#'sorry i was gone i have to write an essay to get into a science program for school' ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh I cannot stay here oh jesus christ

[seithr]

Accidentally clicking the wrong part of a page during a wiki dive of a series I loved when I was younger, and being sent back in time and space as I see people organizing massive closed rp roleplay families events [PINGLIST FULL], posting fursona redesigns, fursona vent gore, colouring in bases for ocs and coming out as gay to each other all in the same feed for a series that, i promise, does not involve any of these . Not even the gay part. Someone is posting splatoon yuri. Where the fuck am i

[heliads]

sorry to send in two requests but if you've got the time Luke Patterson x reader where she is his tutor for English or something and he develops a crush, so even when he understands the stuff she's teaching him he pretends to be confused so that the tutoring sessions last longer. And then one day he gets a good grade and she's proud of him but that means the sessions are over so he builds up the courage to ask her out? You can put this at the bottom of the list or not even write it because I know how swamped your requests get, but ily.

do not apologize for two requests!! my blog exists for you!! and jatp s2 may be dead but my feelings for that show are not. xoxo

masterlist

Luke Patterson is currently fighting a one-man war against his English class, and he is losing. Badly. This was not supposed to be his problem class, he was thinking the biggest struggle would be math or science, but surprise surprise, there’s no such thing as a class you can just skate through. He tried to skate through English. He tried really, really hard, but instead of Spark Notes-ing his way through whatever classic book they threw his way, Luke’s staring at a bright red D on his latest essay.

This would happen to be the most recent essay they were assigned, the one Luke pushed off until the last minute because he was too invested in getting some good songs down on paper. He hadn’t meant to procrastinate, he never does, it’s just that whenever Luke had a spare hour or two, it’s always far more tempting to head out to the studio and mess around with some chord progressions than to do homework.

This essay had gone just like all the other ones so far this year. The book had been assigned, the essay followed not soon after, and Luke told himself that he was going to start it on time for a change. The only problem was that he came home late that day after a shift at his job, so he couldn’t start it that day, and then he was studying for a test the next day, and after that he was working on songs. Before he knew it, it was the night before and he was speed writing to get everything down in time. Luke doesn’t even think he had time to proofread before turning in that mess.

So yeah, he shouldn’t really be surprised about this grade in particular. Still, he isn’t pleased about it. He doesn’t want to see the look on his parents’ face when he dodges another question about his grades, nor listen to all the other kids in his class talk about how easy that essay prompt was. Everything just makes him feel worse.

And, if Luke’s day couldn’t get any better, his English teacher pulls him aside after class to talk about it.

“I noticed your last few assignments haven’t been going as expected,” she says sympathetically, “is there anything you want to tell me about that?”

There’s a lot Luke wants to tell her, such as the fact that this class is dry as a saltine and twice as bland. They’ve spent the last few classes just going over social hierarchies around the time when the book was written, talk about boring. If Luke wanted to study history, he’d read a textbook.

He can’t say all that without damaging his final grade even more, though, so Luke plasters on a grin and does his best impression of an earnest student who’s just had a bad string of luck. “Not really, I’ve just been so busy recently that I didn’t have enough time to really ponder the prompt, you know?”

Usually, this is Luke’s best strategy for getting out of these kinds of nonsense conferences. He’ll whip out a few key words like ‘time commitments’ and whatnot and his teachers will fall for it every time.

He might have done this too often, though, because his teacher just nods and refuses to let him go. “That makes sense to me. Do you think it would help to spend a little more time exploring the prompt or connecting the book to the essay topics?”

“Sure,” Luke says vaguely. He’s only half paying attention; he just saw Reggie outside the door mouthing the words what did you do?? as dramatically as he could.

The teacher looks pleased by this. “That’s what I thought. I’ve gone ahead and signed you up for some tutoring sessions, you’ll start this afternoon after school.”

Luke blinks. “Wait, what?” Clearly, he hasn’t been paying attention nearly enough. Since when was tutoring on the table?

The teacher spreads her hands. “You need a little more help and organization to stay on track. Tutoring is the perfect answer to this.”

“Is it?” Luke asks feebly.

“Absolutely,” the teacher decides, and that’s that. Luke tries to wheedle his way out of it through repetition of how busy he is, like, all the time, but it doesn’t matter. She’s caught him in a half-lie and there’s nothing he can do to avoid it.

Reggie’s waiting for Luke outside the door when he finally leaves. “What happened in there?”

“Pure misery,” Luke groans, and contemplates giving himself a concussion by ‘accidentally’ falling down the stairs so he can go home without having to go to tutoring.

Unfortunately, Reggie enlists Alex in keeping Luke free of head trauma, and so he finds himself in an empty classroom later that afternoon, mournfully watching all of the other students leave the school with no doubt wonderful plans awaiting them.

Luke’s just starting to wonder if his tutor isn’t going to show up after all (after fifteen minutes, he’s legally allowed to leave, right) when someone slides into the seat in front of him.

“Sorry about being late,” they gasp, “I just found out I was doing this like ten minutes ago.”

Luke breaks his desolate stare out the window to glance at his tutor and instantly, he feels the crushing weight of shame bear down on him tenfold. It would have been one thing to have a total stranger be his tutor, someone Luke could avoid looking at in the hallways and never speak to again, but he knows this girl. More importantly, he’s thought she was cute for at least the last four years.

This is the worst case scenario, then. Y/N L/N is smart, she’s pretty, and judging by the fact that Luke always sees her in a group of friends laughing at her jokes, she’s funny, too. Definitely someone Luke would want to impress through gigs or shows instead of, say, his crumbling English grades.

“I’m Y/N,” she says, and Luke realizes that she’s probably been waiting for him to say something. Great, he can’t even introduce himself properly.

“Luke,” he answers, “but you probably knew that already.”

Y/N laughs, and judging by the slightly manic tone behind it, she’s just about as composed about the whole thing as he is. That makes him settle slightly in his chair, lowering his guard. “I was told that I would be tutoring you when I was trying to leave class. Ms. Brown pulled me aside when the bell rang and told me about it.”

“That makes two of us,” Luke grumbles.

The corners of Y/N’s lips quirk up before she manages to tamp them down again, and if Luke weren’t totally out of his mind, he might even say that Y/N has the same attitude towards their English teacher as he does. That would certainly make this whole tutoring experience a lot more interesting.

“So,” she says, clearing her throat in an attempt to sound official, “you wanted to talk about essay pointers, right?”

Luke starts to say something about how he didn’t want any of this, actually, but Y/N arches a brow and he relents. “Yeah, essay stuff. The last one didn’t go over too hot.”

Y/N tilts her head to the side, contemplating this. “Did you agree with her grading?”

“Yeah,” Luke admits, “she wasn’t wrong to mark me down, I kind of did it the night before in one sitting.”

Y/N frowns. “Really? Why’d you put it off so long? I thought you liked writing. Whenever I see you, you’re always jotting something down in that notebook of yours.”

Luke grins. “You’ve been watching me? That’s creepy, you know.” He’s obviously holding back a laugh, though, so the comment has no trace of a barb.

Y/N rolls her eyes, although her face looks a little hot at the moment. “Just answer the question.”

“Alright,” he says, hands raised in mock surrender, “you’re right, I do like writing.”

“Then why wait until the last minute to do the essay? I mean, I get not having a ton of time to work on assignments, but if you really do enjoy writing, it shouldn’t be all that bad, right?”

Luke groans. “ This is different. It’s not fun writing,” he tries to excuse himself.

It sounds bad even to him. Already, Luke can see how this is going to play out– she’ll laugh at him, maybe, say that someone who just got a grade like him can’t possibly be thinking about writing and fun in any way at all. She doesn’t, though. Instead, she nods and smiles at him. A real smile. Not mocking in any way.

“What is fun writing, then?” She asks.

Luke blinks in surprise. “Well, writing songs is fun, I guess,” he stammers, “stuff that actually matters, you know? All these essays are the exact same, but songs are all different. That’s why I care about them and not some pointless paper.”

Y/N nods. “That makes sense to me. So you release music, right?”

Luke isn’t sure where she’s going with this, but he’s perfectly happy to talk about music instead of that offensive red scribble all over his paper, so he plays along. “Yeah, me and my band. We try to, at least.”

“Have you ever gotten a review that bothered you? Not because they didn’t like it, but because they disliked your songs for the wrong reason? Like you had a whole story in mind for your album but the critics just ignored it?” She prompts him.

“Yeah,” Luke says, eyes widening with irritation, “Man, it’s so annoying. You go to all the trouble of writing out these ideas, and you make them have a really good meaning, too, and then it’s like they never read it at all. It makes me so mad sometimes, I want to write a column or something in response about how they totally missed my point.”

“Like, say, an argumentative essay about the real strengths of your chosen piece of writing?” Y/N says as casually as she can.

Luke’s about to argue and say that’s not like this at all, but on second thought, it is. It totally is. “Wait, you’re right. I never thought about it like that, but you’re right. Y/N L/N,” he decides on the spot, “I really like you.”

She grins back at him. “Luke Patterson, I like you too.”

That settles it for him. Luke had been annoyed at the thought of having to suffer through tutoring beforehand, but maybe he’ll be alright with it now. Y/N isn’t a part of the oppressive legion of teachers all conniving to make his life a living hell because he wants to be a musician instead of a doctor or a banker, she’s on his side. That makes it all better somehow.

And, unsurprisingly, it is better. Luke actually ends up having a really good time in his tutoring sessions with Y/N. They don’t feel like tutoring at all, more like a chance to hang out with a friend. They talk about Jane Austen and tell awesome jokes, read Shakespeare and spend more and more time together. Luke knows this is only a temporary thing until his grades get back up, but it’s too easy to forget that.

Until, one day, it isn’t. His English teacher hands back an essay with a bright red ‘A’ marked on the front, and tells him that she’s proud of all the progress he’s made so quickly. Instead of a sigh of relief, the only thing escaping Luke’s lips is a desolate sigh. After all, if Luke’s improved to this point, that kind of means his tutoring sessions will be over, right?

Y/N doesn’t know that, though. Y/N doesn’t have access to his grades. All she knows is what Luke tells her, and if informing her of his latest essay win means she’ll stop seeing him after school, why should Luke let slip a single syllable?

So, later that day, when Y/N asks him how the latest essay went, Luke shrugs and pretends to be disappointed. “I’d hoped for more,” he says, “she, uh, didn’t like my commentary.”

“Really?” Y/N questions, frowning slightly, “I thought you were really good at that.”

Luke’s eyes widen, caught in a lie. “Who knows with teachers, right?” He laughs weakly.

Y/N pretends to shudder. “I know, right? I feel like half of your grade is literally just how much she likes you. English classes are always so subjective.”

“Subjective?” Luke asks, grinning and propping his chin up on his hand, “Tell me about that.”

Y/N laughs. “Only if you promise we’ll talk Jane Eyre immediately afterwards. Immediately.”

“I so swear,” Luke intones, holding up his right hand with all the solemnity of a president being sworn into office.

Y/N swats him on the shoulder with her notebook, but she obliges, and maybe they don’t talk about Jane immediately. Maybe they laugh a little longer than usual. And maybe, just maybe, Luke thinks that he’s perfectly fine with obscuring the truth if it means he can have more of this when he needs it the most.

The truth, unfortunately, has a habit of making itself heard regardless of who is inclined to hide it. Luke comes into their usual study spot in the library one day to see Y/N waiting for him, not already in her seat like normal but standing tentatively at the side.

He frowns, slinging his backpack down on the ground and pulling up a chair. “Everything alright? You look like you’re about to run. If you’ve got something planned, we can do this another day.”

Y/N shakes her head slightly. “No, I’m free all day.”

Luke gestures towards the table. “Then sit down, my legs are getting tired just looking at you. We’ve got stuff to study, don’t we?”

“Well, that’s what I was going to ask about,” Y/N says, “Ms. Brown stopped me after class today, said she had someone else she wanted me to tutor. I said I was already booked with you and she was confused. Apparently you’ve been doing just fine for quite some time.”

Luke feels his breath catch in his throat. This is not how he’d wanted Y/N to find out. For what must be the hundredth time this year, Luke sends out a silent curse to all meddlesome English teachers.

“Yeah,” he says as carefully as he can, “I have, but only because of your expert tutoring. It’s like antibiotics, you know? You don’t stop taking ‘em when you start feeling better, only when the prescription is over.”

Y/N blinks at him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

He runs a hand through his hair, trying not to feel like everything is slipping out of control in an instant. “It was a simile, sorry. A bad one. All I mean is that we don’t have to stop this just because I got a good grade or two.”

Y/N almost looks like she’s smiling, but that could just be Luke being delusional. “I thought you didn’t want to do tutoring.”

“I didn’t at the start, but you’re different. We’re cool. We are cool, right?” Luke starts rambling more and more with each passing second, but he can’t help it. He’s overthinking everything. What if he’s literally just been a tutee this whole time, and she doesn’t think they’re friends at all?

Y/N stares at him a second longer, then takes a seat at last. “Luke Patterson, are you telling me that you like my company so much that you’re willing to keep going to extra English practice just to see me?”

Luke can feel his face heating up, but he does his best to ignore it. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds–” He still has a little bit of self control left, so he cuts himself off before he can make a truly terrible mistake.

Y/N catches him, though. “It sounds like what?”

“It sounds like I like you,” he admits, and Y/N’s smiling at him, so he decides to take the leap of faith and just do what he’s been wanting to do for quite some time. Since the start of this, actually. “And I do like you. I like you a lot. I might not need the tutoring anymore, but that doesn’t mean I want to stop seeing you. So what if we met up sometime soon? Not for English, for us.”

Luke decides that he likes Y/N’s smile more than anything. “Are you asking me out?” She says.

“I am,” he affirms. “Are you saying yes?”

“I am,” she repeats.

Suddenly, Luke feels like the luckiest kid of all. Maybe he does have to throw in a good word or two for meddlesome English teachers after all. Sometimes they have a way of connecting you with the best people in the world.

requested by @thatfangirl42, i hope you enjoy!

jatp tag list: @rogueanschel, @retvenkos, @callsign-scully, @lovesanimals0000, @amortensie

[jimblejamblewritings]

Delay in the next part of Love Letters and Second Sons

Sorry y'all, I am writing what I feel is a very important essay on the Israel-Palestine War and the facts that get bombarded by misinformation. This essay actually starts with Homo erectus which is before homo sapiens and goes into modern day so it is taking a while to get it done.

Because of that I can only dedicate about an hour or two hours to fic writing so please bear with me until it is done.

My name will be on it so I don't know if I'm gonna send it here and basically out myself permanently since it'll be on forever but know that I'm sending it to as many public figures and just anyone I can. Thanks for being patient.

Edit: I suppose y’all want to know my stance. Well I am Jewish but support Palestine. I’m not pro anything because at the end of the the history proves both groups existed in the land but what I am is saying that the government of Israel is wrong, they are committing a genocide. And if they actually looked at their history and science then they would know that the borders of Palestine are from half of Tel Aviv down to Gaza and from the coast across to Tel-es Safi. They have gone way past their ancestral homeland and border. It’s a shame and disgusting to carry out this injustice in people but especially on the children of Palestine who are completely innocent no matter what you want to say about the adults. I would happy to talk more with you about this if you would like but that is where I stand.

— Jimble Jamble

[theresawritesstuff]

12. It was perfectly normal to discuss a book they see at the bookstore with their friends, but it's definitely not normal to suddenly be interrupted by the author of said book

New York, 1973

"Okay girls, we've hit the modern stuff. Go nuts! Books are on me," Midge told the band of teenagers.

"Thanks for taking us shopping, Mama," Esther said, browsing through the biographies.

"Of course, sweetie! Always happy to help. Especially when it means dishing on backstage gossip in the name of academics."

"I still don't see why we can't do our report on you, Ms. Weissman," Audrey sighed.

Midge bit back a smile as Esther rolled her eyes. "Sorry, hun. I've been banned from any school related interviews. Esther and Ethan both agreed. I'm happy to pull favors with anyone I know who you might be interested in writing about though."

She heard her daughter make a sound of disgust as she pulled a book from the shelf. "Why did someone let Gordon Ford write a book? He doesn't even write his own show."

"He doesn't?" her friend Vivian wondered through her bubblegum.

"Most of these celebrity authors have ghost writers helping them," Midge informed her gently.

Vivian clicked her gum disapprovingly. "Well that's bogus."

"Yeah. If I have to write my own essays, so should they," Audrey agreed. "They're even getting paid for it!"

Midge chuckled. "That's the business kid."

"Here's someone who we know actually did the work at least."

Esther picked up a copy of a new book from the display table bearing a familiar face.

Vivian let out a giggle. "Oh my mom has the biggest crush on him!"

"Really?" Audrey wondered incredulously.

"What? He's cute in an older guy kind of way. Don't you think he's cute Ms Weissman?"

"I'd also be curious to hear the answer to that question."

They all turned to stare at the man in question smirking behind them as he leaned against a bookshelf.

"Not as cute as he thinks he is, but sure," Midge replied.

Lenny chuckled, coving his mouth with his hand just like he was always wont to do. "I'll take it."

*Hi Lenny."

"Hey Midge."

It had been so long since they'd last spoken, yet seeing him like this again made it feel like it had been no time at all. 

Her heart certainly flipped just the same.

"You look good," she commented casually.

He certainly looked healthier. Steadier. His eyes were brighter. Like a light that had been going out had been reignited.

He looked more like the Lenny she knew. The Lenny that lived in her memories.

It was a good look.

Lenny shrugged. "For an older guy."

"Oh my god," Vivian gawped, realizing who had overheard their conversation.

Esther looked between the two adults and began to steer her starstruck friends away, giving them some space to talk. "Hey let's go check the science fiction section and see if they've got any Ray Bradbury books on sale."

"Why?" Vivian wondered.

Audrey, catching the vibe, gave her a pointed look.

"Oh. Oooohhhh. Right."

Esther handed the copy of his memoir to her mother as they passed. "We'll just be back there, Mama. Nice seeing you, Lenny."

"You too, Esther," Lenny murmured, giving her a little wave.

With the teenage trio gone, the tension between them grew palpable, hanging in the silence.

"It is a nice picture," Midge said, noting the author's photo.

Lenny smiled softly. "Thanks. Kitty actually took it."

"She's got a gift."

"I certainly think so. Given what she had to work with."

Midge didn't take the bait to compliment him further.

"Esther's grown a lot since I've seen her last," He commented softly, sounding a bit melancholy.

She nodded in agreement.

"She really shot up last summer. Growing like a weed, that one."

"They always do, don't they?"

The conversation lulled again, but they held the other's gaze intently, that unspoken electricity still sparking between them.

Some things never change…

"How are you?" she asked genuinely after a moment.

He nodded, stuffing his hands in his pockers. "Good. I'm good. Doing a lot better. Here for a book tour."

"Oh well in that case, would you sign mine?" she teased lightly.

"Love to."

He stepped in closer to take the book from her hand, his fingers brushing hers on the pass.

"So, Ms Weissman…" he drawled, clicking his pen to scribble that illegible signature he was so proud of. "You didn't take the new husband's name? I saw the announcement you were engaged in the tabloids a while back."

Midge bit her lip, avoiding his eyes.

"Yeah I um… didn't go through with it after all."

"Why's that?" he asked, handing the book back but still hovering in her atmosphere.

"I just realized he didn't make me laugh as much as I would have liked," she answered.

"Hm."

She cleared her throat, brightening her expression. "Thanks. For the book. Can't wait to read it."

"Sure."

"Nice seeing you, Lenny."

"You too."

She turned to leave but heard him say 

"Are you doing anything later?"

She turned back, tilting her head coyly.

"Maybe. What did you have in mind?"

He gave her a hesitant shrug. "Just thought we could catch up a bit."

A part of her wanted to run. To hide from the pain of the past and let things be behind them.

But that part wasn't nearly as strong as the parts of her that missed him.

"I'd like that…"

[rwprincess]

Midnight Sun'd Prologue (Brian Johnson x Fem!Reader)

Masterlist

Word Count: 10.5K (She like...20 pages long. Sorry).

Synopsis: My movie/Canon Prologue, but from Brian’s POV. That’s right, I’m Midnight Sun-ing this b*tch.

CW: Underage marijuana smoking, suicidal ideation, self-deprecating thoughts/self-doubt, low self-esteem, swearing, child abuse, parents being terrible, sexuality (since this is based on the movie, nothing is really outside the scope of the movie in terms of content).

