#(tag train incoming)

[asheanon]

Off and on, as the Ashe body has allowed, I've been working on some shenanigans. One of these said shenanigans reminds me that I really need to draw some new pieces with Sal and her telescope. 🔭🌌

Which... Also reminds me of these older KH fanfic pieces that I still adore. 💙

[phoenixcatch7]

I know 'person with secret to hide spots other person with secret to hide but doesn't say anything' is like. Thee trope in superhero crossovers, but come on! Some of these guys have been doing this for decades! There's tons of heroes that have gone to pretty extreme lengths to be Completely Imperceptible in civilian life.

Don't you think it's scarier, after all is said and done, to sit there and think I didn't notice a thing? I wouldn't have ever realised? I would never have known? To know that someone you were familiar with - close with, even! - had this whole other personality and skillset and powers and experiences and life just behind the curtain, and they hid it so completely you didn't even see it was there.

'I always knew there was something off' what if you didn't. How world shaking would it be to be so utterly blindsided? To know that this person had somehow learned to so deceptive?

[rainibao]

The next two days will be a test of my will

[clickityweasel]

ward were celebrating our successful global smear campaign against the bbeg and fall's weird but totally professional work colleague, the demon prince of pleasure and pain, sent him a bottle of 1000 year old wine he can actually taste. as expected, everyone was incredibly normal about this

[alpinelogy]

I think glamping needs to become more popular fast cause i think my parents would greatly enjoy it. I’m listening to them planning a hiking holiday and yeah. Glamping is what they’re looking for I think

[intertexts]

DID I SAY 3. I MEANT 4. NEXT 4 EPISODES

I FIGURED U MEANT FOUR!!!!!!!! HOWEVER PULLED APART IS SUCH A DREADFUL FUCKING TITLE THAT COULD APPLY TO *MANY* CURRENT SITUATIONS THAT IM NOT EVEJ SPEAKING ON IT. that one can fucking vaya con dios im not even fucking speculating on whats gonna happen i'll let it arrive when it does !!!!!!!

[whentherewerebicycles]

also I KNOW that all my college and high school friends are not actually announcing pregnancies or births at a higher rate than usual I’m just more hypersensitive/attuned to this kind of news than usual but also sometimes I feel an uncontrollable rage in my heart towards these people who are 1) getting pregnant for free and 2) getting pregnant, period. I recognize this as an irrational and unfair emotional reaction! it’s not like these people can help being straight and/or having uncomplicated pregnancies! but also I can burn with suppressed rage and grief about it!!!

[allalrightagain]

That line is not nearly long enough to explain whatever the hell my deal is

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

one other thing ive been playing around with. and this is me just tossing it out into the ether. and i may have done so before now and forgot but. taz au where ingo is taako and emmet is lup. and elesa is barry maybe.

[5sospenguinqueen]

Princess Party Pt 2 | Lando Norris x Best Friend! Reader

Summary: After a drunken night with his best friend, Lando ran away from the consequences. Over the next eight months, he's reminded that he made a huge mistakes.

Warnings: Swearing. Angst. Baby fever. Pregnancy. Lando redemption.

Blonde female reader with various faceclaims. Pics found on Pinterest.

Main F1 Masterlist

prev.

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YourUserName posted a new story

liked by oscarpiastri, yoursister and others

georgerussell replied to your story

georgerussel63 let’s hope that bean doesn’t expect homemade treats in the future

→ YourUserName this is exactly why i’m crying so thanks for the reminder!

→ georgerussell63 oh no, i was joking. i'm so sorry! don’t cry! i’m on my way with ice cream

→ YourUserName i’m over ice cream now. i'll take hot dogs?

→ georgerussell63 don’t tell charles. he just released an ice cream line for you

charles_leclerc replied to your story

charles_leclerc don’t cry, y/n/n. bean has a life supply of free ice cream. she won’t even like cookies

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YourUserName just posted

liked by alex_albon, carmenmmundt and others

YourUserName not long now. (i believe george called this nesting)

1,123 comments

lilymhe counting down the days until i become a godmother

→ francisca.cgomes lily we’ve talked about this. i know the number for a good therapist, help with your delusions

→ alex_albon ladies, ladies, please. we’ve already had this fight. you both lose

→ georgerussell63 you all lose because i’m the only contender for godmother

→ YourUserName none of you are godmother unless you show up to meet bean in a red sparkly dress and a wand

→ georgerussell63 stop watching shrek 2

→ YourUserName never!!!

oscarpiastri the room is really coming together. those drawers look amazing

→ YourUserName i ask you to help me build one piece of furniture and i never hear the end of it

danielricciardo 2 months to go! not that i’m counting. or excited. in any way shape or form

flonorris1 such a beautiful room. bean has such an amazing mum 

charles_leclerc baby incoming!

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YourUserName posted a new story

liked by carmenmmundt, yoursister and others

alex_albon replied to your story

alex_albon bean's just training to be an F1 driver 

→ YourUserName isn't the term usually footballer 

→ alex_albon oh, please. that kid won’t be a footballer if uncle george and i have anything to do with it. we’ll make her the first female wdc 

→ YourUserName my poor baby. what untalented uncles she has

→ alex_albon oi! 

georgerussell63 replied to your story

georgerussell63 carmen says bean was kicking so much because she’s excited to meet her aunty

→ YourUserName and carmen would be right 

→ georgerussell63 i told carmen it was because bean heard my voice and loves me so much already 

→ YourUserName and you would be wrong

→ georgerussell63 pregnancy has made you mean

→ YourUserName nah, the hormones just make you less tolerable

→ georgerussell63 after all i’ve done :(

→ YourUserName <3

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YourUserName just posted

liked by landonorris, danielricciardo and others

YourUserName welcome to the world baby bean l/n-norris tagged: landonorris

1,098 comments

landonorris my two beautiful girls. no words will ever express the amount of love and gratitude i have for you but i will spend the rest of my life trying to show you

→ danielricciardo simp

carlossainz55 congratulations. you make beautiful parents

alex_albon little bean is the most beautiful girl ever. i don’t think i’ve stopped crying since you named me godfather

→ lilymhe he really hasn’t. but tbf, i haven’t stopped crying since you named me godmother

→ yoursister i still think she should revoke alex's godfather title. traitor

→ alex_albon i apologised!!

→ georgerussell63 it means nothing!!! 

charles_leclerc baby bean is here! i am so excited. we can have little playdates

→ alexandrasaintmleux charles, i don’t think bean will be able to play with leo for a good while

→ YourUserName no but i can! bring him over!! 

danielricciardo who’s crying? not me. let me know when you feel ready for visitors as i may have bought a ‘few’ things

georgerussell63 beautiful girls. thank you so much for letting me be part of this journey, and for naming me godfather 

→ YourUserName it’s a thank you for driving me to the hospital and holding my hair back whilst i puked. i don’t know what i would’ve done without you and carmen

carmenmmundt it was such an honour to be part of this beautiful journey with you. 

→ YourUserName thank you for being there for me. bean and i cannot wait for our first brunch date with aunty carmen

maxverstappen1 i am very happy for the both of you. she’s beautiful 

oscarpiastri the most beautiful baby. i hope she’s enjoying that dresser 

→ YourUserName let it go, pookie x

francisca.cgomes i haven’t taken my godmother hoodie off since you gifted it to me

→ pierregasly can confirm. i'm sick of looking at shrek’s face anytime i walk behind her

mclaren our beautiful papaya baby. we can already promise that she will be the most spoiled girl in the paddock. we’re already setting up a racing nursery 🧡

→ mercedesamgf1 except she will be spending time in our garage

landonorris just posted

liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren and others 

landonorris to my beautiful daughter and her astounding mother. i am in awe of the pair of you. for the past nine months, i have been the biggest idiot on the planet. and yet both of you welcomed me back into your lives without a second thought. y/n, i have loved you since we were 12 and you kissed me because i grazed my knee falling off my bike. instead of telling you that, i dragged you around the world with me whilst i raced, falling more in love with you each day. your generosity and kindness never fail to wow me. to those who don't know, i was a complete idiot. i ran away from my responsibilities and yet, she didn’t hesitate in giving me a second chance. not just as a father but as a partner. she brought our beautiful bean into the world, and i will forever cherish the pair of you. you are my whole world, and if i ever upset either of you, george has full permission to run me over with his car. to y/n and bean, i love you both forever. you are my everything.

7,995 comments

alex_albon i’m so happy for you, mate. you owe me for all the grey hairs you gave me

→ landonorris i’m grateful for your friendship, mate. i owe you for so much more than just that haha

→ YourUserName @ alex_albon you’re still in trouble

→ lilymhe yes he is

carlossainz55 felicidades, compañero 🥳❤️

danielricciardo well done, brother. y/n did an amazing job. i’m glad you took responsibility

fernandoalo_official what a beautiful family. make sure you cherish it

georgerussell63 y/n made such a beautiful bean

→ landonorris hey, part of my dna is there too (but, yes, yes she did)

→ georgerussell63 unfortunately

oscarpiastri the caption is why you kept asking me for synonyms? but seriously, i’m so glad to have been part of this journey for both of you

pierregasly 🥳🥳🥂

mclaren papaya baby! we cannot wait to see baby bean in the paddock. she’ll be the most important part of race week

arthur_leclerc i cannot believe someone willingly had a baby with you, especially someone as beautiful as y/n 

               liked by YourUserName

user1 anyone else notice that none of the wags commented on this post despite y/n being in it?

→ user2 you can guarantee they all commented on hers though because they’ve all been gushing about buying baby stuff 

→ user3 they really said y/n may have forgiven him but we certainly don’t

user4 y/n stronger than me because if my baby daddy walked away from me and my child for the entire pregnancy just to decide he wanted to be a father once it was born, i’d cut his dick off

user5 guys, not only did we finally get lando and y/n together. we got mom and dad y/n and lando together

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landonorris just posted 

liked by maxfewtrell, oscarpiastri and others 

landonorris happy 1st birthday to my prettiest princess. you’re my favourite mini muppet in the world but if you don’t stop growing then you and daddy are going to have some words. (also, daddy best be the only prince charming in your life) 

15,449 comments

YourUserName whoa whoa whoa, i thought you were my prince charming

→ landonorris sorry babe but you know you lost me the minute i looked into her eyes 

→ YourUserName and here i go crying again 

danielricciardo mate, do you really think calling yourself daddy in an insta post is a good idea?

→ landonorris @ YourUserName pay up, i told you he’d make it weird

→ YourUserName damn it, daniel. you just cost me a back massage 

georgerussell63 and best godfather of the year award goes to me for the princess castle

→ alex_albon liar! best godfather of the year ‘twas me. she danced with me the most and wanted me to have the second slice of cake

oscarpiastri can’t believe princess bean locked me in the dungeon 

→ landonorris she wasn’t impressed that you overtook me last weekend 

→ oscarpiastri sucks to suck, i guess 

francisca.cgomes i still can’t believe my baby brunch buddy is 1!! when did that happen? 

