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13uswntimagines · 4 years

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Pressure (USWNT x Swift!Reader)

Authors note: This is part three in the swift life universe. I hope you enjoy it! Send me requests, questions or just hit me up if you wanna say Hi!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5

You were not usually a moody person. Yes, you were a little shy in crowded situations, but the team would say that your dominant personality traits were sunny and excited. Like a puppy, always running around and pranking people with the youngins, or cuddling into the closest veteran that you could find.

Then, suddenly you weren’t.

It had all started at family practice. Your entire family had made it, and you had been bouncing around like a toddler on a sugar high. Taylor had needed to leave early, but you understood and seemed excited to spend time with your brother and parents. You had been fine before you left for dinner with them. However, when the team saw you the next morning, your typically cheery demeanor was gone, and you seemed to tuck yourself back into your shell. That had been a week ago, and the problem only seemed to be getting worse.

Practice was over for the day and while most of the team was packing up to head back to the hotel, you were lining up PK’s from all over the field. The vets were all watching as sweat dripped a little further down your face with each cannon-like shot you took towards the goal.

“Is it just me, or is Baby Swift acting weird?” Alex asked, settling down on the bench being occupied by Krashlyn, Kelley, Becky, and Alyssa. They were beginning to get a little worried at how drenched your tank top was getting.

“Totally not just you,” Ali winced at your frustrated yell when the ball ricocheted off the crossbar. You ran your hands frustratedly through your short hair, tugging hard on the strands. You mumbled something inaudible before slamming another ball towards goal. It too bounced off the crossbar.

“She was out of the room before I even woke up this morning” Becky mumbled, as you chased after the errant ball, collecting in and sprinting towards the opposite goalline as though you hadn’t just gone through a crazy practice.

“Y/n, willingly up before noon, there’s no way” Alex snorted. You might be known as a ray of sunshine, but you were most definitely not a morning person. The team learned the hard way not to mess with you before you had your coffee.

“That cross was sick though” Kelley hummed as you rocketed the ball towards the opposite goal. It hit the back of the net with so much force that the metal rattled loudly.

“If she kicks that ball any harder, she’s going to send it through the net,” Alyssa grumbled. Her chest hurt just thinking about trying to stop something like that. She could only hope you ended up on the red stars, so she wouldn’t ever have to worry about it.

“Hm, why is she staying? Didn’t Jill release her early?” Becky’s eyes furrowed, as you collected the ball and began to run it back towards the opposite goal, acting as though you were faking out defenders and weaving through the midfield. The rest of the women shrugged.

“Hey Linds, you know what’s up with the short stack?” Ashlyn called out to the blond who was paused midway through removing her cleat staring at you. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her head (like who gave you the right to look that good while drenched in sweat?)

“No idea, but Sonnett might,” Lindsey hummed after a few seconds, her eyes still focused on the way the muscles on your arm looked as you clenched and unclenched your fists. She and Emily had all but told you of their feelings for you, and still, you were oblivious. They were probably going have to spell it out for you before you actually got that they were interested.

“How about Alex and Kell go try and get some answers, we’ll see if we can work our magic,” Ashlyn mumbled, watching you worriedly. Yes, Alex and Kelley were your team moms, but Krashlyn had known you and your sister for longer. They also knew more about your family dynamics, and if that was what the problem was, they would have a better idea of how to go about fixing it.

“Hey kid, want a challenge?” Ashlyn asked, placing a hand on your shoulder. You shrugged, inadvertently brushing the warm arm off you, and heading back towards the balls lined up just outside the penalty box. You didn’t have time to talk. Krashlyn shared a worried look at your clear dismissal.

“Come on, where the typical smack talk about the Krashlyn department of defense?” Ashlyn tried again, this time snagging the ball from between your feet.

“Not in the mood,” You huffed, your shoulders slouching as though they held the weight of the world. If you couldn’t keep the ball away from Ashlyn when she wasn’t even trying, then how the hell were you supposed to do it against someone like Kelley. You angrily shook your head, punting the nearest ball. Maybe your mom was right...

“You ok kid?” Ali questioned more firmly, stepping into your path and preventing you from rocketing another ball towards goal.

“I’m fine. Are you playing or not?” You snapped, pushing her off of you and heading to another ball with your head down, completely missing the worried looks shared between the two women.

Yes, sometimes you got whiny or grumpy, but you were rarely ever blatantly rude. It just didn’t seem to be in your makeup.

“Hey, watch the attitude,” Ashlyn said with authority, again stepping into your path, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“We’re just trying to help you,” Ali murmured, coming up behind you and wrapping her arms around your middle.

You Tensed at the contact, before relaxing back into Ali’s arms with a sigh. Here you were adding more on to their already full plate. Apparently it was the only thing you could do, bring everyone around you undo stress.

“I don’t need any help,” You uttered lowly, wigging out of their grasp, and blatantly refusing to make eye contact with the women who were watching you with concern.

“Hey, we don’t know what’s going on, but sometimes it helps if you talk about it,” Ashlyn whispered, taking a step towards your shaking form. You shook your head and let out a humorless laugh.

“You can’t help me,” you said lowly, stepping up to a ball and sending it flying into the crossbar and back toward you. “Damn it!” You exclaimed, catching the ball and spiking it on the ground. You ripped your hands through your hair, grinding your teeth.

Ali’s gentle hands grasped your wrists, carefully pulling your hands to her chest. Ashlyn’s finger tilted your chin up, forcing you to make eye contact with them. You could see the worry in their gaze, and you felt guilty that you were the reason it was there.

“Maybe we cant, but it might make you feel better if you talk about it,” Ali’s soothing voice murmured. They didn’t know what was wrong, but the problem was bigger than any of them had thought before.

“Trust me, it won’t,” You repeated, your voice filled with utter defeat, shaking your head and doing everything in your power to prevent the tears from dripping down your face. You wiggled out of their grasp, ignoring the worried stares on your back, and headed towards the locker room.

****

After your talk, if you could call it that, with Krashlyn, the veterans were hoping that things might get a little better, but against all odds, it just seemed to be getting worse. Becky shot you a worried look as the entered the dining hall. You were sat all by yourself (something odd to begin with) surrounded by your laptop and about a thousand notebooks. It was a clear indication that you wanted to be left alone, another odd thing. You were usually clamoring over yourself to get a seat next to Sonnett or Lindsey.

“I didn’t think little Swift was going to college,” She mumbled as she took her seat beside Alex at the table.

“She’s not,” Alex huffed worriedly, furrowing her eyebrows as she watched you.

“Then what’s with the 40 notebooks,” Alyssa asked through a mouthful of food.

“I’m not sure” Alex shrugged biting her lip thoughtfully. “did you get anything out of Emily?” She questioned, finally tearing her eyes away from you to glance at Kelley.

“Kid just said that Y/n had been avoiding her an Lindsey,” Kelley mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck.

“She wouldn’t tell Ash and me what was wrong, but if she’s avoiding team blond over there it has to be pretty bad,” Ali added, watching as you ran an angry hand through your hair, cringing when she saw the pen marks that covered your left arm. You had to be writing for hours for that to happen. You grit your teeth, staring at the offending screen.

“I’m going to go talk to her before she has an aneurism,” Becky murmured, cringing when you tore a page out of the book in anger.

“I’ll come with you,” Alyssa said quietly. They were the calm ones, and you generally responded well to them when you were upset. Perhaps their soothing strength would be enough to get you to open up.

“Hey kiddo, mind if we join you,” Becky asked, waving a tantalizing piece of chocolate cake in front of your face. She frowned when you nodded, barely even looking up at your favorite forbidden treat.

She slid into the seat next to you, glancing down at the papers scattered on the table in front of you.

“What ya working on?” Alyssa questioned, doing the same on your other side, her eyes widening at some of the titles on the pages spread before you.

“Stats,” You said distractedly, flipping through screens on your computer.

“These are our scoring, defending, and playtime averages for like the past 10 years!” Alyssa exclaimed, grabbing one of the notebooks that were further out from you. The notebook with her name written on it.

“Hmm,” You hummed, squinting at the screen before jotting down whatever number you had been looking up.

“Are these music stats too?” Becky asked confused, grabbing a different sheet with chart numbers from 2009.

“Yeah,” You muttered back lowly.

“Why the hell are comparing our averages to how artists and tracks do on the charts and how often they play at award shows?” Becky questioned, placing a finger under your chin and forcing your attention away from the numbers on the screen. You sighed. You didn’t have the time or the willpower to explain it to them. They wouldn’t understand.

“I’m just checking…” You huffed, finally making eye contact with the woman, your shoulders slumping. She could see the sadness that seemed permeate through every part of your being, it was a sadness that she couldn’t place or ever remember seeing before.

“Checking what? How you compare to the rest of us and other people in the music industry?” Alyssa’s voice was soft, like a protective blanket, as it probed you for more information, her hand resting on your shoulder.

“Not people,” You grumble, your frustration leaking into your tone.

“Who, Taylor?” Becky asked gently. You nodded slightly, squeezing your eyes shut, as though the action physically pained you. Becky’s eyes furrowed, why the fuck were you comparing your stats to your sister’s. She thought that you had gotten past this.

“Look, as much as I love being interrogated, I’m trying to…” You grumbled, pulling your face out of Becky’s grasp, and staring down at your hands.

“Trying to what?” Alyssa pushed, carefully moving a stray strand of hair from your face. You opened and closed your mouth several times, as though you were trying to find the words to describe what you were doing. Becky and Alyssa watched you, biting their lips and praying that you would open up to them. The didn’t like mopey Y/n, and they would do whatever they could to help you.

“Just forget it,” You said finally, closing your notebooks and picking them up hastily. You shook your head.

“Wait, kid,” Alyssa gently grabbed your arm before you could leave “you know we’re here if you ever need to talk?” She finished, and you met her worried eyes from a brief moment.

“I don’t want to be more of a burden,” You whispered back hoarsely. Alyssa and Becky shared another set of confused looks.

“You’re never a burden kid. Who made you think you were?” Becky quired, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. You were the baby of the team, and insecure enough to begin with, whoever the fuck told you that you were a burden was about to find out what happens when you messed with their little one. Your eyes widened at the admission. You shouldn’t have said that.

“It doesn’t matter. Just forget I said anything,” You said far too quickly, grabbing your things and twisting out of their grasp. The two women sighed, at least they knew a little more about what was going on.

*****

You couldn’t avoid Emily and Lindsey for forever, and after they demanded you come to their room for a movie night, you couldn’t find it within yourself to refuse them. Sure, you usually loved spending time with them, but after all of the things your mom said, you knew that they would never want you the way you wanted them. Why would they?

“Hey babe, have you seen these tweets,” Emily laughed at her phone, and you glanced over at her disinterested, shrugging your shoulders. You weren’t big on social media in the first place, and after everyone found out about your relation to Taylor, you were even less of a fan. Her fans always thought it was funny to spam your page with compilation after compilation of your worst soccer fails.

“They made compilations of our greatest fails, and you’re in like half of it,” Emily snorted, and Lindsey clamored over to her, trying to see some of your worst moments.

“You know we were the ones in blue right?” Linsey giggled, after what you were sure was you missing a pass in an important game. But that wasn’t the end, the hits just kept on coming. They took turns pointing out your soccer missteps and joking about why they had happened with things like: “It’s supposed to go in the goal babe, not over it,” or “You got tripped by a ghost,” and your personal favorite “Aw, you look so cute when you’re faking a foul,”

They had laughed until tears had welled up in their eyes. You had played along, resorting to hiding behind a polite smile, and passing off your tears as the same as the ones your friends. You would never tell them how much it had hurt to watch them giggle as you failed at the only thing you had ever been confident in doing. It hurt to watch them joke about how you should turn these moments into a highlight reel for how to not to make it on the National team. Lindsey had even commented that maybe your inability to find the back of the net or beat the defender on a few occasions was the reason why your older sister’s talents had so often eclipsed your own. They had meant it in good fun. You knew that. They loved you and were probably only doing it to make you laugh and get you out of your funk. The problem was that you didn’t find it funny.

“Hey guys, I promised I would meet Kellex for dinner, so I gotta jet,” You interrupted after what you deemed to be an acceptable amount of time, hoping that your voice wouldn’t break.

“Okay,” The woman shot you a smile, waving you off, and you excused yourself. Your shoulders slumped farther. You knew you didn’t have a chance with them, but you still didn’t like it when they threw it back in your face all of the time.

*****

You took a deep breath of the cool night air, taking solace in the field that had always been your haven. It had always been the one place where you were more than just Taylor’s little sister. The one place that you had even a remote possibility of making your mother proud and proving to your parents that you weren’t a failure. Yes, you should have told someone from the team that this is where you would be. Yes, they would be upset, but you couldn’t find it within yourself to care.

You growled, setting up another shot. Vlatko didn’t think you were good enough to play in the scrimmage at practice, so you were going to work your ass off until you could prove him wrong. Taylor had flown out here for nothing. Your mother had taken the opportunity to try to make you See that your soccer career was to be short-lived and without a college degree you were going to end up a slouch mooching off of your older sister’s success. You were going to do your damndest to prove them all wrong.

“You know, if you kick it any harder, you’re going to break the net,” Kelley’s voice startled you out of your focus, causing you to send the shot wide.

“You know it’s easier to score when it’s not 2 AM right?” Alex said as you turned to look guiltily at the women. You shrugged noncommittally, setting up another ball.

“How’d you find me?” You asked, glancing over your shoulder at your team moms.

“Just ‘cause you don’t use Snapchat doesn’t mean that the rest of the world doesn’t either,” Kelley laughed wiggling her phone in your face, and you blushed. You were probably one of the only Millenials in the country that had no idea how the app worked. You rarely ever used it, and only kept it on your phone because Emily had put it there.

“Wanna tell us why you’re out here sooting PK’s so late?”Alex questioned, placing a hand on your shoulder. You sighed, focusing on rolling the ball between your feet.

“My sister flew halfway across the country to watch me sit on a bench for two hours,” You said quietly, flipping the ball up on your toebox and rocketing it towards goal. Alex and Kelley’s eyebrows furrowed. Kelley opened her mouth to interrupt you, but Alex held her hand up to stop her. You needed them to listen right now more than you needed their reassurance.

“And my mom threw a shit fit because I told her that I’m in talks with Portland about playing for them next season instead of going to college,” You rumbled, firing another ball towards goal.

“And the fans won’t stop throwing all of my fucking mistakes on the field in my face,’ Your voice raising, ripping your hands through your hair, shrugging off Kelley and Alex’s comforting hands.

“And Emily and Lindsey will never see me as more than a little kid just trying to keep up with them,” You finished with a yell, firing another shot towards goal.

“Stop, Y/n Y/m/n Swift. First and foremost, you’re insane if you don’t think that those two knuckleheads are as into you as you are to them,” Alex said firmly, placing both her hands on your shoulders and forcing you to look at her.

“Second of all, you didn’t get the full 90, but you scored two goals in the 20 minutes that you were playing,” Kelley reassured, wrapping her arms around you from behind, placing her chin on your shoulder.

“And third, don’t listen to what anyone else says. You are freaking incredible, and even though it’s going to suck playing against you, the Thorns are lucky to have you,” Alex finished, placing a comforting kiss on your forehead.

“There’s just so much pressure, and I can never ever be nearly as good as Taylor is,” You sighed, tears of frustration leaking down your face.

“Babe, we’ve been through this. You are your own amazing person, and the talents that you have are different from the ones that Taylor has. You’ve won a world cup,” Alex said, using her thumbs to wipe the tears from your eyes.

“And she’s won multiple Grammys” You responded lowly.

“You can’t compare the two,” Kelley stated firmly, squeezing you a little tighter. They knew that you were always trying to prove yourself to everyone, but they didn’t know how to show you that you didn’t have to be Taylor. Your worth had nothing to do with how you compared to her.

“You are incredible in your way, and we’re all here to support you,” Alex said, pulling you into a hug and letting you cry into her shoulder. They weren’t sure how long they stood there in the middle of an abandoned soccer field holding you, but they knew that this was what you needed right now. They would work on your confidence and the issues later. Right now you just needed to know that they were there and they weren’t going away. To know that you didn’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders alone anymore. They and 21 other women were there to help you, and together you would show the world that You might not be Taylor, but you were a worthy Swift in your own right.

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #taylor swift x reader #taylor swift imagine

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phykios · 3 years

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honesty and promise me part 6 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

Ah, the age old question: what to get for the guy who has everything and also when you’re trying make up for the fact that you actually missed his birthday entirely while spending as little money as possible?

“Where the hell are you taking me?” Percy asks as they wait their turn to disembark. “I haven’t been to Staten Island in ages.”

Annabeth has never been at all. She knows there’s a handful of Greek revival buildings in the Historic District, but she’s never had a car to get there, or the stomach to get on the ferry. Percy had practically climbed onto the bow, his own personal reenactment of Titanic, arms thrown out to the wind, while Annabeth attempted to keep her breakfast down.

Having spectacularly flamed out last week in Philadelphia, she can’t let Percy’s birthday go without some sort of commemoration. The Staten Island Ferry is just part one. “All in due time,” she says, checking her phone for directions. They still have a bus they need to board, and Annabeth is getting sweaty in her leather jacket. Thank God Percy volunteered to carry the backpack with all their gear; otherwise, when this jacket comes off, it’s going to smell worse than his tights at the end of a long day.

Like a magnet, his gaze is glued to the strips of the bay he can spot through the bus windows, his head resting on his chin, a soft, serene smile lifting his lips. All the tightness, all the stress he’s held in his shoulders the last few times she’s seen him, it melts away at the sharp, salty tang of rust and sea air which suffuses every corner. She doesn’t even mind that he isn’t looking at her.

Hand in hand, finally, they get off the bus, and walk to the overlook. Slinging the backpack off his shoulder, he sets it down at his feet, eyes fixed on the strip of shoreline which can be seen, even all the way over here. “What is that?” he breathes, shielding his eyes against the glint of the sun on the water.

“That,” says Annabeth, “is the Staten Island ship graveyard.”

Still stewing in her guilt over how she missed his birthday--despite the fact that he didn’t even tell her--Annabeth decided to swallow her pride and ask for help. It took an inordinate number of coffee orders and one instance of her actually getting down on her knees and begging, pleading to their long friendship together and swearing that Annabeth would never use this information for evil, but she had finally wheedled the secret out of Thalia: Percy’s greatest love, after the ballet, was sailing. Ship construction, naval battles, maritime history, they were, according to Thalia, the only things which could entice Percy to actually set down the tights and “get some frickin’ sunshine for once in his life.” Annabeth hadn’t believed her, until Thalia had dug up an old photo which had never been posted to his socials--and Annabeth had certainly scoured them for long enough, she would have recognized it had she seen it before--of Percy, on a glittering, jewel-like sea, a rope wrapped around his fist as he leaned over the side of a sailboat, eyes squeezed shut, mouth wide in a graceless, unrestrained joy.

“Back in the eighties, there used to be over four hundred ships down there,” Annabeth says, coming up beside him. “A lot of it’s been scrapped or sold, but there are still maybe a hundred or so boats, including the USS PC-1264, one of the--”

“One of the two predominantly African American crewed Navy ships from World War II,” he interrupts, eyes light. “No way!”

“Yes way,” Annabeth grins, unzipping her jacket. The midday sun beats down on them, the air sticky and heavy, and she needs this thing off, pronto. “And, there’s a ship that was supposedly the command post for the General Slocum disaster.” Not that she really knows what that is.

He whirls around. “The Abram S. Hewitt is there? Holy sh--”

His jaw drops. His eyes bug out.

Part two of his present was the ship graveyard. Part three is the outfit.

Annabeth, one hand on her hip, slings her jacket over her shoulder with the other, the leather hot against her bare skin. She has chosen to forgo a shirt entirely, wearing nothing but her nicest pair of black jeans with the thick suspenders and a shiny, red bra. And yes, she had Thalia touch up her hair, five inches of curls lopped off on one side, undercut sharp and severe.

“I thought we could have a picnic here,” she says, a smile curling her lips without her permission. “Then, if you want, we could do some light trespassing? See the ships up close?”

Percy swallows. He breathes in through his nose, shuddering. “Sure,” he whispers, hoarse. “Sounds good.”

Dropping to the ground like a rock, studiously not checking her out, Percy unpacks their picnic, laying out the blanket, something blue, old, but soft Annabeth had knitted in a fit of pre-finals’ anxiety in college. Annabeth had hinted the night before that he should make them some food, as no one could make a grilled cheese like Percy, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to buy them some prepackaged, tasteless garbage.

Percy’s sandwiches, just like the man himself, are stacked: thick, sourdough slices (which she suspects he made himself), bacon, turkey, apple, tomato, lettuce, avocado, mayo for her but none for him. She’d always been under the impression that dancers needed to watch what they ate, endlessly in pursuit of some unattainable ideal of beauty. Nope. Percy eats everything and anything he can get his hands on, high carb and high protein and high everything else. It makes sense, she guesses, for someone who basically has to bench their own body weight daily. Every inch of him is tailored for power and velocity, to propel him out of the grasp of gravity--rabbit food just isn’t going to cut it here.

Munching down, he maneuvers himself into a number of splits and stretches, unable to give up his routine for a single day. “When I was probably thirteen or fourteen,” he says, halfway through a tirade of reminiscence, “my dad took me and Triton and Kym to Cyprus, for some family bonding time.” He rolls his eyes. “You can probably imagine how well that went. Most of that trip was… well, Cyprus was definitely the best part. We went to Kyrenia Castle, which has this amazing museum that holds one of the oldest known ships in the world. Like, this thing was operational during the lifetime of Alexander the Great, and it sank about a mile away from the harbor.” He takes a heroic bite, chewing with his lips firmly shut.

“Cool.”

He swallows. “Very cool. I love really old ships, but you can imagine how few of those are still left, and not just because we haven’t found them.”

Annabeth feels her neck heating up, despite the shade they sit in. “Well, I hope these ones are old enough for you.”

“Oh, these are incredible--don’t get me wrong! I had no idea there was anything like this so close to home. Who needs Cyprus when you have Staten Island?” He grins, placing his sandwich down, throwing his arms in a stretch.

“I know it isn’t Tokyo or Moscow or anything…” she trails off, self-conscious even as she doesn’t actually ask the question that’s on her mind.

Shamefully, she has found that she still thinks about what Will had said at his apartment over a month ago at this point: Percy Jackson, boy toy of the rich and famous. But if she actually asks, it will make her look like some totally jealous girlfriend or something, like she honestly cares about Percy’s past sexual conquests.

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t.

He’s just led a really interesting life, and she wishes she could relate. That’s all.

“It’s not,” he agrees, bending his back with an audible pop. “It’s better.”

“Really? A little ship graveyard is better than the sites of Tokyo?”

“I didn’t see any sites in Tokyo,” he said. “Mostly just Mittie’s hotel room.”

“Mittie?”

Percy looks at his sandwich, suddenly very interested in the crust.

“She’s someone important, then?”

Silence.

Annabeth laughs to break the tension. “Okay, I'll bite--who’s Mittie? Another model?”

Taking a small bite of sandwich, he chews, methodical and deliberate. He swallows, clearing his throat. “Margherita Savoy.”

The name doesn’t ring a bell. “Who?”

“Princess Margherita Elisabetta of Sardinia.”

Her mouth drops open a little. “A princess?”

Percy shrugs. “Technically. The throne of Sardinia doesn’t exist anymore, obviously, but she’s big into the money and the titles and stuff.”

A princess. A fucking princess. “But she lets you call her Mittie.”

He looks a little constipated. “She didn’t… until she took me to Tokyo.”

“Oh,” she says. Because what else is there to say? She’s certainly no princess.

“She was nice,” Percy says, softly. “You know, eventually. Once we got to know each other.”

Her phone is hot in her pocket, like it’s preemptively searching Google for pictures of Margherita Elisabetta of Sardinia, downloading them all so Annabeth can scribble all over her face like a bad high school movie. “A pretender?” She scoffs, exaggeratedly, her fists tight against the grass. “Talk to me when you get a real princess.”

His ears go red. “Um…”

No way. “No fucking way.”

“Look, Eugenie was just kinda pissed when Triton broke up with her, and so she just thought that we’d have some fun.”

“Oh my god.” She says, looking at him in something like horror. And telling herself at least it wasn’t her distant cousin Madeleine.

“It was only for like a week or two,” Percy protests. “We went to a club in Berlin she knew Triton liked to go to so he would see us and get annoyed.”

“A princess dated you because she was pissed at your brother?”

“Only twice,” he says, casual, like any of this is normal and not absolutely insane. “Eleonore is one of Kym’s friends. And she’s technically, like, an archduchess, not a princess. But I don’t know. A couple of his other girlfriends wanted to get back at him, and I was in Europe and available, so we just…” He trails off. She can hear the ellipsis, hanging hot and heavy over them, each dot dropping like a stone. What is this, fucking Mamma Mia?

“When was the last time this happened?” she asks, not really wanting to hear the answer.

He rubs a hand over his mouth, gaze unfocused as he thinks. “Um… not since the week after Frank left, I think. Mittie wanted to go to Bora Bora but she didn’t want to go alone, you know?”

“No, I meant,” she pushes through as her stomach flutters, tight and uncomfortable, “girls using you to get back at your brother.”

His face falls, just a bit. “Oh. Last year, I guess.”

“Who was she?” And where is she so Annabeth can punt her off a building?

“Calypso Atlas.” He sighs, wistful, with more reverence than he had given any of the princesses, and Annabeth’s stomach flops, different from the flutter. Painful this time. “She actually liked me.”

“Everyone likes you,” she says, faintly. Maybe wearing the leather jacket is giving her heatstroke.

“You know, they really don’t. Not how it counts, anyway.” He picks at a blade of grass, rubbing it between his fingers. “Most of the girls who wanted to use me to get back at Triton only did it because they knew how much he liked to bitch about me--the ‘half-breed bastard.’” He rolls his eyes, huffs a laugh. “And even Kym’s friends didn’t actually like me. Like, yeah, they’d fly me all over with them, but they didn’t want to be seen with me. Mittie and I were on and off for years, and she gets photographed constantly. I’m not in any of them.”

Annabeth thinks she might actually be sick.

But he doesn’t stop. “It wasn’t so bad when they went around saying that I was a dancer with the Paris Opera, because I was, and I was proud of it. But it wasn’t… I don’t know. It wasn’t like with Frank, whose family does have a ton of money, but who only ever dated me because he liked me.” He picks another blade of grass, tearing it between his fingers. “Calypso, though. She was different.” And he smiles, a little.

“How?”

That smile grows wider. “She just called me one day, out of the blue, and very publicly asked me to be her date to Milan Fashion Week after she and Triton broke up and he immediately turned around and got engaged. She was super up front about it, didn’t try to sleep with me or anything, even though I know she was friends with some people and probably heard about my various talents.”

She knows exactly which talents he means. He winks at Annabeth, ironic and self-conscious, and she forces out a little laugh, as though the idea of him going down on someone else is charming.

“But then we actually had a good time together, and a few weeks later, she called me up again, and again, and again, until eventually she introduced me to her father--which was a hell of an experience, let me tell you. The Atlas family puts the Olympianides family to shame as far as dysfunction goes. But it was nice, in its own way; if I’d ever asked Mittie to introduce me to her dad, she’d have laughed in my face.”

“Sounds like you were pretty serious,” Annabeth manages.

“That was the problem.” He looks away, towards the sea. Always towards the sea. “She wanted to leave Paris, travel the world. And she wanted me to go with her.”

“To leave the Paris Opera?”

“To leave ballet entirely. I just…” He holds the silence for a moment, lost in the fog of reminiscence, the mist of possible futures long since dissipated. Sighing, he shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it. So, in March, she went to Dubai, and I started making calls back to New York.”

“You broke up with her this year?”

“She broke up with me,” he clarifies, turning back to her. “It was all very romantic. I always left my comp at the box office for her. She didn’t come to my show, but she showed up at the stage door the day before she was set to leave, telling me that she had an extra ticket with my name on it. I turned her down.” And then he looks her in the eye as he says, “I don’t regret it at all.”

She swallows, her face flushing, tongue numb as she searches desperately for something to say to that. “Atlas, you said her family was? It sounds familiar.”

“Oh, you’re probably thinking of Zoe Atlas,” Percy says, easing off for the moment. “You probably know about her because she and Thalia were archenemies in boarding school. Or maybe girlfriends? I have yet to get a straight answer.” Annabeth’s eyes nearly bug out of her head. Thalia, in boarding school? What? “But I like Zoe. She’s an activist, and absolutely hates her father. Like I said, there’s a lot of dysfunction. And she came to my first show way back when, and she wasn’t even weird when I dated her sister when we ran into each other in Paris. So that was nice.”

“She went to your first show?” What in God’s name is up with these one-percenter families? It’s like they all overlap in one big incestuous slurry. And as the daughter of the Chases and the Pallases, she tries not to think where she might fit into that.

