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eloquent-vowel · 3 years

Note

I have had a few bucky x read fic ideas bouncing around in my head and i cant write! So here is one,

Sam find a person who stairs and doesnt talk a whole lot because they uses ✨telepathy ✨. So Sam think they would be a good fit for Bucky, but he doesn’t know they have that power he just thinks they are mute. Then there is a thing where the reader is telling Buck how it works and they if they have something to connect them together like an object *reader motions to dog tags* they can have an unbreakable mind link. Then they fall in love or something. This is dumb, thank you for coming to my TedTalk

Hey! Thank you so much for this request, it wasn't dumb at all. I really enjoyed writing this. I may have gotten a bit carried away, this may sit close to 4000 words but we vibe. I hope this is what you had in mind! Please enjoy! <3

Click here for my masterlist of other fics and check in my bio for requests if anyone wishes to ask!

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Bucky had been enjoying a moments peace, he loved working with Sam but sometimes all he wanted was to put his feet up, put on some vinyl and enjoy a good cup of coffee all while reading a brilliant book. He had been trying to get into Game of Thrones lately, on Sam’s insistence, and he had been enjoying it. With the crackles of Glenn Miller from the turntable he missed the clunky footsteps coming up the stairs.

The sight that greeted Sam needed to be photographed. Bucky was lounging back on his ‘old man armchair’ feet up, hair in a towel, in a bathrobe, coffee in hand and facemask on, this was definitely one for the family album.

At the sound of the phone shutter Bucky practically launched himself out of the chair.

“Oh, you are never gonna live this one down old boy, it’s going to haunt you.” Sam almost cackled evilly as he began to email the photo to himself- he had learnt the hard way that Bucky was very proficient at breaking phones.

“You better not upload that photo anywhere, Wilson, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Pfft, reputation, that’s funny.”

Bucky scoffed as he stood up, placing his book carefully on the side table, “Big scary super soldier, people hardly run-in fear from a guy in a bathrobe.”

“I disagree, a man in a bathrobe is definitely something you should run from. AH NOPE!” Sam jumped backwards, on top of a nearby chair, as Bucky lunged for the phone, towel turban falling off in the process. “You are not breaking this phone as well.”

“Fine. But you gotta promise not to post that anywhere.” Bucky huffed.

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“As long as- “

“Oh no, I’m not doing anything for you.”

“Think of it as payment for the last phone you broke and insurance for this picture.”

There was silence for a moment as the two friends eyed each other up. Sam raised his eyebrows, Bucky’s eyes narrowed. It was an intense staring match between a guy in a bathrobe and a precariously balanced man. A clock ticked.

“Fine.” Bucky conceded. “What do you want?”

“For you to come to a meeting.”

“The families of Veterans ones?”

“Yeah.” Sam slowly started climbing down from the chair. “And before you get your old man pants in a twist, I’m not trying to force you to talk or anything, kinda.”

“Kinda?” Suspicion laced through Bucky’s voice.

“You know sign language, right?”

“Which kind?”

“American? I think?”

“Yeah, I know ASL, might be a bit rusty but I’m sure it still holds up. Why do you ask?”

Sam shifted slightly on his feet, “There’s this person, they come in every week and listen. I tried to talk to them, but they communicate through sign language, and I don’t have anyone there to talk with them.” He cast his eyes to the floor, “I feel bad. They were brave enough to come to the group only to basically be ignored ‘because we didn’t plan well enough.”

Bucky smiled, face mask crinkling around his smile lines, “You could have just asked me to Sam. You didn’t have to blackmail me into this, of course I’ll help. When’s the next meeting?”

“This evening. You gonna be ready or do you need some more ‘me’ time.”

Bucky simply chuckled at Sam’s teasing tone, patted his shoulder making sure to squeeze just a bit too hard before retreating to his room.

“I’ll be there, Wilson, and I will look so much younger than you!”

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It was frustrating to you, going along to these meetings and not being able to communicate. You could always speak into someone’s mind but all that usually accomplished was a very paranoid person. But just listening to other’s stories really helped the grief from losing someone so close to you. You related to most of the people there and even though they didn’t understand you a lot of the time, you were always made to feel welcome- with friendly pats on the back and the odd tissue thrown your way.

You bustled into the familiar building with a new sense of excitement as Sam had promised to bring a translator for you this week. It was finally time to say your thanks to some of the people there and finally let the group know about your brother, so that it wasn’t only you that remembered him.

You all but ran through the hallways until you caught sight of a familiar smiling man. Sam was facing you, talking animatedly to another man, the strangers back was to you. He was tall, broad shouldered and dressed in a vintage looking leather jacket and rather well fitted trousers. Now the debate was: does the tailoring make the ass, or does the ass make the tailoring. You were halfway through the arguments on either side when Sam shouting your name disrupted the intense debating in your mind. You blushed at being caught, then blushed some more when you caught sight of the stranger’s face. Twinkling blue eyes under a deep-set brow should have made him intimidating, but he was smiling, and his face was dazzling. There was an immediate fluttering in your stomach.

“Hey, I’m Bucky.” Dear lord even his voice was nice, what made you smile even more was the fact that he signed as he spoke. Well, Sam certainly knew how to pick them well. “Sam introduced me; said you wanted an interpreter.”

You nodded as you signed back, “Nice to meet you, thank you for helping out.”

“No problem, Sam has told me a bit about you.”

“Good things I hope.”

“Okay I recognise my own name, you two better not be conspiring against me.” Sam piped up, to be honest you had forgotten about him for a moment.

Bucky laughed, and it sent a little thrill down you, he really was adorable.

“No worries, Wilson, just letting them know all your dirty little secrets.”

“Right, you two get in there, before you make me sleep with one eye open.”

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You and Bucky caught each other’s eye, his eyes were twinkling with mischief, and you couldn’t help the smile that overtook you. You had a feeling that the two of you would get on just fine.

The meeting passed easily. Bucky translated your signs and you finally felt like you could actually take part in these meetings. Everyone listened intently when you spoke of your brother and when you had thanked the whole group for being so open to you a couple of people shed a tear. By the end of the meeting though you were tired and very accepting of Bucky’s offer to walk you home.

It was a lot of side glances and hidden smiles and you walked side by side. Drawn to each other under the moonlit sky, it was nice to just be in the presence of someone who had such a kind aura. You spent the walk trying to work up the confidence to sign something, anything but nothing came to mind and Bucky seemed quite content to just walk in comfortable silence.

You soon reached your home, you turned to Bucky with a smile on your face and signed,

“Thanks for today, Bucky. You were really helpful.”

“No problem.” He signed back,

You hesitated slightly before signing, “Would you be happy to have a coffee with me, tomorrow?”

Bucky went a little red in the face, and chuckled, “I would love to, I know a nice place, real cosy. I’ll text you the details.”

“You know how to text?”

“Hey! I get enough stick from Sam, don’t need you getting on my case too. I’ll have you know that I am very adaptable.”

“Sure, Sure.” You smiled at his flustered tone. “I’ll wait for your text then, have a good evening.”

“You too.”

The two of you stared slightly awkwardly at each other, neither wanting to be the first to turn around. You shuffled your feet away slowing, smiling awkwardly once more at Bucky before turning. You heard his footsteps start to fade away as you walked towards your home. You were but three steps to the door when a large figure in a hoodie slammed into you, you raised your arms instinctively to block them when you noticed your shoulder was lighter. The bastard had stolen your bag.

You immediately took chase, chasing around the corner you just walked down but they were fast, faster then you at least. As you rounded the corner you caught sight of Bucky walking ahead. The thief wouldn’t stand a change against him. Without a second thought you cast your thoughts towards Bucky,

“Bucky! Thief! My Bag! Behind you!”

You saw Bucky flinch slightly then turn bewildered, his eyes widening when he saw you hurting towards him, chasing the hooded figure. He caught on and launched after the thief as well, with barely any effort he knocked the thief to the ground, grabbed your bag and whipped out his phone to call the cops.

Well, that was hot.

You took your bag back, immediately checking that you brother’s lucky coin was in the zippy pocket, to your relief it was still there. You looked up to see Bucky staring at you with a very puzzled look on his face. You sighed before casting your thoughts to his head once more,

“I’ll explain later.”

Bucky let out a strange, decompressed noise of shock, it made you giggle. The two of you waited in silence until the police came and took the thief away. The police car had barely driven away when he turned to you.

“Did you just, talk in my head? Or did my conscious just suddenly get really loud.”

“I did. Hi. Sorry about that.”

He waved his hands dismissively. “Believe it or not, not the weirdest thing I’ve encountered.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

There was an awkward silence.

“So,” You started, resorting back to sign language, it felt less invasive, “Still down for coffee?”

Bucky smiled, “One hundred percent. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Bye Bucky. Thanks for getting my bag back.”

“No problem, see ya.”

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The coffee shop that Bucky invited you to, was tucked away, it was the kind of place that you would stumble over on accident. With a simple door and a big window out the front, that lead soft orange light filter out onto the alley. There was the faint sound of jazz leaking out of the building, you smirked. It was such an old fashioned place, of course this was where Bucky frequented.

The bell tinkled slightly as you entered the café, where you were greeted with the smell of fresh coffee and baked goods. You caught sight of Bucky’s broad shoulders sitting in the corner, and you made your way over to him, smiling at the barista as you passed.

As if sensing you, Bucky turned to smile and wave. He was dressed in casual clothes like last time, but this time his hair was loose around his shoulders. You smiled back before settling into the seat opposite him.

His hands moved hesitantly as he signed, “What would you like? I can recommend their hot chocolate, its very warming/”

“Hot chocolate it is.”

You could tell he wanted to ask you a million questions but to his credit he walked slowly to get the drinks, he even took his time carefully carrying the tray of drinks back to your table. He placed a delicious looking hot chocolate in front of you. You watched as he took a sip.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1-

“So,” Here we go, “What is it you can do, you can speak in peoples’ heads, can you,” He lowered his voice and leaned in, “Can you read people’s minds?”

You giggled slightly, his eyes were basically sparkling, he was definitely nerding out about this.

You set the hot chocolate down before casting your thoughts to his head, “I can speak in peoples heads relatively easily, it’s how I talk most of the time to people I know. I guess you could call it Telepathy.”

Bucky’s eyes were as wide as saucers, “So you can’t read thoughts, only… speak them?”

“I like to call it casting, makes me feel like a sorcerer. I can read thoughts, but it takes a lot of energy. I used to be able to talk with my brother from across the house. That usually requires some kind of connection.”

“Oh, so like a blood or family connection? Do you have to know the person very well?”

“That certainly helps but it’s not always necessary. If I have a personal object that belongs to that person, something I can hold and connect to them it isn’t hard to make a two-way connection. Especially if that person is willing to open their mind.”

Bucky seemed to be caught in thought for a second. “So, if I were to give you something of mine, we could both talk in our… heads?”

“Well yes, but Bucky we have only just met. Letting me into your head is a lot. I try not to pry but sometimes I’ve found that thoughts just burst through. Let’s get to know each other a before that happens.”

Bucky smiled at you before speaking and signing, “You’re right. Let’s get to know one another. I find you fascinating.”

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It happened on the fifth date. Bucky was just walking you home after a lovely dinner at a small Italian that he claimed he went to back in the 40s. Just outside your door, under the glow of a lamppost he turned to you and took a deep breath before speaking.

“I know this may be a lot, but I wanted to give you these.” He reached around his neck and pulled off something silver. You gasped slightly as he held out his dog tags, immaculately preserved after all these years.

“Are you sure, Bucky? This is a lot.”

“I know and if you aren’t comfortable with it then just let me know but I want to give them to you.”

“You know what this means Bucky?”

“Yeah, I know, I just figured that you’re already in my head all the time anyways, just can’t seem to get you out of it.”

“You cheeseball.” You smirked at him before taking the dog tags and placing them around your neck. You gripped the cold metal for a moment, concentrating on the man in front of you. Taking everything, you knew about him and stretching out a connection, like a hand reaching out to clasp another.

“Testing, Testing, Testing, one two, one two, can my Telepathic partner hear me?”

You laughed, “Yes I can Bucky, you big dork.”

Bucky whooped out loud before sweeping you up in a big hug. The two of you laughing under the lamp light. His joy was infectious, and you couldn’t fight the smile off your face.

“Oh, we are going to have so much fun messing with Sam.”

“You’re evil.”

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Of course, the two of you made a pact not to tell Sam until he worked it out, which wouldn’t be anytime soon according to Bucky. It led to some very memorable moments and Sam refusing to play any form of card or board game with either of you because you always managed to win, somehow. Not to mention all the times you had spoken in eery unison around him.

“I swear, its like you two can read each other’s minds sometimes.” Sam threw his hands up in frustration at another lost game of charades.

You smirked at Bucky across the room, “Should you tell him, or shall I?”

“I think he’s been through enough, I got it.”

Bucky cleared his throat, “We can.”

Sam whipped around to face Bucky, a look of sheer disbelief on his face, “Seriously Bucky-boy, if you think I believe that after all-

“Hello Sam.” You cast your thoughts to him, in the creepiest old lady voice you could muster.

Sam yelped, before turning accusingly at you, “You better be joking around with me right now, I am not dealing with any kind of ghosts in this house.”

“Sorry! Surprise I’m telepathic!”

“You’re serious.”

You nodded.

Sam put his head in his hands and sighed, “Not the weirdest thing ever. Wait, does this mean you have been cheating this entire time.”

You both looked guiltily at one another.

“You owe me. That poker night, void.”

You both laughed, “We’ll have a fair rematch this time Sam.”

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It had been close to a year since you had made it official with Bucky and you were now much more comfortable around one another. He no longer just dropped you off at the lamppost but cam inside with you. You had spent many lovely mornings together sharing glances over steaming cups of coffee. Fighting each other for who got to spread their legs out on the couch, there wasn’t really a loser though as it usually ended up in sofa cuddles for both of you, while watching a film.

Life was pretty great, you thought, as you smiled down at the sleeping Bucky beside you. Finally reaching over to turn off the lamp and put your book down, you were finally reading the hobbit at Bucky’s insistence. As you clicked off the light beside you and settled down you noticed the faster than usual breathing coming from beside you.

“Bucky?”

You reached out, thinking he was awake but instead as you opened up your connection you caught flashes of night terrors. You were falling indefinitely, snow all around you, and in the distance, there were cries of pain, people pleading for their lives, there was gunfire and explosions. You gasped and took off the dog tags. You only gave yourself a moment to breathe before trying to shake Bucky awake. When it became clear that he wasn’t stirring you steadied yourself and settled your hands on his temples. You didn’t care you tired this would make you, you just wanted Bucky to stop suffering. You focused, offering out that hand of connection again, this time picturing it in the shape of a fist and, although it wasn’t subtle, you tried to shake Bucky’s brain awake. You forced your way into his dreams, punching through the dark fog that clouded his thoughts and almost screamed at him.

“Bucky! Bucky wake up! You’re dreaming my dear!”