→ landonorris @ YourUserName has enjoyed playing with the brunch kitchen kit more than bean has

→ YourUserName why would you expose me this way? i pushed a kid out for you

alex_albon happy birthday baby bean! can’t believe it’s been a whole year of spoiling you

→ User6 does this mean alex has been forgiven?

→ YourSister no. 

→ alex_albon don’t lie to the internet. you gave me a hug earlier

→ lilymhe it was only so she could spit in your drink, honey

charles_leclerc happy birthday, bean! she is the most adorable little girl. i think i will need to wear my fairy wings on the weekend to help me go faster

→ pierregasly i’ve already told alpine that they need to add my tiara to the helmet

User7 okay but can we all appreciate the fact that this little girl had the majority of the Grid at her party, all dressed in some way as princesses 

→ User8 @ YourUserName c’mon, we all know you’re a girls’ girl, release the photos of the princess grid

→ YourUserName shh, i have to wait until they're racing so you've all got 2 hours to save them before they make me take them down

maxverstappen1 P had the best day with bean, and said that y/n is her new bestest friend

→ YourUserName aww my heart. please bring P around for playdates forever though, she’s the best kid 

→ kellypiquet she was so exhausted she fell asleep in her princess dress

→ YourUserName so did lando

→ landonorris hey! 

→ YourUserName you started it

User9 i think we’re all asking the same thing; when are you having the next one?

→ landonorris @ YourUserName so..? 👀

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Part of the Baby Fever Angst Series

Daniel's Version | Max's Version | Lance’s Version

Charles’ Version | Oscar’s Version

F1 requests are open!

Tag list - so sorry if I missed anyone. It wasn’t finding a lot of people

@bibissparkles @barcelonaloverf1life @rlalliehayes @softtina @callsignwidow @lav3nder-haze @minkyungseokie @luvrrish @evans-dejong @sadsierra2 @justdreamersdream @spookystitchery @dark-night-sky-99 @majusialikesfastcars @luckyladycreator2 @mrosales16 @reguluscrystals @tvdtw4ever @alwaysclassyeagle @gigicisneros @spanishcorndogs @thecubanator2 @goldenharrysworld @awritingtree @jxnellat @hc-dutch @buckybarnessweetheart @ironmaiden1313 @dreamercrowd @yourbane @reguluscrystals @peachiicherries @rosecentury @prettypink11 @emmynotawards @tinyhrry @sltwins @daemyratwst @lemon-lav @noneofyourfbusinessworld @bwormie @leclercsluvs @spanishcorndogs @hard4ndsoft @formulaal @classiclitfreak @weekendlusting @evesfile @powerpuffgirly @leclercvsx

[asheanon]

Sharing this old thing over here as well, since, apparently, the Xitter likes it!

It's a mood. Just… sending out all the good vibes that I can and casting some hopes and wishes out into the sky. For everyone I can think of, including myself. That sort of thing. ☄️💜

And as I mentioned in the comments there: I know that's Sal there along with a respective story (FFVII fanfic "The Anomaly") but I sometimes think it's fun to imagine this being a sort of YCH (your character here) situation as well.

Like, feel free to imagine your favorite sharing a hug with Seph for any reason too. It's always allowed anyway, but still. 🫂💜

[woodsy-hoe]

realizing i’ll never be enough for anyone or anything in my life bc i just wasn’t meant for this life but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[amywritesthings]

war of clarity. / levi ackerman x f!reader

for @levievent #levimonth24. (day nine: soulmate au / day six: love at first sight)

pairing: captain levi ackerman x f!scout reader word count: 1.6k summary: They say finding your soulmate is like getting a migraine. When you've lived with chronic pain your whole life, the legends seem like a joke.

tags: soulmate au, love at first sight, mild language, reader has a chronic pain/illness condition, migraines/headaches credit: dividers by @saradika-graphics

They say when you meet your soulmate, the pain is worse than a migraine.

A rush of blood to the head so twisting, blinding, that the colors of the world bleed together and bleach white; then suddenly, clarity.

Funny enough, you’ve suffered through your entire life with ear-splitting headaches.

(Call it a cruel twist of fate.)

If this were the case — if being in pain from your earliest known memories in childhood all the way into enlisting in the cadets meant that you were playing the long game to experience the myth of finding The One — then you’d be quick to joke that everyone you’ve ever met could be your soulmate.

The girls in your bunk that offer to press a cold, wet rag to your forehead when the worst of your chronic illness hits — unlikely.

The boys failing at their ODM aptitude tests, where you zip by with flying colors — absolutely not.

You push—

Through training.

Through graduation.

Through choosing the Scouts, because for some reason it feels like the most noble option.

(The one that will make a difference, pushing past what’s beyond the Walls.)

So when you finally make it to the ranks, the emerald cloak draped across your taut shoulders like a badge of honor, you expect that continued dull ache in the base of your skull to follow you until your final days.

A comfort, really, to remind you that you’re still alive.

(If it’s quiet, then you’re probably dead.)

.

.

— —

.

.

  They call him Humanity’s Strongest.

That much you’ve heard through the grapevine; a man of unbelievable strength and resolve, an unstoppable myth in the very flesh. If there is anyone to strive towards, to look towards, it’s him. 

He’s resilient. Bold.

Lethal.

And you don’t care that he’s visiting your small squadron on the Special Operations in the early morning hours of this mundane Sunday, not when you’ve woken up with the most vile headache you’ve had in quite some time.

It takes all of the effort in the world to drag yourself out of your cot, breaking out in a cold sweat as you beg the pain to ease up a little.

The importance of this moment isn’t lost on you.

Special Ops is where you’ve hoped you’d end up.

After fighting tooth and nail to place within the top ten of your graduating class, you refuse to let your body win this fight.

Most of your squad has already scrambled outside, tripping over their knee-high boots and fastening worn leather in order to get a glimpse of Captain Levi.

You just barely make it out of the barracks in time for your visitor’s arrival, shrugging your tan cropped jacket over your shoulders with immense effort.

The sun.

(Why the fuck did it have to be sunny again?)

Nostrils flaring, you slowly make your way to the line-up of your comrades as they stand shoulders back, chins tall, to greet the incoming troop of horses.

“Attention!”

Your squad leader’s voice rings out, and you manage to step your way in line with the rest of your colleagues.

With considerable effort, you lift your chin and keep your eyes closed against the rays of the morning light.

Horses whinny as they come to a halt in the dehydrated earth beneath your boot.

Two or three octaves of grunts can be heard as the representatives from the Special Ops squad make their descent from their saddles.

A few minutes.

Just a few more minutes and you can return to the barracks where it’s cool, it’s darker, it’s—

“At ease,” a deeper, baritone voice rings out against your mental pep talk.

Bored, as if already disinterested in being here.

It forces your eyes to open, despite yourself.

White.

The sun seems blinding, like you’ve somehow lost your vision in the process of squeezing your eyes so tight — until the world returns.

When your eyes catch black fringe cascading over a gray, narrowed gaze, you let out an exhale you weren’t aware you were holding.

Your mind, oftentimes its own hurricane, eases to the eye of the storm.

And there is…

Nothing.

No pain in the base of your skull.

No sensitivity to the sun that beats down on the halved squad that has come to visit to discuss an upcoming mission that your squadron can assist with.

No jolting pain from a bird chirping, or the huffs of exertion exiting like clouds out of the horses’ mouths, or the murmured excitement from your colleagues that feel intimidating to be even near the man who turns on the heel of his boot to stare the six of you down.

It’s him.

It’s really him, that’s Captain Levi.

His bluish-gray eyes blink down the line of bodies willing to lay down their lives for the cause, acknowledging each person —

Until they find you.

You see it: the way his fist bunches against the leather reigns in his hand, how the muscles of his neck tense when his jaw clenches, the whites of his eyes growing as he stares.

Right. At. You.

Suddenly your stomach bottoms out, but not out of nausea — terror.

A rush of blood to the head so twisting—

No.

—blinding, that the colors of the world bleed together and bleach white—

It can’t be real.

—then suddenly—

The noise ceases.

All you can do is stare back.

.

.

— —

  Clarity.

— —

.

.

  The silence knocks you off your axis for the rest of the day.

Everyone is so much quieter than you anticipated.

What used to be deafening now sounds at a normal octave. 

Your colleagues aren’t boisterous, or inconsiderate, or even loud. 

They’re just a baseline of noise, a soundtrack to the soup you stare at in the mess hall without an appetite.

You even enjoy the dimly lit warmth of the lanterns surrounding the building where you sit alone.

The other five of your squad are bombarding a woman and a man — you think they’re called Petra and Oluo — about their adventures outside of the Walls.

You only realize someone is moving into your space when the wooden chair screeches against the floor of the hall, waking you from a trance.

When your chin lifts, you know who it is already.

You may know nothing about him, but your heart thrums like it does.

Like you’ve known him your whole life.

His jaw is set, expression in an eternal scowl as he drops down unceremoniously in front of you. You idle your hold on your spoon, no longer interested in swirling the utensil like you plan to take a bite.

It’s too much.

It’s so—

“You should eat.”

That honey-smooth voice breaks your thoughts. 

When he had first arrived in the courtyard on horseback, it was gruff. Devoid of emotion.

Now? It’s just under his breath, tickling your ears. Soft.

Concerned.

“Not really hungry,” you confess to the stranger — this Captain Levi — unable to look away.

You see his jaw tense before he inhales, slow and measured through his nose.

“If soup isn’t your ideal, then I can give you my share. Your leader went overboard with spoiling us.”

“Did they?”

“Yeah, shit’s annoying.”

You aren’t sure why you huff through your nose in amusement, but you do. The blunt curse takes you by surprise.

“Why’s it annoying to be offered the good food?” you ask without thinking.

“Because there’s no reason to give my squad special treatment,” he reasons shortly. “We’re all running into the same shitstorm no matter the rank.”

Oh.

So he’s admirable on top of his resilience.

Your heart feels like it’s growing on overdrive with each syllable, but you hold back anything beyond a bland smile in return.

Setting the spoon down, you let your palm rest against the wooden table’s surface.

Silence.

He’s still studying you like you’re a war plan, a strategy he has to conquer.

“I don’t understand,” he finally states out of the blue, baritone voice softer this time.

“What… don’t you understand, sir?”

“Don’t.”

The command causes your stomach to flip. Captain Levi’s shoulders deflate as he shakes his head.

“Don’t… use that, for me. Not when we—”

He cuts himself off, dropping his attention to your chin.

No.

Your lips.

“Not when we, what?” you ask after a pregnant pause, though you’re afraid to ask.

Visibly swallowing, the Captain shakes his head. “Thought maybe it was a myth.”

So he did feel it.

(An overwhelming flare that consumed the sun.)

“I thought it was, too,” you confess after some time, keeping the conversation quiet between the two of you. “I just — it never happened, for me. And I’m prone to migraines—”

“Migraines?” he repeats, eyes narrowing to temporary slits.

“Yeah,” you breathe humorlessly. “By legend, it meant that everyone was my soulmate.”

There.

Laid bare on the table between you, the word makes the confessional.

