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watchmegetobsessed · 3 years

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Waiting for you - Harry Styles

❄️ FANFICmas 2020 ❄️

Read more about FANFICmas here!

i wrote it over like a month ago, but kept it for today, i hope yall will like it! it’s a cute bestfriends to lovers fic, so yeah... happy holidays, hope you are having an amazing time!

word count: 13k

masterlist

Harry Styles has been a household name around your home, but not for the reason many would think. While for the rest of the world he was the famous singer, former member of One Direction and recent solo artist, the guy who performs at the biggest arenas, wins awards and sings his heart out through the radio, for you and your mom he was the goofy, curly haired boy who lived across the street with his mum, sister and stepdad.

You still remember all too clear the first time you met him. You and your mum just moved into your new home after the nasty divorce of your parents, ready to start a new life. You’ve barely turned twelve, it was quite the awkward stage of your teenage years, you were still trying to find yourself on the rocky road of growing up. Moving to a whole new town and switching schools were terrifying and you had quite a few nightmares about possible outcomes of being the new girl in the neighborhood.

You and your mum just finished unpacking the dishes in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. She rushed to answer it and you wandered behind her, curiously peeking at the guests under her arm as she held the door open.

“Hi! We saw the trucks and thought we would say hi! I’m Anne and this is my son, Harry,” the nice woman greeted your mum and stepping aside she gestured towards the teenage boy standing next to her.

His green eyes fell to you almost immediately and you forgot to breathe for a moment. You were not the kind to crush that easily on guys, well, not until you laid your eyes on Harry. He smirked at you, nodding in your way in such an easy-going manner and you could feel the heat crawling up your neck to your cheeks and ears.

Anne and your mum quickly became good friends. She was the rock your mum definitely needed after such a bad year behind her and you were glad she found support in such a wonderful woman as Anne. Their newly funded friendship got stronger day by day until the two families just… simply felt one.

Growing up the Styles siblings and Anne came and go in your home as if they lived there too. On many occasions you came home from school only to find Anne in the kitchen while your mother wasn’t even home. Anne always knew when your mum was working the night shift at the hospital where she was a nurse and always made sure you had a warm dinner on those evenings, often inviting you over to just stay at theirs while your mum was away working. Birthdays, graduations, Easters and Christmases, they were all spent at either yours or at the Styles home, strengthening the bond between the two families.

You have always had a strong friendship with Gemma, but maybe because you were closer in age or for something else, but you became the closest with Harry. Two peas in a pod, as your mums liked to call the two of you. You weren’t just neighbors or good friends, it was clear to anyone and to both of you as well that you were the best of friends. You were there for each other at the best and worst of times, before and after Harry’s launch to stardom. You were there with him all along, sometimes physically, sometimes just through text messages and reassuring calls when he just needed a piece of his home away from home. Late night calls and talks were your usual when he was on the road and he made sure to only talk about his life after you’ve told him everything about yours, even if the most interesting thing was that you were able to buy three socks for the price of two. Harry listened and cared for everything that happened to you, not letting you think even for a moment that he would forget about his best friend when he is on the other side of the planet.

The two of you grew up together and while his life consisted of concerts, screaming fans, telly appearances and award shows, your mundane everydays went on the same was as any normal young girl’s: you graduated from high school, went to uni and then started a career for yourself. As time was moving it became a little more and more complicated to stay as close as you used to, though, both of you terribly busy with your own personal lives, so the calls, texts and meetings became less frequent, but you were always able to pick up from where you left, it was as easy with him as it could be.

Maybe that’s why you grew to love him in a more than friendly way through the years. Slowly, but surely you started to realize what an amazing man he really was –is. It was impossible not to fall for him, however you valued your close friendship more than to just ruin it with dropping a bomb on Harry. You always thought he doesn’t feel the same way, so you were sadly left with your daydreams and fantasies about him only your bedroom walls heard.

This year it’s gonna be the tenth Christmas you get to celebrate together, quite the anniversary. There were only two years when you didn’t see each other during the holidays, the first one because you and your mum spent it in Canada with some relatives that live there, and the second one was because Harry couldn’t come home a few years ago, having a too tight schedule. But this year, everyone made sure to make it back home in time. Harry called you three month before Christmas to check in if you are still gonna coming home.

“Would be an idiot not to. Can’t wait to stuff my head with cookies!” you chuckled.

“Have you found your sweater yet?” Harry questioned, the muffled noise of the traffic around him broke through the line as he was on his way home when he called.

“Not yet. But I’ve been looking. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna win this year,” you smirked in victory.

“Oh, not so fast with the assumptions, little girl!” he warned you making you laugh.

The two of you had a kind of tradition. Every year, you go on mission to find the ugliest Christmas sweaters one could find, and then perform a chosen song at the karaoke machine after dinner, entertaining the rest of the family. Those performances are the best memories you nurse. Your absolute favorite one was just a couple of years ago when Harry’s sweater was filled with weird looking reindeers in quite inappropriate poses, he even added a glittery pair of sunnies and he sang I Want To Break Free from the Queen. Everyone was on the floor laughing as he took the living room by storm as if it was the Maddison Square Garden filled with thousands of screaming fans, while it was just the five of you.

He won that year, Hell, even you voted on him, giving him the cleanest win of all times, but you swore to live up to that performance and you really feel like this year is gonna be your chance to live up to that promise. You have quite some tricks up your sleeves.

These past couple of years you were anxiously waiting for the holidays to roll around, because you knew you would get to spend so much time with Harry and through the year, even with several occasions of the two of you meeting, you missed him dearly. Sometimes you selfishly wished he would have just stayed the boy across the street so your lives could take tracks that run at least close to each other, but you always reminded yourself that his work was his life and you would have never taken away his true passion and happiness. Besides, you love watching him perform from time to time, that was just one of your favorite sides of him, see his eyes shine so bright as he sang to his fans. You used to envy the fangirls, it always seemed like he had a special connection with them, but you realized that you were one of them. You felt the same excitement when he stepped on the stage, you bought all his albums, even though he made sure you’d be one of the first people to get your hands on it. You had a second copy of them, because buying it gave you the extra jolt of happiness and the feeling that you were a tiny part of his success too. You watched all his music videos, knew the lyrics to his songs and cheered on him whenever he won another award. Difference was that at the end of the day you could call him and tell him how proud you were of him and he stared back at you with that beautiful grin, his dimples digging deep in his cheeks, telling you that he wouldn’t be here without you. You always knew he just said it to make you feel special, but he insisted it was the truth.

“I’m telling you. It you weren’t with me I would have gone crazy already, pulling a Justin Bieber or summat. Don’t think you are any less than what you are, that’s just daft.”

Every time he said something along those lines those damned butterflies in your stomach went crazy and you tried your best to ignore them. You didn’t always succeed, but the effort was there.

Now it’s two days before Christmas and you are already standing in your old room after coming home from London, leaving your small but cozy little apartment empty until the next year. The walls are still the same lilac color you chose when you were fourteen, a twin bed is pushed against the wall under your window, the wardrobe’s door is littered with old pictures from high school and ones you cut out from magazines. You just never got around to take them down and after a while it brought you a comforting sense every time you came home. A warm nostalgia took over you when you saw them, so they eventually stayed.

Your suitcase is lying on the floor as you unpack some stuff you’ll be using often during your stay, but you don’t get far in the packing when you hear an all too familiar voice coming from downstairs. Leaving your stuff as it is you rush down and throw your arms around Anne from behind, who is standing in the kitchen with your mum.

“My sweet angel! How are you?!” she cheers turning around in your hold to hug you back, giving you a tight squeeze before she pushes you away so she can have a good look on you. “Swear you get prettier every time I see you!”

“Stop it, my head’s gonna get big,” you chuckle feeling yourself blushing a little.

“Never gonna stop praising my daughter,” she smiles and gifts you with a cheeky wink.

Anne was never shy to let you know that she thought of you as a second daughter and you still remember how it felt when she called you that for the first time. It felt nice to know that you could count on her no matter what.

The three of you chat in the kitchen, Anne asks you about your job and how things have been going, she hasn’t seen you in a while. You missed the times when you could just go across the street and have a talk with her whenever you wanted, but since you’ve moved to London, Harry wasn’t the only one you didn’t get to see as often as you would have wanted. Your job and life overall got you so busy sometimes, you barely had time to call your own mum.

“Harry is arriving this evening. Wanna come with us to fetch him up at the airport?” she asks you and of course you say yes. You wouldn’t miss the chance to greet him with a bone crushing hug just after he lands.

However, as the time nears when you’d have to leave to the airport, Anne calls you up and asks if you could go on your own.

“I didn’t finish cooking and Gems is in an online meeting. Would you mind if you went alone?” she asks and though it sounds a little made up, you don’t question her.

On your way to the airport you are nervously drumming on the wheel, the thought of seeing Harry excites and worries you a little. It’s been months since you last seen him in the flesh and though you’ve talked plenty of times on the phone and in video calls, it’s just not the same. You find yourself wondering if he still smells the same, if you’ll fit the same way into his embrace as before. When you were younger you often liked to think about the two of you as two pieces of legos when you hugged. Your frame just fitted so perfectly against his body, he was your absolutely favorite person to hug.

Standing in a corner at the terminal, you keep checking the board until his flight’s status changes to landed. Then your eyes are glued to the sliding glass doors, knowing well it’s gonna take him some time to get his bags and walk out, but you are just way too excited to finally see him again.

People start walking through the doors and your head perks up every time you see a slightly tall frame, only to realize it’s still not him. Until it is.

You can’t bite your growing smile back when you spot him, a beanie and the hood of his hoodie covering his mop of hair, sunnies hiding his eyes, but you’d recognize him even from just the tiniest detail. You push yourself away from the wall as you see him look around, probably searching for his mum and sister, because he was already on his way when Anne decided it’s gonna be you who fetches him up, so he doesn’t know about the change.

“Excuse me, can I get a picture?” you ask teasingly walking up to him and for a moment you can tell he believes it’s a fan who recognized him, but his face quickly changes once his eyes land on you.

“Fo’ fuck’s sake, you had me for a second,” he breathes out, his arms already reaching out to pull you against him and you gladly envelop yourself into his hold. “What are you doing here?” he mumbles tightening his arms around you, and you don’t mind it. As you face is pressed into his shoulder you smile when you realize that he still smells the same. Like home.

“Your mum asked me to come and get you because she didn’t finish cooking. But if you ask me she just wanted to surprise you with me. You happy to see me?” you smirk up at him letting your head fall back so you could look into his eyes.

“Always,” he grins before placing a soft kiss to your temple and letting go of you.

The two of you leave the terminal before anyone could recognize him and packing his stuff up into the car you head back home.

You hand your phone over to him once you hit the road so he can be in charge of the music and it’s no surprise when he starts playing Christmas music straight away. Grinning to yourself you glance over at him and see him scrolling through your camera roll like the nosy little gremlin that he is.

“Hey! I did not give you permission to snoop around my phone!” you warn him, but don’t try to snatch it away from him, there’s really nothing he shouldn’t see, besides, half of those pics have been sent to him through messages.

“Just tryna catch up w’ you,” he mumbles under his breath, continuously opening up photos he is interested in. “New couch, eh?” he asks showing you the screen for a second.

“Yeah, bought it a few weeks ago. You like it?”

“Looks comfy. I should try it out sometime.”

“You never sleep on my couch, what are you talking about?”

“Right, you always drag me t’ your bed,” he snorts and you gasp at him, smacking his chest gently.

“That’s so not true! You always just arbitrarily make yourself comfortable in my bed and I don’t have the heart to kick you out,” you correct him.

There hasn’t been many times when Harry crashed at your place, but when he did, he always slept in your bed with you, and the two of you have shared a bed a few other times prior too. It’s nothing new, though it does have a deeper meaning for you than for him, you think. Waking up with Harry snoring lightly next to you, admiring how peaceful and beautiful he is in this intimate state, you just wish you could see him like this all the time.

Harry smirks at you cheekily, scrunching his nose as he chuckles.

“’Cause I wouldn’t want to sleep anywhere else, Love,” he says before turning his attention back to your phone while you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach at the nickname.

It’s quite late by the time you get home, you’ve run into some traffic, but it just meant more time with Harry. You gladly listened to his stories and you are happy you got some alone time with him. Parking up to your driveway you help him unload his bags before locking the car.

“Wanna go to the Christmas market in the morning? Promised Gemma I’d go with her and Michal,” he asks, slowly walking down the driveway towards his home.

“Uh, sure,” you nod smiling. Not that you had any other plans, the holidays are reserved for family and the Styles’ are family.

“Great, I’ll be here at ten. And thanks for the ride,” he smirks waving goodbye and you watch him cross the street before he disappears in his home and you do the same.

“Y/N? Is that you?” your mum calls out when you walk in.

“Were you expecting anyone else?” you ask, hanging your coat before you join her in the living room.

“Not,” she smiles giddily. “Was everything alright at the airport?”

You throw your legs over her lap and she squeezes your ankles playfully.

“Yeah, everything fine.”

“How is Harry?”

“Cheeky and smug, as always,” you huff smirking.

“Can’t wait to see him. I feel like I haven’t seen ‘im in ages.”

“When are they coming over tomorrow?”

“Anne said she’ll come around four to help me cook, the rest I don’t know. Dinner will be done around seven though.”

“I’m pretty sure Gemma and Harry will be here along with Anne,” you snort, knowing well they wouldn’t miss a chance to come over, especially Harry. He has been talking nonstop how he’ll be glued to your hip once he is back home, making up for all the time you’ve spent apart.

“They surely will,” your mum chuckles before you both turn your attention at the telly.

You go to bed way after midnight and finish up the packing you left abruptly when you left to get Harry. Shuffling around in your room you glance out the window and see that the light in Harry’s room is on too. Peeking out you lean against the window’s frame, thinking about the times when the two of you sat in the window, talking on the phone after curfew, keeping your voice down so your parents didn’t wake up, sharing secrets and your silliest thoughts. With Harry, you never felt like you had to keep anything back, he would have never judged you for anything, you could be your true self around him and vice versa.

A tall figure appears at the window and as Harry glances out his window he is quick to see you sitting on the window sill, your head resting against the frame. The two houses are not far away from each other and you see him grinning as he sits at the window as well, pulling out his phone, a moment later yours starts buzzing on the nightstand. You quickly grab it, and go back to the window.

“Creeping on me, eh?” he hums into the phone and you roll your eyes at him.

“Was just admiring the street lights, don’t flatter yourself, your head is getting too big,” you huff, but you can’t push your smirk down.

“Admit it, you were hoping to see me roam around naked, weren’t you?”

“As if I haven’t seen you like that before,” you snort making him laugh too. It’s true, Harry has never been shy to get rid of his clothes and he also doesn’t bother to draw the blinds whenever he is changing. You once saw him butt naked when he was nineteen, and when you told him to close the blinds next time he is changing, he just shrugged with a smug smile.

“’M not ashamed of anything, Love,” he told you and you had to turn away because you were blushing for sure.

“Right, you’re a fan of putting yourself on full display when you’re naked, almost forgot,” you chuckle shaking your head. “Millions of girls have the picture of you, lying naked on their walls.”

“You one of them?” he cheekily asks.

“Nah, doesn’t go well with the vibe of my apartment.”

“Shame. Though I think it would definitely look amazin’ above your bed, Love.”

“Now would it? I don’t know about that.”

“I’ll get you a copy framed,” he smirks and you can see it clear even from the distance. “Y’ know what? I’ll make you an exclusive one. One that nobody else has, how does that sound?”

“I can’t believe you, Styles,” you chuckle shaking your head. “I’m not gonna answer this, just gonna head to bed. You should too.”

“So we’re not sharing any secrets like we used to? Thought you’d have something fo’ me.”

“You know everything, Harry,” you sigh with a soft smile, though your heart skips a beat. He does know everything, except one big, fat, heavy secret you’ve been carrying around for way too long, that will probably stay with you forever.

“Right. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Night, Harry.”

“Good night, Love,” he murmurs and you know he is smiling, thought he steps away from the window as he says goodbye and you do the same before ending the call.

***

“Hey! That’s mine!” you protest as Harry steals another roasted chestnut from your little paper bag, but you can’t stay mad at him when he is smiling at you so sweetly.

“Sorry, tastes better when it’s someone else’s.”

“Sure,” you snort and just let him get as many as he wants. You wouldn’t have eaten it all anyway.

It’s quite cold out in the town, but at least there’s no rain or storm, so the weather didn’t try to ruin your little trip to the Christmas market.

Gemma calls out for Harry to show him something and you just keep wandering between the booths, enjoying the atmosphere quite a lot, you have no idea when was the last time you got to come to the market, though you always loved coming when you were younger.

Finishing up your chestnuts you throw the paper bag into a trash can and turn around to find the rest of your little group, spotting Harry and Gemma deep in discussion next to a booth that offers handmade ceramic mugs. As you walk closer it almost seems like as if they were having a fight, which is just odd, they rarely do that.

“Just get your head out of your arse!” you catch Gemma telling her brother who only groans in frustration before he spots you, a smile plastering across his face.

“Hey, there you are!” he beams.

“Everything alright?” you ask looking at them.

“Sure, just Gemma is being a little nosy, is all,” Harry waves in dismiss. You glance over to Gems, but she is already back in discussion with Michal so you decide to drop it. “You ate all the chestnuts?” Harry asks offended, throwing an arm around your shoulders.

“Well, it was mine, so of course I ate them!”

“Selfish,” he narrows his eyes at you, but you both know it’s just a joke.

You walk further down in the aisle, occasionally stopping at some of the booth when you spot a place that offers hot chocolate in cute little mugs that you can take home with you if you’d like, or just take it back and get your money back.

“Oh look!” you gasp excitedly and head towards the hot chocolate booth. The old lady smiles brightly at the two of you as you take a look at all the choices. “Oh my god, they have caramel flavored!” you cheer, basically already drooling at the thought of a good, caramel flavored hot chocolate.

“What can I get for the lovely couple?” the lady smiles warmly at the two of you and you freeze at her assumption.

“Oh we—“ you start, but Harry cuts you off.

“A caramel flavored and a plain one, please,” he orders, without even batting an eye about how the lady just called you a couple. You can feel your cheeks heating up at the thought, but you try to calm yourself. He probably just didn’t want to get into explaining that you two are not an item and let her think what she wanted.

The nice lady hands you your mug and you take Harry’s as well as he pays for both of them. You would try to argue with him and pay yours, but you are already used to how stubborn he is and he never lets you split anything, it’s always on him.

“Thank you, have a nice day!” Harry calls out to the lady before the two of you leave. You peek at him handing him his mug, looking for any clue that would give away if this little scene got him just as bothered as it did you, but he looks perfectly fine and relaxed, so you decide not to bring it up. You’re sure he didn’t think much of it.

Your little stroll stretches into the afternoon, the four of you decide to have lunch out there too, then you just opt for a walk in town as Gemma wants to do a quick last minute Christmas shopping, so by the time you get home Anne is already over at yours helping your mum with dinner. Tonight you are all eating at yours, then tomorrow it’s the Styles’ turn to host, this is how you agreed this year.

“Woah, it smells amazing!” you call out walking into the house. The delicious smells fill up the whole place and you hear the two women giggling in the kitchen.

“Hi Honey, how was the market?” your mum greets you, a glass of red wine in her hand and the same goes for Anne.

“Great, we have a new mug,” you say holding up the emptied out hot chocolate mug. Stepping to the sink you wash it quickly and drying off you put it away in one of the cabinets.

You stick around in the kitchen and not so much later Harry comes over, the two of you leave your mums alone and get comfortable in front of the telly.

All channels are filled with holiday movies and you don’t mind, really, you like them all even if you’ve seen them a million times, you still find them funny and cute. Harry feels the same way, so when you settle on Love Actually he doesn’t say a word.

What startles you is that he grabs your ankles and pulls your legs over his lap, a small shriek escaping your mouth since you weren’t expecting him to do that. You’re sitting sideways, your legs are bent at the knee and Harry is kind of hugging them as his eyes are glued to the screen.

You find it rather hard to focus on the movie when Harry’s fingers keep fidgeting on your legs, they keep running up and down, sometimes he lays his hands flat on your knees, there’s no spot he hasn’t touched since you started watching the movie.

About an hour into the film he turns to you and you look at him in question.

“’M in the mood to cuddle,” he announces and starts moving around, not even letting you protest as he basically crawls to your lap, resting his head on your stomach as the two of you lay on the couch.

“Am I now your personal pillow?” you ask chuckling, but you wouldn’t want him to move for anything. Feeling him weigh down on you just feels so warm and simple but amazing.

“The best one,” he mumbles, bringing a hand to your side as you let your fingers comb through his curls.

You keep massaging his scalp and he lets out soft moans when you go over a soft spot, you can’t help but chuckle as he melts under your hands. His fingers start drawing circles on your side and the movie is long forgotten by you, all you can focus on is how great it is to have Harry so close to you. He is known to be a physical person, you are used to hugs and touches, but it seems like he is a little needier now than the usual.

You don’t mind it though, you just try to enjoy the moment, because it can end anytime.

Gemma and Michal come over a little before seven, and while your mums finish up the cooking the four of you set the table. You grab the crystal glasses and start placing them to the table, Harry lending you a hand. Once the table is all set you shuffle into the kitchen to see if there’s anything you can help with, Harry following you behind, placing a hand to the small of your back.

As you stand and wait for you mum to finish up the meals so you can help carry them to the table you feel Harry’s hand wander over to your hip, giving it a squeeze as he stands closer, so his chest is pressed against your back.

“Harry?” you ask a little out of breath.

“Hm?” he innocently hums.

“What’s with you today?” Turning your head to the side your eyes lock with his, but he just shrugs smiling.

“Guess I just missed yeh a lot.”

“You’re weird,” you chuckle shaking your head, but don’t make an effort to push him away. His touch feels way too good to put an end to it and you just want to be selfish a little longer.

His hands leave you when the two of you help to bring the food to the table, and you almost wish they would just return, but you gotta swallow the thought.

The food is amazing, as always. You all sip on some wine, just having a genuinely good time, enjoying that all of you are back at one place, something that rarely happens now that all three of you kids are all grown up.

At one point Harry rests his arm on the back of your chair, no one seems to notice but you. All these little things have been driving you crazy all day and your mind seems to be playing a nasty game with you. There’s no way Harry thinks of these details more than what they are, a friendly gesture towards an old friend of his.