Bucky woke up with a start. Tears flowing down his face, he stared at you blue eyes shining. No one spoke as he pulled you into his arms. You just breathed together for a moment, counting the breaths and the spaces in between. When he finally pulled back, you saw his eyes flicker with concern before lifting a hand to gently wipe under your nose, it came back red with blood.

“You, okay?”

You smiled sadly, reaching out to put the dog tags back on.

“I should be asking you that.”

“But you’re bleeding.”

“Occupational hazard.” You tried to subtly get rid of any of the extra blood. “That was pretty intense. Wanna talk?”

Bucky looked down to the sheets and shook his head. You smiled at him, tilting his head to yours.

“That’s fine, want me to go? Or would you like to cuddle for a bit?”

Bucky didn’t talk again, just pulled you gently down to the bed once more. Snuggling himself under your chin, resting his head on your chest. You felt his arms draw tightly against your waist. You pressed your lips into his hair.

“May I help you go to sleep? Keep the bad thoughts at bay for at least one night.”

You felt Bucky nod and let out a little sleepy hum of agreement. You closed your eyes, focused on your connection setting up a golden wall against the dark fog at the corners of his mind and settled into a deep sleep.

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You woke to the smell of fresh coffee and the clinking of cups.

“Morning.” You opened your eyes at Bucky’s voice and took the offered cup greedily. Your mind still felt hazy from the energy you used last night.

You felt the bed dip beside you as Bucky sat and sipped at his cup as well, hair a bit of a mess from bed. He had evidently only just woken up as well.

He took a breath, “I had some pretty interesting dreams, sweetheart.”

You stiffened, “Good ones I hope.”

“Don’t worry, they were good. If a little strange.”

“Strange?”

“I was watching myself most of the time.”

You snorted into the coffee, “Sounds creepy”

There was a slight chuckle, “Nah, I was watching myself build a home, a family- “

“Oh God Bucky.” You snapped your eyes to his, you knew what had happened. “I am so sorry my dreams must have stuck in your head.”

“Those were your dreams?”

“Yeah, its only happened once before but when the connection between two people is very strong, it can happen- I call it bleeding. Perhaps we should- “

“If the next words out of your mouth are take a break, I will spill your coffee.” You clutched your cup closer to your chest, “Truthfully, those were some of the beset dreams I have every had. I really loved them.”

You looked back up at him, hesitantly “You did?”

“And I love you.”

“Huh

There was silence as you stared at him in shock. His face as nothing but adoration as the sunlight filtered over his face.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too.”

Coffee cups were cast aside as you both collided. Giggling and joking, radiating happiness as the two of you shared the sweetest kiss. Your feelings merging together, amplifying one another until they shone brighter than the sun.

312 notes · View notes

hottestthingalive · 3 years

Text

Changes, Tricks, and Trust

He does what he can. And sometimes, doing what he can means that, when he opens the door for trick-or-treaters while his dad is wrangling Remus into his pirate costume and finds a man holding hands with a kid younger than even Roman and Remus (wearing a scientist costume and a cat costume, respectively,) who introduces himself as “Logan Abbott, and this is Patton. You must be Janus,” he just glares, and slams the door in their faces.

—

In which the Carroll siblings conspire against their father’s new boyfriend, Logan makes a promise, and Janus has a grudge against omelets.

Notes: Look, okay, we’re all very aware this is two hours past Halloween, and an hour into No-Content November, but I wrote this in a day and am operating under the logic that it is both Halloween and not November somewhere, so let’s pretend we’re all okay with this and move on. Virgil also calls Roman and Remus peanut butter and jelly, which makes up for all my sins.

Roman also knows lots of words he shouldn’t at his age, because I am, in fact, projecting myself at six onto him. Let him have a big vocabulary!

(He also mispronounces most of the words. This is still projecting. I apologize in advance.)

Many thanks to @smileyzs, who stayed up far too late to help me edit, and the rest of @waffle-gang-incorrect-quotes, who had to listen to me ranting about this as I wrote it. Y’all deserve the world. Thank you for putting up with me, and this fic.

Warnings: Implied gore (but not really), food mentions (mostly candy), a fair bit of angst, Janus manipulating his brothers but not in an intentionally cruel way.

Relationships: Romantic Analogical, familial logicality, familial virgil, janus, roman and remus, platonic loceit, intrulogical, and logince.

Words: 5328

Ao3

Enjoy!

—

“Roman, Remus,” Virgil says calmly, holding up a knife, stained with guts and gore, the key piece of evidence to the brutal mutilations of two innocents, “who decided to carve ‘Logan is a butt’ into our pumpkins?”

They point at each other, faces the picture of wide-eyed innocence. Virgil is not fooled.

“Janus, do you know anything about this?” he asks, turning away from the twins to look at his nine year old, who is currently pretending to be very occupied with the book he is reading at the dinner table. Virgil wonders if Janus knows that he hasn’t turned a page in the last five minutes. Probably not.

“Oh, why would I ever do that?” Janus wonders, looking up from the book, his puppy-eyes matching those of the twins. “It really is too bad though. Clearly, you can’t have Logan over for Halloween anymore. Tragic.”

Virgil pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Janus, you’re the only one tall enough to reach the knife block, and I found the knife hidden under Remus’ bed. I know it was you three.” He puts the knife down on the table, really hoping the pumpkin guts won’t stain the wood, and says “Kids, remember what we said about playing with knives without adult supervision?”

“Not to do it,” the twins mumble in unison. Janus says “Do it only when we’re in trouble, like defending ourselves from a vicious intruder about to invade our home?” instead, which was not the answer Virgil was looking for, and he’s very sure Janus knows it.

“Look,” Virgil says, sitting down in one of the chairs that his kids have covered in fake cobwebs and pumpkin stickers, “I’ve already invited Logan and Patton over. And I… I really, really like him. A lot.” He turns a bit red, at that, and ignores Janus rolling his eyes. “But if you guys really think he’s that bad after you meet him tonight, I’ll break up with him, okay? You three are always going to be my top priority. Just promise me you’ll keep an open mind, yeah?”

“Okay,” Roman agrees, and runs to jump up into Virgil’s lap, burying his head in Virgil’s shoulder. “I’m sorry we messed up the pumpkins and were mean to Mr. Logan, Dad.”

“It’s okay, peanut butter,” Virgil tells him. He expected Roman to be the apologetic one — for a six year old, his son has developed quite the sense of right and wrong. He’s a bit more surprised when Remus does the same, squirming into the hug and saying “I’m sorry we called him a butt.” He snickers, a bit, which makes Virgil think he’s not all that sorry, but he lets it go.

“Thank you, jelly,” he says, and looks expectantly at Janus.

“Sure, whatever,” Janus says, snapping the book closed. “I’m sorry we messed up your decorations, Dad.”

“I don’t care about the decorations, hon,” Virgil reminds him. “I’m just glad you guys didn’t get hurt, okay? No more knives. Now c’mere, Jan.”

Janus begrudgingly joins the hug, wrapping his arms around Virgil and the twins both, and they just sit like that, Virgil and his children, in the quiet of the kitchen.

“Okay,” he says finally, “let's get you into your costumes, yeah?”

—

Janus just wants his dad to be happy.

He saw what happened the last times his dad went on dates. He got all excited. Dressed up. Kissed his sons goodbye, smiling and happy and practically dancing on clouds.

And then, one day, he’d come home a bit off. He’d put on a smile, he’d act like everything was fine, but then he’d make them omelets for dinner.

Janus hates omelets, because Dad only makes omelets when he’s sad.

He’s heard his dad talking about it on the phone late at night with Uncle Remy, who isn’t really their uncle, but who calls himself their uncle every time he comes over anyways. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Dad will say, with his voice choked up like he’s crying, and Janus will stand with his back against the door and hear Remy’s voice murmur something soothing, always including curse words about his dad’s ex which Janus isn’t supposed to know the meanings of.

Janus isn’t supposed to be up, on those nights. But he is, usually, staying up after they’re put to bed every time Dad makes omelets for dinner, because he knows that once he hangs up, he can wander into his dad’s room with some mumbled excuse about nightmares and do his best to comfort him without mentioning the breakup at all.

“Who was that?” his dad asks as he enters the room, holding Remus in his arms, who is finally in his costume, and not running around naked, as he has been for the last eight minutes.

“No one,” Janus says, the picture of innocence, and then the doorbell rings again. “I’ll get it!”

“No, it’s fine,” his dad says, already crossing the room towards the door. “I’ve got it, honey. Thank you, though!”

He opens the door, and his face transforms, going from Regular-Dad-Face to his Sappy-Dumb-Blushy-Face. Janus hates the Sappy-Dumb-Blushy-Face.

“Logan!” Dad says, all high-pitched and pink cheeks, and Janus braces himself to be ratted out by stupid, stupid Logan Abbott. Which is a stupid name, too.

“Hello, Virgil,” says dumb, stupid, Dad-stealing Logan, whose voice is all soft, which just gets Janus angrier, because he’s making an effort to sound genuine about it. “And you must be one of the twins. What’s your name?”

Janus feels rather gratified when Remus just sticks out his tongue, though less so when his dad says “Remus, be nice,” in his Please, Kids, We Talked About This voice. “Come in! This is Janus, and Roman should be right down.”

Logan looks over at Janus as the door closes behind him, and Janus crosses his arms over his chest. He waits for him to say “Ah, yes, we met earlier,” or “Right, I remember,” or even “He slammed the door in our faces earlier,” but all that Logan says is “It’s nice to meet you, Janus,” with the kind of smile that sappy people in movies wear. He thinks, reluctantly, that it’s a nice smile, and that the kid, at least, doesn’t seem so bad.

“Octopus!” says the boy beside him, pointing at Janus, with pure glee in his big brown eyes. “Octopus!”

“I’m a kraken,” he grumbles, all kind thoughts towards his dad’s stupid boyfriend and his dumb kid gone.

This Halloween is gonna suck.

—

“You’re a dumb scientist,” Remus says to Mr. Logan, arms crossed across his chest, as Roman and Janus mutter together behind them, his dad walking with the little kid who had introduced himself as ‘Patpat!’ and whom the adults call ‘Patton’. His dad has managed to fix the pumpkins, despite all odds, and they look rather nice as they walk away, off into the wilds of the neighborhood for some trick-or-treating.

Remus has been designated the distraction while his brothers figure out a way to get Logan Abbott to go home and leave their dad alone. “You’re good at being a distraction!” Roman chirps, and Janus mutters “And you won’t betray us like Roman would.”

He is good at being a distraction. And he loves his dad more than anything (except maybe his brothers) and Janus is very smart, and if he says getting Mr. Logan to go away will make their dad happy, Remus will believe him.

Plus, it is a dumb costume.

“Why am I a dumb scientist?” asks Mr. Logan, who doesn’t seem very insulted by this, merely curious.

“Your lab coat is covered in green and blue and red,” Remus tells him, using his sword to point at the splotches. “Everyone knows potions are green and blue and purple. And you’re a butt.”

“Well,” Mr. Logan says, and though his eyes curl up like he’s smiling, his expression is still neutral, “I had my assistant deal with all the purple ones, because purple potions smell bad.” (Remus wants to laugh at that, just a little bit.) “And the red isn’t from potions.”

“What’s the red, then?” asks Remus, despite himself.

“The blood of my enemies,” says Mr. Logan matter-of-factly.

“Cool,” he breathes, looking at Logan with newfound respect. “Why’d you murder them?”

“I am an evil scientist,” he answers, adjusting his glasses. “It is in the job description.”

“Cool!”

“Also a butt as well, apparently,” Mr. Logan adds thoughtfully. “I wonder if I can add that to my official scientist business cards. ‘Dr. Logan Abbott, Mad Scientist and Butt Extraordinaire.’”

“Bad guys get business cards?” Remus asks, having forgotten altogether about being a distraction. “I’m a pirate. Do I get a business card?”

“Are you a good pirate or a bad pirate?”

“I’m a bad pirate,” he declares, waving his sword in the air. “Roro is a prince-sailor-man, like Prince Eric from Disney, and Janny is an evil kraken we have to team up against! And Dad is a wicked witch who sent the kraken.”

“A wicked witch, huh?” Mr. Logan says, glancing behind him at where Dad and Patton are. Remus follows his gaze. Dad certainly doesn’t look very wicked, even though he’s wearing a cloak and a hat and scary makeup, but maybe that’s just because he’s smiling, holding hands with Mr. Logan’s kid as Patton babbles on about something.

It’s hard for his dad to look evil in general, to Remus at least, but especially when he smiles. He’s never found Dad to be very scary, not like he’d been able to spook Roman and Janus every so often, but when he’s smiling, when he’s happy, he just looks like home.

And Mr. Logan looks so happy, too, looking at his dad, and, well, Roman is the romantic of the house, but Remus has been forced to sit through every one of his brother’s Disney movie watchings, and his favorite movie had always been the Princess Bride (which Dad thinks is too old for Remus and Roman, but lets them watch with him and Janus anyways.) Mr. Logan looks like all the movies, all the descriptions in books, all the stories of love Remus has ever heard. Love-struck, his mind supplies.

“Yes,” Mr. Logan says, looking back at Remus, that lovey-dovey gaze gone but his eyes still so, so happy, “I think you’d get a business card. What would you put on it?”

He grins, and starts describing his Evil Pirate Captain Remus Caroll cards. Privately, he thinks that, no matter what Janus says, anyone who looks at his dad like that can’t be so bad.

Plus, Logan’s evil, like him. And he’s okay with being called a butt, which means maybe he’ll teach Remus more, even better insults.

—

“Aw, beans,” Roman says when he sees Remus happily chatting with the enemy. Janus has stronger language in mind, the kind of words that would get him grounded.

Sure enough, when Remus returns to them, carrying his candy basket in one hand and his sword in the other, he scuffs his sneaker-clad foot against the ground in a way that Janus knows to mean I’m about to say something you really won’t like.

“He’s nice,” Remus says defiantly, and Janus scoffs.

Fine. He has to do everything himself, huh?

If it’s up to him to protect their dad from Logan Abbott, that’s fine. He just has to keep Roman on his side for as long as possible, right?

“So you’re abandoning us?!” he snaps anyways, because despite everything, he’s hurt. He didn’t think Remus, of all people, would turn so quickly. “What about Dad?”

“I think he likes Dad!” Remus protests. “A lot! It’s like all those Disney movies!”

Roman looks between them, clearly conflicted. Uh-oh, Janus thinks.

“Hans seemed like he liked Anna a lot!” he answers, hands on his hips. “We’ve got to be Dad’s heroes, right, Roman?”

Roman’s expression solidifies into righteous anger. “We gotta keep Dad safe,” he agrees, reaching out to hold Janus’ hand. Janus, meanwhile, tries to ignore Remus’ hurt expression the best he can.

“Here,” he says, reaching into his bag and digging out a pack of gummy worms. “I know they’re your favorite.”

Remus’ expression brightens as Janus drops them into his candy basket. “Thanks, Janjan!” he says, beaming.