Two strangers with an invisible string, warring with the reality of clarity before them. You may not know this man, and he may not know you, but suddenly the only thing in your world that brings you peace is the sight of his face and the sound of his voice.

“But it was never them,” you add after a beat. “All my life, it was never them. The only person who ever broke through that haze was you.”

Yet Levi doesn’t flinch. 

All he does is nod, as if resigned to the idea, before reaching over for your hand. 

Wordlessly he picks it up from the table, uncurls your fingers, and places the spoon back in its center. For a minute he pauses, his thumb running along your knuckles as if to commit them to memory.

“Eat,” he urges like it’ll break him. “Eat, and tell me about yourself.”

.

authors note:

Thank you so much for reading! This one shot was unbeta'd and written in an hour as an exercise for Levi Month '24, so I hope you enjoyed my take on the soulmate au.

[neteyamsilly]

i will soften every edge, hold the world to its best | 3

summary ;; Sullys stick together. You learn the hard way what happens when you don't. PART 2 | PART 4 pairings ;; dad!jake sully x reader, mom!neytiri x reader, sully family x reader genre ;; pure angst and family feels notes / explanations ;; descriptions of blood and violence incoming, beware! shout out to the ppl who predicted the stuff in this chapter LMAO so um... i couldnt tag everybody who asked when i said i would... there's apparently a limit to how many people you can tag. please forgive me 😭 im not taking any tagging requests anymore since i cant do it. so sorry about that,,,, seriously also, thank you so much for 1160 followers! i still cant fucking believe it... daddy issues solidarity 🤙🏻🤙🏻

“Hi there Corporal, you hear me? Yeah, I know you do. As much as I’m charmed by the fatherly love I could give you a big old sloppy wet kiss, we have unfinished business.”

Rain covered the rustling of clothes and the click-clacks of readjusted weapons as concentrated silence hung in the air, thick and heavy like the morning mist swallowing up the forest.

No answer. 

What face could your parents be making right now? Heartbeat in your ears, you tried to hide your shame by looking down, but a jerk on your queue set you straight. the avatar holding you digging his gun sharper in your neck.    

“What, cat got your tongue all of a sudden?” The leader’s stare found yours. “Let me give you a quick remedy.” 

They’d linked your device into another for the sound to be relayed outside and the voice detection range could be wider, in other words, they wanted your father to hear what was happening to you. Your braid was yanked as if the one pulling it wanted to snap it right off your skull, no amount of training could stop the scream torn out of you — all the show just for him. 

The line was deadly still, save for some rustling, crackling static that you could have easily mistaken for hissing.

A ghost of a smile shadowed the man’s face, he extended his rifle to tip your chin up. “Guess we’re gonna have to be louder than that to wake daddy up sweetheart.” 

“Stop!” Father yelled, the unexpected timing of it made you jump. That earned him a group chuckle from the avatars around you. “Stop.”

He talked. He didn’t leave you to fend for yourself in this. Thank Eywa!

“That was fast,” the captor behind you said. 

“Thought you’d have forgotten English by now, playing native.”

“...Quaritch?” 

Quaritch. That awful, awful man from the stories your mother killed? Spider’s father? But… But he was dead. How could sky people know how to cheat death?

“In the flesh.” 

Father’s voice wavered, you’d think he was scared if you didn’t know any better. “That’s impossible.”

“Back from the grave just for you, Jake.”

“Then I’ll just have to put you right back where you belong.”

The squad of avatars openly laughed at that, boisterous, confident, arrogant. 

This was Toruk Makto they were openly mocking. None of them would last for one minute in front of him and yet—

“Quite the teary lovers reunion we’re havin’ here, but you got busy while I was gone, huh?” He looked down at you again, yellow eyes filled with mirth. “I have this tiny bird here we plucked right out of the air. Imagine my surprise to learn she’s yours. Is this the only one, or you got yourself a litter now?”

Silence again. 

“What do you want?”

“Straight to the point as always.” The smug smile momentarily twitched into an unamused, withheld resentment. This man was nearing the end of his capacity to keep taunting. “I don’t think I’ll tell yet. You know I love to be a tease.”

Your ears rotated upwards in treacherous hope at your father's next words. “If you touch one hair on my daughter’s head I swear to god—”

“You exchanged your god for this shithole, Jake. Let’s not kid ourselves now.” Any hint of playing around was gone, now, eyes fixated on something on the ground ahead. “Your daughter will be my guest for a while. Think of it as summer vacation. Don’t worry, unlike the Na’vi, we’re very hospitable.” His thumb brushed over a button. “Until next time.”

“Fucking bastard—”

With one beep, the call was over. Quaritch was touching the band around his neck this time. “Iron Sky, Blue on Actual. We are standing by for extract, over.” 

You began to tussle against the avatar behind your back. “No! No! Let me go!” 

“Be advised. We're bringing in a high value prisoner.”

“Dad’s really gonna flay her alive this time, I can’t wait.” Lo’ak, positioned just behind the flap of the tent to not be seen from the outside as he peeked with one eyeball just in case, was watching his parents vehemently yell at each other in whispers that started out loud, but got hushed probably to not reach him and his siblings. Aggressive limb gestures were flying in the air, and at one point, his mom had tried to run off somewhere and was forcefully stopped. 

Dad was currently pacing around like a wild animal with one hand permanently stuck rubbing his face, and mom turned away from him, holding her forehead. “They’re really going at it, huh?

Kiri was not amused with his insistence to breach their privacy. “What’s so interesting about watching this kind of thing?”

“Catharsis?” He remarked in English, feeling sophisticated. “You remember Spider talking about it? Purification and emotional cleansing through relief that you’re not going through the horrible tragedy, the character on stage is.” 

“You’re normally so dumb.” Lo’ak bore his fangs at her matter-of-fact tone of voice. “Your brain only comes back on when it’s about chaos.”

“I’m petty, and what about it?” A tilt of his head to dare Kiri to ask for her point, then his attention was thwarted by an incomprehensible cry from his mother. She was pushing dad from his arms, furious like Lo’ak had never seen before as the upset man tried to hold her more. “Look at mom and dad breathing fire at each other! You think they’re discussing how to punish her?”

“Stop spying already skxawng, mom will be angry if she sees you. We’re supposed to be in bed.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to listen here!” His ears were tilting at every angle to make out any words that reached to him as nothing but a cluster of broken sounds. “Why did they have to go far?” 

“Because they wanted to be away from peeping toms like you?”

“And you’re still here too, so?” Lo’ak gave his sister a meaningful look. “I know you wanna see too.”

“Ugh!” Kiri shoved out her tongue at him, eyes dead. “And it’s not funny, by the way! They are fighting. Stop being happy about it.”

He knew they were fighting about his older sister, and that she’d get all the heat and fallout from it the moment she was back. Lo’ak’s head was full of what he could get out of it, or what to ask her for in return for helping her out in her detention. So satisfying to be the sibling who wasn’t in trouble. He should do it more, actually. “It is funny when it’s not about me.” 

“You’re sick for taking joy in another’s suffering.”

“Oh, I’m doomed, then.” Kiri took whatever fat was on his thin arm between her thumb and forefinger, and twisted. Lo’ak had to blink away the tears that rushed to his eyes, snatching his limb away from the displeased girl and pushing her away in return — he was annoyed at how much that hurt, why was that so damaging for no reason? “Yeouch! What the hell?”

“Will it kill you to practice mindfulness once in a while?” 

He raised his voice’s pitch to mock the wobbly, ear-scratching whine of yours, and exaggerated his body movements to match, too. “I hate you!”  

“Gross.” She tried to shove him, he caught her hands in the air, pushing her back and getting the spiteful annoyance of his sister as a result. “Dad was actually hurt by that.” Lo’ak’s eyes could roll down the hills by themselves the way that sounded, but Kiri, as always, was bothered so inexplicably. “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling.”

That bad feeling was the herald of dad’s upcoming cranky ill-temper and what would follow after you inevitably had to come crawling back home with tail between your legs, Neteyam dragging you from the scruff of your neck. Lo’ak was refusing to sleep so he could enjoy the fight. 

“Me personally, am over the moon, ikran duty is so gonna be off my hands. For months.” He halted at the idea that just went off in his head, tail swishing with the hype. “I wanna tell Spider. I’ll go get him.”

“Absolutely not. You sneak off now and they’ll laser-focus all the anger on you!” Kiri was pointing a warning hand at him, but slowly lowered it, one corner of her mouth twitching up. She was holding back amusement. “Hey, you know what? Nevermind, you can go. I want you to go. I have to see this.”

“Ha-ha.” Lo’ak’s tail stuttered, losing enthusiasm. “Attempted murder, much?”

“Guys, what’s going on…”

Upon the unexpected voice that wobbled its way into their conversation, they both looked down to see Tuk gripping her weaved blanket with one hand and dragging it on the floor as she made her way to them, the other rubbing her eyes one by one so sleep dripping from them would fly away.

“See, you woke her up! What do we do now?”

“You woke her up by yelling, why is it my fault now?”

“I didn’t, you—”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did n—”

“Guys…” Tuk pulled on Kiri’s hand, and the foreign object she was clutching the whole time distracted Lo’ak. It must have dug into the older one’s skin that she carefully picked it up to inspect. The ear pieces they took off before they went to sleep. This one was Kiri’s.  “Neteyam’s calling. You didn’t hear…”

Grinning, Lo’ak snatched it up and skipped backwards and put it in his own ear, ignoring Kiri’s hushed yells to give it back now and the groans about ruining it with his stinky, cheesy earwax. He had to keep bouncing around, the girl was chasing him around the tent. “Bro! Tell her she’s sooo dead. Dad’s literally keeping guard in front of the tent—”

“Lo’ak, quit it.” Neteyam’s tremulous answer was harsh. Lo’ak’s smile wavered as he dodged Kiri’s arm and jumped over discarded cups on the floor, knocking over wooden spoons. “I need you to tell me what’s happening over there.”

“Aw, baby’s so scared to come back she needs to make a game plan first?” He laughed, slapping Kiri’s hands away. “I’ll only tell if she gives back my karambit knife.”

His older brother sighed, a bit too exasperated. 

“Yeah, I’m not letting that one go and I’m also making it your problem—”

“Lo’ak, she isn’t here.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

“She isn’t here. I couldn’t find her.” Kiri bumped into him, unable to stop herself at the right time to hit the brakes due to how abruptly Lo’ak had stilled. They’d almost tumbled over. “Dad told me to wait until he contacts her and I’ve been waiting for minutes. Now tell me what’s going on over there.”

“Bro, you’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious, skxawng!” 

He turned to Kiri in disgusted discomfort, who had damn-near glued her own ear to his to hear better. “Forget months, I’ll be free for years. Dad’s not gonna let her take one step off the camp anymore.”

The girl would stomp her foot if she was a couple years younger. “What’s this about?”

And Neteyam would shake Lo’ak from the neck for ignoring him this long while he was fussing. “Tell me already you—!”

“They’re having a fight bro.” He leaned better to peep outside the tent. “Yeah.”

