#so yeah wow rip phoenix

[cherrycola27]

Worth the Wait

Pairing" Robert "Bob" Floyd x OC Lucy "Minx" Davidson

Warnings: Language, SMUT, SMUT, SMUT this some grade a filth right here. Bob Fucks... that is all 18+ Minors DNI

A/N: oh how I enjoyed writing this ;)

"So what do you think?" Lt. Lucy Davidson asked her best friend as she showed off the new dress she had purchased for her date later this evening. "Minx, you look great Bob is totally going to want to rip that off of you later tonight!" Phoenix joked, elbowing her in the side.

"No he won't Phe, and that's the problem!" Lucy sighed and dramaticly flopped down on her bed. "What do you mean Minxy? Are you saying that you an Bob haven't 'sealed the deal'?'" She asked raising an eyebrow. "Nope." Minx replied popping the P.

"You've been dating for five months and you haven't had sex yet?!" Phoenix exclaimed. "Ugh don't rub it in Tasha, not all of us are getting railed by Hangman on the regular. Lucy grumbled. Phoenix laughed at the remark.

"So let me get this straight. At the end if the night when Bob takes you home... he just what...kisses you goodnight on the door step and leaves?" She pressed.

"No, sometimes he comes in and we make out and there's some heavy petting involved but...that's about it." Lucy shrugged. "Well that's going to have to change.... we need to rectify this situation ASAP!" Phoenix said standing up quickly.

"Natasha." Lucy warned. "Do not meddle in this. Bob will ravage me when he is good and ready. I just have to be patient."

"I'm not going to meddle in your sex life or lack there of Luc... it's not really my style." Phoenix said patting her friend on the shoulder. "Thank you Nix." Lucy breathed out.

"Yeah it's not really my style but it is Hangman's and I am texting him right now!" Natasha squealed with glee. "Don't you dare!" Minx jumped up trying to grab Tasha's phone from her hand. But she was too late because moments later Phoenix was cackling like a hyena clutching her phone to her chest.

"Oh my God what did you do?!" Minx asked raking her hands through her hair. "Oh nothing... why don't we go get some lunch before we meet the boys later." Phoenix linked arms with her best friend and dragged her out the door.

Hours later Lucy was finishing up her makeup and looking at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. The dress she had purchased was a beautiful pink sundress that would make Elle Woods swoon. She had paired it with some simple jewelry and new wedge sandals. Her hair was half pulled back away from her face and the rest hung in loose waves.

She really did look good tonight. She looked more than good, she looked 'totally fuckable' as Phoenix would say. And maybe that was her intention when she bought this dress earlier this week. Maybe she bought it with the sole hope that Bob would want to rip it off of her. "God I sound like Taylor Swift right now." She thought recalling the T Swift song that is about this same exact senerio.

She was broken from her thoughts by the ringing of her doorbell. She quickly made her way down stairs to open the door. She was greated with a bouquet of sunflowers and the bright blue eyes of her boyfriend Bob. "Hi Bobby" Lucy greeted him warmly taking the flowers from him.

"Hi Minx, you look... wow." Bob said as he raked his eyes over her body. The sun dress she had on fit his girlfriend perfectly. She looked absolutely breath taking in the bright pink number. For a split second he wondered if she would look even better out of it, under him, legs wrapped around his hips, while she cried out his name.

He quickly shook the lewd thought from his mind... God he had been hanging out with Rooster and Hangman way to much... he needed to find better friends. "Ready to go beautiful?" Bob asked extending his hand to Minx. "Sure am honey. Let's go!" Lucy said quickly grabbing his hand and pecking him on the cheek. A blush crept up his cheeks and to his ears at the contact. The couple made their way to Bob's truck. He quickly opened the door for Lucy and helped her in before heading over to the driver's side.

Bob took Lucy to one if their favorite places to eat. A Little Italian spot that sat right on the water. They ate and had comfortable conversations but Bob could tell something was bothering her. "Penny for your thoughts Minx?" He asked over dessert. "What do you mean Bob? We haven't stopped taking this whole time. She said taking another bite of her tiramisu. "You make a valid point, but it just seems like there is something on your mind that you aren't telling me or something..." Bob trailed off.

Bob was right there was something on her mind. But what could she say? That she wanted him to take her home and ravage her on every avaliable surface? That she wanted to rip his clothes off of him and sink to her knees before him and taste him? That she had dreamt of what he would look like with his head between her thighs devouring her? That she craved his hands around her throat while he whispered dirty things in her ear. How she desperately wanted him to bend her over and pull her hair. That she would beg him right now to fuck her if she knew he would?

No, she couldn't say that to him. He was Bob, her Bob, sweet, gentle, caring. She was sure he would be giving lover in the bedroom because he was just a naturally giving person. But, he was always one to take his time to prepare and make sure everything was just right. That's what made him such a great WSO. He was meticulous, and most times quiet. He wasn't going to be one to just fuck her senseless no matter how bad she wanted him to with each passing moment. He cared she knew he did, and she was sure that's why they hadn't slept together yet.

"Um I was just thinking what if we skipped the movies and went to the Hard Deck after dinner. I'm sure whatever antics our friends are getting into would be much more entertaining than whatever is playing, plus, this new dress is just begging to be danced in, don't you think babe?" Lucy asked him

"Dancing and seeing our friends at the Hard Deck does sound pretty good darlin'. Sounds like a plan to me." Bob said. He quickly paid the bill and they hurried back to his truck. The pair held hands on the drive to the bar. Minx fidigeted uncomfortably I'm her seat. Bob noticed but thought it best to leave it alone for now.

"Mind if we turn on the radio baby?" He asked her. "Sure honey, a few tunes before we get there might be nice." She replied.

Bob turned on the radio and quickly found a Pop hit station that they both liked. He turned up the volume and Lucy internally groaned when she recognized the familiar tune of Taylor Swift's "Dress" come through the speakers. It was like God or the universe was messing with her or playing some cruel sick joke on her. She looked out the passenger side not able to meet Bob's eyes.

When they pulled into the Hard Deck she couldn't get out of the car fast enough. She had unbuckled and jumped out before Bob could even get to the door. She practically ran inside waving him off with the excuse that she needed to use the restroom. Once inside she quickly found Phoenix and dragged her into the ladies room and locked the door.

"The Hell Minx?" Phoenix said ask her friend turned towards her. "I cannot do this any longer. I swear if your back seater doesn't blow my back out soon, I am going to explode!" Lucy threw her hands up in the air. "I know I said don't meddle, but I really need you and Jake to meddle because I am going crazy!" She huffed leaning against the sink.

"Lucy, take a chill pill." Phoenix encouraged her. Hangman and Rooster may or may not be out there planting some seeds in Bobby's little brain right now." Phoenix told her.

"Oh my God you told Rooster?" Minx whipped around from the counter. "He and Jake are best friends. If one idiot knows the tea, so does the other." Phoenix shrugged. "Jesus how do you and Harper put up with them?" Lucy asked. Phoenix laughed and gestured for the two to leave the restroom.

"Bob, you mind telling us why you and Minx haven't done the deed yet?" Hangman asked the moment Bob walked over to him with drinks in hand for he and Minx. Bob nearly choked on his soda at the lewd comment. "Well... uh we just... I... I... I.... honestly... I don't know Jake." Bob stammered out. "I'm just afraid that I will... I don't know disappoint her or something." He shly confessed. "Bob... we've seen you in the locker room. I highly doubt you could disappoint her." Hangman winked at him. "Plus we knew that WSOs have to be pretty good with their hands." Rooster added taking a sip of his beer. Poor Bob turned three shades of red. "And I'm just saying I have it on good authority that Minx definitely bought a new dress for tonight with the hopes that a certain Lieutenant Comander would be taking it off of her tonight." Hangman add just driving the point home even more.

"Okay, enough I get it!" Bob yelled being done with the conversation. Thankfully Minx and Phoenix appeared. Bob quickly hopped off his bar stool and grabbed Lucy's hand. "Come on darlin' let's go dance." He whispered in her ear with his delicious southern draw.

The pair danced the night away, swaying, swining, and spinning to each song. Bob even taught Minx a two step when a country song came on. During their next dance Bob lifted Lucy off the ground and spun her around. But being the gentleman he was, he made sure to hold the hem of her dress down.

"Thank you for holding my dress down." She giggled when Bob placed her down. "Of course Minxy, I wouldn't want the whole Hard Deck to get a view of your underwear. He blushed.

Minx got up on her tiptoes and breathed against Bob's ear before whispering: "Oh Bobby, they wouldn't have gotten a view of my panties because I'm not wearing any." She kissed his cheek and returned to her normal stance.

Now Bob isn't entirely sure what snapped inside of him with that comment but something did. Before she could even understand what was happening Bob grabbed Lucy's hand and started to quickly lead her through the group of people at the bar. "Bob, what are we doing? Where are we going?" She asked once they finally made it back to his truck in the parking lot. Instead of answering her, Bob sealed his mouth against hers in a hungry, lust filled kiss. She gasped at the sensation of him pressing her against the truck. Bob took the opportunity to insert his tongue into her mouth as he kissed her roughly.

"Bob.. what was... why... what?" Minx asked breathlessly when he finally pulled away from her. "Why are we leaving?" She asked looking at him. His pupils were blown wide behind his gold rimmed glasses, his eyes were so black you almost couldn't see the blue in them.

His voice dropped about octave as he spoke: "I'm taking you home right now. Someone has to teach you a lesson. You whispering naughty things in my ear and wearing this dress and you expect me to not lose the last ounce of resolve I have darlin'?" He looked at her. "Get in the truck honey. The quicker I get you home, the quicker I get to have you under me." He winked as he opened her door.

Lucy couldn't focus on the ride back to her house. Bob's hand was under her dress on her upper thigh, just centimeters away from where she desperately wanted him to be. He was drawing circles on her thigh with his index finger. God should couldn't wait for his long digits to be inside her. When he pulled into her drive way and opened the door Minx practically sprinted to her front porch. She grabbed the keys from her purse but just as she was about to unlock the door Bob came up behind her and pulled her by the hips against him. She could feel his hardness pressing into her from behind. Bob began trailing kisses up her neck which causes her to lose focus and drop her keys.

She bent over to get them which gave Bob the perfect opportunity to spank her supple rear. "Ahh" Minx sqeaked out in surprise as she was finally able to unlock the door. Bob spun her on her heels and wrapped an arm around her waist as he pushed them inside and backed her up against a wall. He quickly kicked the door shut with his foot then reached out and locked the deadbolt all while making sure his lips never left Lucy's.

He tapped her hips signaling for her to jump while he pressed her into the wall. She happily followed his instructions and wrapped her legs around him and ran her fingers through his hair. Bob found that sweet spot behind her ear that had Minx crying out. He pulled away from her neck and looked at her.

Her eyes were glassy and hooded, her cheeks were flushed, her lips were pink and plump from his kisses and she was trying to catch her breath. "Bobby" She breathed out. "What's gotten into you?" She asked him. "I want you Lucy, I really do. I have wanted you since our first date, hell since the first time I met you, but I didn't want it to be a one time thing, I wanted to really get to know you before I had you." Bob confessed. "And I guess that dress was just the thing to send me over the edge. It looks so pretty on you baby, such a shame that it's going to end up in the floor." Bob smirked as he pulled her away from the wall to head towards her bedroom.

Somewhere along the way Bob had managed to free himself from his shirt but as he sat Minx back down to her feet in her bedroom, he was struggling to get her dress off. She wasn't helping the situation by constantly kissing and touching him. He pried her off of him. "Minx I swear to God I am about 5 seconds from ripping this dress off of you. Where is the zipper he asked turning her around to search for it. She laughed and gestured to her side. Bob quickly unzipped the dress and it pooled around her feet for her to step out of it. Once she was free of the garment, Bob took a moment to truly admire her body as she stood there bare before him.

"You weren't lying about the panties thing." Bob chuckled. "I would never lie to you Bobby." Lucy replied her voice smooth like honey. "Now are you just going to stand there and look at me all night or are you going to touch me?" She challenged him.

"Who says I won't do both?" He asked taking a step towards her. He reached out his hand and placed it on her hip and pulled her flush against him. He groaned at the feeling of their burning skin colliding.

"Bob... are you going to take your pants off... I really hope I'm not the only one who's getting naked tonight." Lucy murmered against his skin as she kissed every inch that was exposed to her. "Maybe I should help you like you helped me." She breathed out as her hands found the waist band of his jeans. She gripped his length through the front of his pants and stroked him a few times. Bob growled at the sensation.

She quickly undid his belt and whipped it out of the loops and made hasty work of his jeans pulling his boxers down with them. His length slapped against his abdomen. Bob was already impossibly hard, his head red and dripping precum, the veins thick as they wrapped around his girth. Minx gasped at the sight of Bob naked before her. Now it was her turn to stare. She saw a blush spread over his body. His mouth opened as if to say something but he quickly closed it. All the bravado Bob had once shown slipped away.

"Jesus fucking Christ Bob, I can't believe you've been hiding all of this from me. You're gorgeous baby." Minx cooed as she placed her hands on him.

"You really think so?" Bob asked in a boyish tone not quite believing her. "Really baby, now why don't you sit down and let me show you just how hot I think you are." Lucy said pushing him to sit on the edge of her bed. Bob gladly followed her orders and sat down. Once he was comfortable, Lucy sunk to her knees infront of him.

"Baby, Minx, you don't have to do that if you don't want to." He said stopping her before she took him in her mouth. God he was so sweet. "I know that Robert, but I want to." Minx replied. Any protest he had after that died on his lips as Minx took his length in her mouth. She had been dying to taste him and boy was he delightful. He was surely the biggest she had ever been with and unfortunately she couldn't take all of him in her mouth so she wrapped what she couldn't take in her hand and began to stroke him.

Bob threaded his fingers in her hair, not to push or pull her head ask she worked his shaft but just as another point of contact. She flattened her tongue along the underside of his shaft and licked him from base to tip. Her free hand grabbed his balls to show them some love as well.

"Jesus Minx... feels so good." Bob moaned "Such a good girl, sucking my cock so well." He praised her. His comments went straight to her soaked core causing her to clench around nothing.

She could tell he was getting close, she could feel him squirming and his thighs tensing under her hands.

"God Luc, I'm so close, if you don't stop I'm going to finish, Minx... I....I" Lucy doubled down on her efforts hollowing out her cheeks and sucking even harder. She teased her tongue over his slit and took him all the way down her throat.

"Shit... shit... shit... holy... oh my God!" Bob screamed as he released in her mouth. He fisted one hand in the sheets the other in her hair. Minx continued to suck him through his finish. Once she was sure he had come down and she felt him softening in her mouth she pulled off of him with a pop.

She rocked back on her calves and looked at him with the most innocent doe eyes like she just hadn't given him a mind blowing orgasam and said "Did you enjoy that Lieutenant Comander Floyd?" Bob let out a strangled cry as looked at the woman before him.

"That was amazing baby." He said finally able to form a coherent sentence. But now I get to have my fun with you." He grinned wickedly and patted the bed next to him for her to join him.

She quickly climbed on the bed and he directed her to lay back. Lucy gladly welcomed his body over hers as he began to touch her everywhere. He trailed kisses across her breast swirling each nipple in his mouth and nipping the skin. "Bob please touch me." She gasped as he grazed his fingers down her thighs. "I am touching you." He teased. "Not what I mean, show me how nimble those fingers really are baby" She practically begged.

"Oh so you want to know if me being a Wizzo makes me good with my hands?" He grinned "Well, I can assure you sweetheart, you are about to find out just how good I can be with my hands."

Finally two fingers grazed her slit and collected the wetness that had been pooling. "So wet for me baby I love it." Bob croaned has he circled her wetness around her swollen clit. Lucy threw her head back at the contact. The man had barely touched her and she was already a mess.

Bob wasted no time quickly sinking his ring and middle finger into her, burying them past the knuckle. He curled them inside her velvety walls and stroked them. "Oh sweetheart you feel so tight just around my fingers, can't wait to feel my cock in here." He moaned as he continued to push her closer to the edge. His thumb quickly found her clit and he began to circle it in tandem with the thrust of his fingers.

"Oh Bob, Bobby, feels so good, please don't stop, please, please." Minx thrashed her head trying to keep herself grounded as Bob added a third finger and began to fuck them into her faster. "That's it darlin' you're taking my fingers so good. Love seeing you like this, come on baby cum for me, be a good girl and cum all over my fingers, I know you can do it." Bob encouraged her as he kissed her passionately.

He quickly curved his wrist to hit a new angle and different spot inside of her and that was all Lucy needed to fall part. She screamed Bob's name as she came fast; her cunt gripping onto his fingers for dear life as he drew out her high. She whined at the loss of contact when he pulled them out of her, but her eyes went wide as she watched Bob suck her juices off of them.

"Damn baby, you taste even better than I thought you would, I'm going to have to have more of that. Bob said. "Do you trust me Luc?" He asked her earnestly. "Of course I do baby." She replied. "Good, then come here and sit on my face." Bob said laying back. "Are you sure Bob?" That doesn't seem safe." Minx questioned. "Minx, we fly fighter jets for a living and this is what you question the safety of? Just trust me. I promise I will take good care of you. Now get up here and ride me instead of a plane for a change. That's an order from your superior officer." Bob commanded. Lucy wasn't sure where this dominant side of Bob was coming from, the only time she had ever seen him like this was when he was giving Phoenix directions, but Minx loved it.

She quickly scrambled up the bed and placed a thigh on either side if his head. She gripped her headboard for support as Bob latched onto her thighs and pulled her flush against his face. He wasted no time diving into her like a starved man. His tongue plunged into her folds while his nose tickled her clit. She had just enough sense to reach down and yank his glassed from his face and place them on top of her head so she wouldn't break them.

His large hands found the curve of her ass and gripped it tightly. He gave her a harsh spank which cause her to jump. Lucy slowly began to circle her hips on Bob's face which earned her a groan of praise from him which sent shivers down her spine. She grabbed onto the headboard as Bob pulled her closer to him if possible. He started to draw figure eights with his tongue over her clit and Lucy knew she was done for. "Fuck Bobby, that feels so fucking good. I'm going to... please don't stop Bob... please I... I...I" She wasn't really sure what she was asking for at this point but thankfully Bob knew what she needed. He moaned into her core and held her tighter. She was sure there would be fingerprint shaped bruises on her hips tomorrow but she was too far gone to care at this point. All Lucy could do was hold on and chant his name as her second orgasam washed over her.

Once she was able to come down enough from her high, she gently removed her thighs from his head and collapsed on the bed next to him her whole body felt like jelly. "That was something else baby" she said rolling over next to him. "Glad you enjoyed yourself." He stated pulling her in for a kiss. She tasted herself on his tongue.

Bob broke away and looked at her, his gold rimmed glassed still sat perched in her hair. Bob wasn't sure why, but that was one of the hottest things he had ever seen.

"Um Lucy, I know this is probably a bad time to bring this up but I don't have any condoms with me" Bob admitted thinking about what was to come next. "I'm on the pill Bob, and I'm clean." Lucy replied nonchalantly. "I'm uh clean too." He replied quickly. "So I think we're covered if you want to keep going." She whispered. "Oh I definitely do." He replied.

"Here, you might want your glassed back." Minx said as she went to untangle them from her hair. Bob placed his hands out to stop her.

"No, leave them on" he whispered darkly. "As you wish." She replied. "How do you want to do this?" Lucy asked him.

Instead of replying Bob quickly spun her around placed her ass in the air and her face in the mattress. "You okay with this?" He asked. She nodded her head. That was all the permission he needed as he slowly pushed into her from behind. The stretch of his cock felt amazing. She felt deliciously full when he was finally all the way in. "Fuck baby, you're so fucking tight. It's like you're pussy was made for my cock." Bob mewled as he bottomed out. He gave her a moment to adjust to his size before he he slowly began to thrust in and out of her.

Lucy rocked her hips back to meet his. "Faster, harder, please Bob, fuck me like you mean it." She moaned out. Bob was always eager to please so he picked up the pace slamming his hips into her.

"God look at you, taking my cock like a good little slut. You like that, you like it when I fuck you like the little sluy you are?" He asked. Minx moaned in response. Bob quickly gave her a hard spank which caused her to yelp.

"I asked you a question, I expect you to answer me. Used your words. Now let's try this again." He began gruffly as he pulled her hair, yanking her head back towards him.

"I said do you like it when I fuck you like the little slut that you are. Do you like being my good girl and letting me fuck you?"

"Yesss." Lucy moaned out.

"Yes what?" He growled spanking her again

"Yes sir, I love it when you fuck me like this." She responded.

"Good girl" her replied. Minx could feel another orgasam building in her stomach. Bob was winding her up tight. She felt the amazing smack of his hips against hers with every thrust. The sounds of their wetness combining was almost sinful and she could feel his glasses bouncing against her head with every stroke.

"Ungh I'm so close Bob!" She cried out. Bob quickly pulled out of her and flipped her on her back. Minx whined at the loss of contact but quickly moaned when he filled her up again.

"Want to see those pretty eyes when you cum for me baby." Bob said before kissing her again.

She wrapped her legs around him and gripped his shoulder blades trying to pull him closer to her. His hips were relentless as he pushed into her over and over. With this new angle he was dragging the head of his cock over her g-spot with each thrust. Her nails dug into his skin but Bob was too lost in the moment to care. Sure they might leave some raw red marks for the boys to gawk at in the locker room on Monday but he did not care. All he cared about in this moment was fucking the woman he loved until she couldn't walk right.

Lucy couldn't barely breathe as Bob continued to push into her. She couldn't think of anything other than him and the pleasure he was giving her. She had a fucked out expression on her face and she wasn't able to form a complete sentence as she groaned out. "Bob, close, please" She begged. "Me too princess, cum for me, you can do it, just one more time for me sweetheart, I love you, I know you can." He praised her has his nimble fingers found her clit and began to rub circles around it.

A few particularly deep thrusts in combination with his praise sent Lucy over the edge with a mind blowing orgasam. Bob's name fell from her lips like a prayer and she came hard around him. Which sent him into his own finish. Bob continued to fuck her through her high as he painted her insides with his hot release.

Totally spent he pulled out and collapsed beside her.

"Baby, that was phenomenal. I am so sorry it took me so long to do that." Bob said as he tried to regain his sanity.

"It's fine honey. It was worth the wait. Lucy replied kissing him. He quickly left the bed and went to the bathroom. He returned moments later with a warm wash cloth to clean both of them up. Lucy went over to her dresser and found a pair of sweat pants that she had stolen from Bob and tossed them to him so he had something to sleep in. She grabbed a clean pair of sleep shorts and an over sized shirt to slip into. She climbed back into bed and into Bob's arms. "Oh yeah she thought. This was definitely worth the wait."

Tag List: @dreamingathighaltitude @shanimallina87

#top gun maverick #top gun #bob floyd #robert bob floyd #top gun bob #bob fucks #bob floyd smut #bob x oc #bob floyd x oc #top gun 2 #tgm fic

[stars-and-birds]

okay so i actually know very little about the x men but what roles are u thinking of for the party?

OKAY. you have awakened nerd esme. prepare urself. this will be long. sooooo long.

so for context the x men— created in 1963 by stan lee and jack kirby and fictionally brought together by professor x, a wheelchaired mutant with telepathic abilities, were/are mutants. mutants are a different species than humans and are as such treated terribly by them. they have “mutations” which give them powers and shit. they were basically created as parallels to real life bigotry and are hated by the general public (in the marvel verse everyone irl loves them. or i do. )

anyway, the original five were—

angel aka warren worthington III (yes that is his actual name) who had wings on his back. now they’re metal. it’s complicated but not important. he’s basically the token rich boy, blond hair, blue eyes, yeah. total knockout in canon too apparently. cyclops aka scott summers who had a red laser beam that continuously comes out of his eyes and as such he wears/wore a special visor made out of special ruby glass professor x found for him. quick fun fact he had so low self esteem and was so depressed professor x made him leader out of fear he would fucking kill himself. which is very dark. a bit stoic and pretty much an old man (he canonically watched seinfield). and he’s transmasc to ME. beast aka hank mccoy who is basically a genius and really strong and stuff. eventually he turns into a literal beast but i’m too sleep deprived to remember how that happened lolol marvel girl aka jean grey who was the token Girl™️ of the group and who possessed too many abilities to keep track of, and when she has them. she gets fucked up at some point in the chris claremont x men run (which is truly iconic) and becomes possessed by the phoenix force(specifically in issue #134, the issue will wanted in episode one) and becomes like evil and shit. the phoenix force is a cosmic evil being and she becomes *dark* phoenix and it’s a whole thing. also pour one fucking out for her imagine being surrounded by teenage boys and hormones most of whom have a crush on you and being able to read their minds. jean babe i’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. and bobby drake aka iceman who has *gasp* ice powers. he’s a bit of the goofball of the group and can turn basically turn himself into ice which is explored more in more recent comics. he’s also been revealed as gay. one small step for mutants i suppose they’re all queer but nobody tell them.

wow that was long! sorry. anyway onto the actual au stuff. my original plan was to make each member of the part correspond to a o5 x men member, but since there are six i thought i’d add one more for max.

mike is cyclops! i think it fits in a special sort of way that i can’t really articulate since they have such different personalities. but just trust me.

el is jean, in the telepathic sense and being surrounded by boys most of the time sense. rip.

dustin is beast. tech savvy, smart, tested different bc of how he looks— it fits. so so well.

again the personalities may not fit on the surface but i think will is iceman. they’re both sort of softer than everyone else, and whole will is quieter it just makes sense to me haha.

uhh so i don’t actually think lucas would be warren… mayhaps i’m still considering… which means i wrote that whole description for basically nothing but i think it’s funny so i’m keeping it there. anyway i think lucas would be… idk. i’m still thinking it over but maybe gambit.

so for max @hellmo suggested rogue who would be great but i’m also still mulling it over. maybe kitty pryde! idk.

technically i think brenner would work as prof x but obviously that’s a no-go so it’s gonna be mr clarke which i like more as concept actually. again, different personalities but i think that’s okay, because the general roles fit. plus i jsut think that dynamic would be fun to explore more.

so sorry this was long and doesn’t really have much au it’s more me seeing x men and going brrr… haha. thanks for the ask tho!!! i enjoyed talking about them :]

#long post #so so long #i’m sorry i nerded out #this au is half an excuse to just talk about the x men #but i do like the concept #rjay💘 #x men party au #the party #stranger things #ask #amazing mutuals

[mascwhump]

Wow I actually wrote something! This is based off of a drawing my beloved @crimson-wrld is working on… 👀. This is canon, takes place soon after Charlie joined the team.

