#Still not entirely sure that a lot of what some people call 'Scots' actually counts as Scots

[the-busy-ghost]

LOVED the Scots question on the census, HATED the identity crisis it gave me

[alyasgf]

I can trust you, right?

mlb fanfic master list

Summary- ladybug: "chat I kinda told someone in my civilian form that I am ladybug"

chat noir: "huuh not me? Well its only fair if I tell someone, byee"

ladybug: " wait don't- "

next day at school:

Adrien:"marinette I need to tell you something but don't freak out"

Notes- I saw this tweet by Mina (@lovesquaree) on Twitter and could not stop thinking about it until I wrote it. Go follow them and as usual enjoy

Word Count- 3255

AO3

Begin

After Marinette told Alya her identity she ended up staying the night while Marinette explained everything. After hours of comforting on Alya’s end, Marinette was starting to feel better.

Alya hugged her and told her everything would work out as her best friend cried into her arms. Maybe love wasn’t on the table right now, but she’d always have her.

Eventually they fell asleep, Alya holding her tight as Marinette snored softly. In that moment, with Alya’s warmth surrounding her, Marinette truly believed everything would be okay.

Unfortunately Marinette awoke with a new problem on her mind.

“Alya, how am I supposed to tell Chat that I revealed my identity?” She panicked. “He’s going to be so heartbroken. He’s going to think I don’t trust him!”

“Calm down girl, you stress yourself out too much. Just take a deep breath.” She gave Marinette a moment to breathe. “Chat loves you, there’s no denying that. Sure he might be hurt, but you’ve been so overwhelmed he’ll just have to try to understand. You’re under a lot of pressure Marinette, it was only a matter of time until you broke. I’m just glad I was there before it got too bad. You’ll be okay.” Alya said this last part as she pulled Marinette into another tight hug.

“I love you and I’m here for you.” The brunette said for the thousandth time since the day before.

Marinette relaxed into the hug. “You’re right. I love you too, Alya. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Marinette began tearing up again, but she was determined not to cry anymore. She had Alya now. As a team there was no way she’d be alone anymore.

———————————

For the first time in a while Ladybug was early to patrol. As she paced she repeated Alya’s words to herself.

“I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay.” She mumbled.

Just then she heard a thump behind her. Even now, his presence calmed her.

She turned around with a smile.

“Looks like I’ve attracted a stray.”

“You know I can never resist your pull M’lady.” He replied, taking her hand to place a kiss on it.

She pulled it back giggling.

“Sit for a moment?” She asked. Her nerves were returning but she was determined to keep her cool.

“Something wrong bug? You’re early and I know you well enough to recognize that look on your face.” Chat sat beside her and looked into her eyes expectantly.

“Yes? I don’t really know.” She let out a nervous laugh. “Depends on how you take it.”

She looked back at him to see him as confused as ever.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed how different I’ve been since I became guardian. With juggling school work, superhero stuff, and my guardian responsibilities, I’ve had to lie to the people closest to me and it’s made me more absentminded than ever.

I’ve been missing patrols, doing work last minute, ruining relationships, and losing my friends trust. Yesterday I hit my breaking point.”

“M’lady if this is you apologizing it’s okay. I understand. If you need to talk I can be here for you too. Sure, your actions at the movies were a little odd, but nothing to worry about.” Chat said with a reassuring smile.

“No Chat, it’s not about that, although I am sorry about that and in a way this is leading to an apology, but for something entirely different. Yesterday I-“ Ladybug tried to figure out the best way to tell him without hurting him. “I revealed my identity to my best friend. I just felt so hopeless and I needed someone to take some of the weight off my shoulders. Kitty I’m so sorry I can’t tell you, you have no idea how much I want to.”

Chat sat there for a moment, processing the information he was just told.

“Wow. I just always thought we’d be the first to know. At least that’s what you always said.” Chat tried to mask his hurt but it was evident on his face. “Did it make you feel better?”

“A lot. All of my responsibilities feel just a little more manageable. Are you mad at me?” She asked looking alway and crossing her arms to hold herself.

Chat saw how worried she looked and decided he couldn’t hold it against her. Anything for her to be happy. Still, he couldn’t let her go scot free.

“I could never be mad at you bug.” He said softly. “You did what you needed to do. I know you wouldn’t reveal your identity unless it was your last resort.” He pulled her into a hug. “Although I have to say, it seems a bit unfair that you can reveal your identity to someone and I can’t.”

“Chat, we can’t reveal our identities to each other.” She pulled from the hug. “It’s just not safe right now.”

Though she still looked serious, she looked far less stressed than before. That was a win in Chat’s book.

“Okay, then what if I revealed it to someone close to me? Someone I trust and know would never tell anyone? Fair is fair after all.” Chat nudged Ladybug’s shoulder.

“Uh actually Chat I don’t know if-“

Chat jumped up. “Really! This is great thank you so much bugaboo!”

He was practically hopping up and down when Ladybug stood up.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.” She teased, grateful he wasn’t hurt. Maybe that is a good idea, she thought. This way she could subtly let Chat know she trusted him.

“You know you love it. Now come on, don’t we have a city to patrol?”

And with that he bounded off onto the next building, leaving Ladybug to laugh softly to herself before joining him.

————————

Adrien got back home that night excited. He jumped through he window and de-transformed immediately.

“Plagg! I get to tell someone my identity.” Adrien flopped onto his bed to stare at the ceiling. “Who should I tell?”

“I don’t know! I’m not in any way apart of this I just want my food.” Plagg phased into the safe full of cheese and came back out with a large wedge of camembert.

“Should I tell Nino?” Adrien asked, ignoring the kwami’s previous statement. “Actually I don’t know, he’s dating Alya. What if she accidentally lets something slip on the Ladyblog? I need someone trustworthy, someone who always puts others first, someone… someone just like Ladybug!” His eyes lit up as he came to a realization.

“That’s it Plagg I know who I’m gonna tell!”

Plagg laughed loudly. “Sounds like a great idea kid.” He said before delving back into his cheeses.

Adrien went to bed that night shaking with excitement.

————————————

The next day Adrien could hardly wait. He ate his breakfast faster than normal and was already waiting at the door when The Gorilla showed up to drive him to school.

When he arrived, he joined Nino in front of the school and looked around.

“Hey bud, what’s up are you looking for something?” Nino asked as he noticed Adrien’s wandering eyes.

“Have you seen Marinette? I want to tell her something.” Adrien said nervously.

Nino subtly jabbed his thumb at a bush towards the left.

Adrien turned to the bush and heard a loud rustle before Marinette tumbled out with a yelp. Alya walked from behind the bush and gave them a small wave.

Adrien turned to Nino with a confused look before shrugging and walking over.

Adrien put his hand out to help Marinette off the ground and she took it with a deep blush.

“Hey Alya, mind if I borrow Marinette for a minute?” He asked. He realized he hadn’t let go of Marinette’s hand yet and adopted a slight bush of his own before dropping it.

“Of course you can Adrien!” Marinette let out a squeak as Alya said this.

Alya gave Marinette a pat on the shoulder and chuckled before walking over to Nino.

Now that they were alone Adrien’s excitement turned to anxiety. He was so nervous he felt like he was going to throw up.

“So…uh Marinette,” he began as he took in her demeanor. She seemed as nervous as him. This made him feel a little better. “I need to tell you something but don't freak out. I can trust you, right?”

Marinette looked stunned but she gave a small nod. Adrien took a deep breath.

“I’m Chat Noir.”

A beat of silence.

“Hey Mari, you okay?” Adrien asked, worried he’d broken her.

He put his hand on her shoulder and she jolted, now fully back.

“Sorry sorry I’m fine.” She rushed out.

“So I can trust you to keep this a secret?” Adrien’s anxiety began to return, even though he knew Marinette would never tell anyone and this was an irrational fear.

“You can always trust me Adrien.” She said with a fondness she had never used with him before. “Though I have to ask, why tell me? Why not Nino or Chloe? They seem closer to you.”

Now it was Adrien’s turn to blush. “Well when I thought of who I wanted to tell, I figured why not tell the most Ladybug person I knew?” He said sheepishly.

“And you’re in love with Ladybug, right?” She asked as though confirming.

Adrien blushed harder. “Well, yeah.”

“Okay well thank you for trusting me Adrien, really it means a lot to me.” She pulled him into a hug.

“We should probably head into school, the bells about to ring.” She said dragging him over to their pair of friends a couple feet away.

———————————

“What’d you say to Adrien?” Alya whispered to her once they sat down. “It’s weird. He was actually the blushing mess this time, rather than you.”

“I can’t say too much because he told me not to tell anyone.” Marinette confessed. “But let’s just say it solves a few of my problems.”

Alya looked more confused than ever and Marinette just giggled.

———————-

Marinette was playing it cool, but on the inside her brain was jumping hurdles.

Adrien and Chat Noir were the same person?

It wasn’t completely unbelievable, she’d heard Adrien tell horrible puns before and Chat was certainly cute enough to be a model, but it was still a shock to her system. At least now she could finally stop denying her feeling for Chat.

Still, what were the chances after she specifically told him not to reveal his identity to her he’d do just that. There’s no way it was on purpose thought, Marinette doubted he’d have kept his cool of he knew who she really was.

Which meant there was only one logical explanation. Plagg put him up to this. Call it entertainment, call it annoyance at their continued antics, it was most definitely in Plagg’s nature.

And yet Marinette still couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just fate leading them on their way.

Marinette tried to talk to Adrien all day, but there was never really a chance to talk about anything of substance due to the continued presence of other people. She just couldn’t find a time to catch him alone.

In the end she opted to drop by his house later as Ladybug and let him know the truth, while also taking the time to chew out Plagg. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized his mistake.

As she watched Adrien walk to his car she called, “See you later Adrien!”

He seemed a little confused but gave her a well meaning wave anyway.

———————

“Do you think Chat Noir would love me if he knew my identity?” Marinette asked.

She decided to walk Alya home that day, and was starting to rethink her decision to reveal her identity to Chat Noir.

“Have you seen that boy? He’s head over heels for you. I doubt anything could change that. Does this have something to do with your conversation last night? You never told me how it went you know.” Alya’s reporter side began to show.

Marinette loved Alya for that. Her quizzical smart nature was what had attracted Marinette to her in the first place. Marinette smiled at her friend as she thought about that.

“It went well...” Marinette began, choosing her word wisely. She didn’t want to accidentally let Alya know that Chat Noir had revealed himself to her today. “We came up with a resolution to show him that I still trusted him, and I think he understands a little bit.”

“Girl that’s amazing! I told you you’d have nothing to worry about.” Alya squeezed her hand as she said this, and Marinette couldn’t help but appreciate her warmth.

“Yeah yeah I know. You’re always right because you’re super smart and the best friend ever.” Marinette laughed along with her brunette friend.

“And don’t you forget it.” Alya stopped in front of her house. “Call me if you need me okay?”

Marinette nodded, Alya kissed her cheek, and that was that.

Marinette decided to take the long way home that day. The longer she took to get home, the longer she had to decide what to do about Chat.

As if reading her mind she heard Tikki from her purse.

“What are you going to do about Adrien, Marinette?” Tikki had taken the Alya situation pretty well. Still Marinette wasn’t sure how Tikki would feel about her plans.

“Well, if I know his identity why shouldn’t he know mine? I am the guardian after all, and he’s my partner.” She decided.

“I’m not going to push you, because it is your choice. But if this isn’t absolutely necessary why do it?”

“I just feel like he deserves to know. He’s trusted me blindly for so long, it’s time for me to do the same for him.”

Tikki nodded and they were quiet for the rest of the way home.

—————————

Once she greeted her parents and headed upstairs, she went up to her balcony and called out her transformation phrase.

It was getting dark, so she knew Adrien would be home from fencing by then.

As she leaped across buildings she attempted to calm her nerves.

This was her goofy partner as well as her longtime crush. He was both of her favorite boys in one. No big deal.

There was one thing she was sure of though. Nothing she could say would change how he felt about her.

This comforted her as she neared his mansion.

————————-

Adrien was still riding off the rush of the day. Marinette seemed to take his confession in stride. Maybe this was the push their friendship needed.

Overall, he was glad he chose her to tell. That was one thing he would never regret.

He entered his room after the long day and threw off his white over shirt, Plagg along with it.

“Hey! Be careful with me I’m not a toy!” He complained, zooming back over to Adrien with his arms crossed.

“Sorry Plagg I forgot you were there to be honest.” Adrien sighed zoned out and laid out on his bed.

“I take it you enjoyed telling pigtails?” Plagg chuckled.

This snapped Adrien back. “Yeah I did actually, why?” Adrien said, voice full of suspicion.

“Oh I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” As he said this, Plagg phased back into the safe after a quick look over his shoulder.

Right as Adrien was about to demand what that was about, he heard a tapping on his window.

Confused, he turned to see Ladybug.

He ran over to open it immediately, almost tripping over his feet.

“Ladybug! What are you doing here?” He asked, helping her down from the window ledge.

“Is it wrong to visit my favorite civilian?”

Adrien blushed, earning a laugh from the hero.

“I actually came here to talk to you about something Adrien.”

“Oh?” Adrien was more confused than ever. Ladybug had never stopped by before, why would she start now?

“I understand you know Marinette Dupain Cheng?”

Adrien’s heart dropped. Had Marinette really revealed his identity to Ladybug?

“Listen Ladybug, whatever she told you I’m sure I can explain! I promise I didn’t think she’d tell anyone, much less have to means to tell you.” Adrie felt so guilty. He shouldn’t have told anyone. Now who knows who else knew his secret.

Adrien was shocked to hear Ladybug laugh.

“No one told me anything, Mon Chaton. At least not on purpose.” She walked over to his bed and pat the spot beside him. Still in a daze, he sat down without a word.

“Tikki, spots off.” She said quietly.

There was a flash of pink and there on his bed was none other than Marientte.

Adrien gasped, eyes widening and jaw dropping. “I- wow I had no idea when I told you I swear!” He managed to get out.

“I know. I assumed Plagg had something to do with it.” Marinette said, looking around for the black kwami.

At that Plagg came out from his spot.

“All I’m guilty of is not stopping it. It was all his idea. You guys needed to hurry up and tell each other anyway. I was getting bored.” Plagg huffed.

Tikki flew over to him and pulled him away, muttering about the importance of secret identities and his irresponsibility.

Adrien turned back to the girl. “So you told Alya I’m guessing?”

“Not on purpose. Right after she and the other girls got akumatized the other day, she asked me what was wrong and I broke down and told her.” Marinette replied, looking at her twiddling hands.

Adrien took one of her hands, her eyes meeting his again.

“Well now you have two people here to support you Mari. You won’t have to hold this weight by yourself anymore. You have us.”

Marinette teared up but wiped her eyes quickly before anything came out.

“You know this doesn’t change how I feel about you right? I know there’s still Luka, but I can’t sit here and pretend that my feelings haven’t only grown stronger knowing the truth.” Adrien confessed, searching her eyes for any immediate reaction.

What he hadn’t expected to see was the amount of love that filled them.

“Oh kitty, it’s always been you. Whether you were Adrien or Chat Noir, you’ve held my heart.” Her hand went up to cradle his face as she said this. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about my identity so I didn’t want to push anything on you, but I’ve felt something toward you ever since that day in the rain, ever since I realized how I could never truly be Ladybug without you. I love you, Adrien.”

Adrien looked shocked yet again. First finding out her identity and then this? Adrien couldn’t believe his luck.

Without another word he leaned in to kiss her.

As his eyes closed he felt her soft lips meet his. They were warm and tasted of chocolate. He could smell her hair, which was strawberry scented. He did everything he could to take this moment in, remember it to the fullest extent, but his mind was turned to putty by her touch. Her hand still cradled his face and he brought and arm around her to pull her closer.

When they pulled apart to catch a breath, all Adrien could think of was how his skin was still hot where her hand had been, how his stomach was still fluttering looking at her dilated eyes and freshly kissed lips.

“I love you too, my buginette.”

End Notes- This one was a lot of fun! Reply with your favorite parts because that makes my day and leave a like and reblog if you enjoyed this! I think I’m getting back to my writing swing so let’s hope the first wave of exams don’t ruin that, but if I don’t finish Adrinette April feel free to blame them.

[gifted-burnout-archive]

Jim’s Best Friend

Part Three -The Todd Packer Problem

Word Count: 2098

Author’s Note: ack! Hello readers! So, been thinking that I might put this up on Wattpad, I dunno, I kind of like writing here (like, wayyyyy more). But yeah, anyway, on with the story!!

WARNING: sexual harassment, offensive language

August, 2005.

"Who has two thumbs and hates Todd Packer? This guy." Jim said into the camera, pointing at himself. The sound of Todd's voice came from the office outside, and Jim's face fell. "I hate him."

—

A lot had happened in the two months since the basketball game, since the anniversary of your mother's death. You and Jim had become even better friends, Pam and Roy hit a rough patch and she got drunk at the Dundies, kissing Jim at one point. You and Brian broke up, and then got back together. But above all else, the biggest thing that had happened was, well, Michael got nicer.

Sure, he was still forwarding those inappropriate spam emails and hitting a line between dark humour and flat out racism on a weekly basis, but he had gotten back into inviting you over for dinner and the pair of you spent some time together outside of work. And to the office in general, he was easing up a little. He didn't bash Toby so much, he avoided making jokes at Pam's expense, he even brought in cake when he hadn't messed up in a major way, simply for the joy of sharing cake with colleagues.

But then, the Todd Packer thing happened.

Todd Packer was an old colleague of Michael's, when he was still a sales rep, and every once and a while, the asshat would visit the office and disrupt an entire day's work with inappropriate commentary and digs at Michael.

And not only did Michael take it, he played along, and amped up his own asshole levels to a solid 11. But the problem was, no-one knows when a feral Todd would appear, and you entered the office that extremely hot August morning in a new white work dress, with a black blazer and heel combo, thinking the most reaction you would get was Pam asking for a twirl and Kelly asking where you bought it.

Instead, you entered the office in your black and white get up, your hair styled and your makeup done to perfection you felt worthy of, and received a wolf whistle straight through the door. You looked around for the culprit, wondering if one of the guys in the office was just being funny, and your eyes caught onto him.

Todd Packer.

When you started at Dunder Mifflin six years ago, he had tried to get in bed with you, nicknaming you Jailbait, and once you had refused him for three years, he changed your nickname to Tease.

"Whoa mama! You get a boob job Y/N? God those things look amazing." He said as he walked over to you, throwing an arm over your shoulder and blatantly looking down at your cleavage. "Come on Tease, ain't gonna give your favourite Upper Management official a kiss hello?" He smirked, and you kept a straight face as you sat down at your desk, doing your best not to punch him in the face. Jim looked over at you, his own fists clenched, and gave you a look that asked if you wanted the asshole beaten to death. You shook your head slightly.

"Packer, I have sales to make. Please go annoy someone else." You said politely, dialling you're first number of the day, focusing on the wall ahead of you instead of his clammy hands on your shoulders.

"Always such a spoil sport Y/N..." he said with a sigh, walking away to find Michael, and letting you breathe out the breath you had been holding.

"The one day I dress up and he's here?" You sigh, waiting for someone to pick up the phone. Jim glanced back at Pam, who looked equally as uncomfortable, but the three of you didn't say anything more, getting back to work.

"Hi there, this is Y/N from Dunder Mifflin. I was calling to inquire about your paper supplier?" You said in your best call voice, opening up your computer as you spoke to the new client. "Uh huh, right. Well, I'm aware you are currently being provided for by Staples madam, however the Dunder Mifflin paper stock is not only higher quality, but better value for your money. If I could have just five minutes of your time, I could offer you some quotes for next quarter? Yes? Brilliant. Thank you very much."

You cheered up a little after that first call, making a new client and strong start to the day. You got up to do a coffee run for yourself, Jim and Pam, and Jim took your your arm gently.

"You do look lovely today Y/N. Try not let Packer get you down." He reassured you, and you smiled back at him, grabbing his coffee mug and heading to the kitchen. Once you had filled all the cups, you made your way back out into the office to find Todd Packer in the centre of the room with Michael.