“She came back? Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was uncommon for Neteyam to completely disregard the previous input he’d been given. Lo’ak didn’t understand this level of anxiety. “Are you having a brain fart? Would we be having this conversation if she was here? It’s mom and dad who are fighting.”

It wasn’t that serious — on the contrary, his sister was quite simple to understand. She didn’t want to be found and had changed her place of hiding. End of story. The golden boy’s worrywart nature was keeping him from reasoning. 

“Don’t be a smartass.” Lo’ak practically felt Neteyam’s want to land a loud smack on his back. “Were they only able to reach her, then? Is that why they’re fighting?”

“You’re asking me?—”

The older boy began to grumble under his breath. “This is why I called Kiri.”

Said girl’s ears perked up over picking her name from the static-surrounded line. Lo’ak snorted. “Ouch, bro.”

Kiri shook him from the elbow. “Me? What about me?”

“Great title for your autobiography.”

Kiri raised her arms to give him a beating and Lo’ak was already bolting away from anywhere near her vicinity. The siblings didn’t even take notice of the line with Neteyam going dark as they focused on their own play-scuffle for a while. 

Until Lo’ak bumped into someone.

It wasn’t Tuk. 

Shoulders pulled into himself, he turned around torturously freaked out to find dad standing there like a ghost, his tactical vest packed to the brim and gun hanging from his back the way they wore their bows. 

The blue of his skin had faded into an ashier tone, amber eyes wide and bloodshot, the veins on the normally put together Olo’eyktan’s forehead were bulging, even a socially clueless person would pick up something was seriously wrong. He commanded cold authority of the battlefield simply by the way he stood, immediately triggering Lo’ak into soldier mode.  

He took a few steps back, chin hanging low at the lightless, unblinking stare his father pushed down on him. “Sir.”

All the sleepiness that had Tuk unresponsive and nodding off through Lo’ak and Kiri’s push-and-pull was knocked out of her at the sight, she was now unnerved and frightened. “Dad?”

The man’s intensity was somehow eased by his youngest’s reaction, but he held back from taking her in his arms like he normally would to comfort her, didn’t even care to remark on how they were supposed to be sleeping — how they’d woken their little sister up, instead focusing on Lo’ak. “I want you all to listen well. Your mother and I are heading out for a minute and your grandmother will be with you soon — Neteyam is Oscar-Mike to come back here. Stay put and don’t go anywhere, understand?” His finger pointed accusingly at him. “Don’t cause trouble. Looking at you boy, what I’m saying here is Marine proof. I’m at the end of my wits here, don’t even think about slipping a tail out of this tent.” 

The potent severity of whatever the hell was making him this agitated to the point of a voice so hoarse it was unrecognizable got the wheels in Lo’ak’s head whirring. “What’s happening, dad?”

“One child!” The thundering shout came down on him with the force of a falling mountain, making Lo’ak jump out of his skin. “I need one child of mine to listen to me without asking any questions today!” Dad’s voice broke when Tuk whined, he shut his eyes as if he was in physical pain, and flexed his jaw, shaking his head and pulling the girl in from her shoulders to soothe her. Still no direct hugging. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Lo’ak said immediately, distraught by the over-the-top reaction, hands unknowingly curling into fists by his sides. Whenever that sky people word ‘Jesus’ slipped from dad not having any control between the border of his two languages, the boy knew it was demanding gravitas. “I heard you CFB.”

“Good.” He thinned his lips. “Kiri, please.”

Lo’ak frowned at dad basically asking for her to play her brother’s keeper in Neteyam’s absence in two simple words.

She nodded. “I know dad.”

He caught a glimpse of his mother running in the distance, her father’s bow in her hand. 

Just what was happening? What had you done? 

Eywa, it had to be sky people. 

Dad saw the realization in his face. “Stay,” he emphasized, one final time before he was also gone with the wind. 

Lo’ak wouldn’t have obeyed if it wasn’t for his grandmother arriving just in time, keeping them busy with a story about the arrival of a wounded ikran with no rider.

You realized the gunshot wound puncturing your upper abdomen was there the whole time when the avatars put first aid and later slapped a rectangular sky people bandage on it that helped clotting or whatever it was called, the pain simply not being there had played a big factor in it with the body running on pure adrenaline. 

(Crouching close to you, Quaritch had bragged, “We aren’t so bad after all, huh, sweetheart? It’s called civilization. Your daddy ever taught you about that?”

Civilization, your ass. They needed you. There was nothing well-meaning about what they were doing.

And the nickname had ticked you off, sullying the good memories of father, your head slammed into his nose in full power after a hiss.

“Now my daddy taught me that!” you spat in English as other avatars had tackled you. The man claiming to be Quaritch was smiling as he wiped away the blood trickling down his nose.

What was the point in trying to patch you up if they were going to do this, then?)

You were now a part of an elaborate trap to lure your father in. Bait. The worst position to be in. This was the kind of trouble Lo’ak would get himself in. It was too late to go back now, the mess you’d gotten yourself into had made itself known. 

Think, think! How could you get out of this?

Within the unsleeping forest’s nightly noises chirping all around you, a specific call in the air halted your train of thought. 

It was mom. 

Your parents were here. But how? How did they know where you were, exactly? Dread and expectation pooled in your heart, coexisting in a nauseating mix. 

Father must be thinking that you already caused so much trouble, they couldn’t know you were also hurt, you’d never hear the end of it.

But there was no time to think, the pain you should have been feeling was ebbing its way into your body, and she was calling in the night to inform you to get ready.

All hell broke loose when the man who held you tight from your queue was shot right from the back of his head with an arrow, collapsing right on top of you. 

You couldn’t get away in time to not be crushed by his dead body and promptly got squished between the mossy soil and him, his gun was hurting you, the wound on your stomach getting in the way of you using your core to push the body off. 

How many minutes had passed with you struggling to get him off as a hurricane of bullets roared, you didn’t know (it hurt, pain was climbing towards the threshold) — mom was able to break free from the weight of a whole AMP suit, as you’d heard as a child, a Na’vi was naturally strong, but you couldn’t even crawl out. Panic was a rope tightening around your ribcage as your breathing picked up

All of a sudden, the weight was gone, and the only remaining thing from it was the big gun left from the avatar you found yourself hugging for dear life, eyes wide as saucers. Before you could see whoever had done that, you got hoisted up right back on your feet and tried to run, only to be held tighter and pulled behind the trunk of a tree.

“Hey, it’s me, it’s me!” Clumsy, overwrought hands were cupping your cheeks and — and oh, it was your father. 

You didn’t know whether to be afraid or cry from happiness.

Once he was sure you registered it was him by staring intently in your eyes with that edge of the softness you’d missed so much, his hold shifted to your neck and around your shoulders, and he gave you a look-over, checking for any wounds. Too bad what he was searching for was behind the gun you were holding. “Are you hurt?” He shook you when you were too stunned to answer. “Are you hurt at all?”

“No,” you shook your head automatically, it was weak against the explosions of bullets raining down all around you, but father had picked it up regardless, only focusing on you for the moment.

In the darkness, nobody could see the blood running down your body, that bandage had come out at one point. 

“On my mark, we’re gonna run, okay?” He nodded to you, tomahawk axe in hand coated in a dark substance, commanding your full attention. “Follow me. Ready? Ready?”

You weren’t ready at all, stomach feeling like it was being stabbed at every heartbeat, but you couldn’t tell him that. 

Instead, you ran like hell, moored by father’s taut clutch on your forearm pulling you forward to match his incredible speed dodging roots, bushes and branches. 

Things stopped moving only when you were enveloped in mom’s embrace, consciousness almost flying off from the relief that washed over you. Kisses were peppered along your hairline and forehead, her mumbling your name in gratitude blending with your panting. Tears burned bitter in your eyes, but you couldn’t cry, not when father was looking at you like that, chest rising and falling. You instantaneously remembered why you were holding that gun at the intensity he was radiating, tail escaping between your legs and letting mom hold you. 

At least this way he wasn’t able to objurgate you.  

Over her shoulder, you saw three ikrans instead of two. Heart soaring, you were skipping towards him in pure astonishment in a heartbeat. “Hey buddy!”  

His head lowered down towards you in bird-like movements. In this angle, it looked like he was giving you a razor sharp-toothed big grin. 

“He brought us here,” your mother said. The hand you were going to pet the ikran with stopped midway at her dejected tone. “You have passed Iknimaya, I take it. On your own.”

You didn’t know what to say, feeling immense guilt at having made her this disappointed over it. If this was any normal situation, any normal fight at all, you would have shot back with, ‘Well father told me to do it.’

But you were tired. 

Your pain threshold was being threatened, and you needed to get to your grandmother before any of your parents saw the situation you were in and this escalated into the worst fight you were going to get into in your entire life. 

Father’s only response was a dead cold, “C’mon, we gotta get outta here.”

He didn’t talk to you after that. Not one word. 

Squatting on an ikran’s back on a flight with an abdominal gunshot wound you were trying to hide was not an option unless you wanted to pass out midair and was looking for a free dive, so you were all but hugging the poor thing’s neck like a monkey, trusting him to follow your parents while you concentrated on mentally fighting to level out the pain. 

Nonsensical as it was to believe the gun stuck between your ikran’s neck and your stomach was acting as a tampon to lessen the bleeding, you were concerned with how dumb it must have looked to father and mom, how incompetent they must think of you that their daughter didn’t even know how to ride right. 

Got an ikran for nothing. 

Would they be less proud of you seeing how funny it appeared, nevermind that it was to contain your pain all the while not trying to faint?

But no words were exchanged about it. 

Father clamping up right after he’d made sure you weren’t hurt (yikes) had resulted in this awkward trip succumbing in total silence. They had sandwiched you between them, only necessary space for the ikrans to beat their wings freely left, so close that you could discern the scariest look on father yet, deepening the lines of age in his face while simultaneously expressing his barely contained desire to kill someone. 

A ticking time bomb. 

Forget speaking at all, but not only did he never address you until now, he didn’t even look in your direction for once. You knew because staring at him for five minutes straight for him to just acknowledge your existence had proven to be unfruitful. 

And the tears involuntarily streamed down your cheeks with how utterly worthless and alone that made you feel, trapped in this agony you couldn’t help but hide because he’d think you didn’t deserve to complain after bringing it upon yourself. You would rather bite your tongue and bear the pain than stay dreading his reaction. 

Yeah, no, he couldn’t know. 

Mom was looking over at you every one minute to make sure you were okay after her ears picked up on your sniffles, arrows of worry shot from her side sinking down your skin every single time, and you hated to make her this way. 

Your ikran kept comforting you through tsaheylu until you landed.

Father had promptly jumped down, agile and making haste away somewhere, passing you by and giving the cold shoulder. You all but slid off your own ikran, managing to make the gun stay where it should be, as you couldn’t help but weakly call out to him for one drop of consolation. “Father…”

He didn’t stop for you, quickening his steps, but his ears twitched, the tail beating the air ferociously halting and lowering before it returned to the previous motions, and those were the only indications that he’d heard it Lima Charlie.

The man just didn’t want to talk to you.    