“Just don’t get in our way,” he says, and turns towards Logan.

“Okay, Roman,” he says. “You know what to do.”

His brother trots forwards, successfully swapping places with Remus, who drops back to go walk with Dad and Patton. Janus comes up on Logan’s other side, pointedly looking at the ground.

“Hello, Roman, Janus,” Logan says. “How is trick-or-treating going?”

“Good!” Roman says, cheery as always, though Janus can see his hands trembling. Janus doesn’t respond.

“I like your costume,” Logan tells his brother, and sounds almost sincere about it. “You’re a prince, right?”

“A sea-prince!” Roman declares, puffing out his chest. “Thank you, Mr. Logan!” Janus shoots him a glare, and Roman just winks. He blinks, taming his expression slightly.

Huh. Seems Roman is being much smarter about this than he had thought.

“Y’know,” Roman says, cheery as ever, “Dad’s told us so much about you, Mr. Logan!”

“Does he?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “What does he tell you, then?”

“Wellllll,” Roman hums, turning on the puppy-eyes. “I’m not sure you want to know, Mr. Logan.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, that is perfectly fine,” Logan answers, which is both completely against the plan and infuriatingly heartfelt.

“He says you’re, uh, stupid,” Janus mutters, taking matters into his own hands.

“Yes!” Roman exclaims. “Very stupid. And, and a big ol’ butt! And a meanie. And insuff-bly rude to your co-workers.”

Janus barely resists to smack a hand to his face — that last bit is stolen word for word from Uncle Remy’s rants to Dad about his boss when he comes over for dinner, and mispronounced at that! — but it seems to have worked, as Logan looks rather shocked.

“Oh, did he?” he asks, seemingly distressed. Yes! “Oh dear. That’s not very kind of him, was it?”

“Nope!” Janus answers, suddenly cheerful. Yes, yes! Now stupid Logan would go away, and Dad would be safe, and there would be no omelets for dinner or anything-

“I’d better go talk to him about it,” Logan says decisively. No, no, NO!

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Roman says, experiencing the same panic, but Logan is already dropping back to walk beside Dad, picking up Patton, who giggles and throws his arms around Logan to hug him.

“Damn it!” Janus exclaims, stomping in his anger.

“You cursed!” Roman says in shock, pointing at him.

“Yes, Roman, I cursed,” he snaps. “That didn’t work at all!”

Roman looks on the verge of crying, and he instantly regrets it. “Sorry, Ro,” he says, reaching out to take his brother’s hand again. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my dumb plan.”

“It wasn’t dumb,” Roman says, sniffling. “Mr. Logan’s the dumb one.”

“Yeah,” Janus agrees, and glances back at his dad and Logan. Dad looks all smitten again, and Logan, disgustingly, looks equally sappy. “We’re not gonna get anything done with them like that. Let’s… let’s just trick or treat with Remus for now, okay? We’ve got this.”

“Okay,” Roman agrees, and pulls Janus back to where their brother is happily munching on a Snickers bar.

They do end up having fun. And with Patton there, for all the dumb, costume-mistaking kid’s faults, adults are too busy cooing over him to care that Janus and Roman and Remus take a few pieces of candy from the bowls.

Okay, Janus thinks as they return to the house, time for Plan B.

—

Roman glares at the villainous intruder seated beside his father on the couch, as he and Remus and Janus trade candy on the floor. He’ll thwart this Logan Abbott’s evil plans! He’s a prince, after all!

“I’m gonna start making dinner,” Dad says, standing up. “I know it’s late, sorry. How does grilled cheese sound?”

“That sounds amazing,” the villain says, smiling like Hans at Anna in the beginning of the movie. “Do you want any help?”

“Just watch the kids for me, please?” Dad asks, and Roman nearly gags as he kisses the Hans-ome Villain on the cheek. Hadn’t Dad learned anything from Frozen?!

“Yeah, of course,” agrees Roman’s nefarious nemesis. Roman narrows his eyes, and checks again to make sure the fireplace is off, and that Mr. Logan — no, Dr. Logan, he’s too evil to be a mister, just look at his lab coat! — is sufficiently blocked off from it. He’s not a snowman, and neither are his brothers, but one could never be too careful! Princes always made sure to have all of their weaknesses defended against!

Janus follows their dad into the kitchen, but not before he glances at Roman and mouths Keep him busy, as he points at their vile adversary. It also could have been Reap the city, but Roman is pretty sure that doesn’t make any sense.

Remus, the traitor, is playing with Patton. “I’m the tickle zombie!” he declares loudly, sticking out his tongue and making groaning noises, wiggling his fingers at Patton, who squeals in excitement and darts away. “Twickle zomvie!” he yells to his father, who nods gravely.

“You had best run, Patton,” Mr. Logan tells him. “I hear tickle zombies are ruthless creatures.”

“Tickle zombie,” Remus groans in agreement, and Patton screams again, running towards the kitchen.

There is silence in the living room for a few minutes after that, until Logan finally says “What’s your favorite kind of candy, Roman?”

“Like I’d tell you that, you mal-volent maley-factor!” he exclaims, drawing his sword and pointing it at him. “You’d probably poison all the Starbursts!” He quickly realizes his mistake, and does his best to look even fiercer.

“Why would I do that? I like them too, I’ll have you know,” Mr. Logan says, though he looks rather surprised. “How old are you, Roman?”

“...Six,” he says grudgingly, when he can’t figure out how this bad-natured boyfriend of Dad’s would use his age against him.

“You have a very impressive vocabulary for six, Roman,” the execrable evil-doer tells him, raising an eyebrow.

“Janus and Dad and kindergarten taught me to read,” he says proudly. “And we ran out of books for me, so I’ve been reading the dictionary when we can’t go to the library!”

“That is very impressive,” Mr. Logan repeats. “What’s your favorite book?”

“It’s-” he starts, but then remembers Mr. Logan is the enemy. “None of your beeswax!”

Mr. Logan doesn’t seem as hurt by that as Roman would have expected, and silence reigns over the living room for a few minutes (save for when Patton and Remus come sprinting in and out of it). Roman finally lowers his sword, putting it beside him.

“I can teach you to use that,” the atrocious antagonist says finally, gesturing to the sword.

“What?” Roman asks, immediately on the defense. “I can use it fine, Padre’s poisonous partner!”

“I’m sure you can,” Mr. Logan says, adjusting his glasses, “and a very good insult, by the way, but I took fencing for many years. I can at least give you a few tips, hm?”

“...Fine,” Roman agrees, intrigued despite his best efforts.

Besides, how bad can loathsome Mr. Logan be if he likes Starbursts, anyways?

—

Janus knows he has lost Roman when he comes bounding into the room when Dad says “Dinner!” exclaiming “Dad, can I take fencing?”

“Logan Abbott,” Dad says, far too affectionate, “have you been teaching my son sword-fighting?”

“Maybe just a bit,” Logan says, not-so-subtly returning the broom to its place near the back door. “Is that… Is that alright?”

“Of course it’s alright,” Dad replies, handing him a plate of grilled cheese, complete with tomato soup. “It’s very sweet of you. This is all he’ll be talking about for months, though, I hope you know that.”

“It’s so cool, Dad!” Roman exclaims, proving his point. Remus is already sitting besides Patton, tearing into his grilled cheese, and Janus feels something cold settle into his stomach.

“Brothers conference, now,” he declares, standing up and marching towards the living room. He’s gratified to see that the twins still follow him, at least, even if they have been swayed to the side of Logan Abbott.

“I like him, Jan!” Roman says immediately, eyes wide and pleading. “He’s nice! And Dad likes him, and Remus does too!”

“And Patton’s great too,” Remus adds, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t wanna be mean to them!”

“What about Dad?” Janus exclaims, desperate. “Remember the last time we liked one of Dad’s dates?”

He’s referring to She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named, who had looked so nice in photos, who Dad had spoken of like an angel, but who had met them with a fixed smile and broken up with Dad only a few weeks later. Remus’ face falls, but Roman’s expression only hardens.

“Logan’s not like that,” he insists. “We won’t help you anymore, Jan.”

His brothers leave him alone in the living room, and Janus scowls at the ground. Fine. If they won’t help him, he’ll do it himself. He doesn’t need them anyways!

He ignores the choking feeling in his chest and the burning at the corners of his eyes as he returns to the table.

Fine.

—

Patton likes Virgil and his family.

Remus is funny, and Roman knows all about all the princesses, and Janus, for all his grumpy-wumpies, has the best costume. And Virgil is so nice, and makes the best jokes, too!

Patton is all of four years old, and he, quite honestly, finds himself liking everything and everyone. But he especially likes his Papa’s boyfriend’s family.

They’re nice. And they make his papa happy, too, and he doesn’t feel scared around them at all. He’s pretty sure Janus could beat up any monsters in his octopus — no, kraken — costume anyways.

Janus looks sad when he comes back to the table, face all red and angry, and Patton reaches across to pat him on one of his tentacles. “You’re a very good kwaken,” he says.

Janus just stares at him. “...Sure, whatever,” he answers, turning away and taking a huge bite out of his grilled cheese. Patton is impressed, frankly.

Papa has told him that Virgil being his boyfriend means that he and Virgil are like Nate-from-daycare’s parents, romantic partners. Patton asked if that means if he and Virgil are gonna get married someday, like Nate’s, and his dad’s face turned all red. “Maybe,” he said.

Patton hopes so. He’d like to have Virgil as his other dad, he thinks. Virgil is nice. And Patton has begged for siblings so many times that getting Janus and Remus and Roman in the bargain is like what his dad says about cool things — bee’s knees. They’re like the bee’s knees!

So, Patton is hopeful.

He pats Janus’ tentacles once more. Hopefully, his maybe-future-big-brother will feel better soon.

—

“I just want to stay up for an extra hour, Dad,” Janus says, nearly pleading. “It’s Halloween! Just until Mr. Logan goes home.”

His dad looks desperately between him and Logan, who is sitting in the living room with Patton in his lap, snoozing against his chest. The twins had fallen asleep halfway through the movie, and Dad is holding Roman in his arms, Remus already tucked in upstairs.

“It’s alright, Virgil,” Logan says. “It is Halloween, and I’m trapped here anyways.” He gestures to Patton on his lap, and Dad laughs at that. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thank you so much, L,” Janus’ dad says, obviously relieved. “I’ll be right down, okay?”

“Okay,” Logan nods, returning Dad’s smile with one of his own.

“You should just go now,” Janus says once his dad is upstairs. “You ruined Halloween. And Dad hates you, and we hate you, so you should just go home!”

“I am aware that you don’t like me, Janus,” Logan tells him softly, far too nice. He’s the kind of wonderful guy that would have Dad making omelets for days afterwards, unbearably sad. “And… I must confess, I do not understand why. Do I truly make you that uncomfortable?”

“I don’t care about you,” he snaps, sinking back into the couch cushions, refusing to look at Logan, eyes on the credits rolling across the TV screen instead. “But I won’t let you hurt my dad.”

“Hurt your father?” Logan repeats, eyes wide. “Why on Earth would I do that?”

It is late, and Janus is tired, and he still feels like crying. And so he finds himself spilling it all, from the omelets to She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named to his dad’s calls with Uncle Remy. He’s crying, he finds, partway through, and Logan doesn’t reach out to hug him or anything like that, but he listens. He nods, and he asks questions at all the right times, and passes Janus the tissues from the coffee table whenever he needs them.

“Janus,” Logan Abbott says when he is done, and he looks like he wants to cry, too, “may I promise you something, now?”

Janus nods, too tired to do anything else, and he gets the feeling that if he had shaken his head, Logan would have respected that, would have remained silent.

“I swear,” Logan says, fiercely passionate, “I have no intention of hurting your father, or your brothers, or you, in any shape or form. If I should do so, I would be a person who does not deserve you, your father, or your brothers in any shape or form anyways, as family or friends or even acquaintances.” He takes a deep breath, and Janus realizes his eyes are glittering with tears when he lifts his hand to wipe them away. “I did not mean to intrude on your family, and if you fear for your father around me, or dislike me that much, it is not my place to remain here. You will always be Virgil’s priority, as you should be, and I would never keep myself in his life if I made his son that unhappy.”

“Okay,” Janus says, voice small.

There is silence, after that, and much sniffling, and Janus thinks.

He thinks about his brothers, who have taken to the Abbotts so quickly. He thinks about Patton who, in the end, isn’t such a bad kid. He thinks about his dad, who seems so happy around Logan, who had asked them to keep an open mind that afternoon, who would be so sad if he had to break up with Logan, even for Janus’ sake, though he’d never say it.

He thinks about Logan, who seems so sincere, and who isn’t really anything like She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named, or any of the others who had made his dad cry, who Janus thinks he could like one day, who could maybe be his dad too.

“I guess you can stay,” Janus says, watching the TV carefully, and in the reflection, he can just barely see Logan relax. “For now.”

“Thank you, Janus,” he says.

“If you hurt my dad, though, I’ll kill you myself,” Janus tells him, and means it.

“I’d deserve it,” Logan answers simply, and for that, more than anything else, Janus starts to like Logan. He doesn’t laugh at the threat, or threaten him back, or even ignore it.

He takes it seriously. He considers it. And he finds it justified.

Yes, Janus thinks. With enough time, and maybe a little candy-related bribery (it is Halloween, after all) he could like Logan Abbott.

—

“I had a lovely time tonight,” Logan says. Patton is in the car, strapped into his carseat with the driver’s door open just in case, still sleeping away, and Virgil has long since put Janus to bed, too.

It is late. The moon is full overhead, a watchful eye on a quiet world, and it shines down on Logan and Virgil, who linger still in the doorway.

“I’m glad,” Virgil smiles, though the expression falters quickly. He reaches up to Logan’s cheek, finger brushing at a stray tear track. “Have you been crying?”

“Janus and I had a bit of a heart-to-heart,” he explains, intertwining his own fingers with those of Virgil’s free hand.

“The boys seemed to like you,” Virgil says, and though he looks no less concerned, he smiles anyways.

“I liked them too,” Logan laughs, a shy, soft thing. “And Patton adores you, of course. I knew he would.”

“I’d say I’m amazed they warmed up to you so quickly, but I’m not,” his boyfriend tells him, and grins, truly grins, mischievous and light and so full of love that it makes Logan feel dizzy. “You’re so wonderful, I’m surprised it took even that long.”

“Flirt,” Logan accuses, but he steps closer anyways. The night is chilly, but he hardly notices next to Virgil Carroll, who seems to exist to provide warmth and light to the universe. “They were very protective of you.”

“Perhaps they have reason to be,” Virgil says thoughtfully, smile widening. “What with you around, standing on my doorstep in the dead of night, not kissing your boyfriend goodbye. That ought to be a crime, I think. Look at me, associating with criminals. You’ve turned me bad already!”

Logan rolls his eyes but leans down to kiss Virgil anyways, a chaste, sweet thing that still manages to take his breath away. “You are incorrigible.”