When Gemma is telling a story about some weird guy she met at work Harry reaches up and pushes your hair behind your ear, his finger lingering over your neck a little longer than you would have expected. Turning to face him you give him a questioning look, not sure what to think about his needy and touchy self all of a sudden.

“What?” you mouth him, but he just smiles at you absentmindedly, curling a strand of hair around his finger, playing with it for a moment before letting go of it and going for another lock. You reach up and pull his hand away, feeling yourself heating up from his touch, but when you are about to let go of his hand he grabs yours, lacing your fingers together with yours as he rests them on his thigh.

“Harry…” you breathe out, glancing at the others, relieved to see that they are not paying much attention to the two of you.

“What? Am I not allowed to touch you?” he asks with a smug smirk and you roll your eyes at him.

“As I said, you’re weird,” you mumble under your breath looking down at your now empty plate. Harry gives your hand a squeeze.

“But like, the good kind of weird, yeah?”

“Shut up,” you chuckle shaking your head at him.

You try to tell yourself he is just needy because it’s been so long since you last saw each other. It can’t be more, you push even the smallest thought to the back of your mind, though it surely lingers there throughout the evening.

He helps you with washing the dishes, you stand arm to arm at the sink as you scrub the plates and hand over to him for drying. He gently hums to himself all along, swaying his hips, bumping against yours. At first you resist it, but then you catch the rhythm and start moving along, so your hips meet in the middle before swinging to the opposite side.

“What’s the song?” you ask finishing up the last plate.

“Just something random,” he shrugs smirking over at you. You hand him the last plate, he is still singing, making up gibberish lyrics to his song and once he puts the plate down he throws the kitchen cloth to the counter and easily grabs your waist pulling you against him as he starts swaying with you to his impromptu song. You let out a small shriek at the sudden movement, but eventually melt into his hold. The humming slowly turns into an all too familiar melody as Harry starts singing Sweet Creature into your ear, slow dancing in the kitchen while you hear your mums and Gemma laugh outside somewhere.

Your hands run up his arms and stop behind his neck as you lock your fingers and let him hold you close, his palms are pressed to your waist, fingers gently stroking you through the fabric of your shirt. You take a deep breath and his cologne fills your nose, one of your favorite scents, sometimes you just wish you could spray it on your pillow so it would always smell like him.

“Sweet creature, wherever I go, you bring me home…” he softly sings, leaning back just enough for your eyes to meet. It feels like your heart is about to burst out of your chest, it’s not the first time you feel so intimidated by him, like you could pass out any moment, but this is a little different. As if his eyes were telling you another story, but you can’t completely make up the words.

“Sweet creature, when I run out of road, you bring me home, you’ll bring me home.” He finishes the song, hums the closing melody and you watch him in complete awe. Your lips part when you catch his gaze move down to them and you swear you see him leaning closer, as if he is about to kiss you. Your breath gets caught in your throat, he is so close, just a few more inches and you’d taste those perfect lips of his, the ones you’ve been dreaming about for way too long.

It almost happens, it seems, but just when that last push is about to set in Gemma waltz into the kitchen and you step back faster than light, pushing him away even though the sudden lack of his touch is more painful than you were expecting.

“You guys—Oh, what’s up?” she asks stopping at the door and you feel yourself getting redder with each passing moment, the heat crawling up your neck, ears cheeks, right to the top of your head. What were you thinking? You let yourself believe Harry would ever kiss you, this whole scene was nothing more than just a friendly moment the two of you were sharing.

“I’m—sorry,” you breathe out making your way out of the kitchen, right up to your room to have some well needed space.

“Way to ruin everything,” Harry snickers at his sister.

“You joking? You wanted to kiss her in her mum’s kitchen?” Gemma snaps at him in disbelief.

“We were having a moment,” he mumbles rubbing his face with his hands. “Up until you stomped in with your big mouth.”

“Well, if you were havin’ a moment, just make it happen again.”

“As if it’s that easy, Gemma!” he scoffs throwing his hands in the air.

“Man up and tell her how you feel, don’t have to complicate it too much,” she shrugs before walking out and leaving her brother alone. Harry growls in frustration, the gears in his head turning wildly as he is trying to figure out how to come clear to you about his feelings.

Meanwhile, up in your room you get out your laptop and busy yourself with checking up on messages and emails you’ve been ignoring, hoping that the uneasy feeling in your chest will ease very soon. Your hands were shaking when you locked yourself up in your room, but as you get focused on other tasks you slowly gain your balance back.

You kind of even forget that the Styles’ were over, you only realize that you abruptly pulled yourself out of the evening when there’s a soft knock on your door.

“Come on in!” you call out and a moment later Harry’s head pops in, eyes softly falling on your sitting figure on the bed. “Hey,” you smile at him faintly.

“Hey. Thought you were sleepin’s or summat.” Coming inside he closes the door behind him then sits on your plush rug in the middle of the room.

“Just… sorted some work related things out,” you sigh.

“Working during the holidays? Tha’s not healthy.”

“I know, I’m done,” you smile shutting the laptop down and putting it aside. “Sorry I disappeared, I just—“

“No worries,” Harry shakes his head. “Mum and Gems went home, they thought you were sleeping too, tha’s why they didn’t say goodbye.”

“Oh, alright.”

“But I thought we could have a sleepover,” he peeks at you with a boyish smile.

“What, like we did in middle school?” you chuckle.

“Yea, thought it would be fun.”

“Well, I don’t think my bed would fit us comfortably and we don’t have the mattress anymore that you used to sleep on,” you tell him looking around.

“Nonsense, I’m not tha’ big,” he insists hopping to his feet and throwing himself on the bed, ignoring that you’re already there. His body takes up more than half on the bed , limbs wrapping around you as he brings you down to the mattress next to him, you can’t help the laugh that leaves your lips.

“You’re like a gigantic baby, Harry!” you laugh as he keeps you down on the bed with his arm.

“It’s perfectly fine for two people,” he mumbles with a smirk, closing his eyes as his head sinks into your pillow.

“Do you ever get no as an answer?” you ask looking at him in awe. You can never get used to seeing him so up close, like not many get to.

“No,” he huffs in satisfaction, his arm bringing you closer to him and you just giggle at him.

“I’m not sleeping just yet, gotta have a shower first.”

“Do what you want, I’ll be here,” he mumbles but you snort at him.

“You’re not sleeping in my bed without having a shower,” you tell him before you grab your pajamas and head to the bathroom.

You have a quick shower and get done with all your evening business. Returning to your room you find Harry sitting on the floor, his back against the side of the bed as he is scrolling through his phone.

“Does mum know you’re staying over?” you ask him as you throw your used clothes into the hamper, moving around the room while feeling his eyes on you.

“Yeah. ‘S all good.”

“You need a towel?”

“Yes please,” he says pushing himself up from the floor.

“Clothes?” you ask with an arched brow. He just grins at you and it’s enough of an answer. “Here,” you give him the shirt and sweats he has left at yours quite some time ago, along with a clean towel.

“Thanks,” he smirks before leaving to occupy the bathroom.

He doesn’t take long in there, you’re lying in bed already when he returns, smelling like your shower gel, strawberry and melon.

He throws his clothes to the chair in the corner and then lies beside you on the bed. You scoot over to the wall to give him space, but he is quick to bring you closer to him once he has made himself comfortable. You lay your head on his shoulder as you are both scrolling through your phones.

When you had enough, you throw yours to the nightstand, and stay cuddled up to his side.

“Do you remember the last time I slept here?” he asks tossing his phone to the nightstand and bringing his arms around you.

“Mm, was it at my twentieth birthday?”

“Yeah. You were so wasted,” he chuckles and you smirk to yourself

“But you took good care of me.”

“I did. You were so cute, rambling about how much you love me when I took you home from the pub.”

You bite into your bottom lip. You still remember that night vividly. Your birthday party had gone a little wild and you had gotten drunker than you intended to. Luckily, he was there to bring your home and he stayed in the bathroom with you as you threw up everything you ate and drank that evening. Then he made you take a shower, got you fresh clothes out and helped you get into bed. He slept next to you that night, holding you in his arms, gently caressing your back and upper arm as you fell into your drunken slumber. In the morning you told yourself he just did what any other friend would do, helping you out when you were clearly knocked out, but he made you breakfast in the morning since your mum was working all night and morning and he stayed over later the afternoon to make sure you were alright.

What you told him in your drunken state about loving him, it wasn’t just your friendly side, it was your drunken self coming clear to him, telling him that you are in love with him, but he didn’t take it seriously and you were too ashamed and awkward to even bring it up to him after that, so it was all forgotten very soon.

Following that you planned on telling him how you feel, several times. You even wrote a little speech you planned to give him when the time comes, but you couldn’t do it. The fear of losing him if he doesn’t feel the same was stronger than you expected and every time you had the chance to come clear, you chickened out. The thought of losing him as a friend is way worse than having to push your feelings down... forever. You just can’t imagine your life without Harry in it and you can’t risk losing him.

The two of you talk for quite a while, laughing about the good old times, until you both fall asleep. Sometime in the middle of the night you wake up and feel Harry wrapped around you, his head lying on your chest as he is snoring softly. He truly is like a big baby, an arm thrown over your stomach, his legs tangled with yours. Good Lord, how amazing it feels to have him so close to you!

Reaching up you tangle your fingers through his hair gently so he doesn’t wake up, his soft curls glide between your fingers easily and lifting your head you kiss the top of his head before letting yourself drift back to sleep.

When you open your eyes the next time the situation is the opposite, you are the one cuddled up to Harry’s side who is scrolling through his phone with one hand, keeping the other one on your arm.

“Mornin’, sleepy head,” he chuckles softly when he sees you awake.

“Mmm, what time is it?” you ask letting your head rest on his chest a little longer.

“Quarter to nine. You can sleep a little more if you want, it’s not that late.”

“No, I promised mum I’d help her wrap gifts,” you sigh rolling over to your stomach as you push yourself up to your elbows to look at him. “Love the double chin you got going there,” you tease him sleepily and he just smirks.

“Yea? Quite cute, right? Worked a lot on it,” he jokes running his finger over it before letting out a chuckle. “Ready for our battle today?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be. You are going down this year, Styles,” you tell him pushing yourself up into a sitting position. Harry only pushes himself further on the bed enough to rest his head against the headboard.

“Oh really? I wouldn’t be that sure about tha’,” he warns you, but you are feeling pretty confident about your performance this year. There’s no way he can top it.

“We’ll see. Alright, I need a coffee. Want something for breakfast?” you ask him crawling out of the bed.

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

Your mum is already in the kitchen, sipping on her morning coffee while reading the paper. She doesn’t find it even a bit weird that Harry spent the night at yours, it’s been quite the usual for you. Harry helps you make eggs and bacon and the three of you eat together, having a lovely time and you genuinely feel like it’s just like in the good old times when you were still living home and Harry wasn’t Harry Styles, but the boy from across the street.

He goes home after breakfast to help his own mum with the cooking for tonight’s dinner and you don’t do much for the rest of the day, just spend time with your mum, watch movies and relax. It’s nice to unwind after such a busy year behind you.

Not long before five you go to take a shower and get ready to head over to the Styles’ and you pack everything you’ll need for the evening: gifts, ugly sweater, accessories. Harry is going down this year for sure.

It’s a little past six when you and your mum walk across the street, Anne’s Christmas lights are putting the little town house into the spirit for sure. You don’t even ring the bell, just walk straight in, like you always do. The Christmas tree stands tall in their living room and the table is already nicely set. Gemma and Michal are snuggled up on the couch while Harry is helping Anne in the kitchen with the finishing touches.

“I’m rooting for you this year,” Gemma winks at you when you set down your bag in the corner that has everything you’ll need for your performance.

“He’s gonna lose this round,” you smirk proudly, very sure in yourself.

Harry greets you with a bright smile and a tight hug when he walks into the living room, as if you didn’t just see each other a few hours earlier.

When the food is ready you all sit down to eat, and though you’re trying your best to focus on the conversation, you’re getting excited about tonight’s karaoke battle.

“Anxious much?” Harry asks you quietly.

“Why are you asking?”

He doesn’t answer, just places a hand to your thigh stopping it from shaking, making you realize you’ve been probably bouncing it all along. He smirks at you as you just roll your eyes at him.

“’S okay, you can handle one more year of losing,” he teases you and you give him an arched eyebrow.

“Don’t be so full of yourself, Harry,” you warn him, but he just squeezes your thigh again before bringing his hands back up to the table, leaving you a little breathless with his touch.

You all help clean up the table after dinner and when it’s done, you gather in the living room to open gifts.

When Harry’s career launched, the first few years you felt anxious about gifting him, because you felt like you couldn’t give him enough. He had all the money and bought everything he needed for himself, there wasn’t much you could give him. But when one time, you admitted to him this struggle of yours he assured you that it doesn’t matter what you give him, it’ll always be precious to him.

“You thought about me, you took the time to buy something for me, and that’s more than enough, Y/N,” he told you and though it took you time, but you got used to it. Especially when you saw the same excitement in his eyes every time you gifted something to him, you slowly but surely realized he wasn’t expecting a Gucci suit, but a thoughtful gesture.

Gathering in the living room you open the presents one by one and just as always, everyone was quite creative with the gifts. You can’t help but still feel a little anxious when Harry grabs his gift from you. Giving you an excited look he unties the little bow on the top and tears the wrapping paper off.

“Y/N!” he breathes out, eyes softening as he pulls the knitted cardigan out of the box.

“I always saw you wearing all sorts of cardigans and so I finally had a reason to learn how to knit, so I thought I would make one for you,” you ramble as he holds up the baby blue cardigan that has little daisies all over the front. It took you an entire week to just make the daisies, you worked on the whole cardigan for more than two months, usually in the middle of the night, staying up until unholy hours to finish in time.

But Harry’s smile is worth it all, he is beaming, clearly so in love with what you made him, so you breathe out relieved. He then puts it aside and wraps his arms around you pulling you into the tightest hug.

“Thank you, I love it so much,” he mumbles and kisses your temple and you breathe in his sweet scent, burying yourself in his embrace, hugging his waist.

When you part, Harry reaches for a box from under the tree and hands it to you, a nervous smile tugging on his lips. You can tell he wrapped the gift himself, the silver wrapping paper is a little uneven, but the huge rainbow colored bow on the top is the perfect touch that makes it like a piece of him.

You carefully tear the paper off, peeking inside you just see a plain box that doesn’t give much away. Glancing up at Harry you see how he is anxiously biting his bottom lip, even though you’d be happy with a gift as small as a candle. It’s the thought that counts.

“I-I wasn’t sure if this was the one you mentioned to me, so I hope it’s gonna be alright,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on your hands as they open the box, while you try to think back what you have told him about that caught his attention, but you just can’t recall what you wanted to get so badly you told Harry about it.

As you open the box you don’t process what it is immediately, the plastic wrapper making it hard to figure it out, but when you carefully pull out the object, you gasp in surprise.

“Harry!” you breathe out as you pull off the plastic of the old, vintage polaroid camera. It’s not one of these new types you can buy in stores easily, this is a classic, must have quite a history behind it.

Now you vaguely remember talking about longing for an oldschool, vintage camera, but it was months ago and you’ve forgotten about the whole thing since these devices cost a fortune because there aren’t many left from them. But now there’s one in your hands, because Harry not only listened to you, but he remembered and went out of his way to find you one in amazing condition.

“This must have cost a fortune!” you huff, your heart pounding in your chest, though you already know it doesn’t matter to him.

“This face is worth every penny,” he smiles at you softly before you throw yourself at him for another round of hugging. This man surely knows how to have you wrapped around his fingers.

The two of you sit on the floor as you figure out how to make the camera work, Harry bought everything needed, so you have a few packs of films as well. When it’s all done you bring it up to your face and aim it at Harry. It takes him a moment to realize that you’re about to snap your first photo and he tries to snatch the camera away, but it’s too late, the flash goes off and the device pushes out the undeveloped picture.

“You wasted your first snap on me?” he protests rubbing his eyes after the flash blinded him for a little.

“It’s not a waste,” you tell him as you patiently wait for the picture to finally appear.

Slowly, the colors start to show and in a couple of minutes Harry’s face appears, his hand reaching in the direction of the camera, looking out of focus, only his face appearing clearly. He looks so delicate, his eyes dazzling as a soft smile plays on his lips. This moment now will live forever not just in your mind, but on this photo.

Harry goes out with his karaoke performance this year for sure and you’d be actually anxious about him winning if only you didn’t have the absolutely best performance right in your pocket.

His sweater this year features some really ugly looking penguins and a horroristic reindeer on the back, it’s really ugly and you can’t even imagine who thought it would be fine to make it and then sell it. His choice of music is also excellent, he has a great eye for songs you’d never imagine him perform and then shock everyone with it. This year, he chose Rude Boy by none other than Rihanna, and it’s fantastic, no one can make it through the song without crying. Harry makes sure to put on his best show, even dancing and twerking unapologetically, trying everything to win the battle and you are amazed by his effort. Above all the fun and jokes, he nails the song, that’s undeniable. It always baffles you how he can just slay any and all genres, even the ones that stand a million miles away from his style.

When the song is over, you all cheer for him, because he truly deserves it. He grins down at you in victory, but you just give him a challenging smirk.

“You can just give up now, if you want,” he teases you as you stand up from the couch and the two of you trade places.

“Oh, I think you should be the one to worry about losing,” you warn him grabbing your bag. Stepping to Gemma you whisper into her ear, instructing her to put on your song when you call out from the bathroom, since you are planning on do a grandiose entrance. When she hears what song you’ll be singing she gasps.

“Oh my fucking God, no way!” he looks at your with wide eyes.

“What? What is it?” Harry asks, dying to know what you just told his sister, but you shake your head at him.

“Patience,” you tell him before locking yourself up in the bathroom.

This year, you didn’t find the sweater, the sweater found you. On one of your thrift tours, you were digging up a huge pile of clothes when you came right across it and you knew what you needed to do.

Putting on the sweater you fix up your hair quickly before putting on your party glasses, the one that lights up if you switch it on. You take one last look at yourself in the mirror and smirk at your reflection knowing well you’ll have everyone dead when you walk out.

“Gemma! You can start it!” you call out with your hand on the doorknob, waiting to hear the music. Gemma quickly starts in and you haven’t even stepped out, you can hear a round of gasps.

Best Song Ever blasts through the speakers and you walk out trying your best to imitate a younger version of Harry, wearing the absolute ugliest Christmas sweater ever, that has the faces of One Direction all over it, filling up every inch of the fabric, and all of them have poorly photoshopped Santa hats on, it’s just literal trash and ridiculously perfect for the battle.

You grab the mic and start singing as everyone screams in the room. You jump, sing and even do the dance moves the boys do in the original music video, and when you look at Harry you see him staring at you in disbelief and total defeat. Everyone knows you won, nothing can top this performance ever and you could burst from the sweet feeling of victory.

By the end of the song everyone is up on their feet dancing and singing with you, a mini party forming in the middle of the living room and you all scream the last lines as the song comes to its end.

“I think we don’t even need to vote this time,” you say when the music stops, everyone screaming in agreement while Harry stares down at you, trying to hide his growing smirk.

“Where did you even find this?” he asks chuckling as he takes a better look at the sweater.

“At a thrift store, it called out my name, knew it’d be perfect.”

“It really is ugly, if I’m being honest,” he sighs, his eyes meeting yours again. “And the song… I accept defeat, you earned this victory, Y/N,” he tells you bowing and admitting your victory.

Later that night everyone is so keen on watching Holiday, you agree to stay even though you feel your eyelids heavily weighing down, threatening to close with each passing moment. You let your head rest on Harry’s shoulder and he presses his cheek against the crown of your head.

It’s not a surprise you fall asleep halfway into the movie, but what you weren’t expecting is to wake up and find yourself not on the couch anymore, but in Harry’s bed. It’s dark, only the moon is shining through his windows and as you turn to the right you see that he is sleeping peacefully next to you on his back, one arm spread next to him, hand hanging from the edge, the other one resting on his stomach, rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

Squinting your eyes you look at the digital clock on his dresser, it reads 3:23 am so you’ve been asleep for quite a few hours now. You don’t even remember him bringing you up here, but you’re definitely not mad that he didn’t bring you home, just up to his room.

Rolling to your side you give yourself a moment to adorn his beauty without fearing he would catch your wandering eyes. Everything seems so perfect about him, the line of his nose, his cupid’s bow that delicately rolls into her lips. The crease between his eyebrows, his soft skin on his cheeks, down his neck that runs into his broad shoulders and inked, strong arms. You truly think there’s no man that could compare to him and you are lucky enough to live your life so close to him, be able to touch him, hear his voice whenever you miss him, see his smile and share a connection with him.

It’s so silly, but you think of him as your personal ray of sunshine in your life. Just the smallest things about him can brighten your worst day, he’ll always have a special place in your heart, no matter where life takes the two of you.

Watching him sleeping you allow yourself to break free from your doubts and fears and scooting closer you shyly curl up to his side, your head resting on his shoulder, but you can’t even make yourself comfortable before you feel him moving under you.

Sucking on your breath you think he’ll push you away, not wanting you so close, but instead, he pulls his arm from under you, curling around your frame as he pulls you tight to him, almost making you lie on top of him. Your whole body is pressed against him and you mingle a leg between his long ones under the soft sheets. You let out a long huff at the warm touch of his body against your skin, completely lost in him.

“You alright?” he mumbles in his sleep laced voice, his eyes remain closed.

“Yeah. Is this okay?” you nervously ask as you lay your hand flat on his stomach. He brings his hand that was hanging from the bed on his other side and covers yours, as he squeezes you tight to his side.

“’M all yours,” he breathes out, his words sending a shiver down your spine. You’re sure he didn’t mean it like that, but it warmed your heart to hear it from him and you let your mind play with the thought that there was more behind his words than a friendly manner.

Nuzzling your head into his chest you close your eyes and listening to his steady heartbeat you let yourself fall back asleep.

Your morning is filled with coffee, pancakes, laughter and great company. Harry doesn’t let you leave without having breakfast with them, so you sit with the Styles family and laugh about the craziest stories from your teenage years.

“Remember when we tried to run away?” Harry grins at you, his red mug that had white polka dots all over it in his hands as he eyes you.