CW: capture, interrogation, asphyxiation, chemicals, guns

-

Margaret Thatcher is Dead

"Five minutes out," Their pilot spoke into the headset.

They were dropped somewhere about half a mile from their objective. The plan was to split off into three directions, and Ethan was to tag along with Charlie. Crow was heading straight into the building alone while Charlie and Adrian provided cover from two separate flanking routes. The goal was to recover intel, which Crow would accomplish with a USB stick once inside the base.

"If you hear me say 'phoenix', you're to retreat. That's an order," Crow said.

"10-4," Adrian responded, a hint of annoyance in his tone. Crow shot him a hard look before making the motion to move out. Charlie and Ethan started eastward, and Adrian disappeared into the trees in the opposite direction.

"So, is there a story behind that look Cap gave?" Charlie asked.

"Oh, yeah. He knows bloody well we aren't leaving his arse behind, even if he orders it. Since Scotch is in charge if something happens to him, that's his way of saying 'if you disobey me, I'm pushing you off a cliff," Ethan replied.

"He really expects us to just leave him if shit goes down?"

"Yup."

They cut the chatter as they got closer to their position. It was an abandoned transformer room along the road, just large enough to fit both of them inside. They'd be able to pop out and provide cover fire quickly, if needed. Charlie shut the door behind them.

"We're in position," he spoke into the comms.

"Copy, closing in on mine now. Lefty, give us a sitrep, over," Adrian said.

It took a few seconds for Crow to come through.

"Thirty seconds. This place is crawling with tangoes, so watch your six. I'm going dark. Out."

If everything went as planned, they were to meet at the rendezvous point after Crow had given the signal. In the meanwhile, they just had to sit tight. The comms were completely silent for the next few minutes. Charlie and Ethan spoke quiet in order to not give away their position. They were discussing some TV show when static came over the comms. There was some commotion in the background, and they could hear Crow breathing. The audio crackled and cut in and out. He was holding his breath now, and the raised voices in the background started to become louder.

"They're flanking me," Crow whispered, "fuck- phoenix."

A few moments of stunned silence ensued before Adrian's voice came through the radio.

"Alright, regroup with me at the LZ. I'm switching channels to give command a sitrep," he said.

"Copy," Charlie spoke.

He and Ethan made their way back to the drop off point, luckily without running into any problems. Charlie was relieved, as he was certain they'd have enemies all over them at that point.

"Tell me we're not leaving him behind," Ethan spoke as Adrian came into view.

"Fuck no, of course we aren't," Adrian said, "but we need to think of a plan. Got those maps, Flame?"

-

Blood dripped from Crow's nose, a result of them smashing his face against the tile floor. He was bound now; a series of ropes restraining him in an elaborate fashion. They had stripped him of his gear and slit down the front of his shirt to expose him. They were intentionally reckless with the blade, slicing shallow cuts into his skin in various places on his torso. His pants were ripped at the knees from his struggle- of course it was the one time he decided not to wear knee pads.

The one who appeared to be in charge was called Boeser, revealed by the nameplate on his uniform. Wahl and Romano seemed to be Boeser's subordinates. Boeser paced around, wielding a metal pipe.

"You already know what I want to know, so tell me," Boeser spoke, smacking the pipe against his empty palm. Crow remained silent and stared straight ahead. Boeser struck him with the pipe, and Crow clenched his jaw. He was determined not to let out a single sound.

"You think you're a tough little bastard, don't ya?" Boeser taunted as he struck him again. Crow could taste blood in his mouth. As Boeser leaned toward him, Crow broke his forward gaze and spat the blood into his face. Boeser responded by hitting his head again a few times, along with a kick to his abdomen. He wiped the blood from his face and turned to his subordinates.

"Get the rag," he ordered. Romano moved to the corner of the room. It was then Crow noticed a bucket with an old wash rag hanging out of it. Romano dunked the rag into the bucket and brought it to Boeser. The distinct smell of ammonia became apparent, and Crow tensed.

"Last chance to talk. Tell me who you are at least, hm? Won’t hurt ya that much, will it?”

“I’m Margaret Thatcher,” Crow spoke slowly and grinned, despite his unease.

Boeser then pressed the ammonia-soaked rag against his face and held it over his mouth and nose. Crow held his breath. His eyes began to water. They burned, along with his skin. He managed to hold his breath for almost a minute before he was forced to exhale the building carbon dioxide from his lungs. Panic ensued as he breathed in the ammonia against his will. His lungs were on fire now. Boeser was holding his head in place with his free hand, preventing him from pulling back. Crow struggled in the ropes and his hands curled into fists. He eventually threw all of his weight to the side, finally getting himself free from the hold.

He coughed violently as he lied on his side, expelling the asphyxiating fumes. His senses were overtaken by the intense burning sensation. Boeser wrung out the rag above his head, letting the excess liquid drip down on him.

“Are you ready to talk yet?” Boeser questioned as he landed a kick to Crow’s chest.

“Fuck… you,” Crow coughed. He was too preoccupied clearing his lungs to notice that Romano had handed a bottle of Drano to Boeser. It wasn’t until Boeser forced him back to his knees that he saw it in his hand. His eyes widened, and Boeser laughed.

“How about now, Margaret?” he snorted, “or would you rather me force this down your throat? Then you’ll never speak again.”

Crow was desperately trying to think of a plan, trying to think of anything he could do to get out of this without giving in. He was still coughing, which made it even harder to think clearly. Just as Boeser began to unscrew the cap from the bottle of Drano, the door burst open, and a few shots rang out. The three assailants fell dead to the floor, and Crow felt the ropes being cut from his limbs.

“You okay, Cap?” Ethan asked.

“I’m fine. I thought I told you bastards to get out of here,” Crow said as he wiped his face with his sleeve.

“Not a chance in hell, mate,” Adrian replied as he stuck out his hand to help Crow to his feet.

“Bloody hell. Let’s go,” Crow said. They successfully made it out of enemy territory without any more resistance. Ethan used some clean water from a nearby river to clean some of the ammonia off of Crow while they waited for the helicopter.

“You’re going to have some irritation for awhile. I’ll take a closer look at you once we get back,” Ethan said.

“When is he not irritated?” Adrian jested.

“Whenever you’re not around,” Crow shot back.

“At least I don’t smell like cat piss.”

“Fuck off.”

#whump #whump oc #whump drabble #whumpee #leader whump #captured whump #interrogation whump #https://youtu.be/ILvd5buCEnU #stay tuned

[briamichellewrites]

32

2010. The age of social media. Elliot found a following on Instagram, where she shared pictures of herself and her life as a film producer. At twenty-three years old, she was making a good life for herself and she was living her dream of traveling the world and financing movies. She and Phoenix had ended their relationship in 2008 after five years of dating. Nobody expected them to be together that long. They started having problems a year before but were too scared to break up.

They finally had to confront the elephant in the room and rip the bandage off. He took some time off from dating before meeting Linsey at the gym. She was beautiful and she encouraged him. They had recently gotten married after dating for two years. After trying for a baby right away, they found out she was pregnant with a little girl they were going to name Regan.

Mike had started dating four years after being cheated on by Anna. He fell in love with a woman named Jordan, who took their relationship slowly. She understood he had been cheated on and why it took him so long to fully move on. Jordan was outgoing and she reminded him of Elliot. She got along well with everyone she encountered, whilst also having a heart of gold. The band loved her, as did Elliot. After learning about her background, she took things slowly with her.

Jordan also encouraged him to mend things with Anna, so they met at a café. He hugged her before they sat down. They ended up having a very nice conversation that wasn’t filled with anger or resentment. After her break up with Brad, she decided to take time to focus on their daughter, Shiloh. She wasn’t in a hurry to find another boyfriend. Instead, she was living quietly without the media.

Brad paid child support, even though it wasn’t legally required of him. She didn’t want child support but he insisted. Has he heard from Elliot? Yeah, she was working with Brad on movies. He told her all about that. She was also involved in Tourette’s research, child abuse awareness, and mental health awareness. Did she have Tourette’s? No, she had a Tic Disorder. She had developed it as a side effect of her antipsychotic medication when she was seventeen years old.

She had been hearing voices, so she was prescribed medication. It had taken her some time before she could suppress the urge to tic. She still had it and always would but they were a lot better than they were before. What were her tics? He had to think.

“Her biggest one is twitching her head. You just have to ignore it because drawing attention to it makes it worse. She does talk about it because she wants people to know what’s going on. It’s been a hard road for her but she’s always kept a sense of humor. She told us once that humor was all she had left that she could control. That was back when she was first struggling with tics.”

“What about her and Phoenix? I thought they were dating.”

“They were, yeah. They started secretly dating when she was sixteen years old. It was a great relationship because she was stable and healthy. They were also living together with their two dogs and two cats.”

What happened? They just fell out of love. How long were they together? They were together for five years, a lot longer than anyone expected them to be. Wow! She was impressed! Still, they had nothing but good memories with each other and they both had nothing but positive things to say about each other and their relationship. Their age difference also played a role. He wanted to get married but she wasn’t ready. She wanted to travel the world before starting a family.

While working with Maroon 5 on their music video for Won’t Go Home Without You, Elliot met Adam Levine. They started texting back and forth before he asked her out on a date over a year later. Mike did not like him because he seemed like a heartbreaker. He was hesitant about making her his girlfriend and he had problems committing to her.

She finally put her foot down and told him to commit or stop leading her on. He came to her after a week with his tail between his legs and promised to commit to her. Brad was on Mike’s side. His not wanting to commit was a huge red flag! It meant that he would eventually cheat on her. They waited for her to come to them crying. They had been officially together for six months and she couldn’t be happier! Adam was a great boyfriend and he treated her well.

He took the time to learn about her tic disorder and who she was as a person. Adam also introduced her to Leonardo DiCaprio, one of his closest friends. Leo took her in like an older brother. He appreciated her keeping him in line. Was he interested in dating her? No, he wasn’t attracted to her. She was very pretty but no, she was only a little sister figure.

elliotryan: Bruce Springsteen giving me the side eye. I adopted this guy back in 2002. Yes, his name is Bruce Springsteen and no, I didn’t name him that. He is a Teddy Roosevelt Terrier who still likes to think he’s a puppy. Mike Shinoda tried teaching him how to play the guitar. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the right digits. His favorite music is whatever the humans are listening to, though he prefers the singer-songwriter genre over hard and alternative rock.

As the first friend to have Instagram, Mike and the band regularly checked her profile for new pictures. They enjoyed seeing what she was doing and what she had to say. She loved posting pictures of her animals. Bruce was getting older but he still had life left in him, as did the cats. She was thinking about buying a bigger house for them and Adam was helping her look.

Bruce loved him, while the cats weren’t impressed. They preferred not to interact with him if they didn’t have to. Elliot found it weird, though the vet told her that cats had their preferences for humans. They liked some people but not others. It was nothing to be worried about. It could be differences in personality between humans and animals. Adam wasn’t offended that they didn’t like him. He was a dog person anyway.

Misty was continuing to be a support for Mike, whether she knew it or not. She was out of the puppy phase but still liked to be active. Mike made it a habit to play with her every day and take her for walks. Though she did like Jordan, he was her human and best friend. She was why he got out of his depression and got up every morning after coming home from rehab.

Mike and the boys were getting ready to go on tour to promote their new album. Before they left, Jordan had a surprise for him. She handed him a shoe box with a ribbon attached. He looked confused as he untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a positive pregnancy test, a white newborn onesie and a sticker that said, Worlds Greatest Dad. It took him a moment to process everything. Oh my god! She was pregnant? Yeah, she just found out. He gave her a hug and kissed her.

Oh my god! He was going to be a daddy! She started crying happy tears because she had been so nervous that he wasn’t ready. But, he was! He put his hand on her stomach. I’m going to be a daddy! After celebrating, they went to talk about the pregnancy and the baby. Misty got up and put her paws on her stomach while her tail wagged. What did she think? She barked happily. Baby human! They laughed.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon

[multimilfs]

Lilith Clawthorne x Fem!Reader: Lessons Learned

Summary: thewriting-dragon requested “More Buff Bimbo Reader X Lilith Clawthorne, but like maybe with a touch of angst? Or even better Buff Bimbo Reader after Lilith splits the curse.” 

A/N: I think I took a different approach to this than you intended tbh. You said some angst and I sprinted with it, but I hope that you like it! 

Warning(s): None 

In the Boiling Isles, there is a very strict hierarchy. A ranking of importance that goes down the line. Emperor, Emperor's advisor, and so on. Lilith Clawthorne is the third most important person in the Boiling Isles.

Being so important was something she’d craved from a young age. The idea of being in charge of her life, for once. But power isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. It comes with rules. A lot of them.

The expectations befalling someone so important could lead to a lot of different behaviors. Stress, narcissism, and most obvious, anger. Anger at the slightest imperfection or missing piece. That not everything was fitting perfectly into their master plan.

“Honey, are you ready?”

You peeked into the room where Lilith was readying herself for tonight’s event, stopping to admire her. She was a sight to behold. Glimmering baby blue dress, white heels, and white jewels adorning her body. It took your breath away.

“Wow… You look beautiful.” You sighed out dreamily.

Lilith gave you a small smile, though notably much smaller than normal. Then she looked you up and down with a frown on her face.

“Darling, is that what you’re wearing?” She asked.

Confused, you looked down at your outfit. It was a three piece white suit that you believed was rather dapper. Not to mention it was comfortable. You didn’t understand why she was asking.

“Of course, this is my favorite suit. Why?”

“You wore it last time we went to this event.”

“Okay… Is that supposed to be a problem? It’s stylish and I like the way it looks on me.”

“Being seen in the same thing twice is a taboo. I thought I would have taught you that by now,” Lilith sighed, before waving her hand and changing the color to the same blue as her hair. The cut of the suit was also altered ever so slightly, “There! Now you look perfect.”

A low, icky feeling panged at your gut. You hated wearing this color and the altered cut of the suit made you feel uncomfortable. It drew attention to certain areas of your body you didn’t want people to focus on. But you reminded yourself that it was for Lilith, so you could accept it for the night.

That was the mantra you repeated throughout the night; You were doing it for Lilith. When you bit your tongue in conversation so she could talk, when you didn’t eat anything off of the refreshment table because it was apparently ‘just there to look nice.’ It was hard to do, but you did it. You squashed yourself into a perfect little mold for the higher-ups of the Boiling Isles.

At the end of the event, there was said to be a big show. It’d been the one piece of information keeping you grounded all night. Emperor Belos was going to give a show to remember. The start of a new tradition.

But when you heard the sound of distressed squawking from behind the curtain, you felt your heart drop. Then the curtains opened.

Standing there was Emperor Belos. A fire whip in hand, across from a young Lion Phoenix. It was cowering back from him. Growling and hissing, feathers raised. You looked anxiously to Lilith, but she was purposefully avoiding your gaze.

“Distinguished guests,” Belos began, “Tonight I will perform a feat never attempted before. I will tame the wild Lion Phoenix, as a show of what the Boiling Isles is truly capable of!”

Everyone around you clapped. This felt like your own personal hell, having to watch people enjoy the torture that this creature would endure. For the sake of a show. For power.

“Lilith, stop him.” You whispered.

“I can’t do that.” She flinched away from the suggestion, looking at you like you had two heads.

There was a lilt in her voice that you didn’t like. The same one when she’d accidentally shrunk your uniform or eaten your leftovers. Guilt.

She knew.

You moved away from her, even as she tried to reach for you. To keep you close or stop you from making a scene, it didn’t matter, you were on a mission. There were many instances where you could hold your tongue. This was not one of them.

Belos raised the whip above his head, intent on bringing it down over the creature. You sent a burst of magic before he could. It knocked the item out of his hand. Everyone in the room looked at you in outrage.

“Have you no regard for life?” You hissed at the Emperor.

“It’s a harmless show, Miss Y/N.” He explained.

“Harmless to everyone except this creature. It’s cruel and uncalled for.” You said.

“Emperor Belos, I’m so sorry-”

Lilith tried to jump in to defend you, to calm the situation down. But you leveled her with a hard glare. She stepped back slightly. You didn’t need, or want, anyone to apologize for you.

“End this show or I will.” You threatened.

The temperature in the room dropped as Belos stopped laughing. Such a change made you feel uneasy, but you refused to back down. Not now. Not on something so important.

“Fine.”

He threw his hand out in the direction of the Lion Phoenix, which let out a shriek of fear. Unthinking, you threw yourself between them. Lilith screamed your name before it all ended suddenly. Replaced by the sound of rustling leaves and chirping.

Looking around, you realized you were outside now. In the gardens of the Emperor’s Castle. The Lion Phoenix currently cuddling up to you had teleported you away from the scene. It surprised you, since that was typically a skill for the older creatures. It seemed this one learned quickly.

“Thank you,” You said gratefully, making them purr, “You’re so precious, I’m sorry you got mixed up with such a horrible crowd.”

The large creature didn’t react, other than to paw at your hand, sitting down expectantly. A piece of dinner was still held in your hand. You wasted no time in giving it to them.

“You need a name. How about… Ivy?”

On the creature’s side were prominent veins, almost looking like ivy plants that grew up and around her legs and torso. She gave an indifferent squawk.

“What do you say we blow this joint?” You offered.

Ivy narrowed her eyes at you before giving you a noise of agreement. That was all you needed.

Upon arriving back at your home, you made up a space for the large creature. You imagined that she was going to be with you for a while. At least, you hoped so. She was very sweet and mild mannered.

About two hours had passed before you heard the door open, almost frantically. You winced. Though you were still rightfully upset.

“Oh thank the Titan, you’re alive!” Lilith said upon seeing you, before freezing as Ivy began to growl at her.

“It’s okay,” You soothed, before looking at the other woman, “And yes, I am.”

Lilith knew she’d messed up. The way you weren’t speaking like normal, you didn’t smile in her direction, all of it. She let out a sigh.

“Y/N, I’m sorry,” She said.

“Sorry doesn’t feel like enough right now, Lil.” You said softly, focusing intently on Ivy’s fur, “You really hurt me. First you made me act like someone I wasn’t all night and then you didn’t defend me when I asked for your help. I’m not always the smartest, but the one thing I know is who I am. That won’t change. Not even for you.”

Lilith’s stomach dropped. She’d been so caught up in the stress of it all, that she failed to realize how her actions wounded you. How she’d unintentionally been attempting to change who you were. Just so she could impress some stupid Boiling Isles elite.

“You’re right. I take full responsibility for how I acted tonight. How can I make it up to you?” Lilith said softly.

“You… You get to take care of Ivy for two weeks. Or until you’ve earned her forgiveness. Once you’ve earned hers, you’ll earn mine.”

Your girlfriend’s eyes widened as she looked at the creature. Narrowed eyes glared back at her. This was not going to be easy. But still, she steeled herself and accepted your terms.

How bad could two weeks possibly be?

———

Bad. Very bad.

Lilith replaced nearly all of her dresses and even had to get a haircut. Ivy refused to make the two weeks easy. She singed, clawed, and even ripped up whatever of Lilith’s she could find. The hair was an accident.

You conveniently remained neutral. This was Lilith’s punishment, it did nothing if you told her what to do. So you watched from the sidelines, only intending to jump in if it became dangerous for either party.

Luckily, it never got to such a point. And you were happy to see Lilith and Ivy growing closer. The latter even went so far as to cuddle up to Lilith near the end, which the witch was happy about.

“So, did you learn from this experience?” You asked her that night, looking at her curiously.

“Yes.” She sighed.

“Oh come on, you love her. I know you do.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!” Lilith protested.

“Yeah? Then why did I see you giving her tummy rubs for ten minutes this morning, hm?” You asked.

She avoided your eyes, knowing she’d been caught. Against her better judgement she’d become attached to Ivy.

“I… tolerate her. At best.” She said finally.

“Whatever you say, honey.”

The two of you cuddled up together, smiles on your faces. Content to finally be on good terms once again. Ivy decided to join the moment too, which Lilith allowed, though she pretended to hate it.

The real kicker? Lilith’s outfits hadn’t been the only ones to face the wrath of Ivy’s teeth. You just hadn’t found out yet. All par for the course though… Right?

#lilith clawthorne #lilith x reader #lilith toh #lilith clawthorne imagine #the owl house #the owl house imagine #lilith clawthorne x reader #the owl house x reader #lilith the owl house #wlw #wlw imagine #jan2021 #multimilfswritings

[gay-otlc]

To Love Unafraid (With An Ugly, Poisonous Heart)

Summary: Fintan was silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, "The life of a pyrokinetic is a lonely one. It's hard to get close to people. When you do, it's too easy to hurt them. It's best to just isolate yourself from the good parts of society. If the council doesn't lock you up, you lock yourself up. I'm sorry you had to manifest this curse. I'm sorry you're turning into a monster like me."

(Or, Marella has OCD, and her intrusive thoughts feature hurting Biana.)

Word count: 3374

Content warnings: Wow, this is gonna be a long list. Um. Intrusive thoughts and depictions of OCD is the main one. Severe guilt and self loathing. Cursing. Fire and (imagined) death/murder. Mentions of suicidal thoughts and self harm. Generally disturbing. And yes, I did warn you that this would be fucked up.

Written for Marelliana week. Would probably fit under day two (nightmares) but also a free day. Whatever. It's all Marelliana. @marelliana-week

Read on AO3

Every time Marella looked into Biana's eyes a little too long, she thought she would catch on fire.

It wasn't her fault Biana was so... Biana. Were there really any words for how wonderful ae was? Beautiful, one could say, but that would barely cover it. Yes, Biana was so fucking beautiful, so beautiful it was unfair, with mahogany skin and a wide smile and stiff, dark hair with streaks of lavender. Marella had never been especially poetic, but she wanted to color Biana with adjectives and metaphors until the page reflected even a tenth of aer beauty.

She couldn't write that beautifully, though. She could only watch aer and think that if she could freeze time right then, she would be happy forever.

"You're staring again," Biana said, a hint of a laugh in aer voice.

"Sorry! You're just... you're just really pretty."

Ae looked down, cheeks turning pink. Sheepishly, ae scratched the back of aer neck. "Aww. Thanks. You're the sweetest."

Biana's lips are the sweetest. They'd only kissed a few times, and before then, Marella had thought nothing could taste better challah. She'd been proven wrong. At the thought, she noticed she'd been staring specifically at Biana's pink lips. She blushed harder, looking away. Until warm skin touched her hand, and wrapped fingers around hers. Marella looked back, surprised. Biana chuckled quietly, the prettiest smile on aer face. Marella brushed her thumb over aer knuckles, wondering how the hell she'd gotten so lucky as to date the princaess next to her.

And then the princaess burst into flames. Ae was a girl on fire, stunning. Ae looked like a phoenix, a mythical creature even for the elves. But aer face didn't look triumphant or majestic or beautiful. Just scared. And sad. Aer skin turned charred, angry red burns blistering across aer face. The girl Marella loved crumpled into ashes.

She blinked. Biana was back, alive, not on fire, beautiful as ever. But Marella couldn't appreciate aer beauty nearly as much, because the image of Biana burning was seared into her mind.

Do it. Do it. Burn aer. You know you want to.

Marella ripped her hand out of Biana's.

"Love? You alright?"

Deep breaths forced their way out of Marella's lungs. She clenched her fists so hard her nails painfully dug into her palms. "Yeah," she choked. "Don't feel well."

"Oh." Biana gave her a sympathetic look, and she squeezed her fists tighter. She didn't deserve Biana's sympathy. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

Let aer stay. Talk to aer. Don't push aer away.

"No," she replied forcefully; half a scream, half a sob. Hurt flashed across Biana's face, and Marella somehow felt even guiltier. If she could snap at aer like that, what would stopping her from getting just angry enough to really snap and... well... see the scared, sad, girl on fire once again. She took a deep breath, feeling tears rise to her eyes. She looked away. "No, I think I'm just going to lie down. Thanks, though."

"Okay." Biana still looked worried. If she could have, she would have comforted aer. But she didn't know exactly how to explain I'm not sick, I don't have some life threatening disease, I'm just getting horrible visions of murdering you and I'd prefer not to let those visions become reality, because I couldn't stand to lose you, and I don't think I could be responsible for that without burning away my ugly heart and soul as well.

Once Biana tore aer gaze away from the mess that ae had the misfortune to love, and light leaped away, Marella let herself crumble. She didn't even wait to get up to her room and hide under her blankets. Just let her knees collapse as she sank to the grassy yard in front of her house. Her shoulders shook with sobs. It felt like she would explode with anger and guilt and fear, and if she wasn't careful, the fire that exploded out of her would burn everything else in her life as well. All the things she cared about.

