with fear, does nothing. From that day forward, Hector’s death is hanging over his head every time he leaves the house. He tries to fade into the shadows – to drop off Joey’s radar – to become no one.

But when a fight between Chavo and Hector’s brother Fili escalates, Hector is left with no choice but to take a stand.

The violent confrontation will take Hector places he never expected, including a reform school where he has to live side-by-side with his enemy, Joey. It’s up to Hector to choose whether he’s going to lose himself to revenge or get back to the hard work of living.

Enduring Freedom by Jawad Arash & Trent Reedy Algonquin Young Readers

On September 11, 2001, the lives of two boys on opposite sides of the world are changed in an instant.

Baheer, a studious Afghan teen, sees his family’s life turned upside down when they lose their livelihood as war rocks the country.

A world away, Joe, a young American army private, has to put aside his dreams of becoming a journalist when he’s shipped out to Afghanistan.

When Joe’s unit arrives in Baheer’s town, Baheer is wary of the Americans, but sees an opportunity: Not only can he practice his English with the soldiers, his family can make money delivering their supplies. At first, Joe doesn’t trust Baheer, or any of the locals, but Baheer keeps showing up. As Joe and Baheer get to know each other, to see each other as individuals, they realize they have a lot more in common than they ever could have realized. But can they get past the deep differences in their lives and beliefs to become true friends and allies?

Off the Record by Camryn Garrett Knopf Books for Young Readers

Ever since seventeen-year-old Josie Wright can remember, writing has been her identity, the thing that grounds her when everything else is a garbage fire. So when she wins a contest to write a celebrity profile for Deep Focus magazine, she’s equal parts excited and scared, but also ready. She’s got this.

Soon Josie is jetting off on a multi-city tour, rubbing elbows with sparkly celebrities, frenetic handlers, stone-faced producers, and eccentric stylists. She even finds herself catching feelings for the subject of her profile, dazzling young newcomer Marius Canet. Josie’s world is expanding so rapidly, she doesn’t know whether she’s flying or falling. But when a young actress lets her in on a terrible secret, the answer is clear: she’s in over her head.

One woman’s account leads to another and another. Josie wants to expose the man responsible, but she’s reluctant to speak up, unsure if this is her story to tell. What if she lets down the women who have entrusted her with their stories? What if this ends her writing career before it even begins? There are so many reasons not to go ahead, but if Josie doesn’t step up, who will?

#new releases #weneeddiversebooks

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lovelyirony · 4 years

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made up fic title: i didn't know i was lonely (til i saw your face)

i wanna get better

Howard Stark is the world’s smartest man. Tony knows this, has read it in so many newspaper articles and interviews and magazines that he could probably cut out every single time a journalist writes it and make a new fucking wallpaper out of it.

It’s permeated every single aspect of Tony’s life. The problem is that Tony looks exactly like his father did. Everyone compares everything. How quickly he builds a weapon, how fast it can take for him to churn out an idea.

His humor is the same, way of dressing is the same, and he should be the same. The world needs another Howard Stark for the next lifetime. They don’t need a Tony Stark.

(And maybe...maybe Tony doesn’t mind that. It’s so much easier, to pretend to be somebody else and have them look at that.)

Tony doesn’t make friends. Ever. Friends are not beneficial, and it’s not like they could hang out anyways. Tony reads in books about friends who go to diners together and attend movies and skateboard, but really? He doesn’t have time for that. He has to build things and study business, and get his life all sorted out.

He is sixteen when he goes to college. He feels far too young, and the kind, warm hand of Jarvis’ smoothing out his hair makes the feeling worse.

“You will be fine, Anthony. Study hard, and who knows how quickly you’ll graduate.”

“Of course,” Tony says stiffly.

“Have fun, Tony,” Ana says, grinning. “College can be a fun time.”

It’s not supposed to be fun for him. Howard told him to focus on his studies only. His whole life would be the engineering and business buildings, and maybe he would sometimes get takeout. Maybe he wouldn’t.

Point is, this is just like everything else in his life: the goal was to be exactly like Howard. Graduate top of his class, blow the world away, and have a glass of scotch after a job well done. (Or gin, or whiskey, or hell...all three.)

Rhodey was not a factor. At all.

Tony had thought that his mother had paid extra to make sure her son had a room all to himself. Not out of a desire, no: out of necessity. Can’t have daddy’s little prodigy revealing anything.

And maybe she meant to, but he’s not going to question it. Not when he’s just been staring.

“Hey man,” the guy in the room says. The name-tag on the door says “Jim.”

“Hey,” Tony says. “Good to...sorry. I just...I wasn’t expecting anyone here.”

“Last minute decision. My room decided to burst a pipe. Technical difficulties. They say they’re gonna get it fixed as soon as possible. That a problem for you?”

There’s more to the eyebrow raise, more to the tone. Jim isn’t going to take shit, and he knows who Tony is. He saw it in how his eyes widened for a moment.

Tony likes him. He doesn’t know how it’s going to go later, but for now: Jim is a likable guy.

“Not at all.”

To get used to sharing is definitely interesting. Tony has to get used to a lot, which isn’t a bad thing, but he wasn’t expecting to have to tiptoe at three a.m. while making ramen because Rhodey has something called a “sleep schedule to maintain.”

Tony doesn’t know what the hell that is, but he doesn’t like it.

Jim plays a lot of records, which is...odd. Tony’s never really been one for records, mainly because he’s future-thinking. But the way that Jim smiles when he hears a song and tells Tony a little anecdote about his father’s dancing in the kitchen? That’s good.

So Tony buys some records, and falls in love with one band in particular: AC/DC. He can’t get enough of it.

Jim, apparently, can.

“Oh my god,” he groans, entering their dorm room. “Are you still playing that band?”

“They’re amazing, Jim-Jam,” Tony says, turning it down a bit. “Besides, I thought your bio lab lasted for another hour.”

“It was supposed to, but one of the sorority girls got too flustered with a fraternity guy and then things caught fire.”

“Boo,” Tony says, frowning. “It’s the worst when a lab catches on fire.”

Tony is not expecting Jim to invite him anywhere, take him anywhere. After all, that’s not what school is for, and Tony’s not exactly the world’s best roommate. Besides, their RA said that they didn’t have to be friends, they just had to be good roommates.

(Tony remembers this whenever he forgets to put away his ramen bowl.)

But Jim invites him to a restaurant with a couple of his buddies from ROTC.

“It’ll be fun,” he says, smiling. “Besides, you never go out.”

There’s a reason for that, although people here aren’t really “fanatical” about Tony, thank god.

The dinner turns out to be terrible, because all of the guys just want to talk about Tony’s dad.

“How did he end up getting the better reaction timing on the new pistol, the Stark 77?” A guy named Terry asks.

And Tony freezes.

That wasn’t Howard’s. That was his.

Jim must’ve seen something on his face.

“I, uh, I guess it must’ve just been something with the screw-in method during assembly,” Tony says weakly. “If you’ll excuse me, I just realized I have something to do at home.”

Howard’s been using his designs. No credit.

He spends about ten minutes on the phone. It amounts to this sentence:

“Without me, boy, you’d be nothing. Who do you think paid for school? Private tutors? Advanced textbooks? Who, yourself? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Tony’s red-faced, and the phone gets hung up, and he stares out at the sky for maybe way too long. He forgot his ID to swipe back in, and has to launch little bits of rock at what he thinks is his and Jim’s window.

Jim brings him up and sits with him on a bed.

“I’m fine, honestly.”

“No, you’re really not. Tony, you’re a terrible liar.”

And he is, really. He can lie about so many things, but family and his state of mind are a bit harder nowadays.

He gets hugged.

That’s...holy shit, that’s new. He’s not sure the last time he got hugged by someone he liked. Jarvis tended to like the shoulder-pat, and Ana...well, she loved to hug him, but it had been a while. (Maria and Howard, he was quite sure, had skipped the ‘human emotional intimacy’ section of life.)

“Your dad sucks,” Jim mutters. “Just so you know.”

“I know. I know.”

From then, they become friends. Tony is wondering if its pity. He asks Jim as such. He snorts.

“Tony, I don’t make friends out of pity. I’m not that kind of guy. If we were friends out of pity, I’d be moving out next semester.”

Tony smiles.

He learns how to do friend things. They have a sleepover complete with the greasiest pizza possible, video games, and at least one debate over Star Wars.

(It’s about whether or not the skeletal structure of Jabba the Hut holds up in truth, and how density of space affects him on different planets.)

Tony, somehow, starts calling him Rhodey. It sticks, and Jim doesn’t complain.

Rhodey’s sweaters slowly become Tony’s, and Rhodey teaches Tony all about casual affection.

Hugs before class, kisses on the forehead, and more than enough teasing to last three lifetimes or more.

Come May, everyone’s abuzz with summer plans. Tony, however, is dreading it. Rhodey lives in Virginia, and Tony lives in New York. His mother wants him to live in their summer home in California.

“Oh come on, I know that you’ll have to visit me,” Rhodey says, grinning. “Tell your mom it’s a business trip or something.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were corrupting me,” Tony says haughtily. Half his wardrobe is packed up, and he’s just waiting on Jarvis with the car.

“Of course I am, gotta train you for when you liaison with the government for army contracts.”

Tony laughs loudly.

“Ah, so true. I’ll mark it down as heir-apparent training with my dear, drastically old father.”

Rhodey nods, grinning.

Tony’s leaving a day earlier than Rhodey is.

He hopes he comes back a day earlier.

After all, you can’t wait until you see your friend again.