“Oh, how could I forget that?” you huff and Gemma turns to you with surprise in her eyes.

“Wait, I didn’t know about that!”

“Because we didn’t get too far,” Harry laughs. “We were, what, like fifteen?”

“Yeah, it was a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday,” you nod smiling.

“I had a fight with mum about God knows what, then stormed over to Y/N’s and talked her into running away. So we packed our backpacks and left.”

“Where did you go?” Michal asks with an amused grin as he listens to the story.

“We didn’t want to go into town, running into anyone we know, so we thought we would just go straight out to the meadow that’s there,” Harry says gesturing towards the window. The edge of the town is not so war, and a huge meadow lies there, a little stream running across it. “We walked for quite long, but then it started to get dark and we had nowhere to go, so we just ended up coming back home. No one even noticed we were gone, they thought we just went out to bike or something,” he finishes laughing.

“You knew about this?” Gemma asks Anne.

“Yeah, he came clear the next day, thinking he would piss me off with it, but I didn’t care, he came back for dinner, so it was alright,” Anne explains laughing.

It’s been so long since it happened, but I still remember it vividly, only that it was a more dramatic memory back then, now I can only laugh at it.

“We should go for a walk today,” Harry prompts to you.

“Wanna run away again?” you tease him.

“Always,” he chuckles.

You help cleaning up and agree with Harry to meet outside in an hour to take a walk to the meadow. Going home you take a shower and wash the dishes your mum left in the sink when she left for her morning shift. You put on a pair of boyfriend jeans, a warm sweater and your jacket with your trusty boots and you walk out the house right when Harry steps out as well. He grins in your way as the two of you meet in the middle of the street. He holds his arm out for you.

“M’ lady?” he smirks as you link your arm with his and the two of you head out for your little walk. It’s a gloomy day, might rain later as well, but it’s dry so far, so you’re just hoping to get home before it starts raining. Your runaway attempt wasn’t the only time the two of you came out here, it was kind of your place when you felt like having a break from everyone else. You biked out here, brought your favorite snacks and just ran around, enjoying the stillness.

However it also holds a bitter memory as well.

A little further down among the trees happened Harry’s first kiss and you witnessed it, feeling your heart break to a million pieces when you saw him lock lips with someone who wasn’t you.

Debby Hamilton was a friend of yours in sixth grade, you’d say, your only friend beside Harry and the three of you often hung out together around that time. Debby was a delight, you always desired to be more like her, boys liked her and she knew it damn well, but it didn’t make her cocky and egoistic. You always thought Harry had a crush on her, why would have he? They kind of looked cute together.

It was a Friday afternoon and Harry asked if you wanted to come out and listen to his new cassette he got for his old Walkman he refused to get rid of as technology was evolving. You figured he’d want Debby there as well so you invited her along, but didn’t tell Harry. He never made a move on Debby and you thought he was just looking for the right time.

That afternoon, you were supposed to meet them out there at five, but you didn’t leave until half past five and it takes about twenty minutes to get out there. Though you gave them the alone time technically, it still startled you when you found them under one of the oak trees, Debby leaning her back against the tree as Harry stood in front of her. She was smiling up at him sweetly, saying something to him and you were just about to call out for them and apologize for being late when Harry ducked his head and kissed Debby right in front of your eyes.

That was your first and probably worst heartbreak and you were only twelve. You felt betrayed, hopeless and naïve to think Harry would ever have a thing for you when there were girls like Debby. You left without letting them know you were there. When Harry asked you later why you didn’t come you told him you felt sick to your stomach, which wasn’t a total lie, you had quite the nausea after seeing Harry with Debby, but he didn’t have to know all the details.

He later told you about kissing Debby and you pretended like you didn’t know about it. However they never dated and not long after their kiss Debby drifted away from the two of you. Not that you minded, you had a bitter feeling every time you had to look at her after that, jealousy raging in your chest knowing that she got Harry’s first kiss.

He didn’t bring it up after and you weren’t keen on talking about it, but you still know which tree they were standing under and now as you near the area you see that it still stands tall near the tiny stream.

Peeking up at Harry you see that his eyes are focused on the same tree, but then he catches you looking.

“Memories?” you innocently ask, feeling your chest tightening. You don’t even know why you asked. It’s been over a decade since that kiss, you are both adults, but you still can’t help the sadness that washes over you at just the thought, why would you want to get him talk about it now?

“’S just… that’s the tree I kissed Debby when I was twelve,” he mumbles with a shrug. Biting into your bottom lip you look at the old oak tree nodding your head and before you could stop yourself, you speak up.

“I know.”

“What? How would you? I never told you,” Harry asks stopping, a puzzled look pulling on his face.

“Well I… It doesn’t matter,” you sigh, regretting ever opening your mouth.

“It does. Tell me!” he pleads standing in front of you.

“I know it, because… I was here.”

“You what?”

“I came, I was just very late. And when I arrived you two were standing there and I saw you kiss. I thought I shouldn’t interrupt whatever was happening so I went home and let you two be,” you explain, changing it up a little bit.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why is it important that I saw it? It doesn’t change anything, right?” you ask with a smile that you intended to look innocent, but deep down it’s filled with pain.

Harry opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but then remains silent and you are done talking about it, so you just quietly keep walking, Harry catching up with you a few moments later.

It’s awfully quiet after your revelation, it seems like Harry is deep in his thoughts and though you’re dying to know what’s occupying his bright thoughts, you’re kind of afraid you’d hear something you didn’t want to.

The two of you soon head back home and slowly, but you forget about the whole Debby thing. Harry starts talking again, but he looks a little keyed up still when you reach your street.

“Wanna come over later?” you ask standing on the pavement in front of your house, it’s just an innocent question. Harry nods his head.

“Sure. Is your mum working?” he asks glancing at the house, though he knows she is, the car is not on the driveway.

“Yeah. She’ll be home around six.”

He nods again and you want to ask if he is alright, but you decide not to. You share a quick hug before he heads over to his home and you do the same. The house waits for you in silence and when the door clicks behind you, it weighs down on you heavier than you were expecting. You hang your jacket, kick your boots off and throw yourself to the couch, covering your eyes with your arm as you huff out in frustration. You feel silly for getting upset about such a small thing even after so much time, but you just can’t help it.

You barely realize the sound of the front door opening, taking your arm off your eyes you see Harry walk in, eyebrows furrowed, a worried look on his handsome face.

“Harry—“ “I was waiting for you that day,” he simply says as you sit up with wide eyes, confused about what he is really talking about.

“What?”

“That day, we agreed to meet out there to listen to my new Stevie Wonder cassette, but you didn’t show up, Debby did even though I didn’t invite her out there.”

“Well, I did, thought you wanted her there too,” you explain, startled by the situation.

“I would have invited her if I wanted her to be there, but I wanted to be with you. Only you.”

“I-I’m sorry?” you breathe out, not seeing where he is going with it.

“Y/N, you don’t understand,” he huffs and he is right. You don’t. “I wanted to meet you, but you never came, or at least I thought. Then Debby showed up, I was frustrated that you weren’t there and she was being all nice, telling me how cute I looked when I was worried and it all just happened so fast and… I didn’t even want to kiss her.” He looks properly upset telling you the story and he takes a deep breath before his eyes meet yours with a hard stare. “I wanted to be with you,” he repeats.

“Harry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—“

He shakes his hair, not even letting you finish, because he knows what you wanted to say and that you still don’t understand the meaning behind his words.

“Y/N, I wanted to kiss you,” he then finally says and you suck on your breath as he continues. “Well, not right then and there, but I’ve been meaning to kiss you, I just didn’t know when. I thought that if we have a moment that afternoon I’d do it, but you never came and I was mad and disappointed. I hated myself for kissing Debby, because I didn’t really want to, it just… happened. I wanted to tell you, and I intended to do it when I told you we kissed, but you acted so happy, I figured you didn’t feel the same way about me as I did for you. So I didn’t tell you the rest, but…” He sighs in defeat, looking for words, but he ran out.

“Why are you telling this to me now?” you ask a little out of breath, your head feeling heavy at the new information you just heard.

“Why didn’t you tell me you saw us and why did you go home without a word?” he asks ignoring your question.

“I… don’t—“

“Don’t try to lie.”

Gulping hard you lick your dried lips as you stare back at him.

“Because I was… jealous.” Your voice comes out only as a whisper. Harry’s lips part as he takes two steps closer to you.

“You had feelings for me?” he asks and you just nod your head, not trusting yourself with your voice. “Do you still have feelings for me?”

“I do,” you whisper your answer and Harry lets out a sharp breath as he leaps across the room in your way. You jump to your feet, thinking that he’ll lash out on your for keeping it a secret and you open your mouth to explain yourself, but you never get to speak up because as Harry reaches you, one hand snaps to the back of your neck, the other one to your waist, yanking you against him as his lips crash to yours.

You gasp in surprise, but it doesn’t take long to kiss him back, your numb mind blindly reacting to his sudden action. Your hands snake up to the back of his neck as you pull him closer, returning his hungry kisses. His soft lips feel so smooth and warm against yours and when his tongue runs along your bottom lip you whimper letting your tongues meet in the middle.

He is intoxicating and it doesn’t help that your adrenaline level is up in the sky, you’ve fantasized about it way too many times, and now that it’s happening your body is burning in flames. He kisses you all over and over again, his body pressing against yours hard and when he even leans in making you lean back, you lose balance and the two of you fall to the couch, both of you gasping as you are forced to part your lips.

“Fuck,” you chuckle as Harry is basically lying on you, holding himself up on his arms, but you feel him everywhere.

“’M sorry, I got a little carried away, but I’ve been dying to do this since forever,” he admits chuckling as he lifts his head and looks down at you with those bright green eyes of his.

“Really?” you breathe out, only slowly processing what’s really just happened.

“Y/N, I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you hiding behind your mum.”

“Idiot, you were just a kid, you weren’t in love,” you chuckle, running up your hands to the back of his neck, your fingers playing with the soft curls. He smirks and nuzzles his nose against yours.

“Oh, I was, I just didn’t know it yet.” Leaning down he pecks your lips softly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you so many times, but I didn’t want it to ruin our friendship. Though I was growing impatient these last few years.”

“Yeah?” you chuckle.

“You can’t imagine,” he huffs shaking his head. I almost kissed you the other day in the kitchen, but Gemma completely ruined the moment.”

“I’m sorry I ran away, I was just—“ “No need to apologize. I guess it all played out well after all, right?” he smirks and you can’t help but chuckle.

“I guess,” you breathe out and the smile slowly fades from your lips. “And now what?” you ask quietly, staring up at him.

“Now… We’ll try to make things work. Test the waters. I’m very serious about this, Y/N,” he tells you. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life so I’m not gonna let go of you now.”

“You have no idea how happy this is making me,” you choke out feeling the tears forming in your eyes.

“Oh Love, please don’t cry,” he begs and leaning down he kisses your tears away. “I’m right here, with you. Sorry it took me so long you get here, but I’m here now.”

“I know,” you huff blinking away the tears as you pull him down and press your lips to his. “I love you, Harry,” you whisper against his perfect lips. You feel him exhale sharply as he keeps kissing you before he lifts his head so your eyes meet again.

“I’ve always loved you.”

Thank you for reading, let me know what you thought about it!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles au #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fluff #harry styles one shot #harry styles x reader #harry styles xyou #harry styles x y/n #harry styles imagine #fanficmas2020 #fanficmas 2020 #watchmegetobsessed fanficmas #watchmegetobsessed fanficmas 2020

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thedamageofherdays · 3 years

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This week's [23-08-2021 - 29-08-2021] reading log is here! I read a lot again this week and I feel like it's a lovely variety of fics. Most fics are Stucky like usual, but there's at least one other ship. I am constantly amazed by the talent people have in this fandom! There was one fic I read on Tumblr that I can't seem to find unfortunately, but when I do I'll make sure to reblog and rec it 💕

Favourites are marked with a 🌻

When life gives you lemons by moonthejedi394 @moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 40k words, Mature] (12/15 chapters available)

Or 13 Terrible Things to Do With Lemons Other Than Making Lemonade

Steve Rogers is a home health nurse. He works for an agency, which assigned him to the aging Winifred Barnes, the one and only Silent Era Hollywood darling. As her needs increased, she requested the agency assign Steve to her full-time. She could pay for it, so she got it. Steve then moved in with her, becoming her caregiver; he cooked, he cleaned, he managed her medications, he made sure she was comfortable.

Winifred's children treated him less than ideally. He was the help, after all. And then Steve had the audacity to go and turn out to be eldest son James Barnes's soulmate. No one saw that coming.

The Masseur and the Assassin by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy @buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 17k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes needed a vacation from his job. What he found was a happy ending.

The Words Breathe by buckbarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

All Steve has to do is keep his promise. When he doesn’t, Bucky gets mouthy.

Soft by this_wayward_life @wayward-lives [Stucky, 2k words, Explicit]

The last time he'd seen Bucky he'd looked unhealthy, with pallid skin and greasy, lanky hair. Now, Bucky shone; his hair was thick and silky, his skin a deep bronze from spending so much time outside. He was softer, too; the hard muscle that used to cover him was now replaced by soft fat, his body still strong, but in a more mundane way. His thighs were thicker, his ass plumper, and when he'd pulled Steve into the river Steve had noticed the pudge on his stomach.

Seeing Bucky so happy, well-fed and shining, was a bit of a kick in the face. For all the years they'd known each other, he'd never seen Bucky so... care-free. Now that Bucky was putting on weight, his middle soft and his body malleable, it sent a bolt of arousal through Steve every time he noticed the curves of Bucky's body.

Or: Bucky put on a bit of weight in Wakanda, and Steve is Not Coping.

🌻 Revive Another Side of Me by dontcallmebree @iamthe-wo-manwhocan [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Steve’s never lived in a world without Bucky, and he’s not living now. It takes them a while, much too long, to get that awaited rest, a little slice of peace after the dust has settled.Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are inseparable, history remembers. But they’re not men of the past quite yet.

🌻 imagine being loved by me by spacebuck @spacebuck [Stucky, 20k words, Explicit]

Just after 1am - a few hours after he posted today’s photo - he hears the tell-tale sound of a twitter message. Bucky grabs his phone, not checking who it’s from as he opens it because it’s probably one of his mutuals yelling at him as per usual. When he actually looks at his phone, though, it’s not Natasha

The ‘verified’ check stares back at him for a long moment before he can even bring himself to process the name on his screen. Steve Rogers is messaging him. Or, he reasons, a very good fake. The handle looks right though, not that Bucky knows. Not that Bucky has Captain’s America’s tweets set up as notifications, or that Bucky’s own display name is set to captain america’s bitch. Not at all.

Hey, the first message says. It’s Steve.

🌻 JB’s Complete Lube Services by dixons_mama @dixons-mama [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

People just didn’t approach Captain America and proposition him. Although, sometimes Steve wished they would; even the pinnacle of virtue and justice needed to get dicked down from time to time.

Or, the one where Steve has the hots for a mechanic and decides to be proactive in getting that dick.

If it had to be someone by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky had known since he was a child that he didn’t have a choice in who he married, but he’d thought he had more time before the day arrived.

Miscalculations by christywantspizza @christywantspizza [Ransom Drysdale/Reader, 6k words, Explicit]

Ransom tries to get you to sleep with him by less than honorable means. You give him what he wants, just not how he wants it.

How to Seduce a Writer by obsessivereader [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

What's a determined master strategist going to do when the oblivious writer he's trying to woo keeps missing all the clues?

He doesn’t think it’s because he hadn’t signaled his own interest to Bucky. He’s pretty much done everything short of hitting Bucky over the head with semaphore flags by this point. There’s no way Bucky could’ve missed them. Unless… There’d been that one link he’d stumbled upon when he’d googled ‘how to talk to a writer’. It’d been written by a writer, who’d been candid about how oblivious writers could be, and how someone could go about seducing one. An idea starts to form. It’s ridiculous, but at this point, he’s willing to go with ridiculous, since subtle wasn’t getting him anywhere.

🌻 Pod Bless America by Deisderium @deisderium [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

Bucky can't believe his favorite podficcer recorded his newest fanfic AU of the show Commandos. He's even more surprised when the customer who busts him listening to fic while he's working in the office supply store turns out to be that podficcer.

* The guy—maybe bi_shield?—took his phone, looked down at the screen, and smiled. "Yeah, that one's mine," he said with no evidence of embarrassment. "It was a good one." He handed the phone back to Bucky.

"I wrote it," Bucky croaked.

take a bite by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 7k words, Mature]

"I’d never let anyone freeze to death.” Steve gives a big sigh and flutters his lashes. “All that blood gone to waste.”

Bucky’s lips turn down and his nose scrunches up a little. “I want to be grossed out, but…”

“But you get it.” Steve gives him a pointed look. “Vampires aren’t the only ones who can appreciate how juicy blood is.”

Or: Vampire Steve saves newly-turned werewolf Bucky from a snowstorm.

Leaving the Shield Behind by BuckyAboveEverything [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

“So, on one hand, we have Steve Rogers - hunk, genius, animal lover. Buys you waffles and overpriced coffee. 100% wholesome all-American boy.”

“And, on the other hand, we have Capsicle – twink, smart-ass, fanboy. Reads your stories and sends you fanart. Possibly a pervert or a serial killer.”

Bucky groaned.

“I am 100% certain I am 0% sure of what to do."

Bucky Barnes, full-time copywriter and free-time fanfic writer, struggles to choose between two equally-attractive suitors, only to find that he doesn’t have to after all.

* Based on a true story *

Cap's Book Corner by Neche [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

Recluse Author Bucky Barns stumbles into fanboy Steve Rogers bookstore one day...

Cat Nap by galwednesday @galwednesday [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Objectively, losing the Bucharest safehouse and its contents was the least of Bucky’s problems. The balding agent he’d seen directing the raid was apparently affiliated with SHIELD, which was a shadowy government agency that made representatives from other shadowy government agencies suddenly remember urgent appointments when Bucky tried to bribe, threaten, and otherwise shake them down for information on what the hell SHIELD might want with a former brainwashed assassin. Dodging SHIELD should be his number one priority.

Subjectively, he wanted his fucking cat back.

at any given moment by honeypuffed [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

Steve and Bucky find out that everyone thinks they're sleeping together.

Brought to Brightness by eyres [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

Army veteran Bucky Barnes has fallen in love with Steve, a guy he met online a few months after he returned from Afghanistan. Only problem is, he doesn't know Steve's last name or even what he looks like.

When his sister helps him send his story into MTV's Catfish, he's hoping they can help him meet Steve or, at least, let him move on with his life if Steve isn't real. Little does he know, Steve and Captain America have more in common than just a first name.

🌻 Nokken Wood by leveragehunters @leveragehunters [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

When Sam's friend needs a house-sitter for his place in the country, Steve jumps at the chance. Six months rent-free to do nothing but draw and paint and wander the countryside, looking for inspiration? It was like a dream. But when he gets lost in a storm and nearly falls into a pond he starts to rethink the whole like a dream aspect of life in the country. And when a red-eyed, sharp-clawed, silver-fanged creature rises out of the darkness, Steve is one hundred percent certain the dream's morphed into a nightmare.

...until it gives him a cup of tea.

(Inspired partly by this prompt a supernatural creature is supposed to scare you but instead it gives you a cup of tea and a blanket because you're having a bad day and you keep coming back and partly by this painting.)

Professional Pride by galwednesday [Stucky, 700 words, Teen]

Bucky is having a very good day, until he turns around and finds himself face-to-face with Captain America.

“Oh shit,” he blurts before he can stop himself, and Captain America blinks at him. “Hey, hi, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Here, at New York’s Pride parade, surrounded by thousands of happy screaming people wearing rainbows and sometimes not much else. What is he doing here? Is he on guard duty or something? Was he just on a mission and happened to be passing by on his way back?

He’s in uniform but with the cowl loose around his neck, so when he rubs the back of his head it fluffs up his matted hair. “I, uh. I saw one of your–temporary tattoos?” Captain fucking America says, like it’s a question.

The A-bridged Guide to Trolling by galwednesday [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I don’t have any money.”

Oh no, now the girl looked upset. Her eyes were huge and her lip was wobbling. Bucky tried to think fast despite the oh shit oh shit oh shit looping through his head.

“That’s okay,” Bucky said gently. “I don’t need money. We can figure out another kind of toll.”

The girl frowned at him. “Like what?”

Bucky scratched his head, trying to think of something a kid was certain to have on hand. “Do you know any jokes?”

(Fantasy AU in which Steve is a hedge witch with a green thumb, Bucky is a bridge troll who's new in town, and knock-knock jokes are a viable form of currency.)

It's a bittersweet ending (if you know what I mean) by relenafanel [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I’ll see you around, Steve,” Bucky answers with a smirk, moving away from the counter with a wink.

Steve watches him go. Bucky’s wearing a pair of skinny jeans coated in something to give the appearance of leather. It’s impossible to not watch him go.

stuck on you by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

“Bucky? You don’t look so hot.”

Bucky makes a tiny little sound in the back of his throat, only to start coughing. Of course he doesn’t look hot. He’s sick and he’s dying and Steve obviously isn’t attracted to him.

Decision-Making in Relationships (Paid Research Opportunity!) by castiowl [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Clint looked thoughtfully at the flyer. “I guess your actual roommate wouldn’t be down with it?”

Bucky frowned. “Have you met Steve Rogers?”

no way out but through by hollimichele [Stucky, 9k words, Teen]

Steve never sees it coming.

you got blood on your hands (and i know it's mine) by nighimpossible [Stucky, 3k words, Teen]

Bucky refuses to see Steve after his deprogramming.

Like What You See by daisymondays [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

For all the time Bucky’s spent fantasizing about meeting Captain America, he’d never imagined it would be while posing nude in front of a drawing class.

🌻 A Real Boy by itsnotbleak [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

It took the Winter Soldier three weeks to remember that human beings needed to sleep and eat.

It took Steve far too long to realise the Winter Soldier was sleeping in his bed.

Amapola by chaya [Stucky, 830 words, Teen]

Total fluff. Bucky's recovering nicely. Steve's oblivious. Sometimes it's best to set aside subtlety for action.

