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theonetheycallhannah · 3 years

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The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter 20: Second Assist

Characters: Captain Logan “Sy” Syverson, Shane Benton (OFC), various other original supporting/secondary characters

Summary: Shane reunites with friends and family, hashes out some feelings, and gets real with Sy. Can their relationship survive her trauma? And the threat that still looms above them?

Romance and Smut Abound HERE!

Word Count: 4500

Warnings: Mention of rape, alcoholic beverages, violent imagery…feels out the butt.

Author’s Note: You guys are so splendid and beautiful! I can’t thank you enough for your support and encouragement to finish this piece. First, welcome to new readers! I know poor Henry’s injury and subsequent physiotherapy has driven some of you here, and while I’m sorry for him, I’m glad I can consider myself something of a pioneer in this particular genre and provide you some help for your newfound thirst. To my OG readers, it is to you I owe this entire work, parts written and incomplete, and I hope an eventual book deal. I mean to mention you in my acknowledgements, should this ever reach a willing publisher. You’ve inspired me so supremely that I cannot quantify it, even with the words I hold so dear.

Since my last chapter was posted, we’ve said a relieved goodbye to 2020 and a tentative hello to 2021. To be honest, this year has started out worse than last year. Lots of bad weather in my area this winter, my sister is currently on her way to a new life in another state, and my grandmother, the last grandparent I had, passed away in February. Those last two things have been especially difficult to shake off and recover from, both coming to fruition pretty suddenly. Amongst all that, I’ve been pretty distracted by my other fandoms, especially Marvel, and I’ve been reading a killer book series that I’m utterly in love with. (The Throne of Glass novels by Sarah J. Maas. 10/10 recommend.) But I knew I needed to get back into Shane and Sy’s story, especially given the new and rekindled interest in the subject matter. In all honesty, I’ve had most of it written for months. It’s just been a matter of finishing it off to set up the rest of the story.

I really hope you all enjoy Chapter 20, Second Assist, and would love your feedback and notes. You are all so important to this story, and your notes, reblogs, and comments are cherished. Thank you so much for reading! Love from Hannah!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism. This is an original work by me, Hannah. Please reblog if you wish to share. Please do not repost either in whole or part, as the work of anyone but myself. Thanks so much for reading!

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If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although…their lackadaisical notification system might…sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Shane woke in her warm bed, late morning sun streaming in through her sheer curtains, the heavier drapes parted to let in the light. She wished she'd remembered to close them before now. She really was not ready to be awake.

She was sore. Achy. Her sleep had been fitful and full of shadowy nightmares and muffled screams. Beyond that, she didn't try to remember images or events. She knew the general premise of the dreams. It would take a lot of time, effort, or a miracle to make her forget those traumas she'd been through in the last week. Not even forget. She knew she never would. But move on from them. Accept them. And heal from them…even that seemed a mighty obstacle. One she was not sure she could surmount.

Through the open bedroom door, she could hear Lynyrd Skynyrd and the clanging and sizzling of pans, and she could smell bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Sy had left the room, but had not, it seemed, gone far. She gingerly sat up, stood from the bed, and donned her robe as she walked out into the hall and down the corridor to the kitchen.

The sight before her warmed her heart. There was Sy. In only his boxers, daringly frying the notoriously dangerous breakfast meat. Upon her entry to the kitchen, she could also smell pancakes, and she thought syrup, as well. He seemed to be warming a bottle of the maple unction in a pot of hot water. He turned as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and grinned widely at her.

"Mornin' sunshine." And she was struck by the irony of someone with such a radiant smile calling her sunshine. Especially when she didn't feel much like beaming. But she couldn't help return the expression, even through her pain.

"Mornin' bear. Did you go to the store?" She knew she couldn't have any bacon in her fridge, and she doubted her eggs and milk were still good at this point. But she also couldn't think that he would leave her for any reason.

"Nah, some of the guys brought over some provisions. Matt worked on your car all night, too, and filled up the tank. It's as good as new. He and Nate brought ‘er over as well as the groceries. I just had ‘em get stuff I knew your family wouldn't be bringing later. They've had tons of food given to them this week, and they're ready to share. You should have seen your mom loading me down with sandwiches and chips and whatnot when I visited them."

"I still can't believe you met them. I really wanted to introduce you personally." Shane's face fell. She would never be able to get that back. She wanted to cry. Sy had poured her a cup of coffee and sat it in front of her with her favorite creamer.

"Darlin' I’m so sorry. I had to talk to them."

"I know." she sniffed. "I'm not mad. Not at you. Just…"she didn't want to say Elliott's name. "I'm disappointed that the experience was stolen from me." That so many things had been stolen from her. By that monster. There was no other way to describe him. Sy growled. As if he could read her mind. He really just knew her well enough and shared her thoughts.

"Well, don't worry, we'll have a nice dinner with them one of these days, and we can pretend. Sound good?"

"Yeah, and I can feign nervousness." she laughed.

"And I'll pretend too. That I'm scared to meet your dad." he chuckled. "What if he threatens me with his shotgun?"

"I'll pull the ol' 'Daddy, no, I loooooove him!' line, as I throw myself between you!"

"That oughta work." he laughed and kissed her on the forehead as he stepped toward the stove and flipped a pancake.

As they sat eating their late breakfast, Shane's mind wandered. Nothing had changed on the surface, but everything was different now. This cozily mundane breakfast with her boyfriend felt like an out of body experience. As delicious as it was, as wonderful and comforting as it should feel, her guard was up. Even through her amiable façade. She was not the person she was two weeks ago. She was not the same woman who said goodbye to Sy at the base. Maybe that was the real transformation. Maybe that was why nothing felt normal. It wasn't the world, but her own self coming back into it.

"Shane?" Sy asked, gently, but it felt like he was speaking through a megaphone directly into her ear. She was so startled, she nearly dropped the half full mug of coffee that was paused midway to her lips. A bit sloshed out onto the table and splashed her shirt.

"Shit!" she chided herself. It wasn't a big deal, but she felt stupid jumping at the sound of her own name.

Sy reached for the closest towel, hanging from the oven handle, grabbed it and started for her clothes with it. She stopped him. But she couldn't think about why the intimate act made her uncomfortable.

"No, don't, it's fine. These clothes have seen better days, anyway." She pulled the towel from him and began to mop up the small puddles of coffee around her plate.

Sy seemed to note the stains already present on the shirt, as if trying to divine their history. She was something of a messy eater, so the battle wounds of many a barbecue, spaghetti dinner, and hurried breakfast peppered the now off-white SATB club tee she'd gotten her second or third year in college choir. She thought back to a huge room with high ceilings. White, cinder block walls, flecked tile floors, a beautiful, glossy, black baby grand in front of a long whiteboard with black lines to resemble sheet music. She thought about the mnemonic device she'd learned to help her remember what notes appeared on each line, and in the spaces between them. She pondered the deeper meanings and implications of these devices. EGBDF…every good boy does fine. She thought about the "good boys" in her life. She knew many. Her dad, her brother Ethan, Sy, obviously, her many male coworkers and friends…and honestly they did far better than "fine." They were wonderful. But she was letting the "bad boys" she'd encountered dictate her mood. Permeate her psyche. Tear her down. She didn't want to be like this. Then FACE came to mind, and above their purpose of indicating the notes between the lines on the staff, they called her to action. To face these newly minted demons with all the strength she knew she possessed, and she too would "do fine." But as with almost all actions, this was easier said than done.

She felt a warm presence on her left hand which had paused it's torture of the now coffee-infused kitchen towel. Sy's hand was squeezing hers gently.

"Shane." he uttered, barely above a whisper this time. She looked at him through tears that she had not realized had formed. He continued.

"Shane, what can I do, darlin'? I'll do anything."

"Babe, you're doing everything you can, and more. This…this is all going to have to come from me. I…don't know when I'll be myself again…" she paused, tears streaming now. "I'm…I'm different."

"You're not though." he reached for her face, but she pulled away.

"I am, damn it! Sy, I was…" Words had power. And the one she was thinking of had more power than she thought was warranted. She knew that uttering it would take away it's power…and yet mustering the courage and strength to actually do so…seemed impossible. She took a deep breath, and disassociated herself from the statement, even though it was about her own past.

"I was raped." She refused to cry. She felt it all again. She had never said the words. She had never thought it necessary. Everyone understood. Sy, his friends, and she was sure her own loved ones had made the connection. But she knew she needed to say it now to drive home the points she was about to make.

Sy, looked at the table, nodding, not needing to be told in so many words something he already had surmised from the clear evidence. He remained silent. She went on.

"I love you, Sy. I have since the day we met, on one level or another, and I believe that I always will. But I…right now I can't be a proper girlfriend to you. I can't…be with you, touch you, be touched by you, in the way we used to be. In the way you deserve…and I don't know when…or even if…I ever will. Not that I don't want to. That's ALL I want in the world. To go back. To be the woman who fell in love with this…incredible man. To make love with you, but…I can't."

Sy's eyes were full of tears, their predecessors already descending his round cheeks and disappearing into his thick, dark beard.

"Sy, I don't want to lead you on and keep you tied to a relationship with no life in it. You deserve someone who's whole. Someone who can be a fully invested partner for you, and not this broken, damaged--"

"You stop that, Shane. I won't hear no more of this kinda talk. Y'hear? You're my girl. My woman. My person. No matter what. You gotta know I'd never leave ya just cuz you aren't ready for sex again. You don't think that I would, do ya?"

"Well, you went to Virginia…you took that job…knowing the distance it would put between us. Literally and figuratively."

"Biggest mistake of my life." Shane raised her eyebrows in surprise as Sy elaborated. "I couldn't focus on my classes without wishing you were there. Wishing I could team up with you for discussions and hand to hand combat training…that thought got me a little too excited, if you catch my drift." He smirked, pulling a sheepish smile from Shane. "Then in that forest. I dreamt about you every night. I thought of you constantly. I could barely breath sometimes, I missed ya so damned much. I was an idiot. I was insane to think that I needed anything other than you. Any MORE. There IS no more. You're it. You're the MOST! The most important thing in my life."

The declaration hung like vapors in the air, more felt than seen. Tangible yet ethereal.

"And when I found out that you were missing…I was…well, I think I looked like death…and not warmed over. You can ask the program director I met with after I got the news. She could tell I was just sick over it. And as I thought about it on the way home, pieced things together, started thinking about who'd taken you, I got murderous. Shane, I have been in dozens of battles, skirmishes, firefights, you name it. War. But…the sheer bloodlust I felt thinking about what you could be going through…I've never experienced anything like it. Everything was red. Everything. For days. Until I saw you, alive. And then it went red again when I saw the fear and damage on your face." she could tell he was doing his best not to talk about the farmhouse and that basement, but she still flashed back to the moments before and after his appearance there. The moments when she simultaneously prayed to live and hoped to die.

"You don't owe me anything, Shane. I just want you in my life, and I don't care what your presence looks like. Romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between. I'm here for you. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Shane felt the urge to wrap her arms around her boyfriend, but could not seem to move more than one arm to place her other hand on top of his. She hoped the gratitude and love behind the small, but heartfelt gesture landed. It was all she had in that moment, no matter how abundant her affection.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shane's family's arrival was a complete blur to her. It was joyous, tearful, and the happiest she'd been in a long time. The moment she opened the front door for them, she was surrounded, engulfed with hugs from her parents and siblings. They stood in their affectionate huddle for several moments before Peg waved Sy over with marked insistence. He'd been standing by, observing happily, but not wanting to intrude on the familial reunion.

When they finally dispersed, John asked the two younger men to help him bring in groceries. The women headed into Shane's bedroom for a more private setting in which to talk. Shane filled her mother and sister in the best she could given the rawness of the wounds left on her mind by the events.

She leaned against the headboard cuddling with Gabby while her mom rubbed her feet. She had insisted on doing this thing that had always comforted her children, and made them feel much better when they were younger.

"Well, I'm very proud of you, pumpkin." The girls both looked at their mother, who rather uncharacteristically hadn't spoken in some time. Shane was nonplussed. Peg elaborated.

"You survived something that many women don't. You're talking about it now, which even more women don't. You may think you're broken, but you're just a tree damaged by a storm, but standing stronger than ever." Trust her mom to lay such wisdom on her. When she felt like giving up. When she just wanted pity. When she could only see defeat. Her mother had always found a way to encourage and buoy her and show her the victory.

"Mom's right." Gabby affirmed, and it was Peg's turn to be nonplussed, as the two women, though similar in so many ways, never seemed to see eye to eye. "It's true. Shane I've seen a lot of women come into the clinic in shoes very much like yours. And trust me…some of them…they don't make it to this point. You've got a long way to go before you're fully recovered, don't get me wrong, but you'll get there. You have us. And you have Sy."

"And then there's Sy." She diverted. "How am I supposed to plan any sort of future with him when…" She looked at her mom, and hesitated. Peg rolled her eyes.

"Shane, I know what the two of you get up to when you're alone. You don't have to be shy with me."

"Still…" she took a breath and spoke. "When I can't bring myself to…sleep with him?"

"Look at him, you're kidding, right?" Gabby chided, insensitively, but recanted at the pained expression on Shane's face. "Sorry, sis. Trying to lighten the mood a touch. Too soon. But seriously, I don't think this reluctance you feel will be permanent."

"And even if it is," Peg took over, "that man is out-of-his-mind in love with you, Shaney." She kissed Shane's toe before putting a sock on her foot. "He almost seems to worship you. Now, you know how I feel about using that term outside of religious context, but that is exactly the kind of love I want for you. Devout, and unconditional."

"But, mom, I can't--"

"Did you hear me? I said 'unconditional,' sweetie." Peg interrupted. "No matter what. No matter the obstacle. No matter the distance. No matter the circumstances. Love unwavering. That's what Sy has for you. I've seen it in him. Trust the momma."

The insistence her mother placed on trust had always ruffled Shane's feathers. Gabby's too, who she could feel stiffen slightly beside her. But Shane, for once, really wanted to trust her mother, hoping against hope that she was right. And that she, herself wouldn't screw up the best relationship she had ever been in or was likely to ever be in again.

The girls had begun talking about some of the coworkers who'd brought food in the past week, and Peg couldn't resist remarking on the character of her favorites and judging the ones she didn't care for…oddly enough, getting more or less, the correct measure of them, as Shane saw it.

After what must have been an hour from the time they'd arrived, they heard a knock on the slightly ajar bedroom door. John poked his head in.

"Ladies, we've put a casserole in the oven, and completed various manly projects around the house--"

"Oh, daddy, what projects?" She cringed. She hated that the men had felt the need to "fix" things.

"Babe, your guest bathroom had not one, but two leaky faucets, your kitchen table seemed to be more of a teeter-totter, and half the light bulbs in the living room were out. Among other tiny things. You're welcome." he smirked his crooked smirk so similar to her own, and she returned it as if he was looking in a mirror.

"Thanks, dad."

"Anyway, lunch is almost ready. So, when you've finished your confab, let's eat."

Dinner passed amiably, Shane found a reserve within herself to allow some quasi-normal behavior, as long as you didn’t look too closely. She was talking animatedly with her siblings, making their parents and Sy laugh riotously. Shane noticed some odd looks passing between Sy and her father, but chalked it up to paranoia. She wished at least Gabby and Ethan could stay, but Heather would be over soon, and she deserved her own dedicated time. Shane wanted to give that to her.

She said her farewells to her family with promises to visit them the next day, and at least one more time before her siblings went back home, if she could work it out.

Sy was so wonderful the whole time. Standing by her, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder as they waved goodbye to the departing vehicle. He made her feel so safe. They went into the kitchen and cleaned up from lunch. Well, Sy cleaned. Shane was texting Heather about when she'd be over.

"Heather says she'll be here in about a half hour. She's picking up wine and pizza." Shane told Sy without looking up from her phone. She could see out of the corner of her eye, though, that he had just closed the dishwasher and was selecting a cycle.

"Sounds great. Do you want me to get out of here? Give you guys some time, one on one?" He asked as he dried his hands, wet from preparing dishes for the machine.

She thought about it, and shuddered. She played a scene in her head that startled her. In her mind's eye, she saw Sy leave and then moments later heard a knock on the door. Presuming it was Heather, she opened the door with abandon, only to see Elliott standing there under a flickering porch light, smirking maliciously at her and ready to overpower and abduct her again. She shook the thought from her head, but remained uneasy as she answered his question.

"Uh, no. Thanks. I'm sure she'll want to talk to both of us. She likes you." Shane grinned softly at Sy in an attempt to mask her trepidation over the thought of him leaving her alone for any period of time. She thought it had worked.

"Okay, well, whatever you think, sunshine. I don't wanna get in the way." He was wiping down the countertops. She felt so impossibly full of love for him, she was starting to wonder how she hadn't yet burst with it. She couldn't bear the thought of holding him back from a fulfilling relationship. He deserved everything she couldn't give him right now. And she knew she should make him leave her. Cut him loose. But she was, as she'd been since she'd met him, a weak woman. She couldn't stand the thought of being without him. Of him no longer being hers. And somehow worse, of not being his, herself. She would always need him for so many reasons, not least of which being her love for him. Maybe one day, she'd recover from this trauma, and be able to be who he deserved. To give him what he needed.

"You're never in the way, bear." She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed him as tight as she could. He placed a loving hand over hers, sighing and smiling, though she had no visual proof of the latter. It was just a feeling.

Heather's greeting was no less exuberant than that of Shane's family, but it was more joyful and less emotional, even though she was immensely relieved to see her best friend after so long. They talked as if no time had passed, and Shane mustered up the dregs of her former self to have one more interaction for the day. Thank God it was Heather and not someone who would require more. She wouldn't have it to give.

"I am so glad you're okay, Shane! Things around the clinic have been bleak as fuck. Susan is loosing her mind, Anita is beside herself with concern, and the rest of us just plain ol' miss the hell out of you. And not just because of all of the overtime everyone has been pulling to get your patients seen."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize…wow, I'm awful. I didn't even think---"

"That you'd be missed? Think again, sister. The place would fall apart if you ever really left. But don't feel guilty. It's the least everyone can do, and they've all said it themselves. We all love you, and know that you'd do the same for any of us if you could at all. Hopefully you won't have to, though!"

Shane nodded, eyes wide in agreement. She wouldn't wish the last week of her life on her worst enemy. On the worst person in the world. Except maybe the people responsible. Tit for tat.

"Well, I'm sorry my absence has caused extra work for all of you." Shane looked into the deep glass of Chardonnay Sy had poured her from the bottle Heather had brought. She felt about as small as the air bubble making it's way up the sloping curve of the stemless vessel. She felt a guilt that she knew was fully void of logic. It made no sense for her to feel guilt for being kidnapped. But she had always had this notion, this nagging voice in her head that told her that her misfortunes were a direct result of her decisions. That she'd inadvertently stepped on the butterfly that resulted in the monsoon she was currently experiencing, and whatever cataclysmic events she would face next.

"Why in God's name are you apologizing for this, Shay?" Heather's tone was kind, but still mildly scolding.

"If I'd never been with Elliott, none of this would have--"

"Bitch, are you a fortune teller?"

"No, but--"

"Soothsayer?"

"No."

"Time traveler?"

"I wish!" Shane chuckled. But she really did wish.

"Have you any real and proven success at consistently predicting the future?"

"I don't, but--"

"No. No buts. No howevers. You had no idea what becoming involved with Elliott could have done. Were there signs, sure. But you can't look on the past as a rubric to judge the quality of your decisions. You know that. You can only learn from your mistakes. And you have."

"Heather's right, sunshine. You really have learned. You look for Elliott's behaviors in mine and shut me down quick if you see 'em. You're not going to let yourself go down that road again. And I'm proud of you for it."

Shane silently worried her wine glass. It was hard to argue with such truth. But it was hard to agree when her own feelings were in such stark opposition. So she did neither.

"Well, I've preached my sermon for the day." she laughed. "I've taken up enough of your time. Oh, your phone. It's in my purse. I think it's fully charged, but I turned it off."

Shane thanked her friend, then Heather hugged them both and took her leave.

"Y'okay, bug?" Sy asked her after what she surmised was several minutes of silence. Minutes she didn't notice as they passed.

"Mmm…" she trailed off.

"Can I do something for ya?" And she really thought about the question. He could probably do a lot of things for her. He could make love to her until she felt whole again, even if it hurt her at first. Not an ideal option. He could probably get them both some new identities and enough money to spirit her away to somewhere her past wouldn't follow. If she became someone new, literally, would she have to bring that old baggage, those old scars, with her? Again, suboptimal. But he could definitely take the source of all grief and turmoil in her life far into the Missouri back country, somewhere not even the hunters would venture, some fallow field or forgotten cistern, and end him. Snuff out his spark of life like a candle caught in a tornado. Spill a fatal amount of his monstrous blood onto the unforgiving earth and send him to the Hell to which he was undoubtedly destined. But did she want that? Did she want another soul as a scar on that of the man she so deeply cherished? He'd say it was worth it. He'd say he'd take a thousand more for her. A million. That was Sy.

"Nothing comes to mind." She lied. And he knew it was a lie, but didn't push it. She was so grateful that he respected her, not for the lie itself, but for the reason she wasn't giving him the whole truth just now.

His phone went off and he picked it up as he stood from his seat at the table. She could only hear that it was Matt, the guy she thought she understood had the car place, before she heard tension in Sy's voice. Even from the next room, she could tell something was wrong, though he was talking too quietly for her to make out words.

She heard him suddenly shout a stream of profanities that he rarely said at all around her, at least, let alone together. There was a bang, and the walls of her kitchen quaked like the tectonic plates beneath them were shifting.

Sy walked back in, his face was red, as were his knuckles. He was shaking an injury out of his hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked, deep concern at his appearance and demeanor, suddenly ominous.

"I need to fix your wall in there." he grumbled, evading, without success. She'd be doing therapy on his hand, next.

"What's really wrong?" she repeated, sternly.

"That was Matt. Elliott's…escaped, somehow. He's in the wind."

Shane's heart became so heavy, she could almost feel it smashing through the kitchen floor and burying itself deep in the cement floor of her basement.

"Oh, God! No! What if he goes to the police!?"

"Fuck that, I'm more concerned about him coming after you!"

The two stared, faces full of equal measures of concern for the other.

Up Next: Chapter 21-Patient Education

#netflix #netflix sand castle #captain syverson #Captain Syverson x OFC #captain syverson fanfic #sigh for sy #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x reader

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thetomorrowshow · 3 years

Text

Slower Than Words Epilogue

First - Previous

Yep, this is it :’’’( The very end. I most certainly teared up a bit while writing it. Thank you all so much for reading, sharing, and commenting. I still have trouble believing how many people actually like my writing, but you all have never dropped your support. I really mean it when I tag ‘love you guys’ on every chapter.

If you want to see any of my other works, Here is my AO3!

Thank you again for sharing this journey with me. And now, on to the finale!

cw: flashback from an outsider’s pov, food

“Everything’s fine? The move went well?”

“Dad, we’re fine,” Patton replied, smiling at the camera. Logan shifted uncomfortably on the other end. “Really, we’re good. The neighbors even brought over some banana bread.”

His father flinched at the mention of neighbors, then forced a smile onto his face. “That’s . . . very kind. Of them. To do that.”

“Yes, it is,” Patton encouraged.

Logan hadn’t been able to take enough time off work to come visit them yet, so it had been five months since they had seen each other in person. They video chatted every day, but Father always seemed on edge. As time passed, he didn’t appear to be getting much better at all with the distance. Remus would sometimes sit in on the calls, and he seemed happy with Father’s progress, but Patton couldn’t help but compare him to the man he’d grown up with. Where was the quiet strength, the soft smiles, the feeling of protection?

Patton didn't blame him, though. They had all changed. It was part of life, and growing, and learning. Nothing stayed the same, and that was okay.

“How are you and Virgil?” Father asked, as he always did. Patton laughed a little.

“We’re good,” Patton signed. “I told you that we’re doing therapy together, right?” Logan nodded. Patton nodded as well. “Yeah, it’s cheaper. And we’re learning a lot.”

“And no fights between the roommates?”

“We . . . we did just move in yesterday.”

Logan raised his eyebrows. “Well, there are four of you,” he signed. “Who knows?”

“Since it’s only two bedrooms, Remus and Roman have decided to share too,” Patton told him, “but Virgil and I are pretty sure that won’t last long. They have a deal to trade between the bed and the air mattress every other week, but Virgil thinks it won’t even be one week before one of them drags the air mattress into the living room.”

The room shook a bit and Patton looked up to see Virgil closing the front door behind him. He kicked off his shoes and propped his white cane up in the corner behind the door, before turning his head from this way to that, listening.

“I’m on the couch,” Patton called out. Father jumped at the sound of his voice, but tried to play it off as straightening his collar.

Virgil waved in the direction of the couch, then promptly tripped over Roman’s dress shoes. Patton giggled when he signed a curse as well as saying it out loud.

Virgil paused by the couch, well in view of the laptop that Patton was video chatting on. Father began talking (probably a greeting) as Patton hopped up to kiss his boyfriend. Virgil smiled, said something in response to Father, then headed toward the kitchen.

Patton checked to make sure his phone was on. Remus had been the one to do the shopping, and who knew how he had thrown everything into the cupboards and fridge. It was a little after noon, so Roman would probably be home soon to help Virgil find food, but if he didn’t want to wait Virgil would take a picture of the contents of the fridge and text it to Patton so that he could tell him the locations of each thing.

“How is everything for you? Remus says he won’t hesitate to drive down there if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Logan smiled softly. “I assure you, I am quite all right,” he waved. “I am even attending therapy.”

“That’s—” Patton dropped his hands as he glanced back at his phone, which had just buzzed. The notification wasn’t a text message, though. It was from the app that all of them had, the one that called for help. The notification was from Virgil. His heart dropped, just as it always did.

“I’ve got to go, goodbye,” Patton signed quickly. He’d closed the laptop before Father even finished his farewell. Then he was up and off to the kitchen, which luckily was only a few steps away from the living room.

Virgil was crouched on the floor, a container of food open in front of him. His hands covered his face and his whole body was trembling, tension in every line.

Patton froze for a moment, scared. What could he do? He had no idea what had triggered Virgil, or if they had any ice cubes to use to snap him out of it, or if he would even be able to bring him back by himself. But the moment of uncertainty passed, and Patton dropped to his knees beside the shaking man.

It was easy to kick the leftovers away, less easy to maneuver Virgil into his arms. Once they were sort of comfortable on the floor, Patton began tracing soothing words into Virgil’s arm. It wasn’t instant, but soon enough Virgil began to calm down, eventually breathing in a steady rhythm.

“You okay?” Patton asked quietly. Virgil shrugged, gripping his jeans as his legs continued to shake. Patton held him closer, a hand rubbing his back soothingly.

Don’t let go, Virgil wrote tremulously onto Patton’s arm.

I never will.

When Roman arrived home, slinging his backpack onto the card table that made up their dining room, he found them still that way, curled up in each other on the tiled kitchen floor. He made a mental note to later ask what had happened, quietly picked up the container of food, then retreated to his and Remus’s bedroom.

Remus pushed open their bedroom door, ready to just flop onto whichever bed was Roman’s. Lucky him, Roman was already stretched out there, a container of leftover pasta and a plastic fork beside him. He looked up from the food and smiled cautiously.

“Hey,” he said. “How was therapy?”

Remus shrugged.

Roman winced. ��Is that . . . not something I’m supposed to ask about? Virgil’s usually okay with talking about it a bit, but—”

“Nah, it’s . . . whatever.” Remus dropped to the mattress on the floor, toeing off his socks. “Didn’t really say anything, but that’s group therapy for ya. Not talking doesn’t waste anybody’s time.”

Roman was quiet for a moment, and Remus glanced at him. He looked like he was thinking—always a first time for everything, Remus supposed. As soon as Remus had pulled his phone out of his pocket, Roman spoke.

“Do you think that, possibly, I could come with you? Next time?”

Okay, apparently there was a first time for everything. Remus frowned and dropped his phone, looking at the wall.

Roman was quick to backtrack. “I mean, I know that I didn’t go through all that . . . stuff . . . that you did, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe as support for you?”

“Is this still about you punching me?” Remus asked, eyes narrowed. “Because I told you, we’re cool.”

Roman shrugged awkwardly, his face turning red. “Yeah, I just want to help you in any way that I can. Also, Virgil thinks that I might be developing secondhand trauma?” he added, grimacing. “So I thought that perhaps I could benefit from it. And learn more ways to help all of you.”

“Roman, that’s. . . .” He wanted to say ‘very thoughtful’ or ‘selfless’ or ‘good thinking’. What came out of his mouth, though, was “expensive.”

Roman looked away, and now it was Remus’s turn to backtrack. “I mean, I did just get that job,” he said quickly, “and I’d love to help ya out in any way that I can. I even wouldn’t mind giving up therapy, if you think you wanna try it out. I don’t need it that bad.”

Roman laughed, and Remus relaxed fractionally. “Don’t worry,” he said, turning back to his pasta. “Mom and Dad are willing to pay for half of it, and I can cover the rest if I cut down my meal plan. After all, we’re buying plenty of food. I don’t need twenty-one meals a week.”