"... got him on bullshit charges of sexual harassment." Was what you heard as you walked in, and you shared a look with Pam. Her mom was meant to be coming in today, the three of you had been so excited about it. Her mom lived around two hours away, and Pam only really saw her at holidays. You and Jim were yet to meet the Pam's mom, both having so many questions about Pam as a kid, about the whole awkward teenage years.

You sighed and headed back over, placing a coffee on Jim's desk, followed by Pam's, before sitting down at your own.

"Y/N, not going to get me one too? Extra sugar?" Packed called, and you turned your chair.

"I make coffee for friends, not parasites." You said with a sweet smile, turning back to your desk, smiling as you caught Jim's smirk from the corner of your eye.

—

"Just a five minute review of the company's sexual harassment policy guys, nothing major." Toby announced, a screen and projector set up in the middle of the office. Michael had disappeared down to the warehouse, and Packer was off for lunch, so you all settled in for the presentation with a relaxed feeling in the air.

"Now, there is a difference between humour and harassment. I know everyone likes a joke, but our job, as responsible people, is to know when we cross a line, ok?" Toby's presentation was more than informative, and for the five minutes you all stayed quiet and listened, Pam raising her hand at the end of Toby's speech.

"Just so you all know, my mom should be coming today, and I'd really appreciate it if you kept more risqué jokes to a minimum if she's here?" Pam asked in a small voice, the office unanimously agreeing.

"Maybe it's a good idea to keep that in mind everyday. Act like Pam's mom is coming to visit." Toby rounded off with a joke, and as people started for lunch or back to work, Michael walked in.

With a blowup doll.

"Is it over? No? Good. Do you all realise what we could lose now corporate is breathing down our necks?" Michael asked, and you ran a hand through your hair. He wasn't doing this all for him, he was trying to impress his 'best friend'.

"Your forwarded emails?" Angela spoke up, and Michael nodded, pointing at her.

"Exactly!"

"I hate them." She replied, standing up and walking back to her desk. The rest of the room slowly returned to work, and Pam came over to Jim and your desks after twenty minutes.

"So, I say we do drinks tonight? Poor Richard's, the three of us? My mom just phoned in, she's got food poisoning and can't make it tonight, so Roy is out with the warehouse guys, and I haven't hung out with you guys for ages." Pam suggested, and Jim and You shared a look.

"You read my mind." You said with a grin, and Jim nodded fast.

"Yes, please. Drinks, 100%." With the plan made, you all went back to work happier, and as the afternoon continued on with little disruption from a certain asshole, you wondered if you might just make it to the end of the day without seeing him.

And then Packer returned, and began telling disgusting stories about incidents at HQ, about his own bizarre sex life. As 4.45 rolled around, you couldn't wait to pack up early and leave, finishing your last call of the day.

"... a room full of perfect tens, right? And then there's this one girl who looks like..." Packer gestured towards Phyllis, who sat doing her work.

"Phyllis?" Kevin asked, and Packer nodded as Michael walked out from his office.

"Whoa, whoa that crosses the line." Michael stopped the discussion, stood beside a rather upset looking Phyllis.

"Ex-squeeze me?" Packer raised and eyebrow.

"Not you. Kevin. Not cool dude." Michael shifted the blame, letting Packer off scot-free as he went on to compliment Phyllis' beauty, and make some borderline inappropriate comments in good faith.

"Let's go?" You suggested to Pam and Jim, who both nodded and started packing up. You bent over to pick up your handbag, and suddenly felt a strong hand grabbing at your ass. You shoot up straight and turned around, backing away from Packer to stand beside Jim.

"What the actual fuck dude?" You said, your heart beating fast from the shock of it all. Pam looked up, confused, and Jim looked concerned.

"Wait, what happened?" Jim asked, and you held onto your friend's arm tightly.

"He just grabbed my ass!" You exclaimed, and Jim looks from you, to Packer, and back to you, his usual happy smile being replaced by a look of complete anger.

"What the Hell man? You don't get to touch her like that." Jim walked straight up to Packer, shoving him back and quickly catching the attention of Michael.

"Tease was asking for it. And what are you going to do, Queer?" Packer taunted Jim, but before punches we're thrown, Michael stepped in.

"Slim-Jim, what's the problem? Why are you attacking our guest?" Michael asked, and Jim took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

"Your best friend Packer just groped Y/N." Jim accused, and Michael looked shocked.

"Todd?" He asked, and Jim eyes rolled as the asshole feigned innocence.

"Your man has it twisted Michael. I didn't do a damn thing Y/N didn't want..." He said, and you stepped forward.

"What is that supposed to mean? You grabbed my ass Packer, it wasn't wanted." You tried to defend yourself, pulling your blazer tighter across your body to cover the form fitting dress.

"Truth be told Michael, last time I was here Y/N and I... Well, long story short, she wasn't complaining about were my hands were the morning after." Todd said, and Jim nearly exploded.

"So, you're using a fake hookup to justify the fact you just sexually assaulted Y/N?" Jim laughed, but Michael had a straight face, looking directly at you.

"Seems like a misunderstanding to me. Let's all just cool off and come back Monday." Michael said slowly, and Pam's jaw dropped in shock. You and Michael went back years, he had been there for you through your mom's death and helped you moved from an internship in the warehouse to a sales post in the office. You had been a team, for years.

But Michael made a decision that Todd was more important than you.

"I did not sleep with Todd, Michael. You know that... So how pathetic do you have to be to believe that asshole over me?" You asked, grabbing your things and letting Jim lead you out of the office, Pam following behind. The three of you walked from the office to Poor Richards, and it was only once you sat down that you noticed your hands shaking.

"I swear I didn't sleep with him guys... You have to believe me." You blurted out, feeling tears on their way. Pam hugged you tightly, and Jim rubbed your back gently.

"Of course we believe you Y/N. God, he's a whole new level of dickhead." Pam reassured you, and you smiled weakly between the two.

"Can... Can we get drunk please? Need to get my mind off of Michael's betrayal." You tried to laugh, but it made you want to cry more. Jim jumped up, designated courier for your booth to the bar.

Tonight was going to lead to an hangover in the morning, but you didn't care one bit.

[hoovii]

The Mix Up Part Three

Pairing: Mob!Steve Rogers x OFC (Adrien Bravo)

Warnings: violence, swearing, they’re not in love yet because they just met ya nasties, Bucky and Adrien flirting, mentions of sex but it’s not like- nobody is doing any sex, oh and she’s still tied up so also not good, shirtless bucky i was going to make her and bucky buddies but she bonded with thor in this one somehow, warning section lowkey just turning into my footnotes, 

Taglist: @kayteewritessteve @wxstedhexrt @caps-lockdown @scuzmunkie @my-favorite-fics-and-imagines @champagnesugamama @weepingwillow2233 @ellystone

Part One Part Two

_

“James, you never cease to amaze me.”

Steve finally tore his gaze away from Adrien, and she had to admit she was a little relieved. He intimidated her, and that took a lot, granted he was a feared crime lord so maybe it was in the job description: be scary to look at. Check. 

“Uh oh. Pulling out the first name.” Sam leaned into Bucky’s, (James’?) side and whispered. Well, it wasn’t really a whisper but he tried. 

“Don’t think you’re off the hook Wilson.” 

“Uh oh. Pulling out the last name.” Bucky mocked. 

Adrien let out a huff of laughter. Because, holy shit she was about to be killed by guys with the IQ of drunk puppies, and maybe the personalities as well. 

“Excuse me, sir,” Suddenly they were all looking at her and they all had the stare. Jesus Christ. “are you going to kill me?” 

Steve cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. There was that stare again. Why did it give her shivers? He chuckled before settling on an amused grin. 

"No, dear, I'm not going to kill you." 

Thank god. At least she could relax a little. She could acknowledge her surroundings in a manner that wasn’t looking at what she thought was the last place she’ll see. She could look at the men who stood before her and holy shit, were they this hot the whole time? Of course, now that she wasn’t worried about imminent death the tight hold she had on her tongue went in the trash to the dump into the incinerator. 

“Well that’s a fucking relief, my ass hurts, so maybe if I’m not gonna die, one of you hunks could show me to a more comfortable seat.” 

She clasped her hand over her mouth. If she wasn’t going to be murdered before she certainly was now. Sam and Bucky exchanged wide-eyed glances, jaws slack before looking at Steve. Her whole life depended on his facial expression. Would his perfectly smooth skin be wrinkled in anger? Okay, he’s a criminal, maybe picturing how scary his gorgeous blue eyes would be when angry isn’t a good idea. Yeah let’s file that away and put it in the drawer that we never think about along with our eating habits, the fact that the Zodiac Killer was never caught, and our creepypasta phase. 

She finally opened her eyes that had, sometime in her fear and embarrassment had screwed shut. He looked amused. Thank god. He has a sense of humor. 

“Of course, how rude of me. Come along Miss Bravo.” 

Again, her mouth betrayed her. “How am I supposed to follow you when I’m tied up like I’m about to have kinky sex. Which, not going to lie, would really bring up my mood right now.” 

So long to her dignity. Steve chuckled and signaled to Bucky to untie the ropes.

“You have quite the mouth on you don’t you?”

“Yeah and I’m pretty good with it too.” 

“I’m going to get the lady situated, you two wait, we’re going to have a chat afterward.” 

Steve gripped her arm firmly but not so much as to hurt her. That seemed to be a tendency with these guys. Weren’t they supposed to be like monsters? You know, brutal, cold-blooded criminals? Steve was silent the whole walk. He kept his eyes forward and so did Adrien she didn’t even kind of trail behind to maybe check out his ass. She didn’t. 

They came to a lovely room filled with lounge chairs and leather couches. Another handsome man stood by the door. Was it a requirement that you had to be hot to be in the mob or something? He was big and bearded and had long blond hair and also a criminal. 

“Thor, I need you to watch Miss Bravo here while I attend to some things. I’d rather she be in the office as she’s not exactly mobbed up.” 

He turned to face her. “There are food and drinks, just ask Thor. He can get you anything you like. Nobody will bother you in the office, and I will be back to address our situation.:” He said a few hushed words to Thor before exiting.

“Thor, huh?” 

He raised an eyebrow at her. Okay, yeah he was a criminal, but like a little flirting never hurt anybody, did it? 

“Like the Norse god?” 

“Miss Bravo,” 

“Call me Adrien.” 

“Adrien, I was born during a lightning storm. The storm started when my mother was first having contractions and ended as soon as I stopped crying. Or so my mother said.” 

“Well, Thor, I can say with certainty that that is actually very badass”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you here Miss Bravo?” 

“Adrien. And that, my friend, is a long-ass story.” 

By the end of that long ass story, which took forever to get through because of Thor adding his input and Adrien getting sidetracked, the two were laughing like hooligans. Like absolute madmen. Like nutzos. Like, they were laughing really hard. Every time they would calm down Thor would let out a breathless wheeze causing Adrien to burst into another fit of giggles. If they were being honest neither of them knew why they were laughing anymore. Not entirely. Every now and then Adrien would let out a loud, “Another!” before dissolving into more laughter. 

Then the door opened. Adrien once again found herself meeting the intense gaze of Steve. The two tried to hush their laughter. Adrien mumbled out a ‘sorry sir’. Adrien shrugged and made a face at Thor, who let out a boisterous laugh. 

“I like this one Boss.” 

“Thank you, Thor. I would like to speak with Miss Bravo now. Tell Bucky that he can count the cash now if he would.” 

Thor mouthed a ‘good luck’ before exiting the room. Leaving Adrien alone. With Steve. He gestured for her to sit before taking his place behind the desk. “Miss Bravo, I am Steve Rogers. I run this establishment. Now you understand, Miss Bravo, that I can’t just let you walk away from this. It’s a liability.” 

“So you are going to kill me.” 

“Of course not. We will just need to take measures to ensure our friends at the police station don’t hear about this incident. You understand.”

“Hey boss man, I’ve got bad news.” 

Bucky burst into the room. He had tried to appear laid back, but his eyes displayed panic. He threw down a duffel filled with hundred-dollar-bills. 

“Buck, we are trying to let Miss Bravo out of here relatively scot-free. How are we supposed to do that when you come running in her with garbage business dealings. Do you want us to have to kill her?” Steve looked thoroughly annoyed. 

“No, no, no. I would never want such a lovely lady to die.” 

Adrien winked. “Oh, I’m sure you could keep me alive.”

She eyed the bills again. She had never seen so much money in her life, not even on a bank statement. Money like that could pay for braces. Money like that could pay for a lot of things. 

“That’s a fat fucking stash of cash.” 

“Yes, and it’s all fake. The cash from Rumlow’s payment, it’s all counterfeit.”

Anger flooded Steve’s eyes. It was only for a second, but she never wanted to see it again, let alone be on the receiving end of it. She almost felt bad for this Rumlow guy. 

“Could you two, if it isn’t too difficult for you, fetch Rumlow for me. I need to speak with him” 

Bucky quickly hurried off.

“Mr. Rogers sir if you don’t mind me asking, do you make that kind of money regularly?” 

It was hard not to notice the expensive clothes and lavish furniture. Clearly, somebody had money, and Adrien needed money. Adrien wasn’t averse to breaking the law when it came to providing for her two boys. They were her sons and they were going to get the best damn life they could live. 

“That kind of money, when actually paid, is a small portion of the money that we earn. Employees are paid based on time commitment, loyalty, and type of job. But to answer your question, yes, that kind of money is made regularly.” 

“So, if someone were to be interested, hypothetically, in a job offer, how would they go about that?”

For a vicious criminal, Steve had a very expressive face. Weren’t these guys supposed to be stoic? Was everything in the godfather wrong? Or perhaps she was just more perceptive than most people?

“I’m an excellent worker with flexible morals and a strong will, and I can fight, and I need the money for my brothers, sir.” 

“Well, that’s admirable Miss Bravo but it’s a little more complicated than just signing up. We’ll have to do a background check, we’ll do an interview, a skill assessment. This would of course take several weeks. Here, I have some paperwork you can fill out.” 

“Okay, thank you for your consideration, sir. I really have to head home now. I have to take the boys to school in the morning.” 

“I’ll call you a car. Perfect timing. Bucky, can you drive Miss Bravo back to her residence? I’ll deal with Rumlow. We’ll be in touch, Miss Bravo.”

He left and Bucky led Adrien to a car similar to the one she was in earlier. It was all very silent as they got in. There was a tension in the air. 

“Wow, it’s nice to sit in the front this time.” she tried. 

Bucky gave her half a smile. They rode in silence until they reached her house. “Hey, you should put some ice on that.”

She pointed to the blooming black eye he was sporting. There were also several cuts on his face and hands. He probably had several bruises on his torso as well. 

“I’ll be fine-”

“Absolutely not. You come inside. I’ll get you fixed up right now.”

She walked around and grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the car and into her apartment. 

“Shirt off and sit.” 

“Well, at least take me out to dinner first Miss Bravo.” 

He still did as she asked, sitting on the island and removing his shirt, confirming her suspicions of further injuries. She grabbed the first aid kit and an ice pack before coming up to him to assess his injuries.

“Adrien. And I might just take you up on that offer Bucky.” 

She gave him the ice pack to place on his eye. After cleaning the blood off of his face and stomach it was clear that the only actual issue was a split lip and eye. She was able to apply some Neosporin and butterfly bandages. She kissed the top of his forehead before freezing. 

“I’m so sorry, I’m just used to fixing up the boys and, and, and I-” 

“It’s quite alright. I should be heading out though.”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

Bucky gave a sly grin before shutting the door on himself. 

“You bet your ass you will.”

[scige]

「madelyn cline & cis female」⇾ beaumont, saige, the senior radcliffe student’s records show that she is a cancer and 22 years old. she is studying linguistics + criminal psychology, living in noland and can be blithe, energetic, evasive & irrational. when i see her i am reminded of the familiar riff of an old song, skinned knees with laughter following, and wishes on eyelashes stuck to your cheekbones. ⇽「james & 21 & est & they/them.」

N HERE IS MY LAST CHILD FR NOW ... both happy n sad ... god ... bites fist. alright. let’s go!

TW CHILD ABUSE, DRUG USE, ALCOHOLISM, ADDICTION, DEATH, HIT & RUN CAR ACCIDENTS, GRIEF, GUILT

aesthetics.

stick n’ pokes at 2am – when your drunk and giggling too much in between purposeful stabs, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk because they’re bad luck and they’ll break your mother’s back – even if your mother doesn’t love you, because you love her, the familiar riff in an old song – one that’s got you strumming along silently; there is no guitar, only empty air lit by the christmas lights you haven’t taken down. it’s may. swallowing down shots, and by default, swallowing down problems. laughing quick, easily, constantly. skinned knees from skateboarding, despite being rubbish at it. wishes on eyelashes stuck to your cheekbones, glitter sticking, running into the ocean at sunrise; feeling at home. excuses, and the many forms they come in. telling people you love them through hand squeezes and fresh muffins, sideways glances and soft, eager grins.

basic info.

full name: saige alouette beaumont

nickname(s): n/a :/ give her some

b.o.d. - july 7th, cancer

label(s): the hedonist, the icarcian, the reveler, etc.

height: 5′7″

hometown: thibodaux, louisiana

sexuality: bisexual w/ a very slight preference towards masc-presenting folks

pinterest

stats

inspired by: serena van der woodsen (gossip girl), aimee gibbs (sex education), alexis rose (schitt’s creek), elle woods (legally blonde), rapunzel (tangled), clementine (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind), angela montenegro (bones), tinkerbell (peter pan), late 2000 / early 2010s kesha… i don’t know because she’s not actually inspired by anybody i made her when i was like 13 HDSJBKFNGHJLDS

biography.

the fallible daughter of two very infallible people: robert beaumont, US lieutenant general (soon to be US general), and manon lévesque, world renowned fashion designer on levels par with gucci and versace. both cold, calculating, and purposeful.

no matter how much she wants to believe otherwise, saige is sure that she was not created out of love. it was an action with a purpose, intentions to create the perfect child. the hybrid of both military genius and fashion extraordinaire. a proper socialite. a 1% citizen. molded to their will.

born in thibodaux, louisiana (surrounded by her father’s family - a long line of old money southern magnates & moguls with a history of beauty pageant winners in each woman) - it took them no more than six months after her birth for her parents to up and move, thus beginning a cycle of packing and unpacking, flying and driving, state-to-state and country-to-country. the longest saige had ever stayed in one place was two years, until radcliffe. even then - conditioned to never become truly attached to a place, she has the urge to up and run away at any given moment, onto the next adventure.

she was kept on a short leash, home-schooled, and learning skills she had no interest in (from cooking to sewing to ballroom dancing - to fencing and firearm safety and self defense) - more like a pet, a project, than a child. the world moved all around her, but she was bound to what her parents allowed her to see. a bird in a cage of thorns.

it was hard to keep and maintain friends - there one day, gone the next. a ghost you could see, clear as day, but never touch - never fully, at least. even if she tried with all her might.

would run from bodyguards (their version of nannies - robert beaumont is a paranoid man with too many enemies to count) into festival crowds and climb out of windows in the middle of the night to swim in lakes with the locals she’d met only hours earlier - as soon as she realized that there was something wrong with the way she lived.

even if it resulted in punishment, military exercises in the form of her own personal boot camp (she’d been forced to do chin-ups, once, when she ripped an expensive gown at the tender age of seven. not since, however, after she wound up sobbing on the floor - instead they moved on. delicate teacups stacked across her back as she did push-ups, the more she did the more that slipped & broke)

she absorbed as she could, as much as she could get; an intense, undying love for a world she always craved to see.

this was the start of something dangerous - a phase that never seemed to end, rebellion coursing through her veins. a wild child in the making, unknowing of limits. she landed herself in any crowd she could squeeze into - bad crowds, in particular and more often than not - they introduced her, the sheltered girl, into a world she hadn’t quite known existed until then.

ran away briefly at the age of fifteen with a man three years older than her & nearly ended up in a tabloid magazine because of it - if it hadn’t been for her parents’ money. though guilt from her parents’ disappointment weighed on her, the thrill fueled something much worse.

