#I might have gotten a little too enthusiastic playing Just Dance at a friend's house

[thateclecticbitch]

I AM AT MY FUCKING LIMIT YALL I DONT NEED COPING SKILLS I NEED TO YEETUS MY TEETUS

[pascalslittlebrat]

Late Night Temptations

Rating: E, 18+

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x F!Reader

Word Count: 2414

Warnings: Sugar baby/Sugar Daddy mention, mentions of alcohol, smut, oral sex-male receiving, choking, unprotected PIV (don’t be silly wrap those willies), dom/sub tones if you squint, i think that’s everything? Let me know if I missed anything

Summary: After a night out late with friends, you sneak into Pedro’s house for some water before going to your place at his, only to find him awake and wondering what you’ve been doing all night.

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Part 2 Part 3

A/N: Just a little collaboration between @mothandpidgeon and I, inspired by this picture from @pedrocentric​ and moth and I’s thots about sugar daddy Pedro, may you all enjoy xo

You got out of the Uber and went up the driveway. It was late and quiet. Instead of going around back to the guest house where you lived, you went to the front door. Water. Water would be amazing right now. Pedro wouldn’t mind if you helped yourself to a bottle from his fridge.

You let yourself into the house, first sliding out of your heels so you wouldn’t make noise. You were still a little tipsy and the house was dark. Your feet padded down the hall to the kitchen. You went into the fridge and cracked open a water bottle. You gulped it down, standing with the refrigerator door open, shoes in one hand, cool air prickling your skin. 

A light came on and Pedro had appeared in the kitchen. You couldn’t tell if he’d been sleeping. He often woke up looking deliciously tousled which seemed incredibly unfair. He was wearing a pajama set unbuttoned almost half way down his tan chest and over that a handsome silk robe.  His curls were a sexy mess of dark brown hair. 

“It’s late,” he said. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you said, wiping your mouth. You’d gotten a little over enthusiastic with the water. 

“I thought you said you were studying,” he said, his brow furrowed. Did you sound drunk? Were your cheeks red?

“I was,” you said. You closed the refrigerator and leaned back against it. The cold metal felt good against your shoulder blades.  

“It’s two in the morning,” he said. He sounded more exasperated than anything else. 

“We went for drinks after,” you said. 

“We?” 

He had come across the kitchen to you. 

“Me and the girls from class,” you smiled. You liked it when he got jealous.

“Mhm,” he said. He was looking over your outfit hungrily. He leaned an open palm on the refrigerator beside you. He was so tall that you had to look up at him. 

“A few guys bought us drinks.”

His eyes turned dark. You knew how to push his buttons. 

“I bet they all wanted to go home with you,” he purred. 

You shrugged. 

“I don’t like it when you stay out so late,” he said. His voice was husky and seemed to go straight between your thighs. He brushed your cheek with the back of his hand. “You need your beauty sleep, princesa.”

“I’m not tired,” you said. You only wanted one thing now and it wasn’t sleep. 

“Well, it’s past your bed time,” he grinned. “Let’s go.”

You pouted at him stepping away from the refrigerator, “I bet the guy that bought us drinks wouldn’t make me sleep.” You bit back a smirk when you saw Pedro’s nostrils flare, you were definitely pushing the right buttons.  “He was cute, tall, dark, handsome, like a younger version of you.”

Pedro let out a growl and pushed your back back into the refrigerator, your eyes widened in surprised. You hadn’t expected him to get so hands on so quick, “Oh and what would he do to you princesa instead?”

“Take me to his room and fuck me like I’ve never been fucked before,” you breathed out, your body was burning under his touch.

Pedro’s hand went around your neck and you let out a soft gasp as he tilts your head back. His mouth went to your ear, his nose brushing against the sensitive spot between your ear and neck, “Oh princesa, you’re going to regret teasing me.”

Your thighs clenched and you wanted nothing more than for him to pull up your skirt and take you. He moved his hand away and smirked seeing your chest move up and down, the desire clear on your face. He had gotten control again and now you were in trouble because he wasn’t going to be quick. “Suck,” he commands, and he places two fingers in your mouth.

You moan, wrapping your lips around his fingers. You look at him with those sweet innocent eyes knowing it drives him insane when its his cock and swirl your tongue around them. Your eyes never leave his as you move them in and out of your mouth. You watch his warm brown eyes turn black in desire. “I don’t share princesa, I guess I’ll have to remind you that,” he growls as he grinds his hard cock against you.

You knew he slept commando and the thin material of the pants against your own barely covering skirt had you whimpering, you core was screaming for more friction. You pushed your hips back up against his erection and Pedro grabbed your hip roughly, holding you down. “Uh-uh, you have some sucking up to do,” he tsked in your ear before pulling his fingers out, he pushed your skirt up and let out a choked breath when he saw you weren’t wearing panties.

He looked up at you eyes narrowed, “Where the hell are your panties?”

You smile up at him  innocently, shrugging, “I took them off when I left the club. The lace was bothering me.”

Pedro’s jaw tensed and you felt his fingers graze your wet mound before pulling his hand away, “You’re so wet, such a shame that I’m not going to touch you.” He undid the belt of his robe, “You’ve been very bad today, going to the bar in this little outfit and letting shitty little boys buy you drinks. I bet you planned this didn’t you? Take your panties off because you wanted me to fuck you?”

Your head falls back against the refrigerator whining at his teasing touch. You needed him the way you needed oxygen in that moment. Your intentions had only been to tease you into him fucking you as soon as you got here if he was awake, you didn’t think he was going to end up playing with you like this. “I might have danced with that one guy too,” you say deciding to push him further, “Might have not, just like I may or may have wanted you to fuck me. Or maybe it was him I wanted to? I can’t remember too well.” You looked at him in feign thought.

Pedro glared at you hooking his finger under your chin, “Get on your knees. Now.” You gulped as you looked at his eyes, his dominance was there and you knew you couldn’t resist that tone even if you wanted. You got on your knees, the coldness of the tile floor contrasting the heat of your body,  you looked up at him biting your lip, as your hands went to the waistband of his pajama pants. He gently caressed your cheek and you leaned into his touch, he knew in that moment that you were wrapped around his finger. There would be no more teasing him, no more being difficult and pushing his buttons, that little act was all he needed to know you were submitting to him completely. “Suck princesa, you’re mine and if you want me to fuck you, you’re going to be a good sugar baby and earn it,” his baritone voice orders.

You push down his pajama pants, his hard cock springs out and you lick your lips as you see the precum leaking from the top. You take his hard length into your hand, your other hand going to his hip to brace yourself. You smile up at his and flick your tongue over the head, licking the precum clean off of it. Pedro puts a hand in your hair and you hum appreciatively, you loved the way he taste, the perfect combination of sweet and salt, “You love tasting me don’t you baby, take it princesa. You know you love my cock in that pretty little mouth.”

“Always, yours all yours,” you moan as you take his cock in your mouth, he was too big for you to take completely but it never stopped you from trying. You heard him let out a hiss as your warm mouth covers his cock, feeling it hit the back of your throat as you take as much of him as you can in. You look up at him intently, how you loved to see the way his eyes closed when your mouth was around him. The soft moans he would let out as you bob your head up and down. You pulled your head back to just the tip sucking on it the way you knew drove him insane.

Pedro throws his head back the hand in your hair tightening, “Fuck princesa just like that, show me how much you deserve this cock.” You smile around the head of his cock before taking him back into your mouth. Pedro pulls on your hair guiding the way you bobbed up and down his cock, pushing himself down your throat a little more each time. He stops as he feels the warm muscles of your throat move against it, you gag and he releases his hold as you pull away, spit dribbling down your chin, eyes blown in lust. “You look so beautiful on your knees like that princesa, such a good girl, spit coming down your chin, I bet you’re soaked too aren’t you?”

You nod trying to catch your breath, your core was sensitive and it was taking everything in you to not grind against the floor for friction That’s how lost in lust he had you, you’d do anything for a release but you knew he would only drag out your release if you did. Your hand wraps around his thick length sliding up and down it as your swirl your tongue around the head taking him slowly back in. You moan around his cock, the sound vibrating down his length making him want to pull you away and take you right then and there. He loved how much you loved pleasing him, never had he found someone that enjoyed sucking him off the way you did, the way it would rile you up further. You keep your hand wrapped around his cock as you bob your head, increasing your speed, moving your hand in sync with your mouth to cover what you couldn’t.

Pedro’s hand in your hair tightens again, cursing under his breath, you knew he wasn’t going to last much longer and you whimper as your hand on his hip tightens, the pool between your legs was getting harder to ignore. He pulls on your hair, pulling your mouth off of him, you look up at him pouting. “I need you, now,” Pedro grits out as he pulls you back up. His mouth smashes into yours and you moan wrapping your arms around his neck, meeting his fevered kiss with just as much desire. He grabbed your hips bucking up against you. His tongue slips against yours asking for entrance, you whimper letting his tongue flick against yours.

Your tongues battle and you suck against it, gaining a moan out of him. He pulls back starting to kiss down your neck, sucking on the sensitive spot between your neck and clavicle. “Tell me what you want princesa,” Pedro breathes against your neck.

“I want you to fuck me,” you whine out breathlessly.

Pedro looks at you smugly pushing you against the counter, “Beg me for it baby, tell me how bad you want it.”

Your hands grip the counter as Pedro pushes your skirt up and bends you over it. He grabs his cock giving it a few strokes as he lines it up at your entrance. You suck in a breath, letting it out slowly as you try to push against it. “Fuck Pedro please! I want you to fuck me, I need your cock, please fuck my pussy with your cock,” you plead looking over your shoulder up at him.

Pedro smirks as he runs his cock up and down your wet folds, your grip tightening against the counter, small whimpers leaving your lips, “Pedro…please.”

“Good girl,” he whispers into your ears as he eases his cock inside of you. You gasp out as his thick length fills you, “Look at you taking my cock so good, princesa, you love having me inside you don’t you?”

“Y-yes, you fill me so good,” you whimper out as he pulls out before pushing back into you. Your head falls back against his chest, you found it hard to think as he rocked against you. Pedro was like a drug you could never get enough of, the way he felt pressed deep inside you, the way he’d murmur your name out each time you clenched around him.

He wrapped his hand around your neck, his other hand going down to your clit rubbing it. You cry out his name, feeling the familiar tightening in your stomach, you were so close and he knew it. He picked up his pace, “I bet that guy couldn’t fuck you like this. He wouldn’t have you completely falling apart, look at you, you’re so tight around my cock. Cum for me princesa.”

“Pedro fuck!” you cry out, your knees bucking underneath you as your orgasms rocks through your body, his hand around you neck moves and wraps around your waist. His attack on your clit doesn’t stop, wave after wave hitting you. You

Pedro holds you tightly against him as you tighten around him, “Fuck princesa, I’m going to cum, let me fill you up baby.”

You reach behind you pulling his lips against yours, “Please, I want you to.” You kiss him deeply as his pace starts faltering before you feel his thrusts stop and his mouth moves from lips to your neck. He moans out your name, his voice deep and gruff as he spills inside of you, filling you up. He hides his face in your shoulder, both of you breathing heavy. Pedro slips out of you pulling down your skirt. He turns you around kissing you softly.

You smile against his mouth, “So worth teasing you. Definitely better than any tacky frat boy.”

Pedro chuckles leaning his forehead against yours, “Never forget who makes these knees shake. Next time I won’t be so forgiving.”

He nips your neck and you giggle. “Pedro stopppp,” you whine as he sucks a mark, his thumbs rubbing circles on your hips.

“I’m simply marking you darling, so everyone knows you belong to me,” he says as he presses a kiss to the new mark on your shoulder, “Now let’s really get you to bed this time.”

@rav3n-pascal22 @purplepascal042 @sleep-tight1​ 

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

that makes four.

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PART 3

You hadn’t quite gotten used to being around Harry in the morning. What would typically be braless breakfasts on Saturday now had you wiping off any traces of mascara and at least throwing on a sports bra before you descended the stairs and turned on the keurig.

But on the morning of what would have been his last day, you came down to hear pots and pans already clanging together and giggles escaping the kitchen.

When you rounded the corner, CeCe was sitting on the counter, Maeve was trying to pour orange juice, and Harry was manning the waffle iron with a bowl of batter by his side.

“Morning,” you said with a suspicious glance. “What’s all this about?”

“Happy birthday!” CeCe smiled, excitement on her face when she turned to see you.

“My birthday’s not for another four days,” you reminded them, a kiss to her forehead when Harry offered a sheepish grin.

It had been long approaching, and thirty-two felt like a number you’d been avoiding in more ways than one. Turning thirty-two probably sounded like no big deal to everyone else. But being a newly-divorced single-mom who’d just lost her father and main support, having a birthday felt like a cruel way for the universe to remind you of all of your failures.

“Right,” Maeve said, “but it’s a Thursday, and we figured we wouldn’t be able to do all of this before school, so,” she shrugged innocently, Harry smiled down at her when you took another look around the kitchen.

It was messy, dishes in the sink and CeCe’s hands looked sticky. Maeve had her hair up but the batter was smeared on her forehead. Harry watched you glance around, his eyes expectant when you then asked: “Can I help?”

“Absolutely not,” he shook his head, amused by your obvious discomfort. “S’not what birthday girls do.”

He shooed you away once Maeve came over and tugged at your arm. “Here,” she said, “come sit and watch TV and I’ll make you coffee.”

“Let Harry make it,” you encouraged, unsure if she’d dump the whole sugar bowl in or spill half and half all over the counter.

“Mom, stay out of it, okay?” She rolled her eyes when she pushed the remote in your face. You looked over your shoulder quickly, shocked by the sight of a man with your daughter by his side, laughing and seemingly enjoying himself.

“Roger that,” you nodded, uncomfortable with the swelling of your heart at the sight of it. CeCe giggled and Maeve hurried back over, laughing when Harry let out a playful yelp at the heat from the waffles as he put them on a plate.

It took them a minute to get everything together, and right when your mug of coffee was returned (a little sweet, but you’d live), the doorbell rang and Maeve jumped into action. She pulled the door open to reveal Tristan, eyebrows arched high on his forehead when realized it wasn’t just any Sunday morning.

You were already on your feet to greet him, worried about the current state of your kitchen but also worried about the type of interaction might occur between your right hand man and the guy in an apron with CeCe tugging at his sleeve.

He’d been asking a lot of questions, his penchant for all things pop culture left him curious (or just nosy) about the current living situation in your new house. You were surprised, quite honestly, that it took him this long to pop over unannounced just to get a peek behind the curtain.

“Well hello” he looked around, a smirk on his face when his eyes settled on you. “Quite the morning we have here.”

“It’s mom’s birthday breakfast,” Maeve informed him, scurrying off to help her accomplices when you greeted him with a hug.

He kissed your cheek and shut the door behind himself. “A few days for you to panic, still, right?”

“Panic?” Harry called over his shoulder, his role more passive now that Maeve was worried about the presentation of the waffles on a ceramic plate.

Tristan took that as his cue to stick out his hand, head for the kitchen, and smile: “Nice to meet you, I’m Tristan. Second in command at Luna Skincare.”

“Harry,” he greeted, voice a good octave lower than Tristan’s and a firm enough handshake that made Tristan blush. “I’m just the house guest.”

“So I’ve heard,” Tristan winked in his direction.

“Alright, why are you here?” You tried to pull his attention away from the attractive man in your kitchen, a loud sip of coffee when he made a face at you.

He pushed a folder into your hands. “Sorry to show up unannounced." (He wasn't.) "But I wanted to show you these. Mock ups for the new body wash debut. Don’t know how I feel about those bottles, but, your call.”

You took it, opened it with one hand and let him thumb through some pages for you to see. The body wash debut was a long time coming--only about a month away and as always, it seemed to come at the best and worst time. Spring was always busy, you always launched something exciting and then CeCe’s birthday was in April. Then school got out in late May and there were plays and dance recitals and everything seemed to happen at once.

But spring was the perfect time for launches--sunshine, warmer weather, less rain in LA and people were typically ready to start spending money to prep their skin for summer.

“I kind of like them,” you looked up at him, voice hesitant when you showed them to Maeve.

“Clean lines, modern branding,” she nodded, coming back to stand beside you. “I like them too.”

“The council has spoken,” Tristan nodded, taking the folder back. “I’ll get back to them tomorrow morning and have them send a few samples over for us to see in person before we move to production.” He pulled out his phone and typed a few things into a note, Maeve tugged at your sleeve.

“Are you going to eat?”

“Yes, let’s offer something to our guest, though, right?”

“Harry’s not a guest anymore,” she wrinkled her nose at you in confusion. “It’s been way too long to call him that.”

“I mean Tristan,” you clarified with a laugh, eyes glancing over to Harry to gauge a reaction.

He felt like a guest, sometimes--when he asked how to use the washing machine or when he asked if it was okay to use the pool. But seeing him make waffles with your daughters or sit on the couch to watch a movie with everyone after dinner made him feel like more of a friend. And thinking that made you feel insecure and stupid.

Harry’s brows arched in Tristan’s direction. “We do have plenty.”

“I’m stuffed,” Tristan waved him off. “Had an omelette and a green smoothie and now I’m off to a spin class--wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Says the man who shows up at my house before 9am on a Sunday with no notice,” you teased.

He held a hand to his hard for dramatic effect. “I just felt like this couldn’t wait.”

“Right,” you narrowed your eyes. “No other reason you needed to stop by.”

He laughed, Maeve was growing impatient and he could sense it, adjusted his messenger bag on his shoulder as he turned to head for the door. “Birthday dinner Friday night? I already made the reservation based on Zoey’s list of restaurants.”

“I will be there, unfortunately,” you teased. “Even though I said we don’t have to do anything special.”

“Friday night?” Harry inquired, eyebrows furrowed together when he moved to lean on the island.

“You should come,” Tristan decided, an enthusiastic nod in Harry’s direction. “Jeff will be there, Zoey--you’ve met Zoey, right?” Harry nodded but you cut them off.

“You don’t have to, Harry,” you said before turning to Tristan. “He’s probably busy.”

He didn’t have to, that part was true. But your hesitance was also because it felt like another blurred line. Was it weird for him to come? Was it weird for him to sit at a table with your friends and sing happy birthday like you hadn’t just met a few weeks prior?

“No, m’not busy. I was actually going to ask if you wanted me to stay with the girls.”

Another wave of butterflies in your stomach at his words, but Maeve derailed the conversation.

“I’m sleeping over Bella’s house,” she informed.

“Me too!” CeCe chirped with a smile.

“No you’re not,” Maeve shot back. “You’re not coming with me to a sleepover.”

Tristan declined Harry’s offer for you before you even had a chance to open your mouth.

“Do you know the woman? She can afford a babysitter. You should come, we’re gonna have an exquisite time!”

Harry let out a quiet laugh, hands in his pockets when he looked to you. “Is that alright?”

You weren’t going to say no. You weren’t going to stare him in the eyes and tell him he couldn’t come or tell him--in front of your daughters--that it felt weird for him to suddenly be more than just a house guest.

“Of course,” you nodded.

“Perfect,” Tristan smiled, “then I’ll see you on Friday,” he pointed at Harry and turned on his feet, a wave over his shoulders at the girls. “Bye my little devils!”

They both echoed a farewell when you turned to face them. “Okay,” you said, a nod to yourself more than to them. This was fine, it was fine for Harry to come along and spend time with your friends, right?

“Let’s eat already, I’m starving,” CeCe groaned. Maeve reached into the drawer and grabbed forks, Harry got the syrup and helped bring plates to the dining room table. The girls reached for waffles and CeCe let out a cry when Maeve took the one with sprinkles that she wanted.

“CeCe,” Harry reassured, “I made this one just for you. Lots of sprinkles,” he nodded, forking a waffle off of his own plate and onto hers.

She grinned from ear to ear and the butterflies reappeared. Maybe having him around wasn’t so bad after all.

**

Maeve’s sleepover fell through. Apparently Bella didn’t ask her mom in time and when Shelli arrived to pick up the girls for an exciting sleepover at Auntie Shelli and Uncle Irv’s, Maeve was less than thrilled.

The day of your birthday was less than exciting. Meetings in the morning, Tristan brought you a cupcake at lunch and you were doing your best to not honk aggressively loud in the pick up line that afternoon when someone nearly caused an accident.

Take out that night with the girls because you didn’t want to cook and Harry was busy--some sort of meeting with Jeff and other people. You were sat on the couch by 10pm with a glass of wine and for a second, you thought about waiting up for him.

A text at 10:15 informed that he’d probably stroll in after midnight. You climbed the stairs and felt hopeless and pathetic and entirely old. Even if everyone was telling you that you weren’t.

Now, Maeve was going on and on about how unfair it was that you didn’t ever let her stay home alone.

“One day will you let me?”

You gave her a sideways glance, secured an earring in place at your dresser and then turned to see her.

“One day--a long time from now.”

“A long time?” She asked, slumped over in a chair in the corner of your bedroom. “How long is long?”

“Maeve,” you let out a frustrated sigh, thankful for the fact that Shelli was more than fine to entertain CeCe downstairs while you finished getting ready and plastered enough deodorant to your armpits in hopes that you wouldn’t sweat through this dress. “I’m not playing this game.”

“It’s not a game, it’s a question,” she shot back.

“When you’re fifteen maybe.”

“Fifteen?! That’s, like, five whole years from now!”

“I know,” you nodded, offering her some mock sympathy. “However will you survive until then?”

A knock on the open door, an awkward smile from Harry. “Hi, sorry to interrupt--you look beautiful.”

“Ew,” Maeve rolled her eyes but then didn’t say more when you shot her a glance in the mirror.

“Thank you,” you said awkwardly, resting a hand on your hip. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just wanted to say I’ll drive, if you want. That way you can, you know,” he held a hand up to his mouth and gestured throwing back a shot.

Maeve stared up at him, confusion etched on her face but then she looked to you. “So you can drink?”

Harry’s face suddenly looked guilty, his eyes wide when you let out a laugh.

“Yes, so I can drink. But only responsibly,” you informed her, a finger pointed in her direction before you nodded and obliged. “That would be great, Harry.”

If he was going to come, he might as well be useful. It wasn’t going to be that type of night, though. Thirty-two felt like it was way too old to get too drunk to drive or end up on a friend’s couch hungover in the morning.

This was just a birthday dinner, ten people total and fancy wine. You’d order dessert and be home by eleven.

Maeve lugged her overnight bag down the steps, complaining the whole way about Bella and dragging her feet out of the door and into Shelli’s car.

Shelli, who wrapped her arms around you and wished you a happy belated, kissed you on both cheeks and encouraged you to let loose. “You’re not old,” she smiled. “You’re mature, you’re settling into your life. You’ve got years ahead of you to be boring and tired.”

You smiled, let her hug you again when you said: “it’s just been a hard year.”

“I know,” she nodded, brushed your hair with her hand and gave you an extra squeeze. “And birthdays just make us look back at the last 365 days.”

You nodded when she let you go. She kept your hands in hers, though, ignored the way Maeve said something snotty to CeCe in the back seat. “But here’s to looking forward! To the next 365 days and to less headaches. I’ll keep these two under control and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Harry had wandered out now, sunglasses on to shield his eyes from the setting sun.

“Harry!” Shelli called him over. “Make sure Y/N has fun tonight.”

He let out a laugh but looked in your direction. “I can try.” He had the keys in his hand, pressed a button to make his car chirp to life when Shelli got in hers.

You bent down at the back window, reached in and pinched CeCe on the cheek. “Be good, okay?”

“You be good too, mommy,” CeCe smiled. They waved from the backseat when they pulled out of the driveway and you turned to see Harry, still standing with his sunglasses on a smirk on his face.

“What?”

“Is it really that hard to make you have fun?”

He walked towards his car, you followed his lead and prayed your heels would hold out on the pavement. “No,” you said with a certain level of defense. “She’s just teasing me.”

“Yeah?” He climbed in when you opened the door. You settled in beside him and felt a sudden urge to convince him.

“I’m a fun person, Harry.”

He smirked when he started the engine. “Never said you weren’t.”

“I just have responsibilities, you know? Two children--that clearly would kill each other with their bare hands if I weren’t watching.”

“Hmm, don’t think I agree with you on that one,” he laughed, the tires gripped the pavement of your street when he took off towards the restaurant. “I think they’re more tame than you think. In fact, I think you’ve gotten so connected to the role of mom that it’s hard for you to turn that off.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “You sound like a therapist.”

He shrugged, dimples on his cheeks when he stole a glance in your direction from behind his sunglasses. “Does that mean I’m right?”

“No,” you said, looking down at the bracelet on your wrist. “Not completely.”

Quiet for a few moments, a left turn signal before he looked at you again. “I think you’re super fun, by the way.”

You hated the way it made your pulse pick up, another smirk in his direction when you felt your cheeks turn warm and he let out a tiny laugh.

You were both quiet for the rest of the ride, he introduced himself to Zoey and joked with Jeff on the way to your table on the back patio of a restaurant in Brentwood. They’d put up balloons, a toast in your honor after other friends filed in.

Appetizers first, embarrassing stories from your high school friends who seemed to flutter their eyelashes in Harry’s direction. Jeff’s arm was around the back of your chair by the time your dinner plates were cleared.

“The only time I’ve seen you as excited was when our dads brought us backstage for the No Strings Attached tour.”

You shot Jeff a look quickly, hoping he wasn’t planning on launching into the same story he’d told a thousand times--if only to see the look on your face.

“Wait, you mean the NSYNC tour?” Harry was seated across the table, margarita in hand when he leaned in for more details.

“Oh god,” Zoey rolled her eyes when Tristan shook his head. “Not this story again.”

“You mean the greatest story ever?” Jeff leaned down and shot her a look.

“We’ve all heard it,” Tristan whined, “I could recite it as if I was there, honestly.”

Harry’s eyes met yours, a few glasses of wine deep as the tea lights above the patio flickered on. “I haven’t heard it.”

“You certainly don’t need to,” you pointed at him with a lazy finger.

“Were you even alive then?” Tristan laughed.

“For NSYNC?” Harry pulled his head back, “course I was! My sister was obsessed with them.”

“Okay, well the story is literally stupid. Jeff thinks it’s funnier than it is and all that happened--”

“I want to tell him!” Jeff reached over and smacked you on the shoulder, pulling an eye roll from you when the others let out a laugh. “She asked Justin Timberlake to sign her boobs in front of our dads and it was ridiculously uncomfortable for everyone.”

“I was fourteen,” you defended, a smile pulling your lips towards the sky. “And stupid and in love with him and I didn’t think they could hear us.”

“Right,” Jeff waved you off as if everything you said was totally valid. “But the best part is when her dad then goes: ‘if you sign hers, you have to sign mine, too.’”

Zoey let out a snort of a laugh and so did the others, Harry tried to fight a smirk when he looked your way.

Jeff could barely keep a straight face, “Justin Timberlake never seemed so intimidated in his life.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t heard that story before,” Harry said to Jeff, elbows on the table now. “I can’t believe Irv hasn’t made a thousand jokes about it.”

You sipped at your drink and narrowed your eyes at Harry. “Maybe he also blocked it out due to being traumatized by the embarrassment.”

“What year was that?”

“Summer of 2000,” you looked to Jeff. “Their prime, obviously not mine.”

“Oh it was most certainly not your prime.” He shot back with a laugh,

You gave him a shove. “It wasn’t yours either! Your hair was curly and not in the cool JT way.”

“I’ve seen some of those pictures,” Harry pointed at his friend. “She’s right--not in a cool way.”

Jeff played it off and shot something back at Harry, ordered you another drink when you tugged on a jacket in the cooler air. The waiter brought out a cake with sparklers on top, Zoey took a thousand pictures and wrapped her arms around you at the end of the night.

“I have a feeling thirty-two will be a much better year,” she assured.

“Here’s hoping,” you agreed, pulled apart from her when Tristan leaned in to kiss you on the cheek.

“Well, you have a chauffeur for the night, so you’re off to a good start,” he teased.

Harry held up his keys in his hand and raised his eyebrows in a cheeky way. “Door to door service, a good price. Definitely off to a good start.”

You climbed back into the front seat of his car after Jeff shoved the balloons in the back, told you to keep them for the girls. The car ride was quiet, he told you about his album and kept the windows half way down as you snaked back up into the hills. You weren’t wasted by any means, just tipsy and tired and full after good food and better friends.

You keyed into the house with the balloons in hand, Harry was behind you and flicked on a light switch downstairs. You kicked your heels off inside and let the balloons float into the living room. “Want a glass of wine?”

He looked in your direction after clicking his phone shut, eyebrows raised as if he didn’t quite know how to answer. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

“I’d have one if you would,” you shrugged, already walking to the kitchen to grab some glasses.

He smiled, came to the island and ran a hand through his hair when you uncorked a new bottle of Pinot Noir. When you handed him a glass, he clinked it against yours and took a sip.

“Happy Birthday,” he said.

“Don’t remind me,” you laughed.

“Oh come on, s’not that bad.”

“You turn thirty-two and then tell me that.”

“I’ll keep you posted,” he nodded. “Dinner was good though.”

“As good as it can be when you get that group of weirdos together,” you admitted, stem of the glass between your fingers when you headed for the couch. He watched you walk away, paused for a moment before he followed suit and sat a few cushions down on the oatmeal colored sofa.

“S’kind of funny that we hadn’t met before Jeff set this up,” he motioned around the living room as if to gesture to the living arrangement. “I mean--obviously I’d heard a lot about you.”

“Like what?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him as you sipped the wine again. “If not the most embarrassing story of my early teens--”

“Just that you were one of his closest friends. Probably heard just as much about you from Shelli and Irv, to be fair.”

“I think I’m their favorite child even though I’m not actually theirs.”

He laughed at that, lifted his glass as if to agree with you before he angled his body towards you. “What did Jeff ever say about me? Aside from making me sound homeless and pathetic.”

You shook your head a bit and tugged at the hem of your dress. “He didn’t make you sound like either of those.”

“Well you didn’t seem too eager to have me living here…”

He trailed off, like he was waiting for you to protest or something. When you fought a smile and looked up at him, he squinted suspiciously. “What?”

You hesitated, unsure if admitting it would do you any good. Things were starting to feel normal, almost like Harry had a place in your house or your life or like it at least wasn’t awkward to be sitting on the couch with him after a night out with friends.

“Oh it’s that bad? Hesitate before you tell me bad?”

You made a face and laughed, almost embarrassed. “I was mostly focused on the fact that you’re young and that you’d maybe be a bad influence on the girls. You know--the whole rock star vibe.”

He smiled, nodded after a second but then said: “do I pass the test?”

“There’s no test,” you rolled your eyes.

“Right,” he looked at you like you were crazy, a shit eating grin plastered on his face. “You expect me to believe that you didn’t make me meet you for coffee with Jeff that day to scope me out? Figure out if I was a total freak--”

You leaned back into the sofa and let out a playful groan. “I mean I was hoping you weren’t since Jeff always had such good things to say about you.”

He made you list them off, laughed at the fact that you thought you were too old or too uncool to come to the release for his first album. He poured you both another glass and smiled, hopefully you’ll come to the next one.

He showed you stupid videos from his time in his old band, listened to you talk about anxieties at work and how weird it felt to be in your dad’s house now.

“I mean, I’m glad we had a place to come.”

“Where’d you live before?”

“Woodland Hills,” you shrugged. “We bought a house there right after CeCe was born. It was nice, but too small and we obviously needed a change after I found him in bed with another woman in our bedroom there, so.”

Harry’s eyes went wide at that, he let out a laugh when you did, too. “Sounds miserable.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“And he’s not--does he see the girls ever?”

You bit your lip, moved your head from side to side and then sighed. “I mean--I asked if he could come to the funeral just to be with them and watch them since I was so busy, but he told me that he’d planned a weekend getaway with his new girlfriend in Malibu, so…”

“So he’s really a twat.”

You laughed at his word choice, British and confident when he nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“What’s his name again?”

“Luke.”

“Luke!” He scoffed and looked up the ceiling. “No wonder he was a twat.”

“Yep,” you nodded. “So it’s nice to be here.”

“I’m sorry that happened, by the way.”

You waved him off, finished the last of your wine and set the glass on the coffee table. “S’all good. Moving on to bigger and better things, right?”

“M’sure you can do better than someone who didn’t realize what a mistake he was making.”

You nodded slowly, dropped his gaze when you felt butterflies beneath your ribcage. You let out a breath, looked up to him. “I should probably head to bed.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, moved to stand from the couch and reached out for your wine glass. You handed it to him, ignored the way his fingers grazed against yours when he smiled. “Are you drunk?”

You hesitated to answer, followed behind him to the kitchen when he looked over his shoulder, waiting for your answer.

“Are you drunk?”

He pretended to be offended. “I asked you first!”

You lifted your shoulders and then giggled. “Yes, but in a good way.”

“Great, love that.”

“You have to answer, too!”

He turned around after he put the glasses in the sink. “After a bottle of wine here and a few margaritas at dinner? Of course I am,” he laughed. “Red wine goes straight to my head,” he pointed to his temple.

“Well,” you started to walk back to the living room for the stairs by your office, flipping off a few light switches along the way. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yeah? You plan on getting me drunk again soon?”

“I didn’t get you drunk,” you pointed at him. “It’s my birthday dinner, remember?”

“Yeah--you’ve been throwing them back all night so I couldn’t forget.”

“From the guy who encouraged me to have fun tonight! I’ve been having a great time, totally relaxed, totally cool…”

“You have,” he laughed, his footsteps echoing on the stairs behind you. “Just like you were totally cool when you met NSYNC.”

“Hey,” you turned around quickly and laughed, a tad unsteady from the drinks and the time of night. “That is privileged and confidential information--not something you get to hold over my head!”

“Mmm, okay, so I can’t bring that up in front of Irv and Shelli?”

“Absolutely not,” you leaned against the door frame to your room. “Unless you want to never speak to me again.”

It was dark in the hallway, a glow from the lights on the first floor crept up the stairs when he held your gaze for a second.

“Wouldn’t want that,” he said, voice quieter now.

Your heart seemed to flutter, or maybe it was the alcohol or the fact that you were up way too late. “Mhm,” you paused, unsure of how to respond to the sudden shift in the air between you. “Then I suggest you forget that story.”

“Thanks for letting me come with you guys tonight.”

“Yeah,” you said, eyes down to the ground for a second, suddenly self conscious. Did he have a good time? Was it weird for him to come? “Thanks for driving.”

You didn’t have too long to dwell on the thoughts, though, because soon he stepped closer and let his mouth meet yours before you were able to bring a hand to his shirt, tugging him into you.