Knocking Boots With Sugar by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 4k words, Explicit]

In between summers at college, Steve Rogers wants a new adventure beyond his lonely life in Brooklyn. He ends up in West Texas working on a dude ranch where Bucky Barnes is a long-time employee. When Bucky offers to buy Steve a drink, they end up drunk on tequila and making out in public. For the rest of the summer, they're inseparable. As the summer draws to a close, Steve realizes he doesn't want to leave.

Rogers and Associate by roe87 @jro616 [Stucky, 7k words, Teen]

When they first meet, Bucky is a hooker and Steve is a cop. She's been arrested, but Steve lets her off.

Years pass and they maintain a casual friendship, seeing each other out on the streets most nights.

Though he later makes detective, Steve loses faith in the system and quits his job.

He wants to set up as a private investigator, and he asks Bucky if she'd be his assistant.

Just in time by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky knew the apartment he was renting was old fashioned, but walking in the front door and finding himself transported back to 1938 was not on the list of things he had prepared himself for.

🌻 You Like What's in My Head by dontcallmebree [Stucky, 15k words, Explicit] (with art by @kocuria)

Bucky can’t decide if Steve’s a tough nut to crack or incredibly easy. The timbre of his voice, a low and almost amused, “Sure, kid,” when Bucky asks for a drink feels like something gripping him on the back of his neck.

He thinks this might be one of those moments in life he’ll pinpoint in the future and either curse at for dooming himself, or remember fondly with pride.

He’s right. Bucky Barnes blunders through falling in love with Commander Rogers and tries to find a deeper meaning behind the expensive gifts and thorough fucking.

Can I Sit Here? by BuckyFrickenBarnes [Stucky, 962 words, General]

Bucky has unusual methods for getting rid of his writer's block.

Or, Bucky needs that table.

Workplace Romance by BuckyFricken Barnes [Stucky, 1k words, General]

Bucky is under the impression that his boss hates him.

Or,

Steve needs to get better at dealing with his feelings.

🌻 1-800-MAYTAG by Miss Plum @misspluckyplum [Stucky, 1k words, Explicit]

Bucky just wants to get some housework done. It gets out of hand fast. Silly little fluff and smut romp with snarky stucky boys.

Eyes of the Forest by Lordelannette [Stucky, 7k words, Explicit] (2/8 chapters available)

When Omega Bucky Barnes comes to Eagle Lake, it was in search of wolves, a creature that had not been seen in the area for decades.

What he finds instead is Steve Rogers, a handsome, though quiet Alpha who seems to be everywhere in the forest.

#r's reading log #my reading log #fic rec #stucky #stucky fic rec #fic recs #stevebucky #long post

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way.

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines.

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently.

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either.

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents.

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort.

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die.

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise.

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp��) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life.

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t.

Jet

Okay. Here we go.

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea.

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult.

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke.

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~.

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water.

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point?

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

#jet #yue #bold text #italics #death tw #murder tw

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carynsilver · 3 years

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Favorite Fics: Malex Edition

It’s a new year (quite definitively at this point), and a new set of fic recs. Just my small way of saying thank you to the writers who have made the past year, with all its challenges, a little better for me personally. Without the escape of reading, I don’t think I would’ve gotten through the past eleven months, so thank all of y’all for creating (now and in the past) and for sharing your work. You do it for free, and it’s amazing stuff.

If you’re interested, I previously shared my top 10 Stucky, Drarry, Stony, and Darcy Lewis (Wintershock, Shieldshock, and Tasertricks, mostly) fic lists. Today, I’ve finally decided on my top 10 Maxlex fics. So, in no particular order...

my love is a life taker by @jocarthage

If I were making a top 10 fics of all time list, this story would be on it. The breadth and scope of it is truly amazing, as is the writing. There’s world-fixing time travel and an interesting take on our favorite aliens and what could’ve been. Alex as a time agent is both so tragic and also so strong as he begins his journey of self discovery. He’s such an unreliable narrator, and yet also can clearly see so many things. Watching Michael’s growth through the years is just as fascinating as watching Alex travel through time. And it’s juxtaposed with the present so well. This Alex and Michael learn to communicate as they learn about themselves. And the story also taught me a ton about the Middle East and various historical events. I really love this story, and you should definitely read it right now if you haven’t yet.

To Trust Love by @laughsalot3412

This fic is amazing. It takes hurt/comfort to the nth degree. Michael, Isobel, and Max are the only remaining prisoners/subjects in Project Shepherd, and Alex (with the help of Liz, Kyle, and Maria) goes under cover as a guard to get them out. But to do so, first he has to gain their trust--an almost impossible test. The tweaks to the alien abilities and the handprint are interesting. Jesse Manes, as always, is absolutely horrible. But good wins in the end, and the boys are able to figure things out despite the mistakes they make along the way. I mean, trigger warnings for so much in a prison fic with Jesse Manes in it, but it is an awesome story. This author only wrote one RNM fic, but it’s a great one.

From Iraq, with Love by @adiwriting

Alex leaves for basic no way to contact Michael, so he reaches out to him via a YouTube channel. Alex writes years and years’ worth of love songs, hoping maybe Michael will see them and get in touch. The scene when Michael finally sees them is a gut punch in the best way, and the end is so satisfying. A truly excellent story, and I love how music from the heart eases their way into real communication--because, man, that is what these poor boys need.

unexpected tidings by @bestillmyslashyheart

The Vegas fic! Actually, that is not what this fic is about. There is only one scene set in Vegas, and yet that was the one I remembered when I was trying to find the fic again, lol. In this AU, Michael was never reunited with his siblings in Roswell, but he and Alex meet after Alex enlists. They meet three different times in three different states, and eventually fall in love. Then Alex has to come home to Roswell and take care of this little alien problem so his boyfriend can be safe from the horror that is Jesse Manes. One of the best things about this story is the past/present narrative structure. Only a really good writer can tell a successful story out of chronological order, and @bestillmyslashyheart really succeeds. Check out her other work, as well, such as A Simple Life (but with aliens).

Shadow Work by @myrmidryad

This fic has stellar world building. Alex and Michael are shades--people who work banishing hauntings, curses, etc. The scientific way the supernatural elements are approached is so interesting, as well as the different ways humans and aliens perceive them. Alex is a total unreliable narrator just because of how the haunt is affecting him, but he still gets the job done. This is a world you can just sink into. Totally immersive, and yet it works so well with the alien mythology we already have. And the conclusion to the haunt mystery is so satisfying. Such a great story!

Lovin’ you is a gift tonight (Lovin’ you for all of my life) by @bellakitse

Michael turned his cheek when Alex tried to kiss him, and then Alex and Rosa ran off to NYC before anything else could happen. Michael thinks of Alex as the one who got away, and then he runs into him when he’s stuck at the airport in Denver, trying to get home to Roswell for Christmas. Their reunion in the airport is fluffy and amazing, just a pleasure to read. And then they end up back in Roswell and all the other stuff comes into play in a really satisfying, let’s-deal-with-it-as-adults-instead-of-children kind of way. Ah, so good!

scream in there by thepredatorywasp

I’ll be honest, this one starts a little rough emotionally, but man, Alex and Michael really earn their happily ever after here. It is worth it. And then we get River! I enjoy a good kid!fic, and River the little alien found in a pod who gloms onto Alex and never lets go is amazing! River is my favorite kiddo that I’ve ever read in a Malex story.

truth (to the people we love) by @lambourngb

This is probably the shortest fic on my rec list. I am biased toward the long ones, I know. But man this one packs a punch. Alex recorded a goodbye message when he was overseas, and he has to tell it not to auto send every week. Then he is kidnapped for ten days... I don’t want to spoil too much, but just read it. It also plays with the narrative structure. And if you like this one, definitely check out @lambourngb‘s other stories. collect the bad habits and Vows are also great reads!

I Know Nothing Stays the Same by @aewriting

This is one of those stories that sticks in your head. It is awful (emotion-wise, not writing-wise) and wonderful all wrapped up together in the best way. Alex and Michael run away after the shed incident and go into hiding for five years. This is the past storyline. There’s also a present and a future. The ending of this story was so gorgeous, I don’t want to spoil it, but I remember it all the time when I think of Malex. Lovely and poignant. This is another version of this couple that <i>earn</i> their happiness together. And if you want even more in this ‘verse, the very talented @andrea-lyn (who also has a ton of great Malex stories) wrote a coda called There’s More Room in a Broken Heart.

Send Me Home by @litwitlady

I waffled back and forth about which story would fill the final slot. It’s always so hard to choose when there are so many excellent ones out there, but I had to have one of @litwitlady‘s stories on the list. She has quite a few excellent ones, but Send Me Home is my favorite. Michael the baseball player is both compelling and also heartwarming in his softer life. This is another fic where Alex is a musician, this one an actual country music star. So, it’s a sports fic and a celebrity romance, in addition to being a Malex RNM story. it is a WiP, which I sometimes hesitate to rec, but there’s only one more chapter to go, so I feel pretty safe about it. And she has lots of other stories you should check out. I’m fond of the Reunion series, as well.

So, that’s it for this post. Thanks again to all the amazing fanfic authors and their awesome work. I’ve read so many great Malex fics lately. On this list or not, I appreciate you guys!

#malex #fanfic rec #fanfic #reading #highly recommend #alex x michael #alex manes #michael guerin #quarantine reads #thanks for writing these fics

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angsty-nerd · 3 years

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2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

I was tagged by the lovely and wonderful @darlingnotso

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

1. Highway to the Sun - https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058361/chapters/68740104

I mean, I have to start here! I spent half the year focused on this one fic and it was a challenge and an accomplishment. The challenge being having to write it in a bubble. There were a number of points where I struggled and just. wanted. someone. to read it. And then thankfully artist parings happened and @darlingnotso fed me 😉 Her companion art owned me too. It was all just so perfect.

I’ll take it a step further and give some background. I think it was late June/early July. I was trying to meet a fic deadline for a fandom event. And I was sitting in my apartment daydreaming and all of a sudden I just got the image in my head of Liz standing in the California sunlight, and Max watching her from his car parked nearby. And every ounce of his being wanting to go to her, but knowing he can’t. So he just silently says goodbye and drives away. But she feels him as he passes and his avoidance is pointless. That scene just got stuck in my head, and within an hour I had the entire plot outlined.

Lastly I’ll just say, there’s a scene between Liz and Mr. Jones, maybe in Part 6? That might be my favorite bit of the whole fic. Somehow it just came out perfectly for me.

2. 2x13 Coda - https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308813/chapters/59836633

I wrote this little ficlet post 2x13 of Liz’s POV as she leaves town. The funny thing is that when I wrote this, I was pissed at Liz. Still sort of am a bit. Because I do feel like her decision to leave was a character backslide. And I know the writers don’t feel that way and it’s gonna be portrayed as a positive thing for her, but those little moments of hesitation where she clearly wanted Max to stop her - THAT was the character growth peeking out. Leaving is who she was before Max. So when I scribbled this little ficlet out I was focusing on two things. 1) those hesitations as a positive thing, and 2) her walls going back up as a bad thing.

3. WIP Wednesday unfinished fic segment - https://angsty-nerd.tumblr.com/post/621814550672654336/work-in-progress-wednesday

I never finished this, because the plot in my head was overcome by events in S2. But I shared it on Tumblr anyway because I really liked this little Max POV moment. I think I wrote this between 2x10 and 2x11? Thinking that Kyle would take Max to the secret lab and they would clear it out. I definitely didn’t see Liz locking Kyle out coming. But I liked the idea of Max feeling betrayed after listening to that damned tape recorder and reflecting on death and life. So yeah.

4. S2 Metas! Yes I’m cheating and sticking these together. Just... shake your head at me and go with it.

https://angsty-nerd.tumblr.com/post/616049598526554112/thinky-thoughts-on-max-in-2x06-ive-been-thinking

☝️ Meta on Max’s character changes in 2x06.

https://angsty-nerd.tumblr.com/post/619420857390006272/angsty-aliens-has-successfully-fixed-my-brain-on

☝️Meta with @rosaortecho and @angsty-aliens’ assistance on the Pod Squad as The Head, The Hands, and The Heart.

https://angsty-nerd.tumblr.com/post/621229731486072832/rnm-2x13-echo-download

☝️ loooongwinded thoughts on Echo’s S2 arc and ending.

https://angsty-nerd.tumblr.com/post/621841909804056576/uk-tv-and-watershed-content-requirements

☝️ Informational meta on UK TV Watershed restrictions, trying to explain why Carina was ignorant and unprofessional during the ITV incident.

5. Lastly, @roswelldetails.

Also kind of feels like cheating, but it was a lot of work and it’s why I didn’t really write much in the first half of 2020. So here are a few shoutouts of RosDeets posts that I felt pretty good about.

https://roswelldetails.tumblr.com/post/614491105293139968/notmax-in-good-mother

☝️Little signs that Max was a figment of Isobel’s imagination in Good Mother

https://roswelldetails.tumblr.com/post/615866503111344128/ive-seen-a-lot-of-posts-and-discord-discussions

☝️Season 2 Timeline: what’s known and where it becomes a jumbled mess.

https://roswelldetails.tumblr.com/post/617511638828023808/rnm-2x08-say-it-aint-so

☝️ I was trying to recall an episode that I was particularly happy with the deets post, and I realized 2x08 was one. The breakdown of Rosa’s plot line, and Iris was something that I felt pretty good about.

https://roswelldetails.tumblr.com/post/620491435283726336/helenas-season-2-timeline-as-of-2x12-and-all-its

☝️ Clarifying what the heck was going on with Helena Ortecho in Season 2.

Oh tags... I second all the tags that Maura did! Lol. Especially @maxortecho @rosaortecho @suzteel and @ober-affen-geil ☺️

#roswell new mexico #rnm echo #max evans #2020 in meme form #my fanfiction #memories and nostalgia #RosDeets

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lambourngb · 4 years

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Get me out of here - places to go when canon is complicated

It’s Day 3, time to celebrate those stories that I turn to when I can’t deal with canon, or when I don’t have the emotional energy to untangle all the emotions I have for what’s going on in canon. Alternative universes, the safe harbor for us. Below are a mix of rewrites of canon, remixes of canon, or out right not even set in Roswell- to fill every type distance you want from canon- from near to far.

The first story I’m reccing is a long one,- so pardon the very long review below.

my love is a life taker by @jocarthage (267,600) So one day, Jessi popped into discord to share a dream she had about timetravel and being able to save yourself in the past basically, particularly Alex getting to give his baby-self a hug, and we all went, “holy shit that’s a cool fic idea please write it!” and really reality sucks right now with quarantine and whatnot, so what better thing to do than follow a WIP? I can’t tell you how badly I needed to something to look forward to as I was staring down a milestone birthday with all my plans in tatters, and this story filled the void.

Okay- now about the actual story itself, the world building about time travel in this is incredible but easy to absorb. Jessi dumps you straight into the action in chapter 1 with Alex, at 28, assassinating an Iraqi intelligence agent in 2009 that averts a bomb that was planned on US forces. You learn so much about both the story-universe and Alex here- one, that even dressed in mask and killing someone, Alex is kind and uses morphine as an overdose and has arranged for his victim’s family to be compensated, you learn that time agents can only visit places they themselves have visited during that time, and Jesse Manes had dragged his son, who was ‘time aware’ to every place of war and ruin on the planet before he was 18 and that, Alex’s victim, even as he’s dying, recognizes what a shit childhood Alex had but that Alex doesn’t.

The next part is where Alex’s time crystal malfunctions, instead of returning him to 2018, it takes him to 1998 where an 8 year old Michael is getting beaten by his foster dad and Alex, out of his time line mysteriously, visible to only Michael, saves him, but only temporarily. We all know with abusers, until you’re out of the house, it’s just a matter of time before the next beating. However, with one act, Alex at 28 starts putting into action (even though he doesn’t recognize it at the time) the steps to save his own life as he works to save Michael from his childhood. Each mission, each jump through time, Alex meets Michael, always a year apart and only for 1000 seconds, or almost 17 minutes. Jessi takes you through some of the darkest points of US foreign policy, only as Alex takes control of his life, he also starts to change the missions, and change the world. The details of places, people, food, etc are authentic from the author’s experience, if you don’t click on the links at the end of the chapters and disappear down google-rabbit holes about the events in history, well- you’re made of stronger stuff than I am. There are lots of heavy subjects discussed, but there’s always care and honesty behind the intent. The way Michael grows, the way Alex grows, and of course the journey to the present time when they could be together? It’s like pining on steroids but it’s so wonderful. I wish I could pull out one thing that I loved in particular in this story- but it’s impossible, only to say that I love that I could disappear completely within the confines of ‘my love is a life taker’ knowing that I would be kept safe by the author, that goodness prevails.

 when I’m oceans away by @neapeaikea (28,000) this is a post-2008 shed canon-divergent AU where Alex Manes, after the best/worst night of his life bolts from Roswell and leaves Michael behind. 10 years later, on the hunt for a child conceived at Caulfield, Michael walks into a youth home in California and finds Alex. A few things, I love that this author writes an Alex who didn’t join the Air Force but still lost a leg, I don’t really enjoy disability erasure in modern AUs (I’m better at looking past that in historical or sci fi aus) . It’s pretty clear after five minutes that the connection between the two men is still there and strong despite anger, secrets and guilt. The teasing and flirting between them is great but so is the acceptance of baring their vulnerabilities. I loved the care they take with each other, and the tie in to an alien child is just so perfect.

Crucibles (series) @ninswhimsy (9,000)- I’m cheating and naming both here, but obviously nin had her finger on the pulse of fandom, by writing crusade-set queer stories before The Old Guard ever boomed into a fandom from the movie. I was lucky enough to trade DMs over the ideas of holiness and the body, and how Alex would have treated himself, certain of his doomed soul, and how Michael would have responded in turn. It’s no secret I love everything Nin writes, but this series stuck in my mind. I will be drifting off to sleep, and think about Alex walking through the ancient city of Aleppo, ready to be done with his burden and Michael there with soft palms and scented oil, and boom! I reach for my kindle to re-read it.

no regrets if we walk this new road by @andrea-lyn (97,000) This author has written so many amazing AUs, some quite far away from canon events like her Mummy AU or her Avengers AU, but I have to say, I have a very soft-spot for this rewrite of season 1 for a lot of reasons. I mean, it’s 2020, so my appetite for Cop!Max is definitely at an all-time low, so the idea of exchanging his job with Kyle’s was extremely appealing. At least Kyle is a POC holding the badge, not a white man like our canon. Anyway, politics aside, this story is special to me for the scorching good Isobel/Kyle relationship that develops, the way Isobel sharpens herself into a lawyer (not an event planner) and how Michael rounds his own edges off in turn by becoming a teacher (and being secretly married). Each deviation from canon made complete sense once you alter the way Rosa’s death affects the pod squad, and how they covered it up ripples out toward Liz, Kyle, etc.

 Layer on layer, down on down by @dotsayers (9,440) I love sci-fi tropes, especially time-loops, but they are incredibly hard to write (I know, I abandoned mine a while ago) so this story stands out because of just how well done the execution is and also the angst. Michael in a time loop about Caulfield, like how great/agonizing is that? The plot is so good, how it ties into Caulfield and why it happens in the first place, like wow. The care, and the hurt, and the fatigue that Michael has in this story, oh you just want to wrap him in a blanket. There’s a tiny throwaway line about how one of the first things Michael learned to do in foster care was to make himself heavy and unmovable- and you instantly picture kid!Michael not wanting to be removed from a house - like my heart broke! The structure of the story, with the background of his just how much he loves Alex but how badly it hurts to see him die, really makes this study of 1x12 special. Along with all the angst, there’s tiny gallows humor lines, so am I weird, that I laughed through a couple of these scenes even as Michael kept dying?

Petty pace by @aewriting (11,600) Aewriting has a couple of stellar AUs, so trying to pick just one was difficult, but I rather feel this story is sadly underappreciated it (mind the tags). It was a remix of @iwontbeyourmedicine ‘s fantastic ‘Freaky Friday’, where the humans and aliens swap roles. Alex in the role of Michael basically was something I had never pictured until Ly wrote that story, and now feel utterly changed by it, especially with this backstory- the idea of Jesse Manes bringing a foster child home? Incredibly well done because there’s an off the charts level of menace in this story. The way Jesse watches Alex, who at first mistakes it for how a pedophile might size up a victim, but then catches on quickly that it’s so much worse in a lot of ways. And Alex is such a loner in the beginning, even as he reconnects with his pod siblings Liz and Maria, he’s still planning on keeping his head down and leaving Roswell far behind. Like freedom is literally the only thing he can conceive of for himself, no real dreams outside of that until Michael slips under his defenses. I probably could have saved this story for angst day- because the second half of the story, if you don’t sob while you read it, then I dunno. It’s helpful to read Ly’s story right afterward as a reminder that things do get better for Alex ten years later. In a lot of ways this story is sadder than canon (though there’s no murder of Rosa/4th alien), I’m comforted that at least Alex has Liz in the aftermath, alike in heartache in a way that Michael didn’t have because of the pact he and Max made about Isobel in canon.

Unexpected tidings by @bestillmyslashyheart (24,800) Another rewrite of canon, that explores a couple of very interesting questions, like what would it look like if Michael never made it back to Roswell as a kid but met Alex by chance in 2008? Imagine the cornerstone of the Lost Decade love affair revolving around the mundane questions of a long distance relationship that wasn’t built on the pain of the shed or Rosa’s death? Marlo writes an amazing take on this, that is both real and deep with the normal couple problems, before introducing that spanner in the works of oh yeah, aliens are real. With Michael on the east coast, and Alex finishing off his service in Roswell, Project Shepherd still entangles Alex with Liz bringing him in on the secret in hopes that with his hacker skills he can track down the third alien child that Max and Iz remember so they can warn him. As interesting as the current plot was, I found myself absolutely revitted the slow piecemeal reveals that Marlo doled out about Alex and Michael’s relationship over time. (I also while rereading this recently got very nostaglic for season 1 Alex who didn’t trust Jesse as far as he could toss him.)

