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starglow-xx · 3 years

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(About the brother!atsushi) aRE YOU READING MY MIND MISS?! Because that has been on my mind for MONTHS. TYSM For writing it was amazing!! If you don't mind, may I request (if requests are open) atsushi, still an older brother, but with a sister that's 10-13 yrs old? It's totally fine if you don't wanna do it. Keep up the good stories, ily mwuah!

*sobs* you’re so kind thank youu 🤧🤧

i wrote this a bit differently i hope that’s okay anon! at first i planned for this to be mainly abt atsushi and the reader, but i decided to add in relationship hcs with the agency bc i ran out of ideas

if you guys liked this don’t worry! im planning a special part two for this one so be the look out for it hehe

atsushi with a tween! sister

ft. the armed detective agency

like in my baby sister hcs, you’re still the most important thing to him period

the two of you got picked up by dazai and kunikida when he was 18 (obviously) and when you were 12

for a 12 year old, you were a bit small bc of malnourishment (which makes atsushi feel so bad) so both dazai and kunikida thought you were a bit younger than you actually were

they assumed you were about 9-10ish

you and atsushi both share a favorite food !! chazuke :)

so when kunikida treated the two of you, he made sure you got more bowls bc like i mentioned above, he feels really bad that you were malnourished and under weight

(don’t bring this up but kunikida felt bad too hehe)

when dazai went with your brother to the warehouse, you were with kunikida

imagine the surprise of the other ada members when kunikida came in with a little girl dressed in rags that popped out from behind him

kenji was the one who vocalized his thoughts

“kunikida-san you have a daughter?! wow! i didn’t know that! :D”

when you found out your brother was a tiger, you were a bit concerned but you were actually kind of excited

you were even more excited when you found out the two of you were going to be taken in by the agency

anything was better than the stupid orphanage

and besides!

you got a tiger for an older brother and a bunch of other super powered agents to take care of you! who could want anything else?

at your age, you’re very impressionable and can be influenced easily so atsushi makes sure to teach you more in depth of good morals and the importance of kindness

his heart swells with pride and relief when he catches you being kind to others

pride bc he’s proud that even after all the two of you have gone through, you still ended up being a good kid and having a bright view of the world

and relief bc he hasn’t failed as a big brother

pfftt like he could ever fail

but please, from time to time reassure him that he’s perfect and the only big brother that you’d ever want bc he rlly needs that kind of validation

with his salary and savings, he tries to buy nice things for you

what a sweetheart 🥺

he saw you eyeing that one dress at a store window? fast forward abt a week and half and it’s inside a pretty gift bag for you

you wanted to try that dessert from the nice bakery? that’s dessert after dinner at one point

but other than buying you things, he sets money aside for you

like all the time

(y/n), here have this, you might need it”

“but nii-san you just gave me—”

“take it”

#1 spoiler

also your #1 confidant and source of physical affection

you tell him anything and everything (except crushies and those kinds of things)

atsushi loves it when you talk abt your day and he can see the big smile on your face and the sparkle in your eyes

it gives him the strength to keep going 😖😖

the two of you aren’t as touch starved as you’d probably think, but that’s only bc the two of you had each other

in your opinion, no one can match the hugs of your big brother

and it got even better bc YAYY he has tiger arms now ٩(◕‿◕)۶

if you ask, he’d carry you around too hehe

you also get nightmares quite often so he’ll always be there ready to calm you down, talk if you need to, and rock you back to sleep

god i love him 🤧🤧

atsushi will do everything in his power to protect you and make sure you get to grow up happy, supported, and loved

port mafia attack? oop he’s already taking you to the nearest escape route

someone is starting to harass you? they just got suckered punched into the next week

you want to go out to have some fun? he’ll go ask the president for a day off

you’re not feeling well? he’ll take another day off and take care of you

whatever you want to do, he’ll do it with you! (as long as it’s within reason)

will always be your #1 supporter! and he’s the president of your fan club hehe

he loves you so so much and will do anything for you; your life and happiness will always be more important to him

you are his reason to keep going

agency head canons !!

atsushi is your big brother, but kunikida is most definitely some sort of father figure

everyone can see it

except kunikida of course

kunikida scolds you lightly if he thinks your manners need work or if you make a mess in the agency

you listen to him of course and in turn as some sort of a reward, he’ll give you pieces of stationary

he always gives you the nice, good quality kind and you’re over the moon

atsushi adores it when you come running to him showing your new notebook or fountain pen and blabbering what you’re going to do with it

sometimes it isn’t even as a reward for being a good child; he’ll just give it to you and he’ll say smth like “i noticed you’ve used up your last notebook quite quickly, so here’s another one” or “did you run out of ink? here have this then”

he usually has a soft spot for children in general, but he most definitely has a soft spot (or a thousand) for you

yosano is kind of like a motherly figure to you

she gives you the guidance a mother should and goes on shopping trips with you!

atsushi always gets dragged along by you, but he thinks it’s worth it seeing you look so happy

yosano being a doctor also tries to teach the things you should know, or things that would be helpful to you

she’ll teach you the basics of cooking, sewing, how to treat a cold/fever, etc

also gives you excellent advice 1000% of the time

“remember (y/n)-chan if someone hurts you come tell me and then i’ll chop them into—”

“yOSANO-SENSEI DONT TELL HER THAT—”

fukuzawa is like a father to most in the agency but you see him more as a grandfather figure

bi weekly tea and gossip sessions hehe

along with cat talk!

most of the time though, it’s just you talking and him listening to you, but the two of you enjoy it nonetheless

“and then kunikida-san ended up crashing into a pole and dazai-san started to laugh at him and i did too because it was really funny but we ended up getting scolded—”

“hmm i see...”

he’ll let you stay in his office as he fills out paperwork; you’re usually doodling or drawing in your notebooks

sometimes he’ll meditate and you’ll join him, but 4/7 times you’d fall asleep

you always wake up with a blanket over you

dazai is like a cool but a highly concerning and kind of high maintenance uncle

frequently takes you out with him when he ditches work

walks in the park, eating at uzumaki so he has the excuse of treating you so he doesn’t have to pay his tab avoiding kunikida and sometimes chuuya and akutagawa, all that fun stuff

also tries to not talk abt suicide in front of you especially if it’s just the two of you alone

he knows that you mean the world to his pupil and that said pupil would probably hate him for putting suicide inside your brain

he teaches you random but useful things like how to pick a lock, how to steal kunikida’s notebook if you’re looking for some information, how to sweet talk your way out of things, etc.

is also the one to tell you that if you ever get a significant other to introduce them to the agency first

he always wants all of your gossip; some of them work pretty well for blackmail

“dazai-san! dazai-san! did you know that kunikida-san lost his glasses and he was looking for them for nearly an hour when he was just holding them the entire time??”

“woah really (y/n)-chan?! hey hey can you say it again into this recording device so kunikida-kun would believe me when i tell him—”

always ends up giving kunikida a heart attack when he says that you’ve been with him all day

ranpo is also like a cool but a highly concerning and kind of high maintenance uncle

will share some of his snacks, but don’t push it or you might not get anything at all

loves it when you compliment him

if you tagged along with him and your brother on a case, he will show off to impress you

“...and that’s how the crime happened”

“UWAHH RANPO-SAN YOU’RE SO COOL”

atsushi is lowkey and kunikida is highkey stressed that ranpo’s eating habits will rub off on you

“ne (y/n)-chan do you wanna try this highly caffeinated drink and this concerning amount of sugar filled snack?”

“can i really?!��

“rANPO-SAN NO—”

ranpo definitely does stuff like that on purpose

the tanizakis are like siblings to you!

a weird set of siblings but siblings nonetheless

the two of them adore you and think you’re precious

atsushi definitely knows how to do your hair whether it’s long or short but he got even better at it when he asked the two

hehe braid trains are definitely a thing + kyouka and kenji (and maybe even dazai)

sometimes you have sibling swap days

you’re with junichiro for most of the day and atsushi is with naomi

strange i know

each of the tanizaki siblings try to make it fun bc they know that the two of you did not at all have a happy upbringing

junichiro likes spending time with you by taking you out to different places that naomi likes to frequent

like the mall, different stores and restaurants, the park, places like those

naomi does the same thing with atsushi so if you ever bump into them, you go out and eat together :)

besides atsushi, the next one in line who spoils you the most would be junichiro (and yosano & kunikida both coming in at a close third)

he honestly can’t help it; you remind him of how naomi was when she was younger

and besides

he’s always been a sucker when it came to the happiness of a little sister

“would you really buy this for me junichiro-san?!”

“of course! don’t worry about it” :)

wanna talk abt boys/girls/celebrity crushes things like that? naomi is your girl

you feel a bit embarrassed to go talking to yosano or your brother abt that and kyouka does not know a thing abt them either

“uwahh naomi-san look at all these people in this magazine! they look so good!”

“right?! but of course onii-sama is still the best—”

you get along with kenji and kyouka quite nicely being roughly the same age as them; they’re also like siblings!

just pure, wholesome vibes from the three of you

you’re over the moon when she finds out that kyouka is staying with you and your brother

atsushi is twice as happy seeing you talk your mouth off and finally having a girl around your age to talk to

“do you think demon snow can change how she looks?”

“hmm... im not sure...”

you and kenji talk abt anything and everything

he even teaches you how to take care of plants!

sometimes the two of you are kind of in the same boat bc you don’t know much abt yokohoma being stuck in the orphanage and kenji doesn’t know much abt cities in general

“wait where are we again kenji-san?”

“ah we’re close to the ports! but im not really sure how close because i don’t know what the symbols on this sign mean”

“don’t worry! neither do i!”

bonus things!

yosano was kind of too late teaching you abt you know what

“NII-SAN IM BLEEDING IN BETWEEN MY LEGS”

you’re sobbing in the agency’s bathroom and atsushi is panicking trying to get you to open the door

“Y/N?! H-HOLD ON LET ME GET YOSANO SENSEI”

ranpo overhears and cackles making everyone around him confused

suddenly atsushi bursts in the agency basically on the verge of tears rambling incoherent sentences abt the bathroom, you, and blood

it just clicked for everybody in the room

(im going to pretend that kenji has sisters back home so that atsushi is the only one who remain oblivious here hehe)

atsushi is genuinely confused and sort of concerned that no one is freaking out with him

yosano waves her hand saying smth like that she’d take care of it and junichiro pulls atsushi to the side to talk to him

fast forward like half and hour and dazai and ranpo are cackling on the looks of both of your faces

honestly not sure who’s more traumatized, you or your brother

“why does this have to happen” :(

“ne ne (y/n)-chan!~ you’re too young but at some point you’re not going to have it!”

“uwahh really dazai-san?” :D

“yeah! but first you have to have ANFK—”

next thing you know your ears are being covered by your brother and dazai is thrown across the room by kunikida

you know

the normal

you’re twelve and have never gone to school, but the agency takes care of that

it’s too dangerous to go to school so they teach you what’s necessary and whatever else they can

kunikida takes care of math (obviously)

yosano takes care of science/biology/anatomy/health (whatever you wanna call it)

ranpo even dragged poe to help you with english

atsushi even got lucy to help you out with english too!

as tanizaki and naomi used to be students, they give you their old work books and they try to teach you all the other subjects

sometimes kyouka and kenji are there learing with you too!

sorry if there’s some errors! i’ll read through it again later :)

and as always, reblogs and shares are appreciated! i hope you all stay safe! and just in case nobody told you they loved you today, i love you! you are enough! <3

writing belongs to me! please do not plagiarize! the reblog button is there for a reason

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chocolatecarstairs · 4 years

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julie and the phantoms: holiday special!!!

halloween:

julie begs the boys not to do anything stupid before they’re set to play her school’s halloween party but of course they don’t listen

they go hard haunting bobby and carrie (originally it was just supposed to be bobby but carrie was right there and luke has never liked the way she treats julie), they help carlos egg the house of a bully at his school, and they spend a ridiculous amount of time ding-dong-ditching people and stealing candy they can’t eat

for their set alex dresses as a ghost because he loves the irony. reggie goes as han solo (OUT OF RESPECT, LUKE, RESPECT FOR THE DEAD. reggie, man, we’re dead.) luke goes as KISS, which weirds out half of julie’s school but they don’t ask many questions, they just figure it’s a swedish thing. julie and flynn pair up to go as an angel and a devil (flynn is the devil, julie is the angel), carrie is a space cowgirl ofc, and nick’s costume has something to do with a fedora ??? but nobody is really sure what he is

the band does a sick cover of the monster mash and the boys spend the rest of the party pranking half of julie’s school while they’re invisible

afterwards, julie and the boys have a movie marathon in the garage. alex begs for a horror movie so they watch the exorcist. or at least, the first twenty minutes of the exorcist. luke can barely look past julie’s shoulder and reggie’s whimpers become too annoying. instead, they watch hocus pocus (the boys remember seeing it in theaters together when it first came out) and then marathon all the halloweentown movies, luke’s newest post-death obsession. julie has to try her hardest not to eat all of the candy the boys stole, even though the assured her they were fine with it

luke and reggie are still giant babies about the exorcist, so they get to sleep in the middle while julie and alex get the outside of the blanket/sleeping bag/pillow fort they’ve set up. reggie cuddles up between alex and luke while luke falls asleep with his head in julie’s shoulder.

thanksgiving:

the boys aren’t the most thrilled about this holiday. they can’t eat and it was always so family-oriented, but julie is determined to make it as fun as she can for them. she sneaks around the week before, trying to casually interrogate the guys about each of the others favorite thanksgiving traditions

reggie and his dad used to watch the football game together every year, so julie makes sure there is a spot open on the couch next to ray as gets the tv on

she lights a cinnamon bun candle in the living room and watches the macy’s thanksgiving day parade with alex, because his mom used to make cinnamon buns for him and his sisters when they watched it together every thanksgiving morning

she gets the guys together in the backyard after her dad and carlos fall asleep to play a game of touch football, just like luke used to do with all of his cousins at his grandparents house every year

they make little hand turkeys in the studio like julie and carlos used to do with their mom and hang them up amongst all the others

they sit up late in their remade pillow fort, talking about what they’re thankful for

luke’s is the ability to perform again and julie bringing them back for a second chance

reggie’s is hanging out with ray and finally getting to catch up on star wars (even though they killed han solo)

alex’s is coming back to “life” to find people who love him for who he is and who accept his sexuality without hesitation

julie’s is that her mom brought these dorky guys into her life, giving her a new family and the ability to play music again

they all fall asleep in their fort, curled up on blankets and pillows, talking about their favorite thanksgiving foods

christmas/hanukkah:

reggie is jewish, so julie enlists flynn’s help to set up a menorah in the garage and to properly teach her about the traditions.

reggie teaches the band the history behind the holiday and even a little hebrew as the light the candles each night.

he visits his brother and watches his nephews open their presents and play together.

it takes a few days of luke’s bad mood for julie to realize that he spent his last christmas - the last one he was alive - alone in her garage, so she’s determined to make his first one as a ghost as special as possible.

she enlists alex’s help and gets him to poof into luke’s parents house to swipe a few of his favorite ornaments from the tree to surprise him with

she strings popcorn and cranberries and gets the guys together to decorate a christmas tree in the studio, they pile it high with tinsel and homemade ornaments and alex even poofs into his parents garage to grab his old gold star to top the tree with

decorating quickly devolves into them throwing the extra popcorn at each other and julie is pissed that it hits her but goes through the guys like nothing. if she can touch them, whatever she’s throwing should be able to too

she plays christmas carols in the studio 24/7. alex complains LOUDLY and reggie sings along to every single song. luke likes to pretend he’s too cool for carols (they’re not rock, julie) but she catches him humming frosty the snowman or deck the halls whenever he think nobody is paying attention

the band decides to exchange homemade gifts (julie isn’t entirely sure how to ask her dad for the money to buy gifts for her three ghost friends and in alex’s own words “we died eating street dogs out of the back of a car julie, we’re broke. and it’s not like we can just waltz into a store and pick you out a perfume anyways. we’re invisible.”)

luke writes julie a song, he finally learns the chords to home is where my horse is for reggie, and he tie-dyes alex a new tshirt

alex enlists julie’s help (which eventually turns into julie enlisting her dad’s help) to make a cassette of their songs for luke’s walkman. he borrows flynn’s cricut to make reggie a “han solo lives on” tshirt. and he gives julie a pair of vintage sneakers he snags from his parents garage. something his older sister had saved up for MONTHS to buy back in ‘89

reggie makes alex some homemade pins for his fanny pack. he gives julie some homemade stickers to decorate her mic and her keyboard with. and he spends some serious time doodling sunset curve/phantom drawings onto an old guitar strap for luke

julie digs through her moms chest to find more sunset curve merch and uploads their songs to spotify from their cd. she writes a duet that she gifts to luke (though since it was written for both of them, she isn’t sure it counts as a gift, even though his face lights up when he reads it.) she gives alex one of her dads vintage bomber jackets, which she spent an afternoon pressing the band’s logo onto the back of with the help of flynn’s cricut. she sets up a movie night for reggie, where they watch every star wars movie ever made and she lets him cry as long as he wants over how terrible han solo’s death it and the travesty that is jar jar’s character

they spend new years at the beach, cozied up on blankets near the water, strumming guitars and playing music just enough for the boys to be visible occasionally. they watch the firework show happening over the pier and spend hours talking about their hopes for world tours and record deals. they’re happy. they’re together.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Fast and Furious Timeline Explained (Including F9)

https://ift.tt/35RIciY

When the Fast and Furious franchise started in 2001, it’s doubtful anyone working on it expected they were launching a mythology so trenchant it’d still be going 20 years later in a film with the words “Fast Saga” in its full title. But here we are on the opening weekend of F9: The Fast Saga, and the series is so beloved it’s expected to resurrect the theatergoing box office once more. And you know? Thank goodness, mi familia.

Sometimes there’s nothing nicer than spending your summer situated around a grill with a couple of cold ones, reminiscing about old times with loved ones. And if we ever spent a full day at one of the Toretto clan’s barbecues, we’d likely hear a lot more exciting tales that begin with “remember that time…” After all, what other family can talk about that time they stole a literal vault out of Rio de Janeiro? Or that other time Luke Hobbs caught a torpedo with his bare hands; and Trej and Roman over there, they launched a Pontiac into space! With them in it!

There have been some crazy times with this group. Hence we’ve created this handy-dandy timeline for those who are struggling to remember when and where things went down…

* Editor’s Note: After Fast & Furious (2009), the franchise gets intentionally vague and fuzzy about the time and years between events, so exact dates are left somewhat up to interpretation.

1989

Dominic and Jakob Toretto work as mechanics on their father Jack Toretto’s professional stock car. During the last race of the season, Jack asks Jakob to help him throw the race, but Jack is killed in the sabotaged accident. Dom thinks Jakob murdered their father. (F9)

Dom beats another pro driver named Kenny Linder near to death with a wrench, as he is at least partially responsible for the carnage of Jack’s crash. Dom is sentenced to prison for five years. (The Fast and the Furious, F9)

1991

Dominic Toretto is released from prison after two years. The first thing he does when he gets out is challenge Jakob to a street race. If Dom wins, Jakob will leave Los Angeles and never return. He’ll also shut off all communication with Dom and their sister Mia. Jakob loses. (F9)

2001

Dominic Toretto alongside his ride or die lover, Letty Ortiz, and childhood friend Vince form an illegal crew of big rig hijackers, stealing DVD players and digital cameras. (The Fast and the Furious)

Brian O’Conner volunteers to go undercover for the LAPD and FBI, infiltrating Toretto’s crew and the world of illegal street racing. But he soon comes to idolize Dom and fall in love with his little sister, Mia Toretto. Brian ultimately helps Dom escape the Feds. (The Fast and the Furious)

2002

Gifted Asian American student Han Lue graduates rom petty crimes to participating with his cousin and two other friends in a cheat sheet racket at their prestigious high school. The group makes a small fortune, but after things get out of hand, they wind up murdering another student. Han’s cousin who helped in the deed kills himself, and a mourning Han drifts further into the underworld. (Better Luck Tomorrow)

2003

Years after fleeing California and prosecution, Brian winds up in Miami where he’s still a hotshot street racer who hangs with his mechanic buddy Tej Parker. After their operation is pinched, Brian is given an offer by the FBI to go undercover again and root out a violent Argentinian drug cartel operating out of Miami. He does so alongside childhood pal Roman Pearce. (2 Fast 2 Furious)

2005

Dom and Letty are secretly married while living as fugitives outside the U.S. (Furious 7)

2006

Dom Toretto now runs a hijacking crew out of the Dominican Republic, alongside Letty and new bestie Han Lue. After a near death experience, they disband. Han says he’ll go to Tokyo, and Dom leaves Letty behind. (Fast & Furious)

Letty goes to Brian O’Conner, who is now an FBI agent. She attempts to clear her and Dom’s records by infiltrating a Mexican drug cartel run by Arturo Braga. Unfortunately, Arturo figures out Letty’s deception and runs her off the road, blowing up her car, which leads everyone to think she died (including Brian and Dom). In truth, she was saved from the wreckage by Gisele Yashar, a secret CIA operative who also infiltrated the Braga cartel. She takes Letty to the hospital. (Fast & Furious, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7)

At the hospital, Letty awakens with amnesia and is recruited into a crew run by Owen Shaw, who has power over the Braga organization. (Fast & Furious 6)

2007

Dom returns to Los Angeles with Mia to avenge Letty’s apparent murder. He buries the hatchet with Brian as they destroy Braga’s cartel. Dom is supposed to have his name cleared in the process, but the FBI betrays him and he’s sentenced to 25 years in prison. Brian and Mia hijack Dom’s prison transport, freeing him and becoming fugitives themselves. (Fast & Furious)

After freeing Dom, the trio flee to Rio Janeiro where they hope to stay incognito. Old friend Vince recruits them for a job to steal three cars, but mid-mission the threesome learn they’re stealing from the DEA, including a vehicle with a computer chip that details the financials of a Brazilian crime lord. (Fast Five)

Dom and Brian recruit an international crew to steal $100 million from the crime lord, including Roman Pearce, Trej Parker, Han Jue, and Gisele Yashar. The Family is reborn. Brian and Mia also learn they’re pregnant. The crew ultimately steals the money and even gains assistance from ruthless DSS agent Luke Hobbs after the super-cop’s team is murdered by local gangsters. (Fast Five)

Hobbs discovers Letty is still alive. (Fast Five)

2008

Brian and Mia give birth to their son Jack. (Fast & Furious 6)

Hobbs tracks Dom down, discovering Dom is now in a serious relationship with Hobbs’ former Brazilian liaison, Elena Neves. Dom is told Letty is alive and working for British criminal mastermind Owen Shaw. (Fast & Furious 6)

Dom and the Family are able to rescue Letty from her manipulative boss, even though she still doesn’t remember who she is. Dom leaves Elena for her. In the fight to save Letty, Gisele is killed and Owen is left in a coma. Han, who was dating Gisele, decides to go to Tokyo. (Fast & Furious 6)