“You love me and you know it,” Virgil tells him.

“I do,” Logan agrees. “Very much.”

They hug goodbye, and steal one or three or eight more goodbye kisses, and before he knows it Logan is driving away, off into the quiet of the moonlight.

There is something magical about Halloween, he has always thought. A magic of change, and of tricks, and of trust, too.

Virgil’s sons like me. A change.

They attempted to drive me away, but Virgil had warned me ahead of time that might be the case, so I did, admittedly, have the upper hand. A trick.

Janus, as of now, will let me stay. A trust, the trust of a boy who will do anything to protect his father.

Above all else, Logan decides, he will not betray that.

—

There are other Halloweens, of course, and there are other holidays, too. There are presents, and laughter, and the occasional argument, but one that is always resolved by the next day, and Janus receives that candy bribe, as well.

There are still omelet nights. There might always be. But now, instead of calling Uncle Remy, Virgil starts to call Logan, on these nights, seeking comfort when work goes badly or one of his sons is hurt or in the midst of just a truly bad day. And eventually, there will be no need for calls at all, for Logan is there to make toast and offer cuddles and tuck the boys in bed on those rough days, and, after he is supposed to be asleep, Janus will see his dad and a man who is almost, maybe, very close to being his father too, curled up together, offering support and comfort and love.

Logan has his bad days, too. And so do Janus, and Roman, and Remus, and Patton. But none of them have to face them alone.

One day, many Halloweens later, Janus will call Logan ‘Papa’ for the first time, sleepily, halfway through Hocus Pocus, and they will both cry, just a little bit.

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princessofgayskull · 4 years

Text

somehow I’ll still love you more (kitra fic sneak peak)

so this is a scene from my upcoming fic somehow I’ll still love you more, which at is core is going to be a kitra/baby fic. However, there’s a lot I want to say about this (you know me, can’t keep that word count down) so this fic will be nothing if not a full course meal.

The fic is told in a nonlinear fashion. This particular scene I wanted to share with you guys because I believe it touches on a lot of what the fic is going to be about. It’s set between the episodes White Out and Light Spinner in Season 2. Enjoy! (this has not been beta’d yet)

“Scorpia,”

“Hmm- huh?”

“Stop doing that.”

“Stop doing what?”

Pulling up the hand brake, Catra stopped the speeder in its tracks before whirling around, her left eye twitching like the movement was the only thing keeping her eyeball in place. “That- that thing you’re doing with your mouth. That noise you’re making under your breath.”

“Singing?” Scorpia raised an eyebrow.

“You call that singing?” Catra scoffed at her inferior. Look, Catra got that growing up in the Horde meant there weren’t any private music lessons (even if that was in Shadow Weaver’s job description she’d just relegate that responsibility off to some tone deaf Force Captain so she’d have more time to make Catra’s life a living hell and dote on Adora on the side) that all those half-witted princesses definitely got growing up, but it was like Scorpia was trying for the same sound her pincers made when she dragged them down slabs of concrete.

Catra’s hand squeezed the brake handle until the pressure hurt the bones in her hand, her left eye still twitching. It was like Scorpia was trying to tank Catra’s recent promotion as Hordak’s second in command by being as annoying as she could on purpose. But who wasn’t trying to derail all of Catra’s hard earned progress these days?

“Oh um, I could stop. If you want.” Scorpia muttered, her face falling into an expression that gave Catra the urge to both scream, puke, cry, and beg for forgiveness at the same time. And lately, every action, every word, every little breath that any took in her direct vicinity set off a domino effect of violent emotions in Catra, every single one too enormous and too consuming for her body.

Good thing Catra didn’t have time for any of that.

“Just-” Catra’s breath faltered when Scorpia refused to look at her (what? Now she was the bad guy just because she needed focus or Hordak would have her sent to Beast Island? Or worse?!), “- just don’t do it right now, okay?”

This earned Catra an enthusiastic nod, and she was too fucking tired to do anything but figure that was going to have to do, given the time crunch, and not mention, the insane amount of pressure she was running under. Clicking the brake, Catra pushed the handle down, fucking ecstatic to be driving the speeder the rest of the way in peace and quiet. Finally. Scorpia didn’t say another word, didn’t make another noise, until Catra was pulling up to the edge of Dawn’s Pass and activating the brake again.

That was good enough for Catra.

Just as Catra moved up to the edge to take a watchful stance of the town, Scorpia opened her big mouth. “Uh, boss? Not that I don’t love these recon missions with you lately, but I gotta ask: why are we staking out this village again? The Horde’s occupied this place for the last twelve years, and this isn’t exactly what I pictured when you said we were going to start hanging out over work? I mean, unless Dawn’s Pass has a mean bowling alley. Does- does it?”

“No,” Catra’s tail twitched in irritation.

“Oh.”

A cadet, waving his baton in a steady motions, stood at the broad brick wall that blocked off the town as his shift replacement approached from the west, whistling a tune through their helmet so ear shattering it put Scorpia’s new little song to shame. Keeping her eyes trained on the two of them, Catra braced herself for the metallic scent of magic to hit her nose. There was the quick swish of her claws unsheathing, and then, a pregnant silence.

If they’re going to strike, Sparkles and Rainbow and- and Adora, or any of the other dopey Princesses- are going to strike now.

But Catra watched unfold was a typical exchange between Horde Cadets: a simple salute, a complaint about standing for ten hours, and a wish for good luck during the dull, boring night shift. No Princesses. No magic. No threats anywhere in sight.

Nothing. Just like Dawn’s Pass went from being a primary target to just another boring occupied village and Catra’s paranoia had wasted another night. Grimacing, her claws digging into her forehead, Catra actually found herself hoping Hordak would be too busy wasting pleasantry on the Princess who sat at (or on it, literally, because Entrapta just thought she was the shit and that she could waltz into any room) his throne to speak with her tonight. Her lengthy string of failures was getting harder and harder to choke her way through excusing.

“So um,” Scorpia started up again, sending Catra’s ears laying flat up against her head. She exhaled a hot and irritated sigh, but the Horde’s hostage/princess stayed true to her inability to take a fucking hint, “when you said we were going to start hanging out after we came back with all that tech from the the Northern Reach, I just- I just didn’t picture us, you know patrolling.”

An angry pulse ran up Catra’s back at the mention of their tech victory- Entrapta’s tech victory- back in that shitty winter wasteland she almost froze her tail off in. “Scorpia,” her voice was thin, “I told you a thousand times, I don’t have time. Just take what you’re given and try not to complain.”

Wow, did she just sound like Shadow Weaver right then. Whatever, Catra turned her head away from Scorpia, in no mood to deal with the fallout of seeing her sort-of-friend’s expression, maybe the Old Crone was right about some things in the end.

“Can I ask why we’re here? Like here, here? What makes a place with no bowling alley so interesting?” The second Scorpia let up, Catra let her forehead hit the rim of the speeder and didn’t even blink at the ringing pain. Ugh, Scorpia just never gave up. How many times did Catra have to ask for some damn silence so she could think?

Running her claws down her face- again- Catra grunted, “Dawn’s Pass can’t fall into the hands’ of the Rebellion. If we lose it, or if they’re conspiring with the Princesses, we’re going to lose the Horde’s longest occupied village and we’ll be giving up the tactical advantage it gives us against that flower Princess’s kingdom.” And I will have another failure under my badge. If I lose another town, I can basically kiss my Force Captain badge goodbye. And maybe my life.

“Ohhhh…” Scorpia trailed off. At this point Catra was going to end up with a bitch of headache just from rolling her eyes at the other Force Captain. “Yeah, that makes sense. This’ll be fun! Patrolling the occupied territories with my bestie!”

Catra made a noise of disgust, but it wasn’t enough to stop Scorpia from pushing herself onto the front seat and almost pushing Catra out of it. Leaning the exoskeleton covered parts of her elbows onto the rim, Scorpia let out a contented sigh, her ditzy gaze trained on the town as Catra struggled- yipping and yelping to no end and scratching up the dinged up leather of the seat- to get her tail out from under the other woman’s butt.

Do the words “personal space” just mean absolutely jackshit to her? Catra, gripping her freed tail, growled under her breath and turned away from Scorpia. The seat was practically hers now! Looks like kneeling on the floor would have to do! It’s like I’m wearing a sign on my forehead that reads “what’s mine is yours, including the air I breathe!” Ugh, of course Hordak doesn’t listen to me, nobody does! Not even Scorpia! Everyone is too busy with their own heads up their asses to see what I’m trying to accomplish, or to give me enough space to let me do it! And she wonders why I don’t wanna “hang out after work,” or whatever.

Maybe bringing Scorpia as her backup belonged up there with some of Catra’s worst ideas; not like she didn’t have a pretty impressive tab of those wracked up already. Whatever, the universe wasn’t exactly open to responding to any of Catra’s actions with anything other than another round of punishment, so it wasn’t like acting on her impulsive or emotional notions were really going to be her undoing. Not with Hordak out for her neck, her badge no longer wielding the protective force that came with having real authority.

Catra was an idiot to think that power would’ve actually lasted her longer than a week, that now that she’d taken out Shadow Weaver and left her to her rotting self in a cell that there wouldn’t be another player on the board that could take her shield of Second in Command away from her. Well, that’s what she got for letting Entrapta into their vents. Helping them win the war or not, Horde or not, their resident techwhiz was still a Princess.

And princesses weren’t good for anything other than being annoyances that stood in Catra’s way.

“Are you seriously humming again, Scorpia?!” Catra yelped out, the volume of her voice loud enough to scare several birds from off the town’s wall. Her split eyes had been trained on the town as she crouched at the bottom of the speeder, the only entertainment the angry spiral echoing in her brain, tailing the action of a family and their wagon of sparse supplies as they approached the gate when the grating sound smacked her upside the head. The resulting intensity of her fury was almost enough to give Catra the strength to put her fist through the wall of the speeder.

Scorpia retreated into herself. “Sorry.”

Holding back a response, Catra just scoffed again and turned back to the previous subject of her attention. Watching one of the men of the family reach the gate and request entrance into his town was better than directing a full on meltdown at her inferior, kicking her out of the speeder, and forcing her to walk her way back to the Fright Zone. Catra wasn’t so far drowning her rage to something that idiotic, yet.

It was big yet. Catra knew that as she tried to shift her position, rolling her head on her shoulders and squeezing her fists, breathing only through her nostrils despite understanding that there was no sitting with an anger this encompassing. The feeling pushed and pushed and pushed at her physical walls until it was practically promising that Catra’s building fury would end one mesmerizing explosion, one that would take her, Scorpia, the family, the Horde Cadet, the entire town, all of it, out with a bang.

Now if only Scorpia had the brains to know that when she started her singing up again.

Catra peeled her blue eye open. The sun was beginning to set, and it had bathed the surrounding forest in shades of soft pink and orange, a scene so painfully ordinary it meant they couldn’t be anywhere else other than reality. Underneath the shadow cast by the stone wall, Catra took in a breath as she watched the first man continue to negotiate his family’s entrance into their own town.

Okay, so she’d hadn’t blown them all to fiery simtheriens- not the speeder, not the wall, not the little girl watched over by another man stumbling barefoot in the grass, letting out happy babbles as she pulled out clumps of grass and started sticking them in her cloth diaper until her father got down on his knees just to get her to stop. Guess Catra could count that as victory that her emotions hadn’t ended in an explosion that ended a child, a baby. Catra figured that given the fact that each step the little girl took on those chubby little legs of hers was a leap of faith that she probably wasn’t even a year and a half old.

The other man, the one that had chosen to forgo the customary negotiation in favor of watching the little girl experiment with walking near their wagon, moved from his kneeling position to pick her up. Something about the way the villager held her with a grip firm enough to keep his child from falling, yet not with so much strength that he hurt left a series of psychosomatic bruises up and down Catra’s ribs. She watched as the man ran a hand bigger than his daughter’s entire head through her soft and downy mauve hair, careful to avoid the tiny stumps in her head that would eventually become long enough and pronounced enough to match the horns of her father’s head. Catra let out a breath she was holding just to suck in another.

“Dada!” Even from the faraway vantage of the speeder Catra’s ears still picked up on the sound of the little girl recognizing her father. Because the universe was both impartial and cruel. Right as Catra realized she had stuck one set of claws in her mouth and she was chewing on them- who was she?! Adora?! Out her biting her freaking nails ‘cause something had the nerve to make her uncomfortable?- the baby stuck her tiny, chubby little hand into her father’s bright orange beard and yanked without mercy.

Now that guy’s screams scared the rest of the birds away.

As the family’s head negotiator rushed away from the Horde Cadet to tend to his husband’s facial hair, their daughter laughing up a riot at their combined reactions, Scorpia leaned over to where Catra sat on the floor, her tail twitching back and forth. “Uh boss?” she started but Catra didn’t turn away, her hand clutched into the fabric that rested above her sternum and not on her Force Captain badge for once. “Should we do something about these guys?”

“Why? They’re not Princesses.” They’re just a normal family trying to get into the place they live, so they can take their daughter home and have a dinner together that’s not mush, and then tuck their daughter in, tell her bedtime stories, be there in the night in case she has nightmares and needs them.

The fathers joined in on their daughter’s laughter.

“Well, that is true.”

A new feeling crept up Catra’s spine, but this time around the discomfort didn’t bring to her the edge of explosion. Implosion, actually. It was the same heaviness that settled in her lungs and crawled up to her throat, a slow and destructive effective infection of Catra’s self, when Hordak shut down her ideas to let Entrapta speak. When the Princesses left a trail of glitter behind running, tripping over themselves to follow She Ra’s lead. When Shadow Weaver cupped Adora’s face and showed her with praise for the simplest fucking task.

Yeah, Catra knew it made her the world’s biggest idiot to keep her eyes on the seemingly indifferent family and the happiness that radiated off them. She was aware of the damage she brought on herself by not turning away, the risk she ran by letting her emotions run her. So why couldn’t she look somewhere else, anywhere else?

“I can’t wait to be a mom.” Scorpia said out of nowhere. Ears flying straight up, Catra blinked before turning to gawk at her.

“Wait, really?” A mom mom, as in a person who takes care of and looks after her children?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s something I’ve always wanted.” Scorpia shrugged, somehow rubbing her neck with those big pincers of hers. “Why, do you think that’s a bad idea?”

“Scorpia, we’re in the middle of a war,” and that was putting it bluntly, “Besides, Hordak doesn’t even allow fraternization between his soldiers, much less-” her sputtering stops, Catra’s brain still tripping over the word fraternization, “having a family!”

“Well, we’re not going to be at war for the rest of our lives, Catra. Once we get the rebellion to surrender, I kinda wanted to set down roots, do something other than be a Force Captain, not that I don’t love doing that. I’m sure Hordak will loosen up about the whole fraternization thing as soon as we win! I mean, you’ve seen how he was with Entrapta!”