“You sure? After all, you’re walking an extra two blocks to campus,” Remus reminded. “You need all the strength you can get, for such a journey!”

Roman threw a pillow at him. “Shut up,” he chuckled, then frowned. “And give that back.”

Remus shoved the pillow under himself and smirked. “Too late.”

Instead of fighting for it back, Roman just smiled softly and twirled his fork in the pasta. “Yeah. That’s okay, though.”

Virgil breathed in as he woke, feeling the warmth of the sun on his arm that rested above the blankets. It wasn’t quite time to get up, then. If it was, the sunlight that filtered through the gap in their blinds would have reached his face.

He lay there for as long as he could, burrowing deeper under the blankets and into Patton’s arms. The softness of his nightshirt rubbed against his nose and cheek, and Virgil sighed contentedly. This was everything.

Yesterday’s flashback had been bad (who even gets triggered by the sound of a container opening?), but Patton had been there. Moving had been hard, but Patton had been there. Therapy was hard, but Patton was there.

It wasn’t just Patton, either. Roman was taking many of the same classes that he was, despite not needing all of them. Remus was willing to drive him just about anywhere, even to a park just to sit in silence for hours. Patton’s dad, for some reason, regularly called him to check up on him. Roman’s parents cared for him like he was another son. Even Roman’s on-and-off boyfriend, Janus, dropped by to hang out sometimes.

So, Virgil had a pretty good support group. On the days when he felt like just giving up, there was always someone to help him up. Just like he was there for the others. They all loved and supported each other, in their own ways.

Patton’s breathing shifted with a snuffle, followed by him nestling his face into Virgil’s hair. A moment later, he was tracing on Virgil’s arm.

Hey you.

Virgil didn’t even try to muffle the giggle that escaped. The ray of sun had reached his head, warming his dark hair. The alarm would be going off at any minute, but for now, he was happy to be in his boyfriend’s arms.

Date tonight? he asked, his fingers moving slowly on Patton’s arm. At the smoothie place, with Roman and Janus?

Sounds good!

Virgil placed his hands on Patton’s chest, meeting his lips for a slow kiss. When they parted, he relaxed back into his love’s arms, unabashedly snuggling. The alarm clock would have to grow arms and pry them apart to get him out of bed.

Old Virgil would have scoffed, unimpressed at his thirst for human contact. Old Virgil wanted to be alone.

As long as it was Roman, and Remus, and Mr. and Mrs. Allred, and Logan, and Janus, and Patton—wonderful, beautiful Patton—Virgil didn’t think he would mind it if he was never alone again.

~ Taglist: @enragedbees @gotta-love-alejandra @bunny222 @basiic-emo @patt0n-sanders @rosiepupper @fangirlgeekandfreak @dn-fan21 @that2000skid @remy-the-lemon-berry @itsadastraperaspera @xionbean @sanderssides-angst @hell-yea-we-gay-tonight @maybedefinitely404 @broken-pencils @thewhimsicallibrarytech @doomllily @hereissananxiousmess @judyismydog @arodynamic-enby @at-that-one-nerd @therapysides @awkwardandanxiousfander @thekitchenpan @im-an-anxious-wreck @larkiaquail @anteonnix @fantasticfander21 @007ardra

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ifmywishescametrue · 3 years

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pancakes and stuffed bears

2k of fluffy alpha bucky/omega tony (with mentions of alpha steve / stuckony) for my @stb-bingo square: o5 - trip to ikea

also on ao3

Bucky wakes up slowly, groggily realizing that Tony is whispering his name. A finger pokes his cheek, and he slaps it away with his eyes still shut. He rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow, mumbling, “No, go away. It’s too early.”

Tony whines his name this time, dragging it out to be almost ten seconds long, as he shifts to straddle his lower back. He can’t lean down very far with his swollen stomach in the way, but he can still use his hands to prod at him. Fingernails drag lightly down the back of his neck, making the flesh rise in bumps.

“It’s almost ten,” Tony says. “Get up.”

“Go bother Steve.”

“Steve isn’t here. You’re the only one I have to bother, and your daughter wants the Swedish pancakes from Ikea.”

Bucky turns his head to the side, cracking one eye open to frown up at his mate. “Where did Steve go?”

“Unimportant. The pancakes are the real issue here.”

Bucky laughs, “Pancakes are only for people who tell me where Steve went.”

Tony rolls off of Bucky so he can sit up. “I was half-asleep when he said it, so all I know is that there was a problem with something at the gallery that might have to do with the opening on Friday or it might have nothing to do with it, but it was either Sam that called him or it was Sharon.”

Bucky gets up from bed and looks over at the omega, who’s already dressed in a stretched out t-shirt that used to be his and the maternity pants that he begrudgingly wears even though he hates them. Tony’s hand is covering the bump, rubbing slow circles into it.

He smiles at the sight even as he says, “That’s not all that helpful.”

“I’m honestly not that sure it had anything to do with the gallery now that I’m really thinking about it. He might have said he was going there later and somewhere else now, but there was an S name mentioned somewhere in there for sure, though.”

“So all we really know is that he’s somewhere that isn’t here,” Bucky summarizes, opening the closet to find some clothes to get dressed.

Tony sighs, “Yeah, he should really know better than to tell me things by now.”

Bucky pulls out the first things his hands touch, ending up with a plain white t-shirt and jeans that might actually belong to Steve instead of him. When they moved houses, they didn’t do a very good job labeling the boxes, and as a result Steve and Bucky discovered that their closets might as well be interchangeable. Coupled with how often Tony steals their things these days, he has no idea what’s his and what’s someone else’s anymore.

He gets dressed and tosses his dirty pajamas in the hamper, then tells Tony. “Just give me ten minutes to finish getting ready and we can go.”

“Really thought I would have to persuade you more on these pancakes,” Tony comments, following him into the bathroom.

“After the ice cream incident last week?” Bucky raises his eyebrows in the mirror as he reaches for his toothbrush. “I’m not questioning any of your pregnancy cravings after that, baby doll. I think you traumatized poor Steve.”

Tony rolls his eyes, a small smile on his face as he leans back against the counter. “He’s recovered from it by now, and it’s not my fault that the baby wanted rocky road and he brought home moose tracks.”

“The baby is awfully demanding lately,” Bucky teases, squeezing out toothpaste onto the brush. “Wonder where she gets it from.”

“Probably you.”

Bucky hums through his mouthful of toothpaste, and he lifts his free hand to rest on Tony’s stomach. He can’t help but touch it every chance he gets, hoping to feel their daughter kick beneath his palm. She usually responds to the sound of his or Steve’s voice, and they’ve both been known to spend long periods talking to her just to feel her move. Tony alternates between loving it and hating it, depending on how many times she’s already kicked him in the bladder or ribs that day.

He spits out the toothpaste and rinses his mouth, then finishes off the rest of his morning routine with as much speed as possible.

Before they leave he grabs his wallet and phone, checking the device for any notifications from overnight. There’s a text from Steve waiting for him, and he reads it while pulling on his shoes.

“Steve is at the zoo with Sam because one of their chaperones for the field trip dropped out at the last minute,” he tells Tony as they walk downstairs to the front door. He turns his screen so Tony can see the picture Steve sent of him with Sam and Natasha’s son in the butterfly house. There’s a blue butterfly on Steve’s shoulder, and Alex’s eyes are crossed as he tries to look up at the orange one on his forehead.

Tony frowns, “Wow, that doesn’t sound familiar at all. I don’t think he said that.”

Bucky reads directly from the second text in the chain, “‘And when you talk to Tony, tell him that I told him all of this earlier, and he said ‘that’s nice’ then fell back asleep.’”

“Well then.”

Bucky laughs as he grabs his car keys from the hook on the wall. He sends Steve a reply while walking down the front steps, telling him to have fun and send more pictures. Almost immediately he receives another one, and he shows it to Tony once they get in the car.

“Look at this one, babe.”

Alex is on Sam’s shoulders, eating from an ice cream cone that’s dripping onto Sam’s head. Sam doesn’t look amused by it, but Steve’s grin shows that he’s loving the situation. The caption says, “That’s going to be us soon,” with four smiley face emojis.

Tony doesn’t say anything, and when Bucky glances away from the picture to look at him, his eyes are wet and his lip is quivering.

“Baby, are you crying?”

“No, I’m fine,” Tony says unconvincingly, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand and completely failing to keep the tears from falling.

Bucky snaps a picture of it and sends it to Steve.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Tony whines, the tears flowing freely now while Bucky tries his best not to laugh at him. Pregnancy hormones have him crying at the drop of a hat these days when he rarely cried before. Bucky can only remember seeing it once, on the night that the three of them bonded, and even then it was hardly more than watery eyes. “And tell your stupid husband to go fuck himself, too.”

“My stupid husband?” Bucky scoffs, backing out of the driveway and onto the street. “I believe he is our stupid husband.”

“He’s yours when he’s making me cry with his dumb sappy face.”

Bucky reaches over the center console to take Tony’s hand, running his thumb across his knuckles soothingly. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you think his face is dumb.”

“And to go fuck himself.”

Bucky bites his lip to keep the laugh in, nodding, “And to go fuck himself. Of course, honey. I’ll let him know.”

Tony wipes at his cheeks again, using his sleeve to soak up the last of them, and he sniffles a few times to clear his nose.

Bucky almost asks him if he’s alright, but then he remembers the last time he did that after an unexpected bout of crying and it started all over again. So instead, he lifts their joined hands and kisses the back of Tony’s to make him smile.

They drive in comfortable silence, and Tony seems completely fine again by the time they reach the Ikea. His mood goes even higher the closer they get to the food court, and Bucky grins at the satisfaction on Tony’s face when he finally gets to have his pancakes. His moan at the first bite is almost obscene, and his eyes flutter shut in bliss.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Bucky jokes, sipping on his orange juice. “I feel like I’m intruding on a private moment.”

“Remember that thing Steve was doing to you last night with his tongue? I guarantee this is better than that,” Tony says, and Bucky almost chokes on his juice. He glances around them, but no one seems to overheard the comment.

“I don’t know, you weren’t on the receiving end of that, babe.”

“And you’ve never had a pregnancy craving satisfied before. Morgan and I are very happy over here.”

Bucky smiles at the use of the name they recently decided on. Between the three of them, it felt like they might never find one they were all happy with. Every time two of them agreed, the third would inevitably hate it and exercise their veto power, which might have been the worst idea in history. Morgan was the first that no one hated, and when Steve put his hands on Tony’s baby bump and said the name, her enthusiastic kick ended any further debate.

The topic of the last name has been avoided completely so far, but Steve and Bucky already privately agreed that they want her to have Tony’s alone, no matter which one of them ends up being the biological father.

“We should look at stuff for the nursery while we’re here,” Bucky suggests.

So far, the room only has the staple pieces of furniture: a crib, changing table, and an antique rocking chair for the corner. The walls are a pale shade of gray, and Steve is working on painting pastel flowers onto them.

Tony nods, swallowing his large mouthful before saying, “She needs one of those giant stuffed bear things.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “Did she tell you this herself?”

Tony laughs and flicks a piece of fruit at him, which Bucky manages to catch and pop into his mouth. “Yes, she did. She’ll be very upset if we go home without one.”

“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?”

Tony finishes the rest of his food, and Bucky takes care of clearing the trash and plates. Grabbing his hand, Tony drags him through the store until they reach the kids section, where he proceeds to practically coo at every cute thing. Bucky can’t blame him for it, though, because he’s feeling a little overwhelmed watching his pregnant omega hold a rattle shaped like a giraffe for their daughter.

Tony finds the giant bear he was talking about, and Bucky agrees immediately that it’s a necessity, even without Tony turning his wide, pleading eyes on him.

He picks it up, saying, “Steve is going to kill us when he sees that our house looks like an Ikea exploded in it.”

“He’ll kill you,” Tony corrects, smiling as he strokes his hand over the swell of his stomach. “I’m protected by Morgan.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Bucky says, but it doesn’t stop him from picking up the nightlight that’s shaped like a flower. “She needs this, too.”

Tony grins, “Absolutely she does.”

Bucky’s arms get piled full of baby items. Blankets, bibs, a bath towel with a hood, toys, and stuffed animals that he struggles to see over top of on the way to the register. Tony guides him with one hand on his elbow so he doesn’t trip over anything.

They end up filling three large blue bags, and Bucky carries all of them to the car, rejecting Tony’s offer of taking one of them. He loads them into the trunk, turning to see Tony’s smiling face when he closes it, and he can’t resist pulling him into a kiss right there in a parking lot.

When they break apart, he leans down and presses a kiss to the top of the bump. “Baby girl, you are going to be so incredibly spoiled,” he sighs.

“She’ll be happy,” Tony says, and his eyes are wet again.

Bucky nods, kissing the omega’s cheek and repeating, “She’ll be happy.”

#stb bingo #stuckony #winteriron #my writing #my fic #abo dynamics

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cyanoscarlet · 3 years

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another AO3 interview!

Thanks for the tag, @kurandoinugami!

How many works do you have on AO3? 92

What’s your total AO3 word count? 168,517. I write really short stuff in general.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 24(?) I’ve written mostly one each per fandom only, though, and some are crossovers. The ones listed below have at least 2 fics written.

Bungou Stray Dogs (32)

Yuri!!! on Ice (21)

Final Fantasy VIII (10)

Ace Attorney (6)

Final Fantasy XV (4)

Dissidia: Final Fantasy (2)

Peacemaker Kurogane (2)

Bleach (2)

Toilet-bound Hanako-kun (2)

Compilation of Final Fantasy VII (2)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

this is how you introduce a new fandom (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 500

on the other side is hope (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 403

it must be the caffeine (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 380

it's called a pedestrian lane for a reason, dammit (Yuri!!! on Ice)- 248

well, he has his moments (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 207

What are your top 5 fics by comment thread count?

on the other side is hope (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 31

it must be the caffeine (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 13

this is how you introduce a new fandom - 10

Time-Telling (Final Fantasy VIII) - 8

well, he has his moments (Yuri!!! on Ice) - 8

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Absolutely! I really love hearing from my readers, and enjoy discussing with them when I can. I do feel bad that I am not able to respond in a timely manner these days because of work, but please know that each comment (and email notification) I get for my fics really turns my day around because most of the time I’m having a terrible one for work reasons.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? on the other side is hope (Yuri!!! on Ice). Major character death. Wrote it in anticipation of clinical clerkship for catharsis reasons. Ironically it’s a constant on my top five most successful fics on AO3. Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? My first published fanfiction is, in fact, a crossover. I was thirteen and I Knew Nothing. Orphaned for obvious reasons, but I do keep track of all my orphaned stuff.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? a well-placed remark (Final Fantasy VIII), on FFNet, because it was M/M. We just had a good laugh over it before I deleted the comment.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Not explicit stuff, no. I’ve recently gotten more comfortable with writing build-up scenes that fade to black, and are less physical / more emotional. I think this is the level I’m okay with already.

Have you ever had a fic translated? The fanfics I’ve written for Where I Belong in 2012 (FF8), to Italian. There’s also a Russian translation for express delivery for love (BSD).

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Two, for the YOI Collabs Project back in 2017. :) - To Kill a Pisces (with YuriPirozhki and SutcliffonFire) - Undercooked! (with jacobby)

What’s your all-time favorite ship? I don’t think I have one? I do have OTPs in a lot of fandoms and series I like, but not to the extent I’d actually fight to the death for them. (Not even Squinoa.) This is something I realized just lately- mayhap this be due to my age / cynicism?

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Would rather not tell. Let’s not manifest things, shall we? That said, though, this is why I prefer to write oneshots in general. What are your writing strengths? Brevity, and with it, word choices that render a story succinctly poignant. Not actually that sure. Aegis and Nina can probably explain my writing better than I can.

What are your writing weaknesses? Longform stories (no time and spoons), slow burn (no spoons and patience), and smut (no experience / skill). I may finally be getting somewhere with the last one, though (see question on smut). What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? Only if plot- or character-relevant. Otherwise it gets written in English. What was the first fandom you wrote for? A really silly Sailor Moon / Cardcaptor Sakura script-fic on scratch paper that ended up being used as actual scratch paper by the parentals, thank God. First proper fic, Bleach (see question on crossover fic). What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? primum non nocere (Bungou Stray Dogs), a series of Yosano-centered fics featuring her life outside the ADA as a medical doctor.

Hello there, @niconiconina @joeys-piano @eternal-aegis @lawliette @muselover1901 @athina39 :)

#dani has been tagged #fanfic writer interview

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archeronduarte · 3 years

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Blissember Prompt 3: Reunion

I was planning on writing a little fic for this prompt, but got caught up into the madness of work and have been struggling with my mental health a lot these past days. So I decided to share a little snippet of a small reunion of the Weasley-Potter and Greengrass-Malfoy family on Platform 9 3/4, in particular Ginny and Astoria. It’s a delight and a privilege to be able to write these two inspiring and strong characters. This fic is nearly finished and I’m hoping to be able to share it with everyone on my ao3 Scorbusrights very soon!

I would also like to thank everyone that has been so kind by reblogging, commenting or liking my Blissember prompt posts. It truly means the world to me and brings a smile to my face every single time a notification pops up.

‘Hello Albus,’ Astoria pulls Albus into a warm hug, rubbing his back with her hand. ‘Please just call us Draco and Astoria. You’re practically family.’

‘It’s true, mom has been calling you her second son. Sometimes I think she might just love you more than me,’ Scorpius says, grinning from ear to ear as he looks from his best friend to his mother.

‘Oh stop it, silly.’ Astoria rolls her eyes fondly before turning to Albus’ parents.

‘How are you feeling?’ Ginny asks Astoria as she kisses her on her cheek, taking hold of her hand when taking a step back.

‘I’m feeling a lot better,’ Astoria says, a smile spreading across her face as she pinches Albus’ cheeks gently. ‘Thanks to this young man’s potion brewing skills. His pepperup potion got me through that terrible cold.’

‘We should catch up soon,’ Ginny says, squeezing Astoria’s hands before releasing them again.

‘I’d love that,’ Astoria wraps her arm around Ginny’s waist as both women look at their sons talking about their summer. ‘Look at them. They grow up so fast.’

‘They really do,’ Ginny sighs. ‘It’s Lily’s first year. It will be incredibly quiet at home now with her making the transition from her muggle school to Hogwarts.’

‘It was the same for us when Scorpius went away for his first year. The house feels so silent and cold sometimes. But hey, you know what this also means?’ Astoria looks at Ginny, her eyebrows raised and a mischievous smile on her face. ‘More wine nights for the two of us.’

Ginny laughs wholeheartedly. ‘I can not wait. I could use a huge glass of wine. Work has been absolutely insane with two of my people leaving, all these Quidditch players switching teams and Angelina Johnson being appointed coach of the Holyhead Harpies. It gives us a lot to write about, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t draining.’

‘I’ll be coming through your fireplace with our most expensive bottle of wine,’ Astoria says, winking at her friend. ‘Don’t tell Draco.’

‘Don’t tell me what?’ Draco asks as he joins the two women, Harry following closely behind them.

‘Nothing sweetheart,’ Astoria replies, kissing her husband’s cheek before giving him her sweetest smile. ‘I was just talking with Ginny about how fast the boys grew up. That’s all.’

Draco squints his eyes at her before rolling them fondly. Harry joins Ginny at her other side, intertwining their fingers with each other - sharing a brief smile.

‘Oh!’ Astoria squeaks. ‘I almost forgot. Lily Luna sweetheart?’

Astoria walks up to Lily Luna, who looks up at her with big eyes. She reaches into her bag before taking out a big bag of sweets. She crouches down beside the little Weasley-Potter.

‘I got you this bag of sweets,’ she says, giving Lily Luna the bag of sweets. ‘This is your first year at Hogwarts and I’m going to share a secret with you.’ She gestures for Lily Luna to come closer before whispering in her ear. ‘When I went on the train for my first year at Hogwarts, I had a bag of sweets with me. I met my best friend by offering her some sweets. Sweets always help you make friends.’ She winks at Lily Luna as she looks at Astoria with big eyes. ‘Also, don’t tell your brothers I gave you such a big bag of sweets and definitely do not share any of them with those two.’

Lily Luna and Astoria giggle as the young Weasley-Potter stuffs the sweets in her bag. Astoria gives her a kiss on her cheek before standing up.

#Blissember2020 #cursed child fic #hpcc #weasley-potter family #greengrass-malfoy family #beginning of the schoolyear #ginny and astoria are the bestest of friends #them drinking wine #gossiping #and just sharing stories and giving each other advice #is my favourite headcanon

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nazyalenskyism · 3 years

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The Love of My Life When... (Part 5)

Ao3: The Love of My Life When... Tumblr: The Love of My Life When... Summary: Part 5 of The Love of My Life When… a Zoyalai fic. | The call that neither of them wanted to make reminds them of their favourite moments together. And maybe, just maybe, they begin to realize what they want. A/N: Here’s part 5! It’s been a while since the last chapter, so thank you for keeping up with it! All your comments and feedback are amazing and I love reading them ❤️❤️

Audrey said she saw you out past twelve o'clock Just because you're hurting doesn't mean I'm not If it doesn't go away by the time I turn thirty I made a mistake and I'll tell you I'm sorry "Sorry"

“Ugh,” Zoya groaned, peeling off her shiny silver heels, collapsing in her favourite armchair. It had been an exhausting night, they had been putting together some of the final details for Tamar and Nadia’s wedding, as it was in two weeks. Of course, that had only been the first half of the night, the second had involved going to the club. Zoya threw a blanket over herself, considering sleeping in the chair, that was how tired she was.

Before she could nod off however, there was one last thing she had to do. Calling Nikolai after the disaster in the park, seemed like the worst idea she could fathom. She knew Genya was the one who’d orchestrated the whole thing. Setting her and Nikolai up to be partners for the whole wedding weekend. She would have to share her duties with him, walk down the aisle with him at the end of the wedding, be his partner for the ridiculous flashmob Tamar had planned as a surprise to Nadia and the even more ridiculous flashmob Nadia had planned as a surprise to Tamar. Because that totally wasn’t going to end in flames. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. It wasn’t for her, it was for her friends, and she would do this, even if she would much rather do anything else in the world. At least the drinks at the bar had lowered her inhibitions to the point that she could do this without wanting to cry. That’s how she usually felt when Nikolai was mentioned these days.

“Come on Koja,” she called, smiling softly at the grey cat who jumped into her lap, curling contentedly under Zoya’s loving stroke of her soft head. Koja had been yet another gift from Nikolai’s birthday week celebrations for her. Zoya let out a small laugh, remembering how excited he’d been to give her the cat, how infectious his joy was. He was amiable with everyone, but he never let anyone see his true goofiness but her. She missed a lot of things that she tried to pretend she didn’t, but most of all she missed him. Some days she missed him so much she felt like it was breaking her from the inside out. She knew she would be fine without him, but as each day passed, she had to wonder, ‘did she want to be without him?’

No. Her decision was final. She was Zoya Nazyalensky and she would not change her mind, no matter what her traitorous heart said. She would not back away from her duties, especially not after Genya had spammed her with 21 texts and 12 calls all telling her to, “Nazyalensky up and just call Nikolai already.”

“Well Koja, time to call Nikolai,” she murmured, feeling a pang in her chest as the cat’s ears perked up at the sound of her favourite person’s name. “I can do this.”

***

“Ugh,” Nikolai groaned, collapsing into the hammock in front of his bedroom’s window, overlooking the city and the edges of the bay. He usually slept in his bed, but on nights where he particularly missed the sea, he would sleep in the hammock, the gentle rocking and distant view of the water helping him fall asleep. A soft whine sounded from the floor and Nikolai saw his puppy, Sobachka pouting up at him, clearly wanting to sleep on top of his owner, as usual. He was lucky he was still a puppy, if he were any bigger he would’ve crushed Nikolai in his sleep or tumbled out of his hanging bed. He sighed, knowing he didn’t have it in him to reject the dog’s pleas tonight. He settled back into a comfortable position, Sobachka’s floppy gold ears resting beneath his chin. Nikolai wanted nothing more than to go to sleep after an exhausting day of gathering things for the wedding. Unfortunately, he had one more thing to take care of tonight. He opened his phone, gathering his courage to call before he saw a slew of notifications for his Instagram dms, all from someone named Audrey who he vaguely remembered going to uni with.

‘Nikolai! It’s Audrey.’

‘I think I saw Zoya at the club tonight’

‘She was wearing silver and black’

‘You guys aren’t still together, right?’

‘Anyways she was there with some guy? look at this pic, it was 1:30 am.’

Attached to the last message was an image that Nikolai clicked and when he zoomed in, he saw that it was taken at a club, Zoya wearing a slinky silver dress, her hand on the shoulder of a tall guy in a suit, trailing him out of the club. He let out a sigh. He hadn’t thought Zoya would move on from them so quickly, but regardless of that, he knew he ought to be happy that she was happy. No matter what, he wanted that for her. Although… as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. He wasn’t jealous, there was nothing to be jealous about, she wasn’t his and he wasn’t hers, but he just wanted… he wanted what he could never have. And he was a fool for that.

Sobachka barked at the ringing of the phone, and Nikolai frowned, had she read his mind? “Hi.”

“Lantsov, Genya says we need to go over our duties for the wedding.”

“And you want to do that now? At almost 3 AM? How did you even know if I would be awake?”

“Oh please, you and David were helping Nadia with something sciencey tonight, and you never sleep well, not without—” she stopped mid sentence, realizing that this time she was the one who’d let something slip.

He had trouble sleeping, he always had, and for some reason, he’d found that if he played piano before bed, it almost always helped him sleep. He had his own piano room at his place, but Zoya had bought him a keyboard for when he stayed at her’s.

“How do you know I haven’t played tonight?” he asked, attempting to gloss over the awkward pause.

“Please, Nadia texted me when she dropped you both off home, and if you played the piano at 3 AM your stupid neighbour would’ve called ME complaining and telling you to shut up.”

“That’s fair,” he sighed. “So… what were you up to before this? Out at the club?” Oh, he hadn’t meant to blurt that out. Maybe his lack of sleep was affecting him.

“Tamar actually— wait how did you know that?”

He hesitated, “I saw you walking out of the club with some guy in a suit.”

“Some guy?”

“Some guy,” he confirmed.

“You IDIOT that was TOLYA.”

Nikolai let out a dry laugh, “and that’s what I get for paying attention to Audrey.”

“Audrey? I think she tried to get me to join her pyramid scheme… she only stopped when I pretended to be a part of another one and tried to recruit her.”

“Intriguing! And what were the results?”

“She blocked me on all social media, tried to convince Genya that I was going to steal David and that I stole Adrik from her.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“So about the rehearsal dinner—”

“Lantsov,” he heard her take in a deep breath, “I know this might be hard for you… but don’t you think it was hard for me too?”

“You cut things off so easily, I didn't think that it was,” he said slowly. He didn’t know what had brought on Zoya’s forthcoming mood but he wasn’t about to ruin it.

“It’s not easy for me! Seeing you out with other people… I’m hurting too,” she finished sharply, and Nikolai felt his throat tighten, his careful attitude flying out the window.

“What if this was a mistake? What if the reason you’re unhappy is because this isn’t what you wanted?”

After a long pause, Zoya spoke up again, “No. It was the right thing to do. I’m not changing my mind. If, by the time I’m 30, I somehow regret it, I’ll tell you I’m sorry. But it won’t matter then, Nikolai, because you’ll be married and happy and living the life you were supposed to have before you met me.” He didn’t have anything to say to that.

Zoya waited for Nikolai to say something, and was surprised when all he said was, “okay, Zoya. So for the rehearsal dinner, I was thinking I could set up my stuff at 5, and you can start at 6, since I’m driving up first. That leaves us enough time to double check everything before the dinner. Then for the ceremony, you’re walking in with Nadia, we just have to practice walking out, and how we’re setting up the reception. Genya said she’s going to email all that to us in the morning.”

“That sounds good,” she said.

“Good. Well, I guess that’s it then. I should—”

“Wait. Nikolai…” she didn’t know what to say… she just wanted to say something to him, something to let him know how she felt, but she couldn’t find the right words.

“I know, Zoya,” and she could imagine him smiling softly, despite how she continued to step on his heart. “I know. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed faintly, waiting until the line clicked on his end to bring the phone back to her face and whisper, “sorry,” a quiet sob shaking her body.

***

Nikolai pulled a hand through his hair, even more confused than before. Everything Zoya said was what he expected her to say— but her behaviour confused him, and if he didn’t know any better he would think that she didn’t want to still be broken up. But if there was anything he could rely on, it was that she was Zoya Nazyalensky, and she wouldn’t change her mind. Still, that didn’t stop him from remembering what it had been like before all this.