Elena discovers she is pregnant with Dom’s child and decides not to tell him. (The Fate of the Furious)

2009

Elena gives birth to Dom’s son, whom Don is unaware of. (The Fate of the Furious)

Han is recruited by CIA mystery man Mr. Nobody, who reveals Gisele was a CIA agent the whole time. Han picks up where Gisele left off, ultimately saving an orphaned Japanese child named Elle, whose parents encrypted her blood with the key codes to a doomsday device called Ares. (F9)

Han continues illegal street racing in Tokyo where “drifting” is what the cool kids do. He even takes American teenager Sean Boswell under his wing after Sean is banished by his mother to live in Japan with his Army father. Han teaches Sean to drift. (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift)

Deckard Shaw, Owen Shaw’s older brother, breaks into Owen’s hospital and, after killing his doctors, promises to avenge little bro by getting the Toretto family! He begins by nearly killing Luke Hobbs and Elena, who is now working full-time with the big guy. (Furious 7)

Dom takes Letty to Race Wars in order to jog her memory. She gets fragments back but decides the old Letty is dead and drives off, leaving Dom. (Furious 7)

Dom returns to his family home in Los Angeles where Mia tells him that she and Brian are expecting their second child and she’s afraid to tell him because he’s addicted to an adventurous lifestyle. Dom agrees to talk to Brian. Only then does he receive an ominous phone call about… (Furious 7)

… How during Sean and Han’s exploits ,they offend the Yakuza. This leads to Sean and Han being chased by gangsters. In the chaos, Han is T-boned and seemingly killed in an explosion. The other driver is Deckard Shaw, who is here to kill Han in order to send Dom Toretto a message: he’s coming for the Family. He calls Dom to taunt him as he thinks Han burns. But in a twist on a twist, it turns out Han and Mr. Nobody knew Deckard was coming and used this as an opportunity to fake Han’s death so as to better protect Elle! (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7, F9)

After receiving Deckard’s phone call, a letter bomb goes off in the Toretto family home, nearly killing Dom and Mia. Dom and the Family are recruited by CIA weirdo Mr. Nobody into stopping Deckard from obtaining an all-powerful MacGuffin. Nobody gives them unlimited resources and also brings Letty back into the fold. She inexplicably gets her memories back after remembering she and Dom were secretly married. (Furious 7)

Sean ultimately becomes the Drift King of Tokyo (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift)

The heroes save hacker Ramsey from Deckard and she joins the Family. Together they stop Deckard by causing a parking garage to literally fall on his head. Shaw goes to prison, and Dom and Letty get back together. Brian agrees to retire for the sake of his two kids but not before one last angelic ride along next to Dom. (Furious 7)

Movies

Hollywood Execs Are Crediting Fast and Furious with Growing Embrace of Diversity

By David Crow

Movies

F9 Ending Is a Game Changer

By David Crow

2010

Dom and Letty’s overdue Cuban honeymoon is interrupted when Dom is blackmailed into working for evil genius terrorist Cipher. It turns out Cipher has kidnapped Elena and their still-an-infant son to coerce Dom into being her wheelman. (The Fate of the Furious)

Luke Hobbs approaches the family to do an illegal mission, but in the getaway Dom betrays them at Cipher’s behest, leading Luke Hobbs to be disgraced and sent to prison. He gets a cell right next to Deckard Shaw, and the two develop a frenemy banter. They’re freed by Mr. Nobody to help the CIA track Cipher. (The Fate of the Furious)

Cipher kills Elena after she lets Dom name their son (many months after his birth) Brian. During a mission to steal a nuclear submarine, Dom is freed from Cipher’s control after Deckard hijacks Cipher’s plane and saves wee little baby Brian. Dom helps the Family stop the nuclear sub. Deckard Shaw becomes part of the Family while Dom and Letty adopt baby Brian. (The Fate of the Furious)

2012

The CIA pressures Hobbs and Shaw to join forces after MI6 agent Hattie Shaw, Deckard and Owen’s little sister, is targeted by cyber-enhanced super soldiers who want the superpower-giving virus she’s hidden in her bloodstream. Hobbs and Shaw reluctantly work together, save Hattie, and ultimately travel to Hobbs’ family home in Samoa. (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs And Shaw)

2013

Sean and buddies Twinkie and Earl Hu begin experimenting with a Pontiac Fiero that they’ll attach a rocket to with the aim of one day shooting it into space. (F9)

2014

Dom is living peacefully with Letty and his three or four-year-old son when he’s told Cipher has resurfaced and shot down Mr. Nobody’s plane. He reluctantly joins the Family to try and rescue Mr. Nobody, and they discover Dom’s long lost little brother, Jakob (now big and swole), is involved after going rogue as a secret agent. (F9)

Letty and Mia go to Tokyo to find out what Jakob is after and discover Han is alive, reuniting him, plus his ward Elle, with the Family. (F9)

Trej and Roman work with Sean and friends on the Fiero, eventually “driving” it into space to stop Jakob (and later Cipher) from essentially taking over the world. Jakob helps Dom stop Cipher and is pseudo-redeemed. (F9)

Back from the dead, Han decides to confront Deckard Shaw… (F9)

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amanda-glassen · 3 years

Text

The Wonder Years: Part 8

While getting ready for her first school dance, twelve-year-old Olivia starts a path toward discovering who she is truly meant to be. Parts 1-7 can be found under the the tag #alex and liv: the wonder years

Thank you @ghostwritingcabenson @imaginaryoperagloves @cabensons @oliviaswifey and my lovely anon for all of your really sweet comments and tags.

Cover courtesy of my tumblr wifey @ghostwritingcabenson

Seeing the brightly colored frozen yogurt shop put Olivia at ease because it was the setting of some of her best childhood memories and now she was going to experience it with her girlfriend.

Olivia did as Jamie had done for her mom and opened the car door for Alex. That small act of chivalry earned a big smile and a ‘thank you’ from Alex, which made Olivia feel as if she had butterflies in her stomach.

“Babe, why don’t you take Alex inside?” Jamie suggested. “I want to stay out here and talk to Ollie.” Uh oh.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Serena gestured for Alex to follow her. “We can get first pick of the toppings.”

“Yeah!” Alex said excitedly. “I want chocolate chips and chocolate brownie bites.”

“Is everything okay?” Olivia asked, worried that Jamie had a suspicion that she and Alex were hiding something.

“Everything is fine,” Jamie responded. “This is a good talk, I promise.” She pulled a twenty dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it to Olivia.

“Cool! Twenty bucks!” Olivia folded the money and put it in her pocket. “Thanks, Jamie. I was saving up to buy a－”

“It’s not for you, kid,” Jamie interrupted. “It’s for you to treat Alex.”

Olivia tried to hide her disappointment. “But my mom always pays for frozen yogurt.”

Jamie made a failed attempt at stifling her laughter. “Think about it, kid. What’ll score you more points, you paying for her frozen yogurt or your mom paying?”

“Me, I guess,” Olivia groaned. “There goes my new bat.”

Jamie shook her head and wrapped her arm around Olivia to guide her toward the entrance. “I have so much to teach you, Ollie.”

Alex and Serena were already choosing their toppings when Olivia and Jamie entered the frozen yogurt shop. Olivia noticed that her mom had gotten their usual and she was eager to get the same－chocolate flavored frozen yogurt with Oreo crumbles, gummy worms and Fruity Pebbles－a tradition in the Benson household that they had named Dirt and Worms.

“Mom, I’ll pay for me and Alex,” Olivia told her once all four cups of frozen yogurt were on the counter and ready to be weighed.

Serena took her debit card out of a pink and white polka dot Kate Spade wallet. “It’s okay, baby, I’ll get it. Save your money for that bat you’ve been wanting.” Olivia noticed her mom and Jamie exchange glances and she hoped Jamie could read her mind because she no longer had the slightest idea what to do. “On second thought, it’s probably not cool for your mom to pay for you on your first date.”

“I got this,” Olivia tried to say as smoothly as she could while she pulled out her twenty dollar bill and placed it on the counter.

“And I’m getting yours,” Jamie told Serena. “You already paid for dinner. We’re supposed to be in an equal partnership here.” After Alex and Olivia’s cups of frozen yogurt were paid for, Jamie inserted her card to pay for hers and Serena’s.

“I paid for us to eat at Hot Dog On A Stick, not some expensive restaurant,” Serena reminded her. “That’s all we had time for after Barnes & Noble and GameStop.”

Jamie picked up their frozen yogurt cups and carried them over to the table. Olivia figured she should do the same for Alex until she saw Alex already eating brownie bites from her frozen yogurt. Better not take that away from her. “I learned an important lesson today, Ser. If I value my life, I will never attempt to take one of your fries. Is it the same with frozen yogurt?”

Serena scrunched her nose. “Yours is vanilla with strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. No wonder you want to steal some of mine.”

Within seconds of sitting down at the table, Olivia’s phone started to vibrate. It was a text from Elliot confirming he'd be at their secret meeting, but Olivia didn't want to risk her mom seeing a message from her dad come through so she decided to put her phone in her pocket.

"What's this big science project about?" Serena asked them. "I've never seen an assignment have that effect on Olivia."

Olivia was in the middle of chewing a gummy worm, so she was grateful when her quick thinking girlfriend decided to answer. "It's the end of the year project which is worth 25% of our grade. Mrs. Rodriguez is supposed to give us more details on Monday, but my brother had her class three years ago and he said she lets her students pick the topic. Sometimes that's harder because the possibilities are endless. She also doesn't like us to pick partners because someone could get their feelings hurt if they aren't picked, so she puts us in alphabetical order. If she does that, it's fine because I'll get to work with Olivia. Alphabetically there's no one in between us. We should start brainstorming, Olivia."

The last thing Olivia wanted was to think about a science project that wasn't due for another month, but her girlfriend’s enthusiasm was contagious and the project was the only thing keeping her mom from asking questions about what was actually on her mind.

Olivia felt her phone vibrate again, except this time it wasn’t a text from Elliot or any of her other friends. It was another message from her dad that read, “Hey Sport. Wanna get some pizza tomorrow?”

“Who’s that, baby?” her mom asked her.

“Just Elliot,” Olivia said nonchalantly. “He’s asking if I’m still coming over tomorrow to watch the game. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Olivia was grateful that the bathroom was a single stall so nobody could follow her in there. She pulled out her phone from her back pocket immediately after locking the door behind her and started to respond to her dad. “Yeah can we go to Another One Bites the Crust? That’s my favorite. I can meet you there at 1.”

She waited two minutes before another response came through. “Daddy/daughter day tomorrow at 1. They have those rotating basketball hoops outside. Bring your A-game.”

When she returned to their table, a feeling of guilt hit her hard and suddenly. She occasionally hid things from her mom like when she didn’t tell her she had a girlfriend, but this was the first time she had actually lied to her. It was the worst she had ever felt in her entire life and she knew that lie was only the first of many that she’d tell her mom that weekend.

Serena asked Alex about her siblings and Olivia heard Alex talk about her older brother who was fifteen and nice to her and her younger brother who was almost nine and kind of annoying. Olivia loved to hear Alex talk about her home life and her friends and her favorite movies and TV shows, but that night her mind was on her dad and how much fun the two of them were going to have the next day eating pizza and playing basketball.

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Alex asked Serena.

With Serena distracted by Alex’s question, Jamie took it upon herself to attempt to steal a gummy worm, but her attempt was soon thwarted by Serena gently smacking her hand. “Hey! Nope. Hands off my worms. If you wanted gummy worms, you should have added some to your frozen yogurt.”

Olivia handed Jamie a couple of her own gummy worms. “Here, Jamie. You can have some of mine. I have a whole bunch.”

Jamie took the worms and held them up to show Serena. “Unlike you, your kid actually shares.”

“What can I say?” Serena smirked. “My kid is better than me. That means I’ve succeeded as a mom.” She held Jamie’s hand on top of the table before turning to Alex. “Sorry, Alex, before we were so rudely interrupted by my gummy worm thief, I was going to tell you that my brother Kyle is two years younger than me and my sister Lexie is one year younger than me. The three of us are really close, like best friends. Kyle and I live in the same building, but Lexie moved back to California after college. She lives in Santa Monica now.”

“Lexie Benson is your sister?” Alex asked, wide eyed and completely in disbelief. “Lexie Benson, the YouTuber? I’ve seen every single one of the videos on her YouTube channel! She does these really funny videos where viewers can request what era or theme they want and she does these in-character spoofs about－” Alex started to blush. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. She’s your sister so you know all about her channel and her videos. Wait, I think I’ve even seen you in some of them!”

“Yeah, she’ll force me every time I go out to Santa Monica,” Serena smiled at her. “And don’t apologize for getting excited over something. I’ll tell Lexie about you next time I talk to her.”

“Babe, your phone,” Jamie told her as she looked down at Serena’s phone and noticed an incoming video call.

“It’s my mom,” Serena groaned. “If I don’t answer, she’s going to keep calling.” She swiped across the screen to answer. “Hi, Mom. I’m out right now with Olivia, do you mind if I－”

“Where’s my grandbaby?” Mrs. Benson interrupted her. “I want to talk to her.”

Serena handed the phone to Olivia. “Hi, Grandma!” Olivia said excitedly. “Wanna see my girlfriend Alex? She’s having frozen yogurt with me. Me and her went on our first date tonight.”

“Hi, Mrs. Benson,” Alex said after scooting closer to Olivia. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You’re adorable!” Mrs. Benson responded. “And so well mannered. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alex. So, tell me, how is my grandbaby on a date? Does she hold open the door and pull out your chair?”

“She’s a perfect gentleman and she’s so cute and sweet and she got me a rose and frozen yogurt tonight,” Alex beamed. “I like Olivia so much.”

Olivia felt butterflies in her stomach and she wanted nothing more than to kiss Alex if they were alone. “Doesn’t Alex look like a princess?” Olivia asked.

“She looks like Princess Grace,” Mrs. Benson told her granddaughter. “She could be a classic Hollywood starlet. And you look so handsome and grown up, my darling grandbaby.”

“Jamie cut my hair,” Olivia said excitedly.

“Jamie,” Mrs. Benson said in a teasing tone of voice, hoping Serena would hear. “Tall, dark, and handsome, herself, the one woman I would consider switching teams for.”

“Mom,” Serena groaned and Olivia couldn’t help but laugh when her mom put her head down on the table in embarrassment.

Olivia handed the phone over to Jamie. “Hi, Melanie. You’re looking beautiful as always. Where are you? I can see the sunset behind you. Are you on vacation?”

“Oh, no, I’m just on our rooftop,” Mrs. Benson said nonchalantly. “Didn’t my daughter tell you about the beach house in Malibu?”

Serena took the phone from Jamie. “I have to go now, Mom. Alex has to get home soon.”

“Not so fast,” Mrs. Benson told her. “Since you neglected to tell me when your spring break was, I looked it up on Columbia’s website and saw that it’s the week after next. I’m booking your flight to LAX. You can bring Jamie so I can finally meet her in person and my grandbaby can bring her little girlfriend and before you object and say you had something planned for my grandbaby, I will save you the effort and say nothing you can plan in that gloomy state you insist on living in is as much fun as the kids will have at the beach and at Disneyland.”

“Disneyland!” Alex said excitedly. “I’ll ask my mom if I can go as soon as I get home.”

Olivia’s dream of riding the teacups together and buying Alex a pair of sparkly Minnie Mouse ears could finally come true. “Please, Mom. Please can we go? I’ll do anything.”

“Don’t be the bad guy, Serena,” Mrs. Benson told her daughter. “I can hear how happy the kids are.”

“It’s 9:45 over here, Mom,” Serena said in a frustrated tone of voice. “I have to hang up now so we can take Alex home. Bye, Mom. I love you. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Serena set her phone on the table and then turned to face Jamie. “One thing I hate about smartphones is that you can’t angrily close them when you wanna hang up on someone. Nothing gave me more satisfaction as a teenager than hanging up on my mom with my pink bedazzled Motorola Razr phone whenever she nagged me about something like she is right now. She completely undermines my parenting every chance she gets. What if I had something planned for Ollie?”

“At least you knew how to use that phone because, apparently, you can’t use this one,” they heard Mrs. Benson say. “I’m still on the line, Serena. I’m booking your flight and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Olivia looked across the table at her flustered mom and at Jamie who was trying to contain her laughter. The short interaction with her grandma had made all of her negative feelings go away. Tomorrow, she’d spend the afternoon with her dad and, as long as they could convince Mr. and Mrs. Cabot, she’d soon be at Disneyland with the love of her twelve-year-old life.

#cabenson #baby cabenson #alex and liv: the wonder years #serena benson #law and order svu

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thelastspeecher · 4 years

Text

I went to Culver’s for dinner last night and on the drive there and back, my brain started thinking about fic stuff and lo and behold, I got ideas for a lil ficlet that takes place in my Avatar AU. Enjoy.

——————————————————————————————

The driving reason behind Stan’s stay with the McGuckets was to join Angie and Lute’s pro-bending team. Despite this, he had yet to join in on a single training session with the siblings. His burn was much better than before, but Mr. McGucket insisted he stay benched until it was fully healed. Chin in one hand, Stan watched morosely as Lute and Angie sparred. In theory, he was observing how they fought so as to better fit in once he was allowed to train again.

All this does is make me wanna join in. Lute cracked a water whip at Angie’s ankles, making her fall to the ground. She caught herself on one hand and kicked the air. A massive rock flew directly at Lute, hitting him soundly in the chest. He flew backwards.

“All ya do when ya knock me off my feet is make me closer to my element,” Angie jeered. One of the few things Stan had actually learned from watching Lute and Angie train was that their accents got much thicker in the heat of battle. They sounded like they had been raised in the Foggy Swamp like their father, rather than on the outskirts of Republic City.

“Shut up,” Lute grumbled as he slowly got to his feet. Angie snickered. Lute summoned water from the nearby pond and held it over his chest. The water began to glow, signaling that Lute was healing the scrapes and bruises he’d gotten during the sparring session. He looked over at Stan. “So, what do ya think?”

“I think Angie’s the better bender of the two of you,” Stan replied. Lute’s jaw dropped. Angie let out a whoop. “Honestly, she might be a better bender than me.”

“Don’t give her a swelled head. She’s already got a big nose,” Lute said. Angie stopped preening to glare at him.

“We have the same nose, Lute. Arguably, yours is bigger ‘n mine.” Lute rolled his eyes. Angie turned back to Stan. “It makes sense that I’m a better bender.”

“No, it don’t,” Lute said.

“Yes, it does. We don’t have any famous waterbendin’ relatives. But we’ve got at least one famous earthbender in the fam’ly.” Stan sat up straighter.

“Who?” he asked. Angie’s eyes twinkled.

“King Bumi of Omashu.”

“What? No.”

“It’s true!”

“He didn’t have kids,” Stan argued. He blinked.

How did I know that? Maybe some of the history lessons Ford took rubbed off on me.

“Yer right.” Angie walked over to Stan and sat next to him. “I ain’t a direct descendant of King Bumi. I’m a direct descendant of his older sister.”

“Was she an earthbender?”

“Yes. I don’t know if she was on the same level as her brother, but we’ve still got that earthbendin’ talent runnin’ through our veins, courtesy of Ma.” Stan nodded. “Ya don’t seem all that surprised we’ve got royal blood.”

“I figured you at least had noble blood, since your mom’s a noblewoman,” Stan said. Lute raised an eyebrow.

“How’d ya know that?”

“It sticks out all over her. Also, she’s from the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. That’s where snooty people come from.” Lute snorted, amused.

“Sounds like ya have experience with snooty people,” he said. He sent the water back to the pond and joined Stan and Angie on the ground.

“Well, yeah. My twin brother’s the Avatar. Literally the day after it was announced, snooty nobles started stopping by our home to schmooze.” Stan grinned. “The one thing my pops was good for, though, was teaching us how to brush off schmoozers.” He frowned. “I wonder if any of the people that visited were relatives of yours.”

“If they were, we’d have no way of knowin’,” Angie said. She stretched her legs out in front of her. “Ma was raised to be a proper lady and marry a feller with higher status. When she decided to join the White Lotus and married our pa, her folks disowned her.” Angie shrugged. “Technically, we’re nobility. But we don’t have any proper claim to land or titles or what have ya. They stripped Ma of all that.”

“That’s shitty,” Stan said after a moment.

“Eh. I don’t mind not knowin’ Ma’s fam’ly,” Lute said. “She don’t talk ‘bout ‘em much, but when she does, it paints a picture. And not a pretty one. Not unlike when you talk ‘bout yer own fam’ly.”

“Hmm.” Stan leaned back, looking up at the sky. “I mean, when we were kids, Ford didn’t suck that much, and our big brother Shermie was always a great guy. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t like my mom. It’s mostly just my pops who sucks. Well, him and lately, Ford.”

“Ooh, are ya goin’ to tell us ‘bout yer fam’ly?” Angie asked eagerly. She leaned, pressing up against Stan. “Spill!”

“I’ll answer one question,” Stan said after a moment of deliberation.

“Do ya have any famous benders in yer fam’ly?” Lute blurted out. Stan looked at Angie.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re not gonna oppose him stealing the question?” Stan asked. Angie shrugged.

“Nah. His question’s better ‘n the one I thought of anyways.”

“Fine. You wanna know if I’m related to any famous benders…” Stan rubbed his chin. “Well, Pops always said we were descended from the Sun Warriors, but I don’t believe that. He only ever brought it up to sell antiques, after all. I think I believe my mom, though. She used to tell us that her grandma was an airbender.”

“Whoa, really?” Angie asked, her eyes wide. Stan nodded. “That’s amazing! Airbending is rare even now.”

“Yeah, apparently, she was one of those airbenders that got their bending from Harmonic Convergence.”

Wow, I’m really nailing the history stuff today. That might be the first time I remembered the name “Harmonic Convergence.”

“That’s so cool!” Lute gushed. “Man, all we’ve got are snooty nobles, King Bumi, and a bunch of swamp people.”

“That’s not true,” Angie said.

“Am I forgetting someone?”

“Yeah, you’re forgetting us!” Angie reached around Stan to punch Lute on the shoulder. “You, me, ‘n Stan. Soon to be the best pro-bending team in history!” Lute rubbed the spot she punched, chuckling.

“All right, all right, you’ve got a point.” Lute got up. “C’mon. Ma’s workin’ late tonight, so we best get started on dinner fer her.” He pulled Stan to his feet. Angie jumped up.

“You included me in your list of famous relatives,” Stan pointed out as they walked back to the house.

“Well, sure, yer part of the fam’ly,” Angie said.

“But I’m not famous. Other than being the Avatar’s twin. That’s not why you included me, right?”

“Of course not!” Angie looped an arm around Stan’s shoulders, an action that she had to stand on her tip toes in order to do. “Didn’t ya hear me? Yer famous ‘cause yer part of our pro-bending team, and we’re goin’ to take the pro-bending world by storm!” Stan grinned, catching Angie’s enthusiasm.

“Hell yeah.”