from there on, she’d been labeled as a ‘problem child’ - from public intoxication to vandalism, it was clear their daughter was unraveling and nothing could possibly contain her.

boarding school had been an attempt to stop it, enrolled her freshmen year in hopes that she’d come out a proper woman. but being located in new york with easy access to the upper east side of manhattan - it’d been futile.

there’d only been a few significant events during her time there - the death of a classmate (one of her closest friends’ boyfriends) and a ski trip that nearly resulted in her own death, skiing while drunk on a closed off course, in memory of him and the traditions they’d had. the first time she fell in love, and months of pining - running in circles, fights and hiccups and confessions in the dramatic manner all high school relationships seem to be like. they’d finally gotten together - officially, no more sneaking around or pretending - when her parents paid a surprise visit. a rare occasion, nerve-wracking. dangerous. to keep a story short - she’d accidentally exposed her own drug use in their presence, the simple act of pills falling from a purse - and that’d been it. she was gone the next day, with no word to anybody and hardly a word since.

they told family she needed a change of pace, and rumors in her old school said that she’d been expelled, that she’d been sent to the french countryside to live with her grandmother.

she’d only gone to washington, that was all. france was too good, and she was too undeserving. instead she was enrolled in public school, only a quarter through her junior year. her parents rarely spoke to her - rarely in town, the only eyes kept on her were security cameras and the occasional check-in by family friends (the new word for bodyguards, apparently)

but as always - when left alone, saige scrambled to find somewhere she fit, somewhere to tuck herself away in the comfort of other people. a small group, but a loyal group - harmless minus a few miscellaneous charges that they said every small town kid had, at some point. they were safe, they were family - as close as she could get. at least, she had thought so. had really believed it.

she hadn’t intended to go to university after graduating high school, not yet eighteen - not for another month or two, at least. she wanted to travel, meet new people and learn new languages (she’d learned four, already, but had always been a glutton. craved to know more, as if she unlocked secrets with every phrase she could speak) and just. exist.

maybe she should’ve. should’ve left as quick as possible, and never turn back.

saige mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for an entire year, the entirety of her 18th year on earth, before promptly showing up at radcliffe university, ready to learn.

it’d been a year of legal cases & lawsuits & avoiding prison with expensive lawyers and a lot of money.

the getaway driver for an armed robbery at a bank, an unknowing accomplice until her supposed friend ran out from the building and jumped in her car, screaming for her to drive, drive, drive. it had only supposed to have been a quick stop before a road trip to the coast. nobody was supposed to get hurt. but scared, and high, saige had obeyed - and by doing so, led a police chase and, of course, a hit & run that eventually led to saige crashing the car midst breakdown.

the sole victim survived, thankfully - and the beaumonts have been paying the medical bills since. her friend - the one who started it all - was charged & sentenced. but saige got off relatively scot-free. just a year of community service, a slap on the wrist (and the growing wallets of all involved in handling her case). it would’ve made national news if her parents hadn’t stepped in - favors called, resulting in only local headlines.

they hadn’t spoken to her since then. three years of radio silence. she’d think they were dead if it hadn’t been the steady flow of money in her bank account. their silence only feels like a threat of what’s to come if she fucks up again.

ever since - she’s avoided causing too much trouble, still very much the party girl she’d like to be, but staying out of headlines and tabloids. partially in fear of her parents finally cutting ties, permanently, and partially in fear that she’ll end up costing someone else their life with her own selfishness.

UPDATE: she did not avoid trouble n got disowned after a high speed yacht chase it was. a lot. anyways she’s lying to everyone n pretending she’s still rich while rapidly losing money to lawsuit bills n hospital bills n just <3 a whole lot <3 has had to sell her favorite cars and her favorite bass guitar. sheds the smallest tear. spent the summer couch-hopping bt pretending she wasn’t couch-hopping and being :/ really messy. not a good fun look! sucks ... disappeared fr like a straight week n then popped up like hehe wat’s up :D. sighs sm.

personality.

she is so … bubbly. so fucking bubbly. she’s has so much energy in her. goes running every morning and every night and swims almost every afternoon and she’s never tired, even if she hasn’t slept the last night and even if she’s been dancing for five hours in a club in high heels and nothing but vodka in her system. the personification of a coke bottle shaken up, if the coke bottle in question could laugh and smile at you and make you feel, somehow, at home even though you’d only met her in the bathroom queue.

tries her hardest to be the happy fun friend, the cool friend, the one who can hook you up with whatever you need because she sleeps with her drug dealer and gets discounts, but like, it’s totally okay because they’re also friends.

generally comes off as very confident of herself, and fearless, and reckless but like - fun reckless. the kind of reckless you wouldn’t mind to be around because she takes your worries and acknowledges them and reassures you that it’s fine, that it’s grand, even when it may definitely not be.

takes a lot. so much. could ramble for days, hand gestures and all. never stops talking. never.

if she wants to do something, she’ll do it and there’s not very much you can do to stop her. stubborn, but at the same time easy going? very go go go. mischievous. even if she’s trying to do something stupid you kind of just like … have to let her do it, or otherwise she’ll mope for three hours and pout at you and then you’ll feel questionably guilty, which is admittedly a little manipulative on her end and isn’t the best thing, but i never said she’s the best person ever because she’s most certainly … not.

a vegetarian because meat makes her physically sick, like, she’s got a weird intolerance to it and it’s not quite an allergy because it’s really just red meats but she’ll get a tummy ache.

her vocabulary consists of a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ and ‘yknows’, y’know? her statements always sound like questions.

99% sure she has adhd but she’s never been diagnosed because her parents simply would not allow her to go to therapy so if she does have any neurological disorders, mental illness, and the likes of those - she doesn’t know and doesn’t know where to even begin to find out. her parents? fucking suck.

like i said, she’s currently not on speaking terms with them. more of their decision than hers. she still loves them, a lot - and there’s a part of her that believes that they still love her, that they have to, because she’s not disowned yet. even though they haven’t said more than ten words to her since she was eighteen - as long as they keep sending her money, they still care - right?

owns four cars … bad idea considering her past, but alas. spending her money is a coping mechanism and she likes to drive because it’s a form of freedom. anyways. all her cars are on campus and she’s probably not allowed to have them all on campus but she does. one’s a sleek sports car, the other is a jacked up pick-up truck that’s decked out in like … LED lights and shit, the third one is the same exact fucking mustang from the princess diaries because she’s obsessed with the movie & usually gets what she wants. the fourth is a mini cooper.

she’s a photographer (for funsies) and the walls of her room in noland are covered in photographs and art and taped-down plants. her room in general is really cluttered. like, it’s super homey. super cozy. but it’s a mess. clothes everywhere, she’s got a pile of instruments and other miscellaneous hobbies that she wanted to do and then either never did, or did for a few days and got bored of and haven’t touched since.

i mentioned earlier that she was taught a bunch of skills when growing up - and like, she doesn’t really utilize any of them? knitting, sewing, cookie, three different forms of ballroom dancing - all gone to waste and she’s pretty rusty on most of it, but it’s there. in her mind. it’s kind of neat and i promise she’s not a mary sue it’s just her upbringing HBSJKDFNLG she’s really nuanced i swear. anyways she can also work a gun and a car engine but hates half of the things she knows how to do because she was forced to learn these things.

she plays bass guitar. loves it, loves her guitar. treasured item. she knows violin & piano too but she fucking hates piano & is mostly indifferent towards violin. she can hold a note in other instruments but it’s like. not great.

got really into languages at a young age due to her constant traveling and started learning them unprompted. her mother is like. literally french. a french citizen. so she grew up learning english & french but from there on she’s gotten fluent in spanish (similar 2 french) and latin (dead languages are fun) and then she’s working on a few others like mandarin and german and scottish gaelic specifically but she mostly just knows a few phrases here and there. like, enough to get her through a city if needed.

like she’s super smart and very talented but she’s also ditzy as hell. big dumbass energy to the point where maybe you don’t realize that she’s actually really good at a lot of things because it’s not like she really flaunts it either?

she’s just very reckless, and very much a party girl. has quite the collection of drugs & uses socially, but also alone and throughout the day. rarely sober.

high functioning alcoholic and at this point she doesn’t really know what she’s like when she’s completely sober? which is really bad but she’s convinced that if she goes sober she’ll just be miserable and horrible because at her very core she believes she’s like. the worst human being alive. like very deep issues of self loathing covered by baileys in her morning coffee and 23 crystal lite packets in her yeti cup that happens to be filled with vodka.

this has been a budding problem that was developed since she was a young teenager. the ehem. situation that happened when she was eighteen only amplified it.

is essentially wearing a mask of confidence and giddiness and flirtatiousness because she doesn’t want people to think she’s not doing well, because she isn’t.

loves so much. loves everything, so much. everything, everybody. falls in love like five times a day but nothing really sticks to her either, for the most part. i hate to say it but she does flock to shitty people / general assholes because that’s just … how she is, that’s what she’s surrounded herself with her entire life. even her high school boyfriend was an asshole - just like, not to her, which made it Okay in her mind. she finds these kind of people like … super interesting which is really questionable but y’know what? we’re fine. it’s fine. i’m fine.

she sleeps around often, to be frank. she hates being alone and she rarely sleeps in her own dorm unless someone is in there sleeping with her. otherwise she’s at different houses. could be a friend’s bed, could be a stranger’s. has slept with the entire baseball team, probably. she’s also the type of person who’ll try and maintain a positive, good friendship with whoever she sleeps with because she hates the idea of having a regrettable encounter and just. refuses.

this is kind of a problem because she blurs the lines between friendship and Something More too often, and with too many people. wants to be loved but it’s never enough. probably ends up hurting people without realizing it because they think they have something super special but she does this with a lot of people and it’s super :/

does stick and pokes a whole bunch. she can’t draw for shit so they’re not great but she thinks they’re fun and she’s been doing it for a while so like, who cares, right? let her give you one :)

gets sent dress prototypes and like. drafts of designs & articles of clothing from her fashion lines that aren’t out yet and won’t be for a while by her very own mother. saige absolutely gives them all away, for the most part. or it sits in her closet, and stays there. her go-to gift for birthday presents, or christmas gifts, or whenever she feels like it. like, feel free to raid her closet?

ok that’s all. love her.

wanted connections.

a best friend… someone who sticks by her side even though she is a certified Mess.

a ride or die… is it the same as a best friend? maybe. but it’s got a fancy name and i want both so :)

close friends… she’s really friendly and the kind of girl to have been really popular in high school but didn’t care for it and talks to everybody like she’s known them her entire life, so. she’d have a good amount of these!

grumpy friend… to balance her happy friend. she’ll fuck them up in a friendship way. with her cheerfulness.

party pals… they don’t talk much outside of parties but they’re practically glued to the hip when they’re at them. hold your hair back kind of close.

frenemies… or fake friends, toxic friends, people who use her for money or like … sex, or whatever? anything? people who barely tolerate her because she gives them stuff sometimes.

bad influences… they just encourage her to do more, be worse, never get better.

good influences… like … YOINK! stop being an idiot! do your homework! idot!

a tutor… because she’s like…smart…but she’s also stupid…super bad at math & science. help her.

hook ups… friends with benefits, a one night stand that is a little? awkward? since then. past & present tenses. :)

exes… she’s noncommittal so they likely wouldn’t have lasted very long but? yolo? she can be a heartbreaker, as marina said, as a treat? whether they dated or were fucking … either works. but i do love angst :)

one-sided hatred… someone who just fucking … despises her. but she doesn’t realize because she’s an idiot and thinks they’re just like. joking around! like they’re best buddies!

annoyance… but she’s the annoyance. she’s the thorn in their side.

ex-best friend… where something happened between them, like, anything, and it ruined their friendship forever. very sad. angst potential, though.

but like. i’ll take anything.

steals your mail… who knows why?

cat escape… he keeps running away and she keeps letting him inside her room even though she’s allergic…

married old couple… the kind of friendship where they always bicker like they’ve been together for fifty years, but it’s purely platonic (or is it? slowburn BAYBEY. DENIAL babyey.)

off and on again… i think that one that’s not good for them because they enable each other & only get like … angry at each other, and it’s like, messy. but it’s super hard to stop. probably reminds her of high school so that’s why she tries so hard to stick around, but alas. it’s not good. it’s toxic. stop it.

the drug dealer… the one she sleeps with… even though she can just pay for it because she’s rich but like. it’s funner this way.

blurred status… like, it’s just really confusing of what they are? are they, aren’t they? the relationship status is just … muddled. she’s a mess and gets involved with too many people without intending to. potential to hurt feelings. :)

please. take her. give me connections.

[voidwaren]

[READ MORE] STORY 3/?

happy Valentine’s, guys! here’s a part 3/[READ MORE] story I whipped up for the occasion that is not technically finished, but is finished enough to share until I rework it for the eventual AO3 publishing.

(note: it’s more hectic shenanigans than romantic anything, though, so be forewarned. this isn’t fluff! though... if you’re used to my shit, you probably already knew it wouldn’t be.)

enjoy!

It starts as it usually does—with Warren waking up.

Waking up from a heavy sort of nap, specifically, that he’d taken somewhere around when the clock had ticked over into four in the morning and Nathan had left the room for a piss break that Warren knew, even with his wits slowly fading away into sleep, also meant he was going to smoke something Warren would complain about later. Warren had promptly passed out before Nathan had returned, lulled into oblivion from the comfort of the couch by the gentle whirring of Nathan’s movie projector, the snarling face of one Dracula frozen on the wall in all its glory.

He wakes up still on that couch, possibly in the same position he’d passed out in, with a blanket that belonged to either him or Nathan draped over his torso and a pillow shoved haphazardly into the space where his head might have been had he not already had it pressed deeply into the crevice of the cushions like a sorely confused ostrich in a thunderstorm by the time Nathan came to the rescue with sleep essentials.

None of that is particularly out of the norm for Warren to think much of anything about any of it, so he doesn’t as he stretches his appendages out and slowly works the feeling back into his virtually-dead arm. Not until a photo catches his eye from where it sits on the table, surrounded by an arrangement of paper roses Warren knows, thanks to some insightful mentoring from his newest therapist, Nathan had learned how to make, amongst other, slightly more distasteful things.

(You’d be surprised what kind of origami tutorials you can find on the internet. Warren fell down that rabbit hole each and every time Nathan resorted back to tearing the paper to shreds instead of folding it, bored with whatever project he’d focused on and unwilling to bother, at least in that moment, to look for a new one.)

The photo is new in both presence and existence. Warren knows it hadn’t been there before, because the table had been littered with snacks and folders when Warren had fallen asleep, and neither of those things were within eyesight now. He thinks briefly of letting it be, because he wasn’t sure what the point of it was and he wasn’t one to mess with other people’s things, but then he remembers all the times Nathan has gone through his stuff and decides, fuck it, fair is fair. You can’t put candy in front of a toddler and then expect them to live and let live.

Warren picks the photo up, and then he starts to laugh.

It’s a polaroid photo, which immediately tells him Max was somehow involved—as she usually tended to be nowadays, much to both Warren’s and Chloe’s chagrin, thanks to a shared class she had with Nathan and a natural ease between them that came when no strife presented itself, which Warren had not foreseen in any potential future—of Warren’s action figures of the Eleventh Doctor (Christmas Adventure Set) and The Flash (JLA Series 1), tangled in some semblance of an embrace that would have done the famous V-Day Kiss photo proud.

(Well, maybe. The Flash’s hand was clearly situated somewhere around The Doctor’s plastic ass, and Warren was about eighty-five-percent sure the original photo had no such groping, but it was the thought that counted, right?)

Warren flips the photo over, and written on the back in bright, scratchy red sharpie are the words, Nerdy enough for you to be my Valentine? 

And Warren’s throat goes completely dry in response. His stomach does a familiar plummet straight to the heels of his feet, but, for once, it’s not out of fear for a future he couldn’t control.

Nathan was not romantic. At least, not in the traditional sense, and the reasons behind that were ones Warren had, admittedly, been too afraid to traverse after learning of some of the things Nathan had gone through growing up. Warren was okay with that, because he’d yet to regain the concise ability to try at being very romantic himself, and he was sure that, by the time he even got a little of a handle back on his wooing skills, he wouldn’t even feel the need to use them on someone like Nathan, who never did things like this.

Well, you know. Until now.

Nathan was not a romantic, and Warren didn’t have the intuition to see past that. And now Warren had nothing to give Nathan in return.

Okay, yeah, Nathan probably wouldn’t actually care if Warren had nothing to give, but Warren would care, and that bothered him enough that he ripped the blanket off his legs and tumbled from the warm embrace of the couch to launch bodily at his charging phone. He both nearly knocks over a haphazardly-placed camera and almost rips the charger from the wall socket once he gets there, but he barely notices as he decides the fact his phone is upside down is the more dire issue at hand. He knows of only one person so good on her feet that she was as reliable a companion as he could ask for in such a sudden and grave situation, and her number is pulled up almost without him having to think about the action.

He jams his finger against the screen and calls Chloe immediately.

“Warren?” Chloe asks instead of some other typical greeting. She sounds alarmed. Probably because Warren never calls her. They have a purely text-based mobile relationship, and deviating from the norm was a label for potential disaster. He curses himself for not thinking of what his action would look like after everything that they’d been through. He knows he should know better.

“I’m the only one having a crisis,” he explains quickly, just so Chloe can relax.

She does so immediately, as is evident in her tone. “You have an oral obsession with a Prescott,” she teases, “of course you’re having a crisis.”

“It’s not just oral,” Warren grumbles, then shakes his head sharply, because that was not the point of this call, dammit. “Don’t distract me! I’m having a crisis and I need you to help me find something for Valentine's Day.”

The line goes silent. Warren can’t tell if Chloe’s shocked, holding in enough laughter to potentially kill her, or some combination of the two. He knows the line didn’t go dead. He can hear the faint static hum of it still being open. 

It lasts for nearly thirty seconds, and then, “Today is Valentine’s Day.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t get anything for him on Valentine’s Day? How did you not get him something, like, three months ago? You're the sap of the group. It’s basically your prerogative.”

Warren winces. “I didn’t think we were that kind of couple.”

Chloe snorts one hell of a snort. It could top charts, Warren thinks, if such a thing existed. “Not that kind of couple? The shit does that mean? What kind of couple could you actually be? You got together over a mistake in the space-time continuum. Who does that?”

“Er, probably some forms of romcom couples in movies?”

“Are you saying you’re living a romcom, Cracker?”

No, Warren thinks without hesitating. No, he is not. Because there had been far too much terror and trauma involved with his journey for anyone to be laughing.

“Just help me Chloe,” Warren begs. “Please. I’ll owe you if you help me.”

Chloe hums, but it’s in that way that she does when she’s not actually considering Warren’s offer because she’s already made a decision. “Fine,” she says after barely a moment of the supposed consideration. “But if you make me late for my date, it’s your skin on the line.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

-

Warren sneaks off of the Blackwell campus and meets Chloe at the edge of the block, where she pulls up in her truck with a particularly smarmy smirk on her face. Warren has no idea where Max is—or Nathan himself, for that matter—but he’s not about to start questioning it when he didn’t want to run into either just yet.

“I can’t believe I’m helping Nathan Prescott’s boyfriend get him a Valentine’s Day gift,” Chloe says good-naturedly, if a little awed, as Warren clambers into the seat. Her nose scrunches up. “Actually, I can’t believe Nathan Prescott has a boyfriend. What’s the world coming to?”

“Armageddon, obviously,” Warren grumbles, then smacks his hands against the dash nervously when Chloe pulls from the curb with enough gas to rival Nathan’s hasty driving tactics.

Chloe leans over and swats at his hands to make him stop. “You know what you’re getting him?”

Warren cradles his assaulted hands against his chest and looks over at her. “Was that a question or are you about to tell me what I’m getting him?”

“What makes you think I have any idea what to get a worm like Prescott for Valentine’s Day?”

A fair point, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try. 

“What do you get someone who has the money to buy the entire town?”