At her words, Catra came close to all out hurling over the speeder’s edge. It was crappy enough of Scorpia to bring up how Entrapta and Hordak were getting closer every day and shoving Catra out of the position she worked her ass off for, but then she had to go and frame it like that?

Look, Catra got that Entrapta wasn’t the most socially aware princess, but yikes. That didn’t mean she didn’t have some sort of standard.

“What about you, Catra?” Scorpia continued, “What do you- um, what do you see yourself doing after the war?”

Catra met Scorpia’s eyes, only to regret it. “I- I-” she stuttered, looking away and forcing her eyes closed. Pfft, after the war? After the war? How the hell was Catra supposed to picture an after when her entire life, her entire purpose, every goal she’d ever had, was only because there was a war to begin with?

The Horde conquers the rest of the planet, sends the Princesses running, puts She Ra in the ground, and what, Catra was just supposed to have a plan for after that? What… what was Catra supposed to do when they did win, when the Horde pulled off everything she worked for?

Even though she was expecting to find an emptiness, a blank space, a new start for the after the war when she tried imagining it, all Catra could picture was blonde hair tied up in a tight ponytail, melodic laughter accented by brief snorts ringing in her, the bluest eyes cutting through the longing. The same longing that plagued Catra when she forced her eyes open and saw the two fathers talking to their daughter in gentle yet bright voices, explaining to her that the soldiers had processed their papers and they could go home now.

“I don’t know.” was Catra’s quiet response.

There wasn’t any promise Hordak would keep her alive that long anyway, or if there would be anything left to live for by the time Catra got Adora down her knees and ended it all- by giving into that implosion that lived deep down in her core, letting it rip right through her and seeing to it that her love for Adora severed the universe in two, creating black hole that would suck them all in eventually- right then and there. Like it always promised to.

A part of Catra tried to push beyond that implosion, tried to picture the future Scorpia envisioned in her mind of setting down roots and birthing legacies. Was there a part of her, beyond the pain and the brokenness, that wanted what Scorpia wanted, too?

Watching that family tonight had been the only part of her mission that hadn’t felt the same as downing a vat of acid down her throat. And as hell bent as Catra was on obliterating any princess that dared to mess with this town’s occupation, there was no animosity in her heart towards that little girl.

She was kinda cute, in the mischievous, funny kind of way. And almost fun- for a baby, that is.

But when Catra closed her eyes once more to picture that little girl and her happy, innocent smile, all that was waiting for her was the image of a shriveled shadow, locked and rotting away back in the Fright Zone.

#catradora #sav writes a baby fic #catradora fic #she ra and the princesses of power #up until like three hours ago i forgot i told you guys i wasn't going to write this fic #surprise!#I'm hoping not to trip before the finish line #but thank you to tol and ren for convincing me to sit down and write this

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saharamae21 · 4 years

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Vapor (Part 16)

Another short update before bed! I had to get it out there because I’ve been dying to get to this point of Vapor. PLEASE let me know what you think!

Work count: 1.5K

Warnings: Language, mentions of kidnapping and violence.

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We drove back to the chateau in silence. None of us wanted to address what had happened. None of us wanted to talk about how we failed JJ. I let out a sigh as I got out of the van. I walked quickly into the guest bedroom and grabbed my stuff. I felt Kiara walk in after me and grab my wrist. She knew I was bailing. She knew I was looking for a way out of all of this.

“A, what are you planning?” she asked. She looked at me with concern. She knew my head wasn’t in a good place right now. I knew she was just worried for me, especially after the traumatic situation this afternoon.

“I just need a few days off,” I muttered. “I’ll come back this time, I just feel like JJ won’t want to see me for a while.”

“Adelaide,” she said firmly.

“I just can’t be here right now!” I yelled. My breathing felt heavier as I turned to look at her, tears in my eyes. I knew that I was spewing bullshit, but how could I face JJ right now. How could I look him in the eyes knowing that I hurt him, that I failed him. I grabbed my bag and brushed past her. I walked out to my car and got in. I threw my stuff in the backseat and drove away. After everything that happen today, my anxiety was at a whole new level. I pulled into the beach parking lot and got out. If I went home like this my parents would just worry.

I got out of my car and sat in the sand, pulling out my vape in order to chill out for a while. The feeling of nicotine running through my veins was almost enough to distract me from today’s events. The dependency I had on my highs were almost an issue at this point. Any chance I got, I was using them to ease the anxiety I felt. I was definitely self medicating. I laid back, trying to block the sun with my arms. I squeezed my eyes closed and replayed JJ’s words in my head. I’m not the kind of person who lets their friends get hurt for them! He was right. JJ was loyal and caring. He wanted to protect those close to him. I was the opposite. I hurt everyone I get close to. I let others fight my battles and watch as they suffer because of me. I hated who I was.

The hours passed quickly while I laid in the sand. I didn’t even notice the sun had gone down by the time I sat up. The moon was glowing a bit and I bet my parents were winding down and going to bed. The likelihood of running into them were fairly slim now. I walked back to my car, when I felt as if someone was watching me. I heard a family voice from behind me.

“Where are your fellow thieves?” Barry. I turned to see his face. He looked at me with a smirk as if he knew something I didn’t. It looked almost like he was conspiring a plan inside of his head. “Cat’s got your tongue, princess? I asked you a question. Where are your friends?”

“Not here,” I said. Now was the time to be brave. Now was the time to protect them. I couldn’t fail them anymore than I already had.

“Good,” Rafe’s voice said from behind me. Before I could even turn around, I felt something crash against the back of my head. I fell to the ground and felt someone kick my side, knocking me onto my back. My vision was blurring and as my eyes fluttered closed, I looked up and saw their evil faces staring down at me.

JJ’s POV

I rushed over to Addie’s house and set the telescope down in the grass. I tried to throw rocks at her window in order to get her attention. The light was off though and no one came forth. Was she ignoring me? Or was she not home at all? I continued to throw them, hoping my persistence was enough to make her give in and talk to me.

“Dude, stop. She’s not here,” I heard a voice saw from the window over. I knew that was Sydney’s room, but I didn’t think she would be able to notice the small pebbles. I asked her where Addie was. I felt a bad feeling well up in the pit of my stomach. If something happened to her, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have left her alone just because I was upset. I promised her that I would protect her no matter what. “She hasn’t been home for a while. We thought she was with you.”

I sighed and asked if she could bring the telescope inside. I needed to find her. I walked around the entire town, looking for her. I checked all of her favorite spots, except the beach. When I finally made it there, I spotted her car. I felt a sense of relief wash over me as I ran over to it. There was no one inside, but that meant she couldn’t be too far. I jogged down to the ocean and walked up and down, looking for any sign of her, but there was nothing. I called out her name frantically as I searched near the water. She wouldn’t have… I glanced out over the huge ocean as horrible thoughts raced through my head. I splashed through the water, searching for her. What if she went out there and just decided she’s had enough… What if she was dead? What if this was all my fault? I pulled myself out of the water and collapsed to my knees, thinking the worst possible thoughts.

“Hey Maybank,” a sinister voice rang out. I looked up to see Rafe standing not too far from me. “What’s the matter? Looking for someone?”

My blood ran cold as he smirked at me. I ran forward and grabbed his polo shirt. I shook him and demanded him to tell me where she was. All he did was laugh though. I felt my fist collide with his face and let him drop to the ground.

“Careful JJ. Just remember anything you do to me, I can do worse to Adelaide,” he tossed me his cell phone. There on the screen was pictures of Addie tied to a chair. Her head was hanging as if she was unconscious. I kicked him hard and threw his phone into the sand. I demanded him to tell me where she was. I demanded to know why he had taken her. I was losing my fucking mind. “Can’t tell you that, but I’ll be sure to tell her that you said hi. Hopefully she won’t be too drugged out and can actually process it. Maybe you can answer something for me though. Whose bright idea was it to steal from a drug dealer? I think I already know the answer though. Let’s just hope that that doesn’t cost Adelaide her life.”

It took all my restraint to not beat him to a pulp. Instead I just sank to my knees and slammed my fists into the sand. For the second time, Addie was taken because I failed to keep an eye on her. If I hadn’t let my anger get in the way, she would be here in my arms right now. This was all because I had to let my emotions get to me…

Adelaide’s POV

I woke up with a splitting headache. I tried to reach up, but my arms were bound to the chair. Everything seemed all too familiar. I was bound the exact same way as I had been years ago. The scenery was different though. Instead of the neatly decorated house, I was in some sort of storage container. The walls were metal and there were no windows. The room was dark, yet I could still see somehow. My vision was still blurry from the impact of whatever the object was and my head colliding.

“Where am I?” I called out. It echoed back at me. “JJ!”

“He’s not coming sweetheart,” Barry’s voice rang out. It echoed like a ghost against the metal walls. He walked circles around the chair I was in. He stared at me before yelling. He asked me where his money was and I told him I didn’t know. I told him that I didn’t have it and he told me he already knew that. He flicked my arm a little bit and it took me a second to process what was going on. He then flicked a needle and looked at me. “Sorry sweetheart, if you aren’t going to be any help to me, we at least need to keep ya quiet.” I felt the needle pierce my skin. I tried to squirm as he injected me with some substance. He told me to stop moving so much and held my arm tightly. I cried for him to stop, but it was too late. The room around me spun and my head fell backwards as visions of my past began to dance around my mind. Whatever drug he had given me, was certainly doing exactly what he wanted it to do.

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chromecutie · 4 years

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Not A Ghost - part 31

A/N - Multi-part fic. Colossus x OC where OC has come home after being wrongfully imprisoned in the Icebox. Warnings for whole fic - references and flashbacks to harsh prison environment, including various types of abuse. Takes place shortly after events in Deadpool 2. Whole thing will end up on my AO3 eventually.

Masterlist on my profile!

Taglist: @emma-frxst @ra-ra-rasputiin @holamor @empressme-bitch @marvel-is-perfection @hazilyimagine @marvelhead17 @rovvboat @angstybadboytrash @whitewitchdown @master-sass-blast @mori-fandom @mooleche @dandyqueen @emberbent @leo-writer . Wanna be added or removed? Holla at me.

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The hours between breakfast and lunch were mostly work hours. Many of the inmates had some kind of job - janitorial, maintenance, other menial tasks that kept the prison running. Rhonda had been put on laundry duty. Underground, the laundry room was wide, with a low ceiling, lit with plain fluorescent bulbs and lined with industrial, heavy duty machines. The humming and thumping and echoes were loud enough to cover all kinds of sounds, which set Rhonda on edge.

"Back here, darling," a voice called from behind a pair of giant rolling bins full of towels. Mimi.

Rhonda huffed, partly in annoyance, partly in relief. She crossed to meet Mimi and help her sort jumpsuits from another bin that needed to be washed, repaired, or tossed in the trash. "You just get everything you want in here?"

Mimi was shorter than Rhonda, but her fingers were longer, thinner, and tipped with sharp little claws. Her motions were fluid and elegant as she picked through dirty jumpsuits to find the ones too torn to repair. A lot about Mimi reminded Rhonda of watching slow motion footage of a predator striking. The charcoal scaled woman sneered, "The only difference between me and the warden is the warden wears a tie."

Rhonda was quiet as she started making a stack of jumpsuits to be mended. The suits were so cheaply made that some of the seams fell apart after a few washes and they would have to get re-sewn. After a few minutes, Mimi drew a sharp breath and said, “I know you’re better one on one than in a group, and I thought you might want to talk. My offer does have an expiration date.”

Without missing a beat, Rhonda asked, “What happened to the Red Disciples? And the other gangs?”

Mimi’s pale eyes glinted as she narrowed them in a smirk, “Between that breach earlier this year, and the transfer convoy getting destroyed right after, and temporarily being held in other facilities, a lot of us died. For a while, I’d thought you had died too.”

“If you knew how often I’ve heard that lately,” Rhonda grumbled.

“By the time the repairs were done and we were all brought back here,” the reptilian woman continued, “all the gangs had lost head count, but the V-One-Three still had the most - easily. Let’s say I was able to acquire the other gangs. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“There are always a few stragglers who think they can rebuild their numbers. If I let them, of course.” Mimi winked.

Rhonda heaved a load of jumpsuits into a massive washer, not even wrinkling her nose at the stink, and set it running with some detergent. She leaned against the machine. “And why do you want me?”

She clicked her tongue in response, “You’re fishing for compliments.”

“I want to know what you’ll expect.”

Mimi leaned across the table, arms spread comfortably wide. “You’re smart. You’re ruthless. You’re good at sending a message. You’ve always been impressive on your own - everything I could want in an enforcer or assassin.” She walked around the table and sauntered up to the other woman. “I’ve just wondered how you’d do with a team around you. And…if you can do what you're told."

She inclined her head away from Mimi and promised, “I can work on a team. And I can follow orders.”

“We’ll see,” Mimi crooned.

Rhonda hesitated. They were dangerously close, her back against the washer. Mimi hadn’t gotten her hands dirty in years, but that didn’t mean she didn’t plan on killing Rhonda herself if she refused to join the Vicious 13. “If I work with you,” Rhonda said softly, “I need a few things.”

“Oh good! You’ve never really opened up like this.” Mimi grinned, teeth pointed and hooked like a python’s. She took another step closer and rested one long palm against the machine behind Rhonda, inches from her shoulder.

“You saw my friend Wade?” She forced herself not to glance at Mimi’s hand.

“The one who looks like they tried to make Freddy Krueger into a rom-com lead?”

If Rhonda hadn’t been so afraid, she would have laughed. Instead, she nodded, “He comes with me, and we get the same cell.”

“Guestbook, darling, you know co-ed cellmates are rare.” She grazed an elongated finger over the outer edge of Rhonda's control collar. It was generally taboo to touch other inmates' collars. Usually, a brawl in the mess hall was just in good fun until someone grabbed someone else's collar. Mimi's gesture was casual, as if she already knew she owned Rhonda.

“They’re not unheard of.” Rhonda ducked her head slightly to match Mimi’s eye level. “Wade and I have an arrangement. Being separated makes that difficult.”

They stared at each other for a few hard moments. “Fine," Mimi lingered a second before letting her hand fall. "What else do you want? A better blanket? Extra pudding rations?”

Rhonda edged away from the thumping, whooshing, washer, away from Mimi, and surreptitiously checked the laundry area for any unwanted listeners. When she circled back to Mimi, she whispered in her ear, “I want to know how to get into the control office.”

Ororo found her friend on the X-Jet in its hangar. In the early morning, she hadn’t been able to sleep much, so she got up and walked around, to find one of her lifelong friends had the same idea. She leaned against the open door frame. “Did you sleep at all, Colossus?”

He sighed as he checked another heavy duty box full of cold weather gear. “I can’t,” he admitted, “Not while she’s…”

“I know,” Ororo said softly. She sat on the deck of the jet beside him.

His massive shoulders rose and fell with his breaths, and his voice broke, “She said...she would rather have her head blown off than go back to that place. I can’t stop thinking about that.” He rested one arm on the box he had just checked. “Did I do the right thing? Should I have - should I have let…?”

