#with just a Dr. Two Brains dad twist

[bullet-prooflove]

Syria!Series Part Four: The Bullet, The Bottle or This...

Tagging: @crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @withakindheartx @justameresimp @agentorange9595 @handsupforamiracle @lxaah11 @librarian1002 @imaginecrushes @flrboyd @nani-kenobi @areamir @b-bradshaw @adaydreamaway08 @crimeshowjunkie @shepgurl @inkandarsenic @caffeinatedwoman @tortilla-maria1 @lemmons1998 @dr-alan-grantler @dizzybee03 @burningpeachpuppy @penguin876 @haley-hotchner @deliriousfangirl61

Syria!Series:

Part One: Syria - You're stuck on the otherside of the world when Beau's captured in Syria.

Part Two: In Sickness & Health - Beau eventually makes it home.

Part Three: Catch 22 - Beau struggles to cope in the aftermath of Syria.

“You know how this ends Beau; we both do. The bullet, the bottle or this…” You say gesturing at the post-it in his hand. “It’s your call.”

Your words ring in Beau’s ears as he paces the living room thinking of the lime green post-it that’s crumpled up on the coffee table. He hasn’t spoken to you since last night, he didn’t even say goodbye when you walked out the door this morning. The problem is he knows you’re right. If he keeps going like this, he either puts a bullet in his brain or he drinks himself to death.

Either way it’s suicide.

One is just a longer journey that the other.

He’s so angry, he can feel that rage, that frustration boil up inside of him as he clutches that stupid little ceramic horse your mother gave you in his hand. He wants to hurt you, to punish you and he knows destroying this thing is the perfect way to do it.

You haven’t said the words, but he knows that they are there, swelling beneath the surface.

You’re becoming your father.

He thought he’d managed to hide the fact he’s been making his way through the drink’s cabinet. He waits until you’ve gone to bed before he takes the first sip, gets rid of the bottle before you come down in the morning. You must have noticed though; he wracks his brain trying to work out how, but it doesn’t matter.

He clenches his fist, the edges of the horse figurine biting into his palm. He hates this fucking thing, it’s ugly and chipped, it doesn’t go with anything else in the house. He looks into it’s black glossy eyes and it looks back judging him. He’s already drawn back his arm, ready to hurl it at the fucking wall, when his gaze comes to rest on the picture that sat alongside of it.

It’s of you and your mom, just before she’d gotten sick. You must have been eleven because he knows it went downhill quickly after that. She was gone before you even got to your twelfth birthday. That photo and the stupid horse were the only things you had left of her because your dad had gotten rid of everything else, he had eradicated any sign of her presence after she had died, he’d been too wrapped up in his own grief to consider that his daughters may be suffering too.

He catches a glance of himself in the mirror and he doesn’t recognise the man staring back at him. He’s unkempt and unshaven, wild eyed and vicious. In that moment he sees his father, seconds before he smashes the model fighter jet that thirteen-year-old Beau had spent weeks meticulously piecing together. He recalls the feeling as he watched it explode against the wall, the way his heart dropped out of his chest, the devastation that filled him as he tried to collect all the pieces so that he could put it back together again.

He can’t do that to you. He can’t inflict a wound like that.

He puts the horse back down alongside the picture of your mother, swallowing hard against the well of emotion in his chest. He can’t believe how close he just came to destroying you, how the impulse had chased through his veins like a toxin, twisting him until he was someone else. Someone vengeful, someone cruel.

He knows what will happen if he keeps this up, if he allows the trauma to consume him. The next thing he lashes out at will be you and the sick thing is he knows you’d take it; you’d take it until either he kills you or he kills himself. He can’t do that; he won’t do that.

When Soloman arrives to pick him up for the appointment, he’s freshly shaven and wearing clean clothes. He still needs a hair cut but he can’t face the idea of sitting in a barber’s chair, it’s taking everything he has to leave the house right now. He winces at the glare of the sunshine; he puts his sunglasses on over his face before he pulls the front door shut behind him.

He’s silent for most of the journey and so is his oldest friend. Solomon has always been intuitive, he’s much better at reading moods than Beau is.

“I didn’t realise that Ally was seeing a counsellor.” Beau says finally as he looks out of the window, watching the trees go by.

“Yea.” Solomon says quietly. “It seems to be helping.”

“Good.” Beau says, nodding his head. “That’s good.”

His palm rubs over the watch on his wrist, the one you’d gotten him for your second wedding anniversary. His thumb trails across the gold links before he clears throat.

“I don’t know when we stopped talking.” He tells Solomon. “I know it’s me, that it’s my fault but we’ve never had that problem before. We don’t keep things from each other and now it feels like that’s all we’re doing. It feels like we’re disconnected.”

“A terrible thing happened to you.” Solomon reminds him as he pulls the car up into one of the parking spaces. “Something that shouldn’t happen to anyone. Your way of dealing with that is to isolate yourself, cut yourself off because you don’t want other people to know how much you’re suffering. You think it makes you look weak because that’s what your father told you.”

“Christ, maybe I should be paying you to be my therapist.” Beau says, undoing his seatbelt.

“You are not weak for admitting it’s tearing you up inside, that you’re struggling.” Solomon continues as he turns off the engine. “If you want to get better, if you want to heal, then you need to start talking to us because me and Ally, we’re here for you but you’ve gotta let us in, you’ve gotta work with us.”

Beau sighs his hand coming to rest on the door handle.

“I’m terrified.” He tells Solomon, gesturing at the building in front of them. “Of going in there, of what happens if I don’t. It feels like my heart is about to beat right out of my chest.”

“Alright.” Solomon says, unclipping his own seatbelt. “Let’s take those first steps together.”

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[boyrobott]

on the way home to you

Dr. Tenma pushes himself up off the edge of the bed, and crosses the room in a mere two and a half strides to plant himself in front of Astro, looming tall with his arms folded firmly over his chest and his whole body positively crackling with anger. “Do you have any idea what time it is right now?”

(Somehow, Astro really doesn’t think this is the optimal moment to remind his dad about the digital clock built into his brain, currently flashing 12:38 AM at him.)

Read on AO3.

It's half-past midnight by the time Astro finally makes it back to the penthouse, bone-tired and heavy-eyed from the long day's work, and flying much lower and slower than usual, his rockets sputtering unhappily at the overuse. He doesn't want to accidentally wake Orrin or his dad when he comes in, so he forgets the front door in favor of his bedroom window—which is still unlatched, exactly the way he left it when he slipped out hours ago, thank you so much, past me, so he lets himself inside with no more noise than the quiet scrape of glass on glass he pushes the sliding pane over to the other side, and the soft clack of his boots on the bedroom floor as he lands.

Even with the thick, greyish-brown clumps of dirt and dust and loose gravel from the construction site still clinging to his skin, he's way too wiped to take a shower right now, or even change out of his grimy T-shirt and torn-up blue jeans, so he just shrugs it off, pulls the window shut with another scratchy rasp, and turns around to fall face-first into his very inviting bed—

—which. his dad. is sitting on???

There is a single second of extremely uncomfortable silence wherein Astro simply stares at his father, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and stunned silent, and his father simply stares back, apparently in an equivalent amount of shock.

And then Dr. Tenma pushes himself up off the edge of the bed, and crosses the room in a mere two and a half strides to plant himself in front of Astro, looming tall with his arms folded firmly over his chest and his whole body positively crackling with anger. "Do you have any idea what time it is right now?"

Somehow, Astro really doesn't think this is the optimal moment to remind his dad about the digital clock built into his brain, currently flashing 12:38 AM at him, so he settles on a safer route. "I—I didn't wake you up, did I? I'm sorry, I know it's really late, and I tried my best to be quiet when I came in…"

But even as he trails off into awkward silence, he knows that can't be it—he wasn't loud enough for that, he's sure of it, and besides, his dad couldn't possibly get all the way down the long hall from his own suite to Astro's bedroom in the handful of seconds in between when he opened the window and when he turned around, especially not in the pitch-dark penthouse.

It doesn't even matter, anyway, because his dad completely ignores the question. Like he doesn't even hear it. "Where were you? Where have you been? You were gone for hours! I came home, and you weren't here, and Orrin couldn't even tell me where you went!"

"I—I'm sorry?" Astro says, again, a whole lot less sincere and a whole lot more baffled this time, because he obviously upset his dad in one way or another, and knee-jerk instinct tells him to apologize, just apologize, just say you're sorry, but what the actual heck is going on right now? What did he do wrong? "I was just helping out around the city—mostly downtown, near Prospect, and then—"

"And you couldn't have told me any of that?" Tenma's voice kicks up a notch or two, with a scowl like thunder twisting his face. "You didn't think to let anyone know where you'd be?!"

"Well, I wasn't exactly hiding out in an underground bunker!" Astro snaps back on blind reflex. "Seriously, what is the problem here?! Why are you so mad at me?!"

Dad sputters incoherently at him for several seconds, running his thin fingers roughly through his hair—which, Astro realizes, is sticking up wildly all over the place, like he's already done the exact same thing a hundred times over the last few hours. And now that he's taking a closer look, he can see that his dad hasn't changed out of his work clothes, either, and his shiny black shoes are all scuffed up, and his perfect, pressed white button-down is rumpled and wrinkled, the top two clasps popped open.

It's almost one in the morning now, but Dr. Tenma looks like he hasn't slept a wink all night.

"Dad?" A sudden flood of concern washes away the final remnants of confusion and annoyance still lingering on the fringes of his brain, and Astro instinctively edges closer to his father, one hand out to tug gently on the hem of the long white sleeve. "Are you okay?"

Tenma glances down, a faint flicker of surprise lighting up his eyes, before his whole face just—softens, all the tense and tired lines smoothing away like the creases on a sheet of crumpled-up paper. He heaves out a long, deep sigh, and goes down to his knees on the bedroom floor to look at Astro full-on, his hands settling lightly on his son's shoulders. "Listen to me, Astro — you can't just fly off like that without saying anything to anyone about where you'll be. With all that damage from the Peacekeeper, the Ministry scanners are currently inoperable, so we have no way to find you when you disappear."

Oh. The realization hits like a block of ice in the pit of his stomach, and his insides burn with a sharp swell of scorching shame. If some sort of crisis or catastrophe had actually occurred, his father would definitely have led in with the bad news, so he knows the worst-case scenario didn't happen, but what if it had? What if something bad had happened while he was gone, and he wasn't there to help? What if they had needed him, and he wasn't there?

"Anything could have happened to you out there, and we wouldn't even know."

Wait.

What?

"What if you'd gotten hurt, and no one knew your location, so no one could get to you? How are we supposed to help you if we can't even find you? How am I supposed to keep you safe if I don't even know where you are?"

…Okay, something really isn't adding up here, and it's all Astro can do to blink blankly back at his father as his brain slowly slides the pieces around and around on the board, like a mixed-up jigsaw puzzle in his head. "So… that's what you were so worried about? Me?"

That's funny—he doesn't think anyone has ever actually worried about him before, and maybe that's just because he's only been alive for about two weeks total, but he honestly assumed it was probably because he's just not really the kind of kid that people worry about, with the whole superpowered robot who can handle himself in virtually any situation thing.

(Actually, he's just not really the kind of kid that people want—and if he didn't pick up on that after his dad looked him dead in the eye and said I don't want you anymore without even the barest trace of regret or uncertainty, he definitely got the message after Hamegg zapped him unconscious and threw him into a gladiator arena.

It didn't take a genius to recognize the pattern, and it definitely didn't take a genius to figure out that he was the only common denominator in the equation. When he surrendered himself to President Stone, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one on the entire planet would miss him when he was gone.

The math was pretty simple, after all.)

"Of course I was worried about you," Tenma says, so plainly and honestly sincere that it almost hurts to hear it. "I had no idea where you were, or even if you were all right."

Oh.

For the first time since he came back to Metro City after his week on the Surface, the full weight of what his father said to him back in the Ministry finally begins to sink into his brain—you may not be Toby, but you're still my son—and something. just kind of. clicks. in his brain.

"Oh," Astro says, out loud now, and very, very softly, just before his dad pulls him into a firm and warm and wonderful hug.

#i keep forgetting to post fics / rooftops updates on here whenever i post them to ao3 so #have this extremely low-effort one-shot!! #yeah it's a transparent excuse to write astro being loved and valued. idc idc #astro boy #astro boy 2009 #tetsuwan atom #mighty atom #astro boy fanfiction #astro boy fanfic #astro boy fic #astro boy 2009 fanfiction #astro boy 2009 fanfic #astro boy 2009 fic

[edith-hyde]

Norman Osborn X Female Reader

I Forgot My Umbrella - Part 36

Word Count: 3237

Summary: You run into some new potential friends during lunch. On your way back to work, something unexpected happens.

Warnings: Age gap. PG/PG-13.

A/N: Ya know that moment in the K-Drama where something jarring happens to heighten the tension? We're there lol

Tagging: @druigswh0ree @digital-demise @maskmare931 @b1ueoff1ine @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky @wtfhasmy-lifecometo

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——

Lunch time rolled around and you planned to eat with Norman at the café across the street.

Unfortunately, Norman was held up by a meeting and told you to go on without him. 

With a dejected heart, you headed across the street to get your meal. You had an hour lunch and spent the first few minutes sketching as you waited for your food. Thinking about the past weekend, you started drawing Norman and Harry side by side. You realized they had quite a few features in common now that you were thinking about it. The strong cheekbones, square jaw, fluffy hair… But you much preferred Norman’s features between the two. They were sharper, more confident. 

And aged to perfection.

You giggled to yourself, totally entrenched in your work. So you nearly jumped out of your skin when a voice spoke from behind you.

“That’s really good!”

You twisted around to see Harry standing over your shoulder. You instantly slammed the sketchbook shut and started babbling. 

“Ha-Harry?! What are you-? When did you-?”

Harry held up his hands in defense. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I was actually just coming over here to say hi and ask if you wanted to come eat with us.”

“Us?”

You peeked around Harry and spotted Peter Parker sitting across from a red headed young woman. Peter saw you and gave a small awkward wave.

“Oh…”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Harry shrugged.

“No! I’d like to. Sorry. You just surprised me is all…”

You gathered your things and went to join Harry and his two friends.

“Pete, MJ, this is Y/N.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Peter. And it’s nice to meet you, MJ.”

MJ gave you a pleasant smile.

“Hi! You can sit here.”

MJ moved her purse so you could sit next to her. This put you across from Harry, who was currently glancing between you and Peter with confusion.

“You and Pete have met before?” Harry questioned.

“Yeah,” Peter said with a bob of his head, “I went to your dad’s office over a week ago to talk about the apartment. Ya know, that’s when he offered me the job.”

“Ah right…”

Harry suddenly grinned at you. 

“Hey, Y/N. Show ‘em the drawing you were doing.”

“Oh I’d rather not,” you said as your face flushed red.

“But it’s really good! I can’t believe you drew it from memory. Come on.”

You arched an eyebrow at Harry. He didn’t seem to think there was anything weird about what you were sketching and that surprised you. Perhaps it was because he was a fellow artist? 

Or perhaps drawing your boss and his son wasn’t as weird as you thought it was.

Yeah right.

With a deep breath, you opened the sketchbook. You were extra careful not to show the other incriminating pages as you tried to find the one you had been working on. With a great deal of apprehension, you turned the book around to show the table. You watched everyone’s reactions. Harry smiled with pride. Peter looked with contained awe. And MJ’s eyes widened to the size of baseballs.

“Wow Harry wasn’t joking, you are good!” she praised, “You really drew this from memory?”

“Yeah,” you answered sheepishly, “Harry came in yesterday and I couldn’t help but notice some similarities between him and Nor- Dr. Osborn. It’s my artist's brain. I can’t help it. I like to draw the people around me.”

It wasn’t a lie so much as a bent version of the truth. You really did like to draw the people around you. You just left out how, lately, the only person you had been around to draw was Norman.

“They do look alike,” Peter agreed, “But you’ve really captured their distinct looks.”

“I know right?” Harry laughed, “It’s like looking in a mirror!”

You closed the sketchbook and MJ tilted her head.

“Can we see some other sketches?”

“Oh no!” you answered immediately with a laugh, “This sketchbook is like my diary. So some of the drawings are personal… Ya know?”

MJ nodded her understanding.

“Better put a lock and key on it then. Harry might snoop.”

“Hey!” Harry said defensively, “I already said I was sorry for that. Let it go.”

MJ smirked and you had the feeling that they were referencing something that happened while they were dating. It was good that they were able to joke about it, you thought. That meant that they were on their way to being proper friends again.

“Say, Y/N, where are you going to college?”

Harry’s question made you give a scathing laugh.

“Nowhere! Thank God I am past all that mess.”

Harry’s eyebrows went up.

“You’ve already graduated college?”

“Yeah. Got my art degree last year… Wait… How old did you think I was?”

Harry turtled into himself, suddenly shy.

“I guess I just assumed you were the same age as us.”

You shook your head with an amused smile.

“Thanks for thinking I look so youthful, but I’ll be 24 this year. Not saying I’m old, but I’m very much older than you.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at Harry’s pouting face. It took him a second to recover and you took the time to address the other two at the table.

“So what are the two of you majoring in?”

“I’m trying to be an actress,” MJ said shyly, “Trying and failing if I am being honest.”

“You’re not failing!” Peter quickly defended, “You’re doing great. That play you were in last week was amazing.”

“Pete, I was an extra for one scene,” MJ laughed with an eyeroll.

“Still. You were great.”

You smiled. Peter was clearly in love with MJ. He adored everything she did, no matter how small it was. Harry just rolled his eyes, clearly not finding their exchange as cute as you did.

“Pete here is gonna be some kind of scientist, ain’tcha Pete?”

Peter glanced at you and gave a half smile.

“I haven’t fully decided what field to go into yet.”

“Well, Dr. Osborn seems to think that you’ll be very helpful with some genetics research he’s doing. He’s already got a project in mind for you.”

Peter took a breath, his smile becoming apprehensive. 

“Oh boy… Sounds… fun. I’ll probably go with you back to OSCORP to pick that up so I can start earning my paycheck.”

You turned your attention to Harry.

“And what about you, Harry? Are you an art major?”

You already knew the answer but you couldn’t risk letting Harry know how much you knew about him.

“HA!” Harry shook his head, “No, I’m going into business so I can run OSCORP when my dad retires.”

You nodded and wondered just how much Harry actually wanted to run his father’s business. There was a high chance that Harry didn’t want the burden. But you doubted that he would ever tell Norman that. Despite his bumpy past with his father, he still sought his approval and strove to be more like him. It was both sad and admirable.

“I don’t envy you, Y/N,” MJ blurted, “Having to work with Harry’s father every day. That has to be rough.”

Harry scowled at MJ, but she didn’t back down. She meant every word she said. You couldn’t fault her for her opinion either. The Norman Osborn she had the displeasure of meeting was quite nasty towards her. But you wanted to change her opinion; if it was even possible.

“It’s actually not bad at all,” you said with a smile, “Working with Norman Osborn has been quite nice. He’s the best employer I’ve ever had.”

MJ gave you a skeptical frown.

“Really?”

“Yes really,” you laughed, “I know he wasn’t always so pleasant in the past, but since I’ve started working there, he’s been very kind. It can be hard work, keeping up with all the moving pieces, planning everything, but I enjoy it.”

“That’s good,” Peter piped up, “Right guys?”

“It still freaks me out,” Harry admitted, “You didn’t know him before… But suddenly, right before Christmas, he just changed out of the blue. Wanted to apologize to everybody for everything. It was weird.”

“Glad you finally admit it,” MJ said sourly, “I still don’t trust him, Harry. I’m sorry. Even if he did apologize.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“I think it’s great that he’s trying to be different,” Peter interjected, “You’ve gotta give people a chance, right?”

You nodded your agreement.

“People can change,” you added, “Whatever the reason was, I am glad Dr. Osborn has been trying. It makes working there very easy. And OSCORP can finally be known for doing more than selling weapons. That’s something to be proud of.”

“I’m still holding out,” MJ said pointedly, “If he can keep this up for the rest of the year, then I’ll believe it.”

“Honestly…Same.” Harry admitted, “I’m waiting to see if it sticks…”

“That’s fair,” you nodded, “I have the utmost faith in him though.”

Harry arched an eyebrow.

“You do? Why?”

You instantly started floundering. 

“Well… because…. Because I like to see people succeed at their personal goals, ya know? I care about everyone around me. Even Dr. Osborn. He’s my boss after all. And he gave me a job when no one else would. I wanna help him in any way I can. I feel like I owe him.”

Luckily, Harry bought your reasoning. Again, it wasn’t so much of a lie as it was a different view of the truth. You really did care about Norman’s goals. And you did owe him for your job. Without it, you would’ve had to move back home.

“Thanks for taking care of him,” Harry said in earnest, “And don’t let him push you around. He can be a big jerk sometimes, but he’s a good man.”

You saw MJ roll her eyes, making it clear that she did not share Harry’s opinion of his father. But you put on a smile and nodded.

“You’re welcome, Harry.”

For the rest of lunch you swapped stories with the trio. You learned a great deal more about their personalities and interests. Peter also liked to draw, but hardly ever had the time. He was also into photography. MJ shocked you with her knowledge of movies and actors. And Harry spent a lot of his free time painting and listening to classical music. 

You were glad that most of the conversations didn’t dig too much into your personal life. You had no idea how to respond if they had asked you if you had a boyfriend.

As you were getting ready to leave, Harry stopped you right outside the door.

“Say… Were you going to the Gala this Friday?”

You gave Harry a beaming smile as you nodded.

“Yup!”

“Did you… Do you have a…”

You cocked an eyebrow at the younger Osborn who was clearly struggling to ask you something. His ears were starting to turn red- instantly reminding you of Norman. You smiled fondly as you thought of your boyfriend, waiting for Harry to ask his question.

“I just wanted to know if… If you had a plus one for the Gala?”

“Oh! Yeah, I am taking my friend Tracy. Why do you ask?”

Harry ran a hand through his hair as he shrugged.

“Ah, no reason. I just didn’t want you to feel awkward if you were showing up without a date. I was thinking about going but I dunno…”

“Oh you should totally go!” You said with an encouraging smile, “I did all the planning for it. You should come just to support my hard work!”

You and Harry laughed.

“Alright. I’ll go. But just for you.”

You turned to Peter and MJ.

“You guys should come to the Gala too. Now that Pete will be working at OSCORP, he’ll be invited. It's a Fantasy Masquerade.”

MJ’s eyes lit up and you could tell that she was interested in going- Even if it meant that Norman would be there. MJ clearly liked fancy parties.

“I dunno,” Peter shrugged, “I may not have the time.”

“Please, Peter?” MJ pleaded, “Can we go? I don’t even care if we show up late.”

Peter looked MJ up and down before smiling.

“Alright. I’ll see if I can make it work.”

“Great!” you cheered. 

MJ grinned.

“I think I have an idea for an outfit,” she turned to Peter, “I can get you an outfit too!”

“Great,” Peter said with forced enthusiasm.

“I’ll see you guys later,” you laughed, “I have to get back to work and make sure Norman ate something.”

The light turned green on the crosswalk and you started across. But you paused when Peter called out to you.

“I’ll come with you to get those- Y/N LOOK OUT!!!”

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.

You looked to your left to see a red sports car hurtling towards you. They clearly had no intention of slowing down even though they were approaching a red light. You briefly thought about how you needed to get out of the way. 

But your legs wouldn’t move. 

That car was going to hit you and there was nothing you could do.

You were going to die.

Just as you realized how bad this would end, time sped up. 

Something hit your back and you were abruptly yanked backwards. The car blew past you at top speed. The force of it caused you to roll, slamming your head into the asphalt. You heard someone scream and you weren’t sure if it was you or MJ. For a moment everything went black and you were sure the car had hit you. But your eyes opened as you felt the sensation of someone pulling you up onto their lap. You saw a face in your blurry vision.

“Nor…man?”

Your vision cleared and you realized that it wasn’t Norman holding you, but rather his son. Concern and worry was written all over his face as he called out.

“Hey! You with the cellphone! Call 911!!”

“I’m… I’m fine.” 

You tried to sit up fully but felt a surge of pain rip through you. With a gasp, you dropped back down. MJ and Peter appeared over you, both looking equally as worried. Peter knelt beside you and placed a hand to your head.

“The car didn’t hit you,” Peter assured, “You’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t feel so fine,” you chuckled.

Another burst of pain caused you to cry out. Harry took your hand and you immediately wished that it was his father here instead of him. You were scared- no that word wasn’t enough. You were terrified. Your mind was a whirlwind of thoughts. And one thought stood out even though it wasn’t important- Norman was going to be worried that you were so late.

“The ambulance is on its way!” MJ declared. 

“I… I need to tell Norman,” you muttered, “He’s waiting for me. He needs to know… what happened.”

Harry nodded.

“I’ll tell him. After we get you to the hospital.”

“No… I need… I need… Uhhhh… I feel woozy….”

Your hand came to your head and you squeezed your eyes shut. You could hear the distant sirens wailing as they approached. Every other sound blended together to make your ears scream. You tried to breathe but that was starting to become difficult. 

“Y/N!? Harry!?”

Norman’s panicked voice made your eyes snap open. 

“Dad!” Harry called out, “She was… There was a…”

You were suddenly taken from Harry and hefted into Norman’s arms. And you knew instantly- everything would be okay.

—

Norman felt like his entire world was ending. 

He had left his office in hopes of meeting you at the cafe even though he was so late. But the moment he stepped out of the OSCORP building, he was greeted by a horrific sight. Several onlookers were gathered around while you were down on the street held in the arms of his son. Peter and MJ were standing guard over you, telling people to back up and talking to a man who had the paramedics on the phone. 

The moment Harry’s head came up and saw his father, he called out for him. Norman ran to his side and immediately collected you into his arms. You looked up at him but he could tell by the dull look in your eyes- you were struggling to stay conscious. With determination, Norman lifted you into the air and started carrying you to the sidewalk.

“Dad, I don’t think we should move her-”

“I am getting her out of the street,” Norman snapped, “What happened??!”

Harry wiped at his watering eyes as he gestured back towards the road. 

“She went to cross the street when the light turned red, but there was this sports car that just blew through the light. It almost hit her but she fell back just in time. But she still rolled and I think she hit her head.”

Norman looked at Peter and knew right away that he was the one who had saved your life. There was still a tendril of webbing stuck to your back hidden by your hair. 

If it wasn’t for Peter, you would’ve died.

“Norman…?”

Norman looked down at you and forced a smile. As he knelt down on the sidewalk and placed you in his lap, he lovingly brushed your hair out of your face. In this moment, he didn’t care what others thought. He just wanted you to feel safe.

“I’m here,” he soothed, “Everything will be alright. Just try to stay awake.”

“I’m trying but… I’m kinda tired now…”

Norman grimaced as he inspected the gash on your forehead.

“Do I look awful?” you slurred.

“No,” Norman whispered quickly, “You look as lovely as ever.”

You choked out a laugh.

“I don’t believe you.”

Norman tried to smile and you gave a weak one of your own. 

“Dad! The ambulance is here.”

Looking up, Norman saw the ambulance park as close as possible. A pair of paramedics clambered out of the vehicle and approached. Harry told them exactly what happened as they brought the gurney over for you. Norman was the one who lifted you into it, refusing to let you go. He walked alongside you as they wheeled you to the back of the ambulance. Harry went to get into the vehicle with you, but Norman stopped him.

“I’ll go with her.”

“But-”

“You make sure to get your friends home. Take the car.”

Norman handed Harry his keys and the boy nodded.

“Thanks Dad.”

Norman climbed into the back of the ambulance and took your hand as soon as the doors closed. You had your eyes closed, having finally lost the battle to keep conscious. The paramedic in the back began checking your vitals as the vehicle sped away down the street.

“She’s going to be fine, sir.” The young man insisted. 

Norman didn’t care if the paramedic saw him. He brought your hand to his mouth and kissed your fingers. He held your hand the whole way to the hospital. He would’ve carried you in himself if they would’ve let him. But he ended up in a waiting room as the doctors took a better look at you. Despite the paramedic’s assurances, Norman paced around with worry. 

He couldn’t lose you. 

He needed you.

#norman osborn x reader #i forgot my umbrella #norman osborn #fanfiction #sam raimi spider man

[ninjastormhawkkat]

Adopted Alien Steven AU

This is a crack au I made up with melody on the dms for just fun and I feel like posting it anyways. So here it is.

I thought it would be a neat and ironic idea if Steven was also an adopted alien child that got sent to Earth. I thought it would be funnier if Steven was from Lexicon like Becky as well. This ties into some old theories I had about Lexiconians a while back before I posted my Half human/half alien Becky headcanon. These headcanons were developed to explain why Bob does not have the same powers as Becky even thought they canonically both come from the same planet. My old theory was that males on Lexicon do not have the same superpowers as the females on the planet. They do have the same vocabulary skills and abilities as female Lexiconians, This is why Bob can eat more than his stomach size and can understand earth language even though he does not yet have a full grasp of what different words on Earth mean. Lexonite could also not have a strong effect on males as they do with females. Male Lexiconians, like female ones, are also have high intelligence and critical thinking skills. As I said, this is an old theory and it the reason Bob could not have the same powers as Becky could be a gender reason like with Lions or Peacocks or it could be a species thing where Bob's and other non-humanoid species on Lexicon don't have the same powers as Becky and other humanoid species. Still thinking about that.

Anyway sorry about the ramblings but now I am going to explain how this ties to the au. So we all noticed Steven was able to survive getting fused to a lab mouse where as in other cases of animal/human fusion the person usually ends up dead. So that got me thinking if Steven had a adaptability genetics that would allow him to survive as a half human/half mouse after a violent fusion. Also Steven seems to have a higher intelligence level then most of the people in Fair City with building rays that can not only alter the genetic material of just about anything into different types of cheese or into goop. He can also build rays that can alter vocal cords and swap the minds of any species without dangerous repercussions. He also appears to have about the same level of vocabulary as Wordgirl as it was hardly shown Dr. Two Brains needing help to define a word like with others and he even defined a word a few times. (Also the times he did need help, you kind of have to remember that Dr. Two Brains is not a mentally stable person.) So that got me thinking, what if by some ironic twist, Steven was also an adopted alien that happens to be from Becky's planet as well. His parents and siblings and others thought he was a normal human as he did not display any noticeable alien traits. He was just a very bright and knowledgeable person. As for how he got to this planet. His parents probably crashed there when he was too young too remember his past. They most likely didn't make it and this ship probably ended up being covered by nature overtime and people really couldn't notice it unless they actively searched for an alien ship. Steven was found wandering around by his adoptive dad Andrew Boxleitner who was a police officer at the the time. When they couldn't find any traces of Steven's family, he and his wife took him in along with their other kids. Steven didn't notice or think he was adopted and his family kind of forgot to tell him because they treated him as their own so much. It was after he became Dr. Two Brains and a time he and Becky were having dinner with his parents that one of his siblings' spouses spilled the beans.

