#also why does this keep happening it's another moment of nerd and jock dads

[mewkwota]

These two were complimenting each other's moms in OSS, so it made me want to see them talking about their dads. Just the image of them right next to each other sounded so funny to me, like, it's Lan's Computer Nerd Dad and then Geo's Astro Jock Dad.

[deniigi]

MORE POLYCULE SHIT

here this is mostly Sam/Ned from Matt’s POV. (this piece assumes Matt didn’t know about the negotiations until later)

Title: soda bottles

Summary: Matt finds out about Sam’s involvement with Ned and then with Peter’s polycule. He tries to talk to Sam about it, but fails. On like, every front.

---------------

The apprentice told him to stay out of his room and his life and his business and he should have known better by now, truly.

Matt knew that voice. And he also knew that what Sam, Samuel, Sammy-my-darling was doing right now at this present moment was giggling.

Unacceptable. There would be no joy in this house.

Matt removed himself from the door and declared war in silence.

 ---

 The dogs were instrumental in luring Samuel out to open space. And by luring, Matt meant knocking on his bedroom door with leashes in hand and asking Sam if he wanted a walk.

In no time Matt had zero leashes and zero dogs and, while he was at it, zero apprentices.

In fact, he had been abandoned.

In his own house.

Again.

How did this keep happening?

 ---

 Foggy told Matt to let Sam have his little crush on Ned. Ned was a good boy. Foggy had maintained this for years. He skirted around the fact that he’d grabbed Ned’s shoulders when he was 17 and had told him to stare him in the eyes and to never fall in love with his best friend.

Matt pointed this out to him and got a pillow to the face, then a huff and an uncalled-for reminder that he was a fucking idiot and no one loved him.

This was Foggy’s love language though, so Matt didn’t take it to heart. Instead, he abandoned him for the only person in the world who truly understood him.

Jenn.

 ---

  Jenn had to spend fifteen minutes cooing over the fact that Matt had acquired an apprentice and then she had to spend another ten being an asshole about it and then she spent a solid 5 making dad jokes at him when he tried to talk and so he waited until she was done with her cackling and personal jabs.

She told him that it was cute that Peter’s bestie was gushing over Matt’s apprentice.

She told him that he should be happy for them.

And Matt was. Happy for them, that is.

He was thrilled.

Sam’s track record with long-term partners, as far as Matt could tell, was a solid nil for nil. The boy refused to be attached to anyone, which Matt totally got.

But it was like standing by, watching your own young moronic self making a series of unfortunate decisions that were not only whole unnecessary, but also had solutions within easy reach, like headstones in a damn cemetery.

Sam had a string of guys and girls that he’d picked up at clubs and bars and fuckin’ hipster literature readings downtown who were literally, actually falling over themselves to be with him. And he texted them and laughed about them and joked with Leilani and Achara about them, and then never spoke of them ever again.

Matt got it, okay?

He’d been that guy.

Maybe a little more on the jock side of things and maybe a little less, say, refined than Sammy—but he still got it. A slightly longer relationship was good for Sam. And Ned was a good egg—no, a great egg.

But he just couldn’t shake this feeling, Jenn.

He didn’t even know what it was, but it made him paranoid and want Sam to go back to the self-destructive nonsense, because at least Matt knew what that felt like. He could push back against that after dumping the kid out of the ring in training.

“Matty,” Jenn said affectionately, “You’re trying to protect Sam, Ned, and Peter. But you don’t have to do that. They’re all grown. Let them make their decisions.”

Ooooohohoho

How dare she.

Matt knew they were grown. Sam was nearly 25. Peter was almost 27—oh god, Peter was almost 27. FUCK. Jesus. Lord. Someone—Christ.

Sammy was a baby.

He couldn’t be playing with these big kids, he’d have his heart broken.

What if Ned got bored of him, Jenn??

Matt couldn’t beat the shit out of Ned. Ned was a good boy. And Peter would lose his damn gourd and that was how Matt would end up under two tons of concrete and rebar with an angry spider perched on top, stomping and spitting.

“Matt,” Jenn said soothingly. “Peter learned how to be polyamorous from you, dear heart.”

Oh shit.

Oh right.

Oh no.

“I’ve gotta go,” Matt said. “Lovely talking to you, next time you’re in town, come around for a foursome or a twosome or a three if Kirsten’s down—okay BYE.”

Jenn laughed at him when he hung up.

Matt clutched at his chest.

 ---

 He’d inadvertently taught Peter what polyamory looked like by flinging himself down on many disgusting surfaces and moaning and writhing in agony and despair about Foggy being monogamous and everyone in the world being unspeakably brilliant and strong and no-doubt gorgeous.

Fuckin’ Kirsten.

Fuckin’ Wade.

Fuckin’ Karen.

And Heather and Marci and ONE TIME ONLY Frank.

UGH.

Disgusting. Matt needed Lysol to scrub that moment of weakness from his brain.

The point was that he’d been a chump, and baby Peter had observed these various moaning sessions and had apparently, at some point, started taking notes.

Gah.

Peter. Why?

Stop loving your friends. Stop copying me. Get your own breakdown material.

Uuuuuuugh.

Okay, okay. Rally, Murdock. It’s fine.

This is simply a conversation to have with Sammy about how to negotiate such--hng. Actually maybe this was a Kirsten conversation.

 ---

 He went to visit Kirsten.

He got a little distracted because Kirsten was Kirsten and she required thorough smelling and like, minimum two kisses and she deserved to have at his bare chest if she wanted it—who was he to deny her—THE POINT.

The point. Was.

That he told Kirsten about things and she told him not to talk about work when she was taking her shirt off, and he told her to leave it on for just like, five minutes longer and that came out wrong and she was insulted and Matt had to backtrack for half an hour.

But he got there in the end, alright?

Kirsten said she didn’t know that Sam was polyamorous.

Matt said that he didn’t know if he was, but he sure as shit was flirting with Ned like, constantly.

Kirsten said that that explained why Sam kept telling her that he couldn’t come to dinner with them because he already had a date. Kirsten then went rigid and said, “Wait, you mean Ned-Ned?”

Yes.

Yes, Matt did.

“Oh.”

Correct reaction.

“Is that—do you think that’s –hm.”

Correct reaction maintained and appreciated. Matt no longer felt like a monumental ass.

“That might be a little, uh, cuttin’ it close there,” Kirsten said. “Does Peter know?”

Presumably. Ned couldn’t lie for shit.

“Maybe we should ask Peter what the negotiations there are. He’s pretty on top of that stuff.”

Shockingly, that was true.

Good plan.

“If Sammy’s gonna get involved with them, then he should at least know what he’s getting into,” Kirsten said.

Yes, but also—why is this feeling happening, Kirsten, beloved life partner number 2?

“Oh, that? That’s called ‘you’re a territorial dick,’” Kirsten said. “Get over yourself.”

“But he’s 24,” Matt said. “A child.”

“He’ll be twenty-five in a few months, Matthew,” Kirsten said. “That’s bad-decision-making prime-time. This is inevitable. My concern is that he’s not going into a relationship with Ned, thinking that he’s the primary partner there.”

Okay, fair.

“Are we done with this conversation now?”

Yes.

“Thank god. I hate your dad impulses. Cleanse yourself of them and get on the bed.”

Would do.

 ---

 Kirsten made Matt call Peter and be awkward for the both of them which, Matt would like it stated for the record, was extremely unfair and manipulative of her.

Peter told him that Sam was fine.

Peter told him that he and Sam had maybe fooled around a little bit without Matt and Foggy and Kirsten’s knowledge which was. Hm.

Troublemakers. Stop laughing, Franklin. This is nothing like the time we inducted Kirsten into our life and lied about it to everyone we knew for 3 years.

Nothing.

Peter thought not. Peter thought that Sam had told Matt about this whole thing. He then got a little huffy and said that Ned was the one who had swept Sam off his feet while Peter had been standing right there, man. As Spiderman. Primed for feet-sweeping.

That was satisfying.

Peter took the next ten minutes to complain about how Sam didn’t want to talk to him as much as he wanted to talk to Ned and how Ned was always begging off dinners with Peter and MJ to go have dinner with Sam and how Peter and MJ had to make do with Johnny in his absence.

Matt would never understand why Peter pretended that he and Johnny Storm were nothing more than fuck buddies, but okay, sure. If that’s what helps you sleep at night, little lion man.

Peter went on to say that the worst part of Sam and Ned’s mutual obsession was how fucking cute it was.

Disgusting, Peter maintained.

There were matching bracelets and drawn out decisions about matching sneakers. And there was nattering on until past midnight about Transformers lore and there was non-stop texting and complaints about various tools and coding languages and all this shit that Peter’s own flavor of nerd had diverged from about six years ago.

Kirsten made a little squeak that told Matt that she was highly entertained by Peter’s ‘complaints.’

It sounded more to Matt like Peter and MJ were hunkered down behind the couch, narrating all Ned’s behavior to Johnny (the totally uninvolved fuckbuddy) in whispers.  

Foggy curled up on the edge of their own couch to muffle his wheezy giggles.

Exhausting.

The youth were exhausting. How had no one just shot Matt straight through the heart at 27?

“I will speak to Sam about emotional repression,” he promised Peter only to receive a “NO WAIT” from both him and, from the sound of it, MJ and (only fuckbuddy) Johnny a little ways away.

Peter hurriedly explained that Sammy was really shy and skittish about being around their polycule and had just connected with Ned as the least threatening member and it had taken ages, so please don’t say anything and destroy all of the rest of their hard work.