He pulled you closer, too, his hand on the small of your back before he pulled away. “Are you--is that--I should have asked first.”

“No,” you shook your head, the word sounded funny in your drunk brain. “I’m not mad about it.”

He let out a quiet laugh, kissed you again when you tugged him back into the room and shut the door with his free hand.

You stumbled backwards, laughed against his lips when he lowered you onto the bed. Greedy hands and desperate moans when he pulled away to tug down your panties. If your life had been a movie, there’d be a cut to the hands on a clock spinning while you giggled into his neck and felt your skin against his beneath the sheets.

But what felt like a dream could only last so long.

Your head shot up from the pillow when you heard it--the door opening and shutting, the beep throughout the house to let you know someone had arrived. Sun shone through the curtains and giggles floated up from the first floor, you heard Maeve tell CeCe something and then you heard footsteps on the stairs.

Morning, the night faded into sobriety and you rubbed your eyes. His face was barely visible beneath his messy hair and the sheet pulled up to his chin.

“Harry,” you shoved him, voice quiet but stern. “Wake up!”

He blinked a few times, squinted in the sunlight and you realized that an 8am wake up call might have been early for him, you know, since he was barely an adult.

“The girls are home,” you said when you shoved him again. “Which means Shelli is here, which means you need to get the hell out of my bed.”

His eyes opened wide at that, he pushed himself up and then scrambled out of the sheets when he heard footsteps in the hall. The door was locked, luckily, but the banging of little fists had you pushing Harry into your bathroom and telling him to not say a word.

He was sleepy, but his lips pulled into a smirk when he took one look at you half-dressed. There was no time for addressing the way his fingers pulled moans from your lips or the way he said he’d been waiting for this. No, because as soon as the thoughts of last night settled back into your brain, you tugged the door open to see your beautiful daughters smiling up at you.

“Good morning,” you said, voice cheery when you tugged a sweatshirt over your skimpy tank top. You forced a smile and Maeve seemed to narrow her eyes.

“You look messy.”

“I just haven’t brushed my hair,” you told her. CeCe pushed past you and ran straight for your bed, a cannonball of sorts into tangled sheets.

“We had the best time with Auntie Shelli and Uncle Irv!” She said, “we watched a movie last night mommy and I stayed up until ten o’clock.”

“You fell asleep on the couch,” Maeve corrected her. “I stayed up until almost eleven,” she bragged.

“That’s great,” you told them, heartbeat rising as you tried to search for a way out of this. “Girls, why don’t you go find Auntie Shelli and--”

“I’m right here, sorry, I hope they didn’t wake you,” she appeared in the doorway, pulling another forced smile from you when you turned on your heels. “Good morning,” she looked you up and down with a smirk, more perceptive than your daughters.

“Where’s Harry?” Maeve asked, crossing her arms as she relaxed back on top of your duvet.

“I don’t know,” you said quickly. “In his room.”

“Door’s open, he’s not there,” she answered.

“Maybe he went to stay at a friend’s house.”

“Oh--did he tell you that?”

“I don’t remember,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders, suddenly feeling put on trial by your ten-year-old.

Shelli had scanned the room, her eyes landing on the shoes by the foot of your bed that were clearly not yours. She smiled, nodded slowly and then said: “Girls, why don’t we go pick up donuts? We can bring some back for mom and she can take a shower and straighten up while we’re out?”

“Great idea,” you smiled, a hurried nod as you moved towards your daughters and ushered them out of your bed. “When you get back we can watch TV or go for a bike ride later today,” you were just throwing shit at the wall now, anything to get them out of your room and distracted enough to not realize that Harry’s shirt was on the floor beside his pants and that his bed hadn’t even been slept in.

“I want a jelly donut!” CeCe informed you when Shelli pushed them out into the hallway.

“Sounds great,” you smiled. “See you in a bit, okay?”

You mouthed a thank you to Shelli and she winked in your direction, a wave of nausea crashing into you once the door was shut. You rushed over to the bathroom door, pulled it open, and found Harry leaning against the wall with his head in his hands.

He looked up quickly at the sound, offered an awkward smile and said: “are you livid?”

You shook your head, unsure how to put your emotions into words but also aware of the fact that this was the exact reason why this should have never happened. You turned around and headed back for the bedroom, looked out the window near your closet to see Shelli helping the girls into the backseat.

“You’re not livid?”

“No,” you said, turning around quickly. “I just--I don’t know--that probably wasn’t a great idea.”

His face fell a little bit, arms crossed over his torso when he asked: “what do you mean?”

“Last night was fun, Harry, but I’m thirty-two. I’m a mom,” you said the word like it was embarrassing to admit.

He made a face like he didn’t get the point but then nodded. “I’m completely aware of both of those facts.”

“You’re twenty-four,” you reminded him. “That’s a seven year age difference.”

“Eight, now that your birthday passed,” he said this sheepishly, like he knew it would lead to another groan.

“Exactly!” You said. “That’s a big gap. I spend my weekends going to birthday parties and playdates. What do you even do? Go to clubs and hang out with millionaires?”

He let out a laugh. “I’ve been hanging out with your kids a lot on the weekends, to be honest.”

“Yeah, but, my kids almost just caught us in bed together and Jeff’s mom is definitely aware that something happened, now, so--”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

A moment passed when you heard the engine start.

“It was fun, though,” he said, a small step closer to you when you let out a sigh. “It was something I’d been hoping would happen.”

Your breath seemed to catch in your throat when he took another step closer, the pad of his thumb making contact with your arm when he went on. “Call me crazy but I feel like we both knew that was coming.”

You took a step back, not because he was wrong and not because you didn’t like it, but because suddenly every thought in your brain was spinning at 100 miles per hour and you knew you had about fifteen minutes to get dressed and figure out what the hell was going on. Or at least craft a story that would explain why his clothes were in your room and figure out a way to get Shelli to completely forget whatever she thought she saw.

“Can we maybe talk about it later? Like--when they’re not coming back here in a few minutes with donuts and coffee?”

“Yes,” he nodded, words fumbling out of his mouth like he’d forgotten how to form sentences. “Later. I’m going to get dressed.”

“Me too.”

He shut the door after he gathered up his clothes and shoes. You sat on the foot of the bed and stared at your hands--the ones that had touched him and run through his hair and traced circles on his chest when you fell asleep.

You were simultaneously mad at yourself for being stupid enough to do that and still completely enchanted by the fact that it happened and you weren’t dreaming and you hadn’t been crazy to think there was some level of sexual tension between you.

You were drunk. The first time you'd had more than two glasses of wine in a while, after all. Whatever type of stupid crush that had developed was nothing more than that: stupid, silly, a complete fantasy that had sparked into a flame once you had a few drinks.

Sure, maybe you had no clue what to do moving forward, but you figured that playing it cool was the only option until you’d had enough time to let your thoughts and feelings settle.

Maeve and CeCe were clueless, you learned, when they sat at the counter and scarfed down donuts. You sipped the coffee that Shelli had returned with and asked about their night.

A movie, popcorn on the couch, so many laughs and Uncle Irv even let them play on the old pinball machine he kept in his office.

The shower in Harry’s room shut off eventually, he descended the stairs with wet hair and offered a timid smile to everyone in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he patted CeCe on the head and moved to fetch the cup of coffee that Shelli offered in his direction.

“I’ll take it the birthday dinner went well?” Shelli brought her coffee up to her lips and let her eyes dance between the two of you. Harry looked at you and you looked at him, a silent standoff to see who would respond.

But it was your birthday, you realized.

“Yeah,” you said quickly. “Was great.”

You reached for a bite of donut from CeCe’s plate, she let out a yelp when you plopped it in your mouth, offering her an apologetic look. “Good food, good drinks.”

“You enjoyed yourself too, Harry?”

He was caught off guard by this, lips in a thin line when he set his coffee on the counter and nodded. “It was wonderful, really.”

Shelli wouldn’t care--you weren’t worried what she would think or if she’d judge you. If anything, you knew she’d be the type to encourage you to let your hair down and venture out into the dating pool. Which is what she practically did last night. You just didn’t know if she’d actually meant to encourage you to sleep with the client of her son.

But she didn’t know the context! She didn’t know about the way he looked at you across the dinner table or the way he kept pouring wine. All she knew was that she told you to have fun and then she found you--quite disheveled--with Harry’s clothes on the floor and Harry himself nowhere to be found.

Maeve was off to her room soon enough, reporting that she needed a break from CeCe who was keen to play with a doll in the living room with the TV on. You wiped the counter with a sponge and Harry took a loud slurp of his coffee when Shelli broke out into a full smile.

“It’s none of my business,” she said.

“It’s not,” you looked up at her quickly.

“But,” she lifted a single shoulder and smirked when you rolled your eyes. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“It’s not a secret.”

“Then why was he hiding in the bathroom?” She lowered her voice so CeCe wouldn’t hear.

“How do you know I was in the bathroom?”

“He wasn’t hiding in the bathroom.”

Shelli offered an unimpressed look in your direction but then turned to Harry. “She’s a catch, Harry.”

“Okay,” you held up a hand, embarrassed and uncomfortable and already breaking a sweat. It was fun, you’d been thinking a lot about him and the way he acted with you and the kids and you didn’t need Shelli to be egging on your single-mom fantasy.

Harry blushed at that, a nod in her direction and a smirk on his face when he brought his eyes to you.

“Shelli--people get drunk and do things that sometimes they wouldn’t normally, right? So, I need you to not make a big deal out of this and not tell Jeffrey.”

She put her fingers up to her lips and twisted them, implying that they were locked and Jeff wouldn’t catch wind of your best and most anxiety-provoking hook up to date. She dropped it at that, Harry made some excuse about going for a run and soon Saturday melted back into what you’d hoped it would be: the kids playing outside, cannon balls in the pool after lunch.

Daylight faded and it wasn’t until after 9pm when you had to face him again. He knocked on the door to your office when you had glasses falling down your nose, a sweatshirt tugged over your messy bun.

The side of his mouth twitched into a smirk, arms folded over his chest. “Do you ever take a day off?”

You let out a laugh and turned to see him over your shoulder. “Email never sleeps.”

He watched you for a second, wheels spinning in his head as he planned out his next words carefully: “Is now a better time to discuss what happened last night?”

You let out a sigh, one that pulled a nervous look to his face, but he soon laughed. “Uh oh,” he teased. “Doesn’t sound like a good start.”

“No,” you laughed, unsure of how to save any last morsel of dignity. “I’m sorry that Shelli was so...intrusive this morning.”

He looked down to the ground but chuckled. “Can’t say I’m surprised. She’s always talked about you like a daughter.”

“Yeah, I just--I had a great time, I mean that--”

“But,” he looked at you expectantly, blinked a few times when you smacked your lips together.

“But I think that it needs to be a one time thing. It would be really confusing for CeCe and Maeve if they found out.”

He nodded, took a deep breath and said: “I agree. Yeah, that makes sense.”

Something plucked at your heart, an unidentifiable emotion that made you want to kiss him harder than you did after five drinks and a birthday dinner. He was fine--totally understanding and unbothered by your words that effectively ended whatever mini-fling had existed for less than 24 hours.

Maybe that was it--disappointment. Had you expected him to put up a fight and convince you endlessly to sleep with him again or sweep you off your feet and drive off into the sunset? No. Did a part of you wish that he didn’t seem so accepting of learning that it would never happen again? Apparently so.

You faltered for a second, stared at him awkwardly but then clicked out of your mailbox. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

He looked back out to the kitchen, quiet and tidy after it’s post-dinner clean. “Do you want a glass of wine?” He smiled a bit, watched you with a sturdy dose of suspicion when you stood and rolled your eyes.

“Is this our thing? Turning questions around?”

He laughed but trailed behind you, sat at the island when you picked out a bottle. “Our thing? What do you mean?”

“You know--all friends have a thing, their bantery joke. Apparently ours is asking a question but then the other person turns it back around.”

“Hmmm,” he laughed, thought on it for a second when you uncorked and poured. “Are we friends?”

You looked up at him, matched the smirk on his face when he plucked at his lower lip. You slid a glass over to him on the granite. “Are we not friends?”

“You’re doing our thing.”

You rolled your eyes playfully, took a sip of the Merlot and then cleared your throat. “We can be friends.”

“Friends who don’t sleep together.”

“Right,” you nodded, less self-conscious than you had been in your office. It happened, right? People would accidentally sleep together when they were drunk and they could move on, poke fun, make light of a situation that threatened to bring too many emotions to the surface if either one let their guard down for a second.

“Did either Maeve or CeCe ask any more questions today about where I was?”

“Nope,” you shook your head, let out a breath of relief. “Maeve got too distracted by the donuts and the activity planning of the day and CeCe was oblivious the whole time. So, we should be fine.”

“Good,” he said. A pause when he let out a quiet laugh.

“What?”

He looked up at you briefly, shrugged a little and then said: “Just can’t help but think about what Jeff would say.”

You blushed at that, dropped his gaze and stared at the wine in your glass. “I don’t know about you but I’m okay not finding out.”

Another dimple on his cheek when he asked: “embarrassed of me?”

“No,” you laughed, fighting a smile. “I just know how he can be. He’ll want to know every detail and he’ll have a million questions. If you think Shelli was bad this morning, Jeff would be worse.”

He smiled, tipped his glass back to take another pull. “Right, he might as well be your brother, I guess.”

“He’s just as annoying as one, that’s for sure." You were desperate to change the subject, fearful of what you might say or admit if the topic stayed put. "Do you have any siblings?”

“Sister, yeah,” he nodded. “Just the two of us.”

“Are you close?”

“Super,” he smiled. “We talk pretty regularly despite the time difference. Our parents got divorced when we were young so it kind of feels like we’ve been through a lot together.”

He didn’t realize the way his words hit close to home until you sighed.

“How much did that ruin your life?”

He pulled a face, apologetic and understanding at the same time. “It didn’t ruin my life,” he reassured. “Just don’t think they were meant to be.”

“Well I can definitely relate to that.”

He tilted his head to the side, swirled the wine around his glass. “Why do you ask if it ruined my life?”

“I just worry about them, I guess. I was young when they got divorced, and then my mom passed and that definitely affected my sense of family."

He nodded, his eyes invested when you spoke.

“It was just me and my dad--and obviously we had the Azoffs, but, I don’t know. I guess I just worry that they’ll also grow up feeling somewhat unfulfilled.”

“Did you want a sibling growing up?”

“More than anything,” you laughed. “I mean, I had Alison and Jeff and all of them, but--you know, it’s not blood.”

“Yeah,” he took another sip. “I get that--my step dad was really important to me, passed away last summer.”

“Oh, wow--I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

Great--here you were complaining about losing both parents now, completely unaware that Harry had suffered a similar loss and yet this was the first time you were hearing it.

“I don’t mean to talk about myself so much,” you said quickly, cheeks flushed in a pink hue of shame.

He let out a soft laugh, almost as if he found your sudden retraction endearing or adorable. “I could listen all day.”

“Well, I wouldn’t make you suffer through that,” you said.

He stood, rounded the edge of the island and you wondered if he could hear your heart beating out of your chest, like you were 16 at a summer fair on top of the ferris wheel. His lips were pressed to yours before you could tell him not to, before you could stick up a hand between the two of you and remind him what you’d said only a few minutes earlier: friends.

The moment was quick, though, the tiny thudding of feet on the stairs sent him flying to the other side of the kitchen. CeCe’s hands gripped the railing and she rubbed at her eyes when she let out a tiny wail.

“I--had--a--bad--dream,” she cried, her voice soft in the dim kitchen.

“Oh sweetie,” you hurried over to her, let your arms wrap around her before you scooped her up into your arms. “It’s okay, it was just a dream, you’re here and safe with mommy.”

You looked over to him, a close lipped smile in apology when you turned back to the stairs. Maybe it was for the best. If you couldn’t control yourself around him, at least you could count on nightmares and little feet to be your safety net.

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[hyucks-archive]

blue.

word count: 2,666

genre: angst, female!reader, ex-boyfriend!mark

member(s): mark, jaemin, jeno

warning(s): none

author’s note: did you know that blue is supposedly the #1 ‘favourite colour’ in the world? :o

“Why are you seated here alone?”

You turn in the direction of where the voice had come from, looking up to meet eyes with Jaemin, who is looking at you with a tender, sweet smile. “Mind if I join?” he asks, to which you shake your head, patting the spot next to you. He seats himself down beside you, dipping his legs into the chlorine-filled pool water. You kick your legs gently, watching as your subtle movements form gentle ripples on the surface of the light blue water.

“Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” you ask. Jaemin’s smile widens at the mention of her; would the mention of you, put a smile on his face too? You scoff internally – in what world would that be possible? There’s a reason you’re seated here alone. “She couldn’t make it today,” Jaemin shares, taking a sip from his blueberry mocktail. “Why aren’t you hanging with the boys?” he questions. You have your eyes fixed on the blue water in front of you.

Johnny’s Suhmmer Party has always been an annual tradition for you and your friends. Every year, Johnny would host a massive summer party, welcoming the start of summer at his beach house. While you aren’t one to dig parties, you’d still attend, just because it’s a friendship thing. And, even when you’d sit by the pool, away from the crowd, you wouldn’t be alone. You’d be beside him. But this year, marks the first year, that things are different. You had considered skipping out on attending the party altogether, but you knew that it’d only invite unwelcomed questions. You didn’t want your friends worrying for you, at least, not after how much you tried to convince them that you were fine.

Instead, you made sure to arrive early, and steer away from the main house, where most of the guests would be. That probably makes it a thousand times clearer that you’re avoiding something. But Jaemin is the sweetest boy out of the lot, the only one who’d be willing to play dumb and act as though he doesn’t already know your answer to his question.

You smile, turning to make eye contact with him. “It’s stuffy inside,” you lie.

Jaemin leans forward, looking at the area surrounding you. “You didn’t even get yourself a drink?” he asks. You wouldn’t risk it. Jaemin lifts his legs out of the pool, pushing himself off the ground, into a standing position. “I’ll go get a drink for you. What drink do you want?” he offers. You maintain the smile on your face, replying with, “Blue lagoon.”

“Non-alcoholic?”

You nod your head. “I’ll be right back,” he says, turning on his heel to head back into the main house to get your drink.

You refocus your attention on the pool water beneath you. There’s music pumping in the background, but all you seem to be able to capture are the subtle sounds the water makes as it dances with the gentle summer breeze. You breathe a sigh, eyes travelling upwards, towards the night sky. The night sky is always said to be a dark shade of blue, but all you see, is a blanket of black. You wonder if it’s just you, or if the blue is just not striking enough to the naked eye.

Taking in a deep breath, your eyes continue to travel around, browsing through your surroundings. You smile when you spot Jungwoo in the distance, showing off his ‘perfect’ re-enactment of that one move he loves from Tom & Jerry. The group of friends he’s with bursts into laughter, and despite the shy smile on Jungwoo’s lips, you know how smug he’s feeling inside, having succeeded in being a comedic relief to his friends.

Then, unexpectedly, or perhaps, with a tiny sense of hope that it would happen tonight, your eyes land on the one being that would make up the sole reason as to why you’d get up and make a beeline for the main house. Yet, you remain still in your position, eyes lingering on his silhouette for far too long. He turns his head to look at Yuta, granting you the perfect view of his side profile. Even from an angle, you can still see the sparkle in his eyes.

The sparkle, that was once solely elicited by you.

You’re still able to recall the first time you had met Mark. He was loud, but he was also shy. He giggled often, and laughed at almost every little thing Johnny would say. When he met eyes with you for the first time, you couldn’t deny the jittering feeling that spread throughout your entire body. He was charming, to say the least. And when he introduced himself to you, you were pretty much sold on how ethereal he seemed to be. At least, in your eyes, he was.

Looking at him from a distance like that, you’re only affirmed that Mark Lee is indeed, and will always be, that ethereal being in your heart. Nothing can change that.

“What are you staring at?” Jaemin’s voice interrupts, bringing you back into reality. You shake your head, reaching for the beverage in his hand, “Nothing,” you lie, again. Jaemin glances in the direction of where you were looking, his eyes immediately meeting Mark’s. Jaemin reclaims the seat beside you, jumping straight into conversation, to ensure that he engages your attention. He knows that it’ll only leave you overthinking, if you knew that Mark’s staring.

“What are you going to do over the summer?” Jaemin begins, drawing up a topic of discussion. You hum in thought, “I haven’t really thought about it,” you say, pressing your lips into a thin line. “I was thinking, laying in bed and rotting my days away,” you inform, a proud smile punctuating the end of your sentence. Jaemin chuckles at the information.

“Come on, you have to get out of the house,” he says.

“And do what? Rot under the sun?”

“I don’t know, maybe spend a peaceful reading day by the beach? You love to read, don’t you?” he suggests. Your mind goes blank at the word ‘peaceful’. Indeed, sitting by the deep blue sea, under the clear blue sky sounds extremely pleasant and tranquil. Yet, all your brain seems to be able to think about at the mention of a peaceful day, is Mark Lee.

Mark has always been your peace. On days that you were overly anxious for your final examinations, his presence alone served in every way you needed, to calm you down. On days where it felt as though the world would cripple and fall down on you, his presence alone provided you with the serenity you sought for. Mark was always like your personal, bright sky – he was always there for you, no matter where you were. You’d look up, and you’d see him smiling down at you.

Mark Lee was always like the light blue hue of the sky; he was peace, and he was serenity.

At least, he was all that, when he was yours.

Jaemin waves a hand in front of your zoned-out face. “Hello?” he calls out. You snap back into your senses once more, meeting eyes with Jaemin. “Sorry,” you murmur. Jaemin’s shoulders sink slightly when he sees how you immediately reach for your blue lagoon, sipping at it as you continue to be lost in thought.

“Hey,” Jeno greets, taking a seat beside Jaemin. “What’s going on?”

Jaemin tries to send a signal to Jeno, by gesturing towards you with his eyes. Jeno frowns, raising a brow. “What?” he mouths. “Do something,” Jaemin hisses, nudging Jeno. Jeno blinks a few times, still failing to grasp the situation. He calls for you, and you turn to face him. “Let’s go get a drink. An alcoholic one, this time,” he says, flashing his signature eye smile at you. Jaemin nods his head enthusiastically, encouraging with, “That sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?” He places a hand on your shoulder, smile sincere as he urges for your agreement.

You shake your head, forcing a small smile. “You guys go ahead,” you say.

It’s weird. It’s funny how dependent you’ve become.

In the past, you could drink as much as you want, because you knew you had someone to fall back on, someone who’d ensure your safety, someone who’d take care of you. You’ve gotten so used to having that pillar of dependability, that you’re no longer able to drink, without knowing that he’d be there for you. Now that he isn’t, drinking will never be an idea you’re able to go along with. Sounds ridiculously stupid, but no one would understand something like this, unless they’ve been put in the same situation themselves.

You stare at the bright blue, medium hue blue lagoon mocktail in your hand. If it contained alcohol, and if you were drinking it a year back, in this very spot, Mark would’ve rushed to your side, chiming at you to watch your alcohol intake, because of your low alcohol tolerance. You chuckle bitterly; it’s as though you’re able to see the reflection of Mark so clearly in the drink – somehow, someway, Mark always seems to be able to plant himself at the back of your mind.

Mark resembles what medium blue is supposed to represent – dependability.

“Mark!”

You whip your head around – damn, the reflection in the glass was an actual reflection of Mark.

Jaemin and Jeno exchange looks. “What are you doing here?” Jaemin begins, laughing almost too awkwardly.

You remain in your position, eyes on Mark. Perhaps a part of you wanted this encounter to happen. You can’t just erase a person from your heart when they walk out on you. Then again, perhaps a part of you isn’t ready for this at all.

Cold. That’s the only word you can use to describe Mark’s gaze.

Mark always looked at you with nothing but love and affection in his eyes. When you needed assurance, all you had to do was look at Mark, and he’d send endless messages of reassurance and security through his gaze. Mark’s presence used to be like a blanket of security; his eyes would resemble the dark blue of the night sky – no matter how late it might be, no matter how alone you might feel, you can always trust that he’d be there for you.

Mark was your dark blue all this while; the most trustworthy presence in your life.

Yet the same pair of eyes that once looked at you like you were the most precious thing alive, is now looking at you, like you’re no different from the grass that people trample on day and night. You swallow. Mark keeps his eyes locked on yours, as he answers Jaemin, “Saw you guys hanging over here. Thought I should stop by to say hi.”

From what point, did Mark lose his warmth?

Blue was always your favourite colour. To be under the dark blue sky, a bright, medium blue beverage in hand, with your feet dipped in the light blue pool; blue is supposed to make you feel at peace. But somehow, tonight feels unsettlingly cold. Is it because you lack the one most important blue in your life?

“Can I sit?” Mark asks. You can feel Jeno and Jaemin’s stare, so you turn towards them. With a soft smile, you reassure, “I’ll be fine. You guys go ahead, okay?” Jaemin makes sure to leave an encouraging squeeze on your arm, whispering, “I’ll run back here if you need me,” before taking his leave with Jeno. Mark takes a seat on your right. He mirrors your position, dangling his legs over the edge of the pool.

“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight,” he says, almost too gently. He isn’t wrong. Former you would’ve refused until the end, unwilling to show up at a party where you’d potentially bump into your ex. But present you was too attracted to the colour blue, that you couldn’t stay away. You miss having the sense of trust, the sense of loyalty, and the mutual understanding that required no words at all. You smirk pitifully; it’s all still here. At least, it is for you.

“I didn’t think you’d come and talk to me. I guess we’re both full of surprises tonight, huh?” you say, mustering the courage to look at him. He’s staring at you with his doe eyes, except, they don’t light up the way they used to. It serves as a reminder – the Mark before you is different from the Mark you’re used to. The Mark before you, is cold and distant. At what point did Mark become like that? It still baffles you ’till this day.

“How have you been?” he asks, showing too much concern for your comfort. You wish he had that in him when he was minutes away from walking out from your life.

“I’ve been fine,” you lie, for the nth time tonight. “What about you?”

“I’ve been busy,” he replies, looking away. “So much has changed, it’s nice to be able to come back and see all these familiar faces.”

You take a pause, mentally dissecting his words. Furrowing your brows, you question, “You moved?”

Mark looks back at you, a soft smile on his lips. “I moved,” he says. “Why?” you ask. “We both know why,” he tells you. Your brows knit together. Do you?

You shift your gaze to your feet that’s distorted because of the water. You were both young, with your own goals that you were individually working towards. While you were passionate about achieving your goals, Mark was tenfold as passionate as you were. He worked hard, day and night. It got so serious to the point that he was barely there for you. But you didn’t mind. The process of reaching one’s dream is never easy. What mattered was that the two of you were still supportive of each other. When he was present, he was still the same sweet, dependable, trustworthy Mark.

But to Mark, he was a good-for-nothing. Who cares if he had a dream, a passion, when he can’t even make his significant other happy? He knew you were struggling. He wanted to put an end to that.

At some point in the relationship, you began to feel sad. You felt lonely. Far from peace and tranquillity.

But Mark was always your blue. He was the blue that spread in your heart, that made you feel understood, that made you feel security. You understand why they say blue is wet now. At what point, did the blue spread so much, that it began soaking your heart? Too much blue results in feelings of melancholy, negativity, and sadness. At what point, did Mark become so overwhelmingly blue?

Mark left because he knew he was too much for you. He couldn’t find the right balance. You deserved someone who could.

Unknowingly, the two of you have been sitting by the pool, staring into each other’s eyes.

Was blue always this depressing of a colour?

“Did you move permanently?” you ask.

Mark nods his head. “I’ve settled down,” he says.

You’re about to probe further, but both of your attentions are captured by the sweet voice that yells, “Mark!” from a distance. You look in the direction from where the voice had come from.

“That’s my fiancé,” he informs, voice soft. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

Your lips part slightly at the revelation.You can’t even pretend that you didn’t see the way his eyes brightened up at the mere sound of her voice.

That’s right. A heart that’s gone, can never be caught again.

You force a smile. “Congratulations.”

“We’ll catch up again?” he says, already getting up.

“Sure,” you manage out, feeling the sting in your nose as the tears begin to well in your eyes.

Maybe it is time to let go of the colour blue.

[royivia]

The Neighborhood

Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.

Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.

Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.

#

SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.

“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”

“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”

Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.

Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.

“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”

“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”

Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”

“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.” The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.

“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”

“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.

“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”

Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…

“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.

#

The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.

By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.

“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days. “Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.

He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.

“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”

“How come?” Dante asked.

Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.

Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.

After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.

“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”

“What town hall?” Sage asked.

“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”

“Pass,” Felix snorted.

“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”

“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”

“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.

“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”

It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.

“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.

“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”

“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”

“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”

“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”

Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.

#

The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.

Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.

Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.

“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.” Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption. “My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”

There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.

Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?

##

They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.

Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.

There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.

In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.

There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.

#

An Artist’s Treatise on Survival

I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.

What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway. Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest. After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.

#

At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.

The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.

The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands

The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.

The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.

The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.

Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.

Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.

After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see. They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.

#

Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change. After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.

#

The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:

“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels. But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.

“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.

Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.

The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:

“Write a letter.”

It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.

The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.

The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop. The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.

#

Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.

60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT

Mildred Campbell 207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E

Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.

We appreciate your continued tenancy.

Sincerely, Arcadian Realty & Management

Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.

On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.

“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”

She didn’t stick around to hear more.

After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.

Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.

The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.

The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.

No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.

[breitzbachbea]

#11 and #41 for turgre!

Thank you for sending the prompt in!

Fanfic Trope Mash Up

#11 Neighbour AU + #41 Big Damn Kiss =

Herakles & Sadık are both recent university graduates from Athens & İstanbul, but find themselves lacking opportunities to work in their homecountries. So they go abroad to try their luck elsewhere.

Both end up in Germany. Herakles' is living with the Simonides old family friends who've either migrated decades ago or are living as expats in Germany. Natasa and Ibrahim welcome Herakles with open arms. He immediately makes friends with their twins, only a few years younger than him. Omar and Timothea, as they're called, are still living with their parents while they're attending the local university. They're not living in luxury, but they're happy.

Sadık manages to get in contact with Havva Be Yauno via some university acquaintances. They migrated to Germany a while ago, after being kicked out working in local administration. Sadık gets to share a small flat in the building Havva manages for the landlord, together with a Kurdish Woman called Dilan Taş. After some initial hiccups, the two become close friends.

The hiccups with their neighbours next door are less initial. No, that's a lie - The Simonides don't mind their new neighbours, even invite them for coffee and tea. Omar pretty quickly evolves a crush on Dilan.

It's just Herakles and Sadık who keep butting heads.

They argue about petty semantics that only people who studied 'breadless art' would care about. Herakles complains that they're too loud at night. Sadık says Herakles is dragging stray cats into the house by leaving out food & now the whole staircase stinks. There's always something.

As time goes on, they get over themselves a little. Too busy with their own life. Sadık feeds the cats with scraps he gets from the Turkish butcher. Herakles comes over after it's been eerily quiet for weeks and finds out that Sadık's latest odd job makes him work at night. He actually finds him slumped over on the kitchen table when Dilan lets him in before she leaves for work. He goes back and leaves him a package of expensive coffee beans that he had imported from Greece.

One night, they end up together on the university campus. Sitting on the steps surrounding a piece of green near a small river. The city's barely still awake, there's only music, TV and chatter from the dorms. The occassional student crossing after they stayed late at the library.

"What did you actually study?" Sadık asked and put the lighter back into his pocket. It was a cheap one with a wheel. Pain in the ass to get working at this point. His last money had been spent on the cigarettes themselves.

Herakles took a deep breath through his nose. He stared at the water, flowing invisibly except for a few dancing white and orange specks. "Philosophy," he said.

Sadık chuckled and the chuckle quickly became a laugh. "Oh, what a surprise that you couldn't find a job with such a prestigious degree." He grinned and exhaled some smoke.

"And history. Archaeology, Politics, Linguistics, Architecture, Maths... I dipped my toes into physics, too, for a little bit, but couldn't really make it."

Sadık's grin had long faltered. Herakles looked to the river. A smile replaced the initial surprise on Sadık's face. "Oho, a real Renaissance man, aren't you?"

"I like to learn. But all I could do with the few fields I actually managed to acquire a degree in was teach in school. And I'm just not... very good at that." He sighed. Long. "But my dad had stopped paying once I had gotten a job, not that he had ever really paid me enough, mind you, so... I had nowhere to go if I had quit."

"Except here." Sadık wished Herakles would have looked at him. To even catch a glimpse of him, a little bit of that beautiful face illuminated by the pale moon or the orange streetlights.

"Except here." Sadık finally had his wish granted. "What did you study?"

Sadık took a deep breath through his nose. His cigarette was almost finished. "Architecture, too. Tried to get into engineering, but couldn't quite make it. Would have loved to do Literature, frankly. I dunno, get a teaching position at an university, but Anne* always had higher plans for me. Career woman and all that, only wanted the best for me, too, so studying something almost as useless as philosophy wasn't really up for debate."

Now he was the one to stare into the river while he took another drag. He looked at his feet. His shoes could need a good cleaning.

"A smoking literature professor, how cliché," Herakles said and the deep shadows on his face hid how much it reflected the amusement in his voice. He leant in closer to Sadık and put a hand on his thigh. His inner thigh. "All the women would have gone wild over this."

"You think so?" Sadık asked, an expectant but cautious smirk on his face. Rest of his cigarette between his fingers. Herakles' weight on his thigh. He enjoyed his touch. The nights were so cold here in Germany. He leant in for a kiss.

Herakles' hand disappeared. "But I don't kiss smokers." The next moment, Sadık was engulfed in darkness as Herakles stood and blocked the streetlight. He turned and adjusted his jacket. "I have a job interview tomorrow, so see you around, I guess." He turned to just the right angle that Sadık could catch his grin.

He only had a dumbfounded stare as goodbye while Herakles climbed the stairs back to street level.

Some time after this incident, Herakles gets a job as research assisstant at the local university. It's initially only for a project of the history facculty, but he's happy nonetheless.

Now that he knows Sadık enjoys literature, he tells the Simonides one time the topic crops up & they know of a regional literature club, who's holding public reading nights. Any author can show up and read their pieces for 10 Minutes to an audience. Omar tells Dilan, who knows that Sadık writes poetry. She thinks he should go and so after she bullied him into it, they do.

Sadık becomes a regular guest there and ends up meeting other literature enthusiasts, like the Beilschmidts. (He and Gilbert bicker a lot about what the other writes, both trying to take the other down a peg). Sadık never tells Herakles any of this.

So imagine his surprise when he spots him one night in the audience. Afterwards, he's torn between sneaking out and going straight up to him, but Herakles makes the decision for him.