Saturday, March 24th, 1984

Shermer High School, Shermer Illinois

Brian knew why he was here. In fact, he thanked his lucky stars that Saturday school, or detention, rather, had been his punishment. If this hadn’t been an extremely out-of-character first offense for him, he surely would have been suspended, or even expelled. His family had made their disappointment clear, especially when his mother told him to find a way to study and make amends today, even if he was asked to just sit in a room with strangers and reflect on what he did. When he arrived in the library, he was surprised to see Claire Standish already sitting there. She, of course, did not look up or make eye contact with him, but he chose to sit at the table behind her nonetheless. Before he could gather the courage to ask her what a popular, polished girl like herself could possibly be doing here, another two figures approached the doorway. Andrew Clark’s large, stocky frame loomed there for a moment before excitedly spying Claire. Again, no attempt was made to include Brian; he was practically invisible at this school, which was a big part of his underlying problems and self esteem here at Shermer High. It wasn’t so much that Brian wanted or needed popular people like Claire or Andrew to notice him. He didn’t really look up to them or desire their attention. It was just that, sometimes, it felt like everyone looked through him, as though he wasn’t even there. Adults acknowledged him, sure. He was polite and an overachiever, the perfect student. But his peers didn’t take much stock in him. He had a few loyal, true friends, but rarely did anyone outside of his particular interest groups reach out to him.

As Brian settled into a seat behind Claire, he took note of the second figure who had entered, the one who came in shortly after Andrew. It was her. Brian had to restrain himself from gawking when she entered the library, as she was one of the absolute last people he could ever picture earning a detention. Brian knew her from his English class last year; he had been stunned by her beauty the moment she entered the room that first day of high school and felt the same nervous, heart-pounding sensation he felt now, seeing her enter the library. He lamentably had zero classes with her this year, but he would see her in the hallways sometimes and that old familiar feeling would come rushing back to him, reminding him of the crush he had on her all last year. Back then, he had sat behind her, across the room and would catch himself staring at her or admiring her answers and volunteered opinions. His strong suit was in the more concrete subjects: science, math, that sort of thing. So the insightful analyses she would give always impressed him, and through them he got the sense that she was smart but also kind. This was precisely why he was shocked to see her here now, having earned the same consequence he had for bringing a weapon into school. But he couldn’t imagine her doing anything like that, anything to warrant this. He not-so-discreetly watched her as she hurried across the room and took a seat in the front row opposite to him. She, like Claire and Andrew, had not made eye contact or acknowledged him. Her seeing right through him hurt more, though.

Brian had sat down, but had not quite unpacked as he was still reeling from the revelation of Y/N being in the same detention as him, and that meant he would be in the same room as her for nine hours. He hadn’t even noticed John Bender stalk into the library, surveying the landscape that he was clearly king of. That is, until Bender stopped in front of him and snapped his fingers to get his attention and indicated for him to move out of his seat. Even if Brian weren’t the type to try to accommodate someone, a people pleaser, he would have followed John Bender’s instructions. Everyone in school knew of his reputation, and while some things were probably a lie (like throwing flaming toilet paper over Mrs. Applebaum’s house), some were definitely true, including his penchant for getting into fights. Brian had never had to fight someone before and he was pretty sure he lacked the capability to do so. Simply put: he would get his ass kicked. So he got up immediately and moved to the next seat over...right behind Y/N. He noticed that she stiffened, sat up straighter, as he slid into the seat behind her. So she had noticed his existence. But from her body language, he assumed that she didn’t particularly enjoy his presence. ‘Great. Perfect way to start this whole shitty day,’ he thought. At one point, Brian would have fancied himself an optimist, but lately that attitude was all but gone...not that his current situation helped much.

He also noticed the girl with black clothes, heavy makeup, and messy hair quickly walk along the outside of the tables and sit behind him, facing away from not only himself, but the entire group. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, ‘Should be an interesting time,’ he thought while taking stock of her, Bender, the populars, and...Y/N. It still puzzled him that she could be here. Bender made total sense. Everyone knew that he practically lived here in detention. Based on how she looked and seemed to make herself comfortable, Brian guessed that the girl behind him also was a regular here. While he didn’t exactly expect Claire or Andy to be here, he wasn’t hugely shocked by it. Claire probably skipped school or was rude to a teacher or something and Andrew was an asshole anyway. He fit into the jock stereotype pretty well, all brawn and no brains, picking on those that he saw as weaker than him. Maybe that’s why he was here.

Vice Principal Vernon walked haughtily in, looking down on each and every one of them; a lord surveying his fiefdom. Brian’s posture stiffened as he both tried to show respect and unconsciously showed his fear of the man. The last conversation with him had also involved his parents and that was abhorrent, a total disaster. The recollection of the event made him nauseous. Right after he spoke, Claire raised her hand, “Excuse me sir, I think there’s been a mistake. I know it’s detention, but, um...I don’t think I belong in here.” Internally, Brian rolled his eyes. He didn’t really know Claire (he suspected that no one really truly did), but he had always been under the impression that she was full of herself. All of the popular clique seemed to be that way, just full of arrogance. And here she was announcing how she was better than all of them in front of them. Vernon completely ignored her statement and told them it was 7:06, on the dot. Brian quickly looked down at his watch and aligned it to Vernon’s time. He was very particular about organization and precision.

As Vernon started his speech about rules, Brian tried to shift slightly over, get comfortable. But Vernon looked right into him and Brian could swear he saw into the depths of his soul as he said, “You will not move from these seats,” and pointed right at him. He froze like a deer in the headlights and quickly moved back. Brian had almost always blindly followed authority and now was definitely not the time to change that. Vernon continued and Brian only half-listened, looking around to gauge how the rest of the group was reacting, until he heard him say, “Good. So, maybe you’ll decide whether or not you care to return-” He saw this as the perfect time to redeem himself and started to stand up, raising his hand.

“Um, you know, I can answer that right now, sir. And that would be a no for me-”

“Sit down, Johnson.”

“Thank you, sir.” Brian sat back down, gulping. His embarrassment was only made worse noticing that Y/N had turned around to look at him when he started speaking. He wasn’t so invisible now, just his luck.

*~~~~*

There was little to no surprise that Bender antagonized the group. His main targets seemed to be Claire and Andrew, but he was making snide or crude remarks to everyone, and this made Brian very uneasy. He hated conflict and confrontation, which was probably why he had brought a flare gun to school rather than talk to his Shop teacher about replacing his failing grade or talk to his parents about how much he was truly struggling. He tried to take his mom’s advice about just doing work. He tried to convince the others to just write their assigned essays and not end up in a fight, but it didn’t work. He reasoned that he could at least do the right thing, but he couldn’t help but keep getting drawn into their conversations. It was almost like watching a trashy soap opera...or a staged wrestling match. “Go to hell!” Claire screamed at Bender, and Brian looked nervously to the door. Vernon surely heard that and would come storming back in, right?

But he didn’t, so Andy continued their conversation and got in a new dig at Bender, “You know, Bender, you don’t even count. If you disappeared forever it wouldn’t make any difference. You may as well not even exist anymore.” Brian gulped, thinking about his recent and frequent thoughts about how he himself ‘may as well not even exist anymore.’ He was doing...okay since the day he had had a semi-plan to take his own life, but the feelings didn’t just stop. He was still failing Shop, of all classes. He was still a disappointment and burden to his parents. He was still invisible at school, to Y/N. None of that went away when Mr. Ryan found the gun in his locker. Bender turned Andrew’s comment around and said he’d go out and join some clubs.

Now, Brian saw his opportunity to be less invisible, maybe. “I’m in a math club!” He blurted out. No dice. Bender and Claire just continued bickering, ignoring him completely. But he couldn’t help it when he stated “I’m in the Physics Club, too,” in their direction just hoping, praying that someone would acknowledge him. He hadn’t counted on that person being Y/N, though. She’d turned slightly towards him and his blue eyes flickered to hers and he froze. Having been lost in the argument between the others, he had almost forgotten that she was there. She gave him a gentle smile and a nod that made him gulp. He’d suddenly failed to remember how to breathe, how to function and his mind was only filled with a channel of ‘Oh shit. She’s looking at me.’

But then she added, “I’m in the Drama Club.” Of course, he knew that, but it was still nice for her, of all people, to be making conversation with him. He was immediately forced to snap out of it, though, when Bender addressed him.

“Excuse me a sec. What are you babbling about?” While Brian hated the look John gave him (it was much too similar to his parents’ frustrated looks when he was clearly ‘bothering’ them with something), Brian felt compelled to answer. He had wanted to be noticed, to be involved in the conversation, right?

“Well, what I’d said was, I’m in the Math Club, the Latin Club, uh, and the Physics Clu-Physics Club,” he stumbled through his words nervously. He felt regret instantly as Bender turned it around as a slight on Claire, and also managed to insult him by calling him a dork in the process. Still, he yearned for his attention and approval, so he eagerly answered John’s follow up questions. He just wanted to get along with everyone and have them accept him, and even though John was just using his input as ammunition against Claire, he liked that he was at least being included.

*~~~~*

It was a long, dragging morning. It was only around 10AM and topics of conversation seemed to already run out. Everyone was now more or less keeping to themselves. At first, Brian thought about writing his essay, as he said he planned to, but why bother? There were still many hours to fill, and how was he possibly supposed to answer the prompt of Who Am I? He truly did not know. He’d actually been pondering that a lot lately. All of his life he was praised for his smarts, but the ‘real world’ was showing him that that didn’t mean jack shit. Sure, he could understand difficult concepts and dissect complex equations, but that meant nothing if he couldn’t apply it. He thought he was taking the easy way out with Shop. It was meant to be a class he didn’t have to worry about; a stress-free A to keep his GPA up while juggling various clubs and volunteer opportunities to put on his college applications next year. But it ended up being a total nightmare. He was absolutely terrible at it, and he had never failed at anything before. Now the burn-outs and underachievers had the upper hand and were able to make their projects work and look good and he had...nothing. He failed so miserably that it tanked his self-esteem and now he was stuck in an identity crisis. It was much too early on a Saturday to confront those demons, so instead he chose to sit and daydream. And subconsciously, as with many teenage boys, his attention fell to girls. As much as he thought Claire was self-centered and spoiled, he had to admit that she was attractive. She carefully curated herself to be so. She had perfect, beautiful red hair that was never out of place, flawless makeup, perfectly fitting chic clothes...and she was staring into space licking and biting her lip, which had him completely flustered. Y/N only added to it by adjusting and stretching in her seat. Her beauty was more effortless than Claire’s, or at least seemed less...intentional. She did not have the designer clothes and her hair was more natural than trendy but alluring in her own right, and the way she was pushing her chest out was not helping. He could feel the shift and tightness in his khakis and tried to nonchalantly clear his throat, but now Y/N was turned three-quarters around and could clearly see him, so he tried to sneak his hat into his lap and acted like nothing was going on by setting his head on the desk. ‘Oh shit. Oh fuck.’ were the chorus of his thoughts as he could see her quickly turn back around and face forward. ‘I’m sure she thinks I’m a creep now. Great going, Johnson,’ he chastised himself.

Vernon was almost a welcome sight when he strode into the library at 10:20 to allow them to use the “lavatory.” Brian almost let out a sigh of relief. Almost. When they returned to the library and it was clear that Vernon wouldn’t return for a while, Bender started ripping up a book and when he threw it at Brian, the latter took that as his cue to walk away. He spotted Y/N looking through the catalogue of books and approached her. “Hey.” He nodded in her direction, trying to play it cool and seem neutral. ‘Smooth. Great opening,’ he thought. But to his surprise, she actually said ‘Hi’ back and smiled. He had no idea what to talk about and didn’t really think this through, but the black-clad girl let out a startling, “HA!” that made them both jump.

Brain looked back to the others and heard Andrew sarcastically say, “Oh, you’re breaking my heart,” to Claire.

“Sporto?” Bender asked, “Do you get along with your parents?” Brian started to look between the two of them nervously.

“Well, if I say yes I’m an idiot right?” Andrew responded. Bender leapt over the ramp’s banister and started at the other boy.

“You’re an idiot anyway. But if you say you get along with your parents, then you’re a liar too.” Not only did Brian not like being involved in confrontation, he also hated being witness to it. As Andrew followed Bender, he felt compelled to go break it up, put a stop to this.

“You want me to turn it up?” Bender asked, flipping off Andrew as Brian stepped between them, placing a hand on one of each of their shoulders. They smacked his hands away, almost in sync and he withdrew, but he knew words could be just as powerful as actions.

“I, I don’t like my parents either. I don’t know. Their idea of parental compassion is just...whacko.” Brian confessed.

“Dork? You are a parent’s wet dream, okay?” Bender replied, clapping him on his shoulder. It was a friendly enough gesture, but it actually dealt a devastating blow. Brian knew he was a disappointment to his parents. He was being open and honest with the group and was shut down immediately anyway. “...face it, you're a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie. What would you be out doing if you weren’t making yourself a better citizen?” Another hit. This one made Brian sink against one of the tables. He hung his head and didn’t even notice Y/N approach him until she softly placed her hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?” She offered, gazing into his eyes. He was terrified that she would be able to read him and to see the truth, to see the sad and scared kid he truly was inside. Instead, he stiffened up and sat rigidly, clearing his throat of emotion.

“Yeah, thanks.” He also tried his best to ignore that she was touching him. If he weren’t in detention being told he was the epitome of geek by John Bender, he’d have sworn this were a dream. Bender now moved his disdain to Claire, asking if she were a virgin. Y/N shifted uncomfortably away from Brian and crossed her arms over her chest, but still stood next to him, watching the same drama unfold. Bender and Andrew soon stood in front of them, fully in a heated argument and Bender took a swing. Brian didn’t think twice and reflexively shot his arm up to shield Y/N. Sure, his crush on her might be stupid or silly, but he was not about to let her get caught in this crossfire and get hurt. He watched as Andrew wrestled Bender to the floor and Bender said, “I don’t want to get into this with you, man...cuz I’d kill you.” Andrew let him up and they seemed to separate and cool down, so Brian finally moved his arm back down, assuming the danger towards Y/N was gone but he was on-guard still, ready to move again if he needed to. “It’s real simple. I’d kill you and then your fucking parents would sue me and it would be a big mess, and I don’t care about you enough to bother.” For some reason, this hit Brian hard and he had to look away, look down to escape. But then he heard a click and his head shot up. Bender had pulled out a switchblade. His eyes went wide and he looked cautiously at Y/N who looked just as shocked. They all relaxed a little when he stabbed it into a chair instead of Andrew’s flesh, but immediately panicked again when the door audibly unlatched and opened. They scrambled to get to their seats, Bender quickly striding to the front and sitting far away from Andy so as not to implicate himself. But that meant that he had stolen Y/N’s seat. On her original route to it, she diverted and sat quickly and silently next to Brian. He swallowed hard in response.

Instead of Vernon, Carl the janitor walked in. They collectively sighed with relief and he addressed Brian. “Brian, how ya doin’?” Brian quickly averted his eyes, both embarrassed to be seen here by Carl (he stayed late in many clubs and had built up a good rapport with the man and didn’t need him thinking less of him for being in detention) and by being seen as associated with him by his peers. Carl was a great guy, really funny and nice; accommodated every need each one of his clubs had...but Brian was still a teenager and image was everything and being thought of as ‘dweeb who is friends with the janitor’ was not how he wanted to be seen.

“Your dad work here?” Bender inquired, smirking deviously. Brian just shook his head in response and didn’t answer Carl, either. “Carl, can I ask you a question? How does one become a janitor?” Bender continued.

“You want to become a janitor?” Carl asked, knowing that Bender didn’t really want to know.

“No, I just want to know how one becomes one. Andrew here is very interested in pursuing a career in the custodial arts.” Bender glanced over at Andrew and smirked again, pleased with his implied put-down.

“Oh really? You guys think I’m some untouchable peasant, serf, peon? Maybe so. But following a broom around after shitheads like you for the last eight years, I’ve learned a couple of things.” Carl looked towards Brian and Y/N, “I look through your letters.” Brian thought he saw her stiffen and freeze, just a little bit, as if Carl were addressing her. She suddenly shifted away from Brian and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. “...I am the eyes and the ears of this institution, my friend.” Carl stopped and smiled, “By the way. That clock is twenty minutes fast.” Brian looked at it and then his watch, noting that he was right. He wasn’t sure if he should adjust his wrist piece or not; to go with the time on the wall or the time Vernon was keeping. But he couldn’t be bothered with the choice when Bender stood up and faced his table. He was afraid of what he might do or say to them, but he simply nodded towards Y/N’s seat, indicating that she could have it back.

“I’m good for now,” she said, surprising Brian. He assumed she would have moved back, a moment ago she moved away from him, but now she was looking at him out of the corner of her eye before glancing back up at John, who was raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “Thanks for not dicking with my stuff though,” she said.

“Oh, shit.” Bender said “Do you think I should steal something or has the moment passed?” The tension seemed to drop and they all smiled as he went back to his seat, but he turned his attention back their way. “So, you’ve been pretty quiet, what’s your name?” Brian had a bad habit of blurting out. He liked answering questions as it was, showing his knowledge. A lot of the time, it didn’t matter if he was being asked or not. So, without thinking, he responded to Bender’s question and told him Y/N’s name. It was a reflex, but one he instantly regretted, feeling like he just shot himself in the foot. Bender gave him a look and he steeled himself for his worst, for the mockery sure to come, but instead he just looked at her and followed up with “Is that true? Is that your name?”

She didn’t acknowledge his weirdness either. She simply nodded and told John, “Yeah, (Y/N). Or, I guess you could call me (Y/N/N) if you want,” and Brian let out a quiet shaky exhale in relief. That could have been...disastrous. After a moment, while Bender was otherwise occupied, she turned to him and said, “Thank you, for earlier. I mean, blocking me when those two were getting into it.” He felt his heart race; he wasn’t sure she had even noticed that earlier, even though he wasn’t exactly subtle.

“N-no problem.” He responded, trying to restrain the smile creeping up onto his face. He wanted to play it cool, like it was no big deal, like that’s just what manly men such as himself do: put themselves in harm’s way for others.

Vernon came in to dismiss them for lunch much too early for his liking. He didn’t really have much of a chance to talk to Y/N while she was sitting next to him, and as soon as they were allowed to mill about like the caged animals they currently were, the remaining members of their detention gravitated towards Bender near the center of the library. Brian was slightly disappointed when she wandered off into the stacks as Bender looked through books and Claire continued her daydreaming. Not really sure what to do with himself, Brian folded his long legs over one of the ramp railings and sat atop it, hunched over. He looked up when Bender called out, “Hey, Peachy!” There were a few moments of silence before Y/N looked back over in their direction and Brian froze, immediately disliking Bender addressing her as such and worrying what uncouth thing he might say to her. But he just asked her what she could be in detention for, because she didn’t seem the type, which Brian wholeheartedly agreed with. He waited intently for the answer, as every interaction he had with her (or every observation, rather), she seemed so...sweet.

“Oh. Well, you know how in Biology they dissect like, frogs and shit every year?” She looked a little defeated and a blush crept up her cheeks as she continued, “I---sort of stole and freed the frogs.” Brian couldn’t help but laugh. That seemed like something you shouldn’t get detention for, anyway, but it was definitely on-par with the personality he knew her for. He felt relieved that the reason aligned with how he thought of her. She was in here for something nice, and debatably, the right thing. His heart melted a little when she told Bender that she had researched enough to let the frogs go responsibly; that she would have adopted them if they wouldn’t have made it on their own and he couldn’t help but smile in her direction. Bender, of course, moved on quickly, scanning one of the books in his stack to find new material to talk about, to bother the girls with, but Brian’s gaze was still fixated on Y/N. She was running her fingers along spines of books, seemingly in her own world. He felt like maybe it was fated that they were both here, like he was getting a second chance. He still hadn’t really conjured up the courage to talk to her yet, but they were only half-way through their day; there was still time.

“Claire? Y/N? You wanna see a picture of a guy with elephantitis of the nuts?” Bender asked, “Pretty tasty. How do you think he rides a bike? Oh Claire, would you ever consider dating a guy like this?”

“Wait,” Y/N’s eyes lit up and she looked their way again. “Elephantiasis? Like the movie The Elephant Man? Great movie! Really sad though.” Brian grinned at the way she scrunched her eyebrows together in remembering the emotion from the movie. He had seen it, too. It was really good...and touching. Maybe that could be his ice-breaker. Movies were normal things that normal teenagers talked about, right? He didn’t really notice that Bender and Claire were still conversing until it implicated him, though.

“Oh! Watch what you say. Brian here is a cherry.” Brian looked at him, startled.

“A cherry?” He asked, indignantly, cheeks flaring up with a red hue. “I am not a cherry.” He didn’t need Bender calling him out like this, embarrassing him. He didn’t need the obvious association that the nerd was a virgin. Especially in front of beautiful girls, particularly Y/N. She didn’t need to know that he was an inexperienced loser.

“When have you ever gotten laid?” Bender asked, doubtfully

“I’ve laid lots of times.”

“Name ONE.” Bender said, sarcastically, hoping to catch him in a trap.

“She lives in Canada. Met her at Niagara Falls; You wouldn’t know her.” Brian said, prepared with this answer from previous conversations about this topic. It wasn’t the first time he’d been involved in a conversation about virginity that he couldn’t be entirely honest about, nor was it the first time he had been mocked for being a virgin or doubted about the non-existent relations that he didn’t have. Even though part of his brain felt like it was glaringly obvious to the outside world and must have been stamped on his forehead that girls did not typically talk to him, nor had he even kissed a girl before, but he still lied about it anyway. He knew he didn’t precisely have an ‘image’ to protect, but he didn’t want to seem like a total lost cause or dweeby stereotype.