Chloe hums thoughtfully. The familiar stores of the road past the Academy pass them by, and Warren wracks his brain with little to show for it by the time Chloe says, “Why don’t you just snap him some nudes and call it a day?”

Warren nearly chokes on his spit with how fast he inhales, and Chloe starts to cackle. “I am not taking nudes for him, Jesus Christ,” he croaks, trying his best not to blush at the idea and failing spectacularly, if Chloe’s continued mirth when she glances at him is anything to go by.

“I was only half-kidding,” Chloe says from beneath her laughter, and Warren knows it’s a lie. She wasn’t kidding at all, and she’d probably been hoping he’d agree so she could get off scot-free.

“I’m not even technically legal. I don’t know if he’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, he’d appreciate it,” Chloe muses nearly to herself as she turns sharply into a parking lot. Warren graciously ignores that comment as he watches her wrench her gear shift into park and twist in her seat until she faces him. “Are we actually about to go into this blind?”

“Do you have a better plan?”

She purses her lips, then reaches over and unbuckles his seatbelt. She’s not wearing one, or Warren might return the strange favor. Then she smacks Warren on the arm like she’s about to send him off into the fray of an important sports game and then snaps the handle of her door to unlatch it. “Let’s rock and roll, bitcharoo.”

She’s out of the car before Warren can tell her he liked that line more than he thinks he should, and Warren scrambles to catch up with her long, purposeful strides as she makes her way into the Rite Aid like there was a zombie apocalypse brewing behind her and this was her last chance to get the goods before they all surrendered to the oncoming doom.

They’re met immediately with a pink and red smorgasbord of garishly decorated aisles bathed in the sterile white light all drugstores seemed to love to use, peppered sparingly with wilting bouquets, sagging balloons, and the forlorn figure of one Hayden Jones.

“Aw, shit,” Chloe has the chance to say just as Hayden lifts his head and spots them both, and then his face splits into a grin.

“Graham, Price!” he greets cheerily, immediately closing the distance between them.

“How does he know my name?” Chloe whispers, but doesn’t get any semblance of a response as Hayden throws his arms around Warren and picks him up like they hadn’t seen each other in months instead of the maybe-fifteen hours that had actually passed since their last face-to-face interaction, wherein Nathan had thrown the cap of a camera lens at Hayden to get his attention in the hallway of the dorms and missed and nearly beamed Warren instead just as he was coming out of the bathrooms. Thankfully, Nathan’s aim was either terrible or fantastic, and it had struck the wall just over Hayden’s shoulder and right next to Warren’s ear instead. That interaction had ended with Hayden laughing and punching Warren in the shoulder like some sort of teammate that had made a good play. Having taken place, again, maybe not even fifteen hours ago, Warren still had the bruise to show the interaction.

But Hayden was Hayden, and snatch Warren up he did. Warren was never sure what incited the action, because he’d never seen Hayden do it with anyone else. But, hey. At least he wasn’t beating Warren up.

Warren, pretty much used to this kind of thing from Hayden at this point, just holds on until Hayden lets him go again. He keeps his hands on Warren’s shoulders even as he pulls away, looking at Chloe with interest. “What are you two doing here? Where’s Max?”

“How come you call Max by her first name?” Chloe then asks, but is quickly followed by Warren waving his hands in the air and saying, “We’re just here for Valentine’s stuff. Why are you here?”

“Same thing! Thought maybe the candy would be on sale, and it’s good shit to stock up on for parties.”

“Oh,” Warren says, surprised, because that actually was a decent idea. “Cool, okay. Which way to the aisle?”

Warren starts to crane his neck, but Hayden’s face falls. “You’re standing in it.”

“Well, fuck,” says Chloe helpfully as the startlingly bare shelves become the elephant in the room. “There’s nothing here.”

“We’re a little late,” Hayden agrees.

“Little late? This place looks like Walmart after Black Friday.”

Warren pries Hayden’s distracted hands off, then stalks down the short aisle as Hayden and Chloe converse about the relative emptiness of the area and what other places might be like if the Rite Aid was as ransacked as it ended up being. Aside from a few sad bags of chocolate slumped against the far niches of the shelves, there was absolutely, and annoyingly, jack shit all left.

Great.

“What am I going to do?” Warren moans, threading his fingers into his hair and yanking dramatically. “Why didn’t I think we were this kind of couple?”

“What kind of couple?” Warren hears Hayden whisper-ask Chloe. Before she can answer, if she was even going to, he tacks on, “Oh, this is for Nate?”

“You got another boyfriend you didn’t tell me about, Cracker?” Chloe calls, just to be a dick, and Warren whips around and glares at her. To his credit, Hayden gives him a sheepish smile, knowing full well that one was his fault.

“I’m so screwed,” Warren continues, slumping his way back up the aisle and past Chloe and Hayden, who follow like drones directly behind him. The bell rings as they exit, and that’s when Warren offhandedly realizes no one had been at the register while they’d been in there. It must have been a blood bath, whatever had happened to make the shelves that way.

“Uh, no, you’re not, because that would be a good outcome,” corrects Chloe, smacking Warren on the back. Warren tries not to be upset about all the physical affection he was the receiver of nowadays. “The whole point of the holiday is to get fucked, duh.”

Warren shakes his head violently, only stumbling a little when the action grants him unsteady footing. 

“You are not helping, Chloe,” he warns her as Hayden’s hand is suddenly on his arm and steadying him to keep him from falling. Chloe only returns the statement with her patented shit-eating grin to show she’s fully aware of the fact.

“You were going to get him something themed for the holiday?” Hayden asks when they reach Chloe’s truck, eyeing the thing up like he’s not sure what to do about it. Warren nods solemnly. Hayden waits a beat, and then asks, “Why?”

And Warren just blinks at him. Because, yeah, wait a minute. Why was he getting Nathan Prescott something Valentine’s Day-themed on Valentine’s Day? He wasn’t some lovestruck teenage kid praying their boyfriend would drop them a special candy gram (no pun intended) while they were in class or anything, he was Nathan fucking Prescott. Pink candy and hearts and falsified niceties were basically his antithesis, and that was pretty much proven with what Nathan gave Warren. There was hardly anything romantic about the simple gift—it had literally been nothing but something Nathan had known Warren would love. Why the hell wasn’t Warren doing the same?

Jesus, and who here was Nathan’s boyfriend again? Because, right now, it’s kind of looking like Hayden.

“Hayden, I could kiss you,” Warren tells him in awe.

“Oh, uh,” Hayden stutters, apparently caught off-guard by the declaration, as Warren scrambles back into the truck. 

If he was going to say anything more, it’s cut off by Chloe frowning at Warren and blurting, “Are we bringing the lug?”

Blunt to a fault, that Chloe. It was almost an art form.

Hayden’s face immediately scrunches up.

“You wanna join us, Hayden?” Warren asks, just to make the look go away, because Hayden was a nice guy, and Warren found himself strangely uncomfortable with Chloe being her usual barbed self with him.

Hesitating, Hayden looks from Warren, to Chloe, to the truck, and then back at Warren again. He shrugs, “Sure, yeah. Got nothing else to do.”

“Get that ass in gear, then, boy,” Chloe says, ushering Hayden in through the driver’s side before jumping in herself, and back onto the road they go.

-

If Hayden was supposed to help at all past what he’d initially helped with, though, that doesn’t happen. He only sits between Chloe and Warren as Warren lobs ideas at the both of them and Chloe comes up with various reasons as to why each idea is lame, laughing occasionally and being a general deadweight between them. Warren hadn’t exactly expected much more from him, sure, but he would be lying if he said the sudden radio silence wasn’t a little unsettling. 

Thankfully, Hayden perks up once they reach their destinations, even if he still doesn’t offer much by ways of help. He instead meanders around the different, useless shops, offering commentary on things Nathan would definitely not like, and he and Chloe make a game of deciding what Nathan would hate the most.

“Definitely these,” Hayden says in one drugstore on the outskirts of the town, a last-minute-ditch attempt that proves just as useless as the first two, as he holds up a pair of rainbow socks for Chloe to bear witness to. Chloe laughs maniacally and pulls something distinctly X-rated off another shelf to present to Hayden, and they both cackle and banter and generally make Warren’s search harder by attracting attention he didn’t want. He has to wave off store clerks hoping to hurry along or kick them out too many times to count.

They go to three different stores, all full of things that were so far from what Nathan Prescott stood for that, by the time they’re almost back to the academy, Warren’s two steps from throwing himself out of the truck just to both distract him from the task at hand and to be a little dramatic, because that’s just what he was feeling right then.

“Forty-five minutes more and then I’m dropping your asses,” Chloe warns as they pull into what is apparently their final stop before they lose their quick transportation and will be stuck with everyone’s least favorite method of movement: Warren’s poor excuse for a car. “I have places to be and acting as Cupid’s chauffeur is not my day job.”

It’s a relatively small store they’ve arrived at as their last-ditch effort before Chloe called it quits, somewhere past where the gas station and the diner sat, that mostly sold things for tourists to enjoy after visiting the bay for what was usually either whales or something regarding Blackwell. Warren had less of a clue how the hell he was going to find something here than anywhere else, but they were running out of places to go, and there was enough of a mishmash of things housed within that Warren hoped, maybe, something would come to light.

It’s so small that, the moment they step into it, Warren realizes yet again that he recognizes another set of patrons, and that Arcadia Bay was too damn small for its own good.

“Trevor? Dana?” Warren half-greets in surprise when the two figures look up from where they’re paying at the register.

“Graham?” Trevor greets back in the same moment Dana lights up and says, “Warren!”

“And Chloe,” Chloe mumbles from next to Warren, and Warren catches Hayden cocking his head at her in confusion.

“What are you guys doing here?” Warren asks, ignoring them both.

“We’re on a date,” Dana says, smacking her open palm against the curve of Trevor’s shoulder. 

Trevor gives his Trevor smile. Which is to say, a smile that is a little crooked, very warm, and mostly directed at Dana herself, regardless of who he was actually talking to. He holds up the bag he’d just purchased. “They’ve got old vinyls and other things here, sometimes we get one and chill out with it.”

“Like a retro section?” Hayden asks, throwing Warren a look, but Warren’s already caught on. Old movies were basically his and Nathan’s thing.

Dana, too, seems to catch on immediately, even though there’s no possible way she could have had any previous information regarding Warren’s problem beforehand. She walks over, reaches out, and curls her arm into Warren’s. “Over this way,” she tells him as she guides him through the store to a small nook in the back. Set just in front of them is a single, long table covered in crates with vinyls stacked inside, and along the walls are shelves of box sets of varying degrees of media, from anime to sitcoms to shows Warren’s somehow never heard of. It reminds Warren of the FYE in the big mall way farther inland than Warren usually ever had time to bother with.

Warren can swear angels start singing in his ears the moment his eyes land on the glorious display, and they sound suspiciously like Dana herself.

Oh, wait. No. Dana’s just talking to him. Warren tunes back in.

“Might I suggest something over here?” she tells him as if she’s selling him something extremely expensive and obnoxiously sparkly, pulling her arm away to gesture at a small specific section with a flourish. It’s a part of the display that’s sectioned-off by a string of paper hearts, and it holds within a variety of box sets, all with an obvious romantic theme to them. Dana’s got a twinkle in her eye as she picks up, specifically, a black and white box that says Worst Romantic Movies of the Ages in looping white script.

It’s so perfect, Warren is stunned where he stands by the mere idea of its existence. He has to take a moment to reboot, and Dana snorts a laugh while the other party members, who had been left to their own devices, trickle onto the scene.

“That’s the bitch,” Chloe says immediately, grinning and snapping the fingers of both her hands into a finger gun, and Warren blinks as if coming out of a trance.

He lunges at Dana, bypassing the box set completely, and wraps her up in a hug. She laughs and hugs him back, and not even a beat later another set of arms are around him, and then another, and Warren can feel the corner of the box set digging painfully into the small of his back as he becomes enveloped in an entity of friends.

“I ain’t hugging you guys,” Chloe says, and Warren starts to laugh a laugh that almost edges on crying from how surprisingly relieved he is over something he knows doesn’t actually matter.

No—didn’t matter to Nathan. Nathan wouldn’t have cared, that much Warren knows. But it mattered to Warren, getting something for Nathan in return for staying with him all the times he thought he was losing his mind even after it all had been done, and he realizes, as everyone peels away and looks over the box set like it was worth infinitely more than the price tag stated, that he should have known better instead of waiting until it was almost too late.

“I can’t believe you found this,” Hayden offers as Warren gathers himself. He rolls the set between his hands, peering at it with an excited look on his face. “I didn’t even think of something like this. It’s great.”

Warren nods his head, maybe a little too enthusiastically, then turns to Dana, where she’s standing with an arm around Trevor, watching. “Thanks, Dana, holy shit,” he tells her earnestly.

She and Trevor both beam. “Anytime, Warren,” she says, and Trevor punctuates her statement with a nod and a wink.

“Might not be the most romantic thing ever,” Hayden says, clapping a hand on Warren’s shoulder proudly, “but Nathan will love it.”

Chloe reaches out, peels one of the paper hearts off the display, and slaps it on the box set. “There. Romantic as fuck. Now let’s ditch this joint before I miss my Valentine’s Day shindig.”

-

Finding Nathan turns out to be a relatively easy ordeal. He’s in Warren’s room when Warren checks, sitting at his desk and going over a file spilling photos all along its surface, a few rejected options tossed away to sit haphazardly on Warren’s bed.

He looks up when Warren enters and only has a moment to look relatively unperturbed before his eyes narrow into suspicion when Warren’s hand immediately darts behind his back.

“Where have you been all day?” Nathan asks him slowly, highly suspicious, after he’s taken a moment to just stare at Warren and wait to see if it alone would make Warren cave.

Warren hesitates, debating between outright telling Nathan the whole story and instead just giving him the gift, then decides the latter was the safer route when it came to Nathan and his impatience for Warren’s word-vomit and withdraws his hand until it was fully extended, the box set hanging in the air between him and Nathan.

Nathan stares a moment—surprise crossing his face so briefly that, had Warren not already been looking right at him, he would have missed it—and then he stands up and closes the distance, his eyes never leaving the gift.

He doesn’t take it right away—only stares at it, like he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t lunge at him and bite if he put his hands on it. It takes Warren shaking it gently, once, for Nathan to finally accept it with both his hands.

Nathan scrutinizes the box set carefully, turning it slowly in his grip. He’s not frowning, so that’s a good sign, but he looks like he’s not processing what he has in his hands. He confirms the speculation a moment later when he looks up at Warren and says, “What’s this for?”

Warren just blinks. “Uh. Valentine’s Day?”

Nathan’s face screws up like Warren just told him the equation of string theory. Warren can’t help it—he wilts a little, and his fingers spring to twist his sleeve up between them like they always did when he wasn’t comfortable with whatever was happening either to or around him.

“You—” he starts, then falters. Nathan doesn’t say anything, so he tries again, “You wanted to be my Valentine?”

Was he wrong? Had the photo not been for Warren or something? It seemed improbable, given the fact Warren was not only pretty fucking sure they were technically dating now, but also that the fact that it was a picture of The Flash and The Eleventh Doctor didn’t really leave a lot of room for outside speculation of who the figures were supposed to represent. So, you know, who the fuck else could it have been for if not Warren?

Warren is so lost in his own near-spiral that he almost completely misses the slow smile that springs to life on Nathan’s face as he eyes Warren, growing from first a small twitch of the lips until it hung on his face, full and crooked as the kind of grin only Nathan Precott could really pull off.

“You’re an idiot, Graham,” he tells Warren softly, and then he reaches out and wraps his hand around the back of Warren’s neck to pull him down and in. Warren relaxes immediately, and his hands release their hold on his sleeve to press against Nathan’s face.

Hell yeah, Warren thinks to himself as he leans into the kiss, the box set thumping softly on the carpet next to him as Nathan’s hands find their way under Warren’s shirt and Warren’s fingers thread into Nathan’s belt loops in turn.

Nailed it.

[mariamermaid]

God save the Prom Queen

Scot Cavendish (Locke & Key) x Reader

Summary: Your friendship with Scot has been suffering while the prom ball is coming up… Words: 1.8k

A/N: Requested with the prompt 26 “You were never mine, were you?” and 41 “I thought you liked me”

God save the prom queen

Teenage daydream

Just another dressed-up heartbreak

You had known Scot since your first year in kindergarten, you grew up to be best friends and even though you both denied it for years, your parents always said you grew up to marry each other. Maybe that was the spinning point why you started suddenly feeling different towards him.

Maybe it was realizing you could actually lose him.

It was hard to look in her eyes that day. You knew, it wasn´t Kinsey´s fault but that didn´t make it any easier. “Who´s taking you to the prom?”

Prom was weeks away, which didn´t stop any of the hormonal driven teenagers from planning it months ahead. Truly an event to remember. You had assumed you were going with Scot, you always did. But as Kinsey stood across from you next to the lockers, it hit you hard in the stomach and a gasp for air escaped your lips. He could´ve at least told you, you thought bitter.

“I don´t know if I´m going yet”, you pressed out, barely muttered and left her standing in the hallway of the slowly emptying school. You skipped the last period, fuck history, and then spent half of the time in the bathrooms trying to convince yourself that you were crying for nothing. And the rest of the time restlessly wandering home…

It had to be coincidence that you were stopped by none other than Brinker the next day, he asked you to go to prom. Was it Scot leaning closer to Kinsey against the lockers that made you say yes? The way he smiled at her? How he tried so hard to make her laugh? His lips brushing against her skin?

No.

Maybe.

“You´re going with Brinker to Prom?” It was Scot, hurrying after you in the cafeteria. As always, news made the round quickly and by lunch, everybody knew who your new arm candy was. It was one of the very first times, the whole school was talking about you. And despite your mind being focused on other things, it did feel good to belong to a more upper class for once. Scot, who had no absolute idea about your continuing struggles, tried his best to keep up with you and not spill his food. “But why him, Y/n?” You shrugged reluctant. There was a small part of you, that was very pleased by his shocked impression. At least for now, he was actually talking to you again. Since Kinsey´s arrival, your friendship has been suffering and the late night talks you used to have, changed into small talk between periods. “He asked.”

“You know he´s trying to get into your panties, right?” You stopped sighing in the middle of the large room. Your eyes fell to the table with Kinsey and Gabe, they waited for you and Scot, your stomach turned. No thank you.

“I don´t think it should concern you about who is in my panties”, you argued a little louder and decided to join none other than your prom date and his clique for lunch. The cafeteria had watched you interested and so noticed a few people whispering, but you couldn´t care less. Scot watched you leave his side, he couldn´t believe it. Brinker on the other hand, threw him a jubilant grin, while you sat down next to him. He leaned down to whisper in your ear; “Enough from nerd boy?”

In any other circumstance, you were down to fight anyone calling your best friend a nerd, a looser or anything else, but now? You felt so out of your body, that you kept quiet and did nothing but nod. Scot, who still stood in the middle of the cafeteria, his mouth slightly opened, was in a whole different dimension. He used to be at your side, always, but now it felt like you were living in two different worlds.

Looking at it, it was understandable why he decided to not tell you about the Key House and the things he experienced with Kinsey within the next weeks. It hurt you, because even though you chose to ignore it, you saw them whispering in the halls like the world was about to end. It hurt Scot, because you didn´t visit him at work anymore and when chatting with Kinsey´s brother, Tyler, he found out that you were visiting hockey games instead. And parties. To him, it was a natural instinct of protectiveness, you were younger than Brinker and he had a reputation for girls. You were never one to go out much, enjoying comfy evenings more than loud parties. But it did help you forget your worries, Brinker lazily talking to you about empty topics and you drowning liquor filled cups until everything felt as numb as your emotional state. In the beginning it even entertained you how much Brinker actually tried to get you, but you grew quickly bored. The topics weren´t the same with him, he was just another shallow figure at a full party of empty shadows.