Storm's fingers slid quickly through her gleaming white hair as she took a carefully measured breath. “She was panicking. She wasn’t looking at the whole picture. She didn’t mean it.”

“You haven’t seen all of her scars, Storm," Piotr said. “There are things she won’t even talk to me about. Maybe it was too much to ask.”

She gently took his hand, warm steel between smooth, brown skin. “Rhonda survived the Icebox for six years, when no help was coming.” Ororo swallowed around the lump in her own throat, struggling to speak evenly through her tears. “She knows it won’t be another six years, and she knows we’re coming for her. I have to believe she will hold out until we get there.” She sniffled. “I can’t consider any other possibility.”

Piotr’s throat closed up, and he nodded. “It should be me in there with her. Wade’s cancer will only get worse…”

“Trust them to take care of each other,” Storm assured him. “They’ll need you more on the outside to breach the prison.” Patting his hand, she added, “We’ll get them out.”

“We will get them out,” he repeated. Then he pulled his friend into his arms and hugged her tightly.

True to her word, Mimi had arranged for Rhonda to be moved to Wade's cell. His previous cellmate had suffered an "accident" requiring him to spend a few nights in the infirmary, and Mimi had thrown a fit demanding her cell to herself. It was enough to look like Rhonda was changing cells for every reason but her own.

The buzzer that sounded as the cell doors closed for the night was more annoying than Rhonda remembered. She paced the cell she now shared with Wade, noting if anyone was watching.

Wade sat cross-legged on his bed, like a kid at a sleepover party. "Well this is lucky."

Individual cells were at least five feet apart, as each cell branched off the main catwalk of each level of the cell block. This was to keep inmates from passing each other anything between cells, but that didn't mean it was impossible for inmates to conspire or eavesdrop on each other. Rhonda shook her head with an apologetic frown and kept her voice low, "It's part of the deal I made with Mimi. Anything you want in here, you have to engineer and manipulate to get it. I made her think we’re a thing so we could be in the same cell."

Wade's smile faded into a confused grimace, "Oh no…"

Rhonda got onto Wade's bed beside him, hands settling on his shoulders. Her body language became seductive curves, but her face was stern as she said softly, "We gotta do some fake sex and sell it or we'll raise suspicion."

When he started whining, she scowled, "What?"

He tilted his head and shuddered, "Normally, my moral compass plays fast and loose, but you're my best friend's wife. Colossus's wife."

Rhonda sat back on her heels as if Wade had shoved her. "We're not actually fucking," she whispered through the sting in her eyes. "Some grinding, some noises, just enough to be convincing in the dark. If you're worried about Colossus, he can judge us when he gets here." The words came out with more bitterness than she meant.

The lights in the cell block shut off for the night leaving them in near-perfect darkness, and Wade groaned softly. "You're not still mad at him, are you?"

"That has nothing to do with this," she replied coldly. "It would be really fucking petty if it did." The cell block was too quiet. Their neighbors were listening, waiting, even if they couldn't make out the exact conversation. "Wade," she breathed.

Finally, he relented. He let out a groan that started with reluctance, but ended with a lustful depth, as he stretched out on the cot and pulled Rhonda on top of him. Relieved he was catching on, she let out a soft moan. He gently tugged at her jumpsuit, and she unzipped the top half of it to let it fall to her waist. Wade rustled their clothes a little louder than he really needed to, or maybe it just seemed loud in the pitch darkness, knowing dozens of ears were listening.

They moved against each other, sighing and moaning. Rhonda’s sounds were like a performance - the kind they make in a high quality, professional porn, where it almost sounds like love. Wade’s were less convincing. Planting her hands on his shoulders, she lowered herself and whispered in his ear in a tone that would have passed for dirty talking, “Have you never faked an orgasm before? Step it up a little.” She shifted her weight to her knees, moving back and forth to make the cot creak rhythmically.

“I have never faked anything in my life,” Wade retorted, almost loud enough to blow their cover. He tugged Rhonda’s hair just a bit, to make her let out an authentically surprised sound. In a husky whisper, he quipped, “Want me to go full When Harry Met Sally? I’ll have what she’s having?”

“Christ,” she hissed and tapped his hand to make him let go. “Maybe like...seventy percent of that.”

To her horror, Wade started giggling. “Ohhhh, I’m gonna make you regret this,” he sounded giddy as he grabbed Rhonda, and rose to slam her on the cot. She gasped in surprise, then covered it with enthusiastic fake moans when Wade started making the cot creak louder and faster. He built up his speed and volume, until, suddenly, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “MAAAXIMUM EFFORT!” He finished with a few groans that declined in volume, along with slowing the creaking of the cot.

A few inmates yelled variations of, “Keep it down!” and “Shut the fuck up!”

Rhonda practically leapt to her cot in case a guard came by for a check. “Why are you like this?” she hissed angrily.

“Don’t kink-shame me,” he yawned. “Good niiight.”

Seething, afraid they hadn't convinced anyone, Rhonda shivered once under her blanket before drifting to an uneasy sleep. In the middle of the night, she woke up to Wade crawling into her cot and adding his blanket on top of hers. She mumbled, “What are you--”

“You were talking in your sleep - in Russian.” He tucked the thin blankets around them, and spooned tightly against her. The shabby pillow under her face was damp - apparently she had also been crying in her sleep. She was too groggy to argue and too grateful for extra warmth to send him back to his own bed. Wade added in an offensively fake Russian accent, “Is just bad dream, lovely wife. Go back to sleep.”

#piotr rasputin #colossus x oc #piotr rasputin x oc #deadpool fanfic #xmen fanfic #longfic #angst

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 5 years

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just a little of your love, baby (and i’ll try) [ficlet]

This is routine: taking separate cars to Ben’s place after work on Fridays, having the best sex of her life, and heading back to her own bed at the end of the night.

This is not routine: going to Ben’s place just to have dinner and fall asleep, waking up to find him cooking lunch for her, and realizing she could spend the rest of her life like this.

I’m still not quite back to normal, but here’s a little something I wrote to try and get past my writer’s block. Please enjoy yet another FWB-to-something more by yours truly, the trash master.

Also available on AO3.

“Come over tonight?”

It’s a discreet murmur, despite the relative privacy of the kitchenette and its closed doors. If not for the hand on the small of her back, no one would think twice of Ben standing right next to her as he reaches up for the secret stash of cookies he shares only with her and Leia.

Rey sighs as she comes to a reluctant decision. “Raincheck?” she pleads, turning to lean against the counter and watch Ben make coffee. “I want to, but it’s been such a long week that I’d probably fall asleep on you.” And isn’t that a thought, Ben emerging from between her legs only to find her snoring away? Best not to chance any embarrassing encounters and head straight for the comfort of her own bed tonight.

Ben shrugs, and Rey allows herself a small smile; of course he’d understand. But then he leans in, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and says, “Come over anyway.”

“But…” She wants to, she really does, has been looking forward to this all week the way she’s been looking forward to weekends since she first went home with him two months ago–

“Look, Finn and Rose always wake you up first thing in the morning, right?” Ben points out as he turns his attention back to his coffee, missing the look of surprise on Rey’s face. She’d mentioned it in passing weeks ago, when she’d caught sight of the clock on his nightstand and groaned at the late hour, explaining to him that she’d most probably have to be up by seven the next morning thanks to her roommates and their habit of getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays to catch up on the week’s chores.

At the time she’d felt Ben’s careful eyes on her as she stumbled around in the darkness of his room looking for her clothes, and as Rey began to pull on her jeans she’d almost expected him to say something. But he’d remained silent save for a quiet goodnight at his door and the usual request to let him know when she got home safely, and that was that.

Now, though–

“I promise to let you sleep in,” Ben offers, and Rey’s resolve falters. “Won’t even try to wake you until noon, at the very earliest.”

Getting to actually catch up on sleep for once sounds heavenly, especially in Ben’s ridiculously comfortable bed, but Rey finds herself hesitant to accept the offer. They’ve never actually done this – arranged to spend time together for anything other than sex, agreed beforehand for her to stay the night. “Are you sure?” she asks, watching him carefully for a reaction. “I wouldn’t want to make things weird.”

“Weird?” Ben echoes with a laugh, offering her one of those smiles she’s starting to love; bright-eyed with the tiniest hint of teeth, it’s a far cry from the tight-lipped look she’d grown used to during their first few months working together. “Why would it be weird? We’ll just have dinner and go to bed, maybe watch some Netflix until we fall asleep. And I promise not to wake you up at sunrise with the vacuum.”

The picture he paints sounds oddly domestic to her, but Rey was gone as soon as he mentioned letting her sleep until noon. Whatever weirdness or awkwardness this evening brings, she’ll deal with it tomorrow – once she’s well-rested and capable of making smart choices again.

“All right, I’ll come over,” she decides, and can’t help but smile at the way Ben beams at her.

The apartment smells amazing, and Rey’s stomach growls the second Ben opens the door and ushers her in. Her first thought is that he must’ve gone ahead and ordered takeout for them, but then–

“–should be ready in a few minutes, but why don’t you go ahead and get some wine first?” Ben says as she follows him into the kitchen, only to be greeted by the sizzling sounds of stir-fry.

“You’re cooking,” she realizes out loud, standing stock-still as she takes in the sight of Ben actually making use of his kitchen for once. For her, Rey realizes, and quickly pushes that to the back of her mind by adding, “I didn’t realize you can.”

Ben shrugs without turning away from the stove. “I know just enough to not live on takeout,” he says, although the two other dishes on his countertop suggest otherwise.

“That’s still better than me,” Rey tells him, shaking off her daze to help herself to the bottle of wine he’s left out on the island. She pours him a glass as well, and something in her chest grows tight when Ben turns around and thanks her by brushing a kiss across her temple before motioning for her to sit down.

Whatever that odd feeling in her chest is, it remains in place throughout dinner. They talk about the past week, the rumors of an upcoming merger, the prank Poe pulled on Finn two days ago – normal things, the kind of things they’d usually discuss over lunch with the rest of their coworkers. Except they’re not with their coworkers, and they’re in Ben’s apartment, and a not-so-small part of Rey can’t help but compare this to a date.

After dinner she insists on doing the dishes, and eventually Ben gives in and disappears into his bathroom, calling first shower. She’s still exhausted, and the wine definitely hasn’t helped with her sleepiness, but the image of Ben in the shower almost makes her wish they were up to their usual Friday night activities.

But sleep calls to her even as she ambles into the bathroom for her turn, and when she emerges in a cloud of steam Ben’s already tucked in and setting up Netflix on the TV in his bedroom. Rey lingers by the bathroom door for a while, wondering how this works – does she just climb into bed with him? Is she supposed to turn off the lights first? Should she at least try to stay awake long enough to fool around? – until Ben spots her and pats her side of the bed invitingly.

He wraps an arm around her as soon as she’s settled in, and Rey allows her head to rest on his shoulder as Ben pulls up old episodes of The Office. His hair is still slightly damp, and the comfortingly familiar scent of his shampoo along with the warmth of his body conspire to weigh her eyelids down even as Ben laughs quietly at something onscreen and murmurs a comment against her hair.

Rey falls asleep within minutes.

In the morning, she vaguely registers warm lips brushing across her forehead and Ben saying something about water on his nightstand.

By the time she wakes up, though, the sun is high in the sky and the clock reads 12:37. She finds the promised glass of water on the nightstand, along with a note from Ben. Gone to get some things for lunch, back by noon. Go back to sleep.

The faint sound of Ben working in the kitchen pulls her out of bed, and after a quick detour to the bathroom Rey pads out on socked feet to find him cooking for her again.

“Morning,” she says, helpless against the smile that tugs on her lips and the warmth that blooms in her chest.

Ben turns around with a grin. “Hey,” he replies, momentarily abandoning the stove to drop a quick kiss on her lips. “Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty. Did you sleep well?”

“Best night’s sleep in years,” Rey assures him, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to wrap her arms around him when he turns back to the stove, to press her chest to his back and nuzzle the curve of his shoulder.

“Is this your evil masterplan?” she asks, pressing her cheek to his arm as she inspects what he’s making for lunch. “Lure me here with the promise of sleep and keep me forever with food?”

“Is it working?” Ben asks without pause, without hesitation, and it’s not lost on either of them that he doesn’t deny wanting to keep her.

Rey waits for that odd chest tightness from last night to reappear, and smiles when it doesn’t. “Maybe,” she shrugs, rising up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Ben’s check before she lets go of him.

Lunch and the rest of the afternoon seem to go by in the blink of an eye, a haze of lazing about and more kisses than they’ve exchanged in the entirety of their acquaintance. It’s only when Ben mentions getting started on dinner that Rey realizes she’s probably overstayed her welcome.

“I should get going,” she says as they get up from the couch, keeping her eyes on the ground as Ben stretches out sleeping muscles, preparing herself for a casual dismissal and the usual I’ll walk you to the door.

“Or you could just stay another night.”

When she looks up, Rey finds Ben giving her the most earnest look she’s ever seen on him. “Ben,” she says carefully, watching the way a hint of wariness casts a shadow over his hopeful eyes. “We’ve been together for a full day now.”

“So?” he asks, looking utterly unbothered by the fact.

It takes a lot of effort to keep herself in check, to keep her hope from blinding her. “So… aren’t you sick of me yet?” she asks only half-jokingly.

“Rey,” Ben sighs, and then he’s reaching out and pulling her into his arms and his lips are brushing the sensitive skin of her ear as he whispers, “I could never get sick of you.”

Heart in her throat, Rey tentatively wraps her arms around him in return. “Was this… I mean… I’ve been here all day and we haven’t had sex. Not even once. That’s not normal for us, Ben.”

He draws back to look her in the eye. “It could be.”

“Ben,” she says, and gathers up all her courage to ask– “What is this?”

“This is what I want for us,” he tells her without a moment’s pause, without even the slightest hint of fear. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Just twenty-four hours ago, the idea of her and Ben being anything more than a long-term hook-up would’ve knocked Rey off her feet. The mere suggestion of her spending the night had filled her with questions and concerns about their arrangement, so carefully crafted all those weeks ago to cater to their needs without overstepping any boundaries.

But now… now that she knows what it’s like to fall asleep in his arms, now that she’s familiar with the wave of affection that swells in her heart when she sees him cooking for her, now that she can picture them doing this every weekend for the rest of her life–

“Okay,” Rey agrees casually, even throws in a shrug.

“Okay?” Ben asks, his confident façade betrayed by the disbelief in his eyes.

“Whatever this is,” she tells him, waves around the apartment to indicate the past twenty-four hours, the glimpse of their future that he’s offered her, “I like it. I want it. So yes, Ben,” Rey says with a smile so wide it hurts, “okay.”

He blinks at her once, twice, and then– “Okay,” Ben declares with a bright smile of his own, and seals the deal with a kiss.

I don’t even know what this is, y’all. I know I say that a lot, but this one feels particularly rushed and half-assed to me. But hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things soon!

Until then, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/comment.