This hit a strange note.

Foggy and Kirsten weren’t snickering anymore either.

Sam?

Wasn’t?

Shy?

Like, if anything, Sammy was shameless. Always lying in people’s laps and snatching their open hands to swing back and forth.

Sure, he was teasing. But shy? Shy?

Sam was sick.

“No,” Peter said. “Double D, he’s not sick.”

Very sick. Terminally ill.

“DD. He’s not sick.”

Bullshit. Matt was taking him to the doctor. Too bad, Sam. You couldn’t avoid it forever.

“Matt. He’s just. Emotionally. Repressed. You should recognize it because its your whole way of being.”

Wow, hadn’t this conversation been going on for a while now? Time to go.

“MATT. Leave him alone,” Peter said. “I’m looking after him, okay? Chill.”

Chill. Yes. Okay, fine. Matt would chill.

For now. Goodbye, Peter.

 ---

 Matt hadn’t chilled about anything in his life and he didn’t intend to start now. So instead he confronted the apprentice.

The apprentice leaned very hard against his door and told Matt that he would rather die than speak of such things, so Matt told him to bare his neck.

Sammy was convinced. But only just.

He made himself frighteningly small and grumpy on his bed and allowed Matt to sit only on the last four inches of it. Matt kind of wanted to take the opportunity to teach him how to hiss.

But alas. That was a skill for another time.

“I talked to Peter,” he said.

Sam mumbled.

“He says you’re shy. Are you feeling okay?”

Sam mumbled in a more prolonged, growly kind of way. He was muffled by something. Probably jeans. Or sweats. Hard to tell.

“Why are you being shy? We both know you’re not shy. Ned’s a nice boy,” Matt told him. “You can trust him.”

Sam jerked his body in some way strongly enough to make the bed shake.

Matt sighed.

“Sam,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam said.

“Listen, kid,” Matt said. “You’re gonna do what you want. You’re grown, those are your decisions to make. But if you’re ever uncomfortable or you want to spend time with one person in particular, you’ve gotta communicate that to the others. I know that’s not like, smoothly done or whatever. But it’s what you’ve gotta do in these kinds of relationships.”

Sam made an unhappy sound.

“I don’t want a relationship,” he said quietly.

Ehn.

Same, pal.

They’re a lot of work.

“They’re worth it,” Matt promised him. “And it’s okay to be a little in love, you know. I’m in love every day. It’s not shameful. You don’t have to hide it.”

Sam huffed.

“People’ll stare,” he finally said. “If we ever went out. People would stare.”

Ahhh.

“That’s what you think,” Matt said. “But then you go and do it and it turns out that no one actually cares. People are very self-centered, Sam. You spend all this time worrying about how others perceive you and, at the end of the day, 90% of people literally don’t care. You don’t have to talk to Ned in your room all the time.”

Sam did something with his body that concentrated it even further into a dense mass.

“I like him,” he admitted. “He’s nice.”

Matt hummed.

“He’s a peaceful person,” he said.

“He talks so I don’t have to,” Sam said.

Aw.

Matt felt across the bed and eventually found Sam’s cheek to pinch.

“So shy for such a loudmouth,” he teased.

Sam bit his hand. Matt snickered.

“It’s okay, when I met Fogs I was shy, too,” he said.

Sam grumbled.

“It’s true,” Matt said. “Could not fathom having another human around who I didn’t have to put on an act for.”

He waited.

Sam didn’t even seem to realize that his heart was slowing down.

“I don’t like talking all the time,” he said after a long few beats.

Matt ruffled his hair.

“Ned knows a lot about Star Wars,” he said.

“And computers,” Sam added.

“And code,” Matt said.

Sam’s foot shook a little. Matt schooled his face. Sam crunched into a tighter ball.

Adorable.

Matt got up.

“Long distance is rough,” he said. “Maybe you guys can watch a movie together.”

Sam made a disgruntled sound. Matt left him to be miserable.

 ---

 “You’ve sure turned your opinion around.”

Yes, Husband. Matt had indeed. But that was because Sam was clearly and obviously suffering as a result of this crush, which was precisely where Matt needed him to be.

Misery was familiar. Resentment was nearly as good as spite in terms of skill development.

Dopey-ness was asking for trouble.

“Matt, you cannot be serious.”

Oh, but he could.

“Matthew, what did you tell that boy?”

Nothing he didn’t need to know.

Foggy abandoned him at the table. Matt sipped his coffee. It tasted oh-so-sweet.

 ---

 Things did not change until Matt got a text from Peter that said simply ‘when the fuck is Sam’s birthday?’

In February. Why was he asking?

Peter said ‘damn. Okay, thanks.’

Peter then said that he’d seemed a little sad lately and Ned was freaking out about it and fixating, so they were collectively looking for an excuse to cheer Sam up a little.

Oh, Matt realized. No, that wasn’t sad.

The night nurse had given Sammy the good drugs after last week. He was high as a kite, bless him. Kept running into walls and shit. Matt had dragged him up out of the dog beds twice now.

He informed Peter of the damaged elbow and got nothing but keyboard smashes in return.

This was followed by Sam stumbling out of his room and half up the stairs to make pitiful sounds when he couldn’t make them stay still long enough to climb the rest of them. Foggy shook his head and told Matt to go “strap that kid to the bed, for god’s sake. He’s gonna tear more stitches. And go text for him before he drops his phone again.”

Sammy was coming along great.

He held his phone out to Matt when Matt came down to stand over him on the stairs.

“They’re yellin’,” he slurred.

Yeah, Matt figured.

“Bed,” he said.

“It’s too hot,” Sam said.

No, pathetic ball of humanity. That was the fever, bud.

“Open the window,” Matt said.

“I have a window?”

Bless.

“Up you go,” Matt said.

“DON’T TOUCH ME. Nooooo. Teach, noooooo.”

 ---

 MM: Peter stop texting him. he can’t read his texts rn. Zero tolerance for opioids.

PP: for WHAT

MM: he’s fine. lightly stabbed. Fractured elbow.

MJ: MATT

MM: yes?

MJ: tell him to get better for us

NL: ;__; please?

MM: he will be fine. He’s supposed to be sleeping this off.  

MJ: can you keep us updated?

MM: why

PP: he’s our partner?

MM: ?

MM: I thought he was Ned’s main

NL: AJDF:AKSDFJASDFa

NL: DOES HE TALK ABOUT ME??

MJ: dude

NL: my b my b sry sry

NL: does he talk about me DD?

MM: no

NL: cool cool cool that’s fine

PP: ned

NL: it’s casual that’s cool

MJ: oh my god

NL: it doesn’t mean anything. That makes sense.

MM: peter what is happening?

PP: ned has decided that no texting means that sam hates him and no longer wants to be part of our relationship

NL: TELL HIM IM SORRY

PP: remember how you told me I have rejection issues?

MM: Ned he’s fine. He’s not mad. He’s high.

NL: [pikawat.png]

MJ: *coughs*

NL: oh shit my bad. I mean.

NL: what do you mean?

MM: I mean he likes you. He just hates talking about weaknesses. Ergo he hates talking about you.

MJ: ah, yes. I see now. The superhero logic. The forest has reappeared before me.

NL: OWO

MM: what does this mean?

PP: it’s a face. Like a super interested cat

NL: shut up

NL: so he likes me back?

MJ: no

PP: no

MM: I presume so? I don’t know kid. I just said he doesn’t talk about it.

NL: DD I will pay you in computer repairs to find out for me

MM: to find out if Sam likes you??

NL: yes

MM: what part of his obsession is confusing you

MJ: ASHDAF:SDF

PP: harsh

NL: all of it.

NL: okay so here’s the thing. We got like, matchy matchy stuff, right? Cause that’s what couples do. But he never wears his?? And like, we’ve been playing these games online, like, trying to beat each other, but he just stops playing halfway through? And if we’re watching a movie, it’s fine for the first half, but then he gets quiet and I just end up nattering away about nothing for like an hour and I can’t read the silence DD. I can’t read it. And Peter’s a liar

PP: okay no it is WELL established that I can’t lie what are you even talking about

NL: and he keeps going on about how sam’s shy, but he’s NOT shy. And we were fine until this week, but like, obviously, he’s high and not reading his messages and stuff, but idk am I making this into a big deal? From your end?

MM: What was that face, Peter?

PP: OwO

MM: OwO

MJ: ASDFAeirwieawewdflajwe

MJ: NED LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO THE OLD MAN

NL: SHUT UP. DD, please. Help me. Should I apologize? Is he bored of me? Does he want more time with Peter?

PP: what

PP: no pal I’m just a piece of ass in this situ

MJ: as you should be

PP: awwww

MM: ned Sammy’s fine?

NL:  omg ‘sammy’ that’s really cute do you think he’d mind if I called him that? You know. If he ever speaks to me again?

PP: DD just tell him everything is fine so we can all go to sleep without being woken up every 20 min for a crisis.

MM: I literally don’t know. He doesn’t talk about any of you.

NL: can you sneaky-ninja ask him?

  Matt could not with these children. Sam’s heartbeat was evening out. He was nearly back to sleep. Matt’s back couldn’t take hauling him up off the stairs in another half an hour, so he was going to stay right where he was, that was for damn sure.

“Samuel, you are dating three different flavors of spazz,” he told him.

Sam wriggled over and snuffled into his duvet.

Matt decided that that was an affirmative.

  MM: he says you’re all dramatic and to leave him alone to sleep.