Things didn´t change however until the prom was actually knocking at your door. Your lack of talking to Scot and with that also talking less to Gabe or even Kinsey, you didn´t know what had occurred. You didn´t know why Scot suddenly appeared alone, Brinker already pissed drunk hanging on your arm. But the people around you clapped when you arrived in a sparkling outfit with the school king at your side. It felt good just for once in your life to not be the nameless girl on the side, people knew who you were, they started talking to you after years of silence. You genuinely smiled until your eyes caught his. It felt like something shattering in your chest, you knew it that second. It was heartbreak and it was undeniable and slowly killing you.

It took however at least half an hour, before you actually got to talk to Scot. People continued to stop you, tell you how stunning you looked, tell you what a pretty couple you made, tell you lies about life. “Where´s Kinsey?”

It wasn´t like Scot hadn´t expected the question to hear, but out loud, it was like a punch in the guts. “We… We broke up.” You wondered when exactly things had gotten official between them, but then you remembered that you somewhat had a boyfriend of your own now. “Sorry to hear that.”

Silence. Your mind was blank, not even sure what to say. Scot´s mind on the other hand started rattling. Why had he come? He wasn´t in the mood to party. He didn´t have a date. He almost drowned in a cave. He missed you.

Just when he was about to open his mouth, the principal entered the stage. “The time of the evening has come! You all awaited this and the votes had been counted!” The crowd gathered closer to the stage and drawn in, you followed them. Scot stayed a few feet behind, his eyes darted on your head. He watched how your dress effortlessly moved with your body, he could´ve punched himself. It would have been a beautiful night if he hadn´t been stupid enough to ask somebody else but his best friend. In this second, he wanted to tell you everything. The Key House, the magical keys, the murder, a shapeshifting dodge and Kinsey wanting two boyfriends. He didn´t even know if you´d believe him, after all the story wasn´t some kind of fairytale. But there he stood, watching as your head softly whipped to the music, chatting to a girl while the principal held the rest of the speech. He knew he´d lost.

“As always, ladies first!” A closed letter was represented and fumbling around to rise the tension, the sheet of paper was finally opened.

“This year´s prom queen is… Y/n Y/L/N!”

Your mouth dropped and your eyes widened in shock. You never imagined, or even dreamed, about becoming prom queen! While people applaud around you, you walked onto the stage and the crown was placed on your head. It was a usual sight; you were an absolute a-student, not a cheerleader, not the typical it-girl. But due to Brinker, you made some connections, you met new people. It was what brought you a victory, the only one for the night.

It wasn´t a surprise that Brinker was then elected Prom King, both of you standing at the front of the stage, hand in hand, smiling widely into the crowd of faces. For you mattered only one face though, Scot. He tried his best to keep a small reassuring smile, at which he failed miserably. He clapped but there was no enthusiasm about his gesture. To your even bigger surprise, Brinker pulled you a little closer and kissed you in front of the entire school and for the first time you saw something real in his eyes. Was it sadness?

God save the prom queen

Only eighteen

Turned her tears to diamonds in her crown

“Dear Lord!” The principal mumbled, but didn´t stop the kiss from happening. “Well, then let´s get them their first dance as king and queen!”

Brinker guided you to the dancefloor while the soft tune echoed through the room, you were both quiet until more couples joined you. “You were never mine, were you?”

It was unexpected coming from him and you starred into his eyes, clear confusion. “I thought I could make you fall in love with me.” You opened your mouth, but he shook his head quickly. “No, it´s fine. It´s not your fault.” With his head he pointed towards Scot´s direction. He was leaning against a wall, eyes on the ground. “He´ll realize what he´s missing, trust me.”

You looked back at Brinker, a look of sympathy in your eyes. “I´m sorry.” He shrugged. “I guess it belongs together, heartbreak and prom, huh?”

It was the first real talk you had with Brinker, maybe he wasn´t as shallow after all. You bit your lip, you liked the Brinker he was right now. “Friends?” He grinned and nodded. “Friends.”

“Now go after him.”

Scot had left while you talked to Brinker and you had to run after him in the parking lot. “Scot!”

Your voice echoed and he stopped in his tracks until you reached him. You held up your dress to avoid dirt and a cold wind threw back your hair. He didn´t turn, his eyes still on the road to leave. “Why are not with your boyfriend?”

“He´s not my boyfriend.”

“Didn´t look like it.”

“Why did you and Kinsey break up?”

A lump in his throat held him back from answering. You took together all the bravery you had left in your soul and all the hours it had taken you to cry. “I like you, Scot. Not in the way I´m supposed to as your friend.” He finally turned to look at you, his eyes wide, but you couldn´t read his expression. “But I wanted to be a good friend, even if it meant letting you go and breaking my heart.” You took another breath, trying to stop yourself from shivering and shaking. The tears were already falling and it took everything from you to not lose your composure. But Scot stepped in, his hands cupping your face and pressing his lips on yours. For a split second, it was perfect. But you stopped the kiss, a sad smile on your lips. It wasn´t right. He furrowed his brows, clearly confused.

“I thought you liked me?” He asked whispering while you lingered just a little longer in his closeness. “I do.” You cleared your throat. “But I think we both need some time apart to figure things out, you just broke up with her. We need to learn to be friends, before anything else.”

He nodded understanding, knowing deep down you were right. “Wise words for a prom queen.”

[teamlarl]

Su.yin Bei.fong is Cancelled - A Masterpost

A collection of my many, many, rants about Suyin that I’ve gone on in the past.

November 3, 2017

“Suyin motherfucking Beifong I swear to god... Like... Ughhhhh I can't go on a full on rant because you all don't know the context of it, but fuuuuuck. I have never seen a more self-absorbed character, that refuses to take responsibility for their actions, will blame everyone else, and just sticks their head in the sand.

And the kicker? The narrative always portrays Suyin as being in the right. Always. Without fail. Even when Suyin is being a complete bitch about everything.

She is a woman that outright refuses to believe that her precious baby boy could fall in love with someone she doesn't approve of. That Kuvira must be fucking manipulating Baatar Jr., that's clearly the only reason why he would ever love her. Not because, oh I don't know, they grew up together and Kuvira is the only god damn person to treat him like his own person, and not an extension of his father.”

---

April 25, 2018

“Kuvira has a LOT of mommy issues when it comes to Suyin, and frankly I don't blame her. Suyin is one of those characters that the narrative always frames as in the right, but when you really think about it is super fucked up.

They briefly acknowledged one aspect of it, with her whole drama with her sister, Lin, and then they didn't really do anything with it. Suyin never really got better. Hell, Lin is the one that's framed as the bitch for not wanting to get along with her self-admitted shit of a little sister after reuniting. Suyin Beifong is an extremely selfish character. She puts herself and her immediate family first, everyone else be damned. And it has to be HER vision of what she wants for her family. If a single one of them steps a hair out of line she lashes out; she's extremely controlling.”

---

October 5, 2018

“I want it stated for the record that if it wasn't for her being such a MILF then I wouldn't let her get away with as much shit as she does.

The worst part is that the show doesn't even acknowledge how most of the shit she does is super problematic, everyone's expected to acquiesce and apologize to HER for being VERY RIGHTFULLY ANGRY WITH HER. It's not even one time either. It happens TWICE. WITH DIFFERENT CHARACTERS. PEOPLE THAT SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE VERY CLOSE TO.

Oh woops. My dormant Suyin button got tripped.

LIN BEIFONG DOESN'T OWE SUYIN SHIT. But no, I guess because FAMILY and all that, Lin has to apologize. I guess Suyin ruining their mom's career counts for nothing. The thing with Suyin is that for all her claims about how she's grown up since she was a bratty teenager SHE REALLY HASN'T. She's STILL selfish. She's still convinced that she always knows best. She doesn't give a shit about the rules except when they benefit her.

Don't even get me STARTED on the dynamic she has with Kuvira, Because JESUS CHRIST THE IMPLICATIONS.

"She was like a daughter to me."

PROCEEDS TO TRY AND ASSASSINATE HER AN HOUR LATER.

"She was like a daughter to me."

Kuvira isn't in any of the family photos, she's not there to meet Korra and friends when they arrive for the first time, Suyin never introduces her or anything. Kuvira's just a guard. A prominent guard, but just a guard. 

So don't give me that fucking bullshit about how she was like a daughter to you, Suyin. Your fucking actions speak VOLUMES otherwise. Suyin would fucking MURDER for the sake of her family. She can't claim that Kuvira is a part of her family and then TRY TO ASSASSINATE KUVIRA HERSELF.

"Baatar sweetie it's not your fault, the evil Kuvira manipulated you." "Kuvira is irredeemable."

LIKE WOW OKAY. BAATAR HAD JUST AS MUCH TO DO WITH THE EARTH EMPIRE AS KUVIRA DID, BUT THERE SUYIN GOES! SWEEPING IT ALL UNDER THE RUG FOR HER BABY BOY WHILE BLAMING IT ALL ON KUVIRA.

"She was like a daughter to me."

---

November 28, 2018

“I mean fuck. You pick this girl up off the street. You give her a home, you train her, you be her mentor, but you hold her at arm's length. You never allow her to be part of your family. Wait, scratch that, you let her be part of your family when it's convenient for you, when you're trying to gain sympathy for yourself. Teasing her with something she never had and you do not intend to give her. Never making her role clear, whether she's an apprentice or a daughter figure, because it's not defined, and it flips flops based on your mood.

And Suyin wonders why Kuvira resents her so much... Ah, but of course, it's the evil Kuvira, what am I saying?

A rotten apple from the start, am I right? She was like family, and she abused that trust, right? Manipulating your precious baby boy and taking him away from you, corrupting him. It's all her fault. But of course, it's never your fault, eh Suyin? It's always someone else to blame. 

It's all Lin's problem that she can't move on and forgive you. Forgiving you for ruining your mother's career, for being a shit kid that gave your sister scars that would mar her for the rest of her life, for generally getting off scot-free because you're just such a fucking free spirit. But of course that's not your fault Why would it be? You're Suyin Beifong. You're never at fault for anything.

You know what's fun? I've never made any secret that Ren was heavily based on Kuvira. His entire backstory of being an orphan from nowhere adopted into this prestigious family comes from her. That his resolve and passion and issues comes from the tragedy he suffered as a child, similar to Kuvira.

But the thing is... The person I had fill in the role of Suyin, Ianus... is a far better "parent" than Suyin ever was. Like, ignoring the rest of the Beifong family and focusing purely on the dynamic between Suyin and Kuvira. It's fucking telling when I can say Ianus, fucking IANUS BASILIUS, is a better parental figure than Suyin motherfucking Beifong.

Ianus, who actually fully adopts Renatus as his own son and treats him as such. Ianus, who is wholly responsible for the glorified trauma conga line that is Addie's childhood. Ianus is not a good fucking person by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he has the decency to actually make sure the orphan he takes into his home is loved and cared for. He makes sure they know they're wanted and that they are family.”

---

September 18, 2019

“Suyin Beifong is the dictionary definition of "fuck you, bitch, got mine" and I hate her for it. God damn hypocrite. 

"Kuvira is like a daughter to me." FIVE MINUTES LATER, SUYIN IS TRYING TO MURDER KUVIRA IN HER SLEEP.

"You're going to pay for everything you've done!" BITCH YOU JUST IMMEDIATELY FORGAVE YOUR SON FOR EVERYTHING, LIKE, AN HOUR AGO. AND HE IS JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING AS KUVIRA IS.

"Kuvira is like a daughter to me." THEN WHERE IS SHE IN THE FUCKING FAMILY PHOTO?

For some godforsaken reason... Suyin is always portrayed as being in the right. Even when she does really fucked up things and isn't sorry about it. I mean, god, I'm still on Lin's side regarding their reunion. Lin had every right to be angry and Suyin is just like, "it doesn't matter, that was in the past, I'm a different person now." 

Are you, Suyin? Maybe on a surface level, but when you scrape the surface at all, I don't think you are. Suyin Beifong is someone that never fucking has to deal with the negative consequences of her shitty actions. Everyone else around her has to deal with it instead.

Girl commits a crime, gets caught, and in the process both physically scars her sister and ruins her mother's career. Her "punishment" is being sent to live with her rich as fuck grandparents, which she runs away from anyway and proceeds to have a grand old time, having an adventure of a life. She is never sorry for her actions and how they affected others. And life seems to keep rewarding her for it.

Settles down, has a family, creates her own city and places herself at the head of the totem pole so she never has to answer to anyone. Basically becomes the epitome of a socialite wine mom, except with political power. Takes in this orphan kid because she sees potential in her. Great! Calls her a part of the family, despite never actually acting like it and never telling her this to her face, only to others. A difference which becomes really fucking prominent when Suyin only ever displays unconditional love for her biological children, but as soon as the "adopted kid" (put in quotations because of course Suyin never actually adopted Kuvira despite her being "part of the family") questions Suyin's decisions and strikes out on her own, taking the eldest son with her.

Ohohoho! Obviously she's an evil bitch! Who manipulated her darling baby boy into going with her! Because obviously her eldest son could only ever be happy at home! He wasn't. He always felt like he was in the shadows of his parents. But god forbid you ever tell Suyin that. Suyin and her perfect little family. Until you look under the facade and see how unperfect things actually are. But that's obviously all that Kuvira girl's fault. She's such a bad influence. AND HEY MAYBE SHE'S RIGHT!

After all, Kuvira is the one that takes the most after Suyin.”

[altscige]

『MADELYN CLINE ❙ CIS FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like SAIGE BEAUMONT is here for HER JUNIOR year as a LINGUISTICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be BLITHE, ENERGETIC, EVASIVE & IRRATIONAL. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ JAMES. 20. EST. SHE/THEY.

hi sorry this took so long i ws on hiatus bt turns out thts exactly how long i need to churn out these new blogs so BJKSADNKFJG also r i p babe bt i miss saige ... she’s an old muse of mine n she’s rly grand i think pls love her ok thank u pls LIKE this if u’d like to plot

TW CHILD ABUSE, DRUG USE, ALCOHOLISM, ADDICTION, DEATH, HIT & RUN CAR ACCIDENTS, GRIEF, GUILT

aesthetics.

stick n’ pokes at 2am – when your drunk and giggling too much in between purposeful stabs, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk because they’re bad luck and they’ll break your mother’s back – even if your mother doesn’t love you, because you love her, the familiar riff in an old song – one that’s got you strumming along silently; there is no guitar, only empty air lit by the christmas lights you haven’t taken down. it’s may. swallowing down shots, and by default, swallowing down problems. laughing quick, easily, constantly. skinned knees from skateboarding, despite being rubbish at it. wishes on eyelashes stuck to your cheekbones, glitter sticking, running into the ocean at sunrise; feeling at home. excuses, and the many forms they come in. telling people you love them through hand squeezes and fresh muffins, sideways glances and soft, eager grins.

basic info.

full name: saige alouette beaumont

nickname(s): n/a :/ give her some

b.o.d. - july 7th, cancer

label(s): the hedonist, the icarcian, the reveler, etc.

height: 5′7″

hometown: thibodaux, louisiana

sexuality: bisexual w/ a very slight preference towards masc-presenting folks

pinterest

stats

inspired by: serena van der woodsen (gossip girl), aimee gibbs (sex education), alexis rose (schitt’s creek), elle woods (legally blonde), rapunzel (tangled), clementine (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind), angela montenegro (bones), tinkerbell (peter pan), late 2000 / early 2010s kesha... i don’t know because she’s not actually inspired by anybody i made her when i was like 13 HDSJBKFNGHJLDS

biography.

the fallible daughter of two very infallible people: robert beaumont, US lieutenant general (soon to be US general), and manon lévesque, world renowned fashion designer on levels par with gucci and versace. both cold, calculating, and purposeful.

no matter how much she wants to believe otherwise, saige is sure that she was not created out of love. it was an action with a purpose, intentions to create the perfect child. the hybrid of both military genius and fashion extraordinaire. a proper socialite. a 1% citizen. molded to their will.

born in thibodaux, louisiana (surrounded by her father’s family - a long line of old money southern magnates & moguls with a history of beauty pageant winners in each woman) - it took them no more than six months after her birth for her parents to up and move, thus beginning a cycle of packing and unpacking, flying and driving, state-to-state and country-to-country. the longest saige had ever stayed in one place was two years, until radcliffe. even then - conditioned to never become truly attached to a place, she has the urge to up and run away at any given moment, onto the next adventure.

she was kept on a short leash, home-schooled, and learning skills she had no interest in (from cooking to sewing to ballroom dancing - to fencing and firearm safety and self defense) - more like a pet, a project, than a child. the world moved all around her, but she was bound to what her parents allowed her to see. a bird in a cage of thorns.

it was hard to keep and maintain friends - there one day, gone the next. a ghost you could see, clear as day, but never touch - never fully, at least. even if she tried with all her might. 

would run from bodyguards (their version of nannies - robert beaumont is a paranoid man with too many enemies to count) into festival crowds and climb out of windows in the middle of the night to swim in lakes with the locals she’d met only hours earlier - as soon as she realized that there was something wrong with the way she lived.

even if it resulted in punishment, military exercises in the form of her own personal boot camp (she’d been forced to do chin-ups, once, when she ripped an expensive gown at the tender age of seven. not since, however, after she wound up sobbing on the floor - instead they moved on. delicate teacups stacked across her back as she did push-ups, the more she did the more that slipped & broke)

she absorbed as she could, as much as she could get; an intense, undying love for a world she always craved to see.

this was the start of something dangerous - a phase that never seemed to end, rebellion coursing through her veins. a wild child in the making, unknowing of limits. she landed herself in any crowd she could squeeze into - bad crowds, in particular and more often than not - they introduced her, the sheltered girl, into a world she hadn’t quite known existed until then.

ran away briefly at the age of fifteen with a man three years older than her & nearly ended up in a tabloid magazine because of it - if it hadn’t been for her parents’ money. though guilt from her parents’ disappointment weighed on her, the thrill fueled something much worse.

from there on, she’d been labeled as a ‘problem child’ - from public intoxication to vandalism, it was clear their daughter was unraveling and nothing could possibly contain her.

boarding school had been an attempt to stop it, enrolled her freshmen year in hopes that she’d come out a proper woman. but being located in new york with easy access to the upper east side of manhattan - it’d been futile.

there’d only been a few significant events during her time there - the death of a classmate (one of her closest friends’ boyfriends) and a ski trip that nearly resulted in her own death, skiing while drunk on a closed off course, in memory of him and the traditions they’d had. the first time she fell in love, and months of pining - running in circles, fights and hiccups and confessions in the dramatic manner all high school relationships seem to be like. they’d finally gotten together - officially, no more sneaking around or pretending - when her parents paid a surprise visit. a rare occasion, nerve-wracking. dangerous. to keep a story short - she’d accidentally exposed her own drug use in their presence, the simple act of pills falling from a purse - and that’d been it. she was gone the next day, with no word to anybody and hardly a word since.

they told family she needed a change of pace, and rumors in her old school said that she’d been expelled, that she’d been sent to the french countryside to live with her grandmother.

she’d only gone to washington, that was all. france was too good, and she was too undeserving. instead she was enrolled in public school, only a quarter through her junior year. her parents rarely spoke to her - rarely in town, the only eyes kept on her were security cameras and the occasional check-in by family friends (the new word for bodyguards, apparently)

but as always - when left alone, saige scrambled to find somewhere she fit, somewhere to tuck herself away in the comfort of other people. a small group, but a loyal group - harmless minus a few miscellaneous charges that they said every small town kid had, at some point. they were safe, they were family - as close as she could get. at least, she had thought so. had really believed it.

she hadn’t intended to go to university after graduating high school, not yet eighteen - not for another month or two, at least. she wanted to travel, meet new people and learn new languages (she’d learned four, already, but had always been a glutton. craved to know more, as if she unlocked secrets with every phrase she could speak) and just. exist.

maybe she should’ve. should’ve left as quick as possible, and never turn back.

saige mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for an entire year, the entirety of her 18th year on earth, before promptly showing up at radcliffe university, ready to learn.

it’d been a year of legal cases & lawsuits & avoiding prison with expensive lawyers and a lot of money.

the getaway driver for an armed robbery at a bank, an unknowing accomplice until her supposed friend ran out from the building and jumped in her car, screaming for her to drive, drive, drive. it had only supposed to have been a quick stop before a road trip to the coast. nobody was supposed to get hurt. but scared, and high, saige had obeyed - and by doing so, led a police chase and, of course, a hit & run that eventually led to saige crashing the car midst breakdown.

the sole victim survived, thankfully - and the beaumonts have been paying the medical bills since. her friend - the one who started it all - was charged & sentenced. but saige got off relatively scot-free. just a year of community service, a slap on the wrist (and the growing wallets of all involved in handling her case). it would’ve made national news if her parents hadn’t stepped in - favors called, resulting in only local headlines.

they hadn’t spoken to her since then. three years of radio silence. she’d think they were dead if it hadn’t been the steady flow of money in her bank account. their silence only feels like a threat of what’s to come if she fucks up again.

ever since - she’s avoided causing too much trouble, still very much the party girl she’d like to be, but staying out of headlines and tabloids. partially in fear of her parents finally cutting ties, permanently, and partially in fear that she’ll end up costing someone else their life with her own selfishness.

personality.

she is so ... bubbly. so fucking bubbly. she’s has so much energy in her. goes running every morning and every night and swims almost every afternoon and she’s never tired, even if she hasn’t slept the last night and even if she’s been dancing for five hours in a club in high heels and nothing but vodka in her system. the personification of a coke bottle shaken up, if the coke bottle in question could laugh and smile at you and make you feel, somehow, at home even though you’d only met her in the bathroom queue.

tries her hardest to be the happy fun friend, the cool friend, the one who can hook you up with whatever you need because she sleeps with her drug dealer and gets discounts, but like, it’s totally okay because they’re also friends.

generally comes off as very confident of herself, and fearless, and reckless but like - fun reckless. the kind of reckless you wouldn’t mind to be around because she takes your worries and acknowledges them and reassures you that it’s fine, that it’s grand, even when it may definitely not be.

takes a lot. so much. could ramble for days, hand gestures and all. never stops talking. never.

if she wants to do something, she’ll do it and there’s not very much you can do to stop her. stubborn, but at the same time easy going? very go go go. mischievous. even if she’s trying to do something stupid you kind of just like ... have to let her do it, or otherwise she’ll mope for three hours and pout at you and then you’ll feel questionably guilty, which is admittedly a little manipulative on her end and isn’t the best thing, but i never said she’s the best person ever because she’s most certainly ... not.

a vegetarian because meat makes her physically sick, like, she’s got a weird intolerance to it and it’s not quite an allergy because it’s really just red meats but she’ll get a tummy ache.

her vocabulary consists of a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ and ‘yknows’, y’know? her statements always sound like questions. 