#this isn't like a big plot important ficlet #there are a couple subtle references to Stan remembering things from his past lives #but it's mostly just fluff bc fluff is a good thing for today's chaotic world #anyways I also updated Spirit Touched and I'll post the link stuff for that tomorrow #right now...I am tire #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #Lute McGucket #Avatar AU #my writing #ficlet #speecher speaks

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mccarricks · 3 years

Photo

( brittany o’grady / demi woman ) WESLEY McCARRICK is 23 years old and is a SENIOR at thales university. SHE is majoring in FILM and is known for being THE MAVERICK as THEY can be HUMOROUS and OPEN-MINDED as well as DITZY and IMPULSIVE. every time i see HER/THEM, THEY remind me of PURPLE SKY IN THE DESERT, SKATING AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO FEEL THE WIND ON YOU, A JOKE TOLD WITH A TOOTHY GRIN.

hero’s back w character no. 2 and yet......

full name: wesley ‘wes’ elaine mccarrick

birthdate: february 2, 1997

age: 23

gender: demi woman

pronouns: she/her/they/them

zodiac: aquarius

nationality: american

ethnicity: black (louisiana creole) and white (irish)

hometown: santa fe, nm

languages: english, intermediate spanish

family:

theodore mccarrick, father

elaine barlow, mother

ruby mccarrick, older brother

delphine mccarrick, older sister

sherri barlow, maternal grandmother

many cousins

orientation: bisexual biromantic, pref. towards women/nb people but will date men

religion: agnostic

height: 5 ft 4 in

distinguishing features: eyebrows, hair, lips

character inspo: ilana wexler (broad city), harley quinn (dc comics), phoebe buffay (friends), prob more

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃

TRIGGERS: divorce, mentions of crime, drug and alcohol use

the youngest child of ted and elaine mccarrick, wes was a kid who is full of life. she’s the kind of kid who did things to make you smile, and it usually worked. she was warm and inviting, a little naive, but she had a strong support system.

her parents divorce when she’s six, she doesn’t quite understand it but her dad moves out, and her grandma and multiple cousins move in. it’s a lively household, between her mom, who works as a nurse, and her siblings, and her cousins, it was never really quiet and there was never a lot of room.

despite the split, her parents maintain that their children have a relationship with both of them, and truthfully, wes is a daddy’s girl. she and her dad were cut from the same cloth, happy go lucky, fun loving, a bit silly, he’s the one who introduces her to movies. it’s their thing, watching and critiquing them together, and it’s not whatever is in theatres either. they went for all times of filmmaking, new wave, surrealist, and more.

it really stuck with wes, who herself had begun making movies, mostly horror/fantasy/scifi stuff with her friends-- she writes and directs and occasionally, she’ll don a costume and star in them. they’re silly little things, but her family always sat down for her “premieres.”

her formative years are marked with plenty of things, sports, deaths of distant family members, a cousin or two who gets caught in the wrong crowd and ends up in jail, and throughout this, wes remains a rock for her family.

she’s in high school, and she gets into the eclectic crowd, the outcasts, the weirdos, the ones who smoked under the bridge, and partied out in an abandoned trailer near the desert. these freaks were her freaks. they accepted her with open arms, as she them.

she chooses thales because she always wants to see the east coast, and frankly, as much as she loves her family, she wants to be free of them. and they have a fantastic film program. so!

she meets steven in their first film class together, and they’re fast friends, despite her usual weariness of YET another film bro, steven proves to be a good egg. so she thinks. she finds out through him talking that he might not be the most faithful to his girlfriend, and as much as she doesn’t like meddling, she thinks it’s only right to let clarissa, who she doesn’t really know well, know. however, before there’s a chance, everything happens-- now she’s stuck wondering if she should reveal the truth, or let sleeping dogs lie.

nana is different, nana and her dated her sophomore year, nana’s freshman year. it wasn’t serious. but they were fond of each other. they eventually break up, but they stay friendly, waving to each other in the halls, chatting at parties.

both the disappearance and the murder is weird for wes, who by all accounts, isn’t great at dealing with bad shit. she prefers to laugh about things. laugh about everything. because if she doesn’t laugh, she’ll cry.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

wes is a mess, a free-spirit, a walking contradiction. she’s very independent minded, the kind of person who does things without thinking so much about the consequences, this leads her into trouble sometimes. like nicking something from a convenience store, or stealing a stop sign as a prank. she’s definitely the kind to goof off and not exactly dedicate her full attention to something. and while she’s in genuinely good spirits on most occasions, she has a staunch ‘no asshole’ policy. the type to defend the underdogs, and go after bullies. she’ll punch you with a smile on her face, and yet it ends up being more unnerving than you realize. she’s a bit of a ditz, as well, never the best at school, but can talk your ear off about the going ons of the world. she’s a lovable dumbass, for sure, and loyal to a tee once you get her as a friend.

𝐓𝐈𝐃𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒

horror movie fan! her favorites are some of the oldies, like dracula and the bride of frankenstein! and some new ones! big fan of jordan peele’s work, as well as ari aster’s! but mostly really advocates for women directors and directors of color!

also does roller derby! she picked this up her first year at thales and fell in love with it, i can’t think of a name for her yet, but she’s a blocker, won’t hesitate to elbow some dick at the bar

kinda a tomboy? she’s always been! she’s rough and tumble and not afraid to get down and dirty with someone, i.e. will join those football games on the quad or crawl through the mud for a scene to shoot

doesn’t know if she wants to be a director/writer or a cinematographer honestly.... she loves the technical aspects of film as much as the making the stories

definition of a bruh girl, says it a whole lot, but also just if you tell her you love her, she’ll just roll her eyes and be like you’re an idiot (which means she loves you too) she’ll be affectionate if she’s close to you

kinda a wh*re oops....... texts multiple girls at a time and doesn’t want to hurt any of their feelings she doesn’t know how she keeps ending up in these situations... also a bisexual disaster

a stoner as well..... always has a massive jar of weed

unclear whether she lives on campus or off campus but if she does live off campus she has a pet turtle named elsa lanchester after the bride of frankenstein actress

a drummer! she’s in a band (name tbd) she started drumming at a young age and found it was a good way to manage her aggression

doesn’t really do well with emotions, so she’ll either be like there, there, or try to make jokes.... she really said kids can you lighten up

walking meme... such a walking meme... doesn’t know so many things she’s like a cute puppy with no thoughts head empty but she’s so fun to be around

life of the party.... nana she came fr ur spot and she took it and she’s not sorry but she does miss u a lot

doesn’t rly feel like she’s allowed to be upset anyways bc some people have it...... way worse.... can u say Imposter syndrome

kind of an enabler...... will be that person to push u to try things but not in a peer pressurey way, more like if u are unsure abt sending a text she says do it

wears fun earrings and socks! think lollipops or gummy bears or found objects like she collects that shit it’s her lifeline

boxes! she’s been boxing since she was abt 12, courtesy of her older brother (who is now a doctor thx ruby) and it’s a good way to exercise and release stress

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

best friend -- two of a feather, cut from the same cloth, or complete opposites it doesnt matter to her (the abbi to her ilana)

roller derby friends -- she’s p close to the team, margs on her

makeup artist pal -- i think it would be neat fr someone to try and teach her makeup whether its normal or sfx bc she wants to look like a monster or smthn

she’s gullible, u take advantage of that -- u just tell her lies p much and she’s like yeah ok that sounds right

party friends

classmates

fwbs (f/m/nb) -- tbh she might have one or two of these but they literally are the def of pals who bone sometimes... like v good abt being like you good? u dont want more? cool me too

exes (f/m/nb) -- mostly dated women or nb people but def cld have had a guy

she smokes you out -- p much the only reason u hang out w her is bc she has good weed

someone she’s fought -- like fully decked in the face, prob said something that rubbed her the wrong way and it just devolved from there

people who dislike her -- she could definitely be seen as annoying bc shes loud and dorky and funny so ??

breaks someone out of their shell -- p self explanatory, pushes them to have fun, w everything happening shes rly like lifes too short to not take the opportunities around u

cousins! probably on her dad’s side! i figure she has some east coast fam

anything? truly?

#pyrrhic.intro #intro.#divorce tw #crime mention #drug use tw #alcohol use tw #i pulled this out of my ass

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kl4us4 · 5 years

Text

AHOY (Steve Harrington x Reader)

Request: Hi do you wanna bless the world with a steve harrington x reader where you're dustin's older sister and y'all are on a mission (like in s3 for example) and you slowly fall in love with each other and dustin annoys you with it?😅 or make a hc instead of all the little things/habits steve loves about you. Thank you🙈❤

general masterlist

You push the door open to Scoops Ahoy, stumbling back when Erica and her friends storm out. You give her a look of shock as you gesture for her and her friends to walk out. Erica looks up at you, her brown eyes analyzing you and your new clothes.

“Here for Steve?” She interrogates, holding her icecream in one hand and resting her other hand on her hip.

“Yes.” You respond, “He is my best friend.”

She just gives you a smirk before shrugging up at you and turning to follow her waiting friends. Shaking your head, you let out a sigh as you walk to the counter. Unbeknown to you, Robin spots you, eyes widening before she turns back to the back room and calls out for Steve.

He’s quick to run out to the front room, hands crossed over the embarrassing uniform that you’ve laughed at him for a thousand times. “Ahoy, Y/N!” He exclaims, giving you a smirk as you laugh at him.

“Is it protocol to say that every time?” You ask him, as he leads you to a vacant table, leaving Robin to fend for herself.

“Ha. Ha.” He lets out a sarcastic laugh, leaning back in the booth. “Did you bring it?” He now gives you a serious look.

“I brought it.” You confirm. Pulling out the small book from your back pocket, you place it on the table. Steve grins, his hand moving to grab the book but you slide it away from him. “Not so fast, Harrington.” You state, leaning your elbows on the table and giving him a serious look.

Steve narrows his eyes at you, crossing his arms as he leans forward on the table, closer to you. “Are you going to make me bargain for it, Y/N?” He asks, his voice low.

You tilt your head at him, a small smirk on your lips. “Maybe.” You admit, holding the book up in the air and looking at it. When you lean back and flick through the book, Steve almost sighs at the loss of closeness. “Beginners English to Russian translation... What could you possibly need this for?”

Steve shrugs, his confident facade dropping. “Translating...” He mumbles, “Russian.”

You fire back, “For what?”

“My... cousin is Russian.”

“Boy or girl?” You ask.

“G-boy.” He answers.

“G-boy?” You repeat, raising an eyebrow at him. It’s kind of fun seeing him squirm for an answer under your intimidating glance, especially after how confident he was two seconds ago.

Steve pauses, looking into your eyes before answering with confidence. But as quick as he answers, you’re there with another question. “Boy.”

“Name?”

“St...an. Stanis.” Steve nods, looking at you closely and examining if you’ve fallen for it or not.

God, he’s bad at this. He literally almost said his own name. You throw the book on the table, giving him a nod and a fake smile. “Okay, cool!”

His eyes light up. “Really?”

“No.” Quickly, you grab the book from the table, standing and heading for the door as Steve rushes behind you.

“Wait, wait, wait!” He pulls you back by your arm, causing you to look at his gentle hand, “I need that book.”

“Why?” You inquire, giving him a plain look, “And don’t lie to me. Even Eleven knows friends don’t lie.”

He pauses, hearing that dreaded word. Friends. It hasn’t been easy coming to terms that he was in love with his best friend... it took a lot of thinking and talking to Robin. Honestly, Steve never realised how perfect you two were together until after he graduated high school. It took leaving the pressures of King Steve for him to realise he’d be happy if you were the only person in his life.

“Yeah, alright.” Steve eventually sighs, letting go of your arm, “Well, it is for translating Russian but... Shit, Dustin would kill me if I told you.” He lets out a small laugh before seeing your expression.

“What have you gotten my brother in to now?” You question him, “And why am I out of the loop?”

“Hey, love birds!” Robin shouts, ignoring Steves wide, angry eyes at the term, “Once you have the book, can you do your job, so that I can do mine?” Robin speaks up, shouting across the counter to you.

“Good to see you again, Robin.” You smile at her, waving a hand. Steve gazes at you fondly, admiring how pretty you look when you’re happy. When you glance up at him, he just laughs awkwardly and shakes his head at Robins comment. “How are you doing?” You ask her as she makes her way to the two of you.

She crosses her arms, a tired expression on her face, “Busy. Russian broadcasts don’t translate themselves.”

“Robin!”

“Wha- Russian Broadcasts?”

“Steve, you told her?!” Dustin appears at the foot of the table, his arms raised as he glares at his friend. “We had a plan!”

“What plan?” You narrow your eyes at Steve. Robin stands there looking at the ground awkwardly.

“Robin told her, I’m an innocent bystander!” Steve defends himself, raising his hands as he points to Robin who just stands there idly before stealing the book and heading to the counter as more customers come in.

Dustin's eyes drift towards yours as you stare at Steve, eyebrows raised incredulously. Attempting to escape his sister's wrath, he tries to head for the door. “Sit. Now.” You order him. Steve watches you in anticipation, hanging on to your every word, glance, and expression, “You too. Sit down." He does as told, the two boys sit in the booth and you take a seat beside Steve. “Spill.”

“Never.” Your brother says, making you glare at him and Steve steps in.

“You know his walkie talkie thing?” He asks you, moving closer to you in the booth as he lowers his voice.

“Yeah, annoying as shit and old as dirt.” You nod, ignoring Dustin as he tells you it’s the best thing to ever happen to him.

Steve ignores him too, leaning just a little closer and you frown at him. “Your brother intercepted a Russian-”

“A secret Russian-”

“A - sorry, yeah - Secret Russian Communication,” Steve whispers to you before moving away. There’s a long pause. The two boys await your response with big grins.

“So?” You ask. Their faces fall.

“So?” Your brother repeats, giving you a look of disbelief, “It’s the communists! We have a chance to figure out what they’re saying, what if we could be heroes, save Hawkins... save America!” When you just stare at him, he turns to Steve, “Told you she wouldn’t get it.”

“Get it?” You repeat, “I get it, I just don’t think a little boy and a... sailor can do much about Communists.”

“Little?” Dustin gasps.

“Sailor?” Steve raises his eyebrows, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat, “I’m clearly a captain.”

“Y/N,” Dustin announces, “This could lead to something big!”

“Which is why you decided to keep this a secret from me?” You wonder, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, like you haven’t kept secrets from me!” Dustin rolls his eyes, earning a confused look from you.

“What are you talking about, Dustin?” You frown at your brother who is getting on your last nerves.

“Don’t act dumb!” He points a finger at you which you slap away.

“What?” You almost laugh at his childishness.

“You keep secrets from me and Mom!”

“Dustin,” you announce, a smile on your face, “I’m so good at keeping secrets you wouldn’t know if I were keeping any secrets because that’s how good at keeping secrets I am!” You tell him.

“You threw up at our doorstep when you were coming home late at night two weeks ago and you said you had food poisoning from studying at Tammy’s house, but I know for a fact that it was because you were drinking at Steve‘s secret party!” Dustin blurts out. Silence follows.

You face Steve, waiting for him to look you in the eyes. What else has he told your brother about you? “Thanks.” You smile angrily.

Steve mouths a ‘sorry’ as Dustin continues. “Unless you want Mom to know about that then I suggest you help us, okay?”

Thinking it over, you remember how mad your mom got last time you lied to her about studying with Steve when in reality you went to Carol’s party. And it was such a bust too, boring as shit, definitely not worth being grounded over. If she knows you were drinking, with Steve no less, she’d forbid you from ever seeing him - or the sun - again.

“Did Camp No Friends teach you how to be so manipulative?” You ask your little brother, watching him as he stands from the booth.

Dustin just lets out a fake laugh, standing from the table and heading to the back room of Scoops.

“My bad.” Steve tells you, giving you an apologetic smile, “It must’ve slipped.”

“Mhmm, I guess it must have.” You respond, turning to him as you both sit in the booth, “Luckily he doesn’t know about Tommy H’s party, right? Would be a shame if someone-”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve holds back a laugh, incredulous that you’d bring that night up, “Dustin would hate me if he knew I kissed his sister.”

You nod up at him, trying so hard to ignore how close his lips are to yours. “Yeah, he would.” You smile, raising your eyebrows mischievously.

“Alright!” Steve tilts his head at you, pouting his lips, “I’m sorry for not being able to keep my mouth shut.”

“And?”

“And for getting overly friendly when I’m drunk.” He jokes, making you both laugh before together.

You and Steve follow Dustin to the back room of Scoops, where a very displeased Robin complains about how she had to close the shop on her own because Steve was ‘too busy making goo-goo eyes at Y/N.’

And now, here you all are. Plus Erica. Looking into a weird metal box. Steve opens it slowly and you all watch with curiosity as cold air flows out of it. “What the hell?” You remark.

“It’s definitely not Chinese food.” Steve states, looking back to the rest of the group, “Maybe you guys should, you know, stand back.” Gently placing his hand on your arm, Steve gives you a serious look before he pulls you behind him. Dustin protests. Loudly.

“No.” Dustin shakes his head, looking into the box as he stands beside Steve.

The older boy pushes his little friend back slightly, “Seriously, come on, step back.”

“No,” Dustin repeats, looking up at Steve with a serious expression, “If you die, I die.”

You watch the interaction, letting out a big sigh before stepping from behind Steve, who turns to you. “Not you too, come on, just-”

“You die, he dies, I die.” You shrug, giving Steve a nod before sending a small smile your brother's way. Dustin remains serious, giving you a curt nod back as if he’s some kind of US soldier. You and Steve both share another look before you give him a reassuring nod, mouthing ‘It’s okay’ to him.

“Okay,” Steve mutters back, looking back to the cold metal. A few noises click as Steve opens the cylinder, pulling it out to reveal... “What the hell?” You and Steve both exclaim in unison.

“What is that?” Robin asks, eyeing the bright green liquid.

Suddenly, the room shakes, making you grip onto your little brother's shoulders. “Did the room just shake?” Dustin asks, looking to you with wide eyes.

“No, no, no, I’m sure it’s all... fine.” You tell him, looking back to Steve with a less than convincing expression.

“Booby traps.” Whispers Erica, her face full of fear. It’s a new look for her. The room shakes again. Your head snaps towards Dustin, whose eyes are even wider than they were two seconds ago.

“You know what?” Announces Robin, moving to Steve and taking the vile from his hand, “Let’s just grab that. And go.” Dustin springs to action, moving to the buttons while you watch as Steve puts the container back.

Steve turns to you, placing a hand on your shoulder, “You okay?”

Trying to hide a smile, you shrug, “Yeah, I’m-”

“Which one do I press, erica?” Dustin calls out, his voice filled with anxiety at the fact that none of the buttons is working.

“Just press the damn button, nerd.” She shouts back as Robin places the vile inside her backpack.

“I’m pressing the button!” Dustin exclaims, making erica begin to shout louder. Robin then joins in on the shouting, causing Steve to sigh and examine the panel. The room shakes again, this time a red wall comes down, shielding you all from the exit.

“What the hell did you do now?” You curse, rushing to see the panel of buttons, some lit some not. More noises. You look around, your heart speeding up as you wait for something else to happen.

Suddenly, all at once, the elevator begins a descent into God knows where. Robin begins screaming, everyone clings to whatever they can. For Steve, that means you. He wraps his arms around you out of instinct, holding you close to his chest as the wind whips around the elevator. Your hand holds Dustin's as you fall together.

“Shit, shit, shit!” You curse, squeezing your eyes shut as your free hand grips onto Steve’s shirt. You can barely hear him but you know he’s saying words of comfort as he holds you, trying to steady you two when the elevator suddenly stops. The air is knocked out of your lungs as everyone crashes to the ground. You land beside Steve, one leg over his. Grunting as you sit up, you look around for your brother, whose hand you lost amidst the crash. "Dustin!” You call out, ignoring the pain in your head, “Are you alright?”

“Perfect!” He grunts in frustration, standing up and immediately heading for the still closed door.

“Is everyone okay?” You shout, sighing with relief when you hear a string of yes, “Ugh, thank God.” You throw your head back, closing your eyes for a moment as you catch your breath.

Steve sits up slowly, placing a hand on your thigh to balance himself. He looks down at you, breathing quickly as you lay down. Steve places a hand on yours, “Why do we always get ourselves into situations like this?” He mumbles, eyebrows furrowed as he frowns and rolls his shoulder back and forth.

“Shit,” you sit up to look at him, “Are you hurt?” Steve just shakes his head but you know he’s lying as he stands up, holding his hands out for you to take. He helps you stand and one of his hand lingers on yours. “Are you sure you’re okay?” you ask him, giving him a harsh look, “I know when you’re lying.”

A small smile makes it’s way to Steve’s lips as he gazes at you, slowly nodding. “As long as you’re alright, I’m alright.”

You look down, knowing your cheeks are probably turning red. “You must’ve hit your head pretty hard.” You smile up at him, raising your eyebrows at his demeanour.

Steve stands still for a moment, shaking his head before looking up at you. “No, not at all.” He mumbles before gently placing both hands on either side of your face. You feel your cheeks heat up even warmer but you lean into his touch anyways. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I, um-”

“Is this really the right time, guys?” Robin inquires, looking between the two of you. “Trust me, I want this to happen more than anyone. More than Steve, even, just so I don’t have to hear him talk about you every shift. But we‘re about to die in an elevator.”

You both pull away from each other and you immediately look to the floor, not meeting Steve or anyone's eyes whatsoever. “Yeah, you’re right,” Steve mutters, shaking his head slightly. He leans towards you, pressing a kiss to your cheek before turning to the group, “So, now what?”

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve x reader #steve harrington imagine #Steve harrington fluff #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington fanfic #Steve harrington fic #Steve harrington x reader imagine #Steve harrington x reader fluff #Steve harrington x reader fic #Steve harrington x reader fanfic #stranger things steve #stranger things steve harrington

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argylemikewheeler · 4 years

Text

|| i saw this post and just had the idea of will freaking out at mike for being tall-- but of course that’s not really what it’s about. just something short and sweet (literally) for you || ao3

It’s in the grocery store that Will just snaps at him. Will’s going shopping for his mom after school. It’s no big thing; Will enjoys the time alone. Except of course, it’s the last day before spring break and Mike’s skipped the last day of school and driven up to see him. Mike’s an extra set of hands to help brings bags into the house, and he’s not too bad of a driver to man the cart.

When Mike pulls up to the house-- just as Will’s grabbing his bag and getting to Jonathan’s car-- he looks so different. His hair is just a little shorter-- cropped and kept, just how Ted likes it, but with Karen’s kind influence of letting him be, Ted, come on. The main thing, at least to Will, is that he’s taller. The man is taller. Will feels his neck crack as he tilts back, just a little. He didn’t shrink, but when Mike runs up to him, he swears he did.

When Will is silent and stares at him for a while, Mike replies that he’s six-foot-two. Which is fine. It’s fine. It’s just that Will is five-foot-six still. But whatever. It’s fine.