Bender, however, wasn’t having it. “You ever lay anyone around here?” He scoffed and Brian panicked. He had noticed that Y/N had turned back to the aisle of books and was praying she wasn’t listening, and Claire didn’t seem to be paying attention, so he tried to gesture to Bender to keep it down, to let him off the hook before either girl noticed him or this conversation. Bender immediately twisted it around and attacked him with it, though. Brian felt his heart being squeezed and felt overwhelmed, instantly, as Bender said, “Oh. You and Claire did it.”

“Oh, uh I-Let’s just drop it, okay? We’ll talk about it later,” Brian attempted to get out of it again, praying that John would have one ounce of mercy on him. However, Brian was never really very lucky.

“Well, Brian is trying to tell me that in addition to the number of girls in the Niagara Falls area, that presently you and he are riding the hobby horse.” Brian’s eyes slammed shut in embarrassment.

“You little pig,” Claire growled at him and his eyes shot back open wide. He scrambled to defend himself.

“No! I’m not! John said I was a cherry and I said I wasn’t. That’s it. That’s all I said.”

“Well then what were you motioning to Claire for?” Bender followed up, not giving Brian any wiggle room.

“You know, I don’t appreciate this very much, Brian.” Claire sounded more disappointed and hurt than anything, which made Brian feel like a slug, instantly. He didn’t mean to implicate her or to bring her down. He was just trying to hide his embarrassment from John and the girls.

“He is lying!” Brian tried one last attempt to deflect.

“Oh, you weren’t motioning to Claire?”

“You know he’s lying, right?”

“Were you, or were you not motioning to Claire?” Brian hated this. He’d been stuffed in lockers before and yearned for that over the torture Bender was inflicting now. He couldn’t save face; either he was a disgusting creep saying he had had sex with Claire when he didn’t, or he’d have to tell them the truth and feel humiliated at telling everyone he was a virgin. He grit his teeth and chose to go with the latter.

“Yeah, but it was only- it was only because I didn’t want her to know I was a virgin, okay?” They looked almost...shocked by his response, which he wasn’t expecting. He thought it would be a ‘Well, duh, you’re a virgin, Johnson! Who would want to touch you?’ But Claire and Y/N looked surprised. “Excuse me for being a virgin, I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you want me to know you were a virgin?” Claire asked honestly, like it was no big deal. If she only knew...

“Because it’s personal business. It’s my personal, private business.”

“Well, Brian, it doesn’t sound like you’re doing any business,” Bender snuck in another jab and Brian was brought down to what he knew all along, that they were just going to laugh at him.

“I think it’s okay for a guy to be a virgin.” Claire’s unexpected response gave him instant relief. She was taking his side and Bender had no more ammo. Brian perked up even more when Y/N agreed with her. It wasn’t an embarrassing secret for him now because they didn’t mind. They almost seemed to admire him for it. The thought caused his lips to twitch and he hid his smile by leaning his head against his knee.

*~~~~*

During lunch, Bender didn’t have any food, so his appetite turned to targeting the rest of the detainees again. He started in on Claire for a bit, but then came over to taunt Brian. It seemed like it could be friendly, at first, as John just examined his lunch. But as he drew out each item, his tone became more and more sarcastic. “Here’s my impression of life at Big Bri’s house.” Bender went on to mock him, painting his life like it was some episode of Leave It To Beaver where the family would all hug it out at the end. Brian’s throat became dry and he could feel eyes on both Bender and himself, trying to judge his reactions to John’s farce. He hated being such an easy target. He hadn’t done anything towards John personally, but he was still constantly in the hot seat because John could get away with it and the others would laugh and enjoy it. At least Andy fought back...even Claire did. And Bender didn’t even really bother to mess with Allison. She had an aura of ‘don’t fuck with me,’ and he didn’t even touch her as a subject, even though she was just as odd and out of place as Brian. Not to mention, he was wrong. It wasn’t all peachy-keen happy endings at Brian’s house. If it were, Brian wouldn’t be here today.

Still, it was hard not to be drawn in by John, and he watched his next dramatic retelling of his own home life in stunned horror. John’s dad called him terrible names in this act and hit him. “Is that for real?” Brian asked, brows furrowed. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe John, it was just that...well, the situation sucked and he needed to be told it wasn’t true. Like a kid hearing that a ghost story was made up and there was nothing to fear. But he knew by John’s pained expression that it was, even before he spoke.

“Wanna come over some time?” Bender asked him and he flinched away. Andrew didn’t believe him though, and questioned it so John revealed to them all his very real cigar burn scar on his arm, claiming he got it from spilling paint in the garage. The group collectively flinched and no one moved for a few moments while Bender said, “I don’t need to sit with you fuckin’ dildos anymore,” and raged through the library.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Claire admonished Andrew.

“How would I know? I mean he lies about everything anyway.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.” Y/N snapped at him and looked back towards Bender as though she wanted to follow him. Brian tried to will her silently not to; he didn’t really trust that Bender would control his emotions and she might get hurt. He felt relieved when she turned around, but then his heart began pounding once more as she gathered her lunch into the sack and stood up. ‘No, don’t do it, Y/N.’ He stared at her, but she didn’t seem to notice as she cautiously walked past and crept up the library stairs to where Bender was and sat next to him. Brian felt a little calmed when Bender didn’t lash out; he just rolled his eyes but stayed rooted to the spot. Meanwhile, the rest of the group at their lunch in silence.

*~~~~*

Brian felt guilty for leaving Bender behind, for allowing him to sacrifice himself for the group. Hell, they all did. Especially when Vernon started shoving him around and saying he was going to be in jail. Brian couldn’t help but wonder if he could become like John. It’s not like he was born into that life. But he had it tough at home, struggled at school, and had problems with authority (particularly when they lied). Brian could see some parallels. He, too, was unhappy at home. While his parents didn’t beat him like John’s did him, or berate him to the same degree, he couldn’t help but feel like a disappointment. And he felt like he was just slipping. Now he had broken school rules, brought a gun to school, watched as others destroyed school property, and was gaining a healthy distrust of authority by seeing how Vernon acted today. He’d even corrected him once, when counting Bender’s detentions, not that the truth seemed to matter to Vernon anyway. What if he continued down this path? What if things just kept getting worse at home? Would it really be that bad to be like Bender? Despite being a total jerkwad, he had the charisma to draw people in. He’d even had Y/N eat lunch with him! It just didn’t seem like the deal was all bad when he looked at it that way. ‘What’s next? Are you going to take up smoking?’ His brain scolded him, even though he had completely forgotten that he had drugs stashed in his pants right now...until Bender fell through the ceiling and asked for them back. He dug them uncomfortably out of his underwear and handed the bag over. Bender took off to smoke in the library and Brian realized he had a choice to make. Boy, was he tempted. ‘What’s one more rule broken today?’ He felt more emboldened when Claire stood up and followed John. Andrew tried to talk him out of it, shaking his head. Brian drummed his hands on the desk. He wasn’t sure he’d have another opportunity. Most of his friends and acquaintances didn’t do drugs...to his knowledge, anyway. He thought momentarily about his cousin Kendall, and how he started smoking pot and didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere. ‘You already don’t feel like you belong anywhere,’ His mind reminded him, and with that, the decision was made; what did he have to lose? So he slunk off to join Bender and Claire.

It was...definitely a different experience. Brian didn’t care for the way his thoughts seemed so disjointed, that he couldn’t keep one train of thought going. For someone who was known for his intelligence and felt like his brain was his one good quality, it was a little scary to have that slip away. But, there was a sort of numbness that came with the drug that made him worry less about that. He felt less worried and anxious in general, actually. His focus was being pulled in too many directions to wonder what his parents would think or if he was saying the right thing, or if this could even be a mistake. He felt relaxed and oddly open. He was even making Bender and Claire laugh, which he hadn’t expected. It was like there was a new persona underneath that was unlocked. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it wasn’t the worst thing ever. He was, however, surprised by how long the effects lasted. It was a little more than an hour later and the whole group was sitting in a circle (Y/N and Allison never seemed to have joined them in the marijuana. Not that he had noticed, anyway) and Allison was telling the group that she was a nymphomaniac, which was exciting. Particularly to someone with zero experience, to hear someone claim she’d done ‘almost everything’ was utterly fascinating. However, his head was still swimming and he seemed to have a lack of filter between his brain and his mouth. He couldn’t catch his words fast enough, which was often a problem for him sober, but now it wasn’t just supplying corrections or information, the more cruel thoughts slipped through, too.

“Obviously she’s crazy if she’s screwing her shrink,” he added to the group without even thinking. Y/N was sitting to his right and promptly hit him on the arm with the back of her hand.

“Brian!” She hissed and gave him a glare. ‘Oh shit. Did I say that out loud?’ He thought, looking at her with wide-eyed fear. The realization sobered him up pretty quickly and he was much more in control of his thoughts and words after that. Despite the weed taking away most of his worries, he still cared how she perceived him. From then on, he was more focused on the conversations in front of him and how he added to them, but it was harder to control his emotions when Andrew began telling them about why he was here today.

“You guys know what I did to get in here today? I taped Larry Lester’s buns together.” Andy said, with a hint of a smile. ‘How can he just smirk like that? He has to know it was a shitty thing to do and that he hurt Larry.’ Brian thought. He knew Larry had been attacked this week by one of the sports, but he didn’t know who. Larry didn’t even know the kid’s name, had never talked to him, but still got jumped anyway. An experience that Brian was all too familiar with.

“That was you?” Brian asked, somewhat surprised, but started to get angry.

“You know him?”

“Yeah, I know him.” He said quietly, trying not to let the anger bubble past the surface.

He had to bite his tongue when Andy made Larry into a joke, “Then you know how hairy he is right?” Bender and Claire chuckled at his joke, at him bullying one of Brian’s friends. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything different,’ Brian thought dejectedly. But he was hoping that they were all better people than...this. The realization that they weren’t better than that, coupled with Andrew expressing his feelings about his father got Brian thinking. “I...hate him. He’s like this mindless machine that I can’t even relate to anymore.” Brian felt so disconnected from his parents, too, even though the rest of the group thought they lived in a fairytale. He was their pride and joy once, but it felt like ever since he started high school, he just wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t a good enough student, he didn’t do his chores right, he wasn’t setting himself up for college correctly, he wasn’t a good role model or brother to his sister...it all just added up and weighed on him immensely. He covered his face with one of his hands to hide his emotion and expression from the group. He didn’t even react when Andrew started screaming what his father had told him, but when everything settled down, he took the chance to speak.

“That’s like me, you know, with my grades. Like, when I step outside myself. A-and I look in on myself...and-and I see me, I don’t like what I see,” it was a difficult thing to admit but after what Allison and Andrew shared, he felt like maybe this could be the space to do so, too.

“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you like yourself?” Claire asked. He knew it was meant to be nice, encouraging even, but it just made him feel worse. This beautiful, popular, and rich girl asking someone why they weren’t happy with themselves? Like she could have any sort of clue. No wonder it baffled her; she had everything. But he could also see Y/N nodding vigorously, agreeing with Claire. He didn’t want to put her on the same plane as Claire, he felt like she would be above that. But she clearly didn’t understand the way he felt, either. That just made him feel more alone.

“It’s stupid, but,” Brian said, “because I’m failing shop. We had this assignment to make this, uh, ceramic elephant. Anyways we were supposed to-it was, it was a lamp. When you pulled the trunk, the light was supposed to go on. But my light didn’t go on. I got an F on it. I’ve never got an F in my life. When I signed up, y’know, for the course, I thought I was playing it smart. I was, uh, ‘I’ll take Shop, it’s an easy way to maintain my grade point average.’”

“Why’d you think it would be easy?” Bender chimed in, not making eye contact. Brian had been lost in his own thoughts and his story and not looking at the group either, really. He had wanted to be honest, but he was also embarrassed. Honesty would have been hard to maintain if he was looking at them and seeing their judgments in real time.

“Have you seen some of the dopes that take Shop?” Brian asked, not realizing it would strike a nerve.

“I take Shop.” Bender responded, now turning his eyes to him, “You must be a fucking idiot.”

“I’m a fucking idiot because I can’t make a lamp?” Brian snapped defensively. He should have known it would be a mistake to put himself on the line like this, to open himself up to their judgement. He knew Bender was lashing out because he was insulted, but that didn’t make his jibes hurt any less.

“No, you’re a genius because you can’t make a lamp.” Bender shot back, sarcastically.

“What do you know about Trigonometry?” Brian fought back.

“I could care less about Trigonometry.”

“Bender, there’s no engineering without trigonometry.”

“Without lamps, there’d be no light.” Bender replied grumpily, grasping at straws for a fair comparison.

“Okay, so neither one of you is any better than the other one,” Claire jumped in. Before either of them responded, Allison added her own odd addition.

“I can write with my toes!” Both Bender and Brian looked at her incredulously, but she did calm the two of them down and add levity to the moment.

“I can make spaghetti!” Brian said cheerfully after a moment. Y/N smiled at him and his heart fluttered. He returned the smile and for a moment, forgot all about his blunder. Maybe that smile had given him the courage to participate again, to be open and vulnerable. Claire and Bender began fighting again, which wasn’t a surprise, but it opened a door for Brian to ask what had been weighing on his mind since their circle began. He felt like they had all bonded. They had told each other some of their deepest secrets and biggest pains, but did that really make them friends? “I know it’s kind of a weird time, but you know, I was just wondering...what’s going to happen to us on Monday? I mean, I consider you guys my friends,” he continued, looking around the circle, “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No,” Andy reassured him. So, he wasn’t imagining it, they felt like friends, too.

“So on Monday, what happens?”

“Are we still friends, you mean? If we’re friends now?” Claire asked.

“Yeah.”

“You want the truth?” Claire couldn’t meet his eye, and Brian knew from the question she posed, he really didn’t want the truth. He knew what was coming, but he continued anyway.

“Yeah, I want the truth.”

“I don’t think so.” Claire responded and he somehow still wasn’t prepared for the blow. It still hit him hard, causing a squeezing pain in his chest and he looked away, clenching his jaw to hold the tears back that were welling in his eyes.

“With all of us,” Allison asked, “or just John?”

“With all of you,” Claire confirmed, looking away from the group.

“That’s a real nice attitude, Claire,” Andrew said gruffly.

“Oh, be honest, Andy,” Claire groaned, “If Brian came up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? Picture it, you’re with all the sports.” Brian glanced up at his name and looked at Andy hopefully. In his heart, he knew Claire was probably right, but he wanted to believe that Andrew was really his friend, that they all were. “You know exactly what you’d do. You’d say hi to him and then you’d laugh and cut him all up so your friends wouldn’t think you actually like him.”

“No way.” Andy denied, and that gave Brian a glimmer of hope, one he so desperately wanted to believe.

“What if I came up to you?” Allison asked.

“Same exact thing.”

“You are a bitch!” Bender yelled at Claire.

“Why?! Because I’m telling the truth? That makes me a bitch?”

“No. Cuz you know how shitty that is to do to someone and you don’t have the balls to stand up to your friends and tell them you’re gonna like who you wanna like…” Bender continued berating Claire, but Brian now started to fail to hold back the tears that had been threatening so long to fall. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone in the group and tried to quickly wipe the tear away, hoping no one was paying attention to him; that they couldn’t see how they had impacted him. But he still felt eyes on him, particularly when he wiped the next tear away. He let Claire and Bender’s argument surround him. They called each other out, that neither would associate with him or Allison, that their image was too important to protect to reach out. It was a story that Brian had lived all of his life. ‘How could I think that one day would change everything?’ He thought, pitifully.

“So I assume Allison, Y/N, and I are better people than you? Us weirdos?” Brian interjected when Claire and Bender were silently fuming from their spat. “You, would you do that to me?” He asked Allison.

“I don’t have any friends,” she replied, which made Brian smile a little, even though he rolled his eyes some.

“Okay, but if you did?” He let out a light chuckle, urging her to answer.

“No. I don’t think the kind of friends that I’d have would mind,” Allison replied and Brian nodded, then steeled himself to turn to Y/N and ask the same question. He saw her quickly swipe at her face with her sleeves and realized, suddenly, that she had been crying too. He wasn’t sure why; she had been very quiet through this whole exchange, but maybe that was because it hit home hard for her, too. He felt a painful pang in his chest, both from seeing her tears and from fearing the possibility of her answer. He had spent the day hoping that this was a second chance, that he could get to know her. This was a bold move and would tell him if there was even a chance or not; and he feared the ‘not.' She locked eyes with him and he gulped, petrified to dive in but knowing he had to.

“What about you, Y/N?” He asked, quietly. It felt like the question hung in the air for an agonizing eternity, even though she answered right away. Time worked differently when you were waiting to hear if your world was going to be shattered.

“I would be honored to be your friend,” she replied with a shaking voice. Even though it was strained, it filled him with instant relief. He believed her as he had believed Allison and nodded, biting his lip.

“I just want to tell, each of you, that I wouldn’t do that,” he turned to the group,” I wouldn’t and I will not. Because I think it’s real shitty.”

“Your friends wouldn’t mind because they look up to us.” Claire told him and he couldn’t help but laugh derisively in response. Next to him, he heard Y/N give a sort of squeak but figured that it carried the same disbelief towards Claire as his gesture did.

“You’re so conceited, Claire. You’re so conceited. You’re like, so full of yourself. Why are you like that?” Brian noticed the tears falling again and swiped them away. He didn’t want Claire to think she wounded him, that she had the upper hand. While it stung to have all of his beliefs about how the popular kids perceived him and his friends confirmed, that wasn’t what really was bothering him. It was more that it reminded him that he was invisible, he didn’t matter, which was exactly why he was here today.

“I’m not saying that to be conceited. I hate it. I hate having to go along with everything my friends say.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Claire sighed, and Brian noticed that she was drying her own tears. He didn’t necessarily like having caused them, but it was nice to know she was still human, that she was feeling the way he was, too. “You don’t understand, You’re not friends with the same kind of people Andy and I are friends with, you know? You just don’t understand the kind of pressure that they can put on you.” That, however, lit a fire within Brian. ‘Pressure from other assholes is so important? Try your own parents, Claire.’

“I don’t understand what?” Brian began, gesturing towards himself and planting his fingers into his chest. It relieved some of the dull ache there. “You think I don’t understand pressure, Claire? Well, fuck you! Fuck you!” ‘Also, fuck ‘bravery’ or saving face,’ Brian broke down into sobs in his elbow before calling out from his hiding spot, “do you know why I’m here today? Do you?!” He sat up to look at the group, the people he considered friends, to share his pain with them. “I’m here...because Mr. Ryan found a gun in my locker.” The words turned thick as they left his mouth and took on a life of their own. His eyes darted quickly around the circle, noting Claire’s dropped jaw, Allison’s tearful eyes that couldn’t meet his own, the way Andrew looked away and Bender seemed to know how he had felt, but also how he was surprised that Brian had the balls to do such a thing, and finally...tears silently and consistently slipping down Y/N’s face.

“What’s the gun for?” Andrew asked, interrupting Brian’s thoughts.

“I tried. You pull the fuckin’--trunk and the light’s supposed to go on and it didn’t go on, you know?” ‘You’ve said too much. They all thought you were a weirdo, now they think you’re a psychotic weirdo.’ “Forget it. Just--forget it,” he said in an attempt to brush it off, as if everything could go back to normal with the bombshell he just dropped on them.

“You brought it up, man,” Andrew insisted.

“I can’t have an F. I can’t have it and I know my parents can’t. Even if I aced the rest of the semester, it would only be a B. I’m ruined.”

“Brian…” Claire started, but there was nothing she could say to make this alright. ‘You’re a failure, Brian, and now you’ve become a freakshow. Look at her pity,’ his brain taunted him and he lashed out to hit the stool on his right, not even thinking about it until Y/N jumped up in her seated position, startled. The last thing he would want to do is hurt or scare her. ‘Shit, great. Another fuck up.’

“Sorry,” he mumbled in her direction before setting his head on his knee and continuing with his story from before, “Just considering my options, you know?”

“No, killing yourself is never an option!” Claire yelled at him, which made him scoff.

“Well I didn’t do it, did I? No, I didn’t think so.” ‘She really just doesn’t get it, does she? She still can’t picture why I’d want to--’

“It was a handgun?” Allison asked

“A flare gun. It blew up in my locker.” Brian sighed, but then he heard Andrew start to laugh. “It’s not funny.” Brian asserted. Andrew tried to clear his throat to stop laughing, but he couldn’t and Brian bit his lip and smiled in realization, “Yeah, it is.” The laughter was contagious...and better than crying. “Fucking elephant was destroyed.”

“You know what I did to get in here?” Allison asked the group, and Brian almost feared her answer. “Nothing. I didn’t have anything better to do.” That completely brightened the mood and Brian fell over laughing. It seemed like he was forgiven and that no one here was judging him for the failed lamp or the gun nor would they tell anybody about it. They...they had accepted him in the end after all.