And you had to make yourself believe it wasn’t the emotional devastation that had you falling down, but the wound sucking out all your energy now that you had gotten to safety. 

“Ma’ite?” Mom rushed to you. “Ma’ite, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“I’m okay, mom, it’s okay.” You were sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Thank goodness you still had the unbreakable willpower (and not the fear of Eywa put into you by father) to hold your shit together. “I’m okay. Just tired. My knees buckled. Weak, you know?” You swallowed, smiling. “I’m just… Just resting.”

Her gaze full of concern studied you, zeroing in on the gun you clung on for dear life against your stomach. Her hands lovingly brushed your hair, gripped your shoulders and elbows even though you were disgustingly clammy all over. It was grounding, anchoring within the ocean of pain washing over you in waves. 

“Oh, why are you sweating so much? You’re freezing.” You clutched the gun harder in a panic when she grasped it, most likely to put it away. It was the wrong reaction to have, but you weren’t exactly in the position to function healthily. 

Mom, as any other person would, got suspicious from it, her eyes flying up to your owlish ones — blanked out like a frightened animal. “You’re fine now,” she whispered, thankfully attributing it to how disturbed you must be, still not out of survival mode. “You are safe, my daughter. Mom is here.” She cupped your cheek, but every touch to your body hurt now, even when it was away from the gaping wound, still gushing blood, trickling down your hips and getting you scared that it’d be discovered once you stood up. “I’m here.” She searched your soul to know just why you were grimacing at her attempts of comforting. “I will take this now, you do not need it anymore.”

You snapped out of the gradually darkening gray haze mom’s lulling was laying you down gingerly into. “No, please don’t,” your breathing hitched. She was going to see. She couldn’t see. You had to avoid this somehow, as long as you could. Grandmother’s tent. You would make it, you had to.  “I’ll… I’ll just sit here for a while, okay? I need to just… take a small break, and then I’ll… Can you go back? I’ll follow later. Father is angry, I don’t—”

“Nonsense.” Incredulous and enraged suddenly about something you couldn’t put a finger on, and before you could stop her, she tried to haul you up with her by gripping your upper arms — colors exploded behind your eyelids, getting you you to lose consciousness for two seconds, your vision flooding back in a starry kaleidoscope. When mom’s voice reached your ears, it was in staccato exclaims your ears were ringing too much to discern. She was shaking you. 

You weren’t able to sit up straight anymore, leaning forward — mom had caught you, utterly confused and panicked at the same time. And then your head was lying on the crook of her elbow resting on her legs she’d tucked under herself. The moment you’d switched from sitting to straight up lying down was missing from your memories. 

A baby being cradled. Yes, this is exactly what it was like. Gentle arms surrounded you amidst the pulsating sea of agony. 

Your body was letting go, but your arms were vices around the gun, still holding that last line. Don’t let go. Don’t let go. They can’t know. Father will be so mad if he learns. “‘m okay… ‘st restin’…”

When your eyes cleared enough for the surroundings to be only a bit blurry, your mom was looking at the hand she’d just tried to take away the gun with, caked with your blood that had stained it, out of it and perplexed like she didn’t want to believe it. 

Her gut-wrenchingly stunned numbness sent the misery clawing its way inside into overdrive, pulling your consciousness down to the earth from the clouds it was ascending to. “Not mine,” you forced out, but it came out as begging. Everything was falling apart. The plan was so simple, why couldn’t you do anything right? “Not mine. Please. Mom, it’s okay.” 

“No…” Mumbling, she started sharply swaying back and forth, and with one brutally vigorous attack, she ripped the gun away from your arms, and hurled it away — then it was over. Your sob wasn’t due to the motion hurting you, it was all entirely for the broken wail of your mother at seeing the bloodied mess, tears spilling from her eyes as she reached down to press down at the pouring liquid. “No! No! Oh Great Mother! Why did you hide this! Oh, my daughter!” 

“No, mom, I’m fine, it’s nothing. Not my blood. Not my blood, okay?” You reached up weakly and wiped at her cheeks with trembling fingers, your heart got crushed worse than the pain could beat you down at her grief — lungs constricting. Where was all the air?  “I’ll get up. I’ll go to grandmother, don’t cry. Just resting.”

Frantically looking around, she yelled, “Jake!—” but her voice didn’t quite come out, breathy as if she’d been punched in the ribcage seconds prior.

A heartbeat’s worth of nothingness, after which you were full-on freaking out. Only one thought: Father will be angry. 

“No!” You shrieked, and blood swelled in one strong pump against mom’s fingers. She looked down at you in anguish, pupils blown wide, arm tightening around you as if you were a flailing bird. “Don’t tell him! Don’t tell father! He’ll really kill me for this—”

“No, no no no,” she shook her head, frenzied, tone cracked from beginning to end. “Do not say that. Don’t you ever say that—”

But you were struggling in her arms, wanting nothing but to crawl away into a hole, no reason registering whatsoever, only instinct. “He’ll be so angry,” you begged, pleading, pink spit bubbling at the corners of your mouth. The sound of gurgling accompanying the words you forced your whole body to form. “You can’t tell him — you can’t! He already hates me!”

The more you thrashed around and kicked your legs, the more you bled.

“Please, Great Mother!” The more mom lost her mind, hissing and howling hysterically, crazed, hugging you tighter and rocking. “Jake! Jake! Ma’Jake!” She put her temple against yours. “Not my daughter, please, Eywa…”

Why was she being like this? It wasn’t that serious! You were okay!

Delirium claimed you hot as she kept calling his name and her unbreakable hold on you kept you in a cage of a mother’s despair. In your feverish mind, a threat to your life was coming. Weakness spread like wildfire around your body and chipped away at the pain, slowly picking it apart to replace it with drowsiness. “Don’t call ‘im,” you continued to repeat, over and over again. “I’m just taking a break. Don’t call him over. He’s gonna be angry. He’ll hate me. He hates me. Please, mom.”

The sentences slurred together, shortened, wilted away pitifully, your voice died down, tongue deteriorating into only echoing, “He hates me.” A withered away, old flute. 

Your ikran was bellowing in the distance and you looked. The torches on cave walls were illuminating him and finally revealing to you his beautiful color scheme.    

And then your father was here, falling to his knees right beside you, his glistening wide eyes flying everywhere around your body — tracing all the blood, hands hovering above you as if he didn’t know where to start piecing a shattered vase back together.   

It was over.

Fully expecting the chastising you were about to receive to shake the floating mountains so bad the enemy would be able to spot you, you began to apologize — pride be damned, this battle be lost, you’d failed anyway. “Please don’t be mad,” you shuddered, meek and unsteady, tunnel vision flickering at the edges only perceiving him. “It’s my fault—I’m sorry—please don’t be angry—”

“Stop talking,” he ordered, rough and harsh, eyebrows knitted tightly, and out of breath — probably because of how hard he was trying to hold the anger back. You knew. That had to be it. “Don’t speak.”

Ah of course. This was only natural when he had refused to utter a single word at you the whole way, denying you the temporary comfort of a simple glance. 

Even the hand he pressed down so ruthlessly firm on your stomach it might as well be a boulder pinning you down was meant to be punishment, the whines your unbreathing lungs couldn’t stop turned into yowls — you hadn’t even noticed your hands were wrapped around father’s wrist in an effort to push him away, scratching him, but he only added his other hand on top of the other in return.

“Hang on, sweetheart, I got you, please hang on a little longer,” he pleaded, but you were already too far gone, Eywa was cruel to have plugged your ears to the endearment you’d been dying to hear from him for so long, making the last things you were aware father said to you the fact that he didn’t even want to hear you talking. 

And you fulfilled his wish. 

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[waaayoutofline]

MRS.CLAUS AND HER HELPER

PROMPTS: “This is just pointless” and “Fine, I’ll just do it myself then.”

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader

Tags: Grumpy x Sunshine, fluff, awkward Nat, resident sunshine reader, christmas fun! (yes, I’m aware is actually eastern but idc).

Summary —> Natasha has feelings for you. Feelings that make her feel grumpy whenever you are near. Unfortunately, she has no opportunity to avoid you as she is assigned to a holidays mission with you.

WORD COUNT: 2927

“Miss Y/L/N, you are being requested in the conference room,” Friday announced through the speakers, causing you to halt in your tracks, the dummy of practice finally getting a break. Wiping the sweat off your forehead, you stretched your limbs before grabbing a towel. It’s only been three days since you returned from your last mission, so it catches you off guard to be called in already.

After quickly hitting the showers, you head to the lift, pressing the button while humming. But just as the mechanical doors are about to shut, a hand slips in between. “Hey, sorr-…Oh, it’s you,” a rather dry voice comments.

A smile spreads across your lips in a matter of seconds, your eyes following the figure of Natasha Romanoff slipping almost in resignation. “Good morning, Nat!” you greet her cheerfully.

“Morning,” she grumbles. “Where are you going?”

“Conference room,” her eyes widened, enough for you to connect the dots. “Oh, you too? That’s great! Perhaps they assigned us a new mission.”

Natasha, usually a morning person, grumbled. “Oh, yeah… joy,” she says, her tone lacking enthusiasm.

You might think that the red-headed spy isn’t too fond of you. Most would believe she really didn’t like you. She’s always scoffing, complaining, and even whining when forced to be in the same space as you.

But quite the contrary. She is fond of you. That’s the problem.

These fuzzy feelings did nothing but anger her. She has always been in control. She’s supposed to be. She’s a trained assassin, cold and ruthless. And yet, there’s something about you that makes her nerves betray her.

It’s her secret. Well, she is convinced that it’s a secret. The truth is that the whole team is aware. They know how Natasha Romanoff has a soft spot for the resident sunshine. Tony even has a pool going around for when she is going to actually do something about it.

Not that either two of you are aware of this fact.

You seem to be clueless. Unaware of the way Natasha’s ears turn pink whenever you smile at her. Of how her heart aches when you do as little as laugh, the sound so clear and joyful. Of the way she silently but deadly threatens anyone who dares to even tease you. Once, the team, except Wanda and Natasha, devoured your stash of sweets, not aware that they belonged to you. Unfortunately, that day you were particularly sensitive and a few tears slipped away before you could mutter, “It’s fine, don’t worry.”

And unfortunately for the boys, Natasha’s darkened eyes watched silently as the tears caressed your cheeks. The following events that happened are not to be mentioned. Just know that the next day, they all bought bags and bags of your favorite goods, besides apologizing like crazy. Confused, you accepted everything with a “Thanks?”

You aren’t aware of any of that.

She just disconnects as you happily chat away, talking about how excited you were about the incoming Christmas festivities. Plans about decorating the whole tower and baking cookies and brownies and watching Christmas movies with the team and….The ding sound in the air as Natasha practically throws herself out of the lift. You giggle softly, “Where’s the fire at, Nat?” You tease, walking calmly in different ways to her wide, fast-paced steps. Natasha curses to herself, cheeks blazing. It should be illegal to be this cute at such hours.