Will kind of forgets about it-- forgets about how his new friends call him small. not short but small; how his new doctor is worried he’s stunted from all his “medical trauma” and is trying to talk his mother into having him take steroids; how he secretly likes being the same height because he knows his mom can’t afford buying both him and El new clothes; how he hates that the first thing people notice between him and Mike isn’t even that they’re two men since Will’s short enough to match people’s perception of what “normal” couples look like. Will just forgets about it. And for a while it’s nice.

Mike doesn’t know jack shit about vegetables and Will teaches him how to pick fruit that is just the right amount of unripe so it will last longer in the fridge. Mike pushes the cart and nods, at least pretending he’s enjoying the lesson. It’s 1988 and Mike places his hand on Will’s back when he stands and stares at the wall of soup cans, trying to read prices and brands quickly. It’s 1988 and Will doesn’t even watch how he says “Michael”. It’s a nice outing until they get to the cereal aisle.

It is nearly cleaned out, all the extra boxes up on the top shelf in disorganized storage stacks. Will groans and steps up onto the bottom shelf, his hand straining as he feels around for a box of something. His ribs are pressed to the middle shelf and he tries to keep from swearing. There’s an older lady with two young kids that’s been watching them since they arrived in the aisle-- Mike’s hand gently finding Will’s-- and Will doesn’t want to give her any ammunition to start shouting.

“Would you like some help, Will?” Mike laughs and grabs him under the arms. He hoists Will nearly like he’s weightless, helping him step down to the floor again.

Will sighs. “Yes.”

“What do you want?” Before Will can answer, Mike is sliding box after box down and placing them on the shelves in front of Will’s eye line. “I’ve got ‘em all.”

“I just needed the Cheerios, thanks.” Will grumbles, taking the box and tossing it into the cart. He pushes the cart and they leave the woman’s stare. He feels tense all over again. He forgets to keep forgetting about it-- about everything-- for a moment.

“How do you do this without me.” Mike is simply trying to tease him-- be verbally affectionate when his hands can only jostle his shoulders. “I need to think about moving up here you don’t have to struggle every time you just want to buy something--”

“Shut up, Mike.”

“W--What? What did I say? Was it that you’re short? Because... Will, we know this. It’s my favorite thing about you, you know that.”

“I don’t really want to hear it right now.” Will isn’t aware he’s clenching his teeth until he hears himself speak. “Being small is kind of not my favorite.”

“Oh, but-- It’s fun! You fit right under my arm and you don’t really need to steal as much of the blankets when we sleep--”

“Mike.” Will tries to drop out from under Mike’s arm: he placed it around his shoulders to demonstrate his point. Will is suddenly very aware that they’re two men, even if from every other angle no one seems to notice because he’s... a full eight inches shorter than Mike. It doesn’t feel great to be able to excuse homophobia because he’s as short as a girl. “Mike, please shut up.”

“What?” He’s sincere, but he’s still very confused. He still thinks it’s about being short. He doesn’t move his arm. “OH, well, actually I do hate the whole you-get-to-steal-my-clothes-thing. But if those are the reparations--”

“Would you just shut up, Tall Boy!” Will snaps, twisting around to face Mike. They’re in the middle of the baby section, where no one would be likely to stumble into them.

“T-Tall Boy?” Mike laughs, but he’s still trying to figure out that Will’s genuinely upset. “I-- What? What happened? Did I say something?”

“Yes! Stop talking about how short I am. I hate it.” Will doesn’t know why but he chokes up a little. He pretends he needs to be looking at plastic sippy cups. They look so out of place when the older lady and her children come strolling past. “I hate remembering I’m short.”

“Remembering.” Mike repeats. “Do you... forget?”

“El grew four inches in like... two months.”

“Okay...”

“Mom had to buy her new skirts and jeans because they got too short, too fast. It was the middle of winter and her ankles were so chapped-- She worked another two shift to pay for it.” Will’s breathing is choppy and it’s so stupid. Mike is silent, but because he’s listening, which is still weird for Will to think about.

“Okay. So short is good. You’ve got all your clothes and you’ve got all mine if you need it. And I’m sure Steve’s got more stuff that’s up your alley. It’s okay. Will, it’s okay. I won’t let you go cold.” Mike places his hands on Will’s shoulders, his thumbs brush against his neck.

“They say I’m small at school.” Will pushes through. “Small. You know what else is small? Babies are small. Mistakes are small. OH and you know what is usually small? Girls. Girls are small-- except my sister. Who’s giant--”

“She’s only like... five-nine.”

“Mike.”

“Sorry, literal perspective I see is not the point here.” He nods. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s just-- People don’t think you’re gay sometimes.” Will realizes this doesn’t make sense to anyone but him.

“Uh. That’s... I’m not sure that’s our fault.”

“Well, see, it’s my fault. From a distance, I look like your girlfriend. Not a very, short short man.”

“Well, that’s not your fault. People are blind and weird and straight. That’s not-- You’re not a girl, Will. You definitely aren’t a girl nor look like one or act like one or-- You just aren’t. Being short is not a fault!”

Will sighs and leans into Mike’s hand. “You’re supposed to say that. You’re my boyfriend.”

“I could complain-- would you like me to?” Mike says with a smile. His eyebrows are still furrowed though: he’s upset. “I hate that you can fit comfortably on any bed we share. I hate that... You sometimes can buy kids’ shirts? Because they’re always cooler. Like, you have one you bought as a painting smock that has a freakin shark on it and I gotta say... Men’s clothes, not as cool! I’m less cool as my art school boyfriend because I got tall too quick. Dude, that sucks. I want to be cool like you!”

Will is definitely crying, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He laughs and smiles. He hopes it makes up for his sniffling. “You think I’m cool?”

“Yeah! My cool, short boyfriend. He’s awesome and he’s super nice because he... worries about the socio-political meaning of him being short. Like. He’s so smart. So smart.”

“He’s the only one who knows what the hell a mango is in your relationship.” Will says, wiping his eyes.

“Yeah! Concentrated intelligence!” Mike reaches for Will’s underarms again. He catches Will’s smile before jokingly hoisting him an inch off the ground. “He’s better because of-- everything, but right now let’s say it’s because he’s not a six-foot-two monster who hits his head on every door frame in his house.”

“Oh my god-- is that what that bump is from?” Will hiccups, laughter nearly scaring him. “Oh, Michael, you poor.... tall thing.”

They laugh in the baby aisle until Will’s face is less red and puffy. As they walk, Mike makes jokes about the weird names of food brands. He offers to get Will things on all shelves, just being a helpful partner rather than a shopping giraffe. He repeats Will’s name every time he speaks to him and someone is in earshot. Will smiles and each time calls him a sappier and sweeter version of “Michael”. Will finishes shopping and feels rather accomplished as they pack the car up.

He forgets about everything again for a while. Everything but Mike. Well, Mike, but more importantly how he makes him feel: so happy, so listened to, so short. And it’s all okay. It’s nothing. Just one small thing in a short life full of so many wonderful, loving things.

#byeler #byler #mike wheeler x will byers #stranger things writing #this could have a trans reading bc ya know *i* wrote this but like take it however you want #just something i wrote during my essay break #prompts

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fanfics4all · 4 years

Text

Figure Skating Champ

Request: Yes / No Fluffcember Day 9

Requests are open only if its CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY/ WINTER related<3 Have a nice day/night

Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader

Word count: 938

Warnings: Nothing!

Y/N: Your Name

Prompt(s): Ice Skating

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you!

Masterlist

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

The air was cold, the icy wind nipping at our noses. We didn’t care though. It was a rare moment of peace in our lives. Aaron had off from the BAU and we were gonna make the most of it. Aaron and I had gotten together a few years after Haley died. He had Jack to take care of and Haley’s sister Jessica helped him out all the time at first. But she had her own life to live, so when Aaron and I became serious I took over taking care of Jack while he was away. Jack was such a sweeties and I loved him like he was my own. He knew I wasn’t trying to replace his mother, but he eventually started looking at me the same way. So it made things easier when Aaron and I got married. Everyone was so happy for the both of us and Jack was happy that he had a whole family again.

Since Aaron had off today I suggested that we all go to a lake and ice skate. Jack loved the idea and begged his dad to let us go. He eventually gave in and I was happy. I loved ice skating, I use to do figure skating at one point. I trained really hard and even won a few competitions, Aaron knew I skated just not that I competed. The three of us got to the lake and it empty and untouched, perfect.

“Alright Jack, ready to learn how to skate?” I asked him and he smiled.

“Yeah!” He said excitedly.

“Alright, let daddy help you get your skates on then I’ll teach you.” I said.

“Can you show me how you skate first?” He asked and I smiled.

“Sure, but I wanna try something first.” I answered and they both looked at me confused.

“What do you want to try?” Aaron asked, I just smiled and took out my ipod and speaker. I queued up A Thousand Years by Christina Perri and went out onto the ice. (Watch this video to see what I’m talking about.) I started moving to the slow beat and felt the familiar feeling return. I skated across the ice, did some spins, and a jump or two. It was just like how I remembered, everything I thought I had forgotten came rushing back.

Once the song ended I stopped and posed like I would when I finished a routine. I skated back over to the edge of the lake and smiled at the boys. Aaron and Jack stared at me in shock.

“That was so cool!” Jake said walking over to me.

“Can I do that?” He asked and I laughed.

“Maybe with enough practice, but let’s get you started on the basics.” I said and helped him onto the ice. He held my hands and I moved with him telling him how to move his feet. Aaron joined us and skated behind us in case Jack fell. Jack was quickly getting the hang of skating and wanted to try on his own.

“Okay, just be careful.” I said letting go of his hands. I skated back a bit and he slowly skated towards me.

“I’m doing it!” He said happily.

“Can I skate around on my own?” He asked.

“Just be careful buddy.” Aaron said and he nodded his head.

“And don’t try anything I did okay?” He said and he frowned.

“Why not?” He asked.

“Because I had to train a lot to be able to do that, maybe I can teach you when you get normal skating down okay?” I said and he smiled.

“Promise?” He asked and I smiled.

“I promise.” I said and he skated off. Aaron came up to me and wrapped his arms around me.

“When did you learn all that?” He asked.

“I told you I use to skate.” I said and he nodded.

“Yeah but I thought you meant just like normal skating.” He said and I laughed.

“I use to compete, I won a few of them too.” I said and he looked at me shocked.

“And you never told me this?” He asked.

“I thought you wouldn’t care.” I said and he shook his head.

“What you just did was amazing.” He said and I smiled.

“Well I have some videos at home if you want to see one.” I said and he smiled.

“I would.” He said and I gave him a kiss.

“For now, we skate!” I said and pulled him along with me.

We skated for a few hours and then went back home. We ate dinner, then the three of us snuggled up on the couch with some warm drinks. As promised I got one of the videos I had and put it on. (Watch this for what they’re going to be talking about)

“Who’s that?” Jack asked as the video started.

“That’s Richard, my old partner. Him and I would enter competitions together a lot.” I answered with a smile.

“You look so pretty.” He said and I smiled down at him.

“Thank you.” I said.

“This is really amazing Y/N.” Aaron said.

“I loved doing this, it was honestly one of my favorite things to do.” I said and he looked at me.

“Why’d you stop?” He asked.

“I was getting older and I wanted to have a life outside of skating.” I said and he smiled.

“Lucky for me then.” He said and I smiled.

“Very.” I said.

“Can we watch more?” Jack asked once it ended.

“Sure.” I answered and we spent the rest of the night watching my old videos.

Tag list: @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @xrosesareredx @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs @schisbro87 @lover-of-books-and-teas @nerdygaloresposts @alex--awesome--22 @teenwolfbitches2 @genius2050 @drw0301bieber @pharaoh-of-time-and-space @lady-of-lies @simonsbluee @pettyjayy

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron x fem!reader #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #ice skating #figure skating #fluff #fluffcember #fluffcember day 9

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graveyard-tales · 4 years

Text

Okay, supernatural (not the show) au!

Bolin is bitten by a werewolf as a kid.

Mako and Bolin have been lucky that they’ve been placed in a foster home together but they’re both away of the very real possibility that they could be separated in the future. So they sneak, steal and hoard away what they can until they finally run away and try living on the edge of the city which borders the woods. Dun Dun Dun, they’re attacked and Bolin is bit.

Panic - hospital - found - separated, but not too far. I don’t know who their separate foster (or perhaps adopted) families are but they don’t have the closest eye on Mako. He spends every moment he can with his brother, even sneaking into Bolin’s foster home to stay the night with him whether or not the adults want him to.

Bolin knows he’s a werewolf, he doesn’t know how and Mako tries and tries to tell him otherwise but he just knows. And he panics when it’s close to the full moon until he can get Mako to promise to lock him up in the woods. Obviously Mako is like “what the fuck, no” but he ends up caving in just to help Bolin relax. Come full moon they sneak out and Mako “chains” him to a tree. (near where they were attacked, they’re young boys, they’re not the smartest)

In this au werewolves are not completely out of control and unaware so Bolin doesn't out right try to kill Mako. But he’s young so he’s wild and not in complete control either and both of them are scared.

In comes grumpy old senior wolf, Toza! (He’s not the one who bit Bo.) Who basically like “fuck ... this is not my responsibility” but he can’t just turn a blind eye to poor little Bolin and his freaking out older brother either. Toza sort of takes Bolin under his wing and by extension Mako. So their eyes are open to the world of magic and monster.

Realizing he is completely helpless in protecting his brother, pesters Toza to teach him all he can about magic. Toza not knowing a lick of magic sort of guides Mako in the right direction. And in that direction Mako find Zolt.

Toza is like “what, no, fuck, not him” but Mako’s in it now and it’s not like Toza really has any other suggestion. (Zolt may or may not play a bigger part in the story because of this.)Mako is more or less self taught in magic. Zolt isn’t exaction going to hold his hand and he’s not going to be patient. He’s not teaching for free either, not sure what the price is but it’s probably not ethical.

Fast forward, Mako has guardianship over Bolin they live in the shabby apartment that Toza live in. Mako mostly does maintenance and handy jobs while Bolin works with people like at a cafe or at a pet store. (Bolin is also 17 and his job options are limited.)((Also Toza is the school janitor, I thought about gym teacher but naw. Bolin is liked by others well enough but also known as the weird kid who spends his lunch with the janitor.))

Asami has a slight interest in the supernatural but she doesn’t actually believe in all that stuff. Her mother was killed in a burglary gone wrong and that’s all she knows. She sort of blocked out that magic fire killed her mother, and father never corrected her. He keeps his studies and hate of the occult close to his chest.)

Asami and Mako had a thing in this au and it wasn’t bad but Mako still has all his crap he needs to work through and doesn’t provide emotionally in a way that Asami craves and needs so they ended it. On much better, less awkward terms than in canon. (Not to mention Mako keeps his magic and more importantly Bolin’s secret close to his chest and has trust issues which is a problem for any relationship.)

They are since great friends and she’s the cheer captain of team “go to collage Mako we all know you want to”. Bolin is co captain. He keeps putting it off saying that he needs to take care of Bolin and that it’s too expensive.

I can’t decide on Korra. What the Avatar with equate to in this world. Maybe Korra isn’t “special” in the world at all but in still born into it. She might be some sort of elemental (water of course), or a medium of some sorts to still associate her with spirits. I don’t have a reason why she moved to Republic City yet.

Korra’s either in her last leg of high school or just graduated (depending on the time of yeah in the story I guess.) Korra and Mako sort of have this mutual “attraction” but it doesn’t actually go anywhere. They’re young and dumb af but have just enough sense to realize that arguing with each other 40 to 60% of the time isn’t a good basis for a relationship.

Bolin jokes about being a werewolf all the time. Like, every chance he gets even in subtle ways that people might not get. So Korra being born into that world realizes pretty quick that Bolin and Mako are playing on her side of the fence. Bolin and Korra are like ... lets tell Asami, it’s cool, she’s our friend. Mako is the only one who is like lets ... not???? ‘Cause you know, paranoid.

To be fair Toza drilled into their heads about people who hate and hunt folk like them. Bolin took it in stride as he does and Mako locked it among his issues, as he does. Korra also had these lessons but she’s in her reckless “god can’t kill me” phase of her life.

Not telling Asami does put them at odds with her a bit, she’s not an idiot and can tell that they’re keeping things from her. It’s not weird coming from Mako, she’s use to aversion to any sort of vulnerability but it starts to become so obvious when it comes to Korra and Bolin. Eventually she gives them no choice but to tell her. When Mako isn’t there of course, not that it matters because she runs to Mako immediately after because she can catch him off guard and he wouldn’t lie to her if she demands the truth.

Depending on what Korra ends up being, Mako is also the more equip to present small examples of magic at least.

Of course the moment she wraps her head around it, Asami is in it 110%. She is researching, asking them questions, trying to be the best supportive friend they have. As she does. It’s also when she realizes that some of the all collections of her fathers aren’t all just rare little pointless knick-knacks but she chalks it up to nothing.

Idk much about the other characters.

Opal frequents the cafe that Bolin works at. They’ve got a whole cute mushy thing going on.

Mako is repressed bi disaster of course. Possibly aro, it depends on my mood.

Obviously Korra and Asami are crushing on each other in that “we just great friends, the best, like sister, just the closest ........... fuck” kind of way. Cause why not get some hopeless gay pining up in this bitch. (I sort of like Korra realizing she’s a lesbian. Like this story aside, she has a realization that her attraction to Mako was less “oh he’s hot” and more “oh he’s cool and I want to be his friend”. And the older she gets the more she really only has attraction to women and had thought she was bi but then later identified as lesbian.)

Maaaybe Amon and whoever the fuck his brother, what’s his face, are vampires???? Keep a semblance of the blood theme.

Maybe the Beifong’s are hunters? Like, not “rah, gotta kill everything that’s not human” kind of stupid but keep the people whacked up on supernatural juice in check and from killing a ton of people just because they can. Maybe not all of them, like perhaps Su is very pro monsters and their rights and thinks they should live and let live while Lin is still all about order and no one, human, monsters or otherwise should be above the regulations and laws. So Su start hanging around the monster and magic crowed, and the not the best kind, which put the sisters at odds in this story.

I kept hoping that the more I typed, the more I’d figure things out ... But all this set up and I still can’t find me a plot.

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panda-noosh · 5 years

Text

No Longer the Same {Sokka x Reader}

Words: 9k

Summary: For years, Sokka thought you and him were the same. He was wrong.

Genre: angst

Warning: nooooothing

Notes: hello you lovely lil humans. if you didn’t have a good day, i’m going to be upset :):):)

----

Children could be so innocent sometimes.

Of course, you were a perfect example of this. Young and naïve, trying to make things happen that could never happen in a million years; it was the hope within you. It burned bright when you weren't aware of the corruption yet.

There was plenty of said corruption, especially within the water tribes. Growing up, it was almost an everyday occurrence for you and your friends to stand by the edge of the ocean, waving off boats as they drifted off to sea. You couldn't talk to anyone who didn't have a relative fighting somewhere else, or died in the battles that were being fought just so you and your people could have basic rights, basic freedom.

Back then, it was all you knew. You thought it was normal. You would wave and smile and run around like nothing was happening, when in reality, everything was happening. People were dying. People were getting injured, losing limbs, losing their abilities to a force that could have been settled if other people could just see equality for what it was – necessary.

You grew up eventually, though. Not too fast, not slow enough that you were left blind to the truth until it was too late; your parents tried their hardest to keep you away from it all, but they knew the point where the line was drawn. They could see you gaining more and more interest in the world around you, and they weren't selfish enough to keep you out of that for long.

It was at this point you realised you were different, though nobody told you that. You figured that out on your own, and it didn't take long. Growing up, you saw it. Sensed it, but not the hostility that came with it, the implications, the burning feeling of worthlessness that could have easily taken you hostage if you let it.

Your mother bent down, pulled you into her chest. The sofa furs of her cloak pressed into your cheek, and you remembered that feeling more than anything else. Her voice was a whisper when it grazed your ear. “You don't need bending abilities to be special. You're perfect just the way you are.”

At the time, you hadn't even understood what she was telling you.

Sure, you had seen it. Everyone in your class at school could make cool things happen – water sprouting from holes in the floor, shapes appearing in the air that they could control with their hands. You were never been able to do that, but you'd never tried. At some point, you were even scared of it, wondering what kind of brain power it took to be able to do such a thing.

You didn't worry about it until your mother was telling you not to worry.

“But Sokka can't do any of that stuff either,” you said to your grandmother one day, following her around the kitchen with a plate of fish in your hands.

She barely even looked at you. She never really did. Her eyes lost their warmth a long time ago, almost immediately after Granda hadn't returned. “Sokka might learn,” she told you. “His sister and his grandmother are very strong water benders.”

You had frowned at the time, because the idea of Sokka having powers was beyond your imagination. That was one of the things you two bonded over – the fact that neither of you could really do anything. If he suddenly learned how to water bend, that would destroy everything.

You told him this the following day. The two of you were sat against one of the igloos, sharing an ice pop. You only managed to steal one from your grandmothers home that afternoon, so you were forced to share it with him. You didn't mind, despite the argument you put up.

Sokka screwed his chubby face up in confusion, licking a stripe up the side of the ice lolly before handing it back to you and wiping his sticky little fingers on his coat. His mother wasn't going to be very happy about that. “I don't think I'll learn.”

“Why?” A common question for a ten year old; whywhywhy?

Sokka shrugged. “Katara got the powers. I missed out.”

“But you're older than her,” you pointed out, handing the ice lolly back to him. “Surely that means you should get first pick?”

“Katara didn't pick. She was chosen.”

He said it so whimsically, reminding you of some creepy mage in a forest, ushering little kids into their shrine.

Sokka caught your confused expression and shrugged again; that was something he did often. Whilst you were constantly asking why, he was constantly shrugging. An answer to a question. Maybe that's why you were best friends.

“Well,” you started, “if you ever feel yourself getting water bending powers, tell me. I want to be the first to know.”

“Nosy.”

---

That was when you were ten.

The world had changed since then. Your thoughts had changed since then. Nothing was the same.

Sokka's mother died.

Correction, was killed. Right in front of Katara.

Your parents fled the water tribe, heading for the Fire Nation in a battle they refused to give you any details on. You were left with your grandmother. You loved her, hated the life she provided. She was sad. Losing her husband and her daughter was too much for her, and she left you to raise yourself.

Raise yourself you did.

Your seventeenth birthday was just round the corner, and as per usual, Sokka was more enthusiastic about the date than you were. You enjoyed the celebrations that came with a birthday, but there was a certain responsibility to it that stressed you out more than excited you. Sokka, on the other hand, shouldered that rationed excitement and took it for himself.

He jumped at you when he saw you, the day before your birthday. He had turned seventeen only a few months prior. His training for the army had started, and it was clear in the fresh build of his shoulders, the way he carried himself, the way he walked as if he was constantly stuck in a line of soldiers. You had laughed about it multiple times, and he had waved you off with a, “You won't be saying that when I'm avenging our tribe.”

Now, though, he was all floppy hands and goofy grins. He grabbed you by the shoulders, whirled you around and yelled, “Happy birthday!”