(Biana Vacker.)

She'd had thoughts like this before. Attacking people she was close to. Usually physically, but sometimes verbally. Still, that was all before she manifested. The worst she had ever thought about doing to anyone would have left a few bruises. Not like this.

Not a pile of ashes where a girl used to be.

When she was a kid, she'd been confident that her mother's accident was her fault, that she was the one to push Caprise Redek. She needed constant reassurance that she had been in a completely different room of the house at the time, that she couldn't possibly be responsible. Her dad thought it was a grief response, the guilt, the nightmares with false memories.

It could have been, if it was just a one off. But lately, Marella had begun to think there was some sort of monster living in her brain, whispering these horrible thoughts. Trying to convince her to carry out its wicked instructions. She would beat her head trying to force it out.

That didn't work, of course. And ever since Marella manifested, it felt like the monster was on fire. Bigger. More powerful. The monster was just an entity of flames, wanting to burn anything and everything that had the misfortune to be in Marella's path.

Sometimes Marella thought she was the monster.

And monsters didn't deserve to collapse on the front lawn crying, mourning the girl she used to be, who wasn't a danger to everyone around her. The girl she could have been, if she was just a little less twisted.

Glaring, jaw clenched, she stood up and swiped an arm across her face. She screamed as loudly as she could, trying to force the monster and the fire and all the poison out of her. Then she took a deep breath. She needed to talk to someone about this, because the secret, or the monster, or both, would eat her from the inside if she didn't let some of it out. Obviously, she couldn't tell Biana. Nor her dad- he didn't need to be more worried about her than he already was. Nor any of her friends, they had a hard enough time trusting her already.

Marella needed advice from someone who was just as dark and twisted as she was, so she could escape all the judgement. Someone who knew about monsters. And fire.

She needed advice from Fintan.

Reluctantly, she took out the leaping crystal that directed her to her much-dreaded training sessions with Fintan. Once the world materialized around her, she shivered. I'm never going to get used to the cold here.

Maybe it'll freeze out the monster.

Don't be ridiculous. The monster will never leave. The monster is you. The monster won't die unless you die.

Then maybe it would be best if-

"Marella?" Fintan's raspy voice said, interrupting Marella's spiral of thoughts swirling down the drain, slowly disappearing just like any goodness, or sanity, she had. "What are you doing here?"

"I-" Marella swallowed. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"What about your girlfriend's house?" Fintan asked, smirking a little. Marella really hadn't done a very good job of hiding that.

"I can't go to her. I'm too dangerous to be around her. If she's too close to me, she'll get hurt."

"Because you're a pyrokinetic?"

"Because I'm a monster."

"Please. If you were a 'monster', you wouldn't resist every time I suggested you join the Neverseen. You're disgustingly concerned with morals."

The words spilled out before Marella could stop them. "I'm also disgustingly obsessed with burning the love of my life to a pile of ashes!" Fintan stayed silent, and for a heartbeat, Marella thought, This is it. She was such a monster she even horrified Fintan. But her mouth kept talking, and her heart kept bleeding. "There's a monster in my head, that tells me to do really horrible things, like- like kill Biana, set her on fire until she can't survive me, and the more it goes on, the more I realize I'm the monster, it's my own actions. The monster tells me I want to do those things, and why would I think it if I didn't want to carry it out?"

"Do you want to hurt Biana?" Fintan asked, his voice calm and collected as ever. What a dickhead.

"I don't know!" Marella screamed, spinning around to punch the wall. Her knuckles split apart, droplets of blood appearing on them. "Part of me, part of me loves her more than anything else, can't stand to see her in even the least bit of pain. And the other part wants her to burn. And I don't know which part is real, or how to stop the second part. All I know is I can't be around her. I'm too dangerous."

Fintan was silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, "The life of a pyrokinetic is a lonely one. It's hard to get close to people. When you do, it's too easy to hurt them. It's best to just isolate yourself from the good parts of society. If the council doesn't lock you up, you lock yourself up. I'm sorry you had to manifest this curse. I'm sorry you're turning into a monster like me."

"I'm sorry too," said Marella, not quite knowing what she was apologizing for. And then she ran.

Where was she running to? She didn't know that. Just... away.

When she finally had to take a breath to catch her breath, calves burning and lungs aching, it finally occurred to her. Where the pyrokinetic monsters had to go. The only place in the world that the world could possibly be safe from her. She'd considered the Forbidden Cities, midway through her run, so she wouldn't hurt anyone she knew and cared about... but she could kill humans, and that was still monstrous. Same with any cities for the other intelligent species. If she was around people- any people- they'd be in danger.

Exile. She had to go to Exile. A place meant to keep the rest of the world safe from her.

But how the fuck do I get there?

Marella screamed. No one was allowed to hear her. She screamed, because she was so damn close to keeping everyone she loved safe, and at this last step she couldn't make it. How the fuck did she get to Exile? Did she turn herself in to the Council, have a tribunal? Would they lock her up? They fucking should. The Council had thrown innocent elves into Exile, they wouldn't mind banishing a Pyrokinetic with a fucked up brain.

To Eternalia, she supposed, since she didn't have many other options.

She leaped there, starting heading towards the Councillor's castle, barely able to focus on anything around her other than the screaming in her head and the thunderous beating of her ugly, poisoned heart. Which is how she didn't notice that there was a person right in her path... and how she managed to bump into them.

Aer.

Biana.

"Hey, watch where- Marella? Love? Are you alright?"

Just her luck, the person she needed to stay away from. "What are you doing here?" Marella blurted, before she could really think about it. It sounded harsh, and she saw the hurt flash across Biana's face.

Ae recovered quickly. "I was getting some work done for Team Valiant, since we weren't together; it's too hard to do it around you, your pretty face always distracts me." Under aer breath, ae mumbled something that sounded like Biana, you disastaer queer.

Normally, Marella was happy to laugh about being a disaster queer- a concept she was well acquainted with, but that was drowned out by the fact that Biana was still affectionate with her. Still found her pretty, wanted to date her, just as in love as ae was before. Why wouldn't ae be? Ae didn't know. But ae needed to know- it wasn't fair to keep lying to Biana, manipulate aer into thinking aer girlfriend was a good person.

"We need to break up," said the words spilling out of Marella's mouth. In horror, she watched as Biana's face fell, looking like slow motion. She could see the heartbreak dawn on aer, moment by moment.

Aer brown eyes filling with tears, ae whispered "Marella?"

"I- you can't- we- I need to go to Exile," Marella said. "We can't date if I'm in Exile."

"Why the fuck would you need to go to Exile? The fuck did you do?"

"Nothing yet. I'd like to keep it that way. Which is why I can't see you again."

"You're not making any sense, Marella!" The tears spilled onto aer cheeks, and whatever was left of Marella's ugly heart broke.

She didn't want to tell Biana. She really, really didn't want to look Biana in the eye and explain that she fantasized about killing aer. She would rather be anywhere else- preferably Exile- but Biana had a right to know why Marella was breaking up with aer. So she swallowed. "I... I get these thoughts," she started, not quite knowing how to verbalize this secret she'd kept so close to her forever. "About... hurting people. Hurting you. Earlier today, right before I left, I thought about killing you. Burning you. It was really vivid... I could see you on fire, looking so scared of me, before you turned to ashes and smoke. And then my brain whispered..."

Marella broke off into a sob, not daring to look at Biana's face. Ae probably hated her now. Ae hated herself too.

"It whispered, 'Do it. Burn aer. I know you want to.' I'm so fucked up, Biana, I'm too dangerous to be around you. Please just leave before you get hurt. I don't want to hurt you, but this monster that lives in my head wants me to. Or maybe the monster is me, it's all so fucked up, but I don't want to let the monster win, whatever it is. Protect yourself. Don't let it win."

"Marella..."

"Biana, please don't let it win! It would kill me to see you die, know it was all my fault... my heart's full of poison and seeing you die would still break it. I love you, I love you more than anything, which is why I have to keep you safe. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She turned away, almost crying too hard to speak. "I'm sorry. I'll just... I'll go."

Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist. "Not a chance in hell," snapped Biana, whirling Marella back around. "Don't you dare push me away. I am your girlfriend, and I call the shots on whether or not you're too dangerous to be around me. And the only danger you pose is trying to make my head explode from gay panic."

"Hello!? And also burning you!" Why the fuck couldn't ae understand? Ae needed to get away.

"I'll carry around a damn fire extinguisher, I don't care. I'm perfectly capable of handling myself in life or death situations. I've survived the Neverseen a million times over, I can survive the off chance that you lose control and set me on fire. I'll take precautions and I'll be ready to defend myself if I need to, but I don't think I'm going to need to."

"You don't know that! You don't know how horrible I am!" Marella couldn't stop screaming. She wasn't angry at Biana. Just angry at herself. Angry at the monster. Just... angry. She needed to stop before she set anything on fire. Monster.

"No, I don't know for sure that you'll never hurt me. But I know that I love you. I'm not going to stop loving you just because you're a flawed package. It's not like I'm little miss perfect or anything. We can be fucked up together."

"You're not perfect, but you're damn well closer than I am! Even Fintan thought I was fucked up. Fintan. I love you, Biana, I do, but my heart's too ugly and poisonous to be in love like we are. I just need to cut our ties and hope the pain from missing you goes away eventually."

"I love you, you fucking idiot!" Biana shouted. "I love you, because you're Marella fucking Redek, and you make me want to freeze time and be happy with you forever. I love you so much that it feels like burning any time I think of life without you in it. I love you so much that it feels like my world is a little bit off-kilter and then I kiss you and that's the only time everything feels right. I love you because you've been with me through all the shit in my life and made me smile through it all, so now it's my turn to help you with your shit. I love you so, so much, and I love everything about you. Even the flaws. Even the monster. I wish I could tell the monster to stay away from my Marella, but I can't, so I'm going to tell Marella to stop being so hard on my Marella. I love her, and she's not as bad as she thinks she is. She's not bad at all. I love everything about you, Marella, but I can't love you the way I want to if you keep pushing me away. So we'll be in love, and then we'll also have my scars and your monster and all our history with the Neverseen, but we'll love each other through it all. I need you to understand that I love you, you fucking idiot." Biana's eyes were wild with desperation. Ae exhaled heavily, giving Marella a pleading look.

"I love you," whispered Marella. It was all she could say before collapsing into a hug, crying. "I love you. I'm so sorry I tried to leave. You're the best. I love you."

"I want you to love yourself almost as much as I love you. You deserve it."

Maybe Marella would believe that, eventually. Maybe she'd get there.

She was still broken; how could she not be, with a monster living in her head? A little bit burnt, a little damaged, a little horrible. But she kept living. (Biana stayed alive and un-burnt too, to Marella's delighted surprise.) Her ugly, poisonous heart kept beating.

Elwin gave her a little pill to help keep the monster quiet, help keep her from freaking out so much every time the monster reared its fiery head. She eventually got to a point where she could make little fires with her hand and not spiral into a panic. Biana held her other hand as Marella lit the Hanukkah candles herself, and she was a bit scared, but it melted away with the laughter and latkes and warm lighting. It was hard not to push aer away; hard to keep herself from running away.

But Marella did it, because she loved Biana. And she loved herself, just a little bit. And she tolerated the monster. So she kept going, and she allowed herself to love Biana. To love unafraid, with an ugly, poisonous heart.

#ahem #anyway #that was... uh... #interesting #let's not speak of this again /j #this feels really personal but i worked hard on it so publishing anwyay #ocd tw #anxiety tw #self harm tw #suicide tw #intrusive thoughts tw #ocd!marella #obsessive compulsive disorder #anyway writing this i kept thinking about eda's journey with her curse #so shoutout to eda clawthorne #gotta be one of my favorite genders #marelliana #marella redek #kotlc #shai's writing #shai is so ocd #marelliana week 2021

[refinedbuffoonery]

Fridge Meeting

a MacRiley one-shot

In honor of reaching 100 followers (um, wow. thank you), here’s a surprise one-shot! 

*****

Mac dreamed about his almost death-by-missile more often than he cared to admit. Some piece of the dream changed every time, rarely repeating itself. 

Once, the missile crashed into Codex’s ranch house, killing everyone. 

Another time, he was in the war room, invisible, watching Matty pull the trigger herself. 

Or, Shiva didn’t work, and he and Riley were blasted to pieces before Matty could save them. 

Or, the missile malfunctioned and didn’t explode, instead slamming Riley and him into the ground hard enough that every bone in their bodies fractured, and he was forced to watch the life slowly drain from Riley’s eyes, their crushed fingers still interlaced. 

Or, when the missile came barreling toward him, instead of simply grabbing her hand, he crushed Riley into his chest, and they watched their death come closer and closer before careening upward at the last possible second. The missile detonated in the distance, and he kissed Riley fiercely as debris rained down, imbuing the kiss with his relief at being alive and his gratitude she was there with him. 

In the worst version, Riley didn’t save him, and he died alone, deemed a traitor. 

Tonight, a combination of Matty having an uncharacteristically itchy trigger finger and watching Riley die in his arms had him bolting upright, gasping for air. He blindly clawed his surroundings in a desperate attempt to find the life that had been ripped away from him too soon--from the world too soon--before realizing where he was. 

Soft gray sheets twisted in a heap at the end of the bed. Moonlight slipped through the gaps in the blinds. The only sound in the house was his own breathing. Mac reminded himself that he lived alone. Riley moved out and now had her own apartment, closer to the Phoenix. 

Mac knew she was fine, sleeping soundly in her own bed, but he couldn’t shake the urge to check in on her. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and shot her a text. Are you awake? 

To his surprise, her reply was almost immediate. Can’t sleep either, huh? 

Mac found himself sinking into the pillows, tension easing from his body. Bad dream. 

Want to talk about it? 

He typed and retyped his answer a few times. I don’t know. 

The three little dots appeared, then disappeared. Before Mac could wonder what was taking so long, his phone rang. He hit accept, and Riley’s face filled his screen, barely illuminated by the light streaming through her curtains. “Hey,” he breathed. 

Riley seemed to sit up. “Get up. We’re having a fridge meeting.” 

Mac made a face at her, then realized she couldn’t see it. “Fridge meeting?” 

“Yep. Since I’m not there to catch you raiding the fridge in the middle of the night in person, this will have to do.” Her voice softened. “Come on,” she urged. “Kitchen.” Mac smiled at the ridiculousness of it all and obeyed. 

He grabbed a flashlight before sitting on the kitchen floor, slouched against the fridge. He switched the flashlight on, holding it under his chin like he was about to launch into a ghost story. 

Riley laughed. “Hang on.” He heard her rummaging through a drawer. She must’ve knocked something out, because he heard the unmistakable sound of metal clattering on a hardwood floor, accompanied by Riley swearing. A few seconds later, her own flashlight switched on. 

Mac studied the way the light and shadows exaggerated the angles and planes of her face. Her lips still curved in a forced smile, but no amount of strained laughter and bad lighting could hide the hollow look in her eyes. The same look, Mac knew, was mirrored in his own. 

“So why can’t you sleep?” he asked. 

“I just…” Her voice was quiet. So, so quiet. “...can’t anymore.” Mac said nothing, giving her space to sort through what she was willing to confess. She continued, “The only way I can sleep anymore is if I run myself ragged first--work a long mission with no sleep, let Desi beat the shit out of me in the sparring ring, stay up all night at the Phoenix working on some think tank project, stuff like that. Otherwise, it all catches up with you, you know? The fear, the anxiety, the nightmares…” She trailed off. 

“Yeah, I understand.” He cursed himself for not picking up Riley’s situation sooner. Like him, she was a workaholic, but she’d thrown herself into work even more than normal lately. And, since he only lived with her while the end of the world loomed over their heads, he never stopped to consider that maybe being awake at all hours of the night wasn’t normal for her. Mac felt stupid for not realizing. She always knew where his head was at, after all. 

The only thing he could do right now was offer up a piece of himself. A truth for a truth. 

He began, “Every night, I dream of some past mission going horribly wrong. Sometimes it’s something I can control, sometimes it’s something I can’t. I don’t sleep afterward. Instead, I spend the rest of the night trying to fix what went wrong, whether it’s rebuilding something that didn’t work, or researching something I didn’t know, or going for a run because I just wasn’t fast enough to save…” You, he almost said. Wasn’t fast enough to save you. “...us,” he finished. 

Riley was silent for a few seconds before she said, “I love this job, but I’m starting to realize that the price we pay for saving the world is our own destruction.” 

Mac thought about all the people he’d lost to the job--his parents, his aunt, Jack (sort of), Phoenix agents, Army buddies, innocent lives he couldn’t save. Those losses, and the truth about some of those losses, threatened to smother him on a daily basis. 

Maybe he was only able to cheat Death so often because Death had already taken so much from him. And would continue to take from him. 

All he could say to Riley was a murmured, “Yeah.” 

Heavy silence fell between them. 

“You can come over if you don’t want to be alone,” Riley finally said. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. We can get doughnuts from the twenty four hour place down the street.” 

Mac snorted. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

#macgyver #macriley #mac x riley #angus macgyver #riley davis #fluff #oneshot #macgyver fanfiction

[yourdeepestfathoms]

what did the chickadee and phoenix say to the hybrid?

this was supposed to be a short snippet,,,,,,, anyway, Lydia meets the Maitlands but make it the ~wing au~

----------------------------------------

  “Greeting ghosts,” Said the strange little fledging that entered the attic. “I am Lydia Deetz. Do not be afraid.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of us?” Barbara asked.

  “Because you aren’t scary,” Lydia said. “I mean, look at me in comparison.” She spread her sagging wings (did she ever lift them?), and Barbara realized there were four of them. “I’m probably the freakiest thing to ever walk among the avians. You got competition.”

Realization dawned on Barbara, but Adam got to it first.

  “You’re a hybrid!” Her husband yelled, nearly flinging his sheet right off of him when he pointed to Lydia.

  “Adam!” Barbara scolded.

  “No, it’s okay,” Lydia said. “I prefer the term ‘hybrid’ over ‘mutant’ and ‘monster.’”

  “I was gonna say it’s rude to point,” Barbara said, pushing Adam’s hand down.

  “Ah,” Lydia nodded. “But yes. I am a hybrid. In the blood. Unfortunately.”

She spread her wings in a mock bow to them, and Barbara could see veins of white riddling the insides of the upper pair. She then winced, fangs flashing in the dim attic light when she grimaced in obvious pain, and let her wings go limp. They landed in a heap on the ground, strewn out like scraps of ruined cloth.

  “Are you alright?” Barbara asked worriedly, feeling a flash of maternal instincts zip through her like lightning.

  “Fine,” Lydia answered before the question could completely leave Barbara’s mouth, as if it were normal for her to brush off her discomfort when around other people. She shuffled her feet and tilted her head at Barbara and Adam. “Why are you in sheets?”

  “We were trying to scare you,” Adam told her.

  “You’re not doing a very good job,” Lydia said. “What do you look like under there? Are you horribly disfigured?” Her shoulders lifted, but her big bat ears remained completely drooped. “Are you like me? May I see?”

Barbara and Adam took off their sheets. Lydia’s expression dimmed.

  “Oh,” Lydia seemed disappointed. “You’re pureblooded.” She sniffed. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Adam said. “I’m Adam, this is Barbara.”

  “Oh, woah,” Lydia’s eyes dilated hugely, like a cat that just saw its owner’s foot move under the blankets. “You’re so shiny.”

Barbara blinked, then realized Lydia was talking about her. Even in death, her feathers continued to glow like fire. She extended one of her wings to Lydia.

  “You can touch them, if you’d like.”

Lydia looked up at her in shock. “Really? You’re not afraid of me, like, contaminating you?”

  “No...”

  “Or infecting you with my ‘dirty blood’?”

  “No.”

  “Or ripping your wings out of your back like I’m a feral WingEater because I’m jealous of how pretty and normal you are and want to ruin all purebreds in an envious rage?”

  “No! Do people really say that stuff to you?!”

Lydia actually laughed. “Wow, you really haven’t met a hybrid before.” She shuffled her feet. “But-- I can really touch them?”

Barbara smiled warmly at her. “Of course, sweetheart.” She nudged her wing closer. “Go on. I promise I don’t have Drop Feather Fever.”

  “Even if you did, I don’t have feathers!” Lydia said, then reached out and brushed Barbara’s wing. Her touch was light and gentle, as if she were worried she may hurt her new friend, and her short, stubby claws tickled against the skin beneath the feathers. “Wow... They’re so soft! And warm!”

  “Yup!” Adam strode over, looking proud. “You, little bat-moth, are looking at a real Phoenix Avem! WAIT--”

Lydia leapt backwards and the mane of yellow-orange flannel moth fur around her neck and chest bristled like a startled cat.

  “YOU CAN SEE US?!” Adam yelled.

It was only then that Barbara realized that Lydia shouldn’t have been able to see her or Adam. She had been so distracted by the adorable fledgling that it hadn’t dawned on her at all.

  “Uhh,” Lydia’s fur settled. “Yeah?”

  “But we were told that the living ignore the strange and usual,” Adam said.

  “Well, perhaps it’s because I, myself, am strange and unusual,” Lydia said. “Also all of my internal organs are purple and I can’t have a period due to a ‘compromised reproductive system caused by faulty genetics,’ so I’m not exactly very far from the boat you’re rocking in.”

  “Trust me, sweetie, the no period thing is a blessing,” Barbara said.

  “Everything else is a curse, though,” Lydia said with a sad smile.

Barbara frowned at that, but before she could press on what she meant, Adam stepped in.

  “Okay, well, since you can see us, do you mind leaving and never coming back?”

  “Adam!” Barbara flared. She thought of not seeing this little girl again, and it made a cold pit open up inside of her and she couldn’t really explain why.

  “Not her,” Adam said quickly. “Her family!”

Lydia scoffed. “We’re not a family.” She sounded a touch offended. “We’re father, daughter, and Delia.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Barbara inquired, “Your mother, she...?”

Just when Barbara thought Lydia’s ears couldn’t droop any further, they somehow got even lower.

  “She... She’s dead...”

Adam grimaced. Barbara’s wings tensed against her back for bringing such a traumatic experience up.

The good news, though, was that the role of mother was up for the taking. And since Lydia clearly felt anything but a parental bond with that Delia woman, Barbara knew it was at good as hers.

She could feel the mammary feathers and nesting season hormones coming in already! Literally. She imprinted on Lydia when she touched her wing. That was her chick now.

  “Oh, honey,” Barbara murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Lydia shook her head, making her ears slap around her face. She gazed around the attic with sparkling eyes, as if she were holding back tears.

  “She would have loved this place,” Lydia said. “She was Vesper! Which, you know, explains,” She gestured to herself. “She would call me her ‘weird little moon,’ but it was never in a mean way. And we used to have our own little full moon festivals so I would grow up with proper Vesper traditions and culture! We would hang up all the blankets in the house on the trees and make these forts that we would burrow in and watch the moon from. She taught me how to properly pray to Valtiel and everything! And we would do the moon dances on the ground because I can’t fly, but she made the effort to learn how to for me. We couldn’t actually go to the festivals, though, because,” She gestured again. “She worried about me all the time and didn’t let me do a lot of things, but what we did do was amazing.” She then blinked out of her daze and shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bore you talking about my mom.”

  “No, it’s okay!” Barbara assured her. “We don’t mind!”

  “Really?” Lydia tilted her head and her ears flopped over with the movement. “‘Cause my dad never wants me to talk about her. It’s basically against the law in the house. Among many things.” She raised her wings slightly and did a voice that was apparently supposed to be her cicada Cimex father, “‘Lydia, no talking about your mom! Lydia, no eating bugs, it’s weird and basically cannibalism! Lydia, no coming around me because even though I say I’m trying to change my views of you I still see you as an unrepentant monster who I fear will eat my throat out while I’m sleeping and it makes me guilty not because the way I think of you but because I fear of what you’ll do to society and I was the one who brought you into the world to wreak suck destruction on civilization!’”

Barbara and Adam stared at her in shock.

  “Dads, am I right?”

  “That’s…very concerning,” Adam said.

Lydia shrugged nonchalantly. “Everything about my existence is concerning, so…” Her face then scrunched up and she pressed her floppy ears against the sides of her head like she was trying to keep out a noise that Barbara and Adam’s Avem ears couldn’t pick up. “Oh, ow. Stop worrying so loudly! I’m okay! I’m, like, basically immune to it at this point!”

Barbara and Adam both blinked in confusion, but then Barbara understood.

  “You’re a mind reader.”

Lydia pulled her hands away and smiled slightly. “In the flesh.”

Barbara wondered what that was like--

  “It’s pretty cool, actually.”

--to hear everyone’s thoughts, all the different ways they thought about you and judged you, possibly pretending they liked you when really they hated your guts.

  “When you put it like that…”

  “You surprise me more and more, Lydia,” Adam said.

  “Better than scaring you,” Lydia said. “You guys are really cool. I like you. You’re probably the best thing about this stupid house.”

  “This house is not stupid!” Adam blustered. He grabbed Lydia by the shoulders, making them lurch and the moth fur bristle, and spun her around to him so he could scold her. “It’s a classic Victiorian-- OWW!!!”

Adam ripped away from Lydia as if he had touched fire, while Lydia shrunk away, instinctively wrapping her wings around herself. Adam shook his hands in the air while flapping his wings in obvious distress. 

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! What HAPPENED?” Adam yelped.

  “Sorry,” Lydia whispered. 