“Thalia brought her. Her first not-date. It was Thalia’s first ballet ever, too. It… it meant a lot.”

“What show was it?”

He smiles, wistful. “The Nutcracker. I was one of the kids at Clara’s party. Most scared I’ve ever been. When I got out backstage after intermission, Thalia was waiting for me with my mom. She punched my shoulder, called me ‘Kelp Head,’ and told me I did great. Then I hugged her,” he says, snickering. “She punched me again.”

Annabeth laughs, huffing through her nose. “Good to see some things never change.”

“That’s our Thalia for you--looking out for everyone, even when it kills her inside.” He glances at her pointedly.

It’s her turn to share.

Annabeth’s mouth is dry, like sandpaper.

She grabs her backpack, pulling out a sketchbook and a pencil. Beside her, Percy sighs, deflating a little.

Annabeth flips open a new page, and starts drawing.

Each sketch delivers a challenge: bringing order to the whole through design, composition, tension, balance, light and harmony. Sometimes, buildings spring to life on the page, fully formed. Sometimes the page stays blank, an empty pencil.

Pencil to paper. Letting whatever wants to come out, come out. “My mom invited me to lunch one day,” she says. Her eyes follow the line of her pencil, ninety degree angles and symmetrical shapes. “I had moved to New York like six months before. Single girl, in the big city, to follow her dreams.” She’d gone to boarding school in New York before that, but it wasn’t the same as picking out her apartment and taking the train to the Manhattan skyscraper her office was held in. Sometimes she’d walk down the street, feeling like she was smack dab in the middle of Sex and the City, which she and Piper use to watch in secret, huddled under the covers in the dorms at Miss Minerva’s. “Unfortunately, my mom didn’t love my dreams.”

“She didn’t approve of anarchist architecture?”

Annabeth’s laugh is hollow. “She thought I should have been charting some new path in business for a woman. But not in a feminist way. In, like, a capitalist way. But architecture was not really negotiable for me. And once that became clear, she had her own expectations about that, too.”

Annabeth has always been a prideful know-it-all. If all her mother had wanted from her was ambition, they probably could have made it work. Annabeth wanted to reshape the skyline, she wanted her name on buildings that would last and impress.

But even Annabeth couldn’t do that in six months.

“She wanted the best schools, the best companies, the best projects.” She sighs. “I was lucky to find a job in New York that wasn’t just carrying coffee.” She had gotten a bigger offer from a more well-known firm where she had interned one summer, but it had been for an assistantship, heavy on the assistant. Her eventual Junior Architect label hadn’t been great, but it had been something, being a rising star at a smaller firm. It seemed like a good fit. “I did not make my mother proud. I… she lived in New York, and I lived with my dad all over.”

Percy frowns. “Your mom didn’t have custody of you?”

“My mom didn’t want custody of me,” she laughs, bitter. God, it feels weird to tell someone else this. Piper and Leo and Luke knew, obviously, but they had witnessed it all firsthand. Telling someone else, out of the blue… Well, Percy had divulged his tragic backstory without complaint. It’s only fair that she does as well. “I mean, my dad didn’t either. But when it became clear my mom wasn’t an option, well, there we were. He stepped up as best he could. That wasn’t always a lot, but when compared to my mother, he seems like a perfectly involved parent.”

“Are you trying to make my parental situation seem more reasonable?”

“Is it working?”

“If you ever meet my dad, we can compare notes.” He shudders at the thought, playfully. “So, what happened with your mom?”

“She made her displeasure known.” Annabeth sighs again, shading a corner. “I mean, she’s always made her displeasure known. I wasn’t getting good enough grades, I wasn’t in the right activities, I wasn’t going to get into the right school, yadda yadda yadda. But for a long time… I don’t know, it at least seemed like she was worried about me.” She thinks of the Eta party, of the man in the brown suit, tutting about Athena Pallas’s druggie daughter, and scowls. “My mother has always had an all or nothing outlook. If I wasn’t the best, I might as well be nothing. But the thing was, this time I thought I was making real progress. And when she invited me to lunch after six months in the same city, I thought she would see that.”

She had not. Because to Athena Pallas, having a daughter who was an architect instead of an executive Vice-President on her way to CEO, having a daughter at a small but growing architecture firm instead of the best one in the country, was like having a daughter who was drunk in a gutter somewhere.

And Annabeth had realized as much that lunch.

All her work was never going to earn her mother’s love.

And suddenly, she wasn’t sure what work had been her’s and what had been her mother’s ambitions.

She’d started crying. In the cafe and right now, on Staten Island, with Percy. “I’m sorry,” she sniffs, wiping her nose on her arm. “Wow, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He reaches over and wraps an arm around her, gently, rubbing her shoulder, and she more or less crumples into his side. “It’s fine. Take your time.”

Her arm, still free, keeps moving. The drawing takes a shape that she can’t quite name yet. A tree, maybe, in a box. A window to another world, possibly. She spills tears on the paper.

“She disowned me.” Her thin line trembles, before righting itself. “I ran out of there. I stumbled into the first tattoo parlor that didn’t smell like piss, and got my owl done.” She brandishes her left arm, the grey shape blurry and faded against her elbow. She had had a stuffed owl as a little girl, her protector against the spiders in the closet. “I cut off my hair, got my eyebrow pierced, found a club, and just… had a rough couple of days. Got really really drunk that night.” Like, too drunk. Crying on the floor of a filthy bathroom drunk. “Thalia found me under the bathroom sink, took me back to her place, helped me kick the hangover the next day, and that was that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Annabeth says. And most of the time, she isn’t. She wipes her eyes, smudged makeup getting smudger.

“Your mom sounds like she sucks.”

“She does.”

“What about your dad?”

She sniffs. “What about him?”

“You just haven’t really mentioned him. What’s he like?”

Shrugging, she wipes a tear from her cheek. “He’s a history professor.”

“And?”

“That’s about it.”

“I mean, do you like him?”

She shrugs again. “Sure.” There was a lot to like about Frederick Chase. “I haven’t really spoken to him in a while.”

Mouth in a sympathetic twist, he brushes the curls from her eyes, a gesture so sweet it makes her heart pound. “You should call him,” he says. “I’m sure he misses you.”

Her phone burns in her pocket, heavy with the weight of unread texts. “Maybe.”

“Do you want to change the subject?” he asks.

“Please,” she blurts out, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “God, please. Let’s go back to your cute backstory. Tell me more about your first ballet. I want to hear all about the time you were in the Nutcracker.”

Percy fishes out a napkin from somewhere, handing it to her. Grateful, she blows her nose into it, wet and disgusting. “I hate to tell you this,” he says, “But I have been in the Nutcracker, like, fifteen times.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he nods, “It's the big moneymaker. Have you ever seen it?”

“It's a holiday classic,” she scoffs, a little wetly. “Of course I’ve seen it.”

He snorts. “Like, for real, or the recorded one they play on Netflix with Macaulay Culkin?”

“I've seen it live! My dad lived in San Francisco when I was in high school. They have a fancy ballet there.” She’d seen it as a little kid in NYC, she thought, too. Maybe when her parents were still married, or her mother was still willing to take her for Christmas.

“Would you be willing to see it again?”

“Like, for real,” she parrots back at him, “or the recorded one they play on Netflix?”

“Ha ha. I mean for real.”

“I mean… maybe if they switched things up a bit.”

“It's a classic!” He protests. “I mean, it isn’t like we do the Balanchine everywhere, every time. But… it's a classic.”

“I’m sure the dancing is fine.” Annabeth says. She remembers going with Luke in Boston and thinking it was nice, but also hoping Luke would kiss her at the end of the night, so she hadn’t really paid attention. “But they get to design a land of magic and sweets and fairies, and every time the costumes and the sets are just, like, pink glitter and white gauze mixed with weird racial stereotypes. There’s no imagination.”

“Well, okay then.” There’s something in his smile, in the turn of his head that she can’t quite identify. “What would you do?” he challenges.

She holds his gaze for a moment, looking into those eyes that almost reflect the color of the sea around them. Her eyes feel a little puffy still, but he doesn’t look away. Then, without breaking away, she flips open a new page in her sketchbook.

“Space,” she says. “It needs space.”

“Outer?”

“Negative. Lots of space for dancers to move around.” Her pencil scratches over the paper, familiar blocky shapes springing to life. Doric fluted columns split the wings, because of course. “It’s Christmas, so we want color: no sterile, snowy landscape. We know it’s all frozen over--we don’t need to see it again. Obligatory Christmas tree here,” she sketches a crude triangle off to one side, approximately along the golden ratio, “and a big fireplace in the center, preferably a functional one.”

“You know there was this dancer in the nineteenth century that died because her costume caught fire, yeah?”

Annabeth tilts her head, capitulating. “Fair point. We’ll raise it up on a pedestal, keep it out of the way.” She draws a little platform beneath it. “But color is key.” Up above, she draws a pediment crowning the proscenium. She scribbles in the empty space, a placeholder. “Everyone knows the story, so you lay it out up here, episodes merging into each other from start to finish.”

Percy peers down at her page, his chin perilously close to resting on her shoulder. She can’t draw like that. “Kind of reminds me of the Parthenon.”

“You’ve been?”

He nods, his hair tickling the side of her face. “Couple of times. I thought you said you wanted color, though. The Parthenon’s all white, isn’t it?”

“Not originally,” she says. “Do they not explain that on the tours?”

“Um…” Sheepish, he looks away. “I, uh, I’m not always great at listening.”

God. It’s so endearing. What the hell. She kisses him on the cheek, enjoying the way he flushes lightly. “Me either.” He is so fucking handsome. “But no, the original Parthenon, all those white statues, they were painted. Ergo, color.”

He blinks, momentarily stunned. “Wouldn’t--uh, wouldn’t that distract from the dancers? People would just be staring at the ceiling.”

“Then… it’s only lit up before and after the show. During the show, you turn the lights down, bring the focus back down onto the stage.” She considered it. Something she’d worked on for a production once, a fashion show Piper had done at Pratt. “Or, you set it up so the colors are mostly lights. Lights that shine through during the snowflake dance and when Clara rides off with the prince. But then you also get the white for the frosted look. But, they’re still too pink, so I don’t think some color variety is bad.”

“So, not to kill your vibe,” Percy says, pulling back a bit, “but I gotta say, I don’t see how this is that different from the billion other Nutcrackers out there.”

She glares, lips pursed. He’s trying so hard not to laugh. Dick. “The set is only half the problem,” she says. “You'd need to redesign the costumes, too.”

“Tell you what. Why don’t you come see my show in December, and then you can tell me all about how you’d fix it.”

“Me and every tourist in New York at Christmas time?”

He nods, like he was expecting it. “Then come to my current one. September isn’t Christmas, so it’ll be a lot less crowded.”

“I don’t know,” she grimaces, sketching a star in the corner of the page. “I don’t really think I’d fit--'' Fit in with those people like the ones from the Eta awards, who thought not being her mother’s lackey was the same as being in rehab.

“Annabeth.” Percy takes her drawing hand, lifting it off the page entirely. The pencil is caught between them, an ineffectual barrier to the sweet, rubbing thumb on the mound of her palm. “I want you to come to my show. I’ll leave you a ticket. No one will care what you look like, I promise.” He stares at her, baby seal eyes in full effect.

Fuck.

“As long as you leave me a ticket,” she says, weakly. “I mean, I wouldn’t be able to afford a good seat.” The lie slips out, easy as anything. She can’t help it.

He smiles, soft and warm and way too inviting. “And in the meantime,” he says, softly, you can come with me tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“I’m going to my parents’ for dinner. It’ll be just my mom, Paul, and my sister. They’d love to meet you.”

“I can’t,” she replies, immediately, almost without thinking. “I’ve got--I’ve got work to do.”

She doesn’t. But boys don’t bring girls like Annabeth home anymore. She isn’t meant to settle down. She’s meant for grimy bars and ship yards. She'll leave it to the princesses to be brought home.

He deflates, just the slightest bit. If she hadn’t had so much up and personal time with his naked chest and the movement of his shoulders, she probably would have missed it. “Maybe next time, then?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, not entirely certain if she means to follow through. “Maybe next time.”

#ballet au #percabeth #pjo #the rivalry ends here #darkmagyk #perseannabeth #byima #uhhh whoever else #my fic #pjo fic #look at them having a real conversation and then immediately blowing it

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robinofinashiro · 3 years

Text

“what if you had it all / but nobody to call / maybe they know me / cause i’ve had everything / but no ones listening / and that’s just fucking lonely / i’m so lonely /

request status: closed

pairing: mirio togata x fem! reader (slight bakugou angst)

note: i’m closing reqs bc my semester starts next week and need a clean slate by the end of next sunday so i can get my writing and school schedule together. i promise i won’t go anywhere !!

you were sitting at your desk, hearing the conversation Tokoyami and Jirou were having about something. one ear was on the conversation and the other was hearing what Bakugou was screaming to Kirishima about.

“getting yelled at again, Kiri?” you asked, giving the two boys a smile. Kiri flashed you an embarrassed look as Bakugou didn’t say much but give you a quick glance before yelling at him again, “come on Tsuki, leave him alone?” you asked, trying to get him to quiet down.

he gave you a scoff but quieted down to a ‘normal’ tone of voice. you gave Kiri a wink before going back to the conversation with Tokoyami and Jirou. you could see she wanted to tell you something but decided against it.

“did you hear?” Mina said, walking over to the three of you, “there are some third years visiting us!! kind of exciting, isn’t it? hearing some stories from the upperclassman!” she exclaimed.

you nodded, “I heard this morning and yeah, it’s pretty exciting! I think if we get the chance to train with them, it would be even better. do you know who any of the third years are?” you asked her. Mina shook her head, “nope! ask Midoriya, he might know but I think they’re meant to be surprise!”

before Mina could say anything else, Aizawa walked into the class lazily, per usual.

all of you sat back down in your seats, hearing Aizawa speak on exactly the thing that Mina was talking about. you felt your hands get a bit sweaty, not really knowing who to expect to see walk into the classroom. maybe some over the top students? students who thought they were better than all of you?

it didn’t take long for the students to walk in, your thoughts immediately coming to a halt when you saw the blond haired boy walk in. your eyes widened a bit, not realizing that you might have been visibly simping over him.

Aizawa informed you on who they were. they were the end all, be all for U.A. known as the big three and who all the hero students should strive to be like.

you couldn’t help but feel for their shyest student. you could see the anxiety written on his face as soon as he saw all of your eyes on him. you wanted to tell everyone to stop looking but you knew that if he felt nervous about a confrontation with regular first year students, how would the actual pro hero field treat him?

finally, the attention was diverted to the blond who you immediately turned your attention too. you couldn’t help but laugh, seeing as how he instantly told the entire class to fight him with those excited arms flailing everywhere.

while you did want to take him up on that offer almost immediately, you were out of commission for the next few weeks.

you had gotten hurt while training with Katsuki last week and your knee had broken. Aizawa had mentioned that while you could have gone to Recovery Girl to get it fixed, it was an injury that didn’t need such urgent recovery and told you to sit out for a few weeks until it healed.

“take him up?” you asked jokingly to Katsuki. he scoffed, rolling his eyes, “please, he’d lose in seconds,” he responded. you laughed, trying to keep it down as Aizawa told everyone that they were moving to the training grounds to actually fight Mirio.

Katsuki was about to ask if you wanted help getting to the training grounds but upon that thought, he saw Mirio heading both your way. Katsuki saw your eyes widening, seeing how you got a bit flustered at Mirio approaching you with that contagious smile on his face.

“hey, you’re ( your name ), right?” he asked excitedly. you nodded, your heart stopping at the fact that he knew who you were, “Mr.Aizawa said you needed help getting to the training ground so here I am !” he exclaimed, “I’d love to help a first year who is in trouble!”

you stood still for a moment, not knowing how to respond him. it wasn’t until Katsuki moved past him, growling in your ear before jogging to catch up to everyone else when you finally payed attention. you looked at Mirio with a shy expression.

“sure, I’d love help!” Mirio grabbed the work you had been doing and held it to his chest before helping you onto the crutches, “so, you’re THE Mirio Togata, huh?” you said, trying to make conversation.

Mirio nodded, “the one and only! did you know who I was before hand?” he asked. you shook your head no, “ah, so you’re just assuming I’m popular?” he joked. you gave him a smirk, “or maybe you’re just assuming that I think that?” you replied.

the two of you started laughing. “but I’ve heard of you before!” he said, “really now?” your eyebrow arched in confusion, “nah, just kidding. the only one who I’ve ever heard of was your classmate Midoriya and how reckless he is out on the field,” you laughed nervously, knowing exactly what he meant by that.

“yeah, Midoriya sure is a cause of stress for everyone in 1-A to say the least,” you replied, “but he’s going to make a great hero, right along with everyone else in the class,” you added on.

Mirio saw the way your eyes sparkled when talking about your classmates. he could sense that you genuinely believed in all of them. maybe some more than others but he could tell that you weren’t trying to actively put anyone (outside of mineta) down.

“I bet you’re going to be the best of the class.”

your could feel yourself stop in your tracks, your crutches accidentally making you trip. Mirio without a second thought caught you, his arms holding you firmly in place. you didn’t dare to look at him, knowing if you did, you would get flustered almost immediately.

“you okay?” he whispered, “yeah, I’ll be fine!” you said back, limping your way to where Aizawa usually told you to sit.

you were trying to focus on your work, you really were, but as soon as finally focusing in on the work, Mirio decided to do what he did best, and flex before permeating into the ground.

“he’s so attractive,” you whispered to the closest person to you, that being Kirishima. he laughed, seeing at how your eyes basically wanted to pop out of your face when you saw him shirtless, “I think you’re supposed to watch them train, not watch Mirio the entire time,” he joked.

you rolled your eyes, not sensing the glare you were getting from the blond a few feet away. Bakugou had never heard you talk about any of your classmates that way before. yeah, the few side comments about how cute Todoroki was did happen but it was inevitable considering ALL the girls in class thought he was.

“I mean no disrespect Kiri but is what I would consider manly,” you murmured, not fully realizing what you meant. Kiri looked at you before whispering to you a bit offendedly that he was manly, “I told you I didn’t mean it towards you! I’m just saying, he’s very nice to look at.”

Bakugou growled, telling the two of you to shut up before going straight into the fray. you stared at Kiri confused, “any reason why he’s so upset all of sudden?” you asked. he shook his head, knowing exactly the reason.

“wait, I think they need your help,” you told him, pointing out that everyone was either screaming at how quickly Mirio permeated and how no one was able to catch him yet. Kirishima followed Bakugou and ran to try and get Mirio, in which he easily went back into the ground.

you sat on the bench, not bothering to watch them much afterwards. you were getting ahead on schoolwork which really worked out in your benefit when it came to being lazy as soon as you got to your dorm after classes. it usually meant stuffing your face with snacks or going straight to nap.

“hiya!” you heard Mirio tell you from the ground. you looked down, laughing at the smile on his face, “all done torturing my classmates?” you asked. he nodded, trying not to permeate to the point where he would flash anyone again.

“well, I have to go back to class. gotta make sure Iida doesn’t lecture me for being late again,” you told him, grabbing your crutches and seeing Bakugou basically run towards you. “come on, I’ll walk you back to class,” he stated, giving Mirio a look of near hatred before grabbing your things.

you tried to tell Mirio goodbye but Bakugou didn’t let you, telling you that he wanted to walk behind you to make sure you didn’t fall or anything. you wanted to question him about his sudden attitude change but seeing as how he was just generally upset, you walked back to class in silence.

“so, did you think they were hard to fight off?” you said, trying to break the silence. Bakugou shrugged, “I guess, not anything I can’t handle,” he said proudly.

you rolled your eyes, trying to smack him with your crutch. the walk back, you could still sense the awkward tension, however; you were kind of happy that Bakugou wasn’t saying much. your conversation with Mirio was enough to keep your mind occupied.

he could tell you weren’t even watching what you were doing until he heard Mina scream for you. you stopped your movements, waiting for her to catch up when she save Bakugou a look to basically scram.

“what the hell do you have to tell her that I can’t hear?” he yelled. Mina gave flipped him the middle finger before turning to talk to you, “Midoriya wanted to let you know that Mirio wants to see you again after classes are done!” she said excitedly, “I think he might have a thing for you, ya know?” she mentioned, poking you side.

you gave her a hearty laugh, not believing what she was saying.

“yeah right, what’s next? he’s gonna bring me lunch every day after today?” you said sarcastically. “something wrong Bakugou?” Mina asked.

not realizing what he was going, he saw that he was releasing small explosions into his hands, “mind your business, pinky,” he screamed, marching into the room, not even seeing that he left you stranded in the hall.

Mina let out an exasperated sigh, “anyway, he said he’d see you in the first year lockers after class,” she explained, “and you have to tell me how it goes! seeing Mirio suddenly take an infatuation with you is interesting. not every day you see a third year on our floor.”

you nodded in agreement as she took your book and folder before continuing to walk to class with you.

once the end of the day came, you could tell that whatever it was that pissed Bakugou off earlier still hadn’t gone away. anytime Kirishima or even Kaminari tried to say something, all they would get is silence or just incoherent screams from him.

“so, you’re off to see Mirio?” Jirou asked plainly. you nodded as Mina grabbed your bag from you, “I’ll help you with your bag and hopefully Mirio will walk you back to the dorms,” she said wiggling her eyebrows.

you wobbled your way out of class, not bothering to tell anyone besides the girls goodbye. Kirishima found it odd as you usually would tell Bakugou goodbye or even a ‘i’ll see you later’.

the hallways were a bit packed to move through them swiftly but eventually, you got to the lockers and saw Mirio talking to a few the students surrounding him. you gave the blond an excited smile, “here ya go Mirio! I assume you’re gonna walk my friend back?” Mina asked rhetorically.

you stared at the blue eyed boy who instantly grabbed your backpack and slung it around his back, making it seem like a child’s backpack with the way it fit around him.

“you asked to see me again?” you mentioned, getting tired of the way crutches felt underneath your arms, “these crutches aren’t the most comfortable and it’s getting kind of tiring to stand with them,” you complained.

“you left your pencil on the bench and wanted to give it back to you,” he said, showing you the glitter purple mechanical pencil. you stared at him, knowing that wasn’t the only reason, “ahhh, I guess you could see right through me, haha. the other reason was that I was wondering if I could get your number? to get to know you some more,” he murmured that last part.

if there was one thing you had to thank Mina for, it was at how crazy accurate she was with certain things.

“yeah, that’s fine with me!” you said taking your phone out and giving it to Mirio as he did the same with him. Mirio put his name on the contact like with a heart emoji next to it as you did the same but with a blushing face instead, “but now you’re really going to have to walk me back to the dorms, my arms feel like noodles.”

Mirio without a second thought, he grabbed your crutches and put them underneath his arm before swinging you behind his back in piggyback mode. you laughed as he carefully pulled on the leg with your broken knee to wrap around his waist, “hold on tight, sweetheart,” he said happily.

you hit him on the shoulder, telling him to move, “come on Togata, can’t have either of us get into trouble by our advisers for missing something,” you replied.

the walk to your dorms was relatively enjoyable. Mirio making sure that the conversation didn’t die out and you felt as comfortable as possible with you on his back. you gripped onto his upper shoulders as you finally saw a few of your classmates sitting in the grass, studying under the nice weather.

“hey guys!” you said happily. Mina smirked at you as Momo stared at you, surprise written on her face, “afternoon Mirio. making sure she gets to her dorm safely?” Momo said.

“of course!” Mirio replied excitedly, “that’s if it’s okay with all of you!” he added on.

Momo and Mina nodded, telling him it was more than okay. you let him walk into the living space where Sero, Kirishima, and Bakugou were at.

Bakugou instantly felt himself getting angry at Mirio all over again. it was like he was burning his stare into Mirio as you gave him kind of a dirty look for that. Sero and Kirishima could feel the small tension going on in the room as he watched Mirio help you get your bag onto your back so you could safely enter the elevator, him claiming that he didn’t feel comfortable entering the dorms all the way.

you quietly told him goodbye, whispering that you’d text him later tonight.

from that day forward, Bakugou felt the way you were now putting all your attention to Mirio. the way you would leave the dorm on some nights, completely missing your ‘study’ time with him to go hang out with Mirio in the lunch room.

other times, he would see Mirio waiting for you outside of the class, promptly doing what he used to. Mirio would be holding your favorite coffee and snack, asking you to come to his dorms to study with Nejire and Tamaki.

you had already gotten extremely friendly with Nejire as she took her place as your cooler, older friend. Tamaki was still getting a bit used to you but he could sense the way you felt about Mirio and vice versa.

yeah, he had saw Mirio happy all the time but this was different. sometimes, you were all Mirio could talk about. the slightest of things like a purple pen would have him talking about how he still kept the mechanical pencil you had left on the bench when you first met him.

one Saturday afternoon, you were sitting with Kirishima and Bakugou, having your mid-day coffee as all of you were talking about random things. your conversation was cut short as you saw Mirio’s contact pull up, asking you to Facetime in a few minutes.

“you and Togata are getting kinda close,” Kirishima said a bit cautiously. you nodded happily, laying your head on Katsuki’s shoulder, “yeah, he’s perfect, honestly. he’s so nice, the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, and to be truthful? I think he might ask me out soon.”

Kirishima gave Bakugou a quick glance as Bakugou stood as stiff as a bored, seeing your phone go off with Mirio’s Facetime. you got off the chair, basically walking away without saying goodbye to them as they heard Mirio talking to you, a bit too affectionate for Bakugou’s liking.

as class had gotten dismissed for lunch, you saw Mirio walking into the class, making sure Aizawa was no longer there. you gave him a smile, waving at him to come in.

“hi Miri!” you said, digging for you ID that you needed for lunch. he smiled nervously at you, “I brought you lunch! Nejire helped me with it and was wondering if you’d like to come eat it with us!” he said.

“of course, lets get going before we’re late,” you said trying to wipe the nervous look off of him. he grabbed your wrist lightly, “I promised Tamaki that if he saw you today, it would be with you being my girlfriend....”

you stood silent for a moment, everyone who was hearing the conversation waiting for an answer, “Mirio,” you whispered, “you dork,” you got onto your tip toes to give him a kiss on the cheek, “yes, yes I will,” you finally answered.

he laughed, bringing you into a bone crushing hug as he swayed you slightly. what you didn’t know as Bakugou standing in the back of the class, ready to rip everything in close proximity into shreds as he saw Mirio place a playful kiss on your forehead before grabbing your hand and dragging you out of class.

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Stupid For You, Chapter 7 (Crygi, Jankie, Jaida x Nicky) - Metaluna

Fic summary: A cliche lesbian AU. It’s the summer before Gigi goes to college, and she decides it’s time to take a job at a local amusement park. There, she meets Crystal, a beautiful girl that she with bonds over the anxiety of the service industry. Almost immediately, Gigi gets it BAD for Crystal. Meanwhile, Jackie definitely ISN’T gay. She likes men. Only. Men. What happens when a beautiful girl named Jan comes into the picture? And lastly, Nicky flirts with anything with a pulse. Jaida falls for anyone who gives her attention. This is going to be one interesting summer

Chapter summary: If anyone knows how to party, it’s the staff of Paradise Isle. When Brita turns 21, she’s determined to have the biggest party Paradise Isle has ever seen.

A/N: Hi everyone! I officially outlined the rest of the fic so it’s going to be 10 chapters total, three more to go!!

By the time Gigi made it down the exit ramp, all she wanted to do was leave. She heard Jan behind her, but kept moving forward. Her heart beat was pounding in her ears and she began to feel warm tears form in her eyes.

“Gigi, wait!” Jan called.

Gigi didn’t listen and instead kept walking. Jan managed to chase her all the way into The Landing until Gigi stopped dead in her tracks, rested her face in her hands and started crying. Wordlessly, Jan went up to her and wrapped her in a gentle embrace. Once Gigi broke away, Jan led them to a bench, and stayed quiet. She knew Gigi was about to explode at any second.

And she was right.

“How could she do that? What the hell? If she didn’t want to see me, she could have just fucking said something! I have no idea what the hell I did to her and why she’s acting the way she is, but I guess fuck my feelings! Right? Just fuck them!” Gigi threw her hands up in frustration before crying into Jan’s shoulder.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Jan cooed rubbing Gigi’s hair. She knew Gigi’s mascara was staining her shirt, but it was something she could worry about later.

“How could she?” Gigi’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know, baby. There’s no way to know what’s running through her bizarre little head.”

Gigi wiped her eyes, trying to salvage what was left of her makeup. “I’m overreacting.”

“No, you aren’t. You need to feel whatever it is that you’re feeling. Your feelings are valid and you’re entitled to them,” Jan said firmly.

“I want to hate her.”

“Why?”

Gigi sighed. “I want to hate her, because that means I wouldn’t be in love with her anymore.”

“Wow,” Jan began. “I didn’t realize you were in that deep.”

“Jan, it’s bad.”

“Sounds like it.”