“It's not my birthday until tomorrow,” you replied.

Sokka rolled his eyes, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Details, details.” He let his hands drop to his sides, and you didn't fail to notice the small blush that crept up his face when he stuffed them in his pockets. “Are you still coming over for your birthday dinner?”

You nodded. “As I do every year. I can't believe your grandmother still cooks for me.”

“She loves you.” Sokka wrapped an arm around your shoulders and the two of you started towards the Ice Market. “Your grandma is welcome to come if she wants. The invitation is still on the table.”

You were barely able to hide your wince. It wasn't as if Sokka was oblivious to the state your grandmother was in – he was just too polite to take any notice of it. He gave you pitying glances every now and then, asked you how she was, even asked her how she was, even if she only replied with a faint grunt of acknowledgement. Not an answer, but typically more than she gave you.

But Sokka was a firm believer in letting things run their course. In his mind, your grandmother would snap back to reality soon enough.

Soon enough had dragged out through the last seven years. He still had hope, bless his soul.

“I'll tell her,” you lied. “How's Katara's training going?”

Sokka grumbled, his grip tightening on your shoulders. “It's all she talks about. All she complains about.”

“It's not going well?”

Sokka shrugged. “She doesn't let me watch. It's just her and Grandma, but she's always in a bad mood when she gets home. I don't think she's finding it as easy as Mum or Grandma did back in the day.”

You frowned, remembering your mothers words all them years ago: she said Katara was a natural, just like her Mum, just like her grandmother.

“Odd,” you hummed. “I thought she was pretty good back when we were kids.”

Sokka nodded. “She was. Mum was teaching her.”

You looked away at that, heat creeping up your neck. This happened all too often – your tongue would get too loose and you'd make some irresponsible comment about childhood and growing up, forcing Sokka to think about the mother he had lost to the Fire Nation when he was only ten years old. To you, talking about your childhood was nothing, a quick get-away, even, but Sokka didn't have that luxury. He had ten years of memories that he wanted to block out purely because his mother was no longer present to share them with him.

“I don't know if Grandma's just getting old,” Sokka continued, his voice a sigh. “I don't think she's teaching Katara the moves right.” He raised a hand in defence, even though you hadn't spoken. “Don't get me wrong, I haven't seen them training. Katara could just be being dramatic – but I don't know. She's never in a good mood any more, and Grandma's always tired. I think the two of them need a break.”

“So why don't they? Surely if it's that much hassle-”

“Grandma thinks Katara needs to learn so she can be like Mum.”

Sokka's words startled you. Your head whipped round, but his profile revealed very little. This happened when he mentioned his mother; he shut down. He tried to hide how much it really hurt to talk about her. The only sign he gave you that he was feeling anything at all was the twitch in his jaw and tensing of his arm slung over your shoulders.

“She hasn't said that to Katara, has she?” you asked. “Your Mum was an incredible water bender. Even the suggestion that Katara can-”

But Sokka was nodding before you'd even finished your sentence. “I know. I know. That's what I told her but she's old and I'm pretty sure she's going deaf, so she won't listen.” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. His arms tensed again; he seemed to realise that his muscles were a direct give away to how he was feeling, as he uncurled his arm from your shoulders and dropped it back to his side. “Katara already compares herself to Mum. She thinks she needs to fill in the gap she left.”

“That's impossible. She's fifteen. It took your mother years to master what she's trying to do.”

“I know.” Sokka hollowed out his cheeks. “I know.”

The conversation died when the two of you entered the gates of the market. As per usual, it was full – as full as it could be when it was located in a water tribe. The population was fairly small, but so was the market. The cramped space helped you believe that perhaps not everyone had gone off to war.

“Do you even want to buy anything?” Sokka asked. His voice was grim now, that twinkle leaving his eyes and his mouth turned down only slightly – just enough for him to be assured that you didn't notice, even though you did.

“I'm gonna get something for my dinner tonight, I think,” you replied before nudging him. “And you, mister, need to get me something for my birthday.”

Sokka raised a brow, glancing down at you. “What makes you think I haven't gotten you something already?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's the years of watching you be an unorganized mess.”

He hummed. “Fair point.” He nudged your arm, took a step forward as if to start sprinting, but his track was blocked when a small, chubby kid appeared in front of him. The two of you froze, looking down at him because he was looking up at you and for some reason, his angry face wasn't as cute as it should have been.

It actually startled you a little bit.

Sokka straightened up, taking a single step back so he was beside you again. “Hello.”

The boy sneered. His black hair was sticking up in all directions and he wasn't even wearing a coat – he was what the world would often describe as a mini thug, because clearly he had some nerve walking round without a coat on.

You and Sokka shared a confused glance before Sokka repeated himself: “Hello.”

The kid raised his hands and water exploded in your faces.

You spluttered, stumbling back into the crowd before Sokka managed to reach out and grab you, pulling you into his side. Water dripped from your nose, the ends of your hair, soaking into the thick material of your coat. Sokka was even worse, his jaw already clanking up and down with his new found jitters. His hair stuck to his temples, his eyelashes dripping.

You would have laughed if you weren't also soaked.

The kid, on the other hand, had no such qualms as he immediately let out a bellow that was far too deep for someone his age. He kicked ice up at the both of you before saying – in a kid-like sneer - “What are you gonna do about it? You can't even water bend!” His voice rose at the end of his sentence before he turned on his heel and barrelled down the length of the market.

You wrapped your arm around Sokka's upper arm before he could even think of chasing after him. “Let him go. He's about seven.”

“I don't c-”

“Sokka,” you said, sterner this time. “It's not worth it. Let him go.”

Sokka's eyes fluttered closed. He inhaled deeply, exhaled in the way you had taught him to when the two of you were only seven years old – you used to get scared when he got angry, so you taught him how to not be angry. At the time, you thought you were some kind of scientist.

The fact that he still used them same exercises almost made you jittery. Almost.

“Are you alright?”

Flicking your gaze up, you saw he now had his eyes open. Your fingers were still curled around his upper arm. Now that he looked calmer, you let your hand fall back to your side.

You nodded, running a hand through your hair. “I'm fine. It was just water. Nothing I haven't dealt with before.”

“That's not what I meant.” He reached forward, plucked at your soaked hair. “What he said. That didn't bother you, did it?”

It did. Kind of. It was a subtle kind of bother, settling in your stomach rather than your head, or your chest. If you concentrated hard enough on something else, you could ignore it.

You shrugged. “He was just a kid, Sokka. He probably thought he was being clever.” You tugged on the fluffy lapels of his coat. “Besides, we're not the ones that are gonna die of hypothermia.”

---

The morning of your seventeenth birthday, and nothing felt different.

Seventeen wasn't a special age. This was made clearer and clearer as you walked around your home, opening cupboards in search of something to eat – your grandmother hadn't gone shopping again.

Damn, you thought. That's seven years in a row now.

Your stomach growled, but you ignored it. You got dressed. You brushed out your hair. You kissed your grandmother goodbye and walked out the door. It was a daily routine, and the fact that you were another year older didn't change that. It was almost sad.

Sokka was waiting for you in your usual hideout, back leaned against Old Man Partridge's igloo. The elderly man was a myth amongst this place; the igloo itself had been abandoned ages ago, with Sokka's grandmother throwing a story onto it for the kids to enjoy; that was how Old Man Partridge came to be, and why this igloo was the place you and Sokka met up at every morning.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his lower lip juttering out. It was colder than usual these days, and even you had to pull your fluffy hood on over your head to keep the chill from clipping at your ears.

“Took you long enough,” he called over when you finally emerged over the hill into view. “I've been here for a good ten minutes.”

“As long as they were a good ten minutes.” You grabbed his hand before he could retort with some stupid comeback. “Let's go to the river. I'm starving, and Grandma didn't get anything from the market.”

Sokka raised a brow. “Again?”

You shrugged as if it was no big deal, as if your stomach wasn't growling, as if you weren't starting to get a headache from early morning hunger pains.

You and Sokka arrived at the rivers edge and sat down on the ice mounds. The water tickled your toes through your sandals, and you smiled down at it, as if somebody was smiling back up at you beneath the waves. You had half a mind to dip your hand in, but you didn't get the chance to before Sokka was suddenly sliding a fishing rod into your palm.

You looked up, startled. You didn't own a fishing rod of your own, couldn't afford one nowadays. Fishing was always just something you admired from afar, watching Sokka and Katara play about in the water until they finally collapsed and took their wooden fishing rods out of their bags and started fishing; you often craved to join them, but sticking to the sidelines was all you knew how to do. It was all you thought you could do.

But this was a brand new fishing rod. The wood was freshly carved, sparkling with a fresh layer of sealer. It was slightly rounded, but there was edges to it that fit against your fingers perfectly – and in the handle, your name was carved into the wood.

Your eyes snapped up, jaw dropping open, words evading you. You were a jumble of thoughts and emotions and words, but your mouth wasn't cooperating and you were fairly certain the sentence you wanted to say would come out as nothing more than a babble if you were to even try and communicate what you were feeling.

But Sokka was Sokka. You didn't need to talk for him to understand exactly what you were feeling.

He smiled sheepishly and looked down at his lap, pulling at a loose thread on his brown trousers. “Happy birthday.”

You don't remember moving. You don't remember squealing, don't remember dropping the fishing rod and wrapping your arms around Sokka's shoulders. You remember the impact, though, of your elbows slapping against the ice, the sound of Sokka's amused and startled laughter echoing right beside your ear. You wanted to bottle the noise up and pocket it, a little birthday gift to yourself.

You squeezed your eyes closed, hugging Sokka closer. He wrapped one arm around your waist, the other struggling to keep his back away from the ice. Eventually, he gave up and flopped backwards, you resting on top of him with your head nuzzled in the crook of his neck. The threat of tears was much too fierce for you to even think about looking up right now.

“Happy birthday,” he repeated through laughter. “That's from Katara, Grandma and me.” He paused. “It was mostly me, though.”

You pressed a kiss to the space just above his ear. Maybe it was a little too intimate. Maybe you should have aimed for his cheek, but you didn't care. You got up, dragging him up with you by the lapel of his coat. He was grinning from ear to ear, cheeks bright red, hands working into the fabric of his coat.

“You like it?” he asked.

You picked the fishing rod up, running your thumb over your name. “I love it.” You looked at him. “How did you know I wanted one of these?”

“I see you standing by the edge every time me and Katara come down here,” he replied. “You think you can hide, but I notice you everywhere.”

You pursed your lips. “I don't really know how to use it, though...”

Sokka's face lit up. He scooted over to you, grabbed the fishing rod from your hands and said, “Well, this is where I come in handy,” and the lessons began.

Sokka's excitement dribbled through each of his words. His smile illuminated the waters surface, distracted you for moments at a time until strict, stern Teacher Sokka would snap his fingers in your face to bring you back to the present. You would only smile, watching him close as he explained the basics of fishing, lost himself in his own teachings.

You knew why he was so enthusiastic, even if the reason was sad. You didn't like thinking about it, but when the opposite side of the spectrum was so giddy and excited, it was difficult to ignore; he had never been useful.

Of course, to you, he was everything. Your best friend. Your rock. The person you could turn to when the world was grey and it felt like nothing was going to get better. To you, he was the world and maybe more than that.

But to others, he was Sokka. He was the boy with the dead mother, the cheeky little sister, the boy who wanted to follow his father to the ends of the earth just to prove himself. He was the boy who joked around to the point where nobody believed in him; his training was a joke to most people, a way to keep him busy, to keep his hopes up. You heard the whispers, and they angered you.

And yet here he was, finally teaching something rather than being taught. He was good at it. He explained things clearly. He made sure you understood until the two of you were sitting side-by-side, feet dangling over the edge, toes barely grazing the ice cold water, fishing rods dipped into the cool waves.

“Who needs water bending?”

The statement startled you. “What?”

“We certainly don't,” he continued, more-so talking to himself at this point. “We don't have an ounce of power in our system, and it's working out pretty well for us, don't you think?”

“Where is this coming from?”

Sokka shrugged. He didn't seem upset, just reminiscent. “What that kid said to us yesterday...”

“Sokka...”

He shook his head, waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the idea that was lingering in your tone. “I'm not upset. He just got me thinking. People really do think we're useless sometimes, don't they?”

You stared at the side of his face, willing him to look at you so you could see just what it was that was bouncing around in his head. You were good at that, catching his emotions, trapping them in little bottles like they were fireflies and you were in darkness.

But he didn't turn to look at you. He kept his hard gaze on the swaying ocean in front of him, messing idly with the handle of his fishing rod.

“I'm sorry,” he grumbled. “It's your birthday. I shouldn't be saying this stuff.”

“It's okay.” Your voice is hoarse, quieter than you planned. Maybe it's because it wasn't okay. Maybe it's because you want him to be quiet, want him to stop putting so much attention upon something a seven year old boy had said the day before.

It almost made you angry, though you didn't want it to. You turned back to the ocean and fiddled with the engraving on the end of your fishing rod, willing yourself to calm down before the storm erupted and you were unable to stop it.

You came to Sokka to stop the nightmares. You came to Sokka to get a break. You came to Sokka because he was your best friend, your light at the end of the tunnel. Having his words corrupt that safe place made you want to stand up and run as far from this as possible, because if Sokka has let society get to him, then there's no way in hell any of the other tribe members are making it out alive.

The two of you sat in silence after that. Sokka knew he had said the wrong thing. He didn't apologise. You didn't ask him to. They were his feelings, whether you wanted them to be or not.

---

The pain was unbearable.

It pulled you from your sleep. It dragged you into consciousness and didn't let go of you until you were arching your back off the mattress and gasping for air which was too cold to inhale and too important to ignore.

It started in your stomach, the right side of your upper abdomen. Like needles. Needles, needles, needles, prickling your skin, puncturing organs. You tried to stand up, but your knees were weak and your palms were slick with sweat. You reached for your lamp, ended up knocking it off the bedside table; all you could do was watch it smash. The pieces of glass were piercing your stomach – that's what it felt like. Your insides were a mess of feeling and jumbled pain and your brain was a mess of feeling and jumbled emotions.

You tried calling out for your grandmother, but the words came out as a scrambled groan instead. You pulled yourself to your knees, balanced on the end of your bed, doubled over in the hopes that some pressure would help – it didn't.

It really, really didn't.

The world tilted and you fell with it. You tumbled to your side and screamed into the mattress as tiny fire ants ambushed your stomach, crawled into your throat, lit your skin up with invisible flames that engulfed your entire body. Your legs kicked out against your will. Your bare foot slammed into your bedside table and the wood splintered, but you were twitching and you couldn't stop it and it was painful and you had no idea what was happening.

It lasted only minutes before the big finale. You felt it building, and for a minute you thought the rising pressure in your throat was a scream hauling its way to the surface. When you opened your mouth, nothing came out.

When you opened your mouth, the world exploded.

The wall, made entirely of ice, shattered into a million pieces. Water burst from the floor. The darkness outside illuminated with thunder as it ripped across the night sky, and it was then that the pain started to fade. It was gradual, allowing you to sink back into your mattress even as you stared up at the damage in shock; your mouth was agape, your heart beating to the point where you thought it was going to beat straight out of your ribcage and take off across the ocean.

The wall was gone. Entirely gone, nothing more than a few ice shards digging into the ground. The floorboards were also ripped up, tiny spurts of water shooting up from beneath them.

Your fingers trailed over your stomach. Your mouth formed words – a cry for help, maybe – but nothing came out. The stars blinked back at you, the sound of the ocean louder than ever before. Your skin was sweltering, sweat sticking your pyjamas to your flesh.

Your grandmother stumbled into your room, took one glance at the wall and grunted in what you could only assume was displeasure.

You gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”

---

It was still dark when you stumbled into Sokka's house with your arm wrapped around your shivering grandmothers form.

Sokka's grandmother wasn't going to let you sleep in a house that had no wall. As soon as she heard about what happened, she insisted you both come over and spend the night at her house, spend as long as you needed in her house until things were sorted.

Sokka wrapped a blanket round your shoulders. You snuggled into its warmth, even though your skin was burning and your eyes were burning and your stomach was still reeling from the abuse it had taken moments before.

Sokka sat down beside you. His knee brushed your own. The touch was too much, and you flinched away even though you couldn't pinpoint why.

He was fresh out of bed. You could tell by the haze in his blue eyes, the slouch of his shoulders, the mess of his black hair. He tried to hide it, because he knew you would feel bad for dragging him out of bed at this time, but you saw right through it.

“You should go back to sleep.”

Sokka grunted. “How did I know that was the first thing you were gonna say?”

“I'm fine.”

“Grandma told me what happened.” He pursed his lips, looking away. Your heart clenched. Even though you told him to go to bed, you needed him to be there for you right now. You needed him to not be weirded out by whatever description of events his grandmother had given him.

You nudged him. He turned back to you, caught your eyes and looked down at the place where your knees met.

“So you were a water bender this entire time, huh?”

The words don't compute for a second. They were true. There was no other explanation. Even your grandmother in her deluded, unresponsive state was able to acknowledge that something had happened – something explainable, something that made sense but something you didn't want to admit to because it was terrifying to think that the self-loathing you had relied on for all these years was going to be ripped away.

“M-my Grandma can help you, you know,” Sokka continued. “If you want to learn how to control it, she knows how.”

You shook your head. “I don't want to use it.”

“It's a part of you.”

“It hasn't been a part of me for seventeen years. I've never needed it. I've never wanted it. I especially don't want it now.”

“You sound awfully ungrateful.”

Your head whipped round. Sokka raised his hands in mock defence.

“I'm just saying. I would do anything to wake up one morning and be able to bend. Do you know what this means?”

There was genuine excitement in his eyes. It broke your heart.

He shook his head dumbly, gazing out at the living room – his living room. The living room you had infiltrated because you had lost control of yourself and destroyed the only home you ever had.

“I'm happy for you, Y/N,” he said. “This is gonna be the start of something awesome for you – I can tell.”

“It won't be.”

He frowned, forehead creasing. “Stop being so negative-”

“I don't want it.” Your tone was harsh, but you didn't reign it in. “I liked what we had before. I liked that we didn't have bending powers. I liked that we didn't have the responsibility.”

Sokka was silent for a little while. “If it's me you're worried about, don't. I'll be fine.”

You wanted to believe that. In every sense he had showed that he didn't care what others thought. He was perfectly happy being himself, with or without bending abilities, and yet when you looked at him now, you couldn't miss the twitch in his jaw, the way he clenched his hands, the way he refused to look back at you.

He was more hurt about this revelation than he let on. He was realising that maybe he was more on his own than he originally thought.

---

You knew word would get around fast. That didn't make you want it any more.

The onslaught of curious eyes and questions was nauseating. People popped up from nowhere, asking you howhowhowhow and you wanted to answer them, but there was no answer to give; you didn't know. You didn't want to know, because coming to the conclusion that you had gone from one end of the Weird Spectrum to the other was too much for your mangled brain to take right now.

Sokka glanced over at you, biting his bottom lip. He had been oddly quiet since the two of you woke up, though he tried to hide his emotions through smiles and hand-waving and pretending everything was alright when you knew it wasn't. Both of you knew it wasn't. Something was going on with you, and you didn't want to admit it.

“We can go back to my house,” Sokka said after yet another person had come up to bombard you with questions. “We don't have to stay out here. Grandma and Katara have gone to train-”

“It's okay.” Your words were abrupt, leaving no room for argument. “I'm fine.” Sokka nodded. He had the decency not to push you any further than you were comfortable with, but the thrill of confusion buzzed off him just as much as it buzzed from everyone else; the thing with Sokka, though, was that he knew you better than anyone in the entire world. He could take one look at your expression and just know then and there that talking about last nights mishap was the last thing you wanted to do.

So he let the subject drop.

He let the subject drop, and silence consumed you, and you were engulfed in the feeling of your fingers fizzing up, bubbling over with the need to do something.

It had been like that all morning. From the moment you opened your eyes, you felt different; in the beginning, you blamed it on the exhaustion. You had been woken up in the middle of the night with an indescribable pain, hadn't managed to go back to sleep until Sokka had crawled into bed behind you. But it was more than exhaustion that was clawing to the centre right now – it was power. Pure power that had waited seventeen years to finally be unleashed; it wasn't waiting.

His hand covered your own. The feel of his fingers dragged you back to reality, forcing you to release a breath you hadn't even realised you'd been holding. Slowly you shifted your gaze until you were looking at him, and he looked right back. There was a tilt to his head, a small smile on his lips that just said Sokka.

You flipped your hand around until your fingers were intertwining with his. “Maybe we should go and see Katara and your grandmother.”

---

“Oh, Y/N, sweetie, it's so good to see you out of the house.”

Sokka's grandmother slapped a kiss to your face, wrapping you in her arms before she had even glanced at her grandson. He rolled his eyes, sticking his tongue out as if to say gross before she pulled away from you and he forced a smile.

“And you,” she said, pointing a knobbly finger in his direction. “You shouldn't have kept them hidden away in your room all day. The poor thing probably has no idea what to do with their new abilities.”

You winced. “Actually, I don't plan on doing much with my abilities.”

His grandmother froze, her lips inches away from Sokka's cheek. Her grey eyes snapped round to look at you, and never before had you felt so under the scope. Sokka often wore his emotions on his face, but his grandmother's expression was made of steel.

That made it even worse.

You shifted awkwardly, glancing to the floor. “I just came here to ask if there was anything I could do to make this feeling go away.”

She slowly peeled herself away from Sokka, raising a brow. “Feeling?” “You know.” You showed her your palms as if that would explain it all. “The feeling. Like there's fire ants crawling up my skin or something.”

His grandmother stared at you. She wasn't looking at your fingers, wasn't interested in the awkward shift of your demeanour as you tried – and failed – to make yourself seem comfortable in her presence. Once upon a time, Sokka's grandmother had been almost like a second grandmother to you, but things had changed. She looked at you with a glint of appreciation in her eyes that wasn't there before – to anyone else, this would have been a good thing, but to you, it was different. It was strange and you didn't want to deal with the unfamiliarity of it all.

“It's normal, right?” Sokka stepped up beside you, grabbed your hand and inspected your fingers for himself. “Y/N isn't going to combust all of a sudden, are they?”

“The power wants released,” his grandmother replied. Her eyes were still burning holes into your own. “You can live with this feeling forever by not giving in, or you can learn to control your abilities.”

Bile rose in your throat. You squeezed Sokka's fingers, even though you didn't want to, even though he could already tell exactly what those words did to you. “I don't want to.”

“I can help you,” she said. “This isn't a journey you have to take on your own.”

“Yeah, Y/N!” Katara exclaimed. Throughout the conversation, she had been busy practising her own water bending abilities. “You and I can train together.”

You shook your head. “I don't want to.”

“Y/N, don't get-” Sokka began, but his grandmother cut him off.

“You're afraid of who you are, Y/N. That in itself is going to rip you apart from the inside out.”

Your breath was ragged. Your hands were trembling. You balled them into fists, tried to breathe, tried to remind yourself that none of this was a big deal. Water bending wasn't extinct. It wasn't going to kill you. Just because you were unfamiliar with it, didn't make it dangerous.