*~~~~*

“...we trust you.” Claire was trying to talk him into writing one essay to cover all of them, and she was using flattery. Lucky for her, it worked. He looked down the row to seek approval from the others and they all nodded. But he liked knowing that they thought he was the smartest and the most capable, that they trusted his words would win over Vernon in a way that they wouldn’t be punished for not doing their own essays. It was a big task and a lot to entrust to him, so he took pride in fulfilling it. Claire took the other girls with her somewhere and it was just Andrew and him sitting silently in the library, so he decided to get to work. Andrew was just lurking about, playing with his jewelry, but he wasn’t a distraction. However, Allison passing by looking completely different was. Brian looked up, shocked that this was the same person he had spent all day with. Her hair was away from her face and he could actually see her brown eyes and she was wearing...white, the opposite of all of the layers of black before. He caught her glare at him staring at her so he tried to give her a reassuring smile, that it was a good look for her. She said, “thank you,” and moved on toward Andrew. Brian turned back to his essay and finished the last couple of lines, not noticing Y/N approaching behind him. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have kissed the essay or given himself a ‘good job’ punch in the arm.

He sat up in startled revelation when she spoke, “That good, huh?” He realized she had just seen everything. He had never felt more like a dork in his life and a blush crept up into his cheeks.

“Uh...yeah, I-I guess. I mean, do you want to read it?” He asked as she started to pull back the chair next to him to sit down.

“If you want me to, but I trust you.” She took her seat and placed her arm gently on his forearm. ‘Holy shit. She is touching me! She’s looking at me. What do I even say? Do I acknowledge the touch or do I just--’ “I’m impressed that you came up with something so quickly though.” Brian felt pride bubble up within him, knowing that she noticed...no, she was impressed by him. He cocked his head and looked at her sideways, trying to figure her out. She quickly looked away and pulled her hand back, now fiddling with her sleeves. ‘Is she...nervous?’ He thought, trying to decode her reaction. “So, um…you said earlier that you were in the Math Club? Um, I mean, if you have the time, do you think you could tutor me? I’m like totally lost in Clarkson’s class.”

He blinked. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t exactly that. Not that he would say no to spending more time with her. He had wanted that second chance, after all. “Yeah, no, I could do that,” he told her and watched as she twisted away and looked behind her, grabbing paper off of Allison’s desk. She leaned back forward and reached for his pen in front of him. She was actually close enough now that he could smell her shampoo and his body threatened to turn into jello on the spot.

“Here...is...my...phone number.” She said as she wrote it out on the paper and handed it to him. “Call me so we can set something up?” She looked up at him and knocked the breath right out of his lungs.

“You--You want me to call you?” He asked with raised eyebrows, wholly surprised by the request. He’d not only not kissed a girl, but one had never given him her phone number before.

“Yeah.” She smiled at him and his heartbeat picked up even faster, if that was possible. She cleared her throat and nodded towards Andrew and Allison. “So, those two, huh? Unexpected, right?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He was suddenly hurtled back to Earth, to reality. “Definitely. Wait, where’s Claire?”

“She...she said she was going to go ‘check on’ Bender.”

“Wow. So them, too.” ‘Everyone is coupling up maybe we should--’ he interrupted his own thought and shot it down. All he could say was, “That’s really...weird.”

*~~~~*

After they were finally released and Brian left his essay on the desk for Vernon to collect, and hopefully reflect upon, they all walked out together. It made sense as they all had to go to the main entrance, but there was a feeling of solidarity within it that made Brian think that the members of what he dubbed The Breakfast Club would continue their friendship come Monday.

Allison and Andrew branched off together, as did Claire and John. Brian looked quickly at Y/N as she walked down the steps with him. His dad was there to pick him up, which he was thankful for. His mom would definitely notice him walking with a girl and have a million questions and a lengthy lecture lined up, but his dad would barely notice, much less think anything of it. He reached for the door handle as Y/N was about to depart, but then she called his name, “Hey Brian,” he looked up, not sure what else she could possibly have to say, especially since they had been silent while the couples had veered off. “See you Monday.” She reminded him and gave him a small smile. He gave a grin in return.

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you on Monday.” He replied, beginning to get into the car, her phone number burning a hole in his pocket. For the first time in a long time, he was actually looking forward to another week school.

Tags:

@criminalwipes

[lov3nerdstuff]

Hi Kay!

I just wanted to take a moment and say how deeply moving (and overall comforting) I find your writing to be! I've gone through almost the entirety of your masterlist twice in the past month alone and have found myself returning more often to the pieces of literature/poems your reference sometimes. (Especially that one poem by Benedict Smith! I've read a few more by him because of you and they're just wonderfully lovely 💛 so I'm eternally thankful to you for including it.)

I may be wrong in assuming, but I believe you may have studied/are currently studying a degree involving literature. I hope this isn't too foreward of me but I was wandering if you have any other works of literature that you'd recommend? (I'd love to read anything you recommend from poems to plays 💛) I'm slightly embaressed to say but the works I've read are quite limited to a highschool level and since I'm currently studying Pharmacy, there are very few people who can recommend me such moving works. :)

I also feel like I should apologise for writing such a large ask, so please accept this apology as well hehe 💕🥺

Sincerely,

Bek 🌻

Hey there Bek 💚💕✨

First of all... I'm incredibly sorry for how long it took me to reply to this ask, I know you sent it weeks ago and I'm honestly just ashamed of myself for only replying now! I've been taking a bit of a Tumblr break again, or rather a break from literally everything, and I guess not having written anything in a while made me feel guilty whenever I opened Tumblr, so... All I can say for myself really is that I'm sorry you had to wait so long! Again, I never ever ignore anyone, I promise! It just sometimes takes a while for me to reply 😅🙈

Now, I'm so happy to hear that you've been enjoying my writing! 🥺🥰 Hearing that it's comforting and inspiring to you is honestly such a relief and indeed does make me happy more than I can say 💚 It's so cool that you're checking up on all the references I make aaahhh 🥺🥺🥺 I love it 😁 You're always more than welcome, love! I don't think I could stop including references to literature, culture, history and the science around it even if I tried 😅☺️

And yeah, I did study classics and newer literature as a minor for my undergrad degree 😄 But tbh I still work with literally a lot even now (I'm in grad school for media and cultural studies) even though it's technically not something I've been properly taught ☺️ I'm just a nerd who likes to learn on her own, and with media and culture you can pretty much delve into almost anything you want 😂😅🤷🏻‍♀️

Now, it's not forward at all to ask me for literature recommendations! 😁😃 I truly love recommending stuff!!! I have a few up my sleeve, even though you've probably heard of a few already, for obvious reasons: A lot of what I truly enjoyed reading was something Tom Hiddleston has worked on in one way or another! It's truly a magnificent guideline for picking new literature... Just look up the literary origins of his films/shows/plays and you will be in for quality literature most of the time! I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, but me reading High-Rise (JG Ballard) because I heard Tom would be partaking in the film adaptation was actually what sparked my love and passion for literature!!! Yep, it's that good. Now on to the recommendations though 😁(This... got rather long):

Plays

Anything by Harold Pinter really, but for obvious reasons you'll find a lot of additionally fun stuff for Betrayal, which is lovely and truly funny if you're in on the kind of humour btw

Medea by Euripides (a classic, but I love it nonetheless... You can find translations in almost every language) ((and pls stay away from Seneca's Medea, because ugh... Euripides is far better AND the og story, as much as anyone can say that for Greek mythology)

La Bohème by Puccini (I know, this is technically an opera, but if you read the libretto it's honestly just like a play... And if you're up for it, the og story is in prose and written by Henri Murger... It's better than the opera, but oftentimes more difficult to find) ((this one is hilarious and basically explains an entire cultural subgroup in the 19th century)

Faust by Goethe (many people hate it, but I LOVE this one!!! It's also been translated into any and every language, and it's so interesting philosophically!!! It's also referenced SO freaking often literally everywhere, and the operas and ballets based on it are always my fave) ((there's technically Faust I and Faust II, but you're good to go just reading the first one)

Anything by Shakespeare, obviously... Though I do love me my Hamlet like every other literature enthusiast (Yes, I can do that one famous soliloquy in act 3 scene 1 by heart as well...)

Poetry

Again, anything Shakespeare for the win, but I LOVE the sonnets and keep a copy of them with me most of the time (Yes, I own multiple copies of the sonnets...) ((My faves are 116 and 91, but there's always so much truth to be found in there!!!))

A lot of the stuff William Blake wrote is amazing, though you have to pick carefully with him if certain religious motives aren't your thing... I love The Tyger, which is an individual poem, and the collection of works called Tyger, Tyger which does have many good ones and a few ones that are a little more on the mediocre side

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (I know this one by heart as well... It's beautiful, and there's a version of Hiddleston reading it on YouTube, which gives you even more goosebumps than the poem does anyway)

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (same for this one, also read by the one and only) ((I love to read this when I'm feeling down or powerless))

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (This is another wow piece with many quotable lines and truths... I love it a lot and keep coming back to it! It's also a great example of how literary modernism tried to condense the complexity and passing of time and history into a single frame that had to be intrinsically poetical in nature... As in, this poem could've been a short story in any other period, but modernists loved to make everything a poem so here you go)

Der Zauberlehrling by Goethe (This one sucks in all English translations I’ve found, poetically speaking, but in German it’s such a fun piece! If you’ve ever seen the Disney ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with Mickey Mouse or listened to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas, then this poem proves very useful in truly understanding either! But again, the English translation should only be taken for informational value... The German one is also worded hilariously)

Prose

Short edited by Alan Ziegler (This is a collection of short prose forms that honestly is a must for me... I love this book to pieces and have had it for years now! It’s an international anthology, so you’ll find more and less famous authors from all around the world represented with short stories, prose poems, short essays and just curious and interesting snippets of writing! I draw a lot of inspiration from this book)

High-Rise by JG Ballard (As mentioned above, I owe this book part of my personality... I don’t think I would be the same person without having read it. It’s not necessarily full of wisdom, but if you’re interested in a different kind of portrayal of the human condition, then this is the read you need to take a look at)

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (This is another piece that changed my perception of literature, even though this is a more ordinary and ‘fun’-value read... It’s one of my favourite books and it’s endlessly entertaining! So if the classics are a bit heavy for you, this one is perfect for casual readers as well! Its value really does lie more in the realisation of how fun literature can be, and the freedom you have as an author... So really, I could recommend everything by Moers, his style is amazing both in the German original and in the English translation. Yes, I’ve read both.)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (This is comedic gold, stylistic gold and generally a bloody perfect book. Also a ‘fun’-value read, but it also does a magnificent job at showing you what you can do with literature, and how well-developed characters are supposed to be written)

The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics) edited by Scott G. Bruce (This book is basically an education on fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters and how culture wrote, used and perceived them. You get introductory texts for different periods and social groups, explaining how and why ghost stories were written and used, followed by passages of the prime source texts (eg. ancient necromancy shown on The Odyssey). Really, this book is just for cultural history nerds)

The Earthquake in Chile by Kleist (This isn’t necessarily one of my faves, but it has helped me understand what studying literature and culture can do for you. In case anyone remembers my insistence in Wicked Game that you gotta know what a pomegranate symbolises... this novella is such an instance where this knowledge would prove useful. Generally, it gives many opportunities to think about privilege and circumstance)

The Symposium by Plato (You’ll probably not want to read the entire collection of speeches tbh... But the concepts introduced mainly here and in some of Plato’s other work are well worth looking into! For example, the ‘double being’ introduces a concept that in modern fiction is called soulmates... Just sayin’)

[easily-infatuated23]

Over Protective

Request: Could do image were she dating Dustin in secret and her sibling is Steve Harrington. She sneaks out to see Dustin and then she come back to see Steve sitting on her bed then Steve spots a few hickeys on her neck and he asks her about and she denies it. Then Steve calls robin because he freaking out. He invite her over and Dustin for like a dinner then he see them on Dustin’s neck. Then start being like an over protective brother and talking to them about it. ~anonymous 

a/n: thank you so much for your request anon! it’s my first request so i hope you enjoy! i also aged up Dustin to be 16 bc i felt weird writing this with him being like 13. enjoy!

pairing: Dustin Henderson x Harrington!Reader x Steve Harrington

word count: 1.9k

summary: Steve is overly protective of his little sister and when he sees a hickey on her, he’s furious

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/N hated sneaking around. When she and Dustin started dating, Dustin had suggested they keep it a secret. It’s not that he was embarrassed or wanted to hide it but they didn’t want their friends to tease them (especially Max and Lucas), but also because of Y/N’s brother. Being Steve Harrington’s younger sister meant that he was super over protective, especially when it came to dating. Steve knew what guys could be like so he made sure that he kept boys away from her. “I’m sixteen now Stevie” she began. “I am old enough to start dating. Besides, you didn’t act like this when Mike and Eleven got together” she finished, crossing her arms angrily. “Thats different!” Steve replied. “You are my baby sister and I don’t want anybody to…corrupt you!” Y/N laughed. “Corrupt me?! You are worse than dad!” “No boys until you’re thirty, and thats final!” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at her. She rolled her eyes and stomped up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door after her. No matter how annoyed she was, even an argument with her brother was not going to ruin this day for her. It was her and Dustin’s two month anniversary. Although it wasn’t a super long time to be with someone, it was still a big deal for her because it was her first relationship.

“Hey I procrastinated doing my English essay for Mr. Hartman so I’m gonna be in my room trying to do it so don’t bother me” Y/N called down the stairs to her brother. “Yup got it” Steve replied, not looking up from the TV. Brilliant. With Steve distracted and her alibi set, she could sneak out to go meet Dustin. She ran back up to her room and changed into her favorite pair of jeans, t-shirt and a red sweater, and sneakers. She carefully opened her window and climbed out, standing on the sloped roof beneath her. She propped the window open with her Science textbook and climbed down. She then hopped on her bike and rode to Dustin’s house. When she was half way there she realized she had forgotten to lock her door. “No matter,” she thought. “Steve is so engrossed in his TV show he won’t check on me for at least four hours”.

Once she arrived, she hopped of her bike and climbed up to Dustin’s window. She knocked on it lightly. Moments later, the curly haired boy appeared at the window, smiling. He opened the window for her and helped her climb in. Dustin turned on the radio and the two began laughing and talking, simply enjoying each other’s company. After a while, the two began to get a bit hot and heavy and started making out. They hadn’t gone much further than this and Dustin respected her decision to wait. Besides, he was enjoying being with a girl as beautiful, smart, and funny as Y/N Harrington. “You are incredible, you know that?” he said to her as they pulled away. She smiled and shook her head. “How did I get so lucky?” The two smiled at each other for another few moments before Dustin’s face dropped. “Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit I’m sorry” he said, panic filling his voice. “What? What is is?” Y/N said, sitting up. “I left a pretty obvious mark on your neck. I swear I didn’t mean to” he said. She stood up and went over to a mirror on the other side of his room. Sure enough, a purple mark was appearing on her neck. She pulled her shirt down and counted two more, each more purple than the last. “Shit” she said. “I can hide the ones on my chest but this guy,” she said pointing to the love bite her neck, “no way”.

She turned to face the boy and started to laugh a bit. “Why are you laughing?! If Steve sees it he’ll kill you! Oh my god what if he finds out it was me?” he said, even more panicked than before. “He probably will babe, but, you aren’t exactly mark free either”. He went pale and joined her at the mirror, examining his neck. “I’ll just wear a turtle neck tomorrow or cover it with makeup. It’ll be fine” She looked at her watch. 8 o’clock. Damn. “Hey I gotta get home. I only give Steve like a four hour window of focus on that TV before he comes to check on me. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow” Dustin said, giving her a hug and kissing her sweetly. Little did Y/N know, Steves focus had worn off much sooner than she had anticipated.

At 7:30, Steve got bored of whatever dumb program had started, and decided to go check on his sister. She usually talked to herself when she did homework and it had been unusually quiet in her room. He walked up the stairs and knocked on her door. There was no reply. He knocked again. “Hey Y/N, you alright in there?”. He was puzzled. He opened her door and was shocked to find her room empty. “Are you trying to play a prank on me? Are you gonna jump out of the closet or something?” Still no response. Then he spotted it. The textbook in the window. A classic Harrington move. Steve couldn’t believe it. His little sister had really snuck out and he hadn’t noticed! He decided he would sit on her bed and wait for her to sneak back in. He waited about thirty minutes before he heard the breathless girl climbing up the side of the house.

When she reached the window and opened it, her heart dropped into her stomach. “What do you think you are doing?” Steve said, pulling his little sister back into her room. “What are you doing in my room?” she retorted. “My question first” he said. Thinking on her toes, Y/N came up with a lie to explain her disappearance. “I wanted to hang out with Max and Elle without you breathing down my neck okay!” she said. She suddenly remembered that her hickey was visible above her sweater and covered her neck with her hand as casually as possible. “Hey, hey what are you hiding?” He moved her hand and felt his face go red. “What is that?!” he boomed. She pushed him away, trying to come up with another lie. “Get off! It’s just a curling iron burn! The girls were curling their hair and when I went to try I burned myself!” That made sense right? Steve squinted at her suspiciously. He knew a hickey when he saw one. “I am gonna find out who did this and I’m gonna kill them” Steve said. “I told you it’s a burn! Now get out of my room!” She yelled, pushing her older brother out of the door. “Just tell me his name!” Steve shouted. She slammed the door in his face. Steve was fuming. They had the boyfriends argument before but this was a new level. Steve did the only thing he could think of. He called his best friend Robin.

“Hey Popeye” Robin said. “Whats going-” “No time Robin, we have an issue” Steve interrupted. “What is it Harrington?” she said. “I caught Y/N sneaking back into her room through a window and she had a hickey! What am I going to do?! I need your help to figure out who the hell did this to my baby sister!” There was a moment of silence and then laughter from Robin. “First of all, relax. It’s just a hickey. You were probably like ten when you had your first one so get some perspective” “I was twelve” he said. “Don’t interrupt me” she continued. “Secondly, why do you care? She’s sixteen now. You have to loosen up.” Steve sighed. “I guess you’re right”. “Also I know who she’s dating”. “What?!” Steve shouted. “Tell me now!” “Fine fine don’t get your panties in a twist” Robin said. “But you have to promise not to do anything drastic.” “Fine fine I promise just tell me”. He said. “Henderson” she said. Steve was silent. Henderson?! Of all people she chose Henderson! I guess it wasn’t as bad as he had expected, after all, he liked Dustin. “What are you gonna do Steve? I can hear your brain exploding” she said. She was met with more silence. “Just invite him over and talk to him or something. Just don’t make it weird.” “Right yeah thanks Robin. I’ll see you tomorrow” he said, hanging up the phone. Thats what he would do. He would invite Dustin over tomorrow and interrogate him.

The next day he called the Henderson house. “Hey Dustin it’s Steve” “Oh uh hey Steve, what’s up?” Dustin’s voice was squeaky. Got him. “I need your help with something and I need you to come over.” “Oh yeah uh sure I’ll see you in a few hours and-” “No,” Steve interrupted. “I need your help now, I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” “Okay”. Dustin’s voice was quiet and his nervousness could be felt through the phone. When Dustin finally got to the house, Steve met him at the door. “Henderson, I’m so glad you could come over” Steve said coldly. Dustin didn’t speak as he entered the house. Steve glared at him. “So what did you need my help with?” Dustin asked cautiously. “I need help understanding what the hell you are doing with my sister.” Steve said. His arms were crossed and he stood blocking the door, blocking any hope of escape for Dustin. “Hey Stevie who’s at the door?” Y/N asked, having heard the knock from her room. “Oh hey Dustin what’s up?” she said casually. “Oh no no you aren’t fooling me” Steve said. “I wanna know what’s going on here” Y/N rolled her eyes. “Did you call Robin last night? Damn I knew I shouldn’t have told her.” She finished walking down the stairs and stepped beside Dustin, clasping his hand in hers. “No no no, none of that” Steve said, trying to break them apart. “Steve relax seriously, you are way too worked up about this” Y/N said. Steve sighed. “I just don’t want you to get hurt” he said. She let go of Dustin’s hand and put her hands on Steve’s shoulders. “I know that but this whole over protective brother act is suffocating”. Steve nodded. “If it helps, I have no intention of breaking up with Y/N and honestly, the past two months have been some of the happiest months of my life” Dustin added. Steve looked up at him suddenly. “TWO MONTHS??” he yelled. He lunged at Dustin, Y/N stepping between them before they collided.“Woah Stevie, chill take a deep breath”. She pushed him back.

“Okay okay I can deal with this, this is fine” Steve muttered under his breath. “But, we need to make some ground rules. No closed doors and no sneaking anybody in anywhere. You come in through the front door and make your presence known!” Steve said, pointing towards the door. The two teens nodded. “Okay…” Steve ran his hand through his hair. “I think I can get behind this but I’m gonna need some time to process.” He lowered himself down onto the couch. Y/N and Dustin looked at each other with smirking expressions. “Okay Steve…you just take your time. We’ll just be upstairs.” Y/N said, slowly leading Dustin upstairs. “Yeah…okay…but I want that door open!” He yelled after them. The two teens laughed and ran the rest of the way up the stairs. Steve shook his head. “Crazy kids” he said, chuckling a bit as he realized he was glad that if his sister had to date anyone, it would be Dustin Henderson.