Don’t Punish Me For What I Feel by @winged-fool (3,600) Tarsus IV AU - another wonderful author with a catalog of great AUs, both sci-fi and dark, and honestly it was difficult to narrow it down to one. This story, well in 2009 I was a hard core Trek movie fan, so when I saw a trek-fusion story appear, I knew I would love it just on that basis. The thing is, this gave me Michael as the Captain, a surprisingly rare role for these space fusions, even though genius level repeat offender Jim Kirk and genius level repeat offender Michael Guerin seems pretty married in my mind as a connection. As a Tarsus-like story, all the tags are well earned by the story that Alex finally shares with Michael. It hit on so many levels, the hurt/comfort level for sure, but also to have a story where Michael is this stalwart protector of Alex was really nice to find.

this isn’t the ‘holiday best friends championship’ by @usbournejez (6,090) alright to leave this on a lighter note, my final AU rec is this masterpiece by Kieran that was part of Malex Secret Santa gift fics- and what a gift it was to all of us! The way she writes established Malex is first-rate, because she always includes their canon-levels of snark/sharpness but it’s never directed at each other and that’s something I love. Here we have Alex, where we learn in just a few short lines, is a huge control freak but has the extremely big emotional handicap, and that’s his love/fondness/deserve to caretake Michael. Emotional cactus Alex who is soft for Michael? Love it. There are small drops of angsty backstory peppered in this, but really that just fuels just how sweet and wonderful the main theme of the story- which is Alex might hate the whole world at large, he loves, protects and worships Michael (and vice versa). As someone who can bake cookies, but that’s about it, I was still enthralled with the baking details and this story has never failed to encourage me to eat dessert before dinner basically.

#rnmcreate2020 #malex fic #roswell new mexico #malex fic rec #malex #MALEX FEELS #michael guerin #alex manes #fandom positivity #worship our great authors in this fandom #can we pretend it's Wednesday?#a day late and a dollar short #working on today's now!

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comeoncomeout41 · 3 years

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I just watched the Elf episode of The Holiday Movies That Made Us on Netflix after remembering that I started writing an Elf supercorp AU for Christmas in 2018 (don’t judge me) and found my old notes app first draft so Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! MAYBE I’ll finish it this year... (she said as a lying liar who lies.)

*The fic in which Kara’s pod crash landed at the North Pole, 13 years later her adopted elf mother Eliza and her elf sister Alex tell her about her cousin Kal now Clark Kent and she decides to go to Metropolis to meet the only other person like her. She meets Lena “naughty list” Luthor. And Clark and Lois are Jewish.

🔥🎄🎄🎄🧝‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Some elves are born to work in Santa’s workshop. Kara Zor-El, however, was not born an elf or even from this earth for that matter.

When her pod crash landed at the North Pole thirteen years ago, she had no memory of a lost planet, no recollection of a cousin she was sent to protect who had already grown up to become Superman, and no idea how to be an alien living with elves. Santa was perturbed as to what to do with a skittish teenaged alien who cringed at the sound of tiny hammers building toys.

The elf doctor, Eliza Danvers, having a daughter around Kara’s age, naturally stepped in to help raise her, teach her elf culture, and attempt to control her powers. There were several mishaps of course.

Kara’s eyes lit up the first time she saw a Christmas tree. Literally. The green pine was burned to a crisp with her heat vision. But she quickly uprooted another tree from outside the elf village and helped Alex redecorate the new tree. And spent several hours carefully placing the new lights and ornaments, after breaking several of the glowing strings of light and the ornate red and blue colored bulbs. When Alex had trouble reaching the top of the tree, Kara swooped her up under her arms to help her place the star on the tree. And she managed to only break one of Alex’s ribs in the process.

After years of being at the North Pole, Kara was actually a wonderful toy maker once she learned to control her strength. When other elves managed to meet their five hundred toy quotas, Kara would have five thousand toys completed. The workshop wouldn’t need any teddy bears for another century, but finding storage for all of the toys Kara built was becoming difficult.

So from there, Kara’s primary job became Elf Master of Letters. She spends several hours each day answering letters for Santa as Santa’s tight schedule and the millions of letters he received each year became too much for the old bearded man. And although she always needed a little proofreading as the different Earth languages were sometimes difficult and much different than her native alien tongue, she enjoyed writing and speaking to children all over the world, bringing them the joy of Christmas.

Alex read over the letter Kara had just finished typing. Her younger but much bigger sister looked to her with a twinkle in her eyes and waited patiently. When Kara saw the red ink marked all over Kara’s letter she cooed and gasped, “That red is so pretty Alex. I know Raymond in Denver will love it! He told me red was his favorite color. I wanted to tell him that’s Santa’s favorite color too! But I didn’t want to give all of the big man’s secrets away, you know?”

Alex sighed and rested her hand on her sister’s shoulder, “Kara, these are your typos. Look here.”

Alex pointed to the last line, “Beleiving isn’t singing. Singing is beleiving.”

“He asked if he could see what the North Pole looks like. I set him straight. Believing isn’t singing. Singing is believing. That was in that one Santa Claus movie you had me watch, which I know isn’t historically accurate or based on true events, but I still,”

“Kara, remember your English spellings. I before e except after c? And it’s seeing not singing.

“Except in some cases like neighbor and weigh. And I just thought! It’s a play on words because ‘the best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!’”

Alex smiled at her then, “You’ll get the hang of it.“

“Yeah, okay so I can’t spell that great, but the writing was good right?” Kara looked hopeful.

Alex shoved her shoulder, “You know you have more Christmas spirit than any other elf. Now come on and fix these typos, so we can go drink hot chocolate with Mom.”

That night when Kara had gone to bed, belly full of twelve drumsticks, eleven pickled peppers, ten cups of hot chocolate, nine hams glazed, eight glasses of milk, seven strudel pastries, six white chocolate goose eggs, five onion rings, four carrot cakes, three French bagels, two turtle chocolates, and a chocolate pecan pie, she curled up on her elf sized bed. Eliza had knit a fourth blanket onto her elf quilt the previous month when her toes started peeking out at the bottom. Alex had tucked her in tonight, making certain she was snug as a bug in a rug in the tiny bed, wishing sweet dreams of sugarplums dancing in her head.

She was content, happy, home and tomorrow would be her thirteenth birthday at the North Pole. What more could her life possibly be, what could be more rewarding than being apart of the magic that brought Christmas to children all over the world? And still Kara thought of that world and all of the little lights that wrote those letters to Santa, the gleaming eyes of all who opened presents on Christmas morning, and she wondered if any of them were like her. If they could hear the faintest sounds of snow falling or reach up and touch the clouds. If they could roast chestnuts with their eyes or see through all those pretty presents wrapped neatly under the tree. If the people of this world could believe that Santa would come every year to bring them gifts, then she had to believe that somewhere out there, there was someone else who was just like her.

That night Kara dreamed of a beautiful red sunset and little baby boy named Kal. It all felt so real, seeing him jet across the sky in a similar pod to the one Kara had found in an abandoned workshop years ago, knowing it must have been how she found her home. She wrote a letter to Santa as soon as she woke up, asking him to find a home for Kal for Christmas.

_____

Kara had been in trouble a bit, always an accident, because really how was it her fault if Blitzen couldn’t keep up with her? He could have flown faster if he hadn’t eaten all of that maple syrup and maybe then he wouldn’t have been left behind! She carried him back the whole way anyway! After she found him three days later in the Swiss Alps.

But this time when she was called to Santa’s office and Eliza and Alex sat patiently waiting for the charges from the big boss, Kara didn’t know why she was here at all, or rather, now she was on the floor with wood debris around her rear because the little chair was a lot lower than she had anticipated. That was the tenth one this month.

Santa cleared his throat and rubbed his white bearded chin, “I read your letter, and I spoke to your mom and sister. I think they have something they’d like to tell you.”

Kara widened her eyes and looked to her mom, “Are we going to adopt Kal? Like you adopted me? Please say we can Eliza. I promise I’ll teach him myself how to control his powers, and I can build him a crib myself. I’ll even chop down the tree for the wood and we can,”

Eliza cupped Kara’s face and kissed her forehead, a tear prickling at the corner of her eye, “Do you remember Kal now sweetie? Do you remember Krypton?”

Kara blew out her breath in bewilderment, “Krypton? What’s that? Is that where I’m from? Is it in Canada? I’ve always felt I was probably a Canadian because I don’t get cold at the North Pole, and I make the best maple syrup every year during the elf Christmas party.”

Santa nodded, “Its true, you really do.”

Alex gasped, “you know you’re not an elf?”

Kara chewed at her fingernails, “Well I’m not, am I? I’m bigger than all of you and I can lift a Christmas tree over my head like it’s mistletoe and fly with reindeer and all sorts of stuff. I’ve known for awhile I’m not from here, but this is still my home. You two are still my family.”

Alex held back all her unshed tears, “But you have other family out there, and we can’t keep you from knowing about Kal anymore.”

So that day Kara cried when Santa showed her the picture of Kal, or Clark Kent as he was called on Earth, glasses askew and a beautiful woman on his arm. Clark without the glasses bearing what she was told was her family crest, the House of El, taking up the mantle of Earth’s greatest hero, Superman. She had crafted thousands of figurines of her only living blood relative, and yet she hadn’t the faintest idea that she had been sent to protect him for all of these years. He had grown up, not alone at least. He was raised in Kansas on a farm, and now he lived in Metropolis with his wife Lois Lane and their son Jonathan Kent.

“Does he even know I exist?”

_____

Kara changed into her best elf attire and her bright red boots that Eliza had made her for Christmas, letting her open one present before she left. Today was the day that she would fly to Metropolis and meet her cousin for the first time. She couldn’t wait, but the dread at leaving Alex and Eliza settled deep in the pit of her stomach. And all of the letters to Santa she still wanted to respond to sat neatly at her desk in her room.

She was leaving behind her entire life at the North Pole. She told herself she wasn’t losing her home, but it still felt like it. Santa’s workshop, Eliza and Alex, it was all she had ever known or could remember. Would it be the same when she came back? Would her room still smell like a gingerbread house and would her stocking still hang by their chimney with care? Would Kal come with her or would she split her time between Kal and Alex and Eliza like some children who get double presents when their parents divorce?

Alex knocked on her door and waltzed in, “Hey Kara, mom made you something to take to Kal. There’s a winter storm over Greenland, you should probably get going soon.”

Kara wiped the tears from her eyes and her sister rushed to hug her. She had to bend down a little and lift Alex off the ground, but no way was she leaving without giving her sister a proper hug.

“I’m going to miss you and mom so much, Alex. I’ve never been away from home for more than a few hours, how am I going to make it to Christmas without you both? Will you even still want me back?”

Alex nuzzled closer, “You better come back because I don’t want to imagine this place without you. Who’s going to lift the fridge so mom can sweep under it hmm? Who’s going to change all of the light bulbs in the workshop when they blow out? Who’s going to drink hot chocolate with me and watch Hallmark movies in July?”

Kara laughed, shaking her head and deposited Alex on the floor, “I thought you hated the Hallmark channel.”

Alex simply rolled her eyes, “But I love spending time with my sister, and I love you, you big sap. I swore I wasn’t going to cry.”

Feeling slightly better Kara shoves her sister’s shoulder, a little too hard and catches her before she falls, “I love you too, dork. Don’t open the present I got you until you get back, pinky swear?”

Alex locks pinkies with Kara and kisses her thumb, “I’ll miss you. Please be safe. No breaking the sound barrier, watch out for pigeons because there’s a lot in Metropolis or so I’ve read. And when you see Kal remember to call him Clark Kent.”

“Got it, and don’t eat anything I don’t buy myself or anything not given to me by Clark, Lois, or Jonathan because there’s a high chance it’s not candy.”

Kara hugged Eliza for thirty minutes after that, and then Alex for another ten minutes before waving goodbye to Santa and all of the elves at his workshop. Metropolis wasn’t so far for her to fly, and she’d be home in no time.

She coasted through the peppermint sparkled glaciers, touched the northern lights, sailed through the skies above the Arctic Ocean, grazed the top of the Daily Planet, and landed atop the small two bedroom apartment building on the rent controlled side of town. Inside the windows of the corner apartment on the top floor, Kara saw Kal with his family, lighting candles, looking happy and calm. She decided to wait until morning to meet Kal, Clark, alone.

She listened into the city around her, all of the heartbeats like a million tiny hammers beating together, all except one. Kara flew the city, pinpointing the sound, admiring all of the lights on all the trees in all of the buildings and all the shining multicolored bulbs lining the streets. And it was there, in the tallest tower of the tallest building, one light shone through the wall to wall window, a small desk lamp in the large office. At the desk a woman with jet black hair and skin as white and fair as snow sat, typing away at her computer, nibbling on the pen in her mouth. She strained her long elegant neck, and stretched her arms above her head before getting back to work.

Kara glanced below the balcony to the street corner, finding what she knew the young woman needed. She floated down to the alley and walked into a coffee shop, took some time figuring out how to pay for a cup of coffee with the paper and coin money that Santa had given her before she left. Smiled and thanked the cashier for helping her, put one of the bills in his tip jar (it was a hundred.) She quickly flew into the woman’s office, left the coffee on her desk, and flew out of sight, feeling a little like Santa herself in the moment.

The woman grabbed the coffee absentmindedly and sipped, not expecting it to be so hot Kara sees her fanning her mouth and frantically searching the room with her eyes. When she turns to peer out her balcony, Kara sees her face, hard jaw line, soft endearing green eyes. She smiles as the woman screams and locks her balcony door as the windows go pitch black.

#supercorp #elf au

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cosmiceverafter · 4 years

Text

The Pieces Want to Be Together

Pairing: Alex Manes/Michael Guerin

Characters in this chapter: Alex Manes; Michael Guerin; Gregory Manes; Isobel Evans; (mentions of Flint & the Scooby Squad).

Rating: T

Words in chapter: 2k

Read on ao3

Ch.1/Ch.2

**Content Warning for this chapter: mention & slight evidence of torture/abuse during a kidnapping; blood warning; minor violence; mention of death (no character deaths). None of these are graphic.**

Summary: Day 3: | REUNION | faith, loyalty, optimism, resilience.

A/N: A lot of what I wrote, is speculation for the episodes to come for the rest of this season. It also shows my hope that Gregory Manes is in fact a good guy and Flint Manes can be redeemed.

I hope you enjoy the last chapter of this fic for Missing Alex Manes Weekend! I really enjoyed writing something that was a bit different for me. But you should always know, with angst will always come to a happy ending full of hope. Thank you for reading!

To you Alex Manes: I love you very much.

Ch. 3: Fit Together with You

Alex flutters his eyes open, feeling a searing slash of pain from his head.

All he sees is darkness. He is unable to make out any features around him.

Where am I?

Trying to make sense of everything, he calculates strategically the surrounding area.

Why would someone want… him? Was he getting a bit too close to something? Did this have to do with the aliens of 1947? Did this have to do with Michael?

His hands are bound, but he tries to feel the ground. Cold hard pavement.

He will find a way out. He owes it to himself and the love he has for Michael.

Alex will not go without a fight.

***

Michael thought he understood fear after a lifetime of hopelessness. But fear was finally understood when Alex Manes was gone.

Alex had been kidnapped, and his brain had short-circuited any reason or patience.

When he had been searching location after location without a trace, that was when the fear settled in as well as the realization he couldn't lose Alex.

This human boy had taught him so much, not just what love truly meant, but learning about who he was and what he wanted from this life here on earth.

He fell in love early on with Alex in high school, staring constantly at the way Alex’s eyes fluttered when he got into his music. He was so talented and Michael admired him from a distance for so long.

But Alex had offered not only a safe haven to call his own, but his heart as well.

Michael for the first time in his life felt what having a family could feel like.

The two of them had made mistakes, more times than he could possibly count, but they kept coming back to one another in a way cosmic lovers would.

Alex was the shooting star in his night sky and together they made the constellation of peace, love, and hope.

It was the melody he had heard every single time Alex had played on his guitar. Quite honestly, it was the most moving moment of his life.

These were the thoughts that swirl in Michael’s mind as he searches all of Roswell. He would travel to heaven and hell to find one simple clue to Alex's well being.

After hours of nothing, he receives a phone call. It’s Gregory Manes.

***

Bright lights shine in his eyes, and Alex swallows, “Who are you?”

There is shuffling and Alex knows there are multiple people around him. He can’t make out faces but he can see figures standing around.

Finally, a deep unfamiliar voice says, “You’ll know in time. This is for the greater good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We know who you are, Alex Manes, and who you associate with. That is, what you associate with. We will have answers.”

So this was about aliens.

Alex isn't clear on much of this situation, but one thing is crystal clear: He will protect Michael Guerin with his last dying breath.

***

Michael had always been right about Gregory Manes. He was the next best Manes after Alex.

The guy was good. He cared about his younger brother, more than even Michael had realized. He didn’t fit the mold that Jesse had once created for their last name.

Gregory had also found out Alex was missing when he had come to visit Roswell. He too had entered Alex’s house and went on his own search when he had seen the evidence of a struggle.

Apparently, he had inquired information from their other brother Flint, who wasn’t always the guy you’d want watching your back. But Michael also thought there was more to Flint than meets the eye.

After hours of figuring information out, they had all come to terms with the fact this wasn’t Jesse’s doing, much to all their surprise.

It was another puzzle Michael realized, that he didn’t know how to fit back together. Story of his life.

***

They ask questions; he doesn’t answer.

He’s hit, repeatedly; he’s had worse.

They press further; he doesn’t cry out.

Their frustration grows; he stands his ground.

They use fear and hate; he uses resilience and love.

***

Michael refuses to give up, he can't.

His phone rings and he looks down. It’s Isobel now.

“Iz?”

“It’s Alex.”

“I know...I’ve been searching for him with Greg,” Michael says as his eyes fill with tears. No use trying to stop them. “We can’t find him. Anywhere.”

He looks at Alex’s brother who is now driving his truck, and his brother looks as solemn as he feels.

“Michael, listen to me!” Isobel exclaims on the other side, “I know where Alex is!”

***

Alex’s whole body aches and he finally lets a moan escape his lips. He’s not sure how much more he can handle. He’s tough, but hell, he’s only human after all.

Whatever these things are...he's not entirely sure they are human. However, feeling delirious will do that to a person. He can no longer make sense of it all.

It’s been hours, and Michael never leaves his mind.

Michael is his anchor that keeps him tethered to his strength; it keeps him grounded and sane. He’s grateful even though his alien isn’t even there.

Truthfully though, Michael is always with him.

It all seems so trivial now; their arguments the inability to connect through the pain.

If only they both had foreseen this future, maybe they would have communicated what they had wanted so much sooner.

Being at rock bottom will do that to a person though. Your regrets, your mistakes, all of it, comes crashing into you like a current in the ocean.

These thoughts stay in Alex's mind. He realizes he probably won’t make it through the night. But at least he will go knowing he didn’t budge; he kept Michael’s identity and whereabouts hidden, as well as his pod siblings.

Some things are worth dying for.

As he allows himself to lean against the wall and close his swollen eyes, he hears a commotion outside the cold dark room he’s kept in.

There is yelling, a boom, and screaming.

He can’t make sense of it; he doesn’t have the energy to even try.

But that’s when he hears it, the most beautiful sound in the world.

Michael’s voice.

He found me, Alex realizes as he finally breaks. The tears run down his cheeks as he succumbs to darkness.

***

Isobel, that brilliant-not-by-blood-sister of his, was right! She had given them a location, something that she had seen when she had gone to Alex’s house.

Isobel had touched the floor where Alex had fallen, and that’s when she had a vision. The warehouse had been clearer than the light of day, and she explained it perfectly.

It was miles out of Roswell, but luckily, Michael knew exactly the one. He had driven past it many times over the years.

Gregory is by his side as they enter the location. Michael does not see who the people are that took Alex because their faces are covered, but that doesn’t stop him from throwing them against the walls. Hard.

Michael knows he's probably just given away his identity. He just doesn't care.

His anger is unmatched at this moment.

Gregory stops and looks at him with a look of shock, but Michael just shrugs and keeps on moving. There is no time to talk about the “what are you and where did you come from?” speech.

Unfortunately, whoever they are, escape quickly, but his number one mission and priority is to find Alex.

They will be dealt with later, that much is certain. A vow of his for the mere fact that they ever thought they could touch Alex Manes.

Gregory yells at him to come over and he sees a locked door against the metal wall. Gregory gives Michael the look with a bit of hesitation.

Michael opens it easily with his powers and scopes out the room quickly.

Alex.

His stomach falls as he sees Alex crumpled in the corner of the small room. Michael almost collapses, but Gregory steadies him.

Alex’s brother rushes over to his younger brother’s side, clearly checking for a pulse.

Michael has never felt this before. Before when trying to find Alex, he was on a mission. But this… this is different. If Alex is not okay, Michael will not make it. He knows this to be true. They are too connected and intertwined.

He won’t survive that type of pain.

So he’s stuck. Unmoving. He literally cannot breathe.

“He has a pulse,” Gregory calls out, which adds faith and hope back into Michael’s life. “It’s weak though. We have to get him to a doctor.”

“Valenti,” Michael replies, still scared to see Alex and the damage they caused the love of his life. “Kyle Valenti. He’ll help.”

“Here,” Gregory exclaims as he rushes over, “let me talk to him.” Michael punches in the number for the good Doctor and gives his phone to Greg. The guy looks over at Alex, and his eyes are full of sadness, “Go be with him. He needs you, Michael.”

Gregory leaves the room for a moment and Michael can hear him talking to Kyle.

Slowly, as if in a dream...a nightmare, Michael walks over to Alex.

He bends down and starts to cry instantly as he takes in Alex. All the emotions he has felt searching for Alex and the horrific outcome of this reality is too much.

The bruises are all over Alex. He’s swollen and bloody. Not Alex. God, no. Not to Alex….

Michael lifts Alex’s hand up gently and sees damage there as well. “I’m so sorry, Alex.” He cannot stop crying. The heavy sobs leave his body as he trembles uncontrollably. Michael realizes he’s not just crying because of what happened to Alex, he’s sorry for the way he has treated Alex over the last few months. He took Alex for granted and now here his love is, broken and in pieces right before him. “I’m so damn sorry.”

He bends down and kisses Alex’s battered forehead. That’s when Alex moans. He squeezes Alex’s hand softly, “Alex! Alex, I’m here. I’m here. I won’t leave...I’ll never leave you again.”

Alex squeezes his hand back.

***

It takes Alex a while to heal, but luckily with the help of Kyle, Michael, and his friends, he makes progress every single day.

It's both mental and physical healing he needs and that in itself, takes time.

The group continues digging deeper to try to figure out who took him. It’s nice to see everyone working together for a change. He’s wanted that for some time. Maybe that was the good of being taken after all; they stopped taking each other for granted.