#howard stark is a stinky stinky man #absolutely do not vibe with him #and yes i was going to make this romantic rhodeytony but i think friendship is equally important #rhodeytony #ironhusbands #i just like how easily they can fit together and i am slowly falling more in love w this ship #thank u ava!#lovelyirony writes #tony stark #rhodey #iron man #war machine

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comeonpeters · 3 years

Text

and so it begins

also on ao3

@troped-fanfic-challenge round 2 contribution

Theme: Fluff

Trope 1: Exes

Trope 2: Time Loop AU

Trope 3: Camp Counselors

Trope 4: Prank Wars

It’s the first day of their second week at Camp Carolling (they’re spending an entire month, and they’re getting paid to be there!) when Reggie gets a little lost in the woods. It’s cool! Alex was also with him, so he has the kids, because Alex Mercer does not get lost, so Reggie is in the clear on that part. There’s a reason why he paired up with Alex for a lot of the wandering through the forest bits of the counseling misadventures, and it’s not just because Alex is his best friend in the whole world (no offense, Luke, but Alex really had laid a claim on him their first summer by dealing with his eccentricities by treating him just the same as everyone else), but also because of Alex’s excellent sense of direction, which had not rubbed off on Reggie at all, unfortunately. And it’s not to say that Luke isn’t also his best friend in the world! Or that Julie isn’t too! It’s just that Alex is his favorite, and Reggie really wishes he had stuck closer, because boy he doesn’t know where he is.

He’s walking past a rock that’s shaped exactly like an egg when he notices it. Not the egg shaped rock, though he notices that too, obviously, because it’s shaped like an egg, but the cabin. There’s a cabin. On the Camp Carolling property.

That can’t be allowed. But it can’t be new, either, because how would they have moved an entire cabin onto the Camp Carolling property without someone noticing? Someone would totally have noticed someone lugging all of those stones and logs into place, even if the forest is made of stones and logs, they still had to be moved from their original places to this one place, and really, they shouldn’t have some random stranger around all these kids. And, Reggie is an employee. It’s, like, his job to keep these kids safe. Right? That’s how it works, right? It’s only his second week being a counselor, and he’s not really sure how good he is at it. He’s only eighteen! Maybe he shouldn’t be the one investigating some creepy, middle-of-the-woods cabin at all. Maybe he should go get Alex-

It’s the thought of bringing Alex back here, the thought of Alex or Luke or Julie having to investigate something scary that has him investigating it himself. He can tell them about it when he gets back. Everything will be fine. There’s probably nobody out here anyway, right? Maybe it’s just an old cabin, like from before the camp plot was even bought, and Reggie is worrying over nothing. He’s acting like Alex! He’s being silly.

A bush of flowers, the bulbs burgundy and nearly the size of Reggie’s hand, grows near the door of the cabin. They’re healthy enough that somebody is obviously taking care of them, hedged back from the door in a way that is most likely intentional, but Reggie still tells himself that he’s not going to get an answer as he knocks, ever so gently, on the door. He tells himself that he is only doing so out of caution. He’s doing it out of a professional obligation. This is his second job (the ice cream shop that he works at during the school year is his only legal job, seeing as Sunset Curve gigs and Julie and the Phantoms shows aren’t really consistently enough to count as a regular job, he thinks), and he is a good employee, losing Lex and the kids beside. He knocks on the door a second time, and it rocks gently open, though no one has opened it for him.

Christ on a bike, that’s creepy.

“Come on in then, dear, the tea’s almost done,” a voice calls from inside, a woman’s voice that sounds ancient. A shiver runs down Reggie’s spine, but he steps in anyway. It’s polite, right? He’s been invited. It’s not like he’s a vampire or anything, he doesn’t have to be invited to go into places, but it’s rude not to go into places when you’re invited, but anyway- The little cabin has unfinished stone and wooden walls on the inside as well, squat and homey, and Reggie feels a wash of warmth run over him that he hasn’t felt since-

He hasn’t felt this much at home since Bobby kicked them out of the studio. Playing at Julie’s studio (their studio now, her and Ray, her dad, they’ve reassured Reggie that it’s as much his home as theirs if he wants it to be, but it still doesn’t feel that way) still doesn’t feel… it doesn’t feel like this. This reminds him of his grandmother’s house back in Tennessee, the way it felt when she would set her guitar in his lap and put her fingers over his and teach him how to play. He should probably say something.

“Um. Hi. I’m Reggie. I’m one of the counselors at Camp Carolling? Do they- do they know you’re out here? I didn’t think anyone was supposed to live out here,” he says awkwardly, tripping over himself as he stands awkwardly in the entryway. There’s a counter and cabinets between the entryway and the kitchen, so he can’t see the ancient-sounding woman who called him in, but he doesn’t want to come further into the cabin, even as homelike as it feels. He picks at the flannel wrapped around his waist nervously, wanting to bite at his nails, but Julie just painted them, and she’s asked him to stop biting them when she’s just painted them, and-

“Oh, they know me, dearie. Come have a seat, won’t you? As I said, the tea’s nearly done, and I’d love to have someone to drink it with. You look like you could use a good cup,” the lady says as she steps past the counter, and Reggie nods, blinking. She’s very small, is his first thought, looking at her. He’s not a tall guy, he knows that (even if he does love making fun of Luke for being half an inch or so shorter than him, and even worse with Reggie’s boots), but he has to look very far down to make eye contact with the cabin lady. She can’t be more than five foot even. Maybe four foot ten? She has about five inches of braided hair piled on top of her head, which adds to her height, but beneath that, she’s very, very small. It’s distracting. He doesn’t realize that he’s just lingering beside the table until she taps on it, gesturing toward the chair across from her and the tea set between the two seats.

“Have a seat, then,” she repeats, “and have a drink with me. Everything will be fine, Reginald. You’re welcome here.” He doesn’t normally like it when anyone besides Alex (or, before, Bobby) calls him Reginald, but in this case, he finds himself relaxing into the seat offered, grabbing the kettle to pour tea when she gestures for it. Everything is… fine. Everything is calm. The tension rolls out of his shoulders for the first time in months.

It’s weird. It’s really weird. It’s nice.

“Thank you for the tea. This is nice,” he says once he’s had a sip of the flowery drink, smiling easily. He’s never been a tea guy, but he’s never had this kind of tea before; he should ask what kind it is. She smiles back, and it’s a warm feeling to be smiled at by someone so much older than him, like being smiled at by Ray, or Emily in the rare times she actually remembers she likes Reggie (when she remembers that he’s a good kid and not just a bad influence, because he swears he’s a good kid), or when his grandmother would smile at him. The lady puts down her tea cup with such an air that Reggie puts down his own, feeling as if there’s something that is about to be discussed.

“Reggie, dear, there’s something we need to talk about,” she says, and he knows he should be confused (they don’t know each other, why do they have something to talk about?), but instead, the calm remains. The feeling of the cabin, the hominess and the settled feeling, it remains.

“Okay,” is all he says, a little dazed, and she is still smiling, so he can assume she isn’t angry with him. It’s a bit of a sad smile, now that he thinks about it, but still not angry. As long as it isn’t angry, right?

“You’re deeply unhappy, my boy. I could feel it as soon as you knocked on the door. You are a sweet, good boy, and you do not deserve all of the unhappiness that has made a home of your heart. I would like to give you a time to free yourself of your unhappiness. Would you accept?” she asks, offering something which confuses Reggie massively, but he can’t muster up his ability to panic. He knows he has the ability to panic. Where is it? Did he leave it with Alex? Where is Alex? Where is Luke? Where is Julie? Doesn’t he have somewhere to be? How can he accept?

“What do you mean? Accept? What about you? Do you need anything?” he asks, because he doesn’t want her to do anything, to put herself out, when he could do something for her. You don’t know her, something in himself reminds him (it sounds awfully like Bobby, but he doesn’t think in Bobby’s voice anymore, he told himself he wouldn’t-), but he pushes it down. She smiles and pats his face.

“It is your instinct to give that makes you so able to receive without judgement. Do you accept?” she asks again. Everything feels really weird. He doesn’t think. He can’t.

“Yes.”

He’s stumbling out of the cabin not a second later, fuzzy and dazed, like a force not his own is pushing him out. He notices a sign below the bushes of flowers, Take one!, it says, and so he picks a flower. He’ll take it to Julie. She likes flowers. She’s always liked flowers, and he likes making her smile, so at least then this whole thing will have added up to something, because he has no idea what just happened. At least the camp knows about the cabin, according to the lady in the cabin. Is she the best source? Jesus, now that he thinks about it, she might not be the best source.

He’ll ask Alex and Jules and Flynn. They’re better at logic than he is. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He stumbles back to the egg shaped rock and picks a direction and hopes for the best. He’s only walking for a few minutes when he hears it: Alex’s voice above the hum of the kids is the best thing he’s heard all day. It can’t be right- he knows he wandered way further away from Alex when he was on his grand adventure to find the cabin, but he doesn’t care at this point. He just wants to find his way back to a familiar face, get back in the swing of things and forget this ever happened. He knows when Lex catches sight of him, because the mix of annoyed and fond might as well be patented.

“You could have told me you had to take a leak, Peters. Did you get lost or something? Distracted by the flowers? You’ve been gone like fifteen minutes,” Alex says, and it only takes that much to make Reggie feel like his entire world has tilted sideways. Fifteen minutes? He’d been gone hours.

“I thought- fifteen minutes?” he asks, his voice so strained it nearly breaks. Alex snorts, rolling his eyes.