[olivarryprompts]

Fanfic Friday #11

Welcome to Fanfic Friday! Each Friday I post a new here and on A03. Enjoy x

Read and save it on A03 here https://archiveofourown.org/works/33567529

{fancy suits from dad}

Ships: Peter Stark & Tony Stark, Pepper Pots/Tony Stark

Warnings: swearing, just fluff otherwise :)

Wc: 2,319

Here’s the thing, Peter Parker grew up in Stark Tower, which eventually became Avengers Tower of course. So whilst his whole class was buzzing about their field trip, all he could think was, “shit, shit shit.” His dad was going to embarrass the hell out of him. His Aunts and Uncles were going to endlessly tease him.

So, no Peter was not looking forward to the field trip. Not in the slightest. He still wanted to go, though. He knew that the rumors of his internship being fake were started by Flash, the annoying teen. He also knew that Flash had not once said his real name, preferring the name Penis Parker. It didn’t bother him as much as it used to. Also since highschool began, Flash had calmed down with his bullying. Well, maybe Flash hadn’t calmed down and high school was just bigger and he had thicker skin. And a new support system with plenty of people to go to.

Peter had been adopted by the Starks when he was a mere ten years old. At first, he was terrible at receiving any gifts or even too much attention. Slowly but surely, he got more and more used to it. Now, he wouldn’t not know what to do if any of that was taken away. Plus, he really did find a liking for expensive suits, however shallow. He looked good in them, and his father always insisted on buying him more and more. Tony would always find an excuse to spoil the kid a little more, however much Pepper tried to stop him.

“Peter, please see me after class regarding an urgent matter.”

Brough out of his thoughts, Peter swiftly nodded his head.

He looked at the board to see the words from before still written on them, “Field Trip to Stark Industries!” It might as well have said, “Dig Peter Stark’s Grave!”

“So, let’s get started with today’s lesson, graphing imaginary numbers on the complex plane!” He’d done this one a while back with his father. Something about not only learning applicable science and engineering. Peter tapped his glass, and the episode of Arrow he’d been watching on the car ride over began playing. He’d be ever grateful for his father’s gift of EDITH to him. Pepper had tried to ban him from wearing them to school, but hastily gave up when Peter pulled the spiderman danger card.

“Alright, class dismissed. Please remember to do this homework pages 11-18 on this unit’s homework handout.”

Peter, forgetting his teacher's previous request, was very glad to be on his way home. He was one foot out of the door when the teacher called his name. Now, his day had gone pretty well up to that point. Bucky made pancakes for breakfast, which were delicious. There was wayyy less traffic on the way to school. He’d aced an essay and a couple of quizzes, and then he even participated in PE effectively. But alas, all good things had to come to an end.

“Mr. Parker? The discussion.”

“Right,” Peter thought, joining the teacher at his desk.

“Peter, you are truly a great kid. I know you’ve been through a lot recently and in your life, but it is no excuse to make up an internship. We both know that it is not real. Now, acknowledging that you have a bright future, the administration and I have come forward with an offer. If you agree to write an apology, expressing that you understand what you did was wrong and immoral, you will both be allowed to come on the trip and no punishment will be given to you. If you choose to not take this opportunity, you will be banned from the trip and will be chastised.

Peter just stood there, not really comprehending. Apparently Flash’s little rumors were a lot bigger than he anticipated.

“I-i-I’m not lying,” was all he could manage. He had filed all the right paperwork and proved his internship.

“I’m sorry to hear that you will not come forward with the truth. You have up until the day before the trip to hand in the letter if you change your mind. Goodbye Peter.”

Peter just let his legs take him out of the classroom, then out of the school, and then to the road, a couple blocks away, where his dad picks him up from.

“Hello mini-me.”

“Hey,” Peter said, jumping into the passenger seat.

“‘Hi Dad, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to pick me up each and every day. Sick new car by the way! I’d love to drive it sometime!”

Peter just rolled his eyes with a smile, “Car looks great dad. McLarren’s are superior yet.”

“Ungrateful, so so ungrateful. What’s got you in a mood then?”

“Nothin,” Peter said, pulling out his phone.

“Oh come on, tell me. Tell me or I’ll call Ted.”

“Ned, Dad. We’ve been friends for like three years.”

“Not the point.”

“Just something at school.”

“Wow how very descriptive. You know I’m trying to do the whole feelings thing here, and you should appreciate that coming from my emotionally stunted self.”

“You’re so dramatic. Basically we’re having a field trip to your tower, and I’m not allowed to go because the teacher doesn’t think I really have an “internship.” Which, to be fair I don’t but that’s on you and not me.”

“Nah na na. I offered you an internship, and you said I’d be bored.”

“It would be. Doing a project for your company under strict supervision of some person would be sucky. I mean I can do anything I want from the lab you built me.”

“I know, but remember technically you are my intern. Remember we did that whole personal intern bullshit for the school.”

“Oh right. Is that why you keep harassing me about submitting all my completed projects.”

“No, that’s all your mother. Something about not wanting a lawsuit over a fake internship.”

“Make sense. She tends to be a lot smarter than you.”

“Ah, I feel so attacked. The abuse I suffer.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I am internally crying, kid. Sobbing.”

“Shut up,” we laughed.

“Who’s home?”

“You saw Buck and Sam this morning. Nat and Steve came back from their mission this afternoon. Thor and Loki are back for dinner tonight.. Strange might be coming round, not sure though. Cliff and the family aren’t back for at least a couple weeks. Oh and Bruce is wholed up in his lab as usual.”

“Shit. Everyone staying till the end of the week.”

“Yeah, oh the field trip. You’re screwed. You should have not told me.”

“Ughhhhh!!!”

“I love your life Petey.”

Peter walked into the kitchen and saw Steve reading a newspaper.

“Uncle Steve! Your back!” he smiled, dropping his bag off near the sofa. Steve got up to give the smaller boy a hug.

“Yep. Mission completed.”

“Nice. Can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah, it was nothing too interesting. We just needed some more intel into a terrorist organization stationed in the US. Most of the mission was recon. The next steps are being taken in a couple weeks.”

“Good to know there’s an active terrorist organization out there,” Peter said lightly.

Steve just smiled, not quite understanding the modern humor.

“Where is everyone else?” he said, realizing the living room was not in it’s normal chaotic state that he’d come to love. The chaos was his favorite reminder that he had so many people. He liked having lots of people, even after all this time.

“Nat and Buck are training, they invited you to join if you want. Bruce is in his lab, and dont worry he slept and ate last night. Not sure about the rest.”

“Right, thanks. I think I’m going to go train.”

Before he knew it, it was Friday morning, and his school was coming to his home. He was going to try very hard to ignore them. To do so, he asked his mum to let him sit in on some meetings. He had an easy in to the R&D and mechanical side of the company via the other interns. He was actually planning on hanging out with some of the “other” interns later that day. They were always happy to let Pete in on their projects and let him give them a hand. But he was always interested in getting more detail about the business side of the company, and he liked to get a window into it. Pepper was always happy to show her son the ropes. I mean he was heir to the company after all, even if he didn’t know yet.

He asked his mum to only schedule meetings after 12 as he requested a sleep in. Pepper was always happy when Peter slept as he was a little too much like his father. So, he woke bright and early at 11:00 o’clock.

After a scroll through his phone and a quick shower, he was ready to pull on his far too expensive Brunellio’s custom suit. It was one of his favorites. His father had got it custom made when he was in Italy, and told him he simply could not resist getting one for the kid. Pepper just smiled.

He had a large breakfast (enhanced metabolism) and headed towards the 34th floor where his first meeting was located. He’d been shadowing his mum for almost a year now whenever it was convenient, so he had the rointine down. He was almost sure he could take over a few of her meetings.

“Hi honey,” Pepper said, giving the boy a quick kiss on the cheek on the way to her own chair beside him. Peter blushed before resuming his professional posture and facial expression.

“Good morning everyone, as you can see Peter will be joining us today. I want to talk about some of the services we provide for our employees and their feedback. I’m aware we have a large portion to talk about so Kendra please take it away on that front.”

The first meeting went smoothly as planned. It was a discussion on the progress of the internal services, aka the IT department. Peter hadn’t learned much about their IT department, so it was good to listen in to. Pre these meetings, he, of course, does research into the background stuff, so he’s not completely lost. Pepper’s assistant usually provides him with a packet of info about the Stark Industries side of things. He is also given a list of key words and concepts he might want to make sure he understands. The research is fun for him, it makes him feel all professional.

Usually he spoke during the meetings, asking a couple questions and suggesting some ideas, but for this one he just learned and took in. The next meeting, however, was very much so his field. He’d spoken a lot with advertising, becoming very interested in the data analysis behind it. He even took a stats class so he could keep up. In that one he asked questions Pepper was on the verge of asking twice. He also contributed to the analysis of data once. Pepper usually liked him to participate as it was good for him, but he always felt bad suggesting stuff to the senior adults. He usually spoke to his mum or dad about projects for the company, preferring that.

They hung back in the room of the second meeting.

“Good job in this one Pete. Took two questions right off my tongue.”

“Thanks ma,” he said, always appreciating some approval.

“That’s all I’ve got for you today, kid. Rest of the stuff is, ya know.”

“Course. Thanks for these two. It was good to learn about internal affairs a bit more. Have a gap of knowledge there.”

“Yeah. Was that the first time meeting our CIT?”

“I believe so.”

“Well, next time we have a broader IA meeting, I’ll pull you outta school,” Pepper suggested.

“Really? That’d be epic.”

“Course, hun. Jarvis, sort that out please.”

“Of course Mrs. Potts.”

“Thanks J,” Peter yelled.

“Anytime mini-boss. No need to disturb the entire floor.”

“Are AI supposed to be so snarky?”

“Dad programmed it, what else would it be?”

“Valid point.”

“Right, got to run. See you later.”

“Bye, love you mum!”

“Love you too, Pete.”

“Jarvis, could you send me the tour plan for the visiting tour today?”

“Absolutely, sir. They’re on your phone now.”

“Thanks J.”

Looking at the plans Peter smiled. He had successfully avoided them the entire day. It said they were supposed to head back to school at 2:30, and it was about to be three. Smile on his face, he trotted down to the lobby to grab a coffee before going to meet Loki at the arcade. Don’t judge them, it was their thing. Taking the private lift down, and then walking straight to the coffee stand and ordering.

“Mr. Parker!” he heard the angry voice of his teacher, “How dare you show up here aft-”

Shit. shit. Shit.

“Edith, call dad, and tell him it’s urgent in the lobby.”

“Of course Peter.”

“Peter, are you listening to me! You are going to face extreme consequences for this.”

“Your coffee,” the man said, not realizing it was Peter, level ten personal of the tower, that was being yelled at.

“Thanks.”

“How dare you get coffee! In this building! Security!”

Tony arrived spotting his son instantly.

“Kid this best be impor- I see.”

“Hey Mr. Stark,” Peter said weakly.

“Mr. Harrington is it? Please stop harassing my intern.”

“H-he, he is y-your intern?”

“Yes. My favorite. Please exit the building and never question him again. You will be hearing from me.”

Let’s just say, Monday was an interesting day. At least Flash backed off, he was definitely an intern at SI, and no one embarrassed him on the trip.

[unfortunatelysirius]

My Cauldron’s Bubbling For You // Remus Lupin x Slytherin! Reader

「 ❁ 」PROMPT 「 ❁ 」 

Y/N L/N loves pranking and she loves flirting. The two go hand in hand. When she starts flirting with Remus… he fears for his life. 

「 ❁ 」AUTHOR’S NOTE 「 ❁ 」

wowowowow I'm on a role huh??? :o 

Remus wasn’t sure when exactly it started.

        From first year to fifth year, Y/N L/N was just a bold, self-assured Slytherin girl who barely gave him or anyone else the time of day. Remus thought she was pretty and sure, admired her confidence, but she wasn’t really part of the crowd he hung around. She had her own—a group of girls from all the houses who liked to joke around and play tricks. Several of Y/N’s friends were flirty and had a tendency to flirt with their victims right before they came in for the kill. Sirius was no exception; he foolishly let them reel him in, then he was left speechless when he charmed to make gas noises anytime he sat down.

        Remus always found it funny when the girls did what they did to innocent blokes. He would have been mad not to. They made it clear what they were up to, but raging hormones surely enticed their victims enough that they didn’t pay clear attention. Boys all around him, boys in different houses, would be charmed into a false sense of safety only for it to shatter the next day. After a while he began wondering when his turn was, but he found that to be too presumptuous of a thought. He settled for watching his peers flounder and thinking nothing of it.

        Then one day in sixth year, Y/N L/N came up to Remus in Potions, leaned in close to his ear, and whispered, “I think it’s sexy, watching you write your notes like that.”

        Remus had blushed furiously and looked down at his parchment. His notes could have been likened to columns, the way they so neatly went across the page. His scrawl was slow, meticulous, and tiny, the best of his friend group. “O-Oh… thank you?” Remus didn’t want to fall for her charm, as much as he liked her. Maybe he wanted to be Y/N’s victim eons ago, but that was eons ago for a reason; the thought secretly terrified him.

        “It’s perfect,” Y/N purred, leaning away from Remus to smile beguilingly in his face. “But that’s to be expected with Remus Lupin, isn’t it? He is perfect.”

        Remus tried not to choke, hearing his heart beating loudly behind his ear drums. He didn’t know how to respond so he just stayed silent. His face was beginning to burn.

        Y/N raised her brows, her smile widening at the sight of Remus’s ablaze cheeks. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret safe so the girls don’t go into a frenzy,” she mock-whispered. “I want you all to myself.”

        She walked to her seat without another word.

        “What—” Sirius whipped around in his seat—like he hadn’t just eavesdropped on their entire conversation—and gaped at Remus. “Mate!”

        “Don’t,” Remus croaked, burying his head into his parchment, feeling doomed.

        Maybe that’s when it all started. Yeah, that’s when it all started.

       Remus stayed alert all day, thinking her flirtations were all fun and games, but when a prank never happened….

       Well, Remus couldn’t help but wonder why.

-

        “Hi, Remus,” said Y/N, waving a hand at him and grinning wolfishly when he ducked his head in a blush. “You look good in red!”

        He was wearing a red Gryffindor Quidditch jumper to show nonexistent spirit for the upcoming game with Hufflepuff.

        “T-Thanks, Y/N,” Remus said, feeling Sirius and James’s equally wolfish grins behind him, Peter’s subdued excitement just as much of an annoyance. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Wouldn’t that just be great?

        “I’ll see you at the game,” Y/N said, giving him a wink before she went in the opposite direction of the boys, two of her Ravenclaw friends following like ducklings. Giggling ducklings.

        Remus felt feverishly warm. Maybe it was from Y/N’s advances or a fever itself; either way, the game didn’t feel like such a good idea anymore. He turned to look at his friends.

        “It’s been three weeks, Remus,” Sirius said, looking over at James and Peter. They shared the same incredulous face. “Why hasn’t she pranked you? They never do this.”

        “I don’t know…” Remus shrugged helplessly. It wasn’t like he talked to her any more than his friends did; he was just as clueless, if not more. “Maybe it’s her biggest and takes longer than a few weeks to plan.”

        James rolled his eyes, but there was a grin tugging at his mouth. “Or… maybe she like-likes you.”

        Don’t be ridiculous, Remus felt like saying. How could Y/N like someone like him? He was quiet and awkward and he wasn’t very funny. Not witty like her, or as confident.  She was a beautiful thunderstorm and he was barely a raincloud.

        “I know that look, mate,” Sirius said, waggling a finger. “She has to bloody like you; she never sticks this long to one victim.”

        “She had this schoolgirl look on her face,” James continued.

        “Yeah, Moony—she made an effort to say, ‘Hi,’ to you, too! That has to mean something,” Peter chimed in.

        Remus rolled his eyes and shook his head, refusing to let his friends implant this stupid idea in his head—or else he’d start thinking and then he’d start hoping. “No,” he growled.

        He walked off to a sour serenade of James and Sirius making kissy sounds.

-

        “Remus, you’re not a Pureblood, are you?” Y/N asked him once during Potions class. She sat right behind him, always leaning into his nape and saying things that made him blush for the rest of the period. He sometimes wanted to up and move, but after he got used to her incongruous flirting, he began feeling comfortable. Soon after he began liking it.

        Remus felt uneasy by the question, but he didn’t see any logic in lying. “I’m a Half-blood,” he said.

        He could almost feel her smiling behind him. “Good, good… well, I wish this were science class so you could see the chemistry between you and me.”

        Remus now saw why she asked him about his blood.

        “I always have my eye on you,” Y/N continued, getting closer until her lips were a breath away from his ear. “Makes for a… distraction, if I’m honest. Can’t say I’m disappointed.”

        Remus lurched forward, away from her, getting a strange look from the Ravenclaw girl a few seats away from him. He heard Y/N chuckling behind him.

        “Cute,” she muttered to herself.

        Remus didn’t stop blushing until he passed out from exhaustion later that night.

-

        “You steal my heart every time I see you,” she said in his ear the next time she saw him.

-

        She walked by him when he was sitting with his friends in the Great Hall and told him he had a beautiful smile the day after that.

-

        “I didn’t believe in love at sixth year until I saw you at the Sorting,” she said randomly one day in Potions.

-

        “Do you feel yourself falling in love or should I give you a push in that direction?”

-

        “I bet you’d make for a great cauldron to brew Amortentia in.”

-

        Eventually Remus started smiling at her flirtations and instead of just blushing and feeling embarrassed, he felt warm instead, like her words were hugging his insides. He wished he was like Sirius and could flirt back, but he wasn’t anything like Sirius. He was too awkward and anxious for that. He just sat and said, “Thank you,” and looked forward to what she’d say the next day.

        Remus knew her pulling a prank on him was long overdue.

-

        “You have a crush on her,” James declared.

        “You look all sappy and loopy, mate,” Sirius said in agreement, twisting his head this way and that as he analyzed his friend.

        Remus didn’t feel very sappy or loopy, and he was already disappointed enough in himself, so their words did nothing but irk him. He frowned and said, “I don’t fancy her.”

        Liar.

        James smirked. “Oh, really? Looks like Alex Green is over there flirting with her now—”

        “Wait, what?” Remus snapped his head over to the Slytherin table. Instead of what James painted in Remus’s head, he saw Y/N sitting with one of her friends, smiling and laughing. “Oh.”

        James snickered and Sirius roughly patted Remus’s shoulder. Peter would have taken the piss out of him, too, if he were there—but he was fortunately holed up in the dorm doing Potions coursework.

        Yeah, if the ground could open him and swallow him, Remus wouldn’t complain.

-

        Professor Slughorn was sick and unable to hold class, so Remus was sat outside the classroom door, working on an essay for Transfiguration. He would have just walked up to his dorm instead of sitting in the dust, but the corridor was empty and silent. A contrast to his boisterous dormmates who didn’t know the definition of settling down.

        Remus didn’t mean that. He loved his friends. They could just be too much at times.

Like the past month, for instance.

Remus had sat and been furiously scribbling out paragraph after paragraph, using his wand as a makeshift lantern in the darkness, when he felt something his leg. He jerked and fumbled for his wand, quickly flashing the light over on his other side.

He felt like booking it when it was Y/N’s embarrassed—Embarrassed? What?—face his wand came inches from prodding.

        “Oh—I’m sorry!” Remus quickly jerked his arm back. “Sorry… um… Y/N.”

        Y/N smiled, but it looked unusual on her face. It had a different look to it, almost embarrassed. Remus felt like taking his fingers and drawing her skin up into a grin, and he usually didn’t feel like touching another person. She just looked weird with her eyes dim like that, a weird that he didn’t like.

        “It’s okay,” she said. “I just came to say something. I looked for you in the Great Hall, even asked your friends where you were, but you weren’t anywhere, so… It was this or your dorm.”

        Remus felt puzzled. Why had she gone through so much trouble looking for him? Whatever she had to say was important; it had to be, all things considered.

        “I fancy the pants off you,” she said, words all jumbled from how fast she spoke. “Like,really fancy—but I don’t want your pants off. I don’t know how to like someone without flirting with them and I know you’re nothing like that, I do, but I’m a twat. I realized after my mates pointed it out earlier, I’ve been entirely too forward with you. You’re just so cute and quiet and I just don’t know how else to like you—”

        Remus, awkward Remus, backwards Remus, didn’t know how to say words without messing them up, and he knew he’d probably just sit there and stare at her until she got frustrated and left, so he did all he could think to do in that moment.

        He closed the space between them, kissing her as clumsily as a six-year-old would his recess crush.

        Merlin, what am I doing?

        Merlin, what have I done?

        Her lips were chapped, Remus’s were too, but that didn’t stop from Y/N’s words dying in her mouth and the two of them sharing a short-lived smooch.