NL: ;__;

PP: ned that is not rejection

NL: ok

MJ: this is embarrassing

NL: I’m just gonna crawl under the floorboards and waste away👍

PP: for fuck’s sake this is me-levels of drama

NL: DD can you tell him that if he’s ever down to just watch shit as friends that’s okay too?

MJ: NED. Matt’s literally out of this loop. And Sam’s probably unconscious.

MM: can confirm is now unconscious. I am exiting your drama.

PP: Dude remember when I said I was gonna drown myself in the sea? You are reaching those levels

NL: I JUST LOVE HIM

  Oh, aw.

  NL: And it’s okay if he doesn’t feel the same way, that’s okay, I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t like uncomfortable. I can text him less and let him do his work things and we don’t have to organize shit on the weekends. It’s totally fine

  These fuckin’ kids.

Matt grabbed Sam before he cracked his head against the wall and felt around for something to put between his forehead and it.

He fumbled out his phone in the meantime.

“Samuel,” he said into it, “When you wake up, come upstairs before taking the next pill.”

 ---

 Sam was in pain and grumpy as shit and his mood did not improve as he read through Matt’s messages.

“Two days and everyone loses their goddamn minds,” he said.

Pretty much.

“Ned loves you,” Matt teased.

“Ned needs one of those happy pills,” Sam deadpanned.

Hm. How about no?

Sam groaned and carefully melded himself to the table.

“Why don’t you wear the matchy-matchy stuff?” Matt asked, setting a bag of icy water on Sam’s shoulders. He made a soft sound of relief.

“I don’t want to get ‘em dirty,” Sam hummed.

Hm.

“Maybe if you wore them out a little bit, Ned would like that,” Matt offered.

Sam mulled this over.

“Nah,” he said. “I’ll just tell him I wear it to sleep.”

Matt was so proud.

He missed Foggy coming in halfway through that discussion.

He did not miss the lecture Foggy laid on both of them about lying to loved ones.

 ---

 Matt decided that Sam was far, far more emotionally repressed than he’d given the kid credit for. He was tickled pink.

Kirsten and Foggy were not. They called this ‘concerning behavior’ that needed ‘to be monitored in case of hidden injuries and self-harm.’

And like, man, it was as if they’d hard experience with this shit or something.

Matt decided to bypass their waffling and cornered Sam by trapping him in his duvet and demanding to know if he was hiding any injuries or self-harm.

Sam told him to get out of his room. His heartbeat did not react to the accusations, but rather to Matt’s ‘giant, heavy, albatross body’ assaulting him in his safe place.

Matt decided that this was proof that the emotional repression was, as he had always argued, doing exactly what it needed to: making Sam three times more functional as a human being.

Foggy took from that explanation that Matt was lying to him again.

Which, like, obviously.

But did Foggy need to know any of that?

Fuck no.

Only happy times with Matt Murdock here.

Smiling was somehow the wrong answer.

Smiling resulted in yelling. And then lots of loud heartbeats. And then something that looked a little like a fight, probably, to people with working eyes. But Matt knew that it wasn’t that.

It was just Foggy being hurt that Matt couldn’t tell him that Foggy’s homesickness was digging holes in his own resolve and mental wellbeing.

Sam popped up when Foggy went to go lay down to calm down and asked if everything was okay.

Matt told him it was.

Sam’s heart was not convinced. It started beating faster somehow.

Matt fully anticipated the texts that arrived later that night.

 ---

 PP: yo DD, you guys okay?

MM: why

PP: ‘cause Sam’s freaking out saying that you and Foggy were shouting again?

MM: ah

MM: no we’re okay. No biggie

PP: I smell bullshit

MM: carry on smelling then

PP: Matt do you ever think about how you’re like, an example to us all of how not to live?

MM: beg your pardon?

PP: I just mean like, you do shit and we all learn from your shit. Like, every day.

MM: ?

PP: Sam like dumped a pile of lies he’d been telling Ned in his lap and started crying for like half an hour and apologized for another 40 minutes and then hung up and won’t answer his phone.

MM: what was that face again? The cat one?

PP: OwO

MM: OwO

PP: lol

 ---

 The apprentice was perhaps absorbing too much too fast. He flat out denied having had any emotional crisis.

His heart was dead even when he said it. He was getting too good at out-maneuvering that trick.

“Peter seems to think that you had one the other night,” Matt mused.

“Peter needs to mind his own business,” Sam sniffed.

Aha.

“You like Peter,” Matt pointed out.

“He’s fine,” Sam said.

“Fine or fine?”

“That’s nasty, Teach. Don’t be gross. That’s like your little brother.”

Oh, sure it was.

“If Peter is sussing out your lies, you’re not doing a good enough job,” Matt said. “What you need, kiddo, is an aura and a starting point.”

Sam paused in making a horrible grating noise with some tool in his hand.

“A starting point?” he asked.

Why yes, apprentice.

As in, if you start off with your walls up and don’t let them buckle so easily, so many of these problems can be avoided.

“Isn’t that, like, the opposite of what Foggy said to do?” Sam asked suspiciously.

Well, technically. The husband might be correct for normal humans, but they weren’t normal humans. And as much as Matt loved him and thought he was brilliant, Foggy would never truly grasp that Matt needed those lies.

He needed the repression. The bottling. The anger.

He needed all that shit to be shaken up in him and then capped by the helmet every night.

Doing that kept Matt safe. It kept others safe.

It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t pretty and yeah, Matt was pretty fucked up because of it.

But Stick hadn’t been wrong about everything.

Not even he could be wrong about everything.

“It’s called balance,” Matt said. “Think about it like this. You’re a teacher. You’re about to walk into a new class. You need to establish a respectful relationship between yourself and these kids. How do you do it? Do you start off nice? Or do you start off strict?”

Sam said nothing.

“I start off strict,” Matt said. “Because it’s infinitely easier to become nicer and to keep respect than it is to start off nice and get meaner.”  

Sam processed this.

“This sounds like an anti-Foggy sentiment,” he said.

No. It wasn’t anti-Foggy. Nothing was anti-Foggy.

“It’s nuance,” Matt said. “Intrapersonal relationships? Minimal repression. Interpersonal relationships, maximum repression. Don’t give them something to use against you”

Sam’s teeth clicked together as he worked his jaw.

“Talk to Ned and Peter,” he said. “Walls up to everyone else.”

Everyone else. Yes.

“I can do that.”

Yeah, Matt knew. Sam did it to pretty much anyone he didn’t immediately take a liking to at the firm.

“I can do that,” Sam repeated.

Woah. Wait. Hold on there, slugger. Nuance, remember?

“I’m just gonna hate the entire world,” Sam said. “Thanks, Teach. That’s a big help.”

 ---

 PP: Matt

MM: Peter

PP: you know that Sam fucks with you daily right?

MM: …I forget sometimes

PP: lol you guys are funny

  That little shit. Fine.

Do whatever. See if Matt cared.

Goddamn kids and their goddamn love affairs.

Whatever. Fuck ‘em.

Let them learn the bullshit on their own time. Matt had better things to do.

 ---------------

Matt and Foggy and Kirsten have their own polycule goin on with folks entering and leaving it as need be. And sometimes you just have to make Sam/Ned content because it is unerringly adorable.

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Heathers | Sweet Pea

A/N: As I said, I was rewriting Riverdale’s Heathers episode with focus on Sweet Pea and Reader as JD and Veronica Sawyer, and the rehearsals for the musical rather than everything around it (and if it’s the drama around it, it’s drama between Sweet Pea and Y/N).  We’ve been robbed of the masterpiece that is Sweet Pea singing Meant To Be Yours. I mean??? That song is amazing in both the off-Broadway and the West End prodcution and Sweet Pea would’ve looked SO HOT singing it and going all completely mental!  I did add some characters as friends of Y/N that are part of the musical too since I wanted an appropriate character to play Martha other than Toni (????) who really does not fit the role of Martha Dunnstock.  So, I think it’s going to be a six parter and I’ll try to upload one every night at 7pm. (can’t promise anything though)  Lemme know if I need to make a taglist and who to put on it! :)  Enjoy, kiddos! 