  “Are you okay?” Barbara asked her husband. He splayed his hands open for her, and she winced when she saw angry red blisters starting to form all across his palms. “Oh.”

  “It isn’t lethal!” Lydia said, and she sounded very meek compared to the snarky girl that had been talking a few seconds before. “Well, I don’t think it is… But you���re dead, so it’s okay! The pain will go away within a few hours!”

  “HOURS?!” Adam squawked, as if he were a parrot and not a chickadee. He made a woeful noise. “Just cut my hands off!”

Lydia’s ears drooped even lower. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Maitland. I should have told you.”

  “That your really soft fur is EVIL?” Adam said, and Barbara knew he was playing with Lydia, now. However, the little fledgling didn’t seem to realize because she still looked anxious.

  “It’s-- I take after the moth my Cimex side is from. A southern flannel. The worms have venomous hairs, so…” Lydia fluffed her collar of fur. “I do, too. And they sting pretty badly. But not all the time! Only when I bristle them. Thank the goddesses.” She shuffled her feet. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” Adam assured her. “A little blistering never hurt anyone. Oh, look, boils! Wonderful!” He laughed. “It builds character!”

Lydia cracked a small smile at that. When her nervousness didn’t recede, Barbara opened one wing to her, beckoning her to come closer. After a moment of shock and delight, gauging if it were a trap, Lydia skittered over and burrowed herself into Barbara’s feathers.

She fit perfectly. 

#wing au #i feel like i wrote lydia wrong?? #like i made her too meek during the end? #idk #go easy on me this is my first fic for this fandom #and it wasn't even supposed to be a fic lol #i just got carried away #beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice the broadway musical #beetlejuice the movie #lydia deetz #barbara maitland #adam maitland #beetlejuice au #beetlejuice fic #beetlejuice fanfiction

[ressyfaerie]

Fic idea: Max goes to build a bear/a squishmallow store and makes a personalised teddy for each of the team then proudly gifts them. Just because he walked past the store & this pure boy decided it was about time they all had matching (yet personalised) items

This is SO CUTE. If I don’t draw them can someone else draw their personal teddy bears? Pleaaaaase

“I got everyone presents!”

“Presents!?” Tyson jumped from the couch.

Max had just returned from visiting his Mom in America. He had two large suitcases he hadn’t opened yet. The team were all dying to see what was inside. To Tyson’s delight, they were presents for everyone.

Max plopped one of the heavy suitcases on the floor, Ray helped him with the second one.

Max unzipped them while wearing a huge grin. He passed everyone packages.

“Here you go, Tyson!” He gave him a box wrapped in shiny blue paper.

“Wow! Thanks buddy!”

“Ray!” Max tossed him a matching green box.

Ray smiled, “Thanks!”

“Kenny!” Max tossed Kenny a box, he panicked and grabbed it in midair before it smashed his laptop.

“H—hey! Watch the electronics!”

“Sorry!” Max grasped another package, “here you go Sir. Grumps a lot!”

He tossed it to Kai who was sitting on the very edge of the couch.

Kai nodded, and mumbled a quick “thank you.”

Tyson had already ripped into the present. Ray delicately unwrapped his, while Kenny peeled back corners of the tape. Kai sat back watching for a minute.

“Come on guys! Tear them open!” Max poked a hole into the package on Kenny’s lap.

“I was trying to keep the wrapping nice!”

Tyson had the wrapping torn off his, the shiny blue paper was thrown in a pile beside him.

It was a cardboard box, he shook it—no noise.

“What the hell is in here, Max?” Tyson whined.

“Open it!”

Everyone was holding their cardboard boxes. They all opened them at once with a signal from Max.

Kenny was the first to voice his excitement.

“Cool!”

“Stuffed animals?” Ray seemed confused at first, but when he held up his stuffed tiger he smiled.

“These are sweet, Max!” Tyson cradled his new stuffy.

“I thought you guys would like them!”

Kai let a slight grin appear at the corner of his mouth, “how did you get a phoenix?”

Max smiled, “they’re custom made!”

“Wow! They must have cost you a pretty penny!” Kenny propped his new stuffed frog on his laptop.

The blonde shrugged his shoulder, “Meh, my Mom’s loaded.”

Ray inspected his white tiger stuffy, “these things are so detailed! You did a great job!”

Max became flustered, “Heh, thanks!”

Tyson pointed to his dragon, “this looks exactly like Dragoon!”

“I’m glad you think so! I tried really hard, they didn’t have a dragon mold that looked like him so I based it off a snake.” Max rubbed his neck embarrassed.

“It’s so cool! I think I’ll call him… Micro Dragoon.”

Kai placed his red phoenix stuffy on his lap, “Dranzer… V2.”

“Wow, how creative, Kai.” Tyson teased.

Kenny patted his frog like a small animal, “Did you get me a frog because of Hopper?”

“Yep!”

Kenny smiled, “I’m going to call him Frogger.”

They looked to Ray, who hadn’t named his yet.

“Well, I’m going to name mine…”

They all leaned in.

“It’s a white tiger so… Snowy?”

They hollered in disappointed laughter.

“Did you get one for yourself, Max?”

“Yeah!” Max opened a suitcase. He pulled out a green stuffed animal, “a turtle!”

They tried to suppress giggles.

“What? I like turtles…”

“Yes, we know, he’s very cute.” Tyson managed to stop laughing.

Max pulled his phone from his pocket, “Can we put them all in a group and take a picture?”

And they did, Max uploaded the picture to his Maxagram immediately.

One big happy family.

#CUTE YALL #beyblade #found family #ressyfaerie #ressyfaerie fic #fic #request

[luca-moreno]

from X

Luca hunches over a spread of bolts and tools and bits of recon drone scattered across the surface of the mess table.

“Hey,” Harris complains as she piles in with Thurman and Braun behind her. “We eat here.”

Luca doesn’t get a chance to answer before Thurman pulls him into a friendly headlock and ruffles his hair. “You’d better not get grease all over the cutlery, Luca.”

“What do you care, you don’t use it anyway,” he gripes, squirming out of Thurman’s grasp. He shoves him and Thurman moves away, laughing to himself as he digs around in the lockers for a snack.

“Why are you working in here,” Braun leans over his shoulder to peer at the disassembled drone Luca has on the table. “There’s a workshop in the cargo bay.”

Luca shrugs and hunches over further, avoiding his eye. “It’s too quiet down there.”

“Aw,” Braun throws an arm around Luca’s shoulders and squeezes and Luca hugs him back simply because Braun is big and cuddly and there’s not nearly enough hugs in his life. “You come and get me if you want company, no?”

“Sure,” Luca grins when Braun releases him. There’s a flurry of activity as his squad mates rummage around in the lockers for protein bars and coffee and then they’re gone again and Luca turns back to his work. He’s lost in a maze of circuits and wires and fumbling with tools when a frizzle of electricity bolts up his arm and he yelps, throwing the circuits away and shoving his zapped finger into his mouth. He sucks on his finger frantically.

“You okay, kid?”

Luca looks up to see Zeus in the doorway. “Yeah,” he pulls his finger out of his mouth and shakes it. It seems okay, the skin isn’t singed, although he can still feel the buzz in his teeth. “And don’t call me kid.”

Zeus seems to find that amusing. A sound that’s not quite a chuckle and halfway to a grunt rumbles out of his chest. “What should I call you then?”

“Uh, my name?” Luca glares. “Luca. Loo. Ka.”

Zeus’s mouth twitches and Luca wonders if he’s trying not to smile, except this is Zeus and Harris swears black and blue that Zeus doesn’t smile. Ever. At least only at the Commander and even then it’s small and predatory and Luca knows he’s only thinking about doing-

Nope. Not gonna think about his Commander’s sex life. Just… no.

“Luca,” Zeus rumbles and he turns to the galley counter and ignores him.

Luca scowls to himself and goes back to his work, except that he keeps sneaking glances at Zeus out of the corner of his eye. It’s weird, he thinks. He had expected the phoenix to be all mean and huge and scary but they’re not. Some of them were kind of nice and actually friendly and it’s so far removed from the whispers amongst the fleet that Luca is still coming to terms with it.

He knew, on some level, because his Commander is practically married to one, but the reality still makes his head spin a little.

A few more moments go by as he mulls on it then he drops his screwdriver with a clatter to the table.

“Why are you all so different?”

Zeus has his back to him, stirring something on the stove but the motion of his arm pauses as he half glances over his shoulder. “What?”

“You phoenix,” Luca blurts. “I thought you were like… I dunno, supposed to be humanity’s sword or evolution or something. All big and scary and…”

Luca has a vague recollection of Ben that night at Marie’s party, bright green eyes shining under the glow of Flux’s lights and wow, could he dance. Maybe Luca had even tried to kiss him at some point in the club, after he had grinned stupidly at the vanguard’s introduction and dragged him onto the dancefloor and he’s mortified to realise he doesn’t remember. But he’d wanted to. And now the vanguard in question is on board the Berlin along with the others, barefoot during the captain’s speech and Luca was too chagrined by his over exuberance that night to even look at him in case Ben could read every embarrassing detail of Luca’s sudden crush in his eyes.

It's a big ship, but it’s not that big and he’s not going to be able to avoid him forever. Luca drops his head and groans at the thought.

“Why are you asking me?” Zeus mutters and it’s not an answer. Not the one Luca wants.

“Well I can’t ask Ajax, he might try to bite me just because I looked at him.”

Zeus’s snort makes Luca grin. He jabs a finger in Zeus’s direction.  “See, you know it’s true.”

“Ajax is alright,” Zeus says after a moment.

“Don’t say he’s all bark and no bite because we know that’s a lie.”

“No, he’d enjoy ripping your throat out.”

“Yeah,” Luca exhales slowly and uncomfortably. “Okay, so I am not going to be bunking with him. What about the other one?”

Zeus eyes him warily and Luca huffs and waves his hand vaguely. “The... what’s his name again? Mason?”

“What about him?”

“Can I… Can I talk to him? Because this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had and I’m pretty sure you’re about to use up your quota of words for today and then the commander is gonna come in and yell at me and-“

Luca trails off when Zeus slides something under Lucas nose that's hot and fragrant and oh my god, his mouth is watering already.

“Eat up, kid,” Zeus tells him gruffly. “You're going to need your strength for what’s coming.”

#SSV Berlin #nico morrisini #scooter roosevelt #luca moreno #squad shenanigans #idk luca was just suddenly talkative #but then when is he not #italian nonna Nico lolol #maddox gibbons

[unsteadygalaxy]

all is soft inside chapter 10

a miragehound multichapter fanfiction

Also posted on Ao3; my username is the same there!

previous | next

10. feet won’t fail you now

CW: blood, match violence

Elliott lands hard, the impact sending shockwaves through his feet and legs. His heart immediately starts to pound- three sets of footsteps echo around him and he dives into the nearest building. He scoops up a Prowler, inserts a nearby HCOG scope, and just as he’s finishing up, the door in front of him flies open.

He breathes, steadying his aim, and pulls the trigger five times, sending an entire clip directly into a Legend hopeful’s head. The poor man’s face turns white and he immediately drops to the ground. Mirage lets out a whoosh of breath, and finishes him off. He’s got two heavy ammo boxes and a level one backpack, which he quickly takes. Another set of footsteps quickly approaches, and Mirage reloads the Prowler. 

The other door bangs open, and just as Mirage turns around, Revenant fires an Eva-8 right at him. Two rounds of double-fire pellets rip into Elliott’s chest and neck, and to his horror, he falls to the ground, bleeding and gasping. Shit! No! It can’t end like this! 

“Hey, uh, need help,” he gags into his earpiece, blood pouring from his mouth. Revenant picks up a crate of shotgun ammo and leaves, reloading his Eva-8 as he goes.

“Damn, Witt, lose that winning energy so quick?” Octane teases over the comms, and Elliott can hear more gunfire in the background. 

“Oh, you know,” he chokes, “it’s kind of hard to win when you immediately get downed by a goddamn murderbot!” His hands are slick with red and he’s fading fast, and he wants to throw up.

A giant smoke grenade comes careening through the door, and Elliott’s vision is immediately obscured. He presses his hands to his wounds, trying desperately to keep the pressure on so he doesn’t bleed out. “Williams, coming to my rescue? You shouldn’t have,” he says, and he coughs up a glob of blood that splatters across the floor. 

“Shut up and let me focus, Witt!!” Anita’s voice is commanding and harsh over the earpiece, and it shuts Elliott right up.

Just as his vision starts to go fuzzy, he hears a percussive beat of bullets close by, and Revenant screams, his modulated voice garbled with rage. “Get back here, you coward!” Anita yells. “Damn you!” Elliott loses track of how much time passes, but just before he passes out, something sharp plunges directly into his heart. “Fuck!” he yells, and his body jolts painfully, sending his arms and legs flailing. Adrenaline and heat surge through his veins, painfully clotting and repairing his wounds. A rush wallops his head and Anita drags him to his feet.

“Come on, Witt, get off your ass and give us a hand, would you?” She’s panting hard as she sticks a syringe into her wrist. Elliott grabs the wall for support as a wave of nausea flows through him, threatening to overturn his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks, Williams,” he chokes out, spitting out the last of the blood. “How many are left?”

“Two, by my count. Revenant got away, and he’s still got a teammate somewhere. Looks like you took care of their third.” She nods over at him, seemingly satisfied with his work. Anita had consistently been the toughest to crack- Elliott had not yet made her laugh to this day- so he would take what he could get.

“Yep, wasn’t a problem,” he says flippantly, shrugging as picks up a nearby shield cell. “Poor guy went down faster than- faster than… uh, poor guy went down fast.” His cheeks burn at his failed attempt at some sort of joke, and Anita’s deadpan expression tells him she’s not amused, either. 

She tosses him a Phoenix Kit, and he fumbles it a little before shoving his arm into it. “Not the time. Joke around later. He’ll be coming back for us any second now.” Her voice is short, and it stings Elliott’s ego a little. 

The Kit depletes with a hissing noise, and Elliott is good to go. He reloads his Prowler with shaking fingers. “Hey, let me get Revenant,” Elliott says, readjusting his backpack against his shoulders. “Gotta pay the son-of-a-bitch back. You go help Octane with… whatever he’s doing.” “Sure you can handle yourself?” Anita sounds skeptical, and her eyebrows are raised as she reloads her weapons. “Me?” He forces an incredulous laugh. “Of course I can! Didn’t you see how well I kicked his ass the other day? This’ll be a walk in the park.” He hops up and down on the balls of his feet, still feeling a little faint from being brought back from the brink. 

“All right.” Anita shrugs and gives her weapon one last check, and she’s out the door before he knows it. She probably just wants to see me get my ass handed to me, he thinks, but it’s not a big deal. He wants to prove her wrong.

Sure enough, the sound of robotic footsteps pounds ominously against the pavement outside. Elliott casts a decoy and stations it next to the door, hoping to buy him a few more seconds. Shnk! An arc star slams into the already fragile door and begins to whine. Elliott throws himself backwards, deeper into the building, and shields his face against the explosion. The door disintegrates into bits, and the sound is deafening in his ears. An orange silencer hits the ground with a sinister whoosh, and Elliott backs up more, leveling his Prowler as his decoy dissipates into the air. 

Revenant charges through the open door and through his silencer, hefting his Eva-8 once more. Elliott fires the Prowler, and the bullets smatter against the simulacrum’s shoulders, barely missing his head. Elliott curses under his breath and dodges out of the way as a volley of pellets exits Revenant’s gun. The bullets connect with his shoulder and arm and Elliott cries out in pain. He casts a decoy and sends it running right at Revenant to give himself more time to reload. Revenant grunts in frustration and nearly pulls the trigger again just as Elliott takes aim. 

A full magazine of ammo assaults Revenant’s head and chest, and he goes down immediately, his shields melting into nothingness. “Damn you, skinsuit!” Revenant screams, trying to crawl away. But it’s no use- Elliott finishes Revenant off, sending another magazine of ammo right into his metal head.

“Murderbot down!” he shouts over the comms, heaving a sigh of relief. “What’s happening out there?” He loots Revenant’s backpack and heals up while he waits for an answer.

“Two squads down!” Octane crows, sounding extremely proud of himself. “You’re really missing all the fun out here, amigo!”

“Hey, I took care of Revenant, didn’t I?” Elliott replies indignantly as he plunges another syringe into his wrist. “You all should be thanking me.” He’s being cocky and he knows it, but it’s so much easier than admitting he fucked up in the heat of the moment.

“Sounds like you’re two for two with him, Witt,” Anita calls, breathing hard from her and Octane’s fight. “Good work. Keep it up.”

Elliott raises an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by Bangalore’s open praise. “Wow, thanks, Anita! I’m touched, really. You do have a heart.” “Don’t make me regret it, kid.”

“All right, all right, fine.” He smiles and zips up his backpack, and then realizes that Bangalore really isn’t that much older than him. “Hey!”

------------------------

kzzzhhhCRACK!

Shit.

A Sentinel bullet just barely misses Elliott’s nose, and he dives back under the scaffolding. His heart is racing and his pulse is pounding; this match has barely given him and his team time to breathe. They’ve just finished a ridiculous fight in which four different squads had piled up on each other, and he’s absolutely covered in blood and gunpowder. The only perk of continually fighting so many people is that he and Octane and Bangalore are fully kitted with every item they could need. Bangalore is taking a Phoenix kit and Octane is still for once, just getting finished with charging his shields. The banners report that there is only one other squad besides them, and Elliott is grateful. He’s had about enough of being third partied.  

Elliott reloads his Prowler with shaking fingers and checks his Triple Take. After making sure the digital sight is correctly slotted, he takes a deep breath and aims up towards Cage. Through the sights, he can see Wattson’s fences crackling around each of the entrances to the upper part of the tower. Caustic’s intimidating form glows red for a moment and then disappears behind the railings. Dammit, Elliott thinks. Wattson’s fences plus Caustic’s gas make for a deadly combination, and an annoying one at that. The only thing that made that duo worse was Bloodhound being on their team, and if that charged Sentinel shot was any indication, Elliott and his team had a miniscule chance of winning if they rushed the tower. 

“Who’s up there, amigo?” Octane asks, clearly ready to go. He’s literally vibrating with anticipation, and he makes Elliott exhausted just by looking at him. 

“Caustic, Natalie, and Bloodhound,” he sighs, and ducks back into cover. “They’re set up in there like it’s a goddamn fort. Gonna be impossible to charge up in there.” He wipes sweat from his forehead and leans back against one of the posts.

“Well, where’s the next Ring at?” Bangalore questions, pulling out her holomap. She pinches her fingers and zooms in on their location, squinting hard. “Damn,” she swears, and dread fills Elliott’s chest. “The top of Cage is just barely inside the next Ring.” She snaps the map shut angrily and stuffs it back into her pockets.

Octane swears under his breath. “Looks like today’s just not our day,” he says, itching at his cap. He stands and peeks up above their hiding spot, just barely poking out of cover. kzzzhhhCRACK! His body flies backwards, his helmet blinking out of existence, and he scrambles back down to them, sheepishly pulling out a shield battery.

Elliott groans, amused and frustrated. The chances of them feasibly winning this match are fading fast. There’s no way they’ll be able to get up there undetected, and the thought of fighting upwards made Elliott exhausted. He’s so tempted to just recklessly run in, but something stops him. 

Bloodhound wouldn’t give up, and neither should you.

He sighs, knowing it’s true. Bloodhound would find any way they could to dominate the situation and reshape it to their will. He’s jealous for the millionth time, and has to remind himself that Bloodhound is human and fallible too, even if he still doesn’t really believe it.

“All right, we’ve got a couple options,” Mirage says, rubbing his chin. “Either we wait them out, or we can charge up there head on before the Ring closes. Personally, I’d vote for smoking them out, but I’m not the one with the missiles.” He inclines his head towards Bangalore.

Anita considers this, then shakes her head. “Neither of them are ideal options. Waiting them out would give us the upper hand, but we could also take them by surprise by charging them now. We’d have to take out all the traps though.” She breaks off, still thinking intensely. “But if we wait for them to charge, we’ll have to deal with Bloodhound’s Ultimate plus Caustic’s gas. The next Ring is small enough that that’ll make the battlefield hard to navigate. Plus, my smoke will be pretty much useless. Bloodhound’s Eye will make sure of that.”

Elliott has to agree with that. He’s been trying to avoid thinking about them all day, but of course they’re on the last enemy squad. The way they had run out of the bar the night before made him extremely concerned, and his stomach churns when he thinks of how stiff and cold they had become. Elliott doesn’t completely know what he did wrong, but he knows he must have brought up something painful for them to leave as abruptly as they had. 

But the memory of holding their hands in his makes his cheeks burn a little. He remembers how their grief had rolled off of them in waves, and how he’d felt so utterly helpless. Still, he’d felt closer to them than ever before, even though they were separated across the bar. Their openness had intimidated him a little bit- they were so naturally talented at making him feel better, and reciprocating definitely wasn’t his forte. But most of all, he had been stunned to the core by what he had told them. He would never be able to look at Epicenter the same way again.

“Witt!” Anita barks, and the way she says it tells Elliott that it’s definitely not the first time she has called to him.

“Sorry, what?”

“Ring’s closing in 30,” she warns. “We’re charging up the tower. How many times do I have to tell you to get your head out of your ass?”

“At least a few times more,” he fires back, rolling his eyes. He’s frustrated, but mostly at himself for getting distracted. “Sorry. I’m good to go.”

Anita does not look convinced, but she just sighs and turns back to her map. “All right. I’ll call in my missiles. Ring should be small enough to cover the whole area. Silva, try to get behind them. Witt, you throw us some clones whenever you’ve got them. I’ll toss in some smoke to keep them blinded. We’ve all got at least one digital scope, so that should give us an edge once we get up top.” 

“Sounds good, amiga,” Octane agrees. “They won’t know what hit them!” He’s fidgeting with his butterfly knife, and Elliott is one hundred percent positive that Ajay is going to have to deal with his sliced fingers sooner or later.

Elliott nods as he flips on the full-auto mode on his Prowler. His limbs are aching and he’s drenched in sweat, but he’s determined to see this through. Anita’s plan is pretty solid, and he’s got few qualms with it. Her expertise on the battlefield is something he’s always been grateful for. Careful planning and meticulous strategy were certainly her strengths, and she regularly put his on-the-fly ideas to shame. 

She checks over her weapons and then pulls out her Ultimate grenade, just as a warning horn blares over the loudspeakers. “Let’s give them a show.”

The Ring moves swiftly, advancing across the plains of green grass with an ominous humming noise. Elliott only has a few seconds, but he peeks back through his sniper sights to see what’s happening in the tower. Bloodhound is still crouched next to the steel fences, and he’s sure they have an easy shot on him. But they don’t fire. They look away from their sights and shrug at him, as if to say, Show me what you are made of. A peculiar heat drops into his stomach.

He looks back through the sights for a split second, but his heart drops into his gut when he realizes they had forgotten something absolutely essential. “Anita, wait! Wattson’s py-”

But it’s too late- Bangalore cocks her arm back and lobs the canister forwards, a shower of red sparks whizzing through the air. Missiles crash into the ground, and Elliott groans out loud. “Shit,” he hisses, punching the ground next to him. As the missiles advance forward, brilliant sparks of blue arc out into the sky over a limited radius, zapping the rockets away like they’re nothing more than flies. 

Bangalore groans, immediately popping to her feet. “Come on, we’ve got to go!” She takes off running towards Cage, just barely ahead of the rockets as they begin to detonate. 

The ground starts to heave beneath his feet, and Elliott stumbles as he starts to run. Bangalore is much more accustomed to sprinting across the roiling earth, and she does so with ease and grace. Octane weaves in and out of the explosions at an inhuman pace, pulling out his jump pad as he goes. “Vamonos!” he cries gleefully, laughing as he soars into the air.

Elliott can barely keep up, and he can feel the heat at his back as he goes. He nearly trips and falls, but recovers at the last possible second. His entire body is killing him, and he can feel sweat running down his spine as he runs. God, this whole thing is starting to feel hopeless again. He can see it now- they’ll run up to Cage and Caustic will drop gas canisters everywhere, leaving them a minefield of fumes. Wattson will fence up all the entrances and neutralize their grenades, and Bloodhound will weave across the battlefield, taking Elliott’s team out without a second thought. He figures that Bangalore and Octane can easily hold their own for at least a while, but there is no plausible victory for him today. 

He’s never felt this hopeless, this reluctant to try and win a match, and it scares him a little. Elliott tries shoving the thoughts away- he doesn’t have time for his self-deprecating tendencies. But the doubt creeps into his veins and stubbornly sinks in its claws, making it really hard to think without immediately assuming the worst. He feels antsy, anxious to just get this over with and go back to his apartment above the bar to sulk for the rest of the day.

Show me what you are made of.

He swears he hears Bloodhound’s voice in his head, and the thought suddenly bolsters his confidence tenfold. Mirage throws a decoy out through the smoke ahead of him, hoping that Bloodhound takes notice of it and not him. Shifting the Prowler in his hands, he winces as the rockets nearest to him detonate, throwing him off balance again. They’re almost to Cage, and he starts to sprint towards the stairs on his left. G7 and Triple Take shots ring out towards him, narrowly missing his running form. He makes it to the steel tunnel and scrambles inside, holding his breath as the last few rockets explode. He hears the horrible screech of shredding metal, and takes bizarre comfort in knowing that the enemy team is that much more exposed up in the tower as the doors explode. A high pitched noise plays over the speakers, and he knows that the final Ring will soon begin to close.