@drtwobrainsstuff

@melodythebunny

@liloskull343

#wordgirl #wordgirl au #becky boxleitner au #adopte alien Steven au #crack au #bob/captain huggy face #steven boxleitner #dr two brains

[koolkat9]

👀

AU Ask Game

Treasure Planet AU

Treasure Island/Planet is like the peak piece of media for an Atlantic bros AU. Though I've seen the stage production of Treasure Island that was almost 6 years ago while I watched Disney's Treasure Planet a few months ago so I'll be using Treasure Planet. Also, I just love the steam-punk esque aesthetic Treasure planet has. For those who don't know the plot, here's a summary from IMDb:

Jim Hawkins is a rebellious teen seen by the world as an aimless slacker. After he receives a map from a dying pirate, he embarks on an odyssey across the universe to find the legendary Treasure Planet.

Warning spoilers for Treasure Planet...Though the movie doesn't really hide this "twist" for very long...But still.

Alfred as Jim Hawkins. After his dad left him, he's kind of struggled to find his place and purpose in life leading him down a path of recklessness and mischief. As referenced in the summary, he gets ahold of a map for the legendary Treasure Planet. With the help of a family friend, a crew is put together to take them on the adventure.

Jim's mother I actually changed into a brother to put Matt into that role. He's trying to keep the family business afloat after their dad left and mother died. Alfred and his shenanigans don't make it easy, but he loves his brother and would do anything for him.

The family friend I mentioned before named Dr. Delbert Doppler will be played by Rodreich. He's highly intelligent and likes the idea of adventure in theory, but is not the most fit for the actuality of it. A little dorky and paranoid when it comes to adventure. Now Rodreich isn't an exact match for Doppler, but the dynamic he shares with the next character I'm going to discuss gives me huge AusHun vibes.

Hungary as Captain Amelia. She's a domineering, quick witted ship Captain. She teases Doppler at first for his inexperience in adventure but the two end up falling in love.

Arthur of course as Long John Silver. Cyborg and feared pirate who is now on the hunt for one of the greatest treasure known: Treasure Island. He's able to disguise himself and his crew and get hired to be the crew for the ship taking Alfred and Rodreich to Treasure Island.

Gilbert as B.E.N. A robot left behind on Treasure Island. Very outgoing and chaotic. Mostly because basically his part equivlent to a brain was pulled out by the one who made Treasure Planet. He accompanies Alfred and the others as they race against Arthur and his crew to find the treasure

But at the heart of the film and this au is the relationship between Jim and Silver or in the AU the heart is Alfred and Arthur.

To keep Alfred out of trouble he ends up having to help Arthur with the cleaning and stuff. Both aren't the most keen on the idea at first, but Arthur figures that it's probably better this way to keep an eye on him so the boy doesn't find out who he really is. But the two bond. Arthur gains a soft spot for Al and Al finally feels he has found something who sees him more than just a problem.

Just a good balance of angst and sweet bonding moments. Like...at one point Alfred over hears Arthur talking to his crew, saying that he hasn't gone soft, he's just pretending to be chummy with Al to keep him out of their hair, and kind of putting Al down. The audience knows that's not true, because he's just trying to cover his ass or perhaps even trying to convince himself that he doesn't actually care for the boy. But either way, Al is crushed. He thought he finally found someone who accepted him, who would support him, but he's just being led on.

But in the end, when it comes to the climax, Arthur saves Alfred sacrificing the treasure he spent most of his life looking for.

At the end of the film Silver actually leaves, because ya know...He's kind of one of the most wanted and feared pirates. He invites Jim to come with him, but Jim turns down the offer. They have one last nice heart to heart, Silver acutally manged to get a handful of treasure from Treasure Planet before it all went down and gives it to Jim so he and his mom can buy/rebuild their business that got destroyed in the beginning of the story. He also gives Jim his little blob companion thing names Morph to keep an eye on him.

Now for my au...I want to change this a bit. Arthur still gives Alfred the little bit of treasure he was able to snag, and still has to leave so he doesn't get arrested. But If I was to ever write a fic--which I don't think I will because it's hard to write something using the plot of something else--The epilogue would show Arthur sometimes is able to sneak off and comes and visits Al from time to time

#au ask game #au asks #hetalia #hws #atlantic bros #aushun #hws america #hws england #hws canada #hws austria #hws hungary

[masterwords]

stuck like glue

Summary: Teenage shenanigans. Jess drags Hotch and Sean out to the lake for a lazy summer afternoon and things do not go as planned.

Pairings: None (Well, Hotch & Haley, but she's not in the story)

Warnings: abuse, injuries (back & hand), near drowning

Notes: Oh my gosh. I wrote something. Like an actual story came from my brain and made it to SO MANY WORDS after more than a month of a dry spell. Hopefully this means we'll have more...I have a few prompts in my inbox to get to, and a few others. This is kind of meant to be a backstory for ANOTHER long one I'm working on that will hopefully be done this week.

Word Count: 6.7k

Read on AO3: stuck like glue

**

She was tired. Exhausted, really. Summer classes started in two weeks (right along with her cushy job at the movie theatre) and it was the only two weeks she'd have fully off...she'd been planning to spend it riding her bike to the lake and sitting all day on the sand. It was more of a glorified watering hole, bigger than a pond but nothing like the grand lakes most kids would go spend their entire summers at. The reeds that surrounded its murky waters were as tall as she was, tall enough to afford her enough privacy that sometimes she decided to make sure her top half was properly and evenly tanned. No one around for miles to yell “Hey, Jess, put those things away!”

But her lake plans were on hold because Haley and Hotch were supposed to be camp counselors for a whole week and then Hotch had to go and get himself hurt. She wasn't really sure how bad it was, she hadn't had time to see him yet (or maybe she'd been avoiding him) but Haley assured her it was bad. So first he missed summer camp, and then he would miss tryouts for Shakespeare at the park, and to add insult to injury, he wouldn't make it to auditions for the summer production at the Children's Theatre. He was up a creek without a paddle, stuck at home with Sean for the foreseeable future. At least that had been the idea, but like all things in his life...plans change, and never in accordance with his desires.

On his first full day alone at home after "the fall" as Haley had come to call it so quickly, she'd taken her bike to his house just to see. His dad was at work, his mom had tennis, Haley was wrangling rowdy kids at summer camp and he was alone with Sean. With her backpack slung over one shoulder, she skidded her bicycle down the gravel road, twisting and going hands free every now and then, her unruly lion's mane blowing wildly in the wind. Two weeks of summer and planned to suck up every last drop, no matter what.

But she was so tired, and by the time she was dumping her bike on the Hotchner lawn and tugging the cuffs of her overalls back down, she'd already worried about what she was going to walk in to find. She could see Sean through the big picture window. He was standing over the couch pouting and she knew better than to knock. Hotch was hurt but he'd get up anyway, and she knew where the key was kept so there was really no reason to put any of them through it. He'd get up, she'd scold him for it...best to avoid it entirely.

Third board to the right of the rug, the one with the heart shaped knot, she peeled it up and pulled the key out quickly, getting the door open before he even had a chance to sit himself up. She'd been worried for nothing though, because at the moment of her entry, he couldn't have managed sitting up on his own. Not even as stubborn as he was.

“What are you doing here?” he grumbled, always finding a reason to be mad at something. She huffed and put her hands on her hips, staring at him, assessing the situation. Like hell she was going to be taking any shit from a kid who couldn't even roll himself over unassisted.

“Haley said you got hurt.” She paused, licking her Dr. Pepper chapstick lips and frowned, lowering her voice an octave. “Your dad?”

His sudden frown mirrored hers. “No.”

“Yeah right.” She wasn't about to let him lie to her, but this time he wasn't lying and he explained it in as few words as possible. The pain in his back was still fresh and at times overwhelming, he really didn't have the energy to expend on words. But he could find enough for this, to let his dad off the hook this time.

“I fell out of the treehouse.”

She rolled her eyes, but crouched beside him anyway to hear the rest of the sorded tale. Sean threw his arms happily around her neck, his sticky popsicle mouth tickling against her cheek when he whispers to her that Hotch is actually telling the truth. “I went up there to fix a broken railing, didn't want Sean to fall...”

“Well you're obviously not much of a handyman then, huh?” But she softened her tone and touched a scrape on his arm, probably the least of his concerns but it was big and angry red. “How bad is it?”

He looked at Sean and nodded for him to leave the room for a minute. “I told Sean I'm okay,” he started quietly, his voice hoarse and thick with what she suspected might be tears he'd been choking back for his brother's sake. “But I don't know. I can barely walk, Jess.”

“You know that's what hospitals are for, right?”

“Jess,” he groaned, letting his eyes drift closed miserably. “I can't do that and you know it.”

“Why the hell not?” Except she knew damn well why the hell not. He didn't need to explain to her the delicacy of his situation, his father, the hospital. He was skating on thin ice.

“Just tell them Aaron. They'll call the cops and...”

“And if my dad goes to jail, then what? He's the only income we have...”

That was it. That was how her summer started. And after two weeks, when she was working and taking morning classes to get ahead of her senior year, she thought that was the worst it could get.

And then Haley went to cheer camp and Hotch got a job and things got worse.

It wasn't an ideal summer job, but then, the idea of a job over the summer really wasn't ideal to begin with. Not that Hotch minded working, he actually quite liked keeping his hands and his mind busy but working for his father's firm was about the last thing he would have wanted to do. He would rather shovel slop from the sewers, and if such a job existed and was hiring, he might be inclined to apply. His father's full-time assistant was taking on twice as much work since the elder Hotchner had gotten sick, and they needed a file clerk. That meant another paycheck to dole out...unless he could get someone to do the work for free.

Enter his son whose relatively new back injury had sidelined him from just about every summer plan he'd mapped out to keep himself busy and out of the house for nearly sixty days.

“Honey, he needs your help and you can use the experience when you apply to universities...” His mother was a fierce negotiator. She always appealed to his good nature first in the hope that he wouldn't press further, but in this instance, he wasn't going down without a fight. This wasn't just going to ruin his summer, it would have tendrils that licked and twisted into every aspect of his life forever, he knew it. “Besides, what else are you going to do? Lay around like a lump and watch the television all day? If you let that back injury become an excuse, you'll regret it forever.”

It was a vague illusion of power, of autonomy. She was still phrasing it like it was a question, like he had options. He knew he really had no choice, though. He would work for his father because she was right...what else would he do with his summer? He'd just worked up to being able to ride his bike short distances again without wanting to die, so all of his youth summer camp and sports dreams were dead in the water. The community pool only enticed him for about the first week or two when there was still enough of a chill in the air that the pool wasn't packed. When the temperatures exploded into the triple digits and the humidity was off the charts, unless you wanted to pack in like sardines, you couldn't hang out there anymore. Kids shitting in the pool every other day didn't help, either, because then the rivers and the lakes were packed.

Anyway, his back hurt too much to argue with her. She had an ice pack and some tylenol in her hands and almost seemed to be witholding them until he offered her his reluctant agreement. Then he got the pills and the iced tea and the kiss on the top of the head that made his skin crawl.

“Good honey,” she smiled. And then came the insult to injury. He wouldn't be getting a paycheck. “You're getting paid in experience,” she hissed, her honeyed smile twisting when he asked how he was supposed to pay for gas to and from the office if he wasn't getting a paycheck. “Jessica works at the movie theatre doesn't she? See if she can help you get on there part time. You could run a show or scoop some popcorn...Sean wouldn't mind a free ticket or two.” He didn't want to do that, though. A full-time unpaid job at his father's was already a nightmare but to put a part time job on top of it? He did want to see Haley and his friends at some point in the summer so he caved and agreed that the office would be fine, yes, he'd be happy to just get experience and instead he got well acquainted with walking or riding his bike. No self-respecting 17-year-old rode their bike when they had access to a car, but then, he'd realized a long while before that he really wasn't all that self-respecting. He just existed. Riding his bike hurt his back, but then so did the endless bending over and reaching up high and carrying box after box of files so what was one more thing? It would eventually heal. And if not...

“Psst,” Jess hissed from the office doorway, her mountain of curls piled high on her head to expose her neck. She was sweating, it was damn hot outside. The air was soupy and thick and she, bless her soul, had come on her bike. Jess wasn't worried about being a self-respecting teenager...she loved her bike and the wind in her hair as it whipped around like a lion's mane in her face. More than that, she loved that she would ride with him out into the dirt trails and up into the cool shade of the woods to their own little oasis. A tiny creek that bubbled icy water ankle deep. She and Haley and Hotch would spend hours there on the hottest days, basking in the shade and the frigid water. She'd even managed to throw Sean onto her banana seat and bring him along once or twice now that he was old enough. They could all be free with only the bees and the crickets for company. “You done yet slowpoke?”

He glanced up at her, surprised at the time and sighed. Not fast enough, he tried to hide his hand but she caught sight of it. Angry and red knuckles, a bruise pooling pale blue and spreading from his middle finger up the back of his hand. He was filing one handed and moving slowly. It wasn't the bruise that caught her eye and held it though, it was the tiny crimson crescent of blood that made her sigh and level her stare at him. Accusing but soft enough. “No,” he said softly, pulling his hand behind his back. “I'm going to be a while. Go on without me.”

That would have turned most people away. If it were his friend Ben, he would have shrugged, blown a bubble with his Big League Chew bubblegum and popped it on his way out. No big deal, he would say. Not Jess, though. She walked in with her arms folded over her chest, chewing her Fruit Stripes gum loudly and he watched her eyes trail the stacks of paperwork he was sorting and filing. One handed. Pretending to use both hands was getting him nowhere...and anyway, he was pretty sure it wasn't broken. Just bruised. Just stupid and bruised. “Can I help? I got two hands...” She smirked and he mimicked her in his snottiest way, a brief moment of levity in an otherwise too heavy moment.

“You should go...” He was pleading and the despair in his voice made her shiver. He'd managed to protect Haley from his father. She hadn't even met him yet, a fact that distressed her endlessly. Like she thought maybe he didn't like her if he wouldn't bring her home, but Jess had met him more than once and she could attest to his skittishness when it came to bringing Haley around. Jess wasn't like Haley, she wasn't fragile and sweet, she had a hard enough exterior that she could take his father with a grain of salt. She didn't need to be protected. Still, he wanted to keep her from his wrath.

“What, your dad would be upset if someone else helped get work done for him? I doubt it. Who would turn down free labor?”

“J-Jess...” His voice was scarcely above a whisper but she heard that stutter loud and clear. It made her freeze, cocking her head slightly to the side. He hadn't stuttered in a while now, not since he'd joined the debate team and learned how to regulate his cadence and word choices. Not since they'd worked so hard to get past it. Something had happened and she didn't like it. She scrunched her nose and he pleaded with her silently to let it drop, not to make him say another word. Jess thought it was working here that was bringing it out (and that hand...probably punched a wall...he was falling apart) but you couldn't say anything like that to his mother. She would huff and puff and fire off a litany of excuses until you gave in, a quivering puddle, and admitted that it was the child's weak spirit and he needed toughening up.

He needed no such thing, at least insofar as Jess could see. “Let me help. I know my ABC's, Hotchner, I can file...”

“Miss Brooks, to what do we owe the pleasure?” The voice was syrupy and Southern, dripping with charm and she felt her neck flush. Shrinking momentarily, she watched as Hotch looked down at his papers sheepishly and she saw his adam's apple bob up and down. The change in his demeanor was automatic and she'd never hated anything more in her life.

“Mr. Hotchner,” she swung around, adjusting her own posture and smiling her best. No anger, no fear, she couldn't let him see how he made her feel. Men like this, she knew all too well from her own father's stories about too many nights down at the townie bar...they needed to feel you shrink before them. She wouldn't allow it. With that forced stage smile she extended her hand to him. “Aaron and I were going to ride to the library to do some research. We were assigned...” Hotch shuddered at her lie and forced his please-don't-let-it-be-broken hand to close around a manilla folder and slide it into place. Anything to avoid the way he would blow her lie right out of the water.

“It can wait, you have all summer. Aaron has work to do.” He was dismissive and disappeared quickly, without another word. The less time he hung around, the less she had to put on the brave front and the less she had to watch her friend cower like a mouse. While Jessica went red with anger, Hotch only breathed a sigh of relief. That had gone about as good as he could ever dare hope. Better, maybe. Her lie had gone over like a lead balloon, but he hadn't called either of them on it and for that he was grateful.

“You really should go.”

“Aaron...”

“Jess, please.”

She didn't argue this time. The bruised knuckles, the tiny crescent of blood, the look in his eye...it all added up to a storm she didn't want to bring on. He was having a rough day and she couldn't make it better by pushing him. “Okay,” she agreed, but she didn't go far.

She waited in the back stairwell. They one she had tiptoed up so no one would see her, the one she and Hotch would sit and eat their lunch in sometimes when she was on her way to work and made an extra sandwich. He liked pb&j as much as any child she'd ever met, maybe more. The sweet look of innocence that flashed in his eyes at that first bite couldn't be replicated in any other way and she wondered what he thought about. Haley had told her once that he'd been very close with his grandmother and she thought maybe that was it, memories of a woman he missed dearly. In any case, she had no sandwiches this time, only a desperate desire to ride her bike up into the woods or out to the lake...anywhere but here. So she waited for him, her only friend. She could entertain herself for hours alone, she was plenty resourceful. Plus she always kept a book in the front pocket of her overalls for just such an occasion. Holing up at the edge of the bottom stair, she kicked out her legs, wiggled her toes in her sandals, and started reading.

She was halfway through “Animal Farm”, and her water bottle, when she heard his footsteps coming toward her. For a moment she contemplated hidng and ambushing him, but then she thought of his hand again and decided against it. Foolhardy, he was going to be in no mood for her shenanigans. She just needed to get him away from here.

“I can't go,” he said softly, before he even rounded the corner. He knew she was waiting, he could smell her cucumber melon body spray. Haley liked sugary vanilla, she smelled like his favorite bakery, and Jessica smelled like a garden in summer. “I have to go to the post office, and I'm on spazz duty the rest of the day.” By the time she saw him, she had her arms folded defiantly across her chest.

“I'll drop that off at the post office, you go get Sean and bring him to the lake. We'll skip the creek today, okay? Come on it's like a thousand degrees outside...Sean needs a cool down too.”

He chewed his lip while he considered his options and while he definitely knew he shouldn't chance it...he was going to. His parents were ruining his entire summer, he would take one night for himself and still do everything they asked of him. “Okay. Make sure it gets there before the last pick up okay? It's important...” For some Senator his dad rubbed elbows with and was probably living very comfortably in the pocket of. He was learning a lot about his dad's job but none of it was exactly going to be helpful if he didn't want to play dirty. His dad was the king of dirty.

By the time they were all at the lake, Hotch's back had nearly seized up, his hand was throbbing, and Jess was sweating from head to toe. “I got there,” she announced while sucking huge gulps of air, dropping her bike beside his and taking in the sight of Sean splashing in the water. Hotch just sat on his towel on the beach, eyeing the spreading bruise over his knuckles with some fascination. “You're welcome.”

“Oh, yeah...thanks...” he muttered, poking at his swollen knuckle. She rolled her eyes and plopped down beside him in a spray of sand that stuck to the backs of her now bare legs, her denim overalls a few paces back in a heap. She'd shed layers incrementally until she was in nothing but her bathing suit, nudging him in his bulky sweater that looked like misery at the best of times but right now looked like it had been pulled from the pits of hell.

“Off,” she instructed, tugging at it. “Before you die of a heat stroke.” He only glared at her, but he did what she said because no matter how defiant he wanted to be, she was right. He couldn't sit there in his sweater all evening. Once he'd shed that last layer, she was satisfied and decided it was best to stop bossing him around while he was still being compliant. Before he started fighting back. Instead, she got up and crept across the beach, sneaking up on Sean who was lost in the world of tiny fish swimming around his ankles.

Around them the reeds hugged close to the shoreline, swaying in the gentle June breeze. Cat tails sprung up between them and Hotch thought about a time when he'd been young and innocent enough to cut one and bring it home. He hadn't realized that letting it dry out would have catastrophic results, and returning to his bedroom after a long day spent on the tire swing in the orchard, he expected to drop into his bed a puddle of sweat and dirt and happy sunshine smell only to find that the cat tail had exploded. Right along with his dreams of a quiet evening. Cottony puffs were everywhere, on every surface, and he panicked, shut the door quickly behind him before either of his parents could see what he'd done. At first he didn't even understand it, what could have happened? It looked like a teddy bear had been eviscerated in the middle of his room. And then he saw the empty jar, the stalk, the last dredges of pillowy innards clinging to the sides. It was letting him know what happeend, a secret message.

“Shit...” he'd muttered, the first time ever saying that word in his home. He clapped his hands over his mouth and stared toward the door, as if he'd set off some chain of events by saying that word in these walls...he expected his door to fly off of its hinges and the angry red face of his whiskey barrel father to appear. But divine providence smiled on him that evening and nothing happened. He cleaned up his room and got rid of the evidence as quickly as his little legs would carry him. The next day he walked to the library and checked out a book on plants, figuring he had an awful lot to learn and he had all summer to do it. If he didn't know what cat tails were capable of, what else did he not know?

“Jessica,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on the sand to grab the pocket knife from his back pocket. “Cut me a cat tail.” He handed her the knife and, thankfully, she obliged. He called Sean over to him and, with the knife in hand, dragged the blade agonizingly slow down the side of it, reveling in the way the insides puffed into his hands and scattered on the breeze. Sean's eyes went wide with wonder.

“How'd you do that?” Sean exclaimed, ready to go rip another cat tail from its stalk to see it again and again. Hotch grinned and shook his head.

“Magic.”

And it was, though not the kind he was implying or the kind that Sean took it to mean. This wasn't some man in a cape pulling a rabbit from a hat, this was better. He hoped that someday Sean could see that it was nature that was magic, not him. Sean lost interest fast and plunged toward the water's edge gleefully. He knew how to swim, at least enough to be passable, but Hotch felt a little fear twist in his belly anyway. They weren't supposed to be out here, they were supposed to be at home making dinner and working through Sean's summer reading program. He had a whole map to fill up and a mountain of expectations they had little hope of meeting if they skirted their obligations every night like this.

But Hotch was angry and indignant. He would take one night for himself.

Jess sat beside him and bumped his shoulder, peeling away quickly when she saw him wince. He'd tried to hide it but she saw it. “Shit,” she muttered. “I'm sorry, I forgot.”

“No big,” was his cool reply. They watched Sean splash his way through the water without fear, through the sand and up to his knees trying to catch the tiny little fish that circled his legs. He held his breath, held perfectly still, then plunged his chubby fingers beneath the surface only to come up empty handed. Each time he would take another step, thinking maybe if he was further out he'd have more luck, until he was waist deep and splashing wildly. Somewhere he'd gone from fisherman to wild animal, Hotch figured. His mind ticked games away so fast Hotch could scarcely keep up with him.

“How'd you hurt your hand?” Jess asked, reaching out to grab it and pull it to her. A look of silent concentration washed over her face while she poked and pressed, none of this hurt terribly. It looked uglier than it felt...mostly just stiff fingers and tender bruises now. He considered his options carefully...there was always lying, he could easily say he'd fallen off of his bike. With his back as stiff as it was, it seemed likely but he did hate to lie to her. It felt like breaking something precious and fragile, he'd yet to lie to her and in his vast experience...once you started lying, it was awfully hard to stop. Just ask the hospital about the pages in his medical file. However, telling her the truth, that his father had gotten him so blocked up by poking at him that he got lost in a hole stuttering for at least ten minutes and he'd decided the only way to reset his brain was by smashing his fist into the exposed pipe that ran along the wall of the men's room enough times that the sludge broke free of the dam and he could think again...well that sounded just a little too real, a little too raw for sitting on the beach with his toes in the sand. Maybe he could find a careful middle ground, not quite a lie but not quite the truth.

“Aaron?” she asked again, and he blinked at her with a wash of confusion in his eyes that concerned her. Great, he thought, now she probably thinks I've got a concussion too. “Earth to Hotchner...”

“Sorry, what did you say?” he asked, pulling a few more minutes of decision-making time out of thin air. She laughed and let his hand drop back into his own lap, shaking her head. This was where the magic became real...she didn't ask him again. The question had distressed him to the point that he'd what, gone into the ether for a full two minutes with a blank look on his face?

“Nothing,” she replied quietly, figuring she'd get at the root of the problem somehow later. His father had a reputation for being a beast, and if she'd not seen him that morning before work she might be apt to think he'd been knocked around but not at the office...no way the man would ever tarnish his reputation. The silence settled in between them, until their entire world was insulated and peaceful. There was the sun high above them, beating down on their already pink shoulders, and Sean's squeals of delight seemed far away. He is the sun and you are the moon, his mother would always say, but he thought that wasn't quite right. Sean was certainly the sun but he couldn't believe he was anything as lovely as the moon, and he would argue it with his mother once he'd gotten old enough to know better. I'm not the moon, mama, I'm the fog on the treetops...and he hadn't exactly meant it to sound as sad as it did, but he saw that bright shine of tears in her eyes and he hated the idea that he'd made his mother cry. But she never argued with him. Later, when he started yelling back at his father, when he started punching walls (instead of faces), he knew that he was no longer peaceful fog...he was a great black storm cloud ready to open wide and rain anything in its path with violent hail. “Aaron?”

He blinked again and sighed. He was really out of it today. “Yeah.”

“Where did you go just then?”

He had nothing to say to that. Not a single thing. So he shrugged and flipped his knife out of its sheath, watched the blade glint in the summer sun. “Just thinking. It's b-b-been a long d-d-ay.” He stabbed the knife hard into the dirt beside him, ground it in, twisted and turned it deep into the earth and suddenly she knew what had happened to his hand. The story had written itself in the displaced grains of earth and rock beside him, in the way his lips set in a grim line, the deep crease between his brows.

A motor boat sped by far too close to shore. Teenagers, Jess knew. No adult would dare speed so close to where children swam, but kids...especially kids with access to beer and joints, they didn't give much thought to small children. Might as well be on a different planet. They would skid their boats into the reeds to make out, skinny dip, smoke. Jess didn't consider any of them friends but she was no stranger to boat hopping for a good time...drunk teenagers were friendly and generous. And when one of them got a little handsy, she had no problem wandering off into the reeds and finding her own way home. Summer was an adventure, she figured. But this summer she didn't want that adventure, she'd had plenty of it. This summer she wanted to soak up something a little slower, a little more sober, a lot less reckless. She had adulthood to think about this summer.

Waves cascaded toward the shore and smacked into Sean's little body, must to his delight. He started out trying to jump them, the smaller ones, one and then the other. He would crouch, watch the wave swell and then leap out of the water like a frog. The splash down was his favorite part. It never occurred to him that the waves could gather enough strength to knock him down...until he was tumbling beneath the water, tangling in seaweed and reeds. The more he thrashed about, the further the waves carried him back out, the tighter the grip of the reeds.

Hotch felt the moment the sun went out. His skin freckled with cold and the storm crackled beneath his surface. He held his breath and tried to stand but he couldn't move quickly enough. By the time he was even halfway upright, Sean was further into the lake, far beyond where he could touch the bottom and he was screaming for help. Gargling bitter water, spitting his brother's name through choking sobs. Cold panic crept into Hotch and this time he was lumbering toward the water as fast as his aching and stiff back would allow, grunting curse words under his breath at his inability to do this one simple thing.

Jess was ahead of him in an instant. She was kicking up sand as she tore along the beach, rushing into the surf and diving when she'd gone far enough. Then they were both under water and Hotch was alone with the waves lapping against the shore and the rustle of the fucking cat tails beside him. They were whispering to him, some desperately sick mockery in their tone. We bested you once, they seemed to say, and now we've got you again. Won't you ever learn?

Breathless seconds turned into what felt like muddy hours and he inched toward the water line, ready to crash his way in after them, knowing he shouldn't but also that he couldn't wait any longer. By the time he was fighting his way through the waves on legs threatening to give way, the breath had left his lungs completely and the entire world had gone cold. Without Sean there was no sun.

Finally, a burst. Bright and blinding, Jessica and Sean crashed through the surface, him clinging hard to her neck. A choking sound erupted first, and lake water splattered against her cheek before his screams began. Like a firework, first you see the light, then you hear the boom. But the sun was shining again, and Hotch rushed toward them without a care for his own limitations.

“You're okay,” she whispered into his ear, teeth chattering in unison with his. “Your'e okay, I've got you.” Her voice calmed him quickly and he nodded, terrified blue eyes locking desperate and scared with hers. For a moment, she was the only person in the entire world and she hugged him a little tighter to prove to him that he wasn't going anywhere without her.

“Is he okay?” Hotch gasped, reaching for his brother with trembling hands. She waited a moment, until she thought it was a good idea, and then pried Sean away from her neck and pushed him into Hotch's arms. Stepping back, giving them some distance, she watched the two of them wrap around each other, Hotch burying his nose in Sean's cold neck. Slowly he turned his eyes to Jess and saw her glowing through the filter of Sean's golden wet hair. She was wringing out her curls, keeping her hands busy and he could almost see her heart thundering in its cage. Shrinking under the intense scrutiny, she realized that he was looking at her in a way he's never looked at her before...and without wanting to dive too deep into what it meant, she realized she was doing the same thing right back at him. Something had changed between them, something that she wished felt like shimmering light but was really just a tightening noose.

“Let's go to my dad's store,” she said, breaking through the silence. “He's got hot cocoa. You want some cocoa Sean?” What she didn't want to say was that they couldn't go home like this, Hotch would get the licking of a lifetime and they both knew it. They had to play damage control, give Sean a few more stories to tell so maybe his brush with death wasn't the first thing that exploded out of his mouth when his parents got home. Sean's enthusiasm for Mr. Brooks' store, his cocoa on tap and his penny candy jars...it was better than any amusement park he could dream up.