“I just don’t want to be late,” she snaps. You shrug, not affected by her harshness. That’s another thing that baffled her. Usually, she intimidates even the senior agents with her direct personality and ironic comments and yet, you never seem to be hesitant or scared at all to approach her. It’s like you are immune to it.

Is she losing her touch? She feels like she is losing her touch.

Her hands go to the handle, opening it before doing a painfully awkward gesture for you to go in first. You smile in gratitude when passing next to her, the familiar scent of vanilla making her hold her breath.

“Y/L/N, Romanoff,” Nick greets, dramatically turning around. You say a cheery hello, Natasha just nods. Let’s get this over with. “I know you both just been on a mission, but we need your assistance on this.”

Natasha feels her stomach drop. Taking a seat, the director gives you both two copies of a report. Skimming through it, Natasha’s eyes widen. “Oh no, absolutely not.”

“I knew she was going to say that,” Tony chimes in.

“Don’t give her more reason to not do it, Tony,” Steve sighs.

“Are we sure it’s them?” You ask dubiously, eyes still on the paper. Fury nods.

“Yes. We have had surveillance on them for the last month, all points that they have they must have their next exchange somewhere in this mall. They are using the upcoming festivities to go more unnoticed.”

Natasha sighs. “So what, are we supposed to go and possibly catch them in broad daylight?” Fury shakes his head.

“Not exactly. We need you two to go undercover, keep a low profile and watch out for more suspicious activity. A few boxes of cargo isn’t enough to take the entire operation down. While we know they maybe are dealers on the area we don’t exactly know if it’s a full on operation. ”

The Russian’s eyebrows furrow. “Why not send an agent then? Have them confirm.”

“This is too delicate. A couple of rookies are less likely to draw attention. I need your eyes, subtlety, and Y/N’s enhanced hearing,” Fury explained.

Natasha sighed in frustration, pushing the folder away. “So, you want us to go into a mall full of late Christmas shoppers and look for suspicious drug trade that you’re not even sure is happening there?” she summarized.

Fury nodded. “Aren’t you perceptive, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha opened her mouth to protest further, but Fury beat her to it. “Now, how do you two feel about Santa?”

***

“Oh no, absolutely not,” Natasha huffs indignantly. The sounds of the rushing people are muffled by the door, the lights already making Natasha dizzy. You turn your head to look at her over the shoulder.

”Oh. Do you want to be the elf, then? I don’t mind-“ She cuts you off with a grunt.

”No, I don’t want to be anything. This is absolutely ridiculous. Just wait until we return to the tower, Fury is going to hear it.” A laugh escapes you at the scowl on her face. She sends you the mean look, but you don’t even flinch.

“It’s not that bad. Think of it as a Christmas spirit operation.” You try to cheer up, not really finding the zipper of the disguise. A scoff.

“We’ve been following this narcotic clan for months now, all leading us into dead ends. Perhaps we should start to consider the fact that they aren’t even in America anymore. This is just pointless.”

You shrugged your shoulders, putting the green suit on your shoulder and going to the changing room. “Fine, I’ll just do it myself then.” The spy’s arms, which were crossed, almost get out of their place as she grabs your arm. Gentle enough to not hurt, but firm enough to stop you.

You look up at her and she feels like she is about to faint. “What- no. What if they are here—…”

“You just said they may not even be here, so there’s nothing to worry about.” The reassurance doesn’t seem to calm her, but you keep walking away. Your legs are barely out of the storage room when she calls you to stop.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, fine! Fine. Just…” She stops you, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Let’s get this over with.” You clap in excitement and face lighting like a christmas tree, spinning happily. A satisfied grin on your face that she doesn’t get to see. “Great! See you in five minutes, Mrs. Claus!” You sing as you finally exit. Natasha almost hits her head on the wall at how easily she just gave in.

She has definitely lost her touch.

***

“Mommy, why is Mrs. Claus looking so grumpy?” a little kid asks her mom as they pass by, the woman giving you two a disapproving look. You nudge Natasha’s side with your elbow.

“Yeah, Mrs. Claus… light it up a little, will you?” You mutter with a tight smile. “And also, don’t sit like that.” Natasha huffs, but changes position on the tall, red velvet-covered chair.

“Shut it, elf, or I’ll have you sent to the North Pole in no time,” she answers snarkily, but you were too distracted relocating the wall of fake gift boxes to have a better view.

Still, you look at her with an eyebrow raised. “What was that?”

A gulp. “Nothing.”

For as sweet as you were, you did know how to throw a mean glare. Was Natasha into it? Absolutely not.

“That’s what I thought.” The cheers of children echo, Natasha’s face paling as they all line up. Before she can say something about it, you put a hand on her shoulder. “Now, smile bright and be nice to the kids.”

”Bet you wouldn’t be so happy about having small people sit on your lap.” Faking a pout, you bend slightly to look her in the eyes.

”Aw, does that mean I won’t have a turn later?” You tease. And suddenly, all the remarks that the redhead had disappeared into thin air, never to be found again. You giggle. “Careful, your face is matching with your disguise.”

She is still sputtering indignantly by the time you redirect your attention to the crowd, a big bright grin on your face. The fact that she finds you cute even in the ridiculous elf suit you’re wearing speaks volumes.

“Merry Christmas everyone!” You greet happily, dramatically doing a reverence. “See, Santa has got a bit too many sweets before going to sleep situation.” Everyone cheers sadly. “But lucky for us, someone came all the way here all the way form the North Pole to save the day, give a big applause everyone for…Mrs.Claus!” Everyone claps excitedly as Natasha does a big, strained smile and salutes everyone to the public. The children (and even the parents) cheer loudly.

“Marry christmas. Who is ready to sit on my lap?” Natasha asks in exaggerated happiness, flushing some more when you give her a sneaky wink. What did she do to deserve this?

***

Ten or so children go by, all asking for their gifts. You want to think that everything is going well so far, no sign of any undercover trafficking, and everyone seems to be having a great time. Even Natasha.

“What do you want, kiddo?” The little boy grins toothlessly.

“I want a pink pony with fire breath and Pegasus wings!” The redhead hesitates.

“Well, those are rare… Anything else that you want?” The kid stops and thinks for a bit.

“Mmm, oh yeah! I want for mom and dad to bring their adult friends home instead of hiding them from each other. That way we can have a party!” Natasha’s eyes widened, choking on air. Your hand flies to your mouth in surprise as Natasha looks at you in panic. You send her a look that screams “You better fix this.”

“A pink flying, fire-breathing pony it is then!”

Besides that one, of course.

As fewer and fewer kids are in the waiting line, you feel yourself relax. If anything were to happen, at least there won’t be people who will get hurt. Natasha stretches lightly on the chair. When looking at the next kid, a little smile appears on her face. “Would you look at that? You look exactly like a smaller version of someone I know,” she mentions as she pulls the kid onto her lap.

The girl smiles, and you get an idea of who she reminded her of. “Really? From the North Pole? Is she magical?” Natasha makes an exaggerated thinking face while you scoff lightly.

“Well, she is a little bit of a troublemaker at times…” Natasha says dramatically, making the girl laugh. “But yeah… you could very well say she is magical.” Her voice is soft, sincere. You can’t help but blush a little.

***

“Ugh, I’m sweating. Why is this thing so hot?” Natasha complained as you two walked side by side, finally being able to catch a break. You nodded absentmindedly, your eyes wandering until you suddenly froze. Still wrestling with the disguise, Natasha didn’t notice. “I’m suffocating. This can’t be legal…”

“Natasha,” a couple of men scurried into a door next to the bathroom stalls. You recognized the characteristic tattoo of a crossed couple of spears on their necks until they both disappeared.

“It has way too many zippers and—” You hit her with your elbow, startling her.

“Stop it! Give me some room to complain, woman. I’ve already accepted plenty of your side eyes this morning.”

Rolling your eyes, you pulled her along by her hand. Her eyes stuck where you two were touching. “What are you…” As you opened the door, you followed down the hallway, being careful not to be spotted. Shushing her and slightly pulling her against the wall to cover with the shadows, you pointed to the now visible men, who were around the corner in a small operation room. There were gift-themed boxes scattered everywhere, alongside bags of bright purple powder. Still, for anyone, it could be said this was a normal management room.

“Pretty sure there aren’t any Barbie houses in those boxes,” Natasha muttered. You nodded, counting the number of guys. “So that’s how they do it. They benefit from the holidays to smuggle the drugs…” She trailed off.

“…and because there is so much activity and shipment movement it goes easily under the radar.” You finished happily, looking up at her with a grin, only to notice that she was already watching you. Her eyes locked on your hand, which still rests softly on her upper chest, the space between the two of you being almost nonexistent. In your excitement, you didn’t notice how close you were.

For a second, you didn’t say anything. No happy comments or quick remarks. She didn’t say anything either, no sarcastic retort or reproach. The only sounds were your breaths and the faint pulse of a frantic heart.

Even if it felt like it was frozen, there was this notion that one of the two was moving slightly closer. If not both of you. But as it turns out, time didn’t actually freeze, and it didn’t take much for someone to spot you.

“Hey, what are yo-… Oh shit.” Someone exclaimed, making both of you jump away from each other. You caught the movement of Natasha reaching for the taser that (you didn’t approve of) was strapped on her back. However, a quick analysis of the man’s face told you enough to make her stop. She looked at you in confusion before reading the spark in your eyes. A nod.

“Oh, sorry, we thought this was an empty closet…” You giggled, dramatically grabbing Natasha’s arm and putting your face on Natasha’s shoulder, nuzzling her neck. You felt her tense before her arms wrapped around your waist, tugging you closer. You were pretty sure that extra beat wasn’t because of the adrenaline.

“This place is restricted to the public,” he muttered, flustered.

“Sure. How about we try the changing room, sweetheart?” Natasha muttered, loud (and suggestive) enough for the man’s awkwardness to grow tenfold and leave.

“What was that, man?”

“Nothing, just Mrs. Claus and her helper making out.”

It wasn’t long until you both returned to the first level of the mall. “Alright, this should be enough distance…” Natasha mutters, looking for any more tattooed men. Suddenly, an unusually soft, warm sensation process on her mind, looking down she can still see both your hands enterwined. You are looking to, but don't make any attempt to “fix” the situation.

“C’mon, let’s go inform Fury to bring in the team.” Immediately after that, you are pulling her along, Natasha’s face now fully complementing the same shade of her Mrs.Claus dress. If it was because of embarrassment or another feeling entirely she will not tell.

One thing she can say for sure. Perhaps this whole “christmassy operation” wasn’t bad after all.

***

—extra

(A FEW MOMENTS LATER, IN THE TOWER…)

”Great job, agents. I appreciate your work.” Fury hangs the calls, turning to the rest of the team. “Apparently, they found out actual activity of the smuggling. Have plenty of high ranked operators and shipment cargo.”

“Why the surprise?” Bruce questions, while Tony laughs.

”Shit, they actually did?” Everyone looks at him confused. “What? You guys don’t know?”

The room fills with puzzled looks as Steve exhales audibly in his chair. “This operation was merely a facade to orchestrate a charming little rendezvous between Natasha and Y/N. It’s rather remarkable they stumbled upon anything, considering the slim odds,” he elucidates nonchalantly.