        Remus pulled back as fast as he lurched forward.

        Why did I do that?

        Y/N was staring at him with a reddened face. Remus didn’t know at all what to say.

        He ended up saying, “I fancy you, too.”

        Y/N had regained her bravado, it seemed, because she let out a small laugh, telling him, “That’s a relief, Remmy… I’d hate to have to play a prank on you.”

        Remus flushed and smiled at her, taking longer than he felt comfortable admitting to catch on that she was teasing him.

        They held hands for a while. She even stole a kiss while he was concentrating hard on his parchment.

        Remus felt strangely light.

Bonus:

        James and Sirius threw a dorm party that night for Remus’s lip virginity getting taken.

        “Now you’re ready for third base!” Sirius cheered for him.

        Remus tried smothering himself with a pillow, swatting at his dormmate’s hands when he tried tearing him away from his bed. “Dear Merlin, Sirius, leave me alone!” he cried.

        Sirius didn’t leave Remus alone.

[dragoqueen]

5 Times Bucky Helped out Peter + 1 Time Peter Returned the Favor

Summary: Peter may or may not be one of the best procrastinators there is. Which leads to some tricky situations when he has patrol late in the night and school in the morning. Luckily, Bucky is there to help him out. 

Words: 1790

Alright, so maybe procrastinating on his homework by going on patrol wasn’t the best idea when he had a 3 page paper on WWII due the next day. But, in his defense, he had already created a plan for it. The thing could practically write itself at this point, and if only it could. The real problem was that he left it on his desk, and he didn’t remember half of it.

So here he was, sitting at his desk in the dark, with a single lamp on, a large mug of coffee to his right, and a computer with a blank google doc pulled up, the blinking cursor reminding him of every second gone to waste of him not getting any work done. His eyes were dry from staring at the screen for a good half an hour, and he was about ready to give up and just accept the terrible grade.

Suddenly, a noise from the hallway pulls his attention away from the computer. Footsteps slowly approach his room, though his spidey sense doesn't alert him of any danger. A mental arm slides through the cracked doorway and slowly the rest of the door opens to reveal Bucky, blinking from the sudden exposure to light. Peter quickly turns the brightness on his computer down before turning back to the man who had already taken a seat on the bed. “What are you doing up so late?” he asks gruffly, though Peter can sense the well-meaning-ness behind the question. 

“Forgot I had a paper due tomorrow. It’s kinda important, can’t miss it.” he answers. 

“You know you’re supposed to do that kind of stuff over time, properly. That way it turns out nice. What’s the paper over?”

“World War Two heroes.”

He lets out a soft snort, “well that should be pretty easy. You have two of us living with you.”

“Yeah, but all of my research is currently sitting in my desk at school and this is due tomorrow! It’s going to take at least a few hours to write this.”

“Peter, you can’t be doing this. A growing boy like you needs his rest. Especially you, being a growing spiderling and all.”

“I know. I’m sorry if I woke you up, I’m just trying to get this done as quietly as possible. I already made a cup of coffee to keep me up so I should be fine, and I promise I’ll go to bed when I’m done if you want to go back to sleep.”

“No. I’ll help you. Research will take too long, I’ll provide information and fuel. Stay here.”

Bucky stands up, ruffling Peter’s hair before exiting the room. Peter awkwardly sits there, his chair angled towards the doorway, as he waits for Bucky to return. He’s just barely fighting against sleep when he hears Bucky’s footsteps approaching the room. Ha makes an attempt to sit up more, but decides to just prop his head up with one hand. 

Bucky pov

Bucky gives the kid a smile when he sees him. He was super adorable, and was definitely worth protecting. He’d pulled plenty of all-nighters before, mostly just from nightmares and his body refusing to sleep. His mind always returns back to his time in the army and with HYDRA. He’d only told Steve about these nightmares, and typically they’d get through it together. Especially since Steve had trouble sleeping as well after being frozen in the ice for so long. However, Steve hadn’t been up when Bucky’s body refused sleep, and he’d seen the light in the baby spider’s room. One thing led to another and here he was, handing him a large pitcher of ice water, a cup, and a plate containing four ham and turkey sandwiches cut into triangle halves. 

“Here’s the deal. You’re going to work and I’ll answer any questions that you have. If you finish at a reasonable time, I’ll make you a huge breakfast in the morning as a celebration. What hero did you choose? Steve… Peggy…?” 

“Oh, actually Mr. Winter Soldier White Wolf Bucky Barnes, sir. I chose to write about you.”

“Me…” Bucky’s baffled. He hadn’t viewed himself as a hero in the slightest. Especially with all of the Winter Soldier… stuff. Even during the war he was more of a sidekick than anything. One of “Captain America’s” many accomplices. The kid was sweet though. “I… okay. I guess helping you with this thing is going to be easier than I thought. Umm… What kind of information do you need, kid?” 

“One paragraph has to be general information about your life before the war, like where were you born, where did you go to school, what was your childhood like, etc. The second one has to be what was your contribution to the war, what you were mots known for, etc. And then the third one is about your affect on others and our everyday life, which is more based on me than research I need for you. All and all, pretty easy. Especially with your help, Mr. Bucky Barnes, sir. My research hadn't resulted in a lot of stuff because it's a "controversial topic at school," the kid actually used air quotes. He's so precious. "But, I did you anyway because you're really cool and more people need to realize it. Sorry if I ranted a bit there."

“It’s fine kid. Like you said, this shouldn’t be too hard. Also, you can just call me Bucky.”

“Alright Mr. Bucky. Let’s get started? I can just write down the information I need and then you can go to sleep-”

“Nope, we’re in this together. I’m staying up as long as you are so better get started.”

“Oh… alright then. I’m going to write a quick thesis and then maybe ask you a few questions based on the different paragraphs, if that’s all right?”

“Perfectly fine, kid.”

Peter writes out a quick thesis he’d been mulling over as he’d stared at the blank screen for so long. He thought it actually wasn’t half bad. Then, he begins filling in information on Mr. Barnes’ (he was still planning on calling him that in his head) childhood, adding in a few fillers here and there to make the essay fit the guidelines. Every once and a while he’ll take a long gulp of water or take a bite of one of the sandwiches. They were really good.

By the time the kid has gotten to his conclusion paragraph, he’s nearly fallen asleep multiple times, and the plate of food has long gone, though Bucky had continued to keep the pitcher full for the kid, despite his reassurance that he didn’t need it. Like heck he did. Finally, kid types the last sentence and turns it in, slumping over his desk on top of the recently closed laptop. Bucky chuckles, and grabs the dishes from the desk, assuming the kid would move to the bed by himself. Once he’s returned to make sure he’s asleep, the kid’s passed out, still over the desk. Bucky picks the kid up and moves him to the bed, Peter only letting out a small sigh in his sleep as protest. He pulls the covers over him before closing the doors behind him, moving back to his own room after finally feeling tired. 

Steve’s sitting at the edge of his bed when he returns, looking slightly worried. He grins when he sees his husband return, scooting over to allow him to sit down. “Sorry I wasn’t up, you know you could’ve woke me up, right?”

“I know. But I didn’t want to disturb you. After all, you looked so peaceful,” he teases. “And anyway, the kid was still up doing an assignment.”

“He get it finished?”

“Yeah, helped him a bit. Gonna have to make him breakfast in the morning as a reward.”

“Well aren’t you the parent.”

“Shut it punk. I want to sleep.”

“Alright.” They both return to the bed and end up passing out almost instantly. 

Bucky wakes up first the next morning, surprised to get some of the best sleep he’s gotten in a while. As promised, Bucky makes a large meal, fit for the endless void of food that was caused from the family of spies, gods, super soldiers, and other assorted bottomless pits. For the rest of them he whips up some pancakes, bacon, and eggs. However, for Peter he makes a couple of chocolate-drizzled croissants (a favorite of the spiderling) a chocolate flavored smoothie (with a bit of coffee mixed in for energy), and a small bowl of assorted fruits. 

Soon after the foot is done the team begins to trickle in at their own pace. Pepper and Natasha are up first, having breakfast together with a cup of coffee before moving off to their assorted morning duties. Sam, Clint, and the twins appear shortly after, fighting over the biggest pancakes like children. In the middle of it Steve appears, giving his husband a kiss on the cheek before sitting in between the two squabbling children. Sam and Clint give one last glare to each other before settling with the food on their plates. Tony and Bruce were at a science convention meeting, so they were currently at a hotel in Washington. Strange had taken a visit to Kamar-Taj, so he too was absent from their breakfast.  And Thor, Loki, and Carol were all off-world. 

Finally, the spiderling made an appearance, solidifying his child-like being by rubbing his eyes with his fist, blinking into the chaos of the morning. FRIDAY automatically dimmed the lights as he walked in, alerting everyone of his presence. Various greetings were exchanged as he sat down at their abnormally large table for his breakfast. He looks at Bucky curiously, to confirm that his breakfast would be a satisfying reward, his eyes growing bigger than they had thought humanly possible when the tray of food was set before him. “Wow, thank you Mr. Bucky. You really didn’t have to do this!”

“Hey! How come the kid gets a special breakfast?” Clint complains.

“Because the kid actually works hard for things in life, and this is a reward for him. Now eat up Peter, Happy will be here to pick you up in about 20 minutes.”

Peter nods his thanks before digging into the meal. It tastes even better than he could have imagined and by the time Happy comes to pick him up, he’s eaten it all and feels fresh and prepared for the coming school day. 

When he returns from school he happily tells everyone in the tower of how his teacher really enjoyed his WWII essay and had him read it aloud, which earns himself a proud smile from Bucky. 

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

A Miraculous TikTok Account

Part 31

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Previous

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Idk what happened. I was struggling to get this chapter to reach 1k words and then I blinked and it was 2k

... sorry?

Rena was the queen of pissing people off.

(She pinned most of it on her kwami, but it might just be because she had siblings. She’d been the baby for over ten years. It was the youngest’s job to piss off the older ones, it was basically in the job description.)

But even she knew that Chat had gone too far. She didn’t even have Chloe’s power of sensing emotions, but she knew from the moment Ladybug walked inside that shit was going to go down.

There are two types of anger.

Some people’s anger runs hot. Red faces and a voice raw from screaming and tears rolling down their cheeks. Rena’s anger ran hot, so did Chloe’s and Carapace’s. When Ladybug had stormed into the house, eyes full of fire, Rena had placed her in the hot anger category with them. She was fine with that. Preferred it, even. It was easy, predictable.

But it ended up not being predictable. She’d pointed the woman on her way and waited for the banging on the door, for the screaming to start.

… it never did.

Rena hesitated for only a few moments before heading up the stairs. For once, she was glad her kwami made it so people couldn’t easily sense her presence, because she did NOT want Ladybug’s anger to transfer over to her.

The woman’s hands were limp at her sides, her head resting against the door, her eyes squeezed shut. Rena watched, not daring to breathe…

And then Ladybug’s face forced itself into a neutral expression and she headed up to her room.

Rena watched her go and found herself almost scared of one of the people she’d used to idolize.

Ladybug had cold anger. Cold anger was everything that hot anger was not (obviously, cold and hot are opposites...). It was all thin lips and quiet words and dead eyes. And it was far, far worse for anyone involved. Because hot anger was traceable, there was a distinct escalation to follow until fists and words were thrown at each other. You knew when it was coming, you knew that when it did it would be over quickly.

But cold anger… it simmered under the surface. You may be able to detect when someone was experiencing it, but you’d never know when it would boil over or how.

Rena hoped that, whatever Ladybug did to retaliate (because she WOULD retaliate, pretty much everyone does at some point and she’d already had something against Chat), that it wouldn’t be too bad.

She made sure to be extra nice to the woman as she waited for something to happen. Ladybug probably knew why she was doing it, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t accept Rena’s offer to take patrols off of her hands when she’d noticed she was swamped with work or say no to the snacks she was giving her.

It was great. Rena’s chance of being murdered was like… 10%. Which she would take. It was better than Chat’s 90%.

~

Days passed, and the tenseness in the house did not leave.

Rena, obviously, was not a fan of the high tensions. No one likes to be in a tense place, and in Paris this was even worse. She was practically waiting for an akuma at all times.

On the other hand, it was a pretty good distraction. If she was constantly worried about what Ladybug was planning, then she wasn’t worrying about what Fu said --.

Damn it. Now she was worrying about what Fu said.

Because, as much as she hated it, the words they’d exchanged about her possibly getting corrupted felt far more real.

Back when she had only known about the other four miraculous holders, she hadn’t been worried. He’d gotten it right four times in a row; even Chloe, who was decidedly NOT a nice person, was very kind. All four of her predecessors were clearly chosen very carefully to fit the characteristics of their miraculi while also possessing heroic traits. Why would he drop the ball with the last hero?

But, no, now she had to live with the fact that he wasn’t totally infallible when it came to choosing heroes. Had Pieris been a fluke? Had the other miraculous heroes been the flukes?

Pieris had had the easiest miraculous to control. She had the hardest. Would she be able to stay sane while using it?

Part of her hummed that she’d already slipped some. That her time watching Chat had been an abuse of power and she knew it. So why had she done it?

Because it was necessary, the other part of her whispered. It was for the good of Paris.

… was she even completely sure that part of her WAS her?

She curled her fingers around the miraculous that hung around her neck like a noose.

And then Ladybug walked into the room and thank FUCK a distraction. Chat tensed up from his spot at the window.

… Ladybug brushed past him, her lips pressed together thinly as she made her way to the kitchen.

Rena couldn’t stop wondering about Chat. He had a tiny frown on his face as he watched the doorway she’d disappeared through. She wondered, vaguely, why he’d done it. It was a bad idea, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know that, so why?

But she wasn’t really close enough to ask. So, she was left to just look on the internet for some theories.

(Her personal favorite was ‘it’s flirting!!!!!!’. The LadyNoir stans were always fun. Wrong, but fun.)

~

Four days in, Ladybug struck…

How did she know? Chat screamed at five o’clock.

She groaned and shuffled out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she slowly poked her head out the door to see what had happened.

Chat was standing in the doorway to his room after a long patrol… and it looked like he’d dropped into a pool of glitter… or, as her eyes took in the amount of glitter around his feet and the polka dotted tote bag resting on top of his head like a hat that was much too large for him to pull off, a pool’s worth of glitter had been dropped on him.

There was a beat before he slowly pulled the bag off of himself and tossed it into the room. And… wow, there was even more glitter than she’d thought.

It stuck to everything about him (the sweat probably didn’t help). She no longer felt like she should be rubbing her eyes because damn did he need it more. Not that it would help all that much, his hands were just as coated in glitter and it would probably only hurt him more.

There was a click of Chloe’s door opening and the woman stared at the scene before she mumbled a ‘it’s too early for this’ and closed the door again, presumably to go back to sleep.

Carapace walked out, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than usual and the cup of coffee in his hand was the size of a water bottle. It was midterms for him. He was… not taking it well.

“Sorry, Carapace, go ahead and go back to studying. Didn’t mean for him to come home so early,” called Ladybug. She was sitting in the ladder to the attic, legs swinging idly. She tipped her head to the side as she considered him. “Go back to studying. If you need help, I’m good with math and science.”

He looked between her and Chat, who was struggling to blink his eyes open without permanently going blind.

“Do you really want to get on my bad side, too?” Mused Ladybug. “You don’t need anything distracting you from school right now…”

Carapace winced at the threat. He continued to look between the two of them before sighing and slouching a bit. “Can I at least help him get to the sink? He’s going to blind himself.”

She clicked her tongue but nodded. “Sure, I guess.”

Rena hesitated. “May I take a video?”

Ladybug fixed her eyes on her and she fought the urge to shrink back into her room or look away.

And then she shrugged. “Sure. News is kinda your thing, right?”

Rena tensed a little, her brain screeching to a halt. Did Ladybug know about her Ladyblogger days? There was no way she did, right? Sure, Ladybug had known her a little bit back in the day because Rena had often hung out around akumas for her blog, but surely it wasn’t well enough to figure out her identity, right --?

… wait, no, she was still talking about the TikTok. Ladybug looked very confused about her sudden freeze up and Rena had to think of an explanation FAST.

She pulled a bright smile to her face. “Yeah. Not allowed to do as much as I’d like, but y’know… it is what it is.”

Ladybug still looked a little confused, but she shrugged to herself and started heading up to her room.

~

The video on Rena’s account was just a video of the aftermath in short cuts.

“Ladybug got Chat back for that video he posted about her!” She explained to the camera.

Chat was covered head-to-toe with glitter outside of a small area around his eyes. He was also struggling to figure out how brooms worked, it seemed. Rena had considered helping but honestly it was kind of funny to watch him attempt to sweep something with the wrong end and how did he not know how a BROOM worked it was a BROOM --?

“Regretting it?” Said Rena, sitting down beside him.

He wore an irritable expression, though that was hard to look at all intimidating when he looked like a child’s arts and crafts project. “A little, yeah.”

“It was dumb to mess with her.”

“A little, yeah.”

She laughed a little at that.

He brought up a hand to rub his eyes tiredly, because he wasn’t as used to not sleeping as Carapace and Ladybug were, and Rena had to grab his arm to stop him so he didn’t die by glitter-in-eyes-syndrome.

… but now she was kind of regretting it. Because her hand was all glittery.

He gave her a tiny smile.

“Thanks. And, uh, sorry about the hand.” He looked down at the broom and dustpan he was apparently still unsure about how to use. “Well, at least it’s over, right?”

Rena privately disagreed. But she didn’t say that aloud, instead she just smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek… which she also regretted.

The camera caught her vague choking noises and curses for a few seconds before it cut.

Carapace was struggling to write an essay because of all the glitter on his hands.

“Fuck I should’ve let it go I should’ve let it go fuck c’mon I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to my professor fuckkkkkkk --.”

“Do it online.”

He whipped around, brandishing his pencil like a weapon, and only slightly relaxed when he realized it was her. “When did you --? Nevermind, whatever.” He sighed. “My teacher is old so he only accepts stuff on paper. It’s stupid.”

Rena reached out and gave him a little head pat.

The video cut briefly to a video of Chloe sleeping and decidedly not helping anyone with anything.

Ladybug was only there for a few moments. Rena had gone up to see her in a red crop top and black leggings. She sent her a smile and a wave despite the fact that she was currently doing her best impersonation of a pretzel. “Hey! You filming a video, too?”

Rena stared at her, wondering how she’d managed to get that flexible, and then realized she was talking to her and quickly nodded. “Yeah yeah yeah, just reporting on the incident… how’re you feeling?”

She watched Ladybug do a back roll and by the time she was finished all of her limbs were miraculously untangled, which was insane and should be impossible but I digress. “Great, honestly! I mean, it was bad that the internet got to see me on an off day and all, but…” She shrugged. “I feel much better now.”

She smiled at the camera and waved it goodbye.