99% sure she has adhd but she’s never been diagnosed because her parents simply would not allow her to go to therapy so if she does have any neurological disorders, mental illness, and the likes of those - she doesn’t know and doesn’t know where to even begin to find out. her parents? fucking suck.

like i said, she’s currently not on speaking terms with them. more of their decision than hers. she still loves them, a lot - and there’s a part of her that believes that they still love her, that they have to, because she’s not disowned yet. even though they haven’t said more than ten words to her since she was eighteen - as long as they keep sending her money, they still care - right?

owns four cars ... bad idea considering her past, but alas. spending her money is a coping mechanism and she likes to drive because it’s a form of freedom. anyways. all her cars are on campus and she’s probably not allowed to have them all on campus but she does. one’s a sleek sports car, the other is a jacked up pick-up truck that’s decked out in like ... LED lights and shit, the third one is the same exact fucking mustang from the princess diaries because she’s obsessed with the movie & usually gets what she wants. the fourth is a mini cooper.

she’s a photographer (for funsies) and the walls of her room in noland are covered in photographs and art and taped-down plants. her room in general is really cluttered. like, it’s super homey. super cozy. but it’s a mess. clothes everywhere, she’s got a pile of instruments and other miscellaneous hobbies that she wanted to do and then either never did, or did for a few days and got bored of and haven’t touched since. 

i mentioned earlier that she was taught a bunch of skills when growing up - and like, she doesn’t really utilize any of them? knitting, sewing, cookie, three different forms of ballroom dancing - all gone to waste and she’s pretty rusty on most of it, but it’s there. in her mind. it’s kind of neat and i promise she’s not a mary sue it’s just her upbringing HBSJKDFNLG she’s really nuanced i swear. anyways she can also work a gun and a car engine but hates half of the things she knows how to do because she was forced to learn these things.

she plays bass guitar. loves it, loves her guitar. treasured item. she knows violin & piano too but she fucking hates piano & is mostly indifferent towards violin. she can hold a note in other instruments but it’s like. not great. 

got really into languages at a young age due to her constant traveling and started learning them unprompted. her mother is like. literally french. a french citizen. so she grew up learning english & french but from there on she’s gotten fluent in spanish (similar 2 french) and latin (dead languages are fun) and then she’s working on a few others like mandarin and german and scottish gaelic specifically but she mostly just knows a few phrases here and there. like, enough to get her through a city if needed.

like she’s super smart and very talented but she’s also ditzy as hell. big dumbass energy to the point where maybe you don’t realize that she’s actually really good at a lot of things because it’s not like she really flaunts it either?

she’s just very reckless, and very much a party girl. has quite the collection of drugs & uses socially, but also alone and throughout the day. rarely sober.

high functioning alcoholic and at this point she doesn’t really know what she’s like when she’s completely sober? which is really bad but she’s convinced that if she goes sober she’ll just be miserable and horrible because at her very core she believes she’s like. the worst human being alive. like very deep issues of self loathing covered by baileys in her morning coffee and 23 crystal lite packets in her yeti cup that happens to be filled with vodka. 

this has been a budding problem that was developed since she was a young teenager. the ehem. situation that happened when she was eighteen only amplified it.

is essentially wearing a mask of confidence and giddiness and flirtatiousness because she doesn’t want people to think she’s not doing well, because she isn’t. 

loves so much. loves everything, so much. everything, everybody. falls in love like five times a day but nothing really sticks to her either, for the most part. i hate to say it but she does flock to shitty people / general assholes because that’s just ... how she is, that’s what she’s surrounded herself with her entire life. even her high school boyfriend was an asshole - just like, not to her, which made it Okay in her mind. she finds these kind of people like ... super interesting which is really questionable but y’know what? we’re fine. it’s fine. i’m fine.

she sleeps around often, to be frank. she hates being alone and she rarely sleeps in her own dorm unless someone is in there sleeping with her. otherwise she’s at different houses. could be a friend’s bed, could be a stranger’s. has slept with the entire baseball team, probably. she’s also the type of person who’ll try and maintain a positive, good friendship with whoever she sleeps with because she hates the idea of having a regrettable encounter and just. refuses.

this is kind of a problem because she blurs the lines between friendship and Something More too often, and with too many people. wants to be loved but it’s never enough. probably ends up hurting people without realizing it because they think they have something super special but she does this with a lot of people and it’s super :/

does stick and pokes a whole bunch. she can’t draw for shit so they’re not great but she thinks they’re fun and she’s been doing it for a while so like, who cares, right? let her give you one :)

gets sent dress prototypes and like. drafts of designs & articles of clothing from her fashion lines that aren’t out yet and won’t be for a while by her very own mother. saige absolutely gives them all away, for the most part. or it sits in her closet, and stays there. her go-to gift for birthday presents, or christmas gifts, or whenever she feels like it. like, feel free to raid her closet?

ok that’s all. love her.

wanted connections.

a best friend... someone who sticks by her side even though she is a certified Mess.

a ride or die... is it the same as a best friend? maybe. but it’s got a fancy name and i want both so :)

close friends... she’s really friendly and the kind of girl to have been really popular in high school but didn’t care for it and talks to everybody like she’s known them her entire life, so. she’d have a good amount of these!

grumpy friend... to balance her happy friend. she’ll fuck them up in a friendship way. with her cheerfulness.

party pals... they don’t talk much outside of parties but they’re practically glued to the hip when they’re at them. hold your hair back kind of close.

frenemies... or fake friends, toxic friends, people who use her for money or like ... sex, or whatever? anything? people who barely tolerate her because she gives them stuff sometimes.

bad influences... they just encourage her to do more, be worse, never get better.

good influences... like ... YOINK! stop being an idiot! do your homework! idot!

a tutor... because she’s like...smart...but she’s also stupid...super bad at math & science. help her.

hook ups... friends with benefits, a one night stand that is a little? awkward? since then. past & present tenses. :)

exes... she’s noncommittal so they likely wouldn’t have lasted very long but? yolo? she can be a heartbreaker, as marina said, as a treat? whether they dated or were fucking ... either works. but i do love angst :)

one-sided hatred... someone who just fucking ... despises her. but she doesn’t realize because she’s an idiot and thinks they’re just like. joking around! like they’re best buddies!

annoyance... but she’s the annoyance. she’s the thorn in their side. 

ex-best friend... where something happened between them, like, anything, and it ruined their friendship forever. very sad. angst potential, though.

but like. i’ll take anything.

steals your mail... who knows why?

cat escape... he keeps running away and she keeps letting him inside her room even though she’s allergic...

married old couple... the kind of friendship where they always bicker like they’ve been together for fifty years, but it’s purely platonic (or is it? slowburn BAYBEY. DENIAL babyey.)

off and on again... i think that one that’s not good for them because they enable each other & only get like ... angry at each other, and it’s like, messy. but it’s super hard to stop. probably reminds her of high school so that’s why she tries so hard to stick around, but alas. it’s not good. it’s toxic. stop it. 

the drug dealer... the one she sleeps with... even though she can just pay for it because she’s rich but like. it’s funner this way.

blurred status... like, it’s just really confusing of what they are? are they, aren’t they? the relationship status is just ... muddled. she’s a mess and gets involved with too many people without intending to. potential to hurt feelings. :)

please. take her. give me connections.

[sarcasticdebate]

Two Photos from Last Christmas

Relationship: Emori/John Murphy

Rating: T

Word Count: 5,275

Summary: Murphy got Emori’s Christmas gift back in March. Since then he’s lost his job, been dumped, lived on Bellamy’s couch, changed career paths entirely, and has finally gotten his own place only to rediscover that Christmas present. The problem is he has no idea what to do with it now. [Modern AU]

“John?” It’s Emori, calling out at the mouth of the stairwell, the rain matting down her hair, her cheeks and nose a violent red, and her lips cracked. She’s beautiful. He wants to tear his heart out. “What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t sound angry at least, tentative and wary, sure, but not angry.

“Uh,” he says, even knowing that with each second he leaves her question unanswered her frustration will only mount in preparation to spear him. He flounders for a moment, trying to think of an excuse that would explain his presence. Typical. For the first time in his life the only lie he can think of is the truth.

“It’s--I got you a Christmas present,” he says, digging his index finger into the hole in his glove, “From before we broke up. Not exactly something I could return, and I thought you should still have it. So, uh, I was just going to drop it off. You weren’t supposed to see me.” He licks his lips, still chapped from the cold, and dares to meet her eyes and criticism.

Murphy’s new landlord isn’t thrilled that he’s coming to pick up his keys on Christmas Eve. But that’s hardly Murphy’s fault. His new schedule is still kicking his ass. Being the new guy who’s still rotating between twelve hour day and night shifts is a big difference from eight hour construction work days, but he’s handling it, so his landlord can too. It’s not like he’s asking a lot.

His new building has an elevator that’s only ‘a little finicky’ so by Murphy’s standards its high living. He shoves his stuff into it after getting the key and allows himself to slump against the dirty mirror wall. Finding a place is such a hassle, and moving on top of it just sucks. Especially when he has to do it all alone.

He shoulders his way into the new place, boxes precariously balanced in his hands. He sets them down without ceremony, wishing some grain of excitement would rise up in him, but nope.

Under normal circumstances Murphy wouldn’t consider unpacking the worst part of moving. A pain, sure, but it usually meant the hard work was done, and left the anticipation of a new place to grow into and explore. It’s different when all he has to his name is three boxes, groceries, a duffel bag filled with his clothes, and the blow up air mattress Bellamy had lent him. Depressing really. But he has his own place again, so he tries not to let it get to him.

He leaves the single set of dining implements on the kitchen counter, plugs in his old laptop to charge, and throws the sheets onto the bed once it inflates. There’s little to be done after that since he’s not going to put his clothes in the closet right now, other than set up the one lamp he has, and leave his toiletries in the bathroom.

He debates removing the stuff in the third box, not quite remembering what’s in it. As far as he can remember it mostly holds miscellaneous stuff: a throw pillow, a first aid kit, three books—only one of which he’s read— and the contents of his old junk drawer. But there’s also a picture frame at the bottom.

His pulse quickens as he lifts it out of the box, shame and disappointment running in his blood. The boxes had been tucked away for the months he’d been subsiding on Bellamy’s couch and wavering patience, and he had forgotten what he’d shoved into them in the emotional turmoil following the day Emori had walked out.

It’s a two-photo picture frame that he’d bought back in March. The picture on the left is pretty normal, just something he could put into the second slot. It’s from last Christmas, when Harper had insisted that they get one good non-selfie photo of the seven of them. They had ended up taking three, because Bellamy had messed up the timer, but that first picture, snapped a moment too early, is still Murphy’s favorite. It features Bellamy tripping over Murphy’s legs, his arms outstretched in the second before he went careening into Raven and Echo who were squeezed in together on the armchair, both their faces unmasked in shock and amused horror. Monty stands behind them, his wide-eyed face somehow funnier than Bellamy’s; maybe because his arms are full of Harper, who had been perched on the back of the chair and promptly went careening into him at the disturbance. Looking back on it, Murphy can’t remember if he had stuck his leg out and tripped Bellamy on purpose or not. His own smile doesn’t reveal if Bellamy’s fall was premeditated or not, but looking at Emori sitting on the floor next to him, her face caught in a laugh and eyes bright, he thinks maybe they had come up with the idea together. It’s something the Murphy and Emori of a year ago would have done.

His thumb can’t help but trace the curve of her cheek as he relearns the photo, when he realizes he’s doing it his attention shifts to the second photo, forcing himself to hold onto the edges of the frame.

The second photo is the special one. It was complete luck that he had come across it. A local paper he had flipped through out of boredom one day had a featured story about one of the group homes downtown to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary. Pages six and seven were dedicated to photos through the years, and one of them, in the bottom left corner was of Emori and Otan, sitting on the front steps of the home. Neither of them were credited in the picture, and the caption read only ‘Christmastime, 1998’ but of course he recognized Emori, even with all her miniature features not looking directly into the camera and despite the fact she was sitting on her left hand to hide it away.

Emori didn’t have any pictures of herself from when she was younger, and only a few of Otan that she refused to display, and he knew she deserved more than a newspaper clipping, so he had contacted the journalist who had done the article, and through persistence and some lying had gotten a proper printed copy.

The pictures were going to be her Christmas present.

Historically, he’s been a pretty lousy gift-giver, and after putting the frame together back in March he had thought he’d actually succeeded in being a thoughtful boyfriend instead of just getting whatever generic item Emori claimed she needed. Of course the whole ‘thoughtful boyfriend’ thing had gone down the drain back in June. Being jobless hadn’t been good for him, especially when McCreary had gotten off scot free because he was the forman and Murphy got saddled with criminal charges on top of getting sacked even when he wasn’t the one who’d started the fist fight. Still, taking his frustrations and built up turmoil out on Emori was a shit thing to do, in retrospect.

But at the time her promotion and raise (she didn’t even need his income to cover the other half of the rent anymore) just seemed put into place to spite him. Sitting home alone all day had made it worse. Hoping for a call back from just one of the places he’d sent out his resume, only for Emori to come home for half an hour before going out to get drinks he couldn’t afford with their friends who were all too keen on charity.

The insults hadn’t been warranted, and neither had the yelling, or the childish refusing to talk to her. Distancing himself from the group had only compounded it all. And he only really recognized he was self-sabotaging after he had gotten back on his feet and had been living with Bellamy’s near daily lectures, which came after she’d dumped him.

“So you learned a lesson,” Bellamy had said sometime back in September. “You’re an asshole. I could have told you that ages ago, but hey, at least now you can grow from it.”

“Fuck off,” he had said at the time, but even back then he’d been working on it. Meeting Raven’s new boyfriend, going to Echo’s work thing when Bellamy was sick, attending Monty and Harper’s garden party even though he had to wear a button down. Stuff he didn’t want to do, until he had done it and remembered there was a reason he was friends with these people.

He still avoided Emori for a long time though. Raven rolled her eyes everytime he asked if she was going to be around, but as far as he could tell that was pretty normal. Emori is the only ex he has, but he thought keeping his distance was pretty par for the course.

But keeping that up was near impossible, considering all their mutual friends. So he stuck around when she came over for Bellamy’s movie nights and he doesn’t have the groupchat on mute anymore. Sometimes he even replies to stuff. The group acts as a good buffer, making it so that he and Emori only have to have tangential interactions. Of course that doesn’t prevent him from wanting to throw up his heart everytime he sees her. So it’s not like they’re having one-on-one conversations.

But maybe he should give the gift to her. It wasn’t expensive or anything, and it might get them closer to being Just Friends, which he really dreads the idea of, but would still be better than being nothing. Unless she still hates his guts, which is definitely a possibility and a good reason not to give her a Christmas present.

He slips his phone out of his pocket. He could ask Raven, she and Emori talk the most and she’d know where Emori is on the spectrum of liking to hating him. But that’s dumb. Not only is there probably some girl code that would get in the way of her telling him, but asking someone else where you stand with your own ex-girlfriend is too sad of a concept for him to stoop down to.

That’s something he should actually talk to Emori about. Technically there’s nothing stopping him from calling her. He flops into his shitty bed, staring blankly at his phone, as his thumb catches on Emori’s name. He still has her number of course. The green heart sits next to her name in his recent contacts, as if the last time he texted her wasn’t two months ago.

What a stupid message it was too, Emori?, sent at a quarter after midnight on a Tuesday, and he’d actually thought she’d respond. Show’s what loneliness can do to your brain.

Scrolling through their old messages is probably some kind of fucked up anti-therapy, but he does it anyway, maybe because six months later he’s still being sustained by the hollow itch in his chest he feels whenever he thinks about her. It’s motivating at least, better than feeling nothing.

Their texts from when things were going downhill aren’t the worse. Most of them are brief—neither of them are the kind of people to take their frustrations to a third platform. If anything, the worst part is seeing how little they were talking. It’s the ones from when they were happy together that hurt the most.

Making plans for dinner or when they’d go out, coupled with random links to articles or youtube videos that made them think of one another. Stories from work that couldn’t wait till they got home and screenshots from the groupchat they had to dissect one-on-one. The I miss yous and I love yous and Emori’s adorable affinity for the vulcan hand emoji.

He’s lost track of the amount of times he’s clicked the ‘load more messages button’ when the blue light makes his vision start to blur. He blinks hard and scrolls to the bottom again, that same stupid message there for him to reread, the echoing lack of response. There’s no way she’d want him to call her. He drops his phone to his chest and tugs on the ends of his own hair, a frustrated growl escaping from his throat and bouncing off the ceiling of his mostly empty apartment.

He plugs his phone into an outlet on the wall, far enough away that he won’t be tempted to get out of bed and check it. He doesn’t call her.

The good thing about working for emergency services is that people still need to work on Christmas. It’s a good thing for Murphy at least, his usual partner found someone to switch shifts with so she could spend the day with family. The guy working the shift with him today is Jewish, and even he doesn’t seem to want to be there. Not that Murphy doesn’t also want to still be in bed after the shit night of sleep he had, but this at least provides a distraction. He’s sort of hoping someone’s arteries get clogged after one sugar cookie too many just so he can have something to do.

They get three calls out, but nothing overly exciting or worrying. Their shift ends at five, so at least he doesn’t have to deal with all the merry drunks who’ll no doubt crawl out of the woodwork and crash into light poles later that evening. His partner wishes him a Merry Christmas as they part ways, which is nice of him, but only really serves to annoy him.