”And Fury greenlit this?”

“I did. I’ve grown weary of witnessing Agent Romanoff’s infatuation with Y/N—it’s proving distracting. Even the junior agents are indulging in speculation about their eventual…get together. Sooner rather than later, I say,” Fury explains, shrugging indifferently.

“You did what?!” Natasha growled, practically kicking the door down.

Most people have never seen a single emotion on the director's face. But the ones who were there that day would forever remember the flash of fright that flashed in Nick Fury's good eye.

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

The Golden Ratio - Part One

Pairing: Michael Gavey (Saltburn) x f!reader Warnings: Derogatory language, angst, mentions of parental death, mentions of infidelity. Word count: ~4.5k

Chapter summary: Her relationship strains under the pressure of long distance, though she has her classmate, Michael, to help distract from the worst of it. Series masterlist.

Author's note: For @assortedseaglass. No tag list. Please follow @ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

She is sweaty and exasperated as she drags her suitcase over the cobbles of Holywell Street. One of the already precariously wonky wheels had finally given up the ghost and broken off as she’d dragged it up the stairs of Oxford train station, making the fifteen minute walk to her accommodation more tiring than it needed to be.

But she was here, finally. Oxford University.

Her dad had sold the car to make sure she had money to live on until her student loan and maintenance grant had been paid to her. He didn’t want her taking a part time job to make ends meet, she’d worked hard to earn her place here, her focus should be on her studies. Coming from a low income family meant she had qualified for the maximum amount for both maintenance loan and grant, but her first set of application forms had been misplaced by Student Finance, so she’d had to send in a second set, meaning there would be a delay with her first payment.

An unfortunate consequence of her dad not having a car is that she’d had to get the train to London Victoria, a tube to Paddington, then another train to Oxford. But it is not the fact that she is seemingly the only student whose parents aren’t obstructing the pavements with their cars in order to drop them off that makes her feel like an outcast, there is something deeper, more sinister feeling.

She sees it as she struggles to get her bag across the lawn of the Halls, people grouped in little clusters, as though they’ve been friends forever. They dress in Juicy Couture velour tracksuit bottoms and brand name Ugg Boots, while she wears her mum’s old Dr. Martens and a tartan skirt she’d bought in a charity shop for one pound fifty. She doesn’t fit in. She feels she may as well wear the word “poor” across her forehead like a scarlet letter.

Having checked in at the Porters’ Lodge and been given directions to the accommodation, it’s lonely as she unpacks her things, her room feeling empty and quiet. The only sounds are muffled talking and laughter coming through the closed window from outside. She feels lonelier still when she pulls out the framed photo of her and Rich. They’re both smiling, his arms wrapped around her waist as she leans her head against his. It had felt like their relationship would last forever when that picture was taken. That seemed like much less of a possibility over the last couple of weeks.

She had met Rich at the beginning of sixth form. Having attended Chatham Grammar School for Girls, she had decided to stay on there to do her A levels. The mathematics department was decent, and she had heard Russell Group universities were more likely to consider applications that came from grammar schools. Rich had transferred over from Robert Napier School. Where she was shy, quiet and reserved, he was lively, outgoing and sociable. His zest for life had shone a bright light on an existence that was, for her, otherwise dull and grey.

They were an unlikely pairing. She was logical, analytical and studied maths and physics. Rich was creative, free spirited and guided by emotion. He studied art and music. They had been together for two years and she had thought he was the one. But then it came time for UCAS applications, and where she had applied to Oxford, Cambridge and York, Rich had applied to Leeds, Brighton and Glasgow. It seemed that no matter where they were accepted, they were destined to be apart.

When she had received an unconditional offer from Oxford she had been elated, however, the crushing devastation upon hearing Rich had been accepted into The Glasgow School of Art with a conditional offer had quickly dulled her excitement.

She had never felt like an outsider or a loner when she was with Rich. Basking in his sunny disposition had felt effortless, she never felt alone. He was going to take all of that away, and she was unsure of how to cope with it.

“We’ll make it work long distance, don’t worry,” he’d told her, and she’d believed him.

But then he had actually gone to Glasgow. Fresher’s week in Glasgow started a week earlier than it did in Oxford, so Rich had moved away first. It didn’t take long for the texts and phone calls to dry up into nothing. She had heard from him once in the last few days.

She sighs as she slides up the screen of her beaten up Nokia. Still nothing. She had text to let him know she was leaving for Oxford today and he couldn’t even be bothered to reply. She knows it’s his first week at university and he’s likely busy and having fun, but how was long distance going to work if they never actually spoke to each other?

Despite the loftiness of the dining hall, it feels stuffy as she moves through it later that evening, taking a seat at a long table crowded with other students. She had hoped that the Fresher’s welcome dinner would be an opportunity to make friends, but everyone seems to be deep in conversation already. The chatter hums loudly like white noise, until it comes to a sudden stop.

“FUCKIN’ ASK ME A SUM THEN!”

She turns, mouth agape, to look at the pair of boys sitting a few places up from her. One is darked haired and seems nervous and uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly in his seat. The other is blonde, an angry, intense expression on his face, shadows cast across it from the lamplight on the table, as he stares in wide eyed anticipation. It was him who had shouted, clearly.

“Four hundred and twenty three times seventy eight,” the dark haired boy asks quietly.

Instantly his friend replies, without missing a beat, “thirty two thousand, nine hundred and ninety four.”

Involuntarily her eyes widen in surprise. She sits there and does the calculation in her head, though much more slowly than he had. 

Carry the two, eight times two is sixteen, plus two is eighteen, carry the one…he’s right. How is it possible that he came to that answer so quickly?

When her gaze lifts he is looking at her, observing her doing the working out in her head. He holds her stare, a smirk curving the corners of his mouth. He knows she knows he is right, and it’s clear he feels smug about it.

Quickly looking away, she reaches for her water glass, wanting something, anything, to distract her. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel uneasy.

God, I hope I don’t have any classes with him.

She holds her timetable for the week in her hands as she moves her way through the corridors towards the lecture hall the following morning. The first week looks to be fairly light touch, with an introductory lecture for each of the courses; algebra, analysis, probability and statistics, geometry, dynamics and multivariable calculus. Today is the introduction to analysis, and she is excited to study under the tutelage of Professor Helen Byrne. Her research focuses on the development and analysis of mathematical and computational models that describe biomedical systems, with particular application to the growth and treatment of solid tumours, wound healing and tissue engineering. Professor Byrne is someone she has admired within the field for as long as she can remember, and she is very much looking forward to her tutorials with her.

Her excitement fades when she enters the lecture hall and immediately sees the angry guy from the previous evening.

Just my luck.

The only available seat is next to him, so she sits down, dropping her bag to the floor by her feet.

A hand extends out towards her in her peripheral vision, taking her by surprise and she turns in her seat towards it, shrinking back slightly. 

He seems utterly unperturbed by her reaction, keeping his arm extended. “I’m Michael Gavey.”

She blinks, regaining her composure as she leans forward, shaking his hand and introducing herself in return. His palm is clammy against her own, and she can still feel it there even after having let go and wiped her hand on her jeans.

“I saw you last night,” he says matter of factly, pulling his arm back and resting his elbow on the desk in front of him.

“Oh, yeah,” she says with a tight smile, nodding, “so you and your mate…is that like a party trick or something?”

“No, no party trick,” he says with a demure smile. “I’m a genius.”

She forces herself to laugh politely, assuming he’s making a joke, but she stops, her brow furrowing slightly when she sees he doesn’t share in the humour. He’s being serious.

Opening her mouth to ask a follow up question, she’s interrupted as Professor Byrne sweeps into the room. Her and Michael both face forward in their seats as she introduces herself to the class.

Over the next hour they are given an introduction to the course and what to expect in their first year, including an overview of the papers they will need to write and examinations that will be sat. She pays rapt attention, scribbling furious notes, until the lecture begins to wrap up.

“As it’s the first week, I will go easy on assignment setting,” Professor Byrne tells them all, “but there will be an assignment nonetheless.”

A loud, collective groan echoes around the lecture hall. Her and Michael are the only two not to join in.

“Now, now, settle down,” she chastises, “it’ll be fun. I’m sure you’re all aware of the Fibonacci Sequence, a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Mathematically we can describe this as–”

She turns and scrawls xn= xn-1 + xn-2 on the chalkboard, before facing the students again.

“--I’d like you all to find an example of the Fibonacci Sequence in real life and present it back to the class during next week’s lecture. You’re to work in pairs, so buddy up, and see you all next week.”

Professor Byrne places the chalk back on the desk before striding back out of the lecture hall. The room is instantly a buzz with chatter, as people move between seats to find a partner.

She stays rooted in place, suddenly wishing Rich was here. It’s in moments like these that he flourishes, allowing her to take a backseat as he effortlessly navigates them through social interactions. Instead, she is alone and the space around her feels bigger and scarier with every moment that passes.

It’s only when she turns her head that she notices Michael has yet to move too. Gathering all the courage she can muster, she clears her throat and speaks to him.

“So…er…did you wanna partner up for this thing then?”

“I don’t like to work with others,” he says matter of factly, keeping his gaze fixed ahead.

“I’m not exactly thrilled about it either,” she says with a sigh, “but for this assignment we have to.”

“You’ve picked me because I’m a genius. You’ll expect me to do all the work while you get pissed with your mates.”

He fixes her with an accusatory stare, and she feels the heat of anger prickle her skin.

“Haven’t got any mates,” she mutters darkly.

He observes her for a few moments, elbow propped on the desk, jaw resting against his fist, and she fidgets self consciously in her seat. No wonder the other boy from last night had looked so uncomfortable. It feels like he’s studying her.

“Let’s go to the library,” he says simply, standing and picking up his bag.

“So, you’re a genius?” She asks, opening her notebook once they’re seated opposite each other at a table in the library, nervously tapping her pencil against the page.

“Hmm,” Michael nods, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, “I don’t even like maths, really. I can just…do it. Anything. In my head.”

She’s struck by how blunt he is, sucking in a breath as she considers what to say next. There is something so disarming about him, she gets the sense he’s analysing her every word and action.

“Right,” she begins, “so, er, for this assignment I was thinking about how Leonardo Fibonacci used rabbits to prove his theory. One hundred and forty four pairs of rabbits can be produced from a single pair of rabbits in a year, based on the sequence.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Michael replies with a sigh.

“What?” She asks irritably, annoyed by his dismissal.

“What are you expecting us to do, go to a pet shop and buy rabbits? We’ve only got a week to do the assignment, we need to be more practical.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was using that as an example, not saying we do that exactly! Come on then, genius, what’s your suggestion?”