And yet you couldn't stop the images of dead bodies flashing through your mind. Battle fields. Faces of people you knew twisted into screams of agony as water burst from their insides and the world collapsed around them; having bending powers wasn't a blessing, and it certainly wasn't something you wished for.

Sokka leaned in. His lips were inches from your ear, his breath making your hair whisp around your face when he spoke. “Do you want to get out of here?”

You swallowed, brought yourself together before you squeezed his fingers again and turned back to the friendly old woman. “So there's nothing I can do about this feeling? I'll just have to put up with it?”

Her wrinkled face fell. It was disappointment, and it made your heart squeeze, but you couldn't take her offer.

“If that's what you choose to do, then yes,” she said. “It will only get worse.”

“Okay, that's enough now,” Sokka exclaimed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and turning you towards the exit. “This was a lovely little chat, but I'm afraid Y/N and I have places to be, people to impress, a failed birthday to celebrate! See you at dinner!”

You stumbled after him, hissed his name no matter how grateful you were for his distraction. He sent you a cheeky, knowing grin before the two of you disappeared. You pushed all thoughts out of your head, deciding then and there to just enjoy your time with Sokka.

---

You were going to die.

Fire ants. Fire ants. Fire ants, living in your skin, burrowing in your veins, sinking their teeth into your flesh. Fire. Fire. Fire. It burned. It ran up your arms. It sprinted through your system, snapping open your sweat ducts until your mattress was damp and your hair was glued to your forehead.

You tried to keep it in, tried to bottle up the scream that was fighting its way to the surface, but it was impossible. It ripped from your throat, sounded out through Sokka's bedroom, bounced off the walls and echoed back to you. It taunted you. It teased you, called you cowardly, made fun of you-

Sokka's fingers splayed across your stomach, pushing you back into the mattress even as you writhed and arched away from it.

“Y/N? Y/N, oh god, what's happening? What's going on?” His voice was distressed but distorted in your ears.

You shook your head ravenously, unable to form words that could answer his question. There was an answer there, playing on the tip of your tongue because you knew what the problem was – you felt it intuitively, scratching at your insides, refusing to let you think it was anything other than exactly what it was.

Sokka scooped you up in his arms. He ran. Your head bounced against his chest. Your fingers prickled. The fire ants were loose. They were loose and hungry and refusing to show you any mercy – you didn't deserve mercy. You knew you didn't. You made this choice, the choice to ignore what was building up inside of you, and it was finally coming back to bite you.

“Sokka,” you choked out, gripping his shirt. He didn't stop running, but his blue eyes flicked down. “Sokka, you need to let me down. This is dangerous. I need – I need to – I need to-” Your words were blocked by a scream.

Sokka winced, but did exactly as you told him. He set you down on the sofa, immediately ran his hands through your sweat soaked hair, pushing it away from your forehead. His hands were cold – they always were – but it did little to soothe the all-consuming burn that engulfed your body.

“What's going on?” he whispered, voice trembling. “Tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do.”

“I don't – I don't know what to d-do,” you choked out. “I think it's the – the w-water bending.”

His eyes lit up. “You ignored them. You said you didn't want to-”

“I know.” You winced, curling a hand around your stomach. “I know w-what I said, b-but I d-don't t-think ignoring th-them is an o-option any more.”

“Then you won't. I'll go get Grandma. She can help you.”

He stood up, darted towards the door before turning to look at you over his shoulder. He opened his mouth. There were words there, but he did not speak them. He didn't really need to. His blue eyes softened. He offered you a smile, and then he started back down the hall in search of his grandmother.

---

Training was difficult and tiring, and far from what you wanted to do, but it was the only option, and you were slowly learning to get used to it being part of your daily routine.

You trained alongside Katara, her grandmother yelling orders and directions from the corner of the river. Katara was good, but you were getting better and better everyday – Sokka's grandmother claimed it was because your powers had been waiting for the moment they could release themselves, whereas Katara had been gradually building throughout her entire life.

It was a relief. You no longer went to bed feeling one hundred pounds heavier, no longer woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Your grandmother was no longer scared of you. Everything was working out exactly how it should have.

But Sokka was a different story.

He tried to hide it, but you knew him too well. He was a sensitive man, whether he showed that to the world or he didn't. You could read him like an open book, and the fact that he was doing everything in his power to avoid the topic of your new-found water bending abilities spoke volumes.

He was feeling more worthless than ever before, and it broke your heart to see.

You invited him to watch you train that afternoon, purely because you knew he had nothing else to do. The idea of him walking around on his own, waiting for you to finish up with that sad expression on his face made your heart clench; having him beside you would be refreshing, would maybe open his eyes to what it was you were actually doing.

He stood by the waters edge, hands stuffed in his pockets and head tilted back. His eyes were closed, the sun beaming down on his already golden skin, illuminating it even more. His throat bobbed every time he swallowed. It was mesmerizing.

Water crashed into the side of your face.

You stumbled, just barely managing to grab on to a branch and tug yourself back onto the rock you were balancing on. A single look at Katara told you she found her surprise attack very funny.

“I wasn't ready,” you grumbled, waving your hand and tossing water back in her direction. It didn't hit her face; you didn't want it to. It soaked the bottom of her dress, made her frown, and that was good enough for you.

“He looks like a lost puppy over there, you know,” Katara said. “Why did you invite him here in the first place?”

You raised a brow. “He has every right to be here.”

“I never said he didn't. He just looks like he doesn't actually want to be here.” You frowned and glanced over your shoulder; there he stood, still as a statue, eyes darting to and fro. He did look incredibly awkward. As soon as he saw you looking at him, he forced that fake smile onto his face and waved. You waved back slowly before turning back to Katara.

“I don't know what's wrong with him. He's been like this since-”

“Since he woke up to see you dying at the side of him.”

You winced. “I didn't think it scared him that much...”

“He was terrified.” There was disbelief in her tone, as if she couldn't believe you would think any differently. “Like, terrified. I've never seen Sokka like that – trembling, crying, barely able to talk kind of terrified.”

Your heart clenched. “It was a crazy night.”

“Plus, it can't be very nice to be in your shadow now.” She said this casually. However, your heart jumped.

Your head whipped round, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean? Sokka isn't in my shadow – he's never been in my shadow.”

“He is now,” said Katara. “You're all anyone talks about nowadays. People don't even care that Sokka went up a rank in his training. They don't even care that he now knows how to tie fourteen different types of knots in five seconds flat, and then undo them in ten seconds flat. He was really proud of himself, and nobody else was.”

Your mouth was running dry, mind reeling at a thousand miles per hour. Of course you had listened when he was talking about these achievements. You were the first person he told, and you had given him the exact same enthusiasm back – that didn't mean everyone else had, though.

You swallowed down the golf ball sized lump in your throat, flicked some water up before you mumbled, “I think I need to go and talk to him.”

Katara's eyes lit up. “Now? We're still training!”

But you were already jumping from rock-to-rock, back towards the waters edge. “I'll make it up to you. I promise!” For now, you had more important things to worry about.

Once you made it back to land, you headed directly for Sokka. He raised a brow, opened his mouth to say something but you gave him no chance; you looped your arm through his and dragged him back into the trees.

“Woah, woah, woah!” he exclaimed, stumbling to catch himself. “Is your training over already?”

“I can tell when you don't actually care, you know,” you said.

He frowned. “Alright then... what's wrong?”

“You know I love you, right?” It was the first thing you could think to say, the first message you needed to make exceptionally, exceptionally clear.

Sokka blushed, stuffed his hands back into his pockets. It made your heart ache with fondness. “I know that.”

“And you know I'll keep loving you no matter what happens, right?”

“Y/N, what is this about?”

“Right?”

Sokka looked up and nodded. “Right.”

“The fact that I've got water bending abilities doesn't change anything between us. And it doesn't make you any less of a person.”

His face fell. It was the moment he realised what this conversation was really about, the moment he understood that these emotional mood swings he had been dealing with weren't as subtle as he thought – at least not to you.

“Y/N...,” he mumbled, flicking his eyes over your shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“You're incredible,” you said. Even you were startled by your own words, but pushed on because you were telling the truth. “You're brave, and talented, and you have every bit of potential to do whatever you want to do, whether you do it with water bending or not.”

He blushed again. Your heart beat raced. “It would be better if I could do it with water bending-”

“Sokka, no. Get that out of your head right now.”

“Don't be so bossy.”

You closed your eyes, inhaled slowly. “I just – I hate the thought of you thinking you're less than amazing just because you can't water bend.”

For the first time in a long time, Sokka's breath caught in his throat. You heard it, the sharp little gasp that he tried to cover with a cough, failing miserably in the process. His eyes burned holes into the side of your head until you were all but forced to look at him, get a glimpse of what was going on behind the false emotions he put on show.

He stepped forward and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “Why do you care about me so much?”

The question startled you, because the answer was obvious. It was a light constantly flashing in every word you said, a little kid yelling for attention – that was what you always set it up to be.

“Because I love you,” you whispered, and maybe the words meant more than you let on, and maybe he knew, but he said nothing and you were okay with that.

Sokka's eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. He was quiet. His hand drifted up, gently cupped your jaw, his thumb trailing beneath your eye and it was only then did you realise you were getting emotional. The tears were dotting your water line; you blinked to get rid of them, but they were already seen.

Sokka smiled lightly. It wasn't much, barely a hint of what you knew he could show you, but you didn't complain. It looked real. It was real. You hadn't realised just how much you craved to see a genuine look of happiness on his face these past few days.

“I'm sorry.”

Your eyes snapped up. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” he repeated, voice still soft, hand still pressed to your cheek. “I should be happy for you. You're a water bender – that's such a big deal, and all I could think about was the fact that I'm on my own now.”

“You're not on your own.” The words were ripped from your chest, desperate.

He chuckled breathily. “I know. I know that. Of course I know that, god, but I already felt so useless before – at least I could feel useless with you by my side.” He looked away, smile fading. “I can't do that any more.”

“You're not useless. You've never been useless.” You reached up and pressed your hand over his own. His palm was firm against your cheek now, but his touch was still soft, still full of care. “Remember when we were younger, the night your mother died and your father went away?”

Sokka stiffened. You gripped his fingers a little tighter, urging him not to let the memories whisk him away, urging him to stay with you.

“Do you remember?” you whispered.

Sokka bit his bottom lip, nodded anyway.

“Katara was distraught. She was paralysed, Sokka, and you can't tell me she wasn't, because I saw her that night. I saw her curled up in the corner, rocking back and forth – and I saw you gathering up all of her stuff, grabbing the canned goods and the good fish. I saw you doing everything you could to make sure she was okay.” Your other hand came up and rested on his heart. “I see you nowadays, training and doing what you love, and I know you're gonna make this world a better place. You're gonna be part of the reason we finally find peace in the long-run. I know you are.”

Sokka's heart raced beneath your fingers. His eyes never left your own. He didn't once step away from you; it was weirdly perfect. The weight of words could sometimes be crushing, but Sokka stood up straighter now, pulled up by the reassurance that he was enough, always would be enough, always had been enough.

“Do you think Mum would be proud of me?” His voice cracked. Your heart shattered.

“More proud than I will ever be able to tell you,” you whispered.

“Are you proud of me?”

Your breath hitched. “God, yes.”

And he kissed you.

Unexpectedly and unpractised but perfect in every sense of the word. His lips fit over yours, his nose brushing your own, his eyes fluttering closed once he realised that you wanted this just as much as him; it was a risk. Years upon years worth of friendship could be destroyed in a matter of seconds, but as soon as his lips met your own, as soon as his hands were curling over your waist and dragging you into him, you knew that couldn't happen because you and Sokka were different, and the world was just going to have to put up with that.

Water exploded from the river, tiny droplets spilling over the trees and dousing you and Sokka, but neither of you pulled away. Sokka merely grinned against your mouth, water dripping from the point of his hair which had now fallen loose from the bun he always had it in. You giggled, breaking the kiss – Sokka had the nerve to groan at the disconnect.

“That was you, wasn't it?” he whispered.

You nodded, still grinning brighter than you ever had before. “I think so.”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead. “My talented little water bender.”

#avatar the last airbender #atla #atla fic #atla fanfic #sokka fic #sokka fanfic #sokka atla fic #sokka atla fanfic #avatar the last airbender fic #avatar the last airbender fanfic #avatar fic #avatar fanfic

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in-tua-deep · 5 years

Note

me n a friend have been talking abt how to make a happy au where everything works out for the best and tbh my proposal is: that last time five time travels he doesnt make it to the apocalypse, he jumps right into reginalds funeral and just the fact that their annoying rebellious preteen brother who needs people to look after him is there, they collectively pull their heads out their asses and the apocalypse doesnt happen thru the power of sibling love (+being made more responsible), ur thoughts?

OOH curious, an au where Five travels straight from when he was thirteen to his dad’s funeral?

Five absolutely doesn’t believe that Dad is dead or that his siblings are his siblings until they PROVE it and then he basically is like what the fuCK luther you’re HUGE and allison your hair!! klaus you got so tall!! why is everyone except vanya tall as fuck!!

“Hey where’s Ben?” Five asks, all excited and wide-eyed and the rest of the squad is like surprisedpikachu.jpg

When he finds out that Ben is dead he tries to travel back in time to prevent it and that’s when he comes to the realization that moving forwards in time is a whole different kettle of fish than moving backwards in time which sparks its own little breakdown because until that moment he was treating this as sort of a fun vacation with his cool older siblings and didn’t realize that he was stuck there

So the whole squad gets to find out via breakdown that Five hadn’t really meant to run away and was always intending on going back to them and that he just got stuck

Five calls them out on their bullshit regarding Vanya because he literally just came from a time where Vanya used to sneak into his room in tears after Reginald called her useless and ordinary for the nth time so maybe he’s a little protective and he’s just like “holy shit dad is DEAD and y’all are STILL spouting his same bullshit regarding Vanya”

Diego, who hates the fact that he was just compared to Reginald, decides to be a contrary bastard and immediately start treating Vanya nicer because honestly sometimes spite is the best motivator

Seriously how do the siblings not cotton onto the fact that their brother who sees the dead can see their very dead brother?? whatever, Five is from a time where Klaus was just doing weed and not heavy drugs so as soon as he finds out Ben is dead and after he has his subsequent breakdown he turns to Klaus like “hey hey ask Ben where the fuck he put my book on interdimensional theory I need it for reasons” and Klaus is so surprised he just automatically relays the information and then the rest of the family are like “what” as Five jumps to go retrieve it

Five is still conditioned by Reginald to like. Be a good little child soldier. And I’m gonna say the running out wasn’t a common occurrence, so instead Five gets to bug his siblings to take him places because also he’s thirteen and can’t drive

“Dad is DEAD” five says, wide eyed with possibilities, “holy shit. Is griddy’s still open? can we go to griddy’s? in DAYLIGHT? without sneaking out? holy SHIT”

in the face of this excitement over something as small and simple as being able to go to a diner when he wants, it’s not like they can say NO. even luther wavers because honestly griddy’s is a nostalgia trip and a half and he’s been on the moon for four years and… dad’s dead it can wait for like, an hour right?

The commission is like “hmm. fuck. better send some people to get the timeline back on track” except now it’s the whole squad who deal with the Griddy’s Assassin situation and Five helps because this is what’s he trained to do!! taking down armed gunmen! look at them doing their job as a family

meanwhile the others are freaking out internally because five is a BABY and he’s in DANGER also looking back they were ALL BABIES WHAT THE FUCK DAD and five is just smiling while warping around bashing people on the head with diner mugs

Klaus and Vanya are ducked under a table bonding about not being super helpful in fights and Klaus is like “tbh idk why dad let me go on missions and not you like i remember when you got allison to teach you that highkick p sure you’d be more useful than me” and vanya is touched

they don’t come out unscathed and Five is bleeding and everyone is freaking out over it and five is just like “dude i’ve had worse lmao like literally dad has given me worse than this” and everyone is reminded that their dad was a dick and even luther finds his faith shaken because five is so little and he doesn’t remember them being that little,,,

they still make Five get patched up when they get back home as they try to figure out Hey What The Fuck Was That and five is literally getting stitches and he’s still excitedly asking them questions about their lives

and he’s thirteen and so sheltered i cry so he’s very impressed by like, everything

“we should watch some of allison’s movies!! we can watch movies together now, right?? i mean even dad would let us watch a movie if it had one of us in it surely! i want to see!” “!! Luther you went to the MOON? what was it like? were there aliens? did you see the flag? did you bring back moonrocks? can I have one?” “klaus your skirt!! i know dad never let you wear the stuff you wanted and now you just can! you can wear whatever you want! that’s so cool. can i do that? can i wear whatever i want? klaus klaus can you paint my nails? can ben pick out the color?” “vanya you’re in an orchestra!!! and you have a concert! that’s soo cool! does it matter that you aren’t first chair? you’re in an ORCHESTRA. i knew you were gonna be great with the violin!! can we go to your concert?? please? how much are the tickets? I probably still have my piggy bank in my room if no one’s touched it”

(Klaus touched it. Klaus 100% stole that money a long time ago. Allison cuts in and decides that as the wealthiest sibling and the currently most maternal and she is just melting at all this she will buy the whole family tickets to Vanya’s concert and they’re all going to attend as a FAMILY even if she has to drag everyone there by the ear)

everyone is immediately like “i am going to give this child the world and do all the things that we never got to do as children holy shit also now that i’m more distant from the events i never realized just how little autonomy we had and the fact that Five is so excited about being able to wear non-uniform clothes is a little depressing”

luther out here like “but,,, but the murder mystery”

and they all consider that and think that hmm. maybe those mystery griddy gunmen actually had something to do with dad’s death? okay okay, maybe just maybe luther isn’t being an idiot about this

if you think thirteen year old five doesn’t JUMP at the chance to be a part of uncovering a murder mystery you are incorrect and the siblings are immediately like “hmm. five has already gotten hurt. he is child. we should be,,, protective.”

vanya goes back to her apartment and still meets leonard peabody sorry guys but it’s kind of her job and i don’t want to take that away from her

she does still end up going to leonard’s house except five gets really bored of being smother by the rest of the squad (and they’re all WEIRD about the oddest of topics it’s stupid) so he goes off to find her and ends up ALSO at leonard’s house except he find reggie’s notebook and is like “hey i recognize this!! this is dad’s! i saw him writing in it yesterday!” and instead of letting anyone know he just kind of stuffs it up his shirt and steals it (it’s not stealing if it belongs to dad) and bugs Vanya into going home with him

he looks at the journal (he was always too curious for his own good that’s what got him into this situation) and so he reads about vanya’s powers

and immediately busts into the kitchen for family dinner like “GUYS HOLY SHIT”

and so that’s how the family finds out vanya has powers, it’s a big revelation, five is super enthusiastic because now vanya can come on missions with them suck it dad!! because he 100% isn’t aware yet they don’t still go on missions together and five is already like “we gotta train this!!”

idk pogo probably comes by and reveals the whole nanny situation and allison makes that reveal and vanya is fucking DISTRESSED and tries to leave but five latches onto her wrist and is like “vanya’s never been ordinary a day in her life!! have you heard her play the violin!! your rumor didn’t even work!” which is v touching to vanya and calms her down at least to continue the convo

luther is like “clearly she’s on the meds bc she’s dangerous so we can just continue those it’s fine” because it’s not like she’s hurt someone he cares about in this timeline tbh

allison meanwhile is trying to be a better sister in general so she counters back with “she was FOUR she didn’t understand the concept of death, now that she’s older and past the toddler tantrum phase i think it would be fine for her to actually learn about her powers”

but it’s klaus who’s like “hey, maybe we should ask vanya what she wants??”

and vanya is like,, i want to know. it wasn’t nice feeling like a burden back during the diner shootout, and i think i’d like to maybe try and explore this - and if it’s too much then there are always the pills (bc at this point vanya is still on those and doesn’t realize they inhibit her emotions, when she does she ends up not wanting to go back on them)

vanya gets the love and support she needs!! luther gets some validation for his dad was murdered theory bc the squad investigates with him and they find out about reggie faking his murder a lot earlier! allison doesn’t get her throat cut! klaus gets the love and support HE needs!! and decides (with ben’s input) that he needs to at least attempt to be a good role model bc five has already asked him if the drugs are more important than family when klaus tried to duck out of an allison movie night! diego gets to leak his protective instincts all over five and also take out his anger issues on the commission agents being sent after them! five gets to have an actual childhood even if he does chafe sometimes at his siblings being weird and protective!

literally the apocalypse is ended by five gasping and saying “WAIT can we go to the ZOO?” and making them all go on family trips together where everyone is included because!! they’re his siblings! he wants everyone to be there! he’s gonna see a lion motherfuckers! in person!

also a lot of the things five thinks of are things the siblings just,, never had time for. so it’s a first experience for a lot of them, and so no one really has a good reason to say no?? because they kind of want to go, too?

five, literally vibrating in excitement: i want to go on a roller coaster

like i know you said about preteen rebellion but look he’s come out into a world where his dad is dead and so there’s the potential to do ALL the things he’s always wanted to do but knew dad would never let him like holy shit!! family laser tag! paintball! let’s take a roadtrip to the beach guys i’ve never seen the ocean!! let’s go ice skating! go on a ferris wheel! eat ice cream on the couch! throw popcorn at the tv! lets blast abba songs through the house and make a blanket fort!!!

like it’s gonna take a while to get through the exhausting excitement of “LOOK AT ALL THESE FORMERLY FORBIDDEN THINGS I CAN TRY”

and just throughout this they’re dispatching commission agents and fighting hazel and cha-cha and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with that as well as teaching vanya how to control her powers which everyone is trying to help out with and also dealing with five literally bouncing off the walls one half of the time and the other half of the time being passed out somewhere due to running out of energy

“klaus i want to get a puppy” “we are absolutely doing that, no ben we don’t need to consult anyone else about this” “i’m gonna name him mr. pennycrumb” “you do that buddy why the fuck not”

but yes. what an absolutely blessed and happy au. i love u and tell ur friend that i love them, too

prevent the apocalypse through the power of reconnecting with your inner child and dragging your family along behind you

#ask me #bpdfive #happy au #this was such a cute ask/au idea #thank u very much for sharing #i probably got a little bit carried away but like #i remember me at 13 #i wanted to do fucking EVERYTHING #my school actually did a disney trip the summer before we started highschool #if u think my ass wasn't running around going crazy with a bunch of other little shits u are wrong #we had like no supervision we went bonkers #they literally just took us to the parks and then unleashed us saying 'come back at this time'#so yeah #five realizing there's no parental supervision and wanting to go HAM #maybe he should be sadder about reggie or whatever but also fuck that #he still has his reggie related trauma but #he's too excited #they can deal with that later #tua #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #number five #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #instant arrival au

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bombshellsandbluebells · 5 years

Text

First, Do No Harm Chapter 7

Summary: During the 5+ years aboard the Ark, Murphy stumbles into becoming the designated doctor.