I’ll show you.

“Where’s everyone at?” he hisses through the comms, his pulse roaring in his ears. He’s going to win this game if it kills him, dammit. 

“Ground floor,” Anita answers, and he hears her breathing hard. “Got hit by a couple bullets, but I’m healing up.”

“Second floor,” Octane says, not sounding tired in the slightest. “The rockets busted through a couple fences, so we’ve got an opening, but we gotta go fast.”

“Got it,” Elliott says, his mind whirring. “Williams, got any ideas?”

“Always,” she replies steadily. “Send out some decoys and try to join us down here. The zipline on the south side is still in the Ring, so we’ve got our point of entry. If we try to make it around to the other one, we’ll be toast. Only Silva has any chance of running in and out of the Ring and making it out alive.”

“Hell yeah, chica!” Octane laughs, ridiculously upbeat and much too excited for this. “I’ll be faster que un conejo!” 

Elliott’s minimal Spanish comes in clutch, and he rolls his eyes. “Sure, buddy. Just don’t get yourself killed up there. There’s a hunter waiting for you.” He checks over his weapons, and after considering it for a moment, he takes the digital threat sniper optics off of his Triple Take. He’s not going to need it now- they’ll be fighting in too close of quarters for him to be effective with it. Best shotgun in the Games, he thinks, laughing at his own joke.

“All right, coming for you guys in three, two, one!” Elliott sprints out of the tunnels, sending all of his decoys spiraling in different directions. As expected, bullets begin to pepper the ground around him as he runs towards an entrance. The Ring is blocking off the two low slats at the bottom of Cage, so he makes his way to the west side door. kzzzhhhCRACK! A Sentinel bullet collides with the top of his head, and he screams in pain, launching himself into the double doors. They give way, and he stumbles inside, slinging off his backpack as he goes. 

“S-shit,” he stutters, rooting through his bag for a Phoenix Kit. He locates one and stuffs his arm into it, his whole body shaking. Anita is there in an instant, tossing down a cover of smoke just in case any of the enemy team had decided to drop down to try and finish Elliott off. No such footsteps are heard, and Elliott breathes a sigh of relief.

Time is quickly running out, and the three of them really need to move. “Okay, we’ve gotta get up there fast. This is gonna suck, but I’d rather go down fighting,” he pants as the Kit finishes healing him. 

“Already on it!” Octane is somewhere above them, and Elliott hears the whirring noise of a zipline. He looks to Anita, who runs up the ramp and disappears out of sight. Elliott clambers to his feet and follows, willing his hands to stop shaking. 

“I’m gonna take out the doors!” Octane announces, and Elliott hears a frag grenade skip across the metal above him. There’s a huge boom, and the doors shred into bits, the noise of it wrenching through his ears. Gas hisses and spews just as Elliott clambers to the open third floor, and Octane begins to cough. “Dammit!”

The smaller man drops down to them via the zipline and immediately pops a shield cell. “I busted the traps, but Señor Apestoso just sent down more.” 

“It’s fine,” Anita replies shortly. “Is the pylon still up?”

“Yeah, but it’s out of the Ring, so the circle barely reaches them.” 

“Can you shoot it down?”

“No, it’s in a really weird spot. Kind of hiding up there. You gotta be in the middle of the room to shoot it down, and that’s a no go.”

Anita swears, but Elliott smiles, a fantastic idea popping into his head. “Not a problem. Let’s get back up there and send in some distractions,” he says. He hopes to God that things work in their favor, and he readies his Prowler before jumping to the zipline. 

His jump pack carries him up, and as he lands he dives to the right, dangerously close to the wall of the Ring. Both doors have indeed been demolished, and so has Wattson’s fence. One post still sits next to the opening, barely blocked by two of Caustic’s gas traps. Elliott shoots the traps down, but a third one comes flying down to take its place. He’s too close to it, and it goes off, releasing fumes everywhere. Gas clouds his vision and chokes his lungs, and he tries desperately to back up enough to be out of it, but the Ring is too close. Sticking a syringe into his wrist, he dips out of the Ring for just a moment. The orange energy field bites into his skin, and he groans in pain, every nerve on fire. Damn, Natalie, way to go, he thinks wildly. Even in the middle of a match, he can still admire his friends’ expertise and genius, and Wattson’s engineering of the Ring is no exception.

The gas cloud dissipates and Anita and Octavio zip up, landing beside him. She shoots in a canister of smoke, and Elliott acts immediately. A decoy sprints through the busted doors, stopping just short of the edge of the Ring. Octane dashes into the room after sticking a stim into his veins, a green blur of activity that Elliott can’t quite follow. He skirts the edge of the Ring and throws a frag up onto the top floor, but it’s zapped away by Wattson’s pylon. A tattoo of bullets beats down onto the metal, and Elliott cringes, willing Octane to get out of there as his decoy disappears in a shower of blue sparks.

“Octavio, come on!” he yells. But Octane is fast, of course- he weaves through the barrage of fire with ease and comes skidding to a stop just outside the doors.

“Told you, amigo!”

“Not the time!” Elliott says, his heart pounding. Anita shoots in another canister and Elliott puts his plan into motion.

Another decoy runs lazily across the floor with a snap of Elliott’s fingers, and pretends to check the pouches in its belt. The three enemies upstairs do not shoot, having caught on to Mirage’s tricks. Anita sneaks in behind it, examines the radius of Wattson’s pylon, and makes a calculated throw with an arc star. To Elliott’s delight, it slips up above them and connects with Caustic’s foot before spectacularly exploding in a wave of dizzying energy. Elliott feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he takes advantage of the distraction.

He aims his Prowler up and fires, and the pylon crumples to the ground in a series of deafening crackling noises. His decoy hadn’t been a decoy at all, and the adrenaline of his plan actually working floods into his chest like a rush of water. His celebration is short-lived though- the sting of bullets begins to slam across his shoulders, and he releases all of his decoys. The cloaking does its job, and he takes a brief moment to hurl a thermite grenade up above him before sprinting out the doors. Wattson’s fences putter out, roasted by the flames, and Elliott breathes a sigh of relief. 

He cheers out loud as he heals up, his body shaking in delight and shock. It had actually worked! But the job was not over yet- even though he can hear the other team groaning in pain up above him, he knows they still have to finish them off. 

“Let’s go!” Anita calls, and she ascends the zipline, closely followed by Octane. Elliott rounds the corner, reloading his Prowler. Just as he makes it to the zipline,  Caustic throws down another trap, which Elliott narrowly avoids before shooting down. 

The steady chak-chak-chak of a hopped up P2020 rings through the air, and a collection of bullets from Octane’s gun collides with Caustic’s face and chest. Octavio moves to reload, but Nox catches him with a deadly Mastiff shot straight to the head, shattering the smaller man’s shields. Elliott ascends the zipline and unleashes a full clip of ammo into Caustic’s arms and neck, finishing him off quickly, but Octane takes a bullet from Wattson across the way, and he falls to the floor, unconscious. 

Anita fires a full clip of ammo into Wattson’s chest, and the engineer falls to the ground, wincing and gasping. She finishes her off, but the older woman breathes hard, clearly having taken a considerable amount of bullets from somewhere as Elliott was helping Octavio. Sure enough, the percussive barrage of an R-99 shatters the brief silence, and Anita falls to the ground, swearing. 

Bloodhound emerges from the opposite corner of the room, and Elliott does not hesitate. The warning horn of the closing Ring roars out, and Elliott leaps down from the upper level, knowing there’s absolutely zero chance of reviving Anita. A few quick bullets follow him, but Bloodhound is smart enough to not completely track his erratic movement. Elliott sprints across the floor and out the doors, throwing himself off the tower and onto the grass below.

He hits the ground running, ankles and knees screaming in protest, and he thanks his lucky stars that Bloodhound can’t keep the high ground. He hears them roar in that deep, otherworldly fashion, and his stomach drops straight into his toes. The Triple Take slides into his hands as he turns, and he watches in awe as Bloodhound leaps off the tower far more gracefully than he had, surrounded by crackling red energy. He backs up, takes aim, and fires twice, but the spread of bullets is too wide and each bullet whizzes past their glowing form. He has to remind himself not to stare- it’s not the time to dwell on how powerful and majestic they look, nor is it time to listen to how heavy they’re breathing and worry if they’re okay. Elliott fires again, and the shot connects, but a torrent of bullets smashes into his chest. He swears, fumbling the Prowler back into his hands. In a panic, he sends a decoy running straight at them to give him more time, but Bloodhound shoots it down. They bob and weave, taking a second to reload. 

Elliott takes his chance. He breathes deeply, centering himself, and aims the Prowler right at their head. Time seems to slow, just like it had with Revenant, and he applies the slightest bit of pressure to his trigger finger. The bullets fly out of the gun, and he doesn’t feel the recoil at all. Every bullet finds its mark on Bloodhound’s head, obliterating their golden helmet and sinking into their mask.

Bloodhound drops to the ground and convulses for a moment before going horribly, eerily still.

Shock washes through his stomach, and he drops the Prowler. A buzzing fills Elliott’s ears. He… he actually did it? He… beat Bloodhound?

He approaches Bloodhound’s unconscious form slowly, feeling like he’s in a dream, and stares at them. They look so peaceful, even though blood is leaking from their helmet down into the grass. He picks up their R-99, weighing it in his hands. A flash of memory and feeling comes to him from a few days before- Bloodhound picking up his gun and placing it over his sternum…

Mirage settles the R-99 across their chest gently. As he falls to his knees, a flash of pain crosses his chest. He knows he should feel triumphant- ecstatic, even- but the only thing he feels is sorrow. 

Elliott picks up their arm, crosses it across their stomach, and murmurs, “forgive me” as victory music roars over the loudspeakers.

#miragehound #apex #apex legends #bloodhound #bloodhound apex #bloodhound apex legends #elliott witt #elliott witt apex #elliott witt apex legends #mirage #mirage apex #mirage apex legends #miragehound fanfiction #my writing

[thebrotherssalvatore321]

Keeping Secrets Ch. 14

Keeping Secrets Masterlist

Pairing: DamonxOc, Currently Tylerxoc, Elijahxoc, then Klausxoc endgame.

 Katie put on a black dress and matching flats then picked Tyler up and headed to Vicki’s funeral. They got to the church early and were sitting outside when Katie decided she could no longer stand the silence. “So, what do you think Vicki would think about you being with me?” Katie asked not knowing what else to talk about.

 He just shook his head. “She probably wouldn’t care. I treated her like crap.” He said as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “Kinda feels like I don’t even have the right to miss her.” he said with a shake of his head as he looked down at his hands.

 Katie leaned forward mimicking his position. “Did you care about her?” Katie asked and he looked at her to see that she wasn’t jealous or judging, just asking a simple question.

“I did.” He admitted. “I just never showed it because I knew my parents didn’t like her.”

She wanted to point out that his parents didn’t like her either, but he was still good to her. Instead of questioning him about it she tried to make him feel better. “Then you have every right to grieve her.” Katie assured him.

When the funeral was over Katie drove Tyler home, walked with him to his door and gave him a hug and a kiss. She was walking away from the house when Carol called, “Katie.” She stopped and turned back to see Carol walking over to her so she met her half way.

“Yes ma’am?” Kate asked, wondering what she’d done wrong this time.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot, finding you in bed with my son…” she wrinkled her nose and gave her head a slow shake at the memory, “was kind of a shock, but Tyler explained how your grandfather treats you and that he was just giving you a safe place for the night. I realized after I calmed down that you were fully clothed and on top of the blankets.” Katie had her hands behind her back, picking at her cuticles. “I want you to know that while I understand the situation, you will not be sleeping in the same bed as my son again.”

“Yes ma’am. I completely understand.” Katie replied taking her hands from behind her back to swing them nervously at her sides. “It won’t happen again.” She made a strike out movement with her hands.

“That being said, I wanted to thank you for being there for Tyler through all this Vicki stuff.” She told her with a small smile. “It means a lot.”

“It’s really no big deal.” She told her with an awkward shrug.

“Regardless, I appreciate it.” she told her again. “Anyway, don’t be a stranger, okay? You’re welcome here anytime and if you need to get away from your grandfather on occasion you can use our guest room.”

“Wow, really?” Katie asked a little shocked.

“Really.” Carol told her with a polite smile.

“Thank you.”

TVDTVDTVD

"Are you sure about this?" Damon asked as they pulled up to Katie's house.

She took in a deep breath looking at her childhood home through the passenger window of the moving truck that Damon was driving. "We've already packed up my stuff and the queen bed frame that you insisted I take even though I would be fine with my old twin bed. I'm doing this."

“Okay.” Damon pushed his door open and they both got out and headed to the house. Her grandpa wasn't home at the moment so Katie grabbed the hide-a-key rock out of the fake plant on the front porch and opened the door for them.

“Actually I change my mind. I want my parent’s room.” She said as she led him to the room her grand father had made his and opened the door. It was three times the size of her old room and had it's own separate bathroom.

“Okay no problem.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Let's get to work.” By the time her grandfather got home from work they had moved his stuff to her father's old office, the smallest room in the house, and moved all of Katie’s things into her parent’s bedroom.

Her grandfather walked in to see them sitting on his couch, both of them drinking his beer. “What the hell are you doing in my house?” He asked glaring at Katie and Damon.

Damon hopped up and walked over to the old, too buff, too tan man with a snarl of a smile and clapped his hand down on his shoulder. “Katie, wanna go up to your new room while the old man and I have a little chat?”

"Gladly." Katie answered and took her beer upstairs with her, taking a swig of it as she passed her grandpa.

After ten or so minutes Damon came upstairs and plopped down on the bed. “It's done.” He tucked his hands behind his head. “He won't bother you and I even told him to let Tyler stay the night if you want him too.”

“What?” Katie asked looking at him with big eyes. “Why would you do that? You hate me being with Tyler.”

“Yeah, but I like you more than I hate him.” He said with a shrug as he got up and headed for the door.

“Hey.” Katie called making him stop and look back at her. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.” 

“Anytime, Katie Cat.” He told her as she let go of him. “Or am I still not allowed to call you that?” He asked with a playful quirk of his brows and a smirk.

“I think you've earned back the rights to the nickname.” She told him with a small smile.

“And you better not have changed my name in your phone.” He grabbed the doorframe as he walked further out, still looking at her.

“I haven't, but if Tyler sees it I'll have no choice.” She warned him.

“Yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes and walked off.

TVDTVDTVD

Katie headed down stairs and her grandfather, who had been sitting in his recliner, saw her dressed in a tight, navy blue dress with a lace back that stopped at her waist line and heals and he got up. “Where are you going?”

She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. “The founder’s kick off party. I’m hoping to make it onto the Miss Mystic Falls court, so I have to attend all of these stupid parties.” She explained, trying with every bone in her body to play nice.

“Oh, well, have a good time and don’t get into trouble.” He told her as he stumbled back to his chair. Katie tilted her head at him, finding it odd that he had nothing bad to say, then assumed Damon had compelled him to not say bad things to her anymore.

“You used to drag me to all of these events when I was a kid, why don’t you go anymore?” she asked out of pure curiosity.

“Big bad Mayor Lockwood decided that he’s too good to be friends with me. So I said fuck him.” He answered talking with his hands while holding his beer in one.

“Right, well, goodnight.” Katie told him finding the whole exchange between them to be off putting.

When she got to the party she found Tyler and his father talking to Matt and Kelly. When Tyler saw her she gave him a smile and a small wave. As soon as he and his father were done talking to the grieving family Tyler walked around to the bar that Katie knew was on the other side of the wall the walked back around with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. “Check it out!” he whisper yelled as he walked over to Katie and Matt.

“Dude, your dad’s going to totally beat you down if he catches you.” Matt said as the two of them started walking off.

“Yeah, let him try.” Tyler said as he took the cap off of the bottle.

“Alright, screw it.” Matt took the bottle from Tyler and took a swig.

Tyler looked behind him to see that Katie wasn’t following them, but instead stood where she had been since she saw him. “Hey, come on, booze…distracted parents…fun…this way.” He told her not moving from where he stood near Matt.

“Yeah, that’s…not really my thing.” She said with a wrinkled nose and a shake of her head.

He finally walked over to her, “Come on, it’s not like I’m asking you to get high with me, it’s just booze.”

Katie couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t told her hi, or kissed her or anything and it was really bugging her even though she knew it was a stupid thing to be mad about. “Look, Tyler, I just somehow got your mom to like me. I’m not going to screw that up by getting caught drinking with you at your parent’s party.”

“God, you really are a goody, goody. Go kiss my moms ass. I’m gonna go have fun.” He told her with a hard face and a glare then started walking away.

“Tyler, come on, don’t be like that.” she called but he kept on walking.

Damon walked by and saw Katie looking down at the floor with a frown on her face. “Hey,” Katie’s eyes shot up to him and she forced the displeased look off of her face. “You okay?” he walked over looking around for Tyler. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“I’m fine and I don’t want to talk about it.” she answered as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m gonna go home.” She tried to walk around him, but he grabbed her upper arm, gently stopping her. “Damon, please let me go.”

He moved to stand in front of her and let go of her arm. “You didn’t get all dressed up and spend…” he looked over her hair and make up, “and hour in front of the mirror just to leave twenty minutes into the party.” She just looked at him blankly. She was hiding the fact that she wanted to cry and Damon felt like finding Tyler and ripping his head off. Instead he held his hand out to her. “Dance with me.”

“Damon, I-”

“Just one dance.” He cut her off. “Then you can go find your boyfriend and give him a piece of your mind.” She couldn’t say no to the pleading look in his eyes.

“Fine, one dance.” She told him with a small smile and a nod.

1901 by phoenix started playing when they walked over to the bar where Elena stood watching Stefan dancing to the up beat song with Kelly. "Have I entered an alternate universe where Stefan is fun?" Damon asked Elena.

"Is he drunk?" Katie asked with raised brows.

"Yes." Elena and Damon answered at the same time.

"Is he going to be okay?" Elena asked Damon.

"Eventually." Elena just looked at him then back at Stefan. "One way or another." He looked at Katie and jerked his head to the dance floor. "Let's dance."

"No, no, no. I agreed to dance with you when there was slow music playing." Katie argued. "I don't know how to dance to this."

"I'll show you, come on." He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor.

She was on the dance floor with Damon when Tyler walked in. All his eyes could see was Damon's hands on her hips as they moved to the music and the way Damon was looking at her ass in the tight dress. He had been looking for her to apologize for treating her the way he had, but she looked just fine without him. So he snuck a glass of vodka from the bar and walked off.

When the song was over Damon excused himself from her and she moved to the bar to people watch. Elena and Matt were dancing when Stefan cut in. Shortly after Katie watched as Elena bumped into a guy then Stefan made the guy apologize twice and shoved him. Stefan was walking away as Damon walked up beside Katie and asked the bartender for bourbon. "I'll totally sneak you a drink if you want it." He offered, holding up his drink to her.

"I said no to Tyler. I’m not going to say yes to you.” Katie replied and pushed the drink away.

"Wait he ditched you because you didn't want to drink?" He asked with a disbelieving look.

"With him and Matt and risk getting caught, yeah." Katie added with a nod.

"The kids an idiot." He told her and she couldn’t help but love the way his mouth moved when he said the word idiot.

"He's not an idiot. He's a normal teen boy just looking to have fun with his fuddy duddy of a girlfriend." She argued.

"Hey." Damon said dipping his head into her line of view to get her to look him in the eyes, "You're not a fuddy duddy."

"Have you noticed what your brothers been up to?" Elena asked as she walked over to stand on the other side of Damon and took an olive off of the tray on the bar.

"Nope I've been too preoccupied with yours." Damon replied as he turned his head to look at her.

"I'm gonna go find Tyler." Katie said then walked away. She had been looking for him for a while when she ran into Matt. "Hey, have you seen Tyler?"

"No, have you seen my mom?" Matt asked.

"No, wanna join forces?" Katie asked.

"Sure, why not?" He sighed and they started walking the house over. "Have you looked outside?"

Katie shook her head no and they headed out back Katie looked one way and Matt looked the other. Her heart dropped to her feet when her eyes landed on Kelly’s hands and lips on Tyler’s face.

"Tyler?" Katie asked making Matt look at his mom and Tyler making out with each other.

"What the hell are you doin' man?" Matt yelled as he rushed over and pulled Tyler back.

"Dude, calm down." Tyler said with his hands held up in surrender, but Matt punched him in the face, starting a fist fight that knocked Kelly to the ground as Tyler tackled Matt and started wailing on him. "Tyler! Tyler stop it!" Katie yelled at him, but it fell on deaf ears. "Somebody help!" Katie yelled and soon Alaric ran over and pulled Tyler off of Matt. With Tyler out of the way Katie went to Matt and kneeled down next to him. "Matt..." Katie sighed taking in his bloody face as Tyler's dad urged him back inside.

"I'm sorry." Matt said with a shake of his head.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Katie told him with a sigh as she stood up and held her hand out to him.

She was pulling Matt to his feet when Elena ran out of the house and over to Matt and Katie. "Oh my god, Matt, what happened are you okay?"

Katie pulled Elena back a little as she whispered. "Keep him out if the house and away from Stefan." Elena gave her friend a nod. "I'm going to go get a wet rag or something."

Katie got a wet rag from one of the bathrooms then gave it to Elena and Matt. Since Elena had Matt covered Katie went back inside. She was sitting in an empty office, watching the fire in the fireplace when Tyler found her. "What are you doing in here?" He asked as he came inside and closed the door.

"I needed to get away for a minute and try to figure out what to say to you." She answered turning her hurt eyes on him.

"I'm so sorry. I don’t know what came over me." He said as he came over and sat down next to her.

"I know you are. It's written all over your face." She told him as she examined his wide, sad eyes.

"You have all right to break up with me." He told her looking down at her hand on the couch between them.

"Is that why you did it? To get me to break up with you so you don't have to?" She asked.

"I did it because I saw you dancing with Damon." He answered going from ashamed to pissed in the blink of an eye.

"Wow." Katie blinked at him. "Damon is my friend, Tyler, and if you and I are going to make this work," she motioned between the two of them, "then you are going to have to trust me when I tell you that you are the only guy I want to be with."

"How am I supposed to believe that when he constantly looks at you like he wants to eat you?" Tyler asked.

"Because that's him looking at me, not the other way around." She answered. "Besides, I wouldn't have been dancing with him at all if you hadn't ditched me to get wasted with Matt." Tyler just glared at her for a few seconds then looked away. “Look,” Katie stood up and looked down at him. “We’ve both obviously gotten pissed at each other and lashed out like stupid little kids. Why don’t we take a break for a few days? Try to figure out if we even still want there to be an us.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Tyler said with a glare at her as he stood up then left the room.

She walked out of the room to see that people were gathering to hear Mayor Lockwood make his kick off speech. So not wanting to be rude and leave before the speech Katie joined everyone that was gathered around. “Are you okay?” she heard someone asked her quietly while John Gilbert made his speech, and looked over to see Alaric standing to her left.

“I’m fine.” She told him with a polite smile.

“You just caught your boyfriend making out with his best friend’s mom. You can’t be fine.” He told her and she looked away from him.

“You know too much about your student’s personal lives.” She whispered to him.

“Only the ones involved with vampires.” He whispered back.

“Look at his right hand.” Damon said to Alaric as he moved to stand on his other side.

“Whose?” Alaric asked sounding like he really didn’t care.

“The town’s favorite son. Look at his ring.” Damon said and looked at Alaric then noticed Katie standing beside him with her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face.

Katie looked at John’s ring as he pulled the rope, ringing the kick off bell. “That looks like mine.” Alaric said aloud.

“Yeah, and that would be a big coincidence if he hadn’t just come back from the dead five minutes ago.” Damon said whispering the last three words.

“You killed him?” Katie asked and Damon hummed a positive answer. “Too bad he didn’t stay dead. I hate that guy.”

Alaric turned his head to Katie giving her a disapproving look and she just shrugged with a ‘what’ face. “Where the hell did you get that ring?” Damon asked taking Alaric’s attention off of her.

“Isobel, my wife.” He answered.

Damon laughed. “Who gave birth to Elena under the medical care of the esteemed Dr. Grayson Gilbert, John’s brother.” Damon whispered.

“You think John knew Isobel?” Alaric asked.

“I think John knows a lot of things.” Damon answered.

“Okay, I’m leaving. See you two later.” She said as she gave them both a forced smile and headed out.

When she walked into her front door she saw her grandfather passed out in his recliner. With a scoff she left him there, grabbed a bottle of his Jack Daniels out of the kitchen cabinet and headed up stairs to her room. Feeling tired, hurt and like a hypocrite for being mad at Tyler for kissing someone who wasn’t her when she had kissed Damon, she sat down at her desk and uncapped the bottle.

Green eyes stared back at her in the mirror that hung on the wall in front of her and she turned them down to the sparkling pendant that rested on her chest as she tilted her head back and took a drink. Thinking about Damon and what Tyler had said about him, she picked it up and looked down at it. The sapphire star sparkled up at her as if it was judging her for being with Tyler when her heart was so clearly with Damon.

But she didn’t want to be with Damon. She wanted to be happy with someone else, with Tyler. Up until tonight he had been so sweet to her, but she couldn’t help wondering if he had made up his mind that he couldn’t be better to a girl, he couldn’t make it up to Vicki by being with Katie. “Thinking about me?” She heard Damon behind her and turned around to see him sitting on her bed with one of her pillows in his lap.

“No, Tyler, actually.” She told him as she let go of the pendant, grabbed the bottle and moved to sit on the bed with him.

