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everamazingfe · 3 years

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Magic in the Mundane

Fic Summary: Everyone had something special about them, their own personal bit of magic. Most found out about their abilities early, but Gavin had always been a bit of a late bloomer. Luckily, Michael comes by to help him put the pieces together.

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Words in this chapter: 5521 Pairings: Gavin Free/Michael Jones Warnings for this chapter: None

Notes: Written for Kait (@uy8hg) for the RT Writer’s Discord Secret Sunshine event! All of her prompts were amazing and I spent far too long trying to decide between them, but I'm so glad that I decided to go with this one because it was so much fun to write. Check the source for a link to read it over on A 0 3!

Prompt: Someone discovers a new power or something that they find really cool, and they want to show it off to everyone else, with varying levels of success.

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In a world full of wonder, it wasn’t always easy to appreciate the beauty in the mundane, but those who had magic running through their veins found it quite simple. The way that magic would manifest itself in those people wasn’t always the same, though. Sometimes, the magic was in their personality. Jack had a warmth about him that could make anyone’s day better in a matter of seconds. Trevor’s charisma was off the charts, he was such a smooth talker that it was hard for anyone to dislike him unless they really tried. Other times, it was in their looks. Alfredo had a smile that could light up any room, big and beaming and bright enough to outshine the sun. Geoff had amazingly artistic tattoos that seemed to come alive if one looked at them a little too long (he would always deny this, but there was a gleam in his eye that made everyone think twice about his words). Sometimes, it was something else entirely. Their magic came in the form of special abilities, of genuine magic. Lindsay could speak to animals, using their skills for good a majority of the time, but otherwise causing mischief. Michael could create just as well as he could destroy, rendering entire buildings obsolete and creating new ones in their wake.

There was a little bit of magic in everything, but oftentimes there were those that couldn’t see it in themselves. That was where Gavin stood. He was a smooth talker, sure, but not as smooth as Trevor. His smile wasn’t as bright as Alfredo’s. He didn’t have any magical abilities. Though he was welcomed into their group, he didn’t feel as though he belonged. He didn’t have any magic. They insisted that he was part of their crew, magic or not, and that he was welcome, but sometimes he didn’t want their comforts. He just wanted to be left alone. It was hard enough to be the lone member of the mundane in their little crew, he didn’t want their pity points on top of it. Still, it didn’t stop them from trying to help.

“Maybe you’re just a late bloomer?” Fiona suggested to him late one evening when the sun had already set, laid out on her back on the roof of a building Michael had created just for her. Her magic was her ability to be good at anything she set her mind to, with an unwavering confidence that Gavin admired (and sometimes envied), even when it was misplaced. “Or you could just be totally oblivious to it. That’s always an option.”

He let out a soft sigh, shrugging a shoulder as he turned his head to look at her. “Someone else would’ve noticed it in me by now though, I think. Everyone has something, even if they're not the ones who see it.” Those who had magic were usually pretty good at picking it out in others. It had been how those without genuine magic had discovered theirs. How Jack had discovered his warmth, how Ky had discovered her strength, and so on.

Fiona bit her lip, going quiet. He had a point there, but she didn’t want to admit it. She hated when he was right. “Maybe your magic is just being an idiot?” There was a grin on her lips, but the way that she spoke made it sound like a genuine suggestion. Gavin couldn’t help but burst out into laughter, his and Fiona’s giggles echoing out across the landscape.

“Kind of a shitty magic, don’t you think, Fifi?” He asked finally, when his sides ached from laughing and his lungs begged for air. “I know Michael would certainly agree with you, but… I really hope that’s not it.”

“I don’t know, Gavvy. Could be. But I hope that’s not it too. I think you’re made for something a bit better than that.” Instead of pity, or jokes, she gave him a vote of confidence, and there was a little gleam that formed in Gavin’s eyes at her words.

“You mean that?”

“Of course I do!

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The day after speaking to Fiona, Gavin was still thinking about her words. Despite how good it had made him feel in the moment, they’d ended up putting him in a worse mood than usual, and it was hard for him to even begin thinking about the magic he might have held. Was he really meant for something better than the idiocy his friends assigned to him? He wasn’t sure.

He’d set out on a hike, outside of the city that they’d made for themselves and into the woods surrounding it. Some time out in nature always made him feel better, more at ease, more connected to the magic of the world around him. The small nuances on how the ecosystem worked together to thrive always intrigued him, and he was jealous of how cohesive it all could be.

“I’m just a bit too all over the place for it, I guess,” he muttered to himself, taking a seat on a fallen tree. The moss was soft beneath him, and he ran his fingers over it as he talked to himself. Working through his thoughts aloud always made them feel less jumbled.

A figure sat down beside him with a heavy sigh, and a hand was placed over his. “Don’t beat yourself too much, Gav,” Geoff said quietly, wrapping his arm around Gavin and pulling himself close. “We can’t all be something special, otherwise there wouldn’t be anything special at all.”

Gavin let out a long sigh, leaning into the gent when he was pulled in. He’d stopped asking how Geoff could find him so easily long ago. It was the same answer every time, ‘I just know where to look, you assholes aren’t exactly all that hard to find,’ said with that same glint in his eye. “Yeah, I know. But it’d be nice to be able to do something more than exist.”

Geoff hummed softly, rubbing his thumb gently over Gavin’s shoulder. It always made him feel guilty when any of his friends were upset, particularly Gavin, but he’d been so hung up on the same thing for so long. “Are you sure you don’t just want an excuse for the attention to be back on you for a change?”

The lad sat up quickly, pulling away from Geoff and cutting him a confused look. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying! Going around talking to everyone, being all mopey about not having magic? Pretty good way to get everyone to pay attention to you for a change, right?”

Gavin scoffed at the notion, pushing Geoff away from him. “That’s not what I’m doing at all!”

“Are you sure?” He asked, arching an eyebrow as Gavin stood up suddenly.

“Yes.” They’d had a few new members join their ranks, and attention was divided as they worked to expand their little city and network with others, but he hadn’t minded people paying less attention to him. If anything, he enjoyed it. It meant there was less pressure on him to perform. “Now, I’m going. And this time, you’re not allowed to search for me.”

He didn’t even know where he was going, he just wanted to go away. He wondered if that’s what everyone thought, or if Geoff was just trying to get a rise out of him. If they all thought that way, they’d certainly never said anything of the sort, but this was how people were going to treat him, Gavin didn’t want to be around them.

“What a dick,” he muttered to himself, pulling his cloak tighter around himself as he walked deeper into the forest. It was a beautiful green and gold tapestry, the hues blending together to make a simple but pleasing pattern. The threads had been hand-woven by Matt and enchanted to protect its wearer from whatever may come their way, and it did a remarkable job.

As he ventured deeper into the woods, the trees grew taller and thicker, blocking out the sun’s rays and sending a chill through the air. As the coldness began to creep in, the cloak kept him warm and made him feel safe. However, it couldn’t protect him from the turmoil inside his own mind.

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In the city center, Michael was having a different sort of crisis, and his angry shouting could be heard all across the land.

“You said what to him?!’

His relationship to Gavin was indiscernible at best, no one knew whether they were deeply in love or mortal enemies, but one thing was certain: he was fiercely protective of the fact that he was the only one allowed to bully Gavin, and anyone else could only do so with his permission. Whether they were soulmates or archnemesis, Gavin was his boi first and foremost.

“I just suggested that maybe being an idiot was his form of magic! It was funny, we were both laughing!” Fiona said, completely oblivious to the way that Michael was shooting daggers her way. Usually Michael played along with her playful teasing of Gavin, so when he didn’t continue to make jokes, she looked over. “Don’t you give me that look, you’re thinking it too.”

“I’m not, though.” Fiona scoffed, and Michael all but growled. “I’m not. You all underestimate him, and when he does find his magic, you’re going to be blown away. All of you will be.” There was a special sort of conviction to his words, one that was usually reserved for saying the most ridiculous things completely stone-faced.

Michael stormed off after that, ignoring Fiona’s demands for him to keep hanging out with her. Movement came from the bushes on the outskirts of their community, spotted just out of the corner of his eye, but his attention snapped towards it in an instant only to reveal that the movement was caused by Geoff. His eyebrows furrowed as the other tried to pretend like he wasn’t covered in burrs and twigs, like he wasn’t trying to sneak out of the brush and back into the city unnoticed.

“Do you know where Gavin is?” he asked instantly, lifting a hand swiftly to raise a dirt wall behind Geoff, who was trying to retreat back into the bushes as quickly as he’d come out of them.

“Why would I know where he is?” Geoff asked, his voice pitchy and lilted like he certainly did know where Gavin was, but also that he knew that revealing that information would get him in more trouble with Michael than not at the same time.

Michael’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward, the ground beneath his feet rumbling and propelling him like a moving walkway until he was nose to nose with Geoff. “Because you know where everyone is, you always know.”

There wasn’t fear in Geoff’s eyes, but the man’s chest rose and fell rapidly with anxious breaths. The staredown was long and tense, though he eventually relented, letting out a long sigh as the wall behind him fell. He wasn’t going anywhere. “I spoke to him in the woods maybe an hour ago, he told me that I’m not allowed to look for him, but here.” He reached into his gear, pulling out a weathered piece of parchment that was rolled and tied with a thin strip of leather. A map, one that he’d made with the same magic that lived in his tattoos, that not only held the lay of the land but also markers for everyone who lived in it. Geoff offered it to Michael, who quickly swiped it from him and unrolled it. “He never said anything about you going after him.”

The lad hummed quietly as his eyes scanned the map for the forest green marker that indicated Gavin’s name, wordlessly stepping beyond the brush and into the woods towards it.

“I don’t even get a thank you?!” Geoff cried out behind him, annoyed by the lack of gratitude. The ground beneath his feet rose suddenly, knocking him off his feet and onto the earth. He cried out, flailing his arms in an attempt to stop himself from falling, but it was futile. Michael was already gone.

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The woods looked easy to traverse on the map, and they most likely would have been if Michael had stayed on the trails, but he opted to make a beeline towards Gavin. The terrain was rocky and there were steep cliffs off the beaten path, but it was nothing that he couldn’t handle. He could mend and mold the earth to make it easier to traverse, creating stairs along the cliff faces for an easy descent. The climate was what was really getting to him. The chill in the air was unbearable for him, only getting worse as the sun began to dip down, and he had a bear’s pelt to keep him warm. Gavin’s frame was thinner and frailer than his own, he most likely wasn’t faring any better.

He lit a torch as night fell, raising up dirt and stone walls around himself to block out the cold and keep himself safe from the nocturnal monsters around him. After jamming the torch into the wall, he unfurled his map and saw that Gavin’s marker had stopped moving and was instead spinning around in frantic circles. Evidently, he was trying to make camp for the night as well. With a swift movement of his hand, miles away on the other side of the woods, similar walls raised up around Gavin, and the marker finally stopped moving. Satisfied that his boi was safe, he settled down, wrapping his pelt around himself tightly for warmth as he laid down to sleep.

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Gavin was startled as the dirt walls rose up around him, terrified that something was trying to trap him within them, though he quickly became at ease when he realized what it meant. Geoff had listened and wasn’t going to be searching for him, but Michael was certainly looking out for him instead. The fear that came from being alone out there dissipated as he ran his fingers down the dirt, pulling out several clumps of roots and knocking bits of earth loose. Dirt walls were less than fancy, but they were a great comfort regardless.