“Thought you were quick, huh? Come on, we gotta get the kids back before Julie has them for arpeggios and scales,” the blond says, clapping him on the back and keeping his arm around Reggie’s shoulders as they herd the kids back toward the central grounds. He makes the executive decision to put everything that’s happened for the past several hours (fifteen minutes??) out of his mind, focusing instead on Alex and then Julie (she does like the flower, though she gives him a weird look, and cradles it to her chest) and then Luke and their new friend Nick when he meets up with them for guitar lessons with the kids, and he just puts it out of his mind. It’s not that important. Everything is fine, right? Everything is calm. They’re at Camp Carolling! They’re counselors at Camp Carolling, just like they always said they would be. It doesn’t matter that they’re a member short and they’re all feeling the absence, because he still has his boys and his Julie and his Flynn and his family, and they’re not leaving, even if one member did.

Everything is fine.

It’s the second day of their second week at Camp Carolling (they’re spending an entire month, and they’re getting paid to be there!) when Reggie feels like the bottom is dropping out of his stomach. They’re integrating with the other side of camp today, rhythm and dance (where Alex would have gone if Reggie and Luke hadn’t convinced him to skate on his mad singing skills alone), and that means… Bobby’s a rhythm guitarist. And a dancer. If they’re integrating with rhythm and dance, they’ll see Bobby, if he bothered to come. Which is a tossup, really. Ever since he quit Sunset Curve, it’s not like Reggie knows him at all, so what does he know about what Bobby Wilson is going to do with his summer, with his life, what does he know about Bobby Wilson at all?

“Reckon we’ll see him today, boys?” Luke asks, arms over Reggie and Alex’s shoulders as he pulls them both in beside him. Julie looks at them apprehensively, chewing on the side of her lip and looking like she might indulge in her own nervous habit of chewing on her knuckles. She’s not supposed to, because it’s the thing that she’s not supposed to do as long as Reggie doesn’t chew on his nails, but he won’t begrudge her either way.

“Why does it matter if you see him, guys? We have a new band, and besides, it’s not like you guys have even talked about him since he left! Just… ignore him if you see him, okay? It doesn’t have to be a big deal. He left you guys. If you don’t want to talk to him, you don’t have to,” she says, talking in bursts like she does when she’s upset, and Reggie doesn’t want Julie to be upset about this. He knows that she worries about the fact that they were in a band before her, that she worries about them missing Sunset Curve, but she’s family. Ray and Julie and Carlos are family. He loves them. He stands up and puts his arms around her, pulling her so close he nearly pulls her off the ground, pulls her so close she squeaks.

“Love you, Julie,” he says simply, and then he lets her go. A simple reassurance for a simple reassurance. You don’t have to talk to him for you don’t have to replace him. As much as he’s loved Bobby Wilson since he was thirteen years old, he loves Julie Molina too. She’s like a sister.

“Love you too, Reg. I just… don’t want you to feel obligated to him, okay? You’re not,” she reiterates. He kisses the top of her head.

“I know,” he lies, because he is. In a way, he thinks he always will be. They separate anyway, all of them going their own ways for their camp jobs, because they can’t always stay together. He has to work with other people sometimes, despite the fact that his comfort zone will always be with the people he arrived at camp with. Ray dropped them all off together, called him mijo and kissed his forehead and everything. Sap. He piddles around and does his job and high-fives Nick when he sees him and stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sees Bobby Wilson in the flesh, because what else is he supposed to do? What else can he do? Bobby has a guitar slung across him and no smile in sight, even though he used to smile every time he saw Reggie, and Reggie has no idea what to do with that. He has no idea how to fix what Bobby Wilson broke in him.

"Hey Reg," the other boy says, slightly hesitant, and Reggie's lips remain pursed for a moment before he gives a nod of acknowledgement. No obligation. No fighting. Just acknowledgement. Nothing personal.

"Bobby," he replies, and Bobby blinks. He knows why; he can't remember the last time he actually called the traitor by his name either. It's always been Bee or Bobbers or Bobbin or some other nickname dripping in affection. Not anymore. He watches as Bobby's expression shutters back to a close. He tries not to let it break his heart.

"Right. I'll- um. I'll be anywhere else, I think," Bobby says, a stutter taking him over in a way that it hasn't since some of their first gigs (turns out, huddle style interviews with a dozen small-time fans are as good as speech therapy, better if the years of it not working were anything to go by), and something in Reggie wants to reach out, wants to comfort him, but he lets the anger, the bitterness, burn over it. He lets Bobby walk away from him all over again. No obligation. Nothing personal. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He watches Bobby’s back, looks at his suspenders because there’s no uniforms for counselors here, and he almost wishes there was because looking at them makes him think about popping them against Bobby’s skin like he used to, grinning and laughing, and he almost wants to cry.

No obligations. Nothing personal.

The day is mostly inconsequential after that. Alex met a dancer named Willie who really swept him off his feet- literally, to hear the tale, and Reggie does hear it. He meets Willie too, though briefly, at dinner, and hears about Willie’s friends. He’s friends with Nick, which is cool. He’s also friends with Bobby and Carrie, which is less cool. The rest of Carrie’s band also apparently followed the Wilsons to camp, which is just great. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t bother telling the boys and Julie about seeing Bobby again, because it doesn’t really matter. It’s inconsequential. It was barely a moment.

The next morning, it’s announced that they’re integrating with the other side of camp. Rhythm and dance. Again. He turns to Luke, a question on his lips, when Luke throws an arm around his shoulders, and Alex’s too.

“Reckon we’ll see him today, boys?” Luke asks, pulling them in just as he had the day before, and- it wasn’t the day before, was it? It was one of those freaky dreams that Reggie’s read about. He and Bobby used to read about conspiracy theories before- well, before. He’s read a lot about déjà vu and prophetic dreams, he’s just never personally experienced either so heavily before, and he’s sure that it will go away soon, it’s just-

“Why does it matter if you see him, guys? We have a new band, and besides, it’s not like you guys have even talked about him since he left! Just… ignore him if you see him, okay? It doesn’t have to be a big deal. He left you guys. If you don’t want to talk to him, you don’t have to,” Julie bursts out, and Reggie wasn’t paying enough attention to her mannerisms this time, but he gets up and hugs her anyways, squeezes her just as tight because he loves her and he knows her and he needs her just as much as she needs them. She’s the rock to his hard place, you know? That doesn’t really make sense, but it’s his vibe. He hugs her real tight, tight enough to pull her off her feet, just a little.

“Love you, Jules,” he says, because he means it. He kisses the top of her head, because he means that too. She sinks into him, just a little, before he releases her.

“Love you too, Reg. You don’t owe him anything,” she says, and it’s worded a little different than the dream, but it means the same thing. He kisses the top of her head again, just for good measure. She rolls her eyes and shoves him off, laughing. He likes making her laugh. It’s always nice. He doesn’t bother lying this time.

When they all separate, he’s a little less assured that everything was a dream, because things are still the same. Nick still high-fives him, and everyone still asks him to do the same things, and everything is still the exact same. He doesn't know what to do, so he does exactly the same things that he did yesterday morning (last night in his dream?), down to letting himself trip over the front porch step on the cafeteria walkup. Alex had done a presentation on the butterfly effect once for an English class (their teacher had let them choose a movie or book to analyze against a scientific theory related to it, it was a really interesting project actually-)

Reggie is almost ready to dismiss his strange sense of déjà vu when Bobby walks up to him again, an even more direct line than he had taken in Reggie's strangely prophetic dream.

"I think I had a dream about seeing you again last night," is the first thing that Bobby says to him, and it's freaky enough to make Reggie feel really weird. He's never been excessively great at covering up his expressions around the boys either (and Bobby is still one of the boys, damn it, Reggie can't stop the years of safety and security that Bobby held in his own two hands), and he knows that he's showing his slight panic.

"Was the rest of the morning exactly the same too?" he asks before he can stop himself, before he can remind himself that he and Bobby don't go together anymore, that Bobby left. Bobby grabs onto his wrist desperately, though never hard enough to hurt. Reggie wants to scrape out how much Bobby remembers about him, wants to take it all back, because no one else has known him as well as his boys (besides the Molinas, because they know him inside and out and he would put that on a billboard). He has to tune back into Bobby’s angry desperation, how it covers his fear.

"It fucking was, Reg, what the hell is going on?" Bobby says, eyes blazing, all that fear fear fear so plain where Reggie knows only he can see. He shakes Bobby off of his arm easily. He desperately tries to ignore how hurt flashes over Bobby’s expression before he covers that one too.

“I don’t know, dude. I don’t think anyone else knows, though. Luke and Alex didn’t seem to think anything was weird this morning, and Julie didn’t act any different either, and she’s the smartest of us,” he replies, shrugging a shoulder. He doesn’t want to tell Bobby about the creepy cabin and the definitely-not-a-witch. He doesn’t want Bobby to say the same thing everyone has always said. He doesn’t want Bobby Wilson to finally tell him that he’s being stupid. Bobby recoils slightly.

“You guys brought- Julie came?” Bobby asks, and Reggie doesn’t have to ask how he knows who Julie is. Julie and the Phantoms, their band, has been all over social media lately. Flynn is a pretty baller social media manager, and it hasn’t been a secret that three quarters of the former Sunset Curve, a punk band, had suddenly turned poppy when they got a new lead singer. It’s been something of a sensation. And, it’s not like Julie wasn’t their friend before Julie and the Phantoms happened. It’s just that Bobby was never really close with her in the first place, and the four of them found each other in a lot of wreckage. A lot of fucking wreckage. Reggie shrugs again.

“We told her about the promise we made as Sunset Curve, to come back to camp and be counselors ourselves, and she asked if she could come too, even if she wasn’t part of the original promise. We made a decision as the three of us. Wasn’t too sure we were going to see you here, to be honest,” he says, more honest than he means to be. He can’t look at Bobby, suddenly, and he picks at his fingers, plays with his rings, peels at the bandaid Luke had just put on him last night. Too vulnerable. Too much. Shatterglass and eggshells. He still doesn’t bite his nails. He promised Julie. He’ll keep his promises to Julie.