The story about their time at the lake, about Sean's near drowning, distracted Roy from Hotch's hand. Jess was weaving a careful web here, not lies but definitely straying as far as she could from the truth of any one situation long enough that they might be able to bury it beneath the simplicity of kids being kids on summer vacation. “Always getting into trouble,” Roy said with a soft smile, pouring three tin mugs of hot cocoa. Extra marshmallows for Sean, army issue wool blankets for all three of them to warm up in. The store was chilly, air conditioning on full blast. He didn't bother telling them about the mistakes they made, he just said so quietly that he was glad they were okay and that he'd be happy to drive them home if they could wait another half hour until closing time. Hotch didn't think he should, but he didn't have much recourse, he was along for the ride. He'd have to go back with Jess for their bikes later, and he'd really be skinned if someone stole his bike, but it was a chance he'd have to take for now.

It was opening the car door that made Roy flinch. He'd heard plenty of Haley's moaning about Hotch's back, he was familiar with the tall tale of how that one had happened...not sure he really believed it but he wouldn't have said anything, the kid seemed stiff but more or less fine. But that hand, that bruise mottled hand, it was fresh, and he couldn't ignore that. “What's that?”

“Nothing, sir,” was Hotch's immediate reply. Roy frowned.

“Don't lie to me, Aaron. You and I, we've always told each other the truth right? I told you right away, we're good if you don't try to bullshit me...” The lecture was exactly the opposite of what Hotch needed, it was too much information for his already foggy brain and words escaped him. Roy's frown deepened, like he thought Hotch was trying to come up with a bigger lie. A canyon was forming between them.

“I h-h-hit the wall,” he muttered, biting hard into his lip as he stumbled over words. Roy watched him clench his fist and thought he understood the rest, he'd been an angry teenage boy a long time ago but that feeling never really left you. The memory lived there, dormant and waiting. He'd like to see how well he remembered his own fists when he thought about the elder Hotchner, so he ceased the inquisition and put his hand on the boy's shoulder instead. A light squeeze, a peace offering, closing the gap again. This kid couldn't afford a canyon. The car ride itself was quiet, and Sean was nearly asleep by the time they'd gone up the dirt road to the Hotchner house. Hotch squirmed out of his seat first, unbuckling Sean and pulling him out after.

“Jessie,” Roy asked, grabbing his daughter quickly before she could vanish into the Hotchner house. He held her back and lowered his voice. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied with a quick nod. She wouldn't betray him, even if every single fiber of her being wanted to. “Had a rough day. He'll be okay.”

“That sonofabitch...”

“No, daddy. I believe him this time.” Roy regarded her suspiciously and sighed. She'd always believe Hotch, he knew that. She'd give him the benefit of the doubt forever or hold up whatever lie he thought he needed to tell to protect himself if nothing else worked. With some strange future perfect sight, a shockingly brief clarity, he knew Haley was going to marry this kid. They would be bound together forever, and it wasn't going to be sweet bliss...of that he was certain.

Jess ran to catch up to them, bounding up the steps behind Hotch and Sean quickly. “Hey! I'm gonna run back to the lake to get my bike, then I'll go and get yours. If it's still there.” Hotch rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Thanks Jess,” was what he said, effortlessly and without stumbling over her name. She calmed the storm in his brain. It was probably about the bike because that was the easy thing to thank her for, but really it was so much more. It was for coming to the office and pulling him out of his funk, for waiting in the stairwell for him even after he pushed her away, for lying to his dad and shaking his hand anyway, for saving Sean's life, for the cocoa. He watched her crouch and wrap Sean in a hug, whispering something secret and funny into his ear before pulling away and looking at him seriously. She was on her knees, eye to eye with him, and watching felt suddenly like intruding.

“Don't you scare me like that again, you hear me?” And then her arms were around him again, tighter this time. There was a desperation there that made Hotch squirm, and Sean seemed to sense it and tried to pull away. Big emotions frightened him and this hug felt huge.

“You're hugging me too tight...”

#aaron hotchner #jessica brooks #sean hotchner #my power trio #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

[nobodysdaydreams]

Thoughts on the upcoming final episodes of the Mysterious Benedict Society:

So I have seen several posts and reblogs talking about TMBS episodes 2x07/2x08, and I have no idea where you all are getting this information but thank you. I read the episode summaries below and have several thoughts on both.

We can start with 2x07: “A Joyful Lens”. Here is the description:

Mr. Benedict and Number Two's plan to subdue Dr. Curtain backfires. After arriving at the compound, The Society regroups to rescue their captured comrades. Meanwhile, Dr. Curtain hosts a celebration to announce his plans for global expansion. After Sticky cracks the method behind Dr. Curtain's happiness technique, the kids struggle to devise a plan to reverse the effects before all is lost. The Society then attempts a daring escape and find themselves fleeing with a surprising companion in tow.

My questions on 2x07 are as follows:

Who is the companion? SQ (please)? Auguste? Garrison? Kidnapped Curtain? Noland? Jeffers? Jackson or Jillson? It better not be Marlon, just leave him no one cares.

Also, what would a party thrown by Curtain even look like? I bet the food is nice but other than that it’s probably so weird. I hope the society ruins his stupid little party. Pops every balloon, turns over every table, and spills food all over Curtain, who is clearly throwing himself a stupid party to overcompensate for everything he didn’t have as a kid, when he should be stepping up as a dad and focusing on giving his son everything he didn’t have during childhood.

“Escape” implies everyone, or almost everyone is about to get captured. That’s gonna be an insane confrontation scene. Will Milligan get some memories back? Does someone know something- anything about Constance’s family? Will Sticky get to tell Jackson and Jillson about what Curtain’s doing once he figures it out?

Where is Garrison? You dropped all that backstory for her and she leaves? If you’re trying to stop Curtain, maybe you should have used her. She better come back.

2x08: "A Two-Way Street"

After escaping Dr. Curtain’s compound, the Society retreats to Number Two’s family home in Luxembourg, where she reconnects with her mother and siblings. The kids scramble to rebuild the Worldview Wash but are interrupted by news of a group of Greys in the village nearby – they are out of time! The Society quickly comes up with defensive measures while Mr. Benedict and Dr. Curtain hash things out once and for all. After a final confrontation, the Society comes together to help one of their own.

My questions on 2x08 are as follows:

What on earth is a “Worldview Wash”? If it is what it sounds like, he’s literally altering the brain to change how they perceive reality or projecting his worldview into everyone. (That concept could actually be a great therapy tool to teach empathy, but obviously Curtain wouldn’t use it for that).

What is number 2’s family like and why are they estranged I need that backstory I need everyone’s tragic backstory. And is this where they are doing her name reveal? Also, when Number 2 commented that she thought Nicholas was jealous of his brother, was she projecting? I guess we will find out.

How are they rebuilding any machine without Garrison? Unless they stole her notes. Or unless Garrison is number 2’s family in some crazy plot twist (unlikely but since Garrison wasn’t in the books, at least not that I remember, she could be anyone).

“Hash things out once and for all” - as much as I love the twins confronting each other, I hope this isn’t the last season. It’s way too rushed and there’s so much more they could do. Honestly, this is what scares me the most. The show is well done I hope they don’t try to do a rushed ending here.

“After the confrontation, the society comes together to help one of their own” - it says after the confrontation. This might not be about the happiness control thing. It might be about finding Constance’s parents or getting Milligan’s memories back. I hope it leads into season 3.

#the mysterious benedict society #mysterious benedict society #tmbs #mbs disney #mbs season 2 #mbs s2 #mbs #mbs spoilers #tmbs disney #tmbs season 3 #tmbs 2

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

So I wrote an entire thing but I chickened out at the last moment and deleted it. But still I want to get this off my chest so here's a (still laughably long) tl;dr: while respectability politics and sex negativity are a problem in the lgbt community, and hypersexual/poly/kinky lgbt people deserve better than to be thrown under the bus for everyone else's sake, I'm super frustrated by how all arguments against the hypersexualization of lgbt people and inherent association of kink and polyamory to the community are immediately dismissed as respectability politics or kink/polyphobia.

Because while, again, I have absolutely nothing against responsible promiscuity, kink or polyamory, I'm a bi man who was sexually harassed specifically because of my sexuality, and I grew up seeing 99% of lgbt characters in media be painted as either exotic porn tropes only existing for cishet people's enjoyment or dangerous predators who get visibly excited from being physically/sexually abused. While I haven't been unicorn hunted yet, several of my bi friends have, because the assumption is that a bisexual must want a threesome.

It's not sex positive, it's terrifying and dehumanizing. It's an excuse for cishet people to hurt and harass you on the assumption that you deserve it and will enjoy it anyway, to censor any sort of portrayal of lgbt people as "obscene" and "not suitable for children".

It's also very demoralizing as someone living in a homotransphobic country to see people in blue US american states rave about how q*eerness is defined by being kinky, having a polycule and liking flannel and frogs or someshit instead of, you know. Actually being lgbt. So my struggles are worth nothing?

I think this falls into a very very big thing when it comes to LGBT activism and representation. And while you are right, there is more to add onto it.

We are only now-- in the USA, I won't speak for other countries-- starting to get to the point where bring LGBT is seen as normal. Nothing strange about it. Nothing unique. Just part of being yourself like any cis or straight person.

Before that it was, and still sometimes is, seen as a kink. Everything about being LGBT was about sex. Nothing else mattered in societies eyes. I remember in 2014 a friend's dad calling my schools LGBT club a "sex club." The over sexualization isn't new. Just like you, anon, have described. We have been shown, described, and called so many insults related to being hyper sexual. And that's not good.

So the responses ended up stemming in two directions-- one being a hypersexual response and the other a hyposexual response.

(note these are just the responses that I've seen. The LGBT community is not at fault for how it's been shown in media because the media will always twist things how ever they want)

Hypersexual response:

-lgbt people saying fuck it. And just enjoying themselves however they want. If you're gonna be seen as a sex addict, you might as well go have enjoyable sex.

-when you are forced to repress yourself for a long time and are finally in an environment where you are allowed to express yourself, you often go really far out with it. If you've been hiding your same sex attraction everywhere you go an finally we in a spot where you're allowed to kiss someone of the same sex-- well it makes sense you're gonna wanna kiss as a many as you can. You don't know when you'll be able to again. Dunno when this place will be taken away from you. Repression causes explosions.

-a big part of LGBT activism is showing that LGBT sex is just as natural as straight/cis sex. Straight/cis sex is shown a lot in media (not talking about porn. But a lot of shows have pda). It's important to show that with LGBT couples too. I'm not saying they do it well in media. But the more people see it portrayed well, the more natural it becomes in their brains.

Hyposexual response-

-a lot of shows will show an LGBT couple but not give them any sort of actual romantic moment. Maybe a date here and there, but not even a kiss. The fear often being the response of any homophobic audience members.

-its important to show the not sex side of relationships. The dates, the laughs, the flirting. The relatability to it helps people connect with the LGBT characters and again, see that the love is natural. But having ONLY these kinda moments all the time can lead to the idea that we aren't sexual at all. It went in the opposite direction of hyper sexual and refused to show anything sexual at all.

Just in general I find a lot of activism and representation either overly sexualizes the LGBT community (focusing on kink positivity, etc) or rips the idea of sex away from everything and acts like it has no right to be involved.

And I think a middle ground is needed. We are both under and over sexualized, and both are bad. Over sexualization is more likely to get you harassed and is definitely more dangerous physically. But the under sexualization can make it harder to show affection in public which is also an issue.

The two definitely feed into each other too. I've seen many a shows with lesbians where they're barely allowed to be sexual, and then there's a whole genre of porn where they're overly sexualized. You're only allowed to be sexual when its for a specific kind of consumption, any other time you're not allowed to show affection.

I'm not saying there isn't good representation. There is. And it's getting better! And that should be celebrated. But I definitely feel like our responses to the hyper sexualization of the community might not be the best approach. Like anon talked about, we shouldn't focus everything on kink, poly, etc etc, it's definitely something that needs approached. And it feels like our approaches are only ever "all about sex" or "sex doesn't exist."

But that's my experiences with stuff as an American. I can't speak for everyone. But it's definitely something worth discussing. Lastly, I don't feel like proof reading this so if something is wrong fuck it.

#answered #ask #discourse #lgbt discourse #long post

[magic-to-write]

okay new au idea bc it's been in the brain microwave for a while now:

TL;DR: Kilory Kalagan collects the children of the Emerald Ring and has them dress and act like their parents because he is insane.

Carter was rather depressed having just found out his Uncle Sly was a no good con man, he had spent the last month or so trying to come to terms with that in his head.

Then one morning Carter is woken up roughly and was pulled out of the place were they had been staying for the last two days. He was brought to a train station where they meet up with a strange man; he wore a mask that covered his face and a cloak that hid his body. The stranger looked Carter over and then gave Sly a large bundle of money, to which after receiving Sly just left leaving Carter with the stranger.

The stranger finally introduced himself as Kilory and told Carter that he would be the one taking care of him from now on. Carter asked many questions, but Kilory only answered a few of them.

They took a train to a town called Mineral Wells; Carter had spotted a sign when the train pulled into the station. They were picked up by a car at the station and they drove for a while. Carter couldn't be sure if the reason the drive took so long was because it really took that long to arrive at their destination or if they took extra twist and turns to confuse him.

They arrived at a house in the middle of wilderness, there didn't seem to be anyone else for miles other then a building atop a large hill. Inside Carter meets three new friends; Tilly Kalagan, Flynn Boscowitz and Charlie Santos. None of which seemed surprised that Kilory came back with Carter. Charlie was asked to show Carter to his room which she did eagerly.

Carter walked into the room and was instantly disturbed. his favorite books were on a shelf, toys he had stared longingly at in toy shops were there, the wallpaper was his favorite colour. Had Sly told Kilory these things or worse had Kilory been watching him?

Charlie closed the door and latched onto Carter begging him to believe her that this was wrong SOMETHING is wrong and Carter is inclined to believe her. Kilory comes in and tries to gently guide Charlie out of the room when Charlie turn violent and starts screaming he picks her up and forcibly takes her out.

Flynn comes into Carter's room and explains that Charlie tends to make up problems that aren't there and well yes somethings are odd their lives are completely normal. Carter doesn't quite believe him, but he can't exactly escape at the moment so he goes a long with it.

A few months later the circus is in town and Charlie suggests they should go. After all wouldn't it be great to see Flynn's dad? no other reason. Charlie can't say her mom is there and this is actually a last ditch effort at an escape attempt.

Maybe they won't find Charlie's mom at all! Maybe they will run into a magician club that's looking to win some carnival games...

#the magic misfits #tmm #new au #emerald ring second generation au #I heavily debated putting a cult trigger warning on this #that should be a warning in it's self

[sxrrandomfanfics]

Got any favorite Villains out there? OC Villains are included.

Oh boy, I'm not too big of a fan of villains. Their actions tend to squick me out. Lemme see what I can think of...

Amount of series - 13 Amount of characters - 18

Cree (Kids Next Door) - I don't like it when sisters fight because there is not enough healthy sibling representation between two or more sisters in media, but dang if Cree and Abigale's relationship doesn't hit me in the feels everytime. Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Phineas and Ferb) - Technically a villain. He's a great dad though. And hilarious with the overly tragic backstory. He looses to a platypus in a fedora every single day of the summer. Before going to teach some science class. I love how he evolved. Boxman (OK K.O.) - Doesn't understand organics, so he makes robots who see him as a father figure. Loves evil just to be evil, which is a breath of fresh air. Charles (No Evil) - THIS BOYO. This child. He has been given the power of the Jaguar of Shadows, Tezcatlipoca, and he has no idea how to use it. He was thinking what he was doing was justified and then when the main characters capture him. Zira (Lion King II: Simba's Pride) - This woman is fantastic. Will not give up her ideals when her life is on the line. She's a great use of the "Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss is just being mean" and manipulation. And she has a better villain song than Mother Gothel. Caligosto Loboto (Psychonauts) - I love tragic villains. Caligosto is one of them. I'm not as into him as some of the other fans, but a Dentist/Brain surgeon/mercenary who got a lobotomy because he used to be psychic is just such a great character to bounce with the other characters in the series. I like his interactions with Sasha especially. N (Pokemon) - May have been my first villain crush. I was 10 at the time. Didn't get a lot of the nuance, just liked the pretty boy. Now I see him and think LAYERS. Lusamine (Pokemon) - Listen my mom is pretty cool. She doesn't really force me to do things. So seeing mom's in media that do just unnerves me in all the best ways. Guzma (Pokemon) - It's MA BOY. He loves bugs and reminds me of my friends. Plus I love Team Skull in general. Myotismon (Digimon) - I think of just Myotismon's first arc was him at his best. He literally murders Digimon and people for kicks and is such a big threat to Gatomon that when she defeats him it's SO well deserved. Ennard (FNaF Sister Location) - Ennard was such an unnerving villain. Oooo... such shivers. Dr. Starline (Sonic IDW Comics) - This platypus with too much ego is just an amazingly horrid person. He's such a dumb smart person. And mean. Like with Surge and Kitsunami. Nothing King (Centaurworld) - What a creature. What a pathetic wet beast. What a simp. Haunting Lullaby and scary strength, this Minotaur who refused his own Centaur nature corrupted himself, leaving the only out through death. Incredible. GLaDOS (Portal) - Snarky, motherly, downright funny. And a great singer to boot! Cha-cha (Umbrella Academy) - While I would rather she be dead over her partner, Cha-cha was fun to have on the villains against the Umbrella Academy, particularly, Number 5.

Nelly (Whatever Happened to Shadowy Figure) - A person who you think is a victim, a little gal, then turns out to still want the villainous ideas of power and harm, just is pushed down by others to not do it her way. Delightful in the manipulation of reader's feeling bad for her only for me to bet she's not going to be as bad but still bad. Victoria Warsh - Strawberry Milk has talked about her in a Discord server we share and her story is delightfully twisted.

[REDACTED] - OH BOY LEMME DESCRIBE HIM. This fallen prince of once positive feelings has turned into a monster that causes so much distress for the people that knew him. An older brother watched him become a monster and now longs to become a monster as well to be reunited with his little brother, unaware that the little brother has long since nursed all of his love into hatred for his eldest brother. A general is trying to keep the land safe but unknowingly falling into every idea this little prince has created. A youngest brother once close to him now fears his older and middle brothers for what the middle brother has done. A "replacement" brother and his guard who have NO idea of the mania that the middle brother created. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AND I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIM.

[talesofstyles]

Drs Styles

paediatric heart surgeon harry, husband harry and dad harry. honestly the holy trinity.

warning: they did it in the car. bloody animals.

Harry

“Move your car, please!”

“What are you going to do? Write me a ticket?”

“This is in the interests of safety for the children!”

I look at the time in the car. I’ve still got about twenty to twenty-five minutes to watch this drama unfold at the school gate. I just wish we had popcorn because drop-off and parking situations at the school gates are always more entertaining than Good Morning Britain. 

The school gate is a strange social scene, and honestly, I don’t blame my wife for trying to avoid it like a plague. Sometimes, you don’t even have to talk to these people to know everything about their lives and more. I swear there are more gossips in the class WhatsApp group and daily playground chattering than in the copies of The Sun and Daily Mail combined. You know who’s married, who’s getting a divorce, whose husband shagged the au pair again, whose party you haven’t been invited to, even who’s looking for a builder. 

I see the school caretaker chuckling to himself as he sweeps the autumn leaves off the pathway, no doubt also enjoying our morning entertainment. 

“Why is Mrs Chambers screaming like that?” Alma, our eldest daughter, asks from the back of the car. 

“Because that man parks his car in a drop-off zone,” I reply, still watching him as he removes a child from his car seat. “Do you know who that is?”

“I think the boy is your classmate,” Alma turns to her sister.

Fiona, our youngest, peers over to inspect. “Oh yeah, that’s Rufus and his dad.”

“Do we like Rufus?”

“Not unless we like boys who pee down the slides,” Fiona scrunches her nose up. “He stood at the top and peed down like a waterfall. I haven’t gone down the slide ever since.”

I shake my head and let out a chuckle. “M’sure they’ve cleaned it up since, button.” 

Did you know that choosing a school for your child after nursery can be a head-throbbing, stomach-twisting, heart-pounding experience? Well, it can. How is one supposed to choose a school anyway? According to the proximity? Leavers Results? Adorable uniforms? Parents’ agendas?

After many, many discussions and visits through more schools than I can count, we ended up with Thomas’s Kensington. It’s a great school, and only ten minutes away from our home, making school runs easier. The downside of this school is the fact that it costs us an arm and a leg and that they’re always trying to rip us off any chance they get. Also, they only take the kids until 11, so after that, we’ll have to look for other schools again. But since our girls are only seven and five, we can worry about that later. 

There’s a strange mix of parents at this place. I went to school up in the North and the school gate scene is nothing like this. Here there are more au pairs, fancy cars, nicer clothes and people coming with impressive tans from their last weekend break in Antibes. The kids here are suited up too: the PE kit is the size of a small weekender bag, and we put them in uniforms that make them look smart, hoping that will increase the size of their brains. A child walks past our car with a cello case, another with a hockey stick. It’s a different land here. One that my socialist in-laws constantly tease us about and one which my mum was hysterical about because she was scared her grandbabies would be little Tories. I promised her I’d keep them grounded by only giving them plain hobnobs. None of those luxury chocolate covered ones.

Jokes aside, my girls are happy here. They’re thriving. They learn French and Spanish and Mandarin, even if they share a class with kids who have ridiculous names like Kitty and Archibald. 

A knock at my window calls me to attention. I wind it down.

“Are you Fiona’s dad?” A mum asks me.

“I am.”

“It’s about Ophelia’s riding party this Saturday at the riding stables.” 

Like I said, it’s a different land here.

“I thought we RSVPed to that?” I look at her in confusion.

“Yes, you did, but we have to change the food options as one of the partygoers is allergic to nuts. I’m making everyone aware and we need to let the guests know that they can’t bring any nuts on the day.”

A dirty joke is right there on the tip of my tongue and I’m trying my hardest to keep it in. My wife would definitely find it funny though, I’ve got to remember this and tell her later. 

“Noted,” I mean, I wasn’t going to send my daughter to a party with a packet of cashews anyway but I nod politely.

“And just gift vouchers for gifts please. Smiggle, if you can.”

Again, I nod, biting my tongue at the presumptuousness. But then I suddenly panic, because we haven’t entered the realms of pony riding just yet. Do I have to buy jods and boots? If I don’t, will my daughter be the odd one out? But Ophelia’s mum saunters off before I’ve got the chance to ask.

“Do I have to go to that party, daddy?” Fiona asks. 

“Well, we’ve already replied, poppet,” I tell her. “Did you not want to go?”

“I’ll go if I have to.”

I don’t answer because I get distracted by a vacant space. I edge the car forward so my girls can hop off. 

“I love you both. Have a good day, make good choices.” 

“Bye daddy! We’ll see you after work!”

***

Evelina London Children’s Hospital is our second home. Of course, as a children’s hospital, we try to make the place as fun as possible as not to freak those little patients out at being ill. It is bright and primary coloured, and each ward is decorated according to its own theme with different colours and lovely artworks. There are televisions and toys almost in every corner. We have a giant slide on the ground floor, and even the bins are shaped like red London buses. The aim was to help the children to forget that they’re in a hospital and take their minds off their sickness.

Since my wife and I are in the same department, our offices are next to each other, both overlooking the Thames. It’s nice up here. Would’ve been nicer if we could sneak in a quickie, but that’s practically impossible with our shared secretary’s desk sitting literally in front of our doors. 

Speak of the devil.

“Good morning. Here’s your tea,” my secretary follows me into my office with a cup of tea and a tiny plate with a couple of rich tea fingers. “Clinic until 3 pm, scheduled PDA ligation in the laboratory for 4 pm and then evening rounds on the wards.”

“Mornin’ Rhonda, you look lovely today,” I greet her cheerily. She’s a stern-looking woman who definitely likes her tea as strong as tits and who has probably never cried in her life. With such severity, she runs a tight ship, but she secretly has this affectionate side in her too. Not only is she a great secretary, but she also takes care of us in a way as a grandma does. She makes us tea, feeds us in between surgeries with biscuits or nice baby cheeses and crackers just so we wouldn’t starve. 

See that sofa over there in the corner of my office? Rhonda got me that. It was around the time when I had just become a new father with the sweetest, most gorgeous little baby who did not sleep. Alma wasn’t a fussy baby though. For some reason, she just wouldn’t go back to sleep after her midnight feed for months. Believe me, I tried everything. I changed her nappy, I swayed and jiggled and rocked and sung her to sleep. Odd nonsensical songs like, ‘Alma darling go to sleeep. Sleepy sleep sleep. Pleeeeease. I’m so tirrrred. My eyeballs may actually exploooode. I don’t want you to see thaaat.’ And she would just look at me all wide-eyed like I’d lost the plot. Those were song lyrics? That was rubbish. Please don’t give up your day job. Also, it’s not sleeping time. I’m awake. I’m ready for life. Come on, entertain me, old man. Isn’t this nice, just you and me? Tell me everything you know. EVERYTHING. 

Except of course she didn’t say all that. She would just stare at me and I had no idea what was going on in her little head. 

I took over my wife’s patients at the hospital during her maternity leave, so I had longer hours at the hospital. One day Rhonda found me napping on the floor between surgeries, so she sweet-talked some porters into looking for any old sofas on the go and paid to have this one reupholstered. She even bought me a fleece throw for it too. We really don’t deserve her.

“You hittin’ on me?” She deadpans. “Yer wife not doing it for you these days?”

“It’s the blazer. I’m a sucker for a blazer.”

“If I’d known, I would’ve worn it more often,” she replies. “Did my nice dress yesterday not give you the fanny flutters?”

“It’s schlong shiver for me,” I roar with laughter. “And it’s the tartan, makes you look well old.”

“YN, yer husband’s a bloody git, did I ever tell you that?” Rhonda says loud enough for my wife to hear, and I can hear my wife’s laughter from her office next door. “Drink your tea. Your first clinic appointment is in twenty.”

“Yes ma’am,” I salute her. 

***

The Arctic ward in the Evelina is home to many of our imaging, heart and kidney services. The name is probably giving it away, but everything is decorated in blue and white to go with the theme. We have several zones, and since paediatric cardiology clinics are held in the Walrus zone, I spend a great deal of time each day looking at walrus and snowflake decals. 

“Doctor Styles!” I hear a little voice shouts in excitement as I walk towards the waiting room in the outpatient ward. I smile, because I recognise that voice even before I see the little person.

The waiting room is very open here compared to other hospitals. There’s a sea of noise, snacks, tiny juice boxes and colouring pages. There’s also always a look of expectation, judgement on the faces of parents and guardians every time I walk in. They want to see if their doctor is old or qualified enough to see their children. There’s always one child who has the whole gang with them; parents, two sets of grandparents and even several aunts and uncles, and there’s also at least one child running around in circles out of boredom. 

This little lad bounces off his chair and hurls himself at me in a way like a little puppy would when its owner comes home from work. I put an arm out, hoping that he’ll apply the brakes but no such luck and he bundles himself into my arms. “Nice to see you, mate.”

His parents smile as they watch their son’s antics, who then runs off as I shake their hands. I turn around to see what caught his attention, and I can’t help but chuckle when I realise it’s my wife. 

“Doctor pretty Styles!” He exclaims excitedly as he bundles himself into her arms. She gets a mouthful of curls in the process. 

“Hi Rory,” she greets him as she runs her fingers through his curly mop. 

“Oi,” I pout as I walk towards them. “You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“Your wife is prettier,” he says with a shrug, his tone matter-of-fact.

She laughs and gives him a high-five. “Rory, you are officially my favourite patient.”

She is right. Rory is one of our special patients for sure. We’ve both known him for about six years now, ever since Rory’s mum gave birth to this tiny human next door at St Thomas and his heart was literally broken. I remember watching proudly from the theatre when my wife replaced two of his valves when he was born. It was in our early years of training. Long time patients like Rory almost always feel like family. We’ve seen all their parents’ tears and watched over their children throughout the years. They send us cards and wine every Christmas and despite all attempts to keep a professional distance, their kids do feel like our own.

Rory shrugs off his dinosaur rucksack and unzips it, pulling out a drawing of a blue whale and an opened packet of KitKat. I like that the whale wears a top hat and appears to also don a moustache. 

“I drew you both a picture. Only one though, because I figure you can share,” he says with a big toothy grin and hands the packet of KitKat to my wife. “And I’ve got half a KitKat here. Do you want it?”

“I’m good for now. Keep that KitKat for later on the tube,” she smiles and waves at Rory as she begins to walk away towards the fetal cardiology ward just down the hall. “Bye Rory, thanks for the picture.”

“Bye doctor pretty Styles,” Rory replies, making my wife laugh as she walks away. I give her a wave and a wink. 

“Hey Rory, did you know a blue whale has a heart the size of a small car?” I ask him and his eyes widen.

“No way! That’s mega!” He exclaims. “Do you think you could operate on a whale heart?”

“I would need a very big ladder,” I tell him. “And a wetsuit. I’d give it a go though.”

A senior nurse from the outpatient ward, Florence approaches us with a junior nurse trailing behind her. “Dr Styles, always a pleasure.”

I smile at her. “Florence. How are we today?”

“Busy as usual,” she replies. “We’re about twenty minutes behind I’m afraid. We had Dr Goodridge in this morning and you know he likes to talk.”

“He always runs over,” I chuckle. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll skip lunch and get us back up to speed.”

“I’ll make sure to send some snacks for you. Here’s your chart, your files are already in your office. And this is Alice, your nurse today. She’s newly qualified so might need some instructions.”

The new nurse looks terrified so I smile at her to try and calm her fears. I totally get that. When you work in medicine, unfortunately, you’ll realise that there are a lot of rude self-important wankers. 

I look down at my chart and find Rory’s name on the top of the list. “Well, look who’s coming with me to the exam room.”

Rory reaches out to hold my hand and we walk towards the examination room. His parents follow us closely, carrying the usual coats and devices that people do when they know they’re bound for a hospital waiting room. I see them inside and sit behind the desk.

“So, young man, I hear we’ve had a touch of drama with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

I’ve actually already got the information in the file, but I like the way this kid tells a story. He reminds me of my youngest. 

“So… I was at school and we were doing PE and I wasn’t really feeling it because it was cold and really we should have been inside but Mr Witter makes us go outside because he used to be in the Army apparently and he says we should get used to the cold but that’s what they do in prisons.”

I smile. “Go on.”

“And then my heart started running.”

“You mean racing?”

He nods firmly. Racing isn’t even the word. It sprinted to the finish like Bolt at 252 beats per minute, three times the speed it should.