As far as Michael, he never leaves his side. That gesture doesn’t annoy him though, if anything, it’s beyond comforting and welcoming.

Neither of them is walking away. They prove that more and more each day.

Michael is generous and gives him space and time, not expecting anything. It means so much to him.

But he does give Alex several hugs a day; clinging on to him tightly as if to make sure Alex is real. Alex gets his strength from Michael every time.

They finally have their breakfast and open up about it all, even the parts that hurt. But that was the point of healing, true healing. In doing that, they break the barriers of their cycle once created.

Their talk wasn't a one-time thing either; they talk for weeks and weeks, sometimes going late into the nights. The nights where they make each other laugh, are Alex's favorite. He realizes that even though during their time apart when they weren't together, they had been building that friendship all along.

Sometimes during these chats, he catches Michael just staring at him, and he can’t help but smile. Their love has only grown. Deeper than even he could have imagined it would.

One sunny morning, he decides to finish the song he has been working on. Alex is staying at the cabin that Jim left him. It offers peace and solace, especially if Michael is there. Which he is, always.

Alex smiles as he pulls his guitar out of the black case. It's funny how an object can cause so much joy. The gift of music was just that, a gift.

As he holds the guitar in his hands for the first time in a while, he closes his eyes from the comfort it brings. His fingers sometimes still ache, but he plays anyway.

He plays the trauma he grew up with, the pain, and the sorrow, but also the resilience and the strength to rise from the ashes. He adds the hope, faith, and love that Michael has brought into his life. The joy of friendship and unity as he sees his friends smiling back at him. And most importantly, he plays the love he feels for himself and the growth he has made, with a nod of gratitude in Forrest’s direction.

It is the melody of his life. The melody that makes him...Alex.

“That was so beautiful,” he hears softly behind him as he finishes.

Alex looks over to see Michael beautifully leaning against the doorframe holding two cups of coffee, his curls tousled from sleep.

“I hope I didn’t wake you, I know it’s early.”

Michael shakes his head, “Nah, it's the best alarm clock there is actually.” He walks over barefoot on the wooden porch and hands Alex a mug.

He sits down and looks at Alex with a genuine loving smile, “Truthfully though. It might’ve been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard you play.”

“Thanks,” Alex replies with a smile of his own. “I’ve been working on it for…well, a very long time now.”

“Is it finished?” Michael asks. Alex looks deeper into those hazel eyes. Not for the first time around the guy, hope fills him up like a balloon. “I think it’s just the beginning of a very special story actually.”

Michael nods and takes Alex’s hand softly. “I hope to hear each chapter of that story then.”

Alex moves Michael’s healed hand to his lips and kisses it gently, “You are and will always be a huge part of this story, Michael. The story is a part of us.”

“You always have a way with words, Alex Manes.”

The words he has wanted to say every day are right there. They are the only words that truly matter when it comes to the alien sitting next to him, “Speaking of words, there are a few more important ones I need to say to you.”

Michael smiles once more as he leans in closer to Alex, “Please, tell me.”

Alex takes in this moment, never looking back, “I love you, too.”

Tears fill both of their eyes as they come together as those two pieces of their puzzle, finally fitting together as one as they kiss.

The missing piece was there all along.

Hope was the melody that would always bring their love home.

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blissfulnightrain · 4 years

Text

It’s been a while since I’ve shared any of my writing, hasn’t it?

Here’s a piece I wrote the other day, a canon-compliant fic set in KHII featuring the experiences of Axel and Naminé’s, and how they brought the two of them together.

If you prefer FFN or AO3, it is available there as well!

---

Memories of Promises

Words: 1941

---

Twilight sky, cotton candy clouds, and Ansem - no, Riku, she had to keep reminding herself - disappeared behind a smoky veil of black and blue.

She was no stranger to the Dark Corridors, having been in them numerous times before. It was thrilling, in a way. They’d been her means of travel with DiZ when they first escaped Castle Oblivion - the first time she’d ever been outside the confines of its labyrinth of white walls. Unbeknownst to her what their ultimate destination was at the time, she daydreamed, bright-eyed, about what they might find on the other side. Would it be some sort of tropical isle? Maybe an arid desert laden with bazaars and the rare oasis? Or perhaps an underwater realm populated with rainbows of fish and all kinds of other sea creatures as far as the eye could see? These were, after all, just a fraction of the many places she’d seen among Sora’s memories.

Naive was just one of the many words she could have used to describe herself. It had been foolish of her to expect great sights, or even think that she was worthy of any sort of adventure with the task she had at hand. The mansion may have been in a different world, but every morning she was still greeted by the same white walls and the same boy whose life she’d stolen a year away from.

She got a taste of what life outside those walls might be like during those last seven days. In a race to finish getting Sora’s memories back intact, she had to get out there, get in touch with Roxas. The virtual Twilight Town was just as beautiful as she imagined the real one was, perpetually bathed in the same reds and yellows of the setting sun that she’d always see illuminating the lawn and broken pillars littering the view from her window. She kept having to remind herself that none of it was real, that Roxas was the only thing that truly existed in that digital realm.

The warmth of his hand in hers when she’d when she reached into the darkness after him…

What looked like pain in his cerulean eyes, when she repeated DiZ’s words, that he was never meant to exist…

...Everything about him was real, genuine, despite what DiZ said.

And he still was, even though his physical form disappeared after he finally rejoined with Sora - like hers would when the inevitable time for her to rejoin her own Other would come, too.

At least, that was what she believed.

But that didn’t appear to matter to DiZ now that Sora was awake again. His memories restored, Naminé’s calling was fulfilled, and he had no need for her anymore. She was useless, only a nuisance now at best. Riku’s mercy was the only thing keeping her alive now. And so, here she was, alone in the Realm of Darkness.

“So, just you and me from here on out, huh?” Alone with Axel.

This wasn’t her first time getting acquainted with the fiery redhead. Their first meeting pre-dated the events at the Castle and the domino effect that occurred thereafter. He had been the captors that held her hostage to do their bidding, who’d convinced her to use her powers to cause the whole mess in the first place. Though, Axel wasn’t quite like the others.

He’d set her free to move about, allowing herself to follow her...whatever the driving force behind her decision-making was. And it was because of him she’d met Sora in the flesh in the first place.

She hadn’t seen Axel since then, so meeting him again now was quite strange. Much had transpired since then, that she was aware of. Restoring Sora’s memories meant she’d had to sift through Roxas's as well, and she’d seen, over the year, how the light and flickering flame of their friendship had grown.

What Axel was feeling now, if anything at all, she couldn’t quite say. His expression was hard to discern; gone was the playful, rather arrogant mask he always wore around the Castle, revealing solemn emerald eyes set above those tear-shaped markings underneath.

“So…” she began rather awkwardly, their words echoing despite the lack of walls or structures in this realm.

“Thank you.”

“Huh?”

“For taking care of him.” He looked up, quickly noticing her puzzled expression. “Of Roxas.”

“Nobody would miss me.” Roxas's back was turned to him, barely visible under the cloak of his Organization uniform and the looming night sky of The World that Never Was. Axel’s face grew wet, but it was the pitter-pattering against the concrete streets that told him that rain had begun to fall.

It was foolish of him to think the sensation hailed from anything otherwise - he would have needed a heart to cry, after all.

He could only stand and watch as his best friend disappeared into the night rain, chasing after the answers he hoped resided in its mist. Answers that Axel already knew, but couldn’t relay himself.

Cowardice was what a Somebody might call it.

“You did the thing I wanted, but couldn’t bring myself to do,” he continued. “Not until it was too late, anyway.” He looked straight into her indigo eyes. “You had the guts to tell him the truth.”

She pushed strands of her wispy blonde hair behind her ear, finding herself needing to take a step back under his rather intense stare. “Only because...it was what he wanted. Even though...” The pained expression in those cerulean eyes flashed in her mind once more. “...it ended up hurting him.”

“He deserved to know.” Axel’s shoulders were slumped, gaze averted. “He deserved to make his own choice in the end.”

“As do we all,” Naminé agreed, clutching her sketchbook close to her chest. A few somber moments passed between them.

“So, you said there was someone you wanted to go see,” Axel inquired, finally breaking the silence. Naminé looked up; gone was the glazed-over haze that clouded his features, replaced by the return of that impish grin he’d always worn around the Castle. The same mischievous look he’d given her the first time he’d let her go free… “Now who might that be?”

Her sketchbook was still turned to the page she’d been glancing at before, seated against the grain of that wooden park bench and under Riku’s watchful gaze. The shadows of the Realm of Darkness now obscured the white space of the canvas that Twilight Town’s setting sun previously illuminated, but the scribbled forms of Sora and Roxas still stood tall, hand in hand, in its center.

“Given the way things are, I think putting my munny on Sora’s a good bet, wouldn’t ya say?” Naminé let out a gasp, only suddenly aware of Axel’s tall, lean frame looming over her.

“We made a promise,” Naminé explained once she’d regained her composure.

“A promise, huh?”

“Yes. But...”

“When I wake up, I’ll find you,” Sora began, standing in front of the pod he didn’t know he’d be spending his next year in. “And then there’ll be no lies. We’re gonna be friends for real. Promise me, Naminé.” She remembered the warmth of his calloused pinky entwined with hers - a physical symbol of that promise, Sora had explained.

She’d smiled then, but that wasn’t the expression she bore on her face now.

“You’re going to forget making that promise,” she’d explained to him. And though he denied it then…

“‘Thank Naminé,” Jiminy chirped, reviewing the memo he’d left behind before he’d been put to sleep along with Sora. Now finally awake, Sora simply stood between Donald and Goofy, the three of them shaking their heads, not a single spark of recognition in any of their eyes.

It had been foolish of her to hope otherwise, and yet the truth still stung. Part of her wondered what might happen if she did go through and reunite with him, but she knew better. If Roxas couldn’t remember Axel, his best friend, while imprisoned in the Data Twilight Town, why would Sora remember her, now an insignificant speck who’d been more of a nuisance than anything in the time he’d known her?

But there was another promise she’d made, one that was already half fulfilled. Roxas had gone back to Sora, whole again, as Naminé had guaranteed. Now, she had to make good on the last half.

“Roxas!” she cried, staving off DiZ’s grasp as he tried to drag her through another dark corridor. “We will meet again, and then we can talk about everything. I may not know it’s you, and you may not know it’s me. But we will meet again. Someday soon. I promise!”

If she ever wanted to see either of them again, this was not the form she could meet them in.

“Roxas isn’t the only one who needed to go back to where he came from.” Naminé flipped her sketchbook closed, now holding it against her stomach.

“Don’t tell me…” Axel’s jaw was clenched, his fists shaking harder and harder as she’d relayed her true resolve. “You’re going to throw your life away, too?”

“A life that was never meant to exist in the first place. Just like Roxas's.”

“You really believe that?!” She could have sworn embers began to glow and swirl around his body, his shoulders tightening even further. Still, she stood steadfast.

“I never had a right to exist. And by doing so...look what’s happened. I messed up so much for so many people, and Roxas paid the price, too…”

“You were our prisoner!” Axel only grew more exasperated. “You only ‘messed’ things up because we told you to!”

“And you only told me to because of this power I have,” she shot back calmly. “A power that’ll be much better done away with now that Sora’s memories are restored.” Another moment of silence passed, though tension weighed heavily in the air. She held her breath when Axel opened his mouth once more.

“You’ve never actually had a taste of freedom before, have you?” Axel broke the silence once again. His tone was much calmer this time, devoid of the fiery passion she feared might burst into flames earlier.

She looked up at him, curiosity now simmering beneath her deep blue eyes. “Freedom?” she parrotted, the word leaving a foreign, indiscernible flavor on her tongue.

Now Axel was the one dumbfounded. Everything in her tone, her body language, demanded an explanation of the concept, and yet…

All his years as a Nobody had been spent serving under the Superior, until now.

A rogue agent, he...was truly free for the first time himself, wasn’t he?

“Well,” he began, his words now brimming with newfound purpose, “we’re gonna figure that out together.” He turned, his back now towards her as he began to step forward. “And I’m gonna bring him back. So he can taste freedom too.”

“What?”

“Come on, you can’t think it’s fair? You and me, finally free to do what we want, while Roxas is trapped and hidden away? You say he made the choice, but you think this is what he really wanted?”

Naminé pondered over his words for a moment, finding herself not completely disagreeing. Had the circumstances been different, would Roxas have made the same choice?

Would she?

“...Even if we could, how would we - ?”

“We’ll find a way,” he assured her, tone full of resolve. Axel marched onwards, and Naminé was forced to decide whether or not to catch up with him.

What “freedom” truly was, Naminé still did not fully understand, but the choice behind her next step was hers to make.

#Axel #Naminé #Roxas #Sora #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts fanfiction #KH fanfic #blissfulnightrainwrites #thanks for taking the time for reading my crappy writing #long post

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lire-casander · 4 years

Note

Of the pieces you’ve written for the Roswell NM fandom, which one is your favorite that you posted and why? Were there any you loved but felt didn’t get the reception you expected? And, regarding the monster fic - will there be Malex? Thank you, and love your writing!

I have written 42 pieces for the RNM fandom, which is a lot in less than a year, if I may say so!

Of all my stories, I am oddly proud of a few, which is a feat since I don’t really like my fics, but I’m happy with how 4 turned out to be:

1. arashi (I will never ever stop saying this is by far my fave) –> @chamblerstara gave me the best of ideas to work with, and I went with it as well as with rain as a theme, and tada! I really like the growing tension that blows up in their faces, and how it circled back to them and the rain and their feelings.

2. commit to memory this path afire –> it’s the longest fic I’ve posted in this fandom, and it took me so long to finish it. It was a struggle halfway through it, but I had the best help in the world and @hannah-writes made it readable and wonderful

3. just like these memories i can’t undo –> I have a penchant for Alex helping Michael when he’s spiraling. It was written for a prompt that I was so graciously given through an ask, and if @insidious-intent didn’t stop talking to me after having to read through the first draft of it, then I know she’ll stay around forever. It was yet another fight, because the characters didn’t want to be written the way I had pictured them to, but I really liked the fic.

4. ten feet under and upside down –> here’s a secret: I write fics around one single sentence. I mean: I think of a line, of a scene, and I build the whole fic around it, no matter where that line is in the final plot. This one started out with the line that’s the summary; it was so powerful, that it took me by surprise. Writing this as a character study for Michael, how losing his mother affected him and how he deals with the aftermath of learning about his past… it was a gift I didn’t think I could write. Yet there it is!

About fics I wish they had got better reception? I guess there are a few, but there’s one I still feel a bit bitter about. I wrote a fic about Mara, about how she had to put her son in a pod and give herself up so Michael could live, it’s titled the way our horizons meet, and although it got several hits, I still think it was deeply overlooked. Maybe it’s just my impression, to be honest.

Regarding monster!fic, I’m afraid I don’t know. I wanted it to be Malex, but we’re 5 chapters into writing, and for now the only pairing it’s Miluca, but it’s never explicit. Since I want it to be as close to canon as possible, it had to start over with Miluca, with Max dead and with Rosa alive. The pairings that are listed in my sketch document (the place where all the ideas go) are:

Michael/Maria - because of canon

Michael/Alex - because I can’t live without them

Liz/Max - because duh, they’re an item now

Kyle/Jenna - because they’re my favorite het ship in this fandom

But we’ll see how it develops. I’ve already written the ending for the fic (and I have yet to choose a title!), and I can tell you something: there will be Malex, but I’m not sure when!

#lire's fiction #lire babbling #anon love #nonnie love #you asked #you ask and lire answers #monster fic deserves its own tag #miluca #malex #echo #kyle/jenna #oh my i got wordy here #sorry for the rambling

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salmonthestoryteller · 5 years

Text

This Used to Be My Playground

So this is supposed to be a Post s1 friendship focused fic that does not start out pretty, because of where we ended the season, and because post season angst is getting to me. However, please keep all character hate off my post. (Except Jesse Manes. All hatred of Jesse Manes is acceptable and encouraged even when he does not appear. Evil Noah is okay to hate as well, actually. Nobody else, though.)

This Used to Be My Playground

Roswell New Mexico Fanfic

“We’re closed!” Maria called out when she heard the door. Footsteps entered anyway and she turned - spotting where Alex was coming toward the bartop. “Alex, hey. I-”

“Hey?” Alex cut her off, stopping by table. “That’s the greeting I get? Hey?”

Maria frowned at his curt tone. “What were you expecting? You know I’ll usually make an exception for friends who want a drink after hours.”

“Friends, is that what we are?” Alex questioned her.

“What does that mean?”

“Michael and you, huh?” Alex stopped before he reached the bar.

“I was going to talk to you about it, Alex.”

“And say what? That you knew you’d be betraying me, but you just didn’t care?”

“Betray?” Maria repeated the words. “Betray, wow. Pretty harsh.”

“Like I told Liz once. I left nice behind in the middle east. That was around the time I told her she was being a shitty friend to you, by the way. You’re welcome for that.”

“As opposed to the total paradigm of friendship you’ve been?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh? You wanna know? Sure. Well, I’m doing fine, Alex - thanks for asking. The date rape drug someone slipped into my drink at the UFO Emporium Gala didn’t have any side effects. Deputy Evans apologized that there was no way to pinpoint a suspect.”

Alex couldn’t meet her eyes. “I heard something about that.”

“Yah, well, while you were hearing things, Guerin was looking out for me. Stayed with me while I recovered, and even walked me home in case the suspect was still lurking. He was a perfect gentleman about it.”

“Well, Michael’s a good person. Usually a good person.” He amended. He definitely hadn’t forgiven him for failing to meet him after he'd promised.

“Yah, he is. You know who wasn’t there for me that night?”

“Did you call me? Cuz you know I would have been there if you’d picked up the phone, Maria.”

“Do I? Do we really know that anymore, Alex?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex crossed his arms, frowning at her.

“You were on your second tour the first time my mother went missing. I drove around town for ten hours. And when I pulled off to the side of the road, crying my eyes out, who could I call? You were in a warzone. And Liz? I didn’t even have her number."

"I couldn't be there that day, but there were times-"

"There were times, what?" Maria interrupted again. "You were here for a handful of days? A couple of weeks sporadically over ten years time? I love you, Alex, but you weren't here. You don’t know what the past ten years have really been like for me, and vice versa. We don’t talk about what happened while we were away from each other. We don’t talk about the hard stuff. Do you know how I found out about your leg? Through a newspaper article. You didn't even call me during your recovery."

"And if I had?” Alex challenged, “What? You would have left your mom alone and flown halfway across the world to see me? We both know that wouldn't have happened.”

“No, it wouldn’t have.” Maria admitted. “So where does that leave us?”

"I thought that was changing since we got back. Liz and I spent the day with you and your mother. Liz went with you to Texas. I haven't frequented a bar this much since my first tour."

"And what have we talked about? The past. A little about my mom's illness. About the fact you were pining for someone. Someone you didn’t even trust me enough to name.”

“It wasn’t just my secret.”

“That didn’t stop you from telling me after I hooked up with Michael.” Maria pointed out.

“I did not tell - you guessed.” Alex countered. “And I seem to recall you saying that meant nothing to you.”

“I felt guilty.”

“So you felt guilty about being with him when you didn’t know we have a history, but you don’t feel guilty being with him now?”

“Where will you be in two years, Alex?” Maria asked him.

Alex frowned. “What?”

“Where will you be two years from now?” Maria repeated. “Are you reenlisting? Are you leaving the military? Are you planning to stay in Roswell?”

“What does that-”

“Liz always talked about leaving, and she did. She’s back, but she’s already talking about leaving again. You have always hated Roswell, and surprise - you left. Sure, you’re back now while you finish your time in the military, but what then? Two years from now will either of you still be here?”

Alex stared at her in confusion. “I don’t know.” He answered honestly.

Maria nodded. “Do you know who will be here two yeara from now, Alex? Me. Do you know who else will be here two years from now? Michael Guerin. Probably here in my bar at least three days a week. You? Liz? I don’t know where you’ll be. But me and Guerin. This is it.” She spread her arms to encompass it all - her bar, the town; their lives. “This is our future. So why the hell shouldn’t I try to make something of that? What right have you to tell me not to?”

"The difference is Michael isn't some fling to me." Alex reminded her. "Can you honestly say that?"

"I feel safe around him. I feel happy. I haven't felt that since my mom got sick." Maria admitted.

"It's still not love. I mean, if you are going to date the guy I’ve wanted for ten years, you could at least have the decency to be in love with him."

“Michael chose me, Alex. He came to me.” Maria pointed out. Stealing herself, she looked at him. “Are you angry that I acted on my feelings? Or are you angry you squandered countless chances to do the same?”

“Wow, not pulling punches now, are we?” Alex stepped forward to face her across the bartop. “Fine, then I won’t either. He loves me, Maria, and he will always love me. You? You’re just another distraction.”

“Get out.” Maria pointed to the door.

“Gladly.”

-----

“I heard it through the grapevine you might be out here day drinking.” Liz approached where he sat at a table of the empty drive-in.

“Would this Grapevine be called Maria?” Alex swallowed down another gulp from his bottle. He’d brought plenty of liquor to the sight for a proper bender, seeing as the locals bar was run by the person he didn’t want to see.

“She still cares about you.”

“She has a funny way of showing it.”

“I told her the night before she agreed to be with Michael that her feelings matter, too.”

“Well, screw you both then.” Alex turned back to his liquor.

Liz reached over to grab a bottle. “If you slept with Kyle, I wouldn't care.”

“What?” Alex looked at her in complete confusion. “Why the hell would-”

“I wouldn’t care if Maria slept with him, either.”

“Why are we discussing Kyle Valenti’s non-existent sex life?”

“I guess I thought Michael was your Kyle. Not your Max.” Liz confessed.

“Now I feel like a jerk. Here I am moping because Michael stood me up, and wants to date someone else. Meanwhile the guy you’re in love with is currently floating in an alien pod, potentially dying.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t shut down how you feel. You can be mad, Alex. Just… don’t unpack and live there. I tried that. It’s not a happy place.”

“Oh, I am mad. At both of them. Which sucks, because I still love both of them, too.”

“I am so happy to have Rosa back, but I am also furious with Max for putting himself in danger like this. I think I might slap him when we figure out how to heal him. I just haven’t figured out if I should kiss him first.”