#reylo #rey x ben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #ficlet: a little of your love #series: ao3 reblog #my fics #fic archive

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starchasertonight · 6 years

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What if when kadena met Kat was out and Adena wasn't in the relationship.

i honestly meant to just ficlet this but then an accidental 2k word fic happened. so…there’s that. this is an AU.

—

“Remind me why we’re going to this art show thing, again?”Jane asks as they all turn the corner, approaching the Brooklyn gallery.

“’Cause Sutton’s hot hipster guy mentioned he’d be there.”

“Ok, can we please stop calling him hot hipster guy? He’snot that hipster, and his name isBrian.”

“But why exactly are wegoing?” Jane persists, gesturing between Kat and herself.

“So it doesn’t look like she’s going just for him. Suttonsaid she’d be there like she already had plans too,” Kat says with a laugh,nudging Sutton with her elbow.

“We’re not hipster Brooklyn people.”

“You are tonight!” Sutton says, flashing her best smile andJane rolls her eyes while Kat keeps laughing. “Please? For me?” she adds toJane.

“Bet there’s gonna besome artsy queer girls here. There always are at these things,” Kat muses outloud, and Sutton turns on her, eyes narrowed.

“I knew it! I knewthere was a reason you agreed to this so quickly!”

“What? So I’m multitasking,” she shrugs. “I can find ahottie to take home and be your wingwoman at the same time. It’s a win-win,babe.”

Jane’s the one laughing now while Sutton rolls her eyes, andthen they’re at the entrance to the gallery, walking up behind several otherpeople also making their way in.

“What happened with you and that guy?” Jane asks. “What washis name?”

“Daryn,” Sutton supplies.

“Yeah, Daryn.”

“He started sending me good morning texts,” Kat says,leading the way towards the small pop-up bar stationed in the corner.

She knows that Sutton and Jane are sharing a look behind herbut she ignores them, pulling her card out of her wallet.

“Yeah, hi, can I get a vodka cran, please?” she asks thebartender, and Sutton leans against the makeshift bar top beside her.

“Oh! There he is!” Sutton jumps, grasping her arm, and Janeturns her head around.

“Okay, so what do you want us to do?” Jane asks.

Brian looks up and there’s a clear moment where he andSutton make eye contact before she looks away, back to the two of them.

“Wait for him to come to us,” Sutton says, conspiring, andKat thanks the bartender for her drink.

“So what’s this show for?” Jane questions, looking around,and Kat follows suit.

It’s the first time since she walked in that she’s paid anyattention to the art on the walls. The show must be for multiple artists,because the pieces are split up in different sections of the gallery and arevery different from each other. Some are paintings, others photographs.

The pictures really catch her eye, even from a distance,because they’re striking portraits of people. She makes a mental note to maybecheck them out more later, once they successfully run into Brian.

Brian finally comes over with a friend (who unsuccessfullytries to hit on Jane) about ten minutes later, and then Sutton is gone,chatting and walking with him around the gallery. She and Jane share a subtlefist bump, across their cocktail table, and that’s when she notices a girl withside-shaved hair and a septum piercing not so subtly glancing at the two ofthem.

Jane notices too after a moment, giving Kat a look, and shegives a small shake of her head in return.

“I can already smell that she doesn’t wear deodorant, so that’sgonna be a hard no from me,” she whispers, matter of fact, and Jane holds theback of her hand to her mouth to hide her laugh.

A woman starts speaking from a microphone, diverting theirattention, and thanks people for coming, explaining the show and introducing theartists.

“…and last, but certainly not least, Adena El-Amin.”

Several people cheerand clap as a woman wearing a flowy red top, hair wrapped and covered, smilesin acknowledgment at the crowd in the room and hugs the woman holding the mic.

Kat can tell even from her spot by the bar that the artistis beautiful, and she doesn’t even realize that her head is tilted, biting herlip and staring after her, until Jane elbows her.

“No way.”

“What?” she questions, feigning innocence.

“There’s no way you’re getting her to go home with you,”Jane says, and she scoffs.

“Is that a bet?” she answers, competitiveness kicking in,and Jane groans.

“What are the odds that she’s even into women?”

Kat watches Adena, the way she greets people, the way sheinteracts with the women around her, and she’s already getting some vibes.

“Mm, fifty percent, at least,” she hums, thoughtful.

“Wow, ok. Didn’t mean that as a literal question. How do youeven…”

She sets her empty drink down on the high table, doesn’t letJane finish her question before cutting in with—

“Wish me luck, tiny Jane.”

She walks away toward the artist before Jane can stop her.

She decides to go look at Adena’s art first, so she hassomething to talk about, something to open with. And it’s only after staringfor several minutes at the gorgeous portraits of people from mosques throughoutthe city that she makes her way over to the photographer.

She’s exactly as pretty close-up as Kat thought she’d be,and there’s a brief moment of butterflies in her stomach. Because yeah, she’sgood at this and she knows she’s hot, but this woman is gorgeous and apparentlyalso talented as fuck. But Jane is gonna give her such a hard time if shedoesn’t follow through after acting so confident, so there’s no backing downnow.

“Hi,” she says, as soon as the person talking to Adena turnsaway. “I’m Kat,” she continues, extending her hand, and Adena reaches out toshake it. “Your photographs are so beautiful, I had to meet you.”

The artist smiles back with warm brown eyes, and her hand issoft against Kat’s before she drops it.

“Thank you, Kat. And thank you for coming over to introduceyourself. I always enjoy meeting new people at shows.”

“Of course,” she answers, giving her best relaxed smile.“And I love those earrings, they’re gorgeous on you.”

She sneaks in the initial compliment, subtly flirtatiousenough that a straight girl wouldn’t think anything of it. But then Adena picksup on it, gives her a slow smile in response, blinking up at her, and bingo.

Adena doesn’t blush though, doesn’t show any sign ofbashfulness. Instead she just smiles, arms crossed against her chest when she surveys Kat with curiosity and answers—

“What brought you here tonight?”

“My friend’s trying to impress this guy she met on tinder,and I was her wingwoman,” she says, deciding for honesty, and Adena gives asurprised laugh. “Tell me more about this project,” Kat smiles, inclining herhead towards Adena’s photographs.

She knows that artist types love to talk about their work,that it’s the best way to keep conversation going with Adena right now, andsure enough Adena’s face lights up, answering her.

Here’s the thing, though, that she doesn’t see coming—

Adena? Is actually an incredible person to listen to. Andthe more she talks about her work, answering Kat’s follow-up questions, themore she’s genuinely interested in it all.

Adena talks about both the love and the tension that shefeels in places of worship, the conversations that led to these pictures, andKat is absolutely enamored with her. The more that the conversation unfolds,the more unsure of herself she feels, like she’s been thrown off her gamecompletely.

This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.

“Listen, Kat, there are some other people here that I needto speak with, to thank,” Adena explains, and she wonders how long they’ve beentalking. “But I would very much like to continue our conversation. Do you havetime, after the show? It will probably be another hour or so before I’mfinished. If not, I understand. I know it’s getting late.”

Kat smiles at her, more bashful than earlier, and nods.

“I’d like that. I’ll hang around, come find me when you’reready.”

They end up at a late night café, a couple blocks down, andthey’ve been talking for nearly forty-five minutes when Kat pauses, shaking herhead.

“You know, I honestly had no idea we’d end up talking likethis, when I walked up to you,” she admits, a little unnerved by how quicklythis has become something like a date.

“Oh?” Adena asks, curious and chin resting in her hand.

“No, I just thought you were really attractive,” Kat laughs,opting for honesty, and Adena smiles at her.

Her face is more contemplative than anything else, gaugingKat’s reaction, when she says, “You should know that I’m not one for hook-ups.”

“I already figured that out,” she says, and Adena quirks hereyebrow. “I’ve given you like, at least two clear openings to leave this caféwith me that you swerved.”

Adena laughs and then bites her lip, looking in to Kat’seyes, and god she’s so pretty thatKat just really wants to kiss her.

“So…what now?”

Adena asks it like she means it, like she’s truly open to possibilityfor whatever’s unfolding between them, and there’s something so disarming aboutit all.

Her phone screen lights up with another text from Jane outof the corner of her eye, also revealing the time and how late it is.

“Now…” she hums, holding Adena’s hand where it’s resting ontheir little table and giving her a flirtatious look. “Now I give you my number,and… I leave because I have an 8 AM meeting tomorrow. Aaand, you text me if youwant to see me again.”

Adena looks into her eyes, making Kat swallow, then gives alittle quirk of her lips and reaches in her bag for her phone.

“Okay.”

Kat doesn’t think about what this means right now, the implicationsof it all. Because she doesn’t date. She doesn’t.

But this felt suspiciously like an impromptu date, and she’ssad that it’s over, and she’s already hoping that Adena follows through andtexts her.

This doesn’t happen to her. Ever.

She knows she’s gonna have to talk to Jane and Sutton aboutit, and she’s already dreading their overdramatic excitement.

Adena gives Kat her number too, and then they’re standingoutside of the café together. It feels weird, leaving like this. Do they justsay bye and start walking in opposite directions? Do they hug?

Kat really wants to kiss her, and in any other situation theclear signs would be there for her to just go for it.

Adena holds her armsout for a hug and Kat follows her lead, sinking into her embrace. She feelswarmth spread through her body at the intimate contact, at how good she feelseven just like this. And when Adena starts to pull back, Kat looks into hereyes, decides to go for it and whispers—

“Can I kiss you?”

She honestly doesn’t know what the answer is going to be.But then Adena is nodding, coy smile on her face when she leans in and Katbrings their lips together, cupping her face.

She feels her whole body react, because Adena kisses hermore deeply than she expects, mouth relaxed as their lips glide together, andKat grasps her waist. And then, just as she’s starting to get lost in the kiss,hands wandering her back, Adena pulls away, smiling and blinking up at herbefore she takes a step back.

“You don’t play fair,” Kat says, trying not to whine, andAdena’s eyes are sparkling when she gives her a knowing smile.

“Goodnight, Kat.”

“G’night, Adena.”

She’s still standing there, dazed from the kiss, when Adena smiles and walks away.

#bz fics #kadena #i think this is officially the longest response ive ever had to an ask prompt lmao

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medproish · 6 years

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The Pulitzer Prizes startled a lot of people this year with an award that’s usually greeted as an afterthought: the music prize, which went to Kendrick Lamar’s album “DAMN.” It was not only the first time a music Pulitzer was given to a hip-hop album, but also to any work outside the more rarefied precincts of classical and, occasionally, jazz composition — indeed, to an album that reached No. 1 on the pop chart. And while it has been reported that “DAMN.” was the unanimous choice of the Pulitzer music jury, the award was met in other quarters with disgruntlement and even outrage. Here, Zachary Woolfe, the classical music editor of The New York Times, and Jon Pareles, the chief pop music critic, discuss the choice.

JON PARELES To me, this prize is as overdue as it was unexpected. When I look at the Pulitzers across the board, what I overwhelmingly see rewarded are journalistic virtues: fact-gathering, vivid detail, storytelling, topicality, verbal dexterity and, often, real-world impact after publication. It’s an award for hard-won persuasiveness. Well hello, hip-hop.

ZACHARY WOOLFE One comment I read on Facebook, from a gifted young composer and pianist, was “I have complicated feelings about this, but also, I mean, about damn time.” Yes, and yes. There seems to be broad agreement, which I join, about the quality of “DAMN.” — its complexity and sensitivity, its seductive confidence and unity, its dense weaving of the personal and political, the religious and sexual.

But there is also wariness, which I join, about an opening of the prize — not to hip-hop, per se, but to music that has achieved blockbuster commercial success. This is now officially one fewer guaranteed platform — which, yes, should be open to many genres — for noncommercial work, which scrapes by on grants, fellowships, commissions and, yes, awards.

“DAMN.” was the unanimous choice of the Pulitzer music jury.

[ Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. ]

PARELES That response is similar to many publishing-world reactions when Bob Dylan got the Nobel Prize in Literature — that a promotional opportunity was being lost for something worthy but more obscure, preferably between hard covers. A literary figure who had changed the way an entire generation looked at words and ideas was supposed to forgo the award because, well, he’d reached too many people? Do we really want to put a sales ceiling on what should get an award? The New York Times and The New Yorker already have a lot of subscribers … uh-oh.

WOOLFE I don’t think there is a universal desire for the Nobel to reward obscurity; I’m sure many who were skeptical of Mr. Dylan’s win would have been just fine with the best-selling Philip Roth. But it has felt for decades like an integral part of the Pulitzer’s mission is to shine a light on corners of music that are otherwise nearly ignored by the broader culture. The award has acted as a reminder — though long a way too stylistically limited one — that artmaking exists beyond the Billboard (and now Spotify) charts.

“DAMN.” is surely deserving, yet its victory feels like another sign of the world, and therefore the musical culture, we live in — embodied by the streaming services, through which the biggest artists and albums get more and more, and everyone else gets a smaller piece of the pie. This system is corrosive to music, period — classical, jazz, hip-hop, everything. It’s the reality — and there are certainly a lot of very popular artists who are very meaningful, Mr. Lamar among them — but I don’t like every aspect of it.

PARELES I completely agree with you about the unhealthy overall effects of winner-take-all culture. The word “trending” makes me instinctively recoil; as critics, you and I both want to direct people beyond popularity charts. But choosing “DAMN.” wasn’t a capitulation to mere popularity. The album is a complex, varied, subtle, richly multilayered work, overflowing with ideas and by no means immediately ingratiating. You have to give it genuine attention and thought to get the most out of it, just as with any other Pulitzer-winning composition.

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Meanwhile, wasn’t the music Pulitzer, for many decades, largely the captive of a small, insular academic music scene? The Pulitzers refused a special citation for Duke Ellington, who never won the award. They ignored jazz — artistically subtle and sublime, commercially endangered — until Wynton Marsalis finally got a Pulitzer in 1997. They were unconscionably late — looking awfully cliquish to me — even in recognizing Minimalism: Steve Reich got his Pulitzer in 2009, not in 1977 for “Music for 18 Musicians.”

To me, it looks like some of the squawks are complaints about exclusivity being breached. And if you ask me, it should have happened sooner. I hereby nominate, for a retrospective Pulitzer, Public Enemy’s 1988 album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”: an experimental sonic bombshell, a verbal torrent, a mind expander. For that matter, the Pulitzers were late on Kendrick Lamar, too: “To Pimp a Butterfly,” from 2015, has even more musical breadth than “DAMN.” (which has plenty).

Wynton Marsalis was the first jazz musician to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1997. Deidre Schoo for The New York Times

WOOLFE There have been so many missed opportunities. The year after it turned down Ellington — the main Pulitzer board rejected the music jury’s recommendation — it could have given the regular prize to Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” How about Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” which could have won in 1972 — over a decade before the prize finally got around to recognizing a female composer? Philip Glass, never quite beloved in the academic realm, remains Pulitzer-less. And I’ll just leave this right here: Kanye.