“It felt like bubbles in my chest and then the school went crazy panicky and they called the ambulance and they brought me to the hospital but not this one, it was another one and it wasn’t as good because you weren’t there and they had really bad biscuit.”

His mum adds. “And they gave him some drugs to bring it back to a steady rhythm; they were close to shocking him.” Her voice trails off and both parents’ faces look drawn and pale remembering the incident.

Rory looks absolutely unbothered by this. To be fair, we have put this little man through everything. We’ve cut his chest open more times than is necessary for someone so small, we hook him up to machines and put him on treadmills. His resilience and character amaze me, and I really can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child so vulnerable and helpless, to be paralysed and weighed down with such worry.

“Alright then, little man, we need to make sure that your heart is working as it should. This is Alice, and she is going to take you over for an ECG and we just need to make sure your tick-tock is in good shape.”

Rory nods and jumps off the chair. His dad offers him a piggyback, and his mum smiles at them. I can hear Rory offering that half KitKat to Alice as they leave the room. 

His mother turns to me as the door is closed, her shoulders relaxing, allowing herself to breathe. “And how are you?” I ask her.

“You just think it’s done and then something like that comes along to scare you,” she says with a sigh.

“Let’s have these tests and then see if it’s anything major to worry about,” I try to calm her. “Episodes of rapid heartbeat is quite common in Rory’s case, and we can look into drugs to remedy that if necessary.”

She smiles, nodding.

“Did you have any other questions for me?”

She studies my face for a moment too long. “I… well, it will show up in Rory’s records soon, but my husband I are… I mean we’re getting a divorce.”

I pause for a moment. Of course, I know these things happen in life, but I’ve known this couple for years. I’ve seen them at their lowest ebb, bound by friendship and their love for that boy. I really do feel sorry for them.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“We just… we’re terrified about telling Rory.”

“He doesn’t know?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “We’re scared of breaking him. I mean, look at him. All of this stuff he’s been through and he carries on like nothing has happened. We don’t want to upset him.”

“It took a team of us the best part of six years to build Rory’s heart. There's a warranty on that workmanship,” I reassure her. “Have that chat with him. He’ll be fine.”

***

“Have we got time for dinner first?” I turn to my wife as we walk out of the hospital. We don’t normally have the luxury of ending our shift at the same time, but today is exceptional. We have parents’ evening at the girls’ school so Rhonda made sure to clear up our schedule after our evening rounds at the ward. 

“No, but we can raid M&S and eat in the car?”

I’m starving and I almost cry with relief at the suggestion. “Always knew I married the right woman.”

She chuckles. “Damn right you did.”

We leave the car at the hospital and she drags me along the walkways to Waterloo, the breeze biting at our cheeks. I pull her into M&S, dodging the marching commuters and grab a basket. 

“I’ll look for some wine,” she says before she saunters off. “Oh and I want sushi. None of that crap with the mayonnaise please.”

“Alright.”

I skipped lunch today so the whole place calls to me. I start taking very random things off the shelves: a packet of raspberry iced buns. That’ll do. I also take some hummus for my wife because she bloody loves hummus. I’m not even joking, I’ve seen her down a whole pot of it. Then I take some sushi as requested, some coleslaw, a family bag of mature cheddar and red onion crisps and a trifle. I hope I don’t bump into Rhonda. Next are cheese twists, noodle salad and cocktail sausages. 

It takes me a while to notice that there is a man right next to me with a roll of yellow stickers in their back pocket. Hello there, you are one of my favourite people tonight. Have I managed to find that sacred hour when all the food is being marked down? He labels some prawns with dip and even though I get a little squeamish about eating fish near its expiry date, I put it in my basket. I then follow him around the corner. Now, this is dinner. I put all sorts of random food in my basket and smile at the thought.

Ooh, knockdown pizzas. I should get a pizza. That’s tomorrow’s tea sorted, the girls will love it. Although I can’t help but wonder, what’s the limit for us to feed our daughters frozen pizza in a week before they get taken away from us? But eh, we might be able to get away with it if we give them frozen peas on the side. 

“Look at you,” says my wife, depositing two bottles of red in the basket. 

“Yes, it’s me. I’m the yellow sticker bitch.”

She snickers as we turn to head for the tills. “Excellent work.”

***

“Mr and Mrs Styles, welcome.”

“Mrs Ebner, always a pleasure,” I shake the headmistress’ hand who’s standing at the door. 

“Busy evening?” My wife asks her as she shakes her hand next.

“Always,” the headmistress replies with a smile, then proceeds to speak like she’s reading out of brochures. “But such a wonderful opportunity to connect with our parents and build on the special relationships we have with our school community.” 

Two uniformed minions appear.

“Lewis, Maggie, could you please show Mr and Mrs Styles through to the drinks reception?”

They both nod in unison. The boy holds his arms out like a waiter showing us to our table. We follow them through the school’s grand corridors to the main hall. It’s the one thing I like about this place. It’s very Hogwarts-like with hefty engraved name boards and sepia photos of successful sports teams. In the hall, a throng of parents mill around waiting to see respective teachers. It’s the same every year. We all dodge the people from the PTA trying to sell us quiz tickets, and the bowls of crisps out of hygiene concerns.

“Red or white?” Asks a lady in an apron.

This right here is the very reason we get through parents’ evening. From the look of the bottle, it’s decent wine too. I think that’s where a good proportion of our fees is going. 

“Red, please.”

We both take our glasses and walk to the corner of the hall. It’s essentially a holding area without the background music. The idea is that all the parents will get on and create a party vibe but it just becomes a strange family gathering. As terrible as it sounds, it’s sorted into cliques: parents who know each other via NCT groups, the international expat brigades who keep to themselves, the parents who’ve ostracised themselves by gossip, the ones who you know regularly brunch and ski together.

The boy from earlier suddenly appears in front of us. “Mrs Hughes is ready for you.”

I put my hand on the small of my wife’s back as we walk towards the classroom. Fiona’s teacher first and then Alma’s straight after. Right, we can do this.

“Mrs Hughes, we meet again,” I shake her hand. I’ve got no qualms about Mrs Hughes. She’s a seasoned teacher who likes a slack and sensible moccasin and we’re familiar with her since she taught Alma two years previously. When we enter the classroom, Lewis bows in reverence, taking his leave and I wonder whether to tip him. 

“It’s always lovely to have another Styles girl in my classroom. Fiona is a particular delight.”

My wife and I smile proudly. I’m sure Mrs Hughes says this to every parent here about their child, but that’s always nice to hear. 

“She talks a lot about you,” my wife says. “She seems to have settled in well.”

Mrs Hughes opens up a couple of books and it’s classic Fiona. Alma is ordered and neat—if she makes a mistake then she erases it completely and she underlines things with a ruler and listens to instruction carefully. She gets that from her mum. Fiona though, on the other hand, she’s all me. She has more wild abandon about her; no rulers, no rubbers. She puts giant crosses through things that don’t work and likes her bubble writing decorated with doodles of many, many cats.

I glance around the classroom as Mrs Hughes talks to us about standardised scores. The theme of the school is to show you how smart and educated these children are. Look at the copperplate handwriting, their reproductions of Van Gogh and our languages corner where they’ve all had a go at telling us what they like in French. I spy a contribution from my girl. J’adore les chats et le gâteau au chocolat. 

I’ve lost track of the conversation so I try to catch up.

“So to push Fiona into those top scores, perhaps we can look into tutoring? For maths, in particular, so she can grasp some of the concepts a little more tightly,” says Mrs Hughes. 

My wife and I look at each other confused. “Uh, I don’t think there’s a need, right? She’s only five.”

“It’s never too early,” replies Mrs Hughes. “We run an after-school tutoring club on Tuesdays that would help.”

Back when I was a youngster, clubs were fun endeavours that involved matching baseballs caps or were a chocolate biscuit that you had in your lunchbox. Maths tutoring session was not a club.

I ask her. “Is it free?”

“It’s fifteen pounds per session.”

See? My point being this should be a parents’ evening, not a sales session.

“Well, then it’s something to think about,” says my wife. “It could be that Fiona catches up with people throughout the year.”

“Possibly,” Mrs Hughes nods. Still, though, she proceeds to go into her folder and passes me a form. Sneaky. “Fiona has also shown great interest in languages and art. Her pictures have been a joy.”

Mrs Hughes goes to a file and pulls one of Fiona’s drawings. I glance down at it. It’s a standard child piece of art. The grass and sky are strips of colour to the top and bottom. It’s a family portrait, and we are as tall as the broccoli style trees. Wait, hang on a second. I count the number of people in the picture again. Is that-

“And Mrs Styles, I gather congratulations are in order,” she says with a smile. “Such lovely news.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fiona told me it’s a boy,” she adds, and the sheer terror on my wife’s face at the realisation is priceless. “You must be very thrilled.”

I study the picture. There’s a house in the middle, and standing in a line in front of the house is our family. The one slightly taller than the broccoli tree is me. I’ve got my white lab coat, and I look like a serial killer because I’m holding a scalpel with the size of a butcher’s knife. Next to me is my wife, also with a white lab coat, but instead of a scalpel, she’s holding a very chunky baby who rather looks like a basketball with a head.

“Oh dear,” I chuckle. “Guess now we know what she’ll ask for Christmas.”

“Yeah,” my wife shakes her head. “We’re not expecting.”

“Oh, I apologise,” Mrs Hughes says with a sheepish smile.

“No worries, Mrs Hughes,” I tell her. “So, what else has our girl been up to here? Besides gossiping of course.”

Mrs Hughes laughs under her breath. “Well, in class, Fiona is attentive, bright and very helpful. She is a credit to you both.”

***

“I swear your daughter, Styles.”

We’re sitting in the car now. Finally done with parents’ evening, still laughing at the slightly creepy, chunky basketball baby in Fiona’s picture and the fact that three people, including Mrs Hughes, have congratulated us for the ‘baby’.

“You haven’t called me Styles in years,“ I turn to her with a grin. “Not since medical school.”

I can’t help but flashback to the good ol’ days when we had matching university hoodies and we’d test each other on the parts of a kidney whilst walking into lectures, sitting next to each other, sharing pens and cans of Lilt. 

“Well, after that I became a Styles too,” she chuckles. “Would be confusing then, wouldn’t it?”

“True,” I laugh under my breath, then I grab her hand and pull it to my mouth so I can kiss her knuckles. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For being a Styles.”

“Aw, aren’t we soppy tonight?” She smirks. “Alright, stop the car.”

“What?”

“There,” she points to a dark empty spot and I oblige. 

Then, before I can even ask her why, she reaches over and grabs me by the collar. Pulling me close to her and gives me a kiss. I kiss her back, and I smile when she bites gently on my bottom lip.

“Oi, oi. Something’s got you randy.”

The next thing I know, she undoes her seatbelt and then rolls her trousers down her legs along with her knickers, fumbling and giggling at the awkward movement. I push my seat back and pull my trousers down. 

“Don’t fall on gearstick now,” I joke as she climbs over to straddle me. “Well, unless you want to, of course…”

She laughs as she lowers herself over my lap. I really can’t believe what’s happening here.

“Mrs Styles, we’re about to have sex in a car. Around the corner from our daughters’ school.” 

“I know,” she says with a smile before she runs her tongue along my neck. “Not our first rodeo though.”

“Oh right, we did it in our Volvo years ago, didn’t we? Thought the suspension couldn’t take it.”

“And it turned out fine. Told you that you needed to have more faith in the Swedes, they’re a reliable breed.”

“I love it when you talk about Sweden.”

“Ikea.”

“Fuck.”

“Meatballs.”

“Billy Bookcase.”

She throws her head back in laughter and I take this as an opportunity to run my tongue along her collar bone. She gasps. I reach down to lift her before I slowly lower her over my cock. We both sigh as I enter her, a long exhalation with our lips barely touching. 

“Viggo Mortensen.”

“Isn’t he Danish?”

“Tomato, Tomahto.”

I smile at my wife and push my hips up, silently telling her that we don’t need to talk about Swedish people anymore. She grabs onto the car seat and levers herself up and down. I look at her in the eye, a goofy smile still plastered across my face.

But then I squint. Light. Bollocks, what’s that? Where’s that light coming from? Crap, that’s bright. Shit. I see the flash of a hi-vis jacket, a knock at the window and someone shaking their head.

Oh sodding fucking bollocking shit wank.

#harry #harry styles #harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles fics #harry styles ff #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles au #dad!harry #husband!harry #doctor!harry #surgeon!harry

[phykios]

Five Times Percy Jackson Cheated At School (And One Time Someone Cheated Him) [read on ao3]

thank you as always to @darkmagyk for inspo and beta-ing 💙💙💙 and thank you to @arosnowflake for the homer idea!

1)

Percy squints at the paper prompt again, tilting his head, as if the new angle will extract some hidden information. It doesn’t change. The font is the special dyslexia-friendly one used by most departments at NRU, so he isn’t misreading it, either.

Your final will be an 8-10pp (TNR, 12pt, double-spaced) research paper expanding on one of the topics discussed in our class so far, or an alternate idea of your choosing, to be submitted in writing by May 7 with footnotes and bibliography. By 10am on the Wednesday before the Thursday class you will submit online a 750-word essay (word count does not include footnotes) on the research thread you have pursued that week (no written assignments due Week 6 or Week 12). 

Percy might hate college.

“Your neck bothering you again?” Annabeth asks, coming up behind him, her hands already on his shoulders. She’s sweaty, dressed in workout clothes, having just come back in from a jog. 

“My neck is fine,” he says. “Just preemptively freaking out over my Roman history final.”

He tilts his head back over the top of his chair, staring into the upside down, prettily frowning face of his girlfriend, and it does nothing to improve his mood.

“How bad is it?”

“Eight to ten pages,” Percy says, “not including footnotes.”

“Ouch.”

“And,” he grimaces, “it’s a topic of our choosing.”

Her mouth twists in sympathy. “Sucks.”

“Yep.”

“Anything I can do to help?” She squeezes his shoulders lightly, an open invitation. 

He shakes his head, stretching his arms back to grab her waist. “Promise not to break up with me when you catch me crying at 4AM over it.”

“Promise.” And she seals it with a kiss, bending down to reach him. “Dad wants to know if you’re free on the 16th.” 

“The 16th?” He wracks his brain. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t conflict with sailing, or Greek Club, or the monthly intra-pantheon relations council meeting that Chiron and Clarisse both guilted him into joining. “Pretty sure. Why?”

“Dinner--Charlotte’s out of town that weekend.”

“Sounds good.”

“Great, I’ll let him know. Now,” and she grins, “are you going to stare at that computer all day, or do you want to come and take a shower with me?”

Percy slams the computer shut. 

He doesn’t think about his paper topic for a while after that.

***

To his great dismay, Percy gets to her dad’s house first on the 16th. Drama in writing group 🙄 she texts him as he gets to the door, be there asap.

Great. Alone in the house with his girlfriend’s dad. Taking a deep breath, he knocks on the door. 

Not a minute later, Dr. Chase opens it. Last time they went to visit, Percy and Annabeth had ended up waiting outside for almost a quarter of an hour. “Oh, Percy,” he says, fumbling his flight helmet off his head. “Goodness, I thought I’d lost track of time again. Come in, come in.”

“Thanks,” Percy says, stepping inside and shedding his jacket. “Annabeth’s running late, but she said she’d be here soon.”

He frowns, looking so much like Annabeth that it throws Percy for several loops. “Well, that’s alright,” he says. “I’m sure we can entertain ourselves well enough until she gets here.”

“Yeah,” Percy chuckles, uneasy.

Several seconds pass. 

“Oh!” starts Dr. Chase. “Right, yes. Come in. Would you like something to drink?”

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t get much better.

A few minutes of staggered conversation later, it becomes eminently clear why they need Annabeth between them. It’s not the awkward small talk that doesn’t go anywhere (“How’s school going for you?” “It’s okay.” “Good, that’s good to hear.”) or the fact that Dr. Chase doesn’t really grasp how to relate to younger kids (“Have you heard of this website called ‘Vine’?”), but more that it’s just painfully obvious that the two of them don’t really know where they stand with each other. 

Now, he knows that Frederick Chase doesn’t hate him. Objectively, he’s aware of the fact that, if it weren’t for him, Annabeth never would have reconnected with her father in the first place, and he kind of owes him for that. Also, Percy knows that he’s a pretty chill guy--a little scatterbrained, but chill. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to make a good impression, though. Or that Dr. Chase thinks that Percy is smart enough for his daughter. Because, like, Percy isn’t smart enough for Annabeth--that much is obvious. Dr. Chase was courted by Athena. Percy barely made it out of high school calculus.

“Would you…” Dr. Chase hedges, plucking off his glasses and giving them a quick wipe with his shirtsleeve. “Would you like to see some of my current research?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.” 

At the very least, hopefully Dr. Chase will talk enough for the both of them, eating up time until Annabeth gets here.

A new spring in his step, Dr. Chase leads Percy to his study, where he’s got a setup worthy of Cabin Six: on his desk is a massive map of the Mediterranean, littered with miniatures of tanks, planes, and ships. Ringing the room are wall-hangings, depicting different types of planes, half of their structure in x-rays like people in an anatomy textbook, sandwiching the giant viking sword which hangs directly behind his chair. Every inch of floor space is occupied with a pile of books, some serving as additional desk space for mugs, notepads, spare toy soldiers, and, in one case, what looks like the leftovers of a handful of celestial bronze spearheads, melted down into shiny, useless nuggets. 

“You know I primarily study aviation,” Dr. Chase is saying, tidying up as he walks around the room, “but my colleagues and I are collaborating on an interdisciplinary re-evaluation of the entire North African theatre in World War II. It’s fascinating stuff; until very recently, they used to call it the ‘war without hate,’ given the lack of partisan roundups and, ah, ethnic clashes that you see in Europe--absolute garbage, of course. As if there weren’t civilians caught up in the fighting, too!” He chuckles, pleased at his own joke. Percy forces a laugh out of himself. “Anyway, with my prior experience studying the invasion of Sicily, I was brought on to assist in piecing the timeline together, working backwards from 1943.”

“Cool,” says Percy, filling the natural gap of conversation.

“Extremely! Operation Husky was a terrific endeavor of airborne, amphibious, and land-based combat.”

Percy nods. Amphibious? “Uh-huh.”

“Though, I must admit, I am having a little trouble retracing some of the ships.” Peering over his map, he leans down, fiddling with one of the ships. “You see this one here? The Palmer?”

Stepping up to the desk, Percy crouches down so the little toy ship is at eye level.

“Well, based on official records, the Palmer was supposed to have arrived at the rendezvous point at the same time as all the other ships, but ended up delayed by two days, and I can’t… quite…” He moves the ship again, frowning. “Figure out… why…” 

“Where were they sailing through?” Percy asks. 

Dr. Chase points to the map. “From Alexandria to Malta.” 

“They probably just hit a bad couple of currents,” Percy says, standing up. 

Tilting his head, Dr. Chase peers at him. “How do you mean?”

“If you’re going through the Cretan Passage, you’re going to hit all kinds of West-East currents which will push you backwards.” Snatching up a pencil from a nearby book stack, Percy lightly sketches on top of the map, tracing along the North African coast. “There are tons of overlapping currents in this area that push boats around in circles, especially around Sicily. That’s one of the reasons why so many historians figure that Homer was referring to the Strait of Messina when Odysseus goes through Scylla and Charybdis, here.” And he circles the strait, with a confident flourish.

When he pulls back, Dr. Chase is staring at him.

Percy blinks. “Um… sorry I drew on your map.”

“You--I have been trying to figure that out for weeks.”

He coughs, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.”

But Dr. Chase just laughs. “You can make it up to me by helping me with these next.” Clearing crumbs off of southern France, he bends over, pencil in hand. “So, say you were trying to get from Marseilles to Tunis…” 

Forty-five minutes later, still embroiled in battle recreations of the Mediterranean theatre, they don’t hear Annabeth letting herself in with her key, not even registering her presence until Dr. Chase, grasping for a notebook, spots her leaning against the doorway. “Don’t stop on my account.”

“Oh, Annabeth, dear! I’m sorry,” says Dr. Chase, going over to give her a hug. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

“I can see that,” she says. “What are you guys doing?”

“Percy here has been assisting me with naval movements,” he says, proudly.

Lacing her fingers with his, Annabeth steps over to Percy, studying their battle map. “Really?”

“Oh yes, he’s been phenomenally helpful.”

She kisses his cheek, pleased. “Look at you, Mr. ‘Phenomenally Helpful.’”

“It was pretty fun,” he admits, warm all over.

“I’d bet. Although, I guess this means we should probably order in for dinner…?”

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Dr. Chase smiles. “Yes, I suppose we should. Does pizza sound all right to you two?”

“Let me take care of it,” she says, slipping from Percy’s side. “You guys looked like you were in the middle of something. Extra olives, dad?”

“Don’t forget--”

“And anchovies, Percy, I know.” She rolls her eyes, taking out her phone.

Rather than the three of them move into the kitchen, Annabeth ends up bringing the pizza in with her, because of course she has opinions she’d like to share about the Allies’ naval movements. 

“You know, Percy,” says Dr. Chase, “I must say, you have a real knack for this kind of thing. Have you thought about what you might major in yet?”

Ah, the million drachmae question. “Not yet,” he says, fiddling with a pencil. “I figured I’d get through my gen eds first and then see which one I hated the least.” 

“I think you should consider majoring in history.”

Percy’s head snaps up. “History?”

“Specifically maritime history, I suppose. Your predisposition to sailing and ocean currents would be a huge asset to your research.”

“But--wouldn’t history have, like, a metric ton of required reading? I’m not really sure that’s my area.” He has a daughter with dyslexia and ADHD; surely he’d understand Percy’s hesitation.

But he just shakes his head. “Graduate programs these days are very favorable towards interdisciplinary methodology, I sincerely doubt you’d have to barricade yourself in the library. And recently there’s been a significant push to make the field more accessible to students with disabilities, including things like digitization, screen reading for people with vision impairments, and even restructuring programs all together so that students no longer have to memorize the Encyclopedia Britannica in order to pass their general exams.”

“That’s really nice of you to say, Dr. Chase,” Percy says, “But history class isn’t like talking over naval movements with you.” He thought back to the paper that had lowkey been haunting his dreams. “Like, in my classical history survey, I can’t just… talk about currents and battle plans. I have to come up with a topic on my own, and then write about that.” 

“Surely something involving Roman naval movements would be well within your skill set. You have a second sense about these things,” he chuckles, “clearly.”

Percy glances towards Annabeth, hoping she’ll back him up, but she looks thoughtful. Considering. Like she’s actually thinking about her dad’s proposal. “I can’t just choose something in naval history.”

“Why not?”

“Because… it's too easy?” 

If it was anything like his afternoon with Dr. Chase, it might even be fun. And school isn’t supposed to be fun. 

He repeats that thought to Annabeth as they drive home. “School isn’t supposed to be fun.” 

“No,” Annabeth agrees, “but I don’t know… I like my intro art history class way better than anything we ever did in high school because I actually care about it. Maybe if you write about stuff you’re good at, like my dad suggested, you’ll like it more.” 

The idea follows him all the way to bed, where he’s still mulling it over at 2 in the morning. Before he can chicken out, he grabs his phone, shooting off a quick email to his professor with his potential paper topic, then rolls over, eventually falling asleep.

By morning, he has a response. 

Sounds good! Looking forward to it.

***

With shaking hands, Percy calls his mom. “Yes?” 

“Hey mom.”

“Percy?” He hears her perk up, almost visualizing her sitting up in her chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Mom instincts. They can always tell when something is different. His heart throbs in his chest. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says, smiling stretching across his face. “It’s just--I got my paper back.” 

Percy had ended up writing his paper about the Roman navy movements in the Battle of the Aegates in 241 BC. It was probably the most fun he’s ever had on a school assignment, or at least the most fun he’d ever had writing a paper. 

“And?” She sounds expectant, hopeful. His mom has always had such faith in him, even with thirteen years of schooling to prove her otherwise. 

He looks back at his email, just to make sure he’s reading it right. “I got an A.”

She gasps. He can hear the scrape of the chair as she stands up. “Percy, that’s wonderful!” 

“Thank you.”

“An A!”

He smiles into his fist, inordinately pleased. “Thank you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I am so happy for you!”

“Thanks, mom.”

“I’m so proud of you, Percy.” Her voice is soft now, like twilights on the beach with blue marshmallows. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this. You should be very proud, too.”

“I am.” And he is, weirdly enough. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I can.” His mom must be grinning, her eyes sparkling. “I always knew you could do it.”

“Sally?” He hears in the background, muffled. “Is that Percy?”

“Paul, Percy got an A on his Roman history paper!”

A second voice crowds its way in, equally excited. “An A? That’s great, kiddo! Congratulations.”

Why can’t he stop smiling? “Thanks.”

“I bet that feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Well, it is very well-deserved,” says Paul. “That was some great work you did. I could tell how passionate you were about your topic just from your first sentence.”

“Thank you.” Maybe he should be worried about all this praise going to his head, but damn, is it nice. “Listen, I have to go get started on dinner, but I just wanted to give you a call.”

“Of course,” says his mom. “I want to hear from you more, okay? Tell me more good news! Like when are you and Annabeth going to--”

“I’m working on it, okay?” says Percy, smiling even more broadly. “I’ll keep you posted, promise.”

She laughs, tinny and happy. “You’d better. Congratulations again, sweetheart.”

“Thanks mom. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” 

And he hangs up, puts his phone down on the table, tilts his head back, and sighs, full, happy, a release. 

Maybe college won’t be so bad after all. 

2)

“You don’t have to do this,” Frank says, hushed. “All you have to do is walk away.”

Five Greek Fire bombs, cloudy yellow, are lined up on the table in front of him, neatly laid out in front of five twenties. From the side, Frank stares him down, surrounded by an army of morbidly curious Romans. Someone turned off the music and turned on the lights a while ago, stopping the party in its tracks, every eye on Percy and his opponent. Figures, his first college party all year and he causes a scene. 

Percy grips the edge of the table. “He insulted the Mets,” he says for the millionth time. “I can’t let that shit stand.”

Frank sighs. “Annabeth?” he asks, hoping to stop this nonsense.

Turning to his side, Percy sees his girlfriend, two drinks in, her cheeks lightly flushed, but solid as she stands beside him, supporting him. Her eyes are hard, fierce, the warrior gaze of Athena all but leaping out of her. “Do it,” she says. 

William, the sour-faced Roman legacy of Juventus, scowls. “A hundred bucks on the table. Sixty seconds. No throwing them back up.”

“Deal.”

“Frank,” Annabeth calls. “Start the clock.”

He sighs. “You guys are idiots.”

“Frank!”

“Okay, okay.” He holds out his phone, thumb primed, hovering over the screen. “On your marks, in three… two… one…” 

He hits zero, and Percy grabs a shot glass. Squeezing his eyes shut, he brings it to his lips, and throws it back.

It’s… not what he expected.

The tequila is awful--no getting around that. Even to Percy’s untrained taste buds, having really only ever had some of Gabe’s sour beer (under duress) and some of the Demeter cabin’s strawberry wine (on his eighteenth birthday, a celebration for actually getting to graduate high school), he can tell it’s cheap, rank, unrefined shit, like he’s drinking straight toilet cleaner. But the garum, the weird Roman condiment that the shot is mixed with, the one that Percy had never heard of before, it’s… it almost tastes like the fish sauce that comes with the pork and rice noodles from the Vietnamese place down the corner of his mom’s apartment, only less… fishy? Yeah. Less fishy.

It’s a weird taste. It’s not bad, by any means, it just--straight up, it just tastes like saltwater. Like the sea. 

And, well. Percy can handle the sea.

He looks at William, and grins. “You are so fucked.”

The assembled Romans cheer, spectators at a gladiator show, as Percy knocks back the rest of the Greek Fire bombs, one after another, clearing them all in under thirty seconds. Annabeth swipes up the cash, shrieking as she throws her arms around Percy. William wanders off, red-faced and glaring, as whoever turned the music off before flips it back on, the night, and the party, saved.

Silly Percy. He should have known what was coming next.

Thirty minutes later, he is well and truly wasted.

“You’re, like, really pretty,” he shouts at Annabeth over the loud music.

She snorts, grinning at him. “Thanks.”

“Seriously,” he slurs, tipping forward on his feet. “You could be a model.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Remember when we were fourteen,” he yells, bracing himself against the wall, “and you got kidnapped by that monster?” Slightly soberer but still a little flushed, she bites her lip, nodding. “Well, I followed the rescue party--I told you that, that I snuck out of camp to follow the rescue party? Right?” 

“You did.”

He takes a sip of water, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. Feels goofy as fuck. “We got hijacked by Aphrodite halfway through, and when I saw her, I thought--I thought, ‘Holy shit, she looks a little like Annabeth.’”

Her brows shoot up, smile pulling at her lips. “Really?”

He nods. “Totally! But you’re way, way p--” 

Still smiling, she silences him with a kiss, the lingering taste of hard cider on her tongue. “I appreciate it,” she murmurs, grinning, “but you probably shouldn’t say that out loud.”

“Gross.”

From out of nowhere, like he always does, the weasley little shit, Nico di Angelo is suddenly in their space, looking surly and emo as ever, red solo cup in his left hand. “Nico!” Percy crows, grabbing for him and missing. “How’s my favorite cousin?!”

Ducking his wildly swinging limbs, Nico grimaces in the way that Percy has to come to recognize as his attempt at a smile. “Better’n you,” he says, a little wobbly. “What’s up with him?” he directs towards Annabeth.

“Greek Fire bombs. Five.”

“You’re a psychopath.”

“What!” Percy pouts. “He insulted the Mets.”

“Aren’t you s’posed to be, like…” Nico snaps his fingers, words momentarily escaping him. “A--representation… person? For the Greeks?”

Percy waves his hand, hitting the wall. “Fuck that. The Greeks can handle themselves. The Mets are sacred!”

“Are you with anyone?” Annabeth asks, momentarily taking up Percy’s usual role of concerned parent friend while he is drunk off his ass. Theoi, he loves this girl so much. 

Nico shakes his head. “No, but Will and I are staying with--”

A thought suddenly blooms in Percy’s tequila-soaked brain. “Nico!” He shouts.

“What?” he hisses, glaring.

Percy pushes himself off of the wall, outstretched arms managing to box Nico in, falling on his shoulders and trapping him. He’s still a short, skinny little shit, the fuck, when are his Big Three genes going to kick in? “I need to talk to you about the thing.”

“The what?”