He gets home and has every intention of reheating leftovers and going to bed at seven, but that stupid picture frame is still sitting on the floor of his remarkably empty apartment, his own smiling face from a year ago mocking him. He can’t look away at it as he slurps wonton soup, for the first time noticing the way one of Emori’s legs overlaps his in the bottom photo. Her smile is so wide.

Fuck it. The guy in that picture would do anything if he thought it had a chance at making Emori happy. There’s no point in him keeping it, and throwing it out would be a waste. She might not want anything to do with him, but if he leaves it at her place, no confrontation, with a note to explain, she can’t be too mad.  

The note he writes is short, no frills. He debates signing it for a long time, but she’ll recognize his handwriting regardless so in the end he writes down his full name, not just J. Murphy like how he normally does, and tapes it to the back of the frame.

The walk to Raven and Emori’s apartment isn’t long, but the spitting rain and biting wind don’t make it pleasant. Tears sting his eyes by the time he makes his way inside on the heels of a tenant. He was planning on leaving the present in the mailbox, but it’s far too small. He makes his way upstairs, two at a time because he doesn’t want to linger in the building. Raven’s apartment is the furthest one down the hallway of the third floor. He takes over-large footsteps down the checkered carpet floor, as if that might make the urge to check over his shoulder lessen. He should have succumbed to it.

“John?” It’s Emori, calling out at the mouth of the stairwell, the rain matting down her hair, her cheeks and nose a violent red, and her lips cracked. She’s beautiful. He wants to tear his heart out. “What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t sound angry at least, tentative and wary, sure, but not angry.

“Uh,” he says, even knowing that with each second he leaves her question unanswered her frustration will only mount in preparation to spear him. He flounders for a moment, trying to think of an excuse that would explain his presence. Typical. For the first time in his life the only lie he can think of is the truth.

“It’s--I got you a Christmas present,” he says, digging his index finger into the hole in his glove, “From before we broke up. Not exactly something I could return, and I thought you should still have it. So, uh, I was just going to drop it off. You weren’t supposed to see me.” He licks his lips, still chapped from the cold, and dares to meet her eyes and criticism.

The moment is flat and awkward as she steps forward slowly, unlacing her scarf from around her neck as she approaches. Her steps seem over large too. He hands over the gift when she’s close enough but he’s careful to keep the distance far and impersonal. She takes it in hand, a little frown between her eyebrows, and he kind of wishes he went to the trouble of wrapping it now. He doesn’t want to see her reaction.

“I’ll just...go,” he says, his hands stuffed deep inside his pockets as he steps around her, a good arm’s width between their bodies.

“John?” Emori says, and of course he stops and turns back to look at her. “You didn’t have to-”

“I know,” he interrupts, “But it’s been sitting in a box for the last nine months. You should have it. I promise I’m not trying to make a gesture or anything.”

“Okay,” Emori says lowly, her hands on the edges of the frame clenched as if they’re cramped from the cold. “You still didn’t have to, though. So thank you.”  

He offers a quick nod and grimacing smile, having every intention of leaving, but his gaze catches the tears floating on Emori’s waterline and suddenly his feet are stuck in his shoes.

The thing is he knows what to say to comfort her. It sits on his tongue like a pearl, a gift he could give her if he just opened his mouth. The problem is it’s not his place anymore. So he swallows instead.  

But Emori has never been one to sit with her emotions, and it’s no surprise that a few blinks later her eyes are clear. Maybe even brighter.

“Have you eaten?” Emori asks, quickly enough to confuse him. “Monty doesn’t know how to cook for only six apparently. I have leftovers. You can come in if you want.”

There are so many reasons to say no. He has eaten. She’s his ex-girlfriend. It’s Christmas and he just worked a twelve hour shift.

“If you’re sure,” he says instead, and when she gives a nod he follows her inside.

“Uh, where’s Raven?” he asks, as they move to the kitchen. The apartment looks the same as the last time he was here, as if Emori hasn’t added any of herself to the place.

“She’s meeting Shaw’s family,” Emori answers, turning on the stovetop, “Apparently they have a Christmas tradition of driving around after dinner to look at the lights, so she got invited to tag along.”

“Oh,” he says, watching her dish out some of Monty’s famous green bean casserole and a bit of ham from his place on the far wall, “I didn’t realize they were that serious.”

“Yeah,” Emori says, “She really likes him.”

He nods, tugging on the loose thread in his glove until it’s close enough to unraveling that he has to stuff them in his pockets if he wants to have both gloves to wear on the walk home. There’s a long silence as Emori stands over the stove with more dillegance than is really required, and as he hates himself for being fixated on her small movements. Her eyes flick back to him too many times to count, but she tears her gaze away countless times too. Her expression is held tight.

She pours herself a glass of water, and grabs a plate and fork for him. She drinks as he eats, and it’s clear both of them are grateful for the occupation of their hands and mouths. If he had more courage he’d ask her why she invited him in. As it is he’s grateful, despite the pressure on his chest and the awkward eye contact.

“I’ll have to tell Monty he’s triumphed again,” he says, taking his last bite. He makes a big show about scraping the plate with the side of the fork, hating himself for not wanting to leave yet.

Maybe Emori knows that because the next thing she says is, “We missed you at dinner.”

“I was working,” he answers automatically, but when he thinks about what she said it’s like his heart is shaking in his chest.

“I know,” Emori says, “Bellamy said...How do you like it? Being an EMT?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” he says, “The courses were cool, hands on, and Abby wrote me a letter of rec, so they overlooked the charges...I like it a lot. It’s exciting, different all the time. I get to drive an ambulance. There are sirens. Blood and guts.”

“Sounds good for you,” Emori says, maybe at the joke, maybe because she’s happy for him. “What’s your grossest story?”

And her smile is still there so of course he has to explain the guy who had somehow managed to get his thigh impaled by his own bike. Emori scrunches her nose and laughs at all the appropriate places, and he hadn’t noticed them drifting towards one another until he almost hit her with his fork while miming the angle of the bike seat.

“Sorry,” he says, moving around her to get to the sink, “I’ll just wash up and get out of your hair.”

“John, you don’t have to…”

“Nah, I ate your lunch for Monday, pretty sure I’m an asshole if I make you do dishes on Christmas.”

“I already did dishes at Monty and Harper’s,” she points out, but she lets him put soap in the ratty sponge and clean the plate. And maybe he scrubs for longer than he needs too, and rinses it twice, and towel dries it too when the rack is right there. It’s already been established that he’s pathetic, doing an overly thorough job cleaning dishes really isn’t the worst thing he’s done.

“Sparkling,” he says, presenting it to her to put away. She smiles, and for a moment it isn’t awkward, they’ve done dishes together a thousand times. Of course, just thinking about how it isn’t awkward makes that squirming feeling in his chest reappear. He coughs. “Well, I’ll get going then,” he starts, “Merry Christmas.”

“Wait,” Emori says, reaching out to grab his wrist. He doesn’t look down to where she’s touching him because he knows if he does she’ll let go. She licks her lips, which she really shouldn’t do when they’re standing this close together. “Could you hang up the picture frame for me?”

He nods without thinking, considering for the first time that maybe she doesn’t want him to leave either. Sure, he worked in construction for nearly five years, but she’s a mechanic. She shouldn’t have any trouble putting a nail in her wall “Where do you want it?”

She holds the frame crooked in her arm and leads the way out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into her bedroom. He stops in the doorway.

Emori has always been something of a mess, perfectly okay with living in her own clutter. They had spent an entire afternoon bickering about her actually hanging her clothes up in the closet once, but those habits are incomparable to this situation; her room now is something out of a reality tv show. Cardboard boxes are stacked up on one another in almost all the available floor space. There are three side tables next to Emori’s bed, a rolled up rug leaning against the dresser which has four lamps sitting on it.

That carpet used to lay in their living room. There’s probably still a stain from when he’d spilled chili on it after Emori had him laughing too hard. Those lamps used to be the only light they had in their bedroom because the one window was snug against a brick wall an alley over. He still remembers all the slightly different clicks they’d make as he turned them off in preparation for bed.

“Um,” he says, stuck in the threshold. Emori shimies her way through the disorder to hold the picture up to the wall.

“Here?” she asks. It’s the left wall. She always slept on the left side. In that spot the frame will be the first thing she’ll see most mornings. He blinks hard several times.

“Sure,” he says, “You have a hammer and nail? I’ll probably need a measuring tape too.”

“Of course,” Emori says, “One sec.” She roots through some of the boxes until she pulls out a toolbox. His toolbox. The one filled with odds and ends he’d stolen from work over a handful of months. He hasn’t thought about it in the longest time. She hands it over and he takes out what he’ll need, sticking a nail between his lips. Finding a stud isn’t a problem, and too quickly the frame hangs on the wall.

“That straight?” he asks, taking a step back.

“I don’t really care about it being straight,” Emori says and his eyes can’t help but fall to the disarray about the room as he nods in agreement.

“I know it’s a mess,” she says, but not like she’s offended. “I haven’t gotten around to unpacking yet. Didn’t seem worth it when half this stuff is yours.”

That doesn’t make any sense. It’s been months, and it’s not like he’s asked her for any of his old shit, and she hadn’t tried to pawn it off on him either. Keeping it that long without using it seems pointless. Emori knows that, no doubt, judging by the way she sinks onto her bed, looking at the frame. It’s the only thing hanging on any of her walls, he notices.

“We could sort through it,” she says. “If you want.”

“Emori.” He shakes his head, he’s barely stopped looking at her this whole time, but he has to now. “I don’t really want to be in your bedroom right now.”

That sits between them, like a rotting apple no one wants to throw out of the bowl. So far they’ve managed to avoid talking about them, because this is the first time they’ve spent any lengthy amount of time one-on-one since they broke up. But now it sits out there to be prodded and examined.

“Oh,” she says, and she sounds hurt. He grimaces, and that gray, niggling part of him that hates himself bruises even more. He forces himself to explain.

“I can’t be just friends with you right now, okay? I’m still in love with you, and it doesn’t…” he drifts off upon noticing the pink in Emori’s cheeks, the strain in her throat. Shit. He wasn’t supposed to say that, was he? “Sorry. I’ll...I’ll leave.”

Except that maneuvering out of the room in his semi-frantic state makes him knock over one of the boxes, it’s contents spilling onto the floor. Emori springs to her feet, and he scrambles down, replacing the items while he tries to avoid even the sight of her shoes. His heartbeat skitters in his chest regardless.

“John, John, it’s fine,” Emori says, her hands reaching out and lying on the back of his, and of course that catches him, the only option to look into her eyes. She has such an expressive face, but he’s not used to seeing it any more. Her jaw is held solid, maybe so it won’t tremble, and her eyes are wide. “I’m sorry,” she says, and his brow twitches in confusion.

“Why are you apologizing? I’m the one who was such a jackass. I shouldn’t have treated you like that,” he says, and then, because he’s just realized he’s never said it, “I’m sorry about that. Really.”

Emori blinks, twice, and know that he thinks about it, he might have blurted that out of left field, from her perspective. Keeping things inside the box has never been a specialty of his apparently. Part of the reason he needs to leave, and he should, but Emori had caught him in her net a long time ago.

“I accept your apology.”

He feels lighter, a weight on his chest he hadn’t know was there is gone. Emori doesn’t hate him.

“Thanks,” he says, because it seems the only reasonable thing to say. He straightens, the mess on her floor mostly cleaned up.

“I was going to say I miss you.” He must look as confused as he feels because Emori repeats herself. “I was going to say I miss you, that’s why I wanted to…” she throws her arm in a gesture, towards her apartment at large or these weird and precious collection of moments they’ve been having. “I’m sorry that’s not what you wanted. It’s just…” she pauses, looks him straight in the eye, and then says with conviction, “I still love you too.”

He grinds his teeth, the taste between them bitter and sweet and dissolving on his tongue. But then he shakes his head a little, because he knows by now that it’s not enough, that he doesn’t deserve it.

“What?” Emori asks, searching, prodding, something watery in her voice.

“I don’t know? What am I supposed to say to that?” He asks, and in his head he sounds more outraged, more overwhelmed. In reality, the words come out soft. And scared.

Emori swallows something down. “I don’t know. Don’t you want to try again?”

There it is. He wants to throw up his heart. “You do?” he manages to choke out. He’s only just learned that she doesn’t still hate him. It seems too far a jump.

Her jaw stutters before it snaps shut, and he was right, it was too far a jump. She doesn’t know how to handle this any more than he does. So where does that leave them?

“Yes, John, I do,” she says, surprising him. “I didn’t really think you’d get back here again. I thought you’d keep falling apart.” She’s sounds ashamed about not having faith in him, but he can’t really be offended when he hadn’t had any in himself either. “But you still care about your future, and our friends.” She bites her lip, turning a bright pink. She looks at the picture frame. “You still care about me.”

He never stopped, but it’s not like his past behavior is very reflective of that. And now who he is and who he was a few months ago is blended together in his head. Just a bunch of mush Emori doesn’t deserve.

“It’s just a Christmas present,” he says, an ache in his throat coming up with the words, and Emori looks at him with disbelief.

“John, Christmas didn’t mean anything to me until I met you! God, for me and Otan, Christmas was just the day where we even more unloved. But that…” She points at picture frame hanging on the wall, that first picture of all of them, the one he had printed out as an afterthought, had taken for granted. “You, with all of them, made it actually mean something.”

It takes a lot for Emori to cry. As a teenager she had thought it made her weak and had beaten it out of herself. But there’s that shine to her eyes again, the same as when she had first seen it, and a wet break in her voice.

“It’s my favorite Christmas present,” she says. “And if you got it back in March, I think it’s important to you too.”

Damn it. She knows him too well.

“Of course it means something to me,” he forces himself to say, some previously unknown courage swelling in him. “Because you do. You mean...so much to me.”

“Then let’s try again,” she says, insistence pushing at the end of each word. And he finds himself nodding, because that’s what he wants, even if there’s that quibbling part of him still thinks she deserves better; but if he was meant to learn anything from all of this it was probably that Emori gets to decide what she deserves.

Emori smiles, dazzling, like she always is, and the doubts rush from his mind.

“You’re coming to Echo’s New Year’s party, right?” He asks, and Emori nods, smile widening.

“Was she nagging you about it too?”

“Oh, yeah,” he confirms, the corners of his mouth beginning to ache, but in a pleasant way he has no intention of stopping. “I didn’t mind too much, though. I’ve got this feeling it’ll be a good year.”

[hufflepuffmarlenemckinnon]

Quacks in the Night part 1/2

A Blackinnon Raise Harry AU installation

Word count: 2k+

A/N: This was written for my best friend when she was having a hard time. She hates Umbridge and loves my use of overwrought prose as humor. There are also ducks. So many ducks. I put it up online and it’s gotten really nice feedback (it even got featured on a podcast!) so I thought I’d share it here too.

Part 1

Sirius woke to the sounds of his wife, Marlene, readying herself for the day. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he noted that the sun hadn’t yet risen. Neither of the Blacks were early risers.

Shit.

As he regained consciousness, the memory of last night’s letter came back to him in flashes. Harry. Lines written with a black quill to the point his hand retained scars. Umbridge…

His poor godson was being persecuted even further. Didn’t the boy have enough to worry about? Was a Dark Lord attempting (and possibly succeeding, Sirius didn’t quite understand the particulars) to get inside his head not enough for one 15 year old to deal with?

He felt sick over what the cruel professor had done to Harry. No small amount of anger burned in his chest, but it was Marlene who was the real threat this time. Sirius had written to Dumbledore immediately and was going through the more conventional process of getting this witch sacked. But Marlene looked ready to hang the wretch up by her toes the minute she put down the letter.

Reckless. Irresponsible. Impulsive.

Those were some of the various words that had been used to describe the Blacks, both as a couple and as individuals. It wasn’t an entirely inaccurate assessment, but Sirius contended they had other, more important traits.

Sirius would have given an eyeball to keep Marlene or Harry from getting a scratch. He’d die to protect his family. He felt sick with worry when they took unnecessary risks.

None of the little family mustered much regard for authority. Following orders was not a very Noble and Most Ancient House of Black (such that it was) thing to do. So he shouldn’t have been surprised that Marlene was trying to sneak out of their flat before Sirius woke. It all added up.

He’d told her he didn’t want her to go confront Umbridge.

She was of course, not going to listen.

She knew he’d worry himself sick so she wanted to spare him that as much as she could.

He was still confused, after all these years, how he could simultaneously feel as angry as an insulted hippogriff and yet more in love with her than the day they were wed. It was disconcerting. He really never got used to it.

He rolled over in bed and got an eye full of Marlene, fresh out of the shower.

“You can’t just go attack people as a duck, Marlene.”

“Hide and watch.”

She pulled on her clothing in haste. The fact she’d hoped he would sleep through her departure was better left unacknowledged. He was up now. She finished with her buttons and zippers then leaned down to kiss Sirius, who was still sprawled out on the bed.

“I’ll do no such thing! You’re going to get yourself arrested.”

“I will not. I have a plan. It’s going to get me written into history books as a great hero. The most heroic of all ducks.”

“You know it’s deeply concerning when you say things like that.”

Marlene smiled mischievously at her distractingly gorgeous husband. His body was a familiar sight now, but it was still an effort to hold back when he reached out to pull her back into bed. She wasn’t falling for it. She was a woman with a mission. Not even an exceedingly handsome distraction was going to keep her from it.

Sirius conceded. He’d used the last of the tools at his disposal and knew better than to argue with his wife over her ill advised revenge plot any further. She was out for blood. It was probably safer for her to go in animagus form than to unleash her on Umbridge with a wand. How much damage could a tiny duck really do? They couldn’t throw her in Azkaban for aggressively quacking at the horrible little ministry toad.

Marlene had never balked at a task she believed in because of a few rules standing in the way. From the moment she saw her Harry’s most recent letter home, she knew that a little rule breaking would be necessary. She’d prefer to break Dolores Umbridge’s neck. But she really didn’t like her odds for getting away from that scot free.

Her godson had written straight away after the detention he served with the piss poor excuse for a Defense Against the Dark Arts the ministry had inflicted upon Hogwarts. More accurately, he had his dear friend Hermione draft a letter for him because the child couldn’t even hold a quill after the sadistic punishment that vile toad had subjected him to.

Marlene had never carried a child of her body. She hadn’t been averse to the idea, but it didn’t look like it was in the cards. The world had not gotten itself in good enough shape at any point in the past 13 years for her to consider bringing a helpless and innocent baby into it.

For most of that time, she’d been focused on raising Harry. No one ever mistook her for his mum. He didn’t look a thing like her. The white child with perennially messy black hair still held the title of “son” deep in Marlene Black’s heart. She knew that her husband felt the same. It was their lot in life to avoid the subject.

It was not their lot in life to let amoral education interloping ministry worshipping scum get away with using a torture device on their boy. Surely a pen that drew blood from the back of the hand that held it would be considered a dark object? It had to be illegal.

But she was Cornelius Fudge’s personal arse licker, so there was no way she’d be held to any consequences on that front.

Marlene’s blood was boiling. It was reprehensible to use such an object on any child. But that child was HERS and Marlene was going to give the monster a dose of her own medicine.

Becoming an animagus was the best decision Marlene Black, who was still Marlene McKinnon back then, had ever made. It saved her life. It gave her her time to get that life back when she might not have survived the grief otherwise. It gave her a career.

It gave her the power to fuck with people who needed fucking with.

Marlene found the local duck population to be very sociable and never hesitate to lend a hand. Or a webbed foot and a wing.

Though the regular ducks had some sense that she wasn’t really like them, they were friendly to her. Since Marlene was actually a bright and resourceful witch in a little duck body, she was able to impress the local flocks fairly easily.

She had an army of roughly 300 ducks by mid day. Dolores J. Umbridge was going to get it.

Her duck army had one very important human ally in one Minerva McGonagall. Minerva had talked to Marlene over the floo late into the night. She agreed to create a reason for Umbridge to be called out to the Quidditch Pitch at half four.

She wouldn’t make it to the Quidditch Pitch.

Just past the womping willow a small golden-brown mallard hen commanded from behind her legion. The moment she spotted the little pink blob approaching she let out a loud quack.