“If I could just hate her, I could be done and move on. I hate that when I see her pictures on Instagram with her shitty boyfriend, all I can do is think about how I wish it was me. I hate that she’s the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about when I go to bed. I just want to hate her.”

“Do you honestly believe do any good?” Jan questioned.

Gigi mulled it over and sighed. “No. What am I going to do?”

“I wish I knew what to tell you, Gigi, but I don’t. But, we can figure out what we’re doing tonight. Do you want to leave, or do you want to keep hanging out with everyone? After the look I gave her and what I said to her, I don’t think she’ll come anywhere near you anytime.”

Gigi looked stunned. “Jan what the hell did you tell her?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jan winked.

“I’m not going to let her ruin my night.” Gigi’s tone was determined. “Let’s go.”

–

Nicky and Jaida were awkwardly left behind in the queue. Since they were next, they ended up going on the roller coaster. Jaida had to admit, a roller coaster was a lot less fun when one of your friends was experiencing emotional trauma, even if you were in the front.

“Should we go find them?” Nicky asked as she grabbed her purse.

Jaida thought for a moment and said, “Honestly? I don’t want to make it worse. Gigi trusts Jan and I want Gigi to talk through all the emotional shit she’s feeling.”

“Good point.”

Jaida and Nicky made their way through The Backlands. Jaida knew that she had feelings for Nicky that Nicky didn’t share. Jaida also knew that every time they slept together, she felt herself falling a little harder. As much as Jaida didn’t want to break her own heart for her final summer at the park, she swore something felt different about Nicky.

As they walked, Jaida swung her hand forward making contact with Nicky’s to test her response.

“Sorry,” Nicky mumbled putting her hand closer to her side.

The response is not the one Jaida was looking for, which caused her to sigh.

Nicky slowed her pace. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Jaida forced a smile. “Just tired.”

“Gotcha.”

Jaida wondered how dense Nicky could be. Even though Jaida couldn’t be mad that Nicky didn’t return her feelings, it still frustrated her. While Jaida knew it was a horrible idea to keep going with their fling, she liked Nicky so much that she’d rather have her physically than not at all.

Or did she?

This wasn’t healthy for her mental state. Jaida had enough on her plate already. Between writing essay after essay for law schools throughout the country as well as working six days a week, Jaida was nearing her limit. As much as she tried to tell herself that her fling with Nicky helped her decompress, she knew that wasn’t the case. It made everything much, much worse. Before she could think on it further, she was interrupted by her phone vibrating with a text from Jan.

so I honestly cant tell if gigi’s more hurt or pissed at crystal and honestly it really doesnt matter but she did say she wants to keep the night to keep going so I say let’s do it! we’re at the landing rn, where are you??

Quickly, Jaida reiterated to Nicky the situation, and texted back, Okay, good! We’ll meet you there.

The rest of the night was filled with memorable selfies, laughs that were mostly at the extent of Jan’s inability to ride roller coasters, and by the end of the night, Gigi felt great, and was determined to not let one person ruin what was already an incredible summer.

Following National Roller Coaster Day, Jaida, Nicky, Jan, and Gigi bonded even further, and became inseparable. Through hanging out with Jan, Gigi also developed a very close bond with Jackie. Gigi never had a group of friends before, and was thankful she had such an amazing group of friends.

Gigi formed such a close bond with her friends that she all but forgot about Crystal. At times, they ran into each other in the break room, and every time, they didn’t so much as look at each other. While the environment was tense, there was never any negativity. No one was outwardly mean to each other. In fact, everyone but Gigi maintained being friendly with Crystal. Gigi couldn’t allow this to upset her, since they were all adults and could choose their friends. At times though, it did feel like a punch in the gut when Gigi was on her breaks and saw Jan stop to talk to Crystal.

One day, Gigi sat in the breakroom. As she at her lunch, Brita sat across from her.

“Hey, Brita,” Gigi greeted.

“As you know, my birthday is drawing near.”

All Brita talked about was how she was going to turn twenty one in a couple of weeks. Everyone knew it was Brita’s birthday, including people who didn’t even know Brita.

“So I’ve heard!”

“My parents are actually going to be out of town. So, I’m going to have a party. Not just any party. No, this party is going to be so big and so memorable that they’ll be talking about this like five summers from now.”

Gigi raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Brita nodded. “I’m inviting literally everyone I know who works here…”

Gigi caught on to what Brita was saying. Even the people who weren’t well versed in what happened between Gigi and Crystal knew something was wrong. “That’s fine, Brita. I’m not going to let my relationship, or lack thereof, with someone ruin your birthday.”

“Good. It’s this Wednesday, starting at 10. That way everyone has time to get ready after work. Thank god for shortened park hours.”

The scheduling gods smiled upon Jaida, Nicky, Gigi, and Jackie. Somehow they all ended up with the same days off, one of which being Friday. It helped that Jaida always sweet talked the scheduler, and the scheduler knew who her friends were. Jaida wasn’t about using her feminine charm to get what she wanted.

The girls all agreed to get ready at Gigi’s, because she had the largest space. Getting ready with others was much more fun for Gigi than getting ready alone. Although, she had to admit it was a different feeling when she and Crystal got ready together for Heidi’s party. She forced that thought out of her head as she put on an 80’s playlist. Deciding what to wear to a party was Gigi’s favorite part of getting ready. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, she wanted this party to be the exact opposite as the previous party. Because of this, Gigi opted to wear a tight orange halter top with an blue high-waisted shorts, which was the exact opposite of her black and white outfit.

“You look like your room,” Jan teased eyeing Gigi’s room decor.

Gigi rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault that my two favorite colors look amazing on me.”

“Fair,” Jaida mused as she rummaged through her bag. “Shit. I forgot my eyelash glue.”

Nicky, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground blending out a smoky eye tossed hers to Jaida. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Jaida smiled sweetly expertly applying an eyelash.

Jackie looked on incredulously. “I have no idea how you do it.”

“Lots and lots of practice,” Jaida said as she batted her eyelashes in Jackie’s direction.

“Do you ever wear more than mascara and eyeliner in your waterline?” Nicky questioned, admiring her appearance in a hand mirror.

Jackie shook her head. “I just… don’t know how to do anything else. One time I tried to do wings and it looked like a drunk toddler did them. No wait, a drunk toddler would have done better.“

Jan’s face brightened. “Can I please do your makeup? Please?”

After hesitating, Jackie said, “What the hell. Why not?”

Jan squealed as she made her way over to Jackie, who was sitting in the chair at Gigi’s desk. Watching Jan do Jackie’s makeup made Gigi feel a pang of jealousy. All through high school, she’d never had the desire to date. Of course, she definitely didn’t want a boyfriend. But, she never thought about having a girlfriend either, and only knew that she liked girls. She also never had a friend group like the one she had now. She also never thought she’d have a group of friends she could trust as much as she trusted the friends she made. For once in her life, Gigi felt safe enough to come out. Other than her family, Jan was the only person who knew, and the only reason she’d told Jan in the first place was because she was about to have a mental breakdown. But, it was time. Gigi paused the playlist.

“Everything okay, Gigi?” Nicky questioned.

Gigi took a breath. “Yes, but there’s something I have to tell all of you.”

Jan locked eyes with Gigi, already knowing what she was going to say.

“What is it?” Jaida asked setting down her brush.

“I like girls.”

Jaida ran to Gigi to give her a hug. “We love you.”

Jan laughed. “Welcome to the club.”

As Gigi unpaused the music, she breathed a sigh of relief as she topped her nude lip with gloss.

“All done!” Jan announced as she brushed powder off of Jackie’s face.

Once Gigi saw Jackie, she exclaimed, “Oh, wow.”

Jackie was already an extremely beautiful girl, but Jan’s handiwork enhanced her features. Because she knew that Jackie wasn’t one for the extravagant, Jan stuck with neutrals that gave Jackie the most effortless no-makeup-makeup look. Gigi knew that Jan was a talented makeup artist, but the makeup she did on Jackie proved it, because it was the exact opposite of Jan’s colorful halo eye she did on herself.

“Holy shit! I look good.”

Jan rolled her eyes. “You always look good, baby.”

“Thank you,” Jackie said as she kissed Jan on the cheek.

“We must commemorate this momentous occasion,” Jaida said dramatically as she signaled everyone to come in for a group photo.

“You have to take it,” Nicky said. “You have the longest arms.”

Jaida rolled her eyes. “Always.”

Once there were a few photos they were all satisfied with Gigi looked at her phone. “If we need to make a liquor run, we should probably leave now.”

Everyone piled in to Gigi’s Jeep, the group was enthusiastically discussing the night ahead. On the way to the liquor store, Jaida, who was already twenty one, made a list of what she had to purchase.

“Y’all are gonna make me look like I have a drinking problem. You best be Venmo-ing me interest,” she teased.

“We don’t have interest in France, I don’t know what that is,” Nicky joked.

Jaida playfully hit her. “You’ve lived here for over ten years.”

Nicky shushed her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Jesus Christ, just kiss already,” Gigi teased as she pulled into the liquor store’s parking lot.

Once Jaida was inside the store, Jan spoke up. “What’s actually going on between you two?”

Nicky shrugged. “Just something for us to blow off some steam.”

Jackie hesitated. “Nicky, you realize that Jaida’s never had a girlfriend before.”

“Yeah, and?”

“She also falls really hard really quickly.”

Nicky exhaled. “She never told me that. She told me that she was good keeping it casual. She tried to bring it up a while ago, but I just thought… I feel terrible.”

“It’s not your fault, honey,” Jan said.

Before Nicky could respond, Jaida returned to the car.

“That was fast,” Gigi said.

“I’ve been to that store so many times, I know where everything is.”

Gigi had heard from other people that Brita had a large house, but she didn’t expect it to be quite so big. The driveway which was lined with cars spanned the length of most people’s front yards. The house looked to be three stories and was a modern build, which was a contrast to the other ranch-style houses in the area. The music could be heard from outside of the house, and Gigi mused about how Brita was lucky that she had no neighbors.

“Damn,” Gigi said as she shut her car door.

“Yeah,” Jaida began. “Brita’s parents are fucking loaded.”

“Clearly,” Jan said.

The inside of the house was just as grandiose as the outside. Gigi thought that it looked like the sample rooms inside of furniture stores. She didn’t realize that people’s houses actually could look like that. The living room was decorated with fairy lights and streamers, and in the corner were two gold balloons that said 21. The party was already abuzz, the entirety of the first floor was full of people, most of which Gigi didn’t recognize, and was almost certain Brita probably didn’t either.

Brita greeted them at the door, pulling them into a hug. Gigi could already smell the alcohol. “Hi, babes!”

“Happy birthday, bitch!” Jaida exclaimed handing Brita a fifth of Everclear.

Brita’s laugh was loud enough that it could be heard over the music. “You rotted bitch.”

“On our first season together, Brita drank way too much Everclear and got super hungover, and had to call out the next day,” Jaida explained. “You best be getting that drunk again tonight. If I see you at work tomorrow, I’m going to be pissed.“

“I have tomorrow off,” Brita said smugly.

“You’re going to need it,” Jan teased.

“Thanks! So over there we have a photobooth, beer pong in the dining room, the pool’s available if you want, too. Oh, and if you need a place to get down and dirty,” she looked at Nicky and Jaida. “Just don’t use my bedroom.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jaida said, rolling her eyes.

As everyone was about to explore, Brita screeched, “Wait!”

“What?” Gigi asked.

“Let’s do a shot of this.” Brita raised the bottle of Everclear.

“Oh dear, God,” Jackie said making gagging noises.

“It’s my birthday, bitches!”

Since nobody could argue with that, they went in to the kitchen. In the attached dining room, an intense game of beer pong was going down with Widow and Heidi against Crystal and some boy Gigi vaguely recognized as being one of the team leads in games. Trying to stay casual, Gigi waved to Heidi and Widow who smiled in return. Thankfully, Crystal’s back was turned to Gigi, and by the time she turned, Gigi had her back turned to take the shot.

“I’m already too drunk to pour the shots,” Brita slurred.

Jaida rolled her eyes as she took the bottle and expertly poured shots.

“To Brita!” Gigi said raising her glass.

“To Brita!” Everyone repeated as they toasted, set the shot on the table, and took the shot.

Gigi thought she was good at taking shots. But, Gigi had also never had Everclear. Convinced that its reputation preceded it, she didn’t properly prepare herself. She thought she was just taking a shot of cheap vodka, not a shot of rubbing alcohol.

“Merde!” Nicky exclaimed.

Jackie set her glass down as she winced. “That was so bad, Nicky forgot how to speak English!”

Because she couldn’t get the taste of shitty vodka out of her mouth, the only thing Gigi could do was to drink something else. The Whiteclaw Jaida bought for her tasted like juice in comparison, so much so that Gigi drank it a lot faster than she should have.

As Gigi felt the alcohol hit, Jan said, “Let’s go take pictures.”

Most of the time, Gigi found photobooths to be tacky. They were a staple of boring weddings and basic-ass graduation parties. But, because she already had a nice buzz going, she gladly posed with oversized sunglasses.

Everyone sat on a red leather couch as they began drinking. Jan and Jackie shared a bottle of rum that they chased with Diet Coke. Jaida was chasing her Jack with ginger ale. Nicky, on the other hand, was shooting whiskey like there was no tomorrow. Gigi felt lame that everyone else wad drinking liquor but her, but she didn’t care. She wanted to enjoy what she was drinking.

When a Madonna song began playing, the girls screeched and made their way to the dancefloor. Gigi had decent rhythm, but tonight, as far as she was concerned, she was killing it. As she dropped low, she almost fell, but kept her balance as she made her way back up. While she watched Jackie and Jan dancing closely and watched Nicky grind against Jaida, Gigi couldn’t help but feel like a fifth wheel. She remedied the situation by cracking open another Whiteclaw.

“I need a break,” Nicky announced when the song ended.

Jan whispered something in Jackie’s ear before saying, “We’ll be back!”

“May I have this dance, Ms. Hall?” Gigi asked holding her hand out.

“Oh, bitch, you know it.”

After a few songs, Gigi announced, “I’ll be back!”

It was the time of the night that Gigi needed to break her seal. Unfortunately for her, there was a line for the bathroom. She dramatically jumped up and down until she made it to the bathroom. Once she finished, she was greeted by a sobbing Jaida.

“Jaida, what the fuck is wrong?” Gigi asked leading her into a bedroom upstairs.

“Nicky,” Jaida managed.

“What about Nicky?”

“I went to go find her to see if she wanted to dance or something, but then… I saw her… and I saw Brita. On the couch… making out.”

It was very clear that Jaida had too much to drink. For a while, Gigi was convinced that this year would break the streak of Jaida getting her heart broken. Even though Gigi wanted to give Jaida some tough love and tell her she and Nicky weren’t exclusive, she knew it wasn’t the time for that. Instead, she wrapped her in a hug.

“Hey,” Gigi said stroking Jaida’s hair. “It’s okay.”

“I knew that she didn’t want a relationship. Why does this hurt so much?”

“Because you like her, clearly a lot.”

“Why does this always happen?” Jaida wailed.

Gigi knew she wasn’t good at comforting people, but decided to try her best. “I don’t know. But Jaida, your makeup is far too pretty to cry it all off.”

Hoping that Jaida would find her comment funny, Gigi tried to laugh. This only made Jaida cry harder. Fuck. Gigi knew she wasn’t any good at any of this, but she knew who was. She needed to find Jan before Jaida lost her mind.

“I’ll be back,” Gigi said leaving a sobbing Jaida in the bedroom.

Gigi searched the entire first floor for Jan with no luck. Eventually, she ran into Jackie.

“Gigi, what the hell is happening? Jaida’s apparently crying, Nicky left… What’s going on?” Jackie demanded.

“I guess Jaida found Brita and Nicky making out.”

Jackie groaned. “Of course Because why would she be able to make it a summer without getting her pretty little heart broken?”

When Jackie and Jan made their way back in the bedroom, Jaida was right where Gigi left her.

“Do you know where Jan is?” Gigi questioned as Jackie was hugging a very distraught Jaida.

“I think she’s outside.”

“If anyone knows how to handle this, it’s her,” Gigi said as she walked downstairs.

Gigi realized just how drunk she was as she stumbled around trying to find Jan. Eventually, she found her comforting some random drunk girl. To Gigi’s horror, the random drunk girl ended up being Crystal.

“Uh, I need you,” Gigi said awkwardly walking to Jan.

Jan looked at Gigi and mouthed, “Help me,” as she broke away from Crystal. “What’s up, gorg?”

Crystal awkwardly stood next to Jan, swaying back and forth. Gigi couldn’t help but wonder how much Crystal had to drink.

“It’s Jaida.”

“Oh my God, I haven’t seen Jaida in ages,” Crystal slurred.

Jan shushed Crystal. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She found Nicky making out with Brita,” Gigi explained.

Jan groaned. “This is bad.”

“That’s really not good. Are they fighting?” Crystal tried as hard as possible to not slur her speech. “Fighting is bad.”

Rolling her eyes, Jan said, “Yes, honey. Fighting is bad. Really bad.“

Crystal stumbled toward Gigi. “Gigi, I’m really sorry we’re fighting.”

Gigi ignored her. “Jan, can you do that thing where you comfort people when they’re crying?”

“I can try,” Jan said.

“Gigi! Stop ignoring me. We’re fighting! And I don’t want us to!” Crystal pouted.

“Crystal, we can discuss this when you’re sober,” Gigi said firmly.

“I’m sober enough!” Crystal said jumping up and down. She then stopped and put one hand over her mouth and one on her stomach.

“Crystal. No!” Gigi screeched.

It was too late. Crystal lost all the alcohol she’d consumed. Jan reacted quickly enough to take a step back, but Gigi wasn’t that lucky. Gigi screamed as her favorite boots became covered in vomit.

"What the fuck?!” Gigi screamed.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #crystal methyd #jackie cox #jan sport #jaida essence hall #nicky doll #crygi #jankie #jaida x nicky #lesbian au #slow burn #stupid for you #metaluna #submission #s12

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blindtaleteller · 4 years

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GROUNDED: Favorite (ouch) exerpts - CH. 2

Realized I haven’t done one in a while after posting in response to @rhodee

Bebs, thankies for reading if you do; and if you haven’t, this one’s for you. Cause yeah. I get the feels still just re-reading it even.

---------===========PAINT IT BLACK -CH2-PS:2-\\TONY//

“ Hey… uh, Lolo? ”

“ What is it? “ he could hear him getting up the stairs. “ There’s a man that looks suspiciously like he’s come at least from your family of fantasy parade brigade, coming to the door. You know anything about this? “

“ If I did, I wouldn’t have been as surprised as you about the sound of his apparent arrival.. “ was tossed at him on his quick way past. He was out the door and talking with him, before Tony took his own first step out; and caught sight of the three unmarked coming up his driveway. Loki had the Lord of the Rings extra well in hand apparently, but that set of trucks? He knew the model. “ Shield. Looks like there’s some for me to handle, too. “ was said to him on his way past them to meet the other suits at least, past the back bumper of his ‘gini. It wasn’t a surprise that Romanov and Fury were the first to appear out of the trio of off-roaders. He really, wasn’t happy to see Barton right that second though. Especially with that ready to shoot set to his mouth and gait. “ Guys! I was, just about to call you. “

“ Yeah I would hope so. “

“ Hello sir! “ was Nat completely ignoring him and stepping past to try and get … actually, and as following her brought the battle-dressed guy back into his view; why was the off-worlder she was after in the full regalia bit headed the other, way already now? And, brief twist of a too familiar device? He was gone, under the same boom. Same flash of upwards light. Before Nat even got a response; though how he got out was not a good sign.

“ Was that the Tesseract? “ brought his eyes back to Fury, disbelieving he hadn’t been the only one to see that. Or maybe hoping he hadn’t? “ Hey! “ whipped Tony’s head back around just in time to see Loki “ I ain’t done talkin’ to you! I ain’t even started! “ at full speed dashing back into the house and vault the weird new railing rather than take the stairs they’d fixed.

“ ...something’s wrong. “

“ You think? “

“ No, Nick.. something’s very, wrong. “ his feet started moving late? But he was in the door and at that rail faster than the others could even get in the door. The computer was in view down from the railing. He wasn’t there; but he could hear him moving. The lack of care and crash of things falling wasn’t his way. Wasn’t his style.

“ Loki..? “ his feet couldn’t get him fast enough down those spiral stairs into the much smaller workshop. No answer. He could hear the hiss of a few curses, see the lock was busted on his tech garage and the doors wide open. The side light on, and harsh, fast movements going on inside between the crack of the door and the mesh wall his tools were plugged and hooked into. That alone; the space he’d promised not to go into and fact it was busted open like that; blatantly abandoned that fast. That just amped up the adrenaline, and dropped Anthony’s stomach a few more feet into his knees.

“ Must be something, to make you break this rule, like this: broad daylight. We agreed, yeah? No .. making folks, or me; suspicious by screwing around with my garage. Computer parts, okay. No suit mechanics; no ship parts or heavy tech. Nothing substantial that might pass as or be able to be weaponized. That was the deal. “ only paused the motions as he slowed down, angling himself carefully to try and see what he was doing. What he might be looking for. “ I know the stuff in there better’n you, you know! You wanna tell me; what you’re lookin’ for and; what the hell is going on? Real good time for it right now. Cause I think you’re making Barton’s bow hand itchy, as is. “

“ Let it, itch. “ pulled Tony’s head back a few degrees. He was taking pieces of unfinished suit bits apart. Hands moving fast, at the wielding iron and punching directions into the cutting laser like he knew what he was doing. “ Stand aside, Stark; Nat, you too. “ Stark couldn’t see what he was making; but it definitely had a purpose. This wasn’t tinkering, going on at his bench. He was more worried. “ No, “ came at a glance. He was also impressed and feeling a little cheated. Didn’t know he had the knowhow.. “ I won’t. I trust him. “ was said firmly enough, and with enough truth and concern behind it that it was almost flat when he finished: “ And this is my house. Take that gun and get the hell out of it. “

He heard the hissing sounds of Nat’s breath catching on words behind him; convincing Barton to do as he said. Heard the small click and shift of the safety. Yeah, he knew he’d been right on that one; but it still bit a little that was the situation they were in. “ Good girl .. I’ll treat you to something, later. Leave us alone. Or close enough to make us feel it? I smell something personal in the air. “

“ We’ll be right upstairs. “ had him nodding, and; as soon as he heard them clear that last steel step: taking a few forward. He knew they’d be in earshot. Or at least one or two would. He was betting heavily on all though; and wasn’t unconcerned enough to care. That they were here that fast said he and Loki had been right and they had been at the least; watching, listening, or both, for a while.

“ You know I’ve trusted you. Still do; and a lot more than I should . “ slowed him down a little while he was attaching a power source. “ Come on man. What’s goin’ on. I’m shit , at reading minds so please , don’t make me turn the key, slap the metal on; and put you on the floor to get the answer out. We both know neither one of us want that. “ breath in. “ Woulda done it by now if either one a us did . “

“ You wouldn’t understand. “

“ Won’t know that until you try me. “

“ I have to leave. -- “

“ What, no. Definitely no-- “

“ I’ll come back. I promise.. I will finish this work. “

“ -not happening. What the hell has got you so suddenly ...crazy!? “

He heard the words. He did. They just; exploded in his ears afterwards. Left him completely deaf, numb; and absolutely bereft of the ability to think of anything but. It didn’t register, right away. But oh. Oh man, did he get it. The quiet. The sudden rush to get down here, and get home: somehow.

All Tony could see, in his own mind; was the pretty way she would fold her mouth in when she was trying not to laugh at one of either of their stupid jokes. The quiet way she lit up when he said in so many words over those two days how much, her son took after her. The way she just; stood of to the side with the smallest happy smiles, laugh lines softening that already warm face: watching them play chess from the corner, or right there at one side of the table pouring for them while they threw out all sorts of conversations at each other. At her . The curtsies, she flipped him every now and again, once she realized it made him laugh too. Inwards and otherwise. The words she’d tossed at their back, trusting him ; on their way out of that place.

“ I don’t.. “

The air sucked right back into his lungs, took the rest of the words with it so he almost choked on them. All he could think of, was his own mom.

Couldn’t be right.

Wasn’t , right.

Right?

“ I don’t think I heard you right. “

And then he repeated it. Same tone. Same six words. Like his head was as still as the raging tornado going on in Tony’s.. No. Worse. And he knew it. Knew; the only way to keep his hands steady, from breaking down into an unrecognizable heap of blood, tears and bone turned jell-o was to keep moving and keep his words even. Control himself ; if he couldn’t control the situation . Because..?

Because I’ve been here. There. Right there.

He saw it. The contained shake to his joints from the effort to keep it together and keep moving. Keep from stalling out and falling down. Hear, the deafening silence in between the much needed white noise of putting together whatever was being made between his fingers and the screaming, bleeding shock of insanity pushing it and being pushed away all at once in the same space.

That was me.

I heard it too. Didn’t want to.

“ My mother’s dead. They killed her. “

I heard him right.

Now. Breathe. Think.

Because he can’t, not right now and not really.

In, and...

“ Tell me what you’re looking for. And what you’re making. “ ..came out. Probably in the same tone right as he just reached over and tapped the panic button to his right. Just a little touch. With a really big backlash he put on reserve for later. He knew and didn’t care. Not about that .

Eight inches of steel slab hydraulically powered to shut them in from the upper floors, and the open sea to his left. It wasn’t quiet either. And that aside, did not close without more than a few curses and calls of his name from above he was blatantly ignoring before they were sealed away behind it on all sides. The emergency lighting came up a second later. Tony was already next to him, peeling back his sleeves to help out where he could. “ One thing I’ve learned in the week since we started working together? Four hands are better than two, when they’re ours. “

“ Give me the sitrep if you can, when you can get the words out. “ was said as he flipped on the extra lights above board. “ I’m in. “ he saw him turn his head, but didn’t meet the green-grey stare. And because he knew; because he was moving like that; and the guy didn’t take him back with him, but he remembered way more clearly now; that he had said he would see him: that he did.. “ You’ve got a plan. I’ll follow it. “

#GROUNDED #frostiron #the feels #frigga #angst #loki #tony stark #rhodee #<3

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half-anidiot · 4 years

Text

love

the flystep hanahaki au no one asked for

word count: 2480

cross posted here on my ao3

for maximum angst listen to already gone by sleeping at last while reading

Kieran didn’t even have to see the flowers to know what they were like.

Rose bushes were lodged in his lungs, making their home where they were not welcome. They took up all the room, expelling the air and oxygen that should have been coursing through his body in favor of growing black roses that clawed their way out of his throat leaving behind blood and aches that sucking on ice cubes could not fix. Black roses because that was the color of their eyes - eyes black and as deep as miles beneath the ocean and holding just as many secrets as they did sins.

Daniel could have tried hiding it (a futile endeavor, but maybe it would have helped settle his mind), but he just showed up to their meeting spot without bothering to mask the raspy voice or red-rimmed stare that never found itself able to meet Kieran’s. It broke a piece of Kieran to see him like that. Daniel was Herald, the Golden Boy, lovable, sweet, kind, and the poster boy for how much good the Rangers could do. He might have been beaten, stepped on, and defeated, but Kieran had never seen him look so broken. Even after the fight at the museum, his screams hadn’t turned into something to be pitied. They were created from the pain that Kieran had spun with their own hands, but filled with frustration, anger, and humiliation. The fear that Kieran had known Daniel was feeling never leaked through, something that they had to give him credit for.

It was different when Daniel grabbed them this time. Forget the fact that it was cloudy when it was usually sunny, tense silence filling the empty void that used to hold quick smiles and light jabs, the way his arms felt wrapped around them felt unequivocally wrong. What typically felt like a shield from the world (such an odd thought that was, Daniel protecting them) felt like a vice squeezing both their body and their heart to the point of bursting. Kieran was almost surprised that Daniel didn’t cough up any petals from the contact, but as they shot through the city past glass buildings and reflective metal both they and Daniel could feel the tickle beginning to build.

Daniel didn’t utter a word, too focused on not dropping Kieran from shaking arms and fighting back the rose that was inching its way up through his windpipe. His thoughts tended to race to and fro like butterflies being swirled into a panic, but during the flight they were slow. A creeping sludge of toxic self-loathing and sorrow that it made even Kieran hold back tears.

Desolate.

Terrified.

Grieving.

Yet here Daniel was, holding the source of his misery tight in his arms as if afraid Kieran would try to leap from his grasp to escape him.

For the millionth time in their life, Kieran wished they could love.

---

The first petal came out after Kieran’s first punch. It was almost comical in a sick, twisted way. Daniel had been too slow, and Kieran, in typical Kieran fashion, had socked him right in the stomach. As their fist slammed into his midsection, he coughed up a blood-splattered petal as if the force of Kieran’s hit had forced it from where it had been resting idly at the base of his throat.