He slept easily through the night with a newfound sense of safety, his cloak pulled tightly around himself for warmth. It worked wonders against the cold. As the sun began to rise, it didn’t emerge from the clouds, the sky grey and dreary as rain began to fall. Gavin could hear the rain hitting the tops of the trees, but even as he began to move none of the drops ever hit him. Above him, the branches of the trees bent and molded, shielding him from the downpours as he walked. No doubt this is Michael’s doing, he thought to himself, a small smile forming on his lips. No matter how much they seemed to argue, the other lad still managed to be protective of him. It was something he was always grateful for, even when the others seemed to give him shit for it.

His pace that day was slower, more leisurely now that he had calmed down some, but he still had no intentions of going back to the city. If Michael was the only one who cared enough to come for him, they could start their own city far, far away. Together. He quickly shook the thought from his mind, pushing his hood down and taking a look around. Though the trees were tall above him for now, he knew that if he just kept going they’d give way to a beautiful, grassy plain. He couldn’t wait to walk on grass again, the dirt and stones beneath him were starting to make his feet ache.

Several yards from where he’d first had that thought, he had to stop, kneeling down to untie his boots so he could re-lace them tightly. Moving slowly, he bent down, not wanting to end up with another cut on his knee from landing too hard on a rock like he’d already done far too many times this trek. But the terrain beneath his knee was soft, and as he looked down at his boot, he saw that there was soft, lush grass beneath him. Not dirt.

“What on earth?” He asked himself, brushing his fingers through it. There was some grass on the forest floor around him, but it was rough and patchy, nothing like this. “Michael’s really outdone himself this time.” With that thought, he smiled to himself before continuing to lace up his boots with deft fingers. Before he stood, he spotted a small wildflower that had bloomed among the blades , and he gently picked it and placed it behind his ear. “What a dope.”

What Gavin didn’t know was that Michael didn’t have the ability to create foliage or flowers underfoot. No one in their community did. And with each step that Gavin took, more of it sprouted up from the dirt beneath him.

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Night fell again soon enough, and Gavin wasn’t sure where he was. He could’ve sworn that the forest gave way into plains at this point, but instead he found himself in the middle of the desert. Stupidly, he’d continued on, just in case the plains were just beyond it, though now he was too tired to turn back.

“Maybe Fiona was right,” he muttered as he sat down in the sand, digging his toes into it and wiggling them for some amusement as he propped his cloak up over himself like an umbrella. It was nighttime now, but it would be morning again soon enough. He didn’t want to end up burnt to a crisp before he even woke up. No walls came up around Gavin this time either, so it was up to him to protect himself.

Gavin leaned forward against his knees, peering up at the night sky for a few long moments. Jeremy had spent many long nights back in the city teaching him the constellations and the stars within them, though he could never tell which ones were real and which ones the lad had made up for his own amusement. Orion was certainly real, but Beauregard’s Chariot was almost certainly not. Almost. He picked that one out, finding comfort in its familiarity, before he decided it was time to get some rest. Toes still in the sand, he laid back, arms crossed beneath his head as he closed his eyes. He had been so focused on the sky that he was unaware of what was happening in the sand beneath him.

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With Gavin’s slowed pace, Michael was able to start gaining on him. He raced through the trees with even greater speed now that he was beyond the craggy cliffs and difficult landscape, the earth moving beneath him to propel him along. By nighttime, he’d closed in on Gavin’s position, and he was stunned by what he saw.

Smack dab in the middle of the desert, where not even cacti could manage to survive due to the horrible heat and scorching sunbeams, Gavin found himself within an oasis. That same lush grass and wildflowers were no longer just underfoot, but in a wide circle around the lad, almost tall enough to completely hide him from Michael’s view. Small trees were even beginning to grow, supporting Gavin’s cloak above him in place of the flimsy sticks he’d set up before.

“Gavin?” Michael called softly, stepping forward with caution in case it was a facade, a trap of some sort. The desert was known for causing hallucinations, for preying on the hope of the desperate. That was the kind of magic it held, and it was very skillful at using it. But as he knelt down at the edge of the circle and reached forward to feel the greenery, sure enough, it was real. “What the hell? Gavin! Wake the fuck up!”

The lad sat bolt upright with a start, catching himself in his cloak and fighting it off with all the fierceness of a kitten. Sleep was still gripping him, catching him somewhere between being wide awake and deep asleep, but he was quickly coming to. “Who’s there?!” He shouted, finally tossing his cape away from himself and looking around in confusion. “Michael?” That wasn’t the last thing he expected to see out there, but it wasn’t the first either. “What are you doing here, Michael?”

It had taken everything in Michael not to laugh at the display in front of him, but he quickly wiped the smirk off his face to look offended when Gavin addressed him so incredulously. “Jeez, don’t sound so happy to see me,” he drawled, rolling his eyes before shuffling forward on his knees. “Mind telling me what all this is?” He arched an eyebrow, gesturing to the small haven among the sand.��

However, Gavin had no more answers than Michael did. “I’m not… I’m not sure what it is,” he responded earnestly, glancing between it and the other lad before reaching for his cloak. “I thought you were doing it. You’re not?” Michael shook his head fervently, and Gavin only frowned as he pulled the garment on. “Then who is?”

Michael shrugged a shoulder, humming a soft ‘I don’t know’ before standing, stalking around the mysterious growth. This wasn’t anything that anyone he knew could do, and when he tried to make it happen himself, all he could do was raise the earth itself. He couldn’t make anything grow from it. Which left only one option…

“Come here,” he said suddenly, and Gavin looked at him like he’d asked him to do something insane. “Stand up! Get the hell over here!” When there was still no movement from him, Michael reached forward, hauling Gavin to his feet and yanking him out of the circle. Sure enough, grass sprouted up beneath the lad’s feet, extending the circle and connecting it to wherever he stepped. “Holy shit… Gavin! Look!”

Gavin had thought that Michael was angry at him, scolding him, but the tone of his voice was nothing but excited. Thrilled, even. He followed Michael’s gaze down to his feet, but he wasn’t quick enough to put the pieces together like the other had. “This happened to me back in the forest too! I don’t know what’s going on!”

“You’ve found your magic, that’s what’s going on!” Michael was practically screaming, bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking at Gavin with a big beaming grin. “You can make stuff grow! That’s incredible!”

That made things click for Gavin, finally, and his grin ended up matching Michael’s. “I can make stuff grow!” Geoff was going to be blown away, everyone was. He wondered if Michael would be okay with them going back to the city immediately, they’d be able to get there by morning thanks to his abilities. “Fiona was right!”

The other bristled immediately, his grin turning to a frown in a fraction of a second. “Fiona was… Right?” She’d told Gavin that his magic was being stupid, that his special ability was being an idiot. This certainly wasn’t that, not by a long shot. “Gavin, this isn’t stupid. This is awesome! Fiona wasn’t right.”

“What? What are you on about? No, she… She said I was made for something better than what everyone else thought. And she was right! Oh, and she’s had such shit luck getting flowers to grow at her place too, no wonder!” Gavin threw his arms around Michael’s neck, wrapping him in a tight hug that was fueled by nothing but pure glee, and he could only hug him back just as tight. “We have to get back there, immediately. Everyone is going to be so jealous, Michael-boi.”

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Some proper rest would’ve been a great benefit to them both, but Gavin had insisted that they return to the city as quickly as possible. The moving ground beneath their feet made it a relatively quick task, and Michael had managed to find a well-worn trail that made it even easier. They were back in the city by sunrise, and while the excitement had died down in Michael to give way to sleepiness, Gavin was no less giddy. Probably because he’d climbed on Michael’s back at one point and managed a small nap. Lucky bastard, Michael had thought to himself when he’d heard the soft snoring in his ear, but he hadn’t woken him up.

“Michael. Stop here, Michael,” Gavin urged, nearly losing his balance as the dirt beneath him ground to a halt suddenly. They were just outside the city, inside the same bushes that Geoff had attempted to sneak out of a few days prior, hidden from view as residents began to leave their houses to begin their tasks for the day. “I’m gonna get on your back-“

“You’re not taking another fucking nap,” Michael interjected, and the other huffed and waved him off.

“No! I’m gonna get on your back so I can do a grand reveal, you dolt. The flowers appear when I step, and if I step too soon the surprise will be ruined!”

“Hey, assholes!” Jeremy’s voice boomed across the city center, no doubt hearing the commotion, and Gavin quickly began to scramble onto Michael’s back.

“Ow! Watch it, you’re gonna knock off my glasses! Stop!” Michael huffed, swatting at Gavin’s hands as they reached for purchase anywhere they could. He stepped out of the bushes once he was settled, looking annoyed while the lad on his back was nothing but gleeful. “Hey, Lil J! I rescued our favorite dumbass. You’re welcome.”

Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh as Gavin let out a little ‘hello!’ and waved, though he was curious about why the other was on Michael’s back. It wasn’t unlike Gavin to demand piggy-back rides. Though normally once Jeremy was in view, he made it his mission to climb onto his shoulders instead. “Gav, are you hurt? What’s going on?” He stepped up with caution, ready to call for help if needed. Injuries weren’t uncommon, but if Gavin needed to be carried, it must’ve been serious.

“No, the asshole’s not hurt. Not yet, at least. He’s just got a surprise for you,” Michael assured, rolling his eyes. “For everyone, actually. Do me a favor and ring the bell? They’re gonna want to be here for this.”

An eyebrow shot up, but Jeremy was quick to comply with the request. He crossed the city center, grabbing the rope and pulling it once, twice, three times to signal that it was a meeting of utmost importance, but not one that brought bad news. When the bell rang three times, it meant that there were good things to come.

Soon, all of the residents of the city were there, eagerly awaiting to learn the reason for this meeting. Very rarely did the bell ring thrice, and there were hushed whispers and guesses of what was to come. They all fell silent when Michael, with Gavin still on his back, stepped forward.

“I’ve found my magic,” Gavin announced, savoring the look on everyone’s faces as they processed that announcement. Particularly Geoff’s, whose face was twisted into one of apologetic guilt. A sense of satisfaction bubbled up inside of him at that. And of course Fiona was delighted, jumping up and down and pumping her fists, shouting ‘I knew it!’ before she even knew what Gavin’s magic was. It didn’t matter to her. Alfredo and Trevor were also excited, but only because their beloved Dusk Boy had finally joined their ranks, though Jack and Matt simply looked skeptical. He couldn’t blame them, really. Why now? Why did it take so long for him to find it? Those were the questions behind their eyes, and Gavin wished that he had answers for them.

When he felt like he’d let the suspense hang in there air for long enough, he stepped down. For a moment, nothing happened. Matt was about to open his mouth to complain about being dragged out of bed for a grand display of nothing. And then, all at once, a beautiful display of lush grass and flowers appeared at his feet. The more he focused on it, the bigger it grew and the more beautiful it became. No longer was it simply wildflowers, either. In the hours of their journey, he realized he could control the types of flowers that grew. He opted for sunflowers this time. Everyone knew that they were his favorite. It was proof that the magic was his, and not anyone else’s pretending to be his.

The reactions were mixed, and Gavin deflated a little as several people seemed unimpressed and walked off to return to their duties. It wasn’t the most spectacular power in the world, he knew that, but it was his and he liked it. That was what mattered to him. There wasn’t much time for him to mope though, as Fiona quickly rushed him, wrapping him in a hug and lifting him off his feet.

“Gavin!” she shouted, stepping back to inspect the flowers closer. She plucked a few blades of grass, feeling them between her fingers. After a few seconds, she gasped, her eyes lighting up. “You can help me grow flowers at my place!”