The video ended.

~~~

Taglist

@nathleigh @sassakitty @th1s-1s-my-aesthet1c @blueslushgueen @woe-is-me0 @ladybug-182 @cas-and-their-refusal-to-write @trippingovermyfeet @melicmusicmagic @meimei3841 @roseliali

[drakeandkatherine]

Reunion- Ch 2: alstroemeria (Drake x MC TRRAU FanFic)

Hello! I am so excited to show you guys the second chapter to Reunion!

I’m sorry this took sooooooo long to upload. My personal life has been super hectic lately, and I haven’t had time to really write! 

(Drake, Liam, Hana, Maxwell and any other The Royal Romance characters belong to Pixelberry! Katherine Delacroix belongs to me!)

Series Overview: Reunion is a short series about Drake Walker and Katherine Delacroix, along with their friends, Maxwell, Hana and Liam. In this series, we see the gang at a high school reunion, five years after they’ve graduated. There will be flash backs, taking place up to nine years ago (the start of high school) up to when they graduate. You’ll get to see how the gang came together, and how they fell apart, only to come back together, and the main focus is how Drake and Katherine come back to each other after years apart.

All chapters of this series are named after flowers, with certain meanings. This chapter is named “alstroemeria”. It has meaning of friendship, love, strength and devotion. They're often thought to represent mutual support. And the ability to help each other through the trials and tribulations of life. This chapter, it flashes back to where the group of five became friends.

Word count: 1578

Warnings: adult language, mentions of death and drinking

Tags: @burnsoslow​ @drakewalker04​ @marshmallowsandfire​

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!

Katherine and Hana spent the rest of their first day back after five years in Cordornia preparing for the next night. They tried to plan out just how long they would stay and who they would talk too if those people showed up.

“Hana, are you really sure we should be there that long? I feel like two hours is more than enough time to say hi, have a drink and get the fuck out of there.” Katherine complained as she fished for her pajamas in her suitcase.

“We came all the way here for this reunion, we might as well stay longer than two hours; possibly even the whole time, Kat.” Hana said, a small chuckle escaping her lips. “Besides don’t you wanna see Olivia again?”

“I don’t really want to see much of anyone to be honest, Hana. I’d rather go get a couple drinks and maybe say hi to Olivia, if she even shows up and then I want to bounce.” The truth was, she did miss Olivia and all the fun nights the three had during junior and senior year, she just wasn't going to admit it.

Hana shook her head and continued to put away her clothes in the dresser that they shared in the room as Katherine changed into her pajamas. “Should we order room service?”

“I think a better question is, can we order alcohol?” Hannah laughed.

-

The next day as Katherine was preparing herself mentally, her mind wandered back to sophomore year of high school, the year that Hana and her became friends with a few others who soon had become the closest thing to family she had had in a long time. Family, she sadly remembered, that barely talked to her or Hana anymore.

8 years ago

Liam and Drake were two of the most popular boys at the high school. Both were star football players and in the winter, star basketball players. A lot of the girls tried their best to get the boys to notice them, but sadly none of their efforts worked. It wasn’t until one Saturday in detention that they met two other girls who would soon become their best friends, as well as another man who was known for his shenanigans.

“Alright, this is Saturday detention. All of you know why you are here. Your assignment for today is to write an 1000 word essay on how you recognize that your actions have consequences. I will be in my office which is just down the hall and I will come check on you periodically to make sure you are writing quietly. Once the bell rings at 3 o’clock, you’ll be dismissed and can go home for the day.” Dean Constantine told the teenagers, a strict tone in his voice.

All of the students rolled their eyes but complied nonetheless. After about an hour of trying to focus on anything other than the assignment, a tall boy with sandy brown hair finally spoke, breaking the silence that hung in the room.

“All right, I’m kind of over the silence. Not sure if anyone else is, but hey guys, I’m Maxwell. I’m in here because I made a stink bomb in science class and the teachers weren’t so happy about it and neither were the other students.” He smiled triumphantly as if he was proud.

“That was you? I’ll never be able to get that smell out of my nose. Good job.” Katherine smiled. “I’m Katherine and I’m here because Hana,” she paused and pointed to Hana who sat next to her. “and I decided to go off campus for lunch and they found out and caught us when we were coming back.” She looked at the two boys sitting side-by-side a few rows behind them in the classroom. “What about you two?”

“Someone on the junior varsity team was giving me some lip, so, I punched him in the lip.” The darker haired boy said, holding up his hand to show the bruises on his knuckles. Katherine eyed him, wondering how strong he was.

“I got in trouble because I tried to break up the fight but the coach thought I had helped start it, so thanks to this one I am in yet another Saturday detention.” He playfully shoved his friend.

“Oh please, Liam. You would’ve been here regardless just because your dad makes you come here.” Drake laughed.

“Who’s your dad?” Hana asked.

“Well as Drake so helpfully mentioned, my dad would put me in Saturday detention regardless because it’s his way of keeping an eye on me. My father is the dean of the school, Dean Constantine.” Liam said, a somber look on his face.

“No shit, are you serious?!” Katherine asked, her eyes wide.

“Sadly.” Liam replied, expression flat.

“So what you’re saying is that you can leave whenever you want because you’re just gonna be here next Saturday anyway? Why are you here then?”

“Let’s just say it would be hell at home if I ditched.” Liam grimaced.

“And what would he do to us if we just got up and left?” Katherine asked, Hana giggling next to her.

“He probably would just give you guys another Saturday detention to be honest. Most of the students here never do anything that would require suspension or expulsion.” Drake explained.

“I think it would be wise if you guys just got through this day and not provoke the beast.” Maxwell chimed in, not wanting to get into any more trouble, as he was in Saturday detention almost as often as Liam.

“Really? Because I say that when it gets to lunch time we all sneak out, get past him and then ditch this place and go to the beach or something.”

“Katherine as much as I love that idea I really don’t wanna have another Saturday detention. My parents would literally kill me.” Hannah said with a frown on her face.

Katherine didn’t much care what happened to her but she did care what happened to her best friend, so, even though it frustrated her and as much as she wanted to leave this hellhole, she nodded, agreeing, before saying “You’re right, Hana, we should probably just stick it out and then go back to my house.” She looked at the three men surrounding them. “I know we just all met each other but you guys are welcome to come with us to my house afterwards. My grandma is a nurse and she works mostly night shifts so she’ll be gone, meaning we can raid the liquor cabinet.” Last year, Katherine would have never asked this to anyone besides Hana. Becoming friends with Hana had made her enjoy life again, made her want to make friends again.

“You drink?” Liam asked, sincerely.

“Usually Hana and I will sneak a couple drinks sometimes but we don’t usually drink.”

“Well if your grandma has some whiskey, I’d be down.” Drake said. “My old man, before he passed, would drink whiskey all the time. Sometimes he would let me have a little sip. I always told myself once I was old enough I have glass in his honor.”

Katherine’s felt tugs on her heart strings. She felt for Drake since, she too, knew the pain of losing a parent. The difference is that she lost both of hers. Though she didn’t really know him so she didn’t know if his mom was still in the picture.

“All I know is is that I don’t want to deal with my brother when I get home so I'm gonna go where you go, Katherine.” Maxwell said, saluting her as if she was the group’s leader.

“And then there was one.” Katherine smiled at Liam.

“Well I have nothing better to do and it’s better than going home to my dad who's always in a bad mood, so, sure I’m down.” Liam smiled softly, a hint of sadness showing before he quickly looked away, hiding his emotions.

“All right, it’s settled then. After we get out of here we will follow Katherine back to her place and we’ll have a good time.” Hans said, clapping in her hands in excitement.

As soon as 3 o’clock came around and the bell dismissed them, Katherine took off running as soon as she was out the door, the rest running close behind her. ”Come on guys, what are you? A bunch of snails?” Katherine laughed as she ran on ahead.

Drake and Liam quickly caught up to her. “You wish we were snails. Not our problem you decided to choose a race between two star football players.” Drake smirked. Maxwell caught up to them a minute later saying “And I’m on the track team!”

Katherine slowed down matching Hana’s pace, chuckling. “Jokes on them, they don’t know where I live.” The girls laughed when the men came to a stop, wondering where they were going. Katherine then proceeded to show them the rest of the way to the house and instead of running they walked.

Present

“Hey, Kat, are you okay?” Hana’s voice snapped Katherine out of her memories. She turned her head and looked at her best friend in the entire world, who had a worried look on her face.

“I’m just having a little anxiety about tonight. What am I going to say to him if he shows up?” Katherine said, panic showing on her face. If he showed up, she didn’t know what she would do. Katherine wasn’t sure if she was ready to face the reality of what happened to them.

“I think you’ll know when the time comes. I can’t tell you what to say, it wouldn’t be authentic.” Hana gave her a small smile. “Now come on, it’s time to put on your make up and get dressed!” Katherine threw a pillow at her, making both of them laugh.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” She said, rising from the bed and walking to the bathroom to start her make-up. Katherine wasn’t sure how tonight would go, but she couldn’t run anymore. She had to finally face him.

[theconjugationofyeet]

Iron Dad AU Fic Recs

this is gonna be kinda long

Stark Industries: An American Workplace by fourdaysofrain

“No, I don’t--” The corner of Peter’s mouth twitches down and he looks at something behind the camera. “Mr. Stark doesn’t treat me any differently than the other employees. I don’t know why everyone says he does.” He tugs his sleeve down his wrist and looks to the side. “I’m the receptionist, so he has to talk to me more to like, plan his calendar and stuff.” --- The Office!AU (For the "AU: TV/Movie" square in Irondad Bingo

We’re Alright by writing-in-my-spare-time

When billionaire Tony Stark comes into the cafe late one night to get his caffeine hit, he finds barista Peter busy doing homework. The homework is quite advanced and right up Tony's alley, and the two hit it of immediately over their shared love of science. But when a masked gunman interrupts their bonding session, Tony knows he'll do anything to make sure Peter is alright.

Prompt: Modern Day/No Powers AU

Apartment 43B by @ironfamjam (my most favourite author ever)

After Peter gets stabbed clean through, he knows he can't let May see. His genius plan? Sneak into his best friend's apartment and clean himself up.

The problem?

It's the wrong apartment.

Enter Tony Stark, the ex-CEO that disappeared off the face of the earth three years ago, armed with his handy little first aid kit, custom made coffee machine, and witty anecdotes.

Somehow, the breaking in becomes a habit.

Irondad Bingo Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Walking The Grey Line by ALittleBattyLady

When Ben Parker dies in his arms, a little piece of Peter dies too. At age 14 he's spiraling down into a hole of emptiness and just can't seem to move forward. Then he accidentally texts the wrong number. Tony thought he could handle whatever the world threw at him, but Steve's betrayal was something he hadn't expected. Months later he's still struggling to pick up the pieces. Then after a wicked bender, he wakes up with a text from a stranger.

They've built themselves a world that exists within nonsensical messages, where Peter finds a father figure he never expected and Tony finds himself worrying for a kid who shouldn't have to suffer so much. Still, the world still exists outside of their bubble of texts. The Avengers have been broken apart, the Accords are nowhere near perfect. Peter's uncle is dead and he's about to be thrown into a world of heroes.

What started as a chance meeting through a strayed text is about to turn into so much more.

AKA The Wrong Number Irondad Au no one asked for, but received

If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep On Going by @baloobird

In a world with no superheroes or powers, Tony Stark turns over a new leaf after his plight with Afghanistan. He goes to therapy and it changes his life, so much so that he decides to open up his own practice and help people that are like him.

His newest client: Eight-year-old Peter Parker

Little did he know that he would actually become attached to one of his patients

What Occurred In Raychester Castle? by @fictionart

Lord Anthony Stark is the Earl of Raychester castle. He inherited it from his father when he died, and soon he'll be married to the lovely Lady Virginia Potts. His life the perfect example of Victorian values, everything was going the way it should have.

Until one day, one of his lower servants worms his way into Tony's heart, and introduces him to a world Tony knew was there, but had never seen, and challenges the very way he viewed the world.

Yet, it doesn't feel like such a mistake.

---

Or a historical AU of Tony Stark and Peter Parker set in 1890s fictional Britain, where Tony is an Earl and Peter is a lowly servant.

Our Pages Flipped In Reverse by @ciaconnaa

Fifteen year old Peter Parker makes headlines when he's captured in a terrorist attack during a Sokovian science convention. Three months later, he's a household name when there's reports he busted out of a cave in some ridiculous iron suit.

With a miniaturized version of Tony Stark's infamous arc reactor in his chest.

Naturally, this means the two have to meet.

Intern Spider by @justme--emily

Penny Parker applied to the pilot Stark Industries internship program before she got her powers. But when Mr. Stark becomes her personal and superhero mentor, she'll have to get creative to keep the two identities separate...and secret.

ever in your favour by @iron-spider

Peter startles awake when someone shakes him.

“Sorry, honey,” May says. Peter blinks a couple times and she comes into focus, her hair pulled back from her face. She’s trying not to look a certain way, but he can see it in her eyes anyway. She clears her throat, keeps talking. “But it’s…” She glances away, wets her lips. “You gotta get ready.”

He remembers what day it is, and his heart beats like a drum at someone’s execution. But he tries to put on a mask, make it all seem normal. It’s everything but, despite the fact that he’s been dealing with reaping day since he was born, between himself, Ben and May. That fear that one of them could be taken away. Sent to surefire slaughter. But now Ben is gone, taken despite never having his name drawn from a bowl, and May’s finally safe. Now Peter’s name is in there alone. The last Parker sitting on the chopping block. He doesn’t know how to be. He doesn’t know what normal is, when the Hunger Games are looming on the horizon.

A Tale As Old As Time by @keep-a-bucket-full-of-stars and @femalemarvelfanatic

A selfish man gets cursed into a metal suit, and only a little boy with a dark past and a heart of gold can break the curse. It’s a tale as old as time.

peter’s stars by @parkrstark and IronPengu

Steve and Peter lose their apartment and are kicked out on the streets. Steve has to juggle between jobs to earn whatever money he can, take care of his son while refusing to let him realize how much they're trouble in, and keep them warm and safe on the city streets in winter.

So, he really doesn't have time to date the billionaire that flirts with him everyday as he buys his cup of coffee. Even if he did, he can't let himself fall for the man. Because if he knew that he lived from a backpack and showered in a public bathroom there's no way he'd still want him...right?

Make Way For Tomorrow by @tonystarkstan

Before Ben died, Peter won a booth to present his project at the Stark Expo. But even on the run from the foster care system, he can't pass up the opportunity to attend and show the world his project. It all goes so well, until it doesn't. Trying to avoid being caught, Peter runs out on Tony just as the man is about to make him the offer of a lifetime.

Bold of him to assume Tony won't try to find him.

It All Comes Back To This by @tonystarkstan

After a car accident leaves him hanging somewhere between life and death, Peter must decide whether to stay or die. The answer isn't as easy as he thought it'd be. Luckily, he has his friends and the Avengers there to help him figure it out.

Have Patience, Quick Wit and a Gentle Heart by @ironfamjam

“I’m your fairy-” he scowled, looking pained, “you know what, no. I’m not going to say that. It’s ridiculous and not even accurate. I don’t know who invented those fairy tales you humans love so much, but they’re beyond terrible."

"Wait..." Peter tried to hide his grin, "Are you my fairy godmother?" he laughed, unable to stop no matter how hard he tried.

The man glowered. "Watch it kid. I could turn you into a frog instead."

Or

The Irondad Cinderella AU one person asked for

 More Ancient Than Magic  by ironfamjam

Life isn't exactly normal when your Head of House is also kinda your father-figure and his daughter is kinda sorta your little sister.

It's also not normal when the bad guys your real-life-war-hero-not-actually-dad defeated in The Great War threaten to return and you're still just trying to finish your Charms essay.

But Professor Stark asked him to protect Morgan. And that's what he's going to do.

Even if it breaks him.

The mini Hogwarts AU

The Case Of The Sinister Spider

In New York City, Peter Parker finds his entire life up-ended when he gets a phone call informing him of May Parker's tragic accident. But when new evidence comes to light proving foul play, no one in the NYPD will give Peter the time of day.

No one that is, except genius consulting detective on probation, Tony Stark. But Tony has his own demons to fight. Struggling to maintain his sobriety after a tragedy in London forced him overseas, Tony learns that what mends hearts might not be at the bottom of a bottle, but something like a string of unsolved murders and perhaps even love.

Or, the Elementary AU no one asked for

Only For A Little While by eccentric_artist_221b

Exploring the relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker if they had been passengers aboard the Titanic over 106 years ago…. an Irondad AU 

a galaxy far, far away by @madasthesea

a star wars au if tony and peter were master and padawan

___________________________________________________

add to this list if you know any more awesome fics with an au!

[5-seconds-of-bucky]

Letters To A Boy Who’ll Never Read Them

A/N: Kinda inspired by To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Anyone who knows me will see how much I projected on this but oh well. Also, this is the longest fic I’ve ever written! (Which is kinda sad I guess but oh well)

Summery: The letters to Peter were never supposed to leave that box 

Word count: 2.6k+

Warnings: I like half proof read this so probably some typos

Peter Parker was a boy you liked to admire from afar. You’ve gone to school with him for the past three years and were yet to feel the courage to talk to him. The first time you laid eyes on the curly haired boy, you were a goner. Everything about him was perfect to you, even if he was considered a nerd by most others. You liked to imagine that he felt the same towards you, but you were sure he never took a second to register your face among the hundreds at Midtown. 

And maybe you owed that to how perfectly average you were. Sure, you were fairly smart, but so was everyone else at the school. You were pretty enough, but it wasn’t something that set you apart from everyone else. You blended into a crowd like a chameleon on a green wall. 

Your one special talent, if it could even be called that, was your writing. Your teachers always commented on the eloquence of your essays and your friends liked to ask you to come up with witty captions from their Instagram posts. You were even on a competitive writing team.

 Writing was the one thing that set you apart, but it was something that went unnoticed by the majority. 

Unbeknownst to you, Peter Parker was very aware of your presence in a room. Your “average” beauty was more than average to him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d known that he liked you, but he guessed that it started around the first time he read one of your essays. Your way with words was something he would never stop admiring. He was a science kid, through and through but he could see your passion for writing even in the simple essay you had to write about symbolism in Lord of the Flies. 

He wanted to talk to you and ask you just how you did it, but there was always something holding him back. You were either hanging out with your small group of friends and he didn’t want to interrupt or you were studying quietly in the library and he was sure you wanted to be alone. He never seemed to have the courage to talk to you and he wasn’t entirely sure why. 

So he never approached you. In the three years he had known your face he never spoke a word to it. Every class that you had together never required a group project and assigned seats that were never next to each other. Sometimes, it felt like fate was keeping you apart. 

~

You kept a container under your bed. There wasn’t anything that special about it originally. You put some stickers on there when you were a little younger. There was no reason in particular that you did it, you just had some stickers and wanted to put them to use. You ended up sticking it under the bed eventually and left it there for a while. 

There was a day when you got sick of keeping your crush at bay. It wasn’t all that long after you “met” Peter. Who knew that staring at the back of someone’s head could make you like them so much? 

So you did the thing you knew best; write. 

You wrote him a letter. A letter you hoped he would never read because it was too embarrassing for him to see. 

Dear Peter, 

How does one tell you they love you? Perhaps I could tell you in this letter, but a letter alone could not capture the raging feelings I have for you. The butterflies I feel when you walk in a room, the sense of calmness I feel when I see you smile, the giddiness when you shoot your hand up to answer a question. Not a day goes by that I fear I won’t see that smile again. But that doesn’t come close to the fear that you’ll never see me. For I am little more than another face in the crowd. I’m average and you are anything but. I wish this letter could make you see me, but I doubt anything really can. I hope this is a letter you’ll never read, but fate has ways of changing the things we want. Maybe, some day, you can be mine. 

With love, 

                 The girl I wished you’d see

You read the letter once over and weren’t sure what to do with it. You obviously couldn’t give it to Peter but you didn’t want to get rid of it. 

Your eyes caught sight of the container under your bed and you grabbed it, folding the note and putting it in there. You placed the container back under the bed and worked on more homework, hoping that somehow, the letter would rid you of your feelings. 

Over time, the container accumulated more letters. From little notes to full length letters describing how you felt, they never left that container. You even wrote “Dear Peter” in sharpie on the side. There were things you hoped you could mention in the hallway as you passed him and things you could only hope he would never know. 

From

Dear Peter, 

Your smile makes me happier than One Direction. 

To

Dear Peter, 

Sometimes, I fear that you’ll realize that you’re too smart and kind for the people at Midtown to treat you like they do and that you’ll leave. Sometimes, I wish I could be the one to make it better. 

You never told anyone about the container. It was something you felt was too personal to share. Even if your friends knew all about your crush on Peter, you weren’t sure you trusted them with the things you wrote to him. 

~ 

“Alright, I’m gonna get changed,” you said to your friend, Becca, as you grabbed your pajamas and headed to the bathroom across the hallway. The two of you were having a sleepover and you didn’t want to be in jeans while you watched movies. 

Becca twisted the ring on her finger as she waited for you when it accidentally came out of her grasp and rolled under your bed. 

“Oops,” she said to herself as she kneeled on the ground to get it. She swiped her hand under the bed before she found it, curiosity striking when she felt the box it was resting against. She looked down and was met with the container, the “Dear Peter” in your handwriting facing her. 

“What’s this?” She pulled the container out enough to see the folded letters sitting in it. She pulled one out and read part of it.

Dear Peter,

I love you. There, I said it. Well, wrote it, I guess. But that’s as bold as I can be right now. I’m still the girl you’ve never seen; the girl you’ll never see. 

The sounds of your footsteps interrupted her reading and she quickly put the letter back, shoving the container under your bed. 

“What are you doing?” You asked, seeing her kneeling on the ground. 

“Oh, my ring dropped.” 

You smiled. “You need to stop dropping that thing, my gosh, Becca.” 

“I know, I know,” she chuckled. 

Later that night, when you were asleep, Becca took some of the letters and shoved them in her bag. There were tons of notes in there. Surely, you wouldn’t notice if five of them were gone. Maybe she could get these to Peter. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do behind you back, but she was sick of hearing you swoon over the boy. Just because you were oblivious to the yearning looks Peter gave didn’t mean she didn’t see them. 