Words: 1711

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Y/N

Warnings: cursing, angst

Act one: Freeze Your Brain 

Every year we do a different musical at Riverdale High. Last year, we did Carrie, but this year, we’re doing my favorite musical ever: Heathers. If Cheryl Blossom hadn’t claimed the role of Heather Chandler, I would’ve auditioned for it. Mainly so I could yell ‘Shut up, Heather!’ at pretty much any given moment. But I did get the role of Veronica Sawyer which is kind of a more important role than Heather Chandler. I mean, Heather does die quite early on. “I’ve asked Evelyn to step up as co-director,” Kevin Keller, who always directs the musicals, says at our first day of rehearsals. I liked him as director in last year’s play and I think he and Evelyn will be a good team on this year’s musical too. However, Betty Cooper does not agree with that. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves and the parts we’re playing to get Evelyn up to speed with everything?” Cheryl gets up from her chair, clearly wanting to be the first one to go. “I’m Cheryl Blossom and I’m obviously playing Heather Chandler.” I roll my eyes at her. Being ‘theater-nerd’ means not getting along with the popular kids such as Cheryl Blossom and Betty Cooper. It’s not that I hate them, I just don’t want to be friends with them. I mean, it wouldn’t click between us anyway since all I ever do – according to most jocks – is talk and think and dream of musicals. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they’re assuming I always sing when I speak. Misconceptions about theater kids. “I’m Veronica Lodge, and I play Heather McNamara,” the rich girl with the raven-hair introduces herself. To be honest, Veronica did play Chris in last year’s play and she was honestly amazing. Her voice is to die for. I would ask her to join the drama club, but I’m too scared to. “Betty Cooper, I’m playing the third Heather; Heather Duke.” Then Reggie Mantle clears his throat, clearly wanting to go next, “Reggie, AKA jock Ram Sweeney. Going to bro it up with my bud Arch here. Just two single straight dudes doing some theater.” Once again I have to roll my eyes back at the annoying toxic masculinity-filled jock behind me. “And I play Kurt Kelly,” Archie then says with a small smile. He seems to be annoyed by the antics of his bro. I chuckle at the two boys, earning a glare from them. “You do know Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney are actually fake outed as gay by JD and Veronica, right?” I ask them with an amused smile on my face before turning back to Kevin and Evelyn. “I’m Y/N, and I play the ever so lovely Veronica Sawyer. Outcast, turned Heather, then blowing up my boyfriend.” Margot and Ella, my two best friends from drama club give me a sly grin. They both have the same idea as me; neither one of these guys knows the script yet. “Hi, I’m Sweet Pea,” a guy behind me then says. He’s one of the only Serpents with a vital part in the musical. The other Serpents are part of the ensemble, which is also important. But Sweet Pea’s role is one of the biggest, along with mine. “I play Jason Dean, or JD. Veronica’s bad-boy love interest who apparently blows up?” I turn to look at him and give him a nod that tells him he should believe me when I say Jason Dean gets blown up in the end. My eyes glance down to his neck where his Serpent tattoo prominently decorates his skin. I don’t mind the Serpents as much as the other Northsiders did. I didn’t mind when they transferred to our school whilst others picked on them and nearly got them suspended. I don’t hate them but I’m not friends with them either. I just don’t care. I mind my own business, which is theater most of the time. “I’m Jodie Smiths,” the girl next to Margot says. Jodie is also part of the drama club, but we’re not really great friends. I mean, we tolerate each other, and we do what we’re told when we have to do a scene together. But it’s not like I would invite her for a milkshake at Pop’s after rehearsals. Not like I do with Margot and Ella. “I’m portraying Martha Dunnstock in Heathers.” “Fangs,” another one of the Serpents raising his hand as he speaks up, “Hipster dork.” “Toni,” the girl Serpent then speaks up, “New wave girl.” “I’m Josie,” another Northsider girl goes, “And I’m the republican girl.” “Hi, my name’s Margot and I play the role of Stoner chick.” “And I’m Ella, playing the role of preppy kid.” I give my two best friends a wide smile. I’m proud of both of them for making it into the cast even though most of the popular kids claimed the other roles. A few other Serpents and Northsiders tell Evelyn – and the rest of us – what their role in the ensemble is, but I don’t even listen anymore. I’m too filled up with excitement to get started on my favorite musical ever. And then nerves start kicking in when I think of all the scenes I’ll have to do with Cheryl Blossom, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, but mostly the ones with Sweet Pea. I have to make out with Sweet Pea. On stage. “Okay, let’s get started on vocal warm-ups and we’ll sing a few songs from the script to get us started,” Kevin suggests as he claps his hands. “Y/N, Margot, Ella and Jodie, why don’t you guide us through vocal warm-ups?” The four of us nod and get up off our chair, urging the others to do the same. We then teach them the sounds we always make during drama class to warm up. “Good!” Kevin then exclaims when we tell him they’re ready. “Let’s start with Beautiful then. Veronica Sawyer, take it away.” I nod and head up the stage, along with the rest. We don’t know any choreography yet, but it’ll be better if we’re up there to sing the songs. “September 1st, 1989. Dear Diary: I believe I'm a good person. You know, I think that there's good in everyone, but—here we are! First day of senior year! And uh... I look around at these kids that I've known all my life and I ask myself—what happened?” That’s how Heathers: the musical always starts, and that’s how this adventure starts too. “And you know, you know, you know Life can be beautiful You hope, you dream, you pray And you get your way! Ask me how it feels Lookin' like hell on wheels... My God, it's beautiful! I might be beautiful... And when you're beautiful... It's a beautiful frickin' day!” I belt out the last note just like Barret Wilbert Weed does on the cast recording of the Broadway show. I feel like Barret Wilbert Weed or any other Broadway actress I’ve looked up to since I was a child. The ensemble belts out their last note too, getting Kevin, Evelyn and Sweet Pea up on their feet and clapping. I’m not entirely sure whether it’s just for me or for the entire cast, but it still gives me a wicked feeling of pride. “Y/N! I was obsessed with everything you put in that performance!” Evelyn exclaims when the clapping had died down. “Damn, girl! I’m so glad we casted you!” I can hear Betty scoff behind me, but I don’t care. All I care about is that they liked what I did with the song. Even though it’s just what I always do in my shower when I sing that song at the top of my lungs. “Yes! And ensemble was good too!” Kevin then adds to give them some compliments too. “Let’s just go in order of songs, so Candy Store next!” he informs, so I get off the stage and grab my water bottle to drink. I just have one line to say, but no singing in this song, sadly enough. I only go back on when Fight For Me is on and stay on for Freeze Your Brain. I hadn’t heard Sweet Pea yet as this song is his first one in the whole show. “I've been through ten high schools They start to get blurry No point planting roots 'Cause you're gone in a hurry My dad keeps two suitcases packed in the den” My eyes widen a little when his voice chimes through the auditorium. He has a nice singing voice. Pleasant to listen to. Very soothing. “Care for a hit?” he asks, spoken this time, but still part of the song. It takes me away from my thoughts about how good his voice is. “Does your mommy know you eat all that crap?” I shoot back, and then he goes back into singing. My breath hitches in my throat when his voice grows louder and the notes get higher, but he hits them perfectly. I figured he could sing a bit since he got cast as JD, but I didn’t expect him to be this good. My knees even buckle a little at the way he sings ‘Veronica Sawyer’. All of a sudden, the boy becomes more attractive to me than he already was. I mean, he’s not bad looking, but the fact that he can hit all of those notes makes him twice as attractive. He makes me jump out of my thoughts when his voice grows softer and more vulnerable. “Just freeze your brain Freeze your brain Go on and freeze your brain...” His eyes meet mine when he goes, “Try it,” in a spoken voice, just like Ryan McCartan who sings it in the off-Broadway version. Then applause bursts from the auditorium, making me jump a little. I had almost forgotten we were still in rehearsals. “Damn, you’re good,” I mumble, and hope he doesn’t hear. But judging from the little smirk that pulls at the corner of his mouth, I think he has. From that moment on, I knew this musical was going to change things in my life. Whether it was making new friends or playing the role of my dreams, it will change everything. 

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton, Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton Characters: Dash Baxter, Wesley Weston, OC - Character, Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley, Sam Manson, Ghost Writer (Danny Phantom), Andrew Riter Additional Tags: Soulmates, Reluctant Soulmates, countless headcanons, Not Phantom Planet Compliant, my canon now, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Identity Reveal, will tag with progress, No Betas we die like fools Summary:

Casper High is a school that has several clubs, including the Occult Club, which Dash should've stayed very far away from no matter what Wes said. Now thanks to the conspiracy theorist, Phantom was pissed at him and the jock and hero were soulbound by a spell that Wes had fudged and Dash had mispronounced. How's he gonna make it up to his hero?

Or

The soulmates fic that only my best bro really wanted out of me, which my brain was forced to provide.

Ao3 / Fanfiction.net

In hindsight, Dash should've stayed away from the occult club altogether.  Sure, Wes had said they were gonna use some magick ritual they'd figured out to summon phantom, but people generally wanted to think they could do that and a club at school was the least likely to succeed.   But Weston had been confident and Dash wasn't gonna pass on an opportunity to meet his hero without an attack happening.

So he'd gone along with it, even demanded to be the one to do it when they started.  There was a chalk circle on the floor, candles, and one of em had a fuckin needle to prick themself with for it.  Whatever, Dash wasn't unused to a little pain - he busted his knuckles on nerd's faces sometimes. So he got a drop on the circle, and he said the chant, and the candles turned green instead of reddish-yellow.  But while the room went dark and cold and started looking like the night sky had come down to grab them, Dash may have fucked up a word in the book.  

There he appeared, in a flash of light so bright Dash had to squint.  Sky blue skin, a halo of white hair, freckles that glowed green and that ghost hunting hazmat suit of his.  While Phantom was looking around like he was dizzy, Dash felt something. He Saw it, even, a line of bright silver that came out of his chest and turned toxic green before ending at the DP on Phantom's chest.  Frowning, Dash looked over at the head of the club. "The fuck is this? A cord?"

"Oh no… oh no no no."  The head nerd, a brunette with glasses and a mint green shirt, grabbed the book in Dash's hand and read what he'd said.  Then his head whipped over to Wes and the basketballer backed up, his camera flashing the recording light. "You fucked up the summoning ritual!"

"Austin, I swear I was just-"

"This is a binding ritual, Wes, it binds the spirit to the target object - the circle, it looks like?"

"Pretty shitty binding," Phantom said, turning everyone's attention back to him.  The blue-faced ghost was floating all around the room, soft green inner light casting weird shadows everywhere.   "I'm nowhere near it. What is this thing between me and Dash though?"