The world seemed to cease movement. Breeze stilling, sounds of the traffic and bustle of life around them quieted as Daniel and Kieran held their breath. One lone black smudge tainted the darkest of reds fell gently to the roof below their feet. It swung back and forth, holding some hypnotic sway over the pair. As it touched down softly time started again. Kieran exhaled so heavily it hurt their chest. Daniel seemed frozen, dull blue gaze locked onto the unmoving petal despite the blissfully cool breeze that had picked up again.

Tentatively, Kieran raised a solitary arm to tap hesitantly on his shoulder. “Daniel…?”

He recoiled as if Kieran’s touch had wounded them (and it hurt, it hurt more than it had any right to considering the circumstances), breathing going from nonexistent to fast and hard in a matter of seconds. Daniel’s eyes were filled with unshed tears, half sobs escaping his chest in a wet ragged sound that scraped against Kieran’s ears and soul. The sludge thoughts had once again turned into the butterflies. However, instead of buttercup and golden sunlight, they were made of razor-sharp metal edges and torn up paper. They swept around Daniel’s mind, leaving bleeding gashes wherever they touched until his psyche was bleeding more than even his throat and lungs were.

“Daniel,” Kieran said more firmly, taming the fear that threatened to overtake their voice knowing it would only make everything worse, “Daniel, look at me.”

For the first time that day, blue met black.

That was, of course, when it all went to hell.

Daniel started choking and Kieran rushed to catch him without even thinking about what they were doing. Hands going under Daniel’s arms, they pulled to keep him from sagging to the ground as his chest spasmed. Guilty tears filled Kieran’s eyes as Daniel gagged and retched, body trying to evict the blossoms that bloomed in his airways. Finally, after what seemed hours of Daniel’s awful noises, he vomited up whatever meager breakfast he had eaten (fruit from the looks of it), blood, and an entire rose. It was mangled. The stem was twisted and torn, the petals had been crushed, and yet Kieran could not help but find some semblance of beauty in it.

Kieran had to hold in a shriek as they studied the flower.

Daniel sagged in their grip and Kieran slowly knelt to the ground while holding Daniel against their chest. His eyes were half-closed, a bleary look being thrown Kieran’s way before they closed completely. Kieran wasn’t sure what it was, perhaps the hopeless aura that Daniel wore like a mantle around his shoulders, but they let loose a desperate whisper of, “I’m so sorry.”

Daniel, being Daniel, responded weakly, “I know, it’s ok.” His hand fingers softly tapped an insignificant pattern on Kieran’s thigh where his hand rested. “I...I love you.”

“I know, Daniel,” Kieran said, wobbly and wavering. “But I-I can’t - ”

“I know.”

But that was the thing.

He didn’t.

---

Kieran had been created to do two things.

Infiltrate.

Listen.

Anything outside of that never should have occurred.

Kieran wasn’t sure what was different about them - wasn’t sure they had the emotional or mental capacity to study it. But they had the capacity for more. Kieran could feel things they never should have felt - happiness, sadness, anger, despair, excitement, and yet…

Kieran had never been able to love.

For everything they could feel, the emotion that everyone held most dear and closest to their hearts was foreign to Kieran. They had never felt the fluttering of butterflies in their stomach, had never wanted to hold someone so close to them that they became one, had never desired to intertwine their soul with another.

Before Heartbreak, Kieran had had exactly three people they would die for, but to live for someone? To be able to open up and show every leaking wound, every scar that marred their body, every tattoo that lined their body in bright, disgusting, neon orange? It didn’t make sense. There was no guarantee that the person would stay, that they would see what was hidden and not flinch from horror. There was no guarantee that hatred wouldn’t rear its ugly head and strike when you were most vulnerable and leave you half dead and grasping at the strings of life that were slipping away.

Kieran had never felt it, had never understood it.

All it did was further prove that whatever abomination Kieran was, they were most certainly not human.

Under three layers of clothing (far too many for the heat of Los Diablos) Kieran sat trembling. They were parked on a bench in the dog park. The sun sat high in the sky, a big yellow yolk against a cheerily blue and cloudless expanse. It seemed the universe was mocking Kieran today. Everything seemed more vivid and strikingly beautiful, as if the contrast on the world had been turned up by ten.

The dogs ran to and fro, happy minds leaving streaks of pastel pink and gold against Kieran’s when they dragged against the last of Kieran’s inner defenses - a wall that they had been building since they had enough conscious thought to do so. It was sturdy, but simple, and thick enough to keep out even experienced telepaths. Over time the outside layer had grown battered, pieces chipped away and different colors splashed against the sides from where other minds had left lasting impacts. They couldn’t be washed off, Kieran had tried many times. The mental paint stuck no matter how Kieran tried to remove it. But the excitement today was leaving without any say so from Kieran. No matter how much they tugged and pulled at the remnants they fled from Kieran like water slipping between their fingers.

With a violent shudder, Kieran jolted from their thoughts just in time to catch Steel walking towards them.

Suddenly they couldn’t breathe.

It had been a week since the rooftop with Daniel, and Kieran had not seen him since then. It hadn’t been his choice from what they had heard. Daniel had fought tooth and nail to be able to try and see them, but he had been held back by doctors, Ortega, and Steel. The only contact they had had since the fateful day was a single phone call that Kieran would rather forget.

---

“Dan-Daniel?”

Hey, Kieran.

“I-how are you doing?”

I’m...I’m not doing that well, honestly. The doctors told me I only have about a week unless I get the surgery.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

...I’m not getting it.

“...what?”

I’m not going through with the surgery Kieran.

“What do you mean you aren’t going through with the surgery?”

I’m not going to lose all my memories of you. They told me that I run the chance of completely forgetting your existence and I...I’m not doing that. Not just because of you, but because a lot of my memories of my brother are...tied with you.

“Daniel, do you even hear how you sound? Your voice is paper-thin. I don’t even want to know how much weight you’ve lost or when the last time you ate was. This is your life we’re talking about - ”

I’m not losing that. Memories are all I have left of him.

“Daniel if you don’t get the surgery you won’t have to worry about not having th - ”

I’m not getting the sur -

“YOU’LL BE DEAD!”

…

I’d rather be dead than not have the two most important people in my life.

CLICK.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

---

A sour taste filled Kieran’s mouth as Steel solemnly told them, “Figured you’d be here. He wants to see you.”

His voice cracked halfway through and his eyes were rubbed raw enough that the pink shone in the sunlight. Steel, despite his namesake, was just as human as the rest of the world. For all he said about Daniel, there was a fondness there that Kieran didn’t quite understand.

Love, but not in the way that they had come to expect it.

“Is-is it - ”

“It’s time.”

The car ride was a blur comprised of shaking hands and a head filled with fog. Kieran couldn’t see straight, couldn’t think straight, couldn’t do anything but sit and tremble and stare out the window as if something would jump in and clean up the mess that had been created.

Kieran felt like their head had been shoved underwater. Their vision was skewed and everything sounded muffled like someone was trying to speak while they were under. They had done enough research to know that they were dissociating, but as the car ride went by in silence, Kieran couldn’t help but feel slightly grateful. At least, like this, they couldn’t feel anything.

They couldn’t feel the grief that was already welling up in their throat, the heartache, the terror, the desperation that tasted like metal and felt just as heavy on their tongue. It was a poison that the fog blanketing their brain and senses kept at bay.

Before they knew it, Kieran was standing outside of Daniel’s room struggling to open the door. With a shaky inhale, Kieran pulled it open and nearly broke down at the sight that awaited them.

Daniel, the perfectly golden butterfly boy, heart and soul of an angel had had his wings clipped. His thin body lay under white covers (too white, too pure for the toxic disease that Daniel held in his lungs) covered in pale skin that wore a thin sheen of sweat like another layer of clothing. Blue eyes that had once burned fever bright with determination and passion were dull and wrapped in shadows made of purple and red.

Kieran walked over numbly, not quite believing that what they were seeing was real. Any minute now, they would wake up twisted in their sheets from this horrid nightmare and go off to beat Daniel’s ass in a few hours. That had to happen. It had to.

But it wasn’t.

Daniel gave one weak smile underneath the ventilator, eyes glowing as Kieran sat in the chair waiting for them and grabbed Daniel’s hand. It was clammy and he was only able to give a slight squeeze in response to the death grip Kieran had on it.

For minutes, maybe even seconds, they sat there together.

Daniel and Kieran.

Kieran and Daniel.

For once, the light losing to the darkness.

And then he was gone.

Kieran could feel the moment he died. The last butterfly flapped its wings to the beat of their name Kieran Kieran Kieran Kieran before dropping to the ground of Daniel’s mind. The last glimmer of light went out like a flickering candle in his eyes.

It was there it was there -

It was gone.

He was gone.

There was no long speech, no ‘I love you’.

One minute he was there, looking into Kieran’s eyes like they were the sun he revolved around (as if Kieran was more important than him) and the next he was dead.

Kieran didn’t remember anything after that.

---

Not even two days later as they lay wrapped in their blankets as if they could save them from the pain that clogged their lungs with mucus and some invisible force that pushed mercilessly on their chest, Kieran felt a tickle at the base of their throat. With a shudder they coughed, they heaved, they gagged, they choked and -

A petal.

A petal blue as the sky and twice as bright - exactly like Kieran remembered Daniel’s eyes.

Kieran could love after all.

#flystep #fhr #fallen hero retribution #sidestep #herald/sidestep #daniel sullivan #angst #hurt no comfort #this really isnt happy guys #i cried 4 times writing this #it is currently 1 am #hanahaki au

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freddiesaysalright · 5 years

Text

Peace Like A River Part 2

A Gwilym Lee x Reader Story

Summary: Reader is a stand up comic with a pretty dark past. She has a three new lights in her life: her daughter, Violet; her anonymous correspondent, Dear Friend; and Gwilym Lee.

Word Count: 3.4K

Tag List: @psychosupernatural, @someone-get-a-medic, @bensrhapsody, @deakyclicks, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession, @minigranger, @simmisblog, @assembledherethevolunteers, @lookuptotheskiesandsee If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Wow, you all caught on to the inspo from She Loves Me real quick lol! One of my favorite musicals of all and definitely a part of what inspired this fic. Hope you enjoy the update!

Part I

Part 2 here we go!!!

Saturday was approaching faster than you wished. On Friday night, before getting on stage, you were tempted to text Gwilym and cancel. And then call your mother and cancel going to the reunion as well. If it hadn’t been for Stacy, you absolutely would have done those things. Unfortunately, your assistant was strong willed and persistent. You were going. You thought her real intentions were to get you to see Gwilym more romantically and forget about Dear Friend. But you could never forget Dear Friend, even if Gwilym was sickeningly handsome and fun to hang out with.

On Saturday, Gwilym arrived to pick you and Violet up from your hotel around noon. You wore a simple blouse and jeans and had Violet in a dress your mother had sent her a few weeks earlier. Violet twirled around in the lobby and giggled.

“Careful, sweetie, you’re gonna get dizzy,” you warned gently.

“If she falls, I’ll catch her,” Gwilym said as he walked up.

You beamed at him. “Aren’t you a gentleman?”

“I do what I can,” he returned. “Are you ladies ready?”

“We are,” you said. “Violet, can you say hi to Gwilym?”

“Hi!” she chirped, waving to him.

“Hello, sweet girl!” he returned, along with the wave. He looked at you. “She’s certainly friendlier today.”

“It’s amazing how different they are when they aren’t tired,” you said. You turned to your daughter. “Take my hand, baby.”

She obeyed. She reached her other hand toward Gwil.

“It’s the rule,” she told him.

“Well, who am I to argue with rules?” he said with a smile.

He offered her his hand and she wrapped her little fist around his pinky. Together, you all walked out of the hotel and to the waiting car. Gwilym helped Violet in first and then you. You looked at the floor and smiled. He had brought flowers. He climbed in beside you and closed the door.

“Flowers?” you questioned.

“Naturally,” he replied with a shrug.

He picked them up and you saw there were two bouquets and a small bunch. He handed a bouquet to you.

“For you,” he said. The small bunch (which consisted of only three flowers) he handed to Violet. “For you, dear.”

“Thank you,” she said happily.

“And the last is for your mother,” he finished.

“Gwil…” you trailed off. “This is too much.”

“I’m just a dedicated actor,” he joked.

You laughed. “Whatever you say.”

The reunion was in Central Park. You and Gwilym discussed a plan and decided to go with as close to truth as possible. You had filmed together years ago and recently reconnected. It was just vague enough that it wouldn’t be hard to explain the “breakup” to your mother in a few weeks. You reached the park in no time and Gwilym helped you out of the car, just as he had helped you in. He held your hand as you walked across the grass toward your mother. Violet took off running to her grandmother, who scooped her up and kissed her cheek, leaving a big red lipstick mark.

“Hi, Grammy!” Violet giggled.

“Hello, sweetheart!” she returned.

You and Gwilym finally caught up just as she was returning Violet to the ground. Immediately, her cousins pulled her aside to play. You smiled as she ran around with them, her curls bouncing right out of her ponytail.

“Mom, this is Gwilym,” you said. “Gwilym, this is my mother.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Y/L/N,” Gwilym said, extending the flowers to her.

She took them and smiled wide. “Oh, how thoughtful! Are you a special friend of Y/N’s?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” you lied.

She let out such a shriek of delight, it startled you. She yanked a shocked Gwilym into a tight hug as she giggled.

“Finally!” she cried. “Thank God!”

She pulled away and straightened his shirt, still grinning like a madwoman.

“Mom, what the hell?” you demanded.

“I can’t help it, dear,” she returned. “I just - you know how long I’ve waited for someone to take care of you since you left Henry. Now you won’t have to do anymore of that vulgar comedy!”

“I’m still gonna do comedy,” you told her. “I’m not having this argument again.” You looked at Gwil. “Sorry about this.”

“No worries, love,” he assured you.

“Oh, he’s so English,” your mother gushed. “Well, come on and meet the rest of us, Gwilym. We won’t bite you...until we know you better.” She giggled at herself.

“Mom,” you groaned.

Gwilym chuckled.

“Don’t encourage her,” you snapped.

“What? It was cute,” he argued.

Before you could answer, he was being dragged away by your mother to meet your dad, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. You felt sorry for him as she paraded him around. The way she acted, you would think you’d won a prize. But to your mother, there was no greater prize than having a man in your life. Gwilym handled it all well, charming everyone. In fact, everyone was so enthralled with your pretend boyfriend, you were pretty much ignored. It hit you once again just how angry they still were at you for leaving Henry.

Your family was traditional. No one had ever gotten a divorce until you. What made it all the worse was that they loved Henry. He had them all so wrapped up in his big personality that no one saw that you were deteriorating beneath him. They never saw the monster that he was. When you divorced and announced that you were cutting him from your life - he was never to contact you again - they were devastated. They believed you when you explained you were abused, but none of them ever fully believed the extent of it. They were shocked to their collective core when he signed away all his rights to Violet. Now as you watched them fawn over Gwilym, that neglected feeling returned. Your stomach churned uncomfortably.

You took a seat on a bench and tried to swallow the lump that had appeared in your throat. It was especially bruising since you knew that if you were a man, you would be considered successful. You had two Netflix specials, after all. You were completely financially independent and provided a good life for your daughter. But because of your family’s backwards ideas, none of that meant anything. Simply because you were a single woman. Your eyes found Violet where she ran with her cousins. You could not allow her to grow up around people who made her feel less than just because of her gender. You took a deep breath.

A sigh escaped you just as Gwilym took a seat on your right. You looked at him and concern clouded his face as he handed you a glass of wine. You took a large gulp of it.

“Woah, are you alright?” he asked.

You shook your head. “No, not really. I don’t wanna talk about it, but this is the last time I’m coming to one of these fucking things.”

“Did something happen?” he pressed.

“No,” you told him. “It’s what’s been happening my whole life. I left my husband to protect my daughter, and I’ll leave my family too if I have to.”

“I’m confused,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” you assured him. “It’s just...it’s my own shit that I’m realizing now that I brought someone here. Thank you for coming, Gwilym, really.”

“I’m sorry for...whatever it is that’s hurting you,” he replied. “I’m glad I was helpful to you. Your family is certainly unique in their beliefs. Your mother mentioned twice to me that you refused to give Violet her father’s last name.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, not that again.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Because she’s not his,” you said. “She’s mine.”

“So he has no contact with either of you?”

“No,” you said firmly. “I’d never let my daughter around that animal.”

A beat passed as he looked at you. It was not pity in his gaze. Admiration lay behind his eyes, and you appreciated that. So many people pitied you when you talked about your marriage. Part of the reason you joked about it was so that people would not look at you with pity. Humor has a way of showing people you were over it, even if you weren’t.

“It amazes me how you were able to pull yourself out of that,” he told you. “I know another woman who was in a similar situation and had the courage to leave, and I can’t say it enough...you’re impressive.”

Tears stung your eyes but you quickly blinked them away.

“Thank you,” you said.

Somehow, it was exactly what you needed to hear. His timing was almost as good as Dear Friend’s. Your heart rested again. Even so, you only stayed for about another hour before you left the reunion. As the car pulled away from the park, relief began to wash over you. Violet crawled onto Gwilym’s lap and dozed against his chest. You closed your eyes and leaned your head on his shoulder.

“I’ve got some tired girls,” he said with a small laugh.

You nodded. “Sorry if this is weird, I just feel heavy.”

“Rest, Y/N, I don’t mind,” he replied.

When you reached the hotel again, Gwilym carried the now sleeping Violet up to your room. You followed close behind and felt an ache in your heart. Why couldn’t she have had a father like him? Or like Dear Friend? It was so unfair. He put her in bed and you pulled the covers up over her shoulders.

“Thanks again,” you said to Gwil. “For everything. Let me know if you ever need a fake date to something. I’m your girl.”

He smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You walked him to the door and you found yourself sad to see him go. You didn’t know when you would see him again.

“I’m sorry your day was so difficult,” he said as he took hold of the knob.

You held his gaze. “Not all of it was.”

He released the door and pulled you into a hug. You held each other for a long moment. It felt like it was two years ago. Like he was truly your friend. You heaved a sigh in his arms and drank in the moment, telling yourself you would do better about maintaining the friendship this time.

“We’ll see each other soon,” he said, sounding just a little unsure.

“I’ll make sure we do,” you replied.

With a quick goodbye, he left. You watched him disappear down the hall. With another sigh, you closed the door.

The following week, you were in Boston. You felt lighter now that you had rid yourself of the burden of your family. Even though you only ever saw them at reunions, it was freeing to get away from that. However, your heart grew heavier the longer it took to hear from Dear Friend. It was taking longer than usual to get a letter back, and it sat in the back of your mind as you went through your set.

“It’s hilarious to me when men argue about women’s issues,” you said to another large crowd. “Like, women can say something as simple as ‘hey, can we maybe get paid the same amount of money to do the same job as you?’ and men immediately go ‘oh, so we can hit you now?’”

You heard mostly women in the audience laugh.

“Oh, it’s ridiculous. How is that even related? I would love for someone to explain that logic to me. Because in case y’all didn’t know, you’re already hitting us and getting away with it,” you went on. “My ex-husband beat the shit out of me and I never once got a check in the mail afterwards.”

You took a drink of water as they laughed some more.

“When has that ever been the exchange?” you continued. “And what the fuck do you mean ‘we can hit you now’? You’ve only not been able to legally hit us within the last hundred years, before women were being paid to do anything! Not to mention, you still fucking do it anyway! Our salaries have never made a difference in whether or not you hit us!”

About half the audience cheered, and you soaked in the applause, but your mind wandered briefly to Dear Friend once more. You caught a glimpse of Stacy backstage and hoped she had a letter for you.

“I realize the men in the room are probably a little uncomfortable right now,” you said. “But to be honest, fellas, I didn’t know y’all were coming.”

They laughed.

“So just sit there and take that shit, honestly,” you finished with a shrug.

You continued on through your set and got to the end, where you talked about Violet and shared that part of your life with them. As you took your bows and headed off stage, Stacy smiled at you and held up an envelope. Your heart skipped a beat. You would recognize that handwriting from anywhere. Dear Friend. At last.

“Finally!” you cried, taking the letter from her and tearing it open.

“Good show, by the way,” she said, smirking.

“Thank you,” you replied distractedly. You opened the letter and your eyes scanned across it, taking in every word.

“Dear Friend,” it began, as that was his name for you as well. “I’d like to begin by apologizing for this letter taking so long to reach you. I’m travelling right now and my post is being forwarded to me. I do hope you weren’t too worried. I could never abandon you, darling. I’m happy to hear all is well with you. I read a quote from Tolstoy the other day that made me think of you and our relationship. It went, ‘I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious - your heart, your soul. Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labor, even love, the most beautiful and natural of feelings.’

“Isn’t that a lovely sentiment? Although I don’t know what you look like, I feel I do know your soul. We have worked hard to establish such a love. I do feel that I love you. Have I ever said it to you before? Well, I’ll say it again. I love you. I love you. I love you. Who cares what it means to others as long as we know what we mean to each other? Looking forward to your response as always. Yours, Dear Friend.”

You hurried back to your hotel, tucked Violet into bed, and then sat down to write a response. Your heart was fluttering around in your chest like a hummingbird. He loved you. You could now tell him you felt the same. Yet another sense of freedom washed over you. You were in love. For perhaps the first time in your life. With a trembling hand, you began to write back.

Dear Friend. That was a lovely sentiment from Tolstoy. I admit I haven’t been reading as much lately since I too am travelling. Where are you in the world? My heart goes with you!

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to know your true feelings! It’s given me the strength to be vulnerable and express my own! I love you. I love you. I love you. Can you believe we’ve gone so long without saying these simple words? I’m so relieved to have them out there. And I can safely say I’ve never felt so strongly for another person before.

You started to write the next line, but the sound of a voice from the hallway turned your blood cold. The voice of a man who was everything Dear Friend was not. He was talking on the phone judging by the lack of responses between phrases. But what on Earth was your ex-husband doing in Boston?

Shaking your head, you reasoned with yourself. Henry was a sergeant with the NYPD. He was much too busy to be making random trips out of town. You had to be mistaken. The mystery man and his frightening voice faded down the hall, and you released a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding. Nearly four years had passed since you left him, and Henry still scared you stiff. You hated his lingering hold on you.

You glanced at Violet, who was still sleeping soundly. Feeling an extra need to be near, you got up and walked over, sitting carefully next to her. You reached out your hand and ran a gentle finger through her curls. She barely stirred and rolled over, cuddling closer to you subconsciously. She took a deep breath as she nuzzled down into your lap and you felt a surge of affection for her.

What you said to Dear Friend wasn’t necessarily true. You had felt a strong love - perhaps the strongest in the world - but he didn’t know about Violet. That felt more like an in-person conversation to have. If you could ever work up the courage to meet him.

Out of nowhere, your phone buzzed on the bedside table. You snatched it up and saw that the caller was Gwilym. A smile claimed your lips as you swiped to answer.

“Hello?” you whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” he wondered.

“Violet’s asleep,” you returned lowly. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Oh it is rather late, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “Are you still in Boston?”

“Yeah,” you told him. “Are you in town?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “But I will be tomorrow. I’ve got this charity gala thing that...well, a person invited me to, and let’s just say it would be better for my pride if I had a date.”

“Oh, I see,” you said with a smirk. “Your ex invited you.”

“How’d you guess?” he asked with a laugh.

“Gee, I dunno, maybe it was the vague ass description and the fact that you need a date,” you teased.

“Can you come?” he pressed.

“Yeah, tonight was my last show, and I don’t fly out for another two days,” you assured him. “Do I need to get a gown?”

“Yeah, it’s black tie,” he said.

“How sexy do you want it to be?” you wondered.

He chuckled and you felt your heart speed up. You narrowed your eyes at yourself. What the hell was that about?

“Make it classy,” he said. “But with a little something extra.”

“Got it,” you returned. “How’s the promo going?”

“It’s loads of fun, but I’m looking forward to doing something else for at least one evening,” he said. “With some fresh company.”

“I’m telling Joe you said that,” you joked.

“Eh, he won’t hook up with me for a few days, but it’s no big deal,” he replied.

You snorted.

“How’s tour?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” you said. “It’s sort of the same stuff every day, so I’m looking forward to changing it up as well.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said. “Hey, have you ever thought about touring in England?”

“You think I’d do well over there?” you pondered.

“Sure you would,” he assured you.

“I am a pretty funny fucker, aren’t I?” you remarked.

He laughed. “The funniest of all the fuckers, no doubt.”

You giggled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gwil.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight.”

You hung up. Violet stirred again and her eyes fluttered open. She looked sleepily up at you.

“Mommy…”

“What is it, sweetie?” you asked.

“Had a dream,” she said.

“What did you dream?”

“You and Mister Gwilym got married,” she said. “In Mexico.”

“Oh?” you chuckled. “Was it a nice wedding?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “Until I got captured by monkeys.”

You laughed. “That would make it a sad day.”

“S’okay, you saved me,” she assured you.

“I’ll always protect you,” you said, stroking her cheek gently.

Her eyes slowly closed again, and she was asleep. You got up and went to finish your letter to Dear Friend. You read over your words again and your heart soared. You were in love. The most beautiful and natural of feelings.

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cozycryptidcorner · 5 years

Photo

The Unlikely Alliance

This was commissioned by a user who wishes to remain anonymous. The story is about her two original characters; Sally, a budding artist, and a werewolf bodyguard that had been hired by her rich father.

The sounds of the ceramics cracking together almost send Sally into cardiac arrest, only once she looks over the plates to make sure there are no breaks or chips in the glaze does she breathe a sigh of frustrated relief. Be careful, she silently scolds herself, disgruntled at her own clumsiness but a little too angry to put in much more thought in it. Some random man is supposed to show up on her doorstep today, a person her father picked with none of her input, and her rage at the unfairness of it all seems to be clouding some of her judgment in other areas.

She almost finishes stacking the plates into the dishwasher when someone knocks on her door, loudly and suddenly enough that she nearly drops a drinking glass. With as much poise and grace as she can muster, Sally places the glass carefully in the metallic shelf, spins around, and marches calmly to the door. All that she can make out of the distorted peephole view is a splash of tan skin, and maybe a flash of bright yellow eyes? Something must be off with the hallways lighting because the only people who have that bright a color for eyes are… they are….

The door creaks loudly as it always does, the hinges almost rusted shut. While Sally kind of regrets not harassing the landlord a little more about having them fixed, the grating noise at least makes the bodyguard’s eye twitch ever so slightly, so she suddenly doesn't mind it so much. She stands there, in the doorway of her apartment, mouth in a firmly shut line as she looks this werewolf up and down, though for what exactly, she doesn’t know. It’s not as though she can sniff out any weaknesses like her father, but maybe she thinks that the ability will just show up one day for her to continuously try.

He’s an imposing figure, that’s for sure. His head barely misses the door frame as he steps inside, completely uninvited, mind you, and takes a look around, bright golden eyes dancing from one corner of the living room to the next. His hair is dark, either dark brown or black, Sally can’t tell in this lighting, an old leather jacket just barely large enough to fit those massive biceps, and a belt, decidedly free of any holsters or weapons at his waist. Something about the way he strolls in like he owns the place sends a bitter little zing up Sally’s spine.

“What, no gun?” She asks, hands on hips, a glare growing in her eyes.

“I don’t need them.” His voice is low, but not in a way that makes her nervous, or put off, the way most of her father’s ‘buddies’ tend to make her feel. In any case, Sally isn’t certain whether or not that statement is to reassure her, but there is certainly no feeling of relief.

After a pause, she says, “Well, I’m Sally.”

“I know.” He doesn’t even pretend to tolerate any brief, yet polite introductions.

Another moment of silence, during which Sally feels a ping of annoyance. “And what am I supposed to call you?”

The werewolf shrugs, but at Sally’s calm and withering stare, responds with, “Ronan.”

“Ronan,” she echoes, picking at the underside of her nails. “I can’t say that it’s nice to meet you, Ronan, but I understand that there isn’t much either of us can do about that matter.”

“No, there’s not,” he agrees, “and it would be much easier on the both of us if you don’t put up any fuss. At least until the job is over, then I guess you can complain and hiss as much as you want.”

Sally takes a sharp breath of frustration at the caricature he describes but manages to keep her cool maintained. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of arguing, she steps aside, back towards her dishwasher and begins to set it up for the cycle. “Ground rules,” she says, stacking three bowls by each other. “One, don’t touch the art. You don’t know what is drying and what is finished. In fact, just don’t touch anything.”

“I make the rules here, not you.” He stands his full height, crossing his arms, and gave her a glare just icy enough that it could save the world from global warming. “And I don’t care about you or your feelings or your friends, what I say will go. Anything short of that will have consequences.”

“Rule two,” she continues loudly, ignoring his statement, only glancing over her shoulder to make sure he is at least listening. “The last bodyguard I’ve had seemed fine with leaving messes wherever he went, and I certainly hope you won’t have the same issue.”