You could play these fantasy games forever. It is belated and necessary that the award widen to encompass a fuller picture of what music is. But if that widening further marginalizes noncommercial work — which doesn’t view itself as exclusive but simply as endangered in an economic system that conspires against it — something important will be lost. Responsible eclecticism is what I’d want going forward from Pulitzer juries, for whom the “DAMN.” award will hopefully be freeing in the best sense.

PARELES What were the pieces from the other two finalists, Ted Hearne and Michael Gilbertson?

WOOLFE Like Mr. Lamar, who’s 30, these guys are strikingly young. Mr. Gilbertson, 30 as well, wrote a string quartet that veers from glassy to robust, and Mr. Hearne, 35, wrote “Sound From the Bench,” a cantata for chamber choir, electric guitars and drums. Like Mr. Lamar’s album, the finalists are politically charged: Mr. Hearne, always socially conscious, here mashes up texts from Supreme Court decisions to suggest the ambiguities of identity and humanity. (A corporation has speech, you say?) And Mr. Gilbertson has said that he adjusted his initial sketches for his quartet after the 2016 election, making them “more introspective and comforting.” Almost as significant as Mr. Lamar’s win, for me, is the trio taken together: a new generation, turning the world around it into music.

PARELES I’ll have to put them in a playlist. I’m not suggesting that the Pulitzers mirror the Top 10 or the Grammys. (Please, no.) And next year, sure, give the prize to an album that sold 11 copies after a lone college gig somewhere. But I think we’re seeing a shifting perspective on the way contemporary classical and jazz composition often draw on the ideas of hip-hop or world music or pop, as if to elevate them by carrying them into the concert hall.

According to the Pulitzer reporting, “DAMN.” got added to consideration when the jury was looking into a composition with hip-hop influences, and decided to go to the source — where the ideas, in this case, are even stronger, both rawer and smarter. The prize citation praises “DAMN.” for its “vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism,” which to me has a whiff of condescension — there’s all sorts of brainpower and artifice in there, too — but let’s enjoy the win. Regarding noncommercial outreach, Mr. Lamar often collaborates with first-rate, innovative jazz musicians, like Kamasi Washington, who not only are happy to work with him but also benefit — in their own audience growth — from showing up in his album credits.

One thing that also strikes me about giving the award to “DAMN.” is that it quietly sets aside two previous Pulitzer givens: that the winning piece was performed by live musicians in real time and that it was written by a solitary composer. But “DAMN.” has multiple producers, composers and performers (even Rihanna and U2 cameos!) layering tracks in studios. Mr. Lamar is the auteur, fully in charge but not the sole creator. It’s another way of making music that deserves respect.

WOOLFE This year’s Pulitzer actually reinforced that old Romantic illusion of the singular composer. It was given to Mr. Lamar alone — not, as in the Grammys, to the album’s songwriting or producing teams, too.

PARELES Maybe they should change the citation to “Kendrick Lamar and staff” — like the reporting prizes. To me, both the Dylan Nobel and the Lamar Pulitzer — which is not the first hip-hop Pulitzer; Lin-Manuel Miranda got that for drama with “Hamilton” — are signals that the old prize-giving institutions are rethinking the ways in which they used to circumscribe the idea of quality. As long as they’re conscientious, that can make the awards only more significant.

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ponkinitha · 7 years

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This post is in honor of my last exam in college. If I have missed you, know that you will forever and always be in my heart.

After the main orientation by the college in the Auditorium, we were asked to go to certain rooms to meet with our class mentors and get our timetables for the year and whatever else that the mentor had planned. Our classroom was in the third floor. It was the corner room behind the bio tech department, which I found strange. Nitya and I huffed and puffed to climb those three floors, only to be met with Rishi, who was standing there to inform all first years that the orientation was in the ground floor, in the Environmental Science department. She rolled her eyes and we climbed back downstairs.

Orientation Day

Orientation day

The weirdest and most awkward day in all of Environmental Science students’ lives is the Orientation day. Not the one that the college collectively gives all of first years, but this is small special occasion: just for the Environmental Science “noobs”. Prabhakar sir makes it very memorable, with the two getting-to-know activities, we probably knew things about one another better than anybody else did on the first day itself.

In the first activity, we were supposed to stand in two concentric circles, one facing the other, and speak to the person opposite to you, looking into each other’s eyes while holding hands with the other person. After a few rounds of boys, the first girl I came across was Tenzin Passang. This lovely Tibetan had a sore throat that day. I think she wore a yellow kurta. Her voice was barely above a whisper and I had to lean in real close. It felt like we were conspiring against the whole new set of people. We giggled in low voices like little girls.

Passang and Sonali

The second activity was a silent skit of any one of the two incomplete stories that Prabs had narrated us. I found myself in an all-girls group with Smriti, Indu, Sam, Passang and someone else — Jyothi, I think, and we performed the caterpillars on pilgrimage story and Passang was the tree. Once that was done, my original seat was gone and I sat at the edge next to a long-haired girl, also in a yellow kurta. I hadn’t met her in the first activity, so she introduced herself to me. A hand with long slender fingers to her chest, “Hi, I’m Samudyatha,” she said slowly. I smiled. She was probably the first Kannadiga that I’d come across that day, and I was a lot relieved that I didn’t have to feel so intimidated by everyone anymore.

Samudyatha and I in Yukatas

***

Sometime in the following days after the orientation day, I was sitting in the third or second row, when I overheard two girls behind me speaking:

Girl one: Who is your OTP?

Girl two: What’s an OTP?

Such an abomination! I was only new into the world of “Fandom”, but even I knew what OTP meant. I turn around to face the two girls behind me.

Me: OTP? One True Pairing? Mine’s Everlark!

Girl one: Ooh, nice!

Me: Who’s yours?

Girl one: I actually have two. One is Percabeth, and another is from the Mortal Instruments. You know the series?

Me: *shakes head*

Girl one: Oh, the other OTP is from that. Malec.

Girl two: *MIA*

And that’s the story of how I met my first best fangirl friend, Indumathi Arunan.

Our traditional, standard ethnic day picture.

***

The most memorable re-meet was with Prince. One morning, I was walking the long walk from the bus stop to college, when someone walked beside me: long legged, tall (of course) and eating biscuits. I recognized him from my new class. Harshith, was it…?

I don’t remember what I spoke to him, but he offered me bourbon biscuits, and I was so happy. I took one and munched on it hungrily. I was just finishing up that biscuit when he offered me another. I initially refused, but he just held it in front of me, his long fingers gripping the packet in a friendly manner. Breakfast-less as usual, I ate another one. He also offered me water, but I drank my own. Little did I know that he would become one of my best friends for life.

***

It was one sultry August Friday. It was Varamaha Lakshmi puja that day, and I remember wearing a new Chrome yellow kurta and olive green lycra pants and a matching dupatta. It was a really nice and sad day. I’d just joined my Creative Writing course, and the class started at 5 in the evening. My classes got over by 4, I think, and after sending off all my friends, (namely Samudyatha) I was thinking of doing something until class began. I ran into Poorvi in the canteen. I knew Poorvi from my 2nd PU coaching centre, and I think I spoke with her for a bit and she introduced me to Aquib. Then it started raining. We were confined to the humid walls of the canteen for a while before Poorvi got an idea: why not eat ice cream in the rain?

We went and bought ice cream in the canteen. Sadly, there were only two D’Daaz Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce ice cream that day, and Aquib, being the gentleman he is, let us girls buy them and he bought something else. We went all the way out of the canteen and to the ground and the humanities block. We went around the ground a couple of times, and then when it was time, I told them “byes” and left for class. The rain was a very fine drizzle and just settles on your skin and clothes and hair but doesn’t really seep in. it was wonderful.

I don’t remember what we spoke about, or even if we did. It was just one of those fine, fine days that remains in you for a really long time.

Then I went home after class, and sent Trance on his way to his originally intended home. Happy and Sad day.

Standing eyes closed with Poorvi

***

One afternoon, Nairika and I almost made it in time for class. I had accompanied her to the Humanities block for something, and on the way back, we struck up a conversation that made us sit in the playground for more than twenty minutes, while she told me all about her past. That was one of the only times I’d spoken with her for long and so closely and it jarred me for a second that people can be so trusting towards not-well-known people.

Field trip to FRLHT

With Nairika, first ethnic day!

***

Smriti had once vaguely mentioned about her school friend buying a nice camera and was joining our college for the Vocational Course on Film making. At that time, I didn’t give much thought. Sometime in the beginning of second year, I was running around for something (as usual I don’t remember why) when I met Smriti near the canteen. She introduced me to her school friend, Arun and I said,

“Hi, nice to meet you!”

(Or something along those lines…) and dashed off. The next thing I know we’re sitting at lunch with Arun and talking as if we’d been long lost friends. His hands are like a small child’s, rough on the outside but contrarily, soft to the touch.

***

Prince was speaking with this tall, athletic-looking boy one day, and I kept seeing him talking to Prince quite often after that. I asked Prince one day,

“Who is that guy that you talk to? He comes in our bus, no?”

“I forgot his name. I’ll find out soon again. But he lives near my house. CBZ guy. Also in my Kannada class.”

“Oh, okay.”

The same tall boy one day, on the way to the bus stop, asked me if I had a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which he’d seen with one of his classmates earlier. I told him that I’d lend it to him whenever he wanted.

Today, we speak about a ton of things that I never thought I’d speak about. I often imagine his long veined arms and fingers furiously typing long texts late into the night. That’s Yeshas, bringing out the best versions of people.

***

The last day of Sanskrit class was the day where I realized I was going to miss it.

That class was thoroughly and neatly divided into boys’ side and girls’ side, and four of us, Vaishnavi, Tejasvini, Haimanthi and me, sat in the middle bench of the middle row and make trouble. Make trouble as in talk endlessly about things that varied from music to culture to castes to dirty jokes on the stories we were learning to fandoms. Everybody was new to me and I am so glad I’d found them. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the classes as much as I did if even one of them were missing.

Vaishnavi, Haimanthi, Me and Tejasvini, troublemakers :D

***

I think people found it weird that I had days where I could not eat non vegetarian food. Those days are my “vegetarian” days, and on those days, Sam and Nairika and Smriti were happy that they’d gotten someone on their side.

Every afternoon, when DJ brought his plate of colourful biryani from the canteen, he asks me,

“Is it one of your vegetarian days?”

“It’s a Monday, Deej. I’ve been eating with you for more than a year now. What do you think?”

Sam pipes in, “Vegetarian today.”

DJ just sighs and eats his biryani, his fingers gracefully cleaning up the plate.

Classic picture of DJ.

***

When we were up trekking the Kunti Betta I was very close to giving up at more than a few instances. Each time, Jyothi just pulled me up and forward. I was dressed in hiking shoes and a comfortable t shirt and stretchy jeans; she was in normal college clothes, chudidar and sandals.

***

Before third year started, Prabs had told us that three guys from the previous batch would be joining us for the year: Denzil, Chetan and Samuel. I’d known Denzil, whom Samudyatha and I call Danny and was really fun to hang out with; and we knew Chetan; he was quiet and brooding but underneath all that façade was one hell of a troublemaker. Samuel- now that name was new. And I did not expect him to be the way he is.

Samuel is smart and sarcastic. His quick wit is appreciated widely by most of our classmates (those who get the jokes) and especially by his namesake, Sam(udyatha). The Sam ‘n’ Sam duo is epic. If they had a stand-up comedy show, I’d be the first to buy tickets. His hands are like his personality: it looks like they don’t belong to the body and they do, at the same time.

Chetan and Samuel on Chetan’s birthday.

***

I think this was sometime during fifth sem. Salka stayed at her uncle’s place in another part of JP Nagar, some 4 kilometers from my home. She invited me and Prince over for lunch one day, and she said she’d cook something very Tripura-n. Prince and I were excited. It was one of my chicken eating days and I knew she’d cook it. When I went to her place, I found out that she’d gotten some really bad news. But she insisted that she cook for us, and cook for us she did. Along with special chicken, she cooked us vegetables and rice. It was good food. And good food comes with a good show. We watched three out of twenty-something episodes of this Korean show called “My True Love From The Stars”, that Sonali had recommended, where the protagonist was absolutely OTT. I took the full show from her and watched it the rest of the week. It was a nice afternoon, even though I finished my lunch at about 5 in the evening.

***

Mine and Parvathi’s conversations are similar to tagging each other on Facebook memes.

Me: We should totally do this. (referring to a set of poetry prompts).

Her: Hell Yeah.

*After a few days of attempting the prompts*

Her: But it is hard dude.

Me: I know.

Her: My brain has gone numb.

Me: I KNOW.

***

One of the only other people apart from Sam that I wanted to keep a stall with during Meta was Nithya. I’d seen her art and I’d loved them all. And I knew she’d have plenty of ideas.

I was not wrong. Keeping a stall with her has been a really good experience. And to think we’d made such a good team! When she opens her book box, I will be first in line to get them.

***

That one nasty February Friday during third year ended on a sour note. I was hurrying to perform for my third final poetry slam during Meta after this “pointless experiment”. Sam was at my heels and Smriti also followed me. I asked her, “Where are you going, Smritz?”

“I want to see you perform.” She looked baffled that I would even ask such a question.

At that moment, I felt an immense surge of gratitude and love for my friends. They wanted to see me perform badly. If they’d asked me to launch a nuclear missile on the Vidhana Soudha that day, I would have gladly done it, without second thought.

Although, I didn’t get to perform it, I loved the piece that I wrote for it. I would’ve been very nervous (more than usual) because it was really honest and I think I would’ve scared away my few precious friends.

Some smiles!

***

Naveen refused to be my talent for that week. I hadn’t done it in almost a year and his was only the second one in my third year. I was nervous, sure, but I was 100% sure that Naveen deserved all the fame and glory he could get. It took me a long time to convince him, and even then he wasn’t. Then I took the shortest method out as a final resort: tell Yeshas that Naveen was being stupid. It took Naveen a few hours to finally text me,

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

And I wondered why I didn’t take the shortcut earlier.

Naveen’s post, till date has about 600 views; the most on a single post and I can’t even get started on the response that I got from it. And to think that Naveen thought he didn’t deserve it.

***

To James, who’s been one of the kindest boys I’ve ever known in my life, to my namesake Pari, to Drishti and Srishti for being so lively and amazing and supportive and to Ismail and his morbid jokes, to all those people who have waved or smiled at me while passing each other in the corridors or in the bathrooms and sometimes asked each other “How are you?”, to all my present and former classmates I’ve not mentioned, to all the Graphic.Inc people, to Archana for making me laugh so hard that I was clutching my stomach with tears rolling down my cheeks and to Rajitha for being one of my biggest supporters for my writing,

You’ve made it all worth it.

Seminar hasn’t started yet!

Bored and waiting

Seminar hasn’t started yet!

End of three years? Nah, not really. This post is in honor of my last exam in college. If I have missed you, know that you will forever and always be in my heart.

#college #college life #family #food #friends #fun #graduation #happy #newbies

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