“Did you two break up?” he asked as he put the pillow behind his head and laid back.

“We’re taking a break.” She corrected as she put her lips to the bottle and tilted her head back.

“You know that’s better on ice right?” he asked with a nod to the bottle.

“It won’t stay on the ice long enough to make a difference.” She said as she wiped her lips. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to let you know to stay clear of John Gilbert. He pretty much threatened to hurt you if I step out of line.” He said as he sat up and grabbed the bottle from her.

“Hey!” she said as she tried to grab it back, but he dodged her and took a drink. “Give it back.”

“There’s a reason I prefer bourbon.” He said as he handed her the bottle back. “And you know it’s not good to drink alone?” he asked as she took another drink.

“Better alone than with you.” she said recalling the last time she got drunk.

“Come on, you’re on a break. Your allowed.” He told her with a seductive look that he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.

“That’s not what a break is for.” She shook her head.

“Sure it is.” He argued as he sat up and took the bottle from her again. This time she didn’t protest. “Back to why I came here.” He paused to take a drink then handed her the bottle back. “John knows too much.”

“How much is too much?” Katie asked before she tilted the bottle back then swallowed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, driving Damon crazy.

“Everything and more.” Damon took the bottle from her and took another drink. “He knows about Katherine, about me opening the tomb to find her that she wasn’t in there to begin with he knows…everything.”

Katie took the bottle from him and took a bigger drink than usual. “Why don’t you just cut his ring off and kill him?” she frowned at the words that just left her mouth. “God you’re a bad influence.”

Damon rolled his eyes and took the bottle from her knowing that if she didn’t stop she was going to be hugging the toilet pretty soon. “Don’t blame me.” He told her then took a drink. “If I kill him, everything he knows is going to get leaked to the council and he will have you killed. It’s bad enough that those tomb vamps are getting too much attention from them and now with Stefan on the fritz…”

“How is he by the way? He disappeared tonight.” She asked trying to take the bottle from him but he pulled it away. “Gimme it, Damon.”

“Nope.” he told her and she made a grab for it and fell into his lap. He smirked down at her head on his legs.

She sighed and pushed herself back into a sitting position with her legs tucked to the side so she wouldn’t be indecent in the dress that she still wore. “Fine, keep it.”

“He’s not coping well at all and if he doesn’t get it under control he��s going to bring the council down on us with no help from John.” He said then took a drink from the bottle.

“He’s not going to hurt Elena is he?” she asked looking tired as she stood up, but stumbled in her heels even though they were the thick kind.

“No, but you might hurt yourself if you don’t take those shoes off.” he said and she sat on the side of the bed and took off her shoes, letting them fall to the floor with a thump.

With them out of the way she walked over to her closet and grabbed a tank top, then a pair of shorts out of the dresser. “Unzip me?” Katie asked, sweeping her waves to the side as she turned her back on him.

“With pleasure.” He answered as he stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder as the other one pulled the zipper down her back.

She sighed as his hands slipped the straps from her shoulders and the top fell to gather around her hips, the bottom of the dress too tight to fall off her body. A laugh betrayed her when he grabbed the bottom of the dress and jerked it down. “Hey, easy this stupid thing wasn’t exactly cheap.”

“If it’s stupid why did you buy it?” he asked as she turned around, covering her chest with her arms.

“Because I’ve worn all my other dresses to public events twice and that’s my limit.” She explained as she turned from him and grabbed her tank top. “Plus I thought it would get Tyler all hot and bothered.” She sighed and grabbed her shorts.

“Oh it got someone all hot and bothered, but it wasn’t Tyler.” He told her in a deep voice as he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him, the evidence pressed into her rear.

“Damon…” she sighed fighting her desires. “I can’t… I’m too drunk and I’m with Tyler.” Her body defied her words as she leaned back against him, dropped her shorts and lifted her arm to grab the back of his head.

“Drunk sex is the best.” He told her as he started kissing her neck. “And you’re on a break, you’re allowed.”

“Son of a bitch.” She growled, coming to her senses as she turned in his arms and pushed him away. “I can’t, Damon. Stop trying to get me to be somebody that I’m not!”

“I’m trying to get you to realize that you don’t belong with him!” Damon yelled back. “Figure out who you want and stop leading us on.”

“I will when you will!” She told him with a flared nostril glare.

He whooshed out of her open window without another word.

#the vampire diaries #the vampire diaries fanfiction #tvd #tvd fanfiction #tvd damon #tvd tyler #tvd elijah #tvd klaus #the vampire diaries damon #the vampire diaries elijah #the vampire diaries klaus #damon slavatore fanfiction #tyler lockwood fanfiction #elijah mikaelson fanfiction #klaus mikaelson fanfiction #damon salvatore #elijah mikaelson #tyler lockwood #klaus mikaelson #damon salvatore x oc #tyler lockwood x oc #elijah mikaelson x oc #klaus mikaelson x oc

[ryttu3k]

Night Road quote text dump, because I've been deluging a friend with quotes and want a place to keep them all.

We're a bit like that, yeah:

They direct you to a hulking Malkavian named Severian, and the sullen giant directs you in turn to Gibberish Mike.

Fortunately, it turns out that "Gibberish" Mike is just Australian.

Practical concerns:

"That's it!" Elena says, leaning over your shoulder. "That's his yacht. Oh, and this is all about him. Very useful." She snaps a picture of the email with her phone, then the two of you get out of there before the technician returns. You head down the elevator and then back to Elena's Datsun.

You're so pleased by how well that went that that it takes you a few minutes to remember you're in Arizona.

"His yacht?" you finally ask.

Fun with bungalow ownership:

After a day of fitful dreams, you throw on your leather jacket and engineer boots and get ready for another night. You step outside to check your Integra. A neighbor parks next door in her Ford Super Duty and gives you a friendly little wave. You've been practicing this. You're ready.

"Howdy, neighbor."

"Howdy!" she responds before heading inside.

Fucking nailed it. You're one of them.

This is legitimately how I got the Messy Critical achievement:

You grab a hoe.

You rip through the underbrush with savage efficiency, staying a few steps ahead of the pushcart as Julian scans. You work in a trance, chopping and hammering. Only when you hear Julian shouting do you realize that you're holding a busted length of wood.

The head of your hoe is buried in the beautiful round black door of Prince Lettow's Rolls-Royce.

Raúlblocked:

You head to Raúl's place, but he's not there. You find a note hidden above the door that reads, "Problems in Phoenix. (Jesus Christ has returned? Stole a car?) Contact me right away for major jobs and I'll come back. Already missing you." And there's a ProtonMail address with some of the security contact codes you agreed upon earlier.

But it looks like Raúl will be occupied dealing with the Lord and His automotive crimes, and he won't be able to wander around Tucson with you.

Pattermuster doesn't get paid enough:

"Hello? What? Well, the blood can't be 'everywhere.' Surely that's an exagger—okay—okay, fine. Okay. Okay, I'll get—okay. Five minutes. What? No, Sissy Spacek. No, Sissy—you're thinking of Rosemary's Baby. No, Carrie had the prom scene. With all the pig's—yes, it was Sissy Spacek, I'm sure. That much blood? Jesus. Okay, hold—five—okay, five minutes."

Valid question:

Do they teach ax fighting at Quantico?

Julian Meyer:

"Man, it's been a while," Julian says, leaning against your door frame. "I remember the nights we spent keeping that elder asleep with offerings of blood, the days curled up together in the desert. Wasn't it romantic?"

"That never happened, Julian. You made up our relationship and tried to sell it as a novel until the old Prince of Tucson threatened to execute you." '

"Vampire romance was big at the time," Julian says with a shrug. "And I changed our names. I still don't know why no one wanted to buy it."

Dammit I thought I was done with uni:

"Awful," Dr. Caul says with a little shudder. "But now your real studies can begin."

Your real studies consist of a syllabus (thirty pages) and a trunk full of books (35,000 pages).

"Are you disappointed, Rook?" she says with a little laugh. "Were you expecting something more mystical? A bolt of cosmic enlightenment? A conversation with your Holy Guardian Angel, who would reveal the answers you seek?" She bangs the trunk as technicians get ready to load it into your car. "Get reading."

An enthusiastic boss:

You reunite with Pattermuster down in the morgue, where he's pumping his fists as a thin-blood on a gaming laptop watches with a worried expression because she can't tell if he's incredibly happy or insanely mad.

"Rook!" Pattermuster shouts, his eyes full of Blood, "you did it! You brilliant child, you did it! We're safe. Oh, thank God, we're safe." He pulls you into an embrace, then punches a brick wall because he's so happy, showering all three of you in dust.

I thought that was Finland?:

You catch all sorts of whispered gossip as you cross the rooftop garden.

"Camp Scheffler?"

"Gone. That Outlander courier had something to do with it."

"I heard the Russians helped the SI burn it down."

"That's ridiculous. There's no such thing as Russians."

Pot, kettle:

"Julian," the Eagle Prince says, "you will locate Reremouse with the equipment Vane brought. Once we find him, we will strike shortly before dawn. I have prepared a stake sufficient to pierce even his old hide."

"That easy, huh?" Julian says.

"No, but—"

"Your plan is ridiculous, convoluted, and dangerous," Julian says.

"And you have a better one?"

"Absolutely," Julian says. "We use Stonehenge to teleport him to Mesopotamia."

The must-have appliance:

He's a black outline in the glow of a single yellow bulb... and then the bats descend.

And then the bats get torn to pieces, because Pattermuster pulls his two katanas out of nothing and turns into an undead Cuisinart for a few seconds.

But aesthetic:

Leave it to a vampire to bring a sword to a gunfight.

It is pretty cool though:

"Oh my God," Julian says. "You're going to use the car engine to fling Prometheus into Reremouse's heart."

"Dammit, Julian, I am not doing this because it's fun. I am scrambling for every advantage I can because we only have one chance to stop Reremouse, and if we fail, the Second Inquisition will descend on us like wolves on a wounded deer."

"It's still cool," Julian mutters.

A e s t h e t i c:

The Camarilla looks unkindly on vampires who dress like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, but what's the point of being dead if you can't look the part?

#JustToreadorThings:

You sleep badly and awaken to an aching and acute Hunger that crowds out other thoughts. But when you approach the Rolls-Royce, you find Lettow and Julian seated on a blanket, evidently in fine spirits. They're holding stainless steel mugs as they watch the last purple streaks fade from the western sky. There's something perfect about the composition before you: the two Kindred in their working clothes with their backs to you, the blue-black clouds, the faraway mesas framing the scene.

"I fear we've lost the Aesthete," Lettow muses. "Luka? Luka!"

It's just good sense:

A lot of keypads use 0911 as an emergency override for police and fire. That doesn't work, but a common default password causes the elevator doors to slide right open.

Change your defaults, people.

They draw the line at 31%:

Not all problems can be solved by putting a brick through a window, but at least 30 percent can.

Descriptive:

That's when your Nissan makes a sound like a bunch of typewriter keys dropped in a blender, and the whole truck lurches to a halt.

Munch munch:

"There are tags attached to all the payroll numbers," you say. "FNMA. PFC. What are they?"

"FNMA?" Antonio says. "That's Fannie Mae. The loan commission. Privatized in 1968. PFC…"

"Pavlodar Fried Chicken," Janet says. "Damn Commies."

Courier what did you do:

When you try to start your Mercedes, it vomits black smoke. That's not good. You kill the engine.

"Pop the hood," Julian says. "I'll get it up and running."

He checks the motor. There's a long pause.

"Did you melt a bunch of cheese in here or something, Vane?"

“I remember crawling out of a Nieuport 20 outside Gibraltar," Prince Lettow says. "The engine looked like that. Of course, ours had been on fire."

"Engine looks like Vane fed a bunch of sardine cans into a paper shredder," Julian says.

Almost!:

So Lettow is cute. I'm going to talk to him and see if he might be interested in a handsome young courier who almost has his own car.

Scientist life:

A beaker of cold coffee on her desk has a pencil in it; she flicks the pencil away and drains the entire beaker, then looks you in the eyes.

Domesticity:

"Wow, Vane," the Banu Haqim says, "did you finally settle down. Where's the wife and kids? Why don't you get me a beer, and we can talk about football and quote some Bible verses at each other?"

I really want to know where the fake werewolf came in:

"...so the whole fucking Cadillac is on fire, and I'm kicking and kicking, trying to get the window to break!" Dove says.

"Right, right, because —" You're trying to follow this story, and it isn't easy.

"Because I'm still handcuffed to the guy who was pretending to be a werewolf, right. And I finally kick through the window, rip half the dead fake werewolf's arm off to get free — I'm out of my fucking mind now, with all the fire — and I finally crawl out of the car."

"And get clear before it — do they blow up?"

"Escalades? I dunno, probably not," Dove says. "But anyway, I'm finally clear, so I run across the parking lot, laughing because I'm just thrilled not to have met final death chained up to that guy. And I barely have time to look up before Lettow comes screaming around the corner in a Ford Bronco with the lights off and runs me over. I was in the wrong Cadillac the whole time."

"No!"

"Two black Cadillac Escalades in the parking lot of the Marriott," Dove says. "How was I supposed to know which one — anyway, that's why I don't get to drive anymore. That's why Lettow wants assholes like you driving."

"Driving what?" you ask. "Because I need a car."

Dove shakes her ugly head. "I'll get you something. Give me a few hours to work on it, and I'll send someone to find you."

Cars are everything:

You still don't know how Julian plans to go from "divert a few funds and data streams from the Camarilla" to "transform the global information panopticon in a way that ends the Masquerade but keeps vampires safe," but he has a nicer car than last time, so he must be doing something right.

Guys please be nice to Raul:

"There appears to be a vampire hunter outside," he says, "investigating your electric vehicle."

"Send your bird to peck his eyes out," Julian says. "I'm not going outside until I find my sneakers."

Cheese?:

Over the next few minutes, you cough up a glorious wad of bullshit involving MKUltra, the Philadelphia Experiment, Star Wars (the movie), Star Wars (the Reagan-era government program), Jackson Pollack's CIA connections, the history of federal cheese, and the secret mastermind behind the seventies gas crunch.

In fairness it's a pretty rare sound:

You're way up in Limberlost, near the mall and the Walmart, when Riga settles on the roof of a Safeway. You reverse into the parking lot in case you need to get out fast and scan the cars at the pumps. It looks quiet. Then you hear a faint ringing.

The sound is musical, hypnotic. It reminds you of your childhood, and for a long time you just sit there in the driver's seat, remembering what it was like to be alive. But what is that sound? What memory from…?

Oh, right.

The pay phone next to the ice merchandiser is ringing.

It's a skill!:

Not every member of Clan Toreador joins their august ranks because of their great beauty or artistic genius. Some people end up vampires because of their extensive knowledge of Adobe After Effects.

Big Pirates of the Caribbean energy:

"I'd kind of like to give Lettow here a horse and a sword and let him tear through an entire police barracks," Julian says. "Tell me that wouldn't be fun."

"One thing I learned from Napoleon," Lettow says, "is that the most powerful cannon is useless if you cannot see your target. We know the location of one small encampment. That isn't enough to start shooting."

"You knew Napoleon?" Julian asks.

"Napoleon was my horse," Lettow says.

#vampire the masquerade #vtm night road #vtmnr #vtmnr spoilers

[pitubea1910]

One Night

Pairing: Noah Centineo x Reader

Words: 9k

Warnings: fluff but some angsty topic is mentioned

Tags: -

Request: -

Notes: after ages, I’m finally posting again. This is my first ever Noah imagine and I hope you like it :) let me know!

Masterlist

When your best friend Jo, Joanna for her family, invited you to Los Angeles for a long weekend, you couldn’t say no.

She had gone to UCLA while you had decided to stay in Phoenix and go to the UoP. Which meant, you had gone from seeing her every single day to just a few times a year. At first, it was weird. You used to facetime every single day, but eventually you got used to it. It wasn’t like you lost contact, you kept on talking every day, but not seeing each other just became your new normal.

Jo invited you over many times and you barely said no. So when you had a long weekend, at the beginning of the term of your Junior year and she invited you, you immediately bought the flights.

“I’m starving”, you said as soon as you walked into the apartment where she lived off campus.

On her first year, she had been living in the dorms, but she switched on her second year without a doubt. You had spent weeks helping her our to find the new apartment over the summer and when you two found this one, the decision was made. It was perfect. That’s why she had decided to stay in it for Junior year as well.

“You always are starving”, Jo said. “That’s why you have a sandwich waiting for you in the kitchen”, she added when she closed the door.

“Oh my God, you’re the best”, you said making your way to the kitchen.

While you ate the sandwich she had prepared, she took your stuff to the guest room. Usually, you shared her bed, since it was a double, but you always kept your stuff in a separate room just in case any of you had company at night. It wasn’t like any of you were the kind to sleep around a lot but it could happen and it was better to be prepared.

“What plan do we have?” You asked going into her room with the sandwich in your hand.

“So this guy from my Pediatrics class”, she said, “knows a guy who knows another guy who has a house in Beverly Hills and is throwing a party tonight.”

“Wait, what? A party? In a house? In Beverly Hills?” You asked shocked. “Did he invite you?”

“Indeed he did”, she smiled widely.

“What kind of friends do you have? This is crazy!” You exclaimed.

“I know, right?” She said as excited as you were. “I wanted to tell you over the phone, but I wanted to see your reaction. He told me there probably be famous people. Actually, he thinks the house belongs to some celebrity. He didn’t ask though.”

“You’re kidding me”, you laughed.

“Look at me”, she said pointing at her face. “Is this the face of someone kidding?”

“This is insane”, you said before laughing out loud. “How did you even get him to invite you?”

“I may have slept with him a few times”, she shrugged.

“Now that explains everything”, you said throwing a pillow at her face.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying on outfits for that night. Suddenly, everything you had brought looked useless. You literally emptied your whole luggage trying to find something to wear but it was pointless. At least until Jo told you that it would be full of people from college, so there was really nothing to worry about. It was more of a casual party.

It was a relief.

You ended up picking some clear blue ripped jeans, a grey top and your Doctor Martens. It wasn’t cold at all so you thought about not taking any jacket with you, but when Jo told that the house was up in the hills, you took a black blazer from your luggage and tried it on. Yeah. It could work.

“You look amazing, girl”, Jo said when you were finally ready to go.

“You’re one to talk”, you said looking at your friend up and down. “How are we going to get there?”

“An Uber is on its way”, she said.

Then, she walked to a small chest of drawers that was next to the door and took some keys out of the first drawer.

“Here you go”, she said. “And I’ve sent you the address in case you know…things get interesting”, she winked.

You laughed out loud and took the keys from her hand. It wouldn’t be the first time you would separate during the night because you met someone interesting. The only rule was to text to let the other know you were going home.

“And the Uber is here, let’s go!” She said excitedly.

The whole way to the house, you were telling her all about how things were at home. Your parents had divorced a couple of months ago and you were still getting used to the new situation. It was confusing, to say the least, but you knew it was for the best. Your parents had been fighting way too much over the last year and you knew it was for the best.

“And you’re okay?” Jo asked.

“Yeah”, you nodded. “I see my father every week for lunch or dinner”, you shrugged.

“Isn’t it weird?” She asked.

“It was at first”, you admitted. “None of us knew what to talk about. It was like there was this wall between us that we didn’t know how to tear down”, you told her. Jo took your hand and gave it a small squeeze which you returned. “But we ended up finding a common ground and now we’re good. He actually took me to the airport this morning.”

“And how’s Harper?” She asked quietly.

You bite your lip as she mentioned your sister, trying not to tear up like it happened every time someone brought it up. Your sister was just two years younger than you and had been diagnosed with leukaemia about three years ago. She had been on treatment ever since, which was costing a lot of money, which had caused you to end up looking for a job to help and pay the bills and your college. Reason why you ended up staying in Arizona.

You tried to always stay positive for her and for your parents, but every time you took her to the hospital for her treatment, it became more and more difficult. And then, when your parents started with the divorce, it felt like the whole world was going to crush you. However, now that the divorce was through, you could see how much your mum needed it.

“Better I think”, you finally said. “The doctors are positive.”

“That’s good”, Jo nodded. “You really got me worried, you know?”

“I’m okay, don’t worry”, you said with a smile. “And now we’re going to have fun, please? I need to disconnect from home, at least for a few hours.”

“You’re right”, she nodded. “We are going to this party, we’re going to get drunk and hook up with some famous guy”, she said, making you laugh. “Maybe not all of the above, but we’re going to have fun.”

You smiled warmly at her and gave her a quick hug. Jo had always been there for you, ever since kindergarten when she stood up for you when a boy named Clint made fun of you because of the butterfly wings you were using. That moment created an unbreakable bond between you two. That kind that appears when two people happen to hate the same person. It’s a bit mean, but that’s how humans are.

“We’re here”, the driver said.

“Okay, thank you so much!” Jo said just before stepping out of the car and waiting for you to do the same.

You put on your jacket immediately. Jo had been right. There was a bit of wind around that made you shiver. For a moment, you took out your phone to check it out in case you had any messages, but you quickly threw it back into your purse when you heard Jo gasping.

“What is it?” You asked. “Wow…” you said.

The house you were looking at was immense. It was all white and had a lot of windows and three floors. Who the hell owned a house like this? Jo had been right when she said that it belonged to someone famous. It was the only option. Unless it was actually owned by the rich parents of someone who went to college. Who knew.

“C’mon”, Jo said, taking your hand and going towards the entrance where a security guy was warding the door.

Jo had to end up calling his friend so he would come and pick them up at the door, since the security guy didn’t trust you at all. It was annoying, but when Jo’s friend showed up a few minutes later, he immediately let you in with an apology.

“Shut up”, you said to your friend when she mumbled something concerning the bodyguard’s mother. “You know he can kick us out, right?”

“Fine”, she said. “I’ll behave. Anyway, this is Jason. Jason, this is (Y/N)”, she said.

“I finally get to meet you”, Jason said with a smile. “Jo is always talking about you.”

“Of course she is”, you shrugged. “She is in love with me.”

“How couldn’t I be? Have you seen her face?” She said making you both laugh.

“What are you studying, by the way?” Jason asked you while he guided you around the gardens of the house. The party was probably in the back, although you could see people everywhere.

“Marketing”, you said. “What about you? Nursing too?”

“Oh no”, Jo said in a teasing tone before he could say anything. “Nursing wasn’t good enough for him. He is in the medicine team”, she said with a teasing smile.

“Jealous”, he laughed.

“I don’t think so”, Jo laughed as well. “There’s some competition between Nursing and Medicine”, she explained.

“Isn’t it everywhere?” You chuckled.

“So here it is”, Jason finally said when you got to the main backyard. “Drinks are all inside in the kitchen. It’s an open plan kind of house so it’s easy to spot. Bathroom is down the hall to the right. And there’s also food in the kitchen”, he quickly explained.

“Who does live here?” You asked.

“Shawn Mendez”, he said before taking off with a bunch of guys that were hanging by the pool.

“Excuse me?” You mumbled.

“Well I’m not exactly a fan but the house is out of this world”, Jo said.

“Indeed”, you nodded.

Then, Jo grabbed you by your wrists and into the house. You both needed to get something to drink to go through the night as chilled as possible.

On the inside, the house was as beautiful as you expected. Most of it was decorated in black and white, with such a good taste that you had zero doubts that Shawn had hired some designer to do it. There’s no way this all came out of the head of someone around your age. You just knew it.

“What do you want?” Jo said when you got to the kitchen. Just like Jason had said, it had been easy to find, and it was as crowded as the rest of the place. “I think I’m taking vodka with some cherry soda”, she said.

“Same for me”, you shrugged.

People used to make fun of you when you drank that beverage, but it was some sort of tradition between you two. Plus, it tasted good.

While Jo took the cups to prepare your drinks, you started looking around. You were certain that most of the people were just students, but you recognised some faces in the crowd.

Of course, the first one you spotted was no other than Shawn Mendez. How could you not? He was so tall. Next to him was a tiny girl that you thought it was Camilla Cabello and next to them was a guy, even taller than Shawn, talking to the group surrounding them. His face was extremely familiar but you just couldn’t say from where.

“Here you go”, Jo said. “Want to go out?” She asked.

“Yes, let’s go”, you said taking the cup she was offering as you took your eyes away from the group.

You two made your way out, going through the people gathering in the house, mumbling unheard apologies every time you had to gently push someone out of the way.

“Hey, isn’t that Billie Eilish?” You asked pointing at two girls talking next to the pool.

“I think so”, Jo nodded. “Am I the only one freaking out?” She asked.

“No”, you said. “But I’m trying to look normal”, you added making your friend laugh as you two made your way towards Jo’s friend, Jason.

“There you are!” He exclaimed as soon as you two appeared. He threw an arm around Jo, pulling her closer to him. “We were about to play some beer pong, want to join?” He asked.

“Oh no, I’m awful at it, but I’d love to watch”, you said.

“I’ll beat your ass”, Jo said without hesitation. You knew how good she was at this kind of games.

It wasn’t long until there were enough people to play. Jason and one of his friends, Tom, had gone around, taking people to play.

“We’re missing one”, Jason said counting the people. “You sure you don’t want to join us?” He asked you. You shook your head when you took a sip from your cup.

“I wouldn’t be of any help”, you finally said.

“She’s right”, Jo nodded. You looked at her raising both eyebrows. “Am I lying?”

“No, you’re not”, you laughed.

“I can join you”, you turned your head to look at the newcomer.

It was that tall guy you had seen before, talking to Shawn and Camilla. The one with the familiar face. He was wearing some black ripped jeans and a big while t-shirt that, even if it looked like it was big for him, he could really pull it off. His eyes were brown just like his curly hair.