“It was a promise,” Bobby says. Reggie snorts, again before he can stop himself.

“So was everything else, Bobbin. Didn’t seem to matter then.” He pushes off the wall he’s leaning against, intending upon going back to the cabin and sleeping for the next hundred permutations of this day should there be more (he watched the Tuesday episode of Supernatural during Alex’s phase, unfortunately), but Bobby catches him by the hand.

“I’m sorry, Reg,” he says, far too close to Reggie’s ear, nearly pressing it into Reggie’s skin. Reggie nearly breaks being so close to him. He pulls away anyway.

“Shoulda said that a while ago, Bee. Shoulda never left,” he says, and it’s like the world resumes around them (it never stopped, everything was still happening, it’s just like the world stops when he’s caught within Bobby’s atmosphere), because he loses Bobby easily within the raucous of the camp.

He listens when Alex tells him about Willie. He encourages him to talk to him again. He meets Willie and doesn’t make a big deal about Willie being friends with the Wilsons. He still doesn’t mention seeing Bobby. Then, after dinner, because he can, he climbs into bed with Luke, even if he’s about fifty percent sure he’ll wake up in his own bed on the same morning once again. Luke welcomes him with open arms and even more open cuddles, curls around him like the little octopus he is, sweaty and gross and exactly what Reggie needs. He tucks himself beneath Luke’s chin and falls asleep to the sound of Luke’s weird sleep humming, familiar and warm.

He wakes up in his own bunk, just as expected. Alex has his hands on the edge of his bed, just as he has for the past two mornings (the same exact morning), and he knocks their heads together gently to wake Reggie up. Of all of the ways he could repeatedly experience being woken up, it’s one of Reggie’s favorites; it’s not one that Alex or Luke regularly indulges in, being as other people don’t think it’s normal or socially acceptable or whatever, but by the time Alex wakes him up, most everyone else has emptied out of the room; he’s actually running late, and typically, Reggie would be freaking out. Because it’s his third time living through the morning, he’s half tempted to just drag Alex back into bed with him.

Instead, he does what he’s supposed to do.

“Good mornin, Lexi,” he says as he has both of the other mornings, and Lex hits him with a pillow, just as expected. It’s only across his stomach, so it’s more fond than anything. That’s what Reggie tells himself, anyway. Alex pulls him out of bed then, shoving clothes at him until Reggie dresses himself and follows Alex out of the cabin in a semi-orderly manner, tying his flannel around his waist as he makes it out of the door. Julie falls into step with them as they make it up the cafeteria steps, linking her arm with Reggie’s as she has the last two renditions of this morning, but it still makes Reggie smile. Luke has already gone up ahead to meet up with Flynn, masterminding the summer rotation of Julie and the Phantoms advertising before breakfast and the announcement that they’ll be mingling with the other side of camp today.

He already knows the morning is going to be the same. He knows it in his bones. He didn’t wake up in Luke’s bed this morning.

“Reckon we’ll see him today, boys?” Luke asks after the announcement comes, and it confirms Reggie’s suspicions for sure. He goes through the motions of the conversation completely, not leaving anything on the floor because he’s not going to half ass a conversation with his friends just because he’s had it before. He loves them, and he’s not going to let Julie be insecure about her place with them just because of some repetitive day- what if this is the last time or something? He couldn’t do that to her. He high-fives Nick when he sees him and does his job and goes through the day. He sees Bobby and opens his mouth to speak, but Bobby beats him to it.

“My dad asked me to leave Sunset Curve. Told me to, really.”

That’s the first different thing he’s heard all day. And it’s enough to stop him midstep and nearly make him fall into the hi-hats they’ve got lined up against the wall of the rhythm cafe, except that Bobby catches him, because Bobby is the one who said it, because of course Bobby was. Bobby is the only one who could have said that, because Bobby’s dad is Trevor Wilson, extremely famous solo artist and general rock star, and no one else has ever left Sunset Curve successfully (Alex had tried, once, when he thought he was dragging everyone down, but they had talked him off that particularly wall), and-

“What?” Reggie asks, and the crack in his voice should be embarrassing, but he can’t dredge up the feeling. All he has is the sinking feeling of despair, because if Trevor asked Bobby to leave, then they’ve been letting him have this distance, this horrible fucking space because they thought he wanted it and- they’re supposed to be a family.

“He said that he would sponsor Sunset Curve if I left and did a successful solo album first. If he could see our potential for himself. I’m almost done with it, so I should be able to make it on my own. Even if I don’t have Sunset Curve anymore,” Bobby says, the last bit tacked on like an afterthought, like a bitter aftershock. Reggie puts his hand on Bobby’s arm. It’s the first time he’s reached out to him in a long, long time. Bobby seems to realize this too, and when he looks at Reggie, the vulnerability in his eyes makes Reggie ache.

“You left us, not the other way around, Bobs.” Fuck, that’s cagey. More defensive that he means. Bobby gives him a bitter smirk, opening his mouth, but Reggie squeezes where he holds Bobby’s arm still. “You didn’t explain. You didn’t say anything. You just left. You never talked to us,” he says, his voice calmer as he goes further. Bobby’s expression crumples, screwing up around his mouth.

“You didn’t stop me, Reg! When I said I was leaving, you didn’t try to stop me. Not like we stopped Alex. Not like you would have stopped Luke. Not like we would have stopped you. A rhythm guitarist is replaceable, you know, you guys were never as attached, so don’t act like you weren’t happy I was gone,” Bobby pushes out the words like they’re insistent against his throat, and Reggie pushes himself against Bobby’s chest when they’re done, forces himself under Bobby’s chin and makes Bobby hug him. He pulls Bobby against him and hugs him none too gently, hugs him like he wanted to when Bobby left, because he was fucking devastated when Bobby left, it destroyed him when Bobby left, but he didn’t want to make Bobby stay somewhere he didn’t want to be. He pushes himself up against Bobby because that’s how they’ve always talked best, not looking each other in the eye but still close enough to feel each other’s heartbeats, and he both loves and hates how easily Bobby relaxes against him as soon as he’s close. When he speaks, he does so quietly, more gently than he’s been with Bobby in a year’s time. Only had to do today a third time to start talking like he should have been for a year.

“I wanted you to stay. We wanted you to stay. But fuck, it hurt when shut us out, when you kicked us out. We thought we were family, Bee. Sunset Curve was our family, you were our family. We were supposed to have each other’s backs and you told us that you wanted out of our family.”

“I didn’t want to kick you guys out. It just… it happened so fast, and you just packed up and left. I wanted you to keep using the garage, even if it was without me. But, Sunset Curve was family, and I was leaving Sunset Curve,” Bobby says, like that explains anything. Reggie wants to both pull Bobby so close that the other boy lives inside of Reggie’s own ribcage, and pull far enough away that he can punch Bobby in the face.

“You’re an idiot, Bobby Wilson,” he says, stroking Bobby’s hair. As soon as he says it, Bobby tenses up.

“What?” the other boy says, voice hardening again. Reggie scritches his nails along Bobby’s scalp.

“You’re an idiot if you think we didn’t love you. We still do, even if we’ve been mad, and hurt, and whatever else for the past year without you, which has sucked, by the way. You’re our best friend, and the fact that you just left us, barely any explanation, and didn’t speak to any of us at all? Definitely aggravated some abandonment issues, yeah, but we still fucking love you. Honestly! You’re an idiot. Can’t believe you,” Reggie says, pulling Bobby even closer when it seems like Bobby might pull away or might not know what to do, because he can’t let Bobby pull away again. Not physically or emotionally or socially or ever, ever again. Bobby’s arms finally wrap fully around Reggie, delicate and unsure, and Reggie hums, satisfied. He’s missed this. Missed Bobby.

“I knew Luke wouldn’t let me leave if it was for this. But I couldn’t waste the opportunity. My dad has a lot of connections that we might not have been able to make on our own,” Bobby says, but even the argument sounds like it has the air punched out of it. Reggie hums again, noncommittal.

“He probably wouldn’t have let you leave without a fight, no, because anything your dad can do for us, we can do on our own talent, Bobbins. I know that you’re scared of never being able to make it, and I know that you think your dad can help us, but we’ve always agreed that we didn’t want to make it like that. Why did you think doing it like this would make things different?” he asks, making sure to keep his voice soft and the accusation out of his tone. He doesn’t want Bobby to puff up, because if Bobbers gets defensive, this conversation isn’t getting anywhere. He might as well have a conversation with a brick wall. He’s not the most intelligent former member of Sunset Curve (that honor goes to Alex, probably), but it’s better that he’s here than, say, Luke. Luke would definitely have started a fight by now.

“I just… I wanted to help. And then you guys didn’t talk to me, and you made a new band so quickly and everything changed so fast, and the new album was all I had, Reggie, and Carrie told me that I should just work on that and say fuck it, so I just said fuck it, and maybe I shouldn’t take emotional advice from a Scorpio, but I didn’t have you guys at the time, so I just- I wasn’t- it was,” Bobby stops and starts and then stops all together, and that’s all it takes for Reggie to realize that Bobby is probably about to start crying. Reggie tucks Bobby’s face against his neck and presses his own face against Bobby’s hair, pressing a kiss into it naturally, just like he does with Julie, because the Molinas are even more affectionate than, say, Sunset Curve, and Julie and the Phantoms has become a codependent place to live too. He wants to make Bobby safe there too. There’s something he has to say first, though.

“We didn’t reach out because we thought you didn’t want us to, Bee. When you walked away, I promise we wanted to follow you. At the very least, Alex and Luke did. It… hurt me. A lot. When you left. Sunset Curve was the only family I had before the Molinas. Alex had his sisters, and even when they fight, Luke’s parents still love him, and you have Carrie, and Trevor, in his weird way, when he wants to care. But I don’t- they don’t love me, Bobs. Not even Michael, not really. And when… when you left, they took care of me instead of thinking about you, and I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” It had taken Ray months to get him into a therapist who got him to admit that his family sucked. It’s weird to just say it now. It’s only been a month and a half since he said it in therapy. Bobby squeezes him a little too tight, but Reggie doesn’t tell him to let go. It’s kinda nice, actually.

“I shouldn’t have left. I’m really, really sorry, Reg. I love you, and it wasn’t ever about- I’m sorry,” Bobby struggles through apologizing, and it’s obvious he’s crying now. It makes something crack in Reggie’s chest, like a ridge is forming beneath the plates of his crust, tectonics shifting as it quakes. He kisses the side of Bobby’s head, wants to kiss his face, and that’s not a new thought. He pushes it down just like he used to, lays it to rest within him and does not give it a grave marker, slides it down beneath the rest. They’ve probably been too close for too long. They’ve probably done that a lot over the years. They probably won’t stop, if they’re going to be mending their friendship.

That’s okay, he doesn’t mind.

“I love you too, Bobbins. Everything’s gonna be okay,” he says, and it almost feels like it actually will. He loves Bobby Wilson, and for the first time in a year, thinking so doesn’t burn in his chest. Bobby pulls away from him and gives him a smile, and there it is. That same old problem.

His love for Bobby is like a car in that starting it seems impossible if you don’t know how; it’s sat dormant for months without an experienced driver. Luke and Alex have walked around it for the past year, tapped on the glass of its windows, have had no idea how to even open the doors without a key in hand. It’s just a hunk of metal really, but if you have the key (Bobby’s smile in the ignition, just ready to sink his teeth in), it’s the easiest thing in the world, just a turning of metal within another piece of metal, just a spark, and everything comes alive, all of the noise and heat, and there he is, there’s all the love in him, everything alive in Reggie, and it’s there and ready to go and rolling down the hill, 40 miles an hour, 50, 60, as fast as anyone will let him before they hit the breaks. All of the fear of being hurt takes the backseat as Bobby slides into the driver’s seat, Reggie taking passenger because he’s never been in control of this. It’s okay, though. Bobby’s never been a reckless driver. He’ll be careful enough. Reggie has always been so ready to hand himself away to this boy.

Same problem, same solution. Reggie shoves his love into himself and gives Bobby a smile of his own, offering him his hand as they exit. Bobby’s smile slides into a grin, but he shakes his head.

“Unfortunately, we’ve both got work to do, Reg. I’ll see you later? Tomorrow maybe?” he asks, and they both know that tomorrow might not come. Reggie nods anyway, entrapped by that fucking grin, the sharp canine that overlaps over one of his other teeth, every little thing that Reggie has ever observed about Bobby coming back into sharp focus. And, god, he loves him. Jesus.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Bee. Love you,” he says, and he walks away from Bobby feeling ten pounds lighter. It almost scares him when Bobby catches him by the hand halfway out of the door of the rhythm cafe, spinning him around and pulling him a little closer than they’ve ever gotten so quickly, and Reggie knows he’s blushing before he even sets himself to rights.

“Sorry, just. Love you too,” Bobby says it like he’s following an impulse and then he kisses Reggie on the cheek (he’s never kissed Reggie on the face before, always kept it to his hair or his shoulder or his hands or-) and disappears out the door. Reggie blinks, standing stock still for a moment as the feeling rolls over him before he follows Bobby out of the door, the other boy already lost in the din of the camp. He goes about the rest of his day with a little more pep in his step, catching things before they fall and all of the things he maybe shouldn’t do for the butterfly effect of it all, but he just can’t help it. Everything looks a little brighter on the other side of the tunnel. He sees Bobby across the campground a couple of times, but never really close enough to engage, just enough to fluster himself. He needs to talk to the boys and Julie and Flynn.

The soonest time he gets to see all of them is dinner that night, when Alex tells them all about Willie. Reggie doesn’t interrupt, and he gives the same advice he’s given the last two times (“You should totally talk to him again! In fact, where is he? Hey! Are you Willie? You should come eat with us!”), but afterwards, he tells everyone that he talked to Bobby. And the table goes strangely, eerily silent.

“What do you mean you talked to Bobby, Reg? I thought we were gonna be cool about it,” Luke says, looking at Reggie mostly but looking at Julie a little bit, probably because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. Reggie doesn’t want to hurt her feelings either (and he won’t, not even for Bobby, but Bobby is important too), but he’s not going to keep this a secret from her either.

“I am being cool about this! Bobbert apparently got convinced by his dad to make a solo album so that his dad would sponsor Sunset Curve, and Bobby didn’t think that he could tell us because you wouldn’t let him leave, but he didn’t want to squander the opportunity or whatever, but then he was really Bobby about it and got in his feelings, but we were also in our feelings, so overall Sunset Curve era communication skills were really, really shit and honestly we all owe our lives to Flynn and Julie, but furthermore, it’s my vote that we engage Robert T Wilson in a prank war, as he has wronged the former members of Sunset Curve, but he is still a former member of Sunset Curve himself, and dude, he cried on me earlier,” he ends out strong, because he knows nothing is more convincing that Bobby fucking Wilson expressing an emotion. He doesn’t realize he’s speaking more to the table than he is to his friends until he’s done speaking, but when he looks up, Luke and Alex are both just looking at him, Luke’s eyes wide and six shades of puppy dog, his smile just starting to curve upward, and Alex giving that shy smile like he’s just seeing Reggie.

“Are you sure, man?” Alex asks, and Reggie knows why. He knows that half the reason that Alex and Luke held such a huge grudge against Bobby was for hurting him, and he knows that despite all of their implications and joking, everyone knows that he is the delicate one, not Alex. He bites his lip and looks at Julie, who gives him a smile, one that doesn’t even look hurt. Flynn is smiling too, so Julie must really not be hurting; Flynn is never good at covering up when Julie isn’t alright. She gets too mad.

“I’m sure. So, what do you think we should do?” he asks, and that sets them off. Flynn has a lot of opinions for someone who has never participated in a Sunset Curve prank war, but she argues that it’s not a Sunset Curve prank war, being as all four members of Julie and the Phantoms (and their social media manager) plan to participate, and Reggie can’t help his smile when they say that. He likes the idea of having Flynn and Julie in on this too, can’t stand the idea of having a separation between the lot of them again, and it makes him smile even wider when Willie throws in an opinion too; Bobby has apparently talked about them some, and this might help. This might help. Thank God.

“We are not going to just pie the guy, that’s so lame,” Flynn says, and that breaks Reggie out of his head. He puts his hand on their shoulder. He knows they’re right, that it’s the kind of shitty prank a bunch of thirteen year olds would produce, but well-

“We should definitely pie him. That was how we used to start our prank wars because when we were kids- or, well, it was just a few years ago, when we had first met, we were thirteen, and Bobby smacked me in the face with a banana cream pie in the doorway right over there,” he points to the cafeteria doorway where Bobby had ambushed him, the fond memory washing over him. It had been a dare from one of the other boys at camp, and Bobby had regretted it immediately when he thought Reggie was going to cry (he wasn’t that sensitive, he just had whipped cream in his eye!), but when Bobby decided to hang out with him instead of going back to hang with the other boys, Reggie wasn’t even mad about the pie. He just started pranking Bobby back, and brought Luke and Alex into it too, and that’s how they got started. Hearing this, Flynn nods.

“Okay. Do you still know where the camp keeps their pies?” they ask, and Reggie breaks into a grin, nodding back.

It would probably look suspicious if they all got up from the table, so Flynn makes Luke, Alex and Willie stay. Reggie winks at Alex when Willie isn’t looking, making the other boy blush a pretty pink to match his signature hoodie. It’s always charming to leave your best friend with your other best friend, who happens to be his ex-boyfriend, and his pretty obvious new crush. Reggie leaves with Flynn and Julie, glad that he’s not make small talk with that crazy crew (not that he’s ever made small talk with Luke and Alex; they would probably just end up one upping each other with who could tell Willie the most embarrassing story about Bobby the fastest, seeing as he’s had a year’s time to tell Willie stories about them, should he so please). He links his arm with Julie as he usually does, who links her other arm with Flynn, even if they make a conspicuous picture together. Flynn has told him that one of the best ways to be inconspicuous is to be conspicuous in other ways all together.

He’s not sure if they’re right, but he’ll take it.

“Okay, so they’re back there in the fridge, sweets are on the right hand side, pies are usually in the bottom. I can absolutely guarantee about thirty seconds,” he says, and then he lets go of Julie, pushing Julie and Flynn into the kitchen as he catches sight of-

“Hey Marge!” he says brightly, injecting excitement into his voice and making sure not to look in the direction of the door he just pushed his friends into. If he gives them up, they’re all fucked. Luckily, Marge just looks as excited to see him as she always does, just as excited to see him as she’s looked since he was tiny and thirteen and adults liked him so, so much more than kids ever had.

“Reggie, my love, where have you been? You haven’t come to see me at all this week. I almost didn’t think you were coming back,” she says, and then they’re off. He talks about the band for as much time as he can; Marge doesn’t really understand the social media kickoff they’ve been able to get, but she likes how excited he gets, so that’s nice. He asks her about her kids, her grandkids, even the nieces that used to come around to camp just to visit every couple of weeks that he can just barely remember the names of- he’s good like that. He’s not sure how long they’ve been talking when Julie comes up and grabs his shoulder, sliding him a smile before turning her charm on Marge.

“Hi! I’m Reggie’s friend, Julie. Is there any chance I could steal him from you?” she asks, all smiles and barely there pretty girl laughter, and Marge just smiles back at her, giving her a nod.

“Reggie has been telling me all about your band, so I could hardly keep him from one of you three. It’s wonderful to meet one of you. Come back and see me, my boy,” she says, and she kisses Reggie on the cheek, and then she goes back to the kitchen. It makes Reggie feel warm, and he wishes he hadn’t come to see her just to steal a pie; it makes him feel dirty. That only lasts for a minute as Julie pulls on his arm, giggles bursting out of her chest as Flynn rejoins them, slipping out with a pie in hand, cling wrap still holding it together. A smile takes over his face as well as he puts his arm around Flynn’s shoulders, snagging the pie with his other hand. This is his prank. He’s gonna do it.

That’s what he thinks, at least, until Alex steals the pie from his hands, putting on the table in front of himself.

“I wanna do it. And I want you to be standing behind me, and I want Luke to be there too, for maximum drama potential. Listen, we’ve been plotting it out, work with me here,” Alex says, both hands on the table in front of the pie. Reggie considers it briefly, but decides, well, all three of them should be involved, and then both Flynn and Julie could be there for it too. And Willie could do the lead in. At the suggestion, Willie grins.

“I’m in,” they say, bumping his wrist with Reggie’s own. Then, they just set the plan in motion. The lot of them actually have to eat their dinner at this point, seeing as they’ve been talking and plotting and planning when they were supposed to be eating, so they rush through their meal and get up in shifts; he and Luke and Julie get up and go sit on the cafeteria porch first, sitting on the railing to shoot the shit and talk, killing time while the rest of the plan goes accordingly. Willie moves to sit with Bobby about halfway through the meal, unlacing his fingers from Alex’s hesitantly, though the rest of them pretend not to notice. Flynn and Alex move to linger by the door, surreptitiously disguising the pie in Alex’s jacket as they stand to talk behind the shadow of the alcove.

It’s all coming to a head when they can all hear Bobby’s voice.

“Wills, I don’t see the point in getting back into conspiracy theories, dude. They just don’t interest me that much any-” Bobby is cut off as he steps out of the doorway of the cafeteria, pie hitting him directly in the face as he sputters. He’s looking around wildly and his eyes catch on Alex first, then Flynn, then Luke, before finally landing on Reggie, who gives a loose fingered wave and a smile. He watches the way that it settles over Bobby exactly what this means (because after the first pie, they’ve never used pies on anyone but friends, they’ve always been a good natured prank, a sweet prank), and he watches as the anger and fear twists to wonder and Bobby looks more open than Reggie has ever seen Bobby Wilson ever look in public, and he looks so open Reggie could cry. The wonder gives Bobby his smile back and, covered in whipped cream and newfound joy, he waves back.

By some unfair deity and miracle, he’s never looked more beautiful.

“I’ll get you back for this, you know,” Bobby says, his head tilted up like he’s speaking to Alex, but he still hasn’t taken his eyes off of Reggie. Alex snorts.

“Sure, Bobbers. Just like we’ll get you back for leavin’ us for a year just because your dad told you to. Shut up,” Alex says, and the tension that’s settled over the group leaves as soon as Alex wraps his arms around Bobby, uncaring of the pie that gets on his jacket, dissipating even more as Luke joins in, dragging Julie, who is laughing, in with him, and Reggie comes too, because this is all he’s not let himself want for the past year, and he snags Flynn and Willie just because he can, making their group hug a seven person event that includes five of his closest friends, himself, and one person he’s just met. Which is awesome. He can’t imagine what it’s like to be Willie right now, hearing about them vaguely for a year and then being dragged into this, but you win some, you lose some, right?

“I am gonna get you back, you know? I wanna make that clear. And Willie, even if you think Alex is cute, you’re on my team,” Bobby says after a minute of allowing affection on his person, and Reggie can’t help his helpless laughter as the group breaks apart as Alex and Willie separate, unable to look at each other directly.

“Can’t let us have one moment, can you, Wilson?” he asks as he comes face to face with Bobby again, his eyes sliding over Bobby’s face with a near obsession. He holds himself back from reaching for Bobby, though his fingers twitch to touch him again. Bobby grins at him, biting his lip in a way that makes Reggie stare without really realizing it. There’s still whipped cream on Bobby’s forehead. He should not be charmed by this.

“We’ve already had our moment today, wouldn’t you say, Peters?” the other boy says, which sounds much more suggestive than crying in front of each other, but alright. He and Bobby had always had a somewhat flirtatious friendship, but this is… something else. Even when he wanted to… even when he and Bobby were… Jesus.

“There’s an energy here. I’d say there’s an energy here, right?” Flynn stage-whispers to Alex (who still won’t look at Willie through anything but the corner of his eye) and Julie (who is enjoying all of the energies here and is leaning against Luke, who doesn’t seem to mind at all, blushing himself), who nod conspiratorially. Reggie hates that he can feel himself flush immediately. Bobby just slings an arm over Reggie’s shoulders, kissing Reggie’s temple and making Reggie wonder quietly at how comfortable they’ve already become again.

“You hear that, babe? We’ve got energy,” Bobby says, almost directly in Reggie’s ear. Reggie hides his face against Bobby’s collar, but that only serves to put him closer to Bobby’s person, which only flusters him more, which is sincerely a vicious cycle, he must say. Carrie and her friends choose that moment to exit the cafeteria, which they’re still kinda semi-blocking the door of, which means that she sees, well, everything that’s going on right now. Reggie goes to pull away from Bobby, seeing as this is Bobby’s little sister (only a year and a month of difference, and adoptive, but, well), but Bobby holds onto his waist. Carrie looks Bobby up and down and then gives Reggie an even quicker once over, barely lingering over him before going back to her brother.

“So you’re back in with these losers? No more crying into pints of dairy free ice cream?” she says, her tone cutting and a little cold, but Reggie knows Carrie better than that. He’s known her since she was twelve, he’s seen her cry over a Little’s Pet Shop purse being out of stock, and he helped Bobby figure out pre-ordering when they were fourteen so that they could make sure that it never happened again. Bobby just gives her a smile.

“We talked it out, Care. However, you are on my team for the prank war, so I will be needing your mind,” he adds, giving her a smile that Reggie finds charming but he imagines Carrie probably finds annoying (he’d probably find something like it annoying on Michael, as is the condition of older brothers, so), and Carrie sticks her tongue out.

“Fine. But if I’m participating, I plan to win. Detach yourself from loverboy and let’s go,” she says, pursing her lips. If Reggie could stop blushing, that would be beautiful. Luke, however, has other ideas, and catches Bobby by the shoulder before he can make it down the steps. He drags him over to the side of the cafeteria like that’ll dull the sound any, and like it’s not then easy for all of them to hear every single word that comes out of Luke’s mouth.

“If you ever hurt Reg again, I’ll break both your ankles and your guitar, dude. I love you and you’re one of my best friends, we are family, but you weren’t here for the past year. You didn’t see what happened to him. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but dude, take care of yourself and take care of him,” he says, and then there’s a moment of silence, and then Bobby is shoved back into view. He looks a little shaken up, and he takes Reggie’s hand as soon as he sees him, looking at Carrie for a moment, and she nods. Reggie looks at Flynn and Julie, suddenly unsure of himself, and they both nudge him along as well, and so he lets Bobby take him down the path to the rhythm cafe, which seems to be becoming a thing for them. It’s private, which is something.

“This evening has gone very differently from the previous two,” he says in an effort to break the tension, maybe to distract Bobby from what Luke said, maybe because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Bobby squeezes his hand.

“Reg, buddy. Babe. Come on. What did he mean?” Bobby asks, and Reggie wants to linger on word choice here, he really does, but Bobby’s looking at him like he doesn’t really have a chance to linger here. Reggie takes a deep breath.

“Shit, I- things hit me hard, when you left. I closed off. Luke and Alex didn’t know what to do. Things were getting even harder at home, and Julie was letting me stay over more, and so we were hanging out more, and that’s when the music started happening, but it was hard, you know? I needed you, I guess. You needed us too, I know that now. But I didn’t then. I just knew that I needed you and you weren’t there and I didn’t think you wanted to be there either, and… I missed you a lot,” he explains, poorly, and he can’t look at Bobby when he talks, but he doesn’t feel confident enough to pull Bobby close now. He’s wiped the whipped cream off off his forehead by now, onto his hands and then his jeans, and Reggie wonders what it would be like if he could look at Bobby and not wonder what it would be like to kiss him. It’s harder to press down the thought now.

“I’m sorry I left, Reg. I love you so, so much,” Bobby says, his nose resting gently against Reggie’s own, and Reggie doesn’t know when Bobby moved so close. He doesn’t know when his other hand grabbed onto Bobby’s shirt, he doesn’t know when Bobby’s breath ghosting over his face started feeling right, and he certainly doesn’t know when Bobby’s I love you started feeling like something different than what it felt like before. But he doesn’t know. He can’t know for sure.

“I love you too, Bobbins. I love you too,” he replies, because of course he does, and Bobby rubs their noses together, smiling gently like Reggie isn’t getting something, and then he dips in to kiss him, slowly and gently, gently, gently, gently. Bobby’s hand is holding Reggie’s face like he’s something made of spun glass and sure things, like Reggie is made of everything important in the world, and Reggie’s hand stays fisted in Bobby’s shirt, his other hand with fingers clinging to Bobby’s own. They kiss slowly, like they have all the time in the world, like they didn’t waste a year not talking to each other, like they don’t have two diverging paths in front of them, like they don’t have a prank war to plan and two separate sides to be on, and like they’re not eighteen years old and they couldn’t be going much faster and making much rasher decisions.

He feels like Bobby’s taking them cruising down a backroad, holding his hand over the gearshift while they watch the trees go by. He could stay in the car forever with this boy. When Bobby pulls away, he doesn’t go far, not this time, just sets his forehead against Reggie’s and breathes.

They just breathe together, and the closeness feels like coming home.

“I’m still gonna prank you, you know,” Bobby says, because he can’t deal with one single emotional moment. Reggie gives him a brief little peck of a kiss just because he can, and he’s delighted to see how it makes Bobby blink, even given how they’ve just kissed, and he’s only doing it again.

“Wait, you’re cute. I always knew you were, but you’re, like, actually cute all the time, aren’t you? That’s sweet,” Reggie observed, surprised by self-proclaimed-at-fifteen ‘badass’ Bobby Wilson being cute when Reggie so much as kisses him, and he’s even more delighted when Bobby goes from pink to a red that rivals even Reggie’s own flushing tones. It takes Bobby a second to even be able to speak.

“Reg, I swear. Take that back. I am not- you’re cute. Not me. Don’t- I- Shut up,” Bobby trips over himself, trips over his own words, flustered, and it warms Reggie’s chest so thoroughly he feels fit to burst with it. He leans in and kisses Bobby again, never so glad as now that they’re so close in height, because it’s so, so easy to just kiss this boy who’s very, very kissable in the first place. Bobby kisses him back and pulls back just to kiss him again, and again, and then on his cheek, and then his nose, and his other cheek, and his forehead, and Reggie is laughing even though he doesn’t mean to, and this might be the best day of his life. He’s so happy he feels like he could float away, adrift with the wind, but he has Bobby still holding onto his fingers and wrapped around him, and he’s so, so happy.

“I love you,” he says again, and he’s never meant anything with more of himself. Eventually, he and Bobby have to separate and go to their own cabins, which actually means that they're going to plan their own wars, but dear God, for this moment, he’s standing too close to a boy who loves him back to think about how the night will end and the day might begin again. When they do leave each other, Bobby presses him gently against a wall and kisses him goodnight, and Reggie cups his face when he does it, just to remind him that Reggie is holding the world when he does it too. Instead of asking questions, Luke and Alex go directly into planning mode, charting the course for a few pranks and ribbing him just a little for how mussed his hair is, cracking a joke or two about sharing a bed now that he’s taken or whatever. It’s so normal that Reggie feels like he could crack right open, and when he goes to sleep in his own bed, he falls asleep easier than he has all year.

He wakes up to a new morning the next day, a bed full of silly string, and a note from Bobby.

I told you I would. Come find me?

And so it begins.

(When he remembers, he does, eventually, try to find the cabin again. He gets so far as the egg shaped rock before getting so disoriented he nearly passes out, and he decides that it simply is not worth it. He already has his miracle.)

#boggie #bobby wilson #reggie peters #julie and the phantoms #jatp #alex mercer #julie molina #luke patterson #flynn #willie #willex #juke #carrie wilson #mine #troped #i forgot to post this on tumblr

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spaceorphan18 · 4 years

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Blaine Solos Ranked

With the success of the Kurt Solos Ranked, I thought I’d see if I could do Blaine’s as well. Which has become an interesting and complicated endeavor.

First of all - there’s the whole issue of what constitutes as a solo -- especially when he often times has an entire back up group singing along with him. Things like the Warbler numbers I counted -- because he sings the lead in the song by himself. Not counted are group numbers where he is featured - such as Hey Jude and This Is the New Year. Mostly, I stuck to what Glee Wiki counts as a solo, so if you have issues, take it up with them.

Secondly, when ranking Kurt solos, I took a lot into account of how heavily the song ties Kurt’s story. While nearly all of Kurt’s solos tie in with his story, the Blaine solos don’t always do so. So, mostly this is just what I think of them.

Thirdly, the Blaine fans that I have met are, well, fairly passionate about his music, so I want to say this. There aren’t really any bad Blaine solos. Unlike Will and Tina, who were subjected to poor song choices, Blaine’s performances, across the board, are pretty stellar. So, I’d like to remind everyone that this list is pretty arbitrary and based on my subjective biases.

So going in - take the list as it is, just a fun look at how one person ranks the solos. :)

Btw - the trivia on Glee wiki says that Blaine sings 31 solos, but I only found 29 -- do they mean the two songs added to the Warblers CD? Or am I missing a couple??

29. I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You (Prom Queen)

Look at the list of Blaine solos, and arranging it to a list of things I like more than other things, this just kept sinking down and down. The biggest reason is that I just don’t like the song. Yup, that’s it. Nothing exciting about that really. But I suppose adding to that is the fact that this performance feels way more Darren than it does Blaine, and that the onscreen performance is mostly Finn and Jesse fighting over Rachel. As I said earlier, there’s nothing /bad/ about any of Blaine’s solo, I just like all the rest more.

28. Piano Man (Movin’ Out)

This is a perfectly fine albeit generic rendition of this number. So, here’s my thing about this one - when they did Piano Man in season one, not only did the song fit a bit more into context with Will and Bryan Ryan being somewhat washed up losers, there was a grittiness in not only the song but the visuals as well, and we get to do something that TV can do, which is transport us into the atmosphere of the song. By the time Blaine gets to do this number, all of that context and TV atmosphere has been kind of washed away. And this feels like a number that everyone would have fun singing at Darren’s piano bar because it’s a classic, and less because it has relevance to any of the story.

Look - a lot of these numbers are fun numbers just for the heck of it, but since they had already done this one, and since this is supposed to take place of the NYADA audition, I’m marking it down. You can do a lot with this song, and this performance, mostly, didn’t.

27. Everybody Wants to Rule the World

This is another one where I just am not a fan of the original song, and I don’t go back to listen to it very often. That said - it is super fun to see Blaine joining all the clubs and being super interactive in school, even if it’s tinged with the sadness that he and Kurt aren’t connecting much these days.

26. Bills, Bills, Bills (The Sue Sylvester Shuffle)

This one has grown on me over the years. It is a bit random - the Warblers’ singing an impromptu (and somewhat obligatory) Destiny’s Child song for the Superbowl episode. It has zero story resonance. But it is hilarious to see how much furniture Darren Blaine stands on during the number. If nothing else, the number is fun, and the Warblers look like they’re enjoying the hell out of doing it.

25. When I Get You Alone (Silly Love Songs)

This one, still, is one of the cringiest things they did on the show. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilariously ridiculous, and Blaine singing to a dude in The Gap about sex toys is just, well, something memorable. It also is getting points for Kurt’s annoyed looks and Darren’s pink sunglasses. But overall, it still makes me uncomfortable to watch.

24. Fighter (Big Brother)

So, mostly, this just isn’t a song I like all that much. Vocally, Blaine sounds fine on it - and does a decent job with it. That said, I can’t take it as seriously as I’m supposed to. There’s something I find unintentionally hilarious about this little, teenage grandpa angsting over his brother. I know it’s got the infamous shower sequence in here - and I get it, I do. But the fact that I can’t keep from giggling through it is why it’s a bit lower than the rest.

23. Against All Odds (Guilty Pleasures)

First of all, I’ve always confused by the debate about this song. It’s clearly for Sam, because Blaine’s an intense guy with intense emotions, and any song he sings for a person he has feelings for is going to be intense. Go back and watch When I Get You Alone -- that was intense for a dude he got coffee with twice. I love Blaine (and Darren) with a piano and his voice, and this is one of the ones that was performed live, so that’s cool. Not my favorite Phil Collins’s number - so that’s mostly the reason for the position here. Also not the most visually engaging. But the song is performed well.

22. Hopelessly Devoted to You (The Role You Were Born to Play)

I’ve never realized just how many angsty Blaine songs he has in his canon. It’s kind of like the equivalent of Kurt crying through his solos. He does it well, and I don’t really have any faults for this one. It’s visually entertaining as well as sounding pretty good. But not a favorite song of mine, and therefore just gets notched a bit lower.

21. Last Friday Night (Pot o Gold)

I actually really like this song, even if I’ve probably heard it enough to be fine with not hearing it again for a long time. The performance is cute - there’s a nice high energy about it (with the exception of Santana’s dower expression during the whole thing because random season 3 conflict). However, this is kind of the height of whole Jukebox Blaine thing, where he’s trotted out to sing the hot new single of the summer, and then we just stash him away in the background to sit next to Kurt platonically until he’s needed again. I like the song and the performance, but am frustrated by the gratuitous context.

20. It's Not Unusual (The Purple Piano Project)

This one is flirty and high energy and Blaine looks super cute dancing on the stairs. I don’t really have any faults for this number. But I’m not particularly emotionally attached to it, either, so so in the middle it goes.

19. Hey, Soul Sister (Special Education)

I unabashedly love this song - even though I feel like I’m not supposed to since it was way, way over played when it was popular. But I do. The performance, however, isn’t the Warblers’ best -- across the board I feel like competition numbers rarely are -- and I’d argue it’s one of Blaine’s weaker vocal performances (sorry Darren), but it’s still fun, and the arrangements for the Warbler songs have always been pretty stellar.

18. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' (Michael)

While the song itself is a bit strange, and while I’ve never been a huge MJ fan (sorry my dudes), I think this number is a lot of fun. It’s visually pretty entertaining, and I love the second half where they bring in all of the different styles MJ had donned over the years. It’s vocally pretty stagnant, so Blaine doesn’t have to do much here, but it’s about the spectacle anyway - and I enjoy what they did with it.

17. Something’s Coming

It’s always nice to hear Blaine do a Broadway number to give us a break from the mostly pop music he sings. While not Blaine’s strongest number vocally (he struggles just a little more on the Broadway ones), I love that he brings the stage alive when it’s just him singing. He’s incredibly visually engaging, and what he may lack (a little) with the vocals he makes up in energy and enthusiasm, which is always a joy to watch. Plus, there’s something particularly more attractive about early season 3 Blaine (possibly the fluffier, less gelled hair) that adds a nice touch.

16. Not While I'm Around (Bash)

Interestingly, the studio version of this song has everyone on it, and I’m so glad they let Blaine sing it on his own - because I feel it’s much more impactful that way. Not only is this the only real insight we get into Blaine’s head during this episode, but it’s raw and emotional (in a good way), and that adds to story unfolding on our screen. This might be, perhaps, the shortest number on the list, but its impact is stronger than a lot of the other numbers on the list, which is why I enjoy it a lot more.

15. Beauty School Dropout (Glease)

My favorite Broadway number that Blaine does on the show. I kind of love that there’s a lot going on during this song. Not only is Blaine doing an amazing Teen Angel, there’s the moment in the middle Blaine sees Kurt, and the layered look on Blaine’s face as he tries to hold it together is pretty remarkable. It’s one of my favorite acting moments from Darren, and one of my favorite times the story of the characters is layered over a seemingly disconnected performance. Plus, Blaine sounds fantastic on this catchy little number.

14. Silly Love Songs (Silly Love Songs)

This is one of those charming Warbler numbers that doubles as an ending feature that actually gives relevance to the story of the episode. It’s cute and sweet and flirty and fun and everyone gets something interesting to do during it. I don’t have a lot of commentary to add about it - but it’s a classic for a reason, and because of that, it deserves a higher spot on the list.

13. You're My Best Friend (Puppet Master)

I’m not sure I fully understand the casts’ aversion to the puppets (though I’ll acknowledge that it’s probably weird to perform with a puppet of yourself). That said, this number is kinda cool visually, and a nice break from what can be tedious choir room songs at this point in the series. I also enjoy the song and think Blaine sounds nice on it. Plus - Blaine totally has a backup career in children’s programming if he ever desired. It is weird that Blaine’s singing to puppets in the first place, but I do adore this one.

12. Don't Stop Me Now (Diva)

I enjoy that Blaine’s version of being a diva is just adding a leather jacket and pants to a number he performs exactly the same otherwise. Again, not much to comment on here, but I love the song, and Blaine sounds great on it, and while it isn’t hugely impactful to his story, I like that it shows Blaine being the ambitious little go-getter that he is.

11. Misery (Original Song)

This is another one of those songs that I unironically love. It is the most upbeat song about being miserable that I’ve ever heard, and while a lot of this song has to do with Kurt and his own mental state, has there ever been a more perfect song for Blaine? (well, yes but I’d digress if I went on about that.) I love so much about this song, from the choreography to Blaine’s obliviousness with Kurt as the number progresses. It’s fun and energetic and the most entertaining a subject as misery can get.

10. Cough Syrup (On My Way)

This might be the most controversial pick on the list, since I know for a lot of Blaine fans, this is their favorite number. I think it validates what a lot of people had been thinking - that there’s a lot going on underneath the surface of an outwardly peppy and energetic Blaine Anderson. And, I do like this song, and find it haunting -- it’s much different than the songs Blaine usually sings. It’s more emotional and tortured, and it’s fascinating to watch him sing his way through it. That said, the actual performance of this I rarely ever watch. It’s laid over Karofsky’s suicide attempt, and I find that sequence incredibly difficult to watch. So, while I do think a lot of the praise this song gets is completely valid, I can’t claim that it’s my favorite. I’m giving it an obligatory spot at #10 because I do think it deserves to be acknowledged as one of Blaine’s best solos.

9. It's Not Alright but It's Okay (Dance With Somebody)

Funny enough, as just a song, this isn’t one of my favorites. But I love, love what this song does. Clearly, by now I’m sure you’ve figured out, I love performances that have a lot of layers to them - and this one definitely does. There’s a great duality going on here between the awkward sadness that Blaine actually sings in the choir room versus the controlled anger that Blaine displays during his own fantasy. (It’s also one half of a conversation with Kurt that gets resolved when Kurt sings I Have Nothing later on.) I love the complexity of emotion that goes on during this one, and it remains one of my favorite performances on the show.

8. My Dark Side (Dynamic Duets)

Yes, this song is amazing! Again, another one of those performances that has a ton packed in it -- that has the additional quality of sounding and looking fantastic. I love that this song is entirely about Blaine, and where he is in his life. We get more tortured Blaine, but this time it’s in a more upbeat, pop-y song that suits Blaine incredibly well. But mostly, I love his interaction with the Warblers during it, the choreography is brilliant as they slowly start to bring him back in as their leader - and that moment where he parts them and he walks down the center reclaiming his position. There’s a lot to unpack here, as it easily meshes with the themes of the episode - of dark vs light and of heroes not always being heroic (but worth it anyway). I love when there’s deeper symbolism in a performance, and this has a ton of that.

7. All of Me (The Untitled Rachel Berry Project)

Look, it’s probably no secret that I really love Blaine (and Darren) just sitting at a piano singing. And I really love this song in general, too. Blaine’s last solo on the show (unfortunately!) is as tortured as many of the others on this list, but the thing that stands out for me about this one is its simplicity. It’s just Blaine by himself, working out how he feels about his situation through song. It’s not really meant to be heard by Kurt (or anyone else) but it’s also a shame that so rarely Blaine gets to let his real emotions be on display, which he does here. The performance is also beautifully shot, and intentionally evocative of another infamous Blaine solo that’s a little higher on the list.

6. Raise Your Glass (Original Song)

This is quintessential Warblers, and quintessential performance Blaine. This song is amazing on its own, truly. But the Warblers bring so much warmth and joy to it -- it’s such an engaging and energetic song, I often listen to it as a pick me up. No - this isn’t essential to Blaine’s character story, but I think it represents all the fun and ridiculousness Blaine and the Warblers arc brought to the show.

5. Somewhere Only We Know (Born This Way)

There’s something hauntingly beautiful about this one. Blaine (and the Warblers) sound great on it, and it’s the beginning of Blaine having a tortured and emotional underbelly to his personality. But more so, this song is about endings, and this is a turning point in Kurt’s and Klaine’s story as we say goodbye to Dalton and move on with the rest of Kurt’s journey. And it’s a dialogue between Kurt and Blaine, despite the sea of people around them, things are changing between them for better and for worse and for... just growing up, and this song encapsulates that beautifully.

4. All You Need is Love (Love, Love, Love)

Not gonna lie, this one is 100% about the context within the show. When I first heard the song, when it was released before the episode, it was kinda like - cool, Darren’s singing a Beatles cover. But the actual performance, the fact that this is essentially a love letter to the Klaine story, makes it one of the most precious and romantic numbers in the entire show. Blaine pulls out all the stops for Kurt here, and I can never just watch the performance, but always continue on to the proposal as well. It’s a beautiful performance, and a beautiful moment for Klaine and an utter highlight for the show itself.

3. It’s Time (The New Rachel)

Perhaps a number I’ve seen more than any other, I just love this number so much. Yes, it’s a good song. Yes, Blaine sounds great on it. And yes, the choreography is a ton of fun. But it’s also Blaine, very much himself, torn between being a child and growing up. There’s an unspoken dialogue between Kurt and Blaine during this song, about moving on from being stuck, and while this number is very childlike in it’s choreography, the subject matter is a little more mature -- being about moving on from the places your feel safe and journeying out in the world to be the person you’re supposed to be. There’s also a duality here -- where Blaine is stuck in the childlike land of high school as Kurt moves on to college and New York. This is another turning point in their story (as is all the songs done on these steps for these two), and I absolutely love that. But, it shouldn’t be discounted that it is a really good song that Blaine sounds really good on -- which is why it makes it one of Blaine’s best solos.

2. Teenage Dream Acoustic (The Break Up)

I’m sure that no one is surprised this at the top of the list. But what I can’t stress enough is that this is, hands down, one of the best performances done on the show period. Katy Perry’s original version of Teenage Dream is a trashy, forgettable pop song. What Darren Criss did with it is nothing short of magical. But then to bring this arrangement and add in his most phenomenal acting performance, even if it did break all of our hearts. The thing I love especially about the show version (vs the studio version) is that we get to see Blaine slowly break down and become unraveled while singing it. The performer that Blaine is starts to break down and this performance becomes an utter mess -- which makes it all the more powerful, moving, and heartbreaking. I love everything that this number chooses to be -- from exposing Blaine’s character, to the breaking of the fairy tale romance that is Klaine, to letting it be an end of one thing while the beginning of another.

Meanwhile, on another note, I’ve heard Darren sing this enough in his own performances that I have somewhat disassociated this version with the Klaine break up - but that doesn’t make this arrangement less powerful. Darren took a somewhat throwaway song and made something uniquely beautiful with it -- and that’s incredibly special, too.

1. Teenage Dream (Never Been Kissed)

I’m sure you’re gasping with surprise. But, this is no. 1 for a reason. While I think the acoustic version is better sounding (there’s just a tad too much auto tune here for reasons I’m unsure about), this number is the epitome of all Blaine numbers. It’s his introduction to the show, and so much of Blaine’s character was cultivated out of this performance. On top of that -- this performance made Kurt alive again, and it’s the beginning of a wild and beautiful story that would be the Klaine love story. It also became a major hit for the show - thrusting the music of Glee to a height that it never really could match again.

The scene is iconic and classic. The song is iconic and classic. Everything that is Blaine and the Klaine love story is wrapped up in this one. And every time I come back to it, I can’t help but smile - which is why this one remains at the top spot for me.

#blaine anderson #that's how s.o. sees it #huh #i've learned a lot about myself doing this actually #and a bit about blaine too tbh

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