The way she used to put her head on his chest as the hammock rocked. How he used to tell her stories about the sea and the year he’d spent on a boat with Tolya and Tamar before he’d met her. She always wanted to know more about the lives he’d lived, and in return for his stories, she would whisper secrets in his ear, not even trusting the wind as much as she trusted him. Some nights, curled in the hammock, Zoya would point out the constellations, teaching him what her aunt had taught her, while other nights, she would clear out the furniture in her living room and demand, with her hands on her hips, that Nikolai teach her how to dance--she refused to let him excel in something she knew she could best him in. And so he’d taught her. And in return, she’d taught him how to ice skate, the one thing he had never tried, holding his hands the entire time, regardless of how much she’d teased him. He had been terrible, utterly terrible, but as he’d watched Zoya skate perfectly backwards, all while helping him, he had realized that he would never find this again. This was it for him. She was it for him.

His hopeless heart had only gotten ensnared worse when he’d made her a traditional dish he’d learned about in Russia, the only thing he knew how to cook well, and she had looked at him with so much ferocity, wanting to know how to cook it for herself. She was a worse cook than him, and had never quite managed it, despite his teachings. So she would call him whenever she was stressed and wanted her comfort food, although she never said that, he could always tell. She’d come to rely on him, trust him, in the same way he had relied on her, trusted her. He’d given her his heart-- but in the end he had been mistaken. His heart was closely guarded and despite Zoya’s warnings not to, he’d given himself to her completely. The pain he felt now was his own fault, and he didn’t know if it would ever truly go away.

***

Zoya couldn’t sleep either, and no piano melody would help bring her closer to it either. On the nights she could sleep, she found herself in the same situation, she dreamed of him, and only him. The press of his fingers against her arms when he steadied her after she’d drank too much. Warm kisses to her head when she was sick and couldn’t leave the bed, or protest his soft actions. His calloused fingers brushing back her hair in the moments after she shared her frustrations. The distance he stumbled back— as if he’d been struck in the chest when she had said she couldn’t do it anymore. The distance from his apartment, where she’d stayed each night to her own, cold and alone on the other side of town. The hurt in his eyes when she’d twisted the knife further, saying that she would have never been able to care for him— love him in the way he did for her. The pain that passed over his otherwise neutral features when he’d realized that she was yet another person who he’d let himself love, only for his love to never be reciprocated. The boy he’d shown her, who collected scars he didn’t deserve, retreated back into a man who had a collection of scars whose stories she would spend a lifetime forgetting. Whose hands she would spend a lifetime trying to forget. Whose love she would spend forever mourning. For all that she’d said to Nikolai to make him forget her, she was beginning to realize that if Nikolai would have her back, she would gladly go.

“Sorry,” she repeated softly, even though he couldn’t hear her, she vowed that she would make things right, even if he didn’t want her again, she knew she owed him that much. She was Zoya Nazyalensky and she wanted to change her mind, to listen to what her traitorous heart said, but only if that’s what he wanted too.

#zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #zoyalai #zoyalai fic #king of scars #kos #kos fic #tgt #gv #shadow and bone #zoya x nikolai

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louiserandom · 4 years

Text

Play Games with Me

Pairing: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara | Rating: E

A/N: Commission for the amazing @rookie-d💙💗 thank you so much! *hugs*

Read on AO3 or continue under the cut :3 Ko-fi and fic commission info in the header!

Tobirama SenJERK has never had sex in his life, Madara types, as always brimming with spite when it comes to his least favorite person in town. Maybe on the planet.

Rereading the comment and satisfied that there aren’t any typos or any hint whatsoever at some kind of hidden affection (which isn’t there, never was and never will be, Madara reminds himself firmly), he hits ‘Comment.’

“Take that, you dumbass,” Madara mutters under his breath, and really, this could be classified as childish, were he not completely in the right to take vicious revenge upon the fucking asshole who dared refer to Madara as ‘so idiotic it’s pitifully adorable’ on his last stream. Hah! Like Tobirama isn’t the less intelligent one of the two of them; Madara has watched enough of his Uncharted 4 gameplay to note that Tobirama took twelve seconds longer than him to figure out arguably the most difficult puzzle in the game. And although Madara’s sub count doesn’t quite reflect his superior intellect compared to Senju’sーnot that he’s checked in a whileーit’s likely a testament to the viewers’ total lack of taste, if anything else.

(Two thousand, nine hundred and thirty four viewer’s, to be precise, according to this morning’s stats and minus the handful of Madara’s fake accounts that he created just in case to keep up with his chief competitor. Admittedly, it might be a tad annoying.)

A notification pipes up.

Hm, I wonder how you’d know that, MaddyGamerboy? Are you stalking me? I must admit, I’m flattered.

Madara sputters at the reply. At yet another butchering of his perfectly adequate nickname. The fucking nerve of the guyーand people fucking wonder why Madara hates his guts?

(Madara knows it doesn’t really help his case that he’s touched himself to fantasies of the younger Senju more times than he’d care to count, but hate-fucking a thing isn’t it? Hate-masturbation must be too, he supposes. Not the healthiest outlet for negative feelings, but it makes him feel good enough.)

(Heavenly, to be precise.)

I AM NOT, YOU SELF-OBSESSED DUMBASS, Madara types, simultaneously taking care of the half-a-dozen typos that appear of their own accord.

No.

Deep breath. Stop fingers from shaking. Think about something witty to say.

Pff, he writes, for lack of any better word to express his indignant huff, like I give a shit about you. You’re dumb.

It did sound much better in his head, but Madara has spent over a minute writing the comment already, and he doesn’t want to appear as if he’s thinking too hard on it.

He posts his answer, not dwelling too match on the number of likes on Tobirama’s comment far outnumbering the hundred Madara’s garnered. Again, Tobirama’s audience is clearly not the best judge of character.

“FUCK. YOU. SIDEWAYS, SENJU!” Madara shouts at the reply that follows, consisting only of the words:

Thanks for the sub btw.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Madara hisses. “Like eight fucking fake accounts do anything to boost your stats, I don’t even like all your videos from each one of them, you ass!”

I DID NOT SUB DONT BELIEVE HIM

I’m happy to have another loyal fan ;)

HE IS FUCKING LYEING!!!

With seemingly every single person in the comments raving about how it’s about time MadGamer69 and admitted he admires FlyingThunderGod’s skill, Madara has to consciously restrain himself from smashing his laptop against the wall.

“You can just tell him you like him, you know.”

Madara startles, almost stumbling to the floor when Hashirama returns with their drinks and quickly put-together snacks, always the one to rummage through Madara’s kitchen because Madara hardly cares what edible and inedible things existed there or what to do with themーthat’s Izuna’s job.

“I do not,” Madara snarls, as Hashirama flops next to him on the couch, “like that stupid clusterfuck you call a brother!”

“Madara!” Hashirama whines, with that ever-present pout on his face. “Be civil.”

“Yeah, when he returns the favor,” Madara glowers, grabbing a milkshake from Hashirama’s hand. “Did you forget that he fucking started it? Do I need to quote his “pitifully adorable how so much stupidity can fit in such a short man” again?” Madara can’t help flailing his arms a little, though far too conscious of this habit now since the Tobirama has started pointing it out. He makes up for it with what he hopes is a deadly enough glare. “Did no one in your family bother to teach him manners? Did you?”

Hashirama only sighs. “And did you forget,” he asks, “how before that you abused my invitation over to our place to hide his Golden Youtube Gamer Tablet?”

Madara groans. “It’s called a Gold Play Button. Idiot.”

“Now you’re insulting me,” Hashirama grumbles, “and who cares? The point is, you’d be upset too if he hid yours.”

“Youtubers care,” Madara says, “and also, that’s irrelevant, that was revenge for him making fun of my perfectly adequate gameplay.”

“To be fair, you were dying quite a lot in that playthrough...”

“He took twelve seconds longer to figure out that puzzle in the game!” Madara growls.

Hashirama rolls his eyes. “Well, of course, because that Yellow Flash guy was flirting and distracting him in the chat.”

Madara blanches. "That good-for-nothing pipsqueak was what?”

“See,” Hashirama drawls, “you are jealous. Why would you be jealous?”

“I-I’m not!”

“Madara, you are so far in denial, that as your best friend,” Hashirama says firmly, slapping a hand over Madara’s mouth before he can muster another protest, “I cannot stand by and watch you suffer. Anymore, that is, because this has reached a breaking point. So, please, for me, I am begging you, just try politely asking if maybe Tobirama would like to accompany you for coffee somewhere tomorrow? Maybe brunch? I mean, come on, I know you guys don’t hate each other anymore. Seriously, you guys seem like you enjoy arguments, and hey, who am I to judge how people express affection?”

“Affection?!” Madara shrieks, shoving Hashirama’s hand away.

“And please stop pretending you don’t have printed out screenshots of my brother’s videos hidden under your mattress because Izunaー”

“Is a fucking snooping rat!” Madara hisses.

Hashirama sighs. “If it helps you feel better, maybe Tobirama might possibly not feel extreme dislike towards you but actually the opposite,” he says, smiling nervously as Madara blanches.

Because... what?

He blinks, running Hashirama’s words through his mind again.

“And how would you know that?” he asks, suspicious. “I swear if you dared tell him anything about my possibly nonexistent feelingsー”

“Possibly?” Excitement starts bubbling in Hashirama’s eyes. “That’s progress!”

“Definitely nonexistent feelings, dammit!”

Hashirama, the asshole Madara calls best friend for some reason, giggles. “Don’t worry, I didn’t. I promise, stop glaring or I will start pouting,” he threatens, and Madara schools his expression back into a light scowl to avoid the infamous Senju pout.

Like a curse, memories of said pout curling Tobirama’s lips spring to mind, and Madara has to physically shake his head to banish those thoughts.

“Listen, the fact that we’re not as... aggressive as we used to be,” Madara says, “doesn’t mean we suddenly like each other.”

“Madara, you insist on coming along every time we hang out,” Hashirama points out.

“I like hanging out with you.”

“Yet every time we do,” Hashirama presses on, “you’re hyperfocused on bickering with Tobirama instead of talking about wholesome stuff with me. Did you even notice that I brought Mito with me the past few times and it was literally a double date?”

“Was not!” Madara shoves at Hashirama with his shoulder and stands up to pace, because there goes the tell-tale sweating of his hands, the fluttering in his chest and stomach and the memoriesーof him and Tobirama secretly filming the other on camera when they do stupid shit, their almost daily Best Playground Insult Contest that’s been memed half to death on Twitter, the one time they got separated from Hashirama and Izuna in Disneyland because they’d got caught in their arguments so much it devolved into discussing their favorite games and an actual conversation that had Madara’s insides tingling.

No.

No, no, no. If anything, they were just gradually becoming something not unlike friends. And Madara’s occasional fantasies behind closed doors were nothing but a means to a pleasant end.

Not. Feelings.

No matter how much he’s grown attached to the site of messy, white-gray hair that he knows is soft to the touch from all the times he’s tugged on it to irritate him. No matter how piercing Tobirama’s unique red eyes may look. No matter how objectively hot his recent workout routine video wasーand Madara knows he’d only watched it so many times because he wants to improve his own routine, right?

Right?

Madara groans. “Why are emotions so fucking confusing!” He slumps onto the floor and wraps his arms around his knees, hitting his head over and over again on his kneecaps because, “I don’t even know what I want from him, okay?”

There’s a brief silence before Hashirama joins him and keeps him from abusing his head further. “How about,” Hashirama suggests, rubbing a comforting hand on his back, “you just ask? Listen, he’s my brother. And you’re my best friend. You two fighting less and at least making an effort to get to know each other better?” Hashirama brings out the puppy dog eyes. “That would mean the world for me.”

Madara glances at him before looking away again, focusing on a random photo of the wall. One featuring Tobirama right after his university graduation with a wide smile on his face. Quite the adorable face, too, and the unprompted thought makes Madara want to descend into oblivion. Preferably forever.

“That’s difficult,” he says lamely.

“But not impossible,” Hashirama says, “and hey, it’s better than waiting for the Yellow Flash guy to actually make a move on Tobi and start occupying all of his time. He’s a really big fan.”

“Fuck Minato,” Madara scoffs, “the guy just showed up and is just shamelessly emulating Tobirama’s style. That’s dumb.”

“Dumber than you claim Tobi is?” Hashirama prompts.

Madara thinks about it. “You know what? Yes.”

“As I saidーprogress!”

Madara can never go through with his impulses to punch his well-meaning best friend, and so grabs the nearest pillow from the couch and smashes it into Hashirama’s face to shut him up.

Tobirama returns home only to find Hashirama and Madara standing by the front door, frowning as they watched something that sounded like a tsunami of some kind.

“Listen, it’s gotta be one of those black holes or something twisting that vortex. Look how stuff disappears right into it!” is his brother talking, and Tobirama is already heaving a frustrated sigh.

Please don’t tell me you think there’s a black hole on Earth.

“There’s no black holes on Earth, idiot! The nearest one is way off, like near Pluto or something,” Madara says.

Ah. Even better. Tobirama chuckles under his breath, crosses his arms and leans against the wall, observing the two idiots he knows and loves.

He mentally kicks himself.

Well, one of them, he loves. Of course he loves his brother.

The other is... complicated.

“And besides, that could just be the Loch Ness monster or a cthulhu or something. See how dark the water is?”

“Or maybe,” Tobirama says, making them both jump, “it’s a natural phenomenon that’s a tad too difficult for both your brain cells to comprehend? I’m happy to explain though.”

“I’m happy to see you fuck yourself,” Madara greets him his usual way, scowling despite the exceptionally conspicuous blush painting his cheeks.

The contrast never fails to make Tobirama’s heart beat faster. He hates himself for it.

“Mm, Madara,” Tobirama teases, “not in front of my brother.”

As expected, Madara starts spluttering, and Tobirama is left wondering again how he avoids making a total fool of himself in each and every one of his videos. It seems Madara saves most of his flailing for the comment section.

“You,” Madara snarls, pointing Tobirama’s way, “are an asshole, Senju, but spending time with the better part of society might do you some good. So see you at brunch tomorrow and do not be late.”

And with that, Madara gives Hashirama a cursory wave and stalks off, leaving Tobirama frozen on the spot.

Did Madara just?..

Tobirama blinks, swallowing heavily as he feels his throat running dry and his heart rate pick up.

No fucking way.

He must have imagined it. Through his stupor of trying to figure out what the hell just took place, Tobirama vaguely registers Hashirama’s facepalm.

“Sorry for that,” Tobirama hears his brother speak through the rush in his ears. “He meant, uh, will you please join him for brunch? Tomorrow at 11 am, Eggspectation?”

Tobirama blinks harder.

“I,” he starts, “I don’t... Did you blackmail Madara into asking me out?”

Hashirama looks scandalized. “What? No!”

“Did Madara just ask me out?”

“Well, yes, Tobi.” Hashirama chuckles nervously. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

Tobirama glares. “The idiot’s wake up text to me today was literally a collection of trashy limerick poems about how much I suck. Sorry if I’m a little skeptical.”

“You,” Hashirama says, wincing as a long-suffering expression settles on his face, “you guys send wake up texts to each other?”

A moment of awkward silence hangs in the air.

“Sometimes,” Tobirama says, defensive, although the damage is already done.

“And you’re still not going out? Tobirama, you do realize he’s in love with you, right?”

“Don’t say things like that, Anija!” Tobirama snaps, hoping the dim lighting in the corridor conceals the blush he can feel heating up his cheeks. Fuck. Now he’s turning Madara. “Yet, I mean.”

“I’ll save the celebrations until after your date then!” Hashirama sing-songs like the idiot he is.

Tobirama resigns to his fate. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’ll thank me for this.”

“If it goes well,” Tobirama glowers though it’s ineffective, really, against his brother’s bubbling positivity, and the sheer awe still coursing through him from Madara asking him out on a fucking date is actually enough to make Tobirama want to hug him. He refrains. "Now, thanks, Anija, but I have work things to attend to.”

“Sure! Just don’t forget, 11ー”

“Eleven eggs and uh, no expectations, got it.”

“Wait, Tobi, noー”

With no time to waste, naturally, Tobirama bolts into their apartment and straight to his room to choose an appropriate outfit. And to mentally prepare himself for something he’s almost given up hoping for.

Tobirama cannotーwill notーmess this up.

Tobirama makes sure to arrive about ten minutes early. Not because he’s worried or nervous, of course; maybe just a little, but mostly just to get his bearings beforeーfinallyーa date with Madara goddamn Uchiha.

Madara, who’s been Tobirama’s stupid crush since high school, and just as in love with gaming as he is, only that didn’t turn out to be such a great bonding point between them, as Tobirama had hopedーbefore he actually got to know his Anija’s best friend.

Madara, who seemed to dislike Tobirama at first sight and only grew to hate him more over the years as they both found more joy in arguing than they did in talking.

Madara, who, despite this, blushes every rare time Tobirama genuinely smiles at him or drops a suggestive joke, who has an arguably unhealthy obsession with Tobirama’s ass which he always ogles when he thinks no one is looking.

Madara, whose plastered ass Tobirama had to drag home the other week, amid drunken speeches about capitalist injustice, some wacky conspiracy behind the disappearance of the dodo bird and... something quite interesting.

“Listen, Senju,” Madara was slurring against Tobirama’s shoulder, as the latter cursed every single nonexistent god that Hashirama had chosen that fucking day to go on a road trip with Mito, Toka and Izuna, leaving Tobirama in charge of this walking trash fire of a man. “Listen. Tobira... Tobi. Tobirama. You’re so hot.”

The words almost made Tobirama stumble.

“What, Uchiha?”

“And cute... So pretty, too, I wish you could see that...” Madara went on babbling. “I think you do. But still. Wish you could see me like I do. I mean see you. Like I do...”

“Tobira, you’re just, you’re unfair...”

“I hate you and I like you then I love you and I hate you again, why you’reー” A hiccup. “How do you exist...”

“I just want to hold hands and just... walk and talk and be together and...”

Tobirama watched in ever mounting confusion as Madara leaned completely into him, humming as he hugged Tobirama tightly and said,

“Is that too fucking much to ask...”

Tobirama stood, shell-shocked, with Madara whispering impossible nonsense in his arms, wondering if he was in a dream.

The next day saw Madara returning to his usual self insulting Tobirama at every goddamn opportunity, which left Tobirama... confused.

Confused, and conflicted, and sleepless for the rest of the night, thoughts held captive by the utter idiot whose ultimate goal seems to be to ruin Tobirama’s life.

It’s maddening.

Of course, he’d suspected that Madara’s flailing and constant blushing interspersed with screams and insults (the most creative ones, reserved only for Tobirama, it seemed) were signs of not so much dislike, as the complete opposite. Of course, Tobirama had tried flirting with Madara, just bordering right there on the edge of suggestive, only for his advances to be seen as patronizing or condescending. And hearing Madara speak to him this way, in a drunken stupor no less, when he’d probably have no causeーor abilityーto lie is...

Maddening. Annoying. Exhilarating. A tantalizing opportunity. Maybe a glimmer of hope.

And of course, Tobirama told his brother; they never really had any secrets between them. And of fucking course Hashirama had a hand in convincing Madara to change his usual behavior, which is nice and all, but doesn’t help the nerves wracking through Tobirama’s body, nor the crippling fear that he’s going to somehow screw this up.

But no. Deep breath. Exhale. And remember Anija’s advice.

Tobirama takes the last turn before he’s faced with their meeting place, surprised to find Madara already there.

Even though he’s usually always late. Sitting inside by the window, looking out onto the street with a slight frown, Madara keeps worrying his bottom lip and, apparently, trying to break a spoon.

It paints an endearing picture. Tobirama sighs, feeling a smile tugging at his lips.

This man...

Tobirama comes in, approaching him slowly, allowing himself a few moments to watch Madara needlessly fix his wild mane of hair, appraise his reflection in the spoon, try out several fake-looking smiles before settling on a scowl and going back to his nervous tics again. With another sigh, Tobirama takes the few steps left to his date, repeating Hashirama’s advice over and over in his head.

Just be yourselfーand have fun!

Just a few minutes into their date, it becomes obvious that Madara didn’t get the same advice from Hashirama.

Or just didn’t get the advice, period.

With their orders made and beverages served, they’re left to wallow in a less than comfortable silence, broken only by Madara’s... uncharacteristic attempts at conversation.

“Are you enjoying the tea?” Madara asks Tobirama with all of the softness of a brick wall.

Tobirama isn’t used to the man being eloquent, much less polite, and he has yet to have at least one conversation with Madara that doesn’t devolve into a pissing contest. So theoretically, Tobirama should be enjoying this.

But it only seems wrong. Annoying. Not them.

He tries to recall if, maybe, their first meeting was an adequate exchange? Tobirama thinks to the day Hashirama first introduced them. Only flashes of spilled milkshakes and jibes at intelligence run through his mind, and of course that was the very first time he’d called Madara an idiot pipsqueak, receiving quite the lame ‘stuck-up dandelion’ in turn.

Unsurprising.

“Yes,” Tobirama says, taking another sip as he eyes Madara struggling on the other side of the table. Struggling to do what is the question: either sit straight, or assume a more relaxed posture, or reach towards his own drink, or avoid eye contact, even though he keeps glancing his way when he thinks Tobirama won’t notice. Tobirama does, every time, and that just makes the whole ordeal more awkward. “Nice weather,” Tobirama says, with about as much enthusiasm.

If Madara wants to play this stupid game, Tobirama will indulge. Just to see how long it takes for Madara to break and return to his blustering status quo.

“Yeah...” Madara clears his throat, eye twitching as he manages to hold Tobirama’s gaze for a commendable three seconds this time. “Hate the sun. I meanーI mean I love the sun. Ugh. It just, uh. Burns.”

It’s both saddening and funny to see Madara visibly deflate.

“Skin too sensitive, huh?” Tobirama starts small. “Just like your ego?”

Madara’s jaw clenches and his nervous look shifts into a glare before he looks away again, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to calm himself down before he flashes an unnaturally cheery smile.

“Heh, nice,” Madara grits through his teeth, “nice joke, Senju.”

Tobirama raises his eyebrow as Madara flinches at his own words.

“I’m glad you appreciate my sense of humor,” Tobirama says, barely reining in a smirk.

“Sure! You’reーyou’re funny.”

“And?”

“And what?” Madara frowns, confused.

“And what else am I?” Tobirama demands, feigning thoughtfulness. “A recent assessment of yours was that I look and act like a self-obsessed dumbass, I think.”

“No-no,” Madara blurts out, looking much a cornered animal, “I think you... you are... you look not at all so terrible today?” he finishes with a nervous chuckle, running a hand through his hair.

Tobirama wants to scream from the agony.

No. This won’t do, otherwise he might as well leave.

“Can you just call me a stuck-up asshole like you always do or recite one of those horrible limerick disses?” he demands.

Madara actually yelps. “What? No! I mean, wait.” He narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re acting weird.”

“We’re on a date, if you were too stupーpreoccupied to get my invitation, Senju,” Madara says, jaw still clenched as he doubtless refrains from swearing, “and I’m being civil!”

That’s the advice he must have gotten from Anija, Tobirama thinks.

What a tragedy.

“Madara,” Tobirama implores, leaning his eyebrows on the table and meeting Uchiha’s gaze, “have you considered thatーI prefer it when you aren’t?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, thank fuck!” Madara slams his hands on the table, heaving a massive sigh as Tobirama laughs in relief. “I was ready to fucking die, you piece of shit! How does your brother stay so fucking kind all the time, it’s fucking torture!”

Tobirama rolls his eyes. “It’s a talent, naturally. Just like your talent at embarrassing yourself and mine at being awesome.”

“You’ve got it a little backwards, Senju,” Madara sneers, “but it’s excusable, given your level of intellect.”

“Twice as high as yours?” Tobirama parries.

“Twice as little.”

“That’s more like it,” Tobirama says, grinning despite himself, “I thought you were a decoy or something. You’ve told me to fuck off every single day since we first met and this was getting worrisome.”

Madara’s laugh is sudden, melodic, sending those irritating tingling sensations through Tobirama’s body. He makes an effort to appear outwardly calm.

“Maybe because you managed to piss me the fuck off every day that I’ve known you,” Madara scoffs, “but you’re all right sometimes. I guess.” He shrugs, feigning nonchalance even as he keeps nervously fixing and running his fingers through his hair.

A stupid, tantalizing habit. Tobirama imagines carding his own hands through the messy locks, tugging Madara’s head back toー

He forcefully aborts the thought process before he’s faced with a problem of the harder kind. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll try to strangle each other when we game together.”

“We’re playing today?” Madara asks.

Tobirama tilts his head to the side.

“You haven’t planned one gaming session after our date?”

“Um,” Madara says, blinking rapidly, “why should I be the one with the plan?”

“Because you’re the one who invited me,” Tobirama deadpans. And anyway, Madara is always the one to egg Tobirama on to gaming, which would usually only ever lead to semi-playful brawls and their fighting making Hashirama cry.

And without Anija there to assault them with his antics, Tobirama wonders what their play-fighting might lead to... and promptly shuts off those thoughts again. Control, dammit.

Madara opens his mouth, then closes it, sighs explosively and says, “All right, fair enough. But you’re the strategy pro here. And my thing is RPGs.” He smirks. “I can improvise.”

And Madara does, in fact, improvise, leading Tobirama on what he hopes is a satisfying daylong adventure. It’s strange, walking by themselves around Konoha without anyone else with them (not that they’ve taken to ignoring Hashirama and Mito anyway on their most recent group outings), free to talk about and do anything they want. Strange and perfect, the way Tobirama switches between poorly concealed bashfulness and his usual confidence, as their jokes and jibes at each other, every little prank they pull never fails to make them both laugh.

It’s perfect.

Just like Tobirama’s smile is, directed at him without any pretenses as they set off to explore the lush, gigantic forest surrounding the city, rumored to be home to mythical, many-tailed creatures. And that’s followed by their forays into an abandoned chemistry lab; the scares they get in the woods from intermittent growls coming from the shadows are nothing compared to the horror Madara feels when Tobirama insists on touching broken vials and experimental equipment, and going through doors with dilapidated ‘DANGER. CHEMICAL HAZARD’ signs.

“If we’re infected by some deadly and insidious poison,” Madara whispers as they explore the lab’s tunnels, “I’m going to fucking kill you before it does. Painfully.”

“It’s for science,” Tobirama says. “And trust me. We’re safe. I got a degree in this.”

“Youtube is practically your full-time job at this point. What the fuck else do you need?”

“The satisfaction of discovering something cool?”

“And deadly.”

"Unlikely.”

Madara groans, cursing his life, as well as his inability to say no to hisーapparentlyーnew boyfriend.

The boyfriend who’s just discovered another hidden pathway to a deeper level and has scurried off towards it like an excited five-year-old. Despite himself, despite his intent to keep complaining, Madara can’t hold back the grin tugging at his lips.

Still perfect.

Just like their lunch date which turns into a picnic by the Naka river, where Madara remembers meeting Hashirama way back when. Just like the first time Tobirama grasps his hand, fingers gently massaging it as he laughs at Madara stuttering to a stop from whatever rant he’d been on, heart in his throat and mind suddenly focused on whether his palms are too sweaty or not.

His mind goes blank. Eyes focus only on the man in front of him, whom he yearns to strangle just as often as he craves to tackle him onto any surface and ruin him completely. And it should feel wrong, it should be, only Madara hasn’t quite felt so right about anything in a long time, and with every minute they spend with their familiar bickering, just with a layer of something more behind it this time, it becomes harder and harder to deny how good being near Tobirama makes him feel. Happy. Complete.

Madara winces. Oh, gods. He’s waxing poetic now.

All worries about that fly out the window when Tobirama, without so much as a word of warning, leans in and draws Madara by his collar into a kiss.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t spring up to awaken alone in his bed like he always does, after dreams like these.

And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be Madara’s best kiss to date.

Maybe he’s exaggerating, if just because he’s been craving this so damn much. Tobirama’s lips are hot, gentle, and welcoming against his, a curious tongue darting out to coax Madara’s lips open and deepen the kiss. The delightful drag of his tongue, his hands, rough and demanding on Madara’s chest, waist, thighsーit’s not long before he’s dizzy with it, barely holding back moans of pleasure for fear of sounding too desperate.

“Fuck,” Madara gasps as they pull away for breath, lips still touching as their eyes stay locked and he’s treated to Tobirama’s downright ravenous gaze. “That wasー”

Tobirama cuts him off with another kiss, then another, and it’s not long before they find themselves tangled in a mess of limbs and loose clothing. The hard ground presses against Madara’s back as Tobirama settles on top of him, ravaging Madara’s mouth with a passion that soon has his pants feeling too tight.

Fuck.

He groans, hips thrusting of their own accord and feeling Tobirama's own erection through the fabric.

Madara makes an immense effort to pull away, stifling a whine at the loss of contact.

“Bed,” he says, mortified at his own crudeness far too late after the word comes out. “Fuck, I meantー”

“Yes,” Tobirama growls, capturing Madara’s lips in another open-mouthed kiss before he hauls him up to start gathering their things. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours? Izuna,” Madara rasps, head too clouded to explain more in-depth, but Tobirama seems to understand.

“Anija shouldn’t be back for a while,” Tobirama says, a devastating grin on his face, “lots of time for us to play.”

Gods.

Madara scrambles to his feet fast enough to stumble, and for once, Tobirama has nothing to say about his clumsiness.

They all but crash through the front door, not even bothering to lock it as they rush through a cursory check to make sure Hashirama is out like he said he’d be.