“If you don’t mind”, he quickly added.

“Of course not!” Jason exclaimed. “You’ll be on our team. The winning team. I’m Jason”, he said.

“Noah”, he said with a nice smile.

Noah Centineo, of course! You had seen him on The Fosters years ago and lately on the To All the Boys movies!

When the game started, you leaned against the column that was behind you, watching in silent as they threw the balls into the cups, cheering when they scored and complaining when they didn’t. You had to admit that Jo had got a lot better since the last time you saw her playing, but the latest admission into Jason’s team, Noah, happened to be extremely good.

“Suck that!” Jason exclaimed when Noah put the ball into one of the cups.

“You haven’t won so shut up!” Jo said. It wouldn’t be long before her worst competing side came out and you knew it.

“Wanna bet?” Jason smirked. Oh, no…

“Don’t you play?”

You looked away from your friend just when she and Jason started teasing each other. It was Noah the one who had talked to you. When you looked at him, he walked closer to you, his eyes fixed down on you.

“Believe me, you don’t want to see me playing”, you said with a smile, playing with the now empty cup in your hands.

“That bad?” He smiled.

“Worse”, you said making him laugh. He had that kind of laugh that made you laugh, along with a bright smile. “Hey, it’s true! I could hit your eyes before I hit the cup”, you said.

“I don’t know if that’s being too good or too bad at this”, he said narrowing his eyes.

“Trust me, when playing beer pong… it’s too bad”, you said and he laughed again. “It’s your turn I think.”

“Oh right”, he said looking at the table. “Be right back, I gotta win this thing”, he winked.

With a smile, you saw him walking away to take the ball from Tom’s hand. Your heart was going a bit faster than usual but you knew it was because of who he was. You hadn’t expected him to talk to you and you had been surprised by how nice he actually had been to you, and to everyone for that matter.

As it had been a promise, Noah’s team ended up winning the game and they all decided to celebrate it by going inside to get more drinks. All of them, except Jason who stayed with Jo teasing her again and Noah, who walked over you once again.

“I guess congratulations are in order”, you said.

“Maybe you can join me for a drink to celebrate?” He suggested.

You looked over Jo for a moment but, judging by how Jason had his arms around her, you knew it was going to be long before she missed you. So you looked at Noah and nodded with a smile, making him smile as well.

“I’m (Y/N), by the way”, you said when you were making your way towards the house.

“Nice to meet you”, he said. “I’m Noah.”

You wanted to say I know, but you decided not to since it sounded way too cocky in your head and maybe it would make him feel uncomfortable, so you just gave him a smile and followed him inside. Since it was getting a bit colder outside, the inside of the house was even more crowded than before. They had even turned up the volume and many people had started dancing around the living room, which meant the kitchen was a bit emptier.

“What do you want?” Noah asked taking a pair of blue clean empty cups.

“Vodka and cherry soda”, you said jumping to seat on top of one of the counters.

“So…” he said while he started pouring vodka in one of the cups. “What brought you here?” He finally asked.

“My friend”, you smiled a little. He looked at you in a way that said no shit, Sherlock. You laughed out loud and took the cup he offered. “Thanks”, you said before taking a sip. “I came to spend the weekend with Jo and she told me about this party.”

“Don’t you study here in L.A?” He asked when he poured himself some soda.

“No”, you shook your head as he stood in front of you. Now that you were sitting on the counter, you were finally eye to eye with him. “I study in Phoenix. I’m from there actually”, you shrugged.

“Cool”, he nodded. “So you’re good friends with… Jo, you said?”

“Yeah”, you nodded. “She’s my best friend”, you shrugged with a smile. “What about you?”

“Camilla invited me”, he said pointing at the crowd with his head. “I met her when I appeared in one of her music videos and we really got along. I told her I would be in L.A for a couple of weeks and she invited me.”

“Nice”, you nodded and looked around, spotting the girl on the other side of the room. “So are they really a thing?”

“Who’s asking?” Noah said making you laugh. “They’re really good friends”, he shrugged.

“I knew it”, you narrowed your eyes and then looked at him. “Have you ever had to something like that for publicity?”

“Who told you that I’m famous?” He asked with a small smile. You raised an eyebrow and then nodded.

“Even if I didn’t know who you were, you just told me you appeared on Camilla’s video”, you said.

“I could’ve been an extra”, he said.

“Good point”, you nodded. “I first saw you years ago on The Fosters”, you finally admitted.

“Really?” He asked kind of surprised and you nodded. “Did you like it?”

“I was completely hooked up on it”, you said with a smile.

“Well…” he said, leaning on the counter next to you, looking at the crowd. “To answer your question, no. I’ve never had to do anything like that”, he said. “I wouldn’t have done it anyway. Ever. I don’t think it’s fair for anyone involved.”

“Have you ever told them?” You asked.

“No”, he shook his head. “It’s not my business”, he said and looked at you again. “Why didn’t you say you knew who I was?”

“I don’t know”, you shrugged. “I guess it sounded cocky? Or maybe it could make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Thanks”, he nodded a little. “I mean, I know I’m not that famous. But it is a bit awkward when I introduce myself to someone new like ‘hey, I’m Noah’ and their answer is ‘yeah, I know’. It’s kind of a turned off.”

“Then I turned you on?” You teased him, making him laugh out loud.

With a smile, you brought the cup back up to your lips and took a sip of the drink. You had never met anyone who was even slightly famous before, but you had never thought of a celebrity to be as nice as Noah was. As the night went on and the party kept on going around you, you just stayed there in the kitchen, talking to each other, telling all kind of stories about the other.

“Hey, do you want to go out for a bit?” He asked after an hour or so. “I need some air.”

“Sure, me too”, you said before jumping off the counter.

Since everyone was now inside the house, getting through everybody was a bit more difficult than before. Noah reached out for your hand so he wouldn’t lose you on your way out. It surprised you how big his hand felt when holding yours. When you stepped outside, you felt how cold it had gotten. Or maybe it was that it was too hot inside. Anyway, you stepped a bit closer to Noah when you shivered.

“I know”, he chuckled like he was reading your mind.

“Either it was too hot inside or it’s too cold out here”, you said.

“Agreed”, he said. “Follow me.”

“Where?” You asked as he started walking somewhere to the left of the house.

“Wait and see”, he said, not letting you go of your hand.

Any other day, if any other guy who you had just met at a party, was guiding you around the lonely garden, you’d definitely go back inside. But over the time you had spent talking to him, somehow you knew you could trust Noah, so you just went with it. You could see some couples here and there, making out in the dark corners of the propriety and for a moment you felt nervous and looked up at Noah, but he looked too focused on not tripping over anything to see anyone else.

“Here we are”, he finally said after a couple of minutes. “Welcome to Los Angeles”, he said.

Confused, you looked at him and then to the front, where he was looking, and gasped. Beneath you was the whole city of LA, awake and shinning for you. On your way up there you hadn’t been aware of how up you were going, so you weren’t expecting this view at all. It was beautiful and so peaceful. It was like you were so away from everything, being so close at the same time.

You let go of Noah’s hand and took a few steps away from him, admiring the view. You could even see the Hollywood sign from there. It was breath-taking. It made you feel at peace with the world.

When you looked back at Noah, you saw that he was taking a photo with his phone. When he finished, he put the device back in his pocket and moved closer to you.

“You like it?” He asked.

“It’s beautiful”, you said. “I wouldn’t mind having this view”, you commented.

“Yeah, me neither”, he said with a smile.

The two of you stayed there in silence, contemplating the city. It was strange seeing it from up there. It felt like you were a world away from everything, from every problem and every issue. You could really forget about the world while being up there and, somehow, for some reason, Noah’s presence next to you only helped to make that feeling grow.  

After a few moments, you felt Noah’s hand brushing over yours, making your skin tingle. Biting your lip, you looked up at him. The moment he felt your eyes on him, a smile appeared on his face and he looked down when you took his hand. His kind eyes roamed around your face before he chuckled to himself and squeezed your hand.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He asked.

“Are you trying to steal me, Centineo?” You asked with a small smile, but your heart was already going faster just at the thought.

“If you let me”, he said with a bigger smile.

Suddenly you felt even a bit short of breath. You didn’t know if it was the moment, the fact that you were completely alone, the way he was looking at you or that the alcohol was getting to your head, but you felt a surprising urge to kiss him. However, you couldn’t do that. It would be too embarrassing if you were reading all wrong, so you just looked down and took a deep breath.

“I’m going to text Jo”, you said, taking your hand from his to take out your phone.

“How did you guys get here?” He asked, taking the cup from your other hand so you could type.

“Uber”, you said while you wrote a quick text. “You?”

“I drove”, he smiled.

“Then get out of here”, you said when you put your phone back into your purse. “Do you have to say goodbye to someone?”

“Don’t worry about it”, he said. “Let’s go.”

For the third time that night, he held your hand as you made your way around the house to where many cars were parked. You started looking around, trying to guess which one was Noah’s. He looked like a Jeep kind of guy, or maybe it was that you had seen him as Peter Kavinsky so many times that it was the only car you could pictured him in.

“Which one is yours?” You asked.

“It’s not really mine”, he explained. “It’s a rental. Mine is getting fixed”, he added. He took out the keys and pressed the unlock bottom.

You looked around to see the lights and couldn’t help but laughing when you saw the car. It had to be a joke.

“A Jeep?” You laughed.

“What?” He said smiling down at you.

“I was just thinking what kind of car you would have and I could only picture you in a Jeep because of the To All the Boys movies”, you admitted.

“I have to admit that I rented it because of that”, he laughed. “I really liked it during the shooting.”

When you got to the car, he opened the passenger door for you and helped you up. He gave you your cup back and closed the door. You smiled a little when you noticed his fragrance in the car. It was a nice smell; one you could get used to. Quickly, you shook that thought out of your head. What were you thinking?

“Where to?” Noah asked once he had got into the car and started the engine after you two put the seatbelts on.

“I’m kind of hungry, to be honest”, you said.

“Say no more”, he said before he started driving carefully to get out of the property. “So… you said you study in Phoenix, right? What do you study?”

“Marketing”, you replied, looking out of the window as you played with the almost empty cup.

“Nice…”

“Not bad I guess”, you chuckled. He frowned and looked at you for a moment.

“Don’t you like it?” He asked.

“No, I do”, you shrugged. “It’s just…”

“You can tell me”, he said.

With a sigh, you looked at him. He was focused on the road but he looked at you to let you know he was listening. You knew it wasn’t really his business, that you had met him hours ago, but it felt like ages.

“It’s just that… I always thought I’d be doing something that I loved, not just liked”, you finally said.

“Why don’t you?” He asked. “Do what you love, I mean.”

“Because it’s not that easy”, you sighed. “I learned the hard way that not everyone is meant to get to live the life they dream of.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” He commented.

“Life is harsh”, you chuckled.

He looked at you when you stopped at a red light and you looked at him. He looked like he was trying to figure you out, trying to get inside your head and know what was going on. With a sigh, you looked away. It was way more complicated than just ‘doing what you loved. Of course you wanted to be doing something else but you had made your peace with how impossible that was for you.

“Have you ever given it a try?” He asked when he started driving again.

“There’s no use”, you said.

“Why not?” He kept on asking.

“Just because”, you sighed. You really did trust him and enjoyed talking to him, but telling him about your family situation wasn’t what you had in mind.

“Sorry”, he said, noticing your change of mood. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s okay. It’s a sensitive topic”, you said and looked at him. “Where are we going?”

He looked at you for a few seconds, his face lighted up by the street lamps, and then back at the road as the smile went back to his face.

“To the best pizza place in Los Angeles”, he said.

“Sounds promising”, you said.

“Pizza is always promising”, he said.

“Touché”, you chuckled.

Noah kept on driving in silence, sneaking glances at you every now and then. He felt like shit for bringing up the career thing. It was obvious he had struck a chord and your mind was way away from the car at the moment. He had ruined it. Completely. Since the moment he first you, he had tried to come up with a way to get some more time with you, alone, and now he had ruined it.

After five more minutes, he finally drove into the parking lot of the Hall of Pizza. It was completely empty, but it was obviously open. In the neon lights, it said that it was open for 24h which sounded impressive. It was probably a hot spot for drunks, but it was still a bit early for them.

“Here it is?” You asked.

“Yeah, you’ll love it”, he said. “C’mon”, he said opening the door and getting out.

You did the same instead of waiting for him to open the door for you. When you closed the door, he was already by your side.

“I’m really sorry”, he suddenly said. “For making you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have pushed you, sorry.”

“It’s okay, really”, you said and took his hand in yours. He looked down and then at you. “I’m starving so you better be right about this place.”

You tried to walk towards the entrance, but you could feel he wasn’t on his right mind. With a sigh, you stopped and turned to look at him again.

“Noah, seriously, it’s okay”, you said and took a step closer. Then, you stepped on your toes and pressed a kiss on his cheek before looking at him.

“What was that for?” He asked surprised, with a small smile.

“To get you to smile again”, you said, making him smile a bit more. “And it worked. So let’s go.”

This time, he followed your lead towards the small restaurant. Before getting to the door you threw the cup into a trash can and kept on walking. Noah opened the door for you, which you thanked, and you both walked in. The delicious smell of pizza filled your senses and your stomach growled all sudden. You were starving.

“Do you trust me?” He asked. You looked at his hopeful eyes and nodded immediately. Yes. You really did. “A special de la casa, per favore”, he said with a fake Italian accent that made you laugh. “What? That was perfect!”

“Certo”, you laughed.

“You speak Italian?” He asked, making you laugh even more.

“Do you?” You teased.

“Oh, shut up”, he laughed and suddenly pulled you to his chest, wrapping an arm around you in a quick hug that took you by surprise. But it surprised you even more when you felt him kissing your head. “Sorry”, he said letting you go.

“No…” you said. “It’s okay”, you said looking up at him.

With a small smile, he wrapped his arm around you again and pulled you closer, snuzzling his nose in your head with a sigh. After a few moments, you heard your phone. It was the notification tone for a message. Supposing it was from Jo, you took the phone out of your purse. Precisely.

All good babe, Im gonna sleep at Jason’s so don’t wait up ;)

You smiled to yourself and put your phone back into your purse. Jo could pretend to be as cold as ice, but you knew her and there was no way she would sleep with the same guy more than once unless she had feelings for him. Of course, you weren’t going to be the one breaking that up for her. She had to figure it out by herself.

“Everything okay?” Noah asked.

“Yes”, you nodded. “It was Jo. She’s sleeping at Jason’s”, you quickly explained.

“At Jason’s or with Jason?” He asked with a teasing smile.

“Noah!” You laughed, pushing him playfully. “Both”, you finally said, making him laugh.

“Excuse me, signore”, the cook said from the counter. “Your pizza is ready.”

“Great!” He said taking out his wallet to take out the credit card while you took the box. “Grazie mile!”

You chuckled to yourself at how cute he was and walked towards the door after thanking them for the pizza.

“Bonne nuit!” He exclaimed when he opened the door for you.

“That’s French, actually”, you laughed out loud once you were out.

“Really?” He said, taking the pizza box from you.

“Yes, buona notte is Italian”, you said, making your way back to the car.

“Sounds the same”, he frowned as he unlocked the car.

“No, they don’t”, you laughed even more. “Just stick to the English and you’ll be good”, you winked at him.

When he got into the car, he gave you the pizza box for you to hold while he drove. You didn’t even ask him where he was going since he looked like he had a destination and you were okay with just spending more time with him. The smell of the pizza was driving you crazy. It smelled delicious.

“What did you order?” You asked.

“You’ll see”, he said.

“You know I could just look, right?” You asked and he chuckled.

“Then do it”, he said with half smile.

But you didn’t, which seemed to please him. Although you were starving but you guessed it wouldn’t be long before he stopped somewhere. However, fifteen minutes later he was still driving and you were getting hungrier by the second.

“Okay, where are we going?” You finally asked.

“We’re almost there”, he said.

“And where’s there?” You asked looking out of the window where everything was dark.

You could see the road ahead thanks to the car lights but you weren’t familiar with anything. It didn’t even look like you were in the city anymore, he had started to go up some hill a minutes ago and he hadn’t stopped.

“Are you sure you’re not a serial killer?” You asked.

“I think I would have killed you by now, wouldn’t I?” He smiled.

“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say”, you said narrowing your eyes.

“And how do you know it?” He said looking at you with a bigger smile. Didn’t he ever stop smiling?

“Maybe I am a serial killer”, you smirked, making him laugh.

“Don’t worry, one more minute and we’ll be there”, he said.

True to his word, a couple of minutes later, he stopped the car and turned off the engine after turning off the lights. He looked at you for a moment and sighed in content before taking the pizza box from you and getting out of the car.

“Wait! Where are you going?” You asked getting out as well. “Noah, it’s dark, what are we doing?”

“Here, hold this”, he said giving you the box.

Looking around, you took it from him while he opened the back of the car and took out a couple of hoodies. Then, he put one on and took the pizza box to put it on top of the car.

“Here, put it on”, he said offering you the other hoodie. “C’mon! The pizza will be cold”, he insisted.

“You’re freaking me out”, you sighed but did as he told you.

Once you were done and into his comfy hoodie, he took the pizza and your hand before guiding you towards some bushes. He was crazy. You were completely sure of it, but somehow you found yourself enjoying his company more than anything. His hand around yours gave you a feeling of security you hadn’t felt in a very long time and you felt like you could follow him anywhere.

“Et voilá!” He exclaimed when you got out of the bushes.

You opened your mouth surprised. He had taken you to a small cliff with a wooden fence around it so no one would fall and some wooden tables as well. But the cherry on the top of everything was the amazing view you had at your feet. If the view from Shawn’s house had you in awe, this was out of this world.

“And turn around”, he said by your side.

You did and gasped when you saw the Hollywood up there, like in so many movies you had seen. You didn’t even know what to say, you couldn’t even close your mouth. You were so shocked that you didn’t even notice Noah letting go of your hand and walking to one of the tables to set the box down and open it.

“It’s still warm”, he said, taking you out of your trance.

“This is amazing”, you said looking at him. He smiled widely and took a seat on the table.

“I imagined you’d like it”, he said and took a slice of pizza to offer it to you.

Still looking around you, you walked over him and took the slice from him. Without even knowing what it had on it, you just took a bite and took a seat on the table, with the pizza in between you, so the city was to your right and the Hollywood sign to the left.

“It’s delicious!” You exclaimed and looked down at the pizza but it was so dark you couldn’t see the ingredients, but you tasted a lot of cheese.

“I know, right?” He said. “It has like five different kind of cheese”, he said.

“No wonder is so delicious”, you said before keep on eating.

As your eyes got used to the dark, you finally were able to actually see Noah’s features again. His head was turned towards the city, kind of lost in his own thoughts. The small lights were reflected in his eyes. You found yourself completely lost in him. Who would have thought that you would find such a loveable soul in a random party in Los Angeles?

“You’re staring”, he said without looking at you. The comment was enough to make you blush.

“Sorry”, you mumbled and took another slice.

“It’s okay”, he smiled looking now at you. “What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing, really”, you half smiled and looked at the city to avoid his eyes, but you could feel them on your face. “I was thinking about how random this is”, you finally said. “In a good way”, you quickly added.

“Yeah, I know”, he agreed, taking another slice himself. “I didn’t even want to go to the party in the first place. Now I’m really glad I did.”

“I’m glad you did too”, you said smiling and looked at him.

You two stared at each other smiling and, after a few moments, that urge that you felt in the car to kiss him came back, even stronger than before. You forced yourself to look away once again. There was something about the way he looked at you that made you so nervous. It may be the intensity or just the way he did it. Whatever it was, you weren’t familiar with that tickly feeling in your stomach.

“When are you leaving?” He asked after a while of silence.

“Sunday afternoon”, you said.

“I thought you had a long weekend”, he commented.

“How do you know?” You asked surprised.

“A guy at the party was talking about it and I just assumed it was a national thing”, he shrugged. “It’s not?”

“It is”, you nodded. “I don’t have class until Tuesday but I have to work on Monday”, you explained.

“What’s your job?” He asked, surprised you had to work.

“I work at a cinema”, you shrugged. “Popcorns, soda… Sometimes I have to sell tickets too.”

“Oh…” he said. You looked at him and chuckled. “I just didn’t expect it.”

“I girl gotta live”, you joked and finished the slice of pizza. You were actually kind of full by now.

“Don’t you live at home? I mean, with your parents and all”, he asked.

“It’s more complicated than that”, you sighed.

“But then why-“

“It’s complicated, Noah”, you repeated.

Noah clenched his jaw and then nodded to himself. It was the second time you shut him off like that, which probably meant that it was something really serious. He didn’t expect you to open your soul to him, but he wished you did. Why? He didn’t know. All he knew is that he wanted to get to know you. For real.

“Sorry”, you said after a while. “It’s just… Things at home are complicated and that’s just a nice way to say it.”

“I’m sorry…” he said with a frown. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know about it”, you said.

“I do”, he said.

With a frown, you looked at him. He was looking at you with the most serious expression you had seen on his face since you met him a few hours ago. Why was he so interested?

“I’m serious”, he said when you didn’t say anything.

You bite your lip and looked at the city once again. It was never easy to talk about it. The only person you really talked to about this was Jo and even she knew how hard it was for you to open up about it. Yet, you wanted him to know even if you were not ready to dig into the reasons why you felt like that.

“My sister has leukaemia”, you finally said, looking down at your hands that were almost covered by the sleeves of his hoodie, which was way too big for you but it made you feel safe. “She was diagnosed around three years ago.”

Noah didn’t even know what to say. He was expecting some kind of hard situation but nothing like that. He couldn’t even imagine what that was like. Just the thought of his own sister going through something like that made him tear up a bit.

“It was a shock for everyone, obviously, and it still is. She is two years younger than me and she has always been so… so alive”, you shrugged trying not to tear up. “We started the treatment right away but even with the insurance, there was a lot to pay so we all had to give up on things”, you shrugged and looked at him for a moment, but you couldn’t hold his gaze. “I gave up NYU and agreed to stay home and get a job, which I did.”

“That’s why you said that not everyone gets the life that they dream about?” He asked and you nodded.

“I just made my peace with it”, you shrugged. “She’s my sister so I would do it all over again if I had to. No doubts, no regrets. But that doesn’t mean that it’s any easier to think about what my life could have been.”

“I’m so really sorry, (Y/N)”, Noah said and took the now empty box to put it aside and move closer to you to take your hands. “I… I had no idea, I’m sorry I pushed you to talk about it.”

“It’s okay”, you shrugged. “It’s not like it is a secret but I didn’t want to kill the mood with my sad little story.”

“You didn’t kill the mood. I really wanted to know”, he said and you gave him a small smile that he returned. “And how is she? And your parents?”

“Well, my parents ended up getting a divorce”, you shrugged. “That was just like the cherry on the top of the worst cake ever baked”, you chuckled sadly. “But Harper is okay. All things considered. She has always been so so positive about everything. She is so strong… I’m so proud of her.”

“I bet you are”, he smiled a little. “I’d love to meet her.”

“Shut up”, you chuckled. “Now you’re just talking out of pity.”

“I’m not!” He exclaimed. “(Y/N), I’m serious here. I know it sounds crazy because we just met hours ago but… I want to be there for you.”

You looked up at him and somehow you knew he was serious. Still, you couldn’t really let him to be part of a life as messy as yours. So you leaned in and kissed his cheek softly, knowing that when he dropped you off at Jo’s apartment he would probably forget all about you and your family’s tragedy.  

“Thanks, Noah”, you said.

“Want to go?” He asked. You nodded with a sigh.

Not a saying a word, he jumped off the table, took the box and threw it into a trash that was near the fence. Then, he went back to you and wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him and started walking towards the car. Noah could feel it and so could you. Somehow, that little moment you had just shared, had pulled you together. Some kind of bond had just been created between you two.

“How did you know about this place?” You asked.

“When I first moved here to Los Angeles, a long time ago, a friend showed me this place”, he explained.

“I thought you didn’t live in LA”, you said.

“I do, but I’m in shooting something in Florida and I had some time off so I came to see my family”, he said just when you came back out of the bushes and saw the car.

“Well, thanks for sharing it with me”, you said as he unlocked the car.

“Thanks for coming with me”, he said, opening the passenger door for you. “Where to?” He asked before you even got in.

You sighed and stopped to look at him. If it was up to you, you would spend the whole night with him, but was that even a good idea? You already felt like you were going to miss him.

Judging by the way he was looking at you, he was thinking the same. None of you wanted this night to end but were somehow terrified of what could happen if you two decided to just go along with whatever it was that you were feeling.

“I don’t know”, you finally said.

“Do you want to go home?” He asked, not moving from his spot.

“Do you?”

“Not really”, he said, his eyes fixed on yours.

“Me neither”, you admitted, moving your eyes from his to his mouth and then back to his eyes.

Noah was dying to kiss you. He had first thought about it at the party, then again at the pizza place and he had thought about it a million times since he saw your face looking at the Hollywood sign. What the hell had happened in the previous hours? When he first saw you, next to the beer pong table, he was intrigued by you. And now, hours later, he had the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to let you go that easily and, if he did, it would hurt.

And now there, in the darkness, with just the light of the inside of the car, he finally took a step closer to you. His hand itched just by wanting to hold you, his heart beat faster at the thought of kissing you, but he wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t try. He placed a hand on your cheek and took a deep breath when you leaned a bit against it, not breaking eye contact. When you bit your lip, he knew he was done for.