"… Fuck."  Wes quickly played back his recording on his camera to listen to what Dash had chanted.  Dash could hear the moment he fumbled the words and Wes paled when he heard it. "That was the wrong subject word-"

"So you've bound Phantom's soul to Dash's soul now, is what I'm translating here.   Cause that, wait lemme.” Austin grabbed the camera and replayed the video a few times while Dash dealt with a sea of complicated emotions.  Confusion, shock, anger, resentment, anxiety. Those last three weren’t new per se but they felt… off. Not his. “Wes this is a permanent binding what the fuck?!”

“It wouldn’t’ve been permanent!  We coulda scuffed the circle and the thing he’s bound to would be gone!”

Phantom reached down and grabbed the ginger by his shirt, lifting him two feet off the ground.   His eyes were blue and gold and red, that dim green aura was now white and yellow and flaring up in arcs.  “So lemme get this straight, Wesley. In your insane attempts to prove me as the still-living son of ghost hunters, you decided you'd bind me to a chalk circle.  Which might bind me to the chalk itself, tearing me apart to keep myself connected to since you're a fucking hack."

"I-I-I hadn't uh thought of that, b-"

"And instead of that you let Dash, a jo- no THE Jock, read off the spell and so now you've bound me, irreversibly, to another person's soul.  Did I get that right?"

Wes nodded the slightest bit, his entire frame shaking and Dash couldn't blame him.   Dash was entirely up for pummeling Wes for fucking up his hairbrained scheme, but Phantom looked like he was about to rip Wes apart.  He had fangs and his hair was turning into a cloud of fire that sucked all the heat out of the room instead of pushing it out into everything.  Wes' shirt was frosting over and Austin and his band of merry freaks were shivering.

"When you get to the afterlife, Wes, I promise you a world of pain.  And if you do something so fucking stupid and dangerous that it risks my safety and the safety of everyone else around you again, I'm tossing you to the police by your Fucking underwear!"  Wes was dropped on his ass and Phantom growled, fading from sight. There was a Pop, all the pressure in the room shifting, and Dash rubbed his head with a groan.

"Wes you fucking idiot!  Now Phantom is pissed at me and it's your fault!"  Phantom may have decided not to give Wes what he had coming to him, Dash didn't have superpowers to worry about getting out of hand.

And so Dash had detention that day for wailing on a fellow school athlete.

“I swear I’m going to shatter his camera into a million tiny pieces and make him eat them,”  Danny growled and struggled with not breaking his locker when he slammed it shut. The lights overhead buzzed louder and shone brighter from the energy pouring out of him, and Danny took several deep breaths.  “Not only was what he wanted to do stupid and dangerous, now I’m fucking - what, Soulmates? With him?”

“Chill, Danny, I’m sure we can fix this.”  Tucker pulled his sash from around his shirt and with a flick, it became a scepter once more.  Holding out the golden rod over Danny, a look of concentration passed over the geek’s face while azure light bathed Danny’s body.  The green thread leading off toward Dash was highlighted, though the silver threads leading to Tucker, Sam and Jazz were also visible and even the blue ones trailing off to his Mom and Dad.  Tucker’s magick wrapped around his green thread and for a moment, Danny was sure that it’d be cut and all of this would be over and dealt with.

Tucker’s scepter was knocked out of his hand and clattered loudly on the tile floor of the school and the green thread shone brighter than before, seeming to have simply soaked up the magick.  Danny’s growl was deep in his chest this time, and one of the lights blew a fuse. “That’s fucking ridiculous! He just read off the spell without even knowing what it did, why would that be stronger than the Pharoah’s command?”

“The language might not be from this world, Danny.  We’ll have to ask Andrew if he knows how to undo it.”  Sam patted Danny on his shoulder and he leaned onto her, embracing the calm of her aura.  The bell rang and Danny pulled his hood over his head, pulling it shut over his face with the drawstrings.  “C’ mon, let’s get you home and we can head over to see him right now.”

Danny grumbled as he was pulled along by Sam and Tucker outside to the parking lot, where all three of them pulled out their hoverboards.  Danny mounted his star and nebulae covered creation and slipped on his helmet. The one he’d made for Tucker was gold and chrome-colored, a techno styled F on the bottom of it, while Sam’s was black with creeping vines appearing to weave all around it.  It had been fun building these boards with Tucker and personalizing them since they made flying to school easier on them all. Magnetic boots locked in place, Danny slipped on the remote control glove and took off, followed closely by his friends into the even sky to the envious stares of their schoolmates.

The only ghosts that got in their way home were Skulker and the Box Ghost, and while Boxy was easy to take down with a few well-placed shots, Danny had to split off a Phantom copy while still in human form to take down Skulker, which sucked because he didn’t have the energy to make one as strong as he normally was in ghost form.  With a kick to Skulker’s head that removed his helmet, and a swift click of the button on the Thermos, Skulker was dealt with and they headed to Fenton works.

Descending the stairs of the Fenton home to the basement lab and finding it empty was a blessing, mostly available due to Sam and her meddling in the business affairs of Fenton Works.  Getting to the Ghost Writer’s library from there was a cakewalk, and soon they were knocking on his doors.

“Andy, I have a problem and I need your help fixing it!”  Getting no reply for a moment, Danny took a deep superfluous breath and whined loudly against the door.  “Aaandyyyyy!” The door opened inward fast enough that Danny hit the floor, and grumbled something rude about Vidya playing cruel pranks on him.

“Don’t pretend that Vidya doesn’t love you about as much as she does me, Danny, you’ll never get away with a lie that flimsy.”  The baritone laughter of the Ghost Writer, otherwise known to a few as Andrew Riter, met Danny’s ears and a shark-toothed smile greeted Sam and Tucker.  The librarian in grey and purple invited them deeper in to sit on couches and cushions scattered about the shelves of the library and cups of coffee and tea set themselves down on the table before them.  “Alright, what trouble have you gotten yourselves into this time?”

“This time it wasn’t one of us, actually.”  Sam nudged Danny with her boot and he slumped against Tucker, taking a long sip of his tea.  “An idiot, Wes, tried to bind him to a circle during an event that the Occult Club was performing to summon Danny, but they let Dash Baxter read it and when Danny appeared, apparently Dash stuttered the wrong words and now he and Danny are bound by the soul.  As far as we know.”

Andrew adjusted his glasses, eyes narrowed at Danny as a trio of books flew to him and Danny repeated the spell for Andrew to decipher.  “Give me a couple of days to look this one up. Artificially created Soul Bonds like that typically break with the right spell and if both parties agree to sever the link.”  Tucker groaned while Danny buried his face in his hands.

“I have to convince Dash to unlink himself with me?  Wonderful. Fuck me, I guess.”

Tucker patted the ghost boy on his shoulder and Danny whined.

Ao3 / Fanfiction.net

[lonely-bored-writer]

Not so simple

Summary: When Danny had his accident in the lab, him and his friends thought it would just be ghostly problems that follow. However, yet another incident in gym class reveals that his more human side was just as affected.

Word Count: 1,294

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Inspired by: @phantomsstars

It happened out of nowhere, everyone was baffled. No one expected a “small” electrical incident to cause such affects. The event occurred a few weeks after the incident, after what happened to Danny, team Phantom brushed it off as a minor electrocution that didn’t need medical attention so his parents wouldn’t dig too much. Maddie had done a quick once over on her son before deeming him healthy as can be. His temperature gave her a bit to worry, but nothing else seemed off.

As the teen struggled take hold of his newfound powers, it became clearer by the day that balancing the powers and ghosts with school was not going to be easy. He didn’t realize how much harder it was going to be then he thought. In the weeks following the incident, Danny found new odd things that he just chalked up to being tired or the new ghost side of him. However, it only seem to affect him as a human.

It wasn’t something anyone thought would be a worry, he would suddenly get lightheaded or dizzy. A few times he’d have sudden pains in his chest, paired with an odd almost fluttering feeling in his chest that seemed consistent. Once again, all the teens shrugged it off. They didn’t think it would be an issue, after all they all were too focus on keeping Danny’s uncontrollable powers under wraps and figuring out how to deal with the ghosts finding their way through the Fenton Portal.

It wasn’t until the day Danny finally showed up to gym class again, it also happened to be the day that they were okaying dodge ball. Winning team got an ‘A’, of course Danny know he had to win to help bring his grade back up after so many misses. Sam, Tucker, and him had a game plan. As much as they cared about the other nerds and outcast on their side, they knew the others would appreciating win much more then all of them losing.

So they used to their advantage, using the others to distract or take hits while they worked on taking down everyone else. For once, Danny was having a decent time. In the weeks he’s been too stressed and worried to just sit back and relax. Now he was, even if he was working to not get hit it was still much more calming then his life at the moment. Team Phantom was able to bring the other side down to four jocks with six still on their side, before things crumbled.

Danny had made a mad dash to slip behind one of the others who were about to get hit when he’s body suddenly felt weak, almost giving out on him. He paused, pressing a hand against his chest. The pains were back, his breathe become shallow even as he worked to try and bring more oxygen into his system. He vaguely heard Sam call out his name, but he couldn’t focus. His mind felt off, the room shifting in and out of focus.

“Some…things…wrong…”

Danny managed to gasp out, he felt hands on him moving him to sit. He could hear the mumbles of people around him talking, but it was so hard to focus when he’s body felt like it was shutting down and he’s fear of death rising. The pain was just increasing, the fluttering in his chest becoming more apparent as the seconds ticked by. It felt like he was sitting there forever, but he knew he had only just been seated.