“Do yourself a favor and kiss him first.” Alex suggested.

Liz laughed. “So, why are we drinking at the drive in?”

“Michael and I had a sort-of date here. If you count sitting on opposite sides of his tailgate to watch a movie he hated a date. We did split beer, though. Then my dad pretty much called me an embarrassment and insulted my taste in men, Michael illegally sold property, and I dumped him at the end of the night.”

Liz stared. “Wow. That’s… that’s not a great date.”

“It didn’t start out bad.”

“If it makes you feel better, I interrupted Max getting a handjob from another woman here in order to accuse him of writing love letters to my sister ten years ago and murdering her.”

“What?” It was Alex’s turn to stare.

“I didn’t know the whole truth yet, just that an alien was responsible, and Rosa had a letter he wrote in one of her hiding spots. I thought it was for her, but he wrote it for me and for some reason Rosa hid it so I wouldn’t see it.”

“And you interrupted him getting a handjob to yell at him about it?”

“I was angry.”

The two looked at each other another moment before breaking down into laughter.

-----

“What do you want?” Michael didn’t bother to get up from his seat outside his airstream. There was a collection of bottles around him, despite the fact that it was barely noon.

Liz stepped over the bottles to get in close to where he was seated.. “I wanted to take a look at your lab. I thought maybe together we could-”

“No.” Michael interrupted her.

“No?” Liz was taken back by the rebuttal.

“Not interested in playing scientist with you. Not this time.”

“Michael, our best shot is to work together-”

“To do what?” Michael stood up, tone angry. “To do what? Max is dead, Liz! He’s not sick; he’s not suspended in time - he’s dead!”

Liz steeled herself. “So was Rosa.”

“Yah, and look what it cost Max to bring her back. The sooner you and Isobel get it through your head he isn’t coming back, the sooner we can get on with our lives! I’m not going to play a part in this delusion you’re both living in!”

“You don’t know it’s a delusion! We don’t know enough about-”

“Yah, that’s right - we don’t know. We don’t know anything and we never have. So much of what has gone wrong in our lives all comes down to our history and our powers. So I’m done! I’m done.” He stepped back. “You want my lab? Take it. I’m never touching any of it ever again. Or my powers.”

“You don’t mean that.” Liz told him.

Michael grabbed up another liquor bottle, and headed over to his truck. “Like hell I don’t. So you want my lab? Take it. It’s yours.”

Liz watched him leave.

-----

The drunk tank was a familiar space. Michael glanced around it in confusion, then gave a small groan before setting back against the bars.

“Usually you’d be Evans problem.”

Michael reopened his eyes to look at Cam, who was watching him. “Well, there’s a problem with that.” He told her.

“No kidding. And this is the best use of your time?”

“Depends, what did I do? I seem to be drawing a blank.”

“You got in a fight at the Wild Pony.”

“Darn. Bet DeLuca is pissed.”

“To put it mildly. Seriously, Guerin. Was it worth it?”

Michael shrugged. “Can’t really remember, but probably.”

Cam shook her head. “I called Isobel Evans. She’ll be here shortly. Attempt to sober up before that.”

-----

“I’d threaten to turn your brain into sludge, but it would feel like a moot point.” Isobel blew into the room as if she owned it.

“It was one fight, Isobel. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

“I don’t have time to deal with you falling back into these habits, Michael.”

“So next time don’t come.”

“I should let you rot in here until you’re sober. Unfortunately for both of us, this wasn’t as simple as a drunken fight.”

“Did I do something else?”

“Oh, just told Maria DeLuca about aliens while drunk out of your mind, complete with a demonstration of your powers.”

“...Oh.”

“Yah. Oh.”

-----

“How long have you known?” Maria’s hands were gripping the cloth she used to wipe the bar with tightly in both hands.

“Max healed me the night of the shooting at the Crashdown.”

“So all this time, and you said nothing?”

“I didn’t know anything at first. Max told me the truth of what they were a few days later, but I didn’t get the full story then. Turned out they didn’t know the full story themselves. We still don’t know a lot.”

“You knew Max could heal.”

“Wounds. He couldn’t heal Isobel while she was sick, so I guess he could-- can only heal wounds.”

“Could he have helped my Mom?”

“...I don’t know. There’s a lot we don’t know about their powers.”

“And I was… controlled by an alien serial killer.”

“Noah, yes.”

“And you still said nothing.”

“I promised Max-”

“You told Kyle. You told Kyle, but not me.”

Liz reached out toward her. “Maria.”

Maria withdrew her hands, standing up. “I need time.”

Liz pulled her hand back. “Yah, yah - I get it.”

-----

“We trying this again?” Maria sat down across from Isobel.

“Neither of us is going to get better if we don’t challenge ourselves.” Isobel reminded her. When Maria went to remove her necklace, Isobel held up a hand for her to stop her. “Leave the necklace on.”

“You got a nosebleed last time we did this with the necklace on.”

“We have to challenge ourselves.” Isobel repeated. “I have to get stronger to save Max.”

Maria frowned, clearly not liking it, but left the necklace on. She held out her hand. “C’mon, then.”

Isobel placed her hand in hers. "Okay. Think of a number."

"Why can't we do colors, again?"

"Because you chose Burnt Sienna last time and that's just cheating."

"And here I thought you were a fashionista." Maria pointed out.

"Ha ha. Concentrate."

The two's eyes met, the room growing distant and faded.

"You're being distracted by worrying about Max again." Maria told her.

"Not feeling him with me is… it's like I'm cold all the time."

"I thought that was your natural state."

"Insulting me won't distract me."

"I'm sure I can figure out something that will."

"As long as it's not a memory of my brother naked. I don't want to have to bleach my eyeballs." Isobel told her.

"How come you're so okay with Michael and I? You don't even like me."

"Because at the end of the day I have two people that matter to me. Max and Michael. And the truth is? Everyone else can burn so long as they are safe and happy. They deserve it."

"What about you?"

"17. The number is 17."

The world came into focus, and Maria saw blood drip from Isobel's nose. "You pushed too hard again." She ran to the towel for a bar, and ran back to press it against her face gently.

Slightly disoriented, Isobel leaned her head up at her urging. "I have to push. I have to get stronger."

"You're not going to get stronger by hurting yourself."

"I let Noah in. It's all on me."

"You didn't let him do anything." Maria scolded her.

"I have to make sure it never happens again. I have to. We have to keep practicing."

"We are done for the day. I won't let you hurt yourself."

"Why not? You hate me."

"I don't hate you, Evans. I don't even know you."

"I don't know me anymore. That's the problem." Isobel's eyes slid close as she fought the light headed feeling of using her powers against the pollen.

Maria slid into the booth next to her, and propped her onto her shoulder, still keeping the towel pressed gently to catch anymore blood. "You'll get there."

-----

“Do you think it’s all connected?” Isobel standing in the Project Shepherd Bunker was definitely new territory.

“I don’t think your brother walked out that cave.” Alex told her.

“And Mimi DeLuca?”

Alex sighed. “Mimi knew something. I don’t know what, but she did. At least, at one point she did. She mentioned Jim Valenti and aliens to me during one of her lucid moments.”

“Does Maria know that?”

“No, I never told her.” Alex admitted, then paused. “How is she holding up?”

“Like her only living family is missing.” Isobel quipped.

Alex’s fingers hesitated over the keyboard. “Is Liz with her?”

“She’s pushed Liz away since she found everything out. And Michael’s mad at her for encouraging me to expand my powers.”

“She’s alone?”

“Well, I’m not there, and Rosa is with Kyle, so.” She shrugged.

“That’s the last thing she needs right now.”

“Well, you could always go see her.”

“Things haven’t been the same between us for months.”

“Look, far be it for me to tell you what to do with your life-”

“So why do I get the feeling you’re about to do just that?”

“Michael and Max lied to me about what happened with Rosa for ten years. Max killed himself bringing her back, and Michael has either been burying his head in the sand or trying to self-destruct his life since. But if he called, I’d be there. You know why?”

“No. Enlighten me, oh wise one.” Alex’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“Because apologies are nothing but hot air, and earning forgiveness is a gimmick created to sell flowers. We toss people out of our lives for the acts less terrible than we accept from other people we keep in it. Nobody earns forgiveness, Manes. We give it because we love them too damn much not to.” Alex didn’t reply, and Isobel took it as her cue to leave. “Let me know if you find anything new.”

-----

Liz met him outside the Wild Pony.

“We’re closed!” Maria greeted without turning around. She was seated at the bar with a drink in front of her. She paused when they appeared in the mirror she was facing.

“Hey.” Liz greeted.

“Did you find-” She turned.

“No.” Alex told her.

“Not yet.” Liz corrected.

Maria nodded, and silence settled over them. “Well, I’m sure you have somewhere you need to be.”

Ever fearless, Liz moved forward to sit on the stool next to her. “Nope.”

“Liz-”

“It’s been ten years, and in all that time I’ve never had another best friend.”

Maria didn’t meet her eyes. “Me either.”

“I don’t want a different best friend.”

Maria’s eyes shone with unshed tears as she took her hand. “Me either.”

Alex moved to her other side. “We used to be able to talk about anything.”

Maria reached out to take his hand. “Maybe we still can.”

“I have the perfect idea for how to get that started.” Liz spoke up.

Maria smiled through the tears. “Tequila?” She suggested.

“Tequila!” Liz agreed. Standing up she threw open her arms. Maria hopped off her stool and Alex joined her in a three-way embrace.

It was a start.

Fini

I started this shortly after s01e13 and then abandoned it. For the free day I finally decided to tackle it again. This will probably be my last post s1 fic until we get new canon material

#roswell new mexico #rnmweek19 #roswellweek19 #rnm fic #friendship fic #maria deluca #alex manes #liz ortecho

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femslashhistorian · 6 years

Text

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 2 - Hope and Despair

In this SuperCorp (Supergirl) Femslash Fanfiction Recommendation, I have collected 21 excellent Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor Alternate Universe (AU) stories.

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 2 - Hope and Despair: of Lighter and Darker Worlds

In all of the included stories Kara is Kryptonian, but she is not always Supergirl. I will collect no-power AUs in a separate post. However, what I have included as AUs are either stories that change a basic premise of the show or diverge strongly from canon. None of the stories is primarily driven by an action or villain/alien of the week plot, in most this is not even touched at all.

This post and all of the stories were written before season 4 started airing. Most Stories were written before or are (mostly) ignoring Season 3.

Overview of the 21 Kara / Lena stories

Detailed recs and links after the cut. My favorites are marked with *

A) Stories in which Kara is Kryptonian but not Supergirl / Stories without Supergirl

Cooking class with Kara Danvers * by ramonaflow: The One in Which Lena Learns to Cook and to Love

You don't get me * by shes_cured: The College Roommates AU

A Ribbon at a Time * by abcooper: The One in Which Kara Had Been Hiding from Cadmus for Years When She Meets Lena

B) Fluffy/Happy Close to Canon AUs

Something Borrowed (*) by janewithawhy: The Three Weddings and a Supergirl Reveal AU

Swipe Right for a Super by eluigih: The Tinder AU

Charity by cautiouslyoptimistic: The One in Which Lena and Kara Meet Doing Charity Work in a Soup Kitchen

In Plain Sight by MsSirEy, sten06: The One with the Quickest Supergirl Reveal Ever

C) Angstier / Angsty AUs

And I'm waiting for the sun by ifyouresure: The One in Which Kara Fears That She Has Ruined the Danvers’ Lives

Lifestyle Choice by kellsbells: The Ultimate Mon-el Hating Fic

D) Fake Dating / Fake Relationships

I'm with you no matter what * by spacemanearthgirl: The Ultimate Fake Marriage / Witness Protection AU

A fiancée for Christmas by kellsbells: The Fake Dating AU with a Dash of Amnesia

E) Unconventional Families

Listen closely and the stars will sing * by celaenos: The One in Which Instead of Mon-El a Small Girl Came to Earth in the Pod

The Fifth Wall * by Black_Tea_and_Bones: The One about Wishes Coming True, with a Dash of Groundhog Day

F) AUs in Which Lena Is Tempted by the Dark Side

Lena Luthor, Evil Overlord by Rhino (RhinoMouse): The Evil Overlord List AU

The Birth of Venus by lostariels: The One in Which Lena Is an Art Thief

Real by cautiouslyoptimistic: The one in which originally Lena is willing to help Lex and Lilian

G) Stories in Which One of Them Dies (Most have a Happy Ending)

Lena dies on a Wednesday * by karalovesallthegirls: The Brilliant Fic in Which Lena Dies - a Lot.

Destruction (sometimes means rebirth) by BloodInTheFields: The One in Which Lena Does Not Actually Die (but Has Powers)

I Blame Myself by Chazene: The Really Sad Reverse Black Mercy Fic in Which Kara Grieves for Lena

Fallen Hero by Chazene: The really sad fic (with happy ending) in which Lena grieves for Kara

Remember me, and let the love we have live on * by civilorange: The brilliantly sad fic about love, living and dying (actual death!)

This series includes

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 1 - Distorted Realities: of Time Travel, Amnesia and Black Mercies [tumblr] [WP]

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 2 - Hope and Despair: of Lighter and Darker Worlds [tumblr] [WP]

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 3 - Complicated Realities: Weddings, One Night Stands and Friends with Benefits [tumblr] [WP]

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 4 - Different Realities: Actors, Baristas and Other No Powers AUs [tumblr] [WordP]

A) Stories in which Kara is Kryptonian but not Supergirl / Stories without Supergirl

1. The One in Which Lena Learns to Cook and to Love

Cooking class with Kara Danvers by ramonaflow

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapter, 17k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Lena takes a cooking class and gets more than she bargained for.

After being nagged by Jess, Lena (who is the CEO of L-Corp) enrolls for a cooking class. The instructor is a joyful, slightly clumsy and very cute young woman - Kara Danvers, and thus Lena meets Kara before she becomes Supergirl.

This is a perfect Supercorp romcom. Romantic, cute, funny and very well written. I loved it. There is also a very nice Cat, Lena, Kara lunch scene.

Favorite Quote:

"Sometimes I think you are flirting with me." Kara finally said in a whisper, shoulders slumped, not daring to look at Lena. Oh. Retreat ? "What if I am ?" Kara looked up, lips parted and eyes wide open. "You are ?" Lena laughed again. "Is it so surprising ?" "I don't know. Maybe. You're the first... the first woman to flirt with me." Kara stuttered, not even losing her pink colors. Did it mean she was straight ? Lena falling for a straight girl, what a heartbreaking feeling of déjà-vu. "I doubt that. Maybe you just didn't notice. But do you want me to stop ?" Kara played with her hands. "I don't know." "It's alright. I can leave if you want." "No ! Don't leave."

2. The College Roommates AU

you don't get me by shes_cured

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe); difficult roommates to friends to lovers

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

12 Chapters, 74k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Rating: Mature

Kara had plenty of daydreams about college, but none of them were anything like reality. Lena Luthor is cold and impossible to get along with, but maybe Kara is just what she needs. - A college AU where Kara and Lena start out as roommates and their journey through navigating their first four years of independence together.

This is a bumpy ride, especially as Kara thinks she is straight at the beginning of the story, but overall this is not this is not a very angsty story. That they don't fall in love right away and their journey to each other are some of the aspects I enjoyed the most about this story and I loved their banter.

I liked that while we get some glimpses into Lena's unhappy childhood, this is not a focus of the story.

While this is an AU, in some respects it feels like it could be very close to canon: this story is a very conceivable take how lonely, standoffish and socially awkward Lena was in college before she met Kara (or Sam). Kara is a Kryptonian and has powers, but she is not Supergirl (yet) and this does not play a major part in the story. This well written story is my favorite collage / university Supercorp fic.

Favorite Quotes:

It suddenly hit her that the version of Lena she’d been seeing, the girl she viewed as uptight and anal, was actually the relaxed version of Lena Luthor. What a terrifying realization that was.

“You can’t seriously be blind enough to miss how they look at you.”

“We’re friends,” she shrugged. “People never like me like that, trust me. ...

“Everyone likes you, don’t kid yourself,” Lena laughed, still blatantly not addressing the invitation Kara was giving out. “You’re preppy, bubbly and pretty - guys eat that shit up.”

Kara looked down with a smile for a moment. “Complimenting me isn’t an answer, but thank you. Don’t do it again, though, it’s weird coming from you.”

“It’s going to take you out of your comfort zone.”

“Kara, that could be anything,” Lena deadpanned. “I have a pretty small comfort zone. I need a better hint than that.”

To that, Kara just smiled, ignoring Lena’s crossed arms and attempts at intimidation. “If I gave it away it wouldn’t be a hint, now would it?”

3. The One in Which Kara Had Been Hiding from Cadmus for Years When She Meets Lena

A Ribbon at a Time by abcooper ; @abcooper

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

5 Chapters, 28k words (completed) Enemies to lovers (sort of), Kara is an alien refugee

Published: 2017

Rating: Mature

After Lex Luthor defeated Superman, after the courts declared him innocent, after CADMUS rose to power, 16 year old Kara Danvers went into hiding. Five years later, a chance encounter with L-Corp CEO Lena Luthor throws her back into everything she's been running from.

Kara is a refugee. Not enough that she lost Krypton, she is also the sole survivor of her (foster) family - except for Alex, but she has not seen Alex for years.

There is a satisfying ending when the story has been told just enough. There are hints what will happen next, and the story could have been much longer, but it ends in a satisfying place to feel enough, to feel complete. What I loved about this story is that despite the very bleak premise and sad moments, it can also be very funny - with a dry humor that I really enjoyed, and it can be very sad. This story is a great AU, brilliant and very well written. I loved it.

Favorite Quotes:

She gets the job, she finds out a few days later, but she’s pretty sure her amazing interview skills have nothing to do with it. They give it to her because her last manager wrote her a reference letter in which he described her as, “ridiculously strong - you can send her to deliver cement bricks and she’ll just hoist them onto her shoulder and go,” and because when they asked if she was willing to use her own car for deliveries she said yes.

Joke’s on them. Kara does own - and currently live in - a car, but it’s not what she’s planning on using for deliveries.

It slowly dawns on Kara that maybe she hadn’t just been blowing Craig’s question off with a joke earlier, that she might have stumbled across the right answer to it. It’s becoming clear that Lena didn’t invite her into a trap - she might actually have invited Kara back into her office just to show off her ass.

Well. That’s unexpected.

B) Fluffy/Happy Close to Canon AUs

1. The Three Weddings and a Supergirl Reveal AU

Something Borrowed by janewithawhy ; @janewithawhy

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

3 Chapters, 50k words (completed)

Published: 2017-2018

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Three weddings and the two women who attend them.

Kara attends two weddings with Lena and one she attends as Supergirl. I loved the scene in which Lena rescued Supergirl from dancing with an obnoxious drunk guy. We also get to see some a glace into Kara's time at middle school and Lena's time in university

I liked how Kara and Lena dance around the SG reveal for two weddings and then this culminated in one of my favorite - maybe my favorite Supergirl reveal scenes. (I did not include it in the favorite quotes below, because I do not want to spoil it).

A very well written story. Domestic and fluffy, with some very funny moments

Favorite Quotes

“Auntie Joannie says you’ve met Supergirl,” Carla said, ignoring Kara in favor of Lena. “Is that true?”

“Yep,” Lena answered, popping the syllable a little. She needed Kara to stop fidgeting, except that it was… hilarious. Supergirl’s Identity Outed by 9-Year-Old Flower Girl. Lena had no plans on seeing that headline in the paper anytime soon.

“Is she tall? She looks tall on TV. Is she nice?” Carla sat up, focusing intently on Lena.

Lena chuckled, almost too amused by the situation. She put a finger to her lip, thinking in that exaggerated way people do while talking to children. Kara was wringing the tablecloth between her hands and Lena was almost sure she heard the linen rip.

“Well, we shared a glass of wine and I just found out Kara is Supergirl; and it’s only half past 2.” Lena quipped.

Eliza’s eyes went wide and she put a hand to her chest, clutching slightly.

“Kara is Supergirl?!” Eliza asked, incredulous and breathless, bracing herself against the countertop.

“Oh shit.” Lena felt her face heat up immediately and then Kara was bursting with laughter and Eliza’s face returned to a small, knowing smile, and Lena knew that she’d been had.

“Have you been sitting here waiting to make that joke?” Kara asked, halfway to crying from laughing so hard.

“Only a little,” Eliza said.

2. The Tinder AU

Swipe Right for a Super by eluigih ; @cheddarlight

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

5 Chapters, 13k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Lena Luthor matches with Supergirl on tinder and she’s convinced that she’s being catfished.

Lena decides to try tinder - just to relax. For fun...

Wonderful and hilariously bad Super pickup lines. Sweet and funny. Very well written. I enjoyed this story a lot.

Favorite Quote

She shudders when she stumbles across her secretary’s profile, swiping left as fast as humanly possible. As much as she considers Jess a valuable employee, perhaps the most loyal, she just can’t bring herself to go there. She needs someone forgettable, she needs a face she’s not going to see every morning as she walks to her office and Jess definitely doesn't fit the bill.

3. The One in Which Lena and Kara Meet Doing Charity Work in a Soup Kitchen

Charity by cautiouslyoptimistic ; @forlornlyoptimistic (deleted old link)

Charity by cautiouslyoptimistic (new link, reposted)

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapters, 6k words (completed)

Published: 2017

for someone so skeptical of others, lena can't seem to shake off the inconvenient way kara makes her feel or, lena finds her trust issues just don't extend to kara

A great, sweet and fluffy fic. Not very Supergirl centric.

4. The One with the Quickest Supergirl Reveal Ever

In Plain Sight by MsSirEy, sten06 ; @mssirey @stennnn06

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapters, 10k words (completed)

Published: 2017

What happens when Supergirl inadvertently blurts out her real name when first meeting the sister of Earth's most notorious alien hater? Fluff, friendship and deeper feelings, of course.

One of the least angsty Supergirl reveals. A well written, lovely and sweet story. I liked it a lot.

Favorite Quote

“Oh for Rao’s sake, Kara! What are we doing?” Lena exclaimed, her frustration bubbling to the surface before she could process it. Kara froze, her eyes wide, before a huge telling smile broke across her face.

“I….what did you just say?” Kara asked with a bemused expression.