Chapter Summary: Murphy isn't sure what's harder - asking for forgiveness or forgiving. Emori and Raven bond over machines.

Relationships: John Murphy/Emori, Murphy & the Space Squad, background Marper

I am so sorry for the wait. I do hope - and plan - to finish this story, but life keeps getting in the way. Thank you so much to everyone who’s left comments on this fic or told me how much they love it! I appreciate it so much!

Thank you also to all the helpful people on Tumblr who tried to teach me about concussions. Hopefully what I wrote is at least mostly accurate.

Also, as usual, I could not do this without my wonderful editor @infernalandmortal. She is a Queen among men.

Previous Chapter

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The skin of Emori’s knuckles is split, but she won’t let him look at the cuts, rolling her eyes and pushing him away when he tries. She’s defensive in a way that makes Murphy ache somewhere deep inside his ribcage, in the part of him that knows intimately what it feels like to be cast aside. She’s not guarded against him, exactly – she’s used to him examining every part of her so often and thoroughly that studying her hands is nothing new – but it’s as if she wants to ignore the whole fight happened at all, going as far as to hide the evidence under the layers of her clothing, as if once it’s out of sight it hasn’t really happened.

He understands without her explaining. She’s upset she reacted so strongly to Echo’s words – afraid that her lashing out, even justified as it was, is a strike against her, and she’s unsure, like he is, just how many strikes they have until they’re out. He’d told her about his father once, late at night when the emptiness of the cave they were in nearly swallowed his words. She knows what it means to be floated, and he’s seen her eye the windows of their new home with wariness.

Murphy gets it, because he’s just as worried, even if he wants to go slap Echo around himself for what she said. But for some crazy reason Murphy can’t fathom, Echo has Bellamy backing her, and Bellamy probably doesn’t even need a good reason to kick Murphy out.

None of the people here need a good reason for kicking either of them out. They’re the odd ones out, like usual. How much would it take to get sentenced to death this time? How different is the Ring than the Delinquent Camp?

“Hey,” he says softly, nudging Emori until she turns to look at him. “If she says anything else about you, I’ll kill her.”

Emori snorts, but a soft smile tugs at her lips. “They’ll float you.”

Murphy shrugs, because it’s probably true, before he realizes what she said. He grins. “Hey, you used it right.”

Emori rolls her eyes. The smile tugs harder. “I still think it’s silly. There isn’t even any water.”

He laughs, grabbing at her shoulder and tugging her close enough to wrap her tight in a hug. Her arms wind around his back, fingers digging into his shirt to anchor herself there.

Silently, Murphy repeats to himself the thought that’s starting to become his mantra: they wouldn’t float a doctor.

For the next few days, Murphy does his best to avoid everyone but Emori, moving only from Medical to his room, scoping out hallways before he chances them. He buries himself in the files, reading and rereading over and over again until pieces of what he reads finally start to make sense. It’s like trying to keep a sinking boat from filling with water; every time he makes progress, he finds himself in a sea of impenetrable language and information.

If only Clarke was here, he thinks – for probably the first and only time in his life – but the thought quickly passes. If she were here, he wouldn’t even have a job to do.

It’s frustrating work, especially piled upon a body that’s already stressed and fatigued. He half-wonders if he’ll be anything but a starving, weathered husk stuffed with anger ever again. Still, if it means survival, it’s worth the headaches and frustration.

Anything’s worth it.

A knock on his door interrupts his thoughts. When he looks up to Bellamy standing there, he has to fight the incredibly strong desire to throw the tablet he’s holding at the other man’s head. It’s too valuable to lose. And he’d probably miss, anyways.

Bellamy’s beard is out of control, bushy and thick and unkempt. It makes him look ten years older, as do the dark circles under his eyes. Murphy can’t really find it in himself to feel sympathetic. He hasn’t looked in a mirror lately, but he expects he looks similar, plus an ugly black eye that’s just now starting to fade into a patchwork of green and yellow splotches.

“What?” he snaps.

Bellamy crosses his arms. His large frame fills the doorway. Murphy can’t tell if it’s meant to be intentionally threatening or not, but it digs at him either way. It’s like Bellamy knows he’ll win a fight if it breaks out and he wants Murphy to know it, too. Not that he needs reminding; if he focuses, he can still feel the dirt and twisted roots underneath his back, Bellamy’s heavy weight pushing into him, the skin of his face stinging and his nose screaming with pain, and the blood filling his mouth, making it hard to breathe. It’s almost been a year, but sometimes it still feels like just days ago.

The sounds of it rings in his ears clearly still – Bellamy’s desperate shout of “he deserves to die” ripping at something inside of him that’s already sick and rotting.

“Echo says it’s time for her stitches to come out,” the Bellamy of the here and now says, and Murphy snaps back to the present.

His fingers dig into the cool metal of the tablet. “No,” he snarls. “Get out.”

Bellamy huffs, an explosion of stress and frustration. Murphy wants to throw Raven’s words at him. They’re all hungry. Get over it.

“Come on, Murphy. Stop being an –“

“She hasn’t apologized!” he shouts, tossing the tablet aside so he doesn’t break it. He really wants to break something right now. If only Bellamy would hold still long enough so that something could be his face; Murphy thinks that would go a long way in improving his mood.

“Kind of hard to when you’re clearly avoiding everyone.”

“To Emori,” he growls. Bellamy shifts his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “She hasn’t apologized to Emori for calling her –“ He doesn’t even want to give it name. “What she called her.”

Bellamy hesitates for a moment. Finally, he sighs and uncrosses his arms, lets them dangle by his sides. “It’s about her hand, isn’t it?”

Murphy pushes to his feet. His body feels electrified, untapped energy buzzing beneath the surface like a live wire, and he wants to punch something so badly he can feel the desire tingling in his hands as he clenches them into fists. He wants to push Bellamy to the ground and climb on top of him , punch his face in over and over and over again until he’s choking on blood, scream his own words right back at him until he feels them like Murphy felt them – like he still feels them at odd times when Emori isn’t there or it’s just a little too quiet. He hasn’t felt this angry in a long time. He wonders how much of it is the hunger and how much is the feeling of the Ark pressing down on him day after day, hour after hour, like a specter he can’t shake free of.

Everything was fine in the bunker until Bellamy decided to let his sister and the grounders in and steal that little bit of hope he and Emori had started to build their future on. Whatever the hell Bellamy wants, damn everyone else - just like always.

“Don’t you dare say a fucking thing about her hand!”

“I wasn’t,” Bellamy says quickly, backtracking. He throws his hands up in surrender. “I’m just trying to figure out what the problem is.”

“The problem,” Murphy snaps, “is that you let a grounder we can’t trust onboard.”

“I don’t trust her either,” Bellamy admits. “But I trust that she wants to stay alive and killing any of us isn’t in her best interests. And the only reason any of us are alive is because of her.”

Murphy snorts. If they want to start listing things, he’s pretty sure none of them would have been alive if he hadn’t told them about the lighthouse bunker. “I’m still not helping her,” he insists, voice like steel. “You want to help her so bad, you do it.”

“Fine,” Bellamy snaps. He runs a hand roughly through his hair, leaving the curls even more wild than they had already been, some of them standing up on end and making him look ridiculous. “But you have to tell me what to do.”

It feels better than he wants to admit to hear Bellamy ask for his advice.

“Just cut part of the string and pull it out. And make sure her arm isn’t red or swollen. Could mean it’s infected.” Emori had made sure he’d known the signs of infection when she taught her how to stitch up cuts; it was more dangerous than any injury could be.

“Okay,” Bellamy says and starts to leave, but then he stops, pausing in the door to look back at Murphy. “Thanks,” he adds.

That feels better than he wants to admit too.

The next day is a ration day, but Murphy hesitates to go claim his. Emori’s still out, probably finding her own solace in the depths of the Ring, and Murphy doesn’t really want to run into anyone else along the way. And he certainly doesn’t want to visit Echo in the supply room to get his ration, as hungry as he is.

He waits a couple hours for Emori to show up so they can go as a united front – or for someone to take pity on him and bring it to him, as unlikely as that is – before the tantalizing prospect of abating his hunger, even just a little bit, becomes unbearable.

He slinks into the hallway like a wounded animal, praying to whatever it was Jaha thought might be up there that he doesn’t run into anyone. And, of course, because fate has never blessed him once in his life, he hears footsteps approaching just a few turns away from the supply room. It’s not Raven, whose uneven steps are distinctive, but that leaves five other possible options and only one good one. He’s just wondering which option would be the worst when Monty rounds the corner.

Well, of course, he thinks. This is the worst option.

Monty comes to an abrupt halt, eyes wide as they catch on him. Murphy stares awkwardly back. They haven’t seen each other since the last group meeting and it seems like time hasn’t healed any wounds. Monty glances at Murphy’s yellowing eye with the shadow of satisfaction on his face and a coolness in his eyes, then moves to walk past him and ignore him completely.

Raven’s advice comes to mind, and Murphy isn’t quite sure if that’s why he does it – or if it’s just because being ignored really sucks and he can’t stand the thought of having to avoid everyone but Emori for the rest of his time here, or even if it’s just because he’s having a wild, uncharacteristic moment of maturity. Whatever it is, he grabs Monty’s arm before he can pass and pulls him to a hard stop. Monty’s head whips to stare at him, eyes hot with fury now, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Murphy cuts him off before he has the chance.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was a dick move.”

Monty’s mouth hangs open, previous words abandoned in shock. He closes it after a moment. “Are you - are you apologizing?” he asks, sounding baffled.

Murphy crosses his arms, shoulders hunching up defensively. Everything about this sucks. Can’t Monty just take the apology and leave? “I’m trying to,” he snaps.

Monty stares some more. His eyes narrow as he studies him. “Did Bellamy put you up to this?”

“What? I can’t decide to apologize on my own? And I don’t do what Bellamy tells me to.”

Monty leans back slightly, eyeing Murphy like he’s trying to figure out what makes him tick, and Murphy feels like he’s being dissected. He wants to be anywhere but here right now. He looks away from Monty’s face, eyeing the far wall. Like the rest of the Ark, it’s not much to look at, but it’s better than making eye contact.

“I’m not going to apologize for hitting you,” Monty says finally.

Murphy shrugs. “Fine. Whatever.”

“You deserved it,” Monty says with conviction.

“Okay,” he says for lack of anything better to say. He rubs at his nose. “So you back to hating me?”

Monty hums. “Not sure. I’m on the fence about it.” It’s a shockingly honest answer. Murphy kind of appreciates it.

“That’s…” He trails off awkwardly, not sure what he wants to say. There’s a few things he could say – things about how everyone hates him for everything anyways so this isn’t new, or how Monty needs to toughen up like he’s had to, or how a couple mean words aren’t nearly on the same level as getting hanged and banished and he’d been expected to just get over that and wasn’t given the luxury of holding a grudge about it, but he’s pretty sure any of those are just going to end with him in the airlock after all.

And he’s realizing that not only does he really want to make sure he makes it through these five years alive, he’s also kind of hoping he’s not going to have to make it through these five years alone.

He doesn’t say any of them. Maybe that is some sign of maturity.

“Fine,” he settles on finally.

Monty doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that either.

They hover together in a silent moment of uncertainty. Murphy isn’t familiar enough with apologies to know what comes next. For some baffling reason, Raven had hugged him. He hopes Monty doesn’t try.

It’s Monty who talks first. “You can come back to the algae farm if you want.”

He recognizes the olive branch for what it is. Murphy appreciates it. But he also has no desire to take him up on it.

“Nah, that’s fine. I’ll leave you lovebirds alone. I found another job to focus on, anyways. Just let me know when the algae starts growing.”

Monty nods. “I can do that.”

When they part, Murphy feels lighter. He walks easier through the hallways.

Raven is leaving the supply room when he gets there. When she sees him coming, she makes a beeline towards him – or as much as she can, with her limp. It’s even more exaggerated than the last time he saw her, every step a clear feat of strength. The skin of her forehead is pinched with pain.

He ignores it.

“Hey,” Raven says as she nears. “You seen Emori?”

“Not since this morning, no. Why?”

“I heard what happened with Echo.” She comes to a stop and turns her head to nod at a pile of items stacked neatly outside of the door to the room. “Guess that’s her solution. Bellamy said she’s been leaving stuff outside of the door so she doesn’t have to go in. Then Echo comes and grabs it when she’s gone. Better than a fight, I guess. But I figured -” She pulls a ration from her pocket. “-if she wanted her ration today, she’d have to go in the room, and that wouldn’t be pretty for anyone. Thought I’d save everyone the hassle and bring it to her.”

“That’s….nice,” Murphy says slowly, eyeing her with suspicion. Raven’s never seemed to have a problem with Emori, but generosity is always suspect.

Raven places the ration back in her pocket. When she looks back up at him, her eyes are strikingly earnest. “I saw how Roan treated her. Echo’s Ice Nation too. I can imagine the kind of things she’d say about her hand. Emori doesn’t deserve to deal with that.”

“None of us do,” he says dryly. “How many votes do we need to bring back floating, you think?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you joke now, but you’d regret it the next time you do something stupid.”

He shrugs. The comment would hurt more if Raven sounded more serious about it, but he recognizes the humor in her voice. “I’m kidding. The Ark’s all about peace and second chances now, I get it.”

“Yeah, you of all people should be happy about that.”

He doesn’t look down at her leg; it’s difficult to resist the urge, though.

Instead, he steps past her and starts down the hallway, moving slowly enough to give her time to catch up. “I can help you find her. I just need to get –“

“Way ahead of you,” Raven interrupts, following him. She pushes something into his hand. “Grabbed one for you, too.” It’s a ration. At his surprised look, she shrugs. “I figured you’d be with Emori. I didn’t really know where you’re hiding these days.”

This generosity is even harder to trust. One day, his mind whispers seductively, the other shoe will drop. When he responds, it’s mostly on auto-pilot, mind still reeling at the presence of the ration in his hand, tightening his grip slightly to test the realness of it. “Medical, mostly.”

“Medical?” Raven asks with surprise. “Why?”

“Because no one else goes in there.” It’s only partly true, but his time spent reading the medical files feels like a secret. He’s not sure he wants to tell anyone what he’s been spending his time doing, though he’s not quite sure why it feels like such a vulnerable thing to share. They’d probably find it hilarious he was even trying. Maybe he just doesn’t want to hear how much of an idiot they think he is.

“Thanks, by the way,” he says to change the subject. “For doing this for her.”

Raven shrugs, brushing it off. “We’ve gotta stick together. Because, well, you know.” She gestures down at her leg, avoiding making eye contact with him.

Murphy avoids it too, gaze locked on the hallway ahead of them. He focuses on a flickering light in the distance. “Yeah,” he forces out. “Still. She doesn’t usually have people looking out for her.”

He feels Raven’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. He’s not quite sure what she sees, either. Eventually, she looks away and focuses her gaze ahead, and they continue walking in silence, ducking their head into rooms as they pass, before moving on. Raven’s uneven footsteps fall loud on the floor as they walk.

She caves first, breaking the silence. “I do have an ulterior motive.”

He glances sharply at her, surprised by how surprised he is. Of course; no one does anything for unselfish reasons.

But Raven just grins at him. “I wanted to see how much experience with machines she has. I sort of remember her when I had the chip.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s – we were all sort of connected when we were chipped. What we knew, ALIE knew. And what ALIE knew, we all knew.”

“Sounds confusing.”

“It was. Or, it wasn’t really at the time. It just kind of felt normal. It’s hard to explain.” Her eyes go distant. “I don’t really remember that much, but when Emori was helping refit the rocket, I remembered that I used to know she collected machines for ALIE.”

“She did.”

“Does she know how any of it works?”

The truth is he doesn’t really know. But he remembers how well she knew her way around the motor of her boat – how one day when it had stalled and sputtered and coughed up thick, black smoke, she had shucked her glove for the first time since they’d met, sat herself down with some kind of tools, and rearranged wires and metal until it started working again. He had sat on the opposite side of the boat, pale skin baking in the midday sun, mesmerized by her certain movements.

“Yes,” he insists. “And she’s a fast learner.”

Raven smiles. “Good. I’m starting to realize I probably need another hand to help me out.”

They eventually find Emori at the far end of the ring. She’s in the depths of one of the rooms, her makeshift cart with her, hard at work attacking the screws securing a metal shelf to the wall. In her cart sit two similar shelves, and Murphy notes the empty, discolored spaces on the walls where they must have once hung.

She turns when she hears them coming, pocketing the screws she’s removed, and eyes Raven warily before she notices Murphy beside her. Her eyes soften when they land on him, and, like always, it makes something in him shudder at the idea that someone could ever be so happy to see him. He wonders if he’ll ever tire of it or grow familiar with it. He doubts it.

Before he can say anything, Raven pulls out the ration she brought and waves it in the air. “Can you take a break? I brought you a present.”

The skin of Emori’s forehead wrinkles in confusion. “A present?” she repeats slowly. Her eyes flick to Murphy, questioning. He nods, hoping it’s reassuring. They might have enemies here, but Raven is a friend – or he’s pretty sure she is, at least.

“Yeah, I figured you were starving,” Raven says, the corners of her mouth quirking with false humor. She passes the ration over. Emori takes it, cradling it her hands like something precious – and to be fair, it is.

“I don’t think this will help with that,” Emori says dryly, eyeing it.

Murphy silently echoes the sentiment.

Raven grimaces, but shrugs it off. “Better than nothing.” She ambles over to a chair and slowly lowers herself into it, face softening in some relief once she’s no longer standing. She grabs the calf of her bad leg and moves it into a more comfortable position, and Murphy wants nothing more than to flee the room. But Emori takes her own seat and pats the one beside her, beckoning him over, and he follows.

“These taste awful,” Emori says after her first bite. It’s not the first time she’s said it, and Murphy just nods in agreement.

Raven snorts, swallowing her own bite. “Be glad you didn’t grow up on stuff like this. This and algae. Every other week you’d get real fruits and vegetables, but our selection was kind of limited. I miss panther.”

“And rabbit,” Murphy adds, imagining the taste. “Fish is kind of weird, but it’s good.”

“Fish?” Raven asks curiously. She looks at both of them. “What’s that taste like?”

“There’s lots of different kinds,” Emori explains. “You can’t fish in certain waters, though. The fish are bad. It will make you sick.” Then she eyes the ration in her hand. “Still probably better than this though.”

Raven laughs outright. “Yeah, probably. Ark food is pretty much shit. Unity Day was the best, though, because you got something sweet. Not a lot, but kids always got part of a cookie or wafer or something.”

“I remember that one time we got chocolate.”

Raven’s eyes go wide. “No shit? Mecha must have missed out on that.” She grins a humorless smile and adds, “Or Mom traded it away for booze.”

He looks up sharply at her.

“What?” Raven asks, shrugging, overly casual. “You aren’t the only one with a shitty mom.”

“What’s ‘Mecha’ mean?” Emori asks curiously, looking between them. She’s eaten half of her ration and stopped, just like she always does. Murphy knows she’ll wrap the rest up and hide it somewhere safe so she can eat it tomorrow; he’s never sure if spacing what little they get out like that actually helps or just makes things worse, but having something on the days they don’t get a ration seems to at least reassure Emori.

“The Ark was divided into different stations. I was from Mecha, Murphy was from – “ she cuts off, turning to him expectantly.

“Factory.”

“Same as Bellamy, then.”

Murphy shrugs. “I never met him.”

“How did you live with so many people in such a small space?” Emori asks, eyeing the walls.

Raven shrugs. “I don’t know. It was just normal to us.”

“I didn’t even realize places could be so big until we got to Earth,” Murphy admits. He rolls the ration wrapper between his fingers, listening to it crackle.

“You’ve never spacewalked then,” Raven says. “It’s not really the same as Earth, but at least you feel free.” She catches Emori’s interested look and grins at her. “I could teach you if you like. I’ll probably need some help with a few things out there.”

“Out where?” Emori asks warily, eyes flicked towards the open door as if she can look out into space from here.

“Space. It’s like when I used the suit to float to the airlock doors.”

Emori turns quickly back to her. “When you were floating?” she asks excitedly. Her grin threatens to overwhelm her entire face.

“Yeah,” Raven says, her grin matching Emori’s. “You interested?”

“Yes,” Emori says. Her face is alight with wonder. It’s a relief to see after all that happened with Echo. Murphy ducks his head to hide his smile. “Why do you float, though? John told me about gravity -” She stumbles slightly over the word, still not quite familiar with it. “ - and Monty said the Ring has “artificial gravity,” but what does that mean?” Her eyes are alight with curiosity, bright and eager to learn more.

Raven looks just as excited to teach her.

Murphy zones out as Raven launches into an explanation and Emori holds raptly onto every word that falls from her lips. His empty stomach still claws at his insides, and he knows they still have several days to go with limited rations. The Ark still feels like a dismal specter and a cage all at once.

But here, in this moment at least, with these two people at his side, he feels content.

Bellamy is like a bad cold he just can’t shake. Murphy still isn’t quite sure where they stand, both hovering in some awkward, unknown space between friend and enemy, taking two steps back for every step forward in the world’s clumsiest dance.

When he shows up again for the first time after asking about Echo’s stitches, it’s with Harper in tow. Or rather, Harper is the one towing Bellamy, who seems to need her guidance to walk in a straight line. He looks dazed, maybe drunk even, blinking frequently and slowly, the skin between his eyebrows wrinkled and pinched. His pupils are blown wide. One is larger than the other. Harper looks sober, but like she wishes she could be anywhere else in the world rather than standing in front of Murphy. He echoes the sentiment.

“What’s up with him?” he asks.

Bellamy doesn’t seem to even register his question. His face twists with pain. Harper answers for him. “Echo was teaching us how to sword fight, and she hit him pretty hard in the head. He’s bleeding.”

Murphy stares at her in confusion for a moment. “We have swords?”

“No – well, Echo has hers, I think. We used some pipes we had in the supply room.”

Murphy winces in sympathy. There’s no way that didn’t hurt.

“I’m fine,” Bellamy announces suddenly, though he raises the arm not held hostage by Harper to prod gently at the back of his head, grimacing. “Just – “ He blinks a few times, trying to find the words. “Walk,” he settles on, which makes no sense to Murphy. He looks to Harper for explanation, but she shrugs, just as lost.

Bellamy starts swaying dangerously in place, and Harper pushes him forward to sit on one of the many chairs in Medical. When he moves his hand back down to his side, Murphy can spot blood on it.

“Let’s just look you over, anyways,” Harper tells him, gently. Bellamy flaps a hand at her as if to brush her off, and Harper just narrowly dodges it. “Echo said she thinks his brain is loose.”

Murphy looks at her sharply. Whatever that means, he certainly isn’t prepared to deal with it.

Harper laughs a bit, though it fails to fully bury her obvious concern. She gnaws at her lip as she looks back down at Bellamy. He’s leaned forward over his knees, face buried in his hands, eyes squeezed tight. She rubs a hand gently over his shoulder. “I think she means concussion. She probably doesn’t know the English for it.”