He makes a sound, either a laugh, or a grunt, Sally can’t tell, but at least he has temporarily ceased the protests. That counts for something, she hopes.

“Rule three.” She slams the dishwasher shut, maybe a little too hard. “You can watch me from outside of my classrooms. You don’t get to wedge yourself into my life, I don’t want any awkward conversations with my classmates or to get in trouble with my professors. And before you even say anything else,” she can already see him about to argue over it, “this is all I’m asking for you to do. Follow my rules, and I’ll make things easy as possible on you. If you don’t?” Sally shrugs. “I think you have underestimated my abilities to make your life difficult.”

“What do you plan to do, run away? There’s nowhere for you to go where I can’t find you.” Ronan says, arching a single, scared eyebrow. “And your father has given me his blessing to be as rough on you as I need to be.”

Her hands almost start shaking with the rage that floods her veins. “I am well aware, but wouldn’t it be massively inconvenient for you to tell your boss every day that your charge has managed to escape... again? How many times before he decides that you’re incompetent and need to be fired?” Sally carefully wipes her damp fingers on the towel. “I’m assuming that you aren’t new to the network good old dad has created, so I’m certain that you understand that people don’t just get to walk away after a failure.”

Ronan at least has the decency to look slightly put off by her threats, as though it had never occurred to him that a mob boss might have raised his daughter to be as ruthless as he.

“Look,” already, she can tell he is a man of few words, “I am entirely willing to be cooperative- within reason, of course. I just want my own life to continue as uninterrupted as possible. Help me out, and I’ll help you out, alright?”

It takes a long while for him to fully process her statement, but after a bit of pondering, Sally is rewarded with a single, clipped nod to signify Ronan’s agreement. She tries not to let out a sigh of relief, she needs to uphold the facade of dangerous criminal at least until it’s safe to let it down. With a wash of victory rinsing out most of the anxiety within her stomach, she walks over to where her book bag sits and places the strap over her shoulder.

“I’m assuming that my father has given you a detailed schedule of my day?” Sally asks, grabbing a tumbler full of iced coffee.

“I didn’t bother reading it, figured you’d just tell me.”

That somehow makes her feel better. “Well, school first. You can follow me, I suppose, until I get to the classroom. There are benches in the hall you can chill at until it’s over, and trust me, you’d know if something wrong is happening.”

They step out of her apartment, a cold breeze kicking up as autumn begins muscling its way into summer. The day isn’t terrible, but it’s somewhat awkward having Ronan follow her like a lapdog wherever she goes. Maybe not exactly a lap dog, because one of Sally’s classmates awkwardly asks who the hell is Ronan and if she is at all aware that this terrifying looking werewolf is trailing her. Sally’s had to repeat herself until she’s hoarse to anyone and everyone that yes, she knows that man, and no, he is not stalking her, there’s no need to worry.

But it’s fine, everything’s fine, it’s not like this is damaging her reputation at school at all.

Usually, Sally eats lunch in the cafeteria, picking from one of the many food vendors offered, but now with Ronan standing behind her like some kind of deranged murderer at all times, she’s taken to eat outside, as far away from everyone as possible, but within a reasonable distance from her next class. Several picnic tables dot the campus, so it’s not difficult to find a particular one that no one else has claimed. Ronan eats with her, sitting across from the table. Even though they've been doing this for some time, he seems reluctant to even humor her as she tries engaging in idle conversation.

“You got a girlfriend?” She asks, maybe a week into the weird symbiotic relationship the two of them have managed to develop. It was a shot in the dark, some guys just won’t shut the hell up about their girlfriends, so Sally thought this might be the master key into his life. Apparently not. At his silence, she tries again. “Boyfriend? Um… nonbinary-friend?”

He finally looks at her, eyebrow raised. Sally thinks she’s getting better at reading his moods and takes a gander that this is something akin to amusement. Then, shockingly, he says the first words of conversation that don’t have to do with his job: “No.”

“Oh,” she says, shrugging, trying to not let much of her excitement at getting him to talk show. “Neither do I.”

He grunts.

Having Ronan follow her around might not have been so awful if he wasn’t so… remarkable. To put it plainly, he has a presence, one that most people find difficult to not notice. It would, Sally thinks, be infinitely easier if her father had just assigned a bodyguard with less aggressive features, one that could blend in with just about every average guy who graces her school’s campus. What’s worse is that after most of her classmates realized that no, this man is not stalking her, they immediately got a very different idea of what is happening. One that Sally isn’t what you would call fond of. No one has said it to her face yet, but the tricky questions that dance around the topic paired with the arched eyebrows say enough.

One morning, she’s up before the crack of dawn, as per usual. Shower, check, plain clothes, check. She ties her thick blond curls back into a ponytail, adding a headband to keep any wisps from poking their way out from her scalp. Then, with a kind of serenity that she had not felt in a long time, she walks into the kitchen. Sally opens the cabinet right by the stove, retrieving a pot, then goes through a drawer for a large wooden spoon. Ronan is still dead asleep on the couch, or at least he’s pretending to be, until she smacks the flat end of the spoon against the pot, making a sound almost loud enough to make her ears ring.

Ronan curses, just once, and bolts up from the couch, haunches tense, fangs growing and pointed until they could rip into the throat of someone twice his size as easy as pie. It takes him all but a moment to realize that there is, in fact, no danger, and that Sally is acting obnoxious for the sake of annoying him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Sally says with a tone of faux cheerfulness so convincing, even her father wouldn’t recognize that she's facetious. “I’m off to my volunteer job. You can stay if you want, but I’m walking out the door in five.”

Ronan squints at her, hair askew, mouth slightly open, and blinks once. “What time is it?”

“Before sunrise, but I'm about to leave so,” she shrugs, walking back around the counter of her kitchen and begins to fiddle with her coffee maker, “you should probably think about getting dressed.”

Though she would never let a word of complaint get to her father, it did feel a little awkward that he slept in some old, ratty shirt with plain boxers. No, not shorts over the boxers, boxers. Maybe he isn’t exactly a guest in her home, but would it kill him to behave a little less… she can’t even think of a single word. Discourteous? She picks out one of her thermoses and starts a coffee cycle, the machine gently sputtering as it heats the water to an acceptable temperature.

“Is there any way I can possibly talk you out of this?” Ronan grumbles, getting himself up and slogging over to the bathroom to get dressed.

“Not a chance.” She adds the necessary amount of sugar and cream to the liquid, the pokes in the drawer for a spoon. “Do you want coffee?”

“I guess.”

“You ‘guess,’” Sally mimics quietly while reopening one of the cabinets, looking over the different thermoses that she’s managed to collect over the years. Without thinking about it particularly much, she reaches inside and pulls out another, placing it under the coffee machine and starting the machine’s cycle over.

When he returns, hair still disheveled, eyes clearly dull with sleep-depravity and annoyance, he grabs the pastel blue and pink thermos without a word of complaint. Satisfied that he hasn’t bogged down her exit at all, Sally snags her bag from the counter and leaves, breathing in the brisk coolness of dawn as she walks towards her car. Ronan takes her keys and gets behind the wheel, insisting on driving in case they get attacked on the road. While he does have a gorgeous, shiny black Harvey motorcycle that half the men in her apartment complex drool over, her dad would just about have an aneurysm if he found out she rode on one of those, so she gets into the passenger seat without complaining.

The drive is almost completely silent, save for Sally offering directions for where they need to go. Just a simple turn right, or maybe a keep straight to make sure he knows where to go. Ten minutes before she’s scheduled, they pull up to a rickety old building with a single street light flickering over the pale gravel parking lot. A chipped sign that was probably bright blue at some time in the past reads Emmerson Shelter, though the ‘n’ in Emmerson is almost completely stripped away.

“This place looks like a dump,” Ronan mutters, hands tight on the steering wheel.

“Well, it is,” Sally says, opening the car door and swinging her legs out. “Held together only with spit and hope.”

Brow furrowed, Ronan follows her inside through the cracked glass doors. The moment he steps through the threshold, the shelter nearly explodes with sound. Dogs start barking, some high pitched yaps that will surely leave Sally’s ears ringing, others low resonating growls that shake her very bones. One of the other volunteers, Margot, comes out from the back with a bewildered look on her face until she sees him. Sally wouldn’t exactly call the look on Margot’s face fear, but there was definitely something rather negative mixed in there.

“Hey, um, I brought a new volunteer.” Sally has to shout over the dog racket.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Margot didn’t seem particularly pleased, but it might have been due to getting barked at point blank by thirty or so dogs. She reaches into the filing cabinet and pulls out some bright pink papers, setting it on the table and sliding it over with a cheap ballpoint pen. Ronan scrunches his nose as he looks at the thickness of the paperwork, which, by the way, isn’t anything particularly significant, but Sally immediately knows he has no intention of filling anything out.

“I’ll help him, don’t worry.” Knowing anything he might say would just tick Margot off, Sally takes the paperwork herself and flashes the head volunteer one of her best smiles.

Either Margot is too exhausted to put up more of a fuss for protocol and such, or she’s beyond the human comprehension of eagerness to get the absolute hell out of the noise pit because she hands Sally the keys and leaves from her night shift without another word. The paperwork goes right back into the filing cabinet, the pen into a smudged mason jar by the ancient computer. With the dogs still barking like the apocalypse has begun, Sally enters the kennel room, little balls of fur shaking almost violently with excitement.

Margot had already fed them, but what Sally has to cycle through a few of them at a time in the backyard area. Already, she begins to fiddle with the cage to her immediate right, opening the gate just to have a blur of black and white bolt from the inside, going towards Ronan at nearly the speed of sound. Before she can even think to do anything about it, Ronan has caught the dalmatian, midair, like some professional dog catcher, and holds it out from his body as it tries licking his face. And fails, certainly by accident. Apparently, all his rippling gangster muscles are no match for an overly excited puppy.

While it is usually a hassle to coax three or four dogs out to the backyard, the moment Ronan steps out through the door, they are all tripping over themselves to follow. Sally kind of wishes he was here on her first day working, back when none of the dogs really knew or respected her. She ended up having to pick up and carry some of them back inside once the outdoor time was over, but there is absolutely almost no issue with Ronan just walking back through the door. They follow him like he’s the dog jesus.

The sun has risen enough that Sally doesn’t feel the need to wear her sweatshirt, so she takes it off and sets it gently to the right of the door, on the dry cement porch. Once she looks back over to the patchy, haphazardly planted grass to make sure the dogs are all behaving, she sees Ronan, on his knees, play-wrestling with one of the bigger dogs. Sally has a sudden, odd realization as he flips the dog onto her belly and starts scratching like he has nothing to lose that Ronan… is actually kind of cute. Of course the moment he realizes that she’s watching, he straightens his spine to throw up a facade of rigidness.

Once all the dogs have had their outside time, Sally does a quick kennel check to make sure everything is up to code, and also maybe a little more than that, since ‘up to code’ isn’t exactly what she would call healthy dog living. Once she’s sure that the dogs are perfectly fine, she hangs out by the front desk, tidying up the dingy lobby as best she can. By the time the next volunteer arrives, a good couple hours into the afternoon, Sally is both exhausted from the work, but also ready to eat her weight in some greasy fast food. It doesn’t take much more than a sentence to convince Ronan to drive through one of the restaurants on the way back to her apartment.

Neither of them talks about volunteer gigs after the end of her shifts, but Sally thinks, as she sits down in the library lounge, that Ronan might have a soft side that he is hiding from her. Maybe to keep her fearing him? She puckers her lips around her pencil eraser in thought. Again, she goes through another, long, disgruntling day of studying until her eyes bleed when she gets back to the apartment complex, bookbag almost impossibly heavy on her shoulder from textbooks and notes. Why she doesn’t just get the ebooks, she barely knows at this point in the semester, but there’s something undeniably organic about the way real books feel that keeps her going the more expensive route. Besides, it’s not her money she’s spending.

Before she has a chance to walk through her door, Ronan grabs her by the shirt and yanks her back into the hallway. Sally has half a mind to let a hellish amount of frustration on him, but then she notices two details. One, his teeth are bared, sharp and pearly white fangs poking out over his lip, and two, his entire body is suddenly tense. He sniffs the air, once, and pokes the door with his foot to open it further.

The living room is trashed. The couch is overturned, cushions tossed wildly from one side to the other, a lamp knocked over and on the floor, the coffee table turned to the side. One of Sally's paintings that stood as a centerpiece for the wall has been wildly slashed to ribbons, and several little sculptures she had painstakingly put together are scattered in pieces. Sally feels the urge to vomit, not in disgust, but from the frustration that slams into her like a tsunami. She doesn’t utter a word of argument as Ronan shoves his way past her.

Sally follows, sticking close to Ronan as he checks to make sure whoever did this is long gone. As they make their way to her room, Sally can already see from the hallway that her prized vase, one that brought her victory in her school’s annual art festival, had been shattered against the faux wood floor. Her chest feels hollow, the air suddenly not nearly enough to fill it, as she kneels down, fingers reaching out for the shards, tears finally dripping down her face.

Ronan is too busy looking under her bed, through her closet, and behind her curtains to even notice until satisfied that there is no one else with them in the room. When he finally turns around, seeing her on her knees, tearfully in front of a mess of blue and green shards, he takes a single step back. But then, completely unexpectedly, he bends over and starts to help, picking up the sharper bits of the vase and setting them in the hand towel she had grabbed. After a few minutes of working in silence, Ronan asks, “Was this very expensive?”

“It’s one of a kind,” Sally chokes, certain that she’ll never make another piece quite like it again. The details she had spent days painstakingly carving, the glaze she had carefully layered to look like sea glass, Sally isn’t even in ceramics this semester, there’s no conceivable way she could do anything about it for a long while with all her other school work piling up. And then, quieter, she adds, “it was the best I did for the whole year.”

A pause. “You… made that?” His tone of voice is suddenly different, more… empathetic? “I mean, I didn’t really see it, but knowing you… it must have been… neat.”

Sally almost hiccups from grief.

Awkwardly, as though he had never touched another human being before in his life, he reaches a large, tan hand over and gives her a pat on the shoulder. “I have to make a call.”

Sally knows what that call is going to entail, and who it is going to. “I don’t want to talk to him, so when he asks, just say no.”

Ronan lets out a huff of breath. “I’ll try, but I’d like to remind you that not only is he my boss, but he also likes to cut off appendages as punishment for not following orders.”

“He still needs you and both your hands. This little show of power from his enemies proves that, at least.” Sally sticks her chin out, folding the small hand towel over the pieces of her vase. “The man is going to be scared, and he’s going to want you even more now.”

Ronan grunts at her statement. “Sounds like you’ve got him all figured out, firecracker.”

“I grew up with him,” Sally manages to keep all the shards inside the makeshift bag she made, “I should hope I do.”

While Sally brushes most of the shards into an empty shoebox, Ronan makes the call, continuously glancing at her as though a sniper pointer will light up her head at any minute. There are a lot of yes sir’s, no sir’s, of course, sir’s, she’s safe sir’s. Sally had never thought Ronan could manage to call anyone sir or ma’am without coughing up a gallon of blood beforehand from the mental pain of having to respect someone.

But her father can have that effect on people.

“I don’t think she’s going to like that,” Ronan says only a few minutes after the call, catching Sally’s attention with the subtlety of whiplash. “But I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” She hisses, impatience blooming in her chest.

Only when he puts his phone down will he face her again. “We’re leaving.”

It takes her a moment to comprehend what he had just said. “We’re- what? No, we aren’t.”

“Sally,” Ronan runs his fingers through his dark hair, dark circles so much more pronounced under his eyes, “look at this place. Look at your things. If you had been in this room maybe even just ten minutes earlier, you might be the one cut up into thin strips instead of your artwork, and I would be in a locked box sinking into the Atlantic. We need to go somewhere else, just until it’s safe to come out again.”

She puffs up her cheeks in frustration but deflates. Ronan is right, and she knows it. In any case, all her father has to do is snap is his manicured nails in the right person’s direction and she’d wake up a week later in Romania. At least Ronan is somewhat more, well, not kind or gentle, but respectful of her as a person. Even after raising her, she still doesn’t think her father has the understanding that Sally is her own individual person with needs that don’t quite align with his. “Fine. Where?”

“I just need you to trust me on that, the least everyone knows, the better.”

It hurts. Sally would never be able to explain how the pain in her chest tightens when he says it. And she knows it’s not the fact that Ronan won’t talk to her about it, no, she’s used to him being gruff and distant. Having to put herself, relatively blindly, in someone for the first time since… her father, makes her feel almost dizzy. She doesn’t have to do it, though, she could whip out her phone and talk to her dad for the first time in a year… but…

“Fine.” Her teeth hurting from gritting them so tightly.

Ronan offers a tight nod, almost as if he knows how much doing so bothers her so profoundly. “Pack a bag, maybe a week’s worth of clothes. And any valuables that haven’t been broken or stolen, but only if they really matter to you. The more we have, the more we will get bogged down with if something happens.”

Sally already knows the drill, though. Surprise ‘vacations’ were far more common in her life than in others, so she’s mastered the art of packing a large amount of clothes in a small amount of time. Now, though, Ronan’s request of packing light weighs against her mind as she pulls a duffle bag from beneath her bed. Things that can easily match with just about everything goes inside, plain colored pants, conservatively patterned shirts, etcetera. Just as she zips the bag shut, a little wooden box full of watercolor supplies that she keeps on her dresser catches her eye. Without another thought, she reaches over and stuffs it on top of her clothes.

Ronan is waiting for her as she hobbles out of her room, duffle strap over one shoulder, book bag stuffed with as much homework and textbooks as can possibly fit in the other. His eyes visibly narrow at her, but he doesn’t utter a word at her attempt to bring some normalcy with her as they go. The sun is already setting as they load whatever they brought into the trunk of her car, and then they are off like a shot. Ronan drives at leave ten over the speed limit, going up to twenty the moment they exit the city limits. Even in the rapidly dimming light, Sally notices how ashenly pale his knuckles are as he grips the steering wheel like a lifeline.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she opens her eyes to a bright pink sunrise, a beautiful wash of colors bleeding out from the treetops. Rock plays on the car speakers, turned down so significantly she barely even notices. The road that Ronan is on is scarcely anything more than a patch of dirt, a strip of grass running through the center from the minuscule amount of traffic it sees. On either side of the car is a forest, tall, leafy trees so thick with growth that she can only see the first few rows of branches, the rest disappearing behind a mass of yellows and reds.

“Mornin’ Firecracker.” Ronan turns the speaker down all the way when he notices that she’s awake, barely, her eyelids keep trying to pull themselves back downwards, but awake nonetheless.

“Morning.” There’s nothing more she wants to do that stretch her spine out, but that will have to wait. “How much longer, do you think?”

“Not much.” Ronan reaches down to the single McDonald’s coffee cup in the holder, taking a long, savoring swig. “We are rolling up right now.”

It’s a log cabin, Sally realizes, the car slowing down to a stop. Nothing as grand or as extravagant as any of the other safehouses she’s been in, but this one somehow seems significantly better than those in most ways. It stands at only one story high, though it has a good length to it, and Sally could estimate maybe two bedrooms can fit in there. Maybe three if everything is super squished. With a childlike giddiness to explore a new area, she unbuckles her seat belt, pops the car door open, and steps out into the cold autumn air.

Pulling the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, she resists the urge to shiver as she looks up at the foliage, her breath steaming out in tiny puffs in the air. After only a minute of looking over the scenery, she begins to help Ronan unload their luggage, placing whatever was in her trunk onto the front porch, by the rocking chair.

“Whose place is this?” She asks once they are finished, her breaths coming out in exhausted huffs.

“Mine.”

”Yours?” Sally hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but when she had pictured where Ronan had come from, the idea of a quaint little bungalow in the forest hadn’t crossed her mind. A ratchety tin shed, maybe, the slums of a large city, perhaps, but not… this.

“You sound surprised, firecracker.” He sounds almost smug as he unlocks the cabin's door, pushing it open with his foot.

Sally gives a shrug in response, grabbing as much as she can carry and hauling it inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. While there is an underlying scent of dust in the air, the cabin is clean as can be, which she hadn’t been expecting from a bachelor with Ronan’s rougher reputation. Arms around her chest, she looks for pictures, photo albums, anything that might show her snippets of Ronan’s life, though she ultimately finds nothing.

“You hungry?” Ronan asks.

“Always,” Sally says, still looking in case she accidentally missed anything.

The sound of the refrigerator opens as Ronan investigates their options, though there can’t be anything worth eating if he hasn’t restocked in the few months he had been working with her. Eventually, he comes to the same conclusion as she, shutting the door and letting out a sigh.

“I guess that’s my cue to go grocery shopping. And before you ask, no, you can’t come.”

The request had been on the tip of her tongue, yes. It’s not even peculiar that he can guess her moves, Sally supposes that’s just what happens when two people live with each other for a while. Swallowing down a strange wave of emotion, she tries distracting herself by balancing on the edges of her feet.

“You can’t be on any radars, and most grocery stores have security cameras.” He’s already putting his jacket back on, smoothing his hair back with a single motion over his head. “Just driving through any restaurants with you in the passenger was a risk in itself. You don’t get to be in any more unnecessary danger- what are you doing?”

Sally takes a step forward, then another, and then one more until she’s wrapping her arms around his chest and squeezing as tight as she can manage. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Oh,” Ronan’s voice mutes slightly. One of his hands reaches over and sits atop her hair. “I… don’t want to leave you, either. But we need to eat.”

Sally waits a good couple of moments before letting go, then gives him her world-famous puppy eyes.

Ronan gives her a single pat on the head. “Still not taking you to the grocery store.”

She gives him a face. “I’d thought to try anyway.”

Read Chapter Two Here

#exophilia #werewolf #werewolf oc #not a reader insert #werewolf/human #monster boyfriend #monster lover #werewolf oc/human oc #human oc

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salty-star-child · 5 years

Text

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Lies

[so my brain is torturing me for three reasons. Reason 1: I’m obscenely late with the last four Michael Guerin Week fics. Reason 2: I’m have the very last prompt finished, but my brain decided I need to do a complete overhaul of the other three so they’ll be even later if I wait. Reason 3: I’m posting out of order because fuck it. oops.]

read on ao3

Max was dead.

Really, truly, can’t-wake-him-up-but-try-it-anyway dead.

Michael can’t sleep anymore. Not without seeing his mother behind glass in a building about to explode, and Noah and Max facing off in the hallway in front of her. His mom’s words echo in his head, a constant stream of ‘I love you’s, a stark contrast to Michael’s desperate begging to Max that he needs to get the hell out before everything goes kaboom. But Max always ignores him (or maybe he could never hear Michael in the first place). Then Max would defeat Noah and turn to Michael with a smile.

That’s where everything always goes up in smoke. The detonation has reached zero, the building shakes and Michael’s ears ring, and everything is too warm and numb. Michael always survives the explosion, for no reason other than it’s a nightmare. He’d pick himself up off the ground and the first thing he really sees is Max. Lifeless and prone among the wreckage, next to his mother, like he’d been one of the prisoners the entire time.

So, yeah, Michael can’t sleep. Sue him.

Instead, he decided to do what he always does: drink and forget.

He made sure to come during the usual rush because Maria wants to talk, which is the last thing Michael wanted to do. He just wanted to get drunk, flirt a little some other guy’s girl and have a reason to fight after the guy throws the first punch. It’s Michael’s MO.

He downed three tequila shots, a couple glasses of whiskey neat, six beers, and a raspberry lemon drop cocktail by the time Sheriff Valenti arrived to escort him and the tourists he’d fought with out of the bar. Michael has a split lip, his nose is bleeding, his knuckles bruised, and he can still taste blood in his mouth no matter how much he spits. He may or may not have bit his tongue at some point. The other guys look about as well off as he is. He knew for a fact he broke one of their noses—he’d made a smartass comment about it when he’d heard the crunch and groan.

Michael’s the only one thrown in the drunk tank though; another drunk and disorderly on the books. The tourists aren’t nearly as fucked up as he is and instead pay a sizeable fine. The sheriff is clearly disappointed in him. He’d managed to stay out of the tank for long enough that she’d hoped meant he got his act together. The sheriff’s lecture is brief and stiff.

It reminded him of Max.

The sheriff largely ignores him after her lecture, tells him to sleep he’ll have to sleep off the alcohol unless he has someone else that she can call, because Max and Isobel aren’t around to take him home. She, like everyone else in town, believe Max is off helping Isobel through the devastating and sudden loss of her husband. Isobel suggested the cover and Michael had rolled with it, because it meant getting Max back…somehow. He needed to believe they could and if the damn cover story helped him do that, so be it.

He’s half-conscious still when he heard the sheriff talking on the phone, and a tinny, slightly distorted, version of Maria’s voice coming through it. Great. She did not sound too pleased with him. She was definitely leaving him here for the night. He doesn’t really register the meanings of the words that are being spoken until the sheriff glanced over at him, confused and intrigued, and Michael catches the name.

Alex.

That got through his drunk addled mind, fog lifting just enough for the pleasant anticipation of seeing Alex to be squashed by the dread of seeing Alex. Michael was at his lowest, surliest, ugliest…he didn’t want the other man to see him like this. He wanted him to see him at his best, or at least better than this.

The call with Maria ends, but Sheriff Valenti doesn’t put down the phone. Instead she started dialing another number and Michael feels his stomach twist with the need to throw up. He dry heaves, trying desperately not to throw up on the floor of the drunk tank.

A trash can was thrusted under his nose. He doesn’t think twice about gripping the sides and letting the mix of alcohol and bile burn the back of his throat. His eyes water and nose stings. He retches, and retches, until there’s nothing more to expel. He used the back of his hand to wipe at his mouth.

“Two calls? I thought criminals only got the one,” Michael said weakly, attempting a smirk. The sheriff raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“All I had to do was say you were drunk before Captain Manes said he’d on his way,” she said. Her voice was that careful kind of emotionless that makes Michael suspicious. He can’t tell if her lack of further questioning sets him at ease or pushes him to the edge.

It seemed she was waiting for him to respond, and he was waiting for her to just ask her goddamn question. The result was sitting in a tense silence. Michael decided to lay back on the bench and covered his eyes with his arm. One of many avoidance tactics he’d learned over the years.

Then, before Michael could realize time was still passing, Alex was there. Alex was there, with a gentle hand pushing sweaty curls back from his forehead and helping him sit up. His vision was spotted as he reorients himself. He pushed himself to his feet, unsteady but upright, and avoided Alex’s worried gaze. Alex’s hand never leaves his shoulder, acting as a guide and reassurance. The hand feels cool to his overheated skin, even through the fabric of his shirt.

“C’mon, Guerin,” Alex mumbled into his ear. “Let’s get you to the car.”

Michael insisted on walking on his own two feet, that he’s fine, but Alex and Sheriff Valenti hover anyway. It annoyed him and he told them as much. Alex had snarked back, the words going in one ear and out the other, but the general meaning of suck it up ringing loud and clear. His foot ends up slipping while he pulled himself into the passenger seat, and he fell backwards into Alex. A grunt and sharp intake of breath was enough to even let a drunk Michael know he’d hurt the airman. No doubt the sudden additional weight put too much pressure on the prosthetic.

But Alex doesn’t say anything about the pain. Neither does Sheriff Valenti as she helps adjust most of Michael’s weight off Alex and into the seat. Alex started to try to buckle him in, but he tugged the belt out of his hands and mumbled that he’d do it himself. The other man sighed but nodded and made sure all limbs were inside the vehicle and away from the door so he could shut it firmly.

The window was rolled up, which made the conversation the sheriff started muffled and mostly incomprehensible, but she dismissed something which made Alex’s shoulders drop in relief. Michael hadn’t even really noticed how tense the man had been until he’d relaxed.

Alex got in the car, buckled up, and drove out of the small parking lot without a word. The radio wasn’t even on to fill the heavy air between them. It was a deliberate choice, Michael knew, because Alex loved listening to music and letting it fill the silence. This was stifling, suffocating in a way to induce conversation. He hated that it worked, because he rolled his head to the side to look at the airman’s profile as he pleaded:

“Tell me that you hate me.”

Alex glanced at him two, three times, trying to get a good look at Michael’s face and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

“What? No, Guerin,” he said incredulously. “Hate is…the exact opposite of how I feel about you. I’m angry and upset with you, but—I don’t think I could ever hate you.”

“Why? You should,” Michael grumbled, looking down at his should-be-scarred hand. “How many times’ve I lied to you? Pushed you away jus’ as much as you walked ‘n I never—I never thought about tryin’ to follow…”

“Guerin,” Alex sighed. His voice was sad, defeated.

Michael hated it.

“’n I said we’d talk ‘n stuff, made you wait but then I ditched ya. I went and kissed your best friend. You should hate me. Why can’t you just hate me?”

“Because I love you, Michael,” Alex answered, voice still sad and defeated but with a confidence behind the words that took Michael by surprise. “I would’ve preferred you to be sober when I said it, but I think you really need to hear it right now. I don’t care how you think I should feel about you because I know how I feel about you. I don’t hate you, not for pushing me away. Not for lying. Not for leaving me waiting all damn day, and not even for Maria.