He was able to turn his focus on someone in front of him, Tucker. Eyes’ training on his friend’s worried face, he opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to alert them that this was similar to what has been happening but worse. He couldn’t get a word out before the edges of his vision began to fade faster, he recognize his friend rushing forward before he felt himself slipping and the world around him went dark.

The next moment he awoke, he heard an odd beeping sound. His eyes cracked open to be meet with a too bright room. Hospital. His brows furrowed, the device that was beeping was the heart monitor but it sound no where near like it did in movies and shows. His eyes were with a relieved mother and father, Danny could still register the worry and sadness lingering underneath. Next he saw was Tucker, right by his side as well. He was soon informed Sam’s parents wouldn’t let her come to the hospital.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Maddie was the second to speak after a silence, leaving the room with Jack. Danny turned his focus to Tucker who went on to explained what happened after he fainted in gym. Apparently the whole class was freaking out, as well as the coach first thought it was an anxiety attack until Sam informed her about the past weeks following the electrocution. She had called an ambulance and the nurse. The nurse arrive not long after Danny fainted.

Danny nodded, choosing to keep his voice in until he knew what all of this was about. Tucker didn’t prob, just informing as they waited for his parents to come back. It was when Tucker was giving details on what happened after he was wheeled out on a gurney that the doctor finally arrive. Danny stayed polite, nodding with a smile as the doctor greeted him. Doctor Peterson.

“… Tachycardia… It appears the electrical shock affected the sinus node… we can’t cure it, but there is medication… Start on Amiodarone…”

Danny felt odd, he wasn’t scared, or really worried, just… surprised. He thought his only problem was going to be ghosts, but this dragged another new thing into his life. Pills. He wasn’t sure how much he liked the idea of that, but the worried and fearful look in his parents eyes were enough to have him know he was going to do everything he could to help make this as little an obstacle in his life.

He didn’t focus too much on what the doctor was saying, his mind racing and thinking over the information that he did pick up, the ones that seemed more important. This wasn’t ideal, but being half dead wasn’t ideal either but he’s making that work. So why not this? It’s not the worse thing that could happen, and he’s not particular hateful that it happened to him. He’s accepted it, he’ll get through it. Long term or not.

“Does that sound good?”

Danny nodded, giving the doctor a reassuring smile before turning his gaze to his parents. Every time in the room, his mom would hold his hand. Giving it reassuring squeezes every time she heard something that worried her. His dad kept his arm resting on Maddie’s shoulders, rubbing it occasional to remind her he’s here. Both pairs of eyes turned to focus on him, it wasn’t hard to miss the worry in them, this time trained more so on how he was handling the news. Even though his life went from being simple, to not so simple in just a few weeks doesn’t mean he couldn’t adapt.

“We got this.”

Danny smiled a genuine smile as his family and friend relaxed ever so slightly. He wasn’t about to let yet another side effect of the incident turn his life upside down once more. After becoming practically half dead, he was sure this won’t be to much of a hump for the Fentons and team Phantom.

[atomicwedgienerd]

A Family Resemblance

CW: Scat, incest, everything else. You’ve been warned. This was a collaboration with Smelliot the Slob, who is probably as dorky and gross in real life as the victims in the story. 

Elliot came downstairs into the large living room. The room was split into the lounge area and kitchen in one room. In the corner he could see his father, Dan in the corner instructing one of his private clients. Reaching into the fridge Elliot pulled out the milk and poured himself a large glass before taking a long swig of it.

Dan counted off on his hands as the patron was on the ground doing a pushup. "Come on! Keep pushing! Don't give up now man, you don't want to end up flabby do you?"

“It’s hard Dan!” The patron said as he struggled. He looked up and saw Elliot. Everyone saw the patron as just an out of shape middle aged man but none could see him for what he really was. A being of pure chaos who could shape reality just using his words. This time, his target was Dan, the hottest personal trainer in town and his equally hot son Elliot. “This must be your son! There’s definitely a family resemblance!”

Elliot smiled and gave a thumbs up "Alright dude."

Dan turned and smiled "Yes, very proud of my boy, and he and I worked hard for our bodies. You can too. It is hard, but the rewards are worth it, so keep pushing!"

“I am!” said the patron. “Maybe if you were wearing your glasses you could see how hard I was trying” A pair of thick hornrimmed glasses appears on an end table. Elliot frowned at this but Dan just reaches over to the end table to grab his glasses and slide them on his face. "Since when did you wear glasses dad?"

Dan threw a bewildered look at his son. "I've always worn glasses." This caused Elliot to mimic Dan's bewildered expression.

“Whew Dan! Could you close your mouth?” begged the patron. “Those crooked yellow teeth are so hard to look at and your breath is so foul I bet your son can smell it from across the room!”

Elliot frowned. “Watch your tone buddy!" Clearly the lad was getting upset at someone insulting his dad, although he did a double take as he saw his dad’s now yellowed teeth.

"Well I need to open it to keep you motivated. Maybe it will motivate you to work harder."

“P.U.! That’s  an awfully condescending tone for someone with such a big gut too!”

Elliots eyes widened in shock as he saw his father bloat up, gaining layer upon layer of fat, thighs thickening along with his arms, a large flabby gut pushing out. "What the fuck!?" Elliot quickly started to go for the phone presumably to dial 911. Dan patted his stomach. "Mm, but I am proud of my belly, you want to get rid of yours."

“Honestly I think that’s about all I have in me for today. Didn’t you say you wanted to show me the computers you had been building in the gym you turned into a study?”

Dan nodded and started to waddle off with you following him. Elliot however had other plans. "What the hell is going on!?" He asks aloud, phone in his hand. "Someone explain or I am calling 911."

“Oh please you’re just as clumsy as your old man!” the patron laughed. Dan stumbled and tripped over his own feet and Elliot, in a moment of unusual clumsiness, dropped his phone right into the sink full of dishes. Elliot swore as he fished for the phone but it was ruined as it came out.

"What are you doing?" Elliot asked as Dan got his balance back.

“I’m just hanging out with my friend Dan, which is honestly pretty charitable on my part. After all, he may have stopped working out and put on a lot of weight, but he still has the body odor and sweatiness of an entire weightlifting team.”

Dan sniffed at his armpits, smelling his sweaty BO. "Man, I do smell bad don't I?" Elliot had to cover his nose as the room became overpowered by it.

"You're doing something to him! Fine, if I can't call the police I'll go get help." He marches towards the door with purpose.

“Aw but you’ve always liked guys who stink terribly I thought,” the patron said with a grin.

Elliot has stopped covering his nose and is clearly breathing normally. "I mean...sure it's nice but you can't be changing my dad."

“Oh don’t worry, I’m doing more than that. Say, did you happen to pick up your old man’s lice shampoo?”

"I did but...hey wait, since when does dad have lice?" He asked as he saw his dad was now scratching at his hair.

“Since forever! The shampoo doesn’t even really do anything other than leave his hair super greasy but we have to keep trying. That’s what your father told me anyways, even though it took forever with his terrible stutter!”

"I just wish it didn't make his hair greasy." Elliot commented as Dan's hair became very greasy. "and dad you really should see a speech therapist."

Dan nodded. "Y-you got t-t-t-hat right sss-ss-son."

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned. I heard you liked greasy haired fatsos with lice and stutters”

Elliot’s face flushed red and he was glad his lower body was obscured by the counter (“Whatcha hiding there Elliot? I bet it’s a big old hard on just like your dad always has. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man cum his pants as often as your father”

The front of Dans pants grew damp as Elliot’s face flushed some more. "Its uh...I just woke up, I had an intense dream." He lied, a little ashamed that his father got him aroused.

“It’s a good thing your dad only wears these cheap thrift store khakis and white socks all the time or it would be a shame that he’s constantly wetting himself. At least they look nice with his button down and suspenders!”

Elliot’s mouth fell open at his dads new outfit. "He looks ridiculous like that!" He says as Dan plays with his suspenders and straightens his bow tie.

“Oh please,” laughed the patron. “Everyone knows this is the hottest way a man can dress. And the pants are so cheap, it doesn’t even matter if your dad is usually carrying a few turds in the back”

Elliot blinked as something came over him. "I mean, at least he's dressing in something attractive...despite the shit and piss."

“Come on, the shit and piss make him unique and kind of even hotter!”

Elliot bit his lower lip as he turned around, hoping to stop his large erection. The patron grinned and continued to weave a new reality with his words.

“But I mean you would expect someone to shit themselves every once in a while considering that Dan—errr Dilbert here never stops farting. Phew, it smells like someone threw a hundred hard boiled eggs in a dumpster on a hot summer day in here!”

Dilbert let out a loud smelly fart as a log of shit filled his underwear. Elliots nostrils flared heard the fart, but did not complain about the stench. "Yeah..." he stated nervously.

“Wow” the patron said as he finally peered insides Dilbert’s computer room. “This is the nerdiest room I’ve ever seen, well not counting the rest of the your house I mean. I’ve never seen someone with so many comic books, fantasy novels, and empty pizza boxes!”

Dilbert nodded proudly. "I l-l-love my c-c-c-c-comics! I also a-a-dore pizza. B-b-but I need to u-use my z-z-z-zit cream after eating it to a-a-a-void breakout out."

“Oh yeah it was such a mistake to shave your beard, Dilbert. Your skin broke out so bad after that. Plus look at how bad your insanely large ears and nose look without the beard to distract!”

Dan's beard quickly pulled into his now softer jaw as his skin breaks out in bad acne, white headed zits appearing over his face as his ears got larger and started to stick out. With a snort his nose inflated to a pudgy schnoz.