“The thing! The--the,” then he leans in, scream-whispering over the pounding bassline. “The thing.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“You know, it’s…” Percy licks his lips, language escaping him for a hot second. “Round. Metal. Jewelry thing.”

A beat, then Nico’s eyes widen. “Oh, that thing.”

“Yes, that thing!” Pulling back, he pulls Nico towards him, slinging an arm over his shoulders in a half-headlock. Annabeth watches, bemused, lips pursed as she tries not to smile. “I need to borrow Nico for a sec,” he says, words spilling out of him. “Back soon. Later. Soon.”

Her eyes crinkle, grey sparkling. She’s so fucking pretty. “Drink your water.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Then together, like some three-legged beast, the two boys lurch away deeper into the party, Nico leading them towards the kitchen. “Where’re you taking me?” Percy slurs. “‘M I being kidnapped again?”

“If I’m helping you plan out this stupid proposal,” he grumbles, pouring himself more vodka, “then I need to be less sober.”

***

Some mistakes may have been made.

“Where’s Annabeth?” Percy mumbles, looking back towards the house. The party is still raging, someone’s muffled Spotify playlist making a real racket, the greatest hits of ABBA still bouncing around his skull.

“Simp.” Nico, swaying a little, tries to stand up from his kneeling position, only to fall heavily back down on his knees. “She’s right where you left her.”

Discussing Percy's proposal plan had led to more drinking. More drinking had led to the two of them discussing their shared preference for blondes. (“Malcolm is pretty cute,” Nico admitted, flushing, and Percy almost screamed, “Isn’t he?! Sometimes I think about Annabeth with short hair looking like Malcolm and I almost start crying because she’d be so cute!”) Which then led to even more drinking. Which then led to general bitching about their lives, about Percy's hard-ass classics professor Dr. Bauer who he actually really liked but just pushed him so hard and expected so much of him, and Nico's half-brother Zagreus who was causing some family drama by picking fights with Hades all the time and also hooking up with both Thanatos AND the fury Megaera, which, ew, which then led to Percy inhaling his drink, nearly choking to death on unspecified college punch, Nico laughing at him all the while, as he had the most incredible idea.

"Nico!" He shouted, crushing the red solo cup. "Can you resurrect Homer for me?"

Nico gaped, staring. "What."

"Seriously! I need to ask him something for my paper."

"Percy." Nico gazed at him, all the power of the Ghost King boring into his soul, deep and haunting. Percy stifled a burp. "You're a fucking genius."

Which is how they found themselves around a shallow hole they had dug in the backyard, a large bottle of Pepsi originally intended as a mixer pilfered from the kitchen along with two slices of pepperoni pizza dumped on the grass beside them.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he says, uneasy even through his drunken haze.

"It was your idea!"

"I don't have good ideas."

“Fuck you, I’m doing it.” With all the force of a tiny, angry kitten, he snatches up the Pepsi bottle, wrestling with the twist cap for a good ten seconds. “I wanna give that bitch a piece of my mind for making me cry in school.”

Percy looks at him sideways. “Hector killing Patroclus got you, too?”

He snorts. “Fuck no. Achilles didn’t pay his dues to the dead.”

“Seriously?”

The cap pops off, and Nico tips the bottle over, dumping flat, lukewarm soda into the shallow hole. “It’s the ultimate dishonor!”

Freak. Percy would die for the kid.

“Let the dead taste again,” Nico mutters. “Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember.”

“You’re so weird.”

“Says the guy who’s related to both horses and water.”

“I’m not related to water, I just control it.” 

The dirt turns black, dead soil mixed with sticky sugar water. Nico drops in the pizza, and begins to chant, that same ancient Greek that Percy heard in a dream once, talking of death and memories and returning from the grave or whatever. It’s still creepy as shit. 

Despite the warm California night, the air thickens with chilly fog. Silence, impenetrable, surrounds them, blocking out the noises of the party. From the earth, blueish, vaguely person-shaped figures begin to form, like thunderous clouds before a storm. “Which one is Homer?” he asks, hushed.

“Shh!” Nico hisses. 

Like little wells of gravity, the fog begins to coalesce. On one of them, Percy can almost make out, like, fingers. “Um, Mr. Homer? Sir?”

The figure doesn’t say anything. It lowers its mouth, drinking the soda out of the dirt. When it raises its head, Percy can see it more clearly, curly hair and milky white eyes and a straight nose. It--he?--seems a little more solid than your average run-of-the-mill ghost.

Nico frowns, eyes closed, concentrating. “What’s your name?” he mumbles. 

That mouth opens, soundlessly, jaw working on nothing.

“Speak.”

It--there’s a sound, like hissing, only it’s not coming from the mouth, Percy thinks. It sounds like it’s coming from the earth. “Nico?” he asks. “You good?”

The ghost opens its mouth again, moaning, raising its hands. Weakly, unsteadily, it stumbles forward on feeble legs, tripping over the shallow hole in the dirt.

“Nico?” he asks again, a little more forcefully. “What’s going on, dude?”

Nico blinks, slowly, mouth hanging open a little. “Uh.”

The… thing… raises itself up on its hands? He guesses, and knees, crawling its way over towards them.

Now, Percy may be drunk off his ass, but he has seen enough movies to know exactly what the fuck is up.

Moving with a speed he didn’t quite think was possible right about now, he grabs Nico’s wrist, and pulls him up, dragging him along as he lurches towards the house. “Percy…” Nico moans, stumbling over a rock. “I think I fucked up.”

“You think?” Percy wrenches the door open, tossing Nico inside, before following in after, throwing himself against the door. 

Nico groans, throwing his arms over his face. “Dio santo, my head.”

“Forget your head,” he says, “did we just raise a Homer zombie?!”

Panting, Nico stares up at him, sprawled on the floor of the house. “Oops.”

Percy thunks his head against the door. He does not have nearly enough mental capacity to deal with this right now.

But, he thinks ruefully, at least it’s just one. Even drunk, he’s pretty sure he can handle one zombie.

Nico’s eyes widen. 

Percy stares. “What.”

“I didn’t stop the ritual.”

His stomach goes cold.

Turning around slowly, he pulls aside the little curtain on the window. “What?” Nico asks. “What do you see?”

Percy can’t speak, mouth dry.

Slithering up behind, Nico peers over his shoulder. “That’s… not great.”

“Nico,” Percy says, eyeing the horde which slowly shambles closer, half-decayed bodies in togas bumping into each other, almost identical to the drunk college students inside, as the song changes, once again, to ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).’ “Please go get Frank and Annabeth.”

The following Monday, an announcement is sent out to the entire campus: Per new department guidelines, students may not utilize the ambassador of Pluto to interview the dead for academic purposes.

3)

Percy attempts to flatten his hair. He readjusts his shirt. He almost wipes his sweaty palms on his pants, before he realizes what he’s doing, and clenches them instead, nails digging into his palms. He turns to Annabeth. “Do I look okay?”

“Ooh, ‘Mapping Funerary Monuments in the Periphery of Imperial Rome.’”

“Annabeth.”

She looks up from her brochure. “Relax, seaweed brain, you look fine. You look better than most people here.”

“That’s because I bring down the average age of presenters by about thirty years,” he hisses, eyes darting about at the milling mass of attendees, all packed into the hotel ballroom. 

Dr. Bauer had alternately convinced/pressured/guilttripped him into attending this year’s annual conference for the Society of Classical Studies to talk about the research he’d been doing with her. This year, the conference was held in San Francisco, so at the very least Percy didn’t have to spend five hours stressing about his poster presentation while simultaneously up in the air. But now that he’s here, in the ballroom, surrounded by strangers who know way more about this subject than he does, who are actually smart and probably never nearly flunked out of school or got kicked out or--

“Hey.” Annabeth takes his hand. “I know that look. You deserve to be here just as much as any of them.”

“Do I? I feel like any moment someone is going to come over and throw me out for trespassing.” He vaguely recalls something similar happening to him as a kid after he had ducked into the lobby of a semi-nice hotel to dodge what he had thought, at the time, was just a weird stalker, but had later realized had only had one eye. In any case, the hotel security guard had practically picked him up by the scruff of his neck, tossing him back out into the street. 

“That’s just your imposter syndrome talking,” she reassures him. “No one is going to throw you out.”

He sure as shit hopes so. It would be a shame to have done all this work for nothing. 

Glancing back at his poster, Percy can’t help but feel… good. Accomplished. Proud. About a school assignment, of all things. 

His poster traces the development of the prow from the Greek penteconter, to the Roman liburna, and finally to the Byzantine dromon, looking at artistic depictions in history. Percy had picked the topic himself, spending hours in the library reading, writing, and hand-drawing cross-sections of the ships on the poster board when the images he had gotten from the Cambridge University library had been too small. It had been grueling, frustrating work, but fun, too. And not nearly as much reading as he had feared.

Dr. Chase proofread it for him. Dr. Bauer signed off on it. And Annabeth had taken one look at it, smiled, then kissed his cheek.

That was the best compliment he had gotten.

Though now he’s kind of torn between showing it off and hiding it away before one of these attendees figures out that he doesn’t belong.

He rocks back and forth and his feet, pursing his lips, randomly clicking his tongue. Annabeth nudges him. “Your ADHD is showing.”

That’s when, finally, one of the attendees steps up to his poster. He certainly has the look of a professor, in a black cable knit sweater with grey, curly hair and a receding hairline, thin, rimless glasses perched on his nose. He squints at Percy’s poster, rubbing his chin with one hand. “Interesting,” he murmurs, in a thick German accent. “Very interesting. This is yours?”

“Um.” He glances at Annabeth, who is frowning at the brochure, silently sounding out words that she can’t read. “Yep. All mine.”

“Very interesting.” He leans in closer, tilting his head. “So you agree with Pryor and Jeffreys about the skeleton-first construction, then?”

Percy blinks. Pryor and Jeffreys had written The Age of the Dromon, arguing that the ram, which had been a key feature of Roman liburnians, had gone away in ancient ship construction because of developments in how they built the hull. Right. “Yes,” he says. “The skeleton-first construction is a lot stronger than the, um,” shit, what was the name for this, Leo had only told him about a million times--oh! “Mortise-and-tenon!” He nearly shrieks. “The mortise-and-tenon method. It, um, it wears out a lot more quickly than the frame, so… yeah.” He clears his throat.

He nods. “Very interesting.” 

Percy stares. Can this guy say anything else? 

“This is very well done, young man.”

Oh. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Who are you working with?” 

“Um, June Bauer?” He winces at the accidental question. 

He frowns. “I’m not familiar with her work. Where does she teach?” 

What a loaded question. “Uh… New Rome University.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s--she used to teach at Northwestern, if that helps. Um, retired,” Percy says.

The frown stays, but at least he doesn’t ask any more questions. “Hmm. Well, this is excellent research, nonetheless. I look forward to reading your dissertation.” Then, distracted by something else, he wanders off, chin still attached to his hand. 

“Who was that?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy shrugs. “Beats me. Also, what’s a dissertation?”

“It’s like a senior thesis, but, like, five hundred pages long.”

Five hundred?! “Fuck me.” 

“Maybe later,” Annabeth smirks. “It looks like you’ve got company.”

Sure enough, a smallish group of four people are approaching, led by Dr. Chase, making a beeline straight for them. “Here we are,” Dr. Chase says, gesturing. “This is the project I was telling you about. Percy, would you mind going over your poster for us?”

“No problem, Dr. C,” says Percy, smiling his least-grimace-y smile. 

As one, the adults all turn to look at him, faces politely blank, expectant.

Percy swallows. “So,” he begins, “um, this research is about the development of ship construction in the Roman empire…”

He trips up on some of the words, and at one point, he sees Dr. Chase squint in the way that usually means that Percy is speaking too fast, but all in all, he doesn’t totally fall flat on his face. His audience looks engaged, nodding along as Percy moves from point to point, and no one accuses him of being a giant fraud, which is pretty nice. 

At one point, Percy turns to the poster to indicate a specific point on his ship diagrams. When he turns back, his audience has suddenly multiplied, four people turning into a whole goddamn crowd. Each person gives him their undivided attention almost unblinking.

His mouth goes dry. “Um…” 

Dr. Chase, bless him, saves his ass once again. “Would mind starting again from the beginning, Percy?” he asks, a little bemused himself at the amount of people that had suddenly appeared. 

Silence stretches on for a moment, the muffled noise of the rest of the conference like a dull roar in his ear. 

Annabeth, behind him, coughs. 

“S-sure. No problem.” 

Swallowing, he closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose. Why, oh why did he let Dr. Bauer talk him into doing this again?

He pictures the tides of Long Island Sound, gentle and rocking, unhurried and unbothered, tries to match his breathing to them. When he opens his eyes, unfortunately, the crowd hasn’t disappeared. Everyone is still staring at him. 

But Annabeth stands next to her dad, flashing him a big smile and two huge thumbs up.

Percy relaxes. He’s got this.

“Okay,” he says. “So, about the middle of the first millennium CE, ship construction went through a couple of major developments…”

This time goes much, much more smoothly. He’s not sure what it is--though it’s probably Annabeth, her face fixed in a gentle smile as she watches him speak. Gods, what did he do in a past life to deserve someone as amazing as his girlfriend? 

That’s the only reason he can do this. Hell, that’s the only reason he even thought to do this. If he didn’t have Annabeth there, encouraging him, cheering him on, he never would have had the confidence to put himself out there like this. She’s there to pick him up when he doubts himself, there to listen when he can’t explain himself, there to give him feedback when he needs to practice. 

She makes him feel so strong. She makes him feel like he can take on the world--or at the very least, that he can impress a handful of academics.

And they certainly seem impressed with his talk so far. 

“Excuse me,” says a nasally, pinched looking older British guy, face lined as though he lived his life in a state of perpetual squinting. “I find your conclusions to be suspect--wouldn’t the frame method be more susceptible to breaking than the mortise-and-tenon?”

Well, most of them, anyway.

Percy shakes his head. “You’d think, but no. If you look at the study by Steffy, you’ll see that the three-finned ram from the Athlit wreck was designed specifically to break the mortise-and-tenon hull by causing the planks to flex, so that they’d dislodge the joinerys right next to them. A blow like that can cause the wood to split right down the middle.” A blow like that had sunk Sherman Yang’s ship when they tested it out on the lake at camp last summer, the naiads practically hurling him out of the water so quickly Percy didn’t even have to dive in to save him.

“How were you able to do these strength tests?” asks another listener, an older woman with a thick Hungarian accent.

“Hands-on battle simulations,” Percy replies, easily. “We took our models and tested them in as accurate a simulation as we could make.”

“And how big were these models?” 

Percy holds his hands apart, a vague, entirely inaccurate estimate. “About thirty meters, give or take.”

Her eyes widen. “How on earth did you get your hands on such a large ship?”

Percy freezes. “Uh.”

Oh, shit.

He had forgotten--most people didn’t have dads who could summon shipwrecks from the bottom of the sea, dropping them off at Camp Half-Blood with nothing but a sand dollar and one or two exhausted, pissed off hippocampi who had had to drag them all the way there.

“Um,” he stammers, licking his lips, thinking fast--c’mon, Percy, think! “I…” He swallows, panicking. “I… b… built one.”

In the corner of his eye, Annabeth facepalms.

Simultaneously, every mouth in the crowd drops--in shock, outrage, and even excitement. “You built one?!” the woman yelps. 

Oops. “I had help,” Percy says, quickly. 

Annabeth adds a second hand to her facepalm.

“Where?” The first man asks, his bushy brows flying above the rim of his glasses.

“At my… summer camp…” 

Dr. Chase sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I mean,” Percy chuckles, shrugging his shoulders, trying not to sweat too obviously, “it was either that or lanyards, am I right?”

Dr. Chase, thank Athena, raises his hand, ready to step in. “What Percy means to say, I believe,” he says, attempting to draw their attention, “is that--”

“That’s amazing!” says another woman, probably a grad student attendee based on the fact that she’s wearing jeans. “Do you have pictures?”

Oh this is not good. “Um, not--not on me, but--”

“I do.” Annabeth takes out her phone, holding it up to the person next to her.

Percy blinks. “You do?” He doesn’t remember her taking any pictures.

She shoots him a look, two parts exasperated and one part “shut up and let me handle this,” with just a dash of fondness in the mix. Pointedly, she looks at him, eyebrows raised, indicating that he should continue.

Oh. She’s using Mist. And he needs to keep their attention on him so that they buy it. “Right,” he says, clearing his throat. “Any more questions?” 

His audience placated for now, passing around Annabeth’s phone, he manages to finish up his presentation. After fielding a few more questions, people start to peel off, distracted by other posters and presenters in the ballroom. When everyone has finally wandered away, Dr. Chase comes up and pats Percy’s shoulder awkwardly. “Nice work,” he says, and he seems like he means it. “A little touch-and-go there for a while, hm?”

“A little.”

He chuckles. “Still, you should be proud. I don’t know how many undergraduates would be able to handle that kind of pressure.”

“I mean,” Percy says, shrugging a shoulder, “it’s about on par with leading an army. Maybe a little less.” Honestly, maybe even a little more stressful. If a monster had decided to attack the convention center and interrupt his presentation, he probably would have been relieved.

He’d been worried for a moment that he’d undone all those years of work in making Annabeth’s dad like him. And that he’d be charged with some sort of academic fraud, for the whole “I have a boat” thing without proof. Thank the gods for Annabeth, as always.

She’s looking at him now through narrowed eyes. She at least can’t be surprised--that was far from the dumbest thing she’s ever seen him do. At least his “I spent most of my time at magic greek mythology summer camp” covers are normally better than hers. As someone who spent his formative years in the real world, he’s usually pretty good at keeping the demigod thing under wraps. 

“Come on,” she says, grabbing his hand. She pulls him off, through the dispersing crowd, lacing their fingers together, sweet and intimate, out of the hall and then down another one, and through a smaller corridor. Bringing them up to a little door, with a shake of her wrist, she pulls out her Estruscan keyring bracelet. About several of the keys have found themselves used in various misadventures, vanishing once their purpose is fulfilled, but her favorite key is still there. And, just like a clever child of Hermes, it can pick just about any lock. 

Inside is just an empty room, a little staging area surrounded by tiered desks going up, no more or less remarkable than any of the other conference rooms they’d visited before. 

“What--?” His question is cut off by Annabeth’s mouth on his. 

Surprising, but definitely not unwelcome.

It's a while before they separate again. “You’re so good at this,” she tells him, unbuttoning his shirt.

He runs his hands along the lines of her flanks. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he grins. He’d practice kissing her all day long if he could. 

She smiles, shaking her head. “No, not this,” though she does lean in for another kiss, pulling at his lower lip with her teeth. “I know you’re good at this.” They break away, Percy pulling her shirt over her head, Annabeth shucking off his. “But history. Presenting.” She runs a finger over his chest, kissing his cheek, headed towards the sensitive spot on his jaw. “Gods, you’re so smart.” 

Something about the praise vibrates through his chest. She doesn’t sound surprised, or anything, just--turned on.

“You had all those crusty academics eating out of your hand. Just, so impressed by you, knowing you know way more than they do about naval history. When you were explaining the--” Her compliment is cut off with a moan, as he leans down and starts sucking on her throat. Her blouse has a high neck, so he feels no guilt for using his teeth.  

“Watching you today, gods.” Her breath is labored as his fingers play at the waistline of her skirt. “And then thinking of you defending your dissertation.” He bites at her jugular, and she lets out a long, deep moan. 

“I don’t know what that means.” Do academics fight each other? Like, with weapons? He’s pretty sure he can take most of the people he met today. 

“It means you get to show off how smart you are,” Annabeth says, grasping his shoulders, pulling him in for another kiss. “I was born the day my dad defended his. Gods, it's going to be amazing to watch you go.” She yanks his belt out of his pants, tossing it to the floor. 

They miss the panel on recent translation efforts. But Percy can’t say he minds one bit. 

And when Annabeth presents him with a positive pregnancy test two months later, Percy definitely knows he made the right decision. 

4) 

He almost doesn’t realize he’s having a dream-vision at first.

It has been literal years since he’s had a demigod dream. Hell, it’s been a long while since he’s had a dream, period--being a new dad to a one-and-a-half-year-old saps too much of his energy to even think about dreaming. Once Junie is put to bed, when he’s out, he is fucking out, and he does not have the brainpower to spare to manifest any messed up subconscious fears.

Which is why when he blinks open his eyes, taking in the too-bright colors of the Parthenon and the gleaming shine of the bronze statues which are somehow all looking at him--also, you know, how the Parthenon is complete, standing as it did thousands of years ago, and not crumbled into ruins--he knows, immediately, he is being contacted by a god.

And only one god in particular would bring him to Athens.

Without even checking, he heaves himself up off the ground, folding into a kneel. “My lady Athena,” he says, “can I ask for what quest you’ve brought me here?”

“Impertinent as ever, Percy Jackson,” rumbles the goddess, but Percy doesn’t think he can sense any ill will towards him. He hopes, anyway. “Perhaps I have summoned you here for a social visit.”

“Perhaps,” he says, choosing his next words as carefully as possible. “But I assume you have too much to worry about to randomly check up on your daughter’s boyfriend.”

He lifts his head, catching her expression--stoic as always, but maybe with just the barest hint of a smile. “You assume correctly. You have become, contrary to my initial expectations, very wise in the time that I have known you.”

“Thank you.” He knows better than to do anything but accept the compliment for what it is.

“I have observed your work as a scholar in recent years, and I must say that I am surprised, yet pleased, that you have chosen to pursue such a path. I had not thought you to be suited for a world of old men and dusty papers.”

He grits his teeth. Don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait, don’t rise to the bait--

“I understand, as well, that though you and my daughter have,” and here her careful composition cracks, just the slightest, the tiny lift of her lips falling, “made a child together.”

Percy swallows. He figured, you know, in the abstract, that Athena would know about Junie, but hearing her say it out loud is… well, he’s just glad that Dr. Chase has always liked him. “Yes, my lady.”

“It is customary in your time to marry prior to childbirth, is it not?”

“It is.” Oh, fuck, is she going to smite him for that? “I--that is to say, we, Annabeth and I, we, um, we definitely want to get married, but, Annabeth kind of…” 

He trails off. He can’t tell Athena, goddess of war, that his daughter pissed off the queen of heaven! And if he does, he definitely can’t imply that it was because she was being too stubborn!

“I know well of my daughter’s history with my father’s wife,” Athena says, smoothly. “I come to you now with an offer of peace.”

Percy straightens his back. Peace?

Raising one graceful arm, Athena turns, indicating the structure behind her. “Look upon my temple,” she intones. The white marble shines even more powerfully against the blue and red paint, intricate scenes and figures ringing the top of the columns. “In the time of Pericles, it was built to commemorate the victory of Hellas over the armies of Xerxes the Great. It was to be the shining beacon of our world, a triumph of our power and influence over the race of men.”

The race of men might have had something to say about that, he thinks to himself.

“But it was not to be,” Athena says, mournfully. “As our influence waned, so too did our temple, until its might was all but forgotten.” 

Before his eyes, the paint fades away, ceilings and columns collapsing, the destruction of the Parthenon playing out in front of him. 

“Some two hundred years ago,” she says, her voice taking on a darker, more dangerous tone, “a grave insult was paid to the ruins of my ancient sanctuary.” Like curtains falling on a stage, darkness swallowed up the structure, swift and impenetrable. “Many treasures were taken from my temple, stolen, by foolish, greedy men, spirited away far to the north, where they have languished in unworthy hands.”

He narrows his eyes. She can’t possibly be talking about--

Athena turns back to him, her eyes blazing, somehow twice as tall. “Retrieve my treasures,” she commands, war personified, “return the prizes of Athens to their rightful place, and I shall give you my support against my father’s wife.”

“You…” Percy leans back on his haunches, staring dumbfounded up at the goddess. “You don’t happen to mean the Parthenon Marbles, do you?”

“Yes.”

“The ones in the British Museum.”

“The same,” she says, imperious as ever.

Fantastic. “Welp,” Percy says, slapping his thighs, scrambling up. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to decline. Nice seeing you, by the way. I’ll tell Annabeth you stopped by.”

Her sharp gazes pierces him, full of fury. “You dare to refuse my support?”

He snorts. “When it means trying to get the UK to give the marbles back, absolutely. Do you know how stubborn they are about this?”

Lightning flashes behind her, nearly blinding him. “You will regret this,” Athena says, dark and foreboding. “You may have your father’s goodwill, but the queen of Olympus is clever and cunning, her displeasure swift and merciless.”

But Percy still shakes his head. “When Annabeth and I get married,” and it’s definitely a ‘when,’ it’s just a matter of when precisely, like after Junie can sleep through the night maybe, “I’d rather take my chances with Hera than try and untangle that particular can of olives.”

A growl, and a snap of her fingers, and Athena disappears.

With a start, Percy wakes up. Junie had gotten her chubby little hands around his nose, and had decided to pull.

“Ow, ow, Junie, hey,” he squawks, attempting to dislodge her grip from his face. “Hey, I’m awake, it’s okay.”

She laughs, illegally adorable, her grey eyes sparkling, squeezing harder. 

“Okay, okay,” he laughs along with her. “You got my nose, you win.”

As if she were waiting for him to admit defeat, she lets go, clapping her pudgy toddler hands together. 

“That’s right,” he picks her up, raising her above his head. “Barely sixteen months old and you already know how to take me down, don’t you? Just like your mommy.”

She smiles, waving her little fists.

Gods he loves this little monster.

Junie really is the best parts of both of them. She’s got her daddy’s hair but her mommy’s brain, quick and sharp and painfully adorable. She’s already learning to read Greek, Annabeth sitting her in her lap and sounding out vowels together, Annabeth taking her finger and tracing it over the letter shapes. This kid absorbs information like a sponge, which Percy can only assume is the natural conclusion of taking a son of Poseidon and a daughter of Athena and mixing their DNA together. 

Thinking about his dream, he frowns. “What do you think, Junie,” he asks his toddler. “Should I take her up on her offer?”

The baby says nothing.

“I mean,” he tilts his head, “Greece has been trying to get the marbles back for two hundred years. UNESCO has top lawyers on this. What does Athena think I can do?”

Junie blinks at him.

“On the other hand, I do really love your mom,” he admits, “and I really want to marry her. You’d like that, right? To have your parents be married?”

There’s no way she can understand what he’s saying, but she moves her head like she’s nodding. Or maybe she does understand. She is Annabeth’s daughter after all. 

Percy sighs. Dammit.

Time for a new project, he guesses.

***

Several months, a college graduation, and one relocation to Boston later, Percy growls, hurling his pencil at the wall. Mother fucker. Fuck the British Museum, fuck his tiny laptop screen, and fuck the Italian prick who decided to have the least ADHD-friendly handwriting of all time. 

Why the hell is he doing this again? Like, seriously. Why in all of Hades is he, an inexperienced, snot-nosed, first year master’s student deciding to tackle the return of the fucking Parthenon marbles of all things. Like, what is wrong with him? 

Roughly scrubbing his fingers through his hair, Percy stands up. He has to go for a walk, clear his head, or he might actually explode. 

Then he catches a glimpse of the photo pinned to the fridge.

Percy’s mom had taken it, a candid of Percy and Annabeth and Junie on a sunny day in Central Park. There, in perfect 1080p, Junie is laughing, at what he can’t even remember, her pudgy fists yanking on Percy’s hair, while her mother and the love of his life does nothing to extricate Percy from her grip, her face screwed up so hard she had tears in her eyes. 

Percy had talked a lot of shit to the goddess of war’s face, but truth be told… Hera still terrifies him a little. Which, he assumes, was her goal all along, but it would be nice to marry Annabeth without fear of something going terribly wrong--or, gods forbid, something happening to Junie. That simply was not a risk he was willing to take. Percy is content to spend the rest of his days as Annabeth’s life-partner and roommate, if it means that the queen of the heavens won’t have a reason to take out her issues on his children.

Even if the engagement ring in the back of the pantry is gathering dust. 

Sunlight, wan but warm, falls in from the window, landing perfectly on his pile of open books. “I know, I know,” he growls, speaking to the air, rubbing his face so it doesn’t get stuck in a permanent glare. “I just--I just need a few minutes, okay? Let me go down the block and get a coffee or something. Two minutes, Lady Athena.”

The light fades. Percy takes that as an acquiescence, angrily scribbling a note. He’s not sure when Annabeth and Junie will be back, but even angry as he is, he doesn’t want to worry them.

Snatching up his jacket, he slams the door shut, stomping out of his apartment building and down the streets of Boston. He must be accidentally doing his wolf stare, because people are practically flinging themselves out of his path as he hurtles down the sidewalk. Literally--some girl is walking her husky, and the poor dog actually whimpers, cowering as Percy rounds the corner. 

Coming to a stop, Percy slaps his hands over his face, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. 

He might be in over his head a little.

Sighing, he looks to his right. He’s standing outside of a Starbucks. 

Percy doesn’t drink coffee, Annabeth does. And he knows exactly how much of a coffee snob his girlfriend is. Starbucks? Overpriced, overrated, over-sweetened garbage.

He pushes the door open, sliding up to the counter. “I’ll take a… iced mocha, I guess,” he says. “Large.”

“No problem,” chirps the barista. “I’ll have that out for you in a minute.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

One thing Starbucks does have going for it, though, are really good napkins for doodling.

Slumping down in his uncomfortable metal chair, elbows resting on the hard, faux-wood table, Percy takes out his pen, and doodles aimlessly on the brown napkins. No, not that pen. Just because it can write doesn’t mean that Percy wants to risk slicing his face open every time he has a stray idea. Completely out of the blue, Annabeth had gotten him a nice set of pens, and ever since then, Percy always keeps one on him. Now, if he could just remember to use the little notebook she had gotten him, too.

Percy is not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn’t have an image in mind, just lets his pen move, drawing endless chains of triangles and stars, nebulous shapes which form themselves into Greek letters. After he catches himself writing γλαυκῶπις for the eighth time in a row, he sighs, dropping his pen, and picks up the cup, taking a sip.

Yuck. At least the chocolate outweighs the coffee taste a little.

Gods, and their cups are always, like, drenched from condensation--not that Percy can feel it, but there’s practically a whole other drink on the outside of the plastic, dripping all over Percy’s pile of doodle napkins. That must be why they give out so many.

Grumbling, he mops up the mess, ink smudged into a blue-brown slurry.

He stops. 

He squints at one of his doodles. 