"I didn't know you wrote poetry," Herakles finally broke the awkward stare-off.

"Well, now you do." Sadık closed his book and shoved it under his arm. With a grin, he asked: "You think it's good?"

Despite what followed, Herakles couldn't wipe the smile off his face: "I enjoyed it more than the other guy's crime story, at least."

Sadık gave a short bark of laughter. "Oh, you don't know half of it, Gilbert's been trying to make it work since forever. You got time for a coffee?"

So life's good. They're hanging out, they're working, they're pursueing their passions. One time, the heater in Sadık and Dilan's flat breaks and despite Havva trying their best to get it repaired and them a temporary replacement, they're freezing their asses off. So they go and visit their neighbours, who offer them to sleep over. Sadık is supposed to sleep on the couch. Dilan is supposed to sleep on a mattress in the Simonides' room. Both somehow end up sleeping in a Greek's bed instead. (Herakles has a really small room - his desk is even in the twins' room cuz it wouldn't fit in his own. Sadık asks if he wants coffee and they end up drinking coffee in his bed together and talk until they fall asleep.)

Life could be rosy. That is until one day, the Simonides get into real trouble with the landlord. You see, Natasa and Havva always had a tense relationship, because Natasa doesn't believe in playing by the rules too much, while Havva is a very organized person. However, now some things - like mayhaps Herakles living with them - have gotten directly to the landlord of the building and they're not amused. They threaten to evict them, unless Herakles is going - and want a hefty fine from the Simonides either way.

Getting a new home would mean severe financial strain, not to mention the fine. Omar and Thea may would have to pause or drop their studies. Herakles would have to go back to Greece and start from scratch.

Which he's willing to do, seeing how much trouble he caused the family, even if it breaks his heart. Natasa is having none of it - "I'm not sending you back to your son of a bitch, deadbeat dad, Iraklis" - and insists he stays.

Dilan and Sadık get wind of all of this and they're just as devasted as the family itself. They don't want to lose their neighbours. They don't want this to ruin Omar's and Thea's future. They don't want Herakles to leave. Sadık doesn't want Herakles to leave.

So he pleads with Havva to do something, anything, he'll help them do whatever it takes. Natasa is far too proud to do so. Maybe she even suspects that Havva had something to do with it. (They don't).

And through a lot of negotiation, bribery and running errands, the Simonides get to stay. Omar and Thea can continue pursueing their degrees in peace. Herakles gets to stay and keep working in Germany.

"You... You've spent your past weeks on this?" Herakles' stare pierced Sadık as much as it seemed to look right through him. His mouth hung open, jaw slack. "This was all your doing?"

Sadık took a deep breath, but had to settle for a rather unintelligent "Well, yeah." Herakles' stare unsettled him. He had never seen him at a loss for words before. He was even afraid the other might faint.

A heartbeat later, Sadık was afraid he might faint. Herakles had taken a step towards him, grabbed his face and pressed his lips onto Sadık's. It knocked the breath out of him.

His lips were soft. They were so soft and hot and melded with his own effortlessly.

He kissed back, hands on Herakles' face, fingers buried in the messy hairy. The pressure between them was right, felt right, made them one for a brief eternity.

It ended as abruptly as it had begun. They both took a deep breath through their nose and Herakles panted loudly as he exhaled through the mouthm He swallowed.

"Herakles, I don't think that that's an appropriate enough Thank you", Ibrahim said, but neither of the two barely even registered it. Natasa laughed. Loudly.

"Oh, no, I think it's more than enough," Sadık replied as he stared at the wall next to Herakles' head. His hands were still on his face. "Although..." Ibrahim and Natasa were talking in Greek when he faced Herakles again. She still chuckled while a grin stole itself onto his face. "I think I could go for a little bit more gratitude, after all we've done."

"Don't push it," Herakles warned him. Yet, his cockyness was rewarded with another kiss.

Sadık's tongue slipped between his lips effortlessly. As if it belonged there.

Like Herakles belonged here.

So... yeah! I hope you liked it!

[i-need-entertainment]

Mother-in-Law

Character: Adriah Thomas x reader I recommend listening to Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You by Frankie Valli (you will see why~)

(ALSO, idk if it is *Tomas* or *Thomas* but the fandom wiki thingy said ‘Thomas’ was the proper English translation so I went with that ;)

Warnings: Problematic/overbearing mother-in-law, mean words said by mother-in-law, reader having self doubt/being pressured, angst but then fluff.

I hope this is okay Anon! I took a different approach with this one. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REQUESTING HIM! You made me so so happy to have chosen ~Thomas~ because I am in love with him. Also, thank you very much for requesting!! :)

It’s been 4 months since you had officially become Mrs. Adriah Thomas. And in all honesty, things were going pretty well! Your wedding had gone very smoothly; Inunaki had been the best man, Meian and Barnes cried, and having the MSBY four™ as the other groomsmen is always guaranteed to be…interesting. All in all, life was going pretty great! There was just one problem. One everlasting thorn in your side. Your mother-in-law. 

She had never been a big fan of yours and you can’t exactly say you loved her either. When you and Adriah had been dating she had been nothing but callous towards you. No one was good enough for her son, and she made sure you knew that. You did everything you could to be liked by her, I mean you were a good girlfriend, and now you were a good wife! You made her son very happy and you took good care of him. But it didn’t matter, because at the end of the day you married her precious son, and you could never be good enough in her eyes. Tonight would be a dreaded date. It was the second Tuesday of the month, meaning you and Adriah had his parents over for dinner. Adriah wasn’t stupid, he knew you and his mom didn’t get along, and he completely understood! I mean, having been raised by her he knew first hand how…difficult…she could be. But, she was still his mom who he loved very much. To try and avoid future conflicts, you guys had talked it through (communication is key!) and come to a compromise. You would do your best to get along with his mom, but if she was still being difficult you guys would let it go and keep trying. Currently the two of you were cooking dinner together in the kitchen, which was something the two of you often did. You were sautéing some vegetables when you felt two strong arms wrap tightly around you, you then felt Adriah’s head touch itself into your neck. He continued to sing the song the two of you had playing in the back ground; “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” by Frankie Valli. You smiled and sung along with him; it had been your wedding song after all. The vegetables were done cooking so you turned off the burner and moved the pan to the side, Adriah quickly but carefully spun you towards him, putting one arm around your waist and the other delicately holding your hand. You laughed as you put your other hand on the arm that was holding your waist. (Yes, typically it would be around his neck, but the man is 6’7. I’m 5’9 and I’m not sure I could reach his neck!!) “Are you thinking about tonight again?” You looked up at your husband before you laid your head on his chest, “I just- I want to get along with her, I do! But she makes it so difficult. I just, I don’t know what to do anymore.” He smiled as he leaned down, putting his forehead against yours as you both continued to sway to the song. “There’s not really anything we can do…just try and keep the peace.” When the song finished the two of you got back to work on dinner. You had just finished when the doorbell rang. “Honey can you get the door? I can finish up in here.” Adriah nodded, gave you a quick kiss and went to unlock the door letting in his parents. They came in and greeted their son, his dad giving him a strong hug and his mother practically smothering him. His dad came into the kitchen and greeted you; he had always been very nice to you. (it was clear which of his parents Adriah took after..) While his mother passed by, gave you a fake smile and very enthusiastically said hello. “Dinner will be ready in about five minutes, so you guys can go ahead and sit at the table if you’d like.” They nodded and headed into the dining room. Just about 5 minutes later dinner was ready and you took it into the dining room. 15 minutes had gone by, 15 peaceful minutes, “So, Y/n, are you still working?” 15 whole minutes. But she just HAD to ruin it. You put on a smile, albeit forced, and nodded. You and Adriah met at work; the MSBY Black Jackals. You worked as the Exercise Physiologist for MSBY (an Exercise Physiologist is like a physical therapist *but with less schooling* combined with an athletic trainer, they’re really cool and I might do this as a career…) which just so happens to be how you met Adriah. This had been one of the many conflicts you had had with your mother-in-law. She thought you should stay home and be a house wife…since Adriah already made quite a bit of money being a professional player, and a very good one at that. “I am, yes.” She hummed, sounding less than impressed as per usual. “So, when are the two of you going to have your first child?” You choked on your food as Adriah’s dad handed you some water, “Mom! We’ve been married for 4 months!” She raised an eye brow at her son. “And…? You both are quite old already. By the time I was your age I was done having you and your siblings.” You held your tongue. You and Adriah were 27, and to some it may seem like you had waited a long time to get married, when in reality it had only been 3 years. You guys had gotten married when you both felt ready, and while you both wanted children and a family, you wanted to wait at least a year until you more seriously thought about it!! “You know, you’re not getting any younger Y/n, your body is on a clock after all. If you wait too long to have children, you won’t be able to have them at all, then what kind of wife would you be?” The table went silent. She tended to have that effect on occasions like this one. You stood up, “Please excuse me, I’m not feeling well.” And walked into yours and Adriah’s bedroom, shutting the door before you sat on the edge of the bed, tears finally breaking free and rolling down your cheeks. If there was one thing you disliked the most about your mother-in-law was the fact that she always managed to find the things that hurt; and then exploit them, even if you never said them out loud. One of the things you had been stressing over is exactly what she had brought up, ‘Am I a good wife…?’ You did your best to be the best spouse you could, you always made sure you communicated your feelings and listened when Adriah communicated his, you did your best to spend personal time with him as well as giving each other space and the list goes on. Yet whenever she comes, you always felt like you were never good enough. ‘What kind of wife can’t even get along with her husband’s mother?!’ You tried not to doubt, you did! But it was so hard when she was constantly reminding you of your “downfalls” even if there wasn’t a problem with how you were doing things! You loved and cared for her son, what more could she want?! *Knock knock* A knock at the door disrupted you from your thoughts. “Y/n…? It’s Adriah, can I come in?” You wiped your tears the best you could, took a deep breath and spoke a small, ‘yeah’. He opened the door and gave you a soft smile, walking over to kneel in front of you. “Dad took mom home, he sent his best regards.” You laughed a little, “He’s so sweet, I wonder where you got that from.” He lightly chuckled as he used his fingers to wipe the tears from your face, his usual smile turning into a frown. “…You’re not a bad wife.” You nodded, “You’re my best friend, and I couldn’t be happier to spend the rest of my life with you.” You nodded. “Y/n,” You looked up from the floor into your husband’s beautiful dark eyes. He got up from the floor and sat beside you on the bed, turning just enough so he could pull you to sit in his lap, strong arms holding you securely to his chest as his heartbeat soothed you. The two of you sat in silence for a while, enjoying the comfort you both got from being in the other’s embrace. “…I’m sorry….I’m sorry for doubting…I’m sorry for ruining tonight…” Adriah smiled as he shook his head, pulling away slightly so he could look you in the eyes. “Why? You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s okay to be upset; especially after that just don’t hide it from me, then I can’t help you. And you definitely didn’t ruin dinner, it was long gone before you walked out.” You laughed, snuggling further into your tall husband. “You’re just too good to be true~ Can’t take my eyes off of you~” He started to sing the song again as you giggled, him wrapping his arms around you even tighter as he began to sway the two of you. “NO I’m trying to be sad, you’re not helping!” You joked as he laughed, standing up as he started dancing around the room, you desperately trying to catch up. “You’d be like heaven to touch,” He paused to give you a big kiss on the cheek, “I wanna hold you so much” You smiled as you finally managed to match his pace, deciding to sing along, “At long last, love has arrived, and I thank God I’m alive,” You pulled away from his embrace to look him in the eyes, him giving the back of your hand a kiss as he continued to hold it. So yes, you had a pretty terrible mother-in-law, and no you don’t know when that will change. But until it does you know your wonderful, adorable, loving husband will always be there for you. “You’re just too good to be true~ Can’t take my eyes off of you~”

[starkly]

Home Prom

Peter misses his prom due to Spiderman-ing.

Luckily his dad Tony makes their own prom. Complete with dancing, snacks, and sex in the back of a car.

3366 words. NFF. Incest, anal sex, car sex. Unstated age (written as 18, but up to interpretation)

---------

Peter was excited for prom.

He had missed his homecoming due to his date's Dad being a villain, so was looking forward to getting to experience a normal, fun day, to dance and have a nice time.

Of course he couldn't bring who he wanted as a date, but having his friends there would make up for it. He could dance with them instead.

He grinned at his room's mirror, his suited reflection smiling back at him, as he straightened his jacket for the last time, turning to his bowtie, attempting to wrangle it into submission but only achieving a tangled mess for his efforts. He huffed in annoyance.

Peter left his room and raced down the hallway, calling as he did; "Dad?" "Yeah, Pete?" His father responded walking towards the sound of his son's voice, stopping in his tracks and exhaling an awed breath at the sight of him. "Ohh, Peter. Look at you." Reverence in his voice.

Peter blushed, looking down at his feet. "Do I look okay?" "You look incredible."

Peter lifted his head slightly and smiled up at Tony shyly, before remembering with a start what he had left his room for. "Oh! Can you help me with the bowtie?"

Tony gave his son a toothy grin, "Of course." He replied, coming closer and untying Peter's mess.

As Tony focused on the tie Peter kept his eyes locked on the older man's face, admiring him. Taking in the familiar sight of his well trimmed beard. And his eyes, usually tired from how hard he worked himself, but always bright and full of love around Peter. His brow furrowed slightly as he focused on his task.

"All done." Tony said, hands moving from Peter's tie to his shoulders, rubbing gently, as he looked at Peter with love. "Oh! Wait, stay here." Tony left the room quickly, returning with a camera, turning it on with one hand, and leaning in to pinch Peter's cheek with the other, before soothing over the spot, thumb stroking gently over his cheek.

"Daa-aa-d" Peter whined with feigned annoyance.

"Oh hush you. My baby's going to prom. What kind of father would I be if I didn't take pictures?" Tony responded, moving both hands to hold his camera properly.

Peter smiled, and let Tony direct him to pose for far too many photos.

-----

After the photoshoot the two stood at the door, Peter waiting as Tony fussed, hands gently cradling and caressing Peter's cheeks as he spoke, "You sure you don't want me to drop you off?"

Being the son of the Tony Stark had a huge number of advantages, but a number of disadvantages too. Namely that when he was young and first going to school people wouldn't leave him alone, wanting to get to know the son of Ironman. After a while it died down, getting used to Peter just being Peter, their strange, nerdy classmate, not Peter, the Son of Tony Stark.

He got used to it until his classmates saw his dad dropping him off.

And then he'd gotten no peace all week, the other students swarming around his father, then swarming around him, pretending to like him, or even not pretending, and simply threatening, in attempts to convince Peter to let them go to his house, or get something signed by Tony Stark. Some students even being pressured by their parents to do so.

So Peter preferred not to have Tony near school more than necessary.

"No, dad. I promise I'll be fine." Peter gave a reassuring smile.

"Alright, but if you change your mind let me know. And don't drink the punch unless you know no-one's done anything to it, you know your mutation makes you weird with alcohol. And call me if you or your friends need a ride or an Uber or something, And-"

Peter cut Tony off by tugging him forward by his collar, laying a tender kiss on his cheek.

Tony paused. "Just have fun, okay?"

-----

"Hey, guys!" Peter waved at his friends, the group of them seeing each other just outside the school's doors. Students were littered across the area and loud music filtered through the open doors to where they stood.

"Hey, loser." MJ responded.

"Hi, Peter!" Ned responded, more enthusiastically.

They talked for a few minutes before deciding it was time to head inside and get their prom officially started, but Peter paused in his steps towards the school, head twisting and staring off into the distance.

"Oh, boy. Peter-Tingle?" MJ asked.

Peter much preferred the other name they had chosen for his ability; 'Spidey Sense', but with people around who didn't know his secret identity who might overhear, he had to accept the more mortifying name for it.

"Yep." Peter said, still looking away. His hands curled into fists and loosened again and again quickly, using his nervous energy as his mind raced. "Okay. So-"

"It's okay, man. Go be a hero." Ned smiled.

Peter gave him a grateful look. Waving at them both as he ran away from the school, looking for somewhere no one would see as he activated his suit.

Ned and MJ went inside.

---------

Peter returned home hours later, prom long over. He was covered in sweat, and yawned as he entered.

Peter had swung away from school to stop a mugging. He was ready to rush back to prom when he ran into a lost child. After getting the little boy back to his mother, he started back towards school, stopping to help an old man across the street. Then find a stolen bike. Then take selfies a little girl in a Spiderman onesie, celebrating her birthday. And so on until he'd looked at how dark it had gotten around him, time flying by without him realising.

He stood there in silence staring at the sky. Realising he had missed the party. Peter felt tears well in his eyes, he felt stupid for being upset. It was just a party.

"Pete? You home?" Tony called from the living room just as Peter left the elevator. "Had a good prom, baby?"

Peter didn't respond.

"Peter?" Tony looked up at him, heart breaking at the disappointed look on his son's face. "Oh, Peter. What happened?"

Tony opened his arms where he sat on the couch and Peter moved to him, collapsing into his embrace. Peter let his upsets about the day spill from his mouth, telling Tony everything, and rubbing his face on Tony's shoulder, trying to stop the tears before they fell.

Tony's hand combed through Peter's hair the whole time he spoke. His heartbeat soothing Peter where they sat pressed together, "I'm so sorry kiddo. That must have been disappointing." He pressed a lingering kiss against Peter's hair.

"It's fine." Peter responded. "I'll get over it."

----

Peter didn't seem to be getting over it.

Often when Peter was upset, letting that feeling out by venting - and sometimes crying - to Tony, and then getting some sleep would have him over it and back to his usual cheerful self.

But this time...

After talking to Tony about getting caught up in being a hero and missing his prom, they had sat cuddling for a while, before Tony got up, got the food he had ordered for their late dinner.

They ate Chinese take-away together on the couch, Peter leaning heavily against Tony's side as he ate.

Afterwards they went to Tony's room and crawled into bed, Peter's head pillowed on Tony's chest, Tony's hand tangled in his hair, petting it as they slowly drifted off to sleep, comforted by each other's presence.

When Peter woke up, rather than grinning and jostling Tony, joking about trying to wake him up while Tony was clearly already awake as he often did, Peter saw the light streaming through the window and curled tighter to Tony.

After a while of lying together, watching the light play with the shades of Peter's hair, Tony untangled himself to make them both breakfast. Peter simply pulled the blanket higher over him.

---

Tony brought Peter pancakes in bed. Peter pushed them around with his fork, but only took small, nibbling bites. Tony couldn't handle seeing Peter upset. He had an idea to fix it.

Tony reached out and brushed Peter's hair behind his ear. "I have an idea. Why don't you spend some time with your friends, and when you get home I'll have a surprise for you."

Peter perked up a little at that. "Surprise?"

"Mhm," Tony nodded. "But first, pancakes."

Peter gave a small, but genuine smile. And while still mostly pushing the pancakes around the plate, took larger bites, and making little happy noises at the taste.

----

Peter left to hang out with Ned and MJ in town.

Tony knew that Ned would be a decent distraction while he put the rest of his plan in motion.

Part of Peter was upset that he cancelled on a meeting with his friends, so feeling like he was making it up to them by hanging out together would make him a little happier for a while.

But the rest of him was disappointed. He had missed his homecoming, and now his prom. He just wanted to have some normal, fun experiences, and once again he missed out.

Tony didn't want Peter to miss out.

And he couldn't go back in time. And he couldn't force the school and all its students to have the prom again. Well he could, he was Tony Stark. But Peter probably wouldn't want that. So he was left with one final option.

He'd make their own prom.

----

"Dad?" Peter arrived home after hours with his friends, finding his father out of sight.

"Peter, Boss is in the Lab. He has requested you come down wearing your prom suit." Friday announced.

Peter winced a little, prom still upsetting him a little though he'd been trying hard to hide it. "Thanks, Friday." Peter said, getting dressed into the suit as requested, the tie draped over his neck untied, and stepping into the elevator, heading to the Lab.

As the elevator went down he heard the faint sound of music, getting closer. Calm, soft music, not the kind of thing his dad listened to as he worked.

The doors opened and Peter's jaw dropped.

The Lab was completely different. Each of the tables had been pushed to line the walls, chairs stacked on top of them along with half finished projects. Even the cars his father collected and worked on had been moved, slightly, to be closer to the walls. Leaving a wide, clear area in the middle of the room. One one side of this space was a table ladened with treats: cupcakes, finger foods and drinks. On the other side the bots, each with a bowtie wrapped around part of their metallic frames, were spinning along to the music.

And in the middle, Tony.

Tony with slightly damp hair, clearly having needed a shower after the workout required to get the room so different.

Tony wearing a suit of his own, form fitting, showing off his muscles in a very flattering way.

Tony giving a slightly self conscious smile, gesturing to the room before moving towards Peter. "Well? What do you think?" Hands moving to Peter's bowtie.

"It- I- What's all this?" Peter questioned, eyes darting across the room, Tony's fingers brushing against Peter's neck as he finished the bowtie.

"Well," Tony looked a little sheepish, unsure if Peter was liking this. "I know you were upset about prom. And while I can't go back and get you to that one, I thought maybe making our own, just you and me-" Dum-e beeped. "-and the bots, might make up for it in a way. Let you still experience it, even if a bit strangely."

Peter's eyes were a little glossy, beginning to tear up as he stared up at Tony. Tony rubbed the back of his neck. "Although if you don't want- Mhhm" Tony was cut off by lips slamming into his own.

"Thank you." Peter grinned against Tony's mouth, voice cracking with emotion.

Tony gave a wide smile in return, placing his hands around Peter's and giving a nod to the ceiling, signalling for Friday to turn up the music. "Shall we dance?"

----

Peter and Tony swayed gently around the room. The bots spinning less gently in circles, every so often getting tangled in streamers Tony had placed around the room, and dragging them down, along with anything nearby. Peter and Tony tried to ignore the crashes, looking over to ensure the bots were still upright before focusing back on each other.

Peter rested his cheek on Tony's collar bones, their hearts beating in sync. Peter smiled as he felt the vibrations of Tony humming along with the music as they danced.

After a while of dancing around the room, Tony lead them towards the table he had set up earlier, picking up a cupcake and unwrapping it, holding it up to Peter in offering, as Peter bit in and lifted his hands to hold it for himself, Tony grabbed his own cupcake too. The two leaning into each other, taking a break from dancing to breathe.

"A decent replacement prom?" Tony asked in a light-hearted tone.

Peter nodded into his cupcake, accidentally getting frosting on his nose and quickly wiping it off. "I love it. Thank you." He licked the frosting off of his finger. "How does this measure up to your prom?"

"Well." Tony thought about it. "I was 14 at the time, surrounded by my almost adult classmates usually trying to hump each other on the dance-floor. So the company's a lot better for starters." Tony joked.

Peter giggled, then stared at his cupcake deep in thought. "Since you we're 14 did you go without a date?" Peter asked, looking up at Tony and seeing his responding nod. "Didn't get to have the same experiences as your classmates... Well. I guess this is the first proper prom for both of us then!" He smiled.

Tony laughed. "I guess it is."

-----

They went back to dancing. Peter trying to lead, accidentally stepping on Tony's feet every once in a while. Laughs mixing with music. Each focusing on the feeling of their loved one's touch, their closeness.

Peter leaned in and kissed Tony, lips brushing against each other tenderly. Tony's hand reached up to Peter's cheek as they separated, bringing him in, exchanging more and more kisses as they moved.

"So!" Peter began, slowing their dance to mostly just be swaying without moving their feet. "Was there anything from your prom you wished you got to experience?" Peter asked, both for Tony and so he could get his own experience as close to perfect as possible.

"Hmm." Tony's face scrunched up. "It's been a long time. I haven't thought about it."

"Well, what about instead of what things you felt you missed, just what things did you see people doing?"

Tony looked up in thought. "People came in, danced. Kissed. Poured drinks from home in the punch and got drunk," Peter made a face, "and then after most of them filtered out to go have sex in the back of their parent's cars."

Peter's head snapped up at that. "Oh?" He looked to Tony's car collection, staring at it with a thoughtful look. "Sex in their parent's cars?" He paused, still staring. "I guess you missed out on that bit..."

Tony looked back at the cars too, catching on and turning back to Peter, Tony said: "So did you. Want to rectify that, Sweetheart?"

----

Peter grabbed onto Tony's tie, pulling him down to his lips, and dragging him, first to one of the desks. Tony opened the drawer and reached, pulling out a half empty bottle of lube. It wasn't the first time they'd fucked in the Lab, though usually it was over a desk, relieving their frustrations of projects that weren't coming together as easily was hoped, so they were well prepared. After the drawer closed Peter continued dragging him along to the nearest car, one of Tony's favourites. He'd put it together himself.

Tony pushed Peter up against the car, exploring his son's mouth with his tongue.

Peter reached behind himself and grabbed the handle, moving them away from the door to open it, ducking down and crawling in, lying on his back, making grabby hands at his daddy.

Tony climbed in on top of him, shutting the door behind him, lube next to Peter on the seat. Tony pressed his weight down on Peter, his lips going to Peter's neck, biting down, before licking over the bite, soothing it, and moving on to sucking on Peter's neck.

Peter moaned and writhed under him, hands going up to cling to Tony's back. "Fuck me, daddy." He groaned.

Tony pulled off his tie. his teeth scraping against Peter's neck as he pulled his jacket down his arms, throwing it to the car floor, hands moving back up to unbutton his shirt, Peter doing the same, they met in the middle and Tony tore the shirt off fully, focusing on getting Peter naked as Peter ran his hands over Tony's muscular pecs and discoloured scars.

Peter's flexibility came in handy as he arched up to pull his jacket and shirt off, hands moving down to unbutton his pants and pull them down, getting naked in record time. Moving his arms back up to wrap around Tony.

Tony pulled his own pants down, trying to maunder them over his hips and onto the floor with the small space they had.

Tony leaned in to settle more securely back over Peter, his large cock bobbing with the movement, bumping against Peter's ass, drooling Precum over the plush cheeks.

"Oh!" Peter groaned, his cock twitching, pressed between their bodies. "Want to be fucked by your daddy, sweet boy?"

Peter whined. "Daddy, don't tease me. I want you inside of me right now." He grabbed the lube. Squirting some on his and Tony's hands. He reached between them to coat Tony's cock as Tony pressed two fingers inside of Peter, his mouth going to Peter's neck, wanting to tease and rile him up before the big event.

Peter wrapped his legs around Tony's torso and, arm between his legs, pushed Tony's hand away, pressing his father's tip against his hole. Tony pushed in slowly, both moaning softly as Tony's cock slid into his son's body. Tony gave a gentle thrust into the welcoming heat, starting a gentle rhythm as he kneeled over his son, knees and palms cushioned by the soft plush of the car seats.

"Ohhh!" Peter moaned, wrapping his arm around Tony, bringing their chests together, feeling sweat exchanged between them.

"Fuck, Pete." Tony gave a throaty groan, thrusting faster, biting at Peter's neck, sucking hickeys that would heal quickly after.

Tony's pounding got harder, Peter jolting as his prostate was hammered. Moans filled the car.

Peter felt the thrusts push him inch by inch across the seats, hand slamming up to brace against the window, keeping himself in place.

"Baby, oh god." Tony sat up higher, one hand braced on the seat, the other joining Peter's against the now completely fogged up window, his movements became wild as he felt Peter's hole clenching around him with every good thrust, squeezing his cock in its loving, velvet embrace.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Peter felt himself reach the edge, so close. Tony's hand slid between their bodies, jerking him off in quick, shaky tugs.

"Ah, Daddy!" Peter yelled, cum shooting onto his and Tony's chest, hand sliding down the window as his other grasped the seat so hard some of the stitching tore.

"Fuck, Peter, I love you." Tony groaned out as he came inside Peter's fluttering hole, curling inwards, forehead pressing against Peter's shoulder as his cock twitched and emptied inside his son.

They panted into each other, Tony flopping down gently against Peter, knowing he was strong enough not to mind.

"Fuck, baby." Tony said breathlessly.

Peter grinned and kissed his temple as he caught his breath.

"A good prom, sweetheart?" Tony asked.

"The best prom. I'm glad I got to spend it with you."

[and-it-freezes-me]

How To Make Mistakes

Summary: The ‘prologue’ to Accidents Happen, and should be read after reading the main series! AKA How Remus ended up being kicked out of his house for his brother’s crimes.

Content warnings: Hoo, boy, where do I begin? Very bad parenting, mentions of attempted suicide, references to self harm, nightmares, blood, character death (no main characters), claustrophobia, some injury detail, chemical burn (not detailed), animal death, car crash, fire, non-verbal character, accidental almost-murder, fighting, minor internalised acephobia, drug and alcohol use and misuse, some drunkenness, sensory overload, panic attacks, I believe that’s everything

Word count: 24,086 (yes, this got much longer than planned)

Remus couldn’t remember a time in his life before the nightmares. He assumed there must have been one - people don’t tend to be born with terror already flooding their veins and monsters lurking behind their closed eyelids. Besides, according to his parents the screaming had only really started when he had been six or seven.

By the time he was eight, he had been sleeping so poorly for such a long time that he had all but given up on anything that took extra effort.

They had dance classes together, him and Roman, since they were four - and he had really enjoyed them. Of course, he had preferred the faster, slightly more jumpy (for want of a better word) dances, where Roman had adored anything slow and stately, but they had still gone together. It had just been one of the things they did.

Then Remus had started waking up in the night and being unable to fall asleep again, terrified of the shadows that lurked in every corner and jumped every time a car drove past their house. His near constant exhaustion had carried over into his dancing, making him miss steps or stumble landings. Roman refused to move up a class without Remus, even though he was more than good enough, but he allowed Remus to hold him back for nearly three months.

He would have stayed in a class that was too easy for him for even longer, but Remus managed to get himself barred from ever returning to the dance studio. It had been a particularly bad night, and he had begged to stay home that morning. He hadn’t been allowed, of course: this was something he had chosen to do, a commitment he had made (when he was four! Before he was able to read the fucking fine print on these things!), he couldn’t just go when it suited him or not. He had made it all the way through the warm-up, all the way through the first few drills… In the first run-through of the performance piece they were focusing on that term, he had stumbled, and managed to trip into the girl next to him, and almost the entire class had gone down like a row of so many pastel coloured dominoes.

The teacher had taken pity on him, or perhaps been too pissed off to want to consider teaching him; the end result was the same, and he allowed him to sit out for the rest of the class. It had been as they were all filing out of the room to meet their parents that the girl he had knocked over earlier, now clinging to Roman’s arm, hadn’t bothered to lower her voice. He couldn’t remember exactly what it was she had said - he had been seven, and running on fumes - but it had been something about how Roman shouldn’t let his stupid, smelly brother hold him back, and Remus had snapped.

Their teacher had been on them as soon as she had started screaming, which had been almost immediately. He hadn’t even hurt her that badly: he’d bitten her arm, maybe, but not hard enough to draw blood, and her perfectly coiled bun was no longer so perfectly coiled or a bun, but he had still been asked not to return.

That was alright with him. Everything was a little easier when he didn’t have to put in the energy required to remember steps and stupid French words.

When they had been younger, he used to fight Roman over who got to choose the games they played, both at home and when they were with Virgil, who they had first met in preschool and tried to have a tug of war over. Now, it was easier to just let Roman dictate what they did, whether they drew or played board games or went exploring in the woods or enacted scenes from shows or books or out of Roman’s imagination. Roman would probably win anyway - this way, they cut out the needless half hour of arguing that frequently brought Virgil nearly to tears. It was easier this way.

Despite the fact that his teachers were constantly asking him why he couldn’t apply himself a little more, why he couldn’t work a little harder, why he couldn’t do what his brother so clearly could, Remus didn’t get properly labelled as a troublemaker until their class zoo trip at the start of third grade.

Even he wasn’t sure how he had managed to slip away from his Virgil, his trip buddy and usually so perceptive, three teachers, and the two guides taking them around the place, or how he had managed to get through not one but three doors marked ‘Authorised Personnel ONLY’ without detection. What he did remember was somebody in a hazmat suit yelling very loudly at him, startling him enough that he dropped the egg he had so carefully lifted out from under a large yellow heat lamp and had been cradling to his chest. It had smashed to pieces at his feet, covering his trainers in an opaque, slimy something that he could still smell in his nightmares sometimes, and there had been a few seconds of silence before a second person arrived, saw what had happened, and started yelling as well.

Remus had turned and tried to run away, and managed to knock over a shelf of what had turned out to be tanks containing various specimens of snakes being raised as part of a conservation program.

The zoo had asked him not to come back, and his parents had stopped his allowance for a year (which was fair enough, he supposed, given that they had had to pay for the damages).

After that, it was as though somebody had stuck a sign reading ‘Watch this kid’ to his back.

His grades had slipped further.

In the summer when he was nine, Roman started sneaking out in the mornings and spending the day doing who-knows-what, while Remus was left at home with the mountain of chores he had managed to accumulate for various misdeeds, some of which had been genuine accidents, some of which had been things that he just couldn’t help, like the row of Cs on his report card at the end of the year. He hadn’t minded so much at first, but it had gotten awfully lonely after a while. Virgil had been on some sort of summer camp, and Remus didn’t really have any other friends. Enough of the people at school were wary of him now, thanks to the occasional scuffle and the snake story, and the way he zoned out of conversations sometimes to just stare blankly at them.

One night, after having been woken by his usual nightmares and having calmed himself down enough to be comfortable getting out of bed and wandering around (nobody came when he screamed in the night anymore. They hadn’t in over two years. When the nightmares had first started - or when he had first started being aware of them, anyway - he had gotten up and slipped into his parents bed, managing to sleep the rest of the night away. But as the weeks passed and he was still doing it, still waking them up at stupid hours of the morning to lie beside them, they had put their collective foot down, warts and all. He was seven, a big boy now, he shouldn’t need to be lying with them to be able to sleep. Roman didn’t need to. The first few times, they had been kind about it. Then, less so), Remus had settled himself down outside Roman’s bedroom door to wait for morning.

Roman had practically tripped over him when he had come barrelling out of his room to go wherever it was he went all day. Catching himself on the opposite wall, he had frowned down at Remus before reaching out a hand. “What’re you doing, Rem?”

“I was-” Remus swallowed. “I was wondering if you’d wait for me. You don’t have to help with the chores, I just… I’d like to spend the day with you. Haven’t seen much of you lately, you know? Where’s my Ro-ro?” It was true. With Remus’ increased detentions and Roman’s increased extra curriculars, and their differing interests, they weren’t hanging out as much as they used to.

Roman had looked at him with no expression at all for a moment, and then he had grinned. “No, no, I’ll help with the chores. Just… Not just yet, yeah?”