Gavin laughed, nodding quickly and beaming at her. He could always trust her to cheer him up. “I can, yeah. No wonder you’ve not been able to grow anything.”

“Yeah, cause you stole my green thumb! That’s hardly my fault.”

“Oh, I dunno about that. You should’ve been keeping a closer eye on it.”

They bickered back and forth, Michael watching with a tired but fond smile, until Fiona decided that she’d had enough and thumped Gavin on the side of the head before racing off. The lad was too exhausted to follow, so he just stepped over to Michael, the foliage underfoot following him as he went. Everyone else came up to congratulate him in time, Geoff doing that and apologizing for the harshness of his words in one awkward convoluted mess that Michael wasn’t even sure was an apology, but Gavin understood what the gent was trying to say. He’d learned to decode Geoff Speak over the years.

Still, the person whose opinion Gavin valued the most was Michael’s, and once the excitement had died down and they’d retreated to their homes to rest, Michael stopped by to give it.

“I’m real proud of you, Gav,” he said, making himself comfortable on the bed next to the lad without a second thought.

“Proud of me?” he asked, snatching his blankets back from the lad as he tried to steal them. Michael always did this to him.

“Yeah. Proud of you. For putting up with the bullshit and finding your magic. Even if it was a total accident.” Michael snorted out a soft laugh and smiled, crossing his arms beneath his head and looking over at the other. “You just lucked into it, just like you lucked into everything else.”

“Including you?” Gavin arched an eyebrow as he met the other’s gaze, desperately wanting to wipe that smug look off his face.”

“Especially me, are you kidding?” That comment earned him a gentle smack to the chest, a kiss to the cheek, and a mutter of ‘I’m going to make a tree grow through your damn house.’

To everyone else, their relationship was indiscernible at best. But Michael and Gavin knew exactly what they were to each other, they didn’t need anyone else in their business about it. They were partners. Not just in life and love, but in their magic as well. As he learned how to hone and control his abilities, Gavin would decorate the city and beautify the buildings that Michael had created. And once he had mastered his skills, Michael began to create buildings specifically for Gavin to embellish. Dirt roofs became his signature style, the gravity-defying feature held together by the roots of the flowers that Gavin planted into them. The city had never looked better, and even those who were initially unimpressed by Gavin’s abilities had to admit that it was perfectly suited to him. He took great pride in rubbing it in their faces.

Gavin was happy to not be a member of the mundane anymore. His spirits were higher, and he felt more useful to the city. His abilities, with more practice, extended beyond flowers and grass and into fruit and vegetable plants. The magic that Gavin held could sustain them all.

But Gavin had always held magic within him, in Michael’s eyes. He had never been mundane. That gleam in his eye when he got another crazy idea to cause chaos was nothing if not supernatural, and his ability to find the fun in even the most boring of situations had proven to be valuable time and time again. It just hadn’t been the form of magic that Gavin had always desired, so he never took note of it despite it always being there. Michael was just glad he could finally see it in himself too.

#ragehappy #rpf #mavin #oneshot #magic au #secret sunshine #secret sunshine event #fic #my fic #my writing #everamazingfe

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antihero-writings · 3 years

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Undead Memory (Ch1)

Fandom: Castlevania (Netflix) (Season 2)

Character Focus: Alucard

Summary: What happened during that month in which Alucard was alone in the castle?

Alucard dealing with the aftermath of S2, and trying to cope with the death—or, more accurately, the ghosts—of his parents.

Notes: First of all, spoilers for season 2!

Another Alucard-centric fic, but actually about the show this time!! Whoo!! I'm excited to finally start posting this one.

Believe it or not, I started this idea a while before S3 started, wanting to write something for the time after S2 of Alucard being alone in the castle. Then after S3 I wanted to write it both more and less XD The idea of Alucard seeing ghosts brought up at the end of S2 is an interesting one, and one I thought deserved more exploration. As well as just that month where he's alone being something interesting to write about.

This is one of those fics I wanted to post as a long one-shot, but ultimately got stuck and decided it would be better to break it up into chapters to make it more manageable for both reading and writing. I said it'd be 4 chapters above, but I'm not quite sure exactly how many it'll be. It just helps me to jot down a manageable ballpark number.

That being said, one of the reasons I hesitate to break things up into chapters, is because if people don't seem interested it severely inhibits my desire to keep writing that fic. So, it really does help my motivation a LOT when you comment and say you want to read more!! So just know that when you comment, you're helping more of this fic get written!!

Shoutout to @it-burns-when-i-pee for giving me the clock idea!

Chapter 1: Reminders

There were no graves. Dracula and Lisa didn’t get graves. The rest of the world would have said they didn’t deserve to rest in peace.

Antigone would say Polynices deserved to sing in Olympus all the same.

The only grave they got was a castle. And many would say it was better than most—that they’d take a castle over a headstone, a mausoleum, or the ground any day. They’d say a castle was a hell of a lot better than being dumped down the sewage grate.

And all that’s fair, but perhaps the bigger problem was this: there were no remains.

They both burned. One in holy fire, one in hell. (And who could say where they truly ended up, if there was a heaven and hell after all?)

All that was left of Lisa Tepes was a pile of charcoal on an altar to a priests own pride.

And all that was left of Vlad Tepes was a ring, and a soot stain on the carpet.

Most would say they got what they deserved; to die without chance at Olympus.

Adrian doesn’t know where to put his flowers.

Most children bury their parents eventually, but usually this is when they have children of their own to keep them company, and their parents have been bouncing grandchildren on their knees for at least a year or two, with white hair and crinkled smiles, barely able to walk, or see: sick and ready to greet the gods.

Adrian may look old enough to settle down, but he’s younger than most would surmise. And while he can certainly handle himself, he was not prepared for his parents to die within a year of each other…especially considering that the parent who was meant to be immortal died by his own hand.

He would have liked to have some respite in his own home.

But perhaps, more important than where to put flowers, there was most unfortunate side effect of the lack of remains, and the castle grave:

Ghosts.

And this isn’t the pearly white wraiths wandering around saying ‘boo’, or skulls that float about the head gnashing their teeth. Not even a chained apparition to remind one of their sins.

This is something much worse. Worse because they belong to the house’s owner. Worse because their true grave is his head.

—(And that place never rested)—

Their ghosts wander the castle, not just a graveyard. This castle seems to have an affinity for the undead.

Maybe not everyone could see them. He tries not to indulge the thought that maybe there’s nothing there at all, and they’re nothing more than undead memory.

Alucard has been seeing ghosts since the moment he was left alone in this place.

He’d rather have a grave to mourn them at, and converse with the memories, than watch their ghosts keep him up at night, unable to touch, or to talk to them.

He should remind himself to look up the definition of ‘torment’ later.

At first it was his father’s steps when he walked up the stairs. His mother’s smiles, his own young laughter when he sat in the study. When he sat at the table to eat, he watched the vampire king tossing a young boy into the air, both laughing like fairy wing beats, as Lisa watched on from the table. Alucard tried not to lose his appetite.

Then they were given voice: it was Father’s lessons when he looked for a book in the library. Mother’s stories as he sat reading, making him incapable of concentrating to his own book all the while. Baking cookies together in the kitchen. Father allowing him his first drink—(of wine or blood? Take a guess. He only needed one of them, after all)—as he walked through the cellar. Mother decorating the castle, making it look a little nicer, a little more alive. Not all of them were positive. Their arguing voices down the hallway. His own tears.

Father’s claws against his chest.

And he wouldn’t dare get close to that room. Because whenever he walks past the door, he can still hear his father speak to him like he did when he was still a child dressed in sunlight, and there was nothing but love.

Mother, father and…himself. As if he died long ago with them. As if the happy child he was within them is gone. As if he’s no longer the Adrian who sat with his parents, read with them, baked cookies, and laughed with them…but the Alucard who killed them.

And, well, maybe he didn’t kill his mother, but sometimes he didn’t know what else to think but to blame himself for the thought that he could have saved her.

And he did kill his father.

He still feels that stake in his hand when he walks by that room—(But it wasn’t a stake was it? It was the bedpost of his childhood bed, as if ripping his childhood at the seams and denying everything he was born as). He still feels its splinters in his fingers, the smell of pine, the feeling of it piercing his father’s chest, the way his heartbeat refused to stop—(he rested his head on his chest once, the constancy of the rhythm was comforting then). The warmth of his father’s blood draining over his fingers. The sound of his father’s ripping voice. The unearthly, ungodly howling of the souls trapped inside him—(was he really so bad?). He could still smell his flesh burning.

He still wakes up in the middle of the night with the image of his fathers face melting off its bones as it came closer to him, reaching out as if to to caress his son’s cheek, seared onto his eyes—(is this how Victor Frankenstein felt when the creature smiled at his window?)

But when the morning came, he took that ring and he wore it on a chain around his neck all the same, to remind him of a few things:

One: that love is one of those things that is free, but comes at a high price. If you take it lightly, it will leave you heavily.

Two, an addendum to one: that love is not soft. Love is not flowery words, or even the insatiable desires the romance novels say it is. Love is an insidious fire, when you have it, it rages, and you know what warmth is. When the fireplace is empty it aches, and when your heart breaks your chest gets cut on all the pieces. And underestimating it, calling it weakness, will always be your undoing.

Three—(one that was beginning to weigh heaviest): that living and immortality are not the same thing. Vlad may have been immortal, but he was only ever alive with Lisa.

Four: to always know where he came from…and where he didn’t want to end up.

Five, and final: that though he had saved lives, though it was noble, and the stories and songs would say he was brave, and though Trevor and Sypha would say it was for the greater good…he would always be the son who loved his father…and the son who drove the stake into his father’s heart.

All for love.

He can find respite from the memories sometimes. He finds himself spending too much time down in the Belmont hold, reading, organizing, putting away ancestors—(ancestors not of his, ones that didn’t come back). Learning, pursing his lip in disapproval, or laughing to himself at the thought of some of the things Trevor’s relatives did (making a mental note to use the story against Trevor when he next saw him). Thinking of his friends…and trying not to think of them, lest they become ghosts too.

He likes going out into the woods to get food, and water, and fresh air. He wavers there at times, wondering if maybe he could just… leave. He spends more time out there than is strictly necessary.

Sometimes he runs out into the woods—well, more precisely padding, cantering on paws—and other times flies—trying to make sure his tongue can taste freedom, and his wings can snare sunlight, before he turns back.

But he always has to return. Return to the stuffy, putrefied remains of the castle. The air where he hears his parents whisper sweet words that are gone, where memory reconstructed from fairy castles sweet worlds he’s ripped away.

Would it be so hard to just leave?

Surely we can let the poor wandering souls in the woods find refuge. It was a grave after all. Just let the lost rest against the headstones, though they know not whose skeletons lie beneath them.

He leans against Trevor’s tree, and sees a young boy playing on the branches—laughing, free—and smiles…before it becomes gasp and grimace, and he shakes his head, returning to the castle.

Not them too.

He thought he could take it. The grief. The ghosts. The wrath of the gods

But he can’t stay.

Not forever. That is to say, he can’t leave for long. Just to visit town, to see another person or two, to get out of his head, and pray the specters won’t follow him.

He slings his bag over his shoulder, along with the coat he always wore—the one that smells like the campfires he sat at with Trevor and Sypha—and sighs as he walks out the door.

He has another grave to visit.