“And honestly Dilbert, I think you should talk to your orthodontist because considering how big and clunky your headgear is, those two giant buck teeth should be looking better by now”

Dilbert’s cheeks blushed and he adjusted a screw on his braces. "I c-c-cant help it" he whined quite pathetically before his belly rumbled, he let out a loud belch right into your face, the smelly fishy breath was heavy with the scent of pizza and fast food.

“Aw well hopefully there’s a man that appreciates all this out there somewhere. I know how desperate you are for a boyfriend!”

Dilbert looked down at the floor as the front of his pants grow wet again and the smell of urine filled the air. "But w-w-who would d-d-date a l-l-l-losher like me." He looked sad when he admitted he was a loser.

“I’m sure there’s someone out there who is into disgusting dweebs like you.” The patron looked up with a grin at Elliot. “Say don’t you think it’s time your son got his favorite meal. A hot pocket that got your cum and piss all over it?”

The patron’s words made this a reality and Elliot shrugged as if it was normal. "I am pretty hungry dad..." With that Dilbert waddled over and stuck a hot pocket into the microwave. After a few minutes he pulled out the turnover and put it down on the floor. Pulling out his smaller, but hard dick he proceeds to piss over it, a little jerking and globs of cum also cover the treat. He places it down in front of his son who just picks up a knife and fork and starts to take bites.

“Wow Elliot you sure look hungry! I bet it’s from looking at all those posters up in your room. Of those pretty ladies? No wait, that’s not right, you have posters of fat nerds, guys covered in their own pee and cum, ugly pimple faced four eyes, isn’t that right?”

Elliots cheeks burn as he takes another bite, it was true, but he didn't want to show that he was embarassed about it. So he decided to downplay it. "Yeah, I'm into fat nerds. What of it?"

“It just seems like considering your father, it must be kind of a bummer that you aren’t one too. I mean he’s so pathetic and you’re this hot perfect jock. It must just be unbearable not having inherited his extremely geeky genes. It must just drive you nuts. Plus according to your journal, it looks like no matter how hard you beat off, you can’t cum. I bet that’s because you know you need to be a total nerd first.”

Elliot took another bite, this time slower and more thoughtful. "Yeah....dad says I take after mom. I mean look at him. Look at what a loser he is. Who wouldn't want that?"

“I bet you pray every night to become a loser like him. I bet you would give up everything for a chance at that huh?”

"You bet I would! I even looked into a laser eye surgery to see if they'd ruin my vision. Sadly they weren't interested, nor was the plastic surgeon. Besides, dad is lonely now, he has no one."

“Yeah I mean compared to your dad, you’re so cool. Even with the nerdiest bedroom I’ve ever seen. And your bedroom is so so dorky. Dirty clothes everywhere. Three computers. Chess club trophies. Pokémon sheets. It’s amazing you’re as jacked as you are considering how much you love chess.”

"Well, they are online chess trophies. My room is an expression of who I wish I was. Even dad gets jealous. I tell my friends I have a cool room and I play my guitar every night. Well...its not a guitar. It's an accordion."

“Yeah your dad told me you basically never stop playing accordion. That it’s one of the only ways to drown out the noise of your incessant farts.”

A large blasting fart escaped from Elliot's rear, filling the already smelly room with his own gas. "It was no surprise, they did say the chronic flatulence was hereditary."

“The farts are one thing but hoowee the rest! Your BO and halitosis put your father’s to shame.”

"Well, I hate taking showers...and eating these special hot pockets don't help my halitosis. Not that I don't want them, they are my favourite!"

“I know and considering they’re all you eat, it’s no wonder you’ve inherited your father’s.... rather ample physique.”

As the patron’s words changed Elliot’s body, he pat his new belly as he sat there changed, a lardass like his father. “Mmm, I know! I'm a fussy eater...its embarassing you don't need to rub it in."

“Not as embarrassing as the way you rub all the piss from your pants in your hair all the time. It just makes you stink worse and, despite what you read on the web, it’s not gonna do anything to help your lice problem.”

Elliot’s belly rumbled and he lets out a loud fart as his hair grows greasy and lice infested. Reaching into his pants he cups his hand and pisses into it. "But the website said it helped with lice." With that he wet his hair with the piss he cupped.

“The only effect it seems to be having is making your skin break out worse and worse and worse. God you have bigger pimples than even your father does!”

A grin crossed Elliot’s face. "A side effect I didn't expect but I am delighted about. Even if it doesn't help my lice, if it helps keep these zits, just try and stop me."

“I don’t wanna stop you or get anywhere near those zits. I bet they’re so bad because you like squirting the zit pus into a glass and drinking it. That can’t be good for your skin.”

Elliot licked his lips as the patron’s words became law. “Mm, I am thirsty...and I've been milking these babies for months. I'm due a treat." He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a jug with a label reading 'Elliots zit pus, DO NOT TOUCH'. He lifted it to his lips and took some gulps before returning it to the fridge.

“Yeah I mean why do you think I’m wearing rubber boots? Gotta protect myself from the inches of piss, cum, shit and pus that are just sloshing around on your floor!”

Elliot blushed. ”That’s thanks to dad, and sometimes I miss the jar. It’s why I am wearing rubber boots too." A loud fart rumbled from his rear, the heavy aroma stinging the patron’s nostrils

“Wow, well you really do outpace your father in terms of fart stink. And BO. And halitosis. You really do smell terrible. It’s a bummer you can’t close your mouth with those giant yellow buck teeth with the huge gap between them.”

Elliot grinned as the patron brought up his overbite. His front teeth almost looked like fangs with the space between them. "Dad jokes you could drive a train through the gap."

“I mean combined with your giant nose and those big ears, you really look like such a geek. Not that you’d know it since you don’t even have your glasses on. Where did they go? Ah!” The patron sees them sitting in a puddle of cum and piss, the lenses several inches thick and the frames more duct tape than plastic at this point.

Elliot shivered and rubbed at his fat nose, it was even bigger than his dad’s. He absentmindedly wiggled his ears as his vision blurred. "Can you see them? Where did I put them? I'm blind as a bat without them!”

“They’re down there. By your feet. I won’t pick them up so don’t even ask. Besides your tight little nasal passages make your voice so whiny that I can barely stand to hear it. It’s amazing you can breathe at all.”

With another rumble, Elliot opened his mouth letting out a loud belch. He leaned down, his breathing heavier as he picked up the glasses, and without even wiping them putsthem on his nose. "SNORT there we go. I'm always SNORT losing my glasshes, or SNORT breaking them."

“They’re in such bad shape, i imagine they’re a pair of your dads old glasses. Makes sense since you wear all of his clothes too. I’ve heard of hand me downs but you know you’re supposed to wash them right? Instead, you just put on his soiled clothes from the day before and go about your business.”

"We don't have a washing machine..." he adjusted the suspenders, the khaki shorts he was wearing clearly had a dried cum and piss stain on the front, and the back of them looked more brown than khaki. The button up shirt had food and piss stains on it as well as a collection of dried boogers here and there.

“It’s probably for the best considering you shit yourself much more frequently and with much bigger loads than your father does.”

A loud fart escaped him but Elliot seemed to follow through on this one as the back of his pants expanded a little and turned a deeper brown, the rear starting to steam a little from the shit. SPLOOSH...SPLASH, some remnants fell out of the the short legs and splashed in the room size puddle.

“God that smells so bad. Good thing your father had the foresight to name you Smelliot! He must have known you’d be like this.”

He chuckled but it turned more into a series of snorts. "Daddy likes to say I came out shitting so thus the name."

“And you’re so proud of it too. Is that why you’re always pulling your slimy shit stained underpants up into an atomic wedgie?”

"Oh SNORT yesh!" another fart escaped him, the splashing of shit hitting the liquid echoing around the room. "Although it's SNORT much more fun if SNORT it is someone else giving me a SNORT wedgie."

“Well gosh, that sounds like something that’s a perfect bonding activity for father and son.”

The patron turns to Dilbert, seeing he's been busy reading a comic book on the couch in his room, his feet gently disturbing the liquid on the floor. He let out a fart as a stream of yellow piss also slid down his left leg.

“Hey Dilbert. Isn’t it time for you and your son to give each other atomic wedgies so you can see who has the most shit caked undies?”

Dilbert tossed the comic onto the couch and got up, waddling over to Smelliot. A lump formed in the front of Smelliot’s khakis. Both seem to do this like it was a routine, each of them reaching into the others pants, getting a grip on their underwear, and then with a quick count down the two pull, the messy underwear being pulled up. At one time both were probably white but were now more a yellowish with brown stains. Smelliot’s undies were worse on account of them being hand me downs.

“Wow if it weren’t for the stink, I would say someone had poured a few gallons of mud in your pants Smelliot. You’re definitely outpacing your old man.”

Dilbert pouted but then let out a crooked yellow smile

"T-t-the d-d-d..." he took a breath. "d-d-d..." a fart escapes his rear as he also fills his pants with steamy shit, "d....doctorrs! did ss-s-say that the conditions are more s-s-severe for the of-of-ofsp-ofsp...the children"

"It's so nice to see a father and a son get along so well. Is it true that for snacks, you guys pick each others ears and noses and eat each other's boogers and earwax?"

Both nodded as Smelliot digs a fat finger into his fathers nose, a slimey snotty booger pops out and he licked it off, a grin crossing his face. "Y-you bet. B-besides the h-h-hot pockets, i-its all he'll eat."

"You're looking pretty hungry yourself, Dilbert. Didn't you say your son makes you a special pizza that you just can't resist?"