Not that anyone else could tell, but Percy had apparently been trying to recreate the signature of Ottoman sultan Selim III, the guy who had supposedly authorized the Earl of Elgin to take the Parthenon Marbles. Percy had been staring at copies of his signature all damn day, trying to tell if it had been forged or copied, but classical Arabic was just so far beyond anything he could even begin to wrap his head around. It was gorgeous work, but even looking at it made Percy’s eyes swim.

This particular doodle is not his best attempt. It looks nothing like the signature. It’s smudged, blotchy, but in a way that’s… weirdly familiar. 

Snatching the napkin up, Percy bolts from the Starbucks, leaving his mocha behind.

Taking the steps of his apartment building two at a time, he bursts into his kitchen. His set up is exactly how he left it, books spread out all over the table, laptop shut and laid askew, the dry, half-eaten remains of his morning muffin on a plate on top of his encyclopedia of illuminated manuscripts--except for one book, the one on Ottoman history of the nineteenth century. It’s been opened, its pages facing the door, in the exact opposite direction of all the other books. 

“Hello?” he calls into the apartment. “Anyone home?”

No response. 

Percy approaches the table. 

From the pages, Selim III stares at him, his portrait rendered in black and white, sitting just above a figure of his signature, his tughra. 

Percy picks up the book, squinting. 

The signature is crisp, clean, a work of art all by itself. 

He looks at his napkin drawing. Blurry and smudged.

Opening his laptop, he pulls up the scans of the documents in the British museum, zooms in on the letter’s seal.

Blurry and smudged.

Percy stares. 

It… can’t be that simple, can it?

In a daze, he fires an email off to his new grad advisor. Hopefully he won’t mind Percy sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong. Hey Dr. T--was looking at the Parthenon marbles docs in the BM (don’t ask) and I noticed this weird smudge on the tughra. Lazy scribe, maybe?

And he closes his computer.

Later that night, while he puts Junie to bed, he gets a response. not sure. sent it to a colleague for a closer look. 

He can’t even be bothered to really think about it though, not with Junie looking up at him with Annabeth’s eyes, and asking for another book. “Alright, kiddo,” he acquiesces, settling in beside her. All her story books are in ancient Greek, and at age two, she’s starting to recognize the letters. “Which one are you thinking?” 

“Daw-fins, daddy,” she says, smiling.

“Dolphins, eh? Getting Mr. D on your side early, I see. As smart as mommy.” He leans down and kisses her forehead before he starts to read her the story of the sailors and their sudden dolphin madness. 

***

“Huh,” Percy says to himself a few weeks later, as he and Annabeth are chilling on the couch, watching some Netflix.

His advisor has forwarded him an article from the BBC (New evidence suggests Elgin documents to be forgeries) with an accompanying note: Amazing catch! 

“What is it?” Annabeth asks, nudging him with her elbow--a feat, since she also has an armful of a squirmy Junie to deal with.

“Update in the Parthenon marbles thing.”

That gets her attention. Anything Parthenon-related does. “Really?”

He shows her his phone.

Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Damn.”

“Yep.” He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until he feels his lips pulling at the sides of his mouth. 

“My mom is probably your biggest fan right now.”

He starts. “What did you say?”

Turning back to the TV, she still manages to cast him a weird look. “I said, my mom will probably love you for this.”

A beat, then Percy practically somersaults over the couch, darting into the kitchen. Wrenching open the pantry door, he shoves his hand behind their collection of flours, fingers grasping for--

“If you’re looking for any more sacrificial cookies,” Annabeth calls after him, “we burned them all when Junie got a cold.”

“Remind me to make some more,” says Percy, pulling out his prize. It’s a little dusty, streaks of flour clinging to the blue velvet. “I have a feeling we’ll need them.”

“Oh yeah?” She chuckles. “What, did Olympus put in a special order?” 

Percy slides back down next to her, ring hidden in his closed fist. “Can I have the baby for a sec?”

Eyes fixed to the screen, Annabeth passes her over. Junie’s hands automatically reach for his nose, ready to grab, but Percy places the ring in her grasp instead, kissing her forehead. “Hey, babe?” he asks Annabeth, handing her back. “I think our daughter has something for you.”

Annabeth takes her without a second glance. 

Then she does take a second glance.

Ring closed in her pudgy toddler fist, Junie holds it out to her.

Annabeth gapes. 

“So,” Percy says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “quick confession: I wasn’t just working on the marbles for fun.”

Annabeth just stares. Junie babbles.

“Your mom told me that if I helped get the marbles back, she’d back us against Hera if we ever got married. So…” He trails off, waiting for her response. As close as he is, he can see the tears start to well up in her eyes--a good sign. “Shall we?” he prompts.

“Oh thank all the gods.” Annabeth is crying, because she's Annabeth. And because she's Annabeth, she also wastes no time in transferring Junie to her other side, and holding out her hand so Percy can slide the ring on her finger. “I was so worried I'd have to have Chase on my Masters’ diploma, too.”

5)

Percy is making sauce when his phone lights up. He hits speaker. “Hey.”

“Hey man,” comes the tinny voice of Magnus. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Percy says, “I figured you were dying or something.”

Magnus’ eye roll is almost palpable. “Very funny. What’s up?”

Bringing the spoon to his lips, he blows on it, taking a taste, before reaching for the salt. Needs way more. “Do you happen to have any Varangian guards in Hotel Valhalla?”

“Varangian guards? Uh, maybe. Probably. Why?”

“I’m doing a thing on the attempted reconquest of Sicily,” he says, lowering the heat a little to a simmer, “and I’m having some trouble piecing together the Battle of Montemaggiore. Know anyone who was in it?” 

Magnus hums. “I’ll ask around. Anyone in particular you’re looking for?”

Rifling through their little spice cabinet, he makes a mental note to get a new thing of hot sauce, tipping the rest of it into the pot. “If you have anyone who fought under Harald Hardrada, that would be great.”

“Hardrada? I’m pretty sure he lives on the fifth floor.”

Percy nearly drops the bottle. “No shit?”

“Big dude, long mustache, writes poetry?”

“Yes!” He picks up the phone, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you think I could come up and talk to him sometime?”

“Sure, but I thought you were doing something on Homer’s identity?”

He groans. “Backburnered for now until she stops driving me crazy.” No matter how many times Percy tells her, he can’t just drop the “Homer was actually an Egyptian woman” bomb without some serious evidence backing that up. And forgery is not one of his strong suits. Hence the need for a different topic for the time being.

“Has everyone ever told you your life is weird?”

“No, why do you ask?”

His phone suddenly vibrates, shocking him so badly he nearly drops it into the saucepan. Almost home, texts the love of his life, a shot of serotonin directly into his bloodstream. V hungry

“Sorry, Magnus, but I gotta run. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem. Say hi to my cousin for me.”

“Can do.”

“And make sure you pick a date soon! Sam needs to know so she can schedule her flight home.”

“Soon as I can.” You know, when his brain isn’t melting from grading undergrad papers. And making sure Annabeth and Junie are fed. And that Annabeth doesn’t lose herself in graduate school. And finding Junie a new preschool after she destroyed a classroom last month because of a monster. His toddler is a badass. But he’s a little worried she’s gonna follow Mommy and Daddy’s example as far as school goes. 

Sometimes, he thinks that their wedding just won’t ever happen. With Athena on board, he figured it would happen sooner or later, but time just… keeps getting away from them. Which isn’t the end of the world. A lifetime at Annabeth’s side is all he really needs, Mrs. Jackson or no. But he’s seen the silver fabric she weaved for her wedding dress. It would be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste.

And, yeah, he wants to see his little Junie dancing down the aisle flinging seaweed before her mother. He wants his mom to cry a little and he wants all his friends to be there to celebrate with them. Is that so much to ask? 

Speaking of his two favorite girls--”We’re home!” Annabeth calls from the hallway. “Junie, go say hi to daddy!”

Her bare feet slapping against the floor, his daughter comes toddling in, making a beeline for him. “Hey, kiddo,” Percy says, scooping her up. “How’s my best girl?”

“She’s just fine, thanks,” Annabeth says, setting her work bag down on the table. “Tell me I don’t have to wait for dinner--Margie kept me for the entirety of my lunch break, and I am starving.” 

“Just gotta make a salad and we should be good to go.” But he makes no move to finish chopping vegetables, entirely too enraptured with the way Junie smiles when Percy sticks his tongue out at her. “Let me guess,” he says. “Does my best girl want some olives?”

“Peas,” Junie says. 

“Oh, you want peas instead?”

She giggles, waving her arms. “Elaia, daddy!”

“Fine,” and he kisses her nose. “Extra olives for you.”

“Chip off the old block,” Annabeth says.

Handing her back to her mother, Percy sighs. “When am I going to get a kid who likes anchovies?”

“I’m doing my best here, okay?”

***

Hardrada is… not what he expected.

“Reputation isn’t that bad.” Hardrada is saying. “The production isn’t what it should be, but lots of her lyrics are still on point.” 

“The production ruins it,” Percy insists. “And as a follow up to 1989? It's just bad.” 

“And what about Lover?”

“What about Lover?”

“You can’t argue with the genius of that one.”

“It is terribly inconsistent,” Percy shoots back. “Yeah, ‘The Archer’ and ‘Daylight’ and ‘Miss Americana’ are sublime, but ‘ME!’? Come on!”

“Are you one of those people who thinks she peaked at Red?”

“Red is a bop from start to finish,” Percy fires back. “But she definitely peaked at folklore.”

“Thinking she peaked at folklore is just pedestrian when ‘tis the damn season’ exists!” Hardrada yells, drawing his axe, which is then promptly flung over Percy’s head. 

As the only mortal in a room full of armed, excitable, undead Taylor Swift stans, Percy beats a hasty exit, Magnus and Jason covering him as he flees, because they’re just so thoughtful like that. Percy’s pretty sure he saw Magnus take an arrow to the knee, going down in a heap, before he shuts the door to the hotel, finding himself in a Forever 21. 

Looking over his notes later as he gets back to his apartment in the North End, he frowns. They had spent… approximately twenty minutes talking about Sicily before getting solidly off track. Who knew an eleventh century viking would have such intense feelings about pop music? 

And now he’s singing “seven” to himself as he unlocks the apartment door, because it's a good song, and because it made him think of Annabeth. And he always wants to think of Annabeth. 

“Hey, babe,” he calls into the apartment, toeing off his shoes. “I’m back!”

He gets no response.

Percy looks up, confused. “Annabeth?”

“In the bathroom,” he hears, faintly. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yep! Totally fine!” she says, unconvincingly. 

“Alright,” he calls back. “Let me know if you need something.”

Moving Junie’s toys out of the way, he drops down onto the couch, grabbing his laptop. Hopefully he can make some sort of sense of the… notes… that he got from Hardrada. Though he’s probably going to have to trek out to Beacon Hill again, which, while not really out of his way, does mean he has to hike a bit from the Park Street station through the Commons, which makes him super sweaty and out of breath. It’s just embarrassing, walking into a hotel full of the greatest warriors of Valhalla, and Percy can barely handle a hill. 

However, he’s not so out of practice that he can’t sense Annabeth coming up behind him. “You good?”

“What do you think about getting married by the end of the month?”

“Sure,” he says, pecking at his computer. Damn autocorrect ruining all the Norse names. He keeps forgetting to download the right language package he needs. “But I thought you wanted to wait until after you turned in your portfolio?”

“Well… I might not be able to fit in my dress if we wait much longer.”

That gets his attention.

Percy turns around, slowly. Annabeth is grinning, holding a thin little piece of plastic with a circle on the end. She wiggles it. 

“Is that…?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

Her smile falls. “Are you mad?”

“What? No!” Percy slides his computer off his lap, twisting around to face her, up on his knees. “No, no, not at all. I’m not mad.” She slings her arms around his neck, pregnancy test warm against his skin. “I just…” 

Eyes warm, she looks into his, unafraid. “What is it?”

“It’s…” It’s silly, is what it is. But this is Annabeth. If he can’t tell her, who can he tell? “I just feel bad that I’ve gotten you pregnant twice before getting married.”

“Well, at least I’m not nineteen this time,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “But maybe we wouldn’t have this problem if you weren’t such a horndog.”

Percy snorts. “Me? What about you, Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before my first lecture’ Chase.”

“Jackson,” she corrects.

“Huh?”

“It’s Annabeth ‘3 AM anal before your first lecture’ Jackson.”

Grinning, he presses his mouth to hers. After all this time, she still smells like lemons, her lips soft and warm. “Not yet it’s not.”

“Then let’s make it happen.”

And, well, Percy can’t think of a better plan.

+1

Jamie hisses. “Fuuuuuck,” she whispers, the sound dropping like a stone in the dead lecture hall. “Goddamn shit fuck ass.”

And the worst part is, she’d actually spent a lot of time preparing for her Latin midterm. She’d made flashcards, she’d drilled noun endings, she’d even slept with the textbook under her pillow for fuck’s sake. 

Typical--the moment she sits down to take the test, it all goes out the window. 

“Legistne carmen longum de Troiano,” she reads under her breath, as though saying it out loud will unlock some hidden secrets of the cosmos. 

Nope. Nothing. The multiple choices remain as inscrutable as ever.

“Psst.” 

Jamie looks up. 

There’s a four year old staring at her. 

“Hi,” Jamie says. 

“Hi,” says the four year old. Junie, her name is, she thinks. 

Mr. Jackson, Jamie’s Latin TA, will bring his kids to class with him sometimes--his wife works full time, and Jamie guesses that they can’t afford a babysitter. She’s a cute kid, quiet, usually sitting in the corner of the lecture hall, drawing or even knitting, sometimes with her little sister playing with toy ships next to her. 

Now, she’s still staring at her. “What’s up?” Jamie asks.

“Bello,” says Junie.

Jamie blinks. “Sorry?”

“Legistne carmen longum de bello Troiano.” 

She squints down at her test sheet, attempting to visualize her flash cards. That’s… “Bello” is the right answer.

The fuck? The fucking four year old can speak Latin? “Thanks,” she whispers. 

Junie beams at her.

Darting her eyes to the front of the lecture hall, Jamie spies her professor, Buck, completely conked out at his desk, his chest rising and falling with his snores. Percy is nowhere to be seen, his laptop open at his chair. “What’s the next one?” Jamie turns her paper so that Junie can see better.

“Pluto Proserpinam infelicem cepit,” she announces, perfectly accented.

Jamie points to the one after that.

“Rex qui pontem fecit erat Ancus Martius.”

“Awesome.” 

The door to the lecture hall opens. Jamie whips around in her seat, startled, and sees her TA, walking down the steps. From the corner of her eye, Junie disappears, booking it to her dad, who scoops her up without missing a beat. “Hey kiddo,” he murmurs, smiling crookedly. “Were you bothering my students?” Then he glances at Jamie. “Sorry about that--hope she wasn’t too annoying.”

But Jamie shakes her head. “It’s fine.” Dammit. 

Still smiling, Percy makes his way back down to his seat. Junie grins at her over his shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around her dad’s neck.

At the beginning of the semester, Professor Buck had droned on and on about Mr. Jackson, about how he was one of the best up-and-coming classics scholars in the world, how he could have had his pick of PhD programs, and how NYU was lucky to have him. He got first pick of assistantships this semester, apparently, but had volunteered to teach Latin 1001, and they should all be grateful, because he had done some beautiful new translation of Virgil for his Master’s thesis, and they were all going to learn a lot from him. 

Turning back to her exam, Jamie snorts. Of course a guy like that would have a kid who could speak perfect Latin. 

She really should have just stuck with German instead. 

#my fic #pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #perseannabeth #darkmagyk #percy should be a classics major and here's why #the percy major for the stem hating author #also i feel like i have to say: #1) classics conferences are not like that #2) if only it were that easy to get the bm to return looted antiquities 🙄 #pjo fic #percabeth fic #percy jackson

[georgiapeach30513]

Hope

🖤🖤🖤🖤

Summary: part 2 at the hospital

Pairings: the Drysdale’s

Rating: 😭😭

Warnings:  all of them, 18+ ONLY

Word Count:  3.1K

Desperate Lives AU Masterlist

Posie Rogers Masterlist

James takes a deep breath following the doctor back to see his daughter, but when he sees his beautiful baby girl, belly still swollen with Daisy, and hooked up on all the machines he struggles to stand.  Walking over to her bedside, his hand pets over her exposed arm.  If it wasn’t for the gash in her hairline, and dried blood she would look like she was sleeping.

“Sometimes they respond to their loved ones voice,” a nurse gently says, giving a pitiful look to the big man.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell me about the day that she was born,” the nurse walks beside James and he runs his fingers over the delicate tattoo at the crook of her elbow.  “What does it mean?”

“It’s a date.  I didn’t meet her the day she was born.  I was...oversees.  Didn’t know about her.  I hated that her uncle gave her a permanent mark, and then I saw it.  I could tell it was a date, but I didn’t understand.  She just looked up at me and told me it was the day I came home to her and her mama,” James covers his face with his hand, unable to hold back anymore tears.

“Posie, I felt the day you were born.  Could feel this tug at my heart, and you gave me so much hope to come home.  You fight like hell, baby.  That hope will die with you, and I know your mom wouldn’t be able to deal with this.  I couldn’t either.  Your family needs you.  Your son needs you, and Jax needs you.  That baby inside...”

The most heartbreaking and obnoxious sounds of Posie flat lining blares in James’ head while he repeats over and over, “Nononono,” the nurse who was standing beside him pushing him out.  “Don’t take them from me please.  Take me.”

“Mr. Rogers, we gotta get the baby out.”

“Save her.  She holds us together.”

“We’re going to try as much as possible.  The baby will go straight to NICU.  I’m sorry.  I’ve got to go,” James pushes his back up against the wall.  The sickening sounds of nurses and doctor’s trying to bring Posie back, and get Daisy out.  

Walking back slowly to the waiting room, James stops and drops to his knees, “Jamey!  Please, no.  Don’t,” with a look up into Iris’s eyes she sinks down with him.  Steve and Marta run to their son, and hold the two of them tight.  Wrapping them in a cocoon.  “No.  She’s okay.  You tell me,” James shakes his head.  “No.  Not...not our baby.”

The rest of the family cling to their spouses, looking around at each other too stunned to even say anything.  Too scared to move, or speak anything into existence.  Not even sure how long they are all in this position.  The only one whose eyesight changes directions, is Chris’.  He holds tight to Lucy who is rolled up in his lap, but his eyes are steady watching Story.

A doctor finally walks through the door, in what felt like a lifetime, “We’ve got the baby out.  She’s stable, and in NICU in an incubator.  She’ll have to have open heart surgery, and if she survives, she’ll have a long stay in NICU.”

“If?” Jax’s bloodshot eyes look at the doctor, and he refuses to believe.  “If?  You tell me, my daughter is going home with us.”

“A Dr. Knowles is here, along with a doctor that just arrived, per Dr. Beck’s urging.  They’re both hopeful, but would have more certainty if she was full term.  I’m not going to lie to you,” Story doubles over, and Carter holds onto her thinking that she’s in shock, but Chris still stands watching her.  His eyes looking down at his watch.

“When can he see her?” Carter asks the doctor.  “Jax.  When can he see his daughter.”

“The mother hasn’t signed off on anything.”

“Really?  That’s that baby’s dad.  When can he see her?”

“Carter,” Iris looks at him.  “Please, not right now.  How is Posie?” the doctor’s mouth twists at an awkward angle.  “No.  My daughter is alive.  I feel her.  How is she?”

“We revived her.  We’re still trying to stabilize her.  She has severe brain trauma.  When she was hit head on, her head was slung back, and propelled forward at a fast rate, because of that her brain hit the front of her skull.  Almost like shaken baby syndrome.  We haven’t even looked at brain waves, our main concern is stabilizing her.  Then we will look into her brain function, and if there is any.  I want to give you hope, but again I won’t lie.  This can range from mild to severe.  Her body was also under stress, and was shutting down.  We’re hoping now that the baby is out, that her body can now focus on herself.  Once stable, we’ll let you go back, Mrs. Rogers.”

“When can her boyfriend?” Jax looks up at Carter, and then back to the doctor.  “When can he see the mother of his child?”

“Next of kin only.”

“That’s a bunch of bull shit!  He should not only get to see his daughter, but the mother of his child.”

“Hospital policy.  I’ll be back to update you,” he spins and turns to walk back up the door, but Carter heads to the front desk.

“How much?” the nurse looks up at him confused.  “How much to buy the damn hospital, so I can create my own policies?” the nurse only stutters up at him.  “How much?”

“Uh, the uh, the next of kin can sign a waiver to have him...”

“Hand it to me.  I still wanna know the price.”

Chris walks over to Carter, looking back at Lucy who has her hand on Story’s stomach, looking at her sister calmly, but Story just shakes her head no.  “Carter, we got a problem.”

“You fucking think.  What is it now?”

“The stress is causing Story to go into labor,” Carter looks over at her, and starts to trot over there.  “They contractions are not consistent, and they’re not that close, but they’re elevating every time you get angry.  You know as well as I do, you can’t stop labor once it starts, but she’s thirty-eight weeks it was bound to happen.  Blade is also bringing Iclynn to nurse quickly, because she’s in some pain, and needs relief.  But I need you to calm down for her.  I understand you’re upset, we all are, but we can’t make things worse.”

Walking over to Story he leans down, and she shakes her head, still crying.  “No.  I’m staying here.”

“Illiana says you’re not.”

“I need to know when Posie is stable.  I need to know when she wakes up, and gets to see her baby.  Carter, I’m not leaving,” he just gives her the worst smile he can muster, “I don’t want to.”

“Illiana wants to share a birthday with her cousin Daisy.”

“No.  For every birth there’s a death,” she buries her face in his neck, “And we can’t deal with that.  We can’t lose her.  Carter, we can’t do this.  We do everything as a family, but we can’t do this.”

Jax buries his face deeper into Kitten, but she reaches out to hold tight to Iris’s hand.  Iris knows her mom is there, but also knows that Jax needs somebody.  “They’re going to be okay,” she coos into his ear, almost rocking him like a baby.  Ransom at Jax’s back holds onto the both of them.  His dark blue eyes going between his wife and his daughter.

The Rogers, and Aster pile around James and Iris, keeping them warm, and spreeding there love, but Beck stays on the phone.  Contacting as many people, and doctors as he can.  Calling in favors, and making promises to them.  

“Mr. Teller?” Beck jumps up to shake his friend's hand.  “Hey, I’m Dr. Samuel Bennett.  Dr. Knowles and I are going to be working on your daughter.  She is completely fine currently, but will definitely need to have open heart surgery.”

“C-c-can we wait?” the doctor gives him an odd look.  “Her mom hasn’t got to see her.”

“She’ll be able to live a normal life.  This isn’t a set back for her.  However, she may need minor medication, and the rare treatment.  But that’s a strong little girl.  Would you like to meet your daughter, Mr. Teller?” with a nod Jax follows the doctor.  “I’m sorry about all this.  I shouldn’t give you false hope, but both Dr. Knowles and I are very optimistic of her being just fine.  She’s ten weeks early, and with a weak heart, but I’ve seen worse.  How are you feeling?”

“Numb.”

Dr. Bennett stops to look at Jax, “I don’t want you to be alarmed.  She’s hooked up to a lot of machines.  And we’ll need to act fast.  She doesn’t have her mom’s body to protect her, and give her what she needs.  I know you want to wait, but her mother wouldn’t be very happy with you if you chose to postpone her surgery even though my medical advice is to not.”

With a nod of his head he follows the doctor, and looks through the window at his tiny baby in the incubator.  “She looks like Posie’s baby pictures,” Jax can hardly blink, hardly move, just wants to look at the second most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.  “I can’t do this alone.”

“Your good ole buddy Beck, is calling the best in the country.  No expense is going to be spared in keeping both them alive.  I have seen a severe TBI make a quick and full recovery.  If you can get back there to her, do it.  It won’t be easy, but she’ll wanna hear your voice, and you tell her about your daughter.”

“Can I touch her?” Dr. Bennett shakes his head no.

“You have to stay on this side of the glass.  You landed in a good family.  Protect them, and they’ll protect you.  Now, I’ve got a surgery to perform on a little flower.  I’ll report back to you when we’re finished.”

________________________________________________________________

“He’s gotta go back, Ris,” James looks at his wife, with no emotion.  His joy completely sucked out of him.  “I know you want to see her.  But if that were me and you, what would give us hope?”

“You give me hope.”

“And you give me hope.  I’ve went through so many scenarios, Baby Doll, I’m not ready for you to see her like that.  I don’t want you to have to go through the trauma of hearing your daughter flatline.  She needs hope, and so does he.  Carter, hand me that waiver,” instead of Carter it’s Lucy that walks over there.  She goes back beside Story and Carter.  Story leans over on her husband while their daughter nurses, a steady flow of tears drifting down her face.

“When he comes back, as soon as someone can go to her, it’s gotta be Jax.”

“I know, Sarge.  I can’t lose our baby.”

“We’re not going to.  I refuse.  She’s got Rogers blood, mixed in with some Adler and Drysdale.  She’s a fighter, and born to be a mom.  She won’t leave our Daisy without her mother.”

Blade leans over his baby sister, giving her a kiss to her cheek, “I need to take your princess back.  She can’t stay here, and there’s a lot of kids that need me.”

“We need you, Bladey.”

“Don’t do this, Ree.”

“We do.  Posie needs you.  I know, you’re struggling with this.  You get our ice princess back to the estate, and come back because we need you here.  There’s enough adults there that can deal with all of them.  Tell all our babies, we’ll be home, and we love them, and they have a new cousin.  Where’s Abel?”

________________________________________________________________

You brush the bright blonde hairs out of Abel’s face.  Holding tightly to your husband’s hand, while your kids try and keep themselves busy.  You were told that you could bring everyone to the estate, but with as many people as there were, and Abel being overwhelmed with the five kids that were here, you and Owin opted to stay home.

He never wanted you to let him go.  Randomly asking you about his Posie mama, and then just calling her mama.  Asking about his baby sister, and what information that Mrs. Drysdale had told Owin, the both of you decided to just say you didn’t know.  

Owin while optimistic, knew the risks and probabilities of brain injuries.  You found him pacing around on the floor, to going to sit beside you, wrapping both large arms around you.  “She’ll be okay, buddy.  Mama, is going to be okay, just like sissy.”

________________________________________________________________

“Jax, we signed a waiver, that’s going to let you go back to Posie.  It’s time.  She needs you.  Make sure my baby is okay.  Tell her about Daisy and how she’s in surgery.  Beck is bringing in the top neurologist in the country just for her.  But she needs your voice.  Go,” Iris’s lip trembles when James finishes.  His arms, picking her up, so she can wrap her legs around him.  Finding his strength finally.  

A calm soothing feeling rushes through his body.  And he holds on tightly to his wife as Jax follows as a nurse.  Himself completely drained.  “Oh, god,” he breaths out when he sees Posie.

“Breathe,” the nurse encourages as Jax walks up to her.

“Where’s her ring?” with a smile, the nurse walks over to a table, and hands the ring to Jax.  “She can’t wear it?”

“She can now.”

Jax gets down on his knee, and slides the ring on her left finger, “Squeakers, I told you this was a promise ring.  We promised to spend our life together, so you’re not leaving me yet.  But now, this ring is an engagement ring.  I will marry you.  You will wake up.  You will love on our babies, and you will give us more babies.  Daisy is so strong.  She’s so beautiful, just like her mother.  You’d be proud of her.  Her surgeons said she’s going to live a normal life even with,” Jax looks over at the nurse, and then down to Posie’s hand that’s in his.  “She moved.”

“Keep talking.  I’m going to page a doctor to hook her up to an EEG.”

“Squeakers, you’re so brave.  Our son is okay.  He doesn’t want to leave your cousin’s Bit.  She was the first one to him, and...” he smiles when her finger moves again.  “I think he’s found his first crush,” Jax looks at the machines that Posie is hooked up to.  “What does all this mean?”

“She’s got more activity,” her eyes look over the machine, as they light up with activity.  “Keep talking.”

“Squeakers, you know that Arleigh planted daisies on that patch of land?  She sent me a picture, and they’re blooming, darling.  Our home is going to be beautiful.  Close to the farm, so you get to lay with Clover and Sage, but we’re going to have a...what’s a herding dog?”

The nurse looks at him oddly, “Uh, Australian Shepherd,” turning to see the doctor, who looks at her machines in shock.

“We’re gonna have an Austrailian Shepherd, we gotta have help to keep up with all our babies.  The kids are gonna have a porcupine, but I secretly think it’s you that wants it.  Your dad, me, Beau, and Ari we’re gonna build us this big house.  Not as big as the ones on the compound, but big enough to fit our...she moved again.”

“Son, whatever is you’re doing, keep doing it.”

“She gets off on me talking about our future,” the doctor starts hooking up the probes to her head when a surge of energy is shown on her machines.  Jax lets out the first laugh since hearing about the wreck.  “It’s true Squeakers.  You love when I talk about our future.  You’re going to be the best mama, Posie.  You already are.  Holy shit.”

The doctor stands beside Jax watching the EEG machine go crazy with activity.  “You’re in there darling.  Rest, and when you get well, I’ll marry you as soon as you wake.”

“Nurse, the neurologist just arrived.  He needs to get in here, now.  Son, find one of the ten thousand of those people out there to get certified, and I’ll allow the two of you to get married,” even the doctor smiles when more brain waves are visible.  “Keep talking.”

“Oh, and Illiana is trying to steal Daisy’s spotlight.  Story and Carter had to go to labor and delivery.  They’re sharing a birthday.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that are here.  Squeakers, Papa called me son earlier.  I get sprinkles and a son.  I think it’s official.  I never told you this, but your dad apologized for being an ass to me.  Thatta girl.  You fight this so I can call you, my wife.  I’ll even wear sweaters at Christmas.”

Jax looks up at the doctor laughing.  “I don’t do cable knit.  Her family, obsessed.  Her Mimi sleeps in it.  She wants me to wear it.  I’ll even wear the navy one.  And one day, when Daisy can walk, we’re gonna have us a real wedding.  You in hopefully not a big poufy gown, but I can see you with this sexy tight dress, your dad walking you down the aisle.  Our babies before you.  Hell, if Daisy can’t walk, we’ll let someone pull her in a wagon.  Her a crown of daisies in her hair.  Can we do it in our daisy field.”

“What’s he doing?” the neurologist asks looking at all of Posie’s readings.  “She’s still in a coma?”

“She’s hearing everything.”

“Posie Teller has a nice ring to it.  And I can’t wait to see your mom and dad’s face when we tell them Daisy’s middle name.  Squeakers, I’m waiting on you.  What’s that mean?” he points over a machine that’s going off the charts.