“Oh.” Murphy’s heard the word before, though he doesn’t know much about them. What he does know is how to deal with a bleeding wound, though, so he focuses on that, grabbing the last of their clean rags and moving to look at the back of Bellamy’s bowed head. It’s easy to see the blood; it clumps his curls together, turning the hair even darker than normal. He pushes the rag against the wound. Bellamy flinches and tries to push him off.

Murphy bats his hands away. “I’m trying to help you. Calm down,” he says testily.

“I’m fine,” Bellamy insists. “Get off.”

“You’re bleeding,” Harper tells him gently.

Bellamy blinks in confusion at her, then tries to prod at the back of his head again. “Oh.”

Murphy rolls his eyes and pushes his wandering hand away. Then he motions Harper over. “Here, hold this.” When she takes his spot holding the rag to Bellamy’s head, he moves to fill up a small container with water and grabs the last of their alcohol, along with the sewing kit Bellamy found for Echo, just in case. He moves with certainty through Medical this time, familiar with the steps to this now.

“How’d you know I was here?” he asks.

“Echo seems convinced you’re our healer. She figured you’d be here.”

There’s that word again. When Murphy looks over at her, Harper is staring straight at him, expression shrewd and judging. Bellamy is, too, he supposes – or he’s trying, at least, but his gaze goes a little high of Murphy’s shoulder.

Murphy stares back at Harper.

They wouldn’t float a doctor, he thinks again.

He makes a decision.

“I am.”

“Since when?” Harper demands.

“Since I decided we need one if we don’t want to all die. Since our last one -” He cuts himself off, glancing down at Bellamy. He’s not sure if the other man is even aware they’re in the room with him, let alone if he’s following the conversation, but he’s not sure he wants to risk it. Bellamy hits harder than Monty. He looks back to Harper and shrugs his shoulders. “You know.”

Harper’s lips drawn into a thin line. “Died, you mean?”

Murphy shrugs. He’s not going to beat around the bush like it isn’t true. “Yeah.” Harper’s face sours. “What? It’s true.”

“Who died?” Bellamy asks suddenly, blinking at them.

Murphy and Harper fall silent, glancing at Bellamy and then back to each other. Harper’s eyes dare him to say Clarke’s name.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says instead, taking the rag from Harper. “I’m sure you’ll remember tomorrow.” Harper makes a derisive noise, but he ignores her and focuses instead on rinsing the rag out. The water turns bright red, but there’s less blood than he expected, which seems like a good sign.

When he cleans the blood off Bellamy’s head, the wound is smaller than expected too. There’s a decently-sized bump that he’s sure will bruise something fierce, but he doesn’t think he has to waste any thread on stitching it up. He does sacrifice about half of their remaining alcohol to rinse it, though, just in case. Bellamy, as expected, jerks at the sting and tries to move away from him, but Harper helps hold him in place.

Murphy wonders if he even really knows where he is or what’s happening. His gaze won’t seem to focus on either of them, often bouncing off their shoulders and landing on open air instead.

Harper gently taps his shoulder. “How do you feel?”

It takes longer than it should for Bellamy to process the question. He stares at her in silence for an uncomfortably long time, before finally saying, “My head hurts.”

Murphy snorts. “Yeah, I’d imagine.” That seems to be beyond Bellamy’s comprehension right now; he doesn’t respond.

“Do you know anything about being a doctor?” Harper demands. “You can’t just decide you are one.”

“Obviously,” he shoots back, then holds up the tablet. “I’ve been studying.”

“Studying what?”

He’s suddenly wary of giving too much away, in case someone else decides they could do a better job than him. “Files and articles and stuff. There’s all sorts of information in here from the Ark doctors.”

“Oh.” She falls silent.

Murphy looks up at her. “Oh?” he asks defensively. “What’s ‘oh’ mean?”

“I’m just surprised. That’s...smart.”

“I know - beauty and brains. How’d I end up so blessed?”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Harper’s face, but she wrestles it back down.

Murphy pulls up the search feature on the tablet, then hesitates, suddenly very aware of two facts: Harper is watching him closely, and he doesn’t know how to spell concussion. A blush starts to creep up his neck.

He takes a wild stab in the dark and waits for the results to come up. Nothing does. When he chances a glance at Harper, her sharp eyes drill into him. Bellamy’s got his face buried in his hands again, oblivious to everything but his aching head.

Murphy steels himself for the coming laughter. “How do you spell concussion?”

“Oh,” Harper says, surprised. Then she frowns. “I’m not sure. Um, try c-o-n-c-u-s-h-i-o-n.”

He feels a rush of relief as he follows her suggestion. But still, nothing comes up.

“That wasn’t it.”

Harper glances down at Bellamy, then comes to stand by Murphy looking down at the tablet. “Try c-o-n-c-u-s-i-o-n.”

He does. Still nothing.

“Um.” Harper looks lost. It’s reassuring. “Two s’s?”

Several files and reports fill the screen. Quickly, he identifies the style of entry he’s come to recognize as a general overview and clicks on it - and when he sees the massive block of flickering, jumbled letters greeting him, it suddenly hits him that he’s going to have to try to make sense of the words while Harper’s reading over his shoulder, no doubt three times as fast as he will.

He feels hot; the blush creeps higher up his neck.

Harper’s eyes are running left and right across the page, devouring the information at a speed he could only dream of, and he feels sick with jealousy and embarrassment. Trying to save face, he studies the first line, slowly making his way through it.

“I think Echo was right,” Harper says, glancing back at Bellamy. “You should look at what it says to do.”

“Yeah,” Murphy says slowly, hands clenching tighter on the tablet, trying frantically to identify the right words.

He goes too long without reacting. Harper notices. Murphy wants to melt into the floor when he feels her eyes on him. When he dares to look back at her, she’s staring at him intently. “You checking me out, McIntyre? I know it’s a good view, but I’m spoken for.”

“Murphy,” she starts, then stops. She works the question in her mouth a moment, hesitant, then blurts out, “Can you read?”

“Fuck off,” he snaps. “Of course I can read.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Well, maybe you need to get your eyes checked.” He scrolls down the page blindly. The pressure of having Harper hovering over his shoulder is making everything worse; he can’t focus.

“Why do you have to be such a dick all the time? I’m just asking.”

“No, you’re implying I’m an idiot. I’m not the only dick in the room.”

“It’s loud,” Bellamy groans, interrupting them.

“Sorry,” Harper tells him, dropping her voice to a whisper. He doesn’t respond.

“I can read,” Murphy insists, desperate to explain. “The words just get all fucked up.”

“What do you mean?” There isn’t any judgement in her tone. Just curiosity. It makes it easier to answer.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “They just move around a lot. Makes it hard to read. It’s a thing. My dad had it too.”

“My dad had an autoimmune disorder,” Harper says quickly. “The doctors thought I’ll have it too. I didn’t get a place in the bunker because of it.”

“Shit, that sucks,” he says, because he can’t think of anything better to say to that.

Harper shrugs. Her smile is brittle. “Yeah. Guess I wasn’t healthy enough to save.”

“I didn’t get a spot either, if that helps.”

Harper snorts a laugh. “Guess that’s why we’re all here.”

“Guess so.”

She looks down at the tablet again. “So the letters just move around?”

“Yeah. It’s called dyslexia. Makes reading fucking hard.”

Harper hesitates. “I can read it aloud. If you want.”

It would make things easier, but it sounds humiliating. “Are you trying to steal my job, McIntyre?”

“No way. I heard about how you stitched up Echo’s arm. I don’t want to do anything like that.”

He thinks about it. For almost the entire time they’ve been back in space, Harper has looked at him with judgement and contempt. But now, shockingly, both are absent. There’s only sincerity - and something like understanding.

He hands the tablet over. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Harper smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Turns out the treatment for a concussion is just a lot of waiting. 24 hours of observation, the tablet tells him, which is way longer than he wants to spend stuck in a room with Bellamy, but he’s determined to prove himself as a doctor after his earlier failure.

Harper sticks around for a while. Apparently, there isn’t much for her to do in the algae farm now either - not while they’re waiting for a miracle, at least. She offers to read several other files aloud too, and after a bunch of annoying pestering, Murphy relents. It is kind of humiliating, but it also does make the process of working through the nearly-incomprehensible files much easier.

She shocks him by scrolling through the list to find the most disgusting entries and reading aloud the worst parts just to watch him squirm. He doesn’t even realize her intention until he notices her grin as she reads aloud a description of scurvy in vivid detail. Turns out Harper’s more of an asshole than he thought. It’s kind of great.

Eventually, though, she leaves, and it’s just Bellamy and Murphy alone. Bellamy keeps drifting in and out of sleep, never staying out for more than five minutes. Usually he wakes up with a random question or half a thought that is absolute nonsense. Usually, Murphy just ignores him.

When Bellamy wakes up this time, though, he looks around as if to orient himself, eying the walls and landmarks to identify the room. Then he stares at Murphy for a long time, the gears in his brain clearly turning through his sluggish thoughts. His gaze is a little more focused than it has been before, though it still lands just slightly to Murphy’s left and flickers back and forth between the real Murphy and the space beside him.

“The grounders killed him,” he says without preamble. Murphy brushes it off as more of the same nonsensical muttering he’s been doing for the past few hours when he adds, “John.”

That grabs his attention. Bellamy has never once called him by his name.

“Mbege,” Bellamy clarifies.

Oh.

Murphy grunts, shaking off the shock. “Yeah, I figured.”

“The trees,” Bellamy says. “I couldn’t - so many of them. There were - “ He trails off, his gaze drifting straight through Murphy and staring at something that isn’t there. This time, he’s not sure it’s just the concussion. “And Roma.”

Panic starts a slow creep across his skin; he doesn’t know what he would do if Bellamy actually starts crying, and he seems poised to, his eyes blinking furiously against whatever emotions are brewing within him. There’s a shine to his eyes.

“It’s fine,” Murphy blurts out quickly. “You did the best you could.” It burns his throat coming out. It feels like a lie – it is a lie. Because Bellamy hadn’t. Not at first. Not when Murphy was there. And maybe nothing changed when he left. For all he knows, public hangings became the delinquent's version of floating. Who else got the short end of the stick when Bellamy was in change?

Looking back on those first few days on the ground, it’s easy to see just how stupid Bellamy and his little faction had been – himself included. They hadn’t been at all prepared for survival on Earth. They hadn’t even done much to survive, except maybe catch a few animals to eat. Bellamy hadn’t cared about collecting water or storing food – not until someone else mentioned it. Wells first. Clarke at times. Bellamy hadn’t even worried about building a real camp until the grounders had appeared.

Bellamy had been more focused on giving the delinquents what they wanted than leading them like he should have, the only adult amongst a bunch of – fuck, they’d just been a bunch of stupid kids.

“He came with us,” Bellamy continues, words coming slowly. “To save Octavia.” His mouth gets tripped up over his sister’s name, stumbles over the consonants. Then he pauses, jerked out of his own daydream. He looks wide-eyed at Murphy. “Is she here?”

“What?” Murphy asks, baffled. “No. Why would she be?”

“Is she in the floor?” Bellamy asks seriously, and then, sure enough, looks down to study the floor below him and nearly tips right out of his seat.

Murphy catches him and pushes him upright. “No, she’s not in the floor, you dumbass. She’s on Earth. And we were talking about Mbege,” he reminds him.

Bellamy blinks slowly, processing the name. “It was my fault,” he says finally. The words linger in the air. Murphy’s temper rises like a fever across his skin.

“You’re fucking right it was,” he bites out, and Bellamy blinks up at him with wide, shocked eyes, like he thought Murphy was going to reassure him instead. No, fuck that. It’s about time Bellamy owns up for the shit he does same as everyone else, and Murphy certainly isn’t going to pat him on the back and tell him that letting him hang or letting Mbege march off to his death was okay.

“You made shitty decisions and got people killed,” he growls. The scar on his throat throbs with an old ache. If he ran his fingers across It, he could still feel the slightly rough skin left behind. “We thought you knew what you were doing.”

“I didn’t,” Bellamy whispers, so soft that Murphy nearly misses it in his anger.

“We listened to you,” Murphy says, “And you screwed us, Blake.”

His eyes sting. His lungs burn. He doesn’t think he’s talking about Mbege anymore.

Bellamy stares up and him. He blinks. “I’m sorry.”

It’s sincere, even if it’s confused. Murphy’s not quite sure Bellamy even knows what he’s apologizing for, let alone if he’ll even remember this tomorrow. Still, the words are comforting; they soothe some of the ache, and it’s such a relief that he can’t even hold onto his anger. The anger is exhausting; his body doesn’t have the strength for it anymore.

If Bellamy was actually coherent, he might have asked whether they were good now. Murphy thinks he might have stolen his response from Monty. I’m on the fence about it.

But maybe he’s hovering slightly towards the side of forgiveness. Just maybe.

#the 100 fic #john murphy #memori #spacekru #the 100 #my stories #first do no harm

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lord-of-shadows · 5 years

Text

A New Life (Kitty Reunion Ch. 3)

chapter 3 is here! check it out on AO3 or read under the cut. this one takes place three years later, and it mainly revolves around kit’s love for cordelia and some wholesome family moments :) words: ~2k. read ch. 1 and ch. 2. enjoy!!

CHAPTER THREE

The cold wind was blowing in Kit’s face as he held Cordelia in his arms, walking up the familiar path to their quaint home at the top of the hill.

He and Cordelia had just gotten back from Kit’s friend’s house, who also had a little sister two years older than Cordelia, but Kit deemed Cordelia (who was two) old enough to play with her. Kit met Trisha the summer after his sister was born when he was out on an emergency store run late at night (Tessa had run out of diapers for Cordelia, and unlike Magnus, she refused to magically steal more). As he exited the gas station, Kit noticed a night-clad figure following the mundane girl, and he instantly glamoured himself. Before the mysterious man could make a move on the girl, Kit had knocked him out—he admitted, he may have used too much force for a mundane, but it had been so long since he last experienced fighting crime; he had a love-hate relationship with how it always sent a feeling of adrenaline and exhilaration through his bones. The girl thanked him, but true to Devon’s residents, she immediately began to question him as to why she has never seen him before (everyone knew each other and their dog in this town). Then, after realizing that Kit was new and didn’t know that many people, she invited him to hang out with her friends that weekend, which Kit, at first, did not know how to react, but Jem and Tessa encouraged him to make new friends, and so he did, and after that, he became close friends with the other Devon residents around his age.

Kit realized that despite knowing a lot about his new friends, they didn’t know much about him, except the little story he curated: He was from America—Los Angeles, to be in fact (to which they always ask him about Hollywood and celebrities), and his parents had died in a car crash a few years ago (true that his parents died, but he couldn’t necessarily tell them it was because of faeries and demons), and so his British aunt and uncle adopted him (this was believable, since Tessa and Jem did have London accents, and they didn’t legally adopt Kit, but it was close enough), and now they ended up here, in the small town of Devon.

They always extended their condolences, but Kit found that the memory of his father didn’t hurt as much like before, and even though Tessa and Jem told him the truth about his mother, he used his grief to fuel his training, although he still couldn’t access that electric white light he unleashed while fighting the Riders of Mannan. The power had vanished as quickly as it appeared, and no matter the amount of training he did with Tessa or sometimes even Magnus, he couldn’t unlock it again.

Hopefully, he never had to. Though he was loathed to admit, it was pretty cool.

Cordelia was playing with his sleeve, babbling excitement about the Christmas lights Trisha’s family had already strung up on their house; even though Christmas was a mundane holiday, Tessa and Jem thought it would be a nice family tradition for them to partake in the gift-giving and spirit of it, and Kit recalled that Tessa had told him to return home early since they were planning to set up their decorations that day. It wasn’t like Kit could forget, with Cordelia mentioning it every two seconds.

Cordelia’s happiness filled Kit with child-like joy—he never did celebrate Christmas, his father deeming it a waste of time and believing there was no such thing as the spirit of Christmas since everyone in the Shadow Market was miserable anyway, but he was glad that Tessa and Jem found the holiday worthwhile. He wanted the best childhood for Cordelia, different than the one he had so that when she looked back as an adult, she would be filled with memories of fondness and love, not loneliness and death.

He entered the house, drawing an Open rune on the door, feeling the wards opening and closing all around him—and was met with Jem leaning against the counter and Tessa sitting on the couch, hunched over with a pen in her hand, small frowns on their faces, stress evident in their postures.

“I know Christmas decorating is no easy feat,” Kit said, a furrow between his eyebrows as he set down Cordelia on the floor, who proceeded to run straight to Jem. “But why the tense shoulders?”

Jem bent down to pick her up, the stress alleviating slightly, and let out a long sigh before sitting next to Tessa on the couch, and as Kit got closer, he realized she seemed to be focused on writing a letter to someone.

“Here,” Jem said, picking up a folded paper from the coffee table, handing it to Kit. “Read this.”

Kit sat in the armchair across from him, opened the letter, and began to read:

To Tessa Gray,

I apologize for reaching out to you on such short notice, but there has been strange activity concerning dark magic occurring around the ley lines here in Los Angeles. When Emma and Julian were on patrol yesterday, they noticed that a blight similar to the one a few years ago was taking over the land once again, but this time, it seemed to be spreading at a much faster rate than before. We have contacted the Unseelie King, and he claims it is affecting the Faerie lands as well. He tried to contact the Seelie Queen, but no response has yet been obtained. We contacted Magnus; there does not seem to be a warlock sickness again, but he says that a similar blight is appearing in New York too. We request your help immediately in investigating this issue, as we are not sure how much time we have left. We await your arrival.

Aline Penhallow, Head of Los Angeles Institute

“It’s happening again?" Kit said incredulously, glancing at Tessa. She was finished with her letter, folding it neatly before releasing it, the embers floating away with the unseen wind.

She nodded. “I have my suspicions on what may have occurred,” she said, her hand reaching up unconsciously to rub the sleeplessness from her eyes, “But it will be beneficial if I could see it myself.” She turned to Jem, who was looking at her with worried eyes. “The letter I sent was to Catarina Loss, to see if she has any insight on this occurrence, as she is more knowledgeable with this type of magic. I know she is teaching at the Scholomance though so she may not be able to help.”

At the mention of the Scholomance, Kit tensed, but Tessa and Jem did not seem to notice, caught in their own wordless conversation. He wondered if this is how he seemed like with Ty in the past.

Enough. It’s been three years, and yet, he still couldn’t stop thinking of him.

Dark magic, Aline had said in her letter. Kit shivered, his memory going back to that night in Alicante. He finally did tell the truth to Jem and Tessa about why he ran away but never told them what exactly he and Ty were doing—he knew there was no way they knew what happened, but sometimes, he felt that Tessa could easily see past through his lies.

Jem looked at him, concern still written on his face. “Christopher, Tessa and I have decided to leave to the Los Angeles Institute tomorrow. But don’t worry,” He added, seeing the panicked expression on Kit’s face, “We will not force you to come with us. The problem is we are not sure how long we will be gone so we will be bringing Cordelia. Helen and Aline can take care of her while we are away.” Kit knew Helen and Aline had adopted a faerie girl around Cordelia’s age from the excessive amount of photos Dru and Emma sent him—Nene, Kit believed they named her, after Helen and Mark’s faerie aunt—and something in the back of his mind thought it was a good idea for Cordelia to be around more kids her age, but Kit felt fear rise in him from being separated from his little sister. He could hear Tessa saying that it was okay if he wanted to stay since they trusted him well enough, and if anything did happen, he had the ability to summon them immediately with the little trinket they had given him.

“Also,” He heard Jem say quietly, “Tiberius will not be returning from the Scholomance until a few days before Christmas. I assure you, we will be back home by then.”

“I’ll go,” Kit decided, straightening in his chair. He could bear seeing Dru and Emma; besides, Emma made sure to visit them each May for Cordelia’s birthday, so it wouldn’t be much of a problem. Dru would be another hurdle, but Kit was sure he could handle it since they often texted each other and talked on the phone. But Ty? That was a whole other story—he hadn’t seen or communicated with the other boy in years. And yet, the thought of him still makes your heart race. Kit inhaled. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he saw the other boy again.

And he didn’t know if he wanted to find out.

“Great!” Tessa said, clapping her hands together. “Then it’s settled. We will leave tomorrow night so we can arrive in Los Angeles by the afternoon.” Right. Kit almost forgot about the ten-hour time zone difference. It was a pain when texting Emma and Dru. “I will go ahead and pack Cordelia’s things. You best get packing as well, Kit.”

“But Christmas lights?” Cordelia asked, thumb in her mouth, words sounding more like babbles, but Tessa managed to understand her anyway.

“How could I forget?” Tessa feigned shock. “How about you and Papa go set them up, and Kit and I will join you later?”

“Yay!” Cordelia cheered, crawling out of Jem’s embrace and grabbing his hand, Jem shooting Tessa a helpless—and panicked—smile before being whisked away outside.

Kit laughed silently, but his mind wasn’t paying attention to his sister’s antics, as it was currently consumed by thoughts of Los Angeles—he was going to be in the Institute’s winding halls again, going to witness the loud breakfasts and vibrant beaches and laugh with the others again—

Except Ty wasn’t going to be there, his mind added. He should feel grateful, and he was, but he could feel disappointment creep up in him, and he knew he couldn’t deny the truth, that he wanted to see Ty again.

Kit felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find that Tessa had moved over to him, a caring look on her face as if she had a motherly instinct that something was wrong. Kit let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Christopher,” Tessa said gently, using his real name, one that she only reserved for when she was being serious with him. “I know this will be difficult to face. But trust me, they will be excited to see you again. You are missed.” She cupped his cheek, and Kit leaned into it, a warmth rushing over him—an extremely young memory of his own mother doing this to him flashed in his mind, of her holding Kit close and singing softly when he couldn’t sleep. His head hurt. “If at any point you feel overwhelmed, let me know, and I will send you back home.” Kit nodded. Suddenly, they heard a crashing noise—Tessa’s eyes widened as she pulled back, her fingers sparkling—before Jem opened the door, calling in the midst of Cordelia’s hysterical laughter: “Everything is okay! Just got—” Sounds of struggle could be heard. “Just got tangled in some lights—” The door shut abruptly, and Kit and Tessa looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

Her hand covered her mouth, and Kit’s cheeks began to hurt. “Oh, by the Angel. Forget packing. Go help Jem and Cordelia instead. It seems as if Christmas decorations are too much those poor souls.” Kit could hear Tessa mumble as she walked away, a smile evident in her voice, “Whatever will I do with them…”

He held back a laugh, shaking his head as he got up, pushing back thoughts of Los Angeles. He’ll worry about that when the time comes tomorrow. Right now, it seemed like there was trouble right in their front yard, chorused by Jem’s playful yells and Cordelia’s bubbly laughter. With a grin on his face, he joined the chaos outside.

#kit and ty #kit herondale #ty blackthorn #kitty #fanfiction #qoaad #qoaad spoilers #queen of air and darkness #the dark artifices #tda #the wicked powers #twp #kit x ty #tsc #fluff and angst #a new life #reunion #sorry for posting this late tumblr was being weird

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