“What are we doing?” Lena snapped, eyes flashing in a panic, desperate not to have to repeat herself. She didn’t think she had the words to explain this beyond vague intentions.

“No...I thought I heard…” Kara raised her eyebrows curiously. “Did you just say Rao?”

“Oh…” Lena bit her lip and paused. “Yeah, I guess I…. did…” She felt the blush creep along her cheeks as she processed what she had done. It was just another way Kara had crept into her life and made herself at home, and Lena hadn’t even noticed. She stifled a grin, before shaking her head. “Anyway, that’s not the point. Kara, seriously, what are we doing?”

C) Angstier / Angsty AUs

1. The one in which Kara fears that she has ruined the Danvers’ lives

And I'm waiting for the sun by ifyouresure ; @ifyouresure

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe); diverges from canon after 2x08

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapters, 24k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Kara doesn’t tell her about the hologram of Alura, about the spy beacon she keeps hidden in her night stand, perpetually glowing, waiting for the touch of its twin, but she says, “Sometimes, I talk to them. My mother and her sister – my aunt. Just about my day, my job, my friends and family. It’s ...” “Cathartic,” Lena supplies. Kara was going to say ‘comforting’, but doesn’t correct her. “Sometimes,” Lena whispers, “I talk to Lex.”

(Much later, Kara will think of Lex, still alive, sitting in maximum security, and wonder what Lena meant.) or A lot can happen in the space of a year; Kara and Lena know this better than most.

Apart from Kara and Lena moving from friends to lovers this story deals with several heavy themes: in particular loss and grief - and the meaning of family.

Lena is struggling with her, family which she had so desperately wanted to lover her, a brother and Mother who are trying to kill her and the obligation she feels to atone for their sins.

Kara who had already felt abandoned and now is deeply troubled after finding out that her father was responsible for the genocidal Medusa virus. In addition to the loss of her entire planet she feels the weight of being the last Kryptonian.

But most of all the central focus of the story is that Kara fears that she is responsible for ruining the Danver's lives. After she came back from earth one - where she found no Supergirl, no Kara, but a happy Danvers family (with Jeremiah alive) and an Alexandra Danvers who is living a normal and happy life as a doctor - without her - she fears that the Danvers and especially Alex would have been better off without her.

Considering all of these heavy themes, there are pretty undramatic Supergirl and Guardian reveals.

Despite these themes and a Kara who is a bit less of a ball of sunshine as she is portrayed in many other fics, for me this did not feel like an overly angsty fic. I enjoyed this well written fic.

Favorite Quote

“Lena said you and Maggie are sweet together, by the way,” Kara says. “I guess she could tell.”

Alex hums. “Funny, Maggie said the exact same thing about the two of you.”

Kara splutters incoherently.

“There isn’t a single person in this city whose life I haven’t disrupted simply by existing, by being who I am. Believe me,” and here Kara laughs a little, “believe me, I know. I’ve seen how their lives panned out when I wasn’t there to change them, I’ve seen how happy and fulfilled my foster family, my own sister, are without me.” Kara doesn’t explain how, and Lena doesn’t ask. “And I can only believe Krypton exploded with me on it, or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I’m still there, with my own family. Maybe I’m on Earth, ruining the lives of another.”

“They’re happier, for having you in their lives,” Lena says with conviction, leaning forward. Kara almost smiles.

“Tell me something,” Lena says, and Kara remembers the nightmares she had as a child, how Alex brought her back to Earth every time.

“Shrimp legs freak me out,” Kara says instantly, to a crazed little laugh from Lena. “I wanted to study astronomy once, when I was younger. I haven’t had a real conversation in my own language with another living person in years and, sometimes, I worry that I’ll ...” Kara doesn’t say anything for a time. “I paint portraits of home.”

2. The ultimate Mon-el hating fic

Lifestyle Choice by kellsbells

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

8 Chapters, 34k words (completed)

Published: 2018

Rating: Mature

Warning: Homophobia from a friend, Gaslighting, Emotional Abuse (read the intro and the full tags on AO3)

"I'm sorry, Kara. Are you implying that because I am attracted to women, that I deserve this kind of intrusive attention?" Lena asked, incredulous. Kara gaped at her for a moment. "No, but... I mean, you must be used to it, with your lifestyle and all?" Okay. This conversation was definitely over. Lena squeezed the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. Lifestyle?

From nowhere, Kara comes into Lena's office complaining about a magazine article which portrays the two women as a couple. Apparently her recently-returned boyfriend, 'Mike', is incensed at the implication and pushes Kara into talking to Lena about it. This leads to a rift between the two friends until some new information comes to light, changing both of their lives forever.

This is probably the ultimate Mon-El hating fic.

I am not really sure why I enjoyed this story, why I could not put it down. This story deals with a lot of topics and themes that I usually don’t like / enjoy reading about. But I think the way the author managed to achieve this is by stopping at the place, by moving on exactly the right moment. When more would have been too much (for me).

The conflict and rift between Lena and Kara is difficult to swallow, but the author pulls it of. Kara starts losing faith in Mon-el at the moment where it would have been intolerable had she stuck with him longer.

It is well written story. It is angsty and a bit dark, but I did not feel that it was that angsty. But do mind the trigger warnings.

Favorite Quotes

“Could I?” Lena asked, pointing at Kara’s stash of potstickers. She didn’t normally eat this much, but it had been a really long day. Kara handed them over absently, and Lena ate a few before she realised that Kara had just voluntarily given her potstickers. She was eating potstickers that Kara Danvers had given to her.

Kara nodded, head dropping, and then she left. Lena stared at the door for an eternity after Kara left, wondering how she was supposed to handle her own feelings for Kara along with the pain that Kara had caused her personally, and the shit that Mon-El seemed to be pulling. She was worried about Kara, worried about how much Kara could hurt her, and worried that Mon-El was going to completely destroy the sweet, caring person that Kara had always been.

D) Fake Dating / Fake Relationships

1. The Ultimate Fake Marriage / Witness Protection AU

I'm with you no matter what by spacemanearthgirl ; @spaceman-earthgirl

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

14 Chapters, 46k words (completed)

Published: 2018

"Lena’s life is threatened and the DEO urges her to go hide in a small town (in or out of the country) where the name Luthor won’t mean anything, and Kara of course goes with her bc that’s what (superhero) friends are for. So that’s how they end up fake married in a small town and fall in love for real. Or realize they’re already in love?"

Embedded into a few Lex is trying to kill Lena elements (nothing too graphic) this is a very light, fluffy and domestic story. Apart from the Lex pieces not a Supergirl centric fic. Winn arranging their fake identities as a married couple, including the rings.

This fic has everything: Witness protection / protective custody, fake marriage, friends to lovers. And my favorite trope: Kara listening for Lena's heartbeat. Bonus: Lena worrying that Kara might hear her heartbeat spike.

A wonderful, very well written story. Loved it. I especially loved the rings thing

Favorite Quote

Kara is well aware that this look usually works on Lena, it’s kind of embarrassing how easy one look from Kara can make her fold, make her change her mind about what takeout she wants or what movie they’re going to watch, but running is where she draws the line.

“That’s not going to work this time,” Lena says, reaching out and lightly tapping Kara’s cheek with her hand.

She watches Kara deflate in front of her, pout firmly set on her lips in a last ditch attempt at what Alex calls her “kicked puppy” look.

“Go have fun with the kids, I’ll watch you from here.”

Being alone doesn’t help, it only means the extra brain power she was using to look like she was listening to Jess can be used to think about Kara instead.

This is bad, her company is important to her and she’s not going to be able to get any work done until she talks to Kara.

2. The Fake Dating AU with a Dash of Amnesia

A fiancée for Christmas by kellsbells

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

11 Chapters, 44k words (completed)

Published: 2017-2018

Rating: Mature

Alex is, as always, being hounded by Eliza about Kara's life. In particular, her personal life. Alex blurts out a lie on a whim, pretending that Kara is engaged, and begs Kara to go along with the lie. Kara mentions the situation to her very platonic friend Lena Luthor, who offers to step in. Hijinks ensue. A gift for the lovely Ganewhoo.

Fake dating AU with a twist, little bit of unconventional amnesia (they sleep together relatively early - drunk - and Kara cannot remember because alien alcohol). There is a good bit of background Sanvers, also we see more of Alex than Maggie. Also nice Lena and Eliza bonding.

This is a well written story that I enjoyed. A it but not a lot of angst

Favorite Quotes

“I don’t think Lena is oblivious,” Maggie said, shaking her head. She turned to the side again, rubbing her lower abdomen. “Kara has no idea, but my god, the heart-eyes!”

“I know! Every time they do that staring thing, I get this urge to play spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven, you know? Like, wake up and smell the gay!” Alex said, snickering.

“I’m proud of you, Danvers,” Maggie said. “You’ve graduated from Lesbian Academy with top points in gaydar and detection of unresolved sexual tension.”

“You know, dear, I think we should bring back the practice of carrying handkerchiefs around. That way, I wouldn’t have to see you drooling like that over my daughter’s admittedly impressive musculature.”

“Oh my god,” Lena said, hiding her face in her scarf. Yes, she was wearing a scarf, and Kara was wearing a tiny two-piece bikini. “You are way too okay with embarrassing me, Eliza.”

E) Unconventional Families

1. The One in Which Instead of Mon-El a Small Girl Came to Earth in the Pod

Listen closely and the stars will sing by celaenos ; @banrions

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

14 Chapters, 119k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Lena casts her mind around for the last time she felt this unmoored, this off-balance, by a woman, and can't come up with anything. Kara Danvers is unlike anybody that Lena has ever met; the sweetest, bubbliest person Lena’s yet to come across, and simultaneously one of the saddest, who is probably lying to everyone that she meets. It’s an impossible contradiction to wrap your head around, and Lena should probably stop hiding in this bathroom and trying. (Or, Kara and Lena get parent-trapped into a relationship by a goofy little alien.)

As with any AU there is a "what if". What if Mon-El was so many things he was not on the show. An interesting character? A girl? What if instead of Mon-El we got a sweet nine year old girl in Season two?

Thankfully apart from the final showdown that takes some elements from season 2’s final episodes, there is little retelling of the show.

I love how Lena deals with her suspicions that there is something not quite right about Kara and Myka. The interaction / dynamic between Lena / Kara and Myka is wonderfully written, heartwarming and often funny. Their relationship develops so naturally and sweet.

There is a very nice Supergirl reveal and the story has a meaningful and satisfying end. There is nice background Sanvers and Alex plays a relatively big supporting role in this story. She is also written superbly and her interaction with Kara, Lena and Mayka add a lot to the perfection of the story. In fact there are some of my favorite Alex & Lena scenes outside of Alena/AgentCorp fics.

This is a wonderful, long and very well written story that I loved. The relationship between Kara and Myka and food plays a central part in the story and it is very cute.

The author has already used by favorite quote in the "official" summary (above) but I have one more to share:

“We should have ice cream for breakfast.”

“No,” she laughs, reaching for her phone. “We should not.”

“Kara will say yes if you ask her,” Myka whispers, looking over and realizing that Alex and Maggie are still asleep.

“Kara, is not a good role model to base your relationship with food after,” Lena counters.

2. The One about Wishes Coming True, with a Dash of Groundhog Day

The Fifth Wall by Black_Tea_and_Bones ; @blackteaandbones

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

28 Chapters, 109k words (completed)

Published: 2017-2018

Rating: Mature

Kara goes to bed with Mon-El, and wakes up with Lena Luthor.

But it isn't Kara’s bed, and they’re not in Lena’s apartment, and that is definitely not their baby... Right?

What if your wishes come true? Even wishes you had never spoken, not even admitted to yourself? What if powers beyond Kara and Lena‘s comprehension had conspired to push them together, to literally marry their fates together. And to throw in a little girl for good measure, a girl that is apparently their daughter. But all of this can’t be real, or can it?

There is a suspense arc that concludes satisfactory, some canon compliant violence and a bit of angst, but overwhelmingly this is a beautiful love story and a kid fic.

We slowly see Kara and Lena’s relationship developing I loved every minute of it. This is an epic and beautiful story that is very well written.

While Mon-El is mentioned in the author blurb, thankfully he plays practically no role in the story: he has only one or two scenes (in one of which we get a good laugh on his expense).

While there are a few scenes with the Superfriends, this is a very Lena and Kara centric fic.

Favorite Quotes

Lena shrugged. “Well, I may not have much experience with children, but toast and juice are well within my capabilities. Though I have to ask... What are sucks, and why aren’t we having any of them?”

Kara took a minute to catch up. “Oh, socks.” She snorted. “She refused to wear any.”

“Stubborn,” Lena noted with a smirk. “I wonder who she gets that from?”

She was alone.

Any lingering doubts Lena may have had about how little she actually wanted her old life back died a sudden and inevitable death in that moment.

It wasn’t the worst thirty seconds of her life, but it was close.

That was about how long it took her to realize she was overreacting. Nothing had changed. She was still in their bed, in their bedroom, in their apartment. The half-empty glass of water Kara had left on her bedside table last night was still there, and when Lena sat up she saw Kara’s pyjamas hanging over the side of the laundry basket. The only thing missing was Kara herself.

F) AUs in Which Lena Is Tempted by the Dark Side

1. The Evil Overlord List AU

Lena Luthor, Evil Overlord by Rhino (RhinoMouse)

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe); sort of but not really evil!Lena

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

10 Chapters, 23k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Warning: read the author’s intro

Somebody has to take out the trash and Lena decides it might as well be her. If the hero's won't do what needs to be done she will, after all she is a Luthor. And if turning to the dark side involves separating Kara from her douche of a boyfriend? Well that's just a happy coincidence. But if she's going to be evil she's going to do it right by following some simple rules. No insane laughter and impractical super weapons for her. No she's going to avoid the pitfalls of lesser villains and she'll do it with style.

This AU is a bit different than most SuperCorp AUs. It features a slightly alternate Lena that is written very believably. Jess is done well and gets a slightly larger role than in most fic.

A well written and funny AU that I enjoyed. It is probably more a comedy than it is a SuperCorp romance story.

Note: If you do not know about the Evil Overlord list, then look here. Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes

“But Lena’s never cared about her safety and suddenly she does?! And what if she gets hurt!” Kara protested.

Alex held up her hand. “You think Lena might be going evil and your concern is that she might get hurt?” She stared at her sister incredulously.

“Well obviously she could never be properly evil, it’s Lena. But what if she tries to become a megalomaniac like her family?” Kara pointed out. She put her hands on her hips, she needed to protect her friend and they just weren’t getting how serious this was. “Her latest project is laser attachments for sharks!”

2. The One in Which Lena Is an Art Thief

The Birth of Venus by lostariels ; @lostariels

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe); sort of but not really evil!Lena

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

3 Chapters, 13k words (completed)

Published: 2017-2018

When Supergirl finds herself in Italy after an earthquake, Kara decides to take a detour to Florence to see the famous painting the 'Birth of Venus', before returning to National City. At the Uffizi Gallery, she catches the eye of another visitor at the gallery, a fellow art lover who's at the gallery for more than just looking. The next morning the Birth of Venus is reported to have been stolen, and no one knows who took it, until over a year later when Kara finds out why her girlfriend just so happened to be at the gallery that day.

What if Kara (who is Supergirl) falls in love with a Lena who is an art thief? This is a very interesting take how Kara deals with the fact that her girlfriend is a criminal. Not (really) Evil!Lena, but rather a lover and thief of rare paintings.

With this theme it could have easily been an angsty fic, it is not. It is a well written AU that I enjoyed.

3. The One in Which Originally Lena Is Willing to Help Lex and Lilian

Real by cautiouslyoptimistic ; @forlornlyoptimistic (deleted old link)

real by cautiouslyoptimistic (new link, reposted)

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapter, 10k words (completed)

Published: 2017

lex and lillian recruit lena in their plot to end the supers, but lena finds herself more preoccupied with kara's smile than she is with her family's plans or, lena falls in love with the one person she wasn't supposed to

At first Lena is willing to help Lex and her mother, after all this is how she was raised. Lena's struggle between supporting her families' plan and falling in love with Kara is a different take on SuperCorp but done very believable.

An excellent story that I liked a lot. Very well written from Lena's POV

G) Stories in Which One of Them Dies (Most have a Happy Ending)

1. The Brilliant Fic in Which Lena Dies - a Lot

Lena dies on a wednesday by karalovesallthegirls ; @karalovesallthegirls

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe), angst with happy ending

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapters, 18k words (completed)

Published: 2018

Rating: Mature

Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Lena is trapped in a loop, reliving the day she dies over and over again. She just doesn’t know it.

Yes, there is angst and suffering, but considering that Lena dies many times in this fic it is not super angsty and this is not primarily an angsty fic.

There is a unique blend of angst, drama, romance and humor: The author manages to put all of this together brilliantly and on top of that a somewhat absurd and crazy plot that is consistent and polished.

It somewhat reminds me of Groundhog Day and the brilliant Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Cause and Effect, but with substantially more punch - there is quite a difference form seeing a ship explode and experiencing Lena’s death several times from her own point of view.

Brilliant and beautifully written, fast paced, concise and polished. There is nothing that could be cut away. It’s a full novel plot in less than 20k words. Amazing - one of my favorites. I knew there would be happy ending, but otherwise I never expected where the plot was going, got surprised again and again.

Favorite Quote

The only word to describe the look Kara gives her at that is ‘devastation’.

“I’ve watched you die a hundred times, Lena,” she whispers.

Lena can practically see the weight of guilt pressing down on her dearest friend.

“Is that why you wanted us to run away?” she asks, instantly struck by the horror at what she might have done before on those other Wednesdays.

2. The One in Which Lena Does Not Actually Die (but Has Powers)

Destruction (sometimes means rebirth) by BloodInTheFields ; @blood-inthefields

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe); Lena has powers; Angst with happy ending

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

20 Chapters, 36k words (completed)

Published: 2016-2017

There’s not much that she can do. The heat, she doesn’t feel. She walks through the flames and uses her x-ray vision to spot any survivor, but there’s nothing. Only devastation. or, in which Kara loses Lena, but does she really?

Lena is presumed dead after a bombing of LCorp tower and Supergirl couldn’t save her.

There are angsty chapters, miserable Kara is done very well and I really felt with her pain and grief. There are some very nice, romantic and fluffy chapters at the end - and also some funny scenes.

I was a bit worried that Lena's abilities were too much and made her overpowered, but the author handled it well. I enjoyed this well written story a lot.

Favorite Quotes (spoiler: Lena is not a shape shifter)

“What the hell is going on? Who is this,” Alex hisses, pointing toward the bedroom door that Kara has closed behind them.

“This is Lena Luthor, Alex. You’ve seen her before,” Kara deadpans, arms crossed against her chest.

Kara, where did you find the shape-shifter? This isn’t healthy for you! I didn’t even know you were into Lena Luthor like that!”

3. The Really Sad Reverse Black Mercy Fic in Which Kara Grieves for Lena

I Blame Myself by Chazene

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapters, 5k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Rating: Mature

Warning: fake suicide

Kara goes through trauma like no other.

Kara is grieving for Lena in a kind of reverse black mercy.

This is a very sad and angsty, beautiful and powerful story - with happy ending. A well written short one from Kara's POV.

4. The Really Sad Fic (with Happy Ending) in Which Lena Grieves for Kara

Fallen Hero by Chazene

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp) (f/f)

1 Chapter, 13k words (completed)

Published: 2017

Rating: Mature

Warning: Major Character Death

Lena goes through tragedy, one she'd never thought she'd experience.

Lena is grieving and coping with Kara's death. A sad, well written and angsty story - ultimately with happy ending.

5. The brilliantly sad fic about love, living and dying

remember me, and let the love we have live on by civilorange ; @civilorange

Setting: Supergirl TV 2015 (DCU), AU (Alternate Universe)

Relationship: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supercorp); background Kara Danvers/Cat Grant (SuperCat) (f/f)

1 Chapter, 9k words (completed)

Published: 2018

Rating: Mature

Warning: Major Character Death

You close your eyes and pretend it’s tomorrow. “Promise me you’ll be okay?” “Aren’t I always?” There's nothing glad about it, nothing happy. // or: Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor through the years.

This fic is basically Lena’s life in 9 k words and it will probably make you cry - It is amazing that one of the shortest stories has the broadest scope. This story also deals with the fact that as Kryptonians live very long, Kara will outlive her lovers.

There is SuperCat in this fic, but as the fic is told exclusively from Lena's POV we do not really see it.

There are two things that I usually not that fond of in stories: second person narrator and Major Character Death. But this is a brilliant, very well written story that won me over. Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes

“Telling you I’m Supergirl isn’t—it isn’t just telling you I’m Supergirl. It’s telling you I’m Kara Zor El, it’s telling you I’m the last of my kind because my cousin doesn’t even remember Krypton, it’s—it’s—I liked being just-Kara around you.” She’s crying—but not—they’re in the lashes of her blue, blue eyes and you don’t know how you never noticed that they’re the exact same shade. Blue, on blue, on blue—with a little bit of stardust in the black of her pupil.

You’re angry, you are, but you like being just-Lena around her, too. You like pretending that you don’t go see your brother every Thursday, you don’t like reading every death threat sent to you in the mail—you don’t like being an idea before you’re a person. You’re angry, but you understand.

“You don’t beat time, sweetheart,” you tried, damn did you try, but there was only so much your human body would allow. “But we had a run, didn’t we?”

Ninety years together in one way or another—forty more than you probably should have had, but you are Lena Luthor after all. Reality was fifty percent what you made it. Ninety years, sixteen planets, three universes, and a pretty epic story—if you do say so yourself.

You have reached the end of part 2, but Lena and Kara will return in Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 3 - Different Realities: of No Powers, One Night Stands and Friends with Benefits (I will include a link once it is published).

updated links in April 2020 for re-uploaded fics by cautiouslyoptimistic

If you liked this, you might enjoy more of my SuperCorp / Supergirl femslash fanfic recs:

9 Great and Long Kara / Lena Fics - SuperCorp

10 More Great and Long Kara / Lena Fics (SuperCorp)

Supercorp AU Fic Recs Part 1 - Distorted Realities: of Time Travel, Amnesia and Black Mercies

Or all of them

or my fic recs only sideblog @femslashhistorianficrecs

#supercorp #supercorp fic rec #supercorp fanfiction #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl femslash #dcu femslash #fanfiction recommendation #fanfic rec

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