Remus had nodded slowly, slightly confused. “I’m supposed to get them done before doing anything else, though.”

“It’ll be fine - just one game? Quickly?” Roman had glanced around, then grinned. “How about we play hide and seek? One game, you find me, I’ll find you, and then we do the chores. Then we can go mess around in the woods.”

This time Remus’ nod was enthusiastic. Turning to the wall, he began to count.

Roman hid behind the bathroom door, and Remus found him in only a few minutes. Remus tried to think of the best hiding place he could, and ended up climbing under the sink - it would take Roman ages to find him there! He’d look upstairs first, and then he’d have to look downstairs, so Remus would definitely win. Curling up into a ball, he let the door close behind him, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He didn’t own a phone yet, and his watch was broken after an incident in the quarry in the woods, so Remus didn’t know how long it was before it occurred to him that Roman might not be looking for him.

Pushing that thought away, he shifted to get more comfortable. The U-bend of the sink had been digging into his back. Of course Roman was looking for him. They’d have to get the chores done quickly if they wanted much time in the woods, but they could manage that.

But Roman never came, and eventually Remus grew bored of waiting for him. Stretching his legs out, he pushed against the cupboard door with his bare feet… And it didn’t open.

He pushed at it again.

Still nothing.

That was when he remembered that all of the kitchen cupboards had funny little latches on them, to stop younger versions of Roman and Remus (mostly Remus) from going through the cupboards after an incident involving the entire kitchen and a lot of washing up liquid.

That was when the space started closing around him.

Remus had no idea where his parents had been that day. Maybe they had both been working, and were comfortable letting their nine-year-old sons run around on their own: their town was quiet, and Roman at least was responsible. Maybe none of Remus’ screams, so loud at night, had actually left his chest. Either way, it was past six in the evening when his father finally opened the kitchen cupboard to find a tearstained, soiled, trembling child sitting in a slippery mess of washing up liquid and detergent and laundry softener, the U-bend of the sink broken from his earlier thrashing.

When Remus had tried to speak, to thank Hyun-ki for freeing him, to say it was his fault (strange, how his first thought was to protect Roman), to try to explain what had actually happened (Roman needed to be at least told off for not shouting to say that the game was over!), only a low whine had emanated from his throat. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make words come out. His father had hugged him briefly, wrinkled his nose at the smell, and then sent Remus off to shower while he started cleaning up.

And then he was clean, and dry, and warm and safe in the biggest jumper he owned despite the heat of the day, and his parents were quizzing him on why the hell he had thought it sensible to climb into the kitchen cupboard, he could have been seriously hurt, he’d broken the sink and that was going to need a real plumber to repair, what was he thinking? Had he tripped and fallen in? (That question was a trap, and they all knew it). Words were still raw against his throat and unwilling to come out, and he didn’t really want to get his brother in trouble - it wasn’t Roman’s fault he had locked himself in, after all… So when they asked him if he had been planning on jumping out for a joke, he had nodded brusquely. It was easier than trying to come up with a story that made him look good but didn’t get Roman in trouble.

It was easier to take the additional chores for breaking the sink than to complain that it wasn’t fair.

The incident that had lost him his pocket money for good a year later had only half been an accident.

It had been getting more and more obvious, over the past few months, that his parents were favouring Roman. There was a chance that Roman didn’t realise exactly what was going on, but he definitely knew something was happening. He almost never invited Remus to do anything with him anymore, and once or twice Remus was fairly certain that he had blamed a dropped plate or wrongly pruned plant on him. He didn’t really mind. His parents didn’t bother adding extra chores to the ones he already had to do, so it wasn’t as though he was really suffering from it. It hurt a little, that their parents never seemed particularly interested in what he had to say.

There used to be a vase on the table in the living room. It had been made by their mother’s great grandmother, and had stood on that table for as long as Remus had been alive. They were frequently reminded not to play too close to it.

He hadn’t meant to drop it.

Remus had just wanted to move it. He was going to hide it in a cupboard, and then hide behind the door himself (he couldn’t go in cupboards or under beds anymore), and wait to see which his parents missed first. All he was trying to do was prove to himself that he was more important to them than some old vase. It was a simple test, one that didn’t need doing. He was their son, after all, even if he did have his… Quirks. 

But the vase had been heavier than he had expected, and he had tripped whilst carrying it to its hiding place, landing on top of it and crushing it into dozens of knife-like shards. If the sound of the vase shattering hadn’t been enough to bring his mother running, his howl of pain as broken china sliced through his shirt certainly was, and she stared at the pattern of shards, Remus right in the centre, for several long seconds before starting to shout.

Then he had sat up, and they both stared at his torso, which was becoming bloodier by the second. There was already a not insignificant stain on the carpet, and all over some of the vase fragments. That was when Dae’s training kicked in, and Remus found himself in hospital and being stitched back together a surprisingly short time later.

It wasn’t until the following day, when he was no longer woozy from blood loss, that he was treated to another Remus-curse-of-the-walking-disaster lecture. When they were finished - they had come to sit on the end of his bed to talk to him - they both stood to leave. Then his father turned back to him. “Why did you break it, anyway? It meant everything to Dae…” As though he had done it on purpose.

Remus didn’t know why he said it, but the words dropped from his lips before he had even thought them through. “I always hated that ugly thing.”

Maybe he said it because they were expecting something callous from him, something else they could use to weigh him down while Roman soared far above him in their eyes. Maybe it was because it was easier than trying to explain that it felt as though they just didn’t care about him anymore.

Yeah, that was it. It was because it was easy.

And so the pattern continued. Remus made a mistake and was shown no mercy, while Roman was given everything he ever wanted.

Somewhere deep down, Remus knew that it wasn’t Roman he hated. It was the way their parents almost never addressed him anymore unless it was to tell him off, for skipping school, for getting in another scuffle, for ripping his clothes, for staying out too late. It was the way they were constantly comparing the two of them, constantly pitting them against one another and then punishing Remus for coming out second when the deck was so clearly stacked against him.

When he was thirteen, he started drinking to try to stop screaming at night. It was one of the reasons his parents resented him so much - it had been implied often enough. What teenager screams through the night, every night? He couldn’t help it, but it wasn’t as though they seemed to care about that. He snuck into parties he was years too young for whenever he could (Remy always seemed to know when and where parties would be, even if he wasn’t invited to them, and Remus had taken to listening in on his conversations while he was with Virgil. Roman almost never spent time with their friend anymore), and if his parents noticed, they didn’t say a thing.

They didn’t say a thing when the screaming stopped. They didn’t seem to notice when Remus started getting sick from it, when he was a hundred, a thousand times more fidgety or sleepy during the day. It was though they didn’t care at all.

Sometimes, he would be lucky enough to snag a few bottles of whatever from somewhere, which meant that he didn’t have to go out. It was one of these nights that Roman snuck into his room, an almost unheard of occurrence these days, and sat on the end of his bed. Remus was already tipsy, but his brother didn’t seem to notice. It seemed like all Roman wanted was for somebody to sit and nod as he chatted aimlessly about school, about his classmates, about the theater parts he was going for. His most recent crush had taken one of the supporting roles in the play, and Remus was treated to a half-hour lecture on how his hair positively gleamed under the stage lights.

“... I mean it, Rem, he’s gorgeous. He’s the year above us, I think, first year of highschool - you know this year the highschool’s taking part, it’s amazing that I got such a large role, there are so many people…” Roman trailed off dreamily, and Remus’ head bobbed slowly. Then his twin looked at him, leaned forward and poked his nose, which he wrinkled in response. “What about you, Rem?”

“What about me… What?” Remus had to admit, he hadn’t quite been following the conversation.

“A crush!” Roman exclaimed, leaning forward to shake Remus’ shoulders enthusiastically. “Do you have anyone you like?”

“Uh… Of course,” Remus lied, because… Well, it would look stupid if he said no.

Roman practically started bouncing on the bed. “Who? Do I know them?”

Oh. Fuck. Now he actually had to think of somebody, and fast, because Roman had stopped bouncing and was looking at him as though he could see right through him. Remus was not about to get caught lying about having a crush on somebody, for fuck’s sake. “Remy,” he blurted, and Roman looked stunned.

“Remy? Virgil’s brother? Remy Spince? Why?” Remus would have been mildly offended on Remy’s behalf had his brain been processing fast enough.

“Uh… Well, he’s… Cool. Very cool. An’ he’s nice to me, so…”

Roman chuckled. “Ahh. I see, Rem. Older guys, huh? With the jacket and the glasses? I see, I see…”

Blurting a random name had been so, so easy. Was this all it took to get Roman to like him again? Pretend to be attracted to somebody unobtainable? He could do that.

One week later, Roman spilled wax all over the floor and blamed him for it. Remus, in a fit of fondness for his brother (and also because he didn’t want Roman to have to suffer their parents’ disappointment), got up in the night to set fire to the curtains, just to make it look as though it really had been his fault.

Smoke coiled through his nightmares for weeks after that.

A month later, he regretted it, because Roman had gone and stuck his tongue down Remy’s throat at a party.

It wasn’t even as though Remus particularly liked Remy - not in the way he had told Roman he did, anyway - but it still hurt. As far as Roman knew, Remus had feelings (ick) for his friend’s elder brother, and he had gone and kissed him anyway. It had been partially betrayal (but mostly alcohol poisoning) that had had him throwing up in the host’s swimming pool.

And then autumn came, and school started, and Virgil didn’t come back. Remus visited him - of course he did, how could he not? He visited, and he visited, and he visited, first at the hospital during in the week Virgil had had to stay there while they made sure that the bottle of pain meds he had swallowed weren’t going to have any additional effects on him, and then at his home, sometimes skipping school to see him during the two weeks he spent at home.

Then they had gotten into an argument. It had been Remus’ fault, of course. And really, it was only Remus arguing, too. He had made some idle comment about how Roman was probably doing a far better job of cheering Virgil up than he was - they had been looking through a medical journal for rare and gross conditions, something that Remus found thrilling and Virgil found mildly unsettling but not enough so to make them stop - and Virgil’s face had shut down completely.

“Virge? Vee, dude, what’s up? Are you okay?” Virgil had nodded once, jaw tight and eyes not meeting Remus’, and it occurred to him that Virgil might be having another anxiety attack. They had been getting worse all year, but they had been more frequent than ever since he had tried to kill himself. “Hey. You’re safe, dude. Do you want to do the breathing thing? It’s just like stabbing someone, look, in, two, three, four, hold - that’s twisting the knife - two -”

“Not an attack,” Virgil interrupted, although he had pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay. What’s wrong?”

Virgil tried to stare him down, but that was a mistake. Remus had mastered the art of not blinking - it came from nights on end just staring into the corners of his room. (Virgil’s death was something that haunted his dreams now. He hadn’t seen him, hadn’t been the one to find his body - that had been Remy - but he could imagine, and once he had imagined, he couldn’t stop imagining). Finally, the taller boy sighed and shrugged. “Roman hasn’t visited,” he mumbled.

“WHAT?” Virgil flinched; Remus hadn’t meant to shout. “Sorry - what do you mean, he hasn’t- He’s your friend!”

“Hasn’t texted, either,” Virgil whispered, and Remus wanted to hug him until he felt his ribs crack. “I don’t think we’re friends anymore…”

“You are fucking kidding me! He -” Instead of hugging Virgil - because when could Remus ever do anything right? - he had started shouting. “That son of a bitch! He fucking -”

“Remus, don’t…”

“I’m going to kill him! How fucking dare he, I’m going to - I’m going to rip his guts from his body, I’m - I’m going to tear him into tiny, tiny pieces and -” He proceeded to get more creative, his sudden rage at his twin fueling his rant in spite of Virgil’s pleas that he calm down. Red, the same red that Roman wore when he needed extra luck, had filled his vision to the point that he didn’t see the fresh tears that started spilling down Virgil’s cheeks.

That had been when Virgil’s father had slipped into the room. He was a tall, skinny man, just as pale as his sons and with their same dark hair, and misery dripped from him in long, thick shadows and trailed behind him like a cloak. It looked as though he had been crying, too, although that wasn’t unusual. Although he had tried to keep it together for his sons, the loss of his wife at the start of the summer had taken a huge toll on him (Remus could be observant and emotionally sympathetic when he was trying), and Virgil’s suicide attempt hadn’t been easy on any of them. He looked at Remus for a long second. “I think…” Remus almost had to lean in to hear his words. “I would prefer it if that kind of language… I think you should leave, son.”

And just like that, he was barred from visiting his friend’s home. He still saw Virgil, of course, but it was harder - especially when Mr Spince had phoned his parents to say that Virgil had had one of his worst ever panic attacks after Remus had yelled at him.

He didn’t bother trying to explain what had really happened - he knew Mr Spince was just trying to protect Virgil, and that Virgil had just been trying to protect his friend, but he doubted that the elder would like to see him again after finding him making increasingly disturbing death threats in front of his son. It was easier just to allow another person to label him as dangerous and disturbed, and to meet with Virgil away from his home. 

He didn’t speak to Roman for a very long time after that.

Patton… Patton had been a mistake, although one of the worst ones he had made in a long time.

It had been a bad week for him, to start with. Remus was fourteen. He had been feeling constantly sick for the past three days, and he just knew it was the alcohol, but he had yet to find anything as effective for silencing him at night. He hadn’t been getting much rest, either, and had just left a particularly painful calculus lesson taught by a teacher that seemed to delight in comparing him to his perfect twin.

He was walking to lunch when he became dimly aware that somebody had mentioned his name just behind him in the corridor. Slowing his pace, he had tilted his head to listen better, and then wished he hadn’t.

“Remus Wang… Similar to Roman?”

“Yes, like Roman. Well, no, not really like Roman, that’s his twin.” It was Patton, and a voice that he didn’t recognise. He refused to turn to see who it was.

“I was not aware that Roman Wang had a twin. He has certainly never mentioned him in our tutoring sessions.” Remus smiled faintly at the stiff, formal speech - it was deep, calm, and would have been nice to listen to, had whoever it was been talking about anything else.

“Ah, yeah. He doesn’t talk about him. Remus is kinda…” Patton hesitated, and Remus took a slow breath through his nose. “Kinda the black sheep of the family, if you know what I mean.”

“I do not. The Wangs are Korean, not black, and all human. Remus does not look anything like an ovis aries.”

Remus had to suppress a snort of laughter at that. Patton, on the other hand, sighed and dropped his voice. “He’s the… Troublemaker. I heard from somebody that he’s even been picked up by the cops once or twice. Ditches school. Crashes parties. Picks fights. There’s various graffiti in the bathrooms suggesting he has a… Somewhat illegal job.”

“Oh - are you referring to the numerous grammatically incorrect scrawls implying that somebody named Wang is a prostitute? Those did not entirely make sense when I applied them to Roman, but I did not know whether there was another Wang here…”

Personally, Remus found those scrawls hilarious - but hearing himself discussed like this was anything but. He shouldn’t have slowed down to listen in.

“That would be him. You can see why Roman doesn’t really talk about him, right?” Remus had never heard Patton sounding so cruel before. “Roman resents him, I think. He’s always taking the spotlight away - that’s just what Ro said, I don’t really know. If they weren’t identical, you’d never think they were related. Roman is - well, Roman, and Remus is pretty much a criminal already, it’s not like Roman needs him around, so-”

“Patton,” said the owner of the other voice, who Remus had turned around to see was a tall, dark-skinned guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a tie, “you are being unusually cruel toward this-”

Of course, the fact that Remus had turned around when Patton had called him a criminal meant that his fist had collided with Patton’s jaw shortly after the new student had said his name. The rest of his sentence had continued coming out of his mouth despite the fact that Patton was stumbling backward, hand to his face (which Remus knew was going to bruise up terribly but couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty). A red haze had descended over Remus’ vision.

“I really do not think that violence-”

“Remus! I - I didn’t-”

“Can it, Specs. Patton, do you want to finish that sentence with or without your buckteeth?”

There was already a loose horseshoe of students around them, all staring at Patton - nobody was standing behind him. It was as though they didn’t want to be in Remus’ way.

“I - no, Remus, I was just-”

The snarl of rage that left Remus then was probably the thing that got him in the most trouble. That, and the fact that he dived at Patton fists first, catching him in the face once more. Patton’s head jerked back, and his body followed - and then Remus realised why there were no students behind him.

It was because they were at the top of a flight of stairs.

Patton didn’t just fall down the stairs. He tumbled, short curls over knee-length skirt; he practically bounced off the wall at the bottom with a sickening crunch, stumbled, and then slipped down the second flight as well.

And then Patton was lying two floors below them, limbs at the wrong angles, blood spreading out like a halo around his golden head and dripping from his nose. His blue eyes were still open - and he was blinking, as though he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

That image, of him standing at the top of the stairs while white noise roared in his ears, of Patton lying at the bottom like a broken doll, was one that never left him.

The crunch when he had hit the wall had Remus bolting awake within minutes of falling asleep for the next month, no matter how much he had drunk, or what he had tried to knock himself out with.

He had been suspended for nearly a month. It would have been longer had Patton not been informed that he was going to make a full recovery despite the severe concussion, the four snapped ribs, the complex fracture in his left arm, and the broken leg.

At first, when a teacher dragged him into an office and locked him in, Remus hadn’t been able to say a word. There were no words he could say.

Later, when they had been grilling him - the head teacher, three senior members of staff, his parents, and a police officer - he had barely been able to string a sentence together. Finally, the principal had gotten to her feet, had slammed her hands down on the desk in front of him, and almost yelled: “We have two dozen eyewitnesses, Wang! Staying silent isn’t going to help your case at all. Tell us what happened. Explain to us. Say something!” He had looked around, wishing that somebody would come to his defense, but nobody did. “Did you push Patton Grace down the stairs?”

That was when a smirk had spread across his face. He hadn’t wanted it there. It sickened him. He didn’t know why he said it. “Fuck yes I did.”

And then Remus started laughing. He couldn’t stop, no matter how much his parents yelled at him, how disgusted his teachers looked. He could barely even stop to breathe. He laughed as they settled his suspension, he laughed as his parents literally dragged him out of school - he was laughing too hard to walk straight, the sound being dragged from him as though by giant, steel hands with hooked fingers, shredding the inside of his throat - and he laughed as the police officer informed him that they would be keeping an eye on him. He laughed all the way home.

Remus laughed until he threw up, and then he laughed until he cried, and then he couldn’t stop crying either. He had cried until he had blacked out.

Then he had woken up, screaming harder than ever.

He was grounded, of course, but when had that stopped him doing anything?

Remus started walking through the woods instead of even trying to sleep. He walked until he couldn’t walk any further, and then he lay down on the floor and slept for as long as he could, and then he went home. He considered running away, but knew he wouldn’t get anywhere. He’d be arrested, or murdered, or something.

It was around then that he actually started using the razor he had stolen a few months before the incident. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. It wasn’t even that he wanted to see the blood that oozed from his arms.

Actually, he didn’t know why he did it.

He just knew that it was easy.

The first time Janus found him in the woods, Remus had managed to twist his ankle in the darkness and had fallen down a slope. He had gone through what had turned out to be a fence made of barbed wire and landed in a ditch, and hadn’t bothered trying to get up again. He wasn’t entirely sure he could move, actually. So he lay there, bleeding and bruised, and allowed himself to fall asleep. Maybe a rabid dog would find him and eat him. That would certainly solve a lot of problems for people.

And then Janus was untangling the metal claws from around his torso, was helping him out of the ditch despite the fact that he knew Janus knew every bad thing that everybody said about him, was letting him lean on him without acting as though Remus was going to maul him.

He took him into the largest house Remus had ever been invited inside (he may have broken in to one or two for reasons he could not remember), led him to an upstairs bathroom, and then sat him on the side of a truly massive bathtub to smear antiseptic all over him before wrapping him in an astonishing amount of bandages. Remus was dimly aware that Janus was speaking to him for pretty much the entire time, but he had no idea what the words were. All he could really understand was the tone, which was… Kind. Janus wasn’t shouting at him. Janus wasn’t being disdainful or cruel - at least, not in tone. Janus was talking to him as though he were a spooked, injured creature… And Remus started crying again. That was the first time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

Janus lent him a spare change of clothes for him to get home. They were too long and too tight, but Remus accepted them anyway. He didn’t thank him, even though he knew he should. He did try to, but Remus found that he couldn’t speak again. All that came out when he tried was a hum that would have embarrassed him if he had been lucid enough to care.

Then Janus had walked him home.

The second time he came across Janus in the woods, it had been his birthday. March 17th. Remus was fifteen. When he had gotten downstairs that morning, there had been a small pile of presents in Roman’s place on the kitchen table, and nothing in his. He had cut a large, messy slice from the gorgeous chocolate cake that read ‘Happy 15th Birthday, Roman!’ and taken it into the woods. It was his birthday too, after all. He at least deserved the part that read ‘15th’.

He had been walking blindly, not really caring where he was going, when he heard the sound of screaming. With nothing better to do, Remus hurried in that direction. If it was a serial killer, maybe he’d see something gorey and cool. Or maybe he’d get murdered. It didn’t matter either way.

It was not a serial killer. Instead, Janus Sinclaire was standing at the edge of the abandoned quarry, screaming wordlessly into it. Frowning, Remus shoved the last of his cake into his mouth and chewed fiercely at it, then started moving forward. A twig snapped.

Janus must have heard it, because he span around, shoulders hunching defensively. They stared at one another for a long, long moment before Remus wiped his chocolatey fingers on his shirt and moved to stand next to Janus. He nodded once, as though screaming into a large hole in the ground was a perfectly normal thing to be doing at eight in the morning, and started yelling as well.

After a moment, Janus joined in once more.

They were friends after that.

They only met in the woods at first. Remus had no desire to drag Janus’ reputation through the mud by letting them be seen together, and Janus seemed happy enough as long as they were spending time together.

Some time in late May that year, they were sitting on a rock beside a small stream together. It was early in the morning - early enough that they had watched the sun rise together, both of them cradling coffee poured from a flask that Janus had brought on his early morning walk. They hadn’t been talking, preferring to sit and watch the ripples of tiny fish in the water in front of them, when Janus had leaned forward and plucked a leaf from Remus’ hair.

“There’s a lot of them in here. Did you roll down a bank to get here?” He pulled another one out, and the morning sun made his skin and eyes briefly glow.

Remus had no idea why somebody made of literal sunlight wanted to be his friend. “Nah, I slept here. Parents didn’t let me in last night.”

Janus frowned. His fingers were carding through Remus’ hair now, tugging at autumn’s pine needles and knots alike. “That’s not fair.”

“Eh. Happens often enough. An’ I was drunk last night, as well as past curfew. No biggie.”

Janus’ fingers caught, and Remus hissed out a curse of pain. “Sorry! Sorry… Rem, if that happens again, will you…”

“When.”

“Hm?”

“When it happens again.”

“Right.” Janus did not look pleased. “When it happens again. Call me, or send me a message, okay? You can stay at mine. What if you got hurt out here, and I wasn’t there to help? I’d rather not find you dead in the quarry because you slipped in the dark…”

Remus made a choked noise, then nodded rapidly.

It was weird, having somebody care about him like that.

Actually sending Janus the text wasn’t easy, but sneaking through his bedroom window was. Changing into the oversized hoodie and sweatpants Janus offered him was easy, and slipping into bed beside him was easy too. When he was jerked awake by his friend shaking him and instructed to hide under the bed, Remus did so. Letting his friend lie to his parents about the screaming, that was easy too.

Somehow, even apologising to Janus, explaining about his nightmares, and offering to leave was easy.

Melting into the hug that Janus wrapped him in and falling back asleep beside his friend, though? That was the easiest thing of all.

-

Life actually got a little better after that, even though Remus’ new attempts to find something to stop himself from screaming at night were having a broadly varied range of horrible side-effects on him. The only other downside was Virgil: Virgil was no longer as friendly as he had been before. It took Remus a while to figure out why. They had been friends, been good friends, even though Roman had stopped talking to Virgil altogether by the time he had gotten back to school, even though he wasn’t welcome at Virgil’s house anymore.

Eventually, he had expressed his concerns to Janus. Well, Janus had caught on to the fact that Remus had been extra twitchy for the last few days, and had finally sat him down on a fallen log and poked his shoulder with one long, graceful finger.

“Spit it out, arms.” The nickname had been earned when Janus realised exactly how long it had been since anybody had hugged Remus, and Remus had responded far too enthusiastically. Janus had said it was like hugging an octopus.

Remus spat the gum he had been chewing into his palm and offered it to Janus, who wrinkled his nose.

“Not the gum. What’s eating you, Remus?”

“About six mosquitos, far as I can tell. Why the sudden interest? Developed a taste for human blood and don’t want to share?” Remus put his chewing gum back into his mouth and leaned back over the log, forming a bridge with his body.

Janus sat down beside him. “Just because you dragged me out here to distract me from intense amount of extra work I have to do -”

“Have to do?”

“Am being encouraged to do,” Janus amended, smiling faintly. He prodded Remus’ stomach gently. “Just because you’re trying to distract me doesn’t mean we can’t talk about you, too. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.” Remus sat up and rubbed the bark from his bare forearms. He only wore short sleeves around Janus.

“It’s bothering you, so it’s not stupid.” Leaning down, his friend picked up a small stone and tossed into a small pool that had formed between the roots of a tree in front of them. There was a small splash.

Remus sighed. “Virgil’s been avoiding me. No biggie. Told you it was stupid.”

Janus hummed quietly, digging around at his feet for another stone. When he straightened up, he handed Remus a worm before throwing the second pebble into the puddle. Another splash. Remus watched the worm twist on his palm. The way its pale pink, ribbed body moved always fascinated, and there was something bizarrely soothing about the slightly slimy feeling of it against his skin.

“Do you think it might be because you pushed his boyfriend down two flights of stairs?” There was no judgement in Janus’ voice.

Remus wasn’t entirely sure where to begin pulling that statement apart. His first instinct was to go on the defensive; his second was to claim that he was fully aware of the fact, and that it had been purposeful. He ignored both of those. Janus deserved better from him. He took a slow, deep breath.

“Virgil… Has a boyfriend?”

“Interesting thing to focus on,” Janus commented. He added a second worm and a small beetle to Remus’ now cupped hands. “But yes, Virgil is dating Patton. They’re together a lot at school.” Patton had returned to school in a wheelchair about two weeks after he had fallen. Remus had stayed as far away from him as he could.

He mumbled something.

“Didn’t catch that, Rem. Do you want an earwig? I always forget if you like them or not.”

Remus held out his hands for the earwig. “You know, earwigs were named for the belief that they would crawl in through people’s ears whilst they slept and lay eggs there, or else start eating their brains. It’s funny. These little dudes have no interest in your brain. They like eating rotten wood, that’s why you found one by this tree… I didn’t mean to push Patton, you know?”

Janus had been nodding along, clearly about to make some snide comment - possibly about some people needing to be concerned because they had brains made of rotting wood - but he paused when Remus said that. His face didn’t change. Remus was glad that Janus never seemed to mind his sudden jumps in conversation. “I… Had assumed that you didn’t mean to hurt him,” he said finally, and Remus smiled faintly.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did think it had been on purpose, you know. I did own up to it, a bunch of people said they saw…”

Another earthworm in his hands. The earwig had crawled up his sleeve, but Remus didn’t mind. “Okay,” Janus said slowly, “do you want to tell me what did happen? The hysterical laughter as you left the school probably didn’t help your case.”

Remus groaned. “I know… It wouldn’t stop, I was trying… Not the millipede, thanks. If that goes up my sleeve and I bring it home by mistake, my dad’ll be pissed.”

“Not the millipede,” Janus agreed, returning it to the ground at his feet.

They were quiet for a time, but it was a nice quiet. It wasn’t the kind of quiet that felt as though Janus were trying to crack his skull into pieces to pick at his brains with his long fingers. “I… I did want to hurt him. But not… Not that badly.” Janus stayed quiet, and Remus found that he couldn’t look at him. Instead, he addressed the four worms, earwig, and two beetles that were in various positions on his arms. “He was showing that new kid around, the one that talks like a dictionary? Not that I’m complaining, he was nice to listen to -”

“Logan uses they-them, Rem.”

“Right. They were nice to listen to. But then they started talking about me - the two of them, not just Logan - and Patton said some… Stuff.” He shifted. “Saw red. Went to punch him. I guess I just… Wanted to hurt him a bit. I didn’t know we were by the staircase. It was an… Accident.”

They were quiet again. Remus waited for Janus to stand up and walk off, to say that he knew that it had been a mistake to drag him out of that ditch on the first morning. Instead, he leaned sideways and rested his head on Remus’ shoulder, his hair tickling Remus’ cheek.

“I’m sorry, Rem.” He murmured, and Remus felt his heart stop, and then overflow. Carefully, he put his handful of creepy-crawlies down on the log beside him so that he could wrap his arms around Janus.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. I’m still sorry it happened like it did.”

Remus hesitated. “You still don’t think I’m a monster? I coulda killed him, and I just… Laughed.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s a trauma response, Rem. Doesn’t make you a bad person…”

It was very, very nice, being told that he wasn’t a bad person.

There had been an evening, about a month and a half after he had first spent the night at Janus’, that Janus had actually seen him pull the small box of assorted stolen tablets out of his pocket and shake a blue one and a green-and-orange one onto his palm. Janus had only been able to see because Remus had found that this combination of drugs made him really dizzy almost immediately, and if he didn’t take them whilst he was literally in bed he was liable to bump into things and collapse in the middle of the floor.

There he was, sitting on the edge of Janus’ bed, about to toss the brightly coloured somethings (and Remus genuinely had no idea what they were, only that they made him horribly dizzy and took all the flavour out of his food but meant that he didn’t scream when his nightmares took him over) into his mouth, when Janus’ arm looped over his shoulder and he closed his fingers around Remus’. “What’re these, Rem?”

Lying to Janus was not easy. It was actually very, very difficult, because Remus knew that Janus actually cared about him. He cleared his throat. “Don’t know.” A burning sort of silence followed, and he hurried to clarify. “They stop me screaming.”

Janus nodded slowly, then frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Shoplifted ‘em. Didn’t check the labels other than to make sure they weren’t caffeinated or poisonous.”

“That’s illegal. And you know most drugs are poisonous if you take them without knowing what they are, right?”

Remus groaned and tried to tug his hand out of Janus’ grip. “So? Not like anyone’ll miss me if I do end up dead. And in the meantime, these stop me bothering people and have fewer side effects than mixing the green’n’orange with the red oval ones. Can I take these and go to sleep now?”

“I’d miss you.” Janus’ voice was almost tremulous, and Remus glanced over his shoulder to see that his friend’s eyes had gone wide and glittery. Was he crying? Fuck.

“Jan, I’m not gonna die. I was joking, I…”

“Didn’t sound like you were joking.” The scared note was gone from Janus’ voice, and now he sounded almost angry. Remus swallowed. “Sounded to me like you’re mixing stolen drugs that you have no idea what they’ll do to you. And that you don’t give a shit if you end up in a coma or dead because you’re trying to make up your own nightmare cure. Are you about to look me in the eye and tell me that any of that is a lie?”

Remus swallowed again, harder this time, and tried to think of something to say.

“Didn’t think so. Rem, why don’t you just… See a doctor, or something? Instead of stealing shit and poisoning yourself with it?”

And now Remus chuckled. “Jan… I’m fine. I’ve been doing this for nearly two years, ‘n I’m not dead yet. And stuff’s better at home when I’m not waking everyone up every night.”

Janus did not look remotely reassured. “Didn’t your parents take you to see someone? If you were screaming every night?”

“Nah. It’s no biggie, I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. It’s normal, Jan. Can you let me take my poisons now? You have an English quiz tomorrow, you need sleep… And you don’t need me waking you up, either.” Remus tried to tug his hand away again. This time, Janus’ fingers slipped into his palm, and then the small tablets were gone. Remus lunged for them.

“Nope. No. Nope, you’re not having these back.” Janus actually got out of bed, and Remus followed him over to the window.

“Jan, give them back. Let’s just go to bed and forget about this, okay? It’s no big deal.”

Janus opened the window, and Remus almost jumped at him. “You know something, Remus?”

“No. Close the window.”

“You say that a lot. It’s no big deal. No biggie. You said about your parents refusing to let you come home if you stayed out past curfew. You said it about everybody thinking you were a monster. You said it about your arms, and if that isn’t a big fucking deal, I don’t know what is.” Remus automatically folded his arms across his chest to hide them, and Janus gave him a look. “So I think that no big deal is actually code for this is the biggest deal ever and I am not okay right now. Am I right?”

Remus didn’t want to nod, but he didn’t exactly want to lie to Janus. In his hesitation, Janus cocked his arm back and then snapped his wrist forward, and the pills went soaring out of the window. Remus let out a snarl of frustration.

“Rem…”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Jan? I can’t just give up! And it’s not like I can see somebody about it. What kind of loser gets nightmares every night for his whole life? They’ll lock me away, or drug me into oblivion.”

“Like you’re already trying to do?” Remus tried to ignore the sympathy in Janus’ voice that said he knew exactly where Remus’ worries came from. “You know, nobody’s going to think you’re -”

“Mad? Dangerous? Haven’t you heard, Jan? I tried to kill Patton Grace. I tried to burn down a house with my family inside. They’ll lock me up and throw away the fucking key if I try to tell somebody about the nightmares.” He was already leaning down to pull the bottle from his hoodie to replace the tablets that Janus had just thrown away.

“I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

Remus shook his head once.

Then Janus was on top of him, wrapping his arms around his torso and squeezing, and Remus hesitated for the barest moment before hugging back. He hadn’t realised he was trembling until exactly that moment. “Okay. Okay, Rem, okay. I won’t. But you gotta promise you’re gonna be safer, yeah? I can’t lose you.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Remus grumbled, trying to hide the fact that a lump had swollen in his throat. “‘Safer’?”

“It means, quit using shit if you don’t know what it is. And don’t mix’n’match, you idiot.”

Remus groaned and pressed his face into Janus’ shoulder. “Fine. Any recommendations? Or are you just talking out of your arse and hoping something sensible occurs to me? I warned you already, sensible isn’t my best feature…”

“Yeah, I got a recommendation.” Remus had a feeling that his surprise at Janus’ words rippled through his entire body, because his friend chuckled darkly and tugged him back toward the bed. “As much as I hate the idea of helping you drug yourself, I’d prefer I helped you do it safely than not. Have you tried Xanax?”

Remus snorted. “That’s prescription.” He sat down on the corner of the mattress and looked up at Janus in the dim light cast by the small bedside light, and discovered that he wouldn’t be surprised if his friend came out with flawless plans to rob every bank in a hundred mile radius. There was something sly and cunning in the set of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.

“My mother has it for work stress. I’ll grab some for you. If it doesn’t work, we can try something else, but we’re going to do it-”

“I am going to do it safely,” Remus groaned, “I get it.”

“We. I’m not entirely sure I trust you on this to just let you handle it…”

It worked better than anything else he had tried, and it didn’t make him sick, or dizzy, or always exhausted, or bizarrely miserable, or make him piss blood or get nosebleeds.

When Remus’ family was out, he would invite Janus over to his place, and they would curl up on his bed and watch movies on Roman’s laptop (Roman’s password, ‘Prince Roman’, was not only easy to guess, but also written on a post-it note stuck on his keyboard). Sometimes they’d explode popcorn in the microwave.

When Janus’ family was out, Janus would invite him over, and they would make cakes or buns in the kitchen, a volcano in the bathroom, a fire in a wastepaper basket in the living room on which they roasted marshmallows and tried to scare one another with ghost stories.

When Janus turned sixteen, Remus took him on a two-in-the-morning caving expedition in the forest, where they almost got chased through the woods by what Janus swore was a bear but Remus was certain had had six legs and eight eyes and teeth running down its spine.

He was very keen to go back to see what it was, but Janus decided that they probably shouldn’t bother it, whatever it was. (“A cryptid at the least,” Remus commented.) (“A bear, you fool”).

Janus’ birthday brought a new concern before them, though: his parents had suddenly started talking to him about the future.

“It’s not like they used to,” Janus confided one evening, a few weeks after his birthday. “It used to be this thing that was… Well, far away. It wasn’t so important, the important thing was doing well now.”

“Yeah?” Remus looked up from the chunk of wood he was trying to turn into something resembling the bear-monster they had fought. (“We ran away from it, Remus.”) “What’s changed?”

“Dad keeps trying to get me to look at syllabuses for different degrees… Do I want to do psychology? Sociology? Behavioral studies? Economics? Maths? I think he’s secretly hoping I’ll become a financial advisor like him…” Remus made a retching sound, then accidentally sent the bear-monster’s ear spinning away from him through the clearing.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. My mother isn’t doing that - yet - but she keeps giving me the prospectuses for different colleges. Says that she knows I’ll work hard and be successful wherever I go, and that I should pick somewhere I care about to aim for…” There was something in Janus’ tone that made Remus put down the knife and branch that was now going to become a fish-monster rather than a bear-monster, and reached over to nudge his shoulder.

“You don’t sound on board with that.”

Janus shrugged. “They have a point, I guess. If I don’t start making the right choices now, who knows where I’ll end up in a few years? This is the sort of stuff I need to look into.”

Remus frowned. “There’s no harm in taking a year off while you sort things out. You don’t even have to go to college, you know.”

“You don’t understand, Remus. Your parents don’t give a shit what you do - mine do. Besides, I… I want to go to college.”

“Rude, but fair enough.” He stood up and stretched, spine popping, and then scuffed his feet. “And, are you sure? Because you sound like you’re just saying that because they want you to.”

“No, I do. I just… I want it to be my choice, you know?”

“Sure,” agreed Remus, who didn’t have any inclination to go to college and knew for a fact that it would disappoint his parents. So what? He would be eighteen by then. “You want to go on your terms.”

“Exactly. I want to be able to do the research without them breathing over my shoulder, or… Or telling me that this course is for wusses, or that course will end in a degree that professionals are just going to laugh at, or…” He groaned and jerked a hand through his hair, which had been cut short about a week before. It was obvious that Janus had been less than happy about the change, and kept forgetting that he no longer had hair hanging down the back of his neck. “It would be nice if they didn’t expect me to be perfect all the time, you know? I’m a teenager. I’m allowed to make mistakes from time to time.”

Remus squeezed Janus’ shoulder sympathetically. “They must be being really pushy about it, if it’s bad enough for you to complain…”

Janus made a frustrated sound, then nodded. “I’m… It’s like every time I take a breath, they wait for me to exhale gold dust. It’s suffocating, you know?”

Personally, no, Remus did not. But now that Janus vocalised it, he had a feeling that Roman must feel like this at least some of the time. “Is there anything I can do?”

The next time they met up, Janus brought the large stack of shiny prospectuses with him, and they poured over them for hours together, a notebook in front of Janus for him to take notes on anything that looked particularly promising or should be further researched. Remus made stupid comments about the students pictured in the brochures and the quotes from the faculty every time it looked as though the sheer number of things to choose from was becoming overwhelming, and poked and prodded Janus every time he started saying things that sounded as though he were quoting his parents (Janus had a specific voice he used for quotes).

Over several long afternoons, they cut the pile of universities and courses down to only three or four, and then Remus had to watch Janus going to visit the places with his parents.

Watching Janus drive away and return overflowing with enthusiasm for these places that Remus would likely never see struck him with a strange melancholy, and eventually Janus seemed to cotton on to the fact that he was retreating into himself whenever Janus tried to bring the subject up.

“You know you could come with me, right?” They were in Janus’ room, Remus lying on the floor and painting his nails to look as though they were covered in blood, Janus on the bed, flipping through a book on applying for law courses.

Remus looked up briefly, then snorted and returned to adding globs of red varnish to his cuticles. “Even if I had any desire to go to college, Jan, I couldn’t. I’m not smart enough for a scholarship, I don’t have much cash, and my parents aren’t going to pay for me.”

“You are smart, Rem.”

He snorted again, and Janus made a distressed noise. “Okay, fine, I’m smart. But I haven’t worked hard enough for that to show at all, so it amounts to the same thing.”

“I could kidnap you. Make you live under my bed for the duration of the school year - you could pretend to be a ghost and haunt my roommate or something.” Janus turned a page, but from where Remus was lying it looked as though he had only done it to have something to do with his hands.

“So what you’re saying is that you couldn’t last a year without me to help?” Remus rolled onto his back and started flapping his left hand in an attempt to dry the paint. “I’m touched. Nice to know you’re willing to be so vulnerable around me, Jan.”

Janus flipped him off without looking up, then sighed. “I just… I’ll miss you, obviously. And I don’t like the idea of you being here without me.”

“Managed just fine without you,” Remus replied defensively - although he was more flattered than offended.

Janus just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fine, I’m a mess. But it’s two years away, Jan - don’t worry about it so much. You’ll give yourself a stroke.”

“That’s not how strokes work. And I do worry about it. I worry about you a lot, Remus…”

Remus groaned quietly and sat up. “Janus.” Janus nodded to show that he was listening. “No, Janus, look at me.” Nothing. “Janus…”

Finally, Janus lifted his grey eyes from the paper before him and met Remus’ gaze.

“Do you really think there’s anything keeping me here if you’re gone?” Remus had allowed all of the bravado to drop from his voice, and he knew that Janus could hear how vulnerable he was allowing himself to be. “I’ll find a job or something, the same place you end up. I’ll be there for you when you need me.” He allowed his face to crack into a smile again. “I know you couldn’t really last a year without me, don’t worry.”

Janus threw the brochure at him, but he was laughing. They both were.

Then Remus turned sixteen, and a number of things happened, mostly bad.

About a month after his birthday, Janus texted him at four in the morning with three words.

<Virgil’s place. Now.>

<Sent 03:57>

Remus should have been asleep. On most nights, he would have been. But the clouds that had been rolling over their town for the past few days had finally burst into the most spectacular thunderstorm he had seen in a long time, and Remus was awake. He was watching the sky, first and foremost, watching it be rent in two with searing near-purple light that left lines across the insides of his eyelids when he closed them. He was trying to figure out a way to be hit by lightning without actually dying, because that sounded honestly thrilling. And because Janus had put his foot down and said that he wasn’t allowed to just go and get struck with a billion volts of raw electricity because it would probably kill him. The last reason for him being awake was not one liked admitting, even to himself: he was staying awake in case Roman needed him. His twin was terrified of lightning storms and although Remus could never quite figure out why, he didn’t want to leave Roman alone if he woke up to the storm.

Remus was fully aware that he was disgustingly soft for his brother, despite how much of a jerk he was.

Then Janus’ text came through, and suddenly Roman didn’t matter so much. Remus was climbing out of the bathroom window within seconds, wearing only a pair of shorts and a sweater that were soaked through almost immediately.

At a sprint, it took him less than fifteen minutes to reach Virgil’s home, although he could barely see when he arrived. The woods were not meant to be navigated at top speed in a storm in the middle of the night, and it was some sort of miracle that he hadn’t tripped over a root and broken his ankle (and now was really not the time to see bone poking through his skin, as cool as that may be in different circumstances).

All the lights were on.

Muddy, soaking wet, covered in leaves and twigs and scratches from brambles and not caring in the slightest, Remus barreled toward the back door and hammered on it. Virgil’s dad could call his parents later: this was an emergency.

The door swung open with no resistance at all, and Remus swallowed hard. Dread was pooling in his stomach.

Remy was in the kitchen, along with a pink-haired guy that Remus didn’t recognise, and so much grief that Remus could feel it trying to force itself down his throat, to drag him down into its depths. If Remy was like this, the worst had to have happened, right? It was just like in his nightmares. Remus could feel his hands trembling, and it wasn’t the chill of being wet to the bone making them shake.

“Where-”

The guy Remus didn’t know had an arm around Remy, and he had never seen Virgil’s brother look smaller, curled up against him. They were practically on the same chair. Remy looked up with bloodshot eyes, then jerked his chin toward the hallway. “Upstairs.”

It was easy to find Virgil after that. Remus just had to follow the sound of crying, audible even over the way his heart was pounding in his ears. He didn’t care how mad Mr Spince would be at the trail of mud and foliage he was leaving in his wake.

When he saw that Virgil wasn’t dead, didn’t even seem injured, Remus almost put his fist through the wall out of sheer relief. Then the rest of the scene in Virgil’s room came rushing in, and he didn’t feel so happy anymore.

Janus and Patton were already there. Janus was sitting on the end of the bed, squeezing Virgil’s calf gently. Patton was with Virgil at the head of the bed, rubbing his back, looking as though he were about to burst into tears as well. Virgil himself was the source of the crying, curled up into a tight ball as sobs tore through him. His hoodie was draped over his shoulders, presumably by Patton (who had looked up when Remus had entered, paled briefly, and then turned his attention back to Virgil).

Remus had pretty much figured out what had happened even before Janus turned to him and murmured, “Car crash. The rain, wasn’t anyone’s fault…”

Mr Spince wasn’t going to tell Remus off for tracking mud up his stairs and into his son’s room. He wasn’t going to be telling anybody off for anything.

When he climbed onto the bed and slotted himself between Virgil and the wall, on the other side of Patton, who flinched briefly, nobody complained that he was damp and filthy and getting mud and blood onto Virgil’s duvet. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but it wasn’t really a night for being comfortable.

They stayed with Virgil all night. At some point, he and Patton fell asleep, and Janus joined them soon after. Remus didn’t sleep, one arm holding Virgil as close as he could, the other squeezing Janus’ fingers gently.

The funeral was small, with only a handful of guests, mostly middle-aged men and women in business-wear who Remus assumed had worked with Virgil’s dad. They stared openly when they saw Remus, who hadn’t been able to find anything suitable to wear and ended up showing up in a pair of tight black jeans (the least ripped pair he owned) and a black t-shirt (one that actually went right the way down to his waist) under a long-sleeved mesh shirt. Neither Virgil nor Remy had batted an eyelid. Both had hugged him tightly.

He and Janus had spent a lot of time with Virgil over the coming weeks. It got to the point that although Patton wasn’t entirely happy talking to him, he no longer flinched when he came near him.

The second thing that happened when he was sixteen surprised him, and actually in a positive way: his parents had gotten Roman driving lessons for his birthday, and in a fit of generosity had actually done the same for him. Maybe things were going to be better this year.

He should have known it wouldn’t last, of course.

Remus had been on his best behaviour, hoping that maybe he could wring some form of affection from his usually distant parents, hating himself for wanting so desperately to finally gain some form of approval from them.

Roman had had no such concerns - but he didn’t need to, did he? Whenever it looked as though their parents might turn against him, he could just shuffle their disappointment sideways onto Remus; that was exactly what had happened.

When their father had marched him outside to look at the dented, reeking mess that had been his car before Roman had gotten his hands on it, and demanded to know why Remus had thought taking it out was a good idea, Remus hadn’t answered immediately. Instead he had looked up at Roman’s bedroom window (“It’s no good being angry with your brother, he did the right in telling us,”) and found that his twin was staring down at him, his eyes wide. He looked scared.

Remus still should have defended himself. Instead, he just shrugged, swallowed down the fury that was building in his chest, and went back to his room. No more driving lessons for him.

By that night, his anger at Roman had cooled and hardened into fury at their parents, for pitting them against one another like this. He took the easiest, pettiest revenge he could think of, slipping out of his bedroom window with a letter opener and dragging it along the side of their mother’s car.

He had been caught, of course. His parents weren’t about to let him get away with trashing both cars in the space of two days. When Dae found him out there, crouched by the passenger side door and already having left several long, deep scratches in the baby-blue paintwork, he had genuinely thought that she might hit him. She didn’t. Hitting one of her sons would be a bigger mark of shame for her than merely resenting the child’s very existence, and they both knew it.

Remus almost wished she would hit him. At least then he could have some sort of victory, bitter though it would be.

About three months after his birthday, Janus actually called him.

They never called one another, partially because Remus hated the way he could hear his voice echoing down the phone line with a passion that made him want to claw his own ears from his skull, and partially because it was harder to have frequent secret phone calls. (Remus maintained that their friendship being discovered would be very, very bad for Janus’ reputation. Janus hated it, but agreed that his parents would not be at all impressed). It was thanks to this fact that Remus knew something had to be wrong even before he had swiped his finger over to answer.

“Hey, Jan. What’s up?”

Remus was met with silence, and then a noise very close to a stifled sob, and felt his hackles rise.

“Janus. Do I need to kill somebody?” Another sob. It sounded as though Janus was trying to calm down for long enough to say something, but was entirely unable. “I will, you know. If somebody hurt you, I’ll hurt them so much worse.” Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t kill them - Remus wasn’t keen on the idea of being a murderer - but he was more than happy to beat somebody into a pulp so fine that their teeth were the largest recognisable pieces if they hurt his best friend.

“N-No, don’t, don’t do that,” Janus finally managed, his voice cracking again on the last word. Remus slowly moved his sketchpad off of his lap and hid it under his bed. “It’s - It’s stupid, I…”

“Can you get to the log behind your house? I’ll meet you there if you can.” There was silence - well, not silence exactly, but nothing more than a few hiccups and sobs. “If you can’t, that’s okay. Tell me where you are, and I’ll be right there.”

Janus didn’t speak for such a long time that Remus was on the verge of calling Virgil to see if he knew anything (Virgil had an uncanny knack for knowing everything about everyone, or at least guessing very accurately) and then running a solo town-wide search starting from Janus’ house. “I… Yeah, I’ll… Meet you there, if th- that’s okay…”

That was all Remus needed to climb out of his window and dive barefoot into the forest behind the house. (He was still grounded, and his parents seemed to think that preventing him from keeping his shoes in his room would stop him from going out. Ridiculous. He could survive with torn-up feet for a few weeks). (And Janus had lent him a pair of old trainers as soon as he had found out; Remus kept them in a plastic bag under a rock just beyond the treeline). Janus’ house was about half an hour away from his if he were walking fast: Remus sprinted, only slightly less urgently than he had two months ago to get to Virgil’s house, and made it in twenty. Janus was already there, sitting against the fallen tree with his knees hugged tightly to his chest. He had stopped crying but looked as though he might start at any moment, and leaned against Remus the second he threw himself down beside him. Remus didn’t protest. If Janus needed to hug him when he was sweaty and could barely breathe, he could cope with that.

When Remus found that he was breathing more or less evenly again, he wrapped both arms around Janus’ torso and pulled him closer, resting his chin on the top of his head. Janus pressed his face into Remus’ chest. He didn’t really fit in Remus’ lap, being almost a head taller than him, but neither of them really cared. “Hey… You’re… I’m here, Jan, you can cry if you want… I don’t mind… Whatever you need…”

Gently, he lifted one hand to tug Janus’ chocolate coloured beanie from his head so he could start carding his fingers through his hair; Janus’ shoulders started shaking a second later. Remus made a soft crooning noise in the back of his throat, then started murmuring reassuring nonsense, very glad that nobody else was ever going to hear how soft he was letting himself be.

When Janus finally straightened up and took his hat back to wipe his eyes on, Remus squeezed his side gently. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it?”

Janus sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Remus didn’t see why he didn’t just use the shirt Remus was wearing, which now had a very large gross patch on it. “‘S stupid,” he muttered.

Remus held up a stern finger. “No. If I’m not allowed to call my problems stupid, Janus Sinclaire, you definitely aren’t. Got it?” Janus nodded. “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not. That’s okay.”

“No, I…” Janus sniffed again, and rested his head against Remus’ shoulder.

Remus reached up to rub his fingers gently against Janus’ skull again.

“You remember Phillip Junior?” Remus did. There was no Phillip Senior to explain the name Janus had chosen for the old, stuffed boa constrictor toy, but Janus had admitted that he had only been four when he had named it. Phillip Junior lived on the bookshelf in Janus’ room - it was practically the only thing other than a picture on his bedside table that made the room look as though it really did belong to Janus.

Remus nodded, and Janus took in a long, shuddering breath.

“You’ll… You’ll laugh.”

“No, I won’t.”

Janus looked at him as though he wasn’t entirely sure that he believed him, then sighed. “He wasn’t on my sh-shelf when I got home, an’... I looked for him, I checked he hadn’t - y’know, fallen down the back or anything, an’ he still wasn’t…”

He sniffed again, and Remus ripped a strip from the bottom of his shirt (it had been falling apart anyway, ever since he had gotten caught on a splintered fence, and he had been planning on turning it into a crop top for ages anyway) and handed it over. Janus stared at it as though he had just handed him a live lizard rather than a sandwich (and Remus had actually experienced the expression for that reason, so he knew what he was talking about).

“What’s this for?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Blow your nose on it. Duh.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Janus snorted faintly, did as he was told, and then cleared his throat. It didn’t help much, given that he still sounded pretty choked up when he spoke again. “Um… I went ‘n’ asked my mother if she had seen P.J. ‘N’ she…” He sniffled again, but this time Remus didn’t take the pause as an opportunity to interrupt. “She said I’m too old for… For, y’know, stuffed animals. So she threw… She threw him out. The trash was collected earlier today - so he’s - he’s gone…”

His voice broke on the last word, and Remus sighed softly before pulling Janus closer to him. It wasn’t as though he needed his shirt to be clean for any particular reason, after all.

Remus wasn’t about to laugh at his friend for this. (Actually, he was a little offended that Janus thought he would be so insensitive, but this wasn’t really the time). He knew how stressed Janus was, how much pressure his parents kept balanced on top of him like the world’s most fucked up house of cards: it didn’t take something big for things to come crashing down. The destruction of a connection to a younger self, though - that felt fairly big.

There wasn’t much Remus could do just then, aside from offering Janus a place to let himself cry and listening to him talk.

When he got home later, though, he started looking at part-time jobs - in the city, of course, where nobody knew him - and eventually landed one lugging crates in the back of a supermarket. Three days a week, he’d get on the bus into the city rather than heading into school (he had been skipping a fair amount anyway, so it wasn’t as though anybody would miss him) and loaded boxes onto and off of the back of a delivery truck rather than struggling through algebra or calculus or history or whatever it was that everyone else was doing. He had had to lie about his age to get the job: they wouldn’t hire somebody that was meant to be in school whenever their shifts were scheduled regardless of whether he turned up or not.

Two months later, he found himself waiting outside Virgil’s house for a delivery box. He had asked Remy if he could put their place down as his delivery address, given that as far as his parents knew he had no money (he was technically still paying them back for the vase he had broken, as well as numerous other things, and didn’t get an allowance like Roman did) and any packages arriving for him would be regarded with immediate suspicion. Initially, he had only been going to order one animal (a snake, obviously) to replace Phillip Junior physically if not emotionally, but he had gotten carried away when the website had shown him a large, fluffy looking octopus as well.

For the first time in years, Remus had money, and friends that he wanted to spend it on - so he did.

Virgil had pretended not to be, but Remus could tell that he was thrilled by the large spider plushie that he handed him almost as soon as he had opened the box. He actually tried to play it cool.

“Oh, nice, Remus. That’s… Real sweet of you,” he had said, clearly trying to hide the way a grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth; Remus leaned in and hugged him anyway, and after a second Virgil returned the embrace tenfold.

To Janus he gave the snake, as planned, and also the octopus. Janus had taken one look and almost started crying, which Remus thought was a slightly over the top reaction but didn’t complain. The feeling of knowing that he had made his best friend so happy was so much more than worth it.

“Keep them under your bed,” he suggested, “that way your parents are less likely to find them.”

Janus hadn’t said anything for a few long moments - or if he had, Remus hadn’t been able to hear it because his face was pressed into the domed crown of the octopus. Then he had straightened up a little, arms still wrapped tightly around the stuffed animals, and smiled broadly at him. “Remus, you didn’t have to do this… You should be saving your money, not wasting it on me…”

“It’s not a waste - besides, I never do anything for you.” Remus punched Janus playfully on the shoulder, and Janus shook his head. Putting the toys down on his bed, he shoved Remus gently, and Remus pretended to stumble. It was only polite.

“You do, though! You’re always here when I need you, and…”

“Look, Jan, don’t make this into a big deal.” Remus was almost blushing now, shifting awkwardly. People never really complimented him like this, and it just felt… Wrong. Nice, but wrong. “You were upset, so I wanted to help fix that. I know they’re not PJ, but…”

Janus held up a hand. “They’re perfect.”

Remus beamed at him.

He hadn’t only bought the spider, the snake, and the octopus, although when he pulled the stuffed lion out of the box to inspect it, he wished he had. This, more than any of the others, had been an impulse purchase. He was being stupid, sentimental, wasting time on the pointless wish that things could be different and that they’d never had to grow up and grow apart - and knowing all of those things had not stopped him from adding the lion to his basket. It had reminded him of Roman, probably because lions were pretty much the only animal Roman would draw, the same way he would always draw an octopus and Virgil a small army of spiders. Remus didn’t know whether he was planning on giving the toy to his brother; the decision was pretty much made for him when he arrived home that evening with it stuffed into his backpack. Roman was talking on his phone and barely glanced up when Remus came in. In fact, he didn’t look at Remus at all, so it took him a few seconds to realise that Roman had ended the call and was talking at him.

“... Cast dinner tonight, probably be out late. You don’t mind if I take the emergency cash mum and dad left us, right? If they call, don’t tell them I’m out - didn’t technically ask permission - they won’t call, they only left this morning, but just in case… That’s all fine, right?”

Remus blinked at him, trying to process the words into something that made sense (Roman talked fast when he was in a rush), and Roman seemed to take that as assent because he scooped the small pile of emergency cash that had been left on the counter into his pocket.

“Have a good evening, Rem, see you later!”

Oh, wait, no. Remus had caught that. “Ro, wait, I was thinking -” Thinking what? That they could do something together? They never spent time together anymore. Roman didn’t even look at him as he brushed past him on his way out.

“Later, Remus! I’m going to be late!” He left without another word, and Remus stared at the closed door behind him.

Well. Well, that was okay. Roman didn’t really need his screw-up of a brother to mess things up for him, did he? It was probably best that he didn’t associate with Remus much. For all Remus knew, the next thing that Roman blamed him for would end up getting him arrested, and it would be better if Roman wasn’t known to be close to him at that point.

No, that wasn’t fair. Roman wasn’t going to do something stupid that would get one of them arrested. Roman would just make little mistakes and shift the blame onto him, because he wanted their parents to keep loving him. That was okay.

Roman probably wouldn’t be able to take it if the disappointment usually reserved for Remus came down on him. He wasn’t built the same way, hadn’t had time to build up a proper roof against the acidic deluge - it would destroy him, and Remus knew it. He was pretty sure that Roman knew it, too, although probably more as a subconscious thing.

So whilst he couldn’t really blame Roman for any of it - he was nine minutes older, it was his responsibility to take care of his younger brother - he didn’t exactly have to like it.

In short, he was keeping the lion for himself.

The fourth thing that happened in the space between Remus’ sixteenth birthday in March and Janus’ in November was possibly the worst of all of them - although that was just what Janus said. Privately, Remus was pretty certain that Virgil’s dad dying was worse, but he wasn’t about to go and argue who had it worse with the captain of the debate team.

It wasn’t as though Remus had even been hurt, not properly. A few busted knuckles were old hat by now, the scabs never really fading between fights. And whilst he had been getting into fewer scraps, it wasn’t as though he were actively trying to stop picking them. It was just easier, when he was still spending four days a week lugging boxes (he had picked up Saturdays now, too) and wasn’t around people that could really do with a knuckle sandwich all the time.

Unfortunately, the fact that he had been trying to show some self-restraint whenever he actually did turn up to school seemed to give the impression that he was now on the table for anybody looking to earn a little fear by poking at a known danger.

Remus hadn’t been paying attention, so it was his fault, really. It had been an unnaturally sleepless few nights - although the Xanax induced paralysis had held and it had been a long time since his nightmares had made themselves known to anybody else - and he was looking forward to getting out of school and disappearing into the woods for a few hours with Janus. They had found a small crate in the stream a few weeks ago, and upon opening it had discovered that it was full of now-soaked fireworks probably left over from some summer carnival or other. They had carefully dried them out, and now that it was autumn and the nights were rolling in earlier they were going to head out to the quarry and see how many would still work.

Remus had only half listened to his morning physics lesson, too focused on decorating the pages of his textbook with a climbing pattern of thorns to take in much about the duality of light or whatever it was they were supposed to be learning, and was looking forward to not having to worry about paying attention in his next class, which was art. His art teacher had more or less given up trying to stop him from depicting gruesome dissections now, and tended to let him get on with it.

He was just leaving the science block, already wondering where he would find some good references for intestines, when somebody charged past him, knocking him off balance. Remus growled a few choice curses under his breath at them, righting himself - and then something hit his shoulder, and he stumbled sideways. In the time it took for him to realise that he had been pushed, there was the sound of a door slamming, and then he was in darkness.

At first, he tried to be rational. Somebody had thought it was funny to push him into a cupboard - fine. That was fine. He could get out, find whichever brat had thought it was a good idea, and make them swallow their teeth. He could do that. Feeling around, he found that the cupboard he was in was full of shelves - and rather smaller than he had been expecting. That was okay, that was okay, there were shelves on his left and in front of him and behind him, so the door must be… There, to his right, in a gap between the shelves. He pushed it, more than ready to be out of the small, dark cupboard. 

It.

Didn’t.

Open.

No matter how hard he pushed it, no matter how hard he rattled the handle, the door stayed closed.

Okay, okay, that was fine, that was - he could just take a run-up and bust it down. It was fine. He’d be out in just a minute. Remus could hear his heart beating in his ears, his breathing much, much too loud in the quiet space - he needed to calm that down. What if he ran out of air in here? No, no, that wasn’t going to happen. He was fine.

He took a step backward, and his back collided with the shelf behind him. Stretching his hands forward, he could press them against the door - and was the door closer to the back wall than it had been before? Remus blinked hard, the black of his eyelids indistinguishable from the black of the storeroom, and slammed his fist against the door.

He missed. Something shattered, painfully loud, something damp splashed against his shirt, and then there was an awful, itching, burning feeling across his chest.

With a strangled cry, Remus lurched backward, and there was the sound of more things shattering as he crashed into the shelving.

The door was locked.

The door was locked, and the walls were closing in on him, and nobody was going to find him this time.

It was a Friday - if nobody found him, he could stay in here all weekend, the walls pressing against his chest - only he wouldn’t, would he? He’d use up all the air in the room long, long before anybody let him out.

He was going to die in here.

Between the crushing walls and the suffocating blackness and the way his ragged breathing was refusing to slow or even out, he was going to die.

Remus wished he could have blacked out.

He almost did, in a way: when he forced himself to think back to it, he knew that the rational part of his brain had checked out shortly after he had tried to punch the door and ended up slicing his hand open.

He was only half aware of the hours he spent huddled against the shelves, although they seemed like years upon endless years as he gasped for breath around horrid, wrenching sobs. His knees had given out, although he didn’t remember when, and everything hurt, there was no space, he couldn’t think or see or hear or speak or-

And then there was light, and somebody was gripping his shoulders, and it was too bright too much too loud and they just needed to get off, he didn’t know who this was but they were only going to hurt him more and he just needed them to-

That was when he remembered how to push, how to dive forward. That was when he remembered how to make a fist. That was when he remembered how to swing his arm back and snap it forward, again and again, and that was all he remembered until there were burning, painful, agonising hands around his arms again, and he was being dragged away from the person he had been on top of.

Logan’s glasses were broken, and their nose looked as though it probably was as well. There was blood all over their face, and they looked more than a little groggy as Patton helped them into a sitting position.

Remus just accepted the two weeks suspension he was handed. He couldn’t speak - how was he even supposed to begin to defend himself? He was still trembling, still breathing hard, unable to meet the headteacher’s eyes when she demanded he explain his behaviour. (He didn’t know why she bothered. She never listened to his side of a story). When she finally gave up and asked, frustrated and clearly rhetorically, if Remus just enjoyed destroying school property and hurting other students, he nodded. It was easy.

He needed easy just then.

Whether it was because his father thought he was too shaky to try running away (he was) or because he was just too disgusted to do so, he didn’t take Remus’ arm to drag him out, and Remus was grateful for that. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle any more physical contact just then.

And then he was in his room, where he was able to draw the curtains so that the October sunlight couldn’t hurt his eyes anymore, where he was able to huddle into a small ball on his bed and wrap his duvet around himself and just stare, blank and unseeing, at the octopus relief he had carved into his wardrobe door.

“Remus?”

Remus flinched and jerked backwards. Janus was right in front of him - he hadn’t seen him come in, hadn’t heard him approach, but now he was right there. How much time had passed?

Janus gave him a small, relieved smile. “There you are…” From the expression on his face, Remus guessed that he had been saying his name for several minutes.

He tried to ask him when he had arrived, but all that came out was a sound like a garden gate being ripped from its hinges.

“Hey, it’s okay… Can I touch you? Just nod or shake,” Janus added, clearly reading the frustration on Remus’ face.

Remus considered the question, trying to order his scattered thoughts, and then shook his head slowly. Janus didn’t seem annoyed.

“Can I sit?” Remus nodded, and Janus climbed onto the bed and sat about a metre away from him. “I came as soon as I heard, I… Holy shit, is that blood yours? Remus, can I see your hands?”

Remus hesitated, then held out his arms. Janus looked faintly nauseated, and Remus looked down to see that the back of his left hand and arm were red and glittering. Frowning, he looked closer to see several large cuts along the back of his hand and up his wrist (they had stopped bleeding by now), and a lot of glass splinters embedded in his skin.

He swallowed hard, a distressed sound slipping from him, and Janus immediately reached out to touch him before pulling back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, arms. Do you still have that kit at the back of your wardrobe?” Remus nodded, and he stood up. “Alright. Can I clean you up a little bit?” Nod. “Can we go through to the bathroom, or would you rather stay here?” Remus’ whine of frustration made Janus look up from the open wardrobe. “Oh, right. Sorry. Would you be more comfortable staying here?” A firm nod. “Okay.”

Janus pulled the small metal box out of the hoodie Remus had last wrapped it in and returned to sit next to him, then opened it. He put the lid down beside him, then put the broken razor on top of the lid without a second glance.

“May I have your hand, Rem?” Remus offered it up, and Janus squeezed his fingers ever so lightly before resting it on his knee.

The improvised ‘first-aid’ kit contained a pair of tweezers, a needle and thread that Remus had never had to use but had wanted on hand just in case, a large amount of plasters, several strips of fabric that Remus had torn off of various shirts and used when plasters weren’t really enough, a tube of antiseptic cream that Janus had nicked from his parents’ medicine box for him, and, of course, the razor blades that usually necessitated the use of the rest of the box. It had been Janus’ idea to assemble the kit. It had been a good idea.

Holding the tweezers carefully in one hand and gently gripping the underside of Remus’ forearm in the other, Janus leaned in and started picking the fragments of glass from his skin. They made a quiet ‘plink’-ing noise as he dropped them onto the lid of the box.

As he worked, Janus spoke quietly, and Remus found himself relaxing. “I heard halfway through my last period. Said I felt sick. They sent me to the nurse, so I came here instead… I’m sorry it took so long, Rem.” Remus twitched his fingers against Janus’ knee, and Janus glanced up to smile at him again. “Logan’s going to be fine. Chipped tooth, smashed glasses, broken nose, a few bruises, damaged pride. Nothing serious.”

He let go of Remus’ arm for a moment to pull a water bottle from his satchel and dampen one of the strips of fabric, then offered the bottle to Remus. Accepting it, Remus took a few small mouthfuls, the cool liquid soothing against his raw throat and a distraction from the drag of wet cloth against his skin as Janus started wiping the blood away.

“I was worried when I didn’t see you at lunch. I’m glad you’re… Well, not ‘okay’ - this is going to sting a bit, are you okay for me to use the antiseptic now?” Gritting his teeth, Remus nodded. He still flinched as Janus spread the white cream across his arm, but didn’t pull away. “You’re doing great, Rem. Nearly done. I’m glad you’re safe now. That’s what I mean. Okay, plasters going on now.”

Remus hummed quietly. Now that Janus had managed to catch his attention, he was suddenly aware that his chest still felt as though it were burning, and that his back wasn’t exactly comfortable either.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” It seemed that Janus was thinking along similar lines. Remus hesitated, then tried to remember how to speak.

“Ch… Chest. ...Mm, back.” The words hadn’t wanted to come out, and it looked as though Janus could tell that.

“You don’t have to talk, Rem. It’s okay. Can I take your shirt off to get a better look?”

Shuffling closer, Remus nodded. Janus would be gentle, he knew. Janus knew how to touch him when he was too overwhelmed to cope with anything around him. He still flinched when his friend’s fingertips brushed the skin of his stomach, and Janus froze. He didn’t move until Remus had nodded at him, and when he did he was careful not to touch Remus any more than he had to.

Remus was so, so grateful for that.

Janus let out a low whistle when he looked at his chest. “Shit, Rem. That looks bad. Can I persuade you to let me take you to the hospital to get you checked out?” He shook his head so hard he could feel his brain rattling against his ears, and Janus bit down on his lower lip. “Okay. Okay, that’s okay. Can I have the water? I want to clean this, but I don’t… I don’t know what else to do. A hospital would be best…” Remus shook his head again.

Sighing, Janus tipped water onto the fresh rag and then leaned forward, hesitating just before the cloth touched Remus’ chest until he nodded. “I think it’s gonna scar. What were you doing in the chemical store, Rem? … Sorry, you don’t have to answer yet. At all, if you don’t want to.”

Remus swallowed hard, trying to force the words around the knot in his chest and the lump in his throat. “Pushed. Mmm… After Physics.” That was good. The words were coming easier than they had before, although not in any great quantity.

Janus swore, finally pulling his hand away from Remus’ chest and getting up. A disgustingly pitiful whine left Remus’ chest, but Janus merely carried the first-aid kit around so that he could start putting plasters on Remus’ back. He was quiet for several long seconds, and Remus pulled his arms into his chest and hunched over. Then Janus swore again.

“Fuck, Rem. You’re telling me you were in that closet for four hours?” Remus shrugged. “Fuck. Text me next time, okay? I’ll come get you out.” Remus nodded, but he doubted it was a promise he could keep. At no point in that closet had he been thinking rationally enough to reach for his phone. “No wonder you went for Logan… Did they put you in there?”

Remus shrugged. Then he shook his head. It didn’t make any sense for Logan to have locked him in. They had never shown him any sort of aggression before. It didn’t feel like the kind of thing they would do, honestly. “Think… Think they were tryin’ to help…” He mumbled thickly.

Janus made a sympathetic humming sound, and the knot in Remus’ chest pulled tight and snapped. The sob that left him was almost silent - Remus had long since learned to cry silently - but Janus must have felt the way it rushed through his body like a tidal wave.

“Remus?” He shifted, and then Janus was in front of him again and Remus allowed himself to slump forward, wrapping his arms tightly around him and ignoring the ache of the cuts in his hand. “Oh, hey… I’ve got you. You’re safe now, just… Just let it all out…”

That was the second time Remus cried in front of Janus, and Janus held him until the last sobs had drained from him. Then, spent, Remus curled up against his friend and fell asleep.

He actually tried to apologise to Logan a few days later, approaching Virgil after school to ask if he knew where they lived. Virgil had cocked an eyebrow at him, a wary expression on his face.

“Why? You planning on beating up my boyfriend again?” Remus supposed he couldn’t blame Virgil for being wary of him, not when he snapped like that sometimes and- Wait.

“You and Patton broke up?” He blurted the question without thinking, then swallowed. “Uh. I’m sorry.”

Virgil smiled faintly. “Nah. I’m dating Patton and Logan. Patton’s dating me and Logan. Bet you can’t guess who Logan’s dating.”

“You can do that?”

Virgil actually laughed at the slightly stunned expression on his face. “Yeah. They’re both coming over later, actually. Why did you want to talk to them?”

“I wanted to…” Remus trailed off, shifting awkwardly.

“Didn’t catch that, dude.”

“I wanted to apologise. For… For last Friday. It was… An accident.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, and Remus shifted again. “You accidentally slammed your fist into somebody’s face a bunch of times.”

“Yeah.”

Virgil stared at him for a little longer, then shrugged and held the door open for him. “Alright.” Remus followed him inside and sat nervously on the couch. Virgil sat on the coffee table.

The actual apology didn’t go quite as planned.

Patton arrived first, let out a small squeak when he saw Remus, and took several sharp steps backward. Remus sighed. It looked as though he had lost a lot of progress there.

It took several long moments of Virgil whispering in Patton’s ear for the chubby boy to come and sit in the armchair, as far away as he could get from Remus.

Then Logan had arrived, both eyes blackened behind their glasses - and he had smiled at Remus, albeit slightly nervously.

Remus stood. “Logan, I- I’m sorry. About Friday. I - I guess-” Logan had held up a hand, and Remus had stopped abruptly.

Then Logan spoke, and he was left gaping at them. “No. I should be the one apologising, Remus.”

“Like hell,” Patton spat.

At the same time, Remus said, “What the fuck? I broke your nose.”

Logan crossed the room slowly so that he could sit down on the table beside Virgil, leaning forward to look Remus in the eye. “It was clear that you were having some form of panic attack, and I reacted incredibly poorly. I should not have just grabbed you, and I do not blame you for lashing out.”

Everyone had gone silent. Patton looked as though he had just been kicked in the stomach, and was very obviously mouthing the words, ‘panic attack?’ at Virgil, who just shrugged. Remus licked his lower lip nervously.

“Uh… I mean, it could have gone better, but I still… I turned your face into roadkill, Logan. And you’re apologising to me? Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

“I assure you, Remus, I am not an idiot.” Logan frowned briefly, considering the plaster on the back of Remus’ hand (he was pressing his palms against his knees to stop them from shaking), and then smiled at him again. “I propose a compromise. I will accept your apology if you will accept mine. Does that sound acceptable?”

Remus made a slightly choked noise, then nodded. “Okay. Sorry I fucked up your face.”

“It will heal; you are forgiven. I apologise for no doubt adding to what must have been a particularly unpleasant experience.” Virgil wrapped an arm around Logan’s waist, and they turned their smile toward him before glancing back at Remus.

Remus swallowed. “Um. Yeah. I guess I… Forgive you for that. I… Thank you.”

As horrible as the experience itself had been, Remus had come out of it with something approaching a new friend - so how could Janus be right when he argued that it was the worst thing that happened in the eight months between their birthdays?

A few nights after Janus turned seventeen, they met at the quarry and made a bonfire. It was a little cold for them to be properly comfortable, given the fact that the winter seemed to have arrived early that year and it was now the end of November, but between the fire, the beer Remus had snagged from Remy, and the whiskey Janus had smuggled from his house, they barely noticed it.

Virgil joined them for a while, long enough to roast a few marshmallows and then get twitchy about the fact that there was probably a monster sleeping somewhere in the quarry (“It was a bear, Remus, for the last time!”). Eventually, he had made the decision to leave while he was still conscious: Virgil seemed to be constantly running on caffeine, a trait he had probably picked up from his brother, but when he had a few drinks he got very mellow very quickly.

That left Remus and Janus passing a silvery flask between them, side by side and as close to the campfire as they could get without burning their feet on it. Remus had already set his hair on fire leaning in in an attempt to rescue a fallen marshmallow, and Janus was keen to avoid further injury. He was more than a little drunk: since he had stopped using alcohol to knock himself out, Remus didn’t drink very much anymore and had lost a lot of his tolerance. Janus looked more steady, but he was still leaning against Remus - although that may have been to stop Remus from pitching forward and burning to death.

“How’s it feel t’be seventeen, Jan?” Remus asked quietly, absently picking at some marshmallow that had gotten caught in his teeth.

“Hmm…” Janus handed him the flask, and Remus took a large mouthful from it before trying to hand it back. Janus shook his head. “About the same as being sixteen, dummy.”

“Disappointing. Was hoping you’d get the instruction manual.” Leaning down (and feeling Janus grab the back of his shirt so he didn’t fall), Remus picked a large stone up from the ground and tapped it a few times against the flask, then tossed it in the fire. Sparks flew at them, a few landing on Janus’ hat. He brushed them away.

“What instruction manual?” Remus could feel Janus’ eyes on him as he found a smaller stone, this one with a pointed end, and tapped it against the flask again.

“Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead.”

“The Human ‘Struction Manual.” Remus found another stone, and started using the pointy one as a chisel to carve a line into the flask.

“Oh, that one. Were you looking for tips?”

“You know it.” Janus chuckled, leaning over his shoulder to watch the curved shape that was beginning to appear under his hands.

They were quiet for a while. The silence went on long enough that Janus had leaned forward to throw more wood on the fire twice and Remus had finished his octopus before Janus spoke again.

“Remus?”

“Mm?” Remus swallowed another mouthful of whisky and handed the flask back to Janus, who accepted it this time.

“Have you ever…”

Janus hesitated, and Remus grinned faintly, nudging his side with his elbow. “Y’know th’answer’s prob’bly yes, right? Spit it out.”

Janus elbowed him back. “Okay. Have you… Ever had a crush on somebody you know you shouldn’t?”

Remus blinked slowly at him, his heart sinking. With every bone in his body desperately hoping that Janus wasn’t about to say he liked him, Remus licked his lower lip and then looked back at the flames in front of him.

“I… Told Roman I liked Remy once. He asked me if I liked anyone, so I… Said Remy.” Remus chuckled nervously. “Jerk went ‘n kissed him ‘few weeks later. Rude.”

Janus seemed to have gotten the answer he wanted, because he leaned his weight against Remus again. “So you like Remy? Virgil’s brother?”

He could have just nodded. He could have nodded, and kept the weird part of himself that he was sure was broken out of the light. But this was Janus, and Janus was his best friend, and Remus trusted him with everything.

Besides, lying to Janus really wasn’t easy.

“No…” Remus muttered. He reached for the flask, and Janus gave it to him without complaint. “Don’t like anyone. Never really have. Not r’lly sure if I will ever.”

“Okay,” Janus said, as though that was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Janus didn’t seem to care, and Remus felt briefly stupid for having worried about it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and passed the flask back.

Silence.

Oh. He should probably ask Janus what that had been about? “Why?”

“Uh…” Janus sighed quietly and took a small sip of whiskey, then seemed to notice the weight of the flask in his hand and raised an eyebrow. “How much of this have you had? It’s gotta be almost empty.”

“Not that much,” Remus replied petulantly. He tugged at Janus’ sleeve. “Why’d y’ask about crushes?”

This time, Janus was quiet for so long that Remus thought he wasn’t going to reply. Finally, he rubbed his fingertips together and held them up to the fire. “Roman.”

“How drunk are you? I’m Remus.” Remus poked Janus’ cheek, and Janus exhaled through his nose before batting his hand away.

“No, Remus, I meant… I like Roman.” Janus shifted a little, and Remus realised that he was trying to look him in the eye. He tried to return the gaze, but couldn’t figure out whether the Janus on the left was more real than the Janus on the right or not. Huh. Maybe he was more drunk than he thought.

“Roman?” He asked stupidly.

“I… Are you mad? It’s just a crush, if you… You know, if you think your best friend and your brother would be weird, I can never mention it again - I mean, I doubt anything’ll happen, it’s just a crush…”

It occurred to Remus then that Janus was probably waiting for him to say something, and he tried to work out what was expected from him. Would it be weird if Janus dated Roman? Well, only because Roman was a self-centred jerk. It would be a lot weirder if Janus had decided he liked him - that would make their being friends really difficult. Or would it? It would probably be just like being friends, but they’d have to do… Other stuff. Nope. Remus would rather not do other stuff with his best friend.

But Roman… Roman could be an absolute arsehole. He had already ditched Virgil when he had needed him most, and Remus had no doubts that he would ignore Janus unless Janus was actually useful to him.

“Rem?”

“Hm?”

“Do you hate me?”

“Why’d I hate you?”

The Janus-es in front of him frowned. “Because… I just told you I have a thing for your twin?”

“Oh. Huh.” That didn’t really explain why Janus thought he’d hate him. Remus shook his head and went to lean against Janus’ side again. “Nah… You c’n like Ro-ro if you want… He’s a dick, though… Lotsa pressure, fr’m th’ parents...”

“I know you don’t get on with him. If you’d rather I didn’t… Talk about this, or whatever…”

“Don’t mind. Jus’... Jus’ don’t want ‘m hurting you… You d’serve better than Ro-ro… You gonna give the flask back?”

Remus made a grabby motion for the flask with one hand, and Janus shook his head and held it out of his reach.

“Gimme.”

“Rem, you’re really quite drunk.”

“Am not.”

“Your eyes haven’t focused on me once in the last half hour. I don’t think you should have any more…”

Remus pouted. “C’mon, Jan… Let’s ‘t least finish the flask?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Janus tucked it into his satchel, then started collecting the few empty beer bottles and marshmallow packets piled by their feet. “I’ve gotta make sure you don’t die on the way home, and I’d rather it if I didn’t have to carry you.”

“Spoilsport…” Remus complained, but gave up after that. He was fairly certain that the middle Janus - there were three of them now - was the real one, but not certain enough to push his luck. “We goin’ back to yours?”

“I don’t think you currently have the capacity to walk back to your place alone, let alone get in through the window,” Janus replied dryly, leaning down and wrapping an arm around Remus’ waist to pull him to his feet.

Remus woke up the next morning knowing two things. One, that he had never had a worse hangover, and two that his best friend had the misfortune to have a crush on his asshole of a twin.

The latter he could manage - he just had to make sure to warn Janus that Roman would probably just hurt him. The former he could manage as well, given that Janus had handed him some aspirin as soon as he had woken up and kept trying to give him glasses of water, but was a far bigger problem.

“These are really good, Remus.” It was February, and they were in Remus’ room for once. Spending time in Remus’ room had become more difficult now that he no longer had a door that locked or even had a handle, but everybody was out today. Their parents thought that Remus was running errands for a neighbour of Virgil’s - Remy had done an incredibly convincing old-lady impression and had managed to create three afternoons a week where Remus was ‘volunteering’ as payment for breaking some windows - and hadn’t made sure that there was anybody in the house to make sure he didn’t do something stupid.

(Remus wasn’t allowed to be home alone anymore, not since he had succumbed to the overwhelming need to see what would happen when he put various different fruits in the microwave and ended up breaking the thing beyond repair).

Remus was on his stomach, sketchbook open in front of him, working the tail of a cat that was in the process of curling up inside a half-finished open skull, where the brain should be. On the opposite page were several sketches of a possum Remus had found in the woods the other day. Janus was sitting next to him, a psychology textbook open in his lap but clearly no longer of interest to him.

“You really think so?” He tried to keep his voice light, but they could both hear the uncertainty in it. This was the first time Remus had actually allowed Janus to see inside one of his sketchbooks.

“Uh, hell, yes.” Finger hovering just millimeters above the page, Janus traced the curving spine of one of the possum studies, one where the small animal was twisted around and hissing at something behind it. “They’re awesome. I didn’t know you could do this…”

Remus smiled and moved down to add shading to the hollow eye sockets. “You do now.”

“I do.”

Janus squeezed his shoulder gently, and Remus tilted his head to rest it lightly against his hand before straightening his neck and continuing. “I’ve been thinking… When you apply for college, in October… I’ve been thinking about apprenticeships. I’ve borrowed Roman’s laptop and had a look around, and… Well, most places require good grades, but if you look for more arty things…” He knew that Janus hadn’t gone back to his textbook and was staring at him, but he didn’t want to look up just yet. “Well, a lot of tattoo parlours just ask for art portfolios, pretty much. A few basic reading and maths skills, but nothing difficult. Hairdressers ask for similar things, but I refuse to cut hair for a living. Fuck no. God.”

He was trying to deflect from the heart of what he was saying, and they both knew it. Janus didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he plucked the pencil from Remus’ hands and grabbed his shoulders, shaking them gently.

“That sounds brilliant, Rem! Do you know what you’re going to need for your portfolio? Is there anything I can do to help? I will, obviously - and you can get your boss to give you a reference if you need it -” A faint chuckle left Remus, and he sat up. Janus’ enthusiasm was akin to a ball of sunlight, perking him up. It was amazing how much difference it made, having somebody that had faith in him like this.

Things just felt easier, with Janus as his best friend.

When Roman let their dog dash out into the woods and pinned it on Remus, Janus helped him scour the woods whenever he could get free of revising. Although Remus didn’t say a word to Roman, the sudden lack of time in which he could be planning and putting together a sketch portfolio grated on his temper.

He wasn’t about to go and tell his parents that it had been Roman who had let Filo out - but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to sink his fist into Roman’s stomach, his jaw, his teeth, every time he saw him.

Remus had liked Filo. He had really liked her. And now she was probably dead, and it wasn’t Roman’s fault that she had run out (although he could have been more careful) but it hurt that he was taking the blame for it. It hurt that he would get home after ‘school’ - which was sometimes school and sometimes work but never anything more, because if he was late then he ended up getting yelled at again, and it was just easier for that not to happen… - and have to check in with one of his parents, whether by text or in person. It hurt that he was then sent out into the woods behind the house to search until he found the dog, or until it got dark, and not to come back until one of those things happened. It hurt that he had to answer a phone call every hour to make sure that he really was searching (of course he was, and was Roman helping? No, of course he wasn’t) and not just goofing off. It hurt, especially when the long hours of the summer rolled around, that if he arrived home before it got dark then he was sent straight out again, and not allowed dinner until it was properly dark.

When school ended and the holidays began, he spent the mornings working through a never-ending list of chores, and the afternoons still searching for Filo. For the days where he worked at the supermarket, he had persuaded Remy (read, bought Remy coffee every morning for a fortnight) to call his parents pretending to be some irate neighbour demanding Remus help out in his garden as payment for setting his sweet-peas on fire.

It was August when he finally found what remained of the dog.

She was halfway between the quarry and the train tracks, and it was almost impressive that she had made it that far before succumbing to whatever had finally killed her. Remus couldn’t be sure: all that was really left of her was a skeleton, a few scraps of fur and rotted flesh clinging to it in places, and her collar. He hadn’t cried, but it had been a very near thing. Remus had sat with her for almost an hour before finally getting up and heading home to fetch a spade.

He left her collar on the kitchen table when he got back.

It was gone the following morning, as though she had never existed at all - except in Remus’ mind, where her corpse haunted his dreams relentlessly.

Things were quiet after that.

Roman applied to study classics at a number of prestigious colleges. Their parents showered him in praise.

Remus applied to several apprenticeships, all in the same cities as the colleges Janus had applied to (hopefully, when Janus’ first choice accepted him, Remus would discover that he had been accepted to one of the apprenticeships in the same place). He didn’t tell his parents - he didn’t tell anybody other than Janus, although he had a feeling that Virgil knew, and by extension his small collection of dates.

(Virgil knew everything, and it was terrifying. Two days after the bonfire they had had for Janus’ seventeenth birthday, he had turned to Remus and told him to look up asexuality and aromantic to see if either of those helped him. Remus had immediately accused Janus of telling him (although he hadn’t asked him not to, he had hoped that Janus could keep a secret) but both Janus and Virgil denied that that had happened. When Remus had asked how he had known, Virgil had grinned widely and said that his spiders had told him. Creepy. Remus loved it).

The downside of this, of course, was the way that disappointment practically dripped from the walls and ceiling of their home. It wasn’t even as though anybody had been expecting Remus to apply to college, so why his parents were acting as though it was a shock similar to biting into the last candy in a box and discovering that it was coconut (and Remus was always the coconut candy) he had no idea.

He didn’t care. In a year’s time, he would be out of here and away from the twisted, toxic mess that their family had become.

Things didn’t go to plan.

Things never went to plan.

Christmas came and went. Their parents gave Roman a leatherbound collection of his favourite plays, and Remus nothing. Remus, who had started saving money to put toward an apartment, got him a small glass paperweight that looked like a snake, and spent hours on a picture of him, Remus, and Virgil of them that he copied from a picture Patton had taken of them a few months ago. They had been in the woods, leaning over a stream and searching for frogs to poke at. Janus had bought him an encyclopedia of famously gruesome deaths throughout history, and Remus loved it.

Roman got accepted to his favourite of all of the universities he had applied for.

Janus got accepted to his first choice.

Remus, to his great surprise, got an offer from not one but three tattoo parlours, one of which was in the same city as Janus’ course. He accepted that one, ready to start the following September.

A few days before Valentine’s Day, Remus found Janus staring at a box of chocolates in his room when he climbed in through the window. “Are those for us? Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it? I thought this week’s movie was accompanied by sushi.” It was Janus’ favourite, and Remus adored the fact that they were eating raw fish. It was so cool.

Then Janus blushed, and Remus wanted to bury his face in his hands.

“Janus, please tell me they’re not-”

“They’re for Roman,” Janus blurted, and Remus groaned theatrically and threw himself down onto the fluffy rug on the floor as though he had just been shot. Janus chuckled.

“I wouldn’t, Jan, I really… Wouldn’t.” Remus rolled over, still clutching the spot on his stomach where he had been ‘shot’ to look at his friend. Janus had stood up so that he was standing over him, appearing to be upside down.

“You’ve said that before, Rem. And you won’t give me a good reason not to - you’ve told me on multiple occasions that you don’t care that -”

“Correct, I don’t mind care that you want to fuck my brother.” Janus rolled his eyes, and Remus knew he had been planning on saying it a little more delicately. “But I give you the same good reason every time, Jan - he’ll hurt you, and I don’t want to have to kill my own brother. My parents will kick me out for good.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Janus’ voice was suddenly stern, and Remus sighed, sitting up.

“They won’t really. That would bring too much attention, you know that…” Accepting the hand Janus was offering him, Remus got to his feet and followed his friend over to his bed. Sitting down, he waited for Janus to join him before leaning forward to pick up the laptop. Their usual boxes of sushi were on the bedside table. “If you really want to do it, I’m not gonna stop you, I just… I want you to know I’ll pick your side, when it goes wrong and he hurts you. I’ll pick you every time. You’re my best friend.”

Janus had beamed at him. “You’re my best friend too, arms. Now pipe down and pick a movie - I think the eighth one in that zombie series is on Netflix? The one with the gratuitous guts?”

“You know I’m always up for gratuitous guts, softie.” Janus had elbowed him, and Remus elbowed him right back.

In the end, it probably wouldn’t have mattered whether Remus had warned his friend again or not. Janus had been too nervous to give Roman the chocolates and they had ended up eating the box together the day after Valentine’s Day.

And then Remus was eighteen, which meant that in two or three months he would be free of school, and a few months after that he would be starting a new life where people didn’t know him as Roman Wang’s screw-up of a brother.

He was so, so close to getting out, to being free of this hell-forsaken town -

But Roman had to fuck up again, just one last time.

Remus hadn’t even had time to prepare. Usually, he would see the aftermath of hurricane Roman and at least be prepared for his parents’ wrath; this time, he got home after a double shift at work to find Hyun-ki sat at the kitchen table and his mother leaning against the sink, arms folded, both clearly waiting for him.

His voice died in his throat.

He wished it wouldn’t - but it had gotten to the point that whenever he saw the hateful disappointed creases between his father’s eyes, whenever his mother folded her arms and pursed her lips in just that way, his voice fled and it was all he could do to keep his body from following.

“What is this?” Dae’s voice was ice cold as she pointed at a small, clear bag on the table.

As though he were in a dream - no, not a dream, Remus knew what dreams and nightmares were like. As though he were a ghost, Remus approached the table and stared down at it.

The dark green flakes in the bag were easily recognisable as pot. It was as though Remus had gone back in time to the few weeks when he had tried using the stuff to help him sleep - but he had gotten rid of it as soon as he had decided to try to find something better. Which meant that this had to be…

“Roman’s.” He hadn’t realised that he had said it: the words had left his mouth without permission, and oh, wasn’t now just the worst time for his voice to show up?

If it had been just his mother, he might have gotten away with it. She was far enough away, and his voice was so quiet… But his father was right beside him, and he heard the word as clearly as if Remus had shouted it.

“Don’t you dare blame your brother for this!”

Oh, the irony, Remus thought, and, I guess we’re going straight to shouting.

It only took a few minutes for the words his parents were shouting to cease making any sort of sense. After that, it was just Remus, just Remus and a wave of sound that hurt his head, and then he was nodding, because what else was he supposed to do? Tell the truth and be accused of making more excuses?

He opened his mouth to try to force some words out - anything, anything from “I’m sorry” to “I’m a rather well known drug dealer by now, please call the cops” - and nothing came.

What was going on? Now Roman was in the doorway to the kitchen, and the shouting had stopped.

Remus blinked hard, and intelligible sound returned to his surroundings.

“-sweet of you, saja saekki, but he brought this on himself.”

“But - but he’s… He’s your son,” Roman protested. What a strange thing to say, Remus mused. Roman had never bothered trying to stick up for him before.

“Not anymore.” That was his father, and Remus must have heard wrong, because that just didn’t make any sense.

Then his parents turned back to him with twin glares, and Dae made a flapping motion toward the door with one hand. “Why are you still here? We told you to go.”

Roman was staring at him, stricken, and Remus could suddenly hear his own heartbeat in his ears. “G… Go?” He whispered, and his mother looked even more irritated than before.

“Get out of here, Remus! You’re not welcome here - you bring shit like this under our roof, and you expect us to welcome you in with open-” And then the shouting was too much again, and Remus didn’t hear anything else.

Instead, he turned and headed back toward the door. It felt like walking through treacle, thick, sticky, unreal. His father was standing by the doormat, one hand outstretched, and Remus stared at him for a long second before figuring out what he wanted. Digging in his pocket, he dropped his house keys into Hyun-ki’s palm, and watched his fingers close around them.

Then the door was open, and he was outside.

Now what?

Remus made it a few steps, then found that he was sitting down.

It was getting dark. Could he walk over to Janus’? He didn’t think his legs would carry him that far. No one part of his body felt like it was connecting to any other anymore.

There was a snap in front of him, and he flinched back. Roman was right in front of him. How long had he… It didn’t matter.

Roman was saying something, and Remus nodded, because what else was he supposed to do? Nodding was easy. If he could just go along with whatever was happening now, maybe it would be over soon.

Maybe he would wake up, screaming, and find that this was all just a nightmare.

There was something cold in his hand. Looking down, Remus found that Roman had pressed something black and oblong into his palm - his car keys. Roman had given Remus his… Car keys?

Now he was pulling Remus to his feet, and suddenly there was a blanket in his arms.

Then Roman had gone.

That was… Weird.

Remus just stood there for several long seconds.

Then it occurred to him that if Roman had given him his car keys and a blanket, maybe he meant for Remus to spend the night in the car. That didn’t seem unreasonable - a little out of character for Roman, but maybe he was changing. It wasn’t as though he had ever tried to stick up for Remus before, either.

Even so, the inside of the car was cold and lonely, made even worse by the numbness filling Remus’ stomach.

Eventually, it occurred to him that he should probably tell Janus what had happened. Not because there was anything Janus could do, of course, but because… Well, Remus didn’t really know. Janus was his best friend. He’d probably want to know.

<Parents found weed in Roman’s room. Been kicked out. Sleeping in Roman’s car for tonight.>

<Sent 21:48>

It was only a few seconds before his phone beeped in response.

<What the FUCK>

<No you are not>

<I’m coming to get you, you can stay at mine>

<Where’s the car? You’re not walking alone>

<Sent 21:49>

Remus bit down on his lower lip.

<I can walk alone.>

<Sent 21:49>

He didn’t want to - and he wasn’t entirely sure his limbs would last that long, either. Janus seemed to know he wasn’t being entirely truthful. It wasn’t easy, lying to Janus.

<Stay where you are, I’ll be right there.>

<Sent 21:50>

<Just outside my place. Bright red car. Can’t miss it.>

<Sent 21:52>

Then time did that strange skip again, and Janus was knocking on the car window. Remus scrambled for the handle to open the door, and he slid into the passenger seat beside him and hugged him. Remus hugged back. Janus smelled faintly of alcohol - wine? What day was it - Friday? Remus wasn’t sure.

“Are you alright?” Remus nodded, and Janus raised his eyebrows.

“...No,” he admitted.

“Let’s get back to mine. We can figure out what to do long-term from there, okay?”

Remus nodded slowly, allowing Janus to pull away from him to walk around the car and slide into the driver’s seat. Key in the ignition - and then Remus’ hand on Janus’ shoulder. “You sure you should drive? Don’t mind walking…”

“Rem, you look like it’s taking all your energy to keep speaking right now. I’m not making you walk. I’m not really drunk, okay? It’ll be fine.” Leaning over, Janus took the blanket that had fallen by his feet and wrapped it around Remus’ shoulders, then squeezed his hand gently. “You hold tight. It’s going to be okay.”

Remus nodded, too tired to care anymore. It was easy to just lean back in his seat, let Janus put the car into gear, and pull out from the kerbside.

Janus made light conversation as they drove. Remus found that he didn’t listen to most of it, focusing instead on the comforting sound of Janus’ voice itself and allowing the warmth in it to melt the numbness filling him into a deep, cool wave of misery.

He had just been kicked out. He had never thought that that would… He had never thought they would actually kick him out. He had been planning on leaving in a few months, yes, but… Didn’t you already need an address to get an apartment? And he couldn’t just live at Janus’ place full time. His parents would find out, and he’d get in trouble… Maybe Remy would let him stay with him and Virgil?

Remus lifted a hand to rub at his eyes, and found that his face was wet. He was crying. The second he realised it, he couldn’t stop realising it, couldn’t stop the tears dripping down his cheeks or the sobs building in his throat. He tried to stay quiet, but a hand on his knee suggested that he hadn’t done a very good job. That was the third time he cried in front of Janus Sinclaire.

“Remus, Remus, I’m so, so sorry…” Remus turned his head to find that Janus was looking at him, one had on the wheel to keep them going straight, the other rubbing his leg gently.  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll sort something out, I promise… You can let yourself cry, it’s-”

That was when

the world

ended.

-

Remus awoke to the smell of smoke and something burning, and the feeling that he had just been slammed face-first into a wall. Everything hurt. Everything was much too warm.

Groaning, he opened his eyes, and found that there was a strange, red tint to the world. Wiping his hand across his face revealed a cut on his forehead that throbbed painfully and had been dripping blood into his eyes - when had that gotten there?

Then he realised that he was still in the car, and that an orange, flickery light was illuminating the cracked windscreen before him. Had they… Had they crashed?

Fumbling awkwardly, Remus undid his seatbelt and scrabbled for the car door, pushing it open. There was a crackling in his ears as he crawled out of the wreck that had once been Roman’s gorgeous car, and it took him several long seconds to realise that it wasn’t just his brain. It was coming from the mess behind him.

Remus turned his head.

The car was burning.

How had he not noticed that before?

Where was Janus?

The driver’s side door was still closed - he could just about see it through the flames feasting on the car’s bonnet. Did that mean - 

When he saw the dark shape still in the driver’s seat, Remus felt his heart stop.

He was moving back toward the car before he even knew what he was doing, feeling his fingers blister on the hot metal as he jerked the door open.

It wasn’t just the car that was on fire, the grass around them. Janus’ clothes were on fire, that stupid hat he was always wearing was burning away merrily on his head, and the side of his face nearest Remus was already scorched and blackened, and Remus was certain he would never forget this image for as long as he lived.

He was glad for the hours he spent hauling boxes at the back of the supermarket. It meant that he was strong enough to carry what he really, really hoped wasn’t his friend’s corpse away from the acrid-smelling bonfire.

Janus’ phone was in his pocket, miraculously untouched by the flames, and Remus stared at the lockscreen for a long second. It was a picture Janus had taken when he had gone to visit his college, long before he had applied, when he had decided that that was where he wanted to be.

If Remus didn’t get an ambulance there fast, he didn’t think Janus would see it again.

Janus was breathing now, he could tell, but only just. It sounded painful, and Remus looked down as he dialled the emergency number to find that Janus’ eyes were open, one of them reddened and stark against the burned skin around it.

“Don’t worry, Jan, you’re - you’re gonna be okay, it’s -”

“Emergency services, how can we help you?”

Remus was crying again. He could see the tears dripping down onto Janus’ face - and Janus didn’t seem to be able to feel them. It didn’t look as though his eyes were focusing.

An ambulance wasn’t going to get there fast enough.

“P-Police! And an ambulance - I just saw two boys hit a - a telephone pole, the - the car’s on fire, I think the - the passenger, I think he’s seriously injured -” Remy had been teaching him to disguise his voice.

Janus was frowning beneath him, mouth moving and only strains of air whistling between his teeth.

“I - I think the driver was that kid - that kid, the bad one, Wang, Remus Wang, I think he’s killed somebody-”

Now Janus was shaking his head, and those horrible, silent tears were still coursing down Remus’ face.

“We’ll have somebody with you as soon as possible, sir. Could you give us your name and location, please?”

Remus looked around desperately, and was lucky enough to see a street sign almost immediately. He rattled it off, and then hung up, attention returning to Janus.

It looked as though Janus was struggling to breathe. It looked as though he were only seconds from passing out again, but he must have been conscious enough to hear the conversation, because his mouth formed the single word, “why?”

Remus let out a shaky laugh. “Police’ll get here faster. Ambulance’s gonna be too slow. You’re gonna be okay, I promise. Not letting anything bad happen to you - ‘n they’re gonna want to arrest someone. You just gotta sit tight, okay? I’m gonna handle this. ‘S all gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine. It was my fault, it was all my fault, jus’ tell them that, okay? You’re gonna be fine, Jan. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be okay. It’s all…”

Janus’ eyes rolled into the back of his head, and Remus had never been more terrified than he was in that moment.

And then he could hear sirens in the distance, getting louder.

They were going to arrest him - but Janus would be okay. They would take Janus to a hospital, they would make sure he was okay, and that was all Remus needed. As long as Janus lived, as long as Janus got to keep his future, Remus didn’t care what happened to him.

When the police car arrived, ambulance in tow, releasing Janus’ still form and allowing himself to be cuffed was the easiest decision Remus had ever made.

Taglist:

@bloodymari-0666

[ppatpranss]

GAYA SA PELIKULA EP. 04 Review: Finding someone you can be alone together with

“Dahil taga-rito ka rin.”

Gaya Sa Pelikula is pretty much my fixation the past month, and I’ve reached peak devastation after Friday night’s episode. Being reminded that love is a beautiful thing can either make you happy or sad, or both. While it is true that there is nothing wrong about being alone, and that our feeling of completeness should not depend on another person, it still hits different when you find someone you can come home to. Or, in Vlad’s case, slowly realize that home might be Karl.

This show tells us that love is often a slow progress, that you don’t really find it in big moments. It’s in the small, everyday thing you notice or discover about a person. And maybe sometimes, all you need to get through a day is something as simple as a hug (something sorely missed in this time of pandemic). Karl and Vlad, thank you for that reminder.

Disclaimer: I kinda messed up the gif qualities for this post. Since I’ve no time to fix them now, I’ll just do better for the next episode huhu.

[WATCH THE EPISODE HERE]

Law of Proximity

It’s the day before Christmas and Karl is decorating the place. He’s obviously enthusiastic about it because he had garlands, table pieces, and a whole Christmas tree with star. Even cuter, he made two Christmas socks with “KARL” and “VLAD” on them. I can’t believe this kid – he’s letting Vlad slowly assimilate into his life and he doesn’t even realize it.

Anyway, Vlad comes home and is obviously not a fan of the decorations. He made this whole argument about Christmas being a pagan-turned-capitalist tradition, while Karl can only tell him to not be too harsh to baby Jesus (lol). Vlad disputed this even more, making a comment about how Jesus is way too forgiving to be a Capricorn. Despite himself though, Vlad was smiling while looking at the socks and told Karl before he left, “Hey, Arki, if it means that much to you, you can keep the socks there.”

Note: He calls him “Arki” as in short for architecture because Karl is an Architecture student.

We learn a bit more about Vlad in this episode during his videocall with Sue, who we discover is his best friend. She was teasing him about his current “live-in partner” and Vlad launched into this pretty affectionate way of describing Karl and his many quirks. Karl is a very neat person, but hates washing the dishes. Vlad also finds it cute (but he didn’t say this, I’m doing the honors for him) whenever Karl would get excited every time they watch a film together. All of these, Vlad is saying with a big smile on his face, and ending it with a hopeless sigh-like, hay nako. Sue caught it.

Sue tells Vlad about the law of proximity. She made an example of it through Big Brother wherein some people end up being in a relationship because they spend too much time together. Vlad deflects and says he’s not about to fall for a straight guy, “I refuse to be a plot device that triggers somebody else’s identity crisis. Not again.” Nonetheless, it’s good that Sue opened this up because feelings can get really tricky when you spend so much time with a person even if it’s just a short amount of time. Actually, it feels like you’re in a time warp.

Naturally, Vlad sees a lot of things about Karl that he may find either endearing or annoying. It’s obvious though that he finds Karl endearing and he, too, is starting to catch feelings. His reservations are preventing him to make a move, not just because he thinks that Karl is straight but mostly because of a past experience or trauma. He can’t be brave about just putting himself out there so he’s trying to proceed with caution.

Sue still encouraged him to try to invite Karl to spend Christmas with him instead of wallowing alone watching white boy Sundance films (I’M DEAD. I love Sue so much). Vlad actually looked like he’s considering the idea even if he was being a baby about it the entire time.

Theme Song Test

Meanwhile, Karl is also pre-occupied when Anna knocked on his door to use the WiFi. She’s on the phone with a client, visibly mad that they are forcing her to rush the output. This went on and on with Karl just watching her pace around the house. After the call, Anna immediately jumped on the idea of them watching a movie together.

Moments later, Karl and Anna are seated on the couch crying over what is obviously She’s Dating the Gangster. Anna tells Karl that she’ll use the restroom first and it is in this moment when Vlad finally arrives. He must have gotten used to seeing Karl crying at films that he is not really surprised to see him in tears now. It’s cute how he got all fidget-y while trying to ask Karl that maybe they can have a proper Noche Buena, “Tayo. Noche Buena. Together.”

Karl tells Vlad that he needs to go home for Christmas, and that he’ll carpool with Anna. “Who’s Anna?” says Vlad and that is when she popped out to introduce herself. Her presence in the house pretty much stirred conflicted feeling on the side of in Vlad especially when she decided to stay over for another film.

Another movie ends and Karl and Anna are still seated on the couch. Vlad looks hilariously miserable watching them together. Is it even safe to say that Karl and Anna are being flirty? I don’t know, they are mostly loud and touchy the entire time but maybe Karl is really just comfortable around her. Nonetheless, it was so funny seeing them in their elements talking about random things while Vlad is constantly rolling his eyes at anything that Anna says to Karl.

Anna then talks about the theme song test. Apparently, when you listen to a song and a face of a person comes on to your mind, it means you want to be with that person. Karl says he’s never experienced it because he does not like anyone at the moment anyway. Vlad looks so done with them already, but he especially acted out when Anna was about to make Karl listen to a song to do the test. Vlad started getting whiny over the unwashed mugs and Karl is still clueless about his true intention. Even as Karl tries to stop Anna from leaving, she got the hint and said goodbye.

Karl tells Vlad to stop nagging about the unwashed mugs and he had a biting comeback that Karl is not the only one who can get mad about dishes and mugs piling up. Karl thinks that Vlad is acting jealous because he’s putting up an act for Anna, then tells him that Anna knows about them anyway. This agitated Vlad more, and when Karl was telling him to drop the jealous boyfriend act, he actually said “Who says I’m acting?”

Both of them were taken aback and there was this one long painful second before Vlad saved himself by adding, “Angry. Who says I’m acting angry?” Thankfully there are dishes and mugs to wash otherwise he would have made a complete mess of himself right then and there. As usual, they continued to banter with Karl touching Vlad’s hair again to annoy him.

One of the things I liked about this episode, by the way, is the presence of both Anna and Sue. We got to see a different side of Vlad and got to know him more through Sue. When we thought Anna will simply serve as a jealousy bait, she actually helped propelled the romance more by telling Karl (and Vlad by extension) about the theme song test.

“The ever-burgeoning need for people vs the effort put into self-preservation”

Vlad wakes up looking for Karl but of course he’s no longer there since he went home to his family. Vlad pretty much spent the entire day on the couch and was already getting drunk come the evening. He keeps sending Karl messages but is left on seen. He even sent him a couple of selfies. When Karl still hasn’t replied, he sent him a video of him jokingly attempting to ruin the Christmas decorations. Finally, Karl called, and Vlad got really excited about it.

It’s probably because he’s drunk but Vlad keeps on making these little moves on Karl – asking him if he thinks he’s cute, and that he wants Karl to pick him up. But the video call ended as soon as it started because Karl needed to join Noche Buena with his family.

A call from Ate Judit came in but he did not answer it. Then, when his phone rang again, he finally answered it. It was his mother. It’s interesting to me that Vlad would answer this call because of course, what we know so far is that they are not in good terms. But I suppose the holidays really make you soft and set aside any feelings of anger if you can at least have a moment of conversation with someone you still value with your heart. There’s a gut punch when Vlad actually said he’s having fun with friends to his mom, when he’s all alone in the apartment. And to make it slightly more painful, the call ended with an “I miss you.”

Vlad opened his message thread with A. Right then and there, a birthday greeting appeared complete with an “I miss you” (Please, lumayo ka nga Hudas! #OustHudas). He did not get a chance to reply because Sue called and it made him visibly happy. He opened the gift she sent him only to discover that it might have been switched with Karl’s gift to his parents because the content was a framed sketch of his family. As the night wears on, you feel Vlad wallowing more and more into his aloneness.

Nica del Rosario’s Tahanan plays as we see Vlad look around the house, feeling how empty it is. The lights are shining around him, but they don’t look bright at all, at least for Vlad. We see a montage of him dancing around the house, and when he finally checked the content of the VLAD Christmas sock that Karl put up for him, it has a gift inside. Turns out, it was slippers with a note, “Dahil taga-rito ka rin.” He saw another wrapped gift and it was another one by Karl this time with a note, “Bahala ka na kung sa’n mo ‘ko ilalagay” and it was a picture frame. Vlad looked so happy and was hugging the picture frame.

I think that Vlad is a sucker for gestures, of having someone who seems to know him and care for him. I liked seeing Vlad in this state of being alone and lonely. It was personally heartrending to watch, but it tells us so much about what he is as a person. He is fine being alone. I think it’s how he’s operated throughout the years of discovering himself. True, he has an overbearing-but-caring sister in Ate Judit and a wonderful best friend in Sue and they know so much about him, but it’s also the reason why it’s not easy for him to open up about these things. I think that when you go on for so long being “someone” for a specific person, your tendency is to continue putting up that act. This is not to say that Vlad is faking who he is, but that there’s this difficulty for him to fully express himself around them. So seeing him being open about this hollowness that he’s been feeling especially on his birthday was a welcome narrative.

It's that dilemma: your need for people to completely understand who you are, but also just as you are about to bare yourself, you automatically put up these defenses to kind of preserve that little piece of you to yourself. But in a way, you’re expecting someone to get a read on you – that maybe someone would see you even if you don’t offer that piece of you so voluntarily. I think that is Karl for Vlad. Karl takes him by surprise every single time by doing all these gestures for him, or when he overhears what he has to say about him. I suppose that at the end of the day, you just want to find someone who effortlessly gets you.

Theme song test: Tahanan

As Vlad stands in the middle of the living room hugging the picture frame that Karl gave him, he sees Karl come in through the door. Karl walks towards Vlad, and Vlad puts down the picture frame and also walks towards Karl for them to meet halfway. They have this giddy smile on their faces and for a while they were just staring at each other. Until both of their faces start to get closer and just as you think they’d go in for a kiss, they hugged. Both of them smiling, looking comforted and relieved. One thing of note as well is seeing them brush their hands up and down each other’s backs to hug tighter. Tahanan continues to play and the camera moves in circle around them (this scene is a nod to GOT 2 BELIEVE), until we settle back to Vlad standing alone in the living room, and what he was hugging was the picture frame and not Karl.

I am specifically in love with the part of the song that Pat Lasaten chose for the moment when Karl came in. I’m sorry I don’t know much about music, but I am referring specifically to timestamp 22:39 to 23:02. The main song kind of took a bit of a stepback and there was what sounded like a saxophone solo (?) that accentuates it. That was pretty genius because it really moves the scene. It highlights the magical feeling of Vlad finally finding Karl’s face in the midst of the song – someone who he wants to be together with. Extra painful though that after all that music swelling, you end up with a shot of him hugging a picture frame.

I agree with Justine when she said during the Friday night Banlaw sesh that she likes that they went in for a hug instead of a kiss right away. It feels more intimate and more sincere. It feels more sensual. Also, it fits the current pace of Karl and Vlad’s story because these are two people still discovering each other. It also hits different because hugging a person means offering comfort. In Karl and Vlad’s case, it highlights their thing of finding homes in each other. In Episode 03, Karl offered Vlad a home by giving him back the key. In that moment, Vlad accepted it because it was already attached back to his keychain. But in this episode, and through this hug, we see Vlad fully embracing that this is now his home. He isn’t just accepting the key to come and go as he pleases. He now wants to stay there.

The shot of Vlad hugging the frame always gets to me. Amazing camerawork and good music timing. I cannot watch it without crying because the feeling of loneliness really felt raw and palpable. This, and the hug, made everyone soft and fragile while watching the episode last night.

Being alone together

Vlad wakes up the next morning with a different set of clothes. All of the Christmas decorations are gone but we see balloons and an entire HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner hanging. He looks around a bit and when he turned towards the kitchen, Karl was there standing with a stack of pancakes. This time, it’s not a dream.

Both of them looked sheepish the entire time. Vlad was obviously touched and was even apologetic about bothering Karl the other night. Meanwhile, Karl joked and called him “Mr. Jockstrap” because of the switcheroo that happened with his gift and Sue’s. Vlad asks him what happened to the Christmas decors, and Karl just said “meh” and imitated Vlad’s “Jesus is too forgiving to be a Capricorn.”

The entire thing was just adorable. They were just smiling throughout, and Karl told Vlad to finally blow the candle on the pancake stack to make a wish. We don’t know what the wish was, and I’m not even sure we’ll ever know. Gege mentioned that he told Ian to make a personal wish for both him and Pao during the scene.

As usual, Karl and Vlad settled on the floor with chips and soda to watch a film. This time though, Vlad is not watching the film because he’s watching Karl. Vlad watches Karl dip his chips on the soda before eating it. As always, Karl gets so absorbed with the film, almost in tears now, as he mindlessly eats a huge piece of chip much to Vlad’s amusement. At one point, they both reached for the bowl and their hands grazed each other. Karl momentarily looked at Vlad’s direction, and so does Vlad towards Karl – but Vlad’s look lingered and a small smile forms across his face. It was his aha moment, I suppose.

I find it pretty amazing that both Karl and Vlad understood their feelings in a sort of unexpected way because it was so… mundane and normal. For a show that has a lot of these big moments, it sure takes a quiet approach when it comes to feelings and I love that. Because it is so quiet, you don’t really notice it creeping inside your heart. It kind of just fills you in until it’s completely embracing you and you understand it, right then and there, that well, I guess this is it.

Apparently, it’s not really about washing the dishes. It’s really about the good they do for each other every day. Nothing felt more apparent to Vlad than Karl’s absence. The law of proximity builds familiarity and in those short few days, Vlad did not just get used to Karl being around, he yearns for it. I could say the same for Karl, too, seeing as he rushed home to prepare all these things for Vlad. But for now, both of them do not know it yet.

To reference the Wattpad screenplay, all this time Karl thinks that he was the only one waiting for Vlad to look back. But, who knows, maybe Vlad was waiting for Karl to look back, too?

Epilogue

In the last three episodes, it was always Vlad moving closer towards the couch. Karl was always seated at a specific side, not moving at all, but he would always throw glances towards Vlad. This time though, we find Karl seated on the floor beside Vlad.

The episode ends with a powerful quote yet again, “kapag may tinuro sa’yo ang pag-iisa, yakapin mo.”

Comments; Ramblings

It’s funny how Episode 03 launched a friendly bardagulan on Twitter between Vlad Austria Apologists (VAA) and the Vlad Austria Fault-Finding Committee (VAFFC). But the truth is, both Karl and Vlad are the actual clowns for each other and we’re just here to witness them fall in love and watch their connection go deeper.

Personally, in terms of a solid episode, my favourite is still Episode 03 because it had all these elements that moved the story along and built up to that amazing Selos ending. It was something else. However, Episode 04 was the one that made me feel the most (so far). I had a hard time processing it after watching it the first time and unlike the last three episodes, I could not rewatch it right away. I mostly just felt weak and I might have cried a little. Maybe because it reminded me so much of what it is like to fall in love – that indeed love is still a beautiful thing. Sometimes we use being alone as a defense mechanism to feel less alone, but at the end of the day we also crave for someone we can go home to. Karl and Vlad’s feelings continue to unravel and that makes me think about how, as we fall in love, we also discover a lot about ourselves.

To me, this is what’s happening with Karl and Vlad. As they learn more about each other, they also discover a lot of things that they don’t know they’re capable of. They find themselves doing things they never thought they will ever do or feeling things they thought they’ll never feel again. I’m curious how they’ll really meet halfway. For now, I think Vlad is more of the type of person who needs to confirm with himself first if he truly feels romantically for someone before he takes action or shows these soft and caring side of him. Meanwhile, Karl seems like the type to act first before thinking about why he does these things. Maybe it’s just the way he is – a pure-hearted good person. I just hope he’s ready to answer the question when it gets asked.

For now, I appreciate this slowburn.

–

Gaya Sa Pelikula airs new episodes every Friday 8PM (Manila time) on Globe Studios’ Youtube channel. Please only stream it legally!

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[notgalaxii]

Another Another Cinderella Story || Part One || Diavolo x Fem!MC

Hey guys! I'm sorry this one took so long for me to put out, I was so busy this week! I got a job and I just finished my virtual training but I was working on this with every free moment I had!! This will be part 1 most likely out of 3. Thank you all so much for reading and continuing to request amazing ideas such as these!!

Request Prompt: A Cinderella Story with Diavolo and a Fem!MC.

Word Count: 1.9k

    “You will not be attending the event, MC. Powerful demons will be swarming the castle and I can’t have my eyes on you at all times,” Lucifer’s words echoed through her head like her footsteps echoed through Purgatory Hall. After Diavolo had extended an invite to MC and all of the demon brothers to go to a masquerade, Lucifer had shut her down. He shut down what would probably be the best night of her life in the devildom. He shut down the mere possibility of her enjoying herself, looking better than she could have ever dreamed of, swaying with a beautiful stranger in her elegant ball gown. He shut down the possibility of her smile illuminating with the light flickering off of the chandeliers.  She had stormed off to go find someone else who she knew wouldn’t be going to the dance so that she could vent. MC knew very well that Lucifer was just looking out for her, but she didn’t know whether it was because he cared or because Diavolo would have his head if his exchange student was eaten. Sometimes Beelzelbub would try to reassure her that Lucifer really does care, but is too prideful to admit it. 

    “MC? Didn’t think you’d stop by here, I half expected you to be in a gown right now,” Solomon’s cocky smile played on his lips as he opened the door.

    “Lucifer didn’t let me go,” she brashly elaborated. A glimmer of shock seeped into his eyes before he pulled the door open just enough for her frame to slip through. MC immediately slumped onto the nearest seat once entering.

    “What was the noble excuse this time?” Solomon teased as he sat on his bed across from her, “Place your bets now, ladies and gents, does it have to do with Diavolo’s displeasure? Or, would it perhaps be about the tasks Diavolo assigned you?” 

    “Powerful demons will be swarming the castle and he can’t have me in his sight at all times. Oh, how disappointed Lord Diavolo would be if he finds his precious exchange student eaten by a demon! Lucifer would have to give him extra foot rubs after that, obviously,” MC mocked in her best posh tone, “What about you? Why aren’t you going?”

    “Too many demons I made a pact with are there and a few of them can’t stand each other. As much as I would love to see that go down, I would unfortunately be roped into the middle of it,” he sighed deeply.

    “Funny, I bet you would’ve absolutely adored causing some chaos at a noble event,” MC snickered as she crossed her legs. She had always known Solomon to be extremely mischievous. Just about every time he had used his powers around her, it was either to just “see what happens,” or to purposely mess with someone. However, there had been a few times where he’s gotten her out of some pretty sticky situations with his magic. 

    “There’s still a way, of course,” a playful smile reached up to Solomon’s lips, twisting the corners.

    “Bingo,” MC chuckled, “I was waiting for you to say something like that.”

    “And this way involves you actually being able to go without Lucifer on your tail,” one of his eyebrows quirked in her direction.

    “Oh? I’m listening,” she leaned in closer to him as if it would help her pay attention.

    “What better mask than an entirely new face?” Solomon inquired.

    “You shady bitch, I love you,” a bright smile stretched across her face. Solomon stood up and held his hand out to her for her to grab. When she did, he guided her over to a shelf full of spell books.

    “Satan let me borrow this book, there’s a spell in here that will completely change your appearance for the next  five hours. This means that when the clock strikes midnight, you’ll be back to your current form,” he elaborated, flipping through the pages of a large, dark green book.

    “This is nice and all, but I don’t even have anything to wear-”

    “Leave that to me too, I’ve spent enough time with Asmodeus to know how to make someone look good,” Solomon chuckled before putting his finger on a specific passage, “ Here it is, are you ready? I’ve never used this spell before, but I’m sure I can do it.”

    MC contemplated her choices for a moment. She knew that if it was Solomon casting the spell, there was almost no way that she could get caught. The only possible way she could think of was not being able to scurry out of the castle before midnight hits. Potential consequences of her actions raced through her head. MC knew better than to defy Lucifer but he was so irritating. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d be livid if he found out.

    Yet, what would happen if he didn’t find out? What would happen if she spent the night glissading across the ballroom floor, arm in arm with a handsome or perhaps beautiful stranger? She could have the night of her life, but it all depended on how much attention she paid to the time. 

    “Do it, Solomon. I’m ready," MC abruptly blurted after a few moments of silence. The next thing she knew, she was being enveloped in a waft of black smoke. It swirled around her vehemently, growing thicker with every ancient word that slipped Solomon's tongue. 

    Once the smoke began to settle and fade away, MC looked down at her hands. Her skin tone was a few shades darker than usual, her nails resembling long and sharp talons. Trailing up her arms, she saw the wavy lilac hair cascading down her shoulders like a mystical waterfall. 

    "That turned out better than expected, you look beautiful, MC" a small, cocky smirk creeped its way back up onto Solomon's expression. 

    "Thank you, is my face any different?" MC quizzed. In place of a reply, he gestured to a mirror near the door. Her face was indeed different. Her eyes sparkled a vibrant and almost intense green, her lips were slightly fuller than previously, her nose a bit smaller. They were the smallest changes but when they were all put together, she was a completely different person.

    Without warning, the smoke had returned to swirl around her body yet again, this time leaving her head peeking out. It left a crimson red ball gown to wrap her torso, coming down in a sweetheart neckline to show off her collarbone, the skirt slightly flaring out at her hips. The fabric was light and airy, allowing her to move with ease. 

    "You gonna turn a pumpkin into a carriage too, fairy godmother?" MC teased. 

    "No, but we are going to do something with that hair," Solomon scoffed, pulling the hair tie off of her wrist and beginning to take her hair into sections. He parted the top half of her hair up, twisting it into an intricately braided bun. Before letting her look back into the mirror, he pulled out a few strands to dangle in the front. 

    "Tricks from Asmo?"

    "You could say that," he smiled, placing a hand on her lower back, "Alright, get out of here and have fun. Set an alarm on your D.D.D. okay? 23:50 pm, get heading out when it goes off."

    MC nodded enthusiastically and thanked him for his support before grabbing a mask he had summoned. It was a bit of a trip to the castle, taking thirty minutes off of the spell. She had only been to Diavolo's castle once before, it was when she made her pact with Asmodeus and Solomon used his magic on her for the first time. Diavolo was quite the character in her eyes, although she hadn't known much about him besides that Lucifer was his little lap dog. He was charming, certainly, and seemed pretty kind for a Demon Prince. She thought it was special how he wished to construct a path between all three realms. After all, that path is what gave her the opportunity to make new friends and learn about new cultures. 

    The large, elegant piece of architecture was indeed swarming with demons, just as Lucifer had predicted. They were all dressed head to toe in formal attire, a few letting their horns, wings, and tails come out. MC carefully put her mask on and fixed her posture before striding into the house. Not many demons shyed from giving her strange looks. Large, crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, illuminating the faces of all of them, especially one in particular, Asmodeus. Oh no.

    “Oh, hello there!~ I haven’t seen your face in the Devildom before, who might you be?” his sweet voice chimed with seductive notes lingering in the air. MC noticed the way his sunset gaze deepened immediately. He was trying to charm her, and she couldn’t let that happen. Asmodeus’ powers never worked on her and he would be devastated if they didn’t work on this random stranger. 

    “H-hi! I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I-I need to use the restroom,” MC sputtered out, but it didn’t seem like Asmo was taking no for an answer. She was now locked to him.

    “Your voice sounds so familiar. It’s very soothing, you know? Come, doll. I’ll escort you to the restroom,” he coaxed her with a warming smile. Knowing she wouldn’t win the battle of trying to run away from the Avatar of Lust without upsetting him, MC nodded in agreement. 

    Asmodeus guided her to the restroom and left her off at the door before giving a small wink and fading into the mass. She sighed with relief and walked into the restroom. Taking a glance in the mirror, MC re-evaluated her situation. Now she knew that her voice would still be the same, she wasn’t able to know anyone at this masquerade, and she still resembled a human, she felt like this wasn’t such a good idea. The brother’s most likely wouldn’t protect her if she got in a trifle, now that she lingers on the thought.

    A knock on the restroom door broke her thoughts. After sorting herself out, MC did her best to maintain her composure as she walked out. Even more demons were giving her looks this time around, a few of them even mumbling about her as she walked by. Asmodeus probably started to talk about the encounter to some of his “fans,” as he calls them. 

    Time began to run itself down the drain as MC consumed a few drinks and chatted with the passing strangers that prompted a conversation with her. Asmodeus made his way back to talk to her at one point and even tried to dance with her, but she was still scared of him finding out she couldn’t be charmed so she politely declined.

    “I’m a little bit too tipsy, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to step all over your toes,” she chuckled. Asmo understood, surprisingly and it wasn’t long before he wandered off to try to charm the next beautiful face he saw walking by. A few moments later, yet another hand tapped MC’s shoulder, beckoning her to turn around. She half expected it to be Asmodeus, but it was instead Barbatos, Diavolo’s poised butler. 

    “Lord Diavolo has requested for you to be his first dance partner of the night. Please, follow me.”

[giornocentric]

Bucci gang’s Christmas

It’s that time of year again and I’m feeling especially Christmas-y right now, even though it’s still November.

I’m the type of person to get really happy around this time of year and I’m definitely the first to set up and decorate the tree (I’m the person people make those memes about). I love my family (half are Christian and half are Jewish) and the gifts and the food and music and just everything, and I can’t help but want to spend it with my favorite people on Earth!! (yes I know they’re fictional characters, Karen)

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•

Bruno Bucciarati

He’s not the biggest on Christmas but would love to celebrate it with the gang or his s/o if he had one at the time. Christmas is celebrated much differently in Italy so he would laugh at your more Western expectation of Christmas and would insist it’s better this way, less commercial and more centered around the Catholic/Christian importance of the day.

This is not to say Bruno is Catholic or Christian but I believe he would feel more comfortable and happier without the CRAZINESS of Western/American Christmases and would just enjoy spending time with you and his teammates/friends, along with maybe a small tree and an occasional Christmas song.

When he received a small gift his eyes widened, “Wait what’s this for?” He would be so shocked, he had never gotten a gift on Christmas, he didn’t even realize that it was something people actually did, he thought it was only in movies. Once his s/o explained what a Christmas gift was, he would open it hesitantly and smile in awe then return the favor with a kiss. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything, Tesoro.”

He would be the one to make Christmas dinner for you and the gang, more than likely, antipasti and pasta with a walnut cream sauce and Panettone (Christmas cake) that he’d ask if you wanted to help him bake, which would probably end up with both of you covered in batter and icing.

Giorno Giovanna

Christmas? is that a fruit? He has never celebrated or even thought about celebrating it, but his s/o wants to and Bruno does too? He will, but what exactly does that entail? Does he dress up like Saint Nicholas? He‘s never actually had a family to celebrate with so you have a LOT of explaining to do and then he’s SO EXCITED and wants to do EVERYTHING and now it’s time to make up for lost time.

Once he understands, he’s a little extreme, he’s already made a gingerbread house, cut down a real tree and decorated it, bought everyone TEN gifts and has an ugly sweater on, waiting for you to see and be impressed and well... you are. He’s admittedly looking for praise so you have to let him see just how much you appreciate it, maybe with a little kiss or a gift of your own.

Be prepared for an absolute marathon of Christmas movies, possibly accompanied by a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows or a cup of eggnog with extra cinnamon and a side of gingerbread cookies. So many gingerbread cookies. But you snuggle together away from the cold so that makes up for it, most of the time you both stop watching the movie and it’s just the two of you making out or staring at each other, longingly.

Once the entire house smells like Yankee Candles and you can barely breathe over the cinnamon and peppermint, it’s time to tell that poor boy he needs to stop. But before you can, you walk right under the dreaded mistletoe (trap) that he’s put up pretty much everywhere and he’s coming up to you and shutting you right up. He kisses you and with a cheeky grin and says “What was that about taking away Christmas away? You don’t like it, dolcezza?”

Leone Abbacchio

Two words. Seasonal Depression. Abbacchio is a bit of a grinch when it comes to Christmas. Truthfully, he doesn’t want to hate it, but his depression is bad during this time so if he goes to the Christmas get-together with you and the gang, he will most likely be drinking an ungodly amount of alcohol. His s/o might be able to calm him down and reassure him enough to attend but he will misserable no matter what, he’ll stay for the gifts and food though, regardless of how much he wants to leave.

Once he’s drunk and people are opening presents is when his emotions overwhelm him and he breaks into tears at the smallest things (Narancia received a CD from him that he already owned and Abbacchio felt guilty not knowing Narancia well enough to know which albums he already had.) His s/o is one of the only people who can calm him down in that moment, laying his head in your lap as you play with his hair and hum softly.

Now he goes through the second stage of grief, thrashing out the tree and throwing gifts and screaming about how much he loves you and Christmas and that delicious food and alcohol. He’s a mess, and before he gets any more drunk and destroys anything else, you have to drag him home and force him to lay down and sleep it off.

But Abbacchio wants to give you his gift, and before you can protest, he’s already on you, kissing you everywhere and mumbling incoherently about how much you mean to him and how good you are to him, but soon he breaks into tears once more as he convinces himself that he doesn’t deserve you. “I’m so stupid! I ruined everything! You probably don’t even love me anymore, and I don’t blame you for it.”

You just have to reassure him a little more until he finally passes out from the alcohol.

Pannacotta Fugo

Has mixed feelings about Christmas, he used to love it as a kid but now the memories are a little tainted by thoughts of his mom and dad and he thinks about being abandoned by them and it makes him angry, sad, and scared. But if he had an s/o, he would agree to celebrating it with them, they could make new memories that would help the bad ones fade away.

Fugo might ask for specific things to make him feel more comfortable and safe. Opening presents might bring on a little fear/bad thoughts, as well as the board games and card games, so you should be prepared to comfort him in any and every way possible. In my opinion, he’d love for you to hold him tightly and feed him your food as he complains about the music being too loud or the house being too cold, to which he’d snuggle closer to you.

When the group sees the two of you, and a totally different side of Fugo, some of them stare, some of them make snarky comments and laugh, and Narancia sighs before getting pissed at the ones who laughed. Fugo, doesn’t care much in that moment, of course he’s gritting his teeth and his nails are digging into his skin but he loves you far too much and feels too comfortable to mess with them.

Once he’s completely comfortable, you both go for a walk in the snow (much to Fugo’s dismay) talking about the meaning of Christmas to you and him. When Fugo’s disposition gets a little worse from talking about his past, you get down on one knee and create a little snowball. Holding it out, you tell him you’ve fallen for him much like this snow or that you love him snow much and ask him if you could have the honor of him being your boyfriend. He laughs at first at the cheesy/cringey puns then his eyes widen and he’s in so much disbelief that someone like you could love him. He bends down to meet your face, tilts your head up slightly and kisses you.

“I guess that’s a yes?” Now Christmas is going to have a totally different meaning for him.

Narancia Ghirga

“Where’s my gift?” “Is that mine?” “When can we open presents?” “What did you get me?” He knows everything about American Christmases and will run around the room, take a bite of food, get up, run around again, sit by the tree, open a gift, yell what he thinks it is then tears it open and repeats until all his gifts are opened.

When it’s someone else’s turn, he will look to his s/o and sigh. He might ask you to play a game with him while he waits, or sneak him some cake. Narancia is the type to constantly engage in the festivities and gets easily bored. If he gets you a gift it’s most likely something small and inexpensive because the boy is poor, but you will continue to Cherish it for many years to come.

Once the Christmas music is blaring and everyone has opened presents, Narancia is dancing like a maniac and pulling you on the floor to join. He’s not the greatest at slow dancing, but he’s probably better than most of the gang as he’s been to school dances before joining Passione. He doesn’t speak much in the moment but his hands are on your shoulders and you’re swaying un-gracefully until you both trip and fall on each other. “Are you alright, Mi Amore?” he asks quietly before building up the courage to kiss you.

Eventually you’re both off of the floor and Narancia is back to his enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky self, and is bragging about getting to kiss you and yelling about great you are. Get ready for a night of him being an absolute show off in front of his teammates and be prepared to drag him back home.

Guido Mista

I think Mista would treat this day the most seriously out of the group, only because I headcanon him as Catholic/Christian or religious in some way. He would probably enjoy taking his s/o with him to San Gregorio Armeno and San Gregorio Armeno Church in Napoli, also known as Christmas Alley to see the Prespes (Nativity scene of Jesus’ birth) and overall would be very happy about Christmas and the joy it brings him.

Mista would also absolutely adore going to classical music concerts and Christmas concerts. It would remind him of a time when he was a carefree child and would bring him so much joy. Of course he would drag you around with him and UGH he would just have the realest smile on his face, so content, thankful, and happy.

Soon he would realize he was late for the Christmas party but he’d walk extra slow so he could enjoy his time with you just a little longer. He would also be the type to start a random snow ball fight, like you’re just walking in front of him and suddenly a snow ball hits you with the help of Number 5 and Oh, it’s on. The battle goes on for a while until you’re both tired and in a little pain so Mista kisses your cheek then offers a piggyback ride, even if you’re too heavy, he’s ready to pick you up and carry you all the way to the house.

Once you both get there, you crash on the couch, eat some food and then open the leftover presents. You reach for the same gift and his hand is on top of yours. You can’t help but lean in and place a kiss on his lips and he kisses back, it’s a true Christmas miracle.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•

I’m SO sorry I kinda got lazy/lost inspiration with Mista’s but please accept this trash 🗑 :)

[paladin-lynx]

SquipJere Week 2020, Day 4: Mr. Roboto

@squipjerebmc’s SquipJere Week 2020 Day 4: Mr. Roboto

Ships Involved: The SQUIP x Jeremy Heere (Technical Difficulties/Squipemy/Squeremy/JereSquip/SquipJere)

Setting: Canonverse, set in the time interval between “Loser Geek Whatever” and “Halloween”.

Trigger/Content Warnings: None

Jeremy had never been one to ‘bask in the limelight,’ as they said. He wasn’t exactly content to stay on the sidelines for his entire life like Michael was, but he didn’t need to be the center of attention. It would just be kind of nice to be looked at by someone other than his best friend since kindergarten or bullies searching for a punching bag.

But he had to admit, after his first real hangout with the ‘cool kids’ had been a success, he felt like a movie star. All of the eyes on him as he’d mastered the dancing game at Dave & Buster’s had been somewhat overwhelming at first, but he’d quickly adjusted and it just felt good to be recognized, even if it was for something that he technically hadn’t achieved on his own. But even Rich, who without a doubt knew how Jeremy had danced like he was a professional to a song he didn’t even know that well on the highest difficulty on some obscure music game, had praised him and let him have his brief moment of fame.

But it was enough attention to satisfy him for a week or more and as keyed up as he was from all the interaction, it felt nice to be home. The entire scene kept replaying itself in his head – whether that was because of him or because it was the SQUIP’s silent way of saying ‘look how well you did,’ he wasn’t completely sure – and he had a bit of a skip in his step as he walked into the house. His father hadn’t even seemed to notice he was gone so there was no way he’d noticed that Jeremy had taken the car.

The rest of the Saturday passed without much fanfare, and soon enough it was Sunday. Sundays were usually Jeremy’s day to buckle down and get his homework done, and he usually didn’t look forward to it. When he didn’t want to get up from bed, the SQUIP lightly prodded at him until he did, teasing him for his bedhead and telling him that it was sure it would be a productive day.

Jeremy had never really liked doing homework. The one exception was when he was given books to read, although that heavily depended on the book. However, ever since getting the SQUIP, he hadn’t gotten much more enthusiastic about doing schoolwork but he found it much easier to focus. He knew for a fact that was because of the SQUIP’s influence – or at least, it had definitely started that way and now Jeremy wondered if maybe his focus was better because his mind had been properly trained.

And so after scarfing down a bowl of cereal – the SQUIP had been intent on him having three meals a day, something Jeremy hadn’t exactly been great about before considering he opted to skip breakfast ninety-five percent of the time – he settled in at his desk to start on the one subject that was the bane of his existence: math. Michael had always been the one who was better with numbers while Jeremy was better with words. Jeremy had been in the drama club when he was in elementary school and for part of middle school, although he never had any roles that were too notable, but it was enough to satisfy him. His adoration of Christine had only bolstered his love of theater. He’d even debated a few times over the course of his short life trying to write poetry or songs, but he’d never gotten into the right mindset for it. He doubted he’d be good at it, anyway.

But now he had the SQUIP which, as it had so proudly declared the first day he’d gotten it, was made of math. There were certain things the SQUIP would do for him, but homework wasn’t one of them. It would stand by as Jeremy worked, ready to assist, but it would never just give him the answers. It would walk him through the problems or prompts to make sure he understood how to find the solution, and of course because the SQUIP was in his brain, Jeremy would find himself understanding even if he had initially found himself lost as the SQUIP rattled off information.

And so he sat at his desk and got to work – normally he’d end up hunched over in his chair, but thanks yet again to the SQUIP that was no longer the case – furrowing his brow as he started on the various problems. The SQUIP was helping him raise his grades but he still had to put in the effort himself, because if he was suddenly a prodigy in every subject, there would definitely be some eyebrows raised in his direction. So he needed to do well, but not too well, kind of like how he hadn’t gotten a perfect score back at Dave & Buster’s. There was a balance to these things, wherein the SQUIP would step in and hold his hand to lead him down the right path until Jeremy learned well enough to see the way on his own.

Jeremy usually waited until he got through all the problems he could do on his own before he asked for help, almost like he was still a little kid going to ask his parents if they could assist him. Then again, the SQUIP would always be there as soon as he so much as thought that he might not be able to figure something out on his own. No embarrassing scurrying down to the kitchen necessary – although it was still a bit embarrassing to need help at all.

And to his pleasant surprise, he was actually getting through most of the assigned problems relatively quickly. Sure, there were a couple that had him scratching his head for a few minutes, but it just took a quick flip through his notes – those were getting neater and better organized, too – for him to come to a realization. He might actually be able to have some free time on this Sunday instead of spending the whole day besides meals and bathroom breaks sitting at his desk and working.

He was so absorbed in his work – what a rarity – that he almost missed that there was sound in the room other than the scratching of his pencil against his notebook. When he finally noticed it, he looked up with his brow creased, confused. It almost sounded like humming, but he was pretty sure that even if his dad sang in the shower, it wouldn’t reach all the way through the closed door.

That was when he turned to see the SQUIP standing on the other side of the room, back facing him. It had a few translucent blue screens floating around it, each displaying various numbers and data that Jeremy could never even hope to understand, and it was tapping its chin as it looked over everything. Jeremy knew that the visuals were just to fit his personal aesthetics and to give him something to look at as the SQUIP interacted with him so his brain wasn’t left utterly baffled, but he still couldn’t help feeling intrigued.

Especially when he realized that his SQUIP was, in fact, humming as it went about its business.

Of course, as soon as Jeremy realized, the sound stopped and the screens fizzled away as the SQUIP looked over its shoulder. “What? You should be doing your homework.”

“You were humming,” was all Jeremy managed to say, realizing after a heartbeat how stupid it sounded to state the obvious.

However, the SQUIP merely blinked at him, turning around to properly face him, arms crossing against its chest. “I was not.”

“Wh—You were!” Jeremy protested. “I heard it.”

“Perhaps you were humming to yourself as you worked?”

“No way, I don’t hum when I work. Especially not when I’m doing math.”

The SQUIP seemed to bite back a smile at that and instead huffed. “Everything I do in this physical manifestation, Jeremy, has a purpose. There would be no reason for me be humming at this moment, so therefore I was not humming.”

Jeremy’s eyebrows furrowed. “But you were. I heard you. I know my brain is fucked up, but it isn’t so bad that I’m imagining humming. I even know the song. It was ‘Mr. Roboto’ by, uh…erm…shit…”

“Styx,” the SQUIP interrupted, although it didn’t seem entirely pleased to be giving Jeremy evidence against its argument.

“Yeah, Styx! It played at one point in Dave & Buster’s yesterday. When Jake and Brooke were doing the basketball game thingy.”

The SQUIP scowled at him. “Jeremy, I wasn’t humming. That would be illogical. Why would I carry out such a pointless act?”

Jeremy blinked, before shrugging. “I dunno. For fun? You’re an A.I., after all, so you have things that you like to do even if you don’t need to do them…right?”

He remembered the SQUIP telling him just a few days ago that it was impossible for it to ever be at a loss. But the SQUIP right now looked just a bit baffled at Jeremy’s explanation. “I…suppose that might be true. Have I done anything else like that?”

Jeremy thought for a moment. “You looked like you were having fun yesterday when we were playing games with everyone. Maybe it was just you helping me, but I think you were getting something out of it, too. Maybe the happy chemicals in my brain were affecting you or something.”

The SQUIP snorted. “It doesn’t work that way, Jeremy. But…you may be onto something.” It tilted its head, and Jeremy wondered what exactly it was processing. But it spoke again just a few moments later: “It seems that I was, in fact, humming. It was just a…mindless action. I didn’t even seem to realize myself that I was doing it.”

“Well, you told me that with every interaction, you learn and evolve,” Jeremy replied. “So maybe because you’re poking around at me less, you’re starting to realize there are things that you like to do? And that song stuck with you from yesterday.” He smiled. “Kind of fitting, honestly.”

“I’m not a robot, Jeremy. I’m a supercomputer.”

“Oh, you know what I meant!”

The SQUIP chuckled softly, reaching up to push its hair back, even though Jeremy was pretty sure it was already perfectly in place as it always was. “…This is certainly an interesting development. I’ll have to look more into it.”

Jeremy frowned. “I know you’re all about numbers and results and stuff, but…can’t you just enjoy it and not try to dig in and find a reason behind it?”

The SQUIP raised an eyebrow and tipped its head to one side as it looked at him. “I’m programmed to delve into situations and analyze how they come to be and what results may come from them. That includes how my own code functions and grows.”

Jeremy sighed, shrugging and turning back to his desk. “You do you, I guess. Just…I dunno, I have time when I’m not working and you don’t have to worry about me. So you could find your own thing to do.”

The SQUIP appeared beside him, still looking thoughtful. “You do realize I’m in your head, right? I can’t exactly decide to meander off and go attend some crazy rave.”

Jeremy smiled sideways at him. “Maybe you can meet up with Rich’s SQUIP and have a wild party or something in cyberspace. Or you could sync with some of my game systems and run around in them. I think you secretly liked being a little hamster.”

“I did not,” it protested and Jeremy only grinned more when he felt indignant static trail down his spine. The SQUIP tutted at him and turned away. “…I’ll consider looking into doing activities that don’t align with my assignment to you. It could prove to be an interesting experiment.”

“Uh huh.”

Jeremy left it at that and got back to his homework, although he was pretty sure he wasn’t focusing quite as well as before. Was it really that strange that the SQUIP had been humming? It seemed to do a lot of things that were a bit more extra than necessary – such as that little kiss to the back of Jeremy’s hand just the day before, but Jeremy was trying not to linger on that too much because it made his stomach feel funny – but it had always explained it away as being for Jeremy’s sake. But Jeremy was starting to wonder if that was just the SQUIP trying to convince itself that everything it did had a reason behind it and that it wasn’t just doing something for the sake of doing it like a stupid human would. A SQUIP was built to learn so that it could improve itself, and it would only see something as harmless as humming a tune as it worked as a distraction or even a downgrade.

But after Jeremy had eaten dinner and returned to his room to move on to his history homework, he blinked up as he once again heard the unmistakable humming. He looked over to see the SQUIP sitting on his bed, its eyes closed and expression contemplative as it almost hesitantly hummed out the familiar notes of ‘Mr. Roboto,’ albeit slower than the actual song. But as the minutes passed, the sound got more confident and Jeremy swore he even saw a smile.

“You have a nice voice,” he complimented after a bit.

“Just because someone can carry a tune while humming doesn’t mean they can sing well, Jeremy,” was the reply he got.

But when Jeremy lay down to sleep that night, nestled under the covers, he could see the gentle tell-tale glow of the SQUIP as it sat down on the edge of the bed, just as it had that first night it had activated. It ran its fingers through Jeremy’s hair, slow and soothing, and Jeremy tipped his head slightly up into the touch as he felt himself start to drift off.

And right before he fell asleep, he thought he heard a quiet voice singing:

“Everything about you is going to be wonderful…”

[youarejesting]

BTS365 Prompts.Week 23

[Full Masterlist] [Prompt Masterlist]

Beta: @lunarlxve

Please tag me in your work if you use my prompts. I want to see your work. Ever your Jester.

Tell me your birthday and I will tag you on your special day!

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          June 4th - 10th

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Kim Seokjin - hug

Kim Seokjin had never been hugged. He didn’t know what it felt like, but it always looked nice in movies and dramas. Why has he never been hugged? Well, he was an only child, and his parents went on a lot of overseas work trips. The nanny was an older woman and very stern. He wondered why she was a nanny when she hated children. She hated when they were too loud, hated when they got grubby or ran around, and hated when they talked or asked questions. 

Soon he was a teen, a handsome one but home schooled. Seokjin’s Tutor was an older man who only knew how to read a textbook and scold him. He never got hurt to warrant a hug, was never praised with a hug. Until he bumped into you. No literally bumped into you. The two of you toppled over, chest to chest. The warmth and physical connection sent a spark down his spine. He felt for the first time that he wasn’t alone. Even if it was a mistake that you fell against him.

Min Yoongi - cat

“Hey, Lil meow meow,” You grinned stepping into the studio. You were rival producers, and it amused you how easily you could get under his skin. You really meant no harm by it, and you hoped it came across that way. Sometimes he would do the same to you by making fun of the bags under your eyes or something as trivial. It had gotten simultaneously worse and better  due to renovations, you were sharing a studio. Both agreeing to leave each other’s music and equipment alone.

“So how long did it take for your date to run away this time?” He sighed, taking the coffee from your hand, freeing it so you could count his change and place the small pile of coins onto his desk. 

“He said his boss called him thirty seconds into the movie. The opening credits hadn’t even finished Min” You hissed sipping your coffee “I was so excited to see the movie.”

“What a prick, did he really?” Yoongi hissed, turning in his seat, pulling his headphones down so they would hang around his neck.

“Yes, he really did” you turned to face your computer, turning it on and setting everything up. “I don’t understand Min. Am I really that bad?”

“No you're not, as much as we joke you are cute” He grinned turning your seat around, so you were left with no choice but to look at him “Sometimes you act like a big cat all feisty and claws and teeth, but you forget you are actually a cute little kitten.”

Jung Hoseok - doughnut

“Welcome to the Doughnut Drive- thru. How may I help you?” You asked, trying to sound cheerful after a long shift.

“Hey, can I get twelve assorted iced doughnuts with sprinkles?” The voice was muffled through the drive-thru, but you knew exactly who it was.

You tapped the button on the sales machine. Waiting for his car to arrive. It was a red 1973 Mercedes 450SL. A beautiful piece of machinery. He smiled up at you and handed you the money as he did every time, brushing his fingers against your palm, making you feel warm in your pretty pastel blue uniform dress and apron. 

In the middle of the Money was a piece of paper that said ‘Hoseok xxxx-xxx-xxx call me.’ This wasn’t the first time he had handed you a note with his number. You felt your face flush, wondering if you looked like a tomato at this point.

“Here is your change sir, I will just get them now” You walked off and grabbed the assorted donuts and handed them over. Watching his car drive off.

It was when you heard his voice again through your headset from the drive-thru speaker that you grew confused. Have you made a mistake? “Miss y/n, I come around every Friday after work, hoping I might get the chance to talk to you. I have given you my number almost thirty times now, and you never text, never call. Just let me know before I die of a heart attack or diabetes from eating 12 donuts a week. Would you be interested in going on a date with me?”

Kim Namjoon - drive-in

Namjoon had asked you out a few days ago after school, he seemed confident and kind of cocky in front of his friends. You almost thought it was a joke; that is until he arrived at your house, his usually disheveled hair combed down. He was no longer in his leather jacket but a nice button up. He shook hands with your father, talking to him with a smile while you went to fetch your purse.

“Sir, I have plans to watch a movie with your daughter and then to eat at the diner. I thought I should let you know in case you wish to know her whereabouts.” Namjoon said, trying to be courteous to your parents. “The movie finishes at eight, and we should finish dinner by nine, so we shouldn’t be out too late.”

“You aren’t planning to do anything at the drive-in, are you?” Your father said sternly, “I know where you live mister Kim.”

“No, sir, we aren’t going to do anything except watch a movie,” Namjoon said, rubbing his palms on his trousers looking towards the stairs hoping you were ready to leave. “And perhaps I could hold her hand.”

“Alright, Mum, Dad, don’t scare the poor boy” You sighed, gesturing Namjoon over; he got up grateful that you had saved him from your father's intense stare.

“I will wait up,” Your father said, walking you both to the door catching Namjoon’s arm. “You may hold her hand, and I will allow one kiss goodnight if she wishes, but otherwise, keep your hands to yourself, buddy.”

“Yes, Sir. I will have her home by nine.” 

Park Jimin - VCR

“Hey Jimin, did you record the show last night? I was so busy with my Aunty’s 45th birthday that I was unable to watch it” You grabbed your friend's arm in the school hall. “Please, PLEASE tell me you recorded it.”

“Yeah I got it recorded, you can come over later and watch it with me after dance practice” He smiled giving you a perfect spin. “You will watch me, right?”

“Of course, Chim.” You stopped at your adjacent lockers, taking out your books, remembering the math pop quiz. It was going to be a long day.

You weren’t wrong, the day was slow and tedious. Your only saving grace was when you hopped into Jimin’s bright yellow buggy and took off to his dance class. You sat in the corner watching him dance. He was one of two boys who danced in his age group. The girls moved so delicately, their bodies were as light as air. It made you self conscious even Jimin in his sweats and singlet was more agile and graceful then you could ever dream of being.

He drove you both home, asking if he did well and telling you how he thinks he is ready for the upcoming performance. The Park family home was a single story. Jimin called it small and old, but you thought it was homely and cozy. The two of you sat in his room; you snuggled into his blankets while putting the old tape in the VCR machine. It was nice being with your best friend, but you wanted to be something more for some reason. 

You just wish you had the courage to tell him.

Kim Taehyung - BFF

It was a Friday night; you were in the basement lying on your stomach on the plush rug; your legs swinging back and forth as you slowly threaded beads onto a clear fishing line. Threading Taehyung’s favorite color beads in a simple, alternate pattern. You were able to fasten the bracelet when the door to the basement swung open. 

“You got it, Mrs. L/N, I will let her know for you” Taehyung’s voice called up to your mother as he hopped down the stairs enthusiastically. “Sup?”

“Just chilling Tae” The evidence of your craft pushed under the couch. 

“I just wanted to let you know, your mum says I can stay for dinner, if you want me to that is?”

“No duh, Tae, you’re my BFF.”

Taehyung laughed sitting on the two-seater sofa, his long legs hanging over the side. “We should do something fun” You hummed the BFF bracelet in your pocket felt heavy. 

“Like what?” Taehyung asks, earning a shrug from you. He ponders for a moment before continuing, “We could play truth or dare.”

“Will it work with just the two of us?” 

“Sure, let me go first,” he smiled, sitting up and crossing his legs on the couch, patting the second cushion, and you sat across from him. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth”

“Do you have anyone you like?” He peeked  at you from under his shaggy bangs, and you felt your cheeks grow pink. 

“Yes,” your giggle was nervous, and you tried to quickly move on, “truth or dare?”

“Truth?” He smiled, moving the hair out of his eyes with his fingers. 

“Do you have anyone you like?” He nodded, his face turned away, and your mother took this moment to bring you a plate of orange soda and biscuits. 

The two of you chorused your thanks, and when the door was shut, you were left alone once more. One more round and Tae asked if you had ever kissed anyone, and you dared him to dunk his biscuit in his soda before eating it. 

“Truth or dare?” He asked, seemingly determined to get you back for the horrific snack you had created. And you thought it only fair that he had the chance. 

“Dare,” you smiled, downing your soda so he couldn’t ruin it for you. 

“I dare you to kiss me,” you sprayed him completely, choking on the carbonated beverage. 

Jeon Jungkook - Iced tea

Jungkook was contracted to paint the outside of your family home. You were back home from University and house sitting for your parents while they were on a cruise. Laying out on a sun chair in your bikini, trying to enjoy the warmth of the sun, you started to get thirsty. Walking inside to your parent’s indoor bar, you began preparing some ice tea. It was when you saw him on a ladder painting above the window all shirtless and sweaty, that you decided to prepare a second beverage. 

You turned to the mirror fixing your hair, applying a tinted lip gloss, and readjusting your bikini top to accentuate your cleavage. You carried both drinks out and smiled, “Jungkook, was it? Would you like some ice tea, you look a bit thirsty.”

[dragonrajafanfiction]

One Simple Truth

Part 1 of the Wedding Arc for Carli and Johann. <3

“Are you nervous?” Caesar’s bright blue eyes stared mocking and cold at his old rival. His long convalescence in the hospital had forced him into a wheelchair. However, even though he’d only awakened from a coma three days ago, when he heard that today was going to be the day of the Gift Presentations to Carli as a bride, he demanded to witness it for himself.

Just watching Chu Zihang squirm helped him forget the indignities of being a patient.

Hybrid history had a long record of epic acceptances as well as epic rejections of a groom’s gift. Hybrid women from ages past are recorded to have been so fervent in their dismissal of their groom’s offerings that they killed the servants presenting them and returned the gifts with their heads -- as well as a strongly worded letter telling them to do better or else.

After all, many of them came from proud and prominent families. If they were too enthusiastic in their praise, they might shame their own houses. When it came to bridal gift reviews, the harsher the better.

Representatives from Lionheart had left that morning to present Carli with the gifts from Chu Zihang. It was now three hours later with no word. From within the Club Headquarters, Johann sat at the ancient oak wood desk, used by generations of Lionheart presidents, fingers entwined before his face waiting for her reply.

He hadn’t responded to Caesar’s question and kept up the frozen facade. Caesar knew that his age old opponent hadn’t had much time to prepare. He had just returned from a difficult mission overseas and they were to be married less than a week later. He could only give what he could get in that short of a time.

Caesar managed to get Finger to pass him the gift list. Johann had gotten everything he knew she liked. Things that would bring up fond memories of their time together. Even recordings of music he composed and sang for her himself. In a last ditch effort to appeal to her, he wrote a letter telling her how much he loved her and how much she meant to him.

In Caesar’s eyes, these were pathetic pleas for mercy from someone struck with a sudden lack of self-confidence. He wondered if Carli truly realized how much she had him wrapped around her little finger? 

The sound of the door opening interrupted his thoughts. Johann looked up. Chen Moutong strode in in a fury, heels beating the tile floor, eyes snapping. Arriving at the desk, she tossed her red hair over her shoulder and put one hand on her hip. “Well, that went over about as expected.” She said, her words clipped. “Like a lead balloon!”

Caesar smiled devilishly only to receive a pointed glare from her. 

The Lionheart members came in cringing. Susie was red in the face, her lips pursed in anger. Johann stood up, hands balled into fists at his side, ever stoic.

Caesar had to give him some credit for prepping to take what was coming like a man.

“I have a response from Bai Meixiu.” Nono didn’t even have any notes. As the representative of the bride, it was her duty to accurately portray not only the message but the emotions behind it. Who better to do so than the hybrid with the EX: Profiling?

“Johann Chu, you seem to have forgotten that I have the ability to purchase my own things. Are these clothes for me to wear? Or for you to look at? Is this kitchenware for me to enjoy? Or for you to fill your stomach with?”

“I don’t want any of these things, Chu Zihang.”

“What’s worse, you brought me toe shoes and dance gear. When was the last time you saw me rehearse? When was the last time you saw me practice? Do you really think I can have that sort of public career now? Be real!”

“The red Mini Cooper convertible? I remember wanting to buy it. I told you about it didn’t I? But I wanted to buy it with the funds I earned myself. The funds I was supposed to spend on my family when they were alive with a career that I no longer have access to.”

Nono’s voice echoed in the silence. Johann lowered his eyes. Caesar didn’t feel sorry for him at all. The woman had a good point.

“Are you trying to break my heart with gifts like these?” Nono gave a bitter laugh.

“And the grants toward people I used to know? You looked up the children I grew up with. You gave them scholarships to college. Even to that fool, De Vonne who never studied anything for a day gets to go to a nice college so he can play basketball. How will he learn to be responsible?” She tossed the papers dismissively on the desk.. “You think they were my friends? Given that I’m stricken with the blood Cry as much as you are? Some of these were the boys who had to be forced to play with me.”

“I could go on, but I know what you’re trying to do. Appeal to things you remember I liked when you met me. And maybe if things were a little different, I would have fallen to my knees in tears. But the woman you met died in Japan. Now there’s only this sick reality. The person I was before has been burned down to a small little truth. You should have known this and you’ve already forgotten it.”

“The name you chose for me has great meaning. I cherish that. But the name Carli has meaning too. It means ‘free man’. But I am not free!”

“Why are we getting married on January 1st? We didn’t pick that day. We’re getting married that day to slip under the radar of the school board. Why don’t they want you to marry me? Because they care about my future? No! It’s because they want to use me for their own ends!”

“From the very beginning this is a problem. I begged you to protect me from people like these after I came to Cassell. You swore to do it that night after the trip to Six Flags. After everything I’ve been through, this still hasn’t changed. My life is constantly threatened by people in the shadows who view me as their personal livestock. Look at what they’ve done to me even in the small window of opportunity they had! They ruined my life!”

Johann didn’t raise his eyes, he stood frozen. The Lionheart members whispered a bit to each other, worried.

“If I valued these things more than I valued my freedom, I could marry Gattuso and be happy.”

Caesar’s smile vanished. A ripple of laughter echoed through the halls of Lionheart. Nono crossed her arms and smirked.

“Do you understand, Chu Zihang?”

“I understand.” Chu Zihang replied immediately, one hand on Masamune. Nono gave an imperious nod “Good! I’ll relay that to her.” She flashed Caesar a radiant smile and turned and walked out, hair flagging behind her. The double doors shut.

[kmomof4]

Operation Secret Santa

And that is not just the title to the fic! Hello @teeandsnowflakes, I was your CS Secret Santa this year! It’s been so much fun chatting with you this month! I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas break and that you like this little fic I’ve written for you! I had planned a series of scenes showcasing CS getting ready for the holidays, but then presents showed up and the fic went in an entirely new direction. I still tried to incorporate some of your favorite Christmas things though and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for you! I also hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Thank you to @cssecretsanta2k19 for organizing this fun event and to @profdanglaisstuff for beta services! 

And now for your gift Tee! Merry Christmas!!! 

Under the cut unless Tumblr ate it.

ao3 link

Operation Secret Santa “Just a little more to the right, Killian,” Emma instructed, waving her hands in front of her as if her husband, who was currently hidden behind the newly cut Christmas tree, could see her.

Killian spit out the pine needles that he’d gotten a mouthful of as he tilted the tree to the right. He was so surrounded by the spicy scent of pine and scratchy branches that he could barely tell which way was up, much less whether it was straight or not.

“No, no, no Killian, the other right… my right,” she admonished, when the tree hovered precariously near the point of no return in its potential, imminent journey to the floor.

Killian huffed. “Well, how am I supposed to know that darling?” he groused affectionately as he straightened the tree up in the stand. “Ok lad, crawl under there and screw the trunk in place,” he said to Henry who was trying desperately, but unsuccessfully, to smother his laughter at his mother, who looked to him to be trying to take flight, and his step-father who he couldn’t even see properly behind the evergreen.

Henry crawled underneath the tree and proceeded to twist the screws into the trunk. Crawling back out, he was greeted with bright, happy smiles from his parents that he immediately returned. He turned around with a flourish of his arm. “Behold, the first annual Swan-Jones Christmas tree! Now for lights and ornaments!” He dashed off toward the basement to collect the boxes of decorations that had come with them from New York and that he and Emma had collected after the Final Battle in anticipation of their first Christmas as a fully intact family.

“Need some help, lad,” Killian called down when the teenager didn’t immediately reappear.

“Uh, yeah,” Henry called back, a note of, something, in his voice. “There’s more down here than I remember.”

With a cheeky grin at his wife, Killian sauntered over to the basement and disappeared down the stairs.

When Killian also didn’t reappear, Emma started down the stairs. “What’s taking you guys so lo- ohhh!” she exclaimed. For in front of her eyes and filling the basement were boxes upon boxes of not just Christmas decorations, but presents. Lots and lots of presents. Wrapped up in brightly colored paper, topped with sparkly bows and tags with the names Emma, Henry, and Killian.

Emma stared, slack jawed at the sight. There were enough presents here to make up for all the lonely years growing up when she was lucky if she got one present. And as an adult as well, when the only presents she ever got was if she bought them herself. Killian moved forward from the foot of the stairs to the first gift with his name on it. He ripped the paper and deftly opened the box with his hook. Looking inside, his eyes got as big as, well, a child’s at Christmas. His mouth opened and shut several times, before she finally asked, “What is it?”

He swallowed heavily before bringing it over to them. Peering down into the box, they found a soft, black teddy bear. A bear that was missing an eye, but otherwise was completely whole. Tears were gathering in his eyes as he explained, “He was mine… be…” he rubbed his hand over his face before continuing, “before Flint threw him overboard. Said only babies had those. I remember the day he lost the eye. I just couldn’t leave the loose thread alone and it came off in my hand. I cried for hours thinking I’d ruined him.” Emma gathered him in her arms as a barking sob escaped him. “I never thought I’d see him again,” he cried, his words muffled into her shoulder. “Where did this come from?” He raised his head from her shoulder and turned his inquiring eyes back to the piles of boxes.

Emma shook her head slowly. “I have no idea, Killian,” she said in awe, slowly making her way over to a gift with her name on it. After opening her own, she could feel her own tears gathering. She could feel her husband and son come up behind her on either side before she turned to them. “It’s a wooden music box. I remember seeing it in a catalog when I was about 10. It had Disney characters carved into the sides and played “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I remember thinking that surely wishing on a star and having that music box would mean that my parents would find me and take me home.” Now it was her turn to be enveloped in two pairs of strong arms and to feel the tears escape.

“And now you have, Swan,” Killian murmured into her hair before placing a gentle kiss there. “Your turn lad,” he nodded, encouragingly.

Henry untangled himself from their embrace and slowly walked to the pile of presents. Picking up a large gaily decorated box, he opened it. Inside he found The Chronicles of Narnia. The entire series. In hardback. He held up The Magician’s Nephew to his parents, stunned. “This was at the top of my Christmas list when I was eight. My other mom never really listened to what I wanted for Christmas or birthdays before I brought you home, Mom. I think she gave me a remote control car for Christmas that year. Along with an art set and some other books that I couldn’t care less about. How can this be?” he asked, incredulously. “Could Santa be real too?”

“Given the denizens of our fair hamlet, I’d have to admit to a sneaking suspicion that he is,” Killian speculated.

“But who?” Emma interjected. “Who could it be?” She turned her emerald gaze upon Killian first, then Henry.

A smirk broke Henry’s face and his eyes twinkled. “Sounds like Operation Secret Santa to me!”

Killian’s anticipatory grin could have lit up the Christmas tree all by itself. “A fine name for the operation, my boy!” He turned his eyes upon Emma. “Are you in, Swan?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” she barked, “I’m the OG Operation cohort! Of course, I’m in!”

“All right!” Henry gave an enthusiastic fist pump. “Let’s get the rest of these gifts upstairs and the tree decorated, then Operation Secret Santa can commence!”

“Let’s go,” Emma agreed. Picking up as many boxes as they could hold, they moved back to the main floor of the house.

~*~*~

All of Storybrooke had gathered at Granny’s on Christmas Eve for a blowout Christmas party that rivaled any yuletide ball held in the Enchanted Forest. This was the first time since the original curse broke that they’d been able to celebrate Christmas, what with villians running amok and general magical mayhem. Granny’s was decorated with every tacky Christmas decoration you could possibly think of, from the tree in the corner covered with brightly colored lights, balls, and tinsel, tinseled garlands strung across the windows to the kitchen, balls of holly and mistletoe holding up the garlands and in every doorway, fake snow on the counters and a fairytale village in the front window. With the jukebox playing Celine Dion’s recording of  O Holy Night, Emma looked around at all her friends and family talking, dancing, and eating their way through Granny’s bountiful Christmas buffet. Catching Henry’s eye, she joined him at the jukebox.

“Well?” she asked, “What do you think? Have you gathered any clues on who Santa could be?”

“None,” he answered. “But, everyone has had the same thing that happened to us, happen to them.”

“Really,” Emma exclaimed.

“Yeah,” he began, “Ashley, Shawn, and even Alexandra got a pile of presents. Ariel and Eric, Grandma and Grandpa, Mom, Zelena, and Robin, Archie, Pongo, even the fairies! No one’s been left out.”

“Hmmmm…”

“But, from what I can tell, everyone’s gotten presents based on the years of the curse, or…” he trailed away with a puzzled look on his brow, “their years as a hero. For instance, Mom only had six presents, the years since the curse broke, and Zelena had even less, but Robin had two, since she’s two. You had thirty-four, the years of the curse plus the years since, Killian had thirty-seven, as near as I can figure, his years growing up until Milah died and he became a villain plus the years since you all saved me in Neverland.”

“Interesting,” she mused. “It’s like he was saving them up for when we could all relax and enjoy the holiday.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Henry agreed.

“But that doesn’t get us any closer to who it might be.”

Killian joined them then with a grin that nearly split his face. “I have succeeded!” he exclaimed.

“Succeeded? You know who Santa is?” Emma demanded.

“What?” he asked, startled, “No! I sweet talked Granny into giving me her secret gingerbread cookie recipe.” He slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a cheeky smirk and wink. “Since I know your fondness for that particular seasonal delight.” He leaned in and whispered, “She doesn’t measure the molasses.”

Emma shrugged with a sheepish grin on her face. “Well, okay, I guess I forgive you.”

Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas is You now poured through the speakers as Emma’s attention settled on Marco and Archie sitting in the booth nearest them enjoying Granny’s gingerbread and cocoa. Marco got up suddenly and smiled widely at her. The booth was close enough that she knew he could hear every word they said. The twinkle in his eye made Emma narrow hers at the older gentleman, and when he shot a wink her way, her eyes grew huge as the puzzle pieces clicked into place. Marco raised a finger to his lips before turning away and heading for the door. Emma could hardly contain her excitement as a plan began to take shape in her mind.

“I think it might be time for all the good little children to get to bed if they want Santa to visit,” she said, staring pointedly at Henry. “It’s getting late.”

Henry rolled his eyes at her. “Good grief, Mom. I’m sixteen, not six. I don’t need to be in bed yet.”

Killian pulled Emma closer in to his side and waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at his bride. “Well, I don’t know about ‘good little children,’ but I know a grown up pirate who’d like to go to bed.”

Emma giggled and slapped his chest playfully as Henry rolled his eyes again and groaned. “Ewwww, gross, Dad! Teenager present! Fine, I’ll go home and go to bed. Just keep it down, okay?” he pleaded.

“I make no promises, lad.”

~*~*~

Emma came down the stairs of her home, much later, on tiptoe, seeking to surprise their midnight visitor.

“Ah HA!” she whisper shouted.

Marco spun around with his hand to his chest. “You scared the life out of me, your Highness!”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You know better than to call me that, Marco.” She approached him as he turned back to his work, placing presents under the tree. “You’re Santa Claus?” She couldn’t keep the awe out of her voice as she watched him.

“I have many names around the world in this realm, my dear. The one I’m known by in the Enchanted Forest is Belsnickel.”

“Where did all the Christmas presents come from?”

“Always the sheriff,” he chuckled, “Have to have the answers to all the questions, don’t you? Henry was right. Years as a hero that I didn’t get to deliver presents,” he explained. “Whether that was because of the curse, or the chaos of the ensuing years.”

“What about Killian?” she asked. “He had thirty-seven presents.”

“That blessed boy!” Marco laughed. “As a child and lad growing up in servitude, and even at the Naval Academy, it would have been pointless to give him his gifts. They would have been confiscated or destroyed by his masters. Before he turned villain, it just wasn’t practical to give him the things that had collected over the years. A ship just wasn’t the place for them. Once he turned villain, after Milah’s death, he didn’t deserve anything from me, so there wasn’t anything for him for centuries. But once he chose the hero’s path, I started saving his gifts again. I knew this day was coming and how much it would mean to him to receive all those gifts from his childhood.”

“But…” She trailed away. He turned his bright brown eyes upon her as comprehension dawned.

He smiled gently at her. “Yes, I am many hundreds of years old. I have far sight and can see many things that are secret,” he winked at her, “and yet to be.” Emma’s eyes fell toward the floor as a blush graced her cheeks. “And now, my dear, my work here is done. I must move on to the other residents of our fair town before I retire tonight.”

Emma’s eyes were still focused on her feet as Marco raised her chin to look at him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Merry Christmas, Your Highness.” And then he was gone.

~*~*~

Christmas night, Emma sat tucked between Killian’s legs on the sofa in front of the fire and Christmas tree just watching the blinking lights and enjoying a cup of cocoa before bed. Christmas Day had been magical and perfect. Filled to overflowing with love and laughter, family and friends. Killian shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he muttered, “What in the world is that?”

“Hmmm? What in the world is what?” she replied, twisting to look up at him.

“Every time the lights blink, something blinds me. Something on the tree.”

Emma hoisted herself up and walked over to the tree. “I don’t know. Is it reflecting off an ornament? Or maybe there’s something else hidden in the tree?” she wondered, aloud. She reached in and withdrew a tiny wrapped box with Killian’s name on it. She gasped in surprise as she turned and brought it over to where he sat. “It’s for you.”

“Thank you, love.” He reached up and took the small token from her, not quite able to hide his surprise.

“Don’t thank me. I don’t know where that came from. Must be from Santa,” she whispered with a small smile on her lips.

He smirked at her. “Marco, you mean?” he cheeked. “I still can’t believe that Marco is Santa,” he murmured opening the box. Inside was something that had his eyebrows shooting all the way to his hairline. He pulled out a pink pacifier with his hook and held it up for Emma’s inspection. A bashful grin lit up her face.

“I just found out for sure this afternoon,” she began, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You’re with child?” Killian choked out, rising from the sofa and drawing Emma into his arms.

“Yes,” she beamed at him. “Merry Christmas, Killian.”

“A very merry Christmas, indeed, Swan.” He lowered his head towards her and captured her lips in a kiss filled with love and joy of the future laid out before them.

Fin

A/N Obviously in my timeline, Emma got pregnant with Hope much earlier than in canon. I hope you liked this Tee! Merry Christmas!