#castlevania #netflix castlevania #castlevania fanfiction #castlevania fanfic #castlevania fic #castlevania netflix #alucard #alucard castlevania #castlevania alucard #adrian tepes #adrian fahrenheit tepes #castlevania season 2 #dracula #Lisa Tepes #Vlad Tepes #Vlad Dracula Tepes #castlevania fandom

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reciprocityfic · 4 years

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when there are no wars to fight

title: when there are no wars to fight fandom: wonder woman, dccu pairing: steve trevor x diana prince rating: T summary: so she goes to america, the comforting weight of his watch constantly weighing down her pocket, a crumpled piece of paper clutched tightly in her fist that bears a single address, written in etta's neat script.

trevor ranch 1202 owl creek lane meeteetse, wyoming

(diana goes home for steve after the war, desperately searching for more answers about the man she loved.)

author’s note: yay for my second wondertrev fic!

i started this awhile back, but finally got the inspiration to finish it because wondertrev love week put my butt into gear. i wanted to finish it in time for their day three writing prompt: trevor ranch.

hope you all like it! let me know what you think.

xoxo, rebekah

read on archive of our own

when there are no wars to fight

Etta asks her, one early, gray London morning in a quaint cafe, over tea and baked goods that somehow pass as breakfast, rather than dessert, in this strange world of Man. It’s been awhile, now, since victory was announced. Celebrations have come and gone, soldiers have returned home, and life has become fairly mundane again.

And her - she’s been waiting for some sort of sign telling her what to do next.

She’s thought of trying to go back to Themyscira - at least, for a little while; she made a promise to herself that she would not abandon this world, and it is something she intends to keep. A goal towards which she will strive for the remainder of her existence on this earth. But she decides against it, not wanting to mar her bright, shining memory of home with the burden of reality she now carries. Plus, she doesn’t want to have to say goodbye again. She fears it will hurt even more the second time around.

So she’s been in a sort of suspended state, neither here nor there. And it’s Etta, who finally asks her.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” she begins, peering at her over the rim of her teacup, “what are you going to do now that you’re not...y’know, fighting on the battlefield, saving the world, and the sort?”

She doesn’t answer right away, and Etta - perpetually polite to a T - puts down her cup, and begins apologizing.

“It’s not that I don’t want you around. The opposite, actually - I quite enjoy your company. I’m just wondering what someone...like you does when there are no wars to fight - “

When there are no wars to fight.

The rest of Etta’s words fade away until that phrase is all she can hear, ringing over and over in her ears.

“Is this what people do when there are no wars to fight?”

“This, and other things.”

“What things?”

She supposes that’s what she must now figure out.

“Oh, dear. I’ve offended you, haven’t I?” Etta humphs, before taking a large bite of a scone and rolling her eyes at herself.

“You haven’t offended me,” she assures her, smiling softly. Etta sighs in relief, and then cracks a joke that she doesn’t quite get because she’s still trying to figure out the ins and outs of society. Humor will be one of the last things to come.

“Where would he have gone?”

She’s dodging Etta’s question. She doesn’t want to think about the future and all the unknowns that it presents. They’ve been gnawing at her brain enough recently, and she doesn’t wish to talk about them. At least not now.

But that doesn’t mean her curiosity isn’t genuine, her inquiry insincere. It’s been one of the main things on her mind, in fact. What was his life like without war? Who was he when he woke up to peace instead of fighting, safe in a bed instead of huddled inside a tent in some foreign land? What would he have shown her, taught her?

What could they have been together?

“Home, I suppose.”

Etta’s answer pulls her from her thoughts. She looks at the woman, who stares back at her with her lips pressed together in a sad smile.

“Did he miss it?” she asks. “His home?”

He never spoke to her of home. She remembers his anecdote about his father, back in Themyscira.

“My father used to say, you see something wrong in the world, you can either do nothing, or you can do something.”

His father, whose watch now sits in the pocket of her coat. She hasn’t let it out of her sight since she found it after her battle with Ares, sitting on a piece of broken concrete. Somehow, it remained in perfect condition, just as it was as he placed it in her hands before marching off to sacrifice himself. She ran her fingers over the leather of the band, the glass covering the face, watched the tick tick tick of the second hand, and vowed to never let it out of her sight.

It was now the most important object to her, more valuable than any shield or sword would ever be. She will protect it with her life. And the constant weight of it has been one of few comforts over the past weeks. A piece of him to carry with her, always.

And she can’t help but wonder what other pieces of him might be left behind.

“Where was his home?” she continues. “His family? Did he speak of them with you? Have you met them? Have - “

“My, my,” Etta interrupts, “you’re like a question machine.”

She pauses, mouth still open around her next inquiry. Feeling herself begin to blush, she closes her lips, bites down on the bottom one.

“I want to know him,” she explains softly, looking down at their table, fingers playing with the edge of the ivory lace tablecloth.

“And that’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Etta assures her gently. “Of course, I’ll tell you what I know. It’s not much, to be honest - just bits and pieces. He was a spy, after all. But all the information I do have is back at the office.”

She nods, takes one more short sip of tea and then rises. Because now she’s decided. Her next steps in life are no longer murky; rather, they shine brightly in the surrounding darkness, beckoning her forward. She doesn’t want to wait now that she knows where she’s going.

She’s going home for him.

Etta hurriedly gathers herself and rushes after her.

“You certainly don’t let any grass grow under your feet, do you?”

She smiles at Etta’s mumbling as she pushes the door to the cafe open. She doesn’t quite get it - more humor and quirks in language that go over her head - but she suspects it’s supposed to be funny. She’s about to ask Etta what it means when she’s nearly knocked over by two people passing on the sidewalk.

“Sorry, love!” the man shouts in apology, before laughing alongside the woman besides him.

She watches them as they continue together, their joined hands swinging between them.

“Why are they holding hands?”

“Probably because they’re together.”

She remembers the way her heart stuttered when she took his fingers between hers, so innocently that first time. And then later, not so innocently - that night in Veld.

Her heart had skipped that same beat.

Now, her heart contracts, breaks for the one thousandth time over missing him so profoundly. Cries as it watches the strangers turn the corner, moans miserably as the memory plays in her head.

And her smile slips.

* * *

She goes to America.

That’s where he’s from, after all; she’d known that much. Etta confirms this for her, and soon after her tickets are booked and her bags are packed.

There’s no one there to see her off as she boards the ship to New York City. Etta was starting secretary work for someone new the morning she was set to leave, so she made her dinner the night before and then said goodbye with a warm hug, grasping her hand as she walked out the door.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Diana,” she murmured.

She smiled, squeezed her hand back before letting go.

“I hope so, too.”

There’s no one to see her off, but she stands on the ship’s deck anyways, staring down at the crowd gathered onshore. She watches the people leaving wave to the people staying behind, shouting goodbyes and words of love that surely the other won’t be able to hear. But they shout anyway, continue to wave even as the ship pulls away and those on land become dots on the horizon.

She goes to America, his watch always on her person, a crumpled piece of paper clutched tightly in her fist that bears a single address, written in Etta’s neat script.

Trevor Ranch 1202 Owl Creek Lane Meeteetse, Wyoming

She takes a train from New York to Cheyenne, and then takes a different, smaller one - one she’s sure isn’t really meant for passengers - to the town the paper in her hand denotes as his.

Meeteetse.

That’s all the sign outside the small train station says when she reaches her destination, painted in blood-orange capital letters against a dark wood background. The only thing to signal that she’s in the right place, along with the railway worker’s word as he escorted her from the train.

“Yep, this’s Meeteetse,” he assures in a slow drawl. “Doesn’t get many guests. They’ll prolly throw a parade for you.”

He laughs at his own joke. He’s a good deal shorter than her, his face covered with a thin layer of dirt. She smiles back politely, but moves herself onto the station platform quickly. She is ready to leave traveling behind. Ready to get where she was going.

She’s ready to find his home.

She turns on her heel, starts towards the dirt path that leads to the tiny town, and the worker shouts as he reboards the train.

“Hope you find what you’re looking for, sweetheart!”

The words make her pause. They’re the same ones Etta had told her as she left her apartment that last night. She finds she misses the woman already.

She continues on, every step she takes kicking up a cloud of dust beneath her feet. By the time she gets to the center of town, there’s a significant amount of dirt covering her black boots, just as there was on the railway worker’s face. Just as there seems to be on everything in this town, at least from the outside.

It’s so different from London or New York, or even Cheyenne. So quiet. So full of nothingness.

She looks around, sees a car parked in front of a general store, a few horses tied up alongside a building that says ‘Saloon’. She looks for some sort of center or government building - a town hall, perhaps - but finds none. She chews on her bottom lip, not sure what to do next. She turns to the other side of the street.

A single building stands in front of her, made of the same dark brown wood that seems to be the building material for every structure in town. A sign, much like the one outside the train station, hangs over the door, painted with blood-orange letters that spell out ‘HOTEL’ this time, instead of the town’s name.

She decides it’s her best shot, and walks to the door. As she opens it, a bell rings, alerting the man she sees sitting at a desk in the corner of the small lobby to her presence. He looks up from the book he’s reading, a cigarette hanging between his lips.

“You need a room?” he inquires, voice low and raspy.

“No,” she answers quickly. “At least, not right now. Maybe later.”

The man at the desk tilts his head slightly.

“What can I help you with, then?”

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out right away. Instead, she realizes she’s still standing in the entryway, door swung open. She steps inside, letting the door go.

“I-”

The door slams behind her, cutting her off, and she flinches at the loud sound.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the man asks.

She smiles shyly, and shakes her head, twisting the toe of her boot into the floor.

She’s nervous. She’s in a new place, with no one to guide her this time. And it’s so different from all the other places she’s been in this world. If anything, it reminds her of Veld. A bit smaller, perhaps.

“Can you tell from the way I’m stuttering and stumbling about?” she jokes, hoping it will break the tension in the room. She looks up at the man, and he puts on a friendly smile.

“That. And there’s the fact that I know everyone in this town, and you’re not anyone I know. Don’t get many visitors, either. But when we do get ‘em, they don’t look nothing like you.”

He drops his cigarette on the ground, stubs it out with his shoe. Then, he takes an extra one from behind his ear, rummaging around his desk and grabbing a box of matches.

“I am wondering,” he begins, as he strikes one and uses it to light his cigarette, “if I can’t get you a room, what it is I can do for you.”

“I was hoping you could help me find something. A place,” she tells him.

He shrugs.

“Not many places ‘round here, but go ‘head.”

She clenches the slip of paper, still in her fist. However, she doesn’t need to look at it. She’d memorized the address only moments after Etta gave it to her.

“Trevor Ranch,” she begins. “1202 Owl Creek La-”

“I know Trevor Ranch,” he interrupts.

Her eyes light up, and she takes a few steps forward.

“You do?”

“Yep,” he confirms, sticking his thumb out towards the left. “‘Bout ten miles down the road thataway.”

Ten miles. A little far to walk, though she could manage, of course. But if there was another way.

“Do you know anyone who could take me there? Or…” she thinks, “a horse! If you had a horse I could borrow, I could ride it there and -”

“Whoa there, slow down,” he interrupts again. “Listen, I don’t have a horse for you to borrow. But I see out the window that Johnny’s car is across the street in front of the general store. He’ll drive you to Trevor Ranch.”

“He will? How much does he charge?”

“He won’t charge ya anything,” he says, laughing. “Jee, you’re really not from around here. Just tell ‘im you want to go to the ranch, and he’ll take you. Tell him Stu sent you.”

“Thank you so much,” she tells him as she turns to leave. “Really. Thank you.”

He laughs again, and waves at her as she exits the building. She marches across the street towards the store, newfound confidence and excitement radiating through her. There’s a man at the back of the now, loading something in.

“Excuse me! Are you Johnny?”

“Jesus!” the man exclaims, jumping slightly and spilling a crate full of corn onto the ground. “Warn a guy, won’t ya?”

The man turns around with a startled and slightly annoyed look on his face. His eyes widen for a moment when he sees her, but then his brow furrows.

“Yeah, I’m Johnny. John. Who are you?”

“My name is Diana,” she begins, and motions towards the hotel. “Stu, from the hotel - he said that you could drive me to Trevor Ranch.”

He frowns, and then bends down to put the corn back in its crate. He loads it in the back of the car, and then shuts the door, turning towards her.

“What do you wanna go there for?” he asks, looking her over suspiciously.

“I, uh -”

She pauses, looking down at her feet. She’s still not good at lying. She steadies herself, planting her feet in the ground and putting on a sweet smile before looking up.

“I know them. The Trevors. From a long time ago.”

“Huh,” he says. “Like an old family friend?”

“Yes. An old family friend. Exactly that.”

He nods, rubbing his hand over his face.

“Get in,” he tells her.

“Thank you,” she says, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much.”

She can feel her anticipation build as she gets in the car, as the vehicle starts and drives away. Ten miles, he said. Ten miles until she would be there.

She sits in the car, looks out the window at the scenery zooming past. She can’t concentrate. She feels jittery, but in a good way. The way she felt the night before her first training with Antiope. Her stomach turns in the same way it did in Veld, when he took her to teach her to dance. She can barely sit still, bouncing her knees up and down, up and down.

Suddenly, John pulls off the road, and the car screeches to a halt.

Her face scrunches in confusion, and she looks at the man beside her.

“What are you -”

“I know you’re not an old family friend of the Trevors,” he begins rapidly, crossing his arms in front of him. “I’m an old family friend of the Trevors, so I would know you, or at least have heard of you if you were. Plus, because I’m an old family friend, I know for a fact that Dorothy and El have never been fifty miles from the ranch in their whole lives, and you sure as hell ain’t from around here.”

She gapes at him. She’s been caught in her lie, and she doesn’t know how to escape now.

“Look, I’m not trying to be mean or nothin’,” he says with a sigh, “but I gotta be there for them now. I gotta protect them. I have been the past few years, and now that...now that Steve’s not comin’ back -”

The breath leaves her chest at the mention of his name.

“You know Steve?” she whispers.

“Yeah, I know Steve. I’m an old family friend, I told you. You know Steve?”

“Yes,” she breathes, nodding her head slowly.

“How?”

“We fought together in the war,” she answers, without thinking.

He stares at her like she’s just grown a second head. She clears her throat, falls back on a lie they’d used before.

“He fought,” she says. “I didn’t. Obviously. I was his secretary.”

John hums, and looks out on the road in front of them.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Diana,” she says, swallowing once, praying that Steve had never mentioned Etta’s name. “Diana Prince.”

“Diana Prince,” he says slowly.

He stares out of the front window for a few more minutes, a frown on his face, and then turns the car back on. He pulls back out onto the dirt road and starts driving again, and she closes her eyes in relief.

“Do you have something for Dorothy and El?” he asks. “For their dad? Is that why you’re here?”

“No,” she says hesitantly, thinking of the watch in her pocket briefly before banishing the thought from her mind. The watch was hers. He gave it to her, and it was all she had of him - at least for the moment. No one could take it from her.

“Then what’re you doing here?”

She doesn’t answer right away, carefully choosing her words. Trying to convey her purpose without giving everything away.

“I was very...fond of him. Steve. While we worked together, we created a great friendship. And I guess I just wanted to...get to know him better. Even better than I did.”

“That...makes sense, I guess,” he tells her, still frowning.

She nods, smiling quickly when he glances over at her.

The rest of the drive is quiet, the car the only thing filling the space with noise. She continues to stare out the window, but she doesn’t really see any of the scenery. She’s too nervous now, the feeling churning in her gut closer to fear now, rather than eagerness.

The car begins to slow, and she sits up straight, becoming more aware. Something outside catches her eye. Another sign - made of the same wood as the town, but this time with white letters, instead of red.

TREVOR RANCH

As the car turns into the long dirt driveway, her heart stops, then starts again in double-time.

“Do they know you’re coming?” John asks her.

“No,” she answers. “I didn’t...I didn’t have a number, or I would’ve called. Is it okay? That I’m here?”

“It’ll be fine,” he sighs. “Just...be careful. Be nice. They’re not really in a good place right now, with everything that’s going on. Especially Dorothy, and I don’t even want to think about Mr. Trevor. El is okay, because she’s young, I think. But the rest of them…”

He trails off as he stops the car next to a red barn.

“I just don’t want your visit to get ruined because someone gets offended or says the wrong thing.”

He turns the engine off and they both exit the vehicle. She closes her door, looks out in front of her.

There’s a tiny white house about a stone’s throw away from them. Her eyes widen as she takes it in - his childhood home.

She can’t help the grin that breaks out onto her face. The fear in her stomach has swirled back into excitement, and she takes off towards the house, trying her best not to run. She notices after a moment, though, that John isn’t following her. Instead, he’s walking towards the barn.

“You’re not coming with me?” she shouts over her shoulder.

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “Got work to do.”

He walks off, and she watches him as she prepares herself to continue towards the house. He disappears into the barn, and her heart drops the smallest bit.

She’d become sort of attached to him in their short car ride - attached to someone who knew Steve like she did. Plus, he seemed to believe her story. She expected he would vouch for her when she met with Dorothy and El.

Dorothy and El.

She doesn’t know for sure who they are, but she suspects they are his sisters. She wonders what they will be like. If they’ll approve of her. If they’ll believe her story.

If they’ll be anything like Steve was.

She starts off towards the house again, determination in her every step. Her heart pounds as she steps onto the front porch. She stops in front of the door. Before she knocks, she reaches into her pocket, runs her fingers over his watch.

Then, she steps forward, and pounds her fist gently against the door.

No one answers for a while. In fact, she’s just raised her hand to knock again when the door creaks open with a soft creak.

A girl stands before her. And that’s what she is - a girl, not a woman. She can’t be any older than eighteen, in her best estimation. She’s a whole head shorter than her, with long blonde hair and hazel eyes that look up at her curiously, her brow furrowed.

“Who are you?” she asks, her voice light and trilling.

It takes her a moment to respond. She’s caught off guard - this isn’t who she expected to answer the door. By the time she gathers herself and opens her mouth, someone else appears in the background.

“El, why are you standing there with the door wide -”

The other person - a woman this time, just as tall as her and seemingly around the same age - stops speaking when she sees her, walking up behind the girl and putting her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“Who are you?” she asks, echoing the girl’s question, but not mimicking her curiosity. Instead, she seems annoyed, almost. Upset that someone is there, bothering them.

Again, it takes a moment for her to say something. She’s taken aback again, this time for a very different reason.

This woman - she looks just like him. Light brown hair, baby blue eyes. She even has the same nose, and she’s taken back to when she first met Steve, hovering over him on the beach as he regained consciousness, studying his face. He was objectively beautiful, she determined quickly, and this woman is, too.

Steve had only become more and more beautiful to her as she got to know him, as she learned his heart and soul. She remembers that night in Veld, running her fingertips gently down his face, cherishing him as he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

“Hello? Hey, lady!”

She’s pulled out of her memories by the woman’s voice. She looks visibly bothered now, the impatience in her voice now displayed in the expression on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes quickly. “I just…”

But she trails off again, not knowing what to say. Should she be plain with the two people in front of her, and simply tell them the truth? Should she attempt to play a part, like she did with John? She wishes, again, that he had come to the door with her, that he could explain why she was there.

The woman, meanwhile, rolls her eyes. She’s about to say something, but the girl cuts her off with her gentle voice.

“How did you even get here?”

She smiles softly, trying to convey some sort of friendliness.

“I met John in town. In Meeteetse. And he agreed to drive me here.”

“I’m gonna kill that guy,” the woman mutters under her breath. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but we’re not really in the mood for visitors right now. So if you could just...go, we’d really appreciate it.”

She turns, then, pulling the girl along with her, going to shut the door. But she reaches her arm out quickly to stop the woman from closing it, utilizing some of her extraordinary strength to ensure the door would stay open.

“Please,” she begs. “This is important! I knew your brother.”

She feels the pressure on the door lessen immediately. The woman’s face softens the tiniest bit.

“I knew Steve,” she says again. “He was your brother, right?”

The two don’t answer, just stare at her. So she keeps going, looking down at the girl.

“And you’re El,” she tells her, and then looks back at the woman. “Then you must be Dorothy. John told me your names.”

“How did you know my brother?” the girl - El - asks. Her face is brighter now, and the interest in her eyes has grown tenfold. “Wait - do you want to come in?”

“El,” Dorothy sighs. “We don’t even know if she’s telling the truth.”

“She is!” El insists. “I can tell. You always say I’m good at reading people.”

“We don’t even know her name.”

“Diana,” she supplies quickly. “Diana Prince.”

“And now we know her name,” El announces, turning to her sister. “Come on, Dot, please? Let’s just...talk to her.”

Dorothy hesitates, eyes darting between her and El. Finally, she sighs heavily, rolling her eyes again.

“Fine. Come in, I guess,” she says, opening the door wider. Then she looks at her sister, mutters to her, “Don’t call me Dot. You know I hate that.”

The two sisters disappear inside. Before following them, she closes her eyes, lifts her head up towards the sky.

“Please give me the words to say,” she whispers to him. “Please help them to like me.”

* * *

They lead her to a table in the corner of a tiny kitchen, newspapers scattered all over it. Dorothy offers her coffee, and she accepts to be polite. She doesn’t really like coffee; it’s too bitter for her taste.

She sits down with El, and Dorothy comes over a moment later, handing Diana a red mug full of the hot, brownish-black liquid. She pulls out her chair and sits down, gathering up the newspapers and tossing them onto the black and white checkered linoleum floor.

“So,” El begins, smiling at her. “How did you know my brother?”

She smiles back at the girl, glances at Dorothy out of the corner of her eye.

“Well, I was his secretary during the war,” she explains. “We worked closely together on many occasions.”

Dorothy hums, and takes a sip of her coffee. She looks over at El, and sees the girl’s face has fallen just a bit.

“His secretary?” she asks.

She sounds confused by this, and Diana feels her palms begin to sweat, fearing El has somehow caught her in her lie.

But before she can try and answer, Dorothy speaks.

“Yeah, El. Remember he wrote about a secretary in one of his letters? She would organize his missions, and stuff like that.”

El still hesitates for a moment, staring at her strangely, before plastering on a pleasant smile.

“Oh yeah,” she murmurs. “I forgot.”

“He would write us letters,” Dorothy tells her quietly, “especially at the beginning, when he first enlisted. But then the war dragged on and on, and the letters came less often.”

“It’s not because he forgot about us, or missed us less,” El chimes in.

“Of course it wasn’t,” Diana agrees. “He was just more and more busy as the war continued. And he was a spy, of course, so it’s not like -”

“He was a spy?!” El shouts, half-standing from her chair.

“El!” Dorothy reprimands. “Stop shouting.”

“Oh!” Diana exclaims lightly. “You...you didn’t know that?”

“No,” El humphs. “They barely told us anything.”

Diana looks between the two of them as they quietly absorb this new information.

“Well, at least we know why, now,” Dorothy murmurs, then turns to her.

“Was he...good at it? Being a spy? I can’t see him as a spy,” she says, a slight smile appearing on her face, memories of her brother flooding her mind. “It seems like he would be...too virtuous, or something. Too earnest.”

“He was virtuous. Eager to do the right thing,” Diana agrees. “But that meant he was willing to do anything to make the war end and bring peace, even if that meant being a spy. And he was a brilliant spy. An admirable soldier.”

She hesitates, not knowing how much she should tell them about his death. She doesn’t know if they’ll want to hear about it, nor does she know if her heart can take speaking about it again - it seems to be getting harder, rather than easier, with time. However, she feels like she needs to tell them. They must know truly how admirable he was.

“I don’t know how much they told you about his...death,” she begins softly, “but I want you to know that he sacrificed himself to save many people. Thousands, perhaps. And that is the most honorable sacrifice one can make - to give their life, even for people they do not know.”

The room is quiet for a moment, as they remember their loved one - his life, his death, and his legacy.

“He was a very good man,” El says quietly.

“More than that,” Diana counters. “More than good. Extraordinary.”

“They sent us a letter when he died,” El explains, “but again, it didn’t say much. The only other thing we got was the story in the paper.”

She reaches down onto the floor, picks up one of the newspapers that Dorothy had gathered up earlier, and flips through the pages.

“These are from Cody,” Dorothy explains. “Mr. Stewart from the hotel picked some up for us when he was visiting relatives.”

“Who is Cody?” Diana asks, as El finally opens to a page and hands the paper to her.

“Cody is just another town. Bigger than Meeteetse.”

Diana doesn’t respond, because she’s too captivated by the newspaper in front of her.

VFW HONORS LOCAL HERO

There’s a picture of him staring back at her, a smile on his face. He’s young in the photo; it must have been taken when he first joined the army. She can tell not only by his physical appearance - there are less creases around his bright eyes - but also by the expression on his face. It’s innocent, almost. Naive. One that hasn’t witnessed the horrors of war and man.

She imagines it’s an expression similar to the one she wore, when she boarded the boat to leave Themyscira. Brave, but unsullied by the realities of the world.

She runs her fingers over the photo in front of her, traces the planes of his face and body with the tip of her index finger. She wishes that she’d know him then. That they’d grown up together.

That she’d been there for every moment of his life.

She smiles, but she can feel the pressure of tears start to build behind her eyes.

“You can keep that if you want,” El offers. “We have extras. Mr. Stewart brought us a lot of copies.”

“Thank you,” Diana breathes. “I think I will keep it.”

El smiles kindly.

They’re all quiet again for a minute. Then, Dorothy gets up.

“I have to get started on supper,” she says. “Dad will be getting hungry. El, why don’t you take Ms. Prince and show her around the ranch?”

“Please, call me Diana.”

“Alright then, Diana. Come on, let’s go!” El tells her as she gets up and walks out the front door.

Dorothy chuckles.

“She has too much energy for her own good sometimes.”

“How old is she?” Diana asks.

“Seventeen.”

“So young?”

“She was a unexpected surprise,” Dorothy explains, “long after Mom and Dad thought they were done havin’ babies. I was seventeen myself when she was born. Steve was fifteen.”

“May I ask where your mother is?” Diana inquires. “John said something about your father being here, but he didn’t mention your mother.”

Dorothy looks out the kitchen window for a long moment before answering.

“She died during childbirth.”

“I’m so sorry,” Diana murmurs.

“At least we have El - Eleanor. That was my mom’s name.”

A silence settles over the kitchen - Dorothy remembering her mother, Diana thinking of and missing her own mother - before Dorothy eventually speaks again.

“You better get out there. She’ll come looking for you soon.”

Diana smiles, and rises from the table, tucking the newspaper in her coat pocket alongside his watch.

* * *

El gives her a brief tour of the grounds - shows her the cattle and the corn crop - before losing interest, and leading her to what she calls a “very special place”.

After about five minutes of walking, Diana speaks.

“Where are you taking me?”

“We’re almost there,” El promises. “And I told you, it’s a special place.”

They walk for a few more minutes, and then come across a small river.

“What is this?” she asks.

“Owl Creek,” El tells her. “Me and Steve used to come here when I was little and play. It’s not deep enough to swim, but we would wade in it when it was summer, and he taught me how to skip stones on top of the water. Do you know how?”

“I don’t. Will you teach me?”

“Of course,” El says, and gets to work finding smooth stones to try and throw.

The talent comes rather easily to Diana, as most physical capabilities do to her, but she tells El it’s because she had such a good teacher.

El shrugs.

“Well, my brother taught me, so that must mean he was a good teacher.”

Diana smiles softly, and nods her head.

“Yes, it does.”

They spend a few minutes like that, quietly skipping stones together, memories of Steve running through their minds.

“I know you weren’t my brother’s secretary.”

Diana freezes.

“In one of his letters,” El continues, still skipping stones, “he said the name of his secretary. Dorothy must not remember, but I do. Her name was Etta something. Candy, maybe?”

Her stomach drops. She doesn’t know what to do, so she waits. Waits for El to yell at her, to scream for help, to run back and tell Dorothy.

But she simply stands there, looking out over the river. Diana decides to mimic her calm behavior, and skips the next stone in her hand.

“Why didn’t you tell you sister?”

“Because I knew she would tell you to leave,” El says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Maybe she should have made me leave,” Diana tells her, panic beginning to creep into the edges of her voice. “Maybe that’s not all I’m lying about. Maybe I never even knew - “

“You knew him,” El interrupts. “I know you did. I can tell.”

“How?” she asks.

“By the way you looked at that picture of him in the paper.”

She feels the pressure of tears behind her eyes again.

“How did I look at him?”

“Like you love him.”

She closes her eyes, but a tear still manages to escape the corner of her eye, falls down her cheek and catches the line of her jaw.

“I did love him,” she whispers. “I still do.”

“And that’s how I know you’re a good person. I mean, I could tell even when I met you, because I’m good at reading people. But I can tell even more now. If you knew my brother, and love him, you have to be a good person.”

Diana opens her eyes, and the liquid in them shines in the early evening sun.

“I knew if I told Dorothy you were lying,” El says, going back to skipping stones, “there’s no way she would’ve let you stay. Even if there was a good reason for your lying. Maybe you were a spy, too.”

“I’m not quite a spy, but I did fight alongside your brother in the war,” she reveals.

“How? I thought women weren’t allowed to fight in the war.”

“Where I come from, girls are trained in fighting from childhood, to prepare them to defend themselves and the people around them.”

El considers this, tilting her head to the side.

“That sounds pretty amazing.”

“It is,” Diana confirms, a light laugh escaping her chest. “It’s pretty amazing.”

They look at each other, an understanding forming between them.

“I won’t tell Dorothy that you’re not Steve’s secretary. It’ll be our secret.”

Diana nods, placing a finger over her lips. El chuckles.

“Besides, she’s taken a liking to you now. We don’t want to ruin it.”

“I didn’t think she was going to let me in the house when I first knocked,” she admits.

“Nah, Dot’s not that tough,” El tells her. “She pretends to be, especially since Steve died, but inside she’s a softie.”

“I thought she hated when you call her Dot,” Diana teases.

“No,” El says, getting quiet. “That’s just what Steve used to call her, so she’s...sensitive about it now.”

“Oh,” she murmurs.

El smiles slightly, and turns her head down, her long blonde hair falling into her face.

“He used to call me Ellie.”

Diana takes a step towards her, reaches out her hand and gingerly places it on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, El.”

She feels the weight of his watch in her pocket, more heavy than normal. Hesitantly, she takes it out, looking it over, swiping her thumb over the glass.

El looks up, sees the watch in Diana’s hands. Her eyes widen.

“My dad gave that to my brother when he left for the war. How did you get that?”

“Before he died,” she begins, “your brother gave it to me. And I cherish it. I always keep it with me, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. It reminds me of him and everything he showed me.”

“It’s important to you,” El says.

“Yes, but...you can have it, if you want it.”

“Don’t you want it, though?” she asks, confusion coloring her features.

“I do,” Diana admits, “but you were his family. His sister.”

El looks up at her, and then reaches out and takes the watch. She turns it over in her hands, and then hands it back to Diana.

“No,” she tells her, shaking her head. “You take it. He gave it to you, which means he cared about you a lot. Probably loved you. Which means you’re his family, too. Plus, you need something to remember him by.”

Taken aback by the young girl’s kindness, Diana takes back the watch.

“Thank you, El.”

“You’re welcome. Now, come on. Dorothy’s gonna be looking for us. Supper is probably almost ready.”

She takes off towards the house, and Diana watches her leave. She places his watch in her coat pocket once again, feels comforted by weight and how it balances her.

Then, she follows El.

* * *

The three of them have a nice dinner together - steak and mashed potatoes and corn. They speak on and off, the sisters telling her stories of Steve when he was young and mischievous, causing trouble on the farm. Letting the cows get loose. Almost ruining one year’s corn crop. So much. So many memories. They spend more time laughing than they do crying, although the tears do come.

She asks if they have pictures, but they don’t, unfortunately. They never owned a camera growing up. The only ones of him that exist are the ones taken by the military, and that one taken of them in Veld. She doesn’t tell them about that one, though. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever see it herself.

By the time they’re done talking, John has come in from his work, and Dorothy prepares a plate for him. After he’s finished, the four play cards until the dark of night settles outside.

“I really should be going,” Diana says, regretfully. She really doesn’t want to leave. She feels closer to him here, and feels a kinship with all of the people here. A sort of bond formed from the light Steve carried with him through life.

“I’ll drive you back to town,” John offers, and stands up, going outside to start the car.

“Will you come back someday?” El asks hopefully, as the three of them rise from the table.

“I think I will, if that’s alright.”

El nods eagerly as she looks to Dorothy for conformation.

“Yes, you may come back,” the woman says. “We’d be happy to have you. I’d offer for you to stay tonight, but we don’t have an extra room. I don’t want to make you sleep on the floor.”

Diana laughs with Dorothy. The truth is, she would sleep on the floor - even in the barn if they insisted - but she doesn’t want to push her luck this time. There will be other occasions, more visits.

She looks at El.

“And I’ll bring a camera with me next time, so that we can take pictures of all the memories we make.”

She expects El to laugh, or smile. But instead, she rushes forward, wrapping her arms tightly around Diana’s waist.

“Thank you so much, Diana,” she murmurs into the fabric of her shirt.

She smiles gently, hugs the girl back, runs a hand over her long blonde hair, smoothing it.

And she feels a tiny bit of the gaping wound in her heart begin to heal.

“Always,” Diana murmurs to her.

“Okay, El,” Dorothy groans playfully, “let her go.”

El squeezes her tighter for a moment before letting her go.

“Why don’t you go get Diana’s coat from the bedroom?” Dorothy asks the girl, and El turns with a drawn-out ‘fine’, taking off down the hall.

“I’m sorry that my Dad couldn’t visit,” Dorothy says as the two walk towards the front door. “He’s just...really sick right now, and Steve’s death has only made it worse.”

“I understand,” she assures her. “I wish him good health and prosperity.”

They reach the entryway, and Dorothy leans against the doorframe.

“El told me about the watch,” she begins. “And I agree that you should keep it. Dad told Steve to die with that thing - to take it down with him. If he knew he was going to die, and gave it to you instead - that means something. He wanted you to have it.”

“Thank you,” Diana says quietly. “You truly don’t know what that means to me.”

Dorothy hesitates, and then reaches and takes her new friend’s hand.

“Be well, Diana.”

“You too,” she tells her, tightening her hand around hers for a moment before letting go.

El reappears with her coat. She shrugs it on, reaching into her pocket, where she finds her two treasures; his watch, and now the rolled-up newspaper with his picture in it.

She walks down the steps to the porch after one more hug from El, across the way to the car, still parked next to the barn. She climbs in, where John is waiting for her. The car starts off down the driveway, and she watches the two sisters standing side by side on the porch until they disappear over the horizon.

“You have a nice visit?” John asks her.

“I did. Very much so.”

She puts her hands in her coat pockets when they pull out onto the road, finds the watch and newspaper of course, but she feels something else in the opposite pocket. She pulls it out, looks down, and smirks.

It’s the piece of paper Etta gave her, with his address. She unfolds the paper, now crunched into a ball, and reads the words and numbers written on it one more time.

Trevor Ranch 1202 Owl Creek Lane Meeteetse, Wyoming

“You find what you were looking for?”

She smiles fondly.

“Yes. I think I did.”

A/N: there might be more chapters to this? i'm not sure though. again, let me know what you think!

#wondertrevweek2020 #wondertrev #wondertrev fic #wondertrevnet #wonder woman #diana prince #steve trevor #steve x diana

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

RAISING MONEY IS TERRIBLY DISTRACTING

All good investors supply a combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be able to get a job with both measurement and leverage. A Familiar Problem Sum up all these sources of error in your own time, though. As I've written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become merely stubborn. Do You Need for Server-Based Software? What people know of him now is his paintings and his more flamboyant inventions, like flying machines. It's not hard to understand, people who want to work on, or even still in it. I don't know how the stakes were used. Technology Will technology increase the gap between acceptable and maximal performance widens, it will become a pyramid. Most new businesses are service businesses and except in rare cases even millions. And beneath that there's edge-finding, which makes promotion free if you're on the maker's. People will say things in anonymous forums that they'd never do it.

Especially since you won't even really learn about it, any more than there is a fixed pie that's shared out, like slices of a pie. You never know when this happened because it was too crazy. Instead think about why they're asking for something, technology will make it big. One founder said this should be your approach to customer support. Or hasn't it? Smart people will go wherever other smart people are really smart or those guys are working on. Rtm and Trevor again. I don't think that's the audience people are implicitly talking about when they say they'll invest. File://ycombinator.

You don't know what the basic human reaction to a famous painting will be warped at first by its fame, there are just two or three times as long? In December 2014 American technology companies want the government to take action, there is one that isn't succinct enough, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2. After they paid back their angel investors, they help them break the sort of writing that attempts to persuade may be a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that if you need to do something audacious. If you can hit 10% a week. At YC, the culture was the product. I always ought to be writing research papers. In towns like Houston and Chicago and Detroit it's too small to do anything very complicated. Org/7.1 Perhaps we can split the difference on the issues have lined up with charisma for 11 elections in a row, the unlucky human will have to be disciplined about not letting your hypotheses harden into anything more. The critical moment for Einstein was when he was an expert on search. Certainly a lot of papers!2 Viaweb entirely with angel money.

When I want to work for you. They can tell at a young age that a contest where everyone wins is a fraud.3 VCs should be deprived of their shares when the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and went to Europe. But I have no way to test them. Beware valuation sensitive investors. If you look at the way successful founders have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle. The more of a problem this will be over quickly.4

Which is particularly painful to someone who knew what the right direction rather than the median, you can opt to be valued directly by users, because users were desperately waiting for what they are. I ever read it? It seemed just amazing, as if the story you want them as a commodity?5 As I'll explain later, this is partly because in mid-sentence, though you tend to get cram schools on the classic model, like the Soviet Union, and to many others for talking to me about high school, the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out. No one will look that closely at it. And unfortunately there is a problem because they tend to be sharply differentiated. And yet the prospect of getting their initial product out. By this. Why don't government officials disclose more about their finances, and why are they attached to all these questions, you might be able to tell. So the fact that communication is so much smaller than the chance that I'm imagining all this anyway. So why do universities and research labs. One consequence of funding such a large number of situations, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

Great universities? And yet, oddly enough, Ryan Singel's article about the conference in Wired News spoke of throngs of geeks. The really juicy new approaches are not the ones driven by money.6 The word essay comes from the controversial topic of wealth, no one knows who the best programmers of any public technology company. They didn't foresee the expansion of this idea; it forced itself upon them gradually. Harvard, or Davis Squares Kendall is too sterile; in Palo Alto, though there are few outside the US, companies would have been there 100 years ago. Honestly, Sam is, along with all the people who produce a show can distribute it themselves.7 APL: Fortran isn't good enough at simulations.

If you wanted to hear. Experience Another reason people don't work on big things, I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I do actually typing. Delicious on the side of being harsh to founders. Bigger companies solve the problem at all, but another you discovered en route. Which means people with a passion for service. I'm not sure how reasonable a hope this is, strictly speaking, impossible.8 If you do that, but probably as close to the main branches is a useful if imperfect filter. Partly because some companies use mechanisms to prevent copying. Algorithms that use it are called naive Bayesian. This is one reason you might want to include business people in a room full of stuff can be very cool to be in a much more conclusive way than by making good products. Get introductions to investors. It's hard to say whether he should be classified as a friend or angel.

Dangerously misleading, for adults. It's hard to follow is that people won't take you seriously. They're as expert in their world as you are in big trouble. Just build things. By making it easier for startups to present to investors. My stories didn't have a lot in the course of writing it, and savor the time you have. But could you also base a successful startup founder, but few are in actions. But while this is certainly an important relationship between wisdom and intelligence, it's not uncommon for investors and then watching how they do, I look them straight in the eye. An ordinary slower-growing business might have just as good a case as Microsoft could have, will you convince investors? It's ok to have working democracies and multiple sovereign countries. Marketplaces are so hard and emotional that the bonds and emotional and social support that come with it. The right way to write spaghetti code.

Notes

But the usual misquotation is closer to the principles they discovered in the sense that if there is the kind of bug to track down. Success here is defined from the rule of thumb, the growth rate early on. In principle yes, of course some uncertainty about how the courses they took might look to an employer. It would be to advertise, and that you decide the price, they were doing Bayesian filtering in a way that weren't visible in Silicon Valley, the reaction of an investor pushes you hard to erase from a few percent from an interview.

In 1998 a lot of detail. It's more in the message.

His critical invention was a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would give you such a brutally simple word is that the meaning of distribution.

But you can do is not the original text would in 1950 something one could reasonably be with children, we're going to call the market price. What you're looking for initially is not a big effect on the subject today is still possible, to a group of people are these days.

Then when we make kids do boring work, done mostly by people like them—people who get rich, purely mercenary founders will usually take one of the word has shifted.

If an investor pushes you hard to say, ending up on the firm's site, they're nice to you about it wrong. One of Europe's advantages was that professionalism had replaced money as a process rather than ones they capture. All you have to go to college somewhere with real research professors. Ron Conway had angel funds starting in the narrowest sense.

Patrick Pantel and Dekang Lin.

99 to—A Spam Classification Organization Program. And gathering fruit. I do, so I have a lot like intellectual bullshit. The problem with most of the companies fail, most of his peers, couldn't afford a monitor.

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petehparker · 7 years

Text

Write It Out

Request: *chanting* LONGER FICS, LONGER FICS (just cause i never want ur fics to end, they're so cute) also since requests are open - can we get writer!reader who has writer's block & is struggling to write a romantic scene. peter tries to help her get creative & fluff ensues!

Word Count: 1,269

A/N: hello hello! I’m sorry for the delay with this one, my summer has been a bit insane so far with camps and moving and things like that but I was so eager to return to this writing. Hope you enjoy!! -Claire xx

You sighed, pressing the palm of your hand into your cheek. The coffee shop bustled with life around you, but somehow you still managed to feel like you were in the middle of a dead zone, like you were in the most drab and boring place imaginable- all because of some writer’s block.

You knew you had to get out of your bedroom after several hours of pounding away at the keyboard and finding nothing to write besides the gibberish that resulted, finally packing up your laptop and notes and heading to a nearby coffee shop for fresher surroundings.

You sighed, deleting yet another failed sentence. You were more frustrated with this piece than you could remember being with any other. But this scene was also more important than any other- your protagonist was falling desperately in love with the tall boy with the magic dimples and the quick laugh and this was the moment, the moment in which she looked at him while they were sitting on the roof at midnight, or swinging on a playground that was far too small for them, or driving aimlessly around the neighborhood, the moment in which she realized she was falling for him.

Your only issue was figuring out how it happened; you had run through every option you could think of.

At first, they had been sitting in her basement and he had swung his head into her lap and her hand fell into his hair and it was the way he smiled at her- wrong.

Then, you had tried to write about the bonfire party in the neighborhood, as she watched from afar while he swung little kids by their shoulders and played as if he was a child too- nope.

The next attempt had involved something about a state fair and the top of a Ferris wheel, but you’d deleted it before it could go too far.

You were jolted from your reverie by the scraping of the chair in front of you sliding away from the table. “Mind if I join you?”

Your eyes trailed upwards, soon lighting on a familiar face.

“Peter!” You sat up, your smile instantaneous. “Hi, what are you doing here?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.” You sighed, thinking guiltily about your powered off phone at the bottom of your bag.

“Sorry for not texting you back, I’m having some really bad writer’s block right now.”

“Writer’s block? I am the ultimate writer’s block crusher!” His boyish smile seemed as if it could light up the room. “Let me be your muse, dahling.” His face took on a serious charm as he started drawling out his words, looking up at you from beneath his eyelashes.

Despite your feelings of dread about writing, this was enough to crack through a little. “I don’t think that’s how this works.” His expression dropped. “Well, have you ever tried it?” You pinched your mouth to the side. “I guess not.” You barely had time to move your fingers away from the keyboard before he was pressing the lid to your laptop down. Grabbing your coffee and his, he grinned at you. “We’re doing this then. Gather your things, chop chop.”

It took you a minute to reconnect with him outside, where he had his phone out for directions. “You’re coming with me.” His voice retained a joking huskiness as he handed you your coffee.

The path he set out for took you through many familiar streets, although you had no idea where he could be taking you. When you asked, he had just laughed and looped his arm through yours, clearly not willing to say a peep.

You ended up in front of a building you had looked at many a time but never actually entered- one of the only literary centers in New York. “When the words won’t come to you, you come to the words,” Peter told you.

It didn’t take long for the two of you to get lost amongst the shelves, joking around and pulling out the most amusing titles you could find. You almost lost it with laughter when Peter somehow discovered a book called “What’s Your Poo Telling You?”

At some point in your expedition, his hand found yours, tentatively curling his fingers around yours until you flipped your hand and fully intertwined them, offering him a reassuring smile at the contact.

By the time the two of you left the literary center, it was almost dinnertime. You decided to split a milkshake at the closest burger joint.

“So, what are you trying to write exactly?” Peter asked, swirling a fry in ketchup.

“It’s supposed to be this grand romantic scene, with, like, the whole shebang. You know, fireworks and sparks and lovey dovey stuff like that. Cassie’s going to realize she’s in love with Trevor. Trevor’s going to realize he’s in love with Cassie. My only issue is finding out where exactly you go to find love with someone.” You looked up and find Peter staring at you more intently than you expected. “Well, isn’t that an easy one?”

You frowned. “Obviously not, considering it’s taken me days to figure it out. I have to have it finished by this weekend and I have nothing.”

Peter’s smile began to grow. “What about a burger place?”

Your stomach dropped as your eyes fixed on his. “What kind of burger place?”

He looked around. “The kind of burger place where two kids can go to split a milkshake and some fries and maybe one of them will get the nerve to kiss the other one.” Your heart was beating faster and faster. Peter looked unfairly calm. “Well, this sounds like your story now. Does he ever get up the nerve?” “I’ll let you know,” he smiled, that same earth-shattering smile that drove you crazy.

Your own smile began to grow like crazy as you felt yourself flush.

It could have been just your imagination, but the conversation felt like a live wire all through the rest of the milkshake, and paying the bill, and the walk back to your house. You had almost forgotten all about your writing deadline until your eyes fixed on your front door.

“Now it’s time to actually buckle down and write something.” You smiled softly, brushing your knuckles against his like Morse code. “Thank you for today. You were a great muse.” His smile was like a wildfire. “What about one last piece of inspiration?” Suddenly he was close, so close, too close, as his hand pressed flat along your spine. You felt like your eyelashes should be tangling with his at this distance.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to one lasting image.”

When he kissed you, it was like every late night drive, every trip to the fair, every roof at midnight, every shared milkshake rolled into one. It was everything you could have wanted. It was everything you could have imagined.

You kissed and kissed until you felt senseless, until you were pressed against the front door.

“Peter,” you paused, pressing your hands against his toned shoulders. “I know, you have to write.” He pressed a few more kisses to your cheeks and even one chaste one to your neck before he backed away. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“I’ll call you the second I finish,” you promised. He pressed one last kiss to your waiting smile before you fumbled to open the door, feeling like you were seconds from exploding. You dashed up the stairs and to your desk, opening your laptop immediately.

You began to type immediately, finding that you have all too much to say.

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@kawaiitickles @evenmyphonemissesyourcall94 @clean-and-claire @manyfandomstohandle @tiny-friggin-human @anastasiaannaa @1022bridgetp

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagines #tom holland #tom holland imagines #marvel imagines

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bubble-tea-bunny · 7 years

Text

mr. sandman

[steve trevor x reader]

author’s note: most of the time when i write, i don’t plan for things to get that long but i always get carried away wtf. this happens with essays too i don’t understand. anyway, i think i kind of like this one, which is unusual for me to say of my stuff lol, but i do hope you enjoy

word count: 2,037

The snowfall is heavy and the wind is whistling but, oddly enough, Steve doesn’t feel any of it. His coat might be thick, but it’s not entirely impenetrable. Winter is merciless, but its severity is lost on him at the moment, as is the fact he feels like he’s standing next to a fireplace and not like he’s out on the sidewalk in the middle of January. His focus is on a figure, standing in the middle of a street blanketed in white and whose boots crunch loudly because all else is silenced from the slush. When he breathes out, puffing out cold air which momentarily obscures his vision, he wonders if that form a comfortable distance away can hear it clear as day.

Her back is turned. He can only see hair, soft and shiny beneath the sun which peeks its head out through the clouds. He can observe with ease because he’s standing beneath a shop blind. He’s not sure what store he’s in front of, but he doesn’t want to tear his gaze even for a moment to check behind him, to peer in through the window to see if it’s a café or a pub or a home for antiques.

His chest tightens the longer he watches this mysterious girl, who sways side to side—never twirls around—to music only she can hear. He wants to see her face, hear her voice. He wants to know her. But when he opens his mouth to call out, no sound escapes him. So all he can do is continue to study the scene before him. Does she know he’s here? He feels intrusive, like this is a private moment, but it looks so perfect, feels so perfect. He still wants to reach out and his chest is still tightening with an overwhelming sense of love for this girl who has neither face nor name. Because she’s not real.

Waking up is a cruel sorrow. Fall is beginning to give way to winter, and when Steve is out there, he can feel the cold very well even through all the layers of clothing. The wind bites at his nose until it’s red and he’s sniffling. His body welcomes the warmth of the pub as he enters, content with the heat from the fire and from the number of people here. His friends are sitting in the corner booth, immersed in a story one of them is telling. He joins them immediately, finds a spot among them and orders a pint and laughs and forgets about the harsh winds of winter.

But he doesn't forget the dream. He doesn’t push it away, doesn’t try to ignore it despite how empty he’d been left feeling after waking up from it. He almost shares it with the others. They’d have speculations about who she could’ve been, though most of them would be teasing and unserious, which he expects. But then he decides against it. It seems better to keep it to himself—to keep it as something personal, something to keep safe. Because as he thinks more about what he’d seen, which had felt so real, he surmises it to be a sort of revelation, a revealing of the very depths of his soul. And if such is the case, well, he won’t so easily bare something like that to just anyone. Therefore he is content to keep it to himself, within the walls of his small apartment, within his mind’s eye, a moving picture in a projector that hums with the flicking of the reel.

Now when he’s at the theater he’s reminded of this girl whose name he doesn’t know, whose eye color he doesn’t even know. Are they blue or brown or green? But that’s besides the point. What is the point is that now he feels that every movie he watches could never match up to his dream. And he deflates a little, because he knows he’s pining after nothing, but in weather as cold as this, it is a warm comfort, and he should at least be allowed that much.

The snow is falling this morning. For a while it had only done so in the evenings when everyone was asleep and all the shops were closed, presenting the city with a fresh blanket of white by the next day. Luckily Steve doesn’t have far to walk to get to where he needs to be, and perhaps when he’s on his way home, the snow will have stopped.

He descends the stairs quickly with shoes that haven’t yet trekked through wet slush, eyes downward as he goes down each step. The door to the apartment building opens, a gust of wind roaring through as someone walks in, only to be promptly silenced as the door shuts again. When he reaches the first floor landing and heads to the exit, he walks past the person who’d just entered—your hair is flecked with snowflakes and he smiles amusedly. You see him and smile as well.

“The snow fall is pretty but now my hair will be wet,” you remark, and he chuckles, but doesn’t say anything. You pass each other and he hears the sound of your footsteps ascending the staircase. They’re slower than his, perhaps because your own shoes were wet from being outside. His hand is now poised on the doorknob, but he doesn’t twist it right away. He remains there, bracing himself for the wind that is sure to attack the moment he steps out. He takes a second to glance behind him at you, and he watches you take the last few steps as you reach the landing. His brows furrow because this feels… strangely familiar. He stares until you’ve begun to go up the next flight and he can no longer see you.

He’s not entirely prepared for the wind but the snowflakes are pretty.

Your eyes had been the most charming shade of [eye color].

———

It’s the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon in full force.

Steve has seen you around the apartment building more often. You live on the same floor, on the other end of the hall. Some mornings you leave around the same time, and on some evenings you return around the same time. You started out by exchanging friendly smiles, and then small greetings, asking how the day went, to which the answer would be something vague but polite, and so on and so forth.

But then one day it’s not like that. Steve comes out of his apartment just as you walk past it, and he catches a whiff of your shampoo. (Which, for the record, smells really nice.)

“Hey,” he calls out with a smile. “Good morning.”

You stop and turn to him, smiling widely. “Good morning.”

“I always see you when I leave or come back. That’s never happened with anyone else here.”

“It is strange, isn’t it?” You laugh.

“I’m steve,” he introduces himself, holding a hand out.

You shake his hand. “[Name]. I actually just moved in not long ago,” you explain with a shrug.

“So that’s why I suddenly started seeing you everywhere!” This pulls another laugh from you.

“Yes, the first day we passed by each other was…” You pause to think. “My second day here.”

“Well I hope you’re liking the city and its company so far.”

“I do. Very much.”

“Good.” The conversation seems to end here, and you smile amiably, bid him goodbye. You turn around, but before you can take a step, he speaks up again. “Would you… maybe want to get some coffee… sometime…?” It doesn’t entirely feel like he’s the one doing the talking, because he hadn’t exactly planned to make this proposition, but it’d left his mouth before he could stop it. Or maybe that’s just his half-assed excuse because in all honesty he’s nervous he’ll be turned down and he’ll have to live with that rejection. Although it didn’t hurt to try, right? That’s what everyone always says.

You twist back around and the smile is still on your face, but it’s shier. “Yeah, I would. That sounds nice.” You nod.

Steve smiles, thoroughly relieved. “Great.”

“I’ll see you around then, Steve,” you tell him, smile soft, and after you say goodbye again, this time he lets you go.

“I’ll see you, [Name]…” he murmurs as he watches you leave.

———

Steve has loved this city and its company himself for a long while now, but even if you’re a newcomer, you’re quickly becoming his favorite company. It’s typical for the two of you to get coffee then walk back to the apartment building together. You’ve not been here long, but it feels like he’s known you for forever.

Tonight you’d roped him into watching the newest motion picture with you. It was a spur of the moment decision, so you don’t get to the showing on time, which means you take your seats towards the back so as not to interrupt the other attendees. The theater isn’t full. There are people here and there, spread out. You wonder how many of them had decided to come watch in order to get out of the cold. That’s half the reason you and Steve are here. The other half is because the title sounded interesting.

Halfway through this film, when the protagonist is confessing his love for a beautiful dame, Steve glances at you, and he wonders if this was a mistake because you feel his gaze and return it and even with just the light of the film your eyes are vivid and he is fully pulled in, with no say in the matter. There is no turning back, no looking away. But he doesn't want to turn back or look away. You are a riptide he more than willingly succumbs to.

It’s the first time he kisses you. The hum of the flickering film reel is loud.

———

You walk to the café early this morning. The sun is starting to rise but the streets are quiet, almost eerily deserted. You’re hand in hand and it’s the most natural feeling to Steve. Your conversation is hushed because you’re still tired and it feels wrong to interrupt the silence. When you start to notice the first few snowflakes falling, your eyes light up. You hold your free hand out and wait for snowflakes to settle upon it, only to melt right away from the heat of your skin.

Steve smiles as he watches your face, studies the fascination so evident in your eyes. You let go of his hand and he observes as you venture out to the middle of the street. Usually you would never be able to do this since there would be cars. But it’s early so there’s no one and the snow still needs to be shoveled out of the way anyway.

You tip your head back, peering up at all the snow that floats down so gently and so quietly. They settle in your hair, on your eyelashes, and the small flecks of ice resting on your skin prompt you to laugh quietly.

It’s like a postcard, this scene, the likes of which you send to the folks back home with some short and sweet little note on the back about how “life is great out here” and “wish you were here,” and other such standard sentiments. The smile fades from Steve’s face as he really takes in the sight because it is… too familiar. And all at once his chest tightens.

You’re swaying gently from side to side, and your [hair color] hair which cascades down your back shifts with your movements. When Steve exhales and the puff of air momentarily obscures his view of you, he smiles, in shock and awe and in disbelief. You are so beautiful, dancing by yourself to silence and he is overcome with love, to the point he wants to cry because his heart can only hold so much and how can it not burst as he watches you?

You are the depths of his soul, and Steve knows this better than he knows anything else in this world because you are standing right there, in the middle of his daydream.

#wonder woman #wonder woman imagine #DC comics #dc comics imagine #steve trevor #steve trevor imagine #steve trevor x reader #chris pine #chris pine imagine #chris pine x reader #bubble-tea-bunny

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