“Her blood pressure is rising.”

“Squeakers, you’re getting too excited.  I know you’re sensitive but you can’t do this here.”

“Holy shit,” the doctor responds.  “Oh, your daughter is out of surgery and stable.  She did great.”

“Did you hear that Pose, our baby she’s out of surgery and stable.  When can I...” he looks at Posie, then at the doctor, before the floor.  “I want to see her, but I don’t to leave Posie,” her blood pressure starts rising again.  “I’m gonna stay right here with you,” but no change.  “When I can I’ll go see our daughter.”

“Oh, she’s got you whipped.”

“I’ll take it, because I get to see her smile.  Posie, as long as they let me, I’m staying with you, but when I can see our precious flower.  I’m going to her.”

________________________________________________________________

“They kicked me out,” Jax says almost giddily.

“You were back there for a long time,” Ransom says quickly, and Jax smiles even bigger.

“What?  What does that mean?  It’s good.  My baby, she’s okay?” Iris asks walking closer to Jax.  “You did it?”

“Not out of the woods.  She’s stable.  Her brain activity is crazy.  She moved.  She...her blood pressure would raise, if I said something she didn’t like.  She’s in there.  She didn’t like when I said I didn’t want to leave, but I promised I’d go see Daisy.  Iris, I want you to go with me.  Posie wants her daddy with her when I’m there.  She’s responding Grumpy.”

Masterlist

#desperate lives #desperate lives au #desperate verse #da au #dau #jax teller #sons of anarchy #soa #posie rogers #posie rogers x jax teller #abel teller #james rogers x iris rogers #the drysdale's #ransom drysdale x kitten drysdale #carter baizen

[ninjastormhawkkat]

Villain Steven Au Idea

This is just a twist on the villain Steven concepts. After Steven became Dr. Two Brains, Becky's friends felt really bad for her. They did not bring up the incident much because they thought that Becky still had issues with her dad becoming a villain. So they did not talk about how her dad was in front of her. One day, one of the friends slips up and comments that it must be really weird for her being a superhero while her dad is a villain. Becky just replies, oh not really, he's always been like this. Becky's friends have a hold up, what you talking about moment. From what Scoops and Violet remember, Becky's dad has always been the kind, good-natured, and law abiding citizen Steven Boxleitner. Becky laughs a little and corrects their thinking. Steven is a kind, person, he is good dad to Becky, and he did have friendly chats with his neighbors and colleagues, but he was not a law abiding citizen. He was actually a villain scientist. He was doing independent work for villains from the other cities and private investor villains. After he became Dr. Two Brains and developed a focus on cheese, he switched to working in a group villain organization with Fair City villains. That's why Granny May and a few other Fair City villains on the committee were so welcoming of her dad. They began to ask her a plethora of questions to try and clear things up. That is why Dr. Two Brains is a pro at his villain antics.

Didn't he write a book on superheroes? Yeah so he could expose other hero's secrets and strategies sneakily through legal means. That book is not exactly private material.

How come none of the other scientist he worked with noticed anything. Dad always kept his work matters to himself, feeding others false or only half the information to hide his true evil intentions. His clumsy and oblivious nature made people think he was an innocent worker. Dad put in fake surveillance cameras in his lab so no one would have a reason to spy on him.

So why did your dad help train you to become a superhero. I wanted to become a hero to use my powers to help others. Dad was understanding albeit a bit disappointed that I wouldn't join him in his villainy. We tease each other about me becoming a villain and him being a good guy all the time for fun. Still, Dad wanted to make sure I was well prepared on how to be a proper hero and not end up corrupt or being a plain jerk to others. He was also helping me to control my powers long before I chose to became a hero.

Why were you upset when your dad became Dr. Two Brains? I was upset because my dad really messed up his body system and his head in the accident. I was horrified at the beginning at his transformation and the way he acted made me afraid he had really become insane. Dad assured me later that while he did have a bout of insanity because of the sudden fusion between him and Squeaky, he was still okay later after resting it off, and was fine now, more or less.

Why did you refer to Squeaky as an ultimate evil? Because the mouse is really vicious and mean and has a strong food urge that makes him very dangerous when left unchecked like when my dad got the stupid idea of letting him take control for once. Earth animals don't have a moral compass unlike people and alien animals.

Why didn't you tell us this before? You guys made your own assumptions and never asked me before whether my dad was always a villain or not.

Point taken.

So this is basically an au where Steven has always been a villain but Becky already knew this and was just normal with it because he was her dad.

#wordgirl #wordgirl au #steven boxleitner #dr two brains #becky boxleitner au #villain steven au #but becky knows and doesn't see the point in hiding it #everyone else in this au is oblivious #except the villains

[fellintotartarus]

you ask me what i’m thinking about (spencer reid x fem!reader)

Summary: On a night out, Reader discovers that her crush, Spencer Reid is a virgin and takes him home. 3.3k words

A/N: This is literally the fastest I’ve ever written anything oh my god. Anyways, enjoy.

Warnings: Literal fucking filth, the whole thing. Sub!Spencer smut, fingering, oral (m and f receiving), penetration, praise kink.

-

“Okay, never have I ever done it standing up against a wall,” Penelope said, beginning a game of the most childish, yet absolute most fun drinking game ever.

“Unfair, Pen, I told you that story yesterday,” you whined, throwing back a shot of cheap tequila, noticing Emily and Derek join you. The whole team (minus the dads Hotch and Rossi) were gathered on the floor of Penelope’s living room unwinding after a case.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Penelope said with a drunken grin.

“That’s actually not how that saying should be applied, and if you look back to the--” Spencer started before he was cut off. He was easily the most sober of the group, which was saying something. Even he was bleary-eyed and swaying slightly in his seat.

You ran your eyes over his frame hungrily. Deciding to get drunk around the man you had a massive crush on was starting to look like a mistake as you found yourself leaning closer to him, stabilizing yourself on his thigh when you wobbled. You heard his breath hitch. You smiled, tracing your fingers over his clothed skin quickly before removing your hand.

“Sorry,” you said lowly, eyes lingering on his lips.

God what you wouldn’t do to kiss those lips raw and bite them--

“Y/N? It’s your turn,” you heard Emily say from across the room.

You turned to them, thinking. Oh, you knew a way to get nearly every single one of them (save maybe Emily) to drink.

“Never have I ever been a virgin at the age of seventeen,” you said smugly. Workplace gossip paid off.

Everyone except Emily rolled their eyes and threw back a shot, mumbling complaints.

Derek laughed and said, “Never have I ever been a virgin at my current age.”

You looked around, confused. Who on earth--

Oh.

Well, that is delightful, you thought as you watched Spencer sigh, flip Derek off, and take a shot.

“Don’t worry, pretty boy, we’ll get you laid one of these days,” Derek said.

Every single dirty thought you had ever had about this man doubled the instant you realized the world you could show him. The heat between your legs increased. Thanks to the alcohol, you had no problem scooting even closer to him as the game progressed. You hoped he would use his 187 IQ and crazy smart profiler brain to pick up what you were trying to tell him when you lightly grazed his hand with your pinky and drooped your head onto his shoulder. Sure enough, you heard his breathing speed up and he glanced down at you, his curious eyes meeting your lustful ones. He cleared his throat before looking back at the group. You sat like that for the rest of the game.

After a couple more hours of just sitting around and goofing off, you were definitely getting sober. The room no longer spun pleasantly and your body lacked the hum that came with drinking.

What didn’t wear off, though, was the thrumming need between you and Spencer. You were always flirty with him and he always blushed and tried to reciprocate, but this was a whole different level. He would turn to you occasionally, as if to reassure himself that you were, in fact, still looking at him like you wanted to pin him up against a wall and it would leave him slightly out of breath.

You loved the effect you had on him, how one glance of yours could leave him shuddering softly.

When everyone (sober enough, Emily was definitely crashing on the couch) finally started to stand up and get ready to leave, you took your opportunity and grabbed Spencer by the arm, whispering, “My place?” sweetly in his ear. He inhaled sharply and nodded his head, trailing after you out the door, both of you saying your goodbyes.

Spencer had taken the Metro, so you went in the same car and it was torture. You kept your hand on Spencer’s thigh the entire time, leaving him to shift in his seat, hoping to find more friction.

“Patience,” you said sweetly. He gulped and nodded.

As soon as you pulled up to your apartment, you practically pulled him over the console by the tie and kissed him.

You grabbed the base of Spencer’s head, twisting your fingers harshly through his hair before bringing his lips to yours. The kiss was hungry, teeth clashing, and Spencer returned it eagerly. You ran your hands over his chest, stopping only to brush his nipples, which earned you a shudder and he pushed closer to you.

You broke the kiss, saying, “Let’s take this upstairs.”

Spencer nodded enthusiastically, following you up the stairs to your apartment door. Once inside, you turned and kissed Spencer sweetly, a contrast from in the car.

You pulled away, his face in your hand, and said, “Are you good?”

Spencer said, “Yeah. I trust you.”

Your heart swelled exponentially. You were so lucky.

“Anything you don’t like and we stop, okay? You’re safe with me.” you said, playfully stern.

Spencer smiled, nodding and leaned back in to kiss you. You stopped him with a finger against his lips.

“I need to hear you say it,” you replied, eyebrows raised, cupping his face in your hand.

Spencer’s eyes widened and you felt his pants tighten against your hip.

“Yes,” he breathed.

Oh, this was an interesting development. You hadn’t wanted to bring this side of you out so soon, but Spencer seemed so eager for it.

You smiled, running your thumb back and forth on his cheek. “Do you like it when I take control, Spence?” You gripped his hip in the other hand.

His breathing shallowed, eyes fluttering when your finger dipped under his shirt and pants and rubbed small circles into his hip bone. He nodded weakly.

Your hand on his face shifted to grip his chin, bringing his eye level down to you.

“Baby, use your words,” you said sweetly, taking your time.

“Yes. Please,” Spencer basically whined, and it went straight to your core.

Okay, this was happening.

You moved your hand that was on his hip and cupped his bulge, running your fingers back and forth softly. He let out a small whimper and his hips moved subtly, begging for more. You smiled, every movement electrifying you further.

“Why don’t you take your clothes off for me and meet me in the bedroom?” you said sweetly, obviously not intending it as a question.

Spencer nodded, pulling away from you slowly before walking back to where he knew your bedroom to be.

You took a second to collect yourself, every movement making you painfully aware of how soaked you were.

You were typically fine having vanilla sex or even pretending to submit to a man every once in a while, because men didn’t typically like to hear that you wanted them to submit to you. It got old after a while, though, and just yesterday you had been considering popping in to the local BDSM club to find someone.

But today had proven to be exactly what you needed. Not only were you about to fuck the man you’d had a crush on for a while, but he was sitting pretty in the bedroom, waiting for your next command.

Fuck, you thought, rubbing your thighs together. You’d better get in there, then.

You turned the corner into the doorway and found Spencer down to his tented boxer briefs sitting pretty on the edge of your bed. 

You stood in front of him and shrugged your dress off your shoulders, revealing a skimpy bralette and sheer boyshorts. 

He gasped softly at the sight of your near naked body and shifted on the bed as if to get closer to you. You smiled, walking to him and positioning yourself between his legs, looking down on him. 

You took his face in your hand, squeezing slightly to make his lips pucker. You leaned down and did exactly what you had imagined earlier in the night, kissing him harshly, sucking and biting at his lips, drawing small moans from him.

You ran your fingers up and down his chest, scratching his pale skin and tweaking his nipples every now and then as you continued to kiss him roughly, and Spencer whimpered, wiggling around where he was sitting. 

The wetness in your panties had soaked through the fabric and Spencer’s boxers were so tight it just had to have hurt. 

You broke the kiss, taking a moment to savor the wrecked look on Spencer’s face. His lips were red and swollen, covered in saliva, and there were red marks from where you had gripped his face. 

“What do you know about pleasuring women, Dr. Reid?” you asked teasingly, continuing your ministrations on his chest.

“I may be a virgin, but I’m not stupid,” he said, out of breath. He picked up his hand and trailed it along your inner thighs, making you shiver. He ghosted across where you needed him most.

His eyes met yours, asking silent permission which you granted with a nod, breath heavy.

You gripped his shoulders hard and threw your head back when he moved your panties aside and slipped his fingers through your soaked folds. He found your clit immediately (goddamn genius) and rubbed it in soft, slow circles. It felt amazing, but it was nowhere near enough.

When he glanced up at you with the subbiest look on his face, you took his face in your hand yet again and breathed, “Not enough, baby.”

Spencer’s face flashed with a look of determination and he increased the pressure on your clit before slipping a finger in your heat. You let out a loud moan and let your eyes flutter shut, running your fingers through his hair in praise.

“Fuck, baby, you’re doing so good for me,” you groaned, which only served to spur him on. He quickly added two more fingers and pumped in and out of you so deliberately, rubbing up against that electric spot inside you every time.

You definitely hadn’t been expecting to cum more than once if at all tonight, but here you were, stood in front of your crush sitting on your bed while he brought you dangerously close to the edge with his fingers.

He continued slipping in and out of you and rubbing circles into your clit, the feeling of his warm fingers making you near delirious. The real turn-on, though, was the way he looked up at you, practically begging for praise. 

“Oh, fuck, Spence, you’re doing so good for me, so fucking good,” you choked out as you felt your breath hitch and legs tense, your orgasm so, so near.

“I’m close,” you whispered, unsure of whether Spencer even heard it. You were assured he did, though, when he dipped his head down to your cunt and licked a long, hard, stripe up and down before latching onto your clit and sucking. You let out a long, loud moan.

That was all it took. You came hard on Spencer’s hand, mewls and whines filling the room, walls clamping tightly around his fingers and he nursed it beautifully for you, kitten licking your clit and softly rubbing inside you until you had to pull his hand and face off because your legs were shaking too hard.

You took one look at him, face covered in your juices, lips swollen from the kissing and sucking, hair absolutely mussed from your hands, and it was it took to leave you wanting more. You placed your hand flat on his chest, leading him farther back on the bed. He sat against the pillows and headboard and you placed your soaked core directly on his hard bulge, pulling a whimper from him and a low moan from you.

You leaned in, hungrily kissing him, tasting yourself on his lips and tongue and rocking your hips back and forth slowly, building a fire in you. At this point, Spencer was a mess, practically begging for you to touch him. He bucked his hips up into yours and whimpered with every movement. You moved your hand to the back of his neck and pulled his head back, exposing his throat.

“I’m gonna give you a hickey, alright, baby? That way everyone will know you’re taken,” you growled into his ear, nipping his earlobe in between words.

Spencer exhaled sharply and nodded, not speaking. You gave his earlobe a sharp pull with your teeth, and he jumped slightly.

“Please, Y/N, just own me,” he gasped.

You were sure that you had died and gone to heaven. There was no way your crush was sitting under you right now being a perfect little sub and begging for you to wreck him.

You latched onto his pulse point with renewed vigor, sucking and biting his soft, pale skin. Spencer writhed underneath you, moaning out little expletives you almost couldn’t understand.

You continued until you were met with an angry bruise blooming on his beautiful neck, satisfied with your work.

“There we go,” you teased, scooting back on the bed until your face aligned with Spencer’s bulge. You let your breath ghost over his clothed dick and licked at the wet spot on his boxers. Spencer whined, an honest to god high pitched whine, and it was so hot you had no choice but to wrap your mouth around the head of his cock through his boxers.

He was obviously trying to hold back, grasping at the sheets with his hands and biting his lips to stop from moaning. You pulled back.

“Are you going to be good for me and let me hear you, baby? Or am I going to have to leave you high and dry?” you teased, cocking your eyebrow at him.

Spencer exhaled. “Fuck, please, I’ll be good, I promise.”

If you hadn’t been soaked before, his words just then would’ve done the job.

You lowered your head again, pulling back the waistband of Spencer’s boxers to reveal his cock, hard, pink, leaking precum, and deliciously big.

“Oh, baby, it’s a crime to keep this pretty dick from the world,” you grinned, licking a slow stripe up the underside.

Spencer kept true to his promise and was not holding a single noise back, his head thrown back against the headboard. The room was filled with the curses and moans pouring out of his mouth.

You wrapped your lips around the head of his cock, swirling your tongue around to collect the precum. His hips bucked into your mouth and you smiled around him, going lower and lower until he hit the back of your throat.

You hollowed your cheeks and slid up and down a few times, leaving him practically yelling. You pulled off with a pop and brought yourself back up to his face, never letting go of his dick.

“As much as I’d like for you to fuck my face and cum down my throat, we’ve got that little viginity issue of yours to solve.”

Spencer looked at you, wide-eyed and gasping and nodded as you gave him a few pumps and positioned yourself over him.

“I’m clean,” he croaked, face red. “Obviously.”

You smiled and leaned in, kissing him softly.

“Me, too. And I’m on the pill. Spencer, are you sure? Because we can stop right now,” you said softly, reassuring him.

Spencer shook his head, “There’s no one I’d rather do this with.”

You smiled, assuming your role once again, “I’m glad to hear it, baby boy. Are you ready for this pussy to change your life?” you said, joking to ease the mood.

Spencer smiled, almost laughing, but then you ran his tip through your folds and his face fell into one of pure bliss. You rubbed your clit against him, covering him in your slick and moaning loudly.

“Fuck, baby, you’re gonna feel so good inside me,” you groaned, head thrown back in pleasure.

Spencer squirmed, clearly impatient to feel himself inside you. You chuckled, cutting your grinding against him short to indulge him

You pressed your lips against his in a wildly passionate kiss as you lowered yourself onto him, feeling him stretch you out.

Spencer’s mouth fell open against yours and his strangled moans only encouraged you. Feeling warmed up enough, you dropped the rest of the way onto him, feeling the pleasant burn and crying out.

The feeling was insane. You were so full and satisfied you felt yourself uncharacteristically close again already. You ground your clit in Spencer’s hip bone and mewled loudly. 

“Fuck, Y/N, please move,” Spencer begged, writhing under you.

“You don’t tell me what to do, Spence,” you said, halting your movements altogether. He whined and stopped moving, too.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whimpered.

Satisfied with his apology, you brought yourself up slowly, only stopped when he nearly slipped out of you, before dropping quickly, hitting the deepest spot inside you. You repeated the motions again, quicker this time and Spencer’s hands shot out to grip your hips. You decided to allow it purely because of the crazy blissed out look Spencer had on his face.

He looked gorgeous. His hair was fucked and stuck to his forehead with sweat. His head was thrown back in complete pleasure, noises pouring out of his swollen lips continuously and the hickey on his neck stood out prominently. 

When you dropped down on him again, he hit a spot inside of you you didn’t even know existed, and you fell forward onto his chest on your elbows, the coil inside you tightening hotly. You straightened up with new determination, practically fucking him into the bed.

Spencer moved his hands up to your tits, pulling one of them into his mouth. His tongue circled your nipple, sucking softly and you grabbed his hair hard, causing him to moan against you. You lowered your hand to where the two of you met, swirling your thumb around your combined juices.

You pulled him off of you and offered him your soaked thumb, which he graciously took into his mouth and began sucking earnestly. You moaned as loud as you ever had. Just seeing him being so good brought you close to the edge again.

“I’m so close,” Spencer said through your hand.

“Me, too. Help me out, baby,” you whispered sweetly, grabbing his hand and guiding it to your clit. He pushed his thumb harshly against it and rubbed and you yelled loudly.

You slammed back down on him and came harder than you ever had, gasping for air and your vision whiting out. a vice-like clamp on Spencer’s dick guiding him over the edge, too. You felt his seed fill you, a warmth spreading inside you. You desperately joined Spencer at your clit, rubbing circles to prolong your orgasm for as long as possible. 

Finally, you let yourself go limp on top of him, tracing little patterns into his sweaty skin.

“I hope that was okay for your first time,” you whispered against him, pressing soft kisses into his torso.

“Are you kidding? I think that’s the best sex anyone has ever had their first time,” Spencer said, still catching his breath.

“Are you good?” you asked, turning to face him. “Was that too much?”

Spencer smiled, blushing. “No way. It was perfect.”

-

The next day at work, you walked in five minutes before Spencer so no one was the wiser.

Spencer walked into the conference room last, so everyone noticed the scarf he was wearing in the warm August weather.

Derek snatched it off of him almost as soon as he sat down and wolf-whistled at his hickey.

“Looks like Pretty Ricky finally got some,” he laughed, everyone joining in in playfully congratulating Spencer. His face reddened and his eyes met yours.

You winked.

#spencer reid #spencer x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid fic #sub spencer reid #dom reader #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid smut #smut

[reidgraygubler]

carolina (spencer reid/reader

Title: Carolina

Request: no, but it was written for @spencerreidbingo​

Couple: spencer reid/fem!reader

Category: smut/angst, with a tiny bit of fluff

Content Warning: SEXUAL CONTENT (praise kink, mild-innocence kink, daddy kink, fingering, oral (male & female), penetrative sex, unprotected sex/cream pie, grinding/petting, hairpulling, breathplay, multiple orgasms, possessive kink, orgasm denial), partying, drinking, swearing, large age gap (between two consenting adults), professor/student, post prison!reid, quick mentions of drinks being drugged (but not actually happening) (if I missed anything, please let me know)

Word Count: 9,064

Summary: Spencer thinks his peer is innocent. But little does he not, she’s not as innocent as he thinks.

A/N: it’s based on carolina by harry styles, bc im a sucker for a good harry song. This was written for @spencerreidbingo​ (i’ll have a separate post with more about that). this takes up the breathplay square on my card (pictured below). This is also the first time im writing a blowjob scene, so im really sorry if it’s not good. i also didn’t have a beta for this, so im kinda blindly posting this. and, lastly, this is a lot longer than i intended. i didn’t mean for it to get this long… it’s just a bunch of words my brain wouldn’t stop saying until i wrote it... i seriously hope you all enjoy this. thank you all for the love and support! check out my masterlist!

~*~* THIS DOES CONTAIN 18+ CONTENT!! *~*~

{***}{***}{***}

I kept my eyes low as I stepped into the lecture hall 5 minutes before anyone else. The professor was writing something on the chalkboard, so his back was facing the room. 

“Uh, hello,” I spoked, stepping closer to his desk. He jumped slightly and dropped his chalk at the sound of my voice. I would have expected him to know students would be showing up earlier, considering it was the start of a new semester. And, I honestly would have assumed he was told a new student was coming. That’s not my job. 

“Oh, sorry,” he turned around to face me. I smiled softly, watching

as he bent down to pick up the chalk. I cocked my head to the side, watching his backside as he stood back up. He pushed his hair away from his face. “You must be the new transfer,” he asked, resting the chalk on his desk, beside a pile of pens.

“Yep. That’s me…” I smiled, looking up at his face, keeping myself from further checking him out. I quickly offered my hand and gave him my name. “I know I’m early. I figured I’d get the syllabus from you now instead of after class,” I nodded as I adjusted my grip on my bag. He stared at me for a moment, his eyes lingering on my face and then down my body, and that moment felt like an eternity. I shouldn’t be mad or frustrated with him. I basically did the same thing to him moments ago.

 I cleared my throat to get his attention once again. “The, uh… The syllabus?” I asked as my smile faltered slightly. He looked at me before looking at the pile of papers on his desk before quickly moving.

“Right, right, sorry,” he muttered as he began shuffling through the piles of paper on his desk. “Um, here you are,” he looked back up at me as he handed me a small packet. I looked at it for a moment before looking back up at the teacher.

“Perfect, thank you,” I spoke, my words kind of lingering because he never actually gave me his name. 

“Right, sorry, Spencer. Spencer Reid. I won’t be a drill sergeant about the whole Mr., Dr., Professor. You can call me whatever you want,” he smiled as he placed his hands on the back of his chair. I held back my laughter and the wildly inappropriate joke that I wanted to make.

“Well, Professor Reid,” I smiled as I looked down at my watch, “I better go find a seat before your class starts. I can’t wait to be in your class,” I looked up at him before turning to find a spot. When I sat down, Spencer looked at me with a smile, before going back to writing on the chalkboard. 

I quickly and quietly pulled out my books and pens as the other people in the class filed in and took their seats. Spencer quickly finished writing on the board before turning around to greet the class. And, even as he spoke to the class, and looked around at each of the other students, his eyes always landed on me, lingering for a moment before going elsewhere.

{***}{***}{***}

Five months. Five months into being in Spencer Reid’s class, and I have been suffering. I’m not a new student anymore. But the only friendship I’ve made is with my fucking professor, and there’s a certain level of tension between us. That tension was probably thanks to him staring at me during lectures, and me teasing him while he taught. It wasn’t too bothersome, but I definitely wanted something to happen. Unfortunately for me, I don’t think anything will happen. 

So, can someone please tell me why I invited Spencer over to help me study for a test? It’s a stupid question too, that I already figured out the answer to… I even finished studying for the day, and I’m going to a stupid party. Maybe I could get him to go with… And maybe, just maybe, something could happen.

I nearly jumped when there was a knock on the door. It’s not that I forgot he was coming over. It’s that I was so wrapped up in doing my makeup and forgot what time it was. My mascara almost smudged when I jumped back. Thank God it didn’t smudge too terribly. 

I grabbed my shirt off the counter and threw it on (not bothering to zip it), before running to the front door. I smoothed out my skirt before pulling the door open. And, there stood Spencer. 

“Hope I’m not too late,” he looked down at me and smiled. Although, his smile didn’t stay for too long when he saw what I was wearing. He wasn’t disappointed though, no. He was… He clearly liked what he saw, I’ll just put it that way.

“Oh! Thanks for coming over, but I actually figured it out. I should’ve called you,” I looked up at Spencer as he stepped into my apartment. I struggled to zip the back of my blouse as I walked towards my room. I looked back over my shoulder and noted that Spencer was, indeed, still following me. “Can you zip me up,” I stopped in my tracks before giving up on zipping my blouse. It was a black crop top that paired well with the pale pink tennis skirt. 

“Where… Where exactly are you going tonight? It’s a, uh, it’s a school night,” he asked as he lifted his hands. The cool metal of the zipper pressed against my back, causing a shiver to go through my spine.

“Uh, there’s this party,” I answered, stepping away from him and towards the bathroom, “Thought I’d go,” I looked at him in the mirror. Spencer looked around the bathroom, at the messy mess I had made on my counter. Different pallets of makeup and tools were strewn about, a varying amount of hair care products tossed here and there. It honestly looked like a bathroom of a pageant queen, and not a 20-something-year-old. In my defense, I had to dress to impress someone here in this stupid university. 

“Is that, uh… Is that smart?” Spencer asked, leaning against the door jamb. I looked up at him as I put on some luxurious red lipstick. I smiled as I looked at him.

“I think it is,” I laughed as I picked up something else and turned to look at him, “You wanna come? I wasn’t invited,” I smiled wickedly as I looked at him. His face paled two shades as he looked at me. “Oh, c’mon, Professor, no one will know us there, and I can assure you, no one will even see us,” I looked up at him as I readjusted his tie. He looked down at me before swallowing roughly. 

“I don-”

“I do need a designated driver,” I spoke before cutting him off. I walked past him and towards my room. Part of me wondered what he was thinking as I so rudely rushed past him, or cut him off, or whatever I was doing. I wished I could hear his thoughts. I wondered if they consisted of “The mouth on that girl,” or, “I should punish her for the way she’s acting,” or, my personal favorite, “I should put that mouth to good use,” 

“How old are you again?” Spencer asked once I sat down on my bed. I looked up at him as I slipped my shoes on.

“22,” I smiled and stood up, “Why, is that important?” I smiled as I grabbed my coat and purse.

“Couldn’t remember,” he lied. We both knew he was lying. He even knew that too. Freaking walking computer is what he is. There's no way he conveniently forgot how old I was. “Are you going to be out late?”

“Why? It’s not like you’re my dad or anything?” I laughed, leading him back to the front door of the house. “I don’t plan on being out too late. I know there’s class tomorrow,” I shrugged as I walked towards his car. 

We both stayed silent as he drove with the directions I was quietly giving him. I was pleasantly happy that we were both quiet, but what I hated was the sudden awkward sexual tension that was between us. If he didn’t have this… domineering personality over me there probably wouldn’t be this tension between us.

“Are you going to come with me?” I looked up at him as I unbuckled. He glanced over at me with slight disappointment in his eye. I felt a little bad, but I really wanted to go to this party, I wasn’t going to let my professor’s disappointment stop me. “Please,” I whispered. He sighed before unbuckling himself. I had to force myself to not verbally giggle with excitement before slipping out of the car. Spencer looked down at me as I twisted my hips to swish my skirt. I smiled as I entertained myself. I'm sure if I wasn't watching my skirt, I would have been staring at him, giving myself away. 

“Steps,” Spencer muttered as we got closer to the porch. I looked up at him before looking towards the small staircase. I looked up at Spencer with a smile. He glanced back down at me, a worried crease in his brow. I looked down at my skirt and smoothed it out. I looked at the door as we stood close to it, I contemplated knocking.

  “So, you weren’t invited to this party?” Spencer asked, looking down at me. His voice stopped me from knocking. Instead, I looked up at him and smiled back up at him. He raised an eyebrow as he waited for an answer from me. My smile grew playful as I looked back at the door, raising my fist to knock on it. “No answer?” he asked, still waiting for my answer.

“Oh, please, Professor Reid, I can get into the hottest parties in LA without an invitation,” I smiled at him. That was a little bit of an over-exaggeration. Most college parties I could get into. But not LA parties. Someday though… 

The door swung open, and we were instantly met with loud music blaring through a speaker somewhere in the house. People’s voices and chatter carried all throughout the house, coming through the various rooms and clusters around. “Are you coming in to babysit me? Or, are you going to go back to your car to read the science of the mathematical phenomenon,” I looked up at him, offering my hand to him. I wasn’t exactly sure if that was a real book or not, but I wouldn’t put it past Spencer to read. 

“I’m not babysitting you,” he corrected as he looked down at me with a disappointed look in his eye. I smiled and rolled my eyes. 

“Are you going to come in and watch me drink and party and have fun, Professor… Or, are you going to go back to your car and read your silly little book,” I looked down at my hand, silently telling him to take my hand and come in with me. 

“I, uh, I don’t think it’s exactly in the rules for a professor to party, let alone drink, with their students,” Spencer spoke before looking down at my hand. I dropped my shoulders and looked up at him.

“Fine then… Suit yourself,” I turned around and basically skipped into the house, leaving the door open for him. I made my way towards the loud kitchen and grabbed for a cup and bottle of whatever booze was nearby. I blindly grabbed for a bottle of Grey Goose and dumped it into the cup, no mixer, no chaser. 