Dilbert rubbed his rumbly tummy and nodded. "Y-yes. I s-s-should c-call the pizza place."

Dilbert waddled over to the computer and booted up the EatingOut app, pulling up his previous order of two cheese pizzas. His history seemed to indicate he ordered this every day...

"Well you certainly have the body and cleanliness of a man who eats pizza every day! I'm excited to see what makes it so special!"

"T-they say it w-w-will be here in an h-h-hour." He stuttered as he pissed the front of his pants again.

An hour passed with the father and son feeding each other their boogers before the doorbell rang. Dilbert waddled, the last few steps cause him to blast a fart out into the room. Grabbing the doorknob he twisted it, the door swinging open. "H-h-h-h..salutations!"

The pizza delivery guy recoiled from the stench, almost ready to barf and bail.

"Ah good," said the patron. "I hear the pizza guy in this town loves nerds too and really loves watching you eat pizza so much, that he gives them to you for free!"

The pizza delivery guy laughed and handed the pizzas to Dilbert. "Oh yeah if you haven't seen the way these dorks eat pizza, you are in for a real shock."

Dilbert blushed as he saw the tent the man is now sporting. Carrying the pizza boxes over to Smelliot, Dilbert asked, "S-s-s-sss-smelliot? C-can you p-p-put daddy's f-favoruite toppings on?"

Smelliot smiled and nodded. "Oh SNORT yeth Daddy! I know SNORT how much you SNORT love it!" He put the pizzas down on the coffee table and opened them, sniffing them. Unhooking his suspenders he let the khakis fall into the wet puddles on the floor, and pulled down the front of his tightly-not-so-whities. All it took was a few jerks and he exploded cum all over the pizzas like a special sauce. Then he turned around and with a fart let globs of shit fall on the pizzas.

Dilbert smiled and took a deep sniff. “Mmm, smells delicious." He took up a slice that got nice and coated with his son's cum and shit and took a bite, munching happily.

The pizza delivery guy just chuckled and laughed. "Now you see why I don't even make them pay. I love seeing that!" The pizza delivery guy rubbed the front of his pants until he came in them and then headed back to his truck.

"H-h-he's alway s-s-s-so nice." Dilbert farted while Smelliot started to play his accordion expertly.

"Wow your accordion playing sounds so good Smelliot. Is it true that your father has learned to blast his massive farts in time with the music?"

Dilbert and Smelliot nodded and  exchanged a look. Smelliot changes=d the tune to something a bit more upbeat. Dilbert started to let out farts of different sizes in tune with the music, creating an almost percussive backing to the accordion. Smelliot farted and shit his pants as he played, the farts starting to make the room smell absolutely foul. With a flourish and a long fart the two finished their routine.

"Well, that was just wonderful. You too are just so in synch! It's a real shame that you're both so lonely and unlucky in love. I know that your son loves big fat farting nerds, but is it true that you like them as well Dilbert?"

Dilbert noded and licked his lips "Mm, y-y-y-y affirmative! I love big fat loser nerds!" A smile crossed his face as he came in his pants.

"That's such a shame then that Smelliot is your son! Except, well, I mean it really doesn't matter does it? Love is love and you two ARE perfect for each other. And your son is an adult, albeit a pathetically nerdy shit stained one, so shouldn't he be able to date his own father if he wants to?"

Dilbert slowly nodded as if coming to a realisation. "S-s-s-ss-sure! L-love is love."

Smelliots eyes widened. "But SNORT..." a fart escaped him. "Incest is..." he was quickly interrupted.

"Incest is perfectly fine if it's what you really want Smelliot and you do want it. You both want it!"

The body language between father and son instantly changed. Both not looking at each other, exchanging side glances, but turning away whenever they met each others eyes. Gently Dilbert reached down and squeezed his son's hand. Smelliot farted and shit his pants. "D-daddy.."

“Y-y-you are such a p-p-p-pathetic dweeb." Dilbert said before pressing his puffy lips against his son's, their pudgy noses pushing together, orthodontic headgear clacking together.

Smelliot belched into the kiss, but broke away. "Mmm SNORT...Pokémon bed?" Dilbert nodded and chuckled "You're such a dork!" The father and son held hands as they waddled towards Smelliots bedroom. The patron followed father and son up to Smelliot's bedroom and watched the two get into it.

The nerds peeled off their clothes, exposing their naked, unwashed, flabby bodies to each other, both of them cumming right there and then. Smelliot rolled onto his bed, the frame sagging from his weight. His dorky daddy climbing onto the bed, grinning as his pathetic member was so close to his son's messy, dirty shit chute.

The Patron smiled and with a click pictures of the slobby nerds appeared around the house, one of them a particular picture of them kissing, in dirty suits...in a chapel.

"I love you my stinky son hubby." and with that he rammed his hard member into his son's rear, blasting the shitty hole with gallons of nerdy cum before pulling out, inserting his giant pimpled nose, and blowing thick jets of snot into his son’s asshole. The patron grinned and disappeared, his work here done. He checked the list of other personal trainers with sons in the city and figured out his next target.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

I can’t believe people actually blame Peter for being bullied

Listen, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend Peter didn’t have a rotten temper and couldn’t have done something to improve his high school experience, at least after the bite, but I am sick and tired of people (read: witers) claiming that he was even as much as half to blame. Heck, depending on the period of time we’re talking about, the only way for him to fit in might have been to compromise most of himself. Partly, this is because almost everything we see of his life in high school (that wasn’t written decades later, with the baggage of modern ideologies) is from after the bite, whether it is from the original period when he was going to high school or . This is what we see in Amazing Fantasy #15, before Peter got his powers.

People who claim Peter was at fault for how he was treated say he was given many chances to join the group, but here we see how he’s only considered because they need him, and even then, when Flash says no, they discard him completely. (Yeah, the bubbles on the middle and right are Flash and Liz respectively.)

Also, Peter heard that. Just so you know. Even if later he is invited somewhere, you think he’s going to forget that this is what they really think of him?

“Well, but Peter could still have tried to change their minds!!! Even if they might not reach out to him, it doesn’t mean he should push them away!!! He should have given them a chance and they would have been friendly to him!!!!”

Yeah. So friendly.

But, hey, people who’ve read early comics and have seen Peter in action will say, what we say happened did, too!

And yes it did! Check this out!

They did invite him to stuff, didn’t they? Isn’t this what he wanted? He should be happy! What happened? Well...

(Why is that picture so big?)

Some day arrived! And with it, Enough sense of self worth and dignity that Peter stopped chasing after people who didn’t want him there (and went on a power-trip that lasted him most of not all of his adolescence and so shaped him forevermore, but that’s a discussion for another time).

The next time we see him enteract with his peers is in ASM #1, in the third picture. Yeah, he really couldn’t go, and the others got a bit too pissed about his rejection considering he was only technically invited because the friend group probable consisted of most of the class. However, look at that face, he probably said it in a bitchy way. He was rejecting them, but why shouldn’t they, since they proved time and time again that they didn’t want him there, not even then, really, and wouldn’t even aknowledge that they treated him poorly?

Except. Except, out of nowhere people started being nice to him (I’m not discounting spider-hormones). That brunnette girl from the fifth pic? Actually called him Petey before Liz did, and, after Peter’s been defeated by Doc Ock for the first time, they’re just so nice to him, not even minding that he ignored them at first because he’s upset and distracted by the memory of Doc Ock bitch-slapping him, I guess. It wasn’t like that all the time, though.

Like, there’s Peter, staying in his lane, when they come up to him to annoy him (his tendency to then key the other person’s car, metaphorically of course, notwithstanding). And like this, we can find plenty of other examples.

Sooo... What’s the truth?

Well, out-of-universe, it was kinda forshadowed by the fourth pic, here’s one more to make it clearer.

Misunderstandings. Peter will do some thing or the other that, because he’s Spider-Man, will be a sacrifice to him, but, to those who don’t know that, will only make him look bad. Can’t go to the Spider-Man show? It’s because he’s Spider-Man, but his classmates will think he’s just anti-social and sees himself as better than them. Has to leave a potentially dangerous group activity? It’s because he’s Spider-Man and has to be ready tosave people, but people will think he’s scared (which, by the way, was like a death sentence back then. If any of you time travel to the 60′s and someone calls you a coward, or yellow, punch them in the face. It will be the appropiate reaction). Doesn’t get to his meeting with Aunt May to reconciliate with her on time? It’s because he’s Spider-Man, and he had reason to suspect a murderous villain was about to attack, so he went after him, only to find a less efficient but even more murderous villain he had to fight, but his Aunt and her boyfriend didn’t know that, so they think he just doesn’t care about her.  (This, by the way? Tends to happen with readers, too.)

It’s to show that being Spider-Man isn’t all fun and games, even outside of risking his life. That was the novelty of Spider-Man, the balance of super-heroism and day-to-day life, which would often get unbalanced. So, the purpose of having scenes where his classmates are nice to him was to show the sacrifices Peter had to make to be Spider-Man. 

In-universe? It has to do with the exact kind of bullying I think Peter went through. 

First off, I don’t think he was physically attacked. Modern (and by this I mean stuff from the 90′s forward) tend to go “oh, he was, bullied, ok, let’s roll”* and go with what their preferred version of bullying, especially that between a nerd and a jock, which is the jock beating the nerd up, but, except for one flashback from a school reunion annual from the 70′s, I think, we don’t have evidence of Peter being beat up, and the guys there weren’t Flