#currently she is sleeping on the kitchen floor next to a bag of potatoes

[gendervapor14]

my old lady kitty says hello and thank you 🥰

#this photo is a bit of a catfish forgive me #currently she is sleeping on the kitchen floor next to a bag of potatoes #not looking particularly photogenic #but i appreciate all the support so much #blood and urine tests have yet to come back #but the vet seems pretty positive the results will be good! #she’s just got some major arthritis issues #but i think that can be managed!! as long as she isn’t in pain i’m happy #she's helped me write SO many stories #she's practically responsible for 01746 #sat on my lap during 90% of the creation process #but anyway!! THANK YOU!! #not op sorry

[aetheternity]

How to be a big brother when you've never been a big brother P2 (1k followers special)

Synopsis: In which Levi's been dating you for a year and a half and gets the news that Kuchel's pregnant.

Emergency in babysitting (cont):

Levi.."

"Hug me back." He demands you tug him in by his shoulders and he grips your shirt. Meanwhile you're also trying to keep Chance from crying again by swaying your hips. "Boys, I need to get to the stove." You say, already smelling the mashed potatoes burning.

As if you weren't struggling enough the smoke alarm blared so loud it shocked Chance back into tears. You groaned into your hand, "Levi please.. do you think you can fan the alarm?"

He pulls away from you slowly looking around the kitchen, "Grab the pot holder!" You say "Wait, I need the pot holder!"

You yank it before he can reach it and he looks back at you for some kind of instruction. Eyes glazed over with a softness you'd rarely ever seen from him.

"It's ok." You explain not completely sure on who it was directed towards. You swipe at the burning pot on the stove, pulling the lid off to give the ingredients some air while the smoke alarm continued its obnoxious blaring. "Levi, the place mats!" You point; clumsily turning the stove off.

You turn to hug a still fussy Chance in by the waist; shhing and swaying him while Levi weirdly swatted at the still screaming alarm. The alarm finally dissipated and you held Chance close kissing the sides of his forehead and running a thumb soothingly under his eyelashes. Thankful for the eventually sigh of relief that left his lips.

"There that's so much better right?" Without a second thought Levi dropped the place mat trotting over to you to bury his face in your chest. "Ugh my sweet boys what're we gonna do about this??"

You keep Levi's head resting against your shoulder with one hand carefully and gently walking both boys towards the discarded place mat. Not even bothering to fix it properly you toss it over to the table. Might as well deal with it early in the morning before Levi wakes up.

With both boys resting against a part of your body, you walk your way back to the stove sighing over the amalgamation of your struggle with both of them and too little water added to the pot.

"Chance.."

"Mashed potatoes.." He gestures, tiny fists reaching for it.

"I don't know babes it looks kinda gross." You place Chance on the counter not wanting to try to grab a utensil while holding him and Levi.

You scoot a couple feet away reaching out for a tablespoon. In the process of this a loud clatter echoes through the kitchen. You let go of Levi turning to see the disgusting mixture of mashed potatoes splattered all over the floor, Chance's pants his shoes and the counter.

Chance screamed, mouth agape, tears flowing down his face. He kicked around, voice a higher pitch then the smoke alarm minutes ago.

"Aww Chance no please don't cry." You whispered close to his ear.

"Y/N." Levi immediately tugged at your sleeve seeing your attention diverted.

Your free hand came up to run through your hair, eyebrows etched together on your face. The realization that this was probably going to be the rest of your night hit you like a freight train.

"Levi, I have to take care of Chance for a little while ok? I'm gonna give him a bath and put him to sleep then I'll be back to sleep with you ok."

Levi reached out for your sleeve again not quite as satisfied with your answer as you would've hoped.

"Right after?" He questioned, playing with the fabric.

"Yes, I promise." You reached out for his cheek and he leaned into your touch.

"I won't fall asleep, I'll wait for you." He says

You give him a little nod and he takes off towards your shared bedroom. You rock Chance softly, curling your fingers through his soft hair as his crying falls slowly into little hiccups and whines.

"It'll be ok." You whisper

"Mashed potatoes." He replies, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you search around his bag for a towel, body wash and his pj's.

"I promise I'll make you more if you let me get you out of these gross clothes."

The same gross clothes that were currently dripping mashed potato onto your once clean shirt. But that was something you could fix later. You headed into the bathroom hanging his towel next to Levi's with his kiddie bubble gum body wash on the edge of the tub, placing his clean clothes on the sink top.

"Ok can you lift your arms for me?" He did as he was told and you pulled the article of clothing seamlessly off his body and onto the bath mat he was currently sitting on. "Don't cry sweetie it's ok."

You pressed your thumb to his cheeks tracing the lines his tears had left behind. Opening the little drawer under the sink you pulled out a clean wash cloth quickly removing the rest of Chance's clothes and turning on the water for the sink.

Once you'd checked the water to make sure it was a good temperature cleaning Chance off went smoothly. You ended up splashing water on his back a lot and gently patting the shell of his ears (because it made him giggle). And the body wash smelled so good that Chance was yawning with heavy eye lids by the time you'd dried him off and gotten him into his pj's.

His fingers etched into your sleep tee, head heavy on your shoulder as you slowly but surely get him down into the crib for the night. His thin blue blanket eventually tugged into his mouth. You decide to only dim the light in case he'd wake up afraid and slightly shut the door turning the baby monitor on the dresser on.

You make your way to the stairs, stopping when you see the soles of Levi's shoes at the edge of the banister.

"Oh God, Levi!" A part of you is still trying to be quiet while another part is basically throwing caution to the wind as you kneel next to where Levi's laying on the second to top stair and a couple in between.

"I didn't fall." He mutters, squeezing the banister between his fingers.

"Oh Levi.. why didn't you go to bed?"

Levi blinks, pulling his knees into his chest. "Mm so hungry.." He huffs

"At this rate you'll eat us out of house and home." You giggle. You reach for his hand and you expect him to get up when he takes it but he doesn't move.

"Levi?"

"Why.. doesn’t Chance like me?.." You crouch to his level and he sneaks a glance at you over his shoulder. "Please don't tell me he doesn't. He smiles at Kuchel, Kenny, My step dad, you, Mikasa and even Armin and Eren. So what could I possibly be doing wrong that he already wants nothing to do with me?"

"Levi, he's only two! He doesn't know what he wants yet." You chuckle warmly hoping to break the tension. "And I know you said don't tell me he doesn't hate me but he doesn't. Who knows why he acts differently towards you but it's not hatred. He's probably conflicted because you show the least amount of affection towards him on a daily basis."

You reach out to his face stroking his hair back from his eyes. Under the thin veil of dark hair you can see the smallest shield of tears forming over his pretty grey irises.

"Really?" He exhales as if that's the best thing he's heard all night.

"Yes baby, I think he's nervous around you and he's putting up his shields. But it definitely won't last forever."

He unclenches his fingers from the banister reaching out for your arm with shaky fingers. He pushes his free hand under your arm leaning into your chest and gently presses his head to your boob.

"Are you still hungry?"

"Sleepy." He whispers, gripping you a little tighter.

You pat his knee with the hand he's not holding, "Let's go to bed then."

Chance's first day of Preschool

• You and Levi had offered to walk Chance to his first day of preschool as Kuchel and his father had to be to work earlier than normal that day.

• By the time you and Levi arrived at the house Kuchel was up and arms with supplies for work and Chance's stuff.

• It took the two of you almost twenty minutes to separate everything which you got a quick thank you for and just as soon Kuchel was out the door quickly kissing her sons goodbye followed by Chance's father.

• "Ready for you first day?" You asked Chance

• He nodded smile small with a little blush tinting his cheeks.

• He laid his head on your shoulder as you, him and Levi exited locking the door with the emergency key.

"You're coddling him again." Levi didn't fail to mention as the three of you left the house.

"I'm not coddling." You replied as you rocked Chance on your hip.

"What word would you rather describe it as?" He asked

"Well, I'm just being supportive of my favorite boy. This is his first day of preschool after all." You rubbed Chance's tummy and he snuggled in closer to you.

"Mmhm." Levi murmured 

"Are you excited?"

"Should I be?" Chance asked without missing a beat.

"Sure, I mean you're finally at the age where you can learn stuff, meet new people and finger paint. You don't have to agree but I think that's the best part."

Chance straightens looking up at you with warm eyes, "Are you staying with me?"

"No, no I'm not but Levi might." You gesture to Levi with a smirk.

"I don't want Levi, I want you." Chance huffs resting his forehead back into the crook of your neck.

"I was just kidding babes he's not staying either ok? This is just your thing. Your first experience as a lone wolf."

You snicker a little at the feeling of tiny nails gripping you a little bit tighter. You knew the reference to Chance's favorite animal would be the thing that drew him in. You give his backpack a little pat,

"Is this heavy? Do you wanna let Levi hold it for a bit?" Levi sticks his hand out as if already ready to receive the item but,

"No!" Chance reaches for the strap gripping it roughly.

"Ok ok." You replied

A couple stray hairs blew back from his face and you coaxed them down with the palm of your hand. Using the same hand you carded your fingers through his tousled bangs redirecting hair back from his face.

"Kuchel's gonna pick him up later right?" Levi asked

"Yup she wants at least one part of this experience." The entrance to the school stood as plain as day and you froze with Chance still in your arms.

"Don't tell me you're having doubts now." Levi sighed

"No, no of course not."

Chance shook his head wildly, "Wanna stay with you." He blubbered as if feeling your hesitation.

"She has work." Levi replied plainly

"Chance." You start when you see the glimpse of tears forming. "You'll see me later." You start walking again.

"Only you?"

"Me and Levi."

Chance grunts bringing the arms once wrapped around your neck to fall over his chest. "Not Levi. Just you." He whimpers

"Levi and I are together so we'll both see you. And I promise we'll ask you lots of questions about your day when you get out." Chance shook his head as Levi held the door open for the two of you.

"If you're gonna be a brat you'll see neither of us." Levi said

"Levi-"

"I don't wanna see you anyway." Chance screamed

"Chance!"

The halls were cold and you felt yourself walking just a little bit faster as you could see the light from the classroom and Chance's teacher's name embroidered on the door.

"That's enough from both of you, alright."

"Hello." The woman in charge of the class stepped into the hall. "And who might this little cutie be?"

She lowers herself so that she's eye level with Chance, smile wide and hair tied in a messy bun. You're honestly surprised when Chance introduces himself.

"Hi Chance, it's fabulous to meet you." She replies "Wanna come inside?"

Chance nods rather quickly and you let him down only for him to race inside without another word.

"He's more excited then I thought he'd be." You say

"Let's go, we have work." Levi says but he pats your back as if sensing your hesitation.

Before the two of you can actually leave the click of Chance's sneakers on the polished tiled floor makes you stop in your tracks.

"Bye Y/N!" You hear him call.

You wave, smile bright as you turn back around. Levi looks too stands as if having his own apprehensive thoughts.

"Say goodbye to Levi too!" You call to him. But he quickly vanishes sneaker sounds trailing away until it was like they were never there at all. "He says goodbye."

Levi doesn't say a word. Just guides you back through the halls the way you both came in.

An Ackerman Christmas (Sorry to all the people who don't celebrate Christmas but I also don't so this is excluding me too.):

• On the day before Christmas Kuchel had invited you and Levi over as well as Mikasa and Kenny.

• The entire drive was silent thanks to Levi being a radio hog.

• When you guys arrived Mikasa was sitting on the couch with Chance's dad and Kenny making a little holly necklace for Chance.

• You'd both been there less than four minutes when Kuchel invited you and Levi into the kitchen.

• Kuchel had the house decked out in lights, smelling like gingerbread and covered in little Santa dolls.

"Listen Levi, you're gonna hold Chance for the family Christmas card." She said handing you and Levi Santa hats. "I know you and Chance have some kind of weird sibling beef between you but it's the holidays and I want my two children to get along and take one decent photo."

You snorted, "You have beef with a five year old.."

Levi gave you a look over his shoulder, "You know it isn't my intention to constantly fight with Chance." He explains to Kuchel.

"I know sweetie but this has gone on too long. There isn't one picture of you holding Chance at all. Everyone else in our photo album has at least one picture with him in their arms."

You chewed the edge of a cookie Kuchel had handed you when you'd walked into the kitchen. "How is this picture going to be festive with a plan like this."

Kuchel sighed, running a hand through her dark hair. "Catching Chance off guard is the real plan." She says more to herself than you. "We'll do it now before everyone's eaten so that we can get some genuine smiles."

She walks out into the living room with the camera she'd taken off the table announcing the Christmas card just to be met with a long range of sighs and groans from the peanut gallery.

"Hey." You nudge Levi with your elbow. He pops his head up making eye contact with your warm smile. "Break a leg."

"Tch, that's for performances."

"Getting Chance to stay still in your arms will be a performance everyone looks forward to."

The sounds of both your shoes clicking on the hardwood alerted Kuchel who was busy pushing everyone into a small sort of formation. Eggnog promptly snatched from Kenny's hand ignoring his grunts and Chance taken from Mikasa.

When she reached for him again Kuchel jerked her head to the side gesturing to the bowl discarded on the lounge chair in the corner of the room.

"Mikasa I need you to hold that." She explained "Here Levi." With a quick kiss to both boys temples she dropped Chance in Levi's arms.

Chance wore slacks and the warmest (ugliest) Christmas sweater you'd ever seen. Though he cooperated smoothly. Holding Levi's arm as he was repositioned with Kuchel's help. His little hat almost falling over his eyes until Levi pushed the brim back up.

You stood beside Levi on his left with Mikasa standing on the far right a little bit behind him. Kenny and Chance's father just behind you and Levi as Chance squirmed a bit but that was really the only noticeable discomfort he showed.

"Ok, it's on a count down timer so I put it on 1 minute." Kuchel clapped getting into position at Chance's back. Close enough that Mikasa was still in view.

"One minute?!" Kenny groaned "Man, I don't wanna stand here that long.."

"You will stand there for one minute it won't kill you. Unlike all that drinking you do." Kuchel huffed

"Why'd you make the countdown so long??" Chance's father was next to complain.

"I don't know how to do seconds on that thing."

"Oh I do." You chimed in.

"Never mind that honey, it'll probably snap the picture while you're standing back there." Kuchel looked over her shoulder. "Mikasa, make sure to hold the bowl so the seeds are in full view."

"Seeds?" Levi asked

"She's holding a bowl full of different dyed seeds and little beads. I thought it'd be pretty."

You couldn't help but trail your eyes to Levi his smile small but so warm and sweet. Head tilted just enough that you could see every bit of the pretty glow this lighting had on his face. Perfectly accenting his cheek bones and the cool grey of his irises.

"Ok get ready guys!" Kuchel announced, leaning in just a little bit closer to Chance who you noticed had his head tilted down. Lips parted for little breaths to fall off his lips.

Before you could say a word the bright flash nearly blinded you. Your smile coming back at the last second. Two more clicks and everyone was relaxing back into their normal stature. In that same second Chance heeled over, coughing and spewing up everything he'd eaten within the past hour right onto Levi's pants and shoes.

"Oh God." Kuchel reached out for Chance lifting him into her arms as Mikasa snatched a napkin off the table to wipe his mouth. "Levi, go get a wet towel from the bathroom."

"Did he eat too many cookies?" You asked as Kuchel rocked Chance in her arms.

"I told you not to give him anymore." She huffed finger pointed at Kenny.

"He looks so cute eating them!" Kenny shrugged

"Ugh."

You ran to catch up with Levi who sat on the toilet seat in the bathroom furiously rubbing at the stains on his pants.

"Baby.." Your heels clicked as you settled onto the floor taking the wet napkin from his loose finger tips. With gentle hands you grazed the item over his knees and down to the soaked strings of his formal shoes. "It's ok, or it'll be ok-"

"I'm gonna pull the car out front." He muttered "And we can go home so I can change."

You placed the napkin at your feet. "Do you wanna come back later?"

The door peaked open and Mikasa poked her head in before quickly entering and shutting the door behind herself.

"How's Chance?" You ask biting your tongue.

"He'll be fine." She assured "How're you?"

"Covered in a little kid's vomit." Levi answered

Mikasa came closer, plopping down on her heels in front of you. "Why does Chance hate him so much?"

"Mikasa!"

Levi huffed, slumping back where he was sitting against the back of the toilet.

"I don't know." You shrugged with a laugh. "I don't know and it's like I thought it would get better I figured whatever weird grudge that kid has against Levi would eventually go away! I mean it had to right? But here we are five years after Chance was born and I'm sure if it had been anyone else holding him that wouldn't have happened."

The break in your voice made Mikasa throw an arm over your shoulder. You sighed leaning into her touch and without warning the palm of Levi's hand came down to rest on your temple.

"At some point he'll give in and the truth will come out." He says "You'll see."

Chance gets in trouble at preschool

• Somehow you and Levi had been written as the school's emergency contact instead of Kuchel

• So not only did the two of you have to head down to the school to pick up Chance but you also had to change the emergency contact information the teacher had.

"Ok Chance what's your deal today? Why'd you throw paint and that boy?" Chance didn't speak but the squeeze of his nails against the back of your hand let you know that he was listening.

"You might as well talk otherwise we're just gonna get into the car and sit there." Levi warned on Chance's other side.

"I don't have to tell you anything." Chance muttered "You're not my parent."

"When Kuchel finds out you're gonna have to talk anyway so you might as well explain." You said

"I have nothing to say to you!" Chance screamed

"Chance-"

Levi stopped you with an outstretched arm as Chance yanked his hand from yours. "Go back to work." He said plainly

"Levi-"

"I'm gonna take him to Kuchel, you need to head back to work you have paperwork to finish."

Your eyes dart between a sniffling Chance and Levi. "Are you sure?"

"Do you think I can make this situation worse?"

"You don't want me to answer that.." You giggle he sends you a blank stare. "Ok.. ok let me know how it goes later." You press a quick kiss to his cheek trying to give Chance one as well only for him to dodge you with a loud grunt. And with that you're off.

"Get in the car Chance." Levi pulls the door open gesturing to the seat.

"No!" He pouts

"Ok. I'll just send mom to come pick you up later. Maybe she'll still find you here."

Unsurprisingly Chance doesn't move when he sees Levi leave his sight and for a couple seconds after the drivers seat door shuts he still doesn't move. It isn't till Levi turns on the ignition that Chance wrenches the door next to him open. Yanks his bag off to throw it inside and hops uncomfortable into the seat next to it. Pulling his seatbelt through the loop haphazardly and needing Levi's help to click it into the clasp.

With a little bit of trouble Levi pulls out of park and smoothly drives into traffic with a slow sigh.

"Hey, mom's jobs that way." Chance mentioned tugging on his seat belt.

"You've got a smart eye." Levi replied "I'm taking you home instead."

"What for?"

"So you can spend the hours you would be at school with me instead. I already took the rest of the day off."

Safe to say Levi enjoyed the subtle bulge of Chance's already doe eyes and the huff when he realized there was no way he could get out this.

Out of force of habit Levi knocked on the front door before turning the key in the lock and pushing the heavy frame in for Chance to walk into his house.

"Put your book bag down and join me in the kitchen." Levi explained, pointing to the rack next to the door as he headed toward the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" He asked as Chance followed

"Why?" Chance asked the slight tension in his voice making Levi turn from where he'd already begun raiding the fridge for ingredients.

"I was going to make sandwiches."

"Why would you bring me here? Why're you being so nice? And why aren't you putting me on time out or something?" Words flowed out of Chance's mouth as Levi placed a sandwich right in front of him. His favorite in fact: tuna with the crust cut off and little tomatoes mixed in.

When Levi finished making his own sandwich he plopped into the seat across from Chance. "Because I've realized something about our relationship. I've never talked to you alone, I've never pulled you aside and really talked to you man to man. I only know what mom or Mikasa or Y/N have told me about you."

Chance peered down at his sandwich, tears glazing over his grey eyes. "Don't you hate me?"

"For?"

"Mom calls you less cause she's busy with me and Dad says you've never had to share her cause you grew up as an only child.."

Levi yanked a couple napkins from the center of the table, patting Chance's wet cheeks.

"I don't know if you've noticed but Kuchel loves being a mom. And when she had you she had this glow to her that I haven't seen since I was kid. You're the reason for that."

"Then.. don't you hate me.. for how much trouble I cause you?"

Levi lets his gaze flicker away as if he's thinking only to make eye contact with Chance again. "I don't but the way you treated Y/N today was unacceptable, you owe her an apology because she's done nothing but love you since the moment you were born and before that."

"Ok.."

"Hey." With his thumb under Chance's chin he coaxed Chance's face back towards him. "Let's not wait until you get in trouble at school to do this again."

Once Chance had finished his sandwich Levi had automatically done a half house inspection. Cleaning up any clothes left on the floor, wiping down counter tops and with Chance's help sorting clothes that were going to go in the washing machine.

By the time they'd finished Kuchel was walking through the door seemingly tuckered out but still managing to tackle her when she came in the door.

"Chance? Levi?"

"Rough day." Levi explained

"So that's what your father was on about on the phone." She directed her attention to Chance as she held him up. "I'm so sorry you had to call off work for this." She said, pressing a soft kiss to Levi's cheek.

"I wanted to do it." Levi replied

Kuchel turned her attention back to a guilty looking Chance. "And you, why'd you throw that paint on that boy."

"I just.. he.. he was telling me about his older brother in the sea."

Kuchel turned to Levi with an eyebrow raised, "Deployed Marine." He patiently explained

"And.. he was saying that when his brother was home him and his family would do everything for him and his brother would take him fishing and to the movies and and.." Chance sniffed

"Sounds like jealousy to me." Kuchel sighed rubbing the back of her son's head. "You know you have to apologize right?"

"Yes, mommy."

"Thank you again Levi." Kuchel smiled warmly the lines of her face slowly beginning to relax.

"Thank you Levi." Chance whispered

With a nod and a small pat to Chance's back Levi was off climbing into his car with a long exhale. Before he could start it though the buzz of his phone caught him off guard and he wiggled it from his pocket opening the notification immediately.

How'd it go?? Y/n asked with praying hands accompanying the text.

We bonded like you wanted was all he sent back.

#levi x reader #levi attack on titan #levi ackerman scenario #levi ackerman headcanons #levi ackerman x reader #mikasa ackerman #kuchel ackerman #levi ackerman x y/n

[lazarettta]

Misthios V

Pairing (Mother Miranda x Spartan!Reader)

Rating (T)

Word Count (1.9k)

Warning (Language)

You spend your morning with Alcina and her daughters while Miranda deals with Karl and Village business.

By the time the sun had begun to peak over the mountains you'd already made yourself at home on one of the balconies of the castle with a woven basket full of croissants and mason jar full of freshly squeezed orange juice. You'd been snooping in the kitchen looking for a snack when you found the partially hidden side door. It was shielded by produce crates and bags of potatoes—you guessed it was an old service door or something, and it was probably what the help around the castle used to sneak around the castle grounds while their Mistress sleeps.

You certainly did. You took a trip to town on a whim and you were bored. You didn't have anything on you in terms of currency but you weren't one to rely on some currency to get you by as there was always a favor or two to be traded. New era, same tricks and it never failed you once. Most of the village was still asleep when you strolled through but the few farmers you saw tending to their stocks gave you less than friendly looks but you didn't take any offense. You were new and places like this didn't take too kindly to a new face, especially a young new face.

Hell, the woman in the bakery shop by the church wasn't very fond of you either until you revealed that you understood every word that she said. She turned into a different person and suddenly you weren't much of a stranger anymore, by her standards anyway.

By the time you found your way back to castle Dimitrescu, you had bruised knuckles, a basket full of goodies you probably shouldn't be eating and a decent knife now warming the holster in your boot. It wasn't tactical or as balanced as you liked but you felt a hell of a lot better with it than you did a few hours ago without it.

You had no idea who's bedroom you'd invaded to get to the balcony though you didn't really care, you saw a plush chair that was only just covered in ice and the cushions were only just a little wet, shockingly.

And that is exactly how Alcina found you, and she wasn't alone. Trailing behind her bundled up even more than you with the hood pulled up over her blonde head was a young woman with eyes that matched Alcina's. Curious that she didn't get her mother's height though—she was probably around your height, give or take.

“You missed breakfast, dear.”

“Didn't think you'd send a hunting party for me,” you smiled but in truth you hadn't realized how much time had passed since you got back to the castle. Between stuffing your face full of bread you hadn't really had in years and well, yeah, you definitely lost track of time. Thankfully there were still a few pastries left in the basket for you to offer to Alcina and who you assumed to be one of her daughters.

The girl's eyes hadn't left you since she first saw you—you knew when you were being studied but for the moment, you were too tired to actually care but not tired enough to drop your guard with these people.

Alcina waved away your offering as she took a seat in the other chair, obviously as unbothered by it's less than ideal conditions as you were but her daughter graciously scooped up a buttered croissant before leaning against the rail, her back to the gorgeous view behind her. She was probably used to seeing it and you certainly weren't a stranger to such joys either but you never really grew bored of them.

“(Y/n), this is Bela, my eldest daughter. Also my successor should anything ever happen to me.”

“Mother, stop it. Nothing will ever happen to you.” You watched as Bela ducked her head, but she wasn't blushing, she turned to you, pushing the hood back from her face slightly but she didn't say anything.

Alcina pulled her cigar holder from somewhere on her dress she was currently wearing, and pointed down at the basket sitting on the small table between you three, “It's not safe to roam around on these roads at night.”

You shrugged, “I can take care of myself, Lady Dimitrescu. A few wolves don't really scare me.”

“There are far worse things out there than death, (Y/n).”

You scoffed, laughing a bit much to the dismay and surprise of the Lady and her daughter, “I've been around long enough to know how true and wise that statement is, but I'm far too old to be scared by it anymore.”

Bela looked at you curiously, “But you don't look a day over thirty, (Y/n).”

You bit back another laugh, picking at the pastry still sitting on the napkin on your thigh. Well. You weren't going to be getting any answers if you didn't give any yourself. “Who do you think Miranda got her skin care treatment from?”

You looked up when the other two balcony occupants were quiet for too long and you realized that they were both staring at you with equally unreadable but different expressions. Though Alcina's hat always made it impossible for you, or anyone else, to gauge her moods and reactions.

“What?”

“You're being serious?” Bela asked, both of her eyebrows disappearing beneath her loose hair.

“Yeah, seriously. I met Miranda back when she was ruling her first kingdom. She thought I was a fucking Viking for the longest time.” Miranda is going to murder you and find a way to make it permanent.

“You're joking. Mother, the mortal is joking...isn't she?”

“Mortal?” you finished your breakfast and wiped away the crumbs, “I haven't been called mortal for a very long time, but now that we've all established that no one on this balcony is of average stock...”

“We can really talk.” Alcina finished as you trailed off, taking a very long and heavy drag while giving you another once over, slower this time as if she was going to find the answers to whatever she was wanting to know. She glanced at her daughter and sighed when she saw her starting to tremble a bit.

“Bela go inside and get your sisters.” Alcina said softly but her tone still held no room for argument and you could tell that Bela wanted to protest against her mothers wishes, “Have tea prepared and brought to the study.”

“For everyone?”

Alcina smiled a bit, “Yes, dear, for everyone.”

When Bela was around the corner and well out of earshot, Alcina brought her attention back to you. And you looked back, waiting for her to ask or say what was on her mind.

“What era?”

“The Peloponnesian war. I'm the last living Spartan on Earth.”

Miranda neatly folded away the paper the moment she heard the ceremony doors opening. Miranda sighed heavily when she heard Karl’s mouth down the corridor—the man's need to chatter (and argue) never ceased and Miranda was positive she would be leaving this meeting with a migraine. She'd rather be doing something more productive with her time…working on her own research, cracking you like an egg or maybe even trying a new recipe for a change.

It wasn't long before Karl burst through the doors, his prized hammer resting on his shoulders and a cigar between his teeth and in his other hand was a satchel that was holding something it wasn't designed to carry. The grin he wore grew when his eyes landed on her and Miranda sighed inaudibly behind her mask.

“Well,” he purred, sitting on the bench he normally claimed and set his hammer down next to it, “If it isn't the woman of the hour! How kind of you to meet with me today.”

Miranda didn't care too much for his charming tone—his charisma was impressive but Miranda had never been a true fan of it, and Alcina outright hated him forcing Miranda to often play the role of a mediator every time there was a faction meeting which almost always ended in chaos and bloodshed. Thankfully it was only once or twice out of the month unless it was an emergency.

“Your message said that you have something of importance to show me, Lord Heisenberg, get on with it.”

“Oh, someone's testy today,” he mumbled under his breath but just loud enough for her to catch his words and Miranda's jaw clenched, “As requested, one head of a troublesome villager only searching for his beloved little girl. Maybe do your job and tell that supersized bitch to keep her brats on a leash next time.”

The satchel landed on the floor at Miranda's feet. Miranda's eyes narrowed in his direction, barely glancing at the satchel that narrowly missed touching her, and Karl felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise alarmingly fast, “Do not forget your place here, Heisenberg.”

Karl snarled but he quickly conceded—he's proved himself to be the biggest Alpha in the region time and time again but he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could challenge Miranda evenly. Miranda relented, accepting his surrender but she didn't buy it, she never did.

“All I'm sayin' is that we don't hunt in the village for this very reason—”

“I understand that, Heisenberg. And it's been taken care of. Lady Dimitrescu will see that it never happens again.”

Karl grumbled but thankfully he didn't push, this time, “There's something else too that I think you should know. There's a stranger in the village, probably owns that cute little camp my lycans tore apart a few miles outside of town.”

That caught Miranda's interest though she did not let it show—it wouldn't do to have a man like Karl have even the slightest bit of leverage over her. He was still too useful for her to kill.

“A stranger?”

“Yeah,” he smirked, relighting his cigar and taking a long pull, “Tall, real tall and quite a looker too...I'm here to officially claim her. If she's as tough as she looks, I'll—”

Miranda's wings fluttered when those words left his hairy lips, he didn't have to go into detail for her to know who he was talking about and Miranda felt the edges of her claws trying to grow beneath the veil of her dark wings.

“No.”

“No!?” he sat up quickly, setting both of his feet down on the ground, “What do you mean no?! Aren't those your laws for fresh meat?!”

“Yes, and that woman is off limits. Defy my word, it will not end well for you. If that is all Lord Heisenberg, I will see you this Friday at the faction meeting.”

“You gave her to that zombie in the castle didn't you!” he called after her when Miranda transformed into a flock of birds and left through the rafters.

Karl pulled his hammer to him as he jumped to his feet and he destroyed the bench he was previously sitting on but Miranda was already gone by the time the splinters where she had once stood, “I never get anything nice around here! Always scraps this and scraps that ever since that bitch took over!” he turned and threw his hammer, nearly slicing a pillar in half and he was half transformed before he caught himself.

Karl dusted himself off with one hand while the other brought another cigar from an inside pocket of his oil stained coat and picked up his hammer on the way out of the ceremony room, his temper simmering down. He took one last look at the damage he caused, and smirked.

“Have fun cleaning this up, mother. ” He didn't care what she said, the woman in the village he saw this morning was his game.

#resident evil 8 #mother miranda x reader #mother miranda #assassins creed odyssey #the old guard #resident evil village #lady demitrescu #dimitrescu family #reader is a spartan

[hermankopusortizorsumshite]

You were part of SWAT, mainly partnered with Luca. Hondo always sent you two together. You were fond of the big blonde, often hanging out after work. When he comes into the squad room with a duffel bag.

“I need a room.” His blue eyes were tired, you could tell, but he still grinned.

“A room? Like a night?” You ask, eyeing him.

“I mean, yeah, a night or two.” He chuckles, heading to the lockers to change and get ready. You headed in and grabbed your uniform shirt, pulling it on and buttoning it.

“Well I mean, you can stay with me for a few days if you want. If you don’t mind dogs, of course. Achilles is pretty chill.” You smile, pulling on your work boots before disappearing.

The end of the day comes soon enough, Luca hopping on his bike, driving to your place. You invited him in, offering him your spare bedroom. The futon with a new mattress was enough for him, a smile on his face.

“I’m gonna start dinner, you got a preference?” You ask as you head into the kitchen.

“Nah, it’s cool. Thanks again for letting me stay.” He smiles as he sits at your island, taking the sharp knife from you and slicing the items for the salad. You went to work on the chicken, searing it on the dry frying pan. Luca chuckles, grabbing the pan from you. “Here, let me help you. First, turn this down, too high burns the outside, dries out the chicken. Second, pour a tiny little bit of water into the pan, keep the chicken moist.” He gives her her very own cooking show.

“Tell you what Luca, you cook. I’ll do the dishes. Show you a thing or two about scrubbing pans.” You smile, letting him take over and you head to the living room to turn on your stereo. Plugging in your iPod you play some R&B, Baby Bash’s ‘Cyclone’ comes on and you start to swing your hips a slow circle. Twisting your body in a circle as you grab the blanket off the couch and toss it to the chair. Luca watches with a smile as he watches your tantalizing hips as they swing in slow sensual circles, moving like an experienced dancer.

“Hey! Dinner’s done!” He calls as he makes your plate with chicken breast, golden brown, a baked potato, and a little salad, complete with silverware and ranch.

“Thanks. Hey! You okay after that fall today?” You ask, waving him to the couch.

“Yeah, I’m good. Tan was quick to make sure I didn’t sprain anything.” He smiles, taking a bite before landing on the couch next to you as you jam and eat. He’d been there multiple times and you fell in a comfortable silence, Luca disappearing only to reappear with a couple beers.

“My hero.” You gasp, clasping your heart and taking a big drink from the cold bottle. He chuckles, his arm resting against yours, sharing just enough heat to be comforting.

“Hey, thanks again. I know I can be a bit much for most people.” Luca murmurs, catching you off guard.

“What?” You ask, sitting the beer on the table with your empty plates.

“I’m a bit much. Too loud, too annoying, too much. Thanks for letting me stay.” He smiles before taking another drink.

“Dominique Luca, we’ve worked together enough that I’m used to you. Whoever said those things about you, I’ll cut ‘em.” You growl. He chuckles at your response. You supposed you and Luca were pretty close friends. He often hung out after work, and you knew just what to say to make him smile.

“Easy there, John Wick.” He laughs, slinging an arm lazily around your shoulder in a gentle, friendly hug. His arm was so warm and his presence was so comforting, so badly drawing you to him. You wanted to curl up against him and kiss his sweet pink lips. Shaking your head, you clear your throat and taking a drink from your beer.

“I’m serious, Luca. You’re a lot, sure. But I wouldn’t want to share this little apartment with anyone else on that team.” You smile, patting his knee as you take a sip from your beer.

Two months in, Luca was still sleeping in your spare room. You got pretty used to him living with you. Skipping into the house, you grab his doorknob, hearing a small whimper and then a loading thumping.

‘Oh shit!’ She mouths, backing away from the door. Jealousy struck her hard, thinking about how just yesterday they spent the whole day in each other’s arms laughing and surfing. He’d been teaching you how to board so you could join him at five in morning. Heading into your room and changing into a pair of denim shorts and a cropped tee shirt, you stuff your feet into converse and head out the door. Your feet carry you to a bar on Seventh, ordering a strong rum and coke. You pull out your phone, swiping through the pictures of you and Luca having fun doing various activities.

“Hey! What are you doing here? Isn’t it like, official Luca and Riggs hang out time?” Street crows as he walks up, sitting on the vacant stool next to you. You’d finished your third shot of whiskey by now, feeling warm and heartbroken over someone who didn’t even know how you felt.

“He’s currently banging some chick in my spare bedroom.” You spill, taking another shot.

“Oh shoot, I’m sorry. He ditch you or something?” He asks, ordering a coke.

“No. I shouldn’t even care. But I do, man. I care a lot. He’s always been so sweet to me. And since he was teaching me to surf, I thought that meant-“

“That he likes you. Shit Riggs. I’m sorry. I could talk to him?” He offers, pulling out his phone. You were pretty drunk when you stood up, wobbling back and forth, grabbing Street’s leg as support. “Hey, let me drive you home.” He assures, helping you to his car and putting you gently in the passenger seat, buckling you in. “Hey Luca! You busy?” He asks into the speaker of his cell as he pulled up to your apartment building.

“Nah, why? What’s up?”

“Riggs is toast. She’s in my passenger seat right now. Wondered if you could carry her up the stairs.” He murmurs, letting you groan and grab his arm, cuddling against him.

“Yeah, shit. I’ll be down in a minute.” He appears at the door, worry in his furrowed brows. He pops open the door, scooping you so carefully from the car’s seat and carrying you up the stairs. Getting you through the door, he carefully puts you in your bed, pulling off your sneakers and covers you up.

In the morning, you were up and out the door by five thirty in the morning. Your smoothie in your hand, you were taking a drink when Luca came strolling up with a big grin.

“Man, you had a good night last night, huh?” He asks, nudging you with his elbow so playfully. You were a little confused but you shrugged. You weren’t in the mood for his Luca antics this morning. You had a hangover and crap ass attitude. He put on the boxing pads, getting into the ring. You took it entirely too serious. Your fists hit back and forth, volleying between his at hand over hand. You switched to left, left, right, then the opposite. You were so mad at him, you almost hit him in the face. You stopped, glove inches from his face, his blue eyes wide pools of fear.

Yanking off the gloves, you jump down from the ring. Your eyes meet Street’s and you two had a conversation with your eyes.

“What the hell happened?” Luca asks, eyes flicking between her and Street. Her eyes pleaded with the younger boy.

“Just mad that I got so drunk last night. Did you see that listing for the apartment at the adjacent building to ours?” You ask, pulling a folded paper from your duffel and stabbing it into the big blonde’s hand. He looked a little hurt. You disappear, changing your clothes into work shirt and pants.

“Hey, you want me to move out?” He asks as he steps into the room after her.

“Christ, Luca. I’m not talking about this here.” She growls, jamming her shirt into her pants and tightening her belt.

“Well, I guess I’m confused. I thought we were cool living together. I mean, we split everything. Isn’t it cheaper for you?” He asks.

“Yeah, sure. But you can’t put a price on privacy.” She hisses, eyes dark circles of anger. He was confused, had he done something wrong?

“Alright, sorry. I’ll be out by tonight.” He assures, turning pale and disappearing.

Luca saw Street and jogged to catch up with him.

“Hey! Can I ask you something?” He inquires as he takes a deep breath.

“What’s up?”

“Did she say anything at the bar last night? She’s so mad at me, and I can’t figure out why.” His fingers absently twiddled nervously.

“Mentioned something about a girl.” Street shrugs, kicking himself. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Oh. Shoot. She wasn’t supposed to be home until like seven. I figured we had time—oh my god. She likes me” He mutters, eyes wide.

“Yeah, I mean come on. She’s letting you teach her how to surf. The girl afraid of deep water.” Street chuckles.

“How’d you know about that?” He asks, narrowing his eyes on the young man.

“She mentioned it. At the bar.” He whispers, shoving the door open and a heading to squad brief.

At the end of the day, you head home without a word to Luca. When he got there, he found you slamming around the kitchen, making something to eat. With a soft chuckle, he carefully approached and grabs your hands. With a dark look up at him, you yank them away.

“Did you see the place on Tenth? Right by that beach you love so much?” You bite, shoving another listing across the island at him. He found it rather irritating.

“What’s your problem?” He asks, eyes begging you to tell him what he’d done. With a heavy sigh, he shrugs. “See? I always do this.” He mutters, heading towards his room.

“Luca, you’re fine.” You whisper, itching your shoulder before stalking to the living room. You started to pace the carpeted floor, making Luca dizzy.

“What’s wrong then?” He asks, softly.

“Nothing. It’s stupid.” You shove a hand in the air and roll your eyes.

“Riggs-“

“I think I like you. I mean, for Christ’s sake look at you.” You wave a defeated arm at his figure. He glanced down at himself, moving his arms from crossed over his chest. He found what he always found, a wide, broad chest, a white tank top, basketball shorts. He looks back to you half-confused.

“What does that even mean?” He asks, stepping a couple steps closer to you.

“What? Luca. You’re gorgeous. Holy shit. Something in my soul is always hunting for you. When we’re at work, I always look to make sure you’re in the room. When we’re here we spend every waking minute together. When I’m not with you, I want to be with you. When I’m with you, I can’t get enough of you. Those pretty blue eyes, Luca. They kill me. You kill me. I’d do anything for you. I’m sorry, I was just so jealous when I —“ He took a deep breath, grabbing his jacket and heading out the door. He needed to breathe. This couldn’t be happening. You, his closest friend as of late, the person he held most nightmares away from, had actually fallen totally in love with him. “Luca-“ He shuts the door, heading down to his bike and flying to the beach. The water lapped at his feet as he walked through the water, thinking about you. The way he loved when you fell asleep curled under his arm. He loved the way you smiled at him from across the squad room. He craved keeping you safe, your safety his number one concern. He found it comforting the way you played house so well together, you doing dishes and him cooking. As he took a step forward, he almost fell.

“Christ, I’m in love with her. Holy shit!” He runs to his bike, hopping on and zooming away to the apartment. As he tumbled through the door, he found your apartment missing you. He searched high and low, but to no avail. He groaned. You probably thought he didn’t reciprocate the feelings. You were probably crying somewhere. He felt his heart pound slow and heavy. He got to the squad gym to find you slamming relentless punches into the punching bag. He cringed, knowing you were probably imagining him. He crept up, careful not to scare you, and found your face bright red and puffy, cheeks wet with tears.

“Go home, Luca.” She whimpers, pushing at his chest, trying to get away from him.

“No. Listen to me.”

“No, please. I understand. I do, and I’m sorry for putting you on the spot.” You mutter, trying to leave the room. His arms trap you, holding you tightly against him.

“When I tell you, that I needed a second to think about everything you said, that’s what I needed. Christ, Riggs. You’re beautiful and so out of my league. I’m lucky just to be sharing an apartment with you. I’m so sorry for bringing some chick there. It almost felt like cheating, didn’t it?” He whispers, pulling your chin up to meet his sweet gaze. You gave a weak nod. “I’m so sorry for putting you through that. I just, when you didn’t come home that night, I was so worried. And finally when Street called, said you were passed out in his car. I was relieved. I carried you up to bed, made sure you were okay. I loved every second of it. I want to carry you to bed, drunk or not, for the rest of our lives. I love you, Riggs. I never thought I’d mean it the way I do, but damn. I love you.” He smiles, rocking you two back and forth. You were now grinning and crying. “I hope those are happy tears.” He smiles, swiping them away with the pad of his thumb before grabbing your face and kissing your lips. Right there with a dozen officers as witnesses, you two couldn’t find a better place.

“I love you too, Luca.”

#imagine #cute imagine #luca imagine #dominic luca #dominique luca imagine #luca swat #dominique #luca #swat imagine #dominique luca #dominic luca imagine

[blkgirlcafe]

Home PT. 4

Viktor Drago x Cyra (Black OFC)

Cyra (Ky-Ra) -Sun or throne

Kazimir (Kah-Zee-Meer) - Bringer or Announcer of peace

Viktor Drago is married to the love of his life, they have a 5 year old son. He is willing to do anything to keep them safe.

Warning: Kidnapping, abuse, mentions of child abuse

Flashback 2

Viktor watched her everyday, he hoped it did not come off creepy but she was different and so pretty. If Ivan caught his eye wondering he would smack  him back into focus. Ivan had given him a break, he was sitting on the floor, with his water, protein bar and fruit, watching her. She was on the treadmill, going a good pace. He couldn't help but look at her butt, it was so shapely, more than the other women from this area. 

She stopped running, using a towel to wipe her face. She cleaned the equipment, never once taking off her headphones. Viktor watched her mouth the songs, he wondered what she was listening to too. 

She began to walk his way, maybe she was leaving, she had only been here 30 minutes. In horror he realized she was walking towards him, she was smiling at him. He quickly swallowed the bite of food in his mouth, chasing it down with a big gulp of water. 

“You know if you are going to stare at me, you could come say hi.” she smiled. 

“I’m Sorry, I didn't mean to.” he mumbled, letting his head fall. 

“It's fine kinda, I’m Cyra, nice to meet you.” she held out her hand. 

Viktor scrambled to get up, drawing a giggle from her. He shook her hand, “Viktor, nice to meet you.” 

He said the name a few times in his head, not trusting himself to say it just yet. She licked her lips and he caught himself staring, looking away. 

“Povernutysya do roboty!”Ivan yelled at him. (Back to work!)

Cyra jumped and Viktor hated it, hated that she felt scared. Without a word he turned back to the punching bag.

Viktor picked Ivan up from the airport, he had not seen his father in over 7 years. When he left the Ukraine to be with Cyra. His dad told him he would regret it, that it was a mistake, that no one would love him like he did, and that he belonged in his country, fighting for it. 

But the love and acceptance he found with Cyra, with her family, the warmth, was a million times better than he could have dreamed of. He got up everyday happy, he felt whole, he truly smiled. 

“Have you talked to them?” Ivan asked.

“Today no, yesterday I did, just a little bit so I know they are still alive.”

“Then there is hope.”

“Why do you owe him 500k?” Viktor asked, turning into the driveway of his home. Part of him wished Cyra's car was  parked outside the garage like usual. He never understood why they had three garages and she always parked outside the door unless it was raining. When Viktor came home he would always put her car in the garage. 

“I made some bets, I didn't win.”

“So this is what you do now, you bet on fights?” Viktor was pissed off. 

“What else am I supposed to do, you left me.” Ivan shot back. 

Viktor got out, slamming the door behind him. Unbelievable, no matter what his dad would find a way to blame him. His mom left, somehow his fault, he lost a fight, his fault, he won a fight, not his fault. 

He put his phone on the kitchen charger, as obsessed Cyra was with phones, she had chargers all over the house. She wouldn't let his phone slip below 80% in fear of a missed call. His thoughts kept going back to his wife and child. 

“Nice place you got here. How much does it cost you?”

“None of your damn business, you can sleep in the guest bedroom, as soon as this is over you are on the first flight back home.”

“If I want to see my grandson?”

“You don't deserve to, you are the reason he is in this mess.”

“We will pay him and this will be over?” Ivan said. 

“We? You don't have a dime to your name and he doesn't want money.”

“Well what does he want?”

---

As far as Cyra could tell that they were here for 3 days. They were fed 3 meals a day, and they currently were on their 3rd dinner. Kazi seemed a little happy with his french fries and chicken nuggets. Their captors had bought kazi toys, she guess they got tired of his whining. 

They gave her nothing to occupy her time, it was driving her crazy. The door opened and the guy called Andriy mentioned for her to come here. Kazi stopped eating, sensing the shift in the room. 

“Mama be back baby.”

“Ok Mama.” he sat there, watching her leave. The door was closed and locked behind her. 

She was sitting on a couch, given her phone and told to facetime her husband, she did eagerly wanting to see his face, just to know everything was alright. He picked up quickly and Cyra smiled despite herself, she missed her husband. 

“Baby are you okay?” he blurted out and the phone was snatched from her hand. 

“She is fine, just finishing up dinner. I believe Kazi loves his dino nuggets. Is Ivan there?”

“Yes.” 

“Give the old man the phone.” 

Cyra watched with tears in her eyes, she wanted to see him so bad, to hear him say it was going to be okay. He was her rock, the only thing that made her feel better when shit was tough. 

“Ivan, nice to see you, especially since you've been ducking me and my men.”

“Wasn't ducking, just getting my affairs in order.”

“Did your son tell you what I want?”

“Yes, he will do it.”

“Of course he will, because you know two lives mean nothing to me.”

“Yes I know.”

“And I still want my money.” Andriy handed her the phone back, Ivan face way too close to the screen. 

“You have two minutes.”

Viktor came back into view, “Where is Kazi?”

“In the room babe, he's fine, we are fine.”

“Are you hurt, can I see him?” 

“I don't think that best baby, he has been crying for you since we left, he sees you. I wont get him calm again.”

A tear slid down her cheek, it was tearing her up to tell him no. She wanted nothing more than to have her boys back together. 

“Cyra I love you so much, I will do anything to get you two back here.”

“I know baby, I love you too.”

“Say bye.” Andriy said to her. 

Cyra teary eyed said goodbye. She was escorted back to her room, Kazi was laying on the bed crying. 

Cyra went to him, picking him up, trying to sooth him. 

“It's okay baby boy, mama wasn't far, right there, I would never leave you.”

----

Flashback 3

Their first date happened by accident. Cyra was running late to the gym, a study group ran super late, then she needed to do laundry before it closed. But she was determined to at least get her mile in. It was cold and dark by the time she got to the gym, lucky her it was open late. Not many people were left in the gym, a few stragglers like herself. She hopped on the treadmill and set a steady pace, being in a rush had Cyra had forgotten her headphones. 

She finished her mile and realized she was alone in the gym. She quickly grabbed her bag and hoody, heading towards the door. Waiting by the front desk was the giant Viktor. 

“Hey Vik.” She smiled at him.

He shyly looked away, mumbling a hi. She made it outside, throwing her hood over her head. 

“Hey, you walking home?” Viktor stopped her. 

“Yeah, I was going to get food first, want to come?” she smiled. Cyra watched the decisions play over his face, he didn't say much but his face did. 

“Sure if it means you aren't walking home alone in the cold and dark.”

“Well come on, my treat since you want to be a gentleman.” she bumped his arm with his shoulder, he didn't budge at all. 

They ended up at a local place not far from her shared apartment, the table was small, her and Vikor close together as the food was bought out. Cyra did most of the talking, Viktor listened and gave little input here and there, but he mostly was content with listening to her. 

“”Tell me something random about yourself?” she said, grabbing a potato pancake from his plate, he smiled at the action.

“I don't have anything, sorry.” he looked away. 

“Vik, if we are going to be friends you gotta stop saying sorry, don't be sorry for who you are.” she nudged his thigh. 

“Sor...I mean ok. I like silent films.”

“I can see that, you are like the strong but silent type, it fits you.”

Viktor felt like he was drowning, in a good way. She smelled great, her touch was soft, he was not used to these things. He was used to a smelly gym, with men with rough hands that threw hard shots. 

“I should get going, I do have class in the morning, and I am sore.”

“You are sore because your form is bad.”

She gasped and Viktor thought for a second she was upset for a second until a grin broke out on her face, “Wow, everyone can't be a pro like you, maybe show me one day the right way.” 

Cyra paid the check, which he felt bad about, he would get the next one he told himself. He walked her home, saying goodbye when they reached her apartment. He stood outside watching her go in, hoping she would be okay. 

He quickly made his way home, knowing that Ivan would be upset with him for being out too late, they got up at 4am to start training.

----

Cyra has been gone 5 days, his son gone 5 days, it was driving him crazy. Normally this close to a fight he tried to take it easy, doing light workouts, watching film, mentally preparing himself for battle. But this was different, he called his manager and had a press conference schedule for today. 

Viktor was doing this for his wife and child, he closed his eyes, he could see them. He could see Cyra and her soft smile,  the way she smiled at him. He could see Kazi and his unruly hair, bouncing all over the room, wanting to touch everything. His manager came back into the room, interrupting his daydream. 

“You sure you want to do this, this isn't like you, and you look like shit. Where is Cyra?”

“I have to do this, Cyra and kazi are with her family out of town.”

“She has always been by your side and now she goes out of town, not like her bro. We go on in 5 mintues. Want to tell me why your dad is here?”

“Support.”

“Bullshit Vik and you know it, something not right, there is something you aren't telling me. Did Cyra leave you?”

“What?! No!” he sighed. 

“Then what is it, because I swear on everything I love I have never seen you like this before.”

“Just drop it, Let them know I am ready.”

Viktor paced the room, he had ditched his normal gym attire for a dark blue suit, with a red tie. Cyra had picked it out for him, it was supposed to be for the press conference that happened 24 hours before the fight. 

The guy interviewing him wasted no time, jumping right in.

“Viktor Drago, to say I am surprised is an understatement, you usually are very quiet before a fight, why the sudden change?”

“I think I have proved myself enough that I can brag and be boastful, gone are the quiet days. Every person you guys have put before me, I have won against. Now it is time for me to talk my shit. I will beat Jaun lopez ass, just like I did everyone else before me.”

“This new Big Nasty, I love him. You are a champ and deserve to talk about your accomplishments.”

“I won lose this fight, I will prevail.” Viktor stood up, mimicking the ignorant stance he had seen other boxers take before walking off. He quickly made his way back to the room, locking the door behind him. He slid to the ground, hyperventilating. 

----

They let Cyra watch and she was sick the whole time, this was not like her husband. She couldn't believe that her son and herself were being held captive over a boxing match. It made her mad that these people thought her son's life was worth so little. They threw her back in the room afterwards, whenever they pulled her out Kazi always cried, she sat next to him, gently stroking his hair. 

“Mama, I heard Tata here?”

“No Sweetie I wish,he was on TV, the bad people made me watch.”

His tears flowed harder, this was the most seen ever song cry. Her Kazimir, her maker of peace, was always giggly and smiley, he always had a fun fact to share. He was a Daddy’s boy, preferring to hang on to Viktor's side when he could. His dad took him to the gym often with him, they spent countless hours together, without her. 

She knew being a father was so important to Viktor, he was intent on being the best dad he could be. His own spoiled relationship with his dad ensured he did everything different. He encouraged Kazi interest outside of sports, not pushing him like Ivan did to him. 

“Tata wouldn't leave us.” he cried. 

“I know baby and he didn't, he is looking for us, the bad people are keeping us hidden, like a game of hide and seek, tata will find us.”

“I don't like them.”

“Me either Kazi, they are so mean and stupid.”

“Mama bad word.”

“It's okay Kazi, in cases like this we can say bad words.” 

Her son perked up, he was never allowed to say bad words, words like stupid, ugly, were not allowed, he had to find others words to replace those.

“Can I say one mama.” he looked up at her teary eyed. 

“Yes baby, just one. But remember when we get home, no more.”

“I am going to save mine.”

Cyra smiled at this, just like her son to outsmart her. 

The door swung open, the woman telling them they could go to the bathroom. Kazi once again stood at the door while she used the restroom as if protecting her. 

“You go outside, but don't get loud or get any ideas.”

They were led out a backdoor, the yard fenced in, the sun was out and shining, Kazi ran to the fence and back to her happy to be outside. Cyra sat on the ground and let her son run circles around her. Eventually one of the guys joined them, kicking a soccer ball into the yard. Kazi perked up, still weary of the men. 

The ball was softly kicked to him, and he kicked it back. He looked at her uncertain of what to do. 

“It's okay baby.” 

She hoped that if he played enough he would sleep well tonight. He was having nightmares and not sleeping well. And once he woke up, there was no getting him back to sleep, he would ask her a million questions that she didn't have the answers for. 

#Viktor Drago #viktor drago x cyra #viktor drago x black woman #florian muneanu #smutty writer #black writers

[sparrowstrikewrites]

Flaming Oven Character Study Part 1

Naruto Uzumaki (age 9) and Iruka Umino (age 23)

The oven’s on fire because Naruto doesn’t know how to use it, so it’s basically a cupboard in his mind and Iruka never thought to check whether there was anything in the oven before preheating.

Little Naruto’s response: “I don’t think this is how oven’s work, but I don’t know enough about oven’s to argue.”

Iruka’s response: “I didn’t sign up for this. I’m not getting paid enough for this-- wait, I’m not at work, I’m not getting paid.” *Puts out fire and walks away* “Nope. Not fixing this. Throw the whole house out.”

Iruka first started to wonder when Naruto showed up for class in a rumpled shirt. It didn’t smell, but was the sort of rumpled that implies it was fished out of the laundry basket. Naruto was only 7 and kids that age like to dress themselves but lack any and all common sense, so he brushed it off.

Iruka started to get suspicious when Naruto showed up for class with a fever and a cough that shook his whole little body. The 8 year old staggered into class, dropped into his seat, laid his head down on the desk, and was out in seconds. Iruka had to shake him awake and send him to the nurse’s office propped up between Kiba and Shikamaru.

The nurse let Naruto sleep in her office until lunch time and then she sent him home with fever tablets and a cough suppressant. She told Iruka not to worry. Kids this age were basically germ factories.

Iruka started asking questions when the week before the annual physicals, he found Naruto eating raw carrots and broccoli. The kid was going to town like he was starving and the vegetables were some sort of delicacy, but his face said he was doing his best not to cry or puke.

“How’s lunch?” Iruka asked.

Naruto stared up at him with a fading black eye and sighed like he was weary of the world at only 9 years old. “Horrible, but I read you’ve got to eat vegetables to grow.”

Iruka snorted. Naruto was a good 2 inches shorter than the other boys in the class and like all kids his age, it was a sore point. 

“I don’t think cramming in vegetables before your physical is going to make much of a difference,” Iruka teased. “You really can’t cram for stuff like this.”

Naruto stared down at the half eaten head of broccoli in his hand. “Well, after last year, the nurse already told me she was going to check my shoes for padding, so this was kind of plan B.” He then took another sad bite of the broccoli. “Iruka-sensei, why are vegetables both expensive and disgusting?”

Iruka shrugged. “They’re not that expensive and I think they taste better cooked.”

“They’re more expensive than instant ramen and I guess some of them tast okay if you put them in the ramen, but the flavors don’t always go together.”

Iruka laughed. “You really need to eat something other than ramen.”

“I don’t know how to cook anything else. Except rice, but it always boils over and then I have to clean the stove and if I clean the stove, I don’t have time to do laundry,” Naruto lamented.

Iruka’s face fell and a dozen questions crowded his tongue. “Do you always cook and do the laundry?”

Naruto nodded. “There’s no laundry fairy.” He grinned up at Iruka like he’d said a great joke. “I also vacuum and dust and scrub the bathroom, but not as often as I should. There’s not enough hours in the day, you know?”

Iruka looked like he’d been slapped. “Yeah, I know.” There was a pile of laundry sitting in the corner of his little apartment that needed done. He’d eaten out for the last week, because there wasn’t time to go grocery shopping. The spider in the corner of his windowsill had been there long enough that Iruka had given it a name. But those were adult problems. 

Naruto wasn’t grinning anymore. He mirrored Iruka’s frown and tried to figure out what he’d said wrong.

“Hey, Naruto, would you like to learn to cook some more stuff?” Iruka asked.

Naruto’s grin returned.

---

Iruka arrived at Naruto’s apartment (he’d found the address in Naruto’s school records, because the kid was horrible at giving directions) a little after 5 that evening with an armload of groceries. 

The hairs on the back of Iruka’s neck prickled as he got close. He could feel Naruto’s chakra, the Fox’s chakra. 

Iruka shoved aside his unease and pasted on a smile. Naruto was not the Fox and Iruka refused to treat them as one and the same.

Naruto was watching the street and came jogging down the stairs to help carry everything up to the third floor where he lived.

Iruka surveyed the little loft while Naruto ransacked the bags of groceries. The only decorations on the walls were a small child’s drawings. The bed was made, a bit rumpled and crooked, but an obvious effort had been made. A few well-worn plush were neatly set up on the bed, because of course that would be a kid’s priority. The dirty clothes were mostly contained to a not quite overflowing laundry basket. A couple shirts that Iruka recognized as Naruto’s favorites were laid out on the floor to dry and a bucket of soapy water was sitting by the laundry basket, waiting for the next load.

It wasn’t a bad space, but it confirmed Iruka’s suspicions. There was only one person living here. There’d only been one person living here for a long time. 

Iruka closed his eyes. He’d been on his own for a long time, too. After he lost his parents, his Aunt and Uncle gave him a room in their house. They kept him fed and clothed until he made chuunin and he could support himself. They never tried to fill the void his parents’ left, but he was still grateful to them. Naruto didn’t even have that.

“I brought stuff to make a casserole. It’s really easy and I think you’ll ike it because all the vegetables are hidden under a bunch of cheese and potatoes,” Iruka said.

Naruto set down the green pepper he was suspiciously sniffing and nodded.

“First, we start preheating the oven…”

Iruka showed Naruto how to layer the food in a big glass dish. 

Naruto kneeled on a barstool to see the countertop and chattered the whole time.

Neither of them noticed anything amiss until the smoke alarm over the stove started to beep.

Iruka turned around to see black smoke billowing out of the oven door.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Naruto asked. “I’ve never used the oven.” He looked up at Iruka curiously, not yet concerned.

For 3 heartbeats, Iruka just stared. DO NOT PANIC! he ordered himself. DO NOT PANIC AND SCARE NARUTO!!!!

“Laundry water,” Iruka stammered at last. His voice was surprisingly level. 

Naruto cocked his head to the side and frowned.

“Take the clothes out of the washing bucket and bring me the water,” Iruka repeated. His voice was just a little higher pitched than normal and his hands twitched at his sides, unsure what exactly to do.

Naruto jumped off the stool and did as he was told.

Iruka grabbed the oven mits off the counter, turned off the oven, and, when Naruto reappeared with a bucket of soapy water, Iruka yanked the oven door open and chucked the whole bucket inside.

The mess inside steamed, sputtered, and smelled awful-- like burning plastic and garbage.

Iruka gagged and turned to Naruto. “What was in there?”

Naruto ran a hand through his hair and winced at the smouldering mess. “I don’t know. Junk I don’t use and the garbage can. I keep it there so I don’t have to look at it all the time.”

Iruka refilled the bucket from the sink and dumped it in the oven again. The fire was good and out, but the whole apartment skunk horribly and the kitchen area was covered in a fine layer of soot. 

“Let’s go to Ichiraku. I’m buying.”

Naruto whooped and bolted for the door to put on his shoes.

Iruka just stared at the ruined oven and shook his head. This is like the adult version of microwaving the instant noodles without water, only worse. The place would need scrubbed and aired out. Naruto would need a new stove and some place to stay for a few days.

“Before we go, why don’t you throw some clothes in a bag. You should probably not sleep here until I can get this cleaned up,” Iruka told Naruto. 

“Can I stay with you, Iruka-sensei?”

“Yup. And we’ll try cooking lessons again tomorrow.”

Naruto laughed and beamed. “I’ve never had a sleepover before. If I knew all it took was a flaming oven, I would have set that thing on fire a long time ago!”

Iruka laughed too then. It was either laugh or cry and he didn’t want to cry in front of Naruto.

A one night sleepover became a week. Bit by bit, Naruto’s things materialized in Iruka’s apartment. Iruka taught Naruto how to make katsudon, casserole, and ramen from scratch that they both agreed wasn’t quite as good as Ichiraku Ramen.

No one questioned the change when Naruto came to school everyday in clean clothes with a balanced lunch. Or when he suddenly was completing his homework and no longer napping during the day.

Iruka still had a pack of dust bunnies under his bed and Kuro-chan was paying rent in dead flies from the windowsill, but the laundry in the corner didn’t pile up anymore. Laundry was Naruto’s favorite chore, especially since Iruka’s apartment building had an electric washer and dryer in the basement.

Iruka did his grading from the kitchen table now. Naruto sat across from him and did his homework after dinner. 

At 10, Iruka steered the kid to the little office turned bedroom. The bed was sloppily made, but a handful of well loved plush were carefully arranged by the pillow and Naruto thought it was the best bedroom in the world.

---

Dear Esteemed Hokage-sama,

I am writing to you in regards to Uzumaki Naruto’s living situation. His apartment is currently uninhabitable. There was a small kitchen fire (absolutely not Naruto’s fault), but it was sufficient to fill the small apartment with smoke. I take full responsibility for the situation and have taken Naruto back to my apartment. He will stay there as long as need be. It could easily be a couple months at least. The oven will need replaced and the smoke probably sunk into the drywall, so all of that will need to be ripped out and replaced. I did some research, and with the age of the building, there could be asbestos in the walls, so the demolition isn’t something that can just be done willy-nilly…

Hiruzen set the letter down, it rambled on for another page and a half, and picked up a pen.

Iruka,

If you are comfortable with the arrangement, I agree it’s best that Naruto stay with you indefinitely. Please endeavour to avoid any further incidents. Children are impressionable and have enough of an affinity for fire as it.

-Hiruzen Sarutobi

#naruto #iruka #another adoption AU #one shot #character study #slice of life #in honor of my flaming oven #mine

[creampuffqueen]

Friends and Family

An anon requested a Thanksgiving-esque fic with Nodrian and Osby and their kids, so here we have it! Feel free to send me more requests, this was a lot of fun to write!

1504 words

~~~~

“Ok, we’ve got diapers, clothes, formula, snacks, what else do we need?” Nova called to her husband, quickly shoving everything she’d listed into a large duffel bag.

“Bibs! I’ve got bibs! And a changing pad, too!” Adrian said as he raced into the bedroom, three bibs and a changing pad squeezed under one arm and a toddler on his other.

They had planned to wake up earlier, they really had. But they’d stayed up late to watch a movie with Lina, since with all the craziness of her siblings she hardly got any one-on-one time with her parents, and they felt bad about that. But then Atlas had woken up from a nightmare, and the twins were having a sleep regression period and- 

All their carefully made plans had fallen through, and now they were scrambling to make it before dinner started. Which was why everything was currently being shoved inside a duffel bag, and not a diaper bag. 

Nova zipped the bag up just as her wristband buzzed with an incoming call. The bag on one shoulder, and Atlas was reaching out for her, so she put him on a hip, then finally answered the call.

“Are you guys on your way?” Oscar asked. “I’m, like, really hungry.”

“We’re heading out right now.” Nova lied. “We’ll be there in about ten minutes.” They would not, but at least it would keep Oscar off her back for a bit so she could wrangle her mass of children.

“The kids are hungry, too. Better hurry, Jett and Opal really want to see Lina.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. If you want us there quicker, you’ll let me go. I have, like, five kids all on my legs.”

“See you in ten.”

Nova hung up, then hurried into the entryway of the house. Adrian had left while she was talking to Oscar, and he had managed to get Lyra and the twins together, the twins already strapped into their car seats.

“Caspian! Nebula! Lina! We need to go!” The rest of the kids soon found their way to their parents, and the gaggle that was the Everhart-Artino family made their way outside and into the car.

It took about fifteen minutes before they rolled into Hugh and Simon’s driveway. Lina, Nebula, and Cas hopped out as soon as the doors unlocked, the three eldest racing inside to their family and friends. Nova took the twins, River and Rose, while Adrian took Atlas and held Lyra’s hand to help her inside.

The front door was already a friendly sight. Hugh, Caspian in his arms, swinging the six-year-old around to make him squeal in delight. And Simon, laughing at something Nebbie had said. In her arms, the girls squirmed until Nova put them down, and they quickly ran towards their grandfathers.

“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!” Ruby said, emerging from inside the house, a small bundle cradled in her arms. Oscar followed a moment later, as well as the other two kids, Jett and Opal.

Hugs were exchanged, and soon everyone was inside, seated at the extra-long dining table with mountains of food. 

“It’s been ages since we’ve seen you guys,” Nova said to Danna and Narcissa. “How have you two been?”

Stories were exchanged around the table, while Hugh let Rose sit on his lap to eat her mashed potatoes, and Simon helped River keep the gravy off her face. Max listened avidly to Atlas’s babbling, while the older kids entertained each other by making silly faces and shapes with their food.

It was perfect. Or… almost perfect. Something was missing, Nova realized. Someone was missing.

Just as she was about to ask their whereabouts, a loud knock on the front door sounded. 

“I’ll get it!” Jett said, scrambling from his seat quickly, with Lina and Opal soon chasing after him. Nova swallowed her bite of green beans and made her way over to them.

Jett pulled the door open, then gasped at the figure in the doorway.

Maggie. Maggie Artino… with a wriggling puppy in her arms.

“Am I too late?” Nova’s sister asked sheepishly. “I had to go pick this cutie up from the house, and he didn’t like the car so much so I walked.” The puppy, a brown and white spotted fluffy thing, squirmed harder until Maggie put him down.

“Can I hold him?” Opal begged, the other two soon chorusing the same question. 

“Go ahead, bring him to the dining room when you’re done.” Maggie took Nova’s arm with a slight smile, and the two women traveled back to their family.

Standing on the threshold, Nova could hardly believe it. Here she was, holding onto her little sister, husband smiling at her, friends sitting at the table, fathers-in-law and brother-in-law with her kids on their laps… Stars, she’d come far, hadn’t she?

“If everyone finishes their food, they can go play with Aunt Maggie’s new puppy.” She declared. Caspian and Lyra perked up at that, and even Oscar seemed excited. 

“Only if Lyra says so.” Maggie added. At Nova’s curious look, she continued, “Because Bear is going to be her service dog.”

“You didn’t.” Adrian deadpanned. 

“I did. She was going to need one anyway, why not start her young?” Lyra gaped at the words. She was completely mute, and had bad eyesight, hearing, and impaired movement. Adrian and Nova had said they would get her a service dog for when she went to school- in two years.

“Go play with him, sweetheart.” Nova said with a smile. Lyra nearly fell out of her seat with excitement, and she dashed off to go see her new future helper.

Dinner quickly died down, and soon everyone was in the living room with the puppy. Of course, as cute as he was, it didn’t take too long before he peed (at least on the tile floor of the kitchen) and then hid under a couch until all the grabby hands disappeared. However, he and Lyra had already seemed to form a bond. Though, Nova supposed, it was probably because Lyra could talk to animals. 

Hugh brought out a pumpkin pie that was quickly demolished, and they spent a long time cooing over baby Sapphire after she woke up from her nap. Danna taught the eldest three how to play Blackjack (gambling for pennies only) and the toddlers managed to get toys in every possible corner of the house. 

The sun was beginning to set. Ruby had retired to a bedroom to nurse Sapphire to sleep, and Oscar had gone with her. Maggie and Max had disappeared to stars-knew-where, and the twins were nearly asleep on their feet. 

“Mom, can we watch a movie?” Lina begged. Jett, Opal, Nebula, and Caspian were all asking as well.

“Fine. One movie, and then we go home.” The kids giggled and laughed and went off to pick their movie, and Nova found herself alone with Adrian at the dining room table. 

“Pretty good Thanksgiving, I’d say.” He commented with a chuckle. Nova scooted her chair closer to his so she could rest her head on his shoulder.

“Pretty good.”

“I wonder what it’ll be like next year.” She pondered.

“My star, lets think about the present.” Adrian laughed. “And the fact that we have seven kids to somehow get home tonight.”

“I bet there will be another kid next year.” Nova added. 

“With the way things are going now, how much do you want to bet it’ll be one of ours?”

Before she could answer, the children found them again, waving their chosen movie in their faces desperately. Adrian turned it on in the living room, while Nova made them some popcorn.

Caspian wanted his dad to watch to movie, and Nebula wanted her mom. Lyra was asleep on one of the plush armchairs, wrapped in a blanket and with her new puppy curled on her stomach. Atlas was nodding off, the twins were already snuggled together on the couch. Hugh was snoring in the other chair.

Nova snacked on popcorn with the kids, watching as one by one, they fell asleep. Atlas. Caspian. Nebula. Opal. Jett. And finally, Evangeline Georgia Everhart fell asleep on Nova’s shoulder.

A flurry of butterflies flitted through the window, transforming into a grinning Danna. Narcissa came out of the restroom, likely having slipped in through the mirror. The pair claimed a blanket and a spot on the floor. 

Then came Oscar and Ruby, smiling at their sleeping kids. Then Simon, and finally Max and Maggie.

And just like the kids, their friends drifted off to sleep one by one. Until it was just Nova and Adrian, curled together on the couch in a pile of their children.

The credits of the movie rolled, and Nova turned her face towards her husband. Adrian was yawning.

“We’re going home in the morning, aren’t we.” He murmured. He tugged her closer, and Nova relaxed into his embrace.

“Oh well.” And Adrian kissed her, and everything, everything, was right. 

Everything was right as Nova slipped into sleep beside her family. 

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #marissa meyer #renegades gen 2 #nodrian #osby #danissa #max x maggie sorta #hugh x simon #nova artino #adrian everhart #oscar silva #ruby tucker #danna bell #narcissa cronin #max everhart #maggie artino #hugh everhart #simon westwood #thanksgiving #puppies

[the--blackdahlia]

The Hunters Chapter 1

Title: The Hunters Chapter 1

Summary: What happens when four idiots get together? Nikki's looking for his dad. Tommy's trying to get out of his mom's shadow. Vince is along for the ride. And Mick is just trying to keep them alive. Which is harder than it sounds when then Winchesters join the fray.

Warnings: Language, violence, m/m smut, canon divergence, character deaths (temporarily), wincest if you squint (may add more tags as I go)

AN: So, heads up that I have taken the Supernatural timeline and made it my bitch. Things are not going to be how they are on the show, and the Motley Crue history is getting turned on it's head. You'll see as we go. Fair warning, Motley Crue will not be a huge band in this fic, but it works out! This will be a Tommy x Nikki story.

Check out chapters 2 and 3 that are currently on my Patreon!

Seattle, Washington

February, 1961

Two-year-old Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna, Jr. sat on the floor, playing with his blocks. His grandmother Nona had just given him a huge container of Legos for his birthday/Christmas, and he couldn’t be happier. Well, actually, he could. If his mom and dad would stop fighting in the kitchen. At least, he thought it was his dad. She called him Frank too, but he wasn’t around a lot.

“Deana, you don’t understand,” Frank Feranna Sr. told her loudly.

“Then tell me Frank!” Deana screamed. “You come home in the middle of the night battered and bruised with blood on you, and then you leave before Frankie even knows you’re here! What are you doing?”

“I can’t tell you!” Frank screamed.

“Then get out!” Deana shot at him. “You just get out of my house!”

“Deana…”

“No Frank! Whatever it is you’re doing is more important than us obviously! So just get out!” Frankie heard the noise of boots across the floor. He looked up at his dad standing over him.

“Hey kid,” Frank crouched down in front of Frankie. “I gotta go for a little while, okay?”

“Daddy?” Frankie asked softly. Frank offered him a small smile.

“Give me your hand,” Frank told him. Frankie held out his hand and Frank put a small medallion in it, attached to a long, leather string.

“This will keep you safe from the monsters that I can’t keep away,” Frank told him. “You’re gonna do great things Frankie. I just want to keep you safe. You and your mother.” He kissed the top of his head. “Don’t lose that Frankie.” With that, he stood up and grabbed a bag from the small coat closet. He offered one last smile at his son before he walked out, heading to his truck where Frankie wasn’t allowed to touch the box in the back.

“Daddy!” Frankie got up and ran to the door, only to be stopped by Deana. “Daddy come back!”

“He doesn’t care about us Frankie,” Deana told him. “It’s just you and me now. Because your dad doesn’t love us anymore.”

That was the first time in a long series of times, Frankie knew his mother was wrong. He looked down at the amulet in his hand, then back up at the retreating form of his dad’s Chevy.

****

Los Angeles, California

April, 1974

Frankie had bounced around back and forth between his mother and his grandparents. His mom didn’t seem to care about what that did to him, but his grandparents did. When Nona took a stand against her daughter and told her that it was either he stay with them or grow up with her, Frankie really thought that Deana would give up and let him go.

Instead, she dragged him to Seattle, and at sixteen, he had enough of it. With a switchblade knife and a bag over his shoulder, Frankie made his way to LA to search for his dad, or find freedom, whichever came first. He played with the amulet around his neck as he tried to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t his first time on his own; Deana had left him alone plenty of times, but it was the first time he couldn’t just run to his grandparents when he got scared. He wanted to prove he could do this.

But he needed to track down Frank Sr. first.

He could hear Skynyrd playing from a Mustang just down the street from the payphone he was standing at. He had tried every single number that Deana had for Frank. And some he had dug up on his own. It was like the man had just vanished off the face of the earth. Not that he could blame him. In fact, he had gotten so fed up with the earth he had changed his name to something else; Nikki. A girl he knew, her ex had went by that name, and it just stuck with him. Nikki Sixx. It just rolled off the tongue, and no two fucking middle names.

And the bonus was, he didn’t have to listen to Deana’s shrill voice echo Frankie over and over again for the rest of her life.

“Fuck,” Nikki sighed as he hung up the phone and rested his head against the casing. The last he had heard of his dad, he was in California, Los Angeles, to be more precise. He was sure that he would find Frank hanging out around here with some skinny blond or something. But there was nothing at all. It was like no one had ever even heard of Frank Feranna before.

Nikki took the bottle of Jack he had scored and found himself a seat on a park bench. The area was getting dark, and Nikki really didn’t have anywhere to go. He had used the last of his money the night before, and he had burnt a few bridges along the way. Thankfully, it was LA, and rain was rare. He could probably sleep outside for the night and only have to worry about cops or something. He sat the bottle by him and leaned forward. How did he get himself in this mess. In West Hollywood with no place to go. A bottle of Jack for his liquid, and a paper ID because he lit the one that said Frank Feranna Jr on fire.

“Hey kid,” A voice said from the side. Nikki looked over at the man standing there. “Watchya doin’ out here? The strip ain’t no place for a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Nikki told him, but the cracks in his voice were giving him away. The guy laughed and shook his head.

“You’re gonna come with me,” He told him. “You’re out here. Means no one is missing you. You shouldn’t be out here.”

“I’m fine,” Nikki told him, and he swore he heard the man growl. He looked up at him and noticed that his eyes did not look right. They looked like some sort of animal. “I’m just gonna…” Nikki took off running, thankful that he had a pair of Converse on. He was sure he had ran away from him until he felt himself being tackled into a dirty alleyway.

“Get off me!” Nikki kicked at the man. He heard it clearly this time. The growl. He looked up at the man who had him pinned and saw what almost resembled a man mixed with a dog. “Get off!”

Nikki was sure this was going to be the night he died as fangs and claws got ready to dig in, until suddenly the weight was off of him and a shot rang out, something that wasn’t unfamiliar in these parts. Nikki was sure he was dead as he squeezed his eyes closed and waited.

Forever Tags:  @anathewierdo @dekahg @marvel-af-imagines @feelmyroarrrr @nanie5 @imboredsueme @gemini0410 @aiaranradnay @babypink224221 @mogarukes @xxwarhawk @sandlee44 @shatteredabby @caswinchester2000 @supernaturalwincestsblog @lauravic @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk @teller258316 @horrorpxnk @tommyleeownsme

Supernatural Tags:  @bandobsession98 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @fangirlsencyclopaediaofweirdness @ilovetardis @missihart23 @cloudyskylines @sams-serialkiller-fetish @theas-bedtime-stories @huntingfreewill @ocholove @princessofthefandomrealm @getbackhonkycatt @flamencodiva

Motley Crue Tags:  @primal-screamer @waywardprincess666 @twistnet @saint-of-los-angeles @vader-kai @motleyfuckingcruee @sharon6713 @kawennote09 @2dead2function @nikkisixxwiththebass @iamtiber-andtiberismusic @jayprettymuchomw @charlyallise @you-know-im-a-dreamer @sweet-dreams-on-butterfly-wings @estxxmotley @arianareirg @the-normal-potato @nikki-sixxtynine @jjjjjjjoshdun @just-a-normal-fangirl18 @stella20131991 @tarahell @wowilovenikkisixx @i-want-to-shoot-myself @motleycrueee @sams-serialkiller-fetish @getbackhonkycatt @are-you-reddie54321 @flamencodiva @lesliethegroupie @deacyduck @scarecrowmax

#the hunters #Motley Crue #supernatural #Tommy Lee #nikki sixx #Vince Neil #mick mars #dean winchester #sam winchester #fanfiction #au

[tera-91]

Monsters part 1 - rewrite

I'm back! This past year has been rough ... so what better way to start off the spooky season and to put the past 365 days behind me than to do a rewrite of chapter 1, I had to clean up a few things and make a few tweaks it was driving me crazy. Don't worry Part 2 is already written 😈. Just have to make a couple of adjustments and it will be posted, my aim is for October 20th or 23rd depending on my work schedule since I don't have a computer at the moment. That aside I give you Patton and his lovely stalkers .... I mean monsters 💜.

Summary: Patton is afraid of monsters. They might not be so bad after all?

Pairing: not really any (yet)

Warnings: monsters, night, attack ... let me know if I missed anything

Word count: 2374

Please feel free to comment 💙

Patton had always been afraid of monsters for as long as he could remember. Ever since his older cousin Ian had popped out from under his bed with snake skin glued on to half of his face.

A monster currently resided in Patton's closet, this monster was mostly alright. He, at least Patton assumed it was a he, never really came out much anymore after Patton had begun to leave crackers with blueberry crofters on a plate near the closet door at night before he went to bed.

There was a second monster as well, his grandmother had told him about it once during a visit. It never would sneak around his house at night but Patton had a sneaking suspicion it would nap in his bed while he was at work. Wether he made his bed or not it almost always looked different somehow when he returned home. Although he wasn't completely convinced it wasn't just the closet monster. Patton did what his grandmother told him to do anyway. He would place an orange, or if in season a blood orange, on the window not far from his bed twice a week. It would always disappear after his next shift at work.

_______

Patton woke to the faint glow of sunlight as it filtered through his semi-transparent teal curtains. He snuggled into his warm covers to enjoy the soft fabric briefly before he reluctantly stretched with a groan.

He lazily glanced around the blurry room before his gaze settled on his closet door. Even without his glasses he could tell it was slightly ajar, the closet monster came out last night. As he reached for his glasses he was somewhat thankful it had waited for him to go to sleep. A shiver ran up his spine at the thought of the long, sharp tongue and the glowing dark blue eyes. Once he was able to see clearer he was able to tell that the plate by the closet door was empty, just a few crumbs from the crackers remained. Not even a speck of jelly remained.

Patton threw back the the covers a d hopped out of bed. He ignored the shock of the cold wooden floor against his bare feet as he slowly approached the closet. He hesitantly reached for the door, with a deep breath he pulled the door hard. He peered into the closet and released the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

Empty.

It always surprised him how he never found the monster in his closet during the day. One day he even had his cousin over to help him look for a present he had misplaced. Neither of them had seen the monster while they searched the many closets of the three bedroom home.

Patton closed the closet with slight hesitation once he grabbed his clothes for the day. A violet polo shirt with the pet daycare logo and khaki pants, which looked somewhat less wrinkled than they had when Patton put them away. However, on a time crunch he just shrugged and headed to the bathroom.

With the morning routine done Patton made his way into the modest kitchen. Toast sounded good. He grabbed the half empty bag of sliced bread, retrieved two slices and popped them into the toaster. Now all he needed was milk and crofters, maybe a cookie afterward if the jam didn't satisfy his terrible sweet tooth. With a small side step away from the sink he reached for the upper cabinet that held his mug collection. He analyzed each mug. Did he want a big one? A small one? What about the Winnie the Pooh mug? He pondered briefly, his finger tapped against the counter. A creature of habit, he reached into the cabinet and pulled out his favorite one, a swirled rainbow mug covered in puppies and kittens with paw prints. He walked over towards the refrigerator and placed the mug on the counter.

The cool air ghosted over his face as he opened the heavy door. The milk was easy to spot, the big red label caught his eye immediately. However, the green lid of the blueberry crofters jar was far more elusive than it should've been. He sighed as he searched, it wouldn't be the first time the closet monster hadn't been satisfied and cleaned out the near empty crofters jar and hid the empty jar within the fridge. Patton found the jar, after nearly a full minute of searching, two shelves lower and on the opposite side of the refrigerator from where it usually sat. He pulled the jar out, a slight pout on his face, and placed it on the counter just as the toast popped up.

"Again?" Patton said in a raised voice, he hoped the closet monster could hear him. At least he had left enough for Patton's toast this time. Patton was happy to share but would it really be too much to ask him to leave a note if he wanted more crackers?

Did the monster even know how to write? Even if he did, the more Patton thought about it while he poured his milk and spread the jam on his toast, a shiver ran up his spine. Just the thought of the closet monster coming close to him while she slept to place a note on his table caused his heart to beat a little faster. He began to look around and tidy up the kitchen to calm down as his finished the last bites of his toast.

The jam might be able to last another few days if the monster didn't come out again for more than what Patton left out. His gaze soon settled on the fruit bowl on the island, a couple of bananas and quite a few apples.

'Maybe I should take some to work. Bonnie would love them, the rabbits too.' Patton thought. At least they wouldn't go to waste if the store macaw and bunnies enjoyed them. He paused as he took a sip of milk, there were no blood oranges in the bowl. He must have used the last one the day before.

"Well I guess I'm going to have to go to the store on my way home." Patton said to himself as he finished cleaning up before he made his way towards the door. He grabbed the durable rainbow fabric of his messenger bag from it's hook and slung it over his shoulder before he made his way back to the kitchen. "Hmm, one for Bonnie and Mable, half for Darrel aannnd one and a half for Jenna and Monty and Mopsy." He said as he figured out how many apples to place in his bag. Once he was satisfied he hadn't forgotten anyone he headed towards the door.

Located by the door was a reasonably sized table, on top of which sat his wallet and keys. First, however, he pulled open the drawer of the table. Despite being full of mostly miscellaneous he pulled out a notepad and pen. Patton quickly jolted down a short grocery list, tore the page off, and placed them back in the drawer. He picked up his wallet and tucked the list in it before storing it in his bag. With practiced ease he plucked the keys from the table and slid it onto one of his fingers as he made his way out the door.

Patton took a deep breath as he took the first step out the door. He loved everything about Fall from the cooler temperatures to the smell. Well, just about everything, he wasn't the biggest fan about Halloween and people dressing up, it made it more difficult to spot possible monsters. As he turned to lock the door he heard a soft bark. "Hey bud, give me a second." He said without skipping a beat.

A smile stretched across his face as he turned and squatted down. In front of him stood, what he assumed was, a red Canadian Eskimo dog. He reached down and began to per the rather large dog, which quickly dropped to the ground to reveal his belly to be rubbed. Patton laughed as he began to tickle the monster of a dog. The pair played for several minutes before Patton's phone began beeping, a warning he needed to head to the bus stop to be able to make it to work on time. Patton's smile fell and the dog whined. "Sorry Roman, I have to get to work now." Patton said as he stood up. Roman rolled and sat up, another whine escaped him. "It's okay buddy, go home." He said gently as he rubbed Roman's ears and checked his collar for what was probably the hundredth time. The name plate remained blank, save for the name Roman elegantly engraved in the golden metal.

Patton wondered where the dog belonged. He would take him in as he saw the fluff ball nearly everyday but he was sure Roman had a home. He looked a healthy weight, if not slightly over. If Patton had to guess he would guess that Roman weighed close to a hundred pounds and his coat was always immaculately brushed, no knits or mats anywhere. Patton was pulled out of his thoughts by another soft bark from Roman. "I know what you want." He said, a slight lilt in his voice. With one swift movement he pulled out a slice of dehydrated sweet potato he had made for Roman a few nights ago. "Potato!" He said in a silly voice as Roman gingerly took the treat. He laughed as he scratched under Roman's chin before he headed for the bus stop.

That day work was typical for Patton, nothing particularly interesting happened. Bonnie had sung in approval of the apple slices and the rabbits left no trace of the apples within an hour. After his shift was over for the day Patton caught the next bus towards the market.

Sue to it being later Patton was greatful that the store was mostly empty. Luckily he was able to find five decent sized blood oranges as well as some fruit for himself. He was slightly disappointed however, when he discovered they were out of blueberry crofters. He hoped the closet monster would behave as he grabbed a jar of berry harvest crofters instead.

After he checked out Patton looked at the bus app, it wouldn't be at the stop near the market for nearly fourty-five minutes. As he closed the bus app he pulled up the phones map to see how close to home he was. He could walk home in half the time, he just had to go down Comet street at the end of the block and go through Sanders park then walk two blocks down Russet boulevard. He hesitated for a moment as it was already dark, but a cool breeze and a shiver made him finally decide with a shrug to walk home.

Halfway down Comet street he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched as he walked down the semi-dark street. Little light came from the street lamps and even less from the few houses to his right. A rustling noise to his left nearly caused him to jump out of his skin, the woods of Sanders park held no light what so ever. His heart pounded in his chest as he stopped and stared into the inky darkness for a moment. Suddenly a pair of playing fox kits came tumbling out of the bush before they must have realized they were out in the open and ran off. A nervous laugh escaped Patton as he continued on his way.

Suddenly Patton was pulled from the sidewalk and pushed up against the wall of the darkened house. The rough brick bit into his back and caused him to open his eyes, he hadn't realized he closed. He had dropped his bag, he watched as a couple of oranges rolled across the grass towards the sidewalk. However, he could barely even make that out. His vision blurry as his glasses had fallen off at some point.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing out in the dark? It's not safe after sundown you know. It's when the monsters come out to play." the man said with a grin as he ran a dirty hand down Patton's cheek. Patton swallowed any response that he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs as he struggled to get out of the strangers strong grip.

A low growl caught both of their attentions. The man froze, his grip remained firm on Patton. At the same time a large dog barreled out of the woods and a large bat dived bombed the man. He released Patton and stumbled back while he attempted to swat the bat away. As the bat drove him further away from Patton the dog didn't hesitate to tackle him to the ground, a deep growl emanated from deep within its chest.

Patton hadn't noticed the bat had disappeared until it reappeared right in front of him. He immediately threw his hands up but when he realized the bat didn't attack him, he peeked between his arms. The bad just hovered there. It took him a moment but he realized the bat had his glasses in its mouth. Unsure of what to do, he hesitantly held out his arm, hand open and fingers splayed out.

Patton held his breath as the bat, with seemingly practiced ease, wrapped it's feet around two of his fingers and slowly maneuvered itself to hang from his hand. Even with everything that was happening, Patton was most surprised at the bat. Cautiously he reached out his other hand to take his glasses. Once he had his glasses back he expertly, stumbled, and put them on one handed.

A shuffling sound caught Patton's attention, he looked over towards where the man and dog were. He barely managed to see the dog snapping towards the man as he ran off. With the man out of sight Patton turned his attention to the large dog and realized that he recognized it.

"Roman?"

@not-so-innocent-bi-sander @princeanxious @teacupfulofstarshine @moltengoldenstardust @sandersfander1820 @coolerthan-a-vintagecassette @j-d-lightful @could-always-be-gayer-2 @altruistic-skittles @sylveon-lover-crazyfangirl1415 @xx-fandom-potato-xx @c4t1l1n4 @dutifullystrangequeerdom @i-read-by-lamp @thatcacidork @i-do-not-dislike-fudge @bigfirecreator @random-name-here @tinkslittlebelle @kindly-falling @punsterterry

#sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides fic #patton sanders #roman sanders #monsters au #human au #monsters #tera-91

[butididntpourthewhiskeys]

50 Things I’m Convinced Tay & Joe Do - Baby Edition 

1. Taylor smirking at Joe who claims that the air in the doctor’s room is dry which is the reason why his eyes are watering right after they found out that they’re having a girl. 

 2. Joe’s protective hand constantly reaching for her belly at night whenever she’s changing her sleeping position. 

3. Joe opening his Christmas gift from her that was casually placed under the Christmas tree and him becoming incredibly emotional in front of both of their families because inside the little box, there is a positive pregnancy test. 

4. Taylor and Joe only telling their families and closest friends about her pregnancy at first because Taylor’s too scared to miscarry. 

5. Joe replacing all Nespresso capsules in their houses with decaf capsules because he knows how hard it is for her to waive proper coffee. 

6. Taylor developing a weird disgust towards roasted meat yet always attends dinner at Joe’s family and eats the Sunday roast even if most of it lands in the toilet just minutes after they get home. 

7. Joe always telling Tay that his mum won’t be mad if she’d tell her about her meat related nausea but Taylor still swallows the food anyway. 

8. Joe being overprotective, especially on these days when she’s not feeling well and he’s gone for work. So as soon as she doesn’t pick up her phone for a couple of minutes, he’d immediately call Andrea who then has to calm him down with a soft laugh and a gentle “both of your girls are alright, honey. She’s watching TV with me and her phone’s in the kitchen, so don’t worry.” while Taylor would roll her eyes at his protective behavior but deep down knows how incredibly thankful she is for it. 

 9. Scott always teasing Joe with referring to him as “Daddy over there wants some more potatoes, Andrea” or greeting Joe with “Hi Daddy, how’s it going?” whenever they see each other. 

10. Taylor trying to convince him that their daughter needs to have an old classic and British name such as “Hazel” or “Eleanor” and Joe reminding her that she’s giving birth to a baby, not an old lady. 

11. Taylor feeling incredibly maternal at the end of the second trimester and most of the time falling asleep with a pull string musical crib toy on her belly that plays one of her songs (a gift from her fans, of course). 

12. Joe spending at least half an hour cuddled up to her belly and talking to the baby after not having seen Taylor for a couple of days, always kissing the round belly and telling her how sad he is sometimes because Taylor gets to carry the baby around and feel her all day, but he can’t. 

13. Taylor and Joe constantly fighting about her wanting to wear heels tonight, and him getting angry because she could trip and fall. 

14. Taylor being mad at him for an entire day because she thinks that he thinks that she’s too stupid to walk on high heels for the length of one evening. 

 15. Joe figuring out that the only way to deal with her current hormones is to always give in and let her know how sorry he is and how right she was. 

16. Joe constantly finding her asleep at the weirdest places in the house. Once on a stool with head on the kitchen isle, once on the floor in her walk- in closet. 

17. Taylor feeling like a teenager again because she finds herself crying so often whenever he’s gone filming for a couple of days and she misses him badly. 

 18. Taylor being mocked by everyone in her family because she developed the habit to “free the bump” whenever she’s sitting on the patio and a ray of sunshine is crossing the sky. “The baby needs Vitamine D, guys. Shut up.” she’d say, enjoying the warmth on her belly.

19. Joe volunteering in applying cream on her belly to prevent stretch marks every night. 

 20. Taylor having an increased need for sex in the first months and Joe teasing her with it as much as he can, smirking and mumbling a casual “got it out of your system, love? If yes could you please move a bit so I can watch the rest of this movie? Thank you.” after she just came down from the fifth orgasm that day, sitting on his lap and distracting him from watching a movie on the couch in the living room. 

21. “So rude.” she’d mumble and receive a mischievous laugh from him before cuddling up in his arms again. 

22. Joe’s standard joke being “I mean, I was in the room when the baby was conceived to I might as well be in the room when the baby’s delivered” whenever he’s asked wether he’ll be in the delivery room or not and Taylor rolling her eyes every single time, “He thinks he’s so funny, it’s incredible.” 

23. Joe having the shock of his life when Taylor fainted a couple of times during the first weeks of pregnancy because of low blood pressure, which is absolutely normal yet scared the shit out of him. 

24. Joe literally calling her every two hours to remind her to drink water and eat something when she’s at a meeting because he knows that she forgets. 

 25. Joe literally going nuts after some online magazine releases an article calling Taylor “huge and lazy” because she apparently doesn’t work out enough during pregnancy which results in him wanting to sue the media outlet but Taylor calming him down because she doesn’t give a fuck about this kind of stuff anymore. 

26. Taylor feeling her baby kick for the first time when they’re at dinner with her parents and Joe really trying not to be too emotional and become a cry- baby but keeping his hand on her belly for what feels like the entire evening. 

27. Taylor craving nachos with whip cream on top. 

28. Taylor sitting on the examination couch while waiting for her doctor, trying her best to bat Joe’s hands away from the model of a fetus in a womb: “Stop touching it. You’ll break it!” When the small plastic baby pops out of the fake uterus and onto the floor, Joe’s eyes grow wide and she just rolls her eyes while watching him hysterically trying to put the model back together again before the doctor enters the room. 

29. Joe thanking her for carrying his baby and giving him his own little family whenever they both lay awake at night, but the pleasure is all hers. 

30. Taylor hiding her big bump and boobs under oversized sweaters because she’s insecure about her physical changes. 

31. Joe being well aware of her insecurities which makes him comment things like “you’re so stunning, baby. Is that shirt new?” or “you look gorgeous this morning, how’d you sleep?”. 

32. Joe noticing how motherly Taylor has become because of all the hormones in her body. So every time Patrick is joining them on a winter walk she’d remind the boy to fix his scarf because „it’s colder than you think“ and every time Patrick has a cold she’d cook him a chicken soup, even If he didn’t ask for it which is why Joe and him can’t help but tease her constantly by calling her ‚mummy‘. 

33. Taylor being embarrassed as hell for an entire week because her morning sickness was really bad while she and Joe were stuck in traffic and she had to throw up in a plastic bag after mumbling “I don’t want it to happen, I don’t want it to happen” while sitting next to him which resulted in her having vomit in her hair while crying and him calming her with a hand on her leg: “s’ fine, baby. C'mon. Just glad you feel better now.” 

34. Joe’s mum bursting out to tears as she opens her birthday present and finds an ultrasound scan, which automatically makes Tay emotional as well while hugging his mum for more than five minutes straight. 

35. Taylor often having trouble sleeping because she either struggles with immense nausea or her baby being super active. 

37. Joe waking up one night with tears in his eyes because in his dreams he was holding his baby in his arms and he could see what she looks like and smell her and hear her laugh and everything felt so real, which was the most amazing feeling he has ever felt. 

38. Joe noticing how Taylor craves his closeness even more since she’s pregnant which is why he pulls her into a long hug as often as he can or kisses her forehead more often. 

 39. Taylor showing literally everyone she knows her new “trick” that is placing objects on her huge belly like a tray. 

40. Joe counting all ten toes and all ten fingers on the baby, first thing: “just want to make sure you’ll be able to write some songs. Or make action movies..“ he’d mumble towards the baby, making Taylor laugh from afar. 

 41. Baby Alwyn- Swift having all of Taylor’s features, blonde curls included, but Joe’s lips and his rather introvert personality. 

 42. Joe holding the baby in front of Taylor’s tummy and mumbling a sleepy “we’ll have to put you back in there again if you don’t sleep, love. m’ warning you. The nights were a lot quieter with you in there.” which makes Taylor laugh and the baby stare at him confused before receiving a laugh and a small kiss from her dad. 

43. Taylor announcing the birth of her baby on Instagram with posting a black and white photo of Joe kissing tiny baby feet and the caption “Never felt so blessed in my life. Thanks for all the congratulations and kind messages.” 

44. Joe pretending to eat the baby’s foot or hand which always makes the little one laugh and Taylor as well. 

45. Taylor posting a boomerang on Instagram for fathers day that shows Joe blowing raspberries on the baby’s stomach with a smile on his face and captioning it with “you have changed my heart forever. Happy Father’s Day.” 

46. Joe already spoiling his little girl when she’s just a little toddler and Taylor really not liking it: “He can’t say no. Never. Now she’s just a baby but if he keeps that up our child will be a spoilt rat in a few years” she’d complain to her mom. 

47. Joe surprising Taylor with a vacation to the Bahamas because the baby hasn’t been sleeping at all in weeks and they both wander around like ghosts all day long which is why they both urgently need some relaxation away from London and Nashville.

48. Joe realizing that his baby daughter has a miniature version of his lips which is why he always holds her tiny face right next to his for comparison when they’re with friends and family. 

49. Joe giving the newborn on his arm a tour around their house when both of their parents came over for a first visit at home. He’d stop with her on his arms in the bedroom and mumble “..and this is where you were made, my love” which results in her family’s laughter and an embarrassed Taylor yelling “oh my god, Joseph. You are unbelievable.” 

50. Joe teaching his little girl how to give kisses and always claps his hands to cheer on her whenever her lips made the right move to meet his. After some time, the baby girl loves to give her daddy wet kisses and afterwards automatically claps her little hands as well which makes Joe and Taylor burst out in laughter every time.

#taylor swift #joe and taylor #joe alwyn #joe and taylor fanfiction #taylor swift fanfiction #50 things #fanfiction #fanfic

[carlkrogen]

Something Broken P1

I believe I have been studying for the last few hours. My deadline for beating Mrs. Lovecraft at our little translation game was starting to be past the half way point. While I might joke that I wouldn’t mind her winning, I am a prideful man and I will not be easily beaten just because I would want to go to an opera with her. Instead I will continue to study and I will make this a worthy fight for both of us.

‘Why are you bothering?’

Stopping I have been hearing my thoughts wander into strange place. For the last few weeks I have been anxious about many things, but after sorting through my mind, I know better now. Still, the voice is so real to me. Shaking it I continue my studying well until what would be two in the morning. There are some people waking up so they can start their work day, me, I am just ending mine.

When I start to sleep, I feel the dream open up, like the beginning of an opera an orchestra starts below and I find myself walking across a stage, but something more than a stage. I can see the house that I grew up in, everything looks as lush and green as it did when I lived in Lordaeron as a boy. Coming down a slow sloping path I can hear the sounds of voices I haven’t heard in decades. When the foliage finally opened up, I saw my mother, kneeling in the soul of the kitchen garden. She would refuse the servants to help her when she wanted to make a family dinner, so she was wearing her oldest most worn dress as she pulled up potatoes and carrots.

Her head slowly rose up to look at me. Our eyes... I used to have her eyes that is, that was before I had changed everything about myself. As she looked up she let out a sigh. “You’re late.” Getting up she gestured for me to come over to her. When I was only a foot away she raised her hands up to sandwich them between her hands. “You look horrible my son. What have you done with your face?”

Reaching up I feel the current contours of my face and panic. I like how I look normally, but when a mother has a disapproving look it sends a child into panic. “I... I was trying to...”

What was I trying to do with my face? It slipped my mind for a moment before I continued. “I was trying to honor you. You’re gone.”

“Am I?” She asked looking behind her then back to me. “Am I gone Carl?”

“Yes, you burned down the house and committed suicide when Arthas came.” I said quietly, reminding myself of what happened. “You left me.”

“I did... and I should apologize, come.” She gestured for me to follow her into the house. Inside was a large kitchen with black slate floors and granite counters. I remember this place well as a child. The cook would let me linger here between my lessons and I would listen to her tell me about the local gossip. I was always a good listener. In this dream my mother sat me down at the table and put down a humble fruit tart for me to eat while I watch her clean the vegetables. “We had to do it you know. There was no idea what the future would hold for us if we had become one of the undead.”

Looking at the pastry I didn’t eat it. Instead I looked up at her feeling hurt. “But you left me alone. You sent me away then left me fully.”

I heard her let out a frustrated breath as she looked to me. My mother was a proud woman, I got my pride from her, I know it. “Why are you still alive then?”

Blinking I was confused by the sudden turn. “What do you mean?”

“You miss us.” She went back to cleaning and became very blunt. “Why didn’t you just kill yourself and joined us. We were able to do it.”

“I wanted to live, to show the world you weren’t cowards. That you were good people.” I said going over my normal reasons.

“You hated us, so stop lying to yourself. We abandoned you and you hate us for all the things we made you leave.” She said it coldly as she looked back to me. There was actual irritation on her face, something she had done when I would try to tell her about one of my dreams. “I had plans for you, and I stopped you from doing what you loved. Right now, what are you doing with your life? You’ve been traveling the world looking for trinkets and you haven’t even touched your medical bag in nearly a decade. Why would you ever want to clean our memory. You should be celebrating that we’re dead.”

Stopping still, it was a revelation I hadn’t had before. While the words were hard to hear she was right. I didn’t love my family. I was frustrated with them. My brothers were able to be perfect, marrying whoever mother had planned. Father was just her puppet and let her ruin our lives so the family business would be stable.

Old wounds opened and I felt the anger I had when I was a younger boy. The moment I had been asked to come back to the opera company to be a lead was thrown back in my face. Mother telling me I was leaving for Stormwind that next week and I didn’t have time for ‘silly music’.

“You’re right. I haven’t killed myself because I didn’t love you.” I looked up to her and frowned. “I hated you, I still do. Right this minute I hate you. I hate you said that history would never be acceptable as a career. Just look at me. I’ve made a good life like this.”

She scoffed at me and it raised my anger that I had been hiding for years. Getting up from the table I grabbed the pastry and threw it down on the ground. “Even in death you’re going to say I’m not good enough aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.” She said now locking eyes on me. “What have you done to even earn praise from me? Your singing was a little hobby you could do when we thought you were dying. Your love of history? Magic? What good have you done with it?”

“I’m happy.”

“You’re a disappointment.” 

Those words cut deep, so deep in fact I turned and exited the kitchen and out to the gardens. Why did I forget how much I hated them? How could I forget that they turned me into what I am by making me leave them. Part of me now hopes that they were awake for when the fire took them. That they felt their bodies burn, or felt their brains slowly scream for air as the smoke suffocated them.

When I woke up, I was screaming. My anger boiled over to the waking world and sitting up in my head I felt my chest heaving. The dream felt so real, and even as I tried to shake it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had utterly forgotten all they had done to me. There’s no reason to clear their names. They were cowards, cowards who didn’t want to live and protect their youngest child.

‘It hurts to be so alone’

It really does. Closing my eyes I tried to calm down the ticking of my mechanical heart, slowly laying back on the bed. It was like going through the loss of them all over again though. They were gone, and they didn’t care about me. All my life I was an outsider, and they made sure to remind me I was an outsider the moment they died.

It really does hurt to be alone... At the moment, I know who could fix it, who I might be able to talk to and it feel better. But I need rest. If I have time and a good excuse I’ll see them. Remind myself maybe I’m not alone.

((This is the start of a mini story of the whispers Carl has attracted because of the Dagger he got. The Whispers have plans for him, ... he just doesn’t know it yet.))

#Story #Something Broken

[ribbonshades]

January 26th, 2019

One lovely winter morning, the rising sunlight streamed through the tall windows of Jean Duvert’s penthouse apartment, warming his sleeping face with what little heat it offered. He had kicked off his blankets in his sleep again, resulting in him laying amongst them in a plaid pair of pajama pants and a long sleeved grey shirt, as usual, hair tousled behind him. He stirred, curling onto his side and bunching up his blankets to fit in his arms where neither of his boyfriends were currently.

“Mnnnngh,” he groaned, tired limbs stretching, his blue eyes finally fluttering open. The clock read 7:16, meaning he woke up perfectly on time for his day. He spent a few moments rolling gently in bed and lamenting having to leave its warmth and then finally got out of bed, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he plodded towards his bathroom. He could already hear others in the house starting to move about. He pulled off his pajamas and took a nice and hot quick shower, drying off well when he finished.

“What to wear…” he murmured, noting how cold it may be. He opted for a dark mauve dress shirt, dark grey dress pants and a light grey sweater cardigan, a very typical outfit for him. His medium length hair was dry enough to put up in his usual hair style, which he accomplished with a staticky flick of his wrist through his hair. His bangs didn't seem to cooperate, so he tamed them by sliding in a few pins that Jing had given him years before. With his glasses resting on his nose, he gave a soft smile to his reflection and headed down the stairs to start breakfast.

“Good morning,” he called as he came down to the kitchen. Amaryllis was scurrying about, packing up her homework from the night before, while Charles lay on the couch watching a video with Toyo. 

“Hi Dad!” Amaryllis grinned, putting her bag down and going up to him. He smiled and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, ruffling her hair.

“Hello, mon fleur. I brought some salmon home last night, how does that sound for breakfast?” He glanced up to the others, though he knew they would always be fine with whatever he cooked for them.

“Sounds great!” Amaryllis opened the fridge to pull out her packed lunch and tuck it in her bag, taking out three more lunch boxes and putting them in a separate bag. While it was open, Jean pulled out the salmon, some eggs and small stone fruits. He started the rice, turned on the stove, boiled a pot of water and in no time threw together bowls of rice, soft boiled eggs, grilled salmon and sweet grilled apricots.

“Breakfast is ready,” he called to the others, putting the plates of varying contents in front of the counter stools. He always knew their preferences and tried to appeal to them- Charles liked his eggs with a more cooked yolk, Toyo was a fan of fruit and got a few more halves of apricots, and Amaryllis got a bigger piece of salmon simply because she's a growing girl. The four of them ate in a peaceful silence, content at what the day would bring for them all.

“We’re going to leave in a few more minutes. Get ready, okay?” Jean said once he finished his breakfast. Amaryllis nodded earnestly and gulped down the rest of her milk, letting Charles and Toyo take the empty dishes to wash. Jean grabbed his car keys and a folder of documents, with the intention of heading to the God’s Pad to do some work after dropping the kids off. He returned to the door where Amaryllis sat with her backpack, ready for the day.

“Alright, let’s go. See you two later,” Jean called to Charles and Toyo. He and Amaryllis headed over to the elevator and took it all the way down to the parking garage– in these moments where they had normalcy in their lives, they really took any chance the had– and Amaryllis climbed into the back of the car, buckling herself in. Jean pulled out of the garage and drove through the streets of Shibuya towards Pork City, where Nori, Taiki and Kogasa waited.

“G’morning, Dad!” Taiki chirped when Jean pulled over. “I got the tupperware from yesterday, all clean!” Taiki opened the front door to sit in the front seat– despite Kogasa being the oldest and tallest, Taiki liked sitting next to Jean as he drove. Nori shuffled into the middle seat and Kogasa slid into the last vacant seat, all of their backpacks resting at their feet.

“Let’s goooo!” Taiki grinned as Jean shifted gears and took off towards their school. On the ride there, Amaryllis shyly distributed the lunch boxes between the Hiraoka brothers, making sure that the biggest one went to Kogasa.

“Have a good day at school,” Jean said, waving to them all as they got out of the car. He left his car parked in the school parking lot, waited for there to be nobody around, and phased back to the God’s Pad with his folder in hand. This place felt vividly nostalgic in the worst ways, sometimes– but at least he had less grievances about it now. He walked over to the piano in the room, his finger tracing a path through the dust.

“Been a while, huh?” he murmured, it not being clear what he was referring to. He gave the dusty black surface of the piano a lingering look, wondering if he should dust it. Regardless, he smiled and went to his desk, greeting any of the Officers working busily around the office. He had a Reaper to check on today, to make sure their rehabilitation was going okay, but after that his day seemed pretty free. He hadn’t had work at the restaurant, either. Maybe he would swing by Nora’s place to say hi. He settled in at his desk to check what was new, when his phone began to ring.

“Oi!” called the voice on the other line as soon as he picked up. “I’m comin’ over tonight, right?!”

“Sorry, who is this?” Jean replied playfully, a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Hey! You know who this is! Ya got me on caller ID or some shit, right!” the voice audibly puffed indignantly, making Jean laugh.

“Yes, yes, Chris. I’m actually going to be visiting Taboo later on, if you’d like to tag along to that, too,” he said, a fondness clear in his voice.

“Hah… maybe not today! I got some homework to do ‘nd shit. Plus, I don’t need more sweets. But you bet I’ll be at your place at like, 7 o’clock!” Chris declared.

“You know you can always be sweeter. Alright, alright. See you later,” Jean said, smiling, hanging up before Chris could protest. He put his phone down, face up in case anyone else called him, and got to work. Fortunately, the check in didn’t require much– Officers had already reported on the Reaper, so he just had to flick through paperwork for an hour before he was on his way to Taboo Sweets. He pulled the door open, the door chimes tinkling happily to indicate his arrival. He immediately was pelted with something soft– a pillow? The offending object landed in his hands and he blinked in confusion.

“Oh, haven’t seen your face around here lately,” Nora said sarcastically, her arm still raised after her pillow toss, raising an eyebrow from her perch at the counter. Jean chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, guilty of her accusation. He entered the shop, putting the pillow back on a nearby couch. There were a few RGers sitting around the cafe, sipping away at their drinks or soups, but otherwise oblivious to his presence there.

“Hey, I’ve been busy. It’s been on my list, I swear,” he defended himself, though he always felt light inside whenever Nora expressed anything like that to him– it just meant that she missed him, was all.

“Want a drink?” Nora offered, bouncing to her feet on the floor.

“Ahh, hm. I could do with just a green tea, really.” Nora hopped over to behind the counter to fix her friend a drink. She pulled out a slice of a cake of some sort and served them both to Jean with a grin.

“Aw, thanks. This new?” Jean asked, picking up the fork to spear a piece of cake off.

“Yeah! It’s a peach shortcake. Just trying some new things,” Nora said, leaning her elbows on the counter as Jean ate. They spent a while chatting and catching up, complete with Meira bouncing about and teasingly asking where Charles was. Of course, Jean could sense a certain Reaper’s presence from the shadow underneath a chair shrink at the mention of his name. It was almost time to pick up the kids by the time he left, so he phased back to his car at the school and waited while checking his phone.

“Utaite Producer Yoshinda to join XYZ Tour!” said a headline on his Twitter feed. Damn, Haruki is going on tour? He quickly texted him a “congratulations on the tour!” and smiled when Haruki actually replied with a “thanks” and a cheerful kaomoji.

“Dad!” cried Taiki in excitement, as if he hadn’t seen him just that morning. Taiki and Nori clambered into the car, Taiki once again in the passenger seat. He knew that Kogasa had kendo that day, meaning that Amaryllis would be watching him, so they would be able to get home just fine on their own. Jean still felt slightly complicated at his pseudo-son dating his actual daughter, but… that is life. He drove back to his apartment, going up the elevator with the two younger Hiraokas, wondering what sort of after school snack he should make for them.

He settled on just giving them fruit for now, since he’d have to make the three brothers dinner that day, with Mama Hiraoka doing overtime. Taiki spent the next while telling Jean all of the great things he got up to that day in between chomps of fruit, Nori listening intently with wide eyes.

“What’s for dinner, Dad?” Taiki asked finally.

“I was thinking just some roasted veggies and chicken, maybe some mashed potatoes too,” Jean answered, thinking to himself. It wasn’t long until it was time to start cooking dinner in the end, which he started once he got Taiki and Nori to start working on their homework. Chris showed up at some point, too, though once he saw that Jean was still cooking he started to try and escape to avoid having to help with dinner. Jean firmly gave Chris a knife and a bunch of carrots before he could leave, and the Reaper huffed in resignation and started to chop. Kogasa and Amaryllis came home just before dinner was served, a big family dinner with 9 people all talking and chatting happily while eating.

“How was practice, Koga?” Jean asked, glancing up to the eldest Hiraoka son. Kogasa adjusted his glasses in slight embarrassment.

“Went well,” he replied simply. Amaryllis beamed next to him, which told Jean quite enough of how it went.

Mama Hiraoka came and picked up her sons after dinner, with an extra container of a portion of dinner for her too. She thanked Jean gratefully, as tired as she looked, but Jean was just happy to help keep their family going.

Chris, Jean, Toyo and Charles ended up playing Mario Party all the way through the rest of the evening, with Charles winning a very unsurprising victory above the rest. Jean chuckled while Chris complained at the mini games being too hard, teasing him about just needing to try for once. It was late at that point, and everybody went to bed, Jean and Chris retreating upstairs.

“Thanks for coming over,” Jean said, tossing Chris his pajamas. Chris grinned and started to change.

“‘F course, man! Anything for you.” Jean smiled, truly thankful that Chris didn’t mind staying over every now and then to help ward off his nightmares. Of course, sometimes they got up to other activities, but the two of them were both pretty exhausted from the day and they went straight to bed. Chris was out like a light in no time, snoring his stupid head off while clinging to Jean’s arm.

“Today was a good day,” Jean mumbled to himself, smiling. He closed his eyes, hoping the next day would be just as good.

#branch #this was a commission from cin actually

[things-we-used-tc-share]

Manifestor // 17

Plot:  Set in a world where Witchcraft is real, and the government hunts down those who practice magic, Thomas must flee to an underground safehouse after being discovered. Now fighting a war against Witches who seek the end of non-magic people, Thomas must learn to control and harvest his powers, as well as the manifestation of his sides to bring about peace and unity in the Human and Witch world. (Nanowrimo 2018)

--

The five of them were growing more and more powerful as they bounced their talents off of each other, working against and with each of their specialties. Phil had started to learn to control the diversion of Dan’s water, allowing the other to solely focus on the strength of the waves that would come billowing from the palms of his hands. The strength of these cascading waves were improving too, Dan had taken to testing the force against scraps of materials, splintering wood, caving in metal and shattering glass.

Phil and Jack also worked well together, as Phil’s gales fanned Jack’s unrelenting flames until they engulfed entire areas, propelling the flickering orange ribbons; alternatively he also could clear fire away from them all. Thomas would often bounce all of his powers in opposition, water with fire, fire with water, bringing firm and thick walls made from intertwining trees from nowhere in seconds to shield against air, and using air against all three.

They had taken to standing in a circle and randomly throwing out attacks to test their reflexes, to test their strengths and weaknesses. Between the five of them, they were becoming a force to be reckoned with even with each other. Dodie however, did not enjoy fighting, and if she did she was incredibly controlled and powerful but not one of her attacks ever aimed to kill, only to injure or stun.

Thomas was a mediator, he flicked between defense skills and attack skills, varying in intensity, but practicing against a broken dummy just to see and test his limits. When trying much more passionate attacks, he stays within a training cell on his own and pushing himself until he’s exhausted and aching and falling against the walls. Currently, the dummy was charred and damaged beyond repair but through his drained expression there is satisfaction written into a tired smile.

Phil was good at furthering other people’s skills, he could do a lot by himself but his strengths lay in his ability to partner with others, his skills adapted with each of the other’s, his ability to manipulate fire and water with his use of air made attacks much more damaging than they were alone.

Dan was a cautious type of predator, he tested the waters before choosing his attacks, enjoying wearing his opponent down with tricks and diversions before he truly attempts to force out the extent of what he can do. He would play the run around a little, especially when training with Jack, simply casually putting out fires like an arcade water squirt game until his opponent is tired.

Jack, when training alone, was one of the most vicious attackers than any of them had ever gotten to watch. He was some kind of marvelous, impressive when training, the room warping under heat and pressure, diverting and directing attacks with pinpoint accuracy and burning entire rooms up with his energy. Right now, for example, as the four of them sip water and watch as he scorches the contained glass walls which had previously been labeled as indestructible, his eyes are piercing and darting from one marker to another, fire pours like a waterfall straight from Hell, rising and falling, moving in quick and sharp paths as sweat clung to Jack’s face and dampened his hair.

Thomas worries his friend may be overworking himself, whether this be through fear or an outlet for his anger, he was starting to see Jack disappear in front of his eyes and for lack of better phrasing, it was hurting his soul and morality to allow his friend to fall into the deep end. Fire specialists tend to be the quickest to lose their tempers, and having half of his life slaughtered in front of his eyes must have done some serious damage somewhere along the lines. It had damaged Thomas too.

After a long day of training, Jack had offered to make dinner. He had a very absent look in his eyes like he wasn’t really there at all, his focus never quite landing on anything. “Have you been sleeping?” Thomas asks tentatively, following the other into the kitchen “You don’t quite seem like yourself,” He thinks he sees a flash of darkness in Jack’s eyes and his stomach twists.

“I’m fine Thomas, thank you for your concern,” His voice sounds rough and hoarse, his movements are scattered and his hands are shaking. The other knew that his friend was lying through his teeth, because the man he was seeing was a haunted shell of the man he had met within the first few days in a place that would be his new home. He seals his lips shut, however, unsure if he even has a place or position to talk or ask or insist that Jack tells him the truth; perhaps there is no one but Jack that truly has that right.

“You…you really don’t look okay Jack,” He becomes hyper-aware of the sharp knife cutting into vegetables in Jack’s shaking hands. His heart thumps in his chest, he can hear Virgil insisting he takes the knife away from his friend, that he’s not safe, that Jack isn’t safe. He firmly places a hand on Jack’s wrist. “Put the knife down, now,” The Irishman looks up, and the American is expecting a flash of cerulean eyes but no he’s staring into a dark pit where a soul should be. He feels his stomach lurch, the knife clatters and Jack’s backing away, the azure seeping back into him.

The other man collapses against the wall, heaving sobs running through his body in slow waves. “I’m not okay,” He gasps out and relief wraps around Thomas at the confirmation and confession, causing him to kneel next to his friend and open his arms for a hug that is gladly accepted. “I’m really not doing okay, Thomas, I’m so angry all the time, it’s making it easier for him,” Thomas nods and rubs his back comfortingly.

“It’s okay Jack, I’m here, you need rest, you’re overworking yourself and it’s weakening your sense of morality because you’re feeding into your anger and fear so greatly,” It makes so much sense that Jack visibly relaxes and nods “You need to go to sleep, please, you need sleep and a day off training, maybe with Dodie, she’ll be better equipped to helping you than me,” He may be a powerful Manifestor, but he acknowledges that in their specialties, everyone around him was better than he was, they’d trained for much longer and had so much more studying than him. He didn’t truly think there was an Earth specialist in the entire solar system that was better than Dodie, who had mastered the art of terrifying and furious calm simultaneously. In essence, she is as terrifying as anyone around them in her powers, but the most gentle in that her soul and morality were so clean.

He helps Jack up and walks through the kitchen with him, leading down to their now shared space where everyone else was happily chatting. “Jack’s going to stay here and I’m going to make dinner guys,” The American announces with a gentle smile, and they all take in how pale his companion looks, with bags under his eyes and the sway of his body dictating he is very ready to fall unconscious.

Jack gets into bed and Thomas explains very quietly to Dodie that the other man is having issues with controlling darker elements of a corrupt morality, given the nature of his specialty. The British woman takes less than a second to help her friend, sitting next to him on the bed and pressing her fingertips to the brunet’s forehead, allowing serenity to wash over him like a wave. Thomas watches for a second as a weary smile passes over Jack’s lips and his body begins to unwind all the twists and turns and agonies that had been holding him locked in a cage of his own being.

Thomas returns to the kitchen to cut up some vegetables, throwing them in a pan before routing through the cupboards for something else to throw in there with them. He finds potatoes and instant gravy and decides that’s probably all they were getting out of today’s meal. As the water boils, his mind wanders and he thinks of the future when those creatures would be back; it had been two weeks since he’d seen a hide or hair of them. It was unnerving and the suspense was killing him as though he were being held off the edge of a cliff with a rope that was beginning to tether and half itself. The American wonders if he will really be able to bring himself back to land again, instead of balancing his feet on thin air.

In truth, his anxiety had been working so hard that anxious had become too normal for them and Virgil, now exhausted, barely had the energy to say things like “Hey watch where you’re putting that knife,” only ever spiking up in serious moments in dire need of a fight or flight reflex.

He begins to sort out the meal, lost in his dissociative thoughts until it’s ready to be dished. He covers Jack’s and puts in the fridge to heat up when he wanted it and carried the remaining four plates down the hallway to his friends. Dan and Phil are amidst a lazy discussion about nothing in particular as Dodie chips in every now and then, still focused predominantly on the sweet dreams and relaxation of her friends. The two conscious boys are happy to finish their conversation in order to shovel some food down their throats.

Dodie pulls away and places herself on the floor, accepting the warm plate of food with a thankful smile, happy to have some nourishment for what may be the first time today. The remaining four conscious people ate in silence with not truly much to say, except for the ‘thank you’s’ that had already been spoken.

Thomas keeps his eyes trained on Jack however, for the rest of the night, worried about his best friend.

Ko-fi

[wildefiction]

Of Course...Mr. Collins

TWENTY-THREE

The rest of the week passed quickly as you finalized plans for the southern California convention taking place the first weekend of December. When you'd asked what would happen once the convention circuit finished for the year, Misha had reminded you that he was in the middle of filming season thirteen, and that it was likely the two of you would be spending a substantial part of the next several months in Vancouver. Although since he lived so close he often came home on the weekends, so he assured you would have some down time. Not that you minded, spending a bunch of time with your prohibitively sexy boss who you also happened to be sleeping with? It was a no-brainer.

Thursday morning dawned chilly, a cold wind and drizzling rain pelted the worn shingles of your roof. Drawing the Venetian blinds open filled the living room with a grey light and you smiled as your cats appointed themselves door guardians, keeping a wary eye on the crows who enjoyed taunting them from the deck.

Padding into the kitchen you set to work gathering the materials to make cheesecake. It was your favorite dessert, and you saved the lengthy process for the holidays. Reaching up to the top shelf of your cupboards required a step stool, as even on tiptoes the mixing bowls eluded you. Whoever had designed the kitchen failed to realize that putting cupboards above the dishwasher made them out of reach for all but the tallest people.

Straining for the stack of glass bowls occupied your attention. Just as you got a good grip on the lip of one your phone rang. Looking around you in search of the source quickly revealed that you'd left the device on the couch. By the sounds of the muffled tone, it had slid between the cushions. Setting the bowls on the counter you ran into the adjacent room, just catching the call before it went to voicemail.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Collins.” Groaning, Misha sighed on the other end of the call. “You're lucky I need you Ms. [Y/L/N], otherwise you'd be in serious need of an attitude adjustment.” 

The gravelly admonishment made you flush, a crimson heat pooling through your belly. Clearing his throat, your boss quickly changed the subject. 

“So, ahh, I hate to do this but..do you think you could come help us in the kitchen? I may have bitten off more than I could chew with this menu.” 

You were about to tell him you'd be happy to, but he continued, hastily adding that you could bring your sister if you wanted to and that he'd give you a bonus if you'd save his ass. Laughing through the line, you agreed - on the condition that you could bring dessert. “Thanks [Y/F/N], you really are a lifesaver.”

You weren't about to turn down more time with Misha, the salary boost was just an added bonus. He need never know that you had planned on spending the day stuffing your face with cheesecake; deciding to forego the big spread when you realized you'd be spending the holiday alone had saved you a lot of time and money.

Gathering all of the ingredients into a grocery tote along with several mixing bowls, your biggest springform pan and the fresh fruit used for garnish, you moved into your room to change. The bright blue fleece pajama pants littered with sheep that you currently wore didn't exactly feel right.

Not wanting to overdo things, you decided on a pair of soft, plum colored leggings and a form-fitting black tunic top, the hem falling just a few inches past the curve of your thighs. Pulling knee-high, oatmeal colored wool socks on before lacing up your pair of soft leather boots completed the outfit. Spreading a thick layer of dark eyeliner on to accompany the purple and black smokey-eye was just enough to tie everything together, your [Y/E/C] irises framed by the heavier makeup.

Pulling a brush through your long [Y/H/C] hair was enough, you knew if you were cooking that a fancier hairstyle wouldn't last long anyhow.

The highway held few cars, making the drive pass quickly. Pulling into Misha’s neighborhood, you were surprised by the number of cars parked both in his driveway and lining the street. Knocking on the heavy front door left you standing on the porch for a few minutes. After several tries,  you squeezed the handle, and finding it unlocked, let yourself in.

The maelstrom that greeted you was intense. West chased Tom and Shep through the house while JJ sat on the plush rug of the living room and stacked blocks with Maison. Gen and Daneel reclined together on the overstuffed sofa, glasses of red wine clutched in their hands, chatting as they kept a watchful eye on the girls. Rather than being overwhelmed, you felt like part of the family, a smile passing over your face as you took in your surroundings and made your way to the kitchen.

Vicki stood behind the cool marble covered island that dominated the center of the room. The sharp knife in her hand sliced through vegetables with ease. Seeing you walk in, she lowered the blade, and, wiping her hands on the half apron tied around her waist; enveloped you in a bone crushing hug. 

“[Y/F/N]! Thank you so much for coming to help with dinner...you know how Misha can be.” Thinking back to the first night you’d met the Collins’, you rolled your eyes and laughed. “So, what scheme has he thought of this time?” 

Lifting your bags up onto the counter, your [Y/E/C] eyes widened in shock at the thick piece of cardstock Vicki handed across her work station. 

“He..he actually made a menu?” “Where is our host anyhow?” Vicki snorted under her breath in mild amusement, motioning vaguely over her shoulder with the knife she’d taken up to finish her task.

Turning your attention to the set of double french doors behind her, you wandered across the cool wooden floor and looked through the glass. Misha, Jared and Jensen were all huddled around a large grill, where two twenty-pound turkeys were trussed and stuffed with herbs; slowly turning over the open flame. Jared noticed you first as you leaned against the oak door frame, impressed at their dedication. 

“Why am I not surprised that you are actually roasting turkeys over an open fire?” Jensen held up his hands and backed away from the heat, shaking his head while he tilted an amber bottle to his lips.

“Not me, Jared and I are giving him shit. There’s no way Misha can do this and have them finish before next year. We’re taking bets on how long it’ll take until we get to eat.” 

“Supervising, you might say..” Jared quipped as he moved to wrap his arms around you in greeting.

Misha’s attention finally rose from the spit and his eyes met [Y/F/N], a slow smile twisting over his face at the woman standing in his doorway. She looked amazing; a glass of wine in her hand as she smiled back at him, an amused expression on her face. 

“Well boys, have fun out here in the cold. I’m going back inside to surround myself with beautiful women...and cheesecake.” A torrent of wind off of the bay swirled around you as you stepped back into the warmth of the house.

There was a great deal of work to be done for the two desserts you had promised. Melting white chocolate over a double boiler while simultaneously reducing fresh raspberries into a puree forced you to abandon the glass of merlot Vicki had poured you. With those tasks complete you began assembling the base recipe for the cheesecakes themselves, the onyx monster of a stand mixer working overtime to whip the ingredients together. Crossing the kitchen to pour freshly ground coffee beans into the espresso machine for the tiramisu cheesecake took only a moment, the compelling smell warming you from the inside out.

Two hours later, you pulled the hot desserts from the double ovens set into the wall. Lowering the cakes to cooling racks well out of reach of small hands, you sighed; content. The smell of roasting turkey wafted through the open door when you poked your head outside to check how things were going. Rosemary, thyme and orange married together beautifully, a hint of sage rounding out the bouquet. The smug look on Misha’s face at his success caught your eye, his piercing blue eyes lit with satisfaction, that damning smile of his adding to the heat that burned through you.

Setting the expansive table distracted you well enough. A smaller, square oak table had been set aside just for the kids and you found your mind wandering to how it would feel to have your own child joining the others as they clambered up into their chairs. Shaking your head, you huffed at the thought. You didn’t like children. Mentally berating the biological clock that occasionally screamed at you to procreate, you shoved the idea away from your conscience. You could barely take care of yourself, adding a two-legged little gremlin to the mix wasn’t even a somewhat good idea. Pouring yourself a second glass of wine, you settled into one of the twelve heavy chairs that flocked the stretch of dark wood quickly filling with a myriad of dishes.

Dinner played out as if it were the scene in a hallmark movie. The  food was delicious, Misha spending twenty minutes carving up both turkeys before setting large, oval platters of meat at each end of the table. Tureens filled with mashed potatoes, both sweet and gold sat nestled amongst casseroles of stuffing, whole cranberries lending their beautiful color to the tablescape. Massive biscuits rested in napkin lined baskets; an old recipe handed down to Gen from her grandparents. Misha’s homemade wine flowing freely while the kids enjoyed fresh squeezed lemonade, West excitedly telling anyone who would listen that he’d help make it.

“[Y/F/N], where’s your sister? Did she not want to join us?” Jared’s hazel eyes were warm as they turned to you, his fingers laced with Gen’s. 

“She’s decided to stay in Hawaii for another week, actually.” Vicki’s eyes widened as she realized that you’d planned to be home alone today and she grimaced.

“If Misha hadn’t called you to help, what exactly would you be doing right now?” Shrugging, you swallowed another drink of the fruity liquid in your glass before answering. 

“Probably stuffing myself full of cheesecake and watching movies in my pajamas.” 

“What?! There are at least three food groups in cheesecake, it’s a nice, balanced meal.” 

“I’m not complaining though, this turkey is a-maaaazing Misha.”

After hours spent shopping, prepping and cooking the veritable feast laid out before you, everyone was overfull within thirty minutes. Jared and Jensen herded the children upstairs to change into pajamas and get cleaned up while Daneel, Gen and Vicki cleared the table. Back in the kitchen you pulled the fresh raspberry puree and heavy whipping cream from the refrigerator, spreading the fruit topping evenly across the surface of one of the cheesecakes. White chocolate curls and whole berries decorated the outer ring and sides of the confection. 

Adding the heavy cream to a stainless steel charger produced beautifully fresh cream for the tiramisu cake and, carrying them out to the table gleaned the interest of everyone in the house. A concerned look fell over Jensen’s face as he warred with the idea of whether or not he could fit additional food in his stomach. Laughing, you assured him there was plenty and that he could eat it later. With a curt nod of his head, he and Jared followed Misha back outside and you turned questioning glances to the women sitting around you. 

“It’s become a bit of a tradition when we’re all together to light up the fire pit and disconnect for awhile. C’mon [Y/F/N], you’ll see what we mean.” Vicki’s fingers stretched out to envelope your own as she moved to lift several large blankets from a basket by the door. Tilting her head in invitation, you followed her and the others outside where the boys already sat, the small children clambering up into their father’s laps. As you moved to sit in one of the adirondack chairs huddled near the iron pit of dancing flames, Vicki glared at you. 

“Don’t even think about running off by yourself, you come sit with us. You’re family now, whether you like it or not.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

TAGS: @jamielea81 @wings-of-a-raven

#WildeFiction #Misha x Reader #Supernatural Fanfiction #SPN x RPF

[buoyantsaturn]

I’m in Hell (2/?)

summary: Nico and Will get closer as Christmas nears. Then there’s angst. And then it’s Nico’s birthday!

word count: 16,413 (31,375 current total)

read on ao3 | read part one

Will hardly ever texted Nico more than once without a response, so when Nico received three texts from him in a row, he was already concerned.

FROM: Will; Hey

FROM: Will; I have a weird question for you FROM: Will; Have you had the chickenpox vaccine?

TO: Will; why

FROM: Will; I need you to pick up some calamine lotion and bring it over

TO: Will; i’ll be there in half an hour

Nico rolled out of bed, having yet to leave his room that morning, and threw on whatever clothes he could find before heading out with a shout of, “I’m going to Will’s,” to Hazel before he left. He drove to the nearest drugstore to pick up the calamine lotion before heading to Will’s, using his key on the locked door once he arrived.

“Hello?” he called into the house as he kicked off his shoes by the door.

“In here,” Will’s voice came from somewhere else, but before Nico could go in to find him, Will continued, “Wait! You never told me if you had the vaccine!”

“I didn’t,” Nico replied, stepping around the corner toward the living room, where he guessed Will to be. “I had chickenpox when I was four.” He held up the grocery bag when he saw Will and Bianca sitting on the couch. “You asked for calamine?”

“Nico,” Bianca started, voice whiny as she reached out toward him with a mitten-covered hand, “can you get rid of my chickenpox?”

Nico took the bottle of lotion out of the bag and walked over to the couch to hand it over to Will as he said, “Sorry, Princess, you gotta let it run its course.” He looked up when Will took the lotion from his hand and Nico spotted red marks along his arm, mixed in amongst his freckles. “You...have the chickenpox.”

Will frowned up at him. “Yes?”

“You--” Nico snorted, and covered his mouth with his hand as he started to laugh. “A grown man. I’ve never seen an adult who has chickenpox.”

Will’s frown turned to a pout. “It’s not like I planned it. Bi got it from someone at school, and apparently the vaccine only works ninety-five percent of the time.”

“Aren’t you special, then,” Nico said, and sat down on the couch in between the two Solaces. He turned to Bianca and suggested, “Bi, why don’t you go put on some shorts and short sleeves, and then you can put on the calamine lotion to help with the itching.”

“But then I’ll be cold,” Bianca complained.

“It’ll help.”

“How?”

Nico paused. “Well, when my nephew had the chickenpox, he said that he felt better when his clothes weren’t rubbing on him and making him itchier. And the lotion might make your clothes stick to you and make it worse, if you’re wearing long pants and long sleeves.”

Bianca sighed. “Okay.” She hopped off the couch and went into her bedroom to change, shutting the door behind herself.

“You can take the mittens off to change, but don’t scratch or you’ll scar!” Will called after her.

Nico had to stop himself from jumping, having somehow forgotten that Will was there beside him. He wasn’t used to being around Will for longer than it took him to run out the door to go to work. He definitely wasn’t used to sitting and talking with him when Bianca wasn’t in the room, and now that she wasn’t hogging half of the couch, Nico suddenly felt much too close to Will.

“I, uh, I didn’t know you had a nephew,” Will said.

“There’s a lot of things we don’t know about each other,” Nico replied, and he felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. Wait a second, was he flirting? He shouldn’t be flirting, what if Will caught on? What if he somehow found out about that dream that Nico had of the two of them in bed together? Woah, Nico thought. Slow down.

“Was that true?” Will asked, and Nico’s mind went blank as he tried to remember the last thing he’d said. Had he been thinking out loud? Oh no, did he mention the dream? “About how the clothes rubbing on your nephew’s chickenpox made the itching worse?”

Nico’s racing heart suddenly stopped, and he felt his tension flood away from him. “Well, I wasn’t about to tell Bianca that he was only a year and a half old and preferred to run around in just his diaper most of the time, but yeah, it helped as far as I could tell.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have your own inside tips,” Nico said. “You know, being a doctor and all. I’d think you would know all the secrets.”

Will grinned. “Maybe for other things, but it’s not like I’m a pediatrician. I’ve clearly never interacted with somebody who has the chickenpox if I haven’t contracted them until now.”

Nico’s smile grew until it was almost as bright as Will’s. “I still think that’s hilarious. You: an adult with a child, just now catching the chickenpox, a baby’s disease.”

Will rolled his eyes and looked away, but Nico could still see that he was smiling. “Ha ha, sure, laugh at the man suffering from that baby’s disease.”

“I would hardly call it suffering, you seem fine!” Nico argued with a laugh. “I haven’t even seen you pretend to scratch this whole time. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re faking it.”

Of course, as soon as Nico said that, a spark of realization shone in Will’s eyes, and he reached up to scratch as his cheek before pulling his hand away just as quick. “I guess you distracted me just enough to keep my mind off of it.”

Before Nico could think of a response - but after he’d started to realize that he was staring straight into Will’s sky-like eyes - Bianca returned from her room and plopped herself right down in Nico’s lap, ignoring the open couch cushion next to him.

“I’m ready!” she announced, and with that, whatever was happening between Nico and Will seemed to break, and all attention was on Bianca once more.

Once both Solaces were coated in calamine lotion, Bianca insisted that Nico stay to watch a movie with them, which led to them watching the movie’s sequel. By the time the second movie was over, it was close enough to dinner time that they were all getting hungry, and Nico offered to make dinner. It wasn’t until Will was putting Bianca to bed that Nico started to head out, but Will called after him quietly and stopped him in the kitchen.

“Thanks again for stopping by,” Will told him. “I couldn’t exactly go out in public since I’m still contagious, and I can’t go back to work until next week because of this--”

“Oh. Okay, so you don’t need me,” Nico said, hoping that he didn’t let his disappointment show. “I guess just let me know--”

“You could still come over,” Will cut in hurriedly, and started to backtrack just as fast. “I mean, if you wanted to. You don’t have to, but, uh, I’m sure Bianca would appreciate it. But I know you probably have your own stuff to do, so, uh--”

“Sure, just...text me. If you want. Or call, or...whatever.” He stepped toward the door, throwing a thumb over his shoulder as he said, “I’m gonna go home now. I’ll see you--”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

“Cool,” Nico said, and walked out the door.

He banged his head against his steering wheel a few times before driving home.

As soon as the Solaces were officially no longer contagious, Bianca returned to school and Will went back to work, which meant that Nico was at the Solace household almost every hour of the day once again - though he still tried to sleep in his own bed most of the time, because he was certain that couch was trying to kill him.

There was one morning - afternoon to Will, but still morning to Nico - that Will woke Nico up with a call, as usual.

“Hey, Nico,” Will greeted, and Nico made some kind of noise in response. “I have an overnight shift this week, from Tuesday into Wednesday, so I’ll need you to stay over Tuesday night to take Bi to school in the morning, but I’ll be home to pick her up. And then I’ll need you all day on Thursday, and--”

“Wait, Thursday?” Nico cut in. “Solace, that’s Thanksgiving. I’ll be in the Upper East Side all day.”

“It’s...oh. Right, of course it’s Thanksgiving. Okay, never mind about Thursday. I’ll, um. See you Tuesday.”

“Sure,” Nico said, seconds before Will ended the call.

Thursday morning, at what seemed like the crack of dawn to Nico but was really about nine-thirty, he and Hazel drove to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They climbed the stairs to the third floor walk-up that Nico had lived in just a year earlier, and the door opened to reveal the smiling faces of Paul and Estelle Blofis.

Nico was immediately torn between taking the baby from her father’s arms and heading to the kitchen to help Sally with the cooking, so he walked into the living room to find Percy and Annabeth and their son Luke instead. It wasn’t until he’d made his rounds and said hello and gave too many hugs that he made his way into the kitchen.

Sally was the only one in the room, and Nico said a quick hello before he started peeling potatoes. Annabeth must have followed him into the kitchen, because she was suddenly at his side with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You haven’t called,” she told him.

“He hasn’t called me in a while either,” Sally chimed in.

Nico rolled his eyes. “I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, of course,” Annabeth teased. “With Will. How’s that going?”

Nico shrugged. “Fine, I guess, I dunno.”

“Will is the doctor, right?” Sally asked.

“Yes--”

“With the daughter that you’ve been taking care of,” Annabeth continued.

“Uh huh.”

“If you start talking, then we’ll stop asking questions.”

Nico sighed. “Alright, fine. Uh, the kid’s cute, it’s nice to have a reason to get out of my apartment every day. It actually is helping with my classes too, like, I’ve been getting new ideas all the time, and I finally have the motivation to do my homework. And Will’s great, too, he’s--” Nico stopped himself before he said something that could be used against him, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um. He’s...around, sometimes.”

“And this Will,” Annabeth said in a voice that put Nico on edge. “He wouldn’t happen to be the same guy you have a middle school crush on, would he?”

Sally turned toward them with an eyebrow raised and an amused smile. “What was that?”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the video?” Annabeth pulled out her phone with a devious grin.

Nico dropped the potato he was peeling on the counter alongside the peeler and lunged for Annabeth’s phone. “Annabeth, no!”

She played the video and forced the phone into Sally’s hands, holding Nico back as he fought to take the phone.

“No fighting in the kitchen, you two,” Sally told them, laughing as she handed the phone back to Annabeth. “And I think that’s cute, Nico.”

“I’m not cute,” Nico grumbled, and stomped out of the kitchen.

Frank had been given a two-day leave from West Point which allowed him to make it to Sally’s just in time for dinner. However, Frank’s arrival also meant that he and Hazel would be sharing the pull-out couch that night, which put Nico on the living room floor while the Jackson-Chases were crammed into the guest room-slash-Estelle’s room.

Nico was used to not being able to sleep, especially when everyone else was heading to bad much earlier than he usually did himself, so he wasn’t surprised when he tossed and turned half of the night until he finally fell asleep at what he guessed was around three. He also wasn’t surprised - irritated, but not surprised - when his phone started ringing, waking him up so that he could hear everyone else already awake and in the kitchen.

“Hello?” Nico grumbled as he sat up off the floor.

“Good morning!” Will said cheerily on the other end of the call. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

Nico made a noncommittal noise in response as he stood up and started toward the kitchen. He was pretty sure he smelled coffee, and he desperately needed some of that.

Will laughed. “Alright, I get that. Did you make it home yet? I have to go into work this afternoon, so I need you to come over.”

Nico pulled a mug down from one of the cabinets before pouring himself a cup of coffee. He tried to ignore the eyes he could feel on his back and how quiet the room around him had become. “I stayed the night up here, but I can be home in a couple of hours. What time do you need me?”

“Can you be here by one?”

Nico pulled the phone away from his face to read the time: 9:20am. He held back a groan; he should not be awake this early. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Great! Thanks, Nico. I’ll see you later!”

“Bye,” Nico said, and ended the call.

“Aw, Neeks, you’re so whipped!” Percy called out to him with a giant smile, and Nico made sure that Luke and Estelle weren’t looking his way when he flipped Percy off while taking a sip of his coffee.

Annabeth shoved at Percy’s shoulder before telling Nico, “You two should come over for dinner sometime after you get together. No! All three of you. I bet Will’s daughter and Luke will get along great!”

“You can’t just assume that all kids are gonna get along, Annabeth.” Nico rolled his eyes and sat down at the table next to his sister. “Hazel, I need to leave soon. Are you coming with me, or are you going with Frank?”

Instead of answering, Hazel turned to Frank and gave him a look. Frank said to Nico, “I’ll drive her home.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of leaving before breakfast,” Sally said as she set down a plate of blue pancakes in front of him. “Paul made plenty so you had better eat your fair share.”

Nico didn’t argue. He didn’t know what Paul put in his pancakes, but Nico could never make his own taste quite as good.

After he finished eating, he said his goodbyes and started toward the door, but Annabeth stopped him before he could step out.

“You should call more often, you know,” Annabeth told him, forcing a hug on him, though he only pretended to hate it. “Maybe I can give you some tips on raising your kid.”

“She’s not my kid,” Nico reminded her, pulling out of the hug. “I’m not raising her, either, just...looking after her sometimes.”

Annabeth winked. “Maybe one day.”

Nico rolled his eyes so hard that his head tipped back with the force of it, and he walked out the door.

Will would never tell anyone - especially not Lou Ellen - how much he loved calling Nico every morning. No matter how terrible his morning could be, hearing Nico’s sleepy voice always put a smile on his face.

One particular morning had been pretty terrible, full of a cranky Bianca who didn’t want to go to school and angry patients who refused to cooperate, and Will knew there was only one thing that could make his day better.

He called Nico.

And somebody else picked up the phone.

“Hello?” came a perky female voice through the speaker.

Will was so taken aback that he forgot to answer until the voice said another, slightly more confused hello? “Oh, uh, hi! I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number...somehow.”

“Wait, no! You’re Will, right?” she asked. “Nico’s told me a lot about you.”

Will wanted to feel flattered but he was too confused to know what he should be feeling. “Um. Yes, I’m Will. Is he, um. Is Nico there? Can I talk to him?”

There was a short hesitation before, “Nico’s a little...under the weather. I don’t think he’s really up for talking to anyone right now.”

“Is he okay?” Will felt his confusion vanish as worry filled him like ice through his veins. “I’m a doctor, I could come check him out--over, I could come check him over--” He took a breath and said, quieter this time, “Is he okay?”

“No, no, don’t trouble yourself with him,” she said with a gentle laugh. “This is just his annual thing. You know how it is, right? He’ll be back to his normal self soon enough.”

Will wasn’t really sure he understood, but he still said, “Yeah, I...get it. Um. Do you think he’ll be okay by tomorrow? I was kind of hoping he could pick my daughter up from school today, but I can figure something out.”

“Give me just a second and I’ll go see how he’s feeling, okay?”

Hazel set Nico’s phone down on the coffee table where he’d left it a few days earlier and went to his room, knocking before she entered. Nico was laying on his side, facing the wall, but somehow Hazel knew that he wasn’t asleep. She sat on the edge of his mattress and placed a hand on his arm comfortingly.

She had tried speaking to him many times in the past few days, asking if he was hungry, or if he was feeling any better, but she never got any response from him. She’d barely even gotten him to drink any water.

“Nico,” she said softly, “Will called.” He shifted under her hand - the most reaction he’s shown in days. “He wants to know if you’ll be okay tomorrow for Bianca.” He flinched at the mention of her name, though Hazel knew it was a different Bianca he was thinking of. “He’ll understand if you can’t be there, but he does need an answer soon, okay?”

She waited a moment, giving him an opportunity to respond like she always did, but stood up when he said nothing. She made it to the door before she was stopped by the sound of her brother’s voice.

“I’ll be there,” Nico croaked.

Hazel walked back over to him and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “I’ll let him know.”

She left the room, shutting the door behind herself, and returned to the living room where Will was still waiting for his answer. “Nico said he’ll be there,” she told him.

“Are you sure he’s okay?” Will asked one final time, and Hazel could hear the sincere worry in Will’s tone.

She thought back to the video she had saved on her phone of Nico practically confessing his love for the other man, and smiled to herself. Maybe Hazel couldn’t do much to help her brother, but if anyone could, she was sure it was Will. “He’ll be just fine.”

Will couldn’t get that woman’s voice out of his head for the rest of the day. He tried to continue about his day after venting to a very interested Lou Ellen during lunch, and he had to sneak out for a little over half an hour to pick Bianca up from school and bring her back to the hospital. He really hoped the hospital’s daycare was open to kids over the age of five, otherwise he might have to hide Bianca away in Lou’s room until his shift was over.

When he walked into the school’s front office and found Bianca waiting amongst a small crowd of other children, Will saw this his daughter looked confused.

“Where’s Nico?” she asked without greeting.

“He’s...sick,” Will answered, and led her out to the car where he buckled her into her carseat and returned to the driver’s seat.

“He didn’t catch my chickenpox, did he?”

“No, he doesn’t have chickenpox. You can only get those once, and he had them when he was your age.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Bi.”

“Do you think he’s sad?”

Will met his daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Why do you think he would be sad?”

“Nico told me that his sister started living on the moon in December,” Bianca said. “It’s December right now. Do you think he misses his sister?”

Will thought back to the story Bianca had told him of Nico’s sister, remembering how he’d doubted any truth in the story, but realizing now that there might have been one very real part of it. He felt himself filling with dread at the thought of Nico being so sad that he couldn’t even leave his own house. Will was a doctor - he knew exactly what to prescribe to fix just about any physical ailment that he came across, but sadness? How could Will fix that?

“You might be right, Bianca,” he said after a short pause. “But the only thing that can make sadness better is time.”

“And cookies!” Bianca exclaimed. “We should make cookies for him. Cookies make everybody happy.”

Will smiled. “Okay, sure. We’ll make cookies for him tomorrow morning before I have to go to work.”

Thankfully, when they got to the hospital, Bianca was accepted happily into the daycare so that Will could return to work. Even more thankfully, there were no severe emergencies that couldn’t be handled by the surgical interns and emergency room nurses, which meant that Will and Bianca were able to leave, swing through a fast food drive-through, stop by the store for cookie ingredients, and arrive home just in time for Bianca to get ready for bed.

Will felt ready to collapse in his own bed, but knew that he needed clean clothes for the next day and a shower wouldn’t kill him, plus there was a sink full of dishes that he knew Nico would normally wash but Will felt bad intentionally leaving them for him when Nico wasn’t in the healthiest state.

Of course, unfortunately for Will, all the mindless activities gave him time to think, to remember the perky voice he’d heard through the phone and overthink everything about her. Who was she? Why was she in Nico’s apartment? Why would she answer Nico’s phone? Was she Nico’s girlfriend? Why would she say that she’d heard so much about him in such a knowing tone?

Will tried to force those thoughts out of his head as he finally laid down in bed that night, but the thought of that woman being in Nico’s apartment when Will was in his own home so far away drove Will to pulling out his phone and sending a quick text to Nico before he shut his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

TO: Nico; Call me if you need anything. And I really do mean anything.

When he woke up the next morning, there was no response and no missed calls.

Nico was assaulted by the smell of chocolate when he walked into the Solace house. He didn’t call out a hello as he usually did, just kicked his shoes off by the door and walked into the kitchen where he found a heaping plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the island.

“Oh,” came a voice to his left, and Nico turned to see Will standing in the hallway. He smiled brightly at Nico as he unfroze himself and continued into the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure if you were still coming.”

“Do you...not need me?” Nico asked quietly, voice hoarse from disuse, and he cleared his throat after speaking to ward off the cough he felt coming.

“No, I do! I just--” Will scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “--wasn’t sure if you were...up for it.”

“Did Hazel say something to you?” Nico asked.

Before Will could answer, Bianca came running down the hall shouting Nico’s name, and attached herself to his side. “Nico, I missed you!”

Nico pulled her away from him so that he could crouch down and hug her properly. “I missed you too, Princess,” he whispered, hoping his voice didn’t shake as much as it felt like it had. When he pulled away, he could barely look at her - she looked so much like his Bianca, it was almost too much to bear. He stood back up and averted his eyes, blinking furiously to keep any tears from spilling.

“We made you cookies!” Bianca exclaimed and pointed to the plate on the island. “Cookies make everybody happy, so if you eat a lot of cookies then you won’t be sad anymore!”

“What makes you think I’m sad?” Nico asked.

“Well, aren’t you?”

That’s fair, Nico thought to himself. Instead, he said, “Thank you, Princess.”

“Hugs help too!” Bianca said, and wrapped her arms around Nico again. “Daddy gives really good hugs, they make me feel not sad anymore all the time, so you should hug him, too!”

Bianca released him once again, only to run over to Will and drag him closer until the two men were within hugging distance of each other. Will’s smile had turned a little uncomfortable, but Nico had his eyes locked on his shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to meet Will’s eyes. The blue of his scrubs were dull compared to his eyes; it was easier to look at and not feel quite so ashamed of his overwhelming sadness.

Will’s arms closed around him, and Nico was surrounded by warmth - a pleasant, living warmth, so unlike the uncomfortable heat of his blanket cocoon of depression that he’d been living in all weekend. He pressed his face into Will’s shoulder - was he really an entire head shorter than Will? He’d never noticed - and carefully wrapped his own arms around Will’s back, like he was afraid that too quick of a movement would scare him away.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Will whispered, and Nico felt himself stiffen, one of his hands balling into a fist around the fabric of Will’s shirt. “You don’t have to stay. You can take another day if you need it. Take as much time as you need.”

Nico shook his head and pulled himself away. He hated the feeling of leaving Will’s warmth, of feeling the cool air surround him, only wishing he could press himself up against Will until he forgot all about ever being sad.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“Are you sure?” Will asked. “I can try to bribe the daycare at the hospital to watch Bianca for another day, but I do need to leave, like, now.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Nico said, cracking the tiniest of smiles. It probably wasn’t even noticeable, but he could feel it.

Will stepped away from Nico and knelt down to kiss the top of Bianca’s head with a goodbye, I love you.

“Thanks for the cookies,” Nico said, eyes flickering up just long enough to catch Will’s brilliant smile.

“Please don’t let Bianca eat all of them.” He walked around Nico to put on his shoes and grab his coat and his keys. “I’ll see you later, and I’ll text you when I’m on my way home.”

When Will turned back around to face him, Nico held the plate of cookies out toward him. “Take one. Or three, it’s not like I’ll be able to eat them all.”

Will took a single cookie and bit into it, letting out an appreciative noise at the taste of chocolate. He swallowed the bite before saying, “Bye, Nico,” and started out the door.

“Bye, Sunshine.”

FROM: Kayla; Hey Will! It’s me, your favorite half-sister! I just remembered that you live in New York now, so I wanted to invite you to my Christmas party on Friday! It’ll be pretty small and you probably won’t know anyone besides me and Austin, but we would love to get to know you better, so you should come!!! And YES you should wear your ugliest sweater!

TO: Kayla; I’ll have to make sure I have someone to watch my daughter, but that sounds great! Also: who’s Austin?

FROM: Kayla; Our brother??

TO: Kayla; We have a brother???

Nico was still fragile after the anniversary of his sister’s death, and all Will wanted was to wrap Nico in his arms and hold him until his smile returned, but Will knew that the touch wouldn’t be welcomed. Nico flinched even when Bianca hugged him, and it broke Will’s heart to see him in such a state.

It made him feel even worse when he had to ask Nico to stay late on Friday just so that Will could go to a party. Nico told him continuously not to worry about it, and Will kept saying that he would try not to be out late and promised that he would finish the guest room soon.

Will changed into a pair of jeans and his only Christmas sweater before requesting an Uber and leaving for Kayla’s apartment - he didn’t want to drive himself in case he decided to have a few drinks. He realized that he’d made the right choice when Kayla insisted on doing a shot with him as soon as Will arrived, and then pushed a cup of spiked eggnog into his hands.

After just an hour into the party, Will was already well past tispy.

Nico never slept well in December, and had already been planning on leaving once Will came home so that he could try to sleep in his own bed. Then it was after two in the morning, and Nico heard a kind of faint scratching coming from the direction of the front door, like someone struggling to get a key into a lock.

Nico felt a surge of anger flow through him, and tensed when he finally heard the door open. “Honey, I’m home!” Will’s voice came from the kitchen, followed by drunken giggles and the sound of keys being dropped on the counter.

Nico rose from the couch and stood at the end of the hallway, stopping Will before he could leave the kitchen. “Bianca’s sleeping,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You should keep your voice down.”

Will was smiling brightly down at Nico, but he quickly melted into a childish pout. “Are you mad at me?”

Nico huffed, crossing his arms and glancing to the side. “No, I’m not mad, but you’re going to wake Bianca--”

“I don’t want you to be mad, at me or ever,” Will cut in, stepping forward. “I don’t want you to be sad anymore, either. I want you to be happy. Can I help you be happy?” Will came even closer until his hands were resting on Nico’s arms and he was leaning in, sky-blue eyes flickering from Nico’s eyes to his lips and back.

Nico felt frozen under Will’s hands, under his gaze, feeling Will press even closer until Nico could smell the alcohol on Will’s breath, and pushed him away. “Don’t touch me!” Nico exclaimed, stumbling backwards.

When he looked back up, Will was pouting again, looking like a puppy that Nico had just kicked away. Nico pointed down to the other end of the hall where Will’s room was located, and said, “Go sleep this off.”

“Come with me,” Will said, stopping directly in front of Nico once again.

“No,” Nico told him sternly and shoved Will toward his room. “Go to sleep. I’m going to get you some water.”

He waited until he heard Will’s door opening before he looked up again, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Nico started back toward Will’s room when he heard a loud thud, concerned at first before he heard laughter, loud and bubbly, and when Nico pushed open the door he saw Will sitting upright on the floor with his legs out in front of him.

“I tried to take my shoes off and I fell over!” Will cackled.

Nico walked past him and set the glass down on Will’s nightstand before he tugged off Will’s shoes and pulled him back to his feet. Will immediately dropped down onto the edge of his bed and pulled Nico in until he was standing between Will’s knees.

“Stop,” Nico said, shaking off Will’s grip and walking across the room to leave. “You’re going to overheat if you sleep in that sweater.”

“Why don’t you come over here and take it off of me?”

Nico froze, one hand on the doorknob. Why is this happening to me? he thought to himself. Since moving to New York, Nico had been relying on meaningless hookups to distract himself from the pain he felt, most frequently around that time of the year, when he was at his lowest. He’d been better since he’d started looking after Bianca - having another person to look after had proved to be a much better distraction than sex - but Nico had been starting to crave another person’s touch more than usual. Not just anyone, either, but Will’s touch specifically.

Why would Will only start to show interest in him when he was too drunk to take off his own shoes? Why did it have to be now, when Nico’s head was clouded by so many other thoughts and feelings that were normally exactly what he would want to be distracted from? Why wasn’t Nico jumping into bed with Will right now, when both of them so clearly wanted it?

Nico’s hand tightened around the doorknob, turning it and opening the door. “Goodnight, Will.”

He closed the door behind himself as he walked out, and flopped down on to the couch. Nico took out his phone and started to write out a text.

TO: RARA; are you awake? i need someone to talk to

Will felt like he’d just walked through Hell. His head was pounding and he felt like any movement would cause him to vomit. His ass hurt for some reason, so he assumed he must have slipped and fallen on some ice outside at some point. He couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten home the night before, but at least he knew he hadn’t had his own car.

Will crawled out of bed and left his room, making a pit stop in the bathroom and waiting there for the nausea to pass before he went out to the living room.

“Daddy!” Bianca exclaimed as soon as she saw him, and Will winced at the high pitch of her voice. She jumped up off the couch and ran toward him, wrapping her arms around him, and said, “You were asleep for so long! You never sleep longer than me!”

“I guess I was just really tired,” Will told her. He glanced back toward the couch where Nico’s eyes were fixed on the TV, and Will felt himself flood with some kind of guilt, but for what he wasn’t sure. “Why don’t you go watch some more TV, Bi?”

“Okay!” Bianca replied, and returned to the couch.

Will stood in the hall awkwardly for another moment before saying, “Um, Nico? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Nico didn’t look at him as he stood up and walked into the kitchen. By the time Will met him there, Nico was already sitting at the table, so Will sat down across from him. Nico kept his eyes trained on the table.

Will didn’t know what to say, so he tried, “Are you mad at me?” Nico flinched, and Will tensed at the sight. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to drink that much, or--” He rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what time I got here, but it was probably really late, and I’m sorry if I woke you up when I got back.” Will groaned into his hands. “I bet I made a fool of myself in front of my brother. So much for first impressions, right?”

When a few moments passed where Nico didn’t respond, Will peeked at him over his fingers to see Nico staring back in disbelief. “You...don’t remember anything?”

Will tried to think past the pounding in his head, but couldn’t remember much after Kayla had called him a Lyft the night before. He shook his head.

Nico glared down at his hands as they curled tightly into fists on the table. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “And you...drove in that condition?”

“No!” Will exclaimed, and winced when the volume of his own voice caused a surge of pain through his skull. “No, I would never drive drunk, of course not! My sister sent me home in a Lyft, but that’s as far as I can remember. I know I got in a car, and then I woke up here.”

Nico sighed and visibly relaxed, his hands flattening out on the table, though he still didn’t look up. “Good.” He stood up slowly. “Don’t worry about last night.”

“Wait, please,” Will said, reaching out and covering one of Nico’s hands on the table before he could walk away. “Tell me what happened.”

Nico pulled his hand out from under Will’s in a flash, like he’d been burnt by the touch. He sat back down, this time keeping his hands on his lap to avoid any unwanted contact. “Bianca told you about my sister, right?”

“The one who lives on the moon,” Will recalled.

“She was killed by a drunk driver when I was fifteen.” Will felt the air leave his lungs like he’d been hit in the stomach. “We were walking in the woods behind my dad’s house, and I wanted to go inside but she didn’t, so I left her out there, all alone. I had a bad feeling, so I waited for her to come back before I went to bed, and… I think I fell asleep on the couch because the next thing I knew, somebody was pounding on the front door, so I went to open it--”

He took a deep breath to steady himself, and Will saw one of his hands tightening around his other forearm, squeezing at it like he was trying to keep his emotions under control. “This guy was standing there, and Bia was in his arms, and I knew she was already dead, but that asshole with alcohol on his breath kept shouting at me for a phone he could use. Said she came out of nowhere, ran right into his car, like it was her fault--”

“I’m so sorry,” Will whispered.

“I called the police, and he was arrested,” Nico continued, like Will hadn’t said a word. “The EMTs said that her spine was broken, and that if that drunk hadn’t touched her then maybe she wouldn’t have died.” Finally, Nico looked up again and met Will’s eyes, but Will shied away from the emptiness in his gaze. “So, you didn’t drive drunk, and you didn’t kill anybody. Don’t worry about anything else that happened.”

“Did I do something to upset you?” Will tried again. “I was drunk. Whatever I did or said, it didn’t mean anything, I promise.”

“I know it didn’t,” Nico said softly, and to Will his words sounded hollow - it was like Nico had turned into a complete shell of himself. He stood up again, but didn’t allow himself to get close enough for Will to stop him. He started toward the door, put on his shoes and coat, leaving Will frozen at the table. Finally, he turned back to Will and said, “You asked me to go to bed with you.”

He walked out the door before Will could make a sound.

Will stopped calling Nico during his lunch break, instead opting to only send him a text with a time, a place, a please, a thank you. He figured Nico didn’t have any interest in talking to him.

Will would text him when he was leaving work, whether it was at five in the afternoon or three in the morning, and every time Nico would leave as soon as Will walked through the door. Will hated the distance that was between them so suddenly - he felt like they were getting close, like they could soon be friends instead of whatever they were, or maybe they could even be more - but he ruined everything in one night. One night that he didn’t even remember.

He wanted to make it all better, but he didn’t know how. He would have to regain Nico’s trust, little by little, but he felt like he needed to do something for Nico to show him how truly sorry he was for the things he said and did while he was drunk.

He decided that it was finally time to finish the guest room.

During his lunch breaks, Will sat with Lou Ellen to pick out furniture, sheets, curtains, a mattress, and ordered everything online. With rush-order shipping, everything was delivered to his house by Christmas. He’d gotten the day off, watched as Bianca opened her presents - and opened one from Bianca, which she said Nico helped her to pick out - called his mom, and had a two-hour-long internal debate on whether or not to send Nico a merry Christmas text.

In the end, he only sent a merry Christmas in the same text asking Nico to come over the next day, but he figured it was better than nothing, and just polite nonetheless. Then, he spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the guest room and assembling the new furniture.

The next afternoon, when Nico returned - the bags under his eyes looking a little lighter than before - Bianca led him straight to the guest room to show it off. Nico had smiled, just barely, and even looked Will in the eyes when he thanked him.

That night, Will had a shift starting at midnight, so while Nico was there to watch Bianca, Will was in his room, trying to rest before he had to leave for work. Nico had started feeling a little more like his usual self, but interacting with others still exhausted him. So when he helped Bianca get settled in to sleep that night, Nico felt ready to fall asleep himself.

Instead, Nico went into the guest room - his room, as Will had said when Nico first stepped through the doorway - and called Annabeth.

“Hey, Nico, how are you feeling?” Annabeth greeted.

Nico hesitated. “I don’t know,” he finally decided to say. “Do you have time to talk?”

“I’m always happy when you decide to talk to someone.”

“Is that a yes?”

He could practically hear the eye roll on the other end of the line. “Yes.”

“I...think I messed something up,” Nico started, but couldn’t find it in himself to elaborate.

“Okay,” Annabeth said after a moment. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel like it’s my fault, but I don’t know who else I should blame. Maybe it really is my fault, or maybe it’s Will’s or maybe even Bianca’s.” He shook his head, though he knew that Annabeth couldn’t see him. “No, no, of course not, it couldn’t be Bianca’s fault. That drunk asshole, maybe, but never Bianca.”

He paused, waiting for Annabeth to start trying to fill in the blanks, but a full minute of silence passed between them instead.

“My head has been all messed up the last two weeks. I was barely speaking to anyone, and then-- Will got drunk. And he...said some stuff, and I really wanted to-- But he was so drunk that he couldn’t even remember anything in the morning. I got pissed at him because I thought he drove home while he was drunk, and then I told him about Bianca. And then I...left. And it’s been weird between us since then. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want it to be like this anymore. I want to...fix this, but I don’t know how.”

For a moment, there was silence between them once again, before Nico heard Annabeth sigh, and he knew she had finished processing everything he said. “First of all, let go of your arm.”

“What? I--” He looked down and realized that one of his hands had wrapped itself around his other arm, his fingernails digging in until there were crescent-shaped indents in his arm. Thankfully, he had yet to draw blood. He picked up a pillow and hugged it to his chest instead.

“I know you, Nico,” Annabeth said. “Now, for the rest of that. Let’s see… You were mad because you’re uncomfortable around drunk people, even when said drunk person is someone you care about. Remember when you came over to celebrate Percy’s twenty-first birthday with us? You couldn’t even be in the same room with him. You care about Will, and you care about his daughter, and you were probably afraid that something bad might happen to them because you associate alcohol with what happened to Bianca. You need to understand that that is so incredibly unlikely to ever happen again. So you need to let go of whatever this is that you’re feeling, because Will is fine, and his daughter is fine. You’re just scared, and you’re allowed to be scared.”

“Thank you, Annabeth,” Nico said softly. “I think I...need to go to sleep now to think some things through. Did I tell you that Will was fixing up the guest room in his house so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch anymore?”

When Annabeth replied, Nico could hear the smile in her voice. “You two are perfect for each other. Goodnight, Nico.”

“Goodnight.”

He hung up the phone, squeezing the pillow tighter to his chest for a second before rising off the bed. Nico changed into his pajamas and grabbed his toothbrush from his backpack before heading to the bathroom.

The door opened when he walked up to it, and he was momentarily blinded by the bright light that poured over him. He blinked a few times, his eyes finally adjusting enough that he could make out the shape of a person standing in the doorway, practically glowing in the light behind him. Nico saw Will standing in front of him, his hair damp like he’s just gotten out of the shower, water dripping down his tan and freckled chest, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

Nico was frozen to the spot, his brain overloading at the sight in front of him, and he didn’t even register the embarrassed look that was growing on Will’s face.

Will ran a hand through his hair, shaking more water droplets onto his chest and shoulders as a blush rose up his neck. “Uh, sorry.”

He stepped around Nico and hurried into his own room. Nico stood stuck to the floor for a few more seconds before he could manage the couple of steps into the bathroom and finally allow himself to breathe.

Will had to be at the hospital at midnight for the start of his shift, but there weren’t any incoming emergencies so he was able to rest in one of the on-call rooms. Except that he couldn’t clear his head enough to fall asleep - the image of Nico staring up at him with wide eyes when Will got out of the shower kept popping into his head, and Will couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of his shift.

It left him tired and cranky by the time his shift was supposed to end, and so he was even more frustrated when he was told to stay for another eight-hour shift.

By the time is second shift was coming to an end, Will felt ready to drop, but he was paged to the emergency room about twenty minutes before he was free to leave. He dragged his feet all the way to the front desk and leaned heavily against it when he asked why he had been paged. The nurse behind the desk simply handed him a patient chart with a bed number on it.

Will heaved a sigh and walked toward the bed, going past an empty bed and momentarily debating whether he should climb in and take a nap instead of doing his job, but he continued forward instead.

He was already introducing himself before even looking at the person sitting on the bed, but when he finally did, he recognized Nico immediately through the tears pouring over his cheeks. Nico was curled up with his knees pulled close to his chest, his arms hidden from view by his legs, and to Will he looked so small and vulnerable.

Will cut off his own introduction and said, “Nico? What happened? Where’s Bianca?”

Nico’s head tipped forward until his forehead hit his knees, and he shook his head repeatedly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I checked the allergy list, I swear I did! I’m so sorry!”

Will felt a shot of ice run up his spine that turned him stiff for half a second before he took a deep breath. “Nico, you wouldn’t be in your own bed if something weren’t wrong with you, so please tell me what happened.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nico said again.

“Forget about Bianca for a second and tell me what’s wrong,” Will tried again in his most soothing voice.

Nico seemed to curl in tighter on himself, almost like he was trying to hide something that was held close to his chest, and he continued to apologize though his voice had faded to a whisper.

“Nico, show me your hands, please.”

He didn’t budge.

Will set his hands on Nico’s arms, just beneath his shoulders, and Nico seemed to flinch away from the touch. Will pressed Nico’s shoulders back until his hands were no longer hidden from view. He looked down to see Nico’s hands and forearms splattered with blood, almost up to the elbow, and Will gasped at the sight.

He took one of Nico’s arms in his hand, gripping it tightly despite how Nico tried to pull away from him, and examined him for injury. There appeared to be tiny gouges taken out of his skin, most crescent-shaped though a few seemed to have been torn to a larger size.

Will examined Nico’s other arm next, though most of the blood stopped at his wrist and was more concentrated around the tips of his fingers - as if Nico had clawed open his own skin until he drew blood.

Nico continued to apologize.

“Stop apologizing,” Will snapped, his patience having been drained away after hours of working with no rest in between. Nico’s jaw snapped shut with so much force that Will heard his teeth click.

In silence, Will wiped the blood from Nico’s arms and hands, and noticed a series of similar crescent-shaped marks along his arms.

“What are these?” Will asked. Nico didn’t respond, but tried to pull his arm from Will’s grasp once again. “Nico. Why do you have scars on your arm?”

“My dad used to yell at me, and...and hit me,” Nico said cautiously, like he was afraid that saying the words would cause his father to appear out of nowhere and do exactly that. “When I kept my mouth shut, I didn’t get hit as often. This was the only way to shut myself up.”

Will saw his hand closing into a tight fist and quickly pried it open, wrapping the palm in a few layers of gauze before Nico’s fingernails could break his skin. He tried to be quick about bandaging up Nico’s arm, though some of the larger tears needed a couple of stitches each. Once Will had finished up, Nico’s panicked breathing had returned to normal, so Will deemed it a safe time to ask about his daughter once again.

“She wanted to make brownies,” Nico told him. “She wanted to taste the batter but I told her not to because of the raw eggs, but I turned my back for a second, and she just have tasted it anyway because then she was choking but I couldn’t figure out why. So I took the...the pen from the drawer, the epi pen that you keep in the kitchen, and I used that and then called an ambulance, but I-- They separated us because I was panicking so I didn’t see where she went, but I’m so sorry--”

“I told you to stop apologizing.” He gathered up the supplies he’d used to dispose of them and stood to leave. “Wait here,” he said to Nico, and closed the curtain around his bed as he left.

His shift had officially ended about ten minutes ago, but he knew he would be staying much longer than that already. Will returned to the front desk to ask where Bianca had been taken, then tracked her down in her own bed with a single doctor standing over her.

“Bianca!” Will exclaimed upon seeing her, and rushed forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “I was so worried when Nico didn’t know where you were. How are you feeling, Bi?”

“I’m okay, Daddy,” Bianca replied, her voice slightly raspy.

Will looked up to the doctor who appeared to be checking the readings on the machines around them - he recognized the other man immediately. “Cecil, how is she?”

“Like she said, she’s okay,” Cecil replied. “That babysitter did everything right; perfect use of the epi pen, got her here in good time. It really freaked him out, though, huh?”

“Is Nico okay?” Bianca asked suddenly, looking around Will to see if Nico was hiding behind him somewhere. “Where is he?”

Will felt a little hurt, a small part of him feeling like Nico was almost starting to replace him as Bianca’s dad - wasn’t he good enough for his own daughter?

“Nico got hurt when the ambulance was bringing you here,” Will explained, trying to leave out as many details as possible. “I helped him out, though, so he’s just fine now.”

“You’re such a good doctor, Daddy,” Bianca told him. “Can Nico come over here?”

Will tried not to outwardly frown. “Of course he can. I’ll be right back.”

Before he could step away, Cecil caught Will’s attention by saying, “I’m going to get her discharge paperwork started. Should I grab you an extra for the babysitter?”

“Yeah, thanks, Cecil,” Will replied, and went back to where he’d left Nico.

He’d curled up on himself again, picking absently at the edges of his bandages, but he seemed to have stopped crying for the time being. Will approached him, told him that Bianca wanted to see him, and started walking away again. He didn’t want to deal with Nico, he just wanted to take his daughter home and fall asleep on the couch while they watched a movie together. He didn’t want to be replaced by Nico as Bianca’s father, no matter how stupid the thought made him feel - of course he couldn’t be replaced, but was he not providing enough for her on his own?

He needed to sleep, most of all. That would reset his brain and make him stop thinking such stupid, selfish thoughts. Could it really be that he was unable to stop thinking about Nico just hours beforehand?

Nico had started crying again by the time they walked up to Bianca’s bed, and Will had to stop himself from rolling his eyes - what was wrong with him today?

“Nico, why are you crying?” Bianca asked.

“I was worried about you,” he replied, reaching out and wrapping one of his hands around hers.

“Don’t worry about me! I’m okay!” Bianca told him with a bright smile. She turned her focus to Will and asked, “If I’m okay, that means we can go home now, right? I want Nico to make mac and cheese for dinner.”

“We’ll be home soon,” Will replied, and planned to end the thought there, but something pushed out of him, “I’ll make mac and cheese for you when we get home. I think Nico needs to go to his own home and take a break.”

Nico stared back at him with shock clear on his face. “No, I’m fine, it was just an accident, Solace.”

Before Will could argue, Cecil returned with two clipboards, one of which he handed to Will, and the other was given to Nico. Will checked a few boxes and signed on a couple of the lines before offering the clipboard back and scooping his daughter up in his arms.

“Let’s go home, Bi,” Will said, and started walking toward the doors.

Nico hadn’t even picked up his pen, instead watching them leave with an expression mixed with shock and sadness. “It was one mistake.”

The last time Nico spoke was two days ago when he left Annabeth a voicemail that said, “I think I might’ve been fired,” and then proceeded to ignore any call or text he got afterwards that wasn’t from Will - there hadn’t been any from Will.

He didn’t sleep, or he was pretty sure that he didn’t sleep, just stared blankly at the wall and checked his phone every time it buzzed on the mattress beside his head. He never checked in on his online classes, never did any of the work, never ate or drank unless Hazel forced it upon him.

Nico would have missed his own New Year’s party if Percy hadn’t gone into his room and physically carried him out to the couch to socialize with Annabeth and Hazel, and Luke who took up residence on Nico’s lap for a majority of the night, playing video games on Percy’s phone.

Percy tried to talk to him a few times, though nothing he said managed to get through to him. Hazel had most likely gotten fed up with Nico’s mood swings, if her blatant ignoring of him was any clue. Annabeth, however, had sat down next to Nico and started reminding him of the conversation they’d had a few nights before, and coaxed Nico into explaining what had happened that brought him to the state he was in now.

“If it was an accident, then there’s no reason for him to fire you,” Annabeth assured him. “You’re worrying for nothing again, just give him some time to calm down.”

Nico nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing else you’re upset about, is there? Nothing about your sister?”

He shook his head. No, just Will. Everything was about Will nowadays, wasn’t it?

After the Jackson-Chases had left and Hazel had gone to bed, Nico made his way into the kitchen for the first time in days. He drank a few glasses of water, ate some of the raw vegetables that had been on some veggie tray Annabeth had brought over and left there, and then started baking cookies until the early hours of the morning. That night, he finally managed to sleep.

He was woken up by the feeling of something landing on his legs.

Nico sat up with a groan, rubbing at his eyes before looking to see what had fallen on him, and saw Bianca sitting on his shins. “Bianca?” Nico asked, taking a quick glance around to make sure he was in his own room. He was, so how did she get there?

“You’re awake!” Bianca exclaimed with a bright smile. “Hazel told me to wake you up.” She hopped off the bed and started pulling at Nico’s arm until he rose from the bed as well. He was dizzy when he stood, and he desperately needed a glass of water. “Come on! Daddy wants to talk to you!”

Nico wouldn’t have been able to move if Bianca hadn’t been tugging him out the door.

“Daddy! Hazel! I woke up Nico!” Bianca called as she walked Nico into the living room where Will and Hazel were sitting on the couch.

“That’s great, Bianca,” Hazel said, getting up and walking toward them. She took Bianca’s free hand and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen and give your dad and Nico some time to talk. Nico stayed up really late last night making cookies, and I bet he made them just for you.”

She glanced up at Nico with a raised eyebrow, silently asking if it was okay to leave him alone, or maybe asking if it was okay for them to eat the cookies. Nico mentally scanned Bianca’s allergy list that he’d memorized months before - though he still wasn’t sure what had caused her reaction a few days prior - and nodded once. Yes, they could leave, and yes, the cookies were safe for Bianca to eat.

He watched them leave the room, and when he turned back, Will had risen to his feet, staring right back at Nico with a completely neutral expression on his face. Nico felt himself shrinking under Will’s gaze, his arms crossing over his stomach, one hand absentmindedly starting to scratch at his arm - he’d taken the bandages off already, though the cuts were still pretty fresh.

Nico was waiting for Will to speak first, but when he didn’t, Nico blurted out, “Are you going to fire me?”

Will’s neutral expression broke in surprise. “What? No, you thought I came all the way over here just to fire you? I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “I tried calling you, but Hazel answered and said she didn’t know what was wrong because you weren’t talking to her. She gave me your address so I could come check on you myself.”

“Oh.” Nico’s hand tightened around his arm, his gaze dropping to the floor. “You...didn’t have to do that.”

Suddenly, Will’s shoes were in Nico’s line of sight, and Will’s hands were wrapping around Nico’s wrists and pulling his hands apart. Nico’s immediate reaction was to try to tug his hands from Will’s grasp, but Will didn’t let go. “Stop--” Will started sternly, but caught himself and continued in a much more relaxed voice, his grip on Nico’s wrists loosening but still not letting go. “Stop hurting yourself. Stop beating yourself up over this. It’s not your fault that Bianca had a reaction, and I’m sorry for snapping at you. I was tired and worried, and I know that’s not an excuse for how I acted, but...I’m sorry.”

Nico’s eyes flickered up to meet Will’s, and for the first time in days, Nico saw the sky.

“I never should have said that you couldn’t come home with us,” Will continued. “You were just as worried about Bianca as I was, and you should’ve been at home with us that night so that you could’ve known she was okay. And… And so we could’ve known that you were okay. She-- I--” Will sighed. “We both miss you. Please come back?”

Nico felt his chest swell up when Will looked at him. Like his lungs were filling with water, or panic was rising up in him. Or maybe it was something else.

“Okay.”

Nico had been back for about a week. He still seemed cautious about what to cook for Bianca, but he’d started to let loose a little. He’d started spending the night more and more often, cooking breakfast and driving Bianca to school almost every morning, and still sometimes falling asleep on the couch with his laptop on his lap.

They were almost back to where they were before Christmas. Where that was exactly, Will wasn’t sure. Something closer to friends than boss-and-employee, but with hints of something more.

Which left Will feeling jealous.

It took him a while to come to that conclusion, but he couldn’t find any other words to describe how he was feeling. How he wanted to change the topic whenever Nico mentioned Hazel, or how angry Will felt whenever he even thought of her. She was quite possibly the sweetest person Will had ever met, and she obviously made Nico very happy, and Will wanted Nico to be happy, right?

No. Will wanted Nico to be happy with him. Not Hazel.

So. Will was jealous.

And then, just days after Will had made this revelation, Nico’s car had broken down. Nico’s shiny, expensive, never-had-a-problem, high-school-graduation-present car had broken down.

Nico didn’t bother telling this to Will until he arrived a few minutes late one day with Hazel trailing into the house behind him.

“Hey,” Nico called into the house, and Will rushed around the corner, smiling brightly until he saw her. “Sorry I’m late, my car broke down. Hazel had to drive me.”

Will tried to smile back at Hazel, greeting her politely, but he just wanted her out of his house.

“Thanks for driving me,” Nico said to Hazel, leaning in to kiss her cheek, and Will felt his blood boil. “I’ll let you know if I need you to pick me up.”

“I can take you home,” Will cut in. “Uh. Probably.”

Nico smiled. God, Will had missed that smile. “Sure, we’ll see.” He stepped to the side, opening the door for Hazel to leave, and said, “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Will,” Hazel said to him with a quick wave. “It was nice to see you again! And bye, Nico, I love you!”

“Love you, too,” Nico said, shutting the door after Hazel walked out. He turned back to Will and rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling.

Will needed to get out of there before he did something stupid.

“I’ll text you when I’m on my way home,” Will forced out, stepping into his shoes and grabbing his coat.

“Sounds good,” Nico replied, already walking away. He turned back just for a second and smiled. “Bye, Sunshine.”

God, Will had missed that, too.

Will could barely get through his shift with the jealousy rooted so deeply in his bones. He kept hearing Hazel’s voice in his head, telling him things like how she’d met Nico, or what they’d done for their first anniversary. Will had had to scream into a pillow in a locked on-call room for about a minute before he could get back to work. He desperately wanted his shift to end so that he could go home and have dinner with Nico and Bianca. And after Bianca went to bed, Will would have Nico all to himself, even if it was just platonically.

When Will got home - hours after his shift was supposed to end, and too late for his platonic fantasy dinner-and-a-movie plan - the only thing he could hear was the TV playing in the living room. It was unusual, since it was past Bianca’s bedtime and Nico tended not to watch TV on his own, and so for a second Will feared that Hazel had returned.

However, when Will rounded the corner, he saw only Nico sitting on the couch. He was slouching, staring just to the right of the TV as he chewed on his thumbnail, his knee bouncing as his foot tapped to an unheard beat. He looked nervous. Will had never seen him like that before.

“Nico?” Will asked quietly as he walked further into the room, and Nico jumped, head snapping toward Will. He really must’ve been distracted. “Are you alright?”

Nico shrugged, looking down at his hands.

“Nico,” Will tried again, sitting next to him on the couch. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

Nico took a deep breath. “Bianca asked if I had a girlfriend,” he rushed out.

Now Will was even more confused. “Okay. And?”

Nico groaned, grinding the palms of his hands into his forehead, leaning forward with so much force that he almost tipped right off the couch.. “No, not okay! It’s not, because I don’t-- I’m not--”

Will felt a spark of hope. I don’t...have a girlfriend? I’m not...straight? Will held his breath.

“I’m gay and I didn’t know if you were okay with that, so I didn’t tell Bianca anything, because I didn’t want to teach her something that you weren’t okay with.”

Will forgot to breathe. For a little while. He figured by now his face was pretty red, but from blushing or lack of oxygen, he didn’t know. When Nico realized he wasn’t talking, he looked up at him, finally pulling his hands away from his face. “Solace?”

“I’m okay with it!” he said, probably a little bit too loud. “I’m okay with it because I am, too. I’m-- I mean, I’m bi, and she knows, and I think she understands it, but yeah, anyway. Yes, I’m okay with it, you can tell her. If you want.”

Nico’s eyes were wide - and Will’s probably were, too, but he was still trying to catch his breath and couldn’t really control what the rest of his body was doing right then. He was pretty sure he was smiling like a maniac, but he couldn’t help it. Nico’s gay! And not dating Hazel! Will might actually have a chance with him!

“You’re...” Nico started. “Okay. Okay.” He stood up and grabbed his backpack off the ground next to him. “I have to go home.” Nico rushed out of the living room, and made it all the way to the front door before Will remembered that Nico didn’t have a car. Frankly, he probably remembered before Nico did.

Will shot up, running after him and catching him before it seemed like he was about to start walking home. “Nico! Hang on, it’s like, zero degrees out, what are you doing? Come back inside, I’ll drive you home in the morning.”

Nico was already visibly shivering when he turned back around. “Okay. Okay.” He brushed past Will on his way back inside.

Will hated storms. He hated the rain, and he hated being stuck inside the house, and he hated thunder that shook a house’s foundation. Bianca hated the flashes of lightning that made a room as bright as day for just a second before the thunder boomed around her. Nico hated storms for a completely different reason.

There was a snowstorm coming down from the north, bringing with it at least an inch of snowfall and a high chance of thunder and lightning. Will had already gotten an email from Bianca’s school that announced the building’s closure in anticipation for the storm, and Will started to worry that he wouldn’t be able to make it to work in the morning.

He had hurried home after work that evening, partly because of the forecast, and partly because he’d gotten a text from Nico saying, text me if youll be home by 6 and ill make enough dinner for the 3 of us. Will, loyal fan of Nico’s cooking that he was, would have traded shifts with someone if he had to be at the hospital later than six that night. He would not miss out on Nico’s cooking.

So he made it home just as the snow was starting to pick up. When he walked in the door, Nico was putting the finishing touches on the meal, and Bianca had her face pressed into a window, watching the giant snowflakes fall. She’d never seen snow like that in Nashville.

Will stomped the snow off his boots, untying them and leaving them by the door, then hung up his jacket and scarf. After living in Nashville for most of his life, Will still wasn’t used to the negative temperatures that hit New York.

“Please tell me dinner will warm me up,” Will said, rubbing his hands together.

Nico rolled his eyes (he’d gotten used to the cold weather, unlike somebody) and pointed to each pot and pan, naming off each food and giving a brief description before Will could ask (because he knew Will would ask).

Will helped Bianca set places at the table as Nico brought the food over, and as soon as they all sat down to eat, Nico’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket as Will and Bianca looked at him in confusion. Nico’s phone had never once rang in front of them in all of the time that Nico had spent at the house. He never got a call, he never got a text, he never so much as got a twitter notification. They watched him press end call and set the phone down next to his plate.

When Nico noticed them watching him, he gestured to the food. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Will scooped some food onto Bianca’s plate, not exactly sure what he was giving her, just making sure it was small portions in case she didn’t like something, and then gave himself slightly larger servings of everything.

He saw that Nico had just taken a bite of something when his phone went off again, only this time what sounded like a call was really just a large amount of texts coming in all at once.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said as he picked up the phone to stop it from vibrating the entire table. “I had my phone turned off today for this exact reason, I don’t really know why I turned it back on now.”

“It’s fine,” Will said, though he was worried that something was wrong. “Is it something important?”

“No.” Nico took another bite and his phone started buzzing again in his hand. He looked at the screen and winced. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

He stood up and headed toward the guest room, answering the call when he was only halfway through the living room. “Hello, Father, does this have to happen right now?” There was a pause, and then, “I was trying to enjoy a nice dinner--” and then the door shut, and Will could hear no more.

Him and Bianca picked at their food for a little while in silence. Will still had no idea what he was eating, but it was good. Some kind of pasta with vegetables, though not with any kind of sauce that Will recognized. Normally, he would have been concerned about Bianca’s allergies, but he trusted Nico not to cook something that she couldn’t eat.

“Is something wrong with Nico?” Bianca asked, and Will noticed she was just pushing most of the food around on her plate.

“I don’t know, Bi,” Will answered honestly. It was shaping up to be a strange evening, and Nico sure was taking a while with that phone call. “I just hope he doesn’t have to leave,” he said as he looked out the window. “I don’t think there’s any getting through that snow, no matter how long you’ve lived in New York.”

The two went back to eating, not speaking, and hearing only the increasingly powerful gusts of wind, the sounds of forks scraping across plates, and the occasional muffled noise coming from the guest room whenever Nico raised his voice.

Will wanted to go check on him, but thought it might be an invasion of his privacy.

The thunder started not long after. Will hadn’t noticed any lightning mixed in with the snow, but the deep rumbles that shook the house were unmistakable. It made him wish he’d bought a house with a basement, someplace that he wouldn’t feel the ground shake under his feet.

Bianca had finished eating, and Will was starting to feel full, but Nico’s plate remained full and almost untouched. Will’s worry grew.

He didn’t know how long he poked around at the small amount of food left on his plate before he couldn’t see it anymore. He looked up, looked around, but he couldn’t see anything anymore, except the now-present lightning that gave him flashes of his own home.

And that’s when he finally heard a door opening.

“Thank god,” he heard Nico say from the direction of the guest room, but he still couldn’t see him. “The cell towers must be out.”

Will heard his footsteps stop as he entered the kitchen.

“So much for a nice warm meal,” Nico muttered, and suddenly the flashlight on his phone lit up.

“Nico are you okay?” Bianca asked, and Will could see just enough to spot the confused look that Nico gave her.

“Yeah, Princess, of course I’m okay. Why would you think I’m not okay?”

“You were on the phone for a really long time and I heard you shouting.”

Nico winced before starting to clear the table. “I’m sorry. I never should have turned my phone on today.”

“If it was your father, then I’m sure it was important,” Will said stood to help. “Bi, can you help clear the table please?”

Bianca took her plate to the sink as Nico huffed. “It wasn’t. Nothing he couldn’t have said in a text. A two word text, instead of--” he looked at the time on his phone “--a thirty six minute phone call. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Will told him. “It’s not like this was supposed to be some special family dinner or something.”

But suddenly, Will got the feeling like it was supposed to be something exactly like that.

“Right,” Nico muttered, then louder said, “Do you have any candles anywhere?”

Will packed up the leftovers while Nico ate a little bit more of his now-cold food, but he quickly lost his appetite at the taste. It wasn’t the same when it wasn’t warm anymore.

The three of them each carried a flashlight, and Nico had gone around lighting candles in the kitchen, living room, and bathroom, though the faint light in the house only made the flashes of lightning outside so much more prominent. Will noticed that with each lightning strike, both Nico and Bianca flinched. Will made sure to close the curtains in the living room to help block out the lightning, and moved the candles from the kitchen into the living room as they all settled down there. The candlelight made Will’s hair look golden, but only succeeded in making Nico look tired.

The three of them sat on the floor in the living room playing Go Fish in the candlelight, until Bianca got too tired to play anymore.

“It’s dark and scary and I don’t wanna sleep in my room by myself,” Bianca complained when Will decided it was time for her to go to bed.

“What if we all sleep out here?” Nico suggested. “We can all bring out a bunch of pillows and blankets, then it’ll be like a sleepover.”

“Okay!” Bianca said, and she jumped up and ran to her room, clicking on her flashlight as she went. She came back quickly with her arms loaded full of pillows and blankets, and dropped them all on the floor in a heap. She plopped down on top of the heap and curled up like she was going to fall asleep right then.

“Just because it’s a sleepover doesn’t mean you don’t have to brush your teeth, Bi,” Will said in a very dad voice. “And put on some warm pajamas, too.”

When Bianca complained, Will stood and ushered her toward her bedroom to make sure he had warm enough pajamas. Nico cleaned up the cards before heading off to the guest room to change into his own pajamas. Thankfully, he’d been keeping some of his clothes in the dresser, since it was easier than bringing a change of clothes every time he came over. He changed into sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt, grabbing his backpack, a pillow, and the comforter and a pillow off the bed before heading back to the living room.

Bianca and Will were both in the bathroom brushing their teeth when he walked past the open door, Bianca in footie pajamas, and Will still in his scrubs.

Nico set his things down next to the couch. He went to brush his teeth when he noticed that both Will and Bianca were out of the bathroom, and when he came back to the living room, Bianca looked ready to fall asleep, and Will was nowhere to be seen.

The coffee table had been moved away from the couch so that there was more room for them all to spread out, which must’ve been Will’s doing. Nico sat on the ground, leaning back against the couch, and pulled out his phone. He might as well read all those texts he’d gotten earlier.

As soon as he’d opened up the messaging app, Will came into the room with a pile of blankets in his arms, and plopped them down next to Nico, revealing his blue flannel pajama pants and luminescent orange sweatshirt with the name of some college across the front.

“You’re practically glowing in the dark,” Nico commented, putting his phone off to the side.

“It’s going to get pretty cold with the heater not working,” Will said with a shrug, stuffing his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “Gotta keep warm.”

The two of them were quiet as they situated themselves, and in a couple of minutes, they were both wrapped up in blankets and listening to the quiet snores coming from the six year old across the room.

“I figured she’d be out pretty quick,” Will said, smiling at his daughter.

Nico hummed, eyes flickering down toward his phone, when he heard Will speak again.

“So, I’m sorry if this is kind of intrusive, but I have to ask,” he started, “you seemed...angry, with your dad. Is everything alright? I mean, I know you said that he wasn’t the greatest, so I kind of assumed you wouldn’t keep in touch with him anymore.”

Nico sighed and seemed to consider his words carefully. “He’s my dad, you know? He’s the only dad I’ve ever had, and he’s trying to be better, but I wish he wouldn’t just done it years ago, when it mattered.”

“I get that,” Will said. “My dad was pretty awful when I was a kid, too, but he never ended up trying to do anything to change it. He tricked my mom into believing that he loved her, and they got married for about two months, which was enough time for him to cheat on her. I didn’t find out until I was around ten that the reason my dad wasn’t around was because he had another family. Or, well, a lot of other families. Turns out I had at least four siblings I’d never met.”

“Four?” Nico asked incredulously.

Will nodded, and started counting them off on his fingers. “There was Lee - the oldest - and Michael came next, both with different moms, and both of them joined the military. I don’t remember which branches, but I don’t think they ever met. They were both killed in action, so I never actually got to meet them, just heard about them. And then there’s Kayla, the one who had the...the, um, Christmas party.” Nico hid a grin. Will sounded embarrassed. “A-and Austin. I just met him at Kayla’s, but he lives in Manhattan, so I’m hoping I can get to know him better. He’s a musician, goes to Juilliard. He can play anything, like when I first asked him about it, he just listed off all the instruments he can play, which was a ton. And he’s just like, ‘Right now I’m learning the violin, but strings are kind of hard for me, so we’ll see how it goes.’”

Nico smiled down at his lap and let Will’s words hang in the air between them for a moment before he said, “A few months after Bianca died, I found out I had another sister,” The air flew out of Will’s lungs. “Turns out that my dad had gone on a business trip to New Orleans once, and met some fortune teller and had a fling. Child services called our house once, and I answered the phone. This lady just kept saying something about how Marie somebody died and since my father was financially stable enough to support another child, they were flying his daughter to California to live with us. I got really mad at my dad about that, like he’d planned to have another kid to replace Bia, or something stupid like that. After I got over the shock, the first thought I had was, I can’t believe he married a Maria and had another kid with a Marie.”

“So Maria is your mother?” Will asked.

“Was,” Nico corrected. “She died when I was four. It was a car accident during a thunderstorm.” Coincidentally, thunder shook the house right at that moment, and Will saw Nico trying to repress a flinch. “My father had remarried a little while after that, to a woman named Persephone. When she found out about Hazel, she got super pissed at my father and didn’t talk to him for a couple of days, even though that ‘business trip’ had happened in between wives.”

Will gasped. “Hazel’s your sister?”

Nico turned to look at Will. “Yeah. Why, who did you think she was?”

Will shrugged and looked away, thankful for the dim lighting that hid his blush. “A friend, I guess. You don’t exactly look alike.”

“Yeah, but we’re still family. She’s been living with me for a few months until her boyfriend graduates from West Point. I have a feeling they’re going to get married pretty soon, especially if he ends up in the army, which is bound to happen sooner or later.”

“I considered joining up for a little while,” Will said, eyes on Bianca. “Go in as a doctor, they’d pay off my student loans, but then Bi came along, and I couldn’t just leave her alone at my mom’s or someplace for so long that she wouldn’t know me when I came back.”

In the faint light, Will noticed Nico shiver and wrap the comforter tighter around himself.

“Are you cold?” Will asked. “Let me go get you a sweatshirt.” He was up and out of the room before Nico could reply. Truthfully, Will was thankful for the break in the conversation. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to tell Nico about how he’d come to be the sole caretaker for Bianca. He returned quickly, a light grey sweatshirt in his hands, which he tossed to Nico before sitting back down.

“Thanks,” Nico said, once the sweatshirt was pulled over his head. “I hope you don’t mind me staying here tonight.”

“Are you kidding? I could barely get home from work, there’s no way someone could’ve driven you home! I would have insisted you stay, even if you did have your big, fancy car.”

Nico rolled his eyes; Will could see that even in the dark. “It’s not fancy.”

“Nico, that car cost more than my mom’s house,” Will insisted. “I still can’t believe that it was a high school graduation present.”

“Fine, it’s not that expensive for my family.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means...” Nico tucked his hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt and looked down at his lap. “My father owns a recording studio in LA, so we’ve never exactly been tight on money. And my mother’s father was an Italian ambassador, who left trust funds for Bianca and me. And then when Bia died, her trust was merged with mine. And my mother’s insurance money paid for my college classes and the private schools I went to when I was younger.”

“You’re loaded?” Will asked, voice loud in shock and jaw left hanging open.

Nico’s head snapped up towards his, hands coming out of the sleeves as he held a finger up to his lips, the other hand pointing toward the still-sleeping Bianca.

Their faces were close. Nico could’ve counted Will’s freckles. Will could’ve finally seen the separation of iris and pupil in Nico’s eyes if the lighting had been better. Instead, Will’s eyes dropped to the finger over Nico’s lips. His eyes lingered there for longer than he’d intended them to, and he snapped his jaw shut when he managed to focus his eyes back on Nico’s.

“I can’t believe you’re rich,” Will whispered, finally pulling his eyes away from Nico’s face. Nico had returned his hands to his sleeves relaxing back against the couch again. He looked so small in Will’s oversized sweatshirt, head tilted down sheepishly. “I can’t believe you’re rich and I’ve been sneaking extra money into your paychecks to help you fix your car!”

Nico laughed lightly. “You have?”

“And you didn’t even notice! Do you even look at your paychecks?”

“Not really,” Nico admitted.

“Alright, you owe me now,” Will decided.

“What, you want me to pay you back the money you didn’t have to give me?”

“No, no, keep the money, whatever,” Will said, waving a hand at Nico. “You owe me one answer to any question I ask you.”

“Can I veto something I’m not comfortable answering?”

Will thought about it for a second. “I guess so. But only one!”

“Okay, go ahead, then.”

Will didn’t even hesitate. “What were all the texts and calls about earlier?”

Nico sighed, glancing off to the side where his phone was sitting on the ground. “Well, to be fair, I haven’t actually looked at the texts.” He picked up the phone, turning on the screen and holding it in a way that Will could see just as well as he could. The messaging app was still open, and Nico tapped on the first thread at the top.

FROM: Frank; Happy Birthday, Nico! :)

FROM: Hazel; happy birthday!!! i love u!!!

FROM: Annabeth; Happy Birthday!

FROM: Sally; Happy birthday, Nico. I hope you have a great day!

FROM: Percy; Happy birthday man

FROM: Percy; hppy birhtday unkle nico

FROM: Percy; That last one was from Luke

FROM: ra-ra; Happy birthday, it’s your turn to visit.

FROM: Leo; happy old day bro

FROM: Jason; Happy birthday son

FROM: Piper; Happy birthday!

FROM: Thalia; happy birthday

“It’s your birthday?” Will asked.

Nico shrugged, eyes locked on his phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve taken the day off or something! You didn’t have to come here today, you could’ve-- I don’t know, hung out with your friends, or something!”

“My friends all have jobs, Solace,” Nico responded. “They all had to work today, and I’d much rather be here than sitting by myself in my room all day.”

Will was hit with a realization. Punched in the gut with this realization. “It was supposed to be some kind of special family dinner, wasn’t it?”

Nico shrugged again, putting his phone down in his lap. He seemed almost uncomfortable. “I guess. I made a bunch of my favorite foods, there were cannoli for dessert, too, but we didn’t exactly get to that. My father only called because he was trying to make up for never calling me on my birthday, and I couldn’t get him to shut up. And then he put Seph on the phone.” He sighed again, tossing his head back to rest against the couch cushions. “I just wanted to have a nice dinner for once.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it was a nice dinner,” Will offered, bumping his shoulder against Nico’s. “Would’ve been better with you there, but the food was good.”

Nico’s head lolled to the side so we could look at Will. He had the tiniest smile on his face, and Will wanted to keep it there.

“Tell me about your friends,” Will blurted.

Nico picked up his head. “Why?”

“I--” Will didn’t know. “How do you know all of them?”

Nico paused for a second, staring at Will as if to try to find some kind of ulterior motive. He clicked his phone screen back on and read down the list of names.

“Okay, well. I told you about Frank already, he’s Hazel’s boyfriend,” Nico started. “Hazel, of course, is my sister. Percy and Annabeth are married, and Luke is their son. I actually, uh, really hated them in high school. I was closeted and had a crush on Percy, so I hated him for that, and I hated Annabeth because she was dating him, but I got over my crush and learned to like them both. Oh, and, uh, Sally is Percy’s mom. I lived with her for about a year when I first moved out to New York.

“Ra-Ra is my best friend Reyna. She lives in San Francisco, so I haven’t seen her in a little over a year. We also met in high school, but she was a senior when I was a sophomore, so we only met because we were partnered for a class project. Next is Leo, he’s my cousin Jason’s best friend, and he’s accidentally set himself on fire more than a few times.”

“Accidentally?” Will asked.

Nico shrugged. “It’s a gift, or so he claims. Anyway, uh. Jason, my cousin. He calls me son sometimes because I once gave him a Father’s Day card as a joke but he took it to heart. Piper is Jason’s fiancee. I introduced her to Jason after we met at one of our fathers’ business meetings or whatever. And last is Thalia, Jason’s older sister. Her and Bia used to have a No Boys club when we were kids because they thought me and Jason were annoying.”

Nico closed out of the messaging app and pulled up his photo gallery. “I think I have pictures of everyone, hang on.”

He leaned against Will’s side and held his phone out as he scrolled through a few albums, showing Will pictures of Frank and Hazel; Percy and Annabeth; himself and Luke when he’d been asked to babysit once; Leo that one time he accidentally set his jacket on fire and didn’t notice for over a minute. At some point, Nico’s head fell onto Will’s shoulder as they scrolled through pictures. Piper surfing and Jason falling into the water. Hazel and him scrunching up their noses at the camera. Thalia somewhere in South America doing some wildlife preservation something. Reyna sitting outside a cafe drinking a latte and glaring at people that passed by on the street.

Nico’s eyes were starting to fall closed when he finally put his phone away, having exhausted his gallery of all pictures of his friends. Will had started talking, something about a couple of the friends he’d had in high school, and Nico had tried to listen, he really had, but his eyes had slipped closed and he’d fallen asleep.

He woke up on the floor, pillow under his head and comforter off the guest bed wrapped around him, and he had no recollection of how he’d gotten there.

The floor around him was littered with pillows and blankets, and there were burnt out candles on the tables and TV stand. He sat up and blinked a few times, and then Will and Bianca were there in front of him. He rubbed at his eyes and looked at them again, their smiles unmistakably real.

“Happy birthday!” Bianca shouted at him, and held out a small plate with one of the cannoli he’d made yesterday.

Will was beaming at him, obviously proud of himself, and Nico couldn’t help but grin back.

The snowstorm kept schools closed for the next two days, which meant that Nico stayed over night after night. The power had returned the morning after Nico’s birthday, and while Will had taken the opportunity to shower after their quick birthday celebration, Nico had taken advantage of the newly recovered cell signal to call Hazel. He had her pick him up and take him to get his car, which he’d been planning on picking up the night before, until the snow hit.

When he got his car, Nico returned to his own home, showered, changed his clothes, and grabbed some more clean clothes to keep at Will’s.

He went back to the Solace household and was immediately greeted with Bianca telling him that her school had already been closed for the next day. Good thing he’d grabbed more clothes.

Bianca had insisted on playing video games, and then got angry at Will whenever he walked in front of the screen. He was trying to get ready for work, running back and forth between the kitchen and living room and his bedroom, and by the fourth or fifth time, Bianca had had enough, and gave up on the game.

When Will came over to say goodbye, he suggested, “Why don’t you do the homework you were supposed to do last night, so you don’t have to worry about it later?”

Bianca, still upset, huffed and crossed her arms. Nico just said, “Bye, Solace,” and kept playing the game that Bianca had abandoned.

Will rolled his eyes and muttered something about having two children, and Nico shouted, “I heard that!” before Will walked out the door.

When he returned later that night, Will noticed first the tray of brownies cooling on the counter. Bianca’s bag was where it had been when he left, and a quick look around the corner showed that Nico and Bianca were still sitting on the floor playing video games, right where he’d left them.

Will walked up and stood in front of the TV, arms crossed and with what he hoped was a stern look on his face. “Did you even do your homework like I said to?” he demanded.

Nico paused the game and looked up at him with the biggest shit-eating grin Will had ever seen and said, “Yeah, it’s in her backpack, all ready to go when school starts back up. You wanna check everything over, make sure it’s all right?”

They stared each other down for a little while. Will felt something swell up in his chest. Maybe his lung were filling with fluid and he was dying. Maybe it was something else that had to do with Nico smiling up at him like that.

Will rolled his eyes and turned back toward the kitchen, hearing Nico snicker before starting up the game again.

“The brownies are probably cool by now if you want one,” Nico called to him.

Will sighed in frustration, but went over to the counter and cut himself a brownie. Dammit if it wasn’t the best thing he’d eaten in days. Well, except maybe that cannoli he’d split with Nico the day before. But the brownie had chocolate.

thanks for reading!!

buy me a coffee | other nico birthday event stuff

#mine #my writing #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #nicobirthdayevent #i'm in hell #i wanted to uhhhh change nicos birthday and aftermath a little more but i also needed to make sure i posted this by today so

[fangirl530]

A Camp Camp Oneshot

Funny OTP starters, #1: why the fuck is there a cat in my bed? 

Not with an OTP, though. It’s with everyone. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: only the aforementioned cat and other unrecognizable characters are mine. Everyone else belongs to roosterteeth.

...

Max glared down at the intruder, lazily lying on his sleeping bag. It stared right back, looking up at him with a tilt of its head.

“Mrow?” it said, blinking it’s big turquoise eyes. It got up, it’s tail flicked forward and curled around it’s paws as it sat down, and Max’s scowl deepened.

“Neil,” he called to his friend. The ameteur scientist was standing outside their tent, waiting for Max to tell him he’d finished changing.

“Yeah?”

“Why the fuck is there a cat on my bed?”

“There’s a cat on you- oh,” Neil trailed off as he poked his head inside, catching sight of the intruding feline for himself. “There is.”

“I know there is,” Max said irritably, rolling his eyes. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Neil said, stepping all the way inside. He went to the cat, kneeling close by and holding his hand out cautiously. The cat sniffed at it before rubbing its head against him, making a quiet “mrrp” noise. (thanks edgebug) It closed its eyes in satisfaction as Neil petted it’s back, and he smiled.

“It’s pretty cute.”

“No,” Max interrupted. “No, no, no. Do not get attached to it.”

“Why not?” Neil asked him, scratching the cat behind the ears.

“There is no way David and Gwen will let us keep it, and I am not going on the cliche adventure of hiding a cat we’re not allowed to keep. It’s beneath us. And even if it wasn’t, we don’t have any food for it. We definitely can’t feed it the lousy excuse for food that we get,” he said, crossing his arms.

“We could figure something out! And I’ll bet the other campers would want to help too,” Neil argued. “Even if David and Gwen do find out, they can’t fight all of us- you know they can’t.”

“Okay, but should we really waste an attempt to take over the camp on a cat?” Max raised his eyebrows at the creature as it rolled onto its back. “I don’t thin-”

“Guys!” Nikki yelled, sliding into their tent. Max jumped, glaring at her as the flap slid shut.

“Jesus Nikki, a little warning next time?” he snapped angrily. Nikki ignored him as her eyes fell on the cat.

“I see you found our second camp mascot,” she said, beaming as she joined Neil and petted it’s ears.

“You mean you left this cat here?” Neil said at the same time Max yelled

“Our what?!”

“Our second camp mascot!” she repeated cheerfully. “Isn’t she cute?”

“Yes,” Neil said. “And I do want to keep her here- Max and I were just talking about that. But I don’t think we need a second camp mascot- we have the platypus, and she may not react well to having competition. She did eat her only living child.”

“Finally,” Max said with an eye roll. “You’re starting to see reason.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep her!”

“Spoke too soon. You guys, I’m always up for a chance to mess with Gwen and David, but over a cat? Really?”

“Yes, really.” Nikki picked the cat up and shoved her at Max. “Just hold her for a second, and you’ll see!”

Caught off guard, Max caught her in his arms and held her close. She put her paws on his shoulder and sniffed at his ear, then rested her chin on her paws and began to purr. Max’s eyes widened and he froze, unsure on what he should do.

When the cat didn’t move or scratch at him, he smiled a bit. “Alright,” he said, trying to keep his face nonchalant. “She’s pretty cute.”

Nikki and Neil smirked and slapped high five. “So you’ll help?” the former asked him excitedly.

“Yeah, I’ll help.”

“Woo hoo!”  

“But we’re going to need to make some allies. Nikki, you- okay, hang on.” Max handed the cat over to Neil. “I can’t look tough and commanding holding a purring cat. Nikki, you go around camp and tell everyone you think will help us. But keep it subtle, so we don’t alert Gwen and David. Neil, you and I will look around and see if we can find anything suitable for a cat to eat. We’ll zip up the tent to keep her inside while we’re gone.” he clapped his hands. “Let’s move, guys!”

Nikki rushed outside immediately, and Max waited impatiently for Neil to set the cat down before joining Max at the entrance. When he came out, Max zipped up the flap.

While Nikki rushed around camp and got recruits, Max and niel ran to the mess hall.

“Do you see Quartermaster?” Max whispered as they snuck in.

“No,” Neil whispered back. “I don’t think he’s here, but we should hurry- before he comes back.

They moved into the kitchen and made quick work of opening all the cupboards and the refrigerator. They found a bunch of potatoes, some slabs of meat, hot dogs, eggs, and cans of sham. But nothing suitable for a cat.

“No Max, we can’t ‘just give her sham!’” Neil said, closing the cupboard holding the meat.

“Why not? It’s close enough to tuna. They both come in a can.” Neil looked disgusted.

“Let's just keep looking.”

“We’ve looked everywhere,” Max said. “Looks like we’re going to have to buy cat food.”

“How will we do that? We can’t drive into town ourselves!”

“We don’t have to.” Max pulled out David’s phone and credit card and smirked. “Not when we have these. Keep watch- I’m going to see what there is to order.” he opened a tab and typed in best places to order cat food. He clicked on the first link that popped up- a website called chewy.com. 

A blue rectangle went across the top, with different options. The first said shop by pet. Max clicked it, bringing up a list of animals. When he tapped cat, several different lists of things for cats popped up. He clicked food, and the page switched to a bunch of different bags. He scrolled for a bit, scanning the different choices. He started to click on a bag called friskies, but a different one caught his eye. It said kitten chow, nurture dry food.

Max realized they didn’t actually know the cat’s age. She had been a little small, and she could always be a big kitten. He went with nurture, to be safe. He did a 6.3 pound bag, and added it to the cart. A notice popped up- free two to three day shipping with an order over $49.

We’d need it tomorrow, Max thought. Maybe they could get away with feeding her people food tonight, but it wouldn’t last three days without possible consequences. He went back to to the cats options, rapidly clicking through them and adding things to the cart. At the end, at $54.19, he had added a litter box, litter, a scoop, a cat bed, two bowls, treats, and a catnip ball. He created an account under David’s name, filled in the shipping information, put in the information on David’s credit card, and placed the order. That was it- everything would come, hopefully, tomorrow.

“Are you done?” Neil asked. Max nodded. “Good- come on, let's get back to the cat. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long. She might get unhappy and start to meow, and get us caught.”

“Calm down,” Max ordered him. “She’s fine. She was sleeping when we left, remember? Cats sleep a lot. I bet she didn’t even notice we were gone.” still, Neil ran through the camp until he got to their tent. He came skidding to a stop in front of it, freezing in shock.

“Max,” he said, panic filling his voice. “The door is unzipped!”

“What?!” Max broke into a jog, arriving at Neil’s side to stare at the tent flap. “That’s impossible! I know we zipped it- I did it myself!”

“You don’t think she unzipped it, do you?”

“No of course not, dumbass,” Max snapped. “She doesn’t have opposable thumbs, and it’s way too high for her to reach with her teeth.”

“Raccoons always get into things. What if one of them got into it? Oh my god, what if it ate her?!”

“Neil!” Max yelled. “First of all, raccoons are nocturnal- they’re all sleeping now. And second, why would they get into the tent when there is clearly no food? That’s their primary reason for getting into shit.”

“Right, right, I knew that,” Neil said, breathing in deeply. “Maybe Nikki?”

“She wouldn’t take her out of the tent and risk getting caught. She’s the one who hid her here.”

“Well maybe-”

“Shh.”

“But Max, we need to-”

“Shut the fuck up! Do you hear that?”

Neil fell silent, and both boys heard quiet cooing noises coming from inside the tent. Carefully, Max moved the flap aside and peered in. when he caught sight of the source of the noise, he began snickered to himself.

“Of course,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I should have figured that.”

“What?” Neil asked, confused. Max smirked.

“Follow my lead, I’ll show you.” he put one hand into his pocket and grabbed the tent flap, shoving aside as he strolled inside.

“Well hello there David,” he said to the counselor, who was currently lying on the floor with the cat on his chest, purring in his face.

“Max!” David yelled. “Neil!” his face split into a beaming smile. “Why didn’t you tell me you found a cat? She’s adorable!”

“Isn’t she?” Neil said, crouching at David’s side to stroke the cat’s head.

“We just love her,” Max said, making his voice syrupy sweet and prompting Neil to look at him in surprise. “Can we keep her David, please? We’ll take care of her, we promise!”

David bit his lip. He wanted to say yes, and he would have, if it wasn’t only up to him. “We should probably ask Gwen…” he started to say. Max put his hand up.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he said, dropping the act. “First, I already ordered everything she will need, and it’ll arrive tomorrow. By the way- here’s your phone and credit card.” he set them next to him and continued. “Second, Nikki is going around camp and telling everyone about this cat. We were going to get their help to take care of her and keep her a secret from you. Do you really think you and Gwen can take all of us?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

But David wasn’t listening. His eyes were shining, and he had a huge, ridiculous smile on his face.

“You guys worked together to hide this cat from us?” he asked. He looked like he might cry. “Oh, I’m so proud! Of course you can keep her! Gwen will be so happy to hear you all worked as a team.”

“Will she really?” Neil asked him. “I mean, she hates the platypus…”

“She doesn’t hate her,” David corrected. “She just… has mixed feelings.” Max rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, mixed between loathing and hate. But if you’re in, she can’t really argue.” he smirked. “I think this is the easiest we’ve ever won.”

David stood, cradling the cat in his arms. “Still, I better show her to Gwen. Better she finds out from me rather then finding out on her own.”

“Good point,” Neil said. “She might take it better.”

David smiled at them warmly. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Think of same names, okay?” he left the tent and marched off across the grass, entering the counselors cabin.

“Max! Neil!” Nikki yelled, dashing towards them with the other campers on her heels. “We just saw David with the cat! How did he find her? Do we need to take im’ down?” she cracked her knuckles. “I know a weak spot!”

“Nikki!” Neil looked horrified.

“What? I’m talking about his hands. I’ve already bitten them twice- I bet this time I can break the skin!”

“No,” Max interrupted. “David is on our side- he wants to keep her too. He’s going to tell Gwen now. Actually, he told us to come up with some names.”

“Oh,” Nikki said, sounding disturbingly disappointed. Then she brightened up. “What about cat? We have a platypus named platypus!”

“No, we just haven’t gotten around to naming the platypus yet,” Neil corrected.

“We should name her something cool,” Erid said, flipping her bangs.

“Like Xelanette!” Nerris said excitedly. “That’s a great wizard name!” Harrison rolled his eyes.

“Please. We should call her Misty- she was a famous magician. It’s a name both mysterious and magical!”

“Excuse me,” Nurf cut in. “I think the obvious choice here is Nurf Jr.”

“Junior is only for boys, Nurf!” Preston scoffed, eyes rolling as well. Nurf scowled, and got directly into the theatre kid’s face.

“Actually, Jr. is a term that can be used for both girls and boys, Preston!” Preston put his hands in the air.

“Okay, okay! Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Well now you do.” Nurf crossed his arms and backed away, still scowling.

“I think that could get confusing,” Harrison said. “Having two Nurfs running around.”

“Exactly!” Nerris said. “Which is why we should go with Xelanette! It’s unique, there’s no way any campers with that name will come here.”

“Yes, but that name is stupid,” Harrison said, smirking at her.

Nerris glared. “Well, you-”

“What about Lucky?” a voice asked. All the kids turned to stare at the source, Space Kid. he continued. “It’s lucky that Nikki found her in the first place. And lucky that David is letting us keep her.”

“Huh,” Max said, blinking. “That’s actually not a bad idea, Space Kid. Though maybe a little cliche.” He looked around. “All in favor?” most everyone nodded or gave a thumbs up.

“It’s settled then!” Neil beamed. “Lucky the cat!”

Meanwhile, when the kids were picking a name…

“Gwen!” David sang as he pushed open the door to the counselor’s cabin and marched inside. “I have a surprise for you!”

“What, did the kids suddenly decide to behave for the day?” she asked. She was facing away from him while reading a newspaper, so she didn’t see the cat in his arms. All the better, in David’s opinion.

“No, look! We have a second camp mascot!” Gwen turned, one eyebrow raised and her mouth open to ask a question.

“What do you-” she froze as she caught sight of the cat, her gaze flicking down to the paper and back up again.

“Isn’t she cute? Neil, Nikki, and Max found her and conspired with everyone to keep her a secret!”

“And… you’re happy about that?” Gwen asked warily as she studied the cat.

“Of course! They worked together as a team!” he said, beaming. “I found out when I heard her meowing, and then I told Neil and Max we could keep her. Max already used my credit card to order supplies anyway, so we’re all ready! The campers should be working on names right now!”

Gwen cringed slightly. This was going to be hard. “She is cute, David, but we can’t keep her.”

“Aw, why not? All the campers are already expecting her to stay, we can’t disappoint them! Come on Gwen, please? Do you really want to see all those unhappy faces?”

“No, it’s hard enough dealing with your’s,” she muttered under her breath before looking at him. “What I mean is… I’d love to keep her here, but we can’t. Look.” she held the newspaper up in front of him, revealing a flier for a missing cat. The picture looked exactly like the purring cat in David’s arms.

“Missing cat,” he read. “Answers to the name Firefly. Orange tabby with tur- turquoise eyes,” he choked out, his voice starting to wobble. “Oh, no. Gwen, what am I going to tell the kids? I promised we could keep them!” he looked her hopefully. “We could just not call them…”

“David,” Gwen said warningly. “What kind of example would we be setting for the kids if we didn’t?” David sighed,

“You’re right,” he said, handing Firefly over regretfully. “You better call now, before we get too attached.”

“We?” Gwen raised her eyebrows. “I think it’s more me. You’re already attached. Now go away. I can’t have you in here sobbing while I talk to them. You’d better tell the kids, anyway.”

“Yeah…” he went to the door, then glanced back at her. “Are you sure we can’t-”

“David!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” he stepped outside the door and spotted the kids as it closed behind him. He breathed in deeply and forced himself to walk toward him, his regular smile coming to his face, though maybe a bit forced. “Hey kiddos!” he said cheerfully. The looked back eagerly.

“Where’s Lucky?” Nerris asked. “We want to meet her!”

“Lucky?” David asked, confused.

“Space Kid suggested we call her Lucky,” Nurf explained. “On account that it was lucky Nikki found her, and lucky you let us keep her.”

David laughed nervously, and the campers narrowed their eyes. “Yeah, about that! You see, the thing is…”

“Mr. David,” Dolph said, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Max told us you said Lucky could stay. Were you lying to us?”

“No, of course not!” David said, frantically waving his hands back and forth. “I thought she could stay. But when I introduced her to Gwen, she showed me a flier for a missing cat. I’m afraid it’s for… Lucky.”

“What?” Nikki asked him, her voice cracking. “You mean, we have to give Lucky back?”

“Yeah,” David said, sighing. “Gwen is calling the family now.” the kids all looked disappointed, even Max. David bit his lip, feeling guilty. He didn’t want to upset them, but they would have found out eventually. Better they did now, before they could get too attached. But still… they looked so heartbroken.

He knelt and opened his arms wide. “Who needs a hug?” he asked, smiling at them gently. Max rolled his eyes.

“Please. Like anyone wants to hug you. Especially after you an-”

Nikki dashed into his arms and threw hers around his torso, holding on tightly. Space Kid joined her, and Dolph followed after. David held them close, watching in glee as Nurf grabbed Preston and held him tightly, squeezing his eyes closed. After a minute, Preston awkwardly put his arms around the bigger boy and patted his shoulder.

Nerris and Harrison scowled at each other, crossing their arms, before Erid came between them and put her arms around them both. Both magic kids smiled a little, and Nerris held her arm out. Harrison put his out as well, and the both put theirs around the other’s back.

Neil and Max stared at each other, nodded in mutual understanding, and patted each other on the shoulder. Close enough, David thought. After a minute, everyone pulled apart.

“Okay,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s getting late, campers. Start getting ready to turn in, okay?” he looked around, surprisingly getting no arguments. It must have been the long day they’d had.

After all the kids were safely in their tents, David returned to the counselor’s cabin.

“Hey,” Gwen said, glancing up from her book. “The family is going to come tomorrow to pick up Firefly. Are the kids alright?”

“Yeah, they’re okay. I’m sure they’ll recover.”

“And what about you?”

“Me?” David laughed. “I’m fine! Why would I be-”

“David.”

“Ok,” he said, wilting. “I admit, I am a little disappointed. I really liked the idea of having a cat at camp.”

“Yeah, it would have been cool,” Gwen said shrugging. “Too bad we can’t adopt one.”

“Adopt…?” David stood up straight, beaming. “Gwen, your a genius!” he yelled, throwing his arms around her and spinning her around. He grabbed the keys and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back!”

“Hold it right there,” Gwen said, snatching his arm and causing him to jerk back. “You are not going to the animal shelter to adopt a cat.”

“Why not?” David pouted. “The kids would love a cat! And even if they don’t, you and I would take care of her! And I can take her home at the end of the summer. I’ll do some research, we can make this work!”

“David. Breathe.” Gwen sighed. “You can go to the animals shelter, but do not adopt anything without asking me first! And be back before the kids get up tomorrow. We don’t want to make them suspicious.”

“Of course,” David said, bouncing in his toes, a ridiculous smile on his face. “Thank you, Gwen!” he dashed off the moment she let go, full on sprinting to the car. Gwen watched him, smiling in amusement- just a little.

Maybe a cat wouldn’t be such a bad idea, if it made everyone so happy.

The next day…

“Rise and shine Gwen!” David’s voice said, full of cheeriness. “We’ve got to get the campers breakfast before the family gets here!”

“Fuck off, David,” Gwen grumbled. Still, she sat up and grabbed her clothes and hair brush before heading for the bathroom. When she’d gotten dressed, brushed and put up her hair, and splashed water into her face, she came back out and caught sight of David.

He was smiling wide with his hand behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels. Gwen narrowed her eyes.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” David said. “I went to the shelter, looked at the cats, didn’t adopt anything, talked to the shelter employees, and came back to camp!”

“You didn’t adopt anything, huh? Then what is that rumbling noise?” Gwen crossed her arms and waited, smirking as David avoided her gaze.

“Uh, well, you see… I found the perfect cat at the shelter last night, and…”

“You adopted it.”

“No!” David shook his head. “I didn’t adopt her. I did the rent a cat program. They’ll let you keep the cat for about two months, to see how they fit in with your family. If things don’t work out, you can bring them back. I figured I’d take her back to camp, see how the rest of summer goes, then take her home and see how she adjusts. If everything goes well, then I’ll adopt her!”

Gwen sighed, exasperated, but smiled at him. “Figures you’d find a loophole. Fine, we’ll see how this goes.” she went to the door, then paused, glancing back. “... can I meet her?”

“Of course!” David knelt and brought a kennel out from under his bed, setting it on top. “Gwen, meet Snuggles. Though the shelter said we could change her name, if we don’t like it.”

A cat stepped out and curled up on the bed. It had mixes of orange and brown, and a little gray.

“The people said she likes most everyone, and she’s mostly an indoor cat. But she also likes to go outside occasionally- perfect for the camp.”

“She is cute,” Gwen said. “I guess it can’t hurt to try.” she looked up at him. “How do you want to tell the kids?”

David smiled. “I had an idea…”

…

Max stood with the other campers, watching the silver van drive away with Lucky. He steeled himself against any feelings of sadness, he’d barely had time to bond with Lucky, anyway. It wasn’t like they’d spent weeks together only to lose her.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned away and marched back to his tent. He spotted David running back to the counselor’s cabin. Normally he would have been suspicious- the counselor was head over heels for Lucky. It seemed strange that he would leave. But he just couldn’t muster the motivation to follow him.

He went to the tent and shoved aside the flap, stopping in the entrance. A smile twitched on his face.

A piece of paper was on the back.

A random cat has appeared! Unfortunately, it seems to have no home. Maybe it could stay with you heroes? You all seem like a good fit. But uh- you better ask for help, if you need it. In fact, I strongly suggest it.

“That idiot,” Max said aloud. But he crouched by the bed, stroking his hand over the head of the cat, smiling to himself. David may be an idiot, but he was a good camp counselor. Not that Max would ever tell him that.

...

so yeah, for most of that information, I did research to make sure it was accurate. But please don’t read this and tell someone this is how it works, because it is definitely not. I’m pretty sure the rent-a-cat program is a lot more complicated than this. oh, and snuggles is actually a cat up for adoption on the ARL website. It didn’t tell me any specification about her personality, so I was free to make it up! snuggles might be nothing like how I described her. 

#camp camp #fanfiction #David #Gwen #Max #Nikki #Neil #Erid #Dolph #Space Kid #Nurf #Preston #Harrison #Nerris #oc's