The next Monday at school, Becca didn’t hang out at your locker for long, claiming that she needed to go to the bathroom before class. While you went to class early, she pushed the letters in through the crack of Peter’s locker. All she could do now is hope that Peter knew what to do next and that you wouldn’t kill her. 

~ 

“Dude, did you even read the chapter last night?” Peter asked Ned as they walked to his locker. 

“Of course not. Why do you think I’m asking you about it now?” 

Peter scoffed as he put the combination to his locker in. “What if everything I just old you wasn’t true?” 

“You would never-”

Ned was cut off by a few pieces of folded paper flying out of Peter’s locker. Peter picked one up, reading the short message written in small handwriting. 

Dear Peter, 

Your eyes are like the midnight sky. Dark and mysterious yet beautiful. 

“What is that?” Ned asked, reading it before Peter could move it out of eyesight. 

“I don’t know. Maybe someone’s putting notes in people’s lockers or something.” 

“Then why do you have four others in there?” Peter closed his locker, leaving the rest of the notes in there. 

“Aren’t you going to read them? What if Y/N finally confessed her love to you?” 

Peter rolled his eyes. “She is not in love with me. And I’ll read them later.” 

Little did Peter know that Ned was right. As he read the notes later, he couldn’t help but wonder what led you to put such personal and deep notes in there. 

Dear Peter, 

It’s me again. I know I’ve written a million notes for you, but I don’t know what else to do. I am helplessly and completely head over heels for you. You and your cute sweaters, your genius brain, that little smile you get when you know all the answers to a test. I’ll probably be stuck writing letters to you ‘till the day I die, but oh well. You are the sun and I am a small blade of grass in the middle of a field. You are the ocean and I am one of the thousands of fish. You are you and I am just me. Maybe one day I’ll gain the courage to tell you that to your face, but until then, I remain the little fish in the big pond. 

Sincerely, 

                The little fish, 

                                      Y/N 

Dear Peter,

Yeah, you’re Peter Parker and I’m Y/F/N Y/L/N but what if you were Peter Pan and I was Wendy Darling? (That sucked, I’m sorry but not really)

Love, 

         Someone who wishes they were your darling

He couldn’t believe his eyes. He had been dreaming about you for years and all of a sudden you just threw some love letters in his locker? 

Of course, it could be fake. It was a little elaborate to be fake though. Ned couldn’t write like that and nobody else knew about his crush on you. Maybe it was an actual dream come true. 

~ 

“Hey, Y/N!” Peter called when he saw you standing at your locker the next day. He didn’t know what you were doing there since it was a lunch period but it didn’t matter. He walked towards you quickly, one of the letters subtly stuck to his side. 

You gave him a confused look. He knew who you were? Since when? 

“Hey, I uh . . . I got your letter.” 

“What letter? I never gave you a letter.” You closed your locker and turned to face him fully, arms crossed as you leaned onto it. 

“Well this letter says it’s from you. Unless there’s another Y/F/N Y/L/N in this school I don’t know about.” He held the letter up and your eyes widened. You snatched it out of his hands and scanned over the message. Yup, it was definitely yours. 

Dear Peter,

I love you. There, I said it. Well, wrote it, I guess. But that’s as bold as I can be right now. I’m still the girl you’ve never seen; the girl you’ll never see. I keep telling myself that if I can confess these stupid feelings behind the pen, then I can do it in person too. But that day hasn’t come yet. I guess it’s like liquid courage but with ink. Ink courage? That’s weird. 

That wasn’t even the end of it. There was a lot more on the page, things that even if you were to tell him how you felt, you would never want him to know. And you were absolutely mortified. 

“How did you get this?” 

“I don’t know. I was in my locker the other day. There were like four others with it.” 

“Four?” You stared at him like you had just seen a ghost. 

“Yeah four. This was the deepest though.” He had a shy smile, but you couldn’t even look at him. 

“You were never supposed to see this.” You leaned your head on the locker and brought a hand up to cover your face. “I don’t know how it made it to you.” You’ve never told anyone about the box of letters. 

“Well-”

“I’m so sorry you had to read that, Peter. It must be so weird. You don’t even know me. I’m really really sorry. You were never supposed to read it.” 

You looked like you were about to burst into tears in the middle of the hallway. Thank goodness nobody else was around to witness it. 

“Hey, no. It’s okay. I thought it was really sweet.” He placed a hand on your shoulder, rubbing it softly. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable but he had an urge to comfort you somehow. 

“You don’t think it’s weird that some girl you’ve never talked to is writing love letters to you?” You finally let your hand fall and glanced up at him quickly, reverting your eyes to the ground when he made eye contact. 

“No, it’s really cute actually. Just because we’ve never talked doesn’t mean I don’t know who you are.” He looked sincere, but that did little to relax fear and embarrassment swirling inside of you. 

“You know, Y/N, I’ve always thought you were cute too.”

Your head snapped up quickly, banging on the locker and causing you to grimace. 

“You okay?” He immediately stepped closer and took your head in his hands, checking to make sure you hadn’t really hurt yourself. 

Warmth spread through your body like a fire. The feeling of his hands was a little more comforting than you cared to admit. “Yeah, it’s just a locker. I’m a little tougher than that,” you laughed softly. 

“Just making sure.” He smiled sheepishly and pulled his hands away. 

You stood there, staring awkwardly staring at each other's shoes until you spoke up.  

“So can we agree to just forget about this and never speak of it again?”  

“Only if you will go on a date with me.” 

Your head shot up and you hit it on the locker again. Peter laughed and you sighed as you took a step away from it.

“I really need to stay away from lockers apparently.” Peter smiled a little wider and you swore your whole word was on fire. “But yeah, I’d really like to go on a date with you,” you said shyly, scratching your neck as a surge of nerves pulsed through your body. Peter Parker actually just asked you on a date. 

“I’ll make sure to go somewhere without lockers.” 

“Oh, how considerate of you.” 

“We should probably get to lunch.” 

“I’ll walk you there.” 

“To the cafeteria?” 

“Where else? Unless you want me to follow two steps behind you like some creepy stalker.”

“No, no, that’s okay. I guess you can walk me.” 

“What a privilege.” 

“It is actually. You get to walk with the Y/F/N Y/L/N.” 

“True, true.” You both turned and walked in the direction of the cafeteria, smiles on your faces. 

“Happen to have any more of those letters?”

“Oh you have no idea.” 

~

Please reblog and leave some feedback! :)

[hold-my-hand-kuroo]

soulmates

i can’t believe i woke up two hours earlier to write for some 2d boy’s birthday-

this isn’t a soulmate au i’m sorry

pairing: shirabu x reader

i.

Shirabu Kenjirou doesn’t believe in soulmates, because by extension, that’d mean that things such as luck and miracles and even Santa would also exist. He likes to think that his hours of studying and sheer grit are the reasons that he was accepted into Shiratorizawa. What he lacks in talent, he’ll make up with his efforts and his efforts only; he doesn’t need something silly like magic, especially when said magic couldn’t come through when he needed it the most.

He replays the memory of Karasuno’s 10 over and over again in his mind, even after the third years have said their goodbyes. He remembers it all, the fatigue in his body, the lead of his legs, and the noise of the ball thudding up and down on their side of the court. He wonders what would happen if magic had really existed. Would he have been able to react faster then and save the ball?

Shirabu doesn’t like mulling over the past since it’s a waste of his time, but sometimes when he’s studying by himself, too tired to think straight, he finds himself zoning out. It’s not good for him, and he knows it, focusing too keenly on all his weaknesses and trying to find a way to fix them, but he can’t help it. Because he doesn’t believe in miracles, he only has himself.

If he’s feeling a little generous, though, maybe he’d consider you a little magical.

You’ve seen him around on campus, always studying alone by a corner and wearing a terrible scowl when someone got too loud or tried to pester him. Between majoring in sciences and the volleyball club, you realize two things: he’s an incredibly hard worker, and you’ve definitely been looking at him too much to know these things without ever having a proper conversation with him. There was just something admirable about the way he carried himself and how he’d always be working hard without complaining about being tired.

He’s quite the frequent customer at the cafe where you part-time at, and you’re not surprised. Someone with his lifestyle would need gallons of coffee to keep going, but you don’t think he’s there for the coffee. Perhaps it’s the quiet atmosphere where he can study. Maybe he’s escaping from a particularly loud roommate, or maybe the library seats are all taken. You don’t know for sure, but what you do realize is that he definitely at least knows of your existence with his short and curt nods for greeting. If you got lucky, he’d give you a quiet “Hey.”

He gets you worried. Sometimes, he’d be hunched over at his seat but without the usually concentrated furrow of his brow or his moving pen and graceful, yet quick flip of textbook pages. He’d just be staring blankly at the table, an expression unreadable, and he’d stay like that for moments at a time before shaking his head in frustration, pushing himself to his limit to go back to work. It’s hard to watch, and you almost wish you could do something, but you don’t. Not when he knew you just as the barista that went to the same university. You’d hate to pry.

It’s not until on one particularly dreary day that he walks in without so much as a nod that you realize the problem is larger than you feared it was. By now, he’s used to just handing over his cash, knowing well that you memorized his regular order, and as you turn around to grab a mug, you hear him clatter into a seat in the corner, sighing. The burst of freak courage that rushes through you almost makes you walk right up to him and ask what’s wrong, but you steel yourself. He hated being disturbed out of nowhere.

You place his coffee gently on a tray, sliding a piece of tiramisu on it as well before walking quietly over to his table. He doesn’t seem to take notice of you, hand running through his hair and staring a little bit too hard at the formulas taunting him on the paper. Silently, you leave his order on the table and leave without a word.

By the time Shirabu realizes that his coffee has long gone cold and that there’s an extra plate that he doesn’t remember paying for, you’re already gone, leaving your shift to someone else. He sits there, confused. Then, he spots a little slip of paper and reaches for it.

“You’re always working so hard, so I’m sure it’ll pay off. Don’t worry too much about setbacks, and remember to breathe! Also, I’m not sure if you like sweets or not, but don’t worry about the tiramisu. It’s on the house!”

Shirabu isn’t the kind of person to enjoy desserts; the sugar makes him crash sooner than he’d like, and it isn’t exactly good for his health. He’d much prefer something salty over something sweet, but after thinking a bite, he reconsiders. He doesn’t like it that much, but for some reason, he finds himself eating all of it. It’s good, but not because of the taste. He wants to know exactly why, but he’s reminded once more that he has a math examen tomorrow along with a paper due.

The following afternoon, Shirabu walks into the cafe and spares you not one word, but four.

“Hey,” he murmurs, looking away. His cheeks are slightly tinted, and he hopes you don’t notice. “Thanks for yesterday.”

ii.

Shirabu doesn’t believe in magic, because it’s unexplainable and unreliable. You’re close to half-magic because while you’re not entirely unreliable, your effect on him is absolutely unexplainable. It throws him in for a loop.

The first instance of your unpredictability is when the two of you are paired as lab partners. That gets things going between you two, exchanging numbers and talking more frequently than usual. Now instead of, “Hey,” he says, “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” or, “Are you still up?” to you. It’s exciting, and you hope that he considers you a friend at the very least.

On Shirabu’s part, he finds that your energy is a good counter to the tired mornings he so often faces, and when you give him your signature smile, he feels his heart buzzing. He reasons that it’s because you’re such a breath of fresh air; it’s not often that he lets someone loud but not annoying into his life considering that his past experiences with energetic people were subpar. He likes being lab partners with you because you do your fair share, and he knows he can count on you during the rare times he needs help, and vice versa. You’re like the perfect fit for him, covering for his weaknesses, while he covered for yours.

He used to hate late nights of doing work since his eyes always got tired from staring endlessly at a screen of words and nothing more, but now they’re not so bad. He’ll find himself calling you if he knows you’re up, enjoying the sound of your whispers, as you’re afraid to wake your neighbors up at the dead of night. Sometimes the two of you exchange playful banter, and he’ll feel the weight being lifted off his shoulders, even if temporarily.

He enjoys a lot of things about you, and he almost finds it strange how even the smallest things you do get him a little bit happy. Just a little. Whenever you’re proofreading his essays, he finds that your comments, while still very helpful, are filled with energy. He used to think that exclamation marks were just a way to convey false energy in work and formal emails, but when he sees his paper littered with just hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, he can’t help but crack into a small smile over how silly it is. If you leave small doodles on the margin of his papers from when the two of you study together during lunch breaks or in between classes, he’ll always look at them fondly for a while before filing them neatly away.

He knows you’re busy as well, but after the first time he sees you wait for him outside of the gym for practice to end with coffee in hand, he begins to anticipate your appearance more and more. He likes how you don’t mind that he walks out disheveled, sweaty, and maybe cranky depending on how practice went, and his heart will always flutter if you comment on how good his sets were. You don’t know a thing about volleyball, and he’s probably aware of the fact, but when words like, “Cool,” or “Graceful,” flow out of your mouth, he thinks he must be going crazy. He feels like Goshiki getting all happy over just small praises and desperately wishes that he could stop being so lame.

“You don’t have to come by so often, you know,” he says one day even though he wants to ask you to stop by the gym every day. “You must be busy too, right?”

“I just study outside the benches while I’m waiting for you, so it’s not like I’m wasting my time,” you respond back, walking with an extra spring in your step. Whenever Shirabu walked you back to your apartment, you were always on Cloud 9.

He doesn’t say anything after and opts to revel in the comfortable silence that sits between you too. He wonders if you like being with a guy like him, someone so serious, so boring, and so critical of others. He’s blunt about almost everything, and he’s the driest texter alive according to Tendou. A part of him worries that you’ll get bored with such a bland and severe personality, and he’s not sure if you’re hurt by his directness. He thinks about other people that could probably serve as a better companion, and when he starts realizing how long the list is, he feels a bit of fear in his stomach.

“Is something wrong?” you ask, quick to pick up whether or not Shirabu’s silence meant content or discomfort. He appreciates it a lot.

“No,” he says quickly. You take it as a sign to drop the topic. He’d tell you later if he felt like it, and if he didn’t, it wasn’t a big deal. You’d help him cheer up without knowing what was wrong anyways.

“Today, there was this customer that walked in,” you start again, moving your arms slightly for emphasis in your story. Shirabu finds it endearing, but then he catches himself thinking it and comes to a frightful realization in the middle of your story.

Magic doesn’t exist, but love does. Shirabu doesn’t understand either of them.

iii.

In another world, if Shirabu did believe in magic and wished for his other half, he thinks they’d be exactly like you.

Still, he’s not entirely convinced that magic in this world exists, no matter how many times you make him watch all the Harry Potter movies with you. He needs a miracle to help him put into words how much he loves you because he thinks that by now, he should’ve said the L-word a long time ago, or at least enough to match how often you say it to him. It never loses its effect, though, and it always makes him flustered.

“Love you,” you’ll say to him randomly when the two of you are alone, and his face will go beet red.

“Me too,” is all he’ll be able to manage, but he wishes so desperately that he can return those same words one day.

You don’t really need him to verbalize it, though. He’s the type of person who shows his affection physically whether it’s running his fingers through your hair when you’re feeling down or gently squeezing your hand in public. His hugs are warm, and while it was a little awkward and stiff at first, they’re more relaxed and frequent now. You like how he’ll let you rest on his chest after a hard day and how he’d never let you go until he’s more than convinced that you’re fine. Whenever he brushes away your tears with a stray thumb, you feel all your worries and anxieties disappear.

In return, you’ll practically pull his figure into you whenever he comes home feeling frustrated or upset, resting his head at the crook of your neck while rubbing circles on his back. You let him vent, and after hours of him explaining to you how pathetic he finds himself, you’ll kiss him until he’s all better. In truth, he doesn’t think he deserves the love you give him, especially when he feels as if he can’t return it back tenfold despite trying his hardest.

It’s late at night like it usually is when he’s studying. You had gone to bed hours before, so it surprises him when he hears the bedroom door creak open and the shuffling of your feet against the floor. He turns his head around from his laptop, taking off his glasses and rubbing his dry eyes before giving you a proper look with the tilt of his head.

“You should be asleep,” he murmurs rather guiltily. “I’ll be in bed soon.”

“That’s what you always say,” you chuckle, voice tired. You rub your eyes too before taking a seat right next to him on the couch. “Still studying?”

“Sorry,” he sighs, moving an arm so that you can wrap your arms around his side and rest your head against his body. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise-“

“No, it’s all good.” Your eyes scan across the website he’s looking at, and you almost gag at the wall of words. “We can take a long nap together this weekend. After you ace your exam.”

He smiles softly, lowering his head to press a chaste kiss on your cheek before returning his attention back to the screen. He’d prefer it if you fell asleep back in bed, not because you’re distracting, but because he knows how the screen light distracts you from dozing off comfortably. You don’t seem to be willing to let go, though, and he isn’t going to tell you to leave him when he desperately wants you by his side at all times.

“Why don’t I read some of it to you?” you offer, stifling a yawn. You hear him laugh quietly and frown. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says quietly, caressing the side of your face. You lean into his touch. “It’s just that…you know that I’ll get distracted if you start reading to me, right? I’d probably fall asleep.”

“That’s the point.” He rolls his eyes playfully, pressing another kiss, this time on your nose because he can’t help himself. “I think you’re already pretty distracted right now, aren’t you?”

“Can you blame me?” His voice is low and tired, but content, and you enjoy how it vibrates from his chest. You see him eyeing your lips more and more at each word you speak, and you have to hold in your smirk. “I need to recharge for a bit.”

Setting aside his laptop, he bends down to press his lips against yours, pulling your body close to his. He feels your fingers run through his hair and against his scalp, tempting him to further the kiss. You’re the one to pull away first much to his dismay, and he lets out a quiet whine as you look and admire the red mess that you’ve turned Shirabu into.

“I’ll let you recharge more after you’re done working,” you tease, grinning. He breaks into a smile and reaches back for his computer, making a sound of agreement.

“I’ll be done soon, love.”

Shirabu doesn’t trust magic. Miracles and wishes and made up spells are silly figments of childhood imagination. Soulmates, though, he thinks, may be closer to reality than he had initially thought. He can’t say he minds it.

[lesbianbending-moved]

Hello!!! So online school has started over here and I have small question for you. How do you deal with the looming fear of falling behind? I don't know if other people feel like this, but I just wanted to ask. I don't even know if you still go to school, but thanks for you blog!! It gets me through things!

aw tysm for sending this!! 🥺🥺 don’t worry, literally everyone is adjusting to online school rn and it’s a learning curve for everyone! i’m still in school, i’m going to graduate a bit early this spring with my ba in political science so here are my tips as someone who went from revolving their whole life around classes to gaining a much healthier and sustainable relationship w school

go to every single class unless absolutely necessary! these days especially it is so easy to skip a zoom class when the teacher says that attendance isn’t mandatory, but this is the quickest way to fall behind (even if you don’t realize it). i recommend only skipping class if you are genuinely ill or if you need a mental health day (not just you’re tired and don’t want to go to class, but you genuinely need a day to restart). 

get in contact with the instructor if you have any questions or if you do fall behind! even today i realized that i missed a homework assignment that i just didn’t see on the course page. i immediately emailed the professor, explained what happened, and got it worked out asap! profs rn are very understanding, and even if they say ‘sorry, no late work accepted’, then at least you still tried and they know that you cared enough to get in contact w them instead of just being like eh whatever.

develop a routine! nothing crazy, just enough to give your brain some structure. even if you don’t feel like you like structure, the human brain thrives off of routine. for example: i know that i get really sleepy in the mid afternoons after my classes, so i make sure that i chunk off that time as my rest time and consistently do my homework around 4-5pm. personally, i thrive off of more structure, so i tend to plan my whole day into chunks like that, but i would say just having 1-2 consistent time slots where you know, no matter what, that you have to do something then that helps you navigate the rest of your day as stress-free as possible!

write everything out in a calendar/planner! all of your assignments, exams, essays, etc., write it all out! it gives you perspective of what the whole semester will look like and makes everything seem a bit less scary

find something in your free time that motivates you in your school work. it could be following study blogs, watching legally blonde or gilmore girls, creating a study playlist, or watching video essays in a subject you’re learning about! it’s kind of weirdly fun to work on my political science knowledge and do research for my shitty atla politics essays, but still! i’m connecting something i love (atla) to what i may need to understand on a deeper level in my day to day life (international politics)

if you consistently deal with anxiety, mental illness, physical illness, or anything that can impede on your school work in a big way, make a consistent effort to start and finish assignments early. if you know you have a huge essay due in a month, try to get started on it asap. things like what i listed above can (and will) flare up at inopportune times and the last thing you need to deal with at those times is the stress of a paper. 

do your readings. seriously. especially if they are in your major (if you’re in university) do. the. readings. 

develop a (semi) healthy lifestyle! i’m not gonna tell you to work out or become a health nut or anything like that, but starting with a) eating every three hours, b) going to bed at a decent time, c) ensuring you go outside every day, and d) eating the nutrients your body needs will change your life. if you’re on tumblr theres like a 60% chance that you don’t have healthy sleeping habits (i’ve been there) but seriously, all those factors will reduce your anxiety IMMENSELY. i’m not being dramatic. the difference between having a panic attack over an essay and having a relatively good day can be a good night’s sleep. also, so many people don’t realize that their diet just doesn’t give them the nutrients they need (myself included)... accidentally forgetting to eat any protein for a couple of days genuinely turned me into an evil version of myself and now that i’m much more conscious that i eat what my body needs, my anxiety has gone way down

do not revolve your entire life around school. this is the most important one for me. my freshman year i spent all of my free time studying, working, and staying up all night doing my readings because that was what i thought was necessary. i thought that if i didn’t feel like i was going to die from stress then i just didn’t care enough, and this is the complete opposite of what you want to do. this mindset literally broke me and i had to completely break down and reconstruct my relationship with my academics. if you feel so frustrated that you want to cry, take a break for an hour. try not to study for longer than 30-45min at a time. set a time where you just put your books away and go watch a movie or go to bed. not only will this help your performance in class but it will help your health in the long run, trust me!