“First off,” Spencer’s voice came from beside me. I looked up at him and took a long sip of vodka. “You shouldn’t be taking drinks from people at a party,” he spoke, taking the cup from me. I looked up at him, then the bottle and a new cup. I was only a little annoyed that he took my drink. 

“I… I’m young. I’m not dumb,” I grabbed a new cup and poured more vodka. I looked up at him and offered him a sip. “I know not to drink something given to me by someone I don’t know.” I scoffed before taking another long sip. I cringed a bit at how strong it was.

“Even then someone could slip something into a drink! Even if you did know them!” Spencer exclaimed, causing the surrounding people to turn and look at us. I dropped my shoulders as I looked up at him. 

“If you look around, Spencer, you’re the only person that I know. So unless you’re the one slipping something into my drink… And, as an FBI agent… I don’t think you would,” I cocked my head to my shoulder. Spencer looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You have more to say,” I added before taking a sip of my drink.

"And, secondly, you're not as innocent as I had originally thought you were," he watched as I brought the cup of straight vodka to my lips. He looked rather unamused with my talent for drinking straight vodka.

"You thought I was innocent?" I asked, nearly sputtering the liquid with my laughter. "Please! I've never been innocent in my entire life!" I shouted over the music. He raised an eyebrow at my statement, and suddenly I had the greatest idea in the world. "But maybe, just for you, I'll be a good girl," I smiled before drinking the rest of my drink in one go. Spencer looked down at me, his lips pressed into a fine as he stared down at me. Ohh, that definitely awoken something in him. I bit back my smile with my offer. Innocent… He thinks I’m innocent. Ha! I honestly don’t remember the last time I was innocent. And, honestly, just for him… I’d be an innocent, good, little girl for Spencer Reid any day, every day even. “I can be your good, innocent little girl,” I smiled at him and cocked my head.

"I don't… I don't think that'd be… appropriate," he spoke, his words very quiet. We both knew that even though it was inappropriate, we both wanted it. We both knew what we wanted to. 

I glanced at him before pouring more drink for myself. "You should learn to pace yourself," he stated and changed the subject. He nervously looked at the bottle of vodka and then around the room at all the other people drinking. Or, he was just looking for a drink that wasn’t booze. Did he actually want to keep me safe, or was I just overreading him?     

"It's a college party, Professor! I'm not going to pace myself!" I shouted just to get his attention back to me. His head shot back down to me. The level of concern on his face only made me feel a little bad, mostly because he was concerned for me. But, he should know… This is a college party.  “Do you want some?” I asked, offering my drink to him again. I held it up to him, close to his lips. His face twisted up as soon as the scent of pure vodka hit his nose.

“No, no thanks,” he held up at hand to block the cup from his face. I pouted before bringing it to my lips. “Do you usually come to parties,” he asked, his eyes darting around the room. Part of me wondered if he wanted to continue that question with “Like this?” But,  I was too busy keeping my eyes on his face, rather than looking around the room like he was. Although, I’m sure he was used to keeping an eye on his surroundings. I’ve never been too worried about it, I probably should… But hey, you only live once. Going to college parties with your 38-year-old professor, and drinking straight vodka, and not really caring about your surroundings proves my point of YOLO.

“If I don’t have class or anything to study for… Yep,” I looked up at him with a sneaky smile. The joke with that was his particular class had a test coming up soon, and I should be studying for it. He knew that too because he just announced the test this morning. Although, he did come to my home, to help me with said test. “But, I wouldn't show up to his class hungover. It’d disappoint him too much. And, he’d care too much about me to even focus on the rest of the class,” I spoke, answering the questions he was thinking. It’s not like I’ve shown up to classes hungover before. Granted, I’ve never shown up to his class drunk or hungover. Mostly because I didn’t want to disappoint him, and only him. Anyone and everyone else can go blow themselves.

“How do you know that?” Spencer asked, looking back at me with furrowed eyebrows. I smiled and stepped closer to him.  

“How do I know what?” I cocked my head to my shoulder. I already knew what he meant by his question, but… I think teasing him and messing with him is fun. And, he knew that too.

“How do you know that you’d disappoint him?” he looked down at me, pressing his chin to his chest to get a better look at me. His hands were away from me, even though I really wanted his hands anywhere on me. I looked over at my hand and the cup I held before bringing it to my lips. I took a long sip, trying to finish the contents in one go. I tossed the cup over my shoulder and looked up at him with a lazy smile.

“Because being hungover, with the slight possibility of still being drunk, would totally disappoint him… And I would hate to disappoint him.” I whispered and shook my head. Spencer looked down at me with something in his eyes, and I loved the way he looked at me. “I told you, Professor, I’d be a good girl for you,” I cocked my head to my shoulder and smiled, “And only for you,”

“You’re drunk,” he pointed out an obvious fake statement. So, I cackled and shook my head.

“I had one drink,” I scoffed and waved off my in the air, “Most definitely not enough to get me drunk,” I flattened his tie out before gripping it tightly, “Like I said, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” I smiled before dropping my hand from his tie, “So, why would I show up to your class… Hungover…? I know you’d care… And I know it’d disappoint you. That’s the last thing I want to do to you,”  

Spencer’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed roughly. He quickly looked between me and the room, then back at me, then around the room. I faked a yawn before looking away from him.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom, okay, Professor?” I smoothed out his jacket before turning and leaving him alone in the kitchen. I smiled as I skipped away from him, my skirt swishing with my movement. I secretly hoped he’d follow me. But, a quick glance over my shoulder told me he was still in the kitchen.

However, when I finished my business and left the bathroom, Spencer was leaning against the wall right beside the door. I looked up at him and smiled. 

“Follow me,” he muttered, grasping my wrist and pulling me down the various halls and past multiple groups of people. I giggled the harder his grasp grew on me and the faster he moved. I’m happy people were too busy with themselves to notice a 30-something-year-old man was dragging a 20-something-year-old girl down the hall, to which I can assume was one of the only open bedrooms. Fuck… I hope it's a bedroom. 

He was a man on a mission. Not letting anyone get in his way. The smile that grew on my lips was pure excitement. I couldn’t help it. I’m sure we’re both getting what we wanted… I hope.

I let out an excited yelp when he shoved me into, exactly what I thought, an empty bedroom. I’m surprised he knew that there’d be an empty room. Most of them are occupied, with couples (or more) doing exactly what I hope we’re about to do. Which was fuck each other.

Spencer slammed the door shut, and quickly locked it before pushing me against it. I looked up at him and giggled like a fucking kid in a candy store. Again, I couldn’t help it. 

Spencer was quiet, which led me to be quiet. The air in between us quickly grew hot and tense and thick. I really wanted this to move faster, but I wanted him to be the one in charge. I was willing to let this be slow and let him be in charge. So, when he grabbed both my wrists and held them above my head, I smiled so hard my cheeks began to hurt.

“Tell me what you want,” Spencer’s voice was low and deep as he moved close to me. There was little to no space between us. Which left little to the imagination, for me anyway. 

I looked up at him, with the biggest doe eyes I could muster, silently telling him that I wanted the most, in the entire world, was to be on my knees, with his hand tangled in my hair, and his cock down my throat, or to be fucked so hard that I won’t be able to sit properly for several days. But, I couldn’t be that blunt. You gotta play up to that moment before you get it. I’m sure in the end though, I’ll get both things.

I swallowed roughly, trying to think of what to say, because, like I said, I can’t just be blunt yet. So, when I opened my mouth and words just came out, I was pleasantly surprised with what was said. “You’re old enough to be my father, Professor,” I smiled at him as he pinned me against the door. He pressed his hips against mine to keep me against the surface. I could feel a large bulge against my inner thigh, causing me to shiver. “Does that mean I get to call you daddy,” I whispered as I looked up at him through my eyelashes. He is the one who said I could call him whatever I wanted… And he did just ask me what I wanted, and I guess I wanted to call him ‘Daddy’. There was no guessing about him.

Okay, he wasn't exactly old enough to be my father. But he was a lot older than me. Most 20-something-year-olds aren't sleeping with men 15 years older than them… and most 20-something-year-olds aren't sleeping with their professor… I just wanted an excuse to call him 'Daddy'. And he knew that too. So, if we gave each other an excuse for that to happen, then that was all I needed.

I dropped my head to my shoulder to allow him to attack the space on my neck. He dragged his nose across my jawbone before stilling. His lips were just over my neck. As his breathing got heavier, it tickled across my skin. 

“That does have a nice ring to it,” Spencer hummed as he dropped my hands and stepped away from me. I swallowed roughly as I stared at him. I missed having his body pressed against mine, and he knew that. 

I looked at him as I brought my hands to his belt. "I thought you said this wasn't appropriate, Daddy," I whispered as I quickly undid the belt buckle, without looking. I almost couldn’t move fast enough to unbutton and zip his pants. If he wanted me to stop, he would have stopped me by now. “Can I?” I looked up at him, a plea in my eyes.

"You've changed my mind," he muttered, watching me with such close intent, “God, please keep going,” he spoke like if I did stop now he’d probably die. I looked up at him as I slipped my hand into the waistband of his boxers. He hissed as my fingers brushed against his cock. A small smile grew on my lips. 

“Didn’t take much convincing,” I smiled as my fingers wrapped around him. A small groan fell from his lips as I looked up at him. When I pulled my hand away from him not even a moment later, he looked down at me with an alarmed expression on his face. I quickly spat on my palm before sticking my hand down his pants. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this?” I whispered as I slowly stroked up and down his length. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. 

“I’ve wanted this since you stepped foot in my classroom,” his voice was low and gravely as he spoke. My breathing picked up a little bit as I looked up at him. 

Okay… Maybe he did know how long I’ve wanted this. Because I also wanted this the second I stepped into his lecture hall. I wanted his cock in my hands and his hand around my throat. It only took-what, five months for this? I’ll make it worth the wait. 

“Does that feel good,” I whispered, carefully picking up speed and adding the slightest bit of pressure in my grip. Spencer’s eyes fluttered shut as he swallowed roughly and nodded. I smiled before pulling my hand away from him, again. I slowly lowered to my knees and kept my eyes on his face. 

Spencer looked down at him as he gently pushed his fingers through my hair. His fingers gripping hard on my roots before pulling hard. I smiled before very slowly pulling down his slacks and boxers in one go. I was only a little bit intimidated by his size, but the excitement I felt went straight to my core. 

I took a deep breath and swallowed roughly before looking up at him. My mouth fell open, and my tongue stuck out, silently telling him that it was okay. Although I don’t really know why I was telling him that it was okay, we both knew what we wanted, and it was only going to take me doing one thing.

I made eye contact with him as I ran my tongue on the side of his cock. Our eye contact didn’t last long, mostly because he let out a moan and dropped his head back. I smiled as I licked across his tip. A sweet and salty taste was on my tongue. 

My jaw fell slack as I carefully took his length into my mouth. I closed my lips around him before slowly bobbing my head, with my tongue swirling around the underside of his cock. I wrapped a hand around what wouldn’t fit into my mouth. And wrapped my free arm around his leg for support.

The sounds of his moans and grunts filled the mostly quiet room. Music, although muffled through the walls and door, could still be heard from outside of our own world behind the door and four walls.

“You were right,” he struggled to speak through groans, “You aren’t as innocent as I thought,” Spencer's hand had a rough hold in my hair as he held me against him. His cock was penetrating my throat, and breathing was beginning to get difficult. My eyes grew wet and tears grew in the corners of my eyes. 

“You’re such a good girl,” he looked down at me as the tears started to roll down my cheeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if my makeup started smudging and I looked like an adolescent raccoon. “You look so pretty with my cock down your throat,” he struggled to let out a coo, before moving his hips closer to my face. 

Everything about this moment, his hand in my hair, the sounds he was making, the way he smelled, being here… Was intoxicating. I’d give anything to be in this moment again. And I’d give anything to get this moment sooner.

 My knees would hate me in the morning, I just know it. I could already sense the dreaded carpet burn before he even started. But, in all honesty, it’d be worth it. Walking into class tomorrow morning, with bruises and day-old wounds on my knees, just to see his expression.

As I began to pick up pace, the sounds Spencer was making started to become more urgent, easily telling me he was close. But, before he could finish, I pulled away from him, crashing into the wall to get away from his grasp. He looked down at me with a mild frustration on his face. I smiled before wiping my chin clean of spit. 

“I guess chivalry is dead. Whatever happened to ladies first?” I asked, my voice a rasp from how raw my throat was. I looked up at him, feeling a certain level of sass grow in my smile. Spencer quickly tucked himself back into his pants before grabbing my hand. 

“Come on, on your feet,” he muttered as he pulled me back up to a standing position. I nearly toppled over into him if he didn’t hold me upright. I looked up at him and smiled. 

“Bed… Now?” I whispered, my tone showing how urgent I was. It’s not that I wanted this over with, it's that I wanted everything to happen to me all at once, and I wanted it to last for a long time. 

Spencer nodded before cupping my face in his hands. He was harsh when he pressed his lips to mine, like his life depended on it, if he did kiss me now the world would end. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he started guiding me towards the bed. And when the edge of the bed hit the back of my legs, he pushed me back onto it. I quickly moved so my head was resting on the pillows. Spencer was quick to take his cardigan off and be over me. 

“You’re not going to fail me, are you,” I joked as he quickly started leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses on my neck. He lifted his head and looked down at me with confusion on his face. “If I’m a bad fuck,”

“If you ask that again, or bring up class while we’re doing this… Then yes,” he muttered as he looked at me. I laughed as I pushed my fingers through his hair. 

“Oh, shut up,” I laughed as I pulled him down to kiss him, again. One of his hands landed on top of my breast, carefully kneading it, causing me to moan into his mouth. 

His hand slowly drifted away from my chest. I pressed my head into the pillow and looked up at him with a smirk. He carefully dragged his fingers up from my chest to the base of my neck, causing me to let out a shaky gasp. I wanted fingers and a hand around my neck, carefully cutting off my airway just right. Suddenly, I never wanted something so badly in my life. Something dark flashed in his eyes as he looked down at me like he knew what I was about to say. 

“Do it… I fucking dare you,” I muttered, placing both my hands around his wrist. My nose twitched as I stared at him. “I said fucking do it,” I spat, pushing his hand down more onto my neck. My words slowly got cut off as the pressure in his hand and fingers tightened around my neck. A moan struggled to escape me, but did eventually fall from my lips. He seemed pretty happy with that.

“Is that good,” his voice was a growl. I looked at him and moaned.

“Harder,” I begged, my voice growing raspier the more I spoke. He smirked before allowing his grip to tighten. His other hand was still sitting on top of my hips, and I could tell where he wanted to put it. I’d be a dirty, rotten liar if I didn’t want his hand up my skirt. In fact, I’d love it if he did more than just his hand. 

Spencer swallowed roughly before finally sneaking a hand up my skirt and resting it on my underwear. My grip around his wrist got tighter as he pushed past my underwear and past my folds. My eyes fluttered closed as another moan was strangled in my throat. 

“You’re so wet,” he purred as he slowly moved a finger around my clit. I looked up at him, as I struggled to swallow roughly. A dark smirk grew on his lips as he watched me struggle for a moment. “Does that feel good,” he asked, mildly mocking me from earlier. His movements picked up speed just a little bit, and my body reacted, well tried to react. 

“Oh, you’re such a good girl,” he looked down at me. His pupils were so blown I could nearly see my reflection in them. “Another thing you were right about,” he whispered as he slipped a finger into my entrance, and curled it just right. My vision slowly blurred before my eyes rolled into the back of my head. Another moan struggled to escape my throat as Spencer added a second finger. 

My body was on autopilot as I lifted my hand and hit his wrist a few times, telling him that I desperately needed to breathe. When I reopened my eyes, I looked up at him a moment before he removed his hand from my neck. Worry and concern flashed in his eyes as I breathed. Air burned like fire in my lungs as I took a deep breath. As I exhaled a loud moan followed behind, easily telling Spencer and I that I had reached my first orgasm of the night. I just hope there will be more... 

“You did such a good job, Princess,” Spencer whispered as he looked down at me. With his free hand, he brushed the tears away from my cheeks. He carefully withdrew his hand from between my legs and held them up to his face. He looked at them for a moment before placing them in his mouth, sucking and licking them clean. I took a shaky breath and nodded. 

He very sloppily pressed his lips to mine, then on the corner of my lips, and down my jaw, and neck. With one quick movement, a loud rip filled the room, as he tore my shirt off my body. I looked up at him with shock in my eyes. To be fair, that shirt was flimsy, to begin with. I was more worried about leaving my chest so exposed as we left the party. 

“Oh, I’ll give you my sweater,” Spencer muttered before attacking my neck and then down to my collarbones, and over my breasts. I gasped as he wrapped his lips around a nipple.

“Mmm, Daddy,” I whimpered as I shifted under him. I brought my hands back up to his hair, tangling my fingers in the hairs on his neck. When he sensed that I was growing restless (even though he just started), he quickly left wet kisses down the rest of my body

“I like the way that sounds coming from your mouth,” he whispered once he was in between my legs. I looked down at him just as he looked up at me. “Good on your end for wearing such a short skirt,” he smiled before pressing his lips to my inner thigh. A shaky breath tumbled from my lips as I looked at him. “Makes for easier access,” he added before going higher up on my leg.

“You’re not going fast enough,” I whined as he just kept kissing, or licking, or rubbing my inner thighs. It was honestly getting annoying. I kind of felt bad for him. Considering I’ve already cum once, and I got him close but didn’t let him finish. 

“I’m not going fast enough?” Spencer looked up at me. I shot him a scowl as I shifted slightly on the bed. Spencer looked back down the apex of my legs before looping two fingers around the band of my underwear. As soon as I lifted my hips, he pulled my underwear off my body and chucked them to the ground beside the bed. “How’s this for fast enough,” he muttered, mostly to himself, before licking between my folds. A breath of air got caught in my lungs as my hands found their way to his hair, my fingers getting knotted up in his roots. 

“Mhm, Spencer,” I gasped, rolling my hips up at him. He hummed, sending vibrations straight to my core. My legs wrapped around him, my heels digging into his back as my own back arched. 

“Ohh, Daddy, please don’t stop,” I cried, pressing my head into the pillow beneath my head. My fingers pulled hard on his hair, pulling him closer to me. He hummed again as he pushed two fingers back into my entrance. My grip in his hair tightened, and I could feel my grip wanting to loosen. 

My breathing picked up as a familiar feeling grew in my stomach. And all I could say was his name, and the suddenly loved nickname I had for him. He seemed to appreciate my reaction too, because he worked faster. Messy and wet sounds, mixed with my breathy moans and calls of his name filled the room, and my end was near. 

“Fuck,” I shouted as I finally came undone. I could sense if I didn’t pull him away, he’d keep going, and going till I couldn’t take it anymore. And, honestly, that sounds great, but I think that’s for next time. I wanted him in me now. “Spencer, Spencer,” I cried as I tried to pull his head away, but failed so hard.

“Nuh huh,” he hummed, looking up at me. I took a deep breath and pressed my head into the pillow beneath me and threw an arm over my face. “Please, Spencer,” I cried as I bucked my hips at him, “Fuck me, please, fuck me, Daddy,” I moaned. He was going faster than before and was clearly trying to work me to the end faster too. It was hard to breathe, and speak because my words would just get stuck in my throat.  

Although, when I did cum, again, for the third time tonight, Spencer did move away from my legs. He knelt between them, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. My body was shaking lightly as I tried to come down from my high.

“Please,” I whispered, lifting a hand up, trying to reach for his tie. He looked down at me with a smile and raised an eyebrow.

“Please what?”

“Please, Daddy,” I furrowed my eyebrows as I spoke. I could feel my voice becoming a little whiney. Spencer moved so he was hovering over me, his fingers gently brushing hair away from my face.

“Tell me what you want, Princess,” he whispered cupping my face in his hand. I looked up at his face, admiring his lips, and eyes, and nose, and the way his lips had a sheen from when he licked them clean and whatever was leftover from when he was eating me out. 

“Please fuck me, Daddy,” I begged, begged. Spencer smiled before pressing his lips to mine for a moment. He sat up away from me to remove his sweater and shirt. My head was spinning from excitement, I didn’t even notice that he was totally undressed.

Spencer was back between my legs, looking down at me like I truly belonged right here. Or, like I was his to fuck with. Either way it was a good feeling. 

“Ready?” He asked, his voice so low that I could hardly hear it over the bass of the loud music. I rapidly nodded my head, worried my answer was the wrong one. But it wasn’t. I desperately wanted this. Needed. I needed this. 

Spencer hovered over me before putting an opened mouth kiss on my lips. I could hardly breathe as he rubbed the tip of his cock against my clit and entrance. I could feel a moan getting caught in the middle of my throat, my body not being about to handle anymore teasing. Until, he very slowly pushed into me.

“Oh, good girl,” he repeated. Those two words, constantly coming off his tongue. Making me feel good. The praise that I hadn’t heard in such a long time, that I longed for. Part of me wondered if he knew I wanted it. “Has someone not been taking care of you?” he asked, looking down at me. I stared at him, not trusting my own voice. My mind was too distracted with the way I felt, light and airy but at the same time full. So I shook my head.

“No, Daddy,” I whimpered and kept shaking my head. Spencer smiled before pressing his lips to mine. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you now. I’ll take care of you,” he mumbled before moving his hips. It took him a moment to get a perfect rhythm. He lips attached to different spots on my neck, leaving hickies in his wake.

“Spencer,” I whispered as I moved my head closer to my shoulder to let him have more space.

“You feel so good,” he grunted as he moved his hips so he was deeper in me, “You feel so good, and you’re all mine,” he pressed his forehead to mine as he wrapped his arms around my lower back, pulling me closer up to him. My breathing got deep, my chest heaving with each breath I took. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down, closer to my face. 

“Oh, be quiet,” I whispered before putting my lips on his. He smiled before passing his tongue between my lips. A moan fell from my lips, which he seemed to enjoy… Considering it was probably just music to his ears. 

“I’ll only be quiet if you keep making those little noises,” he muttered against my lips. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He smiled again as I knotted my fingers in the hair on the back of his head. 

“Faster,” I breathed out, keeping my eyes on him. Spencer laughed lightly as he picked up the speed. My hips bucked with his, meeting at the right points. “Please,” I whimpered as I threw my head back more into the pillow. He pulled his arm away from my back and brought his hand between our legs, where we met. 

“It’s okay, Little Girl,” Spencer whispered before pressing his lips to the side of my face. I let out a shaky breah and arched my body into his. I couldn’t believe how good I felt. I almost wasn’t sure if it was fair that my professor was better in bed than other men my age. He was more experienced, to be fair. “You can finish, it’s okay,” he kept his voice low. It almost sounded like he was giving me permission.

I nodded my head, breathing heavily through my nose. “Mmm, Spencer,” I moaned, loudy, as my walls fluttered around him and my release came. And a few moments later, Spencer thrusted deep into me with a grunt, filling me with his essence. His body collapsed on top of me whence he finished.

“Fuck,” I muttered, my fingers still tangled in his hair. My limbs were sore and shaking slightly from the rough movements. Spencer laughed lightly, agreeing with my statement. “We can’t sleep here,” I whispered, keeping my eyes on the ceiling above us. I wished we could just sleep here, mostly because I was exhausted after everything we did.

“I know,” Spencer replied as he slowly moved off and away from me. I looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re messy now,” he muttered as he basically tumbled off the bed. I quickly sat up, just to make sure he was okay. Although I was happy he was okay, I quickly regretted moving as fast as I did. 

“Your sweater,” I mumbled, reaching out towards where his sweater was lying. He looked down at it before picking it up to hand to me. He also grabbed a fistful of tissues and moved to between my legs, again. “Just give me your boxers,” I looked at him as he wiped the insides of my thighs clean. He looked back up at me, still cleaning my legs. 

“I’ll give you a ride home,” he spoke as he tossed the dirty tissues to the trash. He grabbed his slacks and boxers, tossing me his boxers. I slipped them on under my skirt, and then slipped his sweater on. 

“I’d hope so,” I whispered as I stood up. My body wobbled for a second, nearly falling over, before I caught my balance. Spencer looked back at me, looking at how fucked I looked. I mean, I probably looked about the same as him. 

“I’d given you a ride home either way,” he said as he redressed. I looked at him with confusion on my face. Either way? So even if we hadn’t had sex, he would have given me a ride. I asked him and he said yes. So I would hope he’d given me a ride, even if we didn’t fuck.

Once we were both ready to leave this stupid party, that I didn’t even enjoy (well, I did, I was just in a different world), or was even invited to, we walked out. It was as easy as pie. And, since no one really knew either of us were here, I won’t be known as the girl who fucked the professor.

The drive home was quiet. Like, even quieter than the drive here. He didn’t even have the music playing. I wondered if it was my fault, if he was regretting what we had done. If I had known he’d be so regretful, I wouldn’t have wanted to fuck him. But, I guess its too late now. 

When I looked out the window, I realized we were parked outside my apartment building. I looked down at my attire and looked back at Spencer.

“Thanks… Thanks for the ride… And thanks for the sweater. I’ll be sure to give it back to you… Eventually,” I looked up at Spencer as I pulled the door open to leave.

“See you Thursday,” he nodded at me. I looked at him before slamming the door shut. I scoffed before turning to walk up to my home. I couldn’t want to sleep.

{***}{***}{***}

Two weeks. Two weeks since Spencer and I fucked. Okay, not too bad. I don’t regret it, and I’m not afraid to say that. However, I think he might be regretting it. Considering he’d been nothing but ignoring me since the night of the par-Well, I wouldn’t say ignoring me since then. He did fuck me in his office the following Thursday. But, it’s still been two weeks since he last said anything to me. Fuck, I’ve never been so mad.

“Good morning, Professor Reid,” I looked at him as I skipped into his lecture hall. I heard his words begin to greet me back, but fail when he saw what I was wearing. “Best get to my seat. Excited for today’s lesson,” I readjusted the cardigan that hung off my shoulders before turning to go to my seat. 

I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my skull as I walked away from him. Or, was he staring at my ass. Most likely my ass. It was my ass he was staring at. I was wearing a fairly short skirt, so that’s on me. But, I’d do anything to get his attention today. And it would appear I have gotten it. 

His lesson wasn’t actually anything important. It was just revision for the test coming up soon. But, it was obvious he had other things on his mind, and I was very clearly one of them. It was honestly a little distracting if I’m going to be honest.

So, I was happy when he called the end of class 5 minutes early. Although that excitement was gone the second he called my name to the front to talk. I looked at the ground as I stood by his desk, waiting for the very last person to leave so Spencer and I could have our moment alone.

“What are you doing wearing that?” Spencer asked as soon as it was just us. I tried to ignore the fact that he was trying to take the sweater off me, and made my shoulders drop.

“What? This old thing?” I asked, pulling the cardigan that he let me wear around my body. I looked back at him and smiled. He was not smiling. “You gave it to me,” I scoffed, letting him take it off me without a fight. I watched as he folded it over the back of the chair before turning to face me. 

“I gave it to you so your,” his words began to get jumbled up as he gestured to my boobs, “So you weren’t exposed in front of any-”

“So no one would see what belonged to you?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest. Spencer looked down at me, a flabbergasted look on his face. I smiled and cocked my head to my shoulder.

“I… I never said that,” Spencer shook his head.

“Yeah, but you thought it,” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. Spencer looked down at me. I could tell that he was trying to be the one in charge, kinda like how he was the other night. But it was so, so clear that he couldn’t be in charge. That he wouldn’t be in charge now. That this was just embarrassing to him. Maybe that’s just how our dynamic would work. Out in public, I was the loud one, the one who made everyone think that I was in charge in the bedroom. And, Spencer, in public, was the quiet, shy, nervous one, who was clearly submissive in bed. But in actuality, he was telling me what to do, when and when I can’t cum.

 “Why were you wearing that?” he asked again, his voice pulling me from my very dirty thoughts. I looked up at him and smiled.

“Because you were ignoring me! I needed to get your attention somehow! And then I remembered I still had that,” I smiled at him. I wished I still had his sweater on, because it was actually quite cozy and warm. The look he gave me made me drop my shoulders, suddenly feeling ashamed about the current situation. So, I stared at him, feeling annoyed. More annoyed than I have over the last two weeks. “Do you regret it?” I finally asked, not really knowing if he’d be mad with my question. 

“Pardon me?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at me. I shook my head and looked down at the ground. “It’s not that I regret it-”

“So you do,” I looked back up at him and dropped my shoulders again. Before Spencer got the chance to say anything, I cut him off, “Oh please, you loved shoving your tongue, and cock, down my throat,” I scoffed before looking at him. The expression on his face flinched slightly as he looked back at me from behind the desk. “I get to… I get to be your good, little girl, your princess for, what, a week? A day? 12 hours? Whenever the fuck you want... And I’m supposed to go back to normal life the next day? And… And pretend that nothing happened!” I stared at him and shook my head. Spencer looked over at the door and back at me. “Thinking it’ll never happen again!” I shouted. I didn’t mean to shout, honest. But I was starting to get angry. He made me feel something like I belonged to someone. And now I don’t feel like that. 

“Will you stop talking for a second,” he muttered before stepping away from me and his desk. He walked over to the door and shut it. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as he walked back over to me. “I never said you had to pretend as if nothing happened. And I never said that I regret it,” he spoke in a harsh whisper. I looked at him with mild irritation on my face.

“It sure fucking felt like it,” I spat at him. 

“You’re all I think about… Christ, I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you that. I never said you had to forget everything… Because I’ve been having a hard time forgetting it myself.” He looked up at me. I almost refused to look at him, but his voice was so soft that I had to look at him. “I never expected you to forget,” he added. 

“Then why are you acting like it didn’t happen,” I stared at him before swallowing roughly, “You made me feel like I was wanted, that I belonged somewhere, with someone,” I spoke as I stepped closer to him. It was only a little bit closer to him, not as much as I wanted. But he stepped closer to me, making it so we were the closest we had been all day, in one large step. "You remind me of home," I added in a whisper. Spencer smiled and cocked his head to his shoulder.

“You do belong somewhere,” he whispered, resting his hands on my shoulders. I looked up at him, feeling my heart pick up speed, and butterflies appear in my tummy. “And that somewhere is with me,” he brought at hand to my cheek, allowing his thumb to rest on my lower lip. I looked up at him before he pressed his lips to mine. 

I was honestly expecting him to say something else. I don’t know what. But I liked what he said, it made me feel really good. Like, I belonged with him, and nothing could change that.

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