“We both make mistakes. We’re only people—we aren’t faultless, or perfect. Maria’s my best friend, and she’s wonderful, and I can see why anyone attracted to women would be attracted to her. I don’t hate you for it. Just…angry and hurt.”

“You really should hate me…because that was the point.”

That has Alex pulling over to the side of the road and putting the car in park. He doesn’t turn to look at Michael, just stares ahead, but his hands are still on the wheel and his knuckles are turning a bright white. He’s quiet, waiting.

“I really do like her, ‘m attracted and stuff, but…I also knew it’d hurt you. I was so fucked up and broken and empty that night, everything was just too much, and…and all I could think about was Caulfield ‘n you ‘n some shit Max said when he decided to heal my fucking hand…everything just hurt, and all I could think about was making you hurt too. How fucked up is that, right? I love you so much and all I could think about was what was going to hit you the hardest and make you feel the way I was feelin’.”

Michael isn’t sure when he started crying, just knew that he was. Alex, however, has his eyes squeezed shut, mouth in a firm, thin line, and jaw clenched. He’s taking deep breaths, and they’re both shaking.

“Yell at me, hit me. Something, anything,” Michael whispered into the air, voice rough and cracking. “Tell me you hate me, please, just—say that you hate me. Just, just lie ‘n say you do, I don’t care…I don’t care if it’s a lie.”

Alex doesn’t say anything at all, just turns the car off and unbuckles his seat belt. He opened the door and walked around the front of the car to open Michael’s too. He doesn’t look at Michael as he gestures for him to get out and follow him into the desert. Honestly, he probably shouldn’t. But it’s Alex, so he followed. Only once they’re surrounded by nothing, the car a long way off and barely in view, does the airman turn and look at him.

“We’re going to scream, same time, at the universe,” he said with such finality. “The world is cruel, and so are people, and life’s not fair. Sometimes, you just gotta scream about it and let it all out on the universe so you don’t let it out on the people who love you.”

Michael eyed him warily but nodded anyway.

Three…two…one—

They scream. They scream until their lungs hurt, scream some more until their voices are hoarse and throats sore. They scream; about Max, about Jesse, about psycho alien serial killers, about faulty Wi-Fi, about misplaced car parts, about forgetting to get another box of his favorite cereal. They scream until they’re a hysterical mess of giggles, serious frustrations dwindling to minor annoyances and trying to see who could think of the silliest reason to scream at the universe.

By the time they finish screaming, drawing in heavy breaths and holding their sides, Michael is feeling much less intoxicated. Still in no shape to drive or make any thought out decisions, but in enough control of himself again that he’s aware and here and, more importantly, able to stand on his own two feet without the world spinning out from underneath him. Which is good, because Alex is starting to very noticeably favor one leg over the other. But Alex is as stubborn as he is and denies the offered help (though he doesn’t complain when Michael helps him anyway).

The walk back to the car is slow—he kept his eyes on the stars, using his peripherals to watch for any increased pain in Alex’s micro expressions. While screaming had certainly relaxed him, it made him no less frustrated or confused. The airman’s quiet presence soothed his tumultuous emotions as much as it furthered his frustration.

Because Alex should hate him. But he doesn’t.

When Michael finally gets back to the airstream and he’s laid back on the small bed, he tells himself that he doesn’t believe Alex. He tells himself that Alex really does hate him. He lets his lies become a lullaby for hours until eventually his eyes are too tired to stay open.

He fell asleep and entered the same nightmare he’d been having since Max died. Only, there’s a new addition.

Alex is there, behind glass the way his mother is, and his voice overlaps hers as the countdown begins.

I love you.

But you’re mine!

I love you.

You’re a miserable liar, Guerin

I love you.

Noah. Max. Kaboom!

Michael jerked awake, shaking and gasping. He can feel the dried tear tracks on his cheeks. His chest and lungs burned. Alex had been right after all; he really was a miserable liar.

#malex #michael guerin #mgweek #mgweek19 #drunk and disorderly #this is real late i'm sorry #alex manes #sheriff valenti #maria deluca #max evans #nightmares #starchild writes

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merrrcurius · 5 years

Text

some step-papashi for you hoes

i’ve written several scenes for myself and i’m having a lot of fun with this au, but i’m not sure if i should add to my growing pile of wip’s on ao3 lol... lotta pressure, but i’m down if y’all are?

the gist: kakashi is a fine-ass soccer coach who cares. the following circumstances bring our two fav people together.

Fingers thrumming against the steering wheel in rhythm to the rock song playing on the radio, Kakashi drove down the winding exit of the park debating the pros and cons of cooking dinner or picking up takeout. The barbeque colored street lights illuminating the road made him crave some type of meat, but that would take too long to cook and he was feeling particularly lazy tonight.

Dealing with his latest team of brats tend to put him in the mood to sloth out for an indeterminate amount of time. Tonight had been rough. It was only the third week of practice with his new team and already he wanted to strangle these kids. They were a bunch of little shits that needed an ass-whooping, especially Tenzo’s team. Unfortunately, he could only dole out so many laps and exercises as punishment before the kids began complaining to their parents and then the parents started complaining to them…

Kakashi had to remind himself that he actually enjoyed coaching.

Whatever his food choice, or lack thereof, a hot shower and some smutty fanfiction on the back porch would conclude his day. Forget answering emails, cleaning his cleats, or managing the gym’s finances. All of that could be saved for tomorrow. He'd rather starve than waste any precious time relaxing, especially since The-Toad-Master's new chapter should have updated during practice if the last author’s note was anything to go by. Kakashi glanced at the clock on his dash and shift impatiently in his seat. Oh yeah, I'm way late.

Slowing down for the stoplight at the end of the drive, the man looked both ways out of habit despite the empty highway only to do a double-take at the sight of one of his U-10 soccer players sitting on a bus bench. Yanking up the mask he'd left hanging around his neck to hide his “degeneracy”, Kakashi rolled down the passenger window and called out to her. “Yo."

She was either really smart or really stupid for ignoring him. Kakashi cleared his throat as he turned the knob down on the radio and said a bit louder, “Sarada.”

“Coach!” The little brunette startled, fumbling her flip phone like a football before turning to gape at him. “Ah - hi! It’s you!” She squeaked and tucked her phone away. “W-What're you still doing here?"

“Aa?” Kakashi cocked an eyebrow and withheld the amused chuckle bubbling in his throat. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Oh, um, this…" She gestured to the bench nervously and stuttered out, "I… I was just… er, you know… waiting."

“By the highway?” Kakashi asked and set his forearm on the steering wheel, giving a discreet glance around to emphasize that this was not acceptable. He cocked a brow. “What happened to the ride picking you up at the pavilion?”

Sarada pursed her lips angrily for a moment and tugged on the sleeves of her red jacket as if she were uncomfortable. Then muttered. “Er, s-something came up…”

“Okay…” Kakashi trailed off with a frown pulling at his mouth. Narrowing his eyes, Kakashi wiggled his fingers against the gearshift. Who the fuck leaves their - “But, wouldn’t it be safer to wait back at the field?”

“I’m fine, Coach! Really!”

“Maa," Kakashi sat back with sigh and ruffled his hair as he thought about what to do in this kind of situation. He wasn’t fit to be a parent - or a coach really - hell, this whole gig had only started out to log hours for community service. Considering that, did he have any right to judge another parent for something like this? He cast an uneasy eye at the kid. Yes. Yes, he did. Consternation coloring his tone, he said, “I dunno if I can let this slide. Come on, I’ll drive you back. We can practice drills while we wait for your ride.”

Sarada scrambled for the laminated square hanging on her backpack as she tried to explain her situation and said, “You don’t have to, Coach! I take the bus all the-”

Perhaps he had been to open handed with his instructions. Kids these days.

“That wasn’t a question.” Kakashi interrupted firmly and stared at her. The girl crossed her arms and attempt to hold a glare, refusing to move despite the nervous bounce to her leg. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her attitude and stated grimly, “If you make me step out of this car, you won’t be playing in next week’s game, Sarada. Get in.”

Sarada attempt to hold her ground a few more seconds until she heard his car door open and the overhead light came on. With a yelp, she ran to the passenger side door and yanked it open. Moving some binders for their stats and strategies out of the way, Kakashi eyed the large overnight bag she situated on his floorboard wondering if she was homeless but quickly dismissed that ridiculous thought. She was ten years old. And she had a mom. Although, that had never deterred him as a child...

Sighing inaudibly to mourn the chunk this would take out of his reading for the night, Kakashi twist in his seat to look for any cars behind him before pulling a u-turn in the entrance of the park. The ride back to the soccer field was quiet and tense; Kakashi pondering whether he had been too harsh on a child that wasn't even his about something not even sport related and Sarada embarrassed, worrying if opening the car door count towards her suspension.

Parked once more near the fields they'd claimed earlier in the evening, Kakashi reached under the seat to pull the lever and scoot his seat back for extra space to put his cleats back on. They were wet and muggy. He sighed.

“So, that’s what that smell was…”

Kakashi shot Sarada a look and retort. “More like your upper lip.”

Sarada blew a scoff through her lips to hide her laugh and turned away, crossing her arms defiantly. She muttered to the window, “What a lame comeback.”

“You’re just mad you don’t have anything to comeback with,” Kakashi mocked sassily, bobbing his head as he bent his leg for a better angle. Once his socks were snug in wet ass cleats again, he grabbed a ball from the backseat and stepped out.

Sarada didn’t budge from her spot.

Glancing back, Kakashi shrugged and decided to juggle while they wait. He couldn’t care less if she sat in the car and ignored him. After removing the doubts of his behavior, he'd decided it would simply be irresponsible of him to leave her by the highway and there was no way around that fact, even if Sarada chose to be stubborn about it. Perhaps, if she’d been smart and waited inside the pavilion like she’d originally said she would do... they wouldn’t be here. To think he had thought everyone was picked up. How had she managed to walk all the way to the exit without him noticing, anyways?

It didn’t take long for Sarada to get bored. She climbed out of his 4runner and stomped across the sidewalk to join him, a scowl maring her face. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she called out for him to pass. Looking all the world as if he were blatantly ignoring her, Kakashi turned away to take in the field with his hands on his hips. It was another cold night in January, a fine mist settling on some of the fields. He was glad the city park kept the lights on after dark, otherwise they would be in a pickle.

When asking didn’t work, she huffed and puffed before charging to take it by force. Kakashi smiled and adjust his mask as he await her approach. Her pigtails were whipping around her shoulders. Poor form. He needed to teach these kids how to run properly otherwise this season was going to suck. When she was close enough, he kicked the ball through the open stride between her feet at the last minute and walked around her.

Spinning to face him, Sarada growled impatiently, “Why won’t you pass? You said we would practice!”

“Why should I?" Kakashi teased as he dribbled circles around her. "It’s no fun passing to a grump.”

“I’m not a grump! You’re a grump, old man!”

“Old man, eh?” A chuckle huffed through his mask as he backpedaled away from her, dragging the ball with him as he taunt her. “At least, I can keep the ball.”

“I’ll show you!” Sarada yelled and dove in, leaving her stance wide open when she ran up.

He nutmegged her a second time and kept running toward the goal in case she tried to kick him like a savage brat. These kids were vicious. He called over his shoulder, "Maa, what was that, Sarada-chan?"

Now, normally, he’d feel bad for showing up a little kid, but not tonight. Sarada and Boruto had argued all two hours of practice about something completely unrelated to soccer. She deserved it for giving everyone a headache. Everyone being him and Tenzo. The kids thought it was hilarious.

“What a coward! You can’t run away!”

Stopping short with one foot on the ball and one hand rubbing his masked chin, Kakashi looked to the sky and said, "What were you showing me again? I can’t remember.”

Sarada bellowed a funny little shannaro he'd learned the girl favored over the last few weeks before he heard her running at him again.

Kakashi tucked his hands in his sweats as he waited patiently and listened to her cleats tearing into the ground. He had to admit, for a nine-year-old with poor form, what Sarada lacked in defense, she made up for in speed when she got going. Glancing behind him to confirm her position, he wait three more seconds and rolled the ball behind him, effectively nutmegging her again with his back turned. She squeaked and ran straight into him since he didn’t move. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Hmm… how should I put this? You suck, Sarada-chan."

“O-m-g, whatever! I’m done!” Sarada yelled and kicked the grass angrily. “I should have caught the bus. This is stupid!”

“You’d be waiting till six in the morning for that.” Kakashi said, idly dragging the soccer ball back and forth under his foot as he watched her throw a fit.

Sarada stopped suddenly and looked up at him. “What? Why?”

“The bus doesn’t run this late, goofball.” Kakashi crumpled his brow and said incredulously, “Maa, you weren’t kidding when you said you were new in town.”

“Seriously?” Sarada cried and threw her hands in the air as she fell back on her butt. “Why is this place like this! What am I supposed to do now? Mom will have to drive all the way across town just to pick me up now. This is terrible!”

Kakashi hummed quietly, allowing his judgemental confusion to bubble for a moment as he swayed back and forth with his hands in his pockets. Then, he asked, “Doesn’t she usually?”

“Yes sir, but not this time.” She mumbled and crossed her arms angrily.

“Well…” Damn, now he had to know. Sarada’s mom was pretty exotic and hella feisty. She punched one of the dad’s in the head at open tryouts for saying something or another. He’d never seen anything like it. It was one of the only times Kakashi wished he indulged in gossip with the parents. After a moment of deliberation, Kakashi adjust his mask nervously, afraid of overstepping boundaries and asked, “What about your dad?”

“Um… He’s not...” Tiny fingers pulled at the grass beneath her, ripping patches out until she found words. She looked across the fields and said quietly, “Around… very often.”

“Aa, I see...” Kakashi said, gaze flickering between her face and her angry sundering of the grass. He hadn’t known Sakura was a single mother, although he shouldn’t have been surprised. Both parents usually showed up for Opening Day, took turns picking their kids up, or showed up to watch the first game at the very least, but he hadn’t seen any male that fit the description. “And you don’t have anyone else to pick you up? Maybe a grandmother?”

“We don’t have family here. My mom was offered a better job at the hospital, so… we moved.” Sarada shook her head at the ground, too busy cleaving grass in two to notice his awkward inner dialogue. She ducked her head and sniffled. “I’m really sorry, Coach. I didn’t mean to… for this...”

Mild panic shot through his system realizing this little girl was about to cry. Fuck. Why? It wasn’t that big of a deal. Things like this happened. It couldn’t be helped. Kakashi sucked in a breath of air as he crouched in front of her and plucked a few grass strands of his own. He wasn’t good at small-talk or emotions, he knew this and that was fine. Coaching was easy in a way that allowed him to be a hardass, strict and precise without all the extra stuff, but this… He really should work on his people-skills if he wanted to continue working with kids.

What could he say? What exactly should he do? The girl claimed she rode the bus often, she even had a laminated bus pass, although it was for a different city, but leaving her unsupervised was just… not his forte. Children weren’t supposed to be left alone so young. It was strange that her mother would allow this and yet it seemed she actually wasn’t, somehow. “Sarada... next time your mom has to work late, just hang out at the field. Alright? It’s no big deal, I’ll wait until-”

“No! It’s not her fault this time! Please don’t kick me off the team!” Sarada cried out suddenly, big watery eyes gazing up at him imploringly. “Dad was supposed to be here, to-to pick me up f-for dinner - but... but something came up-” Sarada snapped her jaw shut and looked away, face twisted with all the fury of a child betrayed. Tears steadily dripped down her chin despite how fast she was attempting to wipe them away.

Kakashi rotate his jaw as he bowed his head to give her a moment of privacy, and if he also happened to be avoiding her emotional display, well, he never said he was a good coach. Her words weighed heavily on his chest, uncomfortably close to his own childhood wounds and he didn’t want to think about it. He pressed his thumbnail into a blade of grass and watched it split.

“It’s just… It’s so embarrassing! I don’t want everyone to know and I didn’t want them to think I was getting extra p-practice like my last team. They started a whole crap ton of drama and Boruto w-would only make fun of me and call m-me a loser if he knew.”

“Hey, don’t worry about that butthead.” Kakashi said as he tossed his grass blades at her, jumping on the chance to turn this conversation elsewhere. “If they thought you were getting special training, they’d probably ask me for extra on the sly, too. You’d be a trendsetter.”

Sarada’s face lit up with a small giggle, but it died out quickly. She wiped her nose and looked up at him nervously. “S-Still, wouldn’t you have to wait here the whole time? I mean, my last coach got… he got really mad when I had to stay late and eventually told my mom to stop bringing me... I-I don’t wanna h-hic-old you up…”

Kakashi frowned at the thought of a nine year old taking the bus in a city as big as Konoha and wondered what in the fuck was wrong with whoever she’d had last year. Coaches had a duty to the kids while they were in their care, they owed that to the parents. To abuse or neglect those unspoken vows was just... wrong. Kakashi suddenly felt lucky to have had the kind of coaches he did growing up. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for his next words. If she had no one else to tell her what was wrong with this situation, then he would have to. That’s something he had loved about Minato-sensei. The man never let bullshit fly.

He picked at the bottom of his mask nervously, wishing he didn’t feel so constricted, wishing he felt more confident. Failure wasn’t an option, though. Lessons like this were imperative to learn at a young age, no matter how uncomfortable. Leveling a finger at her, Kakashi said perhaps too blunty, “Screw that guy. And your dad. It isn’t safe to sit by yourself next to the highway of all places, especially at this time of night… Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Sarada?”

Sarada looked down at her twisted hands and nodded meekly, eventually managing to croak out a weak ‘yes sir’ as another trail of tears dripped down her cheeks. Kakashi felt his insides twist painfully at the wobble in her lip. He hadn’t meant to make her feel worse or feel like it was her fault because it damn sure wasn’t. Maybe he should have worded it differently?

Running an anxious hand through his hair, he tugged at the ends as he bowed his head and tried to think of what to say to make her feel better, at the very least, turn this conversation to something easier so as not to end on a bad note. How would this look for her mom to drive up and see her daughter crying? There would be hell to pay, for sure. She may even take her daughter off the team and Kakashi couldn’t afford that. They only had two substitutes this year… He didn’t have kids, but he considered his soccer team to be pretty close to what it would feel like to have some and he didn’t want her to quit the team because of this or have hard feelings towards him and he hated to think of what she might be going through at home.

“Listen,” He began, dropping to his ass to mirror her as he took on a more gentle tone so it wouldn’t sound as if he were attacking her. “You don’t even have to say anything next time, okay? Just kick the ball around and if you haven’t left by the time everyone else has, I’ll understand what’s up. And I promise - Hey, look at me,” Kakashi wiggled a cleat in her line of sight and ducked his head to catch her watery eyes past the glare of her glasses. “I promise I won’t be mad. Or kick you off the team. That’s stupid.”

“Really?” Tears welled up in her eyes again as her face screwed up with emotion. Then she held out her pinky and wheezed out. “Pinky promise?”

“Aa,” A quiet, uncomfortable chuckle escaped him as he looked down. “My big toe’s stronger. How about that?”

“Ew, no! I’m not touching your big toe!” Sarada giggled a bit hysterically and scrubbed under her glasses to wipe her eyes.

“Are you sure?” Kakashi asked quickly and wrangled off a cleat to wiggle a sweaty sock at her. “Perfect timing. Big toe soup right here.”

Sarada shrieked and jumped up to run around him. He couldn’t help snickering as he pulled his shoe back on. Good. Things were… better. Okay, at least.

They passed the ball around a bit and he attempted to explain how to time a nutmeg until her mom arrived.

===

now that i’ve put this out, i’m debating whether or not to add their meeting when Sakura picks her up... i dunno yet. lemme know whatcha think peeps!

#kakasaku #fanfic #kakashi hatake #sakura haruno #sarada uchiha #fanfiction #anti sakura uchiha #look #i just don't care for the punk #alright #writing #soccer au #modern au #kakashi is a degenerate #or is he?#papashi #hatake kakashi #kakashi

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spartanguard · 5 years

Text

savage garden, 3/?

Summary: Killian Jones was, by far, the worst, weakest, most ineffectual Dark One ever. (According to the Darkness, at least.) And he was fine with that. He was just a slave, a deckhand—what use did he have of dark magic? And even less want. But the Darkness has vowed to firmly get him under its grasp, one of these days. He finds respite in a beautiful secluded garden—and the amazing woman he eventually meets there. The question remains, though: is it—is she—enough to keep him out of the dark completely? One can only hope…

3.5k | rated T | AO3 | part 1 | part 2 (art)

A/N: Here’s the next chapter! Thanks to everyone who read/commented on the first! This thing keeps running away from me but I can’t wait to share the rest with y’all. Thanks again to the organizers of @csmarchmadness for getting me going on it again and to @optomisticgirl for looking it over/letting me ramble about it. And to @cocohook38 for the AMAZING art she did of the last chapter! (check the link!)

The title comes from "Violet" by Savage Garden (obvs). More CS interaction here...but still a bit angsty! This is the last shorter chapter; they’ll be a bit longer from here on out because I can’t stop writing about these two.

chapter 3: I’m gonna crash into your world

Killian moped and hid for several days, but after he’d broken three mugs and set one of his new novels ablaze in inexplicable rages, he knew he needed to get back to the garden’s tranquility.

Why bother? You’re just gonna delay the inevitable.

“It’s still a delay.”

He had to assume the garden’s new protector wasn’t as nocturnal as he was; so long as he took extra care not to leave a mark and was gone by daybreak, he should be fine. (Worst-case scenario...he used magic to leave. But he could probably avoid that.)

Returning to the oasis was like breathing fresh air after so long cooped up, even more than the sea breeze on his balcony or the walk through the forest could offer. His constantly racing heart calmed immediately, and he could feel the Darkness pressed back to the recesses of his mind; he should probably worry what it was doing there, but the respite was too blissful for him really consider it.

He only dallied for a few hours before leaving, not wanting to risk blonde fury. She’d been something else, though, hadn’t she? He hadn’t seen that kind of fierceness in anyone since Milah. Not that he had much to compare it to, but still—despite their rocky meeting, he was left somewhat in awe.

Except she hates you, the Darkness cheerfully reminded.

“I’m aware,” he sighed. But still—one could dream. (Or whatever he did instead of dreaming.)

He resumed his nightly visits, extra wary of his presence in the eden; he didn’t even sit on a bench or walk quickly, lest he stir up a breeze and disturb the lawn. He took in the fragrances from a safe distance and ingrained the shape of the petals into his mind’s eye—a perk of his extra-sharp vision. And he left well before dawn.

He was pleased with himself; he wasn’t typically one for rebellion, despite his servitude on a pirate ship. But it wasn’t like she owned the garden, right?

Wrong, apparently. Because after a few weeks of uneventful visits, he’d hardly set foot inside the walls one night before a piercing, shrill whistle sounded, rattling his brain in his skull; he covered his ears in an attempt to muffle it, but it felt like it was coming from inside his head.

The pain in his cranium was quickly replaced by pain all over as he was tackled from behind, pinned to the ground on his stomach as some force held him down. He could see where the grass died at contact with his face.

“I thought I told you to leave!” It was her again—of course.

“You never said I couldn’t come back,” he snarled, a foreign—but sadly, not unfamiliar—rage coursing through him; how dare she attack when he was minding his own business!

A moment later, he was flipped over on his back and a dagger was at his neck. The blonde sorceress was straddling his hips, fury etched in her features. “Most people would have assumed the unsaid,” she bit back.

“I’m not most people, lass,” he snapped. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” Heat was rising with his anger, starting at his core and emanating out.

For a brief moment, fear flashed in her eyes; she must have felt the magical shift in the air around him. But it was gone in a blink, determination taking its spot as she summoned a ball of white magic into her free hand. “Try me.”

“Oh, trust me—you don’t want that,” he countered, his own powers flickering like black lightning in his palm, even with the glove on. Sparks began to shower off it, killing the plants wherever they fell.

Imagine what it could do to her, the Darkness whispered, followed by a chorus of other ghostly voices encouraging him to Do it! Do it! Dooooo itttttt....

Her eyes widened as she glanced at the danger lurking in his grip, her fight or flight response trying to decide which was best. She was scared. Perfect.

Wait—she was scared...of him? No; no, that couldn’t...he blinked a few times as recognisance took over. What the bloody hell was he doing?

He closed his hand in a fist around the dark magic, squelching it; he could almost feel it stop in its tracks as it rushed through his veins. As best he could, he scrambled back away from her, casting her on her rear, but that was surely a less grievous injury than whatever he’d been about to do.

In the last glimpse he caught of her face, she wore an expression of pure confusion. “I’m...I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...I’m sorry,” he sputtered, then called on the magic to whisk him away.

When the smoke cleared, he was on his balcony, gasping for air he didn’t truly need—he could only assume it was a buried nervous reaction in his body. He could feel tears welling at his eyes as shame washed over him; how had he let it get that far? That had never happened before—not to that extreme.

We told you—it’s inevitable. Stop fighting it. Wasn’t it exhilarating?

“No, it wasn’t.” The adrenaline running through him did not come from joy.

Ohh, but it was—facing off against a proper magic user for once? We could have some fun with her, dearie.

“You won’t. I won’t let you.”

How? You clearly can’t keep out of that garden.

“I won’t go back; I mean it this time.”

You’re too weak to keep that promise. And apparently too stupid to avoid the one thing that can kill you.

That had his attention. “What?”

She was radiating pure light magic! Didn’t you feel that?

He collapsed into his chair as he thought back to their confrontation—the pure light of her magic and her reaction to his.

The only thing that can destroy darkness is light.

“Is that so,” he said dryly. Maybe there was a way out of this curse after all; he didn’t care if it cost him his life, so long as it was destroyed.

We know what you’re thinking, the chorus hissed. We won’t let you.

“We’ll see about that.”

There was no waiting around for a cool down this time. Even if he didn’t go inside, he still had to be near the garden; just knowing what—and who—lay inside was enough to calm him, though the voices taunted him at every turn.

Do you really have such little self-preservation?

“It would seem so.”

The cool stone walls tamped down the blazing dark heat that would well up, and even the flowering vines that covered them were a balm.

What a waste of resources, the Darkness scoffed as he observed a perfect petal. Magic can be used for so much more—to steal, to win, to conquer!

Even if he wasn’t witness to her raw power, he knew that wasn’t the case. Despite his personal interactions with magic being rather negative, he grew up on tales of powerful, just wizards and goodness prevailing over evil, always. While he knew it was never in the cards for him, he’d always been especially in awe over tales of true love prevailing over all else.

It made him curious to see her in action. Surely her magic didn’t only take the form of the alarm system he’d set off or the defensive display he’d triggered, though even that had a raw kind of beauty about it.

So he decided one night, a few weeks after their faceoff, that he wouldn’t flee before dawn this time. The sun was just about to break over the horizon when he selected a vine near the door and touched it with his bare fingers, watching as it shriveled in his hand—but knowing that it wouldn’t be that way for long.

As nimbly as he could manage, he climbed a tree near the door, out of sight but with a full view of the entrance, and sat in wait for her arrival. He probably could have made himself invisible, but knowing him, he would have just set the tree on fire if he tried.

We can make that happen.

He didn’t acknowledge the suggestion, because footsteps were falling on the path that led to the door. He’d never traveled down it, preferring his own self-made trail to anything where he might encounter people; he thought the village of Longbourne lay that way, or maybe the capital of Misthaven? For as long as he’d been around, he was rough on his geography, and goodness knew how it had changed over the years.

No matter; what was important was who was arriving: the still-nameless guardian of the garden. From this vantage point, he was finally able to take in her odd manner of dress: a long white cloak that she’d had on during their first meeting, made of such a fine material that told him she either came from money or had stolen from the rich. Because below it, she wore a utilitarian outfit of a blue leather jerkin and matching leggings, comfortably worn boots, and a simple tunic underneath the top that all indicated a life of labour. Her hair was down today, but it had been pulled back during their altercation.

Her appearance painted a contradictory image that he couldn’t puzzle out, though he supposed his own monk-like cloak, leather pants and boots, and wide-open shirt were equally in opposition.

As she approached the gate, he could tell the exact moment she noticed his handiwork. She paused midstep, then glanced around, no doubt looking for him; thankfully, she didn’t think to look up. Then she turned back to the dead vine and marched up to it.

He held his breath as he watched her work, because it was more beautiful than he expected: gently, she held the blackened plant in one hand, and the other hovered over it until tiny spheres of white light sprang forth, some finding the vine immediately and others floating up to find and heal its farther reaches. At one point, the entire vine glowed with magic, and when the light faded, it was completely restored.

“Wow,” he breathed, completely stunned. But then he clamped his mouth shut and prayed she hadn’t heard that.

Luck was not on his side. “I know you’re there,” she called out, sounding almost resigned. “You can come on down.”