Without thinking any more, he leaned down and finally captured your lips with his, wrapping his other arm around your waist to pull you closer. You wrapped his hoodie in your hands, to try and pull him even closer as you kissed him back.

You had always read and heard about fireworks when you kissed someone but this was the first time you truly believed in them. And it wasn’t just fireworks. It was like the Big Bang was happening around you. It was unique. It was unforgettable. It was beyond words.

None of you wanted to stop that moment. If it was possible to keep on kissing forever, feeling your bodies together, you would. But humans have that annoying issue of breathing, so you had to pull away. And yet you just kept your forehead against his, your eyes closed, your breathing mixing.

“Get in the car or I promise I won’t let you go”, he whispered after a few moments.

You bite your lip and followed his words, not because you wanted him to let you go, but because you needed to control your breathing. When he got in the car and started the engine, you gave him Jo’s address. At least, you would have a drive to think about what you wanted to do next.

The drive back was made in silence. But not that awkward silence that can follow a kiss, it was quite the opposite. You were just looking out of the window while holding his hand over the console, replaying the night and the kiss over and over again in your head. You could feel Noah’s thumb brushing over your knuckles. Every time he had to stop, he would raise your hand and kiss it, letting his lips linger over your skin for a few seconds before putting it down again. Every time he did that, that tickly feeling in your stomach appeared.

“Here we are”, he said when he stopped the car at the door of Jo’s apartment building. You bite your lip looking at the door and then at Noah. You didn’t want to leave him.

“Come up”, you said without thinking it twice. It looked like it took him by surprise, since it took him a bit to reply.

“Are you sure?” He asked cautiously. “I mean, it’s your friend’s place.”

“She’s okay with it, believe me”, you assured him. He bite his lip and looked at the door of the building.

He really wanted to do it. He wanted to go up with you and spend the rest of the night with you. But he was starting to get scared of what that it would mean to him once you left.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to”, you said, feeling a bit insecure.

“No, it’s not that. I do want to. I really do”, he said and turned off the engine. “It’s just… this never happened to me before, you know?”

“Oh, of course, this is just Tuesday for me”, you said with irony. “I do this every single day.”

He laughed and leaned his head back on the seat, closing his eyes. He was trying so hard to follow his reason and not his feelings, but he had never been the kind of guy to do that. And he definitely didn’t want to be it with you, but it all felt so…intense that he didn’t know what to do.

“Look, Noah”, you said. He looked at you. “This is weird for me too but… if you want to leave, I get it, it’s okay, I promise. It’s just that, I don’t know why, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to you.”

Something about the way you say it, with such truth behind it, was what Noah needed. His brain had clicked. Without saying anything, he got out of the car and walked around it to open your door while you looked for your purse. You took it from the floor just when he opened the door.

“Thanks”, you said when he helped you down by taking your hand.

Instead of replying, he closed the door and locked the car before wrapping an arm around your waist and kissing you again, taking you completely by surprise.

He had made a decision. He wasn’t going to think anymore. He didn’t want to. He wanted to just let himself go and see what this went. It could end up in nothing but the little voice inside his head kept on telling him that you were special, that he couldn’t give you up. Not yet.. It sounded crazy, but in his guts he knew he was right.

“What was that for?” You asked when he pulled away as a smile made its way to your face.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye either”, he simply said.

#noah centineo #noah imagine #noah centineo imagine #fluff imagine #pitubea #imagine #angst #to all the boys i've loved before #to all the boys ps i love you #the fosters #peter kavinsky

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

My honest assessment of every version of MDZS now that I have consumed at least part of all of them, best and worst aspects of each.

The Untamed/CQL, the first version I encountered:

The best part of this show is literally every single moment that wwx and lwj are onscreen together. Every time they gaze into each other’s eyes I am reminded that love is in fact real. The last 20 episodes are just Wangxian on main and I love every moment of the Cloud Recesses part of the flashback. I would absolutely die for Wang Yibo and his absolutely stellar micro expressions.

I love this gem of a show. However, I can also acknowledge it is occasionally prone to corniness and the effects budget was I’m assuming quite low and thus some visual elements are deeply amusing. It’s part of the charm though and not that big a deal. Also it did have to have some aspects of the original story heavily censored, which is sad. But like, tbh, the production team still made it an explicit romance and it doesn’t Feel censored at all. Honestly the romance is that good. Episodes 42-46 in particular are just 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Also full honesty I fast forwarded through quite a few villain scenes during the flashback cause they were kind of dragging and I wanted to get back to my boys and then I kept being like ‘who the heck is this’ when the villain stuff I fast forwarded turned out to be like actuallly important later.

The original version from the pen of MXTX herself, the book in fantranslation which I read immediately after finishing CQL:

Wow. Wow. The jump from watching the end of CQL and their wistful parting and stuff and then opening the book and seeing there’s a chapter titled wangxian and obviously reading that one first before going back to the beginning and finding out that instead of parting wistfully at the end they fuck off the side of the road and then elope. Amazing. Incredible. The 20 post canon fluffy (and kinky wow very kinky did not expect that but really quite pleased) one shots. Absolutely incredible thank you MA’AM.

The one downside: Please for the love of god why do so many of these anal sex scenes have to feature a lack of lubrication and proper preparation like I can be down with the noncon kink stuff but Dear God please include some lube and a smidge of fingering in there somewhere.

The manhua, of which I only read the most recent 30 or so chapters as of a couple months ago:

GREAT from what I read so far including the fact that it included an uncensored kiss from the book! Didn’t include Phoenix Mountain but did include LWJ getting drunk and tying WWX up with his forehead ribbon, bless up.

The only downside as far as I can tell is that it’s not finished.

The donghua, which I started a month ago and only watched two episodes but then started again today and watched basically the whole thing.

This opinion may be unpopular but this is the best adaptation by far, objectively. Being adapated in animation allows the fights and the magic to be just Incredible. It’s so well paced, better than Untamed, and manages to be quite close to the book while still cutting out and changing a few things. Actually made me cry about the destruction of Lotus Pier and made me sad about Yu ZiYuan.

And the clincher, Wei Wuxian is at his Most Badass. I cannot overemphasize how fucking hyped I was when he appeared amidst a flock of crows on top of a roof to kick Wen Chao’s ass. The fight scenes where wwx and lwj are working together are sooooooooo goooooooooood.

The downsides are yes that it does censor and skim over some of the wangxian content. But here’s the thing. They’re still 100% in love and some lines that I definitely didn’t expect to make it through censorship from the book are included so here’s hoping for some good shit in season 3.

Oh yeah that’s the other downside. It’s not finished, the final season isn’t scheduled till 2021 (but also corona so like who knows what that’s gonna do to production). S2 ends at the beginning of Yi City.

And last but Certainly not least, the audio drama:

Which I have tragically only experienced the clips of that are on YouTube cause I tried to download the fansubs and couldn’t get them to work on my old ass Mac idk what I did wrong rip.

But the parts that are on YouTube. Oh man. Oh man. The Guanyin temple confession scene? Jesus Christ I swear to god I have watched the clips of it on youtube at least ten times I Am Full Of Emotions Dear Universe Please Let Me Have The Rest Of The Audio Drama It’s All I Want. One day I shall prevail over my technological impasse and being that well fed with ship content I shall assume my final form, one of infinite power, fueled only by sheer fannish glee

5 stars

#mdzs #mo dao su zhi #the untamed #wangxian #gdc #CQL #caitie speaks

[jlf23tumble]

My 1D-related fic faves of 2019

I've read a TON of great fic this year in all kinds of fandoms, Jeeeeeeeeeesus, there are so many talented writers out there, but I won't list it all here (or even list everything I bookmarked this year). Instead, I'm gonna stick with 1D-related works released in 2019 that pulled me in hard and made me stare at the wall and/or read again and/or scream about with other people, and I'll try to do it in cutesie number order because WHY NOT make it that extra level of arbitrary, lmao. I love fanfic because no matter what fandom I'm dipping in, something new is gonna jump up and kill me (this year in particular, I've subscribed to a lot of "new to me" writers that I LOVE, and I hope you know who you are [do you know who you are, etc.]). Thank you for the free gifts, for your time, for your blood, sweat, and tears! I owe you hugs, coffee, and my undying love, gratitude, and support! I'll put my list under the cut to avoid some v. v. real screen scroll rage--happy new year, y'all!

2 lactation kink fics

(aka the Jaerie category, nobody else is out there writing this even as Harry's tits get bigger and milkier and why am I the only one fully appreciating all of it?????)

I Think You're Already Home, by jaerie, Seeing Louis Tomlinson today, it would be hard to guess that he was ever once a member of the world's most famous boyband. These days he doesn't even the leave his own house. The truth is he can't leave his own house. (a December gift to remember for all of us! a/b/o dynamics, famous Louis, omega Harry--which is practically canon at this point--crippling agoraphobia, lactation-related sexiness, I would read at least ten (10) more chapters of this)

freaks from the internet, by jaerie. Harry sells his breast milk to freaks on the internet. Louis turns out to be one of those freaks. He also happens to be Harry's ex. (I legit can't believe this came out this year, I rec it all the time! it was anon for forever, and I was low-key obsessed because I just wanted mawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr of it, and I got it, thank CHRIST)

3 fics for meeeeeeee

(These works were gifts to me, and I am so truly hashtag blessed to receive!!!)

I Just Wanna Taste It, by @homosociallyyours​. In his mind it's watermelon and sticky strawberry sweet, and he craves the feeling of his own round, firm belly warm under his hands on a summer evening. (Megan loves to kill me with Harry mpreg imaginings, and this one feels like canon to me!)

Powerless (and I Don't Care It's Obvious), by objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain​. He should not be getting turned on by Harry’s full-bladder discomfort, his little twitches, his hips-stuttering. And yet. (AND YET!!! I don't even know where to start with how much I love Phoenix, what a treasure her work is in ANY fandom, how shitty this particular fandom has been to her, how much I'm gonna miss harry/louis fic gifts from her in the future, how HOT this pee kink fic is in general, dot dot dot)

Tuxedo Classic Dance Party, by Blake/ @newleafover​. Instead of flying out to meet his touring boyfriend in Madrid, Louis sticks around to be responsible and do things like dance at Lady Gaga night at the gay cowboy club in West Hollywood. (Blake has written at least five fics in various fandoms that I would say are my favorite fics of all time, but they really topped themselves with this one!)

4 fic series

(I feel like there are probably loads more that qualify, but these ones grabbed me in their own particular way)

Not That Gone, by abrighteryellow/ @a-brighter-yellow​. Louis’s 20-year high school reunion takes a turn when a celebrity classmate – who also happens to be Louis’s long unrequited crush – unexpectedly shows up. (this was inspired by Chris Evans, and both parts stand on their own, tbh)

Maybe I Miss You, by 13ways. Louis is on his way back to London after the Hits Live Birmingham concert. Harry is flying to New York for the Met Gala. They connect. (from the very first story in this series, I was HOOKED, canon angst that builds up to something truly wonderful)

There's something I want to try..., by TheMagicWord. Harry wants to try something. Louis's not convinced. Until he is. (the installments are super short, super hot)

One More Time Again, by orphan_account. On the morning of his second sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden, Harry wakes up to find that he's sixteen years old, on The X Factor, and that he has a chance to make things right. (I'm sad that this author orphaned, but I seem to recall her getting a TON of shit, which is unfortunate because this is a great read, and part two is an imagining where Louis goes back instead)

5 fics featuring holidays

(These ones are basically from Christmas and Halloween of this year, so quite recent!!)

once bitten and twice shy, by @pinkcords​. In a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. (the notes on this one blew me away: first-time author, pinch-hitting for a fest, and damn, a knock out)

you've set my soul to dreaming, by we_are_the_same. Thirty-year-old Harry Styles goes to bed single on Christmas Eve, only to wake up on Christmas morning with a husband in his bed and a son down the hall. (I'm not always into this trope, but when it's done well? NICE, and this one did it well)

when half spent was the night, by @juliusschmidt​. I’ve skimmed your website and am interested in hiring you to be my doula. I’m 7 ½ months pregnant and not keen to do this whole labor and birth thing alone. After looking around, I thought you might be a good fit. (girl direction advent fic with pregnant Louis that’s incredibly well done, especially given how short it is, I was so sad to see it end, but the author says something about act II coming??? YES!!!)

Fictober 2019 Collection, by flowercrownfemme/ @lesbianiconharrystyles​. Features lots of monsters and creatures and Harry Styles being a general nightmare as well as a few Girl Direction drabbles and a timestamp for Fool For You and one for Treat Mothman With Kindness. (Chloe's Halloween drabbles, each of which could outrival other stories 4x the length...she's a GIFT)

Cat & Mouse, by jaerie. It's the one day out of the year that Harry doesn't have to hide and can be himself — at least he thought so. Louis is just a little more observant than he anticipated. (I'm not a big hybrid fic fan, BUT GOD THIS STORY IS SO GOOD, it's so short I wanna cry, but so good!!!)

6 a/b/o fics

(I can handle "traditional" a/b/o if it gives me my dose of omega Harry, but I absolutely adore "untraditional" a/b/o, you know, where it actually is NOT about straight dynamics being put on a m/m or f/f couple (excuse me, a/a or o/o)...these ones NAIL IT, as did the entire gaybo ficfest)

violence of my own touch, by 14hrflight/ @silverfoxlouis​. Louis hasn’t said anything, but Harry knows something is wrong. Harry’s rut had ended a few days ago, and Louis had kept him under as best as he could. (whenever I read Chi's alpha/alpha fics, I find myself internally screaming "CHI!!!" god, do they Get It, and I really hope they continue this one!)

Amor Victorious, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. Louis finds himself following Harry on a journey through Italy, complete with long train rides, greasy food, naked Christs, and too many lingering touches. They're definitely not like other tourists and he definitely doesn't have a crush on his best friend who happens to be an alpha, too. (this one came out during Thanksgiving week, so I held it to savor, and BOY, DID I SAVOR, it's so incredible, the gorgeous writing, the visceral, indescribable feeling of reading it, sighhhhhhh)

do you know me by heart, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. Harry comes back wearing alphas' scents, a pleased smile and a lace dress. Somehow, Louis still ends up making him come until he cries. (for me personally, 2019 was the year of Nina: getting to know them, catching up on all their writing, falling in love with the way they can kill us all with beautiful angst and the hint and hope of redemption...here's a tissue, you'll need it!!)

the way that you're thrilling me, by @hereforlou​. Alphas were smelly and cocky and mostly arseholes, in Harry’s experience. Or at least they were at school. He didn’t understand how his friends—lovely, soft-skinned, sweet-smelling omegas—could actually want to touch them, or be touched by them. (this is just one of the many, MANY faves I had from the gaybo ficfest, A+ all around)

Constant Debauchery, by Blake/ @newleafover​. Harry is an alpha who loves getting his mouth knotted by other alphas. Louis is happy to serve. Fun smut! But also angst and sexual awakenings. (Blake knows how to sum up their writing, lol, but YEAH, me as at least one of the comments both public and private saying they'd want to read 100k more of this)

how many nights did I crash against the waves, by Blake/ @newleafover​ Louis is going into heat and Harry thinks it's hot. (the SKILL of writing something that's 1.7k, yet builds a complete--and v. v. hot--world)

7 fics with Harry and someone else

(I still have a few I need to read in this category--I'm getting there! But these are some from my fave authors that really had me pondering some walls [heh])

I Want Your Belly, by @glasscushion​. Harry wants Adam to knock him up. Inspired by on-stage thirst, the Instagram Stories Shirt, Watermelon Sugar, and Harry’s persistent baby fever. (Adam/Harry, mpreg kink of the finest order!!)

Rachel, Nevada, by @vondrostes​. Harry has a close sexual encounter of the fourth kind. (Jeff/Harry, Rachel/Harry, and I honestly can't even BEGIN to describe this, holy WOW)

Sea Salt, by @glasscushion​. Nick's drunk, and he can't avoid his feelings forever. Set in 2013 and 2019. (Nick/Harry, rip gryles...the grylers I know had an absolute field day in terms of angst, damn!)

all my lies are safe beside you now, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals​. They both know what it was like to love Louis Tomlinson fiercely, irrevocably, ghosts of it on their skin, even if the traces were etched in vastly different ways. (Zayn/Harry, and FOR REAL, this is a huge ouch)

call me anything you like, but my name is, by @wishforwishes​. Some conversations are better left forgotten, some conversations are worth remembering, and some conversations you never get the chance to have. Featuring three mentors, two tea parties, one and a half recording studios, and a reference to Archie comics. (Harry/CHASM, essentially; LISTEN, I am obsessed with this fic, you don't need to read part one to really Get It, but the bits with Zayn, and James/Ben, and all the parts with Harry working through gender? SO GODDAMNED REAL)

Come Out and Play, by @dinosaursmate​. Harry and Louis discover a new kink in their relationship, and it brings all the boys closer than they could have ever imagined. (ot5 orgy, so not really Harry with anyone so much as everyone with everyone, and let's call this one canon)

Like a Rolling Stone, by @vondrostes​. By the end of it, Nick realised his tea had gone cold in his hand. He’d barely taken a single sip in the hour-plus he’d been sat there, unmoving, transfixed by Harry’s songs—haunted by the knowledge of what had inspired them. (Nick/Harry, rip gryles)

8 canon fics

(This was a VERY hard category to narrow down, but yeah, a big push this year from "newer" writers = lots of nuanced fic)

Per Aspera, by @sedfierisentio​. Louis’s throat feels tight, his heart like a hammer in his chest. You know my rot, he thinks, and I know yours. I love you still. (these achingly beautiful time stamps are centered around taste, and if this fic has taught me anything, it's that buying an author a coffee has a ripple effect)

A Nullo Amato, by @sedfierisentio​. Inspired by Harry carrying books around outside LAX, a canon-compliant, Canon AU fic set between 2014 and 2015; mostly, timestamps roped together by a common theme—literature. (this was removed four years ago and reposted, so maybe it's a cheat??? i don't care, it was brand-new to me and a lot of other people, I'm so glad the author shared it again!)

no love like your love, by @dykes4louis​. A collection of tumblr drabbles. (Hima is REALLY burying the lede on this one because each of these is short and SCORCHING, her skill, check out her other works, too!)

Dancing in My Dreams, by @kingsofeverything​. Louis doesn't mean to imply that Harry's too old to dance for him, but Harry takes it that way, and sets out to prove him wrong. (this is one that *could* go in the series pile, but I love it as a standalone...feels like canon to me, regardless!)

Sonic Sounds, by @glasscushion​. "Harry takes a deep breath, suitably embarrassed, “I’m just really...” and he can’t say the obvious. He can’t just say "really wet." Or Harry loves feeling embarrassed. Louis is happy to help. (I'll never look at those One Direction electric toothbrushes quite the same way again)

Bruised Fruit, by @glasscushion. Louis is obsessed with the way Harry smells in the heat of LA. (hey, you know what, me, too, bitch, you ain't special...the way this fic SMELLS, my god, I"m obsessed)

be my once in a lifetime, by HappyPrincess/ @pattern-pals. Just like there are only four other people who will ever understand what it’s like growing up in One Direction, there’s only one other person who knows what it’s like to find your soulmate just before you’re thrown into the spotlight and forced to acknowledge that the both of you have too many flaws and vices to make it through fame together. Or: It's all about having sex and being sad. And drunk. (can u believe Nina wrote this before Fine Line???)

in this dress, by cabinbythesea. Louis is so lost in his eyes and his words he feels if a step above heaven exists, it has to be Harry. Loosely inspired by Harry’s dress from the director’s cut of Lights Up. (I sure hope we see even more fic inspired by every bit of this album/every video it produces)

9 fics by Phoenix/ @alienfuckeronmain

(This fandom doesn't deserve her, and I hope everyone's reading her other works because they're all so amazing, she's such an incredibly gifted writer, my fave of faves, my life is so much brighter with her in it...I could rec her all goddamned day, and I do slash will!!! Here are nine she cranked out this year, each one a gem in its own way)

Silver White Winters. In which Louis catches a cloud and pins it down, aka, a Sound of Music AU (the shittiness in the comments underlines why we can't have nice things, but jesus CHRIST, this is so pure and good, and she cranked it out in, like, two hours)

I don't do that dance. Harry is easily the worst ballet dancer in her whole Intro to Ballet class. Except maybe Taylor Swift. (I adore how Phoenix writes girl Harry, but the way she writes Taylor? Unparalleled...nails her perfectly!)

magic, madness, heaven, sin, by @kerasines. It’s the flashing lights painting colors on her eyelids, it’s the drumming bass competing with her heartbeat. It’s the manic energy rippling through the crowd in waves, the deafening, frenzied passion filling the stadium that remind Eleanor that she actually used to like going to concerts. (technically, this one is FOR Phoenix, from Kim, but it takes a pairing that Phoenix is making her very own, so I'm counting it, lol)

Snakes and Stones. If you call a girl a snake enough, sometimes she becomes one. Her legs lengthen and fuse, her pupils shrink to slits. She gets colder and colder, until she has to spread herself on the warm cement beside the pool, soaking in heat, sipping gin and tonics to warm her blood so she does not turn to ice and shatter to bits. (god, I'm blanking on this ship name, but El/Taylor is such an inspired pairing, and I hope that P's drabbles make it over to ao3 in full)

Something good (will come from here). Taylor does not answer, because she is too busy licking her lips and pitching forward, as if Eleanor is the sky, or the sea. (you can practically SMELL this fic, El/Taylor drabble)

I Must Confess (I Still Believe). Harry is the new girl at an all girl Catholic Girl's School, and Louis is the unattainable, dashing senior who changes her forever. (this fic breaks my heart, the entire experience of its production and aftermath will forever be bittersweet, a gorgeous swansong)

Only One at the Finish Line. “I want to be another alpha’s omega,” is what he says, and it comes out like something reckless, something wild. Like he doesn't care anymore if Louis hates him or not, if Louis understands, he just needs to speak his truth aloud to darkness, to the slender pines that surround them like a jury panel. (Phoenix was the gaybo mod, and this was her contribution, and it is PERFECTION PERSONIFIED, fest goals)

The Pink Ghost of Princess Park. The thought of the vibrator does not go away. It’s sitting there collecting dust all through January, and every time Harry and Louis have to leave town for a press event or a show or to record or what have you, they come back home, and it’s still there, the Pink Ghost of Princess Park, the fucking glittery haunting that Harry cannot stop thinking of Louis stuffing up his arse. (a very good year in general for Princess Park clapbacks)

Life Saver. Louis is a sweetheart punk with a theater background and a heart of gold, Harry is an inexperienced nerd who plays by the rules. Classmates, lab partners, and eventually friends, what happens when Louis knows he’s in love, but doesn’t know how tell Harry? (this one came out a year ago tomorrow, and it had a tough birthing process, but it's so good, so hot, my love for virgin Harry gettin’ it on knows no bounds)

10 AU fics

(yes, yes, this could be LOADS longer, but I’m sticking to my theme!)

breathless for an eternity, by cabinbythesea. Harry conquers double duty on SNL and Louis wishes he was Nick Jonas. (dangggg, this came out too late for me to rec it along with my other snl-related fic, but it joins that lofty canon!)

Pretty Baby, by @littlelouishiccups. Louis helps Harry unwind after a busy week. (I was NOT expecting a new chapter in the iconic sugar baby Harry series, but HERE WE ARE)

into another (another) serotonin overflow, by @mercutionotromeo. Sweet first time sex wherein Harry's adorably awkward, Louis is achingly cool, and Harry rides Louis wearing his jersey. (this is one of my all-time fave fics, and I'm not sure what changed in it to get it reposted, but yeah, HERE FOR IT, THANK YOU!!!)

'Sup, by @mediawhorefics. All Louis wants is to finish the play he’s been commissioned to write, but one of the regulars at his local coffee shop keeps distracting him. ft. older larry, pushy gemma, harry being a disaster gay and silver fox louis. (this is so short but so tantalizing, GOD, DO I WANT MORE OF THIS UNIVERSE)

Tan Lines and Some Memories, by twoshipstiedup. Harry Styles is the indie movie darling he’d been avoiding ever since Louis saw his movie at Cannes and harbored an unreasonable grudge against him. A unicorn t-shirt finally brings them together in person. (I honestly thought we'd get more unicorn shirt fic, but this is a wonderful standard-bearer, banter city)

Bitter Tangerine, by purpledaisy/ @daisyharry. Nine months after they break up, a twist of fate brings Harry and Louis back together at Christmas. (so much ouch in this, but wow, do you feel like you're reading fully realized, realistic, growing characters)

We're Driving in Your Fast Car, by @sadaveniren. Harry felt himself light up - both with excitement and the thrill of getting what he wanted. “Really?” “Of course, anything for you." aka Louis and Harry are car thieves about to pull off a million dollar job. (another one I'd love to read more of...how did they get here, where are they going, etc.)

remember you well, by @fondleeds. Harry’s a criminal, Louis’ a cop, and they’re stranded overnight at the Motel 6. (what's with me and my love of heist/caper fics this year?)

Tied Down, by HamPalpert/ @ham-palpert. The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson. The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall. For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated. (SEE ABOVE, JESUS, I THINK ABOUT THIS FIC...ALL...THE.......TIME)

Harry Styles Cooks..., by sunsetmog. Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them. (yeah, it's a wip, yeah, I flatline every time it updates, what of it, I'm living my best life vicariously through it!!)

#fic rec #faves of 2019 #i have so many more i love that i read #but this is a theme lmaooooo #hope that one anon loves it!