“Spirals,” he says with a slight shrug. He leans across, placing the tips of his fingers on her notebook and sliding it towards himself, before picking up her pencil. “There is a special relationship between the Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Ratio, a ration that describes when a line is divided into two parts and the longer part - A - divided by the smaller part - B - is equal to the sum of A + B divided by A, which both equal one point six one eight. This is represented by the Greek letter,” he stops to scribble a φ on the pad. “The ratio of any two successive Fibonacci Numbers approximates the Golden Ratio value.” He stops again, scrawling 1.6180339887 on the page. The bigger the pair of Fibonacci numbers, the closer the approximation. From there, we can calculate what's called the golden spiral, or a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor equals the golden ratio.”

She is stunned into a silence for a moment, a combination of his audacity to simply take her belongings, and awe at the rapidity with which his mind works. Collecting herself, she blinks a few times, looking up into his eyes.

They’re so blue.

“So…er…how do you propose we present this data back to the class?”

“A simple table is sufficient, look–”

His hand moves rapidly over the page, a complete table there on the paper when he drops the pencil into the gutter of the notebook and sits back in his chair.

“We present that,” he tells her, his eyes fixed on the page. “Using the values of the sequence as the edge length of squares arranged in the table, a spiral is generated.”

She leans over, sliding the notebook back to her side of the table, marvelling silently at his work. He is fascinating to watch. He’s right, he can just do maths.

“It’s good,” she says, eye flitting up to meet his, “solid. But it’s fucking boring.”

This time it’s his turn to be annoyed. “What?” He asks, eyes narrowing.

“Everyone is going to present something like this, because it’s easy,” she explains, “Don’t you want to stand out to Professor Byrne? We should do something outside of the box.”

“Hmm. Go on then, what are you thinking?” He rests his cheek against his fist, leaning against the table as he stares at her.

She feels herself grow warm under his scrutiny.

Does he always have to be so bloody intense?

“There are loads of examples of Fibonacci numbers appearing in nature. We could look for some? Flowers, perhaps.”

“I’ve got hayfever,” Michael states simply.

She sighs.

Of course you do.

“Then we’ll get you some Piriton! Come on, there are studies that show seed heads, pinecones, fruits and vegetables all displaying spiral patterns that when counted express Fibonacci numbers. This fits perfectly with the brief of the assignment and will leave a lasting impression.”

He moves his hand away from his face, resting his arm flat on the table and quietly drumming his fingers against it for a few moments. “Alright then,” he finally concedes.

“Great,” she grins excitedly, tearing out a page from her notebook and writing on it hurriedly. “Here’s my number, so we can meet up to work on it, and also my Hotmail address, in case MSN works better for you.”

He huffs through his nose as he takes the paper from her, a soft laugh escaping him. “The countess at hotmail dot co dot uk,” he reads with amusement, “very droll.”

“Shut up,” she grins back, “I made that in secondary school. Thought it was funny.”

Back in her room that evening, she’s excited to see she has a text from Rich, finally.

Hope ur enjoying it. Having so much fun here!

She sighs, throwing her phone down on the bed side table. No kisses, not even an “I love you”. 

Watching out of the window, she sees the giggling groups of students making their way out into town, readying themselves to spend the night drinking, making friends and having fun. Just like Rich is doing, not giving her a second thought, while she stays cooped up in her room without a friend in the world.

Suspicion nags at her, so she turns on her laptop, loading up MySpace. Rich takes number one place on her top eight friends, and she clicks on his profile. It looks much the same as it always does, but she decides to snoop further, clicking into his friends list. She can see he has recently friended a girl named Sophie.

Sophie is pretty, bright pink streaks in her hair, and a nose ring. Exactly Rich’s type. Her most recently uploaded photos are of groups of people, clearly all taken during Fresher’s week. A pit forms in her stomach as she sees that in almost all of them Sophie and Rich have their arms around each other. Worse still, Rich occupies space eight in Sophie’s top friends.

She closes the browser, blinking back tears. Surely, she is just being paranoid. They’re just friends. Friends have photos together, and it was normal that he would make new ones when he went away to uni.

Opening MSN Messenger, she hovers over Rich’s username. Unsurprisingly, he’s offline, he always is these days. She smiles when an add request from mgavey628318@hotmail.co.uk pops up. Of course he’d have Tau, the mathematical constant, in his Hotmail address. She clicks accept and he immediately appears in her online contacts. Looks like he isn’t out tonight either.

Double clicking his username, she chuckles to herself upon seeing his display picture is of Pythagoras. Such a dweeb.

“Want to work on our assignment tomorrow?” She types to him.

Barely a few seconds pass before she sees him typing back. “Yes. When?”

“We could meet at the Water Meadow at lunch time?”

“See you then.”

Straight to the point, no idle chit chat. She shakes her head and closes the messenger window, though finds herself strangely excited by the thought of seeing him tomorrow. She reasons that it’s because Michael is the closest thing she has had to a friend since arriving at Oxford.

She visits the nearby Tesco Express the following day, buying a meal deal for each of them and a packet of hayfever tablets for Michael. She has no idea of what Michael even likes, so plays it safe by buying a bottle of Oasis, a Crunchie bar and a ham and cheese sandwich for them both.

At precisely noon, Michael stands at the entrance to the Water Meadow waiting for her. She smiles as she looks at his t-shirt; maroon with a diagram of a circle on a gradient with a downwards acceleration of 9.81 meters per second, with the slogan “that’s how I roll”. A mechanics pun.

“Like your shirt,” she says as she approaches him.

He grins. “Thought you might, considering your email address.”

She averts her gaze. There is something about the fact that he’d thought of her when he’d chosen what to wear today that makes her tummy flutter.

Stop it. You’ve got Rich. Michael’s weird!

“I got you some hayfever tablets,” she tells him as they start to walk along the pathway that’s flanked by green space on either side. “Do you wanna have lunch first and then start looking for flowers?”

They settle, cross legged on the grass, Michael already having taken one of the tablets, chased with half a bottle of Oasis, and she spreads out the food between them.

She watches in fascination as his eyes widen at the sight of the Crunchie bars, snatching one up and tearing off the wrapper. Her mouth falls open slightly as she sees him hold it sideways, biting into it from the side, before devouring each of the pieces it inevitably breaks into.

“You like Crunchie bars then?” She asks, a little grossed out, but curious nonetheless.

He swallows, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mother didn’t allow me to have sweets growing up, bad for your teeth, she said.”

She nods, a feeling over pity replacing the disgust that had roiled her stomach just seconds ago.

“So, is it your mum that pushed you into studying maths?” She asks, fiddling with the lid of her drink bottle.

“Sort of,” he says. “Mother never married, but she wanted a child. She used a sperm donor - a physicist, apparently - and was artificially inseminated to have me. She was thrilled when I showed a natural aptitude for maths, and has always encouraged me. It’s why I do it, why I accepted the scholarship, to make her proud. She’s been through so much to have me, it’s the least I owe her.”

Her face falls, a feeling of sadness overwhelming her, making her heart ache for Michael. There is something so tragic about the fact that he has lived his entire life adhering to the expectations of the person who had created him for their own selfish want of a child.

“What about you then?” He asks. “The bank of mummy and daddy paying for you to be here?”

She shakes her head. “I earned my place, just like you did, with straight As, though I don’t have a scholarship. Have had to take out loans to cover the cost. It’s just me and dad since mum passed away.”

“Oh,” Michael says, blinking rapidly, obviously surprised. “Apologies, I’d assumed a pretty girl like you would be the same as the rest of the vapid cunts studying here, if you can call it studying.”

She hums in acknowledgement, considering his words, turning her own Crunchie bar around in her fingers, focusing on the way the foil wrapper slides against her skin. His compliment makes her heart beat more rapidly, even if it is backhanded. “Like I said yesterday, I’ve got no mates. It was always Rich that was better at that sort of thing.”

“Rich?” Michael asks curiously, cocking his head.

“My boyfriend. He’s at uni in Glasgow.”

“Three hundred and sixty two point nine miles,” Michael states simply.

“Pardon?”

“That’s the distance between Oxford and Glasgow,” he explains, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “How are you planning to make a relationship work with that sort of distance?”

“We’re doing long distance,” she argues, feeling herself growing defensive, scowling at him.

“Yeah, I bet that’s gonna work out great,” he scoffs, eyes widening, clearly mocking her.

“The Glasgow School of Art was the best choice for Rich to study what he wants to,” she retorts.

A grin spreads across his face. “Art?! I suppose you should be grateful he’s hundreds of miles away then, he sounds like a moron.”

She huffs, hurriedly shoving her things back into her bag. “Let’s just look for these fucking flowers and get this over with.”

The pair work for the rest of the afternoon in silence, the atmosphere is tense and angry, but they are productive nevertheless, settling on a patch of sunflowers to use for the assignment.

They look at the spirals of seeds in the center of the sunflowers and observe patterns curving left and right. Counting these spirals, their total is a Fibonacci number. They then divide the spirals into those pointed left and right to get two consecutive Fibonacci numbers.

Cutting down a couple of sunflower heads to use as examples, Michael also makes a diagram in his notes for them to present with their findings.

She feels satisfied by the time they part ways, but an uneasy feeling has settled over her that has dread gnawing into her gut as she thinks about Michael’s criticism of her and Rich’s long distance relationship.

Unsurprised to see she has no missed calls or texts from him when she goes back to her room, she opens up her laptop and logs back onto MySpace. This time when she looks at Rich’s profile her blood runs cold as she sees that Sophie now occupies space number three in his top friends. He’d had time to log on and change the position of a girl he’d met a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t be bothered to send her a single message?

Before she can stop herself, she’s pulling out her phone and calling his number. She doesn’t care if this wastes all of her credit, she needs answers.

It rings for ages, and she anticipates being sent to voicemail, until he eventually answers, sounding breathless and distracted.

“H-hello?”

“Rich, it’s me,” she says quietly.

There’s a pause before he answers. “Oh…how’s my little nerd? Everything okay?”

She ignores the familiarity, keeping her tone neutral. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”

Not giving him an opportunity to respond, she pushes on. “Has something happened between you and this Sophie girl I’ve seen you on Myspace with?”

Another pause, except this time she hears him inhale a deep breath. “I was going to tell you when we came home for Christmas break. It felt wrong to break up with you over the phone.”

It feels as though the bottom of her world has been ripped away, her heart twisting painfully as her vision blurs with tears. She swallows thickly, anger bubbling alongside her devastation, so that her tone is venomous when she replies “So, you were just gonna keep stringing me along for two months, so you could look like a good guy?!”

“Babe, no, I didn’t mean for this to happen, I just–”

“You’re a piece of shit,” she cuts him off, “fuck you!”

She hangs up, chucking her phone down onto the bed, and immediately bursts into tears, holding her head in her hands as hot tears stream down her face, her shoulders shaking as her nose grows snotty.

Two years. Two fucking years and he’d chucked it all away for someone he’d known for two weeks.

She walks towards the sink in her room, looking into the mirror and sighing at her reflection. Her eyes are red and puffy, she looks a mess. Splashing cold water onto her face to rid herself of the worst of it, she then flops down onto her bed, opening her laptop.

Immediately she is met with her MSN chat window with Michael from the previous evening. He’s online.

Without thinking, she types out a message to him.

“Do you have any alcohol?”

Within seconds he’s typing a response.

“Would you like me to have alcohol?”