He stayed frozen; he had no idea what to do. The Darkness was screaming that it was a trap, but other than the safeguards she’d put on the garden, he couldn’t see her being so devious. And if she was extending an invitation, wouldn’t it make sense for him to accept it, especially if she held the key to ending the Dark One?

Carefully, he began to pick his way down the branches, but going down was harder than going up, and he missed a foothold, falling the rest of the way down and landing on his back with a groan. Anyone else would have been seriously injured, and the jolt was bad enough that he felt like he was, but whatever had been holding his body together all these years made sure he went unscathed; it just hurt like hell.

The woman made no effort to help him, but at least she didn’t make fun of him, which in itself was a change from the usual response to his clumsiness. Granted, no one had done that in over a century, but the memory was still fresh.

When he’d finally recovered enough to move, he hoisted himself up, brushed himself off, and then turned to face her. She was wearing an utterly unimpressed expression; now that, he was used to.

“My apologies for the intrusion,” he said, with a meek bow, not sure what else to say. Did she want to interrogate him? Formally banish him? There were any number of punishments she could execute.

“It’s fine,” she said with a slight, casual shrug. “I thought about it, and I figured that a Dark One who is obsessed with a garden, of all things, can’t be all that bad.”

He breathed in sharply. It shouldn’t have come to a surprise that she knew what he was, but no one had addressed him as such in so long; he had thought that perhaps the Dark One was just a legend by now, but apparently not.

“Are you sure about that, lass?” he asked her. “You’ve seen what I can do.” And if she knew her history, then she likely knew what the Darkness was capable of.

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” she countered. “Come on in,” she added with a tilt of her head toward the open door, then headed in herself.

The Darkness tried to hold him back, but one glimpse of the haven within the walls was all it took for him to follow her.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back as he breathed in the sweet floral scent inside. This was probably the latest in the day he’d been here, and with the flowers opening even more to the sun overhead, the fragrance was stronger than he’d ever noticed.

“So what was that one?” Her voice pulled him from his calm reverie; she’d taken a seat on one of the benches, shirked her cloak, and was basking in the warm light.

“I beg your pardon?” he stammered.

“The vine; was that an accident, or on purpose? I know you said you didn’t mean to cause damage, but that seemed pretty specific.”

He could feel a flush rising. “I’m afraid that one was intentional.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“I was just…curious,” he admitted.

She sat up a little straighter as he slowly shuffled in her direction; he could see her hackles rising. “About my magic?”

“Aye.” He felt like he needed to tell the truth, or something resembling it, lest she cast him out again. “Please don’t take this as me being forward, but I can’t honestly say I’ve seen anything quite so beautiful as it.” Except her, maybe, but that would definitely cross a line.

She gave a small smile back. “It’s been a while since anyone said anything like that to me.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” he blurted out.

She rolled her eyes, but was grinning. “I bet you’re full of lines like that, aren’t you?”

“Uh, no, actually; I’m not quite sure where that came from, to be honest.”

“Hopefully not the same place as that black storm ball you had a few weeks ago.”

Did you already forget that you nearly killed her? the Darkness taunted as his gaze drifted to the grass. Should have known you’d get so easily lost in a pretty face, just like Milah—

“No!” he shouted, before those visions could play in his mind again. Emma jumped at the noise, her face falling to somewhere between concerned and panicked. “I mean—no, it’s not. I must apologize again for that clash; I wasn’t fully in control at the moment.”

“Does that happen a lot?” she asked softly.

“More often than I’d like.”

“That’s gotta be tough.”

He shrugged. “Everyone has their burdens to bear. This one is mine.”

She hummed in thought, then let her gaze wander around the garden.

“So how long have you been coming here?” she asked. He gaped for a moment; no one had asked him about him or his life in...well, ever. She glanced back at him looking almost alarmed, making him realize he hadn’t responded; his conversation skills were rustier than he thought.

“A very long time,” he answered, a bit gravely.

“Even when it was all dead?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Why?”

He mused for a moment before answering. “Because it’s quiet. Because even then, nature managed to renew itself and continue on; I hoped...maybe I could, too.”

She only gave him half a smile, but it was enough to warm the coldest parts within him. “I like that. My mother always told me that happy endings start with hope.”

“Your mother sounds like a terribly smart woman.”

“She was.”

Oh, bloody hell—he really hadn’t learned anything about tact, had he? “My apologies.”

“It’s...never mind.” Something had struck a nerve, and the subsequent awkwardness in the air was a familiar feeling that usually indicated it was his fault.

“I...I’ll get out of your hair, then,” he said quietly, not wanting to intrude on her quiet time any longer. She wasn’t looking at him, anyway, so he turned and started to leave.

“Emma.”

He paused; what? He turned back to look at her, and she was rising from her seat, walking towards him. Once she stood in front of him, she extended her hand out.

“My name. It’s Emma.”

It showed how removed from society he was when he didn’t know how to respond to an introduction, but he gingerly took her delicate fingers in his gloved ones.

“Are you gonna tell me yours, or is that against the Dark One rules or something?” she lightly teased.

He only then realized his jaw was hanging open; quickly, he closed it, regained his composure, and answered, “Killian.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Killian.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Emma.” For a long moment, he just stared into her eyes—which were a softer green in this light—until he realized he was still awkwardly holding her hand.

He quickly thought back to those romance novels he’d been reading and what all the gentlemen did in those: he brought her hand to his lips and placed the gentlest of kisses on the back of it. Where her soft skin met his, he felt a sharp spark—almost as if the air was quivering around them—but it was immediately forgotten when she blushed the same pink as the roses in the background and smiled at him.

(Offhandedly, he wondered what it looked like when he blushed; he could feel heat rising in his cheeks, but did it show up pink, or tint his bluish skin purple? He supposed it didn’t really matter as long as she wasn’t running away in horror—though he’d taken care to .)

“I best be on my way, then,” he said, dropping her hand and immediately missing its warmth in his. “Have a lovely day, Emma.” That was his new favorite name, he decided.

“You, too,” she said softly. He turned again to leave but she called back one more time. “And hey—don’t be a stranger; it’s nice to see that someone else appreciates this place.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“O-okay then,” he stuttered. “Until then, then.”

She laughed a little and a sideways grin lit up her features. “Until then.”

He finally headed out, not letting himself have so much as a backwards glance—because he knew he might truly never leave then.

The walk home had never been more refreshing, they day never so beautiful, the leaves never so glorious in their reds and golds. The Darkness was trying to tell him something, but for the first time ever, he was able to completely drown it out. Were he still a boy, he’d probably start skipping.

Well, that might have been going a bit too far, but it had been ages since his heart felt as light as it did. In hindsight, that should have been a sign that something was amiss.

For as soon as he’d arrived home and slipped off his glove, there it was: those pulsating shadows in his palm. The static from when he touched Emma had never quite left; that must have been why.

You blithering fool! You almost had her!

“I won’t harm her,” he warned.

If you don’t, she’ll kill you.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he tossed back, knowing it would rile them up.

As expected, the Darkness erupted in a cacophony of shouts hammering inside his head. He winced at the onslaught and headed to his back porch, collapsing into his chair in hopes the view of the sun on the water below would quell them. It did, eventually—it always did—but it took longer than usual; not until the sun was setting beyond the horizon, tinting the water with its myriad colors.

He ignored the night chill as he watched the moon rise over the land. He wondered if there was some symbolism in the cool blue of its light on the water, much like his own pallor, in opposition to Emma’s golden sunshine among the greenery.

Oh, goodness—he was getting ahead of himself. Perhaps the romance novels were too much.

One actual conversation and you’re a lovesick puppydog. Sickening.

“Shut up.”

thanks for reading, friends! tagging some peeps (holla if you do/don’t want a tag) @kat2609 @thesschesthair @fergus80 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @selfie-wench @mryddinwilt @cocohook38 @annytecture @wingedlioness @word-bug @pirateherokillian @bleebug @its-imperator-furiosa @queen-mabs-revenge @killianmesmalls @sherlockianwhovian @effulgentcolors @laschatzi @ive-always-been-a-pirate @jscoutfinch @nfbagelperson @the-captains-ayebrows @stubble-sandwich @killian-whump @lenfaz @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @kmomof4 @ilovemesomekillianjones @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @idristardis @wyntereyez @lfh1962 @bmbbcs4evr @therooksshiningknight

#cs ff #dark killian #killian jones ff #cs march madness #deckhand hook #fic: savage garden #my ff

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hartlessfiction · 6 years

Photo

Title: Fantasy Football Rating: Explicit Fandom: Teen Wolf Relationship: Sterek Tags: College AU, Human AU, Quarterback Derek, Quidditch Chaser Stiles, pinning Derek, Artist Derek, Alive Hales, past Derek/Kate, side pairing Boyd/Erica, Rich Hales, Stiles plays Club Quidditch, Fluff, Smut, Art: @benaya-trash Updates: Every Friday, follow tumblr tag: SterekFF

Summary: Derek Hale, first-string quarterback for the U.C Berkeley football team is an All-American, red-blooded male, straight as an arrow. Well, at least, that’s what everyone around him believes. What they don't know is that he’s crushing hard on the school's Quidditch Club star player. When his coach forces him to recruit said Quidditch player, Derek’s life becomes a lot more complicated.

Read on A03

“Hey, man,” Boyd calls as he strides up the bleachers towards where Derek’s sitting.

As casually as he dares, Derek closes the sketchpad he has balanced on his knees and drops his forearms over it, sandwiching it against his thighs. Boyd doesn’t know he draws and he’d like to keep it that way.

“What’s up, Boyd?” He asks, tugging the brim of his U.C. Berkeley baseball cap lower over his eyes.

“Not much,” Boyd says, as he flops down on the bleachers next to Derek. “What are you doing back here?” He sits forward and scans the crowd, his eyes skimming over the strangely dressed players on the field.

There are about twenty kids sprawled across the stands; some doing homework, a few just hanging out, one girl who’s smoking. Derek curls his lip every time the light breeze drags the smoke in his direction. There is also, however, a small group down in front carrying posters, banging on cowbells and singing songs. They’re all dressed in robes and scarves, despite it being late spring.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Boyd asks, his brows arched as the two teams move around each other.

“Uh, I have no idea...” Derek lies, tugging on the brim of his cap again. He knows exactly what’s going on here, and has for months.

He stumbled upon the university’s Quidditch Club two semesters ago but had only really started following its progress once Gryffindor got their new chaser. Derek’s eyes flick towards the players, finding number 24 easily and watching him streak down the field in the strange little hop-run all the players have to do, the long dark handle of his broom clutched snugly between his lean, muscular thighs. Derek presses his sketchbook down onto his lap, letting the bottom edge dig, almost painfully, into his crotch, successfully quelling his burdening arousal.

He and Boyd watch in silence for a while--well, Derek watches number 24, his fingers itching to reopen his sketchbook and get back to drawing the player. He isn’t exactly sure what Boyd is watching. Currently, Gryffindor is up by over thirty points, with number 24 sprinting down the field in an impressive display of agility to fake out the keeper and throw the quaffle in for another five. Derek resists doing the little fist bump and whispered woohoo he normally does when 24 scores.

“This is going to sound strange, but don’t you think 24 would make a good receiver?” Boyd asks, his sneaker tapping against the metal floor of the bleachers as he thinks.

Internally, Derek groans. He’d love to have 24 receiving for him. He’d love to have 24 laid out flushed and sweating, chest heaving, catching everything Derek could throw at him. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Derek draws a slow even breath before he responds, pushing the image of number 24’s flushed, smiling face out of his mind.

“I guess... I haven’t really been paying attention.”

“Maybe you should?” Boyd points his chin down at the field expectantly.

Derek clears his throat as 24 high fives a pretty brunette girl. His face is flushed, the dark spots of his moles standing out against the red blush that's layered over his normally pale skin. He’s sweating, and Derek can see the way his fluffy brown hair is darker at his temples and the nape of his neck. Derek swallows and almost chokes as his mouth floods with saliva, wanting to taste the chaser’s salted skin.

The game sets up again and the referee tosses the quaffle into the air. The moment the ball leaves the refs hands 24 is already leaping for it, his reflexes and timing impeccable, snatching it easily. Derek grits his teeth as the guy's thighs flex, well-defined muscles twitching in an effort to keep the broom snugly tucked into the vee of his thighs. He hits the ground and does a beautiful fake out; twirling, spinning around the other chaser and deftly dodging a squishball batted at him from one of the opposing beaters. 24 barrels down the field with long elegant strides and Derek has to drag his eyes away as his temperature rises from what is, quite frankly, an obscene display.

“Well?” Boyd pushes, his brows arched.

“I mean, I guess.”

“You know Liam is graduating right?”

“Of course I know. I have to know. I’m the quarterback.” Derek rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but do you also know Coach is putting out feelers at local high schools to recruit a new receiver as it is, so….”

“So why not bring him someone with some talent instead of a freshman who has something to prove?” Derek fills in with a sigh.

“Yeah, well, think about it, the kid has some skills. And we need the talent.” Boyd smacks Derek on the shoulder as he gets up. “See you at practice.”

“Yeah man, see you.”

Derek sits in a daze as Boyd disappears back towards campus. He loses track of time and the score of the game, he’s so consumed with the idea of having to talk to number 24, let alone playing football with him. The whistle on the field blows harshly and Derek jumps, eyes lifting in time to watch the Gryffindor team swarm his boy, number 24 enveloped in bodies, shouting and cheering.

Absently, he flips open his sketchbook, sighing over the half-finished drawing of number 24 mid-sprint, face cracked into a smirk as he throws the quaffle. Derek snaps the book closed–just one of many half-finished sketches he’ll never get a chance to complete. Quietly, he slinks from the stands and slips off back towards the gym. It’s a hike from the forgotten, forlorn backfield the Quidditch Club plays on, but Derek needs the distraction. The back of his neck still burns with embarrassment at being caught out there by Boyd, but at least he didn’t catch on that Derek was there for number 24 more than he was for the game.

He trots up one of the sloping hills, sketchbook tucked under his arm. He’ll get an upper body workout in before football practice this afternoon, and maybe exhaustion will help keep his mind off number 24’s long legs and perky backside.

Yanking the helmet from his head, Derek snarls, “That's the third fucking interception today, Greenberg!” He turns his attention to Coach. “You’ve got to be kidding with this! Put him back at tight-end!”

“What do you want from me, Hale? He's the best we’ve got right now,” Finstock snaps back, slapping his clipboard down onto the bench. “You think I like this? You think I want Greenberg! GREENBERG, THREE LAPS FOR BEING, WELL… YOU!” Coach shouts and then runs his palm over his forehead and into his hair.

“Hale’s got someone,” Boyd offers and Derek's eyes go wide with panic before he can school his expression.

Flinstock turns narrowed eyes on Derek as the rest of the team comes off the field for water.

“No. I don’t,” Derek grits out around his clenched teeth. This cannot be happening.

“You do…?” Flinstock says, eyes wide for a moment. “Hale, I don’t care who it is, if they’re a better wide receiver than Greenberg I want them, yesterday!”

“Coach, I don't have anyone!” Derek says as firmly as he can manage but Boyd once again calls his bluff.

“Number 24, dude,” Boyd says like he’s being fucking helpful, like Derek didn’t immediately think of number 24. Like Derek isn’t constantly thinking of number fucking 24. “You know, from last week, that strange shit with the brooms.”

“Are you talking about Stilinski… from the Quidditch club?” Jackson says, his face pinched, streaks of sweat and dirt smeared over his temples.

“No.” Derek grunts.

“Yeah,” Boyd says at the same time. “Do you know him?”

Derek groans, dropping his head back and closing his eyes.

“I mean, I guess I do. We went to Beacon Hills together, he was on the lacrosse team. I heard he was ok until he hurt his shoulder.” Jackson lifts his water bottle and squeezes it a few inches from his mouth like the tool he is, instead of just drinking from it. “I was a starter before I transitioned to football, so I didn’t really pay attention to who was warming the bench or why,” he says dismissively.

Derek sees his window and jumps for it. “Bum shoulder? That sucks, guess I don’t have someone after all.” He grabs a towel and his water bottle ready to make his escape.

“Lacrosse and football use a completely different set of muscles, he might be open to playing for us,” Flinstock says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Talk to him, Hale. I don’t care what you have to do to get him out here, but I want to see him next practice. Put him through his paces.”

“Coach,” Derek grunts.

“Do it, Hale, anything it takes or I’m starting Jackson against UCLA.”

“‘Bout time,” Jacksons interjects, a smug grin on his face.

“You wouldn’t,” Derek snarls, tossing his towel down.

“I would, I will. We’re dead in the water without a receiver who can catch what you throw and you know Greenberg… GREENBERG, GET UP!” Flinstock charges out onto the field, shouting at Greenberg about his stamina. The poor kid’s on his knees tipped forward, his helmet to the turf, arms spread out to his sides. Derek can almost hear his wheezing from here. He looks like a stiff breeze could knock him over and sure enough, as coach gets to his side it only takes a small boot to his butt to have Greenberg flopping flat and starfishing out in the middle of the field.

“Don’t bother with Stilinski, Hale,” Jackson says, smirking around his water bottle. “Just forget about him, you know I was made for first string anyway. It's time you learned your place.”

“You fucking…”

“Derek.” Boyd slaps a hand on Derek's chest stopping him from engaging Jackson. “Don’t listen to Whittemore, he’s an idiot. Isaac and I will come down to the back field when you talk to this Stilinski kid. We’ll have your back.”

Having support is not what Derek is afraid of–if anything he’d prefer if Boyd and Isaac weren’t there to see him embarrass himself in front of number 24… Stilinski. Even just knowing his name sends butterflies swooping through Derek’s stomach.

“Fine, whatever,” Derek snarls, because fuck his life. He couldn’t just make it two more years watching 24–Stilinski–from the safety of the bleachers, could he? No, of course he couldn’t. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he curses under his breath, storming after the rest of his team towards the locker room.

“Okay!” Isaac says a while later as he flops down on the bench next to Derek. He’s got a towel wrapped around his hips and he smells like coconut shampoo. “I hear we’re going on a recon mission?”

“We are not going on a recon mission,” Derek states, tossing his jersey in the footwell of his locker with more force than necessary.

“But Boyd said…”

“I don’t fucking care what Boyd said. I’m the quarterback of this team, you guys listen to me.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t on the field right now so… what’s going on? Are we getting you a new receiver or what?”

“We are,” Boyd chimes in as he rounds the end of the lockers, pulling his shirt over his head. He’s already in his boxers, freshly cleaned from the showers, and if they weren’t such good friends Derek would take a moment to admire the thick muscles of his thighs. But they are, so he doesn’t, turning back to his locker and trying not to bang his head against the low shelf in frustration. “Just gotta figure out when they play next,” Boyd finishes, coming to stand on Derek’s other side.

“Tuesday,” Derek says without thinking, then grimaces, internally groaning.

“Ooookay….” Isaac stretches out the word and Derek sighs.

He’s got their whole season memorized, he knows the days they practice, who they’re playing and when their games are. Derek also knows that number 24, the brunette chaser (number 11), and one of their beaters, a blonde girl (number 69), had to petition the student council twice to keep their practice time on the backfield. Derek didn’t understand why the school was giving them such a hard time–that field’s crap anyway, and no-one uses it, not even the D3 soccer team.

“So, tomorrow then?” Isaac pushes, leaning back to catch Derek’s eye as he tries to hide his head in his locker again.

“Yeah, I guess. I saw a flyer earlier…. In, uh, the quad.” Derek scrambles to cover his blunder. Gryffindor plays Hufflepuff tomorrow and those are Derek's favorite games. Hufflepuff always has such good strategies, and their plays are complicated, but their stamina is low. Number 24–Stilinski–always runs circles around them.

“Riiight…” Isaac says, again, drawing out the word. Derek can feel him and Boyd exchanging looks behind his back.

“Right.” Derek grunts, grabbing his towel and stepping over the bench. “Guess we’re on for then.” He bites out, stomping off towards the showers.

He tries very hard for the rest of the day to no think about Stilinski.

A/n: this fic will update every Friday under the tag SterekFF, and my writing tag Hartless writes, you can also subscribe on A03

#SterekFF #sterek fic rec #sterek au #hartless writes #stiles stilinski #derek hale #college au #fanfiction #updates on friday #yasd #sterek fanfic #football player derek hale #quarterback derek hale #quidditch player stiles #chaser stiles #human au #no supernatural #alive hale family #sterek

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artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

bad idea (let's keep kissing) [ninex] - pinkgrapefruit

A/N - welcome to ninex and waitress - otherwise known as my love letter to meggie (she’s like my mum and i love her). thank you to beanie and mac for betaing and advising! please let me know what you think and enjoy!

It’s a bad idea, me and you

I know, I totally agree

It’s a bad idea, me and you

I’ve never known anything so true

It’s a terrible idea, me and you

They’ve always been electric. Neon sign, Blackpool illuminations, Times Square electric. At one point the director asked if Nina could play the Doctor instead - if they could gender-bend the entire production just to have the chemistry play out on stage every night and she would have agreed, given up the possibility of ever playing Jenna just to kiss Monet for money eight times a week. Like she said back then, she wouldn’t have complained.

No one ever asked what Monet thought. Yes, her eyes were pretty obvious, the blown pupils and the way her tongue darted out every time Nina stepped on stage but it was just a bit of chemistry (ironically, the exact justification used by a teenage Monet to explain why her science grade had dropped when she got the lead in a school play - it never worked).

So they skirt each other, wait till there is the acceptable three feet of space to avoid an electric shock. Insulate. Protect. Avoid.

Until they don’t.

Somewhere between the avoidance and ignoring, Monet hasn’t looked at Nina in months and then suddenly, she looks even more beautiful.

You have a wife

You have a husband

You’re my doctor

You’ve got a baby coming

It’s a bad idea, me and you

Let’s just keep kissing ‘til we come to

“This is a terrible idea,” exhales Monet as she leans back into her chair, Nina straddling her legs and leaving sweet cherry kisses on her neck. “We work together - God, this was supposed to be a show.”

The other woman sits up a little on her legs, moves her lips from her neck to place a long, tender kiss on Monet’s lips. She smiles shyly as she pulls away, reaches a hand from where it was placed on her hip to wipe the stray lipstick away.

“God we’re a cliche,” Nina giggles softly, biting her lip as she says it before sliding off Monet’s (very crumpled apron) and onto the chair opposite. She links their fingers with a smile. “I think this was possibly a rather bad idea,” but as she says it, she smiles like it’s the best idea she’s ever had.

“If people find out- “

“We deal with it.”

“But - “

“Monet, I’m supposed to be the nervous mess - Calm down, honey.” She squeezes their intertwined fingers with a finality that tells the other woman the conversation is most certainly over for now.

A knock on the dressing room door causes them to jump apart, hands splitting as they both move to reapply their lipstick (to look like they were doing anything but making out). “Come in,” one of them calls and Brooke opens the door looking unimpressed.

“You know it’s a bad day when you can’t find either of the Jennas,” She sighs, obviously turning off her headset and tapping her clipboard. “I won’t say a word of this to anyone,” she then hisses, almost conspiratorially, “But lord help me if we don’t have a Jenna for act two - Nina you’re a swing for a reason.”

Monet chuckles as she finishes checking herself but sees Brooke’s pointed glare in the mirror and changes her mind. She squeezes Nina’s hip before following the Canadian muttering something about ‘the power of showbiz’ and how ‘these aprons don’t get ironed.’

Nina sinks back down into the chair, hovers a finger over the ghost of the other girl’s lips and wonders how the hell she got on Broadway in the first place.

Heart, stop racing

Let’s face it, making mistakes like this will make worse what was already pretty bad

Mind, stop running

It’s time we just let this thing go

It was a pretty good bad idea, wasn’t it though?

They sneak out of stage door after the show, wait until the fans have all left and hope none of the production team spots them. It’s New York in the winter and so both are bundled up warm in layers upon layers. Monet’s clothes are almost sleek - she looks put together and expensive as she hurries Nina down the subway stairs. Nina, on the other hand, looks like a walking craft fair - and Monet wouldn’t have it any other way.

They hold hands on the subway and neither of them flinches when they get dirty looks from the eleven o’clock perverts - simply keeping their heads low but together. Monet places a chaste peck on the top of Nina’s ear and the girl damn near swoons.

They hurry up above ground where they await the warm safety of the streetlights and patrol cars - dodge between drunk men and frisky couples to wander home. Somewhere along the way, it starts to snow and Nina sticks her tongue out tentatively - trying to catch the fleeting remnants of winter, taste the memories.

When they reach Monet’s apartment, Nina is pushed against the inside of the door. Monet firmly places a knee between her legs, holding her in place to suck a row of neat kisses onto the exposed collarbone. It’s flushed red from the sudden heat and patches slowly turn purple under the pressure as Nina’s fingers thread through her partner’s hair. She sighs contentedly and Monet stops to peck her lips before dragging her through the nearest door and pushing them both gently onto the couch.

It’s a bad idea, me and you

Hold me close while I think this through

Yeah, it’s a very poor idea, me and you

Nina wakes up on the couch. Her hand is numb under the weight of Monet, who is still fast asleep tucked between her and the back of the sofa. In the early morning light, she looks almost ethereal. The glow of dawn casts shadows across her face that only make her look younger, more innocent, less burdened with the pressures of being one of Broadway’s up and comings.

Nina is sure she looks like none of the above, feeling the way her mascara makes her eyelashes stick to her under eyes every time she blinks. She supposes that it could symbolise the way her heart sticks and tugs a little every time she looks at Monet but she’s always been a poetic theatre kid and real life doesn’t work like a story book. Romance is an idea to be bought and sold with ticket stubs and a rosé.

She prises herself off the sticky leather of the couch, rubbing her exposed leg gently where it had stuck, and cracks her neck as she sits up. She grabs her belongings from where they had been strewn on the floor and runs a hand through the stiff hairspray residue of her hair. When she leaves she tries not to look back. Her conscience is too precious.

Heart, stop racing

Let’s face it, making mistakes like this will make worse what was already pretty bad

Mind, stop running

It’s time we just let this thing go

It was a pretty good bad idea, wasn’t it though?

It’s scary how easy it is to return to avoiding each other. It doesn’t take much - maybe a different hallway here, a change of side there and you’re all good. No awkward encounters or long glances into all-too-revealing eyes.

Nina’s conscience weighs heavy on her shoulders for a while, like she’s carrying the weight of the world on tight muscle and blue fabric. She rubs her neck with the pads of her thumb trying to loosen the knots she got from overthinking and lack of sleep, ignores how the rise and fall of her chest aches on a level that’s not quite pain. It hurts like a breakup and yet it had never really started.

The real pain comes from the way Monet cannot look her in the eye anymore. There is no flirting, no banter and no electric connection. The sparks fly like a faulty wire - they are unintended and dangerous and go nowhere - yet they could burn.

I know it’s right for me

It’s the only thing I’ve ever done

What if I never see myself ever be anything more

Than what I’ve already become?

She tells Brooke halfway through January when she can no longer shoulder the burden alone. Nina falls onto an arm chair looking forlorn and feels as her chest fragments into a china teacup and a saucer. And then she watches as Brooke skillfully tapes and glues her back together with love and affection and a listening ear.

She tells Brooke about the months of pining and how it had led to a magical night that couldn’t seem to make it to morning. How the night had flown like a raven out of the window and Nina had felt hollow when she awoke, achy and cold.

Brooke tells her she’s stupid and makes another cup of tea.

She posits that the emptiness came from fulfilment rather than absence and the cold was simply the lack of clothes. She tells her it’s simple and then she kicks her out of the office with nothing more than a sigh and a knowing smile.

Nina damn hopes Brooke knows.

I need a bad idea

Just one

It’s a long empty hallway. The same one kids sit in before they make their big breaks in New York. It’s an audition office - the air heavy with the weight of lost dreams and regret, but it smells like Cinnabon and heavy cream.

Nina finds Monet there like she knew she would. The air feels sticky and warm like the AC broke in the middle of summer but it is still only January and the windows are condensated and sparkle in the early afternoon sun. She presumes that the hallway means the same thing to Monet that it does to her - new hopes, new beginnings, new dreams.

She has dreams.

“Monet,” she calls out, something in her voice breaking a little in the hard silence.

Monet turns her head ever so slightly, there’s a sad smile on her face and it hurts Nina to see it.

“Can we- Can we talk?”

She pats the seat next to her and Nina moves slowly as if not to scare her off. They end up side by side on a cold wooden bench facing a casting board. It has eleven or so pictures on it - headshots of a few of the actors - and Monet’s and Nina’s are right next to each other.

“I remember the day this was taken,” Monet states broadly. It sounds almost as if she’s thinking out loud but there’s a certain conviction to the words. “Bob’s balcony, the light comes from his old monitor with the screen turned on.”

“It’s a beautiful picture.”

“I know.”

Nina sighs and readjusts herself so she’s leaning against the concrete wall behind them, hands either side of herself.

“Summer twenty-fourteen,” she laughs nervously, the Ohio twang returning as she says it. “Virginia took it on my last trip back home.”

“You look…” starts Monet before she trails off.

“I look?”

“Younger. More naive,” she eventually finishes.

Nina’s hand moves of its own accord to cup Monet’s chin, a move bolder than she’s ever really done before. She turns the girl’s head gently so they’re facing each other and takes a quiet inhale.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I was an asshole.”

“It’s okay,” Monet smiles, tilting her head, and the sad look in her eyes fades a little. “You were scared.”

“I was.”

“I still am.”

They kiss slowly like Nina’s always wanted. She wonders if this is what romance feels like when it’s raw and pure. Distilled essence of love, bottled and sold to the fools in the hallway, hands clasped in Monet’s lap like the other will run again.

It’s not an unfair worry.

Heart, keep racing

Let’s make mistakes

Let us say “so what?” and make worse what was already pretty bad

This secret is safe

No reason to throw it away when there’s love to be had

“We kissed again!” gushes Nina, sat on Brooke’s desk while the other woman tries to fill out some paperwork. She looks up with a quirked eyebrow and a faintly proud smile as Nina seems to be bouncing out of her own skin - excitement bubbling.

“And you’re telling me because?” she asks, still flicking through the document, scribbling her signature by the tabs.

“Because you’re you.” Nina stands up, lamenting slightly, “and I’m me, and you and Ness are sooo good!” Brooke smiles at the sound of her wife’s name, glowing a little just thinking about her. “And you’re having a baby and if I can’t ask you for your help who can I?”

Brooke stands up, closing the book and looking Nina in the eyes. She is wiser than she should be at twenty-something and Nina values her opinion above anyone else’s.

“We got through this shit because we talked. There was no walking out, no nothing. When she wanted to have a baby, I made a cup of tea and we talked.” Nina nods slowly. “Now I’m going to make a cup of tea and we’re going to talk, capisce?”

“Yes.”

Hold me tight as I tell myself that you might make sense

And make good what has been just so bad

Let’s see this through

It’s a pretty good bad idea

Nina wakes up between two warm cotton sheets. Her bare back presses against a warm body and she can feel cold toes pushing into her calves. As smoothly and quietly as she can, she turns onto her back, moving an arm so the other woman stops spooning her back and wraps around her side, head nestling into the crook of her shoulder.

She sighs contentedly. Monet snuggles into her even more. Nina reckons staying over was a damn good idea.

Me and you

#rpdr fanfiction #ninex #nina west #monet x change #waitress song fic #angst #fluff #hopeless romance #musical theatre challenge #fic challenge #bad idea #pinkgrapefruit #concrit welcome #musical theatre au

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the-everlasting-dream · 6 years

Text

Sticky Situation - Maxwell x MC ft. Drake

Summary: Maxwell’s attempt at manscaping goes awry.

A/N: This is not an original idea. It was inspired by this post but after reading it I KNEW I had to se a Maxwell version for reasons. If I’ve done my job right, you’ll all be rolling with laughter soon. Slight Drake x MC Elizabeth here.

Submission for @choices-september-challenge Day 17 Unexpected hosted by @i-dream-so-i-write. I think I might be a day early but its the 17th for me lol

Maxwell Beaumont: Xavier Serrano Thea Larkin: Olivia Holt

Word count: 4100+

Warnings: Description of male genitalia, sexual references

Permanent tags: @choicessa, @pbchoicesobsessed , @meeraaverywalker , @drakewalkerwhipped , @mfackenthal , @srawesleyghuewrites , @topsyturvy-dream , @enmchoices , @gardeningourmet @debramcg1106 , @alesana45 , @meladoridarcy, @blackcatkita , @tmarie82 , @annekebbphotography , @xxrainbowprincessxx , @lizk77 , @jayjay879 , @tornbetween2loves

TRR only: @speedyoperarascalparty

‘Are you going to take long little bird?’ Maxwell asked with a huff as he reluctantly guided the car through the streets of Cordonia.

He was currently driving his fiancee over to their best friend Elizabeth Richmond-Walker’s Atlantean manor for a girls afternoon with their friends Hana Lee and Olivia Nevrakis. He’d voiced his protest earlier at having to part with her for a few hours after expecting to have the whole day together to spend as they pleased.

‘Oh Max its just for one afternoon. Besides,’ Thea Larkin grinned, tossing a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder cheekily. ‘I think you’ll be very pleased with the result after we visit the beauty parlour.’

Maxwell’s eyebrows perked up as he caught her meaning, deliberately urging the car on faster. ‘Full speed ahead then! Beauty parlour here she comes!’ He announced as Thea let out a peal of laughter.

Maxwell was just driving away from the manor when something on the seat glimmered in the sunlight and he glanced over to find that Thea had left her purse in the car and immediately turned the car around. After one of Elizabeth’s staff members pointed him in the direction of her parlous where they were all gathered, he stood at the door, poised to knock before he heard their voices travelling through the door.

‘-believe he waxes Liv!’ Elizabeth was saying. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ Olivia’s voice conveyed a slight hint of irritation. ‘I’ve been married to Liam long enough that he can’t hide that from me…’

‘Huh I’m just surprised he would go to all that effort,’ Liz replied thoughtfully. ‘Drake just shaves, says it makes him look bigger.’

Maxwells eyes widened as he realised what the women were talking about. In spite of himself he glanced down his own body thinking of his negligence of proper grooming down there. Sure he’d attempted to clean up the downstairs in the past but after one very unfortunate encounter with a razor and a whole week of having to come up with an believable enough excuse for walking funny, he’d been deterred from the whole concept together. So far Thea hadn’t said anything about it when they’d been together so he’d just assumed she didn’t mi-

‘Does it really feel better like that Liz?’

That was Thea speaking now, her tone curious, revealing just how innocent she still was at 22 years of age. Maxwell leaned closer to the door, gripping the handle in anticipation, his ear flat against the wood to avoid missing a word of what she was going to say.

‘Thea girl...,’ Elizabeth answered, her voice dropping in pitch. ‘It makes all the difference in the world.’

‘Plus it makes blowjobs that much more pleasant,’ Olivia put in bluntly. ‘You won’t have to be picking hair out of your teeth hours later.'

A loud gasp escaped Maxwell. He forgot he still had a hand on the door handle in his surprise at Olivia’s bluntness accidentally twisted the handle. With the side of his body pressed heavily against the wood from his eavesdropping attempt, it gave way easily now and he tumbled headfirst into the room where the ladies were sitting.

‘Maxwell?!’ They gasped collectively at his abrupt entrance. Blushing furiously red and inwardly cursing his luck, he picked himself off the ground. ‘Hey girls… uh… Thea forgot her purse so I just dropped by to give it to her.’

He sheepishly handed the item to his surprised fiancée.

‘Quite literally too,’ Olivia purred in amusement as she eyed his reddened state.

Thea eyed him quizzically. ‘Max how long have you-‘

‘Barely two seconds,’ he called out over his shoulder, perhaps a little too loudly. He steadily avoiding all their gazes, making a beeline towards the exit. ‘I’ll see you girls later, have fun!’

"Place tub in microwave, warm in short bursts, stirring after each burst of heat until wax was a smooth, honey like consistency. Apply a liberal amount of wax to area to be epilated, apply linen strip rubbing firmly in direction of hair growth, pull skin taut and remove wax strip.”

‘Huh.. seems simple enough,’ Maxwell mused out loud, scanning the label on small round pot he’d found.

When he’d returned back to the Beaumont manor, instead of spending the afternoon playing video games like he’d planned, the girls’ conversation had made him curious and he’d immediately headed to the cupboard under the bathroom sink of Thea’s bathroom, rummaging around until he found it. A small pot of wax and the accompanying strips.

Rereading the instructions, he turned it over in his hands.

‘That doesn’t sound too hard. I got this,’ he reassured himself again as he made his way down to the vast kitchen. 'If girls could do it so can I.’

House Beaumont was entirely empty, the servants had the day off and Bertrand was with Savannah and Bartie at her place so it was the perfect time to try this, he reasoned with himself, imagining how surprised Thea would be when he showed her the finished result.

Slipping the pot into the microwave, Maxwell headed to the cupboard in the store room holding their camping supplies, reasoning that this could be a messy process and he’d rather not face his older brother’s fury for spilling wax on their kitchen stools. Dragging out a canvas camping chair, he positioned it in front of the kitchen island as he waited for the microwave to finish, wrapping the flaps of his dressing gown tighter over his naked body underneath. When he heard the DING! of the microwave, he carefully extracted the pot and laid it to cool on the bench top.

'So far so good,’ Maxwell muttered to himself, surprised at how smoothly this was all going before he realised his real predicament.

How was he supposed to get the wax on his man parts without slopping it everywhere?

He spent a few moments, attempting various positions to see which would be the most effective for the task he was about to undertake, finally settling on a seated position on the canvas chair with his legs raised up on the kitchen island spread in a wide pilates V. It took a moment to juggle with the positioning of his cock and balls but so far this was the best option he could think of.

Mortified at the thought of anyone — least of all Bertrand — walking in to see him in such compromising position, Maxwell reached for the stick in the pot, hoping he could get the task quickly without any major spills. He gingerly moved to apply it quickly to his skin almost immediately he cursed out loud.

‘Shit!’

He hadn’t left it to cool long enough and the wax was much too hot when it made contact with the tender skin of his balls, drawing reflexive tears of pain. When the intensity died down to a dull warmth, he hastily applied the linen strip over the area, rubbing it soothingly to ease the pain. No, he reminded himself. The most painful part was still to come.

‘Come on Maxwell,’ he muttered trying to psych himself up. ‘You can do this.’

Clenching his eyes shut, he took a deep breath and flexed his abs in preparation for the shock that was to come. With his fingers under the edge of the stip, he counted to three and ripped the strip off as quickly as he could.

‘Mother fucker!’

His shout of pain echoed through the halls of the Beaumont manor and if anyone were home they’d have some running by now. His vision flashed white as pain emanated from between his legs and he fought to keep his breathing under control. Eventually Maxwell opened his eyes, bringing the strip up to inspect his handiwork expecting to see it filled with unwanted hair but was surprised to find… nothing!

‘What the hell?’ Maxwell exclaimed, staring at the little piece of cloth, void of both hair AND wax.

’Something’s not right,’ he began, reaching for the pot to reread the instructions labelled there. He’d followed the steps perfectly.

Warm. Apply. Rub. Pull. It wasn’t rocket science!

He glanced down at himself to find the cooled wax perfectly attached to the pubic hair on his balls.

‘Maybe I didn’t put enough wax on,’ Maxwell reasoned with himself and reached for the stick again — another huge mistake.

In his hurry he’d taken too big of a scoop of wax out of the pot and it had dripped all over his flaccid cock making him hiss as the still-too-hot wax hit his most sensitive area. He’d put so much on that it began to drip down over his balls down to his taint in between his butt cheeks.

Unfortunately his attention was focused elsewhere for now as his fingers scrabbled across the bench top to reach for another strip of linen. When he finally placed it where he deemed appropriate, he patted it down with more force than earlier, attempting to distract himself from the strain of his muscles from keeping him in that position for so long. Gasping for breath, Maxwell braced himself for the impact as his held his skin tight and yanked the strip with all his might.

‘FUCK!’

His howl of pain was louder this time and a whole octave higher as the pain seemed to be ten times worse this time around. He was gasping for air, covered in a light sheen of sweat from the exertion and lifted his hand up to inspect his handiwork.

Surely that had to work this time…

He hadn’t put himself through that a second time to turn up -

‘EMPTY?’ Maxwell screeched, staring at the pristine wax strip staring back at him, almost mockingly. Defeated and angry, he dropped his legs from the bench top, hissing as his tired muscles spasmed when he closed his legs. His back was killing him too as and he tried to shift in the chair, his eyes widened in horror as he found himself unable to move!

‘I’ve glued myself to the chair,’ he stated blankly, trying not to lose his cool but failing miserably. ‘I’ve glued myself to the chair!’

And if things couldn’t get any worse, Maxwell shifted again only to find that he’d waxed himself… to himself!

A frantic panic welled up in him as he tried to pry his legs apart but they refused to move, sealed together perfectly by the wax. He let out a whimper of defeat.

How am I going to get free? What if I need to pee? Another more drastic thought struck him. What if I’m stuck like this forever?

His eyes widened at the thought of being confined to the chair for the rest of his life. I’ll never be able to dance again, he realised with horror before correcting himself. He’d never be able to be with Thea again. Now that shocked him into silence and he stayed frozen like that for a few moments.

He needed to do something… He couldn’t remain like this forever. He refused to. Channelling his inner Bertrand, he psyched himself up again. He was Maxwell Percival of House Beaumont. Surely he wouldn’t let a little bit of hot wax get the better of him.

Steeling his nerves, Maxwell gingerly attempted to inch one butt cheek off the chair which caused a slight sucking noise to echo out through the kitchen and if it was possible he felt himself blush even more at his own predicament. While his sense of urgency told him to hurry, his pain threshold screamed at him to take his time, lest he got himself into an even more compromising position. His muscles strained with every inch he shifted but eventually he was able to peel himself off the chair.

Next problem, his legs were still glued together.

Maxwell’s mind raced trying to find a solution that did not involve stripping himself of his ability to have children and finally settled on the first somewhat sensible option that came to him.

Grabbing his robe and phone, he began to take painfully tiny steps towards the bathroom. No matter how big or small his movements were, each step was a new fresh hell as the wax pulled at his hair and genitals. Instead of walking, he resigned himself to an awkward sliding motion as he shuffled towards the stairs, realising all the bathrooms big enough to accommodate his needs were stationed one level above. Sweat dripped off his body as he painfully inched himself up the first step, gasping heavily when he’d cleared it.

Only fifteen more to go….

In the bathroom, Maxwell turned on the faucet as warm as he thought he could handle and when the tub was sufficiently filled, he eased himself into the water, sighing in relief rather than pleasure that he would finally be able to be free of this accursed wax. The bottle of rose scented bubble bath caught his eye and he reached for it, hoping for something to make his unfortunate experience a little better. Shortly after dumping in a generous dollop, the bubbles began to form and he leaned his head back against the bathroom wall, giving himself a few moments to relax before he tackled his downstairs issue.

It had barely been over a minute when he felt something tickling his nose and opened his eyes to find his entire visual field filled with foam as the bubbles had multiplied incessantly filling the entire bathtub. He shut the water off and swiped a few bubbles out of his way.

Surely the wax would have melted by now…

Maxwell attempted to a slight wiggle to adjust himself

Nothing happened….

He wiggled again…

Still nothing..

For some reason his body was refusing to cooperate! Frantically he swiped more of the bubbles away to find that instead of melting the wax off his skin the warm water had the complete opposite effect and in his attempt to free himself, he’d essentially created a vacuum seal between his balls, legs and the bathtub!

Maxwell was shocked to his very core, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry about his predicament. Instead he reached for his phone, dealing the first person he could think of… Bertrand.

His older brother had gotten him out of scraped a hundred times over. Surely he’d know what to do right? Maxwell drummed his fingers against the side of the tub while the phone rang over and over before finally going to voice mail.

‘Bertrand’s always got his phone on him,’ he exclaimed. ‘What could possibly be happening now?’

Sighing in frustration he dialled Liam’s number. Surely the King of Cordonia would have a solution for him? Unfortunately that call too went to voice mail and Maxwell sighed again. Liam was probably off doing kingly things and didn’t have time to answer.

His finger hovered over Thea’s contact, millimetres away from pressing the green button before he clicked out of the contact. She was busy with the rest of the girls at the salon… Besides he sure as shit wasn’t about to tell his fiancee about his stupid endeavour, knowing she’d tease him endlessly about it. He’d be taking this to the grave, which left only one other person to call.

‘Drake? Drake my buddy, my best friend how are you?’ he began nervously, relieved that someone picked up.

Drake’s flat tone told him immediately that he was neither impressed not entertained this. ‘I’m fine.'

‘Greaaaat’ he replied and immediately realising he’d drawn out the syllable a bit longer than necessary. ’Say whatcha doing right now?’

‘I just got Darcy down for her afternoon nap,’ his friend replied shortly before his voice got suspicious. ‘What do you want Beaumont?'

Maxwell felt his face heat up at the prospect of having to explain his situation to his ever cynical best friend. Of all the scrapes he’d gotten himself into this one was definitely up there with the worst of them. ‘I… uh… might have gotten myself into a bit of a… ah, sticky situation.’

‘Get to the point Maxwell,’ Drake replied, his tone definitely irritated now. ‘What have you done now?’

Maxwell shifted uncomfortably then immediately regretted it as the strands of waxed hair pulled painfully against his balls. ‘I think its better if I show you,’ he squeaked in pain.

‘Beaumont if this is another one of your fucking pranks, I swear to god I’ll-‘

‘Drake just get over here!’ he burst out desperately, unable to take it anymore. ‘I need help!'

‘Alright, alright, just sit tight I’ll be there soon,’ he grumbled before clicking the call off.

Maxwell settled his phone on the bathtub’s edge and waited, praying his best friend would arrive quickly and have some sort of idea on how to get him out of his predicament. Twenty minutes passed and the temperature of the water in the bathtub dropped by more than 10 degrees but he was still no closer to becoming unstuck.

‘Come on, come on,’ Maxwell muttered under his breath, hoping to the highest heavens that Drake hadn’t forgotten and would arrive soon. Ever since Darcy had been born, his best friend had taken his fatherhood role very seriously which meant he’d seen less and less of him in the last few months. At long last his phone buzzed and he lunged for it, sure enough finding a text from Drake.

I just got here. Where are you? in the master bathroom. hurry, idk how long i can be like this

After what felt like hours but was probably about a minute, Drake appeared in the door way carrying some sort of large basket in his hand.

'Drake buddy!’ Maxwell burst out in relief. 'Man am I glad to see you.'

'Maxwell, please tell me you did not disrupt my daughters nap just to show me you were having a bubble bath,’ Drake growled, setting the basket down and Maxwell caught a sight of baby Darcy inside, still sleeping soundly.

'No Drake its not like that!’ he protested before gesturing down to himself. 'I’m stuck!’

His friend’s face crumpled in confusion and irritation. 'What the fu- What do you mean you’re stuck?’

'I’m stuck Drake!’ he wailed despondently, almost on the verge of tears.

‘Alright alright! Keep your damn voice down,’ Drake grumbled, jerking his head at the sleeping baby. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened from the beginning?’

'I wanted to surprise Thea so I tried to self-wax my… um… you know — I mean if Liam can do it, it shouldn’t be that hard right?’ Maxwell began rapidly, keeping his gaze firmly away from his friend's as he continued. ‘And I followed the instructions but then the wax didn’t come off, and oh my god it fucking hurt, so I tried it again but it still didn’t work, and when I put my legs down… everything sealed together and now I’m stuck to the bathtub!'

He glanced up to see Drake’s eyebrows raised almost to his hair line in astonishment and the two men just stared at each other for a long moment before Drake burst out into uncontrollable laughter, his broad shoulders shaking.

‘Fine, fine,’ Maxwell grumbled. ‘I guess I deserve that… Laugh all you want.’

‘Wow Beaumont,’ his friend replied sarcastically, not even bothering to hide his amusement. ‘You’ve really done it this time,’ he replied, wiping a few tears away.

‘Ok yea I admit it was a dumb idea but will you help me now?!’ He demanded.

‘Hang on I’m not done yet,’ Drake shot back and laughed for a few more seconds to Maxwell’s chagrin.

‘Okay now can we focus on the real problem here?!’ He almost yelled, completely disregarding the sleeping child a few feet away.

‘Shit Maxwell I have no idea how to help you. Right now Google is our best bet I guess. But before we try anything, you should drain the bathtub,’ Drake advised in what Maxwell could only describe as his “dad voice". ’Nothing’s gonna work if with all those bubbles in the way... I’m also gonna assume you’re naked under all that..?’ He gestured vaguely to the soap suds.

Maxwell nodded and silently obeyed, pulling the plug and letting the water drain out, rinsing himself of the soap suds as Drake thumbed through his phone, looking for a solution.

‘Here it is,’ he finally spoke up. ‘Do you have any olive oil?’

‘If we do it would be in the kitchen,’ Maxwell answered, confused but not about to argue with his best friend who immediately disappeared and was back in a few seconds with it.

‘Cotton pads?’

‘In the drawer,’ Maxwell pointed to indicate which one it was. Handing both the items to him, Drake slowly walked him through the process of unsticking himself from the bathtub floor with surprising patience and soon enough Maxwell found himself effectively detached from the porcelain.

‘Drake buddy come here,’ he exclaimed, lunging up from the bathtub entirely relieved to be free. ‘You’re the best friend a guy could ask for!’

He attempted to pull Drake into a hug but his friend deftly sidestepped him, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘You know how I feel about hugs Beaumont. And you’re still naked by the way.’

Maxwell glanced down to find that he was indeed still naked and grabbed a towel from the nearby rack.

‘Oh thanks for the reminder, pal,’ he replied shakily.

Drake shook his head vehemently, shuddering. ‘Ugh don’t think I’ll be unseeing that anytime soon… Come on get dressed,’ he instructed, throwing Maxwell’s robe at him.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked curiously as he slipped the robe over his shoulders, watching Drake pick up his still sleeping daughter and head out of the bathroom.

‘Just do it,’ he ordered authoritatively over his shoulder and Maxwell had no choice but to follow after him. Drake loaded all three of them into his Jeep and turned glared at him.

‘If you get wax on my new car, I will personally seal you to the roof of House Beaumont, got it?’

‘Got it,’ Maxwell gulped, knowing his friend was entirely capable of following through on his threat and the entire car ride was silent until Drake finally pulled up to a strip mall.

‘What are we doing here?’ Maxwell questioned as he got down from the vehicle.

‘Doing what you should have done in the first place,’ his friend replied as he carefully extracted his daughter from her carseat and heading towards the entrance of a beauty parlour. ‘Getting it professionally done. Are you gonna stand there on the sidewalk all day Beaumont?’

Shaking his head, Maxwell scurried after his best friend away from the strange looks he was receiving from passerby on the street. He’d barely taken two steps into the salon when a woman’s voice called out his name.

‘Maxwell?’

His eyes almost fell out of his head when he saw Thea, Elizabeth, Olivia and Hana seated on the large massage chairs getting their nails done.

‘Uh… hey ladies…'

‘What are you doing here?’ His fiancee questioned, looking at him curiously.

Maxwell felt his face heat up alarmingly. ‘Umm… I mean y’know… I was so lonely at home I decided to come join you…'

‘Don’t be fooled,’ Drake cut in. ‘You’ll never believe what he did to himself this time.’

‘Thats it!’ Maxwell exclaimed out loud, heading for one of the waxing rooms at the back of the store, hoping to escape the ribbing his friends would inevitably give him. ‘I’m already late for my appointment!’

As he settled himself down on the waxing bed, he could hear his friends laughing as Drake related the entire story to them.

That’s the last time I attempt to do anything like this myself...

#maxwell beaumont #maxwell x mc #trr maxwell #drake walker #drake x elizabeth #elizabeth richmond #olivia nevrakis #Hana Lee #king liam #The Royal Romance #trr #choices #playchoices #choices fandom #choices fanfiction #choices september challenge #day 17 unexpected

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sammy-writes-stuff · 6 years

Text

Confronting Sunlight: Chapter Three

Patton is now not the central pillar of joy in Virgil’s life - which is good! But things start to get complicated when one buries feelings and avoids confrontation, and everything is tested when Patton’s reservations set something in motion that gets out of control.

Multi-Chapter Fic

Relationships: LAMP (Platonic); possibly hints at Patton/Logan; eventual Prinxiety (Maybe ;) )

First. Previous.

After finishing the dishes, Patton made to go to his room but hesitated. Maybe he should go talk to Virgil...or even Roman...

About what?

An odd look flashed across Pattons’ eyes, before he blinked decisively.

“You know, it has been a while since I made muffins!” He clapped his hands and an apron appeared around him, effectively quashing the train of thought. No he didn’t want to get onto that train...he didn’t know what station he would get off on!

Chuckling at his joke, and trying not to analysis it, he busied himself baking. He put his trusted recipe book in the book holder on the bench. Though he had every word committed to memory, the ornate book display had been made by Virgil for his birthday. It was purple wire – that Patton strongly suspected had once been a series of coat hangers – twisted together designed to keep the book open and off the bench (safe from spillage).

But he would not be focusing on Virgil’s creative gifts any longer!

“Sugar...Sugar, Butter....Sugar, Butter, Flour...” Patton softly sang to himself as he measured, mixed, poured and baked. Without even waiting for the muffins to cool once they were retrieved from the oven, Patton put them on a plate and walked happily to Virgils room. The hallway had four doors, and Virgil’s was the last. Patton knocked with one hand – the extra special knock known only to mean ‘muffins here!’ – and gleefully pushed the door open upon hearing Virgil’s consent.

“You didn’t have to, Padre.” Virgil grinned from his bed, where he was still nestled. Patton felt his heart warm as he laid the plate on his bedside table – noticing that his card from the ‘Accepting Anxiety’ video’s was still in its prime spot: tapped to the wall beside Virgil’s bed. Virgil took a bite from the first and let out a comic moan, rolling his eyes. “Fresh from the oven? My favourite! You’re the best, Dad!”

You’re the best, Dad.

You’re my best Dad.

You are better Dad.

Patton shook his head.

“It was nothing! I just enjoy seeing you smile!”

Pattons chest was on fire with a feeling he couldn’t place. He settled on...satisfaction! Satisfaction that he had done something nice for the Anxious side. Yeah, that was it!

“We should all totally go to the dreamscape one day and get Roman to make you your own bakery! It could be a good family day out. We could call the shop: Patton’s Patisserie. And it would shut Princey up, he is always moaning about us all never going on quests with him.”

There was an odd ringing in his ears, and he barely heard himself answer with What a great idea kiddo!

Patton didn’t stay long, as the muffin pile dwindled, he began to come back down to earth.

“I have some work to be doing!” He said with a goofy smile as he tousled Virgil’s hair. Virgil tried to hide the bemusement from his face. Oh Patton – always chugging along.

But Patton did not go to his room.

“Good Evening Patton, did you make...” Logan stopped abruptly as he came into the kitchen, taking the chaos in. “...dinner.” He finished, rather unsure how to process the scene.

Every surface was completely covered. The table was stacked with trays upon trays of everything from muffins to scones – the benches completely hidden beneath plates and containers of food. Patton was frozen, holding a mixing bowl. The father figure was covered head to toe in batter and flour.

“I am...confused?” Logan settled with, watching Patton carefully. “Patton, what is going on?”

Patton finally began to move again, getting over his shock of being pulled out of his rhythm. He looked around with wide eyes, realising the state of the kitchen. He opened his mouth, just to shut it several times, giving the impression of a fish out of water.

“Uh...well...” Patton finally spoke, locking eyes with Logan. “I guess you could say I’m...overcooked?”

Logan’s concern melted away to annoyance. “If you are just being ridiculous then I will take my leave. I do not have as much time for frivolous activities as it would seem some of us do!” Logan could not believe this. The HELL day he had had, and it seems Patton was here slacking off the whole time! No wonder Logan felt so burned out.

Patton blinked in the face of Logan’s animosity, and called out to him as he began to storm off.

“OI! This...look...Virgil is having a bad time and he likes baking...”

Logan paused at that, turning and meeting Patton’s desperate gaze.

“So you...helped him bake so he could calm down?” He was still sceptical, but his tone was softer.

Patton paused and for an awful second, considered going with it.

Yes, the baking is good for him. He was so distressed, we had to make ALL these batches for him to even stop crying! I have been working so hard today to try and stop a breakdown...really, Logan, it was nothing...no you have nothing to apologise for...no, no we are all under a lot of stress right now, it is fine, I forgive you...

“No.” Patton said firmly. “No, I did all this baking...for him.”

“Virgil did not help you?”

“No, he is in bed.”

“Did he ask you to do this?”

“No, it was going to be a surprise.”

“You did all this on your own, for Virgil, without his knowledge nor his encouragement, and made food in excesses that could feed a small formal gathering...in the hopes that such food would cheer Virgil up?”

Patton nodded, doing his best to keep the panic away from his features. He supposed, now, it seems a little crazy.

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Okay. I apologise for blowing up at you.” Noticing Patton’s expression of surprise, Logan sighed and elaborated. “I concede that I do not understand, nor do I frankly see the point of making more food than one individual could consume in a week, nor how it would cheer anyone up. However, you know Virgil best and are much more adept at displays of emotional affection than I. Ergo, I trust your ability in the face of my incomprehension at the lack of logic in your plan. If it helps Virgil...then I am not going to criticise your activities.”

Logan walked away, tiredly gripping the bridge of his nose. Patton stood, fixed in place once more, relishing that warm feeling in his chest that had arison once more.

You know Virgil best.

Deep in the dreamscape, a Prince was let go and fell to the ground, after hours of battle.

Next.

#sanders sides fic #sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #creativity #my fic #anxiety #logic #morality #lamp

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