“Fuck, thank the gods,” Tobirama sighs in relief before dragging Madara back into liplock.

Madara can’t hold back a moan this time, heat ratcheting up between them as he wraps his hands around Tobirama’s neck, pulling him closer as they stumble to the couch. Madara ends up straddling him just so that their cocks brush through too-rough clothing, kiss growing urgent and sloppy, as wandering hands touching every inch of uncovered skin.

Clothes fall away, leaving them both shirtless, and Madara needs a few moments to take in the miles of pale skin, so soft to the touch, toned muscles rippling as Tobirama squirms under him, gasps and groans escaping his lips in answer to every one of Madara’s touches. He leans in to mouth Tobirama’s neck, sucking bruising kisses onto the soft skin there pleasure flaring at the base of his stomach each time Tobirama moans and arches against him.

“You’re so sensitive,” Madara whispers, with a hint of incredulity. “That’s... fuck.”

“Yeah,” Tobirama rasps, eyes unfocused, “because... just get on with it.”

“If I knew this is what it took to finally get you to shut up,” Madara chuckles, “I would have tried this a long time ago.”

If he weren’t so sure Tobirama genuinely despised him. Butー

“I fucking wished you would!” Tobirama snaps, though the irritation rings hollow with the breathless tone.

Madara blinks in shock.

“You did?” Madara asks, moving lower to lap at Tobirama’s nipple, sucking the hardened nub into his mouth and eliciting another delicious whimper. “You thought about this? About my hands on you, touching you?”

“Yes!” The desperation in his tone only adds to Madara’s mounting confidence, one that he so rarely ever feels in Tobirama’s presence.

“My mouth on your cock,” he continues, heart hammering against his ribs as he trails kisses lower and lower, “would you like that? While I finger you, getting you ready to take me?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Tobirama’s hips jerk, making them both moan at the friction.

“Off,” Madara grunts, tugging at Tobirama’s pants with one hand as the other works the belt off his own. They scramble, a bit awkwardly, until they’re both naked and sprawled on top of each other, and Madara all but drools at the sight of Tobirama’s cock, hard and straining, beads of precum already leaking from the tip.

Perfect.

It’s tempting to just let go but Madara decides to take his time. Strokes Tobirama’s sides and chest, fingers his nipples, kisses every inch of skin he can reach, sucking bruises and biting slightly. He marvels at every little keen and groan he wrings from Tobirama, relishing how needy he grows with each second, how he moans Madara’s name, curses him and urges Madara to touch him, sliding his dick against his and huffing when Madara doesn’t do anything about it, before finally devolving into pleading.

Just what Madara’s been waiting for.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama’s whines, a soft, desperate sound that makes Madara groan in turn.

“Please what?” he asks, knowing he’s being a tease and enjoying the hell out of it.

Tobirama musters a pretty non-intimidating glare. “Just... fuck.”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Is that what you want?” Madara raises an eyebrow, making sure to wet his lips, letting his tongue gently graze the head of Tobirama’s cock. “I can bottom. I don’t mind.”

“Fuck!” Tobirama squeezes his eyes shut, heavy breathing interspersed with desperate whines. “Just... suck me off. Please. Now.”

“That’s it, Tobirama,” Madara drags out the syllables of his name, a smirk tugging at his lips, “when you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?”

He wraps his lipsーfinallyーaround the head, licking at the salty fluid gathered there, ears ringing from the heady feel of Tobirama’s cock against his mouth, his hands tangling in Madara’s hair, the sounds slipping from Tobirama’s lips that are borderline fucking obscene. Madara takes a breath to brace himself and takes Tobirama a few inches deeper. His length is hot, stiff, and heavy in his mouth as Madara presses the flat of his tongue against the underside, sucking hard, wringing another delectable whimper. Tobirama’s thrusts up, cock hitting the back of his throat, and Madara chokes for a moment, his own dick jerking at the sensation.

“Madara,” Tobirama breathes, “Madara, gods, you feel amazing.”

The words send another rush of pleasure through him, and Madara takes himself in hand to release some of the unbearable tension, stroking himself slowly as he relaxes his throat and sinks down to take Tobirama to the base.

Tobirama’s moan is a sweet, drawn-out melody. One that Madara enjoys making louder and louder as he starts moving, setting a fast-paced rhythm, uncaring for how debauched he may look, drool leaking out of his mouth and coating Tobirama’s cock, throat constricting around it as he takes him deep, lets him stay there, tongue gliding along his shaft. Tobirama soon devolves into barely coherent pleading, until ‘please’, and ‘more’, and Madara’s name are the only words coming out of his mouth.

It’s intoxicating. Overwhelming, far too much. Madara gives up stroking himself, the pleasure ramping up far too quickly, too soon, though Tobirama isn’t doing much better. Madara draws his lips up along his length, lapping up more precum gathered at the head, even as Tobirama’s hips jerk again and the hand in Madara’s hair tightens, urging him back down.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama keens, “I need...”

Madara has a pretty good idea of what he needs. He swirls his tongue over the head, descending again until his nose is pressed against Tobirama’s stomach. Madara swallows around him once, twice, a third time before he feels Tobirama nudging at his shoulder in a warning he doesn’t pay heed to, starting to bob his head again, wrapping his fingers around the base of Tobirama’s cock, using both his mouth and hand to bring him to completion.

“Fuck, Madara, Iー”

Madara lets out a muffled groan once he feels cum spilling against his tongue, swallowing rapidly as Tobirama’s cock pulses, again and again, through an orgasm that has him writhing and and trembling underneath him, hands tightening in Madara’s hair enough to hurt with the kind of tantalizing pain that only adds to the pleasure.

“You feel so fucking good,” Tobirama pants, watching Madara through white lashes, eyes dark and hazy as another shudder runs through him, “fuckーI want...”

Madara releases him with a wet pop. “Want what, Tobirama?” he whispers, voice too hoarse for him to speak properly.

Tobirama grips his shoulders in lieu of an answer, directing Madara to turn around so his back is pressed against his chest.

Then Tobirama’s hand wraps around his cock andーoh.

Madara has pretty much forgotten about his own pleasure, too focused on not coming too soon and making sure Tobirama was enjoying himself.

“My turn,” Tobirama murmurs against his ear, tone still breathless but with a commanding edge to it now that makes Madara shiver, “and lemmeーlet me hear you, Madara.”

Gods. He groans just from the sound of Tobirama’s voice. The feel of his teeth nibbling at his earlobe, his hand setting a quick, harsh rhythm that builds up the pleasure to impossible degrees. Tobirama’s heated skin pressed against his back, his thighs, the fingers of his other hand carding through his hair with a gentleness that contrasts with his harshness before.

It’s too much.

“Go on, Madara.”

Tobirama’s fingers swiping at the precome gathering at the head of Madara’s cock, smearing it over his shaft. His voice, a muffled whisper coaxing Madara to let go, to come for him, to say Tobirama’s nameー

“Just like that, Madara,” Tobirama grunts, “louder for me, come on.”

Madara thrusts into his grip, all but fucking into Tobirama’s fist at this point, moans his name as the heat grows unbearable the closer he gets to release.

“To-bi-rama...” He comes with a broken groan slipping from his lips as cum spills all over his stomach and Tobirama’s hand, each pulse coming stronger than the last, leaving him dizzy and boneless in Tobirama’s arms for however long it takes for his orgasm to abate.

Feels like forever. Probably a lot less. Time does seem to slow down, though, both of them collapsing against each other onto the cushions, breathing raggedly and curling into each other as Madara turns to bury his head in the crook of Tobirama’s neck.

It still seems unreal. Too perfect. So right.

They lie there for a minutes, coming down from the high, limbs tangled and lazy kisses exchanged here and there. Tobirama looks so peaceful, like Madara’s never seen him before: eyes half-lidded, hair messier than ever, sticking in every direction, skin still flushed and marked, all over, with hickeys and teeth marks, the mere sight of which has Madara’s dick stirring in interest, recent orgasm or no.

“You know,” Madara says, hands running over Tobirama’s chest, barely grazing his still sensitive nipples and making him shiver, “if this is the game you want to play, I’m really not against binging it. The rest of the dayーweekend, if you want.” Madara presses a kiss to Tobirama’s neck. “Make the playthrough as thorough as possible.” To his collarbone. “Unlock all achievements and, uh,” Madara trails his hand along Tobirama’s chest to his groin, past his length and to his ass, "explore every location.”

“If that was some thinly veiled euphemism,” Tobirama says, barely holding in laughter, “for you wanting to fuck me sideways...” Madara holds Tobirama’s gaze as his fingers hover just over Tobirama’s hole. “Then Madara, for fuck’s sake, stop trying to be subtle and get to work.”

Madara barks out a laugh.

“Whatever you say, Tobirama.”

Madara dips his voice low and deep, like he’s noticed Tobirama loves, and relishes the whimper it earns him. Relishes the way Tobirama arches against him, looking for friction, how delectable he looks, ready and responsive, so eager for Madara’s touch.

He knows then and there that if it’s up to him, Madara will do anything to make this last.

#madatobi #tobimada #modern au #youtuber au #lou writes #idiots in love #madara is in denial (and thirsting)#tobirama is laughing (and equally thirsting) from the sidelines #fluff and smut #humor #meow

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mystic-lodi · 4 years

Text

A Tinder Date Amongst Friends - Chapter 1 (Yoosung)

Ship: YoosungxMC

Word Count: 2,414

Rating: T for Language

ao3 link

...

Tinder. The hellhole of an app that leads users to download it to their phone for approximately eight days, delete the app, and then proceed to redownload it a few days later because certainly it’s not as bad as you remember. I knew all this, and yet here I was, once again downloading Tinder after a long session of crying in the shower and convincing myself that this time would be different. This time, I wouldn’t receive any unsolicited dick pics. This time, I wouldn’t have to endure bland conversations about my favorite color or try to figure out how to respond to various almost nonsensical pick up lines. This time, I would meet someone who would let me forget about Yoosung.

Try as I might, nothing for the past year has been able to get me over this adorable blonde haired boy. While preparing for my first RFA party, I thought we had a mutual attraction but he wasn’t reciprocating my advances, so I backed off and decided to swallow my feelings. I assumed things would get better and we would become close friends. That’s what happened, but not quite in the way I expected. Spending more time with him only sparked more feelings, leading me down a rabbit hole of late nights over thinking my texts to him and debating whether or not I should just suck it up and tell him already. We’d spent countless hours just chatting into the night over the phone, gossiping about the other RFA members or discussing plans to go to conventions, but never once could I bring myself to tell him. Weeks, months, and now a year of this, I finally decided that I needed to be more proactive in moving on, which led me to this horrible app.

The first time I downloaded it, it wasn’t too bad. Just a creep or two, but nothing significant. I got bored and deleted it. A few weeks later, I downloaded it again, and that’s when the creeps started pouring in. Now on my fifth attempt, I started to ask what was wrong with me. Why did I keep doing this? Was I hoping for some Prince Charming to sweep me off my feet?

“Well, there’s no harm in trying,” I mumbled to myself as I typed in my phone number and created a new account. The app loaded my selected photos, the calm before the storm. I waited patiently and it made a soft ding. Let the swiping frenzy begin.

Shirtless in the first pic. Swipe left.

Vaping through his nose. Swipe left.

Kinda cute hair cut. I stopped and decided to click to his next photo. His dog kissing him open mouth. Quick swipe left.

Cute smile. Look at those-

My heart skipped a beat.

“Yoosung?!”

I paused for a moment, letting it sink in. I didn’t know what to do. Should I swipe left? That could be weird though. What if my profile shows up for him? Would he swipe right on me for shits and giggles but think it’s odd I didn’t also swipe right for shits and giggles? Before I could go further down that road, my thumb ignored my brain and listened to what my heart was screaming, I swiped right. I held my breath. And then a window popped up.

You and Yoosung matched! Send a message below and say hi!

Shit. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? What do I say? Should I wait for him to send something first? Man, what the hell am I doing…

> “Hey lol fancy seeing you here 😂”

Okay, sent. That should be fine. Not flirty, but not rude. I shut off my phone before anyone else’s profile could show up. I let out a big sigh of relief, so incredibly glad that was over.

Ding!

Dammit. Hesitantly, I tipped my phone up to check what notification I had received. It felt like my throat was closing up as I spotted the little flame shaped Tinder icon. Quicker than I’d like to admit, I unlocked my phone and immediately went to my messages. It was from Yoosung.

> “Ikr! I never thought of you as one to have a tinder lol”

Now what does that mean? Was that a good thing? Does he mean that I seem too innocent to have an account, or does he mean that I seem like someone who’d be above all that? Or did he think I was dating someone, and that’s why he never returned my advances…? I shook my head vigorously. He’d known me for a year and I constantly complained about my singlehood. He definitely knew I wasn’t seeing anyone.

> “What, do I seem too innocent for one?”

I read it over a few times and then deleted the draft. It seemed too accusatory.

> “I’m less innocent than I look, Yoosung ;)”

I immediately deleted that one. It was way too flirty.

> “What about you? I never expected to see you here either!”

That was the best I was gonna be able to muster in my current frenzied state of mind, so I sent it. The three little dots signifying Yoosung responding popped up quicker than expected, causing me to stare with rather intense anticipation while I waited for his response.

Ding!

> “I thought it was about time for me to try a bit harder to get a girlfriend, apparently me flirting in person doesn’t come across very well ^^;”

Flirting in person? Had he been flirting with someone before, and I never knew? I felt a little pang in my heart.

> “Well, how’s it been going so far?”

I didn’t really want to know the answer to that.

> “I’m ngl, not that great,, Man, tinder is a weird place lol”

Oh, that was a better response than I was expecting. Of course I wanted him to be happy. Nothing in the world would put a smile on my face faster than seeing him happy. I wasn’t over him in the least at this point, though. There was no harm in slightly jealous thoughts as long as I didn’t share them out loud, right?

> “What about you?”

He wanted to know how my Tinder escapades were going? That’s kind of odd. No, he was definitely just asking because I asked him first.

> “About the same for me too lol”

That wasn’t wrong. Well, not until he showed up.

> “I have a fun idea!”

I smiled softly to myself, imagining his wide grin as he sent the message.

> “Lemme hear it!”

The three little dots showed up and then disappeared. Showed up again, disappeared again… What in the world was he typing?

> “We should go out for a fancy dinner date!”

I nearly choked on my own saliva. A date?! Did he just ask me out on a date? The dots showed up again. My heart started racing.

> “If neither of us are meeting anyone on here, I thought it’d be fun if we pretended we’re on a date, got all dressed up, and went out to eat! :D”

Damn this boy. This sweet, adorable, dumb boy. My heart started to calm down a bit, anxiety replaced by a mix of calmed and disappointed. My racing thoughts began to slow and one in particular stood out.

> “That sounds kinda fun actually, let’s do it!”

I smiled at the thought of Yoosung all dressed up. Sitting through a dinner while trying my best to not reach across the table and hold his hand or brush his hair out of his eyes would be worth it if I meant I could get to see him and talk to him and just feel his presence near me.

> “Perfect! I can pick you up tmrw night around 7, does that work?”

Of course that worked. Any time worked. If I had something to do, I would happily rearrange my schedule to be able to meet up with him.

> “Definitely, I’ll see you then!”

> “Can’t wait! :D”

That last comment made me giddy. Maybe it wasn’t romantic, but it still made me so excited to know that he couldn’t wait to see me. Finally prying myself off the couch I had been lazily perched in for who knows how long, I quickly went up to my bedroom to rifle through my closet and find what I would be wearing tomorrow night. It couldn’t be anything too revealing, it wasn’t a romantic date. But it had to be something classy, since wherever Yoosung was going to get reservations was most likely going to be a classy place, seeing as he did call it a “fancy dinner date.” I froze in my tracks, one hand gripping the now open closet door and the other between hangers. This was going to be my one and only chance to go on a date with him. Realizing this, I felt a new, sudden wave of confidence run through me. I was gonna go all out, strut my stuff, even if it killed me. What did I have to lose?

…

Ding! Ding! Ding!

I groaned and rolled over, my arm flopping out to grab my phone and turn off my alarm. My eyes were squinting tightly to try and block out the late afternoon sun streaming through my window. My phone lockscreen read 6:15pm. A grin broke out on my face. A day and a half of waiting, napping to fill in the time, and now I only had forty five more minutes until our “date.” I groggily and slowly pulled myself up from under my covers and made my way over to my closet. On the back of the door, I had hung up a short, black, off the shoulders high-low dress that came down to mid thigh in the front and just below the knees in the back. On the floor I had placed a pair of matching black heels and a silver handbag. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for having picked this out in the dead of night, half asleep the night before.

I slipped out of my t-shirt and shorts and into a bathrobe, making my way over to the bathroom to put on some makeup. I leaned over my sink and, with my face far too close to the mirror, I applied soft brown and red eyeshadows, a gentle eyeliner wing, and some fantastically red lipstick that popped in the best way. I leaned back and admired my handywork, earning myself another mental pat on the back. I brushed out my hair, deciding to keep it natural with its soft waves, before I made my way back to my bedroom. I carefully, slowly slid my dress on. I then moved over to my bed, sitting on the edge of it to put on my heels.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

I sighed and turned off another phone alarm, this one signifying it was 6:45, giving me fifteen more minutes to mentally prep. I leisurely strapped on my heels as I let my mind wander. Why did I agree to this? I mean, obviously it’s because I wanted to go out on a date with Yoosung, but this wasn’t even going to be a date. Was I gonna try and seduce him or something? Is that why I was getting so dressed up for this? No, that wasn’t part of the plan. If he didn’t have the same feelings for me that I did for him, I wasn’t going to force myself onto him. I just want him to be happy, whether that’s with me or without me.

Suddenly, a harsh clunking sounded from downstairs and I jumped slightly, the sound pulling me from my thoughts. I stood up, taking a few careful steps to test out my heels and I was ready, moving quickly to go investigate the sound. The sound returned, this time a bit quieter, but I finally recognized the sound as knocking.

“Coming!” I shouted. I rushed over to the door, quickly swung it open, and I froze in blissful shock. I smiled ear to ear when I saw Yoosung in front of me. He stood at my doorstep with a nervous smile on his face and a single long stemmed pink peony in his hands, dressed to the nines in dark blue suit, a long soft yellow tie pairing nicely with a lighter blue dress shirt, and of course his adorable two brown hair clips pinning back his hair.

“Yoosung, you…you look amazing…” I couldn’t help staring as I pushed my door open further to let him step in for a moment. A blush crept up on his cheeks and he stared at me for a moment. He shook his head lightly, as if to bring himself back into focus, and followed me inside. He made a soft noise that slightly resembled a gasp as he stretched his arm out to offer me the flower he held.

“This is for you!” His nervous smile grew wider and I giggled. Why was he so nervous? It’s not a real date, what did he have to be afraid of? It might be rude to ask that… He just looks so damn cute when he’s nervous!

“You’re too sweet, thank you so much! You didn’t have to…” I trailed off and became a bit nervous myself. His jittery energy ended up being rather infectious.

“Let me go put this away and we can get going,” I practically skipped over to my kitchen, straight to one of the higher cabinets. I stretched my arms up as high as they’d go to pull down a tall thin vase from a shelf that was almost too tall. I managed to pull it down without dropping it and I filled it with water. I slid the beautiful flower into it and placed the vase on my dining table.

“A-ah, you’re gonna display it…?” Yoosung stuttered and anxiously rubbed the back of his neck, causing me to giggle once more.

“Of course! I want everyone to know what a wonderfully sweet friend I have!” Calling him my “friend,” I felt a little pang in my heart. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn I saw a bit of hurt in his eyes at this statement. I mustered up all the courage I could and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

“C’mon, I don’t wanna be late,” I smiled back at him as I walked through the door.

#yoosung #yoosung x reader #yoosung x mc #yoosung kim #yoosung mysme #yoosung mystic messenger #yoosung mm #mysmes #mystic messenger #fanfic #writing #a tinder date amongst friends

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oh-theatre · 5 years

Text

Objection!: Chapter 10

Chapter title: Utinam Ne Illum Numquam Conspexissem

A/n: My bois ™ I love them. I'm sorry this chapter took longer than usual. It was a bitch to write! I actually don't know how I feel about this one, but stuff was revealed so yay!! Ooo what are Rem and Emile discussing... Also, I just love Latin, and Latin phrases...hence the title. Anyway, leave me some comments! I would really appreciate it!

First | Previous | Next

words: 4287

summary: Virgil and Remy must save Roman from a dangerous situation

pairings: Eventual logicality, eventual prinxiety, platonic demus, romantic remile

warnings: Murder mention, child murder, Law and Courtroom, swearing, blood, gun, gun mention, drug and alcohol mention, sweating, hospital, screams

Ao3 Link

“I warned you Rem, the waiting process is the worst” Emile advises from his desk, Remy paces around the room. Emile sighs looking up from his computer, Remy huffs. “Rem come here” He gestures for the worrisome detective. He joins Emile on the other side of the desk, sitting in the chair.

“We could get married in the time it takes” Remy comments fiddling with the funky pencils in the cup. Emile chuckles taking Remy's free hand.

“Did you just propose to me Remington Nyx?” Emile asks coyly, using his other hand to type some more things on his computer. Remy drops the pencils leaving a cluttered mess, Emile rolls his eyes.

“No, that's not for another month” Remy sighs, Emile blushes biting his tongue. Remy kisses his hand jumping up. “Alright! I can't sit here wallowing! I need to do something”

“Glad to hear you saying that” Virgil slides in through the door. Emile gives him a small wave return, Remy falls back onto the couch soon joined by Virgil. “Is it bad that I don't wanna work today?” Emile shuts off his computer standing up. He makes his way to the chair across the couch, opening his notebook.

“What's wrong?” Emiles voice shifts, Remy stifles a laugh recognizing what he's doing. Virgil rubs his forehead causing a red stain of heat.

“I'm stuck! I really can't do this job, I don't know what's happening” Virgil complains. Remy's smile disappears now, he leans forward, placing a hand on his partner. Virgil shoots him a grateful glance but it doesn't do much, because he's stuck spinning. “I'm just so confused”

“Oh, I felt that” Remy mumbles spreading himself on the couch laying his head on Virgil's lap. Emile smiles sweetly at his partner. “Em, we need therapy, clearly” he gestures dramatically. Emile chuckles, Virgil nods solemnly.

“Alright fine, but you better be paying me for this” He teases, Remy wiggles his eyebrows making Emile shift. “Not like that you absolute dork” Emile chides. Virgil begins fiddling with Remy's hair, twirling and twisting it every which way. Nothing harmful and Remy doesn't mind, it helps Virge calms down. It gives him something to do. “Ok, what's your sleep schedule like?” Emile begins.

“What does th-” A hand quickly covers Virgil's mouth, he looks down at Remy expectantly.

“Dude, just answer the question. He's the professional” Virgil rolls his eyes removing Remy's hand. Emile, who at this point is used to the detective's antics, politely waits. He has to do it a lot, patients tend to take longer to start off a conversation. But once you get them going, it's like rapid fire. Sometimes Emile can't keep up, however, others are less willing.

“Uh, I sleep...I guess…” Virgil grumbles, Remy appropriately yawns. “It's pretty sporadic, never more than like...mmm four to five hours?” Remy snaps in agreement, Emile tries hard not to shake his head. Showing disapproval or disappointment is counterproductive but Remy sleeps plenty, almost too much if you ask Emile. Virgil flicks Remy's forehead causing a mock pout. “You sleep so much it's not even funny” Virgil quips, Emile chuckles. Remy looks to his boyfriend for comfort or support but is instead met with a shrug, as if saying its true.

“Ok, we’re here for Virge, let's get back to him” Remy huffs, Emile nods coyly. Remy tries his best to kick Emile from his position but it ends up looking like he's flailing.

“Right well I mean...Damian keeps me up sometimes” Virgil informs returning back to a more reserved state. A pit of shame formed in his stomach, Emile notices the detective begins to pound his fists rhythmically on his thighs. Virgil's thoughts are cluttered, Damian. How could he think that? How could he say that? How dare he blame his child, his own son. How dare he complain about his job? His life is perfect, he has everything.

Not everything

Selfish, that's what I am

“Virgil? Is everything ok?” Emiles voice somehow makes its way into his head. A fruity intrusion in his echo chamber, his thoughts make way for the question. Pausing just for a moment, so he can look the doctor in the eye. Remy sits up now, growing concern riddles his face.

“Virge, you still with us bud?” Remy waves in front of his face, he can focus on the swift movement. Virgil couldn't really see it much, but it was consistent, it wasn't changing on him. But every time even the slightest thought of something pushed its way into his mind, an uneasy feeling tugged at his stomach. He grabs the hand, setting it down.

“M’fine” He lies, his problems are his own. Obviously, Remy and Emile could see straight through this, but just as impeccable timing goes. This takes the cake. The door swings open hitting the wall quite heavily. Virgil stands soon joined by the other two. Dylan appears his radio going wild, Emile and Remy throwdown in a staring contest. Emile crowned the winner, hopes his message of ‘Do not hurt Dylan, it wasn't his fault’ gets through. “Whats up Dyl?” Virgil asks, dusting off his pants.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt-

“It's fine, what's going on?” Remy pushes, Emile frowns at him. Every hint of annoyance towards the office that Remy could muster, he would. It may seem a bit too much but he put Emile's life in Dylan's hands and was completely betrayed. Every time he sees Emile he can't help but be reminded of the barrel he found his boyfriend staring down.

“There was a break-in at…” he snaps struggling to recall the address. Virgil exhales, his own patience wearing thin. “4563 Witch Lane, I think” Virgil's brows furrow, he knows that address. “It's ongoing and officers say the perpetrator is violent” Virgil heart pounds in his head.

Remember

“Why do you need us?” Remy questions flopping back onto the couch “Sounds like they got it covered” He blows, Emile shakes his head. Why? Why do they need us? They're usually called once the crime has happened, to investigate; How, when, why, and who. And that all depends on whether or not the patrol officers catch the culprit or not. So why, on god's green earth, do they need Virgil and Remy.

“Uh...because-” It finally hits Virgil, knocking him down a peg.

“Because that's Romans address” He mutters, fear is not the word he's looking for.

~~~

One more text and Patton might scream. One more text and Patton might scream. One more text from Liam and Patton might scream. One more text about how much Liam wants to see him, or talk to him or how much he misses him and Patton might scream. One more-

“Papa! Your phone is buzzing!” Valerie claims from across the small cafe table. Patton gives her a wary smile before turning over the phone, mostly to humor the excited girl. Quickly skimming over the multiple texts from Liam and one from Logan, he turns it back over. He will respond later, the mystery of what Logans might hold does set his heart racing.

“Alright kiddos, what do you want to eat?” Patton asks looking expectantly at the twins. For the past twenty minutes, the kids have been reading through the menus, on their own per Patton's request, trying to figure out what they wanted. Obviously, Patton would help if they needed it but he wanted them to try and do it on their own. The look of pride on their faces when they understood an order was all Patton was looking for.

“Waffles!” Remus has decided, shouting it for everyone to hear. Patton smiles politely at the other patrons, turning back to his son. “With...whip cream and sprinkles!” Patton nods, the waitress, Ally, writes down his order moving onto Valerie.

“I want some eggs please” She informs, wringing her hands. The failure to meet the waitress's eyes makes Patton smile sadly. Valerie, unlike her brother, was very shy towards strangers. She was much more comfortable around people she knew, to which she would shout and scream and dance around to her heart's content.

“Would you like that with bacon dear?” The waitress asks, Valerie ponders for a moment using the menu as an escape tool. She nods. Ally smiles writing down the order before moving onto Patton. “And you sir?”

“I’ll take eggs benedict” Patton shows, she nods scribbling it down. “Oh! And to drink, can we have two fresh orange juices and a latte?” The kids bounce at the sound of juice. Ally leaves after a moment, the bustling cafe revving in energy.

Breaking how own rules, as the kids play with one another, Patton checks his phone searching for one specific message. The ‘new notification’ mark hovering by Logan's name is enough to make Patton's face red. The blush he had grown so fond and familiar with returning, his finger debating whether or not to open the message. Had he gone to open it, his morning would have been a lot different but the sound of his name being called pulled him away.

“Mister Hart?” Patton shuffles around in his chair, a smile embracing his face.

“Reeve! Hi!” Patton stands, shaking the timid intern. Logan was not wrong, in his mumblings, the lawyer had revealed how Patton's smile could light up the room. He ushers for Reeve to join him at his table, after a moment of resilience, he takes his place next to Patton. “What brings you here?”

“I'm just here to pick up mister Tolentino's order” Reeve rubs the tips of fingers together trying to remember what it was. “One black coffee, an eclair, and three palmiers” Patton and Reeve recite in unison. The intern raises a brow receiving a sweet chuckle in return.

“Almost ten years and it hasn't changed” Patton reminisces, Reeve stays quiet a secret itch to find out more about Logan. “I used to pick it up for him” Reeve smirks, Patton shakes his head playfully “He would forget a lot, he claims to hate sweet things but obviously that's not true” Patton laughs, sitting and watching the lawyer Reeve couldn't agree more. “Anyway, it's nice to see it's the same” Reeve nods, there was something truly entrancing about this man, the intern could listen for hours. Patton bites his bottom lip, fishing something out of his bag. “It's really not a healthy order, would you get him an apple or some berries?” Patton requests, holding out his hand with money.

“I-i can't accept that” Reeve stutters, how can he be so trusting? What if Reeve just took off with`1 the money, what if he spent it on drugs or alcohol? Patton chuckles only furthering his insistence.

“It's on me, really” He insists “Logan needs to eat actual food” He chides, Reeve, takes it feeling awfully guilty. Patton's affect made him want to spend it on the right thing, he was just so...sweet.

“He was not wrong” Reeve mumbles, his eyes flying open through his tired manner. Patton turns to him cocking his head.

“Wrong?” He asks, Reeve shakes his head wishing away the thought with an awkward squeak of a laugh. Patton shrugs, if it wasn't his to hear, it wasn't his to hear. And yet it was, it would honestly make Reeve’s life so much easier. Logan was...an adequate teacher but he'd be even better if some things (cough Patton cough) weren't constantly on his mind. Reeve also wouldn't mind seeing the lawyer a bit happier. Whether he would severely regret this next move was at the tip of his mind, and yet…

“Uh, Logan...talks about you… a lot” Reeve explains, Patton coughs back a smile

“Pardon?” He tries, sipping his water

“He likes to talk about you Patton” Patton’s laughter turns to a quick blush. The light dusting of pink flattering his face. Reeve swallows, he stands giving a brisk smile. “I should probably get going, you know how he is, thank you again” Reeve rushes, practically scrambling to get the order and out of the cafe.

As Patton comes to terms with the feelings he himself had been feeling for years. He's kept so hidden and down, fear of rejection overwhelming and consuming his every action. Because for the life of him, he couldn't conjure up one reason why a lawyer, no a person such as Logan would ever give Patton a second thought. And yet ten years later…he couldn't help but think of one thing.

No, thank you, Reeve

~~~

“Fuck”

“Virge”

“No, fuck” Virgil repeats as they step out of the car. Cops, on cops, line the street outside of Romans house. To say Virgil's heart was racing was an understatement, it was pounding. Beating so hard and fast it almost hurt. He walks towards the main station. “What's going on Kane?” He asks the lead officer, Kane turns to him his eyes confused.

“Break in, possible violent inside” He informs, knowing that the fire in Virgil's eyes didn't mean a lengthy explanation. However, the twitching at the detective's mouth scares him even more.

“He's still in there?!” Virgil exclaims, he huffs pushing further past, right up to the captain. “I'm going in” he declares

“Absolutely not detective Tormine” Haley warns. Remy finally catches up to his less than excited partner. Virgil clenches his fists, Remy recognizes the distinct furrowing of his brows. A little too late in his opinion. “Detecti- Virgil!” Haley calls out as Virgil races past the yellow tape. Remy sighs following after him, shooting Haley an apologetic glance. “Detective Nyx! Ugh why do I try” Haley moans

Virgil ducks in the house pulling out his gun, flashlight placed above it. He’s been here before, typically its harder to get around these situations when you don't know the layout of the house. But this one? He knew like the back of his hand. He hears small noises, he can't tell if they're just house noises or people noises.

“Virge!” Remy whispers coming up behind the detective. Virgil jumps slightly turning to his partner. He motions silently for Remy to go one way towards the kitchen, while Virgil will go upstairs. They make their separate ways, quietly walking through the house. Virgil checks the bathrooms upstairs first before slowly making his way into Romans room. Its sealed shut, he pushes carefully trying not to draw attention. He swears he can hear a silent struggle. Finally, something shimmies on the other side falling to the ground, he opens the door using his light to see. A light shuffling in the corner catches his eye, he turns practically dropping his things.

“Virge?” Roman croaks. He sits huddled in the corner, a hand over his stomach, another covering the bright light shining in his eyes. Virgil wastes no time kneeling in front of the judge. “I always thought I'd be the knight in shining armor coming to save the prince” Roman jokes, clearly delirious.

“You're bleeding” Virgil realizes, Romans hand is applying pressure on his stomach. Blood oozes through the cracks of his fingers, his eyes barely stay open. Roman laughs immediately seizing through his teeth, the pain runs through. “Ok, come on” Virgil wraps his arm carefully around Romans waist, silently apologizing. Roman tries his best to stand but relies almost entirely on Virgil for support. Virgil goes to take a step but Roman can't, collapsing with just enough space for Virgil to set him down. “So that's not going to work” He mumbles, Roman can feel Virgil's hands tremble in his own.

“You're scared” He notes, his eyes closed at this point. Virgil scoffs.

“Of course I'm fucking scared Roman! You're bleeding out, there's a violent person in your house, cops are surrounding your house!” He shouts Roman slaps him softly.

“Loud, way too loud” He chides, Virgil avoids his eyes knowing the judge is right. “M’fine, let's go” He decides, opening up his eyes grabbing onto Virgil again. Virgil fights to stay balanced as he goes again, knowing Romans not here to argue. He also knows Roman doesn't have time to argue, not with the loopy state of the judge. Once stable, lightly they make their way out of the room, checking the hall is safe.

“You doing ok?” Virgil checks as they huddle close together down the stairs, he wishes he had paid more attention to Romans answer, or lack thereof. “Ro?” Virgil asks as they reach the bottom, he turns to him noticing the limp state. He also notices he's basically carrying the man. “Dammit” He grunts rushing into the kitchen, keeping his steps light. The warm blood still flowing out of Roman is enough to make Virgil gag.

“Hey” Remy whispers joining the pair, his eyes growing wide at the sight Roman. “Oh my god… is h-” His words cut off by a violent noise as something tumbles into the kitchen. Too dark to see, both detectives ready themselves, back to back. Their guns aimed at both kitchen entrances, the patterning of tiny feet growing louder. An ‘oof’ noise coming from Roman, they both turn to exhale breaths of relief, Ollie sits atop Roman licking his face. Remy chuckles before turning to the entrance. “I'll keep watch, you make sure he's ok” Virgil nods.

“Virge, I think you're pretty nifty” Roman comments as Virgil tends to his wounds as best he can. Virgil chuckles rolling his eyes playfully. He uses a damp cloth to wipe Romans forehead, removing any soot or dried blood. “Don't laugh at me” He pouts, Ollie stands brave by the judge's side.

“Never princey, never” Virgil promises, holding a wad of towels to the stomach wound. That won't do, he thinks. “Rem, we gotta get him out of here or…” Virgil would rather not finish his sentence, Remy gives a brisk nod understanding. He takes one more look out the entrance before aiding Virgil, taking place on Romans other side. “Just to the door, that's all we need to do” Virgil licks his lips, they're unmistakably dry.

“Ready?” Remy cocks his head towards his partner.

“Set” Virgil takes a deep breath his eyes aimed at the door.

“Arf!” Ollie barks, ready to charge with the trio. Virgil and Remy share a glance before setting off. They avoid anything that might make noise, reaching the door easily. Still supporting Roman, Virgil pushes the door open, shoving Remy and Roman through first Ollie squeezing in after them. He hears Haley shouting commands towards the officers. The aching his heart resembles when the medics peel Roman away from Virgil is almost too much. But having to watch the ambulance drive away without him was worse.

~~~

“Nothing too drastic, we got him into surgery just in time” The doctor explains leading a very worried Virgil to Romans room. “He should be resting, but well…” The doctor eyes the room, Virgil releases a breath he hadn't realized he was holding at the sight of Roman flirting with the nurse. “He insisted he was fine, he's all yours” The doctor squeezes Virgil's shoulder, and it takes everything in his power not to cringe away from the man.

“Thanks” Virgil slides open the door making his way into the room. Roman finishes his latest quest to be the most loved man on the planet turning to Virgil. His smile is like no other, even though the pain is clear as his face morphs. Virgil should feel relieved but something else washes over him.

“If it isn't my favorite detective, Vigil Terrible was it?” Roman teases, as if everything is ok. Virgil slides the door closed, his hands gaining increasingly sweatier. Its not ok, the countless tubes hanging out of Roman, the IV drip attached to the man, the bruises on his face, all indicate otherwise. “Virge, I was kidding…” Roman assures seeing Virgil's blank stare.

“You almost died, you know that right?” Virgil jumps right in, approaching Romans bed. Roman shifts uncomfortably in his spot, his smile faltering. “As in, bleeding out, unconscious, death” He pushes further if it's for him or the judge Virgil isn't sure. Roman knows it's not aimed at him, or at least he hopes.

“But I didnt...you saved me” Roman gives him a sad smile, Virgil scoffs. “As cliche as that is, it's true”

“It's my job” Virgil reminds, although he wouldn't disobey Haleys orders for anyone, he wasn't telling Roman that.

“Be that as it may, you still did it, and I'm fine so…” Roman waits for something, anything to tell him how Virgil feels. But he can't let it go, something is itching at the detective clearly. No matter how many ‘Im fines’ Roman conjures or how many doctors say otherwise, Virgil needs more.

“What about Damian” He blurts, he's not sure where it came from. Roman sits up now, his eyes wide. The feelings and thoughts running him through him are incomprehensible. No words explain the jumble of things.

“Damian's not my kid” He claims, funny. He always assumed Virgil would be the one to set that boundary, he didn't want to but if it would calm Virgil down.

“No your right, only when it's convenient right? Not when he's scared, or lonely, or has questions I can't answer. Not then right? You only act like…” He trails off, pacing around the room.

“Virgil what is this really about? Cause right now you're not making any sense” Roman argues, ignoring the pain his side shoots through him. He waits for a retort, another fiery remark from the detective.

“I don't know! Ok? I'm just...worried” Virgil's voice, in layman's terms, sounds so defeated. Romans poise softens as he ushers Virgil to come to him. Virgil obliges, putting on an annoyed front as he sits in front of the judge. “You didn't see you ok? You were...bleeding and…” Roman tilts his head softly.

“Yeah but I'm fine now” He repeats for what seems like the millionth time that day. “Look, I've got a steady heartbeat” He points to the monitor, Virgil listens intently to the stable pattern. Waiting for some drastic change, but it stays, its constant. He stops shaking, he silently begs for Roman to continue. Roman nods picking up “My wounds stopped bleeding” He lifts his gown showing the surgical remains of his stomach cut. Virgil traces it with his fingers, the cold sending a shiver through Roman, nothing he can't handle.

“Sorry!” Virgil pulls away, Roman takes his hand.

“Its fine, but god are you a corpse V?” Roman asks squeezing different areas of Virgil's hands. “You're freezing.” Virgil grasps his hand back, swatting Roman away. They share a quick amused smile. Roman leads Virgil's hand to his own face, showing him the already healing bruises. Roman goes to say more but in true dramatic fashion, is quickly interrupted.

“Patton! I told you they would be here!” Logan calls out, appearing in the doorway. Virgil jumps out of the bed moving away from Roman. Roman shuts his eyes, wincing away from the disappointment. A smile appears on his face as Logan, followed by Patton enters the room.

“Roman, oh my gosh!” Patton cries examining the judge. He turns to Virgil then back to Roman. “What on earth happened?” He asks, sitting where Virgil once sat. Logan moves into the room sliding the door closed, Virgil eyes the pair, specifically Patton, afraid of what he might do. “May I?” He inquires softly, Roman nods. Patton checks Romans face, turning it carefully as he looks at the wounds.

“Some guy broke into his house” Virgil informs, Logan listens intently. “They searched the house after Ro left but he was nowhere to be found” Patton shakes his head disapprovingly.

“I'm so sorry you had to go through that, we got the text and we were so worried” Patton rushes, cupping Romans face lovingly. He hadn't realized how nice it felt until Patton pulled away his hand. Unlike Virgil, Patton's hands were warm, almost burning hot. As he reassesses Patton's words he shares a look with Virgil.

“We?” They recite in unison, both raising their eyebrows. Patton's blush is instantly recognizable, Roman laughs as the lawyer faces away from Logan.

“Patton and his children obviously,” Logan says not understanding the obvious teasing that takes place. Roman concurs mockingly, shoving Patton playfully. “Speaking of children” Logan mumbles as to quick feet are heard outside of the room.

“Roman!” Remus and Valerie exclaim together as they run into the room. Patton stands to scoop them up before they jump onto the judge. Roman and Virgil laugh at Pattons expectant look, clearly a common theme for the twins.

“Careful” Is all he says as he places them gently on Romans bed. Virgil feels a tug at his stomach wishing Damian was present. The little boy would be incredibly mad at Virgil for NOT bringing him. He shakes his head taking his leave, not giving Roman a second look.

The twins take turns very carefully hugging an unfortunately distracted Roman. Virgil might not have given the judge another glance but Roman was watching him the entire time.

~~~

“Did you do it?” the dark voice carries, the timid man is almost too afraid to speak. “Answer me” He wastes no time, he doesn't like waiting.

“N-no...the detective showed up b-before I could finish the job” He mutters, his words tripping over themselves. A crash can be heard through the room, vibrating into silence.

“I don't like failure” The voice seems closer now, the man clings to the door. “You failed me, twice now, and I don't do...failure” No no no no, the man begs silently. “Kill him”

The screams buried under a mountain of murder.

“The lawyer and the judge” The voice informs a new body “I want them taken out, do you understand?”

88 notes · View notes

demaury · 5 years

Photo

boys online. chapter 2. (social media influencers au)

7916. 124. 10. These are the numbers that define Eliott and Lucas’ relationship, either they want it or not. 7916 kilometers between them, from Paris to Vancouver. 124 days since they first said ‘I love you’ last spring. And nearly 10 hours, until… well, until they meet for the first time. (ao3)

MANON CHATON

vu aujourd’hui à 20:34

i'm so in love

fuck what’s happening to me

😂

i get that you found eliott

i was getting a little worried here

it’s been literally five minutes!!!

sure, jan

so that means your flight landed somewhere in poland

because you should have arrived a whiiiiile ago if you were in paris 😏😂

i was taking five minutes to make-out with my bf

i bet you did 👀

is he a good kisser at least?

the best

i'm so whipped

you’re so whipped

but it’s cute

“Missing home already?”

Lucas looks up from his phone and cranes his neck just as Eliott slides in the seat next to him, carefully setting the two Styrofoam cups he just retrieved from the barista on the table. They’re waiting for the cab Lucas ordered after Eliott showed up and Starbucks seemed like the better option they had at the moment — at least once they stopped sharing oxygen and saliva long enough to get behind that idea.

“Not a fucking chance,” he grins as he locks his phone. He leans closer into Eliott’s personal space and the smile his boyfriend gives him back turns the cheekiest comments he can ever come up with into wobbling knees and fluttering stomach. “Thank you,” he says, punctuating it with a peck on Eliott’s lips.

He proceeds to grab his part of their order while Eliott settles more comfortably next to him — and, Lucas notices, even closer. “I received the text from the company, they said our car should be waiting for us at 9,” Eliott says, checking the text as he speaks. “We should probably get ready to take the commute soon I guess.”

“Guess so, yeah.” Lucas stretches his arms high above his head and scrunches up his face. “I’m beat, the flight was so long.”

It’s been two years since he last came to France, and damn has he forgotten how boring spending nearly ten hours in a plane was. After his parents’ divorce he had only come back a handful of times, generally to spend a few days in Nice with his paternal grandmother when his dad was in the mood to bother forcing him to do stuff, so it wasn’t like he was really used to making 8h+ flights abroad. Mostly he knows he should be thankful because there’s been no assholery behavior and no crying baby or tantrum-y kid.

“Can’t wait to see these eyes without the bags underneath,” Eliott teases, pocking to his cheek playfully.

Lucas bats his hand away just for the sake of it, but it’s not harsh and Eliott knows him too well to even question. “Well, sorry for you, but the bags are rooming with me,” he huffs. “I tried to stay awake last night to sleep during the flight. Worked tremendously, as you can see.”

“They are nice bags,” Eliott decides, shrugging slightly. “I could get used to it, they make your eyes pop in the end.”

Lucas tilts his head to the side, cocking an eyebrow. “You didn’t sound so sappy over FaceTime, I feel lied to,” he says, playing with his cup nonchalantly. “Now I wonder what else is different.”

Eliott seems to ponder his answer, and Lucas stares, obvious and unapologetic. It’s not a big reveal that his boyfriend is even more beautiful in person than he already is in pictures, and it still amazes him even after all this time and an entire day spent obsessing over it that one day they met as friends, last April. Eliott had a family member getting married somewhere near Calgary and it was just too good of an opportunity to miss it. Right after the wedding Eliott had hopped in a plane for Vancouver and they had spent the day hanging out and touring around Vancouver. Well, Eliott had toured around Vancouver. Lucas, for his part, had mostly followed and occasionally taken his eyes away from Eliott long enough to gesture at some place.

“You’re right,” Eliott says, sounding awfully serious. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something that might affect our relationship, but I need to get it off my chest so that you can be prepared.”

Lucas isn’t sure where he’s going with it, but Eliott shifts on his chair to face him without looking like he’s waiting for an answer. His grey eyes meet Lucas’, deep and serious, and it takes Lucas most of his willpower to keep his mind on tracks, when all he wants to do is reach out and touch that perfect jawline of Eliott’s.

“I’ll be the sappiest of the saps,” Eliott declares, ignoring when Lucas bursts out laughing. “I have my boyfriend in town for two small weeks, so you better be ready for all the cheesiness in the world because I fully intend to make the most of it,” he concludes.

Lucas shifts too, facing him. “So that’s not our first date?”, he asks, faking surprise.

“In a Starbucks coffee?” Eliott scoffs. “Please, I have standards. I was just desperately trying to give you a caffeine boost to keep you up on your two feet.”

Lucas cocks an eyebrow. “The cheesiest boyfriend in the world wouldn’t mind picking his boyfriend up, just saying.”

“You want me to do that?”, Eliott deadpans, cocking an eyebrow too.

“Jesus, no,” Lucas huffs a laugh, shaking his head, and Eliott joins him.

He doesn’t really know why he freaked out some 24h ago, when everything seems as simple as it should be. They’re easily navigating between banter and cutesy declarations, and it’s something Lucas always dreamed of finding in a boyfriend. Eliott reaches out, his fingers threading through Lucas’ hair.

“We should get going,” he says, pressing a soft kiss on Lucas’ lips. “Last thing I want is so miss our commute and end up dragging my sleepy boyfriend all the way out.”

Lucas snorts, taking a sip from his coffee. “I’m not a child, I’ll let you know. I can stay awake one more hour.”

Lucas doesn’t stay awake one more hour.

Which is totally fine, if you ask Eliott. They’ve been in the car for roughly fifteen minutes when Lucas’ head falls on his shoulder, pretty eyes closed and his grip loosening ever so slightly around Eliott’s fingers.

“Jetlag doesn’t forgive,” the taxi driver says, sententious, as he peeks in the rear-view mirror halfway through a story involving electric bikes. “Where are you guys coming from?”

“He lives in Canada,” Eliott replies, and it’s still a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that this reality, them together in the same town, isn’t one that is meant to last. “I live in the 11e though.”

His attention drifts away as the driver manages to find another topic of conversation involving Eliott’s area of Paris, focusing instead on the soft patterns he traces with his fingers on the inside of Lucas’ wrist. At this point, the only thing keeping Eliott from reaching for his phone to snap a selfie of them both is that he doesn’t have the heart to take either of his hands away from a sleepy Lucas. Hear him out, he can tear his eyes away from him, it’s just that he gets to hear Lucas laugh and smile and angrily venting when things don’t go the way he wants them to go, but sleep is something he’s never been able to witness. And, like, Eliott is completely, utterly in love with Lucas but he knows by now that he can be a real pain in the ass when he wants to be — so seeing him soft and cute like that, he’s not ready to pass on it just yet.

The road from the airport isn’t all that long, given the general state of the Parisian traffic, and when they get to rue Dangeau, where Lucas’ hotel is situated, it’s been around forty minutes since they left Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle. The sleeping arrangement got him thinking, when they were planning Lucas’ trip to France, because they had been together for less than three months, and the last thing he wanted was for Lucas to feel pressured about anything. Granted, it had taken him less time to lose his virginity to Lucille when they were younger, but it doesn’t mean it’s a race either. His boyfriend was still 17 back then, and Eliott distinctly remembers worrying a whole night about all the things he could possibly say that could send the wrong message whatsoever. The good side is that ever since he managed to man the fuck up and confess his feelings to Lucas, things have been (mostly) easy to navigate between them and Lucas has (mostly) been on the same page — he said he didn’t want to rush things either, but simply because they deserved to make things ‘the right way’, which is still a fair point, albeit a bit different. In the end they have both agreed to the hotel thing, and the more thoughts Eliott puts into it, the more natural it felt.

He releases Lucas’ hand as the car parks just across the street on a delivery spot, and it gets him to stir and mumble. “Note to self,” he groans as Eliott unbuckles his seatbelt, rubbing his eyes from his hand, “coffee doesn’t hold a candle to a nine-hour jetlag.”

“Will you manage to walk inside or do I have to pick you up?”, Eliott enquires, barely biting back a smirk.

Lucas squints his eyes. “Look at you making fun of me.” He pouts, and he unbuckles his seatbelt before sliding out through the door he chucked open. “I’ll manage, since you’re so nice to ask.”

Eliott snorts and hops off through his own door while Lucas retrieves his luggage from the driver. The man greets them warmly before getting back in and driving away. The hotel Lucas picked isn’t particularly fancy, it’s actually one of those hotels you’d walk by without really noticing. Despite being three floors high, it’s squeezed between a flower shop and a restaurant selling kebabs, in a narrow one-way street, but Eliott is almost surprised by how comfy it feels as soon as they push past the door of the lobby. Lucas goes to retrieve the key to his hotel room, and he allows himself a moment to check his phone in the meantime, but there’s nothing there that requires his undivided attention like his boyfriend does. A couple of notifications and texts from his friends that he puts on hold for the time being, when Lucas makes sign for him to join as he’s climbing upstairs.

“Home sweet home,” Lucas sighs, dropping himself flat on the bed as soon as they get in.

“It’s a nice hotel,” Eliott observes thoughtfully, closing the door behind him. “And at least you aren’t far from my place.”

Lucas props himself back up on his elbows. “It’s still too far,” he complains.

Eliott snorts and shakes his head. “It’s really not. And you’re literally on automatic pilot now, you need to sleep.”

“I know that.” Lucas pauses. “I just- I don’t know, I just want you to stay. Here. With me.”

“But we agreed that we would take it slow,” Eliott says, frowning a little.

“Of course, yes,” Lucas replies quickly, and Eliott isn’t sure but he thinks Lucas might be blushing. “But I want cuddles.” And he goes on, raising his arms and making grabby hands in his direction.

Eliott takes in Lucas’ tired eyes, his pouty lips, his messy hair and his grabby hands, and it’s not even that he feels himself cave in, because he had already stopped fighting himself the moment Lucas first asked, but there’s literally not a single good reason for him to leave this hotel room now. The first thing he does, before answering even, is kicking off his shoes, then he looks back up and Lucas’ grin is worth everything in the world.

“Let’s cuddle then,” Eliott says.

As soon as he plops down next to him, Lucas immediately drags him in a laying position and worms his way between his arms.

Having a sleeping boyfriend in bed he’s trying not to wake up is something Lucas isn’t quite used to, in complete honesty. Jake was his first relationship after he came out, and it hadn’t lasted three full months, so it’s not like he really managed to make his marks as a not-single guy. Point is, disentangling himself from Eliott’s arms has been surprisingly stressful, and he hates his bladder for forcing him out of his living safety blanket, but he hates his brain even more for making him stare pointlessly at an invisible spot for about an hour before that.

Jetlag is a fucking bitch, he thinks grumpily as he closes the lid and flushes the toilet, motioning to the sink to wash his hands. There’s a mirror hanging off the wall above the basin, and the glance he spares it isn’t really helpful. He literally has red circles on top of the black ones now, and it makes a weird Halloween-ish look with his blue eyes — which he’s positive isn’t attractive in any part of the world.

He retrieves his phone from the nightstand on his side of the bed, eyes squinting when he unlocks it, after padding as quietly as possible out of the bathroom and trying desperately to remember how the furniture is displayed so that he doesn’t end up splitting his knee open in the frame of the bed on his way.

“Lucas?”

Eliott’s sleepy voice makes Lucas startle stupidly and he smiles sheepishly in the ray of light emanating from his phone. “Yeah, I’m here.”

There’s a pause and Eliott motions some more in the bed, rubbing his eye from the heel of his hand. He’s wearing his tee-shirt from yesterday and his black briefs are peeking out from where the comforter is thrown back. “Is it morning already?”

“Nah, I just went to the bathroom. Sorry for waking you up.”

Eliott frowns and nods. “Oh. Right. Aren’t you coming back?”

“I can’t sleep,” Lucas admits. “I’ll probably just toss and turn.”

Eliott props himself up on an elbow. “It’s fine. Come here,” he says, voice still a bit rough from sleep and hair a little messier than usual. “We can watch a movie or something.”

Lucas huffs a chuckle. “Eliott, it’s 2.30 in the morning, go back to sleep.”

“So what, I don’t get to have cuddles at 2.30?”

Lucas stares, taken aback. “Fuck, of course you do,” he says, practically throwing his phone on the nightstand as he hops in the bed, and just like that the room is pitch-black all over again. “Let’s keep the movie for another time though.”

They don’t quite cuddle, not like they were before Lucas got up, and not like they were when they first fell asleep. They’re merely facing each other, Eliott’s arm snaking its way around his waist, gentle and light as they pull him just a tiny bit closer.

“It’s fine,” he says, tracing circles on Lucas’ side. “We can just talk.”

Lucas slides an arm under his head, looking in the direction of Eliott’s voice, almost as if he could make out his features in the night, were he trying hard enough. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” his boyfriend whispers, and Lucas feels him shrugging slightly. “What’s the first thing you could think about asking me?”

Lucas ponders the question. Objectively there’s still a whole bunch of things he would want to know about Eliott, simply because he wants to know everything there’s to know, but there’s something intimate and unique about being with him like this, his attention undivided. They have nowhere else to be, no one else to bother them, not a single kilometer between them. It’s just them, in this moment, and he feels emboldened enough to ask: “When did you know you had feelings for me?”

There’s a silence, and Eliott’s fingers stop their gentle dance on his side. “It doesn’t really depict me IN a good light,” Eliott admits.

“C’mon on, tell me,” Lucas says, wriggling a tad closer. “I know it was when you were still with Lucille, you told me that already.”

“Alright,” Eliott says. “The exact moment, uh?” Lucas nods, even if Eliott can’t see it. “I was having sex with Lucille.” Another silence. “I thought about you to finish.”

Oh. Well, he can’t say he’s feeling bad, which he’s simultaneously certain is the opposite of the reaction he should be having. Probably because his boyfriend did not mentally cheat on him while they were having sex.

“I told you, it doesn’t really make me the perfect boyfriend after that,” Eliott mumbles.

Lucas shakes his head, mostly for himself, and he reaches out to run his hand up Eliott’s arm. “Actually, I think you’re doing really great so far.”

“So far, uh?” Eliott muses.

“Yes. So far. Your turn.”

Eliott takes a second to think. “Why did you date Jake if you weren’t all that interested in him?”

“It doesn’t really make me a Saint either.”

The fingers are back to grazing his side through the material of his shirt. “I think I’ll handle it. I think I already know, in fact.”

Lucas drops his gaze, uselessly, he knows, but it’s a reflex he can’t help. “I was in love with you,” he admits. “You had gotten back with Lucille. It was, like, the third time it was happening in the short time we had known each other, I just thought there’d never be a place for me in your life.”

It feels strangely liberating to get it off his chest. It’s not the biggest secret of his life, and it’s not his most bitter moment either. But going back to these few months, where Eliott had managed to occupy so much space in his life all the while being still so out of reach, it still makes his heart clench a little on instinct — like the vague memory of a physical pain.

“The tables turned,” Eliott says and Lucas smiles.

“Kind of, yeah.”

Eliott pulls himself closer, and Lucas shifts a little, welcoming his boyfriend’s frame in his arms as Eliott nestles his face in the crook of his neck. “I’m so happy to have you with me,” he whispers.

53 notes · View notes

ponyregrets · 5 years

Note

friends to lovers fic idea: friends who keep meeting at cons for a fandom they both love, they eventually get less interested in the fandom but keep coming back to the con to see each other? or something

oops this did not end up being quick after all

AO3!

one. fan expo boston, august 2017

artfulslytherin: Just landedWaiting to get off the planeI'm going to check into the hotel but then I'm free for the rest of the day

The message is about 90% a relief. Bellamy has been waiting for it all day, even before it made any sense to be waiting. He's been waiting for Clarke to land since before her plane took off, turned on his tumblr message notifications just so he'd find out no matter what he was doing, and then he's spent the whole day looking at his messages anyway, like he doesn't trust the phone to tell him.

Obviously, it hasn't been the most productive day.

augustushadatumblr: I told my boss I was taking a half dayHe nodded and didn't say anything and then like ten minutes later he came into my office and played the victory theme from Final FantasyApparently I'm a workaholic and he worries about meHe bought the ringtone just to celebrate

artfulslytherin: WowDid you tell him you're going to a con?If his reaction to his employee taking a day is downloading video game music to celebrate, I assume he'd throw a parade for you going to an actual convention

augustushadatumblr: I wasn't sure when I should tell you, but I have a chocobo and a moogle on my deskSo he doesn't like Final Fantasy, he just knows I do

artfulslytherin: Why would you not tell me that?Why would that be your embarrassing thing?I'm jealous you have a desk you can put fandom stuff onI feel weird displaying my fandom

augustushadatumblr: Yeah but how much bi pride stuff do you have up?I thought about getting a pan flag and chickened out

artfulslytherin: Is there a My Little Pony that's pan colors? That's a subtle way to do itOff the plane btwNavigating your airportIs there a law about how close you need to be to a Dunkin Donuts at all times?

augustushadatumblr: Yeah, it's for the whole Boston metro areaYou get used to itHow comfortable do you feel taking the train?

artfulslytherin: How many instructions are you giving me?

augustushadatumblr: Take the silver line to South Station, it's freeAnd then take the red line toWherever we want to go

artfulslytherin: Wow yeahReally helpful

augustushadatumblr: It depends on how close you want to be to your hotelI live in Central so most of my regular stuff is around thereBut we could find somewhere downtown if you don't want to go too far

artfulslytherin: How do I get to Central?

augustushadatumblr: Take the red line towards AlewifeIt's probably like 15-20 minutes

artfulslytherin: I can meet you thereWhat time?

augustushadatumblr: Tell me when you get to south stationI'll leave work then, we should get to central about the same time

artfulslytherin: Cool, sounds goodSee you soon!

It's not like Bellamy isn't excited about the whole thing. He's been in the Animus fandom for about eight months, getting into it during the mid-season hiatus of the second season, and Clarke was one of the first friends he made once he got there. She was an already-established fan artist, someone whose work he admired when he saw it, so when she asked if she could draw a scene from one of his fics, of course he said yes, and told her how much he liked her work, and then they were just talking, chatting about what they were working on and what they were reading and what they were annoyed about. Bellamy's never been a big fan of sharing too much of himself online, but it was easy to slip into it with Clarke. They talked so much that it was impossible for real life to not slip in, especially when she would talk about what was going on with her. It wasn't the first time it had happened to him, but there has always been something about this relationship that feels different, weighty.

Which isn't why she's going to be the first fandom friend he ever meets in real life, but it probably is why it feels like such a big deal. He has other mutuals who are planning to be at this con, people he likes, people with whom he's passingly familiar, people who leave nice comments on his fic, but no one else is messaging him to come hang out, and he wouldn't be agreeing to hang out with any of them even if they were.

If he doesn't click with anyone else in person, it's not going to bother him too much. But if he and Clarke don't like each other, he'll be losing a real friend.

And, of course, there's the other part of his mind, the guilty part that feels like it turned on around when he hit thirty and people started acting like his singleness was a creeping illness. He does know that Clarke is twenty-six, single, and bisexual, and even if she doesn't feel like a real romantic prospect, he'd always idly wondered what it would be like if they met, if they'd hit it off. And now he's going to find out.

Obviously, the next half an hour of work is completely pointless. He sets up his out-of-office email for the rest of the afternoon and Friday, returns a few messages he's been putting off, and finally just gives up and goes to wait for his bus, even though Clarke hasn't gotten in touch yet. If he gets there before he does, he can kill time on his phone. He'll feel better just being on the move.

The timing actually works out well; she gets to South Station right as his bus is leaving, so assuming there isn't too much traffic, they'll get in right around the same time. It's really nothing to stress over.

Then she sends a follow-up message: Btw I've been not asking because I don't want to be creepy, but I probably need to know what you look like.

It's not like it's an unexpected request. Bellamy's been thinking about it himself, avoiding asking for the same reason she was. He knows she's white, but that's about it, and he never wanted to be the guy who cared about that.

It is, at least, relevant now. This is less curiosity than logistics.

augustushadatumblr: Like 5'10", black hair, brown eyes. Glasses. I'm wearing a button-down and khakis. No red rose in my pocket or anything, but there's a florist by the train station so I can grab one if I get there before you

artfulslytherin: I was hoping you had made a sign like chauffeurs do at the airportI'm 5'5", blonde hair, blue eyes. Jeans and gray henley. I've also got a nose ring, but you'd have to be pretty close to see that

augustushadatumblr: Yeah, I'm going to skip examining every blonde in Central's noseWe'll probably be fine

artfulslytherin: Probably, yeahI'm on my way to Kendall, by the wayThe part where we went over the river was really pretty

augustushadatumblr: Yeah, that's my favorite part of the red lineNot that it has a lot of competitionI think I am going to beat you here

artfulslytherin: You don't have to buy a rose, ftrDon't waste your money

He still thinks about doing it, just to help break the ice, but it feels a little too on-the-nose romantic, especially when neither of them has talked about this being a romance. And it might not be.

He goes to Starbucks and grabs an iced tea instead, his phone feeling as if it's burning a hole in not just his pocket, but his entire right leg. She'll be here in no time, unless something goes wrong with the red line. Which, given the red line, isn't that unlikely, but he's not going to dwell on it. If she gets stuck behind a disabled train, he might actually die of nerves.

His phone buzzes and he has just enough time to read the message--I'm thirsty, I'm going to hit up the Starbucks, meet me there--before he hears the door opens and sees a girl with wavy blonde hair coming in. She's wearing a gray henley and jeans, looking at a cell phone, and there's definitely a bi flag pin on the strap of her backpack.

It takes him a second to remember how to breathe, but a lot longer to get his act together, so of course that's when the barista calls, "Bellamy!"

The girl startles, looking around wildly, and he waves when her eyes hit him, a small, nervous gesture. She's cute. Like, stupidly cute. He'd been bracing himself for having a semi-crush on her but her not being his type, but that's definitely not an issue. If he met her at a bar, he'd try to get her number.

It's not really something he's prepared to deal with, but he's going to have to do it anyway.

He holds up his finger, signalling her to wait, and goes to grab his drink before joining her in line, heart in his throat. "Hey, I was just about to respond to your message."

She smiles. "I think I've got the general idea."

Her voice isn't as high as he was expecting, and now that he's standing next to her, he can see the nose ring, a mole on her lip, the curve of her smile. Clarke, right here, close enough to touch.

He used to know words, but they're gone now.

"I think you're closer to five-nine," says Clarke, looking him up and down like she can actually measure him with just her eyes.

He chokes on his tea. "What?"

"I don't think you're five inches taller than I am."

"Maybe you're closer to five-six."

She smirks like she's winning already, and the nerves in his stomach reshapes like a balloon animal turning from a dog into a top hat. He's no less fluttery and anxious, the configuration has just changed.

He clears his throat. "So, welcome to Boston."

"Thanks. So far it's muggy and gross."

"Yeah, it's going to keep doing that."

"DC is actually grosser, so at least there's that."

"That's where you grew up, right?" She's in grad school in Indiana now, but he remembers her mom is a lobbyist, still goes back for breaks and holidays. She went to Georgetown too, he's pretty sure.

He already knows her pretty well.

"Yeah. My mom wanted me back for the summer, but getting a job on-campus sounded way better."

"You still think that with how shitty the job is?"

"You're underestimating how shitty staying with my mom is, which I know I've complained about."

He snorts and she grins and they move forward in the line. Clarke asks how work went and he finds himself admitting easily that he was so nervous he got basically nothing done. She admits she completely shredded a napkin on the plane. and that seems to be the magical interaction. They were both nervous, but they're happy, and they can move on with the friendship. It's cool.

They walk over to Harvard so she can see the campus, check out the art museum, which he hasn't been to before, and grab Korean fried chicken for dinner because he's been craving it for a week. The restaurant doesn't serve alcohol, so they get the food to go, buy a six-pack, and walk back to his apartment. His roommate is a nightmare, but a nightmare who usually goes out to bars around dinner, and they have the place to themselves.

It doesn't even feel weird anymore. She's just--Clarke. The same person she's always been.

"That wasn't too bad, right?" she teases as he walks her back to the train, like she can read his mind. "Definitely not too awkward."

"Define too awkward," he says, and she elbows him. "It's been fun."

"What time are you coming to the con tomorrow?"

"I haven't decided yet. Whenever you want me to come. I assume you have a whole itinerary planned."

"And you're just going to follow me around?"

He shrugs. "I assume it's a good itinerary."

"The best," she agrees. "See you tomorrow."

The con itself is fine, if not particularly exciting. Animus is starting its third season in September, so they have a trailer and some promotional material to talk about. And the real draw for him and Clarke was that both halves of their favorite ship are here, which is pretty exciting. He's not generally into meeting celebrities, but the two of them have a good vibe and John Murphy is pretty much the polar opposite of Martin in real life, so it's kind of hilarious to see him being his actual vulgar self instead of a buttoned-up nerd.

Plus, he and Nate Miller is fucking hot. Eye candy is always nice.

It is a little weird being tumblr user augustushadatumblr at the con, which he hadn't allowed himself to consider. It felt too egotistical to think people might know him. But even if there are a lot of guys at the con overall, the Animus fandom skews female, so whenever he's at panels or in line for autographs, he stands out. And he said on tumblr that he'd be here, which he regrets roughly ten seconds into waiting for the first panel, when the someone comes up to him and says, "Sorry, but are you Augustus?"

She sounds so excited that he doesn't know how to respond, just stares like a trapped animal until Clarke leans over. "He is."

"I love your fic!"

He clears his throat. "Uh, cool. Thanks." Clarke nudges him, and he finally recovers, manages a smile. "Sorry, I really wasn't expecting anyone to know who I was except Clarke."

It's the wrong thing to say; her eyes widen as she looks between the two of them. "You're Clarke?" she asks.

"That's me."

"I didn't know you guys were together!"

"Just hanging out," she says, smooth. "B--Augustus here was showing me the town."

"We went to a museum and fried chicken place."

"In the town."

"Technically it was in Cambridge."

"Augustus showed me around a different town," Clarke corrects. "It was fun."

"Well, I really love all your stuff," the girl says. "Both of you."

"Thanks," says Bellamy. "I'm glad you to hear it."

It's the first such encounter, but not the last. Not everyone actually recognizes him or Clarke, but all they have to do is introduce themselves and a not insignificant number of congoers are familiar with one or both of them. It's flattering, albeit surreal, and he's happier when it's just him and Clarke wandering around, anonymous and largely unnoticed.

He didn't purchase any extras, but Clarke got autographs and doesn't mind him following here there too, so he gets to get close enough to both John Murphy and Nathan Miller to (theoretically) touch them, and gets to hear both of them heap praise on Clarke's art, which is awesome. She deserves it.

Clarke leaves straight from the con on Sunday afternoon, so he goes to the airport to see her off. She hugs him, quick but firm, tells him how much fun she had, and he watches until she goes up the escalator to the terminal before he goes to wait for the silver line.

She texts to let him know she's through security--they exchanged phone numbers, that's another cool part of the weekend--and then she tags him in a post on tumblr when he's on the red line. He's expecting it to be just a quick note about the con, and in a way it is, but in response to an anon ask: Who was your favorite celebrity you met???? plz be murph I love him lmao

@augustushadatumblr, no question, she's replied, and he reblogs it to add right back at you and grins all the way home.

two. new york comic con, october 2017

"So, how do you know this person isn't going to murder us?"

Bellamy glances at his sister. "Why would she murder us?"

"I don't know, maybe because you spent my entire childhood telling me to be careful of strangers on the internet and now you're going to bring an internet-stranger to sleep on my couch?"

"Yeah, okay. I've met her before, if it helps."

"But she's not your girlfriend. I'm not being heteronormative!" she hastens to add. "Just, like--you're sharing a bed with her."

"Because we're cheap and if we both sleep on your futon we don't have to pay for a hotel. She's got a girlfriend," he adds.

Octavia frowns. "And her girlfriend is cool with her sleeping with you?"

"We're adults, O. It's not a big deal."

"I'd feel kind of weird if my hypothetical boyfriend flew to another state to share a bed with some other girl. Is she gay? Are you just never going to be her type?"

"She's bi, and you're definitely getting heteronormative. People can just not fuck, seriously."

"It's cool that everyone's so mature," is what Octavia finally settles on, and he doesn't argue that.

The truth is, he's a little bummed about Clarke's girlfriend. It's a relatively new relationship, but they started dating a couple weeks after Clarke came to Boston, and that stung. He'd maybe been hoping he left more of an impression.

The girlfriend thing had also left him a little hesitant to ask Clarke about coming to New York in the first place. Even though a decent number of people from the Animus cast were showing up, he kind of hates New York, and he hadn't felt particularly motivated to try to score tickets. It just seemed like a lot of work.

But one of O's coworkers already had tickets and couldn't go, so he was selling them and Octavia asked if he was interested. It's rare enough for her to actually invite him to stay that it was worth taking advance of.

And since there were two tickets, he figured he'd invite Clarke. If she didn't want to come, he would have found someone else, but he had to at least offer.

In all honesty, he thought she'd say no.

Clarke: I'm outside the buildingAssuming my taxi took me to the right place and I'm not about to get shivved

Me: Only one way to find outI'll come let you in

She's waiting outside the door with a backpack and bags under her eyes, but when she sees him, she brightens all at once.

"Long flight?" he asks, giving her a quick hug.

"Long week. It'll be nice to relax some."

"You say that because you haven't actually seen my sister's apartment yet."

"Are you saying your fifty it's really cramped and she has three roommates warnings didn't prepare me for how it's really cramped and she has three roommates?"

"I guess we'll find out." He hits the button for the elevator. "Why the long week?"

"Just a lot to do for class. And--" She sighs. "Not to be really pathetic, but I feel like I haven't had as much time for fandom since I started dating Lexa? And it's kind of stressing me out."

"What part of it?" he asks, leaning against the wall.

"Everything, kind of. I know I haven't been talking to you as much, you don't have to tell me."

"I wasn't going to. We still talk pretty much every day, but everyone gets busy sometimes. Especially at the beginning of a relationship. It takes a while to figure out how to balance."

"Yeah. And maybe that's it? But I haven't told her I'm in fandom yet, so it feels like I can't engage when she's around. Even when she's just hanging out and we're not doing anything special. She's on her phone and I could be drawing, but I don't want to tell her what I'm doing."

"Why not?"

"I've dated a lot of people who were weird about it."

The elevator dings and he follows her in, hits their floor. "My high-school girlfriend was the one who got me into fandom in the first place, so I never worried about it with her. And then I haven't really had a serious relationship and a serious fandom at the time same time, so it hasn't really come up."

"Yeah. I feel like--" She huffs. "My friends all know and don't care, but I never figure out a good way to be, like, I'm online a lot! I like drawing pictures of fictional characters kissing and a lot of my friends are on the internet. Hope that's cool."

"What did you tell her about this weekend?"

"That my friend got tickets to NYCC and asked if I wanted one. She didn't ask for many other details."

"I think if it's bothering you because you can't be yourself with her, that's a problem and you should figure out how to talk to her. If you're just feeling bad for not being around as much online, don't. You're allowed to just have a life."

"More of the first one," she says. "It doesn't help that I said I liked the show and she said it was cheesy and juvenile."

"It kind of is," he admits. "And this season is starting off rocky."

"Yeah, but you're saying it with love."

"She hasn't earned it." He raps on the door. "O, we're here to murder you!"

"You always say that!" She opens the door, not even looking at him. All her focus is on Clarke. "Hi, you must be Bell's creepy internet friend."

"That doesn't really narrow it down, he has a lot of creepy internet friends."

It's the right answer; Octavia grins and steps out of the way, letting them in. "And creepy non-internet friends. You have really bad taste in people."

"This is why I don't visit you more."

"You don't visit me more because you think New York is too tall."

"Five-nine is a totally fine height to be," Clarke says, patting his arm. "You don't have to feel bad about it."

"I just don't like skyscrapers," he grumbles, but his smile is twitching out despite his best efforts. Octavia and Clarke are together and making fun of him; it's kind of awesome. "And it's too big."

"Title of your sex tape," says Octavia. "Come on, Clarke, I'll give you the tour."

They order takeout for dinner and watch the first couple episodes of Animus season three while they eat; Octavia likes the show but doesn't keep up very well, so it's new to her, while Bellamy and Clarke are already irritable about it. Lots of shows seem to go through third-season slumps, so it's not totally surprising, but it still kind of sucks. Bellamy always feels like shows start going downhill as soon as he gets into them, like he's some kind of weird jinx. Just once he'd like to feel like he's not late to the party.

But watching with Clarke is fun. They get to heckle while Octavia tells them they're giant nerds, which they are, and even if the show isn't everything he wants it to be, friendship is.

"This is why I'm getting you a pan pride pony," Clarke says, when he tells her as much. They're tipsy and trying to turn the futon into a bed with limited success, and everything feels warm and nice, a fuzzy blanket wrapped around the world.

His tolerance might be shot.

"What about a pride pony? That was so many p's."

"You're the writer, you should appreciate alliteration. And I'm getting you a pony because you just love friendship so much."

They finally get the fitted sheet down and Bellamy flops on top of it for a break. "Who doesn't love friendship? You love friendship. You're having fun."

"I am. It's too bad there aren't more cons."

"You know we can be friends without cons, right?"

"Yeah, but--it's easy."

It makes sense to him. It's hard to just decide to meet someone; it's why he's never met any of his other internet friends. If someone told him they were coming to Boston, maybe, or if he was traveling, but he never knows how to just invite himself into someone's life without some other excuse.

"Yeah, I was really glad when O asked about the tickets. I'm never sure how often I can come see her."

Clarke drops a sheet on top of him and then a quilt, and then she lies down next to him, apparently satisfied with how made the bed is. "How old is she again?"

"Twenty-four."

"So--six years younger than you."

"Yeah." He doesn't talk about his sister online, not really, not even to Clarke. It's not worth it. "I took care of her a lot when we were kids. I named her, she's never forgiven me for that."

She turns so she's facing him. "You were six and Octavia was the name on the tip of your tongue?"

This part she'll like. "Augustus had a sister, you know."

As he hoped, she dissolves into quiet laughter, doubling over so her hair brushes his chin. It feels like having a sleepover, or how he thinks having a sleepover would have been. It's not something he ever did.

"How did Emperor Augustus become your patronus?"

"Because of that. My mom was--we were in a really shitty place when she was pregnant. O's dad was our landlord, and my mom fucked him to pay the rent. She was afraid he'd do something awful if he found out about O, try to get custody. So she told me we had to hide what was happening."

"You don't have to tell me."

"Do you not want me to?"

She smiles. "Just--no pressure. I didn't know it was a tough question."

"Yeah. She used to tell me stories to explain--everything, I guess. Why we had to be quiet about Octavia, why she left, why she didn't like the landlord. She liked classics, so that was the theme. Maybe I liked Augustus because he could actually do things instead of just running and hiding, I don't know." He smiles. "It's mostly a joke now. Whenever I ask Octavia what I should name something, she asks if Augustus had one, so I just sort of went with it."

"Was your LJ augustushadalivejournal?"

"No comment."

Her eyes drift shut. "I don't know anything about Augustus, honestly. Tell me?"

"Sure," he says, and tells her stories until she falls asleep.

The con is fine, but he barely even remembers it, later. That's what stays.

three. awesome con, march 2018

"I don't see why you're nervous."

"Really?" Bellamy asks, glancing over at Clarke in the driver's seat. Her mother is apparently so excited she's visiting that she paid for a rental car, which seems like a waste of money, but rich people waste money. It's nice to not have to take public transportation from Dulles to wherever Clarke's mom lives. "You don't have any ideas?"

"I'm just saying, I met your sister, you're meeting my mom. We're even."

"Parents are more stressful than siblings. What did you even tell your mom about me?"

"That you're my friend from the internet. What was I supposed to tell her?"

"I don't know. I assume your mom doesn't know about fandom."

"She knows I'm a semi-popular artist online, so she accepts that I have online friends."

It feels like a sore subject, but the feeling might be all in his head. Clarke and Lexa broke up at Christmas, when they had a mature conversation about how they didn't feel like they really had a future together, and Clarke's seemed fine with it. But he can't help wondering if the fandom thing was a thing, like he's maybe poking something tender.

"Besides, it got me home for spring break. She's happy."

"Do you lie to me about how often you come back home?" he asks. "You were here for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's not like she never sees you."

"I know. She acts like I never come home, but I see her more than a lot of my friends see their families."

"Yeah, definitely more than I see my sister."

"She really wants me to move back to DC after I graduate," she says. "I think she always thought I'd stay in the area, since I was here for college. That's part of why I wanted to go away from grad school. I needed to live somewhere else."

"Do you think you'll come back to DC when you're done?"

"I don't think so. I don't think I want to stay in the midwest, but--" She flashes him a smile. "Honestly? I'll go wherever I get a job."

"Yeah, that seems right."

"Boston's cool."

His heart lodges in his throat. "Yeah. I like it."

Clarke's mother is polite in a brittle way he's used to from upper-class white women of a certain age, this awareness that they feel like they should be nice to him and are very conscious of trying to treat him correctly when they could just be treating him like any other person. But Clarke is good at running interference, and by the time they're going to dinner, it's pretty much normal, aside from the way Abby seems convinced that they're dating, and Clarke just isn't ready to tell her yet.

Which, to be fair, she probably wouldn't be. He can't fault the logic.

Awesome Con doesn't have a ton of Animus stuff going on, which is honestly fine by Bellamy. The season is wrapping up in a few weeks, and while they could miraculously pluck something good from the garbage fire that's come before, his hopes aren't high. It's not enough to kill his passion entirely--he still likes his pairing and (parts of) the fandom, and he's not sure his friendship with Clarke would survive his ditching the fandom, if he's honest--but he's more interested in checking out DC than he is in the con itself.

Clarke, of course, has a plan.

"So, the only Animus actor at the con is Niylah," she says. "And she'll be there on Sunday, so I figure we can just go stop by and check out vendor stuff today and then go to as many Smithsonians as we can handle."

"That does sound pretty good. What's Niylah doing?"

"She's on a Women of Sci-Fi panel, which sounds pretty cool, and then she's got autographs and photo ops. The usual."

"Did you get an autograph?"

"Yeah, my art is going to be so good she falls in love with me and we live happily ever after."

"Solid plan. Which piece did you pick for that?"

"The pin-up one? Where Ariel is winking with the gun."

He nods. "Yeah, that would do it."

"Fingers crossed."

The museums are awesome, of course, and there's a large part of him that wants to just blow off the second day of the con too, but Clarke really likes Ariel and by extension Niylah, and her panel will probably be fun. She and John are siblings in real life, so they always have good stories about each other, and it's not like Bellamy doesn't like her. But being with Clarke at a con isn't particularly an improvement on just hanging out with her outside of the con. Clarke is the draw.

So he'll go wherever she wants.

They have autographs first and Clarke actually seems nervous, which is a new look on her. She was cool as a cucumber meeting John and Nate.

"Are you really not into Nate?" he asks, surprised. "He's so hot."

"Yeah, but gay. You're not into Niylah. It feels disrespectful."

"I'm not not into Niylah."

"You also didn't actually get tongue-tied around Nate."

"Because I'm smooth."

"Uh huh."

"But really, why are you so nervous?"

"I want her to like my art."

"I think her running away with you isn't actually realistic, if that's what you're worried about."

"Damn."

The line isn't that long, so Clarke doesn't have a ton of time to fret. Bellamy makes to leave when there's only one person ahead of them, in case Clarke wants to be alone with the celebrity, but she latches onto his arm like he's a lifeline.

"Why are you going?"

"Leaving you alone to charm her."

"I can charm her with you watching."

"Oh good, I've always wanted to see what game looks like coming from you."

"Don't go?" she asks, sounding almost shy, and of course he obeys, but he doesn't actually get it until she hands over the art she's having signed.

It's not the piece she said it was. It's one he's never seen, one he recognizes only because it's a scene from one of his fics. Ariel and Prima on a first date at the zoo, Prima with a melting sno-cone. He'd written it for her birthday, because she said there wasn't enough Ariel/Prima in the world.

It's been months. She never even told him she'd illustrated it.

"This is so cute!" says Niylah, beaming. "Did you draw it?"

"Yeah."

"I love the idea. Ariel would love the zoo."

For one horrified second, Bellamy is afraid Clarke's going to give him credit for the fic and he'll have to start praying for the earth to open and up and swallow him, which seems unlikely. There are probably people who would know how to deal with the I write fanfic about you conversation, but he's not one of them.

Clarke knows that, of course. "Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Hopefully I'll get to a con with Anya sometime and she can sign it too."

Niylah writes a quick message praising the drawing and Clarke thanks her, which Bellamy registers like he's watching it on TV, like he's not even in the same world. It's not like she's never done art based on his stuff before, but she's never surprised him with it, not like this.

"Was that okay?" she asks, soft.

"Honestly? It was weirdly emotional. I didn't think I'd care." He winces. "That came out wrong."

"No, I get it. That's what I wanted to do. It's really cool, getting to have that moment, and I knew you weren't going to print off your fic and show it off."

"Yeah, uh, I have nightmares about that."

"Yeah, I figured. I thought this would be a good compromise."

"Yeah, that was really awesome of you." He swallows, manages a smile that doesn't feel like enough. He doesn't know how to be enough. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Want to go get seats for the panel?"

"Yeah."

She doesn't ever actually give him the picture; he finds it, wrapped and framed, in his luggage, when he gets home. We'll get Anya to sign it later, says her note, and he smiles at the we.

He doesn't know when he'll see her again, but it's going to happen. They'll make it work.

four. animate, february 2019

Bellamy is not prepared for Animate.

He thinks he is; it feels easy, actually, because it's a con just for Animus, and even if he's a couple bad plot twists away from breaking up with the show, he still likes the actors and the fandom, and a con with just the stuff he cares about sounds like a good match. Plus it'll be smaller, less overwhelming, and, of course, Clarke will be there. He hasn't seen her in almost a year; if she wanted him to go to the moon to hang out, he would have been selling a kidney to afford tickets.

The main stumbling block is that it might not actually happen. Even if he didn't personally go to cons for his first few years in fandom, he kept up, and he knows that first-time cons are a risk, that they can fall apart or under-deliver or be a total scam.

But, again, Clarke wants to go, and she's not worried.

Clarke: If the con doesn't fire, we just hang out in Chicago for the weekendThere are tons of museums there, we'll be fine

Me: In the middle of winter?Not exactly the best time to wander around the city

Clarke: You're already in Boston, Chicago can't be that much worseBesides, it'll be my last semester of grad schoolI'll need a breakAre you worried about your girlfriend being weird?

Me: I told you, she's not my girlfriendWe went on a couple datesAnd we decided to just be friendsYou're being weird

Clarke: So what I'm hearing is you're going to need to nurse your broken heart

Me: I'm barely heartbroken nowI'm definitely not going to be heartbroken in like six months

Clarke: You could beYou can find someone else to date and then you guys break up because they're jealous we're sharing a hotel room

Me: I'll see if I can set that up

Clarke: Keep me postedSo, I'm booking the room?

Me: YeahSee you in February

Over the next few months, he keeps waiting for something to go wrong, but nothing does. Everything keeps lining up exactly right, right up until he's at the airport waiting for his flight and he realizes that everything going right actually counts as things going wrong. He'd been so focused on thinking about how this wasn't going to happen that he's not ready for it.

The problem isn't really that he's falling out of the fandom, although it's certainly a little stressful. It's weird to be going to what is, essentially, a two-day party for something he's not actually invested in anymore, but that's not nearly as weird as the fact that he's on his way to Clarke. Because in the last few months, since that first date with Echo, the one that never managed to turn into anything, Bellamy's been thinking. It's getting harder and harder to ignore that there's no one he likes as much as Clarke, no one he wants to talk to as much as he wants to talk to her. No one else compares to her.

And now he's spending a weekend sharing a hotel room with her. There's a non-zero chance it's going to be torture.

Her flight gets in before his, so she's already waiting for him when he arrives. She's gotten her hair cut short and there's a pink streak in it, and it makes it feel like it's been so much longer since he last saw her than it really has been. Like it's been years instead of months.

He missed her.

"Hey!" she says, putting her tablet into her bag and jumping up for a hug. "How was the flight?"

"Fine. How was yours?"

"Incredibly short. I barely had time to put down my tray table."

"Doesn't sound so bad to me." He shrugs his shoulders, getting his backpack settled more comfortably. "So, taxi to the hotel?"

"Sounds good. Some people from tumblr are having dinner, they invited us but I said you might be too tired. In case we want to get out of it."

"Do you want to get out of it?"

"I don't think so? We're usually not social at these, we should try it out."

His whole chest warms with the natural, unconscious pronoun. They're a unit here; she's not doing anything without him.

"Yeah, that sounds fun."

There's a surreality to the meal that there hasn't been since that first con, when he kept getting recognized. He's been incognito before, but everyone here is someone in fandom, and he's a fairly conspicuous someone. He still doesn't post many pictures of himself, but Clarke drew a little cartoon version of him as a birthday gift (along with a Fluttershy plushy, since she finally decided which My Little Pony was the pan one) and he's got it set as his userpic now. Even with the stylization, it's pretty easy to recognize him. Clarke's good at what she does.

It's not bad, exactly, having people who already know and like him. He likes them too, for the most part. But it feels like he's passed into another world, with Clarke his only tether to reality.

She's even less comfortable with the situation than he is, though, flagging faster, drifting away from the conversation before their food's even arrived. She's mentioned that she's somewhat introverted, that she struggles in social situations where she doesn't have a clear goal.

But she's also the most stubborn person alive, so he's the one to plead exhaustion to get them out of going back to Harper's hotel room to watch a smash-cut of Martin/Conner scenes.

"We could have gone," Clarke tells him, like he might somehow not be aware.

"I'm tired."

Her mouth quirks. "It's weird, right?"

"It really is."

"I know it's supposed to be this big draw, getting to hang out with everyone, but it's so much harder in person."

"Not for us."

"No. I was so worried, that first con."

"Yeah, me too. I thought it might be awkward the whole time."

"It's only awkward like half the time."

She laughs. "Sixty-percent, tops."

"I really missed you," he admits. "Is that weird?"

"Maybe. But I missed you too."

They watch Bob's Burgers in their own hotel room, and that's so much better than anything else he could be doing with his time. Clarke fills him in on the classes she's taking, he updates her on his weird boss and his own idle thoughts about maybe trying to do grad school, now that he's somewhat financially stable.

"How much longer do you think you're going to stay in this fandom?" he asks her, once the lights are out. This is their best talking time, as adolescent as that feels. "I feel like you're drifting out."

"And you're not?"

"I am, but I wasn't sure if yours was just that you were busy trying to graduate."

"Not just that." She sighs. "I still draw a lot honestly, but putting it up and dealing with the reaction just stresses me out? I think I'm not good at this stage of fandom. The one where people tag creators in my art and ask them why the pairing isn't canon yet."

"Yeah, I'm glad I don't get that."

"You get other stuff, though."

"It's worth it when I'm into the show," he muses. "Or at least when I'm really into the pairing. But Martin and Conner haven't even talked in like half a season. It feels like they heard people were shipping them and decided they could stop us if they tried hard enough."

"Well, you are stopping."

"I'm also stopping watching the show, so I don't think that's an overall win for them."

"Probably not. Any new fandoms on the horizon?"

"Not yet."

"Well, let me know if you find one. I'll tag along."

He smiles. "You'll be the first to know."

With the con's laser focus on Animus, it's actually a lot easier to fill their schedules for the next day. Clarke sprung for all of the autographs because she has one group shot she wants signed by the whole main cast, so their biggest scheduling issue is figuring out which panels they don't mind skipping to wait in line instead.

"I did get you a surprise, too," he offers, a little shy, while Clarke is putting together their battle plan over breakfast.

"A surprise?"

"I owed you."

"You didn't. What's the surprise?"

"Photo op with John and Nate. I figured we could do one together, it would be fun."

She grins. "I thought you said celebrity pictures were a waste of money."

"Pictures with friends aren't."

The smile turns a little wistful. "So, is this your last one of these, you think?"

"I'm not willing to bet you and I will ever make it to another con with John and Nate. And if we do another one, we can always get another picture."

"Start a collection."

He shrugs, but he knows how pleased he looks. She's definitely grateful. "It'll go well with all our art."

"It will. Thanks. I would have gotten one, but I didn't want to go alone."

"I'll always go up with you."

Her smile is soft. "Yeah, I guess you would."

Aside from the picture, Bellamy only purchased one extra: an autograph from Anya, for Clarke's Prima/Ariel picture. It's the first autograph he's ever actually gotten for himself, and he's already fretting about what he'll say and how he'll come across.

Clarke is delighted. "You do get weird around celebrities!"

"I'm bad at small talk."

"It's not small talk, it's barely talk. They do most of the work, they're used to it."

"I forget you're an expert."

"I kind of am. But you're definitely starting off at a higher difficulty level. Anya is intimidating."

"Thanks for your support."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

That finally gets him to crack a smile. "You are, yeah. You can go first."

Anya's line is pretty fast-moving, but it's also long. This is the first con Bellamy has ever seen her attending, and she's definitely a fan favorite. He and Clarke are far from the only ones worried this will be their only chance to get their stuff signed. It's hard for Bellamy to imagine doing this without a buddy; he'd be awkward and bored without someone to talk to, and when he needs to go to the bathroom, she can hold his place in line.

He knows what it looks like, the two of them, but that's not bad.

But then, when they're only about ten people from Anya, Niylah shows up for her session. Bellamy doesn't think much of it as it's happening; he saw her spot, knew in theory when her session was starting. They were already planning to go to her next, their last autograph of the day before they found dinner.

Clarke's autograph is straightforward. Her piece is the whole cast of Animus having a nice day at the beach, and Anya immediately finds Prima playing volleyball with Ariel, Martin, and Conner and nods her approval.

"Cute. Did one of you draw it?"

"I did," says Clarke.

"You're very talented. Everyone's going to sign it?"

"No one's said no yet, so I assume so."

Anya cracks a small smile, signs her name, and hands it back to Clarke before turning her attention to Bellamy. "You have something for me too?"

"Yeah, more of her art."

To his surprise, when she sees his picture, she breaks into a real smile, bright and unexpected as sun breaking through storm clouds. "This is even cuter."

Niylah just happens to be looking over, and she grins too. "Hey, it's you two! Good to see you again."

"Friends of yours?" Anya asks.

"You can see I signed it. He was so nervous last time," she adds, which is not at all how Bellamy remembers it. "His girlfriend had to grab his arm so he didn't run away."

That does actually seem like a pretty valid way to remember it, when she puts it like that. Clarke is certainly more than happy to go with it. "He's not great with celebrities."

"Thanks as always for your support."

"I'm glad you guys got it to Anya," says Niylah, her smile apparently genuine, and Bellamy smiles back.

She says something similar when they get the autograph, and Clarke doesn't correct her that time either. Not that Bellamy really knows how they would correct her. It's such a quick interaction with someone they may never see again, who cares if she thinks they're dating?

It's not actually a big deal, he knows that. In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing. An actress remembered them and made an incorrect assumption. She's not the only person to think it, not even the first person to say it. But it feels weightier, coming from her.

Maybe he's just looking for a sign.

"So," says Clarke, and that feels heavy too. But all she adds is, "Dinner?"

"Do we have any plans?"

"I think there are plenty of people we can talk to if we want plans, but we don't have any."

"I want to order pizza and hang out in our room."

"I could live with that."

She finds a pizza place while he gets his picture back in the frame. He hadn't actually looked at it yet, too swept up in the celebrity encounter, but he sees now that Anya wrote, Your girlfriend is very talented as her message, which is one reason to have maybe corrected her.

But it's kind of perfect too. He'll take it.

"Okay," says Clarke. "Pizza ordered, ETA half an hour."

"Cool. Anya thinks you're my girlfriend."

"Anya probably already forgot we exist."

He hands her the framed print and she just studies it for a moment, her expression unreadable.

Then she hands it back. "Should I have corrected her?"

"I could have done it."

"That's not what I meant." She looks at him, her eyes almost comically intense, given what they're talking about, except that it is important. His heart is beating out of his chest. "Was she wrong?"

He opens his mouth and then closes it. It's such a Clarke question, this weirdly aggressive way to say, well--

She probably likes him too.

"You're definitely very talented," he says, and her expression cracks into a laugh. "I don't want her to be wrong," he goes on. "But I figured we should talk."

She worries her lip. "I've been looking for jobs in Boston. For after graduation."

"Are you finding any?"

"I think I've got some good prospects."

"Fuck," he says, grin overtaking his face. "Can I kiss you yet? I want to kiss you so fucking much."

She doesn't answer, just pulls him down, her mouth warm and smiling under his, everything he's been waiting for. Everything he's wanted since the first time he met her. Before then, even.

They miss the panels the next morning; it's totally worth it.

five. san diego comic con, july 2022

"I can't believe we're here," Bellamy says, flat and not particularly enthused. He's not sure he's ever been anywhere that felt so packed.

"We always said we wanted to go at least once."

"We say a lot of things."

Clarke rolls her eyes. "It's just three days. We'll survive."

"Hopefully. And I think we're getting more introverted as we age. This is probably the last year we could do this."

"Exactly. It's a good thing we're getting it done now."

"And it has absolutely nothing to do with you wanting to meet Lincoln Tremont."

"Like you don't."

"Yeah, but mostly to make O jealous. She's had a thing for him since he was on that shitty ABC Family channel show about homeless werewolves."

"We all had a thing for him in that show, his character was allergic to shirts. Stars Beyond could learn from them."

Even after they started dating, Bellamy had been a little worried if his and Clarke's relationship could survive the final fall of the Animus fandom. It's not as if he thought that was the only thing they had in common, but there's something about meeting through a mutual interest that makes the connection seem transitory.

And he is, admittedly, kind of a paranoid person. It's hard to believe he's really allowed to get anything as good as his life with Clarke.

But she was done with the fandom by the end of season four, if not earlier--she admitted a few weeks after Animate 2019 that she wouldn't have even made it as long as she had if she hadn't liked him so much--and only he held on until the third episode of season five, when Prima died for no reason except that they couldn't think of a better storyline to write for her. He still watched through to the mid-season finale, but he never picked it back up after the hiatus, and that death. was why. It was just such a waste. And it had been tough in the same way that falling out of a fandom always is, the sudden gaping hole where his hobby used to be, but having a girlfriend kind of helped there. They watched Netflix and played video games and made out, and they're probably going to get a cat soon.

Still, it's nice to be back in a fandom, and to be back in a fandom together. Stars Beyond just finished up a (no pun intended) stellar first season, and it's got just the right combination of interesting characters and untapped potential to be fandom catnip.

Plus, Lincoln Tremont. Bellamy remembers him on that werewolf show too, but he's definitely gotten better with age.

Not surprisingly, his line is huge. Clarke thinks Emori's might be shorter--she's a guest star who's getting promoted to main cast next season, but she's definitely not as popular--so she goes grab her autograph while Bellamy holds their place in Lincoln's glacially slow line.

"She's really hot in person," she says, when she gets back. "You should walk by her table."

"I do need to go to the bathroom. Lincoln's taking time to talk to everyone and make a real connection."

"Dick. Can you get me a Coke on your way back?"

He gives her a quick kiss. "I'm drinking half of it."

"Deal."

The autograph room is busy because everything and everywhere is busy, but it's kind of a nice, spread-out busy-ness. There's so much going on and so many different draws for so many different fandoms that even lines for big-name stars aren't as bad as they could be. Some people don't have a line at all, which always happens, but it always makes Bellamy feel a little shitty. He'd feel weird if he was the C-list celebrity who went to a convention and nobody cared.

On his way back from the vending machine, after swinging by Emori's line to see that, yes, she is even more gorgeous in real life, he spots Anya as one of the ones with no line in front of her, and before he knows it, he's walking over. She's been doing voice-acting on a pretty decent Cartoon Network show since Prima got killed off, and he's sure she's got plenty of fans here, but it's weird, remembering how long her line was at Animate and seeing her with no one here now.

He doesn't have to feel bad for her, but he actually does want to talk.

"Hi, uh, this is weird," he starts, and her coolly raised eyebrow nearly stops him in his tracks. "But I actually wanted to thank you for something."

"Oh?"

"A few years ago, I was at the first Animate in Chicago? And you signed some fanart for me. I'm not expecting you to remember," he adds. "But my girlfriend drew it, and you wrote that she was really talented. Or, uh, that my girlfriend was really talented. We weren't actually dating yet back then, and your message gave me the excuse I needed to talk to her about it. So--thanks."

"I don't remember that," she admits. "But I'm happy I helped."

He worries his lip, the idea coming to him through a fog of half-formed fantasies, scenarios he'd imagined but never quite perfected. When the time was right, when everything aligned, he'd know. That's what he'd told himself.

"Can I actually get you to help one more time?" he asks. "I need another autograph."

Clarke is nearly at the front of the line when he makes it back to her. "I was about to text you," she says, frowning. "I thought you were going to miss it."

He hands over the Coke. "The line for the men's room was really long for some reason."

She snorts. "Yeah, that's a real mystery."

"Nervous?"

"He's wearing his shirt, so I think I can control myself." Her eyes sweep over him and her forehead crinkles. "Are you okay?"

It feels like he's experiencing all of the anxiety that has ever existed in the world at once, but there's no way he's saying that. "Too many people around."

"Good thing we're done after this."

It doesn't feel even a little true, but he smiles. "Good thing."

Lincoln, once they get to him, is the perfect convention guest, warm and engaged, friendly, apparently genuinely interested in the two of them. It might be bullshit, but it's at least fun. Bellamy tells him that his little sister had the world's biggest crush on him when she was in middle school and Lincoln immediately offers to record a video of himself saying hi to her, which is going to be the perfect thing to send her like twenty-four hours after he sends the selfie they're taking with Lincoln. First he makes her jealous, then he shows he loves her; it's the older brother way.

And then the encounter is over, and Bellamy is left with a grand gesture to pull off.

"Okay, back upstairs, watch some TV, figure out what to do for dinner?" Clarke asks.

"Yeah. Maybe see if we can go somewhere nice."

She looks amused. "Somewhere nice? How nice?"

"Mid-range. Somewhere we have to try to get a reservation."

"That might be hard in San Diego during Comic Con."

"Spring for room service?"

Clarke cocks her head at him. "Are we celebrating something I don't know about?"

The elevator opens at their floor, and he leads her into the room before he exhales, says, "I hope so. I, uh--I got you something. Another autograph."

The drawing is undeniably shitty; Bellamy isn't an artist, and he was drawing with Anya's sharpie on a piece of scrap paper her handler found for them. It's just two stick figures holding hands, labeled Prima and Ariel to make it theoretically fan art, and there's a heart over them.

Anya used her gold pen to add, Your boyfriend can't draw, but he'd like to be your husband anyway.

Clarke just stares at it for a second after he gives it to her, but he's not actually worried about her saying yes. They've talked about this before, in broad terms. She loves him, she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, she's planning to marry him. Anya asked if he was sure, and he promised he was.

Still, the pause feels endless.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you were an artist," she says, and he laughs, and then she's kissing him, saying yes over and over, and he's grinning so hard he can barely stand it.

"So that's why I want to go out to dinner," he says, when they've finally recovered. "Or get something fancy."

"Room service," Clarke says. "Room service works for me." She grins. "You know, Anya isn't a guest tomorrow."

"And?"

"That means we can't tell her I said yes. We're going to have to find another con so we can let her know."

He laughs, kisses her hair. "I think I can live with that. We're pretty good at these, right?"

"Yeah," says Clarke. "I guess they're kind of our thing."

#millipop

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camomills · 5 years

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Title: Melting Point Pairing: Asuna/Lisbeth Fandom: Sword Art Online Word Count: 2,620 Summary: The one thing Asuna can’t forget from their first meeting was Lis’s smile. Notes: SAO Pride Week is officially here! This is the fic I made for Day 1's prompt, Virtual World VS Real World. This was an old WIP I revised for the event, so it’s a bit longer than some of the other stuff I’ll be posting in the coming days, and it doesn’t tackle the theme as directly. Thanks to @thegayfromrulid for beta-ing this.

AO3 Link

It doesn’t matter how much you fight here, you’re just changing on which floor you’ll die.

These were Asuna’s words.

While she thought differently nowadays, traces of such ideas still lingered in her thoughts. You’ll die here, something deep down whispered. This virtual castle will be your grave, and the ‘strong swordswoman’ you’ve nurtured over the past six months will shatter away, not even leaving a body to be honored.

For now, however, this ‘strong swordswoman’ was who she was. She carried on as the Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, the stark general she needed to be.

She wondered, at times, if, perhaps, she didn’t take this position for the protection of others, but for herself. Maybe, without the burden of others’ lives draped over her back, her psyche would crumble down like a puny sand castle against crashing waves. This enormous pressure was the only thing holding her together; a single strand carrying limitless weight.

It’s hard remembering, sometimes, that she’s merely a girl.

Whenever Asuna strode down the corridors of her guild’s hall, a steely mask of fortitude resting upon her face, rounds of weary faces passed through her. Faces used to strife and loss.

Such faces were what she had grown used to.

As such, she couldn’t help but be taken aback when that brown-haired girl flashed her the most genuine smile she’d seen in her time in Aincrad.

“Welcome to Lisbeth’s Smith Shop!”

Asuna wandered through the merchant district of Ralberg in the 19th Floor in search of someone who could reinforce her new rapier. Before she knew it, she had been engulfed by the place, the bumping and rustling of moving cargo and the bustling voices of shoppers and vendors disorienting her until she was lost.

As she aimlessly roamed through one of the alleys within the district, darting her eyes through the passing figures and stray vendors in the narrow passage, she caught sight of this girl.

She seemed to be about Asuna’s age. She sat with her legs crossed, a short anvil and a petite hammer in front of her. Her face donned a hint of freckles, along with lively copper eyes adorned by an equally lively smile.

Approaching her, the swordswoman lowered her head towards her. Brushing some strands of brown hair behind her ear, the blacksmith raised hers in kind.

“How can I help you today?” the brown-haired girl asked, gesturing to the plain carpet in front of her, along with the diminutive hammer and anvil resting on top of it. Asuna wasn’t sure if that could be called a ‘shop’.

“Oh. Uh, yes,” she mumbled out in reply, instinctively forcing her voice into a lower pitch. Recovering her focus, Asuna unsheathed her rapier from its scabbard, a faint gleam reflecting from it. “I’m looking for someone who could reinforce this.”

The blacksmith raised her hand, and Asuna hesitantly rested her sword onto it. As per usual, she had grown oddly attached to a weapon.

The seated girl swiped her right index finger down and selected the Item Appraisal option, a small, semi-transparent window popping over the weapon with the action.

“I generally go to this other guy for reinforcing, but… it’s been hard to contact him lately.”

The implication in Asuna’s comment sent shivers down the blacksmith’s spine. Her voice cracked a bit, but she continued to smile regardless.

“Sure, that uh, that shouldn’t be a problem!”

The blacksmith started to perform the usual reinforcement procedure, and Asuna watched intently as she did, as if to inspire (or perhaps shame?) her own blade into succeeding.

The copper-haired girl struck the metal exactly ten times, and both sighed in relief as the sword was set back in Asuna’s hand, a small notification with a plus sign popping from it as the green light surrounding it faded. The swordswoman had to suppress the urge to flourish her improved weapon right then and there.

As she navigated the menus to transfer the necessary money and prepared to leave, Asuna remembered the shop’s name contained its owner’s as well.

“I’ll see you later… Lisbeth.”

“Please do!”

Lisbeth’s reply came out louder than intended, catching both of them off guard. The seated girl didn’t notice the words leaving her mouth until they were already blabbered away.

To be more precise, she hadn’t noticed how lonely she’d been.

“… I mean, if you need another enhancement, I’d be glad to have you as a customer again!”

Lisbeth positioned a proud hand over a thin bicep, as if to exude confidence.

Asuna had to hold back a chuckle at her words. She couldn’t help but relate to the brown-haired girl’s struggle.

She gave the blacksmith a curt nod before leaving. “Later.”

“Later.” Promising to come back to someone in Aincrad was rarely a good idea when you were stationed in the front lines. Asuna knew that. She didn’t know what came to her.

Yet, she did see her later.

She came back multiple times, in fact– whenever she had some extra Col for another enhancement, whenever she wanted to show the “shop” to a guildmate, whenever she could make up another excuse to go. Soon enough, she started coming just because, and most of the time not spent with the guild or the broody solo player she’s taken a liking to was allocated to Lisbeth.

Asuna couldn’t pinpoint what drew her to the blacksmith.

She had a cheerfulness that waltzed between genuine and forged, and a bluntness that rivaled a certain someone else she knew. Asuna’s rank as a member of one of the clearing guilds made people talk to her with a tone of reverence at times (the flashy title of Lightning didn’t suit her, she thinks), so having another person she could speak to so casually felt satisfying. Despite her first impressions, Lis could be… rather crude.

They stood there, conversation wasted away for hours now.

“Ah,” Lis sighs, crossing her arms, “I really thought I was done for then. His sword’s durability hit zero the moment my hammer touched it, and he thought that was my fault, somehow.” She tapped the surface of her Smith’s Carpet. “It’s a good thing no one can touch you while you’re on one of these things. He did say he was going to get back at me, though.”

She pshaws.

“People here love saying stuff like that to merchants. Guess they see us as NPCs, or something. Figure we’re not real people.”

Cities are safe zones, and as such no one should be in mortal danger inside them. Nonetheless, vengeful people can get crafty in here. A threat is no laughing matter.

“Lis, that sounds… dangerous. Are you sure you’re safe?”

Lis waves a hand dismissively, and forges an especially bright smile for Asuna. She pshaws again.

“Don’t worry about it, Asuna. It’s not like they’re real anything either.”

This wasn’t the first time she’s noticed Lis making light of awful happenings and players surrounding her; she does it with near death experiences and creepy customers and disastrous blacksmithing attempts that invalidated days of work looking for materials. She turned her tragedies into comedies, always forcing herself to smile doing so.

In fact, she doesn’t remember ever seeing Lis legitimately sad in their time together. She always wore her smiting smith grin, or some variation of smirk.

“I mean…”

Asuna paused, pensively.

Lis, are you really okay? is what she thought about asking, but perhaps that was Lisbeth’ way of dealing with all of… this. Aincrad and the constant threat of death and missing her family and even the people she might have lost here.

If this place isn’t real, then the people within it aren’t real.

By extension, her pain, too, was non-existent. That seemed to be Lis’s thought process.

Was it wrong, if it allowed her to smile?

Unlike me, she…

Perhaps a bit too forcefully, she choked out a chuckle for Lis’ reply.

“… Fine, fine,” she gave up, tapping the freckled girl’s shoulder, “but promise me you’ll let me help you look for a new base of operations for your business. I think it’s about time you got a better place.”

“Haha… there is this one place I’ve been eyeing in one of the upper floors,” Lis confessed, scratching the back of her neck, “but the price is pretty hefty.”

Asuna squinted her eyes, anguished hearing Lisbeth’s plea.

“… I’ll make my entire squadron to commission something from you if that’s what it takes.”

Lis couldn’t help but chortle out at Asuna’s uncharacteristic comment.

“What? I’m serious!”

“No, you’re not!” Lis retorted through jovial, watery eyes.

She patted Asuna’s head, which made her shoot a look Lis couldn’t tell was meant to be embarrassed or indignant.

“… But it’s really cute that you’d say something like that.”

The months go by and Asuna doesn’t think as much about dying.

She’s a general and she’s a swordswoman, but she’s also a mere girl– a fact a year of this death game forced her to forget. She thinks there’s nothing mere about being one now, however.

The pressure crushing her soul into moving forward, jaw clenched and nails digging into palms, is replaced with the warm push of her friends. With Kirito’s eyeroll-inducing antics. Argo’s impetuous comments. Lisbeth’s crude laughter. It surprises her, how this kindness motivates her far better than the looming anxiety. How she can live for the sake of living.

She doesn’t know when, but she knows.

She’s leaving this castle, and she’s taking those dear to her in tow.

The door creaked as Asuna slowly entered Lisbeth’s new shop. She was glad Lis managed to get this place without her having to resort to strong-arming her guildmates. Regardless of Lisbeth’s incredulity, she was serious about it… probably.

“Lisbeth!” She beckons, trying to warn the blacksmith of her presence. No response comes and she realizes why after a quick investigation: muffled clanks of steel meeting iron ring out from the backroom, and the spinning of the gigantic waterwheel resounds through the entire building. Lis must be hard at work.

She walks to the door behind the counter, whispering excuses under her breath as she ducks under the wooden seam. Surely enough, Lisbeth is hammering away at her anvil, the chime of weapons reverberating through the room.

Asuna barely caught sight of Lisbeth shivering as she approached.

“… Lis?”

Lisbeth turns to her, a grin on her lips and red on her eyes.

“Asuna!” she exclaims, voice sniffly, with a hint of surprise. It doesn’t sound how Asuna remembers. “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming in. Here for the materials?”

Asuna’s brow knits in worry. “Lis, were you crying?”

“I – what –” Lis stammers, then sets a hand to her eye. “Really? They programmed puffy eyes in this stupid game?”

Lis scoots her chair back as Asuna steps closer, her gloved hand brushing roughly against the corner of her eyes.

“Sorry, I’m–, I didn’t want you to have to see me like this. Don’t worry. I’m fine!”

“Lis…”

“I’m fine, I promise, just. Just give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be back to normal.”

“Lis, please.”

Asuna approaches slowly, hands outstretched. She offers them to Lis, who takes a step back before taking two forward.

She takes Asuna’s hands in hers, and the stream of tears she had stifled moments ago start racing down her cheeks again.

Lisbeth slumps over Asuna, her forehead resting over the swordswoman’s shoulder, her arms wrapping tightly around Asuna. Right now Lis feels so delicate, looks so frail, so unlike Asuna has ever seen her until now, and every part of her being wants to protect her.

A part of her knew Lis was keeping it in – who isn’t, in Aincrad? But seeing Lisbeth, her ever-cheery, best friend Lisbeth, crying in loneliness as she shakily continues to perform her work, clicks with Asuna. That’s what she was like, before meeting her.

Why wasn’t I there for her in the same way?

“I’m not sure how long I can keep doing this,” Lisbeth confesses. “Waking up every day and acting like this is normal. Like this is my job, like this is real, like my body isn’t wasting away outside.”

Lisbeth uses the forbidden word, outside, the one no one is meant to be using here to keep their sanity in check. In that moment Asuna realizes she is not simply talking to Lisbeth the Blacksmith, but to whoever Lisbeth is in the real world.

“I wish I was like you, Asuna. You’re so strong.”

It sends Asuna reeling. Lisbeth? Like her?

“What are you talking about? You are much stronger than me. You’ve kept smiling this whole time.”

She parts the locks of hair at Lis’ nape with her nails, and feels Lis’ grasp tighten.

“I’ve only been able to stand this long because I had people who reminded me I was still living in here. People like you, Lis. Your smile kept me going.”

For a moment, Lis simply digs her weight further into Asuna, the flutter of fanning eyelashes brushing against Asuna’s shoulder, streaming tears running down her arm.

When Lis’s crying subsides and she raises her head, Asuna sees that she’s smiling.

This one looks different, however. Time seems to stop as Asuna studies every inch of Lis’s face. She can tell as she sees the real thing in this moment, how Lisbeth’s winning smiles in the past were forged, a convincing replica fabricated by an expert craftswoman. This weary image in front of her now, with its displayed teeth and reddening skin and baggy eyes, is Lisbeth in her earnest, and it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

Time runs once more as Asuna sees Lisbeth’s face shorten the gap between hers, eyes half-lidded, approach slow and pleading.

It only lasts a mere moment, a fraction of a second, when their lips meet, but Asuna’s heart bursts all the same. It was more of a peck than a kiss, and yet she’s burning and Lisbeth’s burning and she’s not sure what this means, so she goes for seconds to find out, a chaste first kiss shared between two friends, pure affection woven into action.

Lis sets her head back on Asuna’s shoulder once they part lips.

“Nothing here ever had felt real, you know,” Lis starts. “Until you started talking to me. Visiting me. Thank you, Asuna.”

She interweaves their hands together, and Asuna squeezes them in response.

She can’t believe she let Lisbeth feel this way, so lonely.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

She’s a general. She’s a swordswoman.

She’s a girl, young and wise, frail and powerful, and so, so real.

They share a bed, their combined warmth reminding them how genuine they are.

These bodies, countless shards of light interlinked through a virtual thread, are mere representations of themselves. But how can they be called fake, when it allows them to be like this, more intimate than they’ve ever been with any other person in the real world?

Lis fell asleep as soon as her body met the bed. How long has it been since she last had a night of sleep? How long has she been forging that smile that inspired her so many times? Asuna, however, cannot bring herself to drift off, not after the way she saw Lisbeth today.

She spent a long while wondering what she was fighting for, since her entrapment. Holding her friend delicately, caressing her head as she basks in Lis’s droopy, drowsy smile, Asuna thinks she found one of many answers to the question.

As she watched Lis shift in bed, murmuring something unintelligible, her steely resolve became something beyond a mask. An earnest, warm wish solidified itself over her heart.

She would protect that smile.

#SAO #Sword Art Online #AsuLis #saoprideweek2019 #Fili writes

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fandoms-funnies-etc · 5 years

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Breaking News (Miraculous One-Shot)

When "breaking news" spreads across Paris of Ladybug's apparent death, Marinette is amidst the crowds and sees everyone's reactions to the news. She seeks out Adrien to see him through the loss of his beloved superhero. Plus some exchanges between Ladybug and Chat amid the aftermath of the day. (3115 Words)

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It was free period when it seemed like everyone in Paris received a ‘breaking news’ notification on their phone. Naturally, everyone, including the students, opened their phones to see what was going on. Normally it was a warning about an Akuma that was on the loose and for everyone to find shelter. But this time, it was a live stream from the news station, showing Nadia sitting in the studio with a sorrowful look on her face. “This just in. An anonymous source has just sent us a photo of what seems like the body of Ladybug, bloody and unconscious. The source explained that they came across this bloody scene on the outskirts of the city. They had checked her for signs of life but found...” she sniffles and clears her throat, “found nothing.

“Our reporters are working hard to confirm this information and find and identify the body of Ladybug, hoping to get some answers as to what occurred to our superheroine. The image we are about to show you may not be suitable for younger viewers,” she concludes before an image of Ladybug laying on the side of the street with scratch marks all over her arms and legs seeping with blood.

Marinette doesn't blink during the broadcast, her eyes glued to Alya’s phone that was playing the transmission.

Alya drops her phone onto the table when the image pops up, her hands shaking slightly. Mari stares at the image, almost convinced herself that she was somehow dead. She nonchalantly presses her hand against the bench they were sitting on, half expecting her hand to pass right through. She lets out a silent sigh of relief when her fingers meet the cool plastic surface beneath her.

Now convinced she’s not a ghost, she turns to Alya who has dissolved into a flood of tears, unable to be held back by her palms pressed against her eyes after putting her glasses on the table; tears dripping down her forearms. “Alya, Alya, hey,” she tries to soothe her, rubbing her shoulder, turning the phone screen off, “That, that picture, it could be fake, it’s probably fake, I’m sure Ladybug is fine!”

She tries to wipe her tears back, “We don't know that! And it looked pretty real to me,” she chokes out between sobs, sending a new stream of tears down her face.

“Uh, um, but...” Marinette struggles to reign her in when more outbursts and cries sound off around her. She looks around and sees students with their heads hung low, consoling each other.

Suddenly, Nino comes up to their table, sliding in next to Alya with his arms open. She immediately falls into his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. He rubs her back, looking over her shoulder at Marinette. “You should find Adrien. I expect he could use a friend right now.” He urges her before turning back into Alya.

Her heart skips a beat at the mention of Adrien. She nods wordlessly before getting to her feet and starts scouting for Adrien.

‘Why would Adrien specifically need a friend right now? Could he be in such a state as Alya is? Did he really care for Ladybug that much?’ Her mind runs, ‘Everyone in Paris is fond of Ladybug to some degree, is it possible that Adrien was on the higher part of that scale?’ She mentally shakes away that thought, not wanting to go into the implications of that this moment. Right now, she is Marinette, and Adrien needs a friend.

After peering into a couple classrooms, she finds him sitting alone in a room at the end of the hall. He’s hunched over, his head hanging in his hands, every once and a while his body shakes from a sob. The image of him jars Marinette a bit, used to seeing him with perpetually perfect posture and a smile.

‘He could use a friend right now’ Nino’s words echo in her mind. She feels a calmness come over her; this isn’t Adrien her crush that needs her, this is Adrien her friend that needs her.

She cracks open the door, knocking to alert him of her presence.

His head shoots up and a weak smile crosses his face, “Hey, sorry, I’m just,”

She holds up her hand to cut him off, “C-can I join you?” She asks softly, lingering in the doorframe.

He quickly wipes his eyes, “Of course, of course”, he gestures for her to sit next to him.

She leaves the door open a few inches behind her, the sound of a few teachers trying to restore order in the common area can be heard below. She stays conscious of her movements, not wanting to be a clutz in this moment. Removing her bag from her shoulder, placing it on the desk, she slides into the seat adjacent Adrien. A silence hangs in the air, not an awkward silence, but a comforting one. Marinette gently breaks the quiet, “So, you saw the news.” She states, having intended to form her words as a question but came out as a fact. “I mean, I guess, everyone has,” she stammers, not wanting to make it seem like she assumed anything from his appearance.

He nods, unaware of her worries, “Yeah, I... I can't believe it,” he replies with a hollowness in his voice.

“Yeah, me neither...” she attempts to remain sympathetic sounding, but her voice inflections threaten to expose her. “I mean I really don't believe it, like the whole thing seems kinda strange and out of nowhere, and Nadia said they’re trying to confirm the report ASAP and...” she stops herself from rambling, seeing that it's not helping Adrien’s mood.

He looks over at her and smiles slightly, “You always look on the bright side, Marinette; I like that.”

She inhales sharply after his comment, trying to control her reaction. Watching his slight smile fade away brings her back down to Earth.

He leans back, his hands dropping into his lap, “I know I should be skeptical of the report, but honestly, I can't help in assuming the worst right now.” The window catches his eye, looking out at the sky that has gathered a few dark clouds since the school day began.

She follows his gaze then turns back towards him, “I-I didn't know you cared about Ladybug so much.” She says with genuine interest, trying her best to separate her other-half from the moment.

Another turn up of the corner of his mouth that quickly fades away, “Yeah, I... admire her, a lot; everything she does for Paris, and all. Her and Chat Noir.” He tacks on the end like an afterthought.

Marinette’s mind instantly flashes to a different train of thought; thinking out loud she muses absentmindedly, “I wonder if Chat Noir saw the news report”.

There's a beat of silence before Adrien answers “Probably.” in a neutral tone, his hands ball up reflexively on his lap.

Her mind remembers celebrities and designers she had admired who had passed away in her lifetime. Some were hard to confront but she moved on, considering she hadn't known any of them personally. For lack of better terms, Marinette thought the loss of ‘Ladybug’ from the city as nothing more than if a distant celebrity passed away. People like Alya would take it hard, but everyone else would move on quickly, she thought grimly.

Everyone but Chat.

A wave of guilt washes over her despite it not being her fault that this rumor was started; and that she can't exactly go to the news studio as Ladybug to clear things up during school hours, let alone justify why Ladybug would be at their school if she chose to transform in a bathroom stall. She silently wishes there were some way she could at least contact Chat, knowing how he must be reacting to the ‘news’. “I hope he’s okay.” She wonders honestly.

His expression softens, watching Marinette’s concerned face, “He will be” he says like a promise. He leans forward against the desk again, “It’ll take time to heal, for everyone in Paris, but she has left a mark on the city that won’t fade either.” He ventures.

Blush creeps up her cheeks, “You think so?” she asks innocently, having never lingered long on her impact as Ladybug before.

Adrien visibly tries to hold back a slightly incredulous smirk and fails, “Of course.” He states firmly, “I, er, no one could imagine Paris without her, I bet. Well, until now,” His tone drops again after effusing about the heroine. His arms fold across his chest as he takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,”

Mari’s eyebrows pull together, “Sorry? For what?”

He half-shrugs, “For acting this way, you shouldn't have to be here,” he hangs his head.

Her mouth opens slightly, trying to find the right words, “You shouldn't feel sorry,” she reaches out, hesitating slightly before resting a hand on his shoulder comfortingly, “you don't have to go through stuff alone. Nino, Alya, and I, and our other friends really care about you and would be there for you.”

His eyes widen at this statement, as if this was a new concept to him. He nods slightly, “That’s, that’s really cool of you guys,”

Just then, both of them hear their phones going off. Marinette is quicker on the draw, pulling hers out of her bag and reading the notification out loud, “It’s the follow up report.”

Adrien winces, still fearing the worst, “Open it,” he urges nonetheless.

Nadia pops back up on her phone:

“Our reporters have found that the anonymous tip that had been given to us this morning to be fake.”

Mari sees Adrien quietly wipe grateful tears from his eyes as the report goes on.

“The man who gave the station his fabricated account of the Ladybug situation is also responsible to photoshopping the shocking image that he used as ‘proof’ of his encounter. The man shall remain nameless but has been brought in for questioning by local authorities for inciting panic and spreading false information.”

Marinette puts her phone away as the broadcast ends, “Thank goodness,” she feigns relief, “I’m glad Ladybug is fine.”

Adrien nods, blinking hard to clear his vision, “Yeah, thank goodness,” he repeats, unable to put into words how it feels, like a great weight has been lifted off his chest.

The final bell rings and both of them automatically rise from their seats, but Adrien holds back, calling to Marinette as she reaches for the door, “Hey,”

She whirls around, “Yeah?”

He looks to the side sheepishly before meeting her gaze, “Uh, thanks for sitting with me,” he says as his hand fidgets with the strap on his bag.

Mari feels her heart floating in her chest, “Of course, anytime, I’ll be there, always,” She stammers, pulling the door a bit too fast and nearly clipping her nose. She waves herself off before slipping into the hall.

Marinette transforms as soon as she gets into her room and checks her communicator, surprised to see Chat already out and about on her locator. She plans where to intersect his path and heads out.

It doesn't take long before she realizes that Chat has changed trajectory and is making a beeline right for her, probably after seeing her location on his own locator. Not long after, they spy each other across the Parisian rooftops. Chat shouts something excitedly that Ladybug can't make out from this distance.

“What?!” She exclaims in reply before their momentums bring them together.

Chat flings himself at her, holding her tightly against his chest. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for not being dead.” He murmurs excitedly into their embrace. “Please never fake die, or actually die, again,”

She settles into his hug, rubbing his back gently, “I don't think I really get a say in that,”

He holds her tighter, “Please,” he begs softly.

She sighs and rests her cheek on his chest, “I’ll try my best.” She promises, “As long as you do the same.”

He eases up on the hug so he can look down at her with tear stained smirk, “Promise, unless it’s to save you, M’lady; you’ll always come first to me.” His voice breaks at the end, sending a chill up Ladybug’s spine.

She pushes him away slightly, “Don’t, don't say that.” She shakes her head unwillingly.

He straightens up, cocking his head to the side to look at her. “It’s true, though. I would never let anything happen to you, no matter the cost.” He swears, taking a step towards her.

She takes a step back, still shaking her head, “That’s too much, I don't accept,” she blurts out, scrambling to find the right words to explain herself.

A sour note crosses Chat’s features, “No offence, but I wasn't asking permission to save your life. It’s my choice.”

“D-don't you value your own life at all?” she stammers, crossing her arms and holding her wrists.

Chat plants himself, no longer advancing towards her, “Why is it so hard for you to understand?” he asks incredulously.

“I could say the same thing about you!” She interjects, losing her control for a second.

Chat’s taken aback, not used to seeing her like this. “Then what exactly do I not understand? Hmm?” he sasses back.

She rolls her eyes hard, grumbling to herself.

“Please do tell, M’lady,” Chat mocks, thinking she has no real explanation for her outburst.

She looks at the ground, “Don't you think it goes both ways?” She says quietly, shaking her head slightly, “That I would give my life for you too?” She doesn't look up at him but receives no response either, so she grits her teeth and continues, “I never want you to sacrifice yourself for me because you’re the one who’s supposed to live.” Her grip tightens on her arms, pressing them against her chest.

“What, why would you say that?” He asks in a low voice, his chest suddenly heavy with confusion. He intently watches her in her closed off form, unable to look away while Ladybug chooses to keep her eyes down.

“My Kwami told me something. That nearly all the past Chat Noirs...” she clears her throat hoarsely, “died... saving their Ladybugs.” She peeks at him from the corner of her eye, broken by the look on his face, “I decided I couldn't let that happen to you.” She concludes in a strained voice, “I thought I could be better than the past Ladybugs,” her face contorts into a sad smile, “I thought I, in my role as Ladybug, was the deciding factor in this pattern of... loss,” she shakes her head slightly, unable to look away from him now, “But it’s been you, the Chat Noirs, all these millennia, as if programmed to always save your Ladybug over yourselves.” A haze covers her vision, she blinks it away, but a glint is still seen in her eyes by Chat.

He approaches her carefully, reaching out his arms slightly, as if the gentle breeze would be enough to knock Ladybug off her balance and he’d have to catch her, “Nothing is ‘programmed’ into me,” he promises, “I don't know how the other Chats felt towards their Ladybugs, but if it was anything near how I feel, I can understand why they did what they did.”

“But that’s exactly my point! What if everything you feel towards me is just part of the Miraculous? Would you ever feel this strongly towards me if we were normal people?” She argues, but is losing some of the steam behind her words.

Chat frowns, refusing to let Ladybug think that his feelings are anything but genuine and real, “Of course I would.”

“But you don't know-!”

“I had to experience what it would feel like to lose you; do you understand that much?” He cuts her off in a forceful voice, his fists at this sides as he continues in a softer tone, “I...I could never go through that again.”

Wordlessly, she wraps her hand around one of his balled-up hands, eventually interlacing her fingers with his, holding them both steady. “I can't understand what you went through, not truly; And I would never want to.”

He sniffs, “Would you really only risk your life for me because you feel guilty for all past Chat Noirs?” He asks honestly, a little heartbroken.

“I didn't mean it like that,”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I couldn't believe...” she sighs, knowing where this answer will lead her, “I couldn't believe that the other Ladybugs would let this happen over and over again, especially if they felt the same way towards their Chats as I do towards...” her hand tightens around his, “you”.

Chat holds his breath, resisting the urge to pinch himself. Stunned, he tries to catch her eye, but fails to hold her gaze. “Maybe, maybe we promise each other we’ll be careful, in battles and fights and stuff, so hopefully there’s no need for anyone to sacrifice themselves.” He suggests, a gentle smile coming to his face. “And maybe you’re right about one thing.”

She turns towards him, her glassy eyes sparking in the setting rays of sun.

“Our Miraculous’, our powers, Creation and Destruction: one can’t exist without the other, right? I’m starting to understand... that it may extend beyond the metaphor,” he brushes a strand of her hair back from her face.

Ladybug lowers her head, “I think I am too” she admits, her eyes widening at the realization after saying it aloud.

Chat’s heart flies in his chest, almost feeling a bit lightheaded, “So, where does that leave us?” he inquires, wishing she would never let go of his hand, as if she were the only thing keeping him from floating away.

She looks down at their entwined hands and squeezes her palm against his, gazing back into his eyes, just realizing now how close together they’re standing. A rush of blush colors her cheeks, “I-I think we’re behind on patrol, we better get going” she breathes, not dropping his hand.

Chat lets this moment exist in its entirety, “That’s all I could ask for right now.” He kisses her knuckle and releases her, not used to being the one to let go first. “After you, M’lady” he bows, gesturing to the glowing horizon.

Ladybug self-consciously rubs her face with the back of her hand, as if she could rub away the pink shade that seems to stain her face. “Right,” she nods, before throwing her yo-yo and zipping off.

Chat Noir watches her silhouette against the sky, content in knowing his love was alive and that he made her blush.

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #ml #mlb #ladybug #chat #chat noir #fanfic #writing #story #mari #marinette #marinette dupain cheng #adrien #adrien agreste

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fordarkisthesuede · 5 years

Text

Batman the TellTale Series: The Tolls of Justice - Prologue

Welcome back to Part 2 of my Perseverance Project!

The one solid truth about the world is that it is always changing.

But things were going according to plan, for once. Tiffany was training to become Bruce’s protégé. Iman was settling in as Wayne Enterprises’ CSO. Alfred was traveling the world. John was slowly moving back into the world outside of Arkham. Bruce’s life was climbing in a steady, uphill line.

That is, until fate throws Batman a wrench. With every new death he finds, the case grows more chaotic, and the bigger it gets, the more dangerous his lifestyle becomes.

Soon Bruce’s life is more uneven than ever, and the only real constant seems to be John.

But can he even hold onto him, when their worlds are changing so much?

{Next chapter}

Continue on Ao3 or read below...

[Prologue]

Gotham Harbor always had a peculiar smell. There was the scent of the river, rotting wood, and seagulls with the odor of diesel and bunker fuel from the variety of ships in the docks.

And of course, there was the stench of dead fish that carried on the wind. It was that sickening sweet odor of death that Bruce always picked up on first, and it always made him think of his first case working with then-Lieutenant Jim Gordon. He’d never forget the sight of the dead salesman buried under a pile of yellow perch.

Bruce always hoped he’d never see another body around there. He was usually proved wrong.

“Any sign of them yet?” Tiffany’s voice asked over the communication link in the cowl.

“No, not yet,” Bruce answered, adjusting the focus on his cowl’s lenses. He sat perched near top of the nearby cell tower, watching the harbor line for the sign of the cargo ship drifting in amongst the fog. “Any movement down below?”

Tiffany snorted. “I think ‘Dice’ is going to lose his round to ‘Muddy’ at the table, but other than that the only thing going on down there is the weird tension between the two lookouts and ‘Four-Ears’. I swear he’s not actually reading that book…”

“Their delivery is late. They’re bound to be tense.”

“I dunno… What kind of name is Four-Ears for a leader of a gang, anyway? It sounds more like an insult than anything.”

“He’s not the leader, he’s a leader. Black Mask is the leader. He gives all his major subordinates nicknames to distinguish them from the rest of the group, unless there’s two of each name within the lower ranks.”

“…are you telling me ‘Muddy’ is that guy’s real name?”

“Yes.” Bruce answered, looking back out at the harbor. The fog was fairly dense, rolling over the water in slow streams, covering everything like a delicate blanket. The warm air of late May caressed the exposed skin of Bruce’s face, reminding him of the last time he’d been so close to the harbor on a case…

It had been over a year since the travesty the Riddler and the Pact brought to Gotham. Thirteen months and nine days.

Bruce heard the message tone in his ear like a small sonar beep. It wasn’t often he got a text message that late at night. He knew who it was from before he even glanced down at his gauntlet to read it.

Still on night duty?

Yes, Bruce typed back. It’d be better if you were here, he added honestly. Tiffany was still at the base, keeping lookout via camera drone, but it wasn’t the same as having a physical presence there.

The feeling’s mutual! I keep hoping I’ll wake up next to you…

Then I’d be able to make EVERYTHING better ;D

Bruce felt the corner of his mouth curve upward, despite the roll of eyes. I gave you that phone for emergencies. Sweet-talking me doesn’t count.

My heart burns for you like a match thrown on a box of oily rags!!!!

Doesn’t THAT count??

He was tempted to ask if John couldn’t even wait three days since he’d last seen him, but truthfully the time between their visits had gotten shorter and shorter as weeks passed. Bruce didn’t like keeping away for long, either.

A box of oily rags, though? That was a bit far, even for him. Almost concerning.

But he wouldn’t be John if he didn’t go a little overboard.

Bruce was halfway into typing ‘I don’t think I have enough burn gel for that’ when another text stopped him.

Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one short minute gives me in your sight, fair Bruce ♡ ♡ ♡

He stared down at his gauntlet. He was getting quoted Shakespeare.

No, that wasn’t quite right - he was being wooed with Shakespeare.

That was…definitely a first. It was bizarrely pleasant, leaving a warm feeling in its wake.

I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep, Romeo.

So soon?? :o

Stay safe for me, then, Brucie ♡

“Batman?”

Bruce blinked, closing the message system on his gauntlet so he could resume looking at the horizon. Sure enough, there was a shadow of a boat finally showing behind the fog.

“You got awfully quiet there for a moment. Who was the text from?”

“…how did you know I got a text?”

“I see the notifications for your gauntlet on this thing, remember?” Tiffany answered with a laugh. “Eight texts on duty, huh? Someone special you’re not telling me about?”

There was no way he was going to tell her he was texting John. “You said the heroin was coming in disguised as fan merchandise. What kind was it?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. This is the fifth time in two weeks you’ve gotten texts while I’m manning the cave. You have to tell me about them sometime.” Bruce winced, his good mood quickly disappearing. “Anyway, it’s all Sunset stuff. You know, that vampire thing from a couple years ago? I’m pretty sure they said it’s inside those weird plastic figures with the big heads. The heads are hollow, so they probably filled them with heroin and put them back in the collectible boxes.”

Bruce zoomed in on the ship in the distance. It didn’t seem to be in a hurry… It was a commercial fishing boat, not overly large, but it could certainly move faster than that. Bruce tried to watch the waves crash against the crest of the boat, but the water lapped at it as if there was no propelling force. “I think it’s stationary.”

“What, you think they’re going to take a lifeboat to the dock?”

“That’s possible.” If they did, it meant they would not be dropping off the heroin shipment right away. What would they come for? Payment first? That seemed like a poor decision…

Bruce scanned what he could see of the deck. Nothing out of the ordinary… But no sign of life. Even the dim light in the captain’s cabin showed only the silhouette of a man in the chair.

Warm wind hit his back, and Bruce heard the ends of his cape flap whip at his ankles.

Something was wrong. It was too lifeless. Too simple. There should be someone on deck when the boat was that close to the docks, keeping a look out for any signs they would be disturbed.

“I’m going out there,” Bruce said, gaging the distance between the tower and the boat. With the wind, he should get a good enough glide. Getting back would be harder – he might have to swim.

“Wait, what?”

“Something’s not right. The boat’s not running. I’m going to go check it out.”

“…normally, I’d ask if you were insane, but I already know the answer to that.” He could practically hear the light frown she was wearing; he narrowed his eyes at the light ableism. “You’d go even if I told you not to.”

Bruce frowned. “I wouldn’t go if you had a good reason for stopping me.”

Tiffany sighed over the communicator. “Do you want me to call Gordon?”

“Not yet. I’ll tell you the second I think we need backup.”

“So, what, two seconds after they start shooting you?”

Bruce ignored the comment and took a running leap off the tall warehouse, his cape outspread as the wind picked up, gliding him towards the small ship. He was almost weightless, flying freely through the foggy night.

It was simple and short, but the moment was always worth living in.

He landed on the edge of the boat, his boots hitting the metal of the front as he grabbed the railing with both hands and hoisted himself up as quietly as he could, his cape fanning out behind him.

Just as Bruce had thought, the motor wasn’t running. There were no footprints or signs of movement on deck. There wasn’t as much as a whispered conversation.

It was all quiet, and quiet on a boat like this meant something was seriously wrong.

He ran through scenarios in his mind. The motley crew of Black Mask’s lackeys back at the dock might have rigged it to explode. Or perhaps it could be an ambush job for him; they could be hiding, waiting for him to go below deck and then spray him with bullets.

It would be best to investigate the captain’s cabin – he could easily get there by hooking onto part of the roof-line and grappling up to the door. The lack of lights on deck would make it impossible for the captain to see him there now, so he should be safe…

The whir of the grappling line cut through the silent fog like a piano wire through butter. With still no noise out there, Bruce was getting that creeping feeling at the back of his neck.

The cabin creaked open in a rush as Bruce readied Batarangs in each hand, primed to throw at whoever was behind the door.

No one was there, aside from the captain, stiff in his seat, the dull yellow light of the control panel barely illuminating him.

It wasn’t the eerie stillness of the person in the chair that clued Bruce into what really happened, but it was the unpleasant smell of urine that lingered as Bruce stepped closer to examine the man.

A dark red line ran across the man’s pale neck. The crew-neck shirt was soaked with blood. Slight bruising on his forehead, suggesting he’d been held still. The man’s eyes were still blown wide in surprise. It was almost comical, with the small o-shape his mouth was set in.

His death been fairly recent. About an hour. A quick scan with his glove turned up no trace evidence.

“Oracle – the captain’s dead. His throat’s been cut.”

“Uh, there’s no chance it was mutiny, was it?”

“Doubt it. Call Gordon; I’m going to look below deck.”

“Got it.”

Bruce swept away, not seeing anything else of note in the cabin.

The lower deck was also suspiciously silent. Bruce made sure to walk slowly, wary of any trip wires or traps, and keeping his eyes and ears open for any hint of sound. It could still be an ambush.

The cargo hold had piles of cardboard boxes, all with the Sunset logo printed on top next to the word FIGS in a spiky word balloon. Bruce understood the collector’s value of such things – he still had pieces of Gray Ghost memorabilia stored in their original boxes in his media room’s display case. There must have been a few thousand dollars’ worth of figures alone, but with the price of heroin, it might have been a several hundred grand more.

A small fortune worth killing over. But the boxes seem untouched. Why?

Even simple revenge between a rival gang wouldn’t have justified leaving several grand worth of drugs behind. There were some gangs that didn’t like dealing with illegal substances - either for fear of getting their hands too dirty, or the fact that such things were so often stolen or seized that it wasn’t worth the investment. Surely a group like that would have shot up the place… And it wasn’t like those groups to go head-to-head with the likes of Black Mask. At least not alone.

Bruce heard the light patter of tiny feet on wood. Rats. The sound was coming from his left. Past the tower of boxes.

And tucked away behind a stack, another corpse, accompanied by a pair of rats trying to nibble away at his hands and face. They scampered away behind the boxes at the sight of Batman’s shadow.

This second man hadn’t died so cleanly. There were several puncture wounds, as if he’d been stabbed by someone playing five finger fillet on his torso. There was no instrument left behind, no broken blades or anything helpful. The size of the wounds and lack of torn flesh suggested something small and straight-edged, like a traditional switchblade or dagger.

Bruce ran his glove’s scanner over them, hoping to find any trace elements. Paint chips, hairs, fibers – anything.

“Another body, huh?” It wasn’t really a question. Just subtle disgust from Tiffany. “Randolf Barron, age 44, did time for smuggling, possession, and assault. Pretty sure the cotton-poly blend fibers sticking in the wounds are from his shirt.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nada. Where’d you find him?”

“Cargo hold. He’s been here about an hour.”

“God… I hope you find someone alive tonight.”

Bruce doubted it. “So do I,” he muttered, hoping he was wrong in thinking it would be a very long night.

He treaded carefully, hearing only a few squeaks and scampers of rodents. The kitchenette had two people, sitting in plastic chairs with very bloody eye sockets on the sides exposed to the door. If the blade was long enough, death would have been instantaneous

Bruce unclipped the miniature-drone from his belt and let it fly into the air to take an aerial shot. He didn’t want to risk contaminating the scene too much, and if there was someone hiding behind the counter…

There wasn’t. He frowned, zooming in on the wounds to the eyes – the blades were long, shoved or thrown in at an angle so they hit the brain. Near-instant death.

“Jack Whendleham and Kirby Noltz,” Tiffany repeated with a slight strain in her voice. “Both 39, Gothamites, tried for breaking-and-entering, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, cocaine possession… Ugh. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, but there’s probably more. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine… Just… I have this thing about eyes getting poked.”

No knives were left behind...but there were partial bloody shoe-prints moving from the doorway to the table. He’d need a closer look, but at least it was something. He might be able to piece together a full size, analyze the wear on the treads…

The killer could still be on board.

Bruce swept away, letting the drone fly in front of him as he kept a vigilant watch. There was no other sound aside from his muffled steps and the low hum of the drone.

There was a storage room, packed with more boxes…

And four more bodies, laid out in the middle of the floor with their heads all pushed together.

“Oracle, send your drone out here to check-”

There was a slight noise coming in over the ear-piece, like a firework had gone off in the distance.

“I can’t, Black Mask’s gang is on the move!”

“What?”

“Their van exploded, they’re leaving the warehouse! I can follow them but-FUCK!” Tiffany shouted, and Bruce heard the tell-tale sound of her fist hitting the desktop. “My feed cut out! It’s...UGH! Fuck them! They took it out! I’m not getting a power signal!”

“Oracle, send Unit Three out to try and track them. I need to finish searching the ship; the killer could still be on board.”

“I can’t, Three’s too far away, it’ll be too late,” Tiffany explained frantically, “What do we do?”

Bruce cast a look at the bodies. “The shipment will be in custody shortly. We’ll get other chances at the Black Masks; this takes priority.” He took a breath, trying to clear his head. “Alert the G.C.P.D. about the warehouse. Get Three out here and try to scan the area.”

“...I need bring it in for repair; the bio-scanner is malfunctioning.” There was a split-second pause. “I could throw on my gear and be -”

“No. Surveillance photos will do. We’ll look over the C.S.I. findings later,” Bruce emphasized, his voice-modifier grumbling over the line.

He let the drone fly up and get an aerial shot of the four dead men, hearing the whir of the machine and the light ‘click’ of the camera, and sighed to himself as he looked at the image on his gauntlet.

“It’s going to be a long night.”

Edits: added Ao3 link; re-formatted John’s texts to blockquotes (tumblr undid that formatting before I guess)

Notes: Welcome back, my friends, to the middle of a new series I call “The Perseverance Project” - as At the Brink of Midnight was my Season 3, consider The Tolls of Justice my Season 4; and an unnamed Season 5 will be released sometime after 4 wraps up. I have such sights to show you… A new “game mechanic” that will be introduced next time, old characters returning that I won’t spoil yet, new relationships to grow, fresh villains to introduce - we’re going to have so. much. fun! (ʃƪ¬‿¬)

If you’re ever in doubt of my new bi-monthly update progress, please visit my profile page on Ao3, or check my “bttts s4” or “ttoj” tag here on tumblr. Please keep in mind that I have much less time to write now that I’m fully employed - but the drive I have to finish what TellTale could not is currently shifted into the steady high speed of fifth gear. But I can’t stay at that leisurely cruise forever, so it’s bound to shift now and then to slower gears, and I know there will be days where it’s stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. So I hope you’ll bear with me, and give me some encouragement on the way.

And since the next chapter is already written, and I love you guys so much that I don’t want to keep you in suspense for too long, it will come out early - so I’ll see you same time next week! (๑˘̤ ॢᵌ ू˘̤)*౨˚ൗ

*PS - Please reblog/like, or give kudos/comment/subscribe on Ao3! Your feedback feeds me!!

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