She imagined herself screaming “CHAAARGE!” and that made it more satisfying.

The sound of webbed feet slapping the ground mixed with quacks of excitement were deafening. She watched as the flock ambushed the so-called professor.

Umbridge’s first reaction, confusion, showed plainly on her face. But the water-fowl battalion gave her no leeway in time to digest her surroundings.

Her surroundings, at that point, were ducks on every side, encircling her and closing in.

She let loose a high pitched and very undignified shriek.

Good. Scream you evil hag. You don’t mess with my Harry.

Marlene was mainly an observer of the event from the back and side of the action, rather than a participant. She’d planned it so that she’d minimize the risk of being identified by her markings. She was one of the most well known Animagus in the country, but no one could recognize a duck from the corner of their eye in flock of hundreds of other similar looking ducks.

The front lines had already closed in on Umbridge's ankles before she managed to throw a shield up.

Her shield faltered. Marlene quaked out another command, and the flock took flight with gusto straight into the horrible toad of a woman. Dolores Umbridge’s hair would probably never recover. She’d find stray feathers on her person for weeks. She would hear quacks in the night and shiver with fear.

Marlene’s work here was done.

[just-jordie-things]

Siren - Stiles Stilinski

word count: 2600 warnings: swearing, i think that’s it

Mermaids.  Sirens.  Sea creatures that are half human and half fish.  A species that has been living longer than most of the monsters that prowled through Beacon Hills California.  Longer than the werewolves, longer than the banshees, the coyotes.  They were an honorable kind, difficult to understand, but not many bad things could be said about the merpeople.

 Unless you were a hunter.

 Yes, it began with the sailors, passed on to pirates passed on to explorers and so forth through time.  Each looking for the bounty to be collected, for the capture of a mermaid.  And soon the magic and the beauty of the merpeople was no longer treasured, but sought out.

 In the late 1900s, the entire species was near extinction.  If it weren’t for the l/n family, the kingdom of the merpeople would no longer exist.  It would be extinct.

 At least, it would if it weren’t for them converting from people of the sea, to people of the land.

“We saved everyone mama?” I asked, looking up from the story book in my lap.  My mother smiled at me, nodding her head.

“We did indeed” She said, standing up from my bed.  I looked down at the book again, seeing my parents’ signatures.  My fingers brushed over the thick black ink.  “And you’re one of us, y/n” I smiled at that, the idea of being a mermaid.  Sure, I was seven years old and about to be the new girl at Beacon Hills elementary school, but somehow having a secret as cool as this one made me feel at ease.  I had a something special that nobody else would.  “But you must promise, y/n” I stared at my mother with the most serious expression that I could muster.

 “Yeah?”

 “You must never reveal this secret to anyone” She said solemnly.  “Serious consequences will ensue if you were to ever speak a word of this” I nodded my head, smiling genuinely and handing the book back to her.

 “I promise mama” I told her, and she gave me a long hug.  Her hands circled on my back before she let go of me.

 “Alright, well you have a big first day tomorrow, why don’t you get a good night’s sleep, okay?” I nodded eagerly, scooting underneath my covers for warmth.

 I would keep this secret.  My own little special secret.

 Nine Years Later

 “Stiles! Just because I’m a mermaid does not mean I can breathe underwater!” I whisper screamed at my best friend.  He laughed and jumped into the pool after me.  The bastard had shoved me in.

 “If I remember correctly, that book of your showed gills all over here” He gestured his hand over my neck, and I promptly rolled my eyes.

 “Stiles.  I can’t breathe in chlorinated water” He made a pout.

 “Damn.  How about a tail? Will your legs merge and make a tail?” I splashed him this time and swam over to Scott, leaping onto his back and nearly dunking him under the surface of the water.

 “He-hey!” He flustered for a moment to wrap his arms under my legs to hold me up.  Stiles swam after us, and Scott grinned and waved at him.  “Let me guess y/n, Stiles started asking you mermaid questions again” I chuckled and nodded, keeping my hands on the back of his shoulders.

 Scott and Stiles became my two best friends on that first day of second grade.  It took about a whole year for me to reveal my secret to them, but I trusted them with it, hell I trusted them with my life.  And when Scott was turned into a werewolf last year, we became even closer.  Especially Stiles and I.  We always had this… tighter connection that I’ve never felt with anyone else.

 “Yeah pretty much” I said with a small laugh.  Stiles splashed water at Scott and I.

 “Leave me alone you know you love me” I stuck my tongue out at him and he did it back.  Then I got bored and plopped my chin on top of Scott’s head and played with my hand in the water.

 “Hey y/n” Scott called after a short period of time.  I just sorta hummed, still watching my hand splash lightly in the water.  “Wanna play a game?”

 “Sure… like marco po-”

 Before I knew it, Scott and pulled me from his back and and I was flying through the air.  I didn’t even have the time to scream before I landed in a pair of arms.  Instantly my own curled around the neck I recognized as Stiles (thanks to his freckles).  My arms tightened around him as I clung onto him.

 “Woah woah woah, it’s fine, you’re fine” He assured, beginning to swim us both towards the wall of the pool.

 “Don-don’t do that again” I muttered, looking up at him.  Stiles’ brow furrowed as he stared at me, holding me securely and upright.  “What?”

 “Your eyes…” He said, his own eyes flickering between mine.  “They’re… they’re pink?” I rubbed them with my fists and began to clamber out of Scott’s pool.

 “They do that” I mumbled, grabbing my towel from the grass and covering my body for warmth and to cover my large amount of exposed skin.  Stiles began to get out of the pool, and Scott swam towards the edge as well.  “I’m gonna go inside and warm up” I said, already walking into Scott’s house.  

 “Wait- y/n!” Stiles ran up behind me but I went into the bathroom and closed the door.  I could hear him sigh on the other side of the door, then slump down to the ground.  I sucked in a weak breath as tears welled in my eyes, and ran my hands through my hair.  Then sat down on the ground, and pressed my back against the door. 

When I’d washed myself off in the shower and had on a towel around my body I opened the door.  Stiles wasn’t there anymore, but I saw him half asleep on the couch, Scott reading in the recliner.  He caught my eye and smiled, standing up and waving me over to walk with him.  I did so and followed him up the stairs.

 “Feeling better? You were really out of it when you went inside” I shrugged my shoulders, readjusting your towel.

“I didn’t like what you did, made my eyes go blue” I said, walking with him into his room.

 “Blue… blue’s… fear?” I nodded.

 “Yep, it is”

 “Then what’s sadness?”

“It’s also blue, just a darker one I guess” I shrugged again.  Scott made a pouty face.

 “And you wanna explain to me what pink means?” He asked.  I opened up my drawer in his dresser and pulled out undergarments with a pair of running shorts and a tee shirt.  Scot simply turned around so I could change.

 “Think you already know the answer” I muttered.  Scott chuckled, and I took a moment to glare at his back.

 “Stiles doesn’t”  I yanked up the underwear and shorts angrily, and pulled the top over my head with just as much aggression.

“I’m done changing” I said, and Scott turned back around, taking the towel from me.

“Look, y/n, I think it would be best for you if you just told him”

“Told him what Scott? That he’s my mate? He’s the soulmate of a freaky fish girl, and that my eyes go pink because that’s ‘the color of love’ and sometimes I can’t control it because I do love him and I just don’t wanna mess anyth-”

“You’re rambling hon” Scott said with a laugh, and went searching through your drawer.

“Sorry I just.. it’s important to me” He smiled and nodded, and handed you a rolled up pair of fuzzy socks.

“It’s cold down there, you should put these on” I half smiled and thanked him before pulling them up over my feet.  They were a little loose, but provided the warmth I was looking for.  “You want some advice y/n? Like, real solid advice” I nodded, face crumpling in defeat.

“Yes please” I sighed, and Scott stooped over to my eye level, and put his hands on my shoulders.

“Just.  Go.  With.  It” He said slowly.  My brows furrowed in confusion.  “If you think it’s a moment you could say it, say it.  If you think it’s a moment for you to kiss him, kiss him” I shook my head, eyes widening and lips parting in shock.

“Scott I can’t-”

“Go downstairs and hang out with him before he passes out” I gave up with a small sigh and nodded.

“Thanks Scott” I said quietly, heading out of his room.  Scott smiled and nodded, going to the door to shut off the light, and close the door.

“Night y/n” He called, and closed the door as I left.

I walked down the steps on my tiptoes, and when I reached the first floor, the television was on, playing a baseball game, and Stiles was on his back.  His eyes were closed but I could tell that he wasn’t fully asleep.  I still tiptoes over to the couch though, and crawled on top of him slowly and carefully.

“Mm- y/n?” His eyes flickered open as I wedged myself between the couch and his body.  His one arm wrapped around my body, the other lying on his chest.  “Look I’m sorry about earlier” His voice was low and groggy from exhaustion and it made my heart thunder in my chest.

“It’s okay, really” I said, laying my cheek on his chest.  The arm around me moved up so his fingers pulled my slightly damp hair out of my face and back behind my head.  I smiled at him in silent thanks.  “I’m uh.. I’m actually sorry for the way I reacted about it.  It was really childish and just... I don’t know where it came from” He smiled back at me, a lazy one that again, made my heart race.  The little things this boy did...

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.  We’re all good”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah” With his answer I laid my head back down again and we both watched the baseball game for a while.  Not that I knew a single thing about baseball, or any sports for that matter, but I didn’t mind.  I watched it a lot with Stiles, but only cause I enjoyed hanging out with him.  We’d get  a bunch of snacks and order pizza for lunch and Chinese for dinner.  I’d laugh when he’d talk smack about any team that wasn’t the Mets, and by the end of the day we’d just be sitting on the couch cuddling.  I usually passed out in his arms, which was by far my favorite part.

I felt my eyes begin to shift, likely pink, as they often did around Stiles.  I squeezed them shut and rubbed them.  Willing the color to go away.

“Tired?” Stiles asked quietly

“Mhm” I hummed, nuzzling into him.  He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest and against my cheek, only making me cuddle into him more.  Both of his arms wrapping behind my back, and I pushed myself to lay with half my stomach against him, and one leg hooked around one of his.

“Hm, extra cuddly” Stiles said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.  I just hmphed, and buried my nose in the crook of his neck.  He began to pet his hair.  “So are you just gonna sleep on me then?” I sat up, looking down at him with slightly narrowed eyes.

“You gotta problem with that?” I asked sarcastically.  He chuckled and shook his head.

“No ma’am, my apologies, do proceed” I giggled rubbing my eye with my fist sleepily.  He made a pout.  “Just put your head down and get some rest” I nodded, snuggling right back in to where I was before, my fave buried in his neck.

“Mm, you smell like pool chemicals did you not shower?” He shook his head.

“I will in the morning” He yawned.  I rolled my eyes.

“What if you get cancer from the chemicals on your skin, and then I’m stuck driving to the hospital everyday with a new bouquet of flowers and cupcake flavor, because you’re bald and I feel bad and you’re gonna die and then I’ll be stuck alone and forgotten about by everyone cause no one wants to deal with the girl who lost her-”

Stiles cut me off, fingers curling around my jaw and pulling my lips softly against his.  I melted into it, not even giving second thought to the action.  I hummed softly against his mouth.  When he pulled away, he smiled a little.

“Soulmate?” My brows furrowed.

“You knew?” He nodded.

“I stole that book of yours to figure out what the pink color of your eyes meant, I thought it was something bad and was gonna fix it but surprise, guess I’m your mate for life” A hot blush of embarrassment spread on my cheeks.

“A-and what’d you think?” I asked.  Stiles made a small sound that resembled a snort.

“I wasn’t too surprised.  I’m flattered really” He said, putting a hand on his chest as though I told him something heartwarming.  I rolled my eyes.

“No really, you weren’t freaked out?” Stiles chuckled again and shook his head.

“Of course not” He said, the hand that was on his chest, tucking my hair back behind my ear.  “y/n, I love you-”

“No you’re only saying that cause now you feel obligated-”

“Would you shut up?” My brows shot up in surprise, but I silenced.  “y/n, I loved you since we met in the second grade, long before I even knew any of this” Okay, now I was muted.  “That first day, you came in, and you sat with me and Scott cause you thought we looked lonely and you wanted to make friends.  You gave us your crayons to use during free time, and even split your lunch with Scott cause he didn’t have one.  You stood up for me when Jackson was being an asshole, and you always have.  You’ve even been to every lacrosse practice and game ever, even though I’ve only played a handful of times.  y/n, I.  Love.  You.  And you being my soulmate makes sense, because there’s nobody else for me.  You’re an embodiment of an angel y/n, I love you.  I mean it” 

I bit my lip, hiding my growing smile.

“You, Stiles Stilinski, are something else” I mumbled, eyes flickering from his to his lips.  “You’ve put me through hell, trying to hide all this from you, but God I.. I just- I just wanna..” I trailed off, shaking my head and closing my mouth to a smile again.  Then leaned down and kissed him passionately.  He leaned back down into the couch, and I rolled to lie on top of him again.  One of his hands combed back into my hair, the other laying on my waist.  After a few minutes of euphoria, I leaned off of him, my fingers curled around his jaw as I stared at him intently.

“You ready to sleep now?” He murmured, and I nodded.  I let him maneuver me so we were both lying on our sides, my body instantly curling into his body, our legs intertwining.  His arms wrapped around me, acting as a blanket and keeping me warm and cozy.

“I love you, you strange human”

“I love you too, beautiful mermaid”

idk where this came from.  i like mermaids.  they cool. two posts in one night aaayeee

xoxo ~ jordie

[reactingtosomething]

Recasting Game of Thrones

The Setup: The three of you who read our Baby Driver reaction may remember that in response to our mixed (okay, mostly negative) feelings about Jon Hamm being romantically paired with a (good!) actress two decades his junior, we ended up recasting most of the movie just for kicks.

This is of course a time-honored Fun Thing to Do in pop culture fandom, and since we said we wanted to do it again and possibly even regularly, Kris thought the end of Game of Thrones’s seventh season was as good an occasion as any.

Over the next week or two we hope to post a handful of these. Partly as a demonstration for the sake of some of the folks he’s invited to pitch in, below is the first of two recasts from Kris.

So for my money, one of the simplest, biggest missed opportunities in Game of Thrones casting has been the whiteness of non-Westerosi characters. Yeah, we have Grey Worm and Missandei, and they’re great, and so was Khal Drogo. (Not great: it sure looks like most of the Dothraki right now aren’t actually played by extras of color.) But you know who else is originally from various places in Essos? Varys, the Spider. Syrio Forel, the former First Sword of Braavos. The master of the House of Black and White, formerly known as Jaqen H’ghar. Daario Naharis of the Second Sons. The Red Woman Melisandre, and her fellow R’hlloran priest, Thoros of Myr. All of these characters are played by actors of European descent. 

Now, I’m not saying that everyone in Essos should be non-white, or appear non-European, any more than I would say that everyone in Westeros should be white. (Also, I’ve enjoyed all of the performances mentioned above, especially Conleth Hill as Varys and Miltos Yerolemou as Syrio; the latter’s introduction remains my very favorite scene in the entire show.) But to the extent that Game of Thrones has seemed to want to simplistically suggest that everyone “native” to (north-of-Dorne) Westeros is white, then making more non-Westerosi characters people of color would have been an easy, intuitive way for the producers to demonstrate the wokeness they like to pat themselves on the back for pretty hard.

With that in mind, after the jump you’ll find my suggestions for a Game of Thrones lineup that assumes everyone I don’t recast is still played by the mostly white actors we already know and (maybe) love. This will not be the case for a longer recast I’ll post after some of the others have chimed in. But until then:

John Cho as Varys

I don’t actually have to explain this, do I? He’s John Cho. I could’ve named him for any of a dozen characters and it would probably make sense. I picked Varys because the pragmatic spymaster is one of my favorite supporting characters, or at least he is when he has things to do and say. If I needed a quietly dangerous, unsentimental advisor to deliver difficult truths occasionally leavened by dry wit, and I wasn’t too bothered by his suspicious knack for outliving several employers, I could do a lot worse than one played by John Cho.

Elodie Yung as Thoros of Myr

Yung is probably best known to you as Netflix-Marvel’s Elektra Natchios. If she’s best known to you as, like, Hathor from Gods of Egypt, get the fuck out of my sight and watch season 2 of Daredevil. As Thoros hails from one of the Free Cities of Essos, it seems to me he could just as easily be a she, or a they, and the hard-drinking Red Priest would let Yung unleash all of the Fun Elektra energy The Defenders squandered. 

Plus, Yung could do a lot of her own fighting, and in this alternate universe I would have her live through “Beyond the Wall” to continue kicking ass and taking names. (I mean, hopefully in this alternate universe something as stupid as “Beyond the Wall” wouldn’t have happened, but I’m trying not to be too greedy here.) Instead of killing Thoros, I’d give Beric Dondarrion the last stand he seemed to want, and let him take one of the lesser White Walkers down with him. That way we’d also get to avoid a deeply silly “Is Jon dead? Of course he’s not” beat, so everyone wins.

Sofia Boutella as Syrio Forel

(You’re welcome, Miri. Also sorry, Miri.)

You know Sofia Boutella as Gazelle, the blade-legged killer in Kingsman; Jaylah, the marooned martial arts and engineering savant in Star Trek Beyond; and possibly Delphine, the closest thing Atomic Blonde has to a “cinnamon roll” character. I always thought there might have been an element of condescension in Ned Stark’s allowing Arya to be trained by Syrio Forel. Like, “He calls himself a ‘water dancer,’ how intense can this be”, you know? That’s a reading that could be amplified if Syrio is a woman. Doubly so for Meryn Trant’s sneering dismissal. And it seems like Braavos is a pretty socially permissive place.

Again, Miltos Yerolemou’s Syrio Forel is a favorite of mine; I don’t know the guy’s training but he brought a unique quality of movement to those lesson and fight scenes, a grace beyond martial efficiency. Boutella, a trained dancer, could do the same.

Aldis Hodge as Daario Naharis

Aldis Hodge might be a little on the young side for a veteran mercenary captain, but not so young that I absolutely couldn’t buy it in the world of Game of Thrones. For a guy like Daario, a strong arm counts for a lot and you probably expect to die young anyway. Maybe you’ve seen Hodge do comedy (and crime) in Leverage, or drama (and action) in Underground. He also makes watches? He seems to be one of those infuriating people who’s good at everything he glances at and decides “Hey, I’ll give that a shot.” I haven’t disliked either Daario, but I love Hodge, and think he could bring a lot of life to a kinda boring character sketch.

Ruth Negga as Jaqen H’ghar

Jaqen H’ghar isn’t really a character I’m invested in -- partly because I'd been hoping from the first time he said “just so” in A Clash of Kings that he’d turn out to be Syrio Forel -- but Ruth Negga (of Agents of SHIELD, Loving, and currently AMC’s Preacher) definitely has the right smoldering charisma, and capacity for surprising hardness, to pull off the assassin/death priest who trains Arya to be the terrifying little sociopath a lot of us got tired of this season. Plus, the Faceless Men seemed like a super obvious opportunity for another gender-swap.

Gemma Chan as Melisandre

Chan is an actor whose work I wish I knew better; she’s very good in a pretty difficult part in the first season of Humans -- an android slowly (re)gaining full sentience, oscillating between warmth and distance, subservience and toughness -- and at some point I should get around to watching the second. She’s also been cast in Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Melisandre’s supposed to be from the “far East,” and doesn’t “exotic beauty” seem like exactly the kind of Problematic that this show would trip on in casting this character? All the way around I don’t really understand how Carice van Houten happened. I like her a lot, don’t get me wrong! And on some level, as an Asian American I’m relieved that we didn’t get this show’s take on the “exotic” trope here. Whatever her ethnicity, Melisandre’s a character who would be easy to mishandle. But even in the single performance I’ve seen, Chan demonstrates the range and the subtlety to get it right.

Hope you enjoyed this first installment of what I guess we’ll think of as “Reacting to Something Recasts...” I’m not sure which Reactor or Guest Reactor will send in their thoughts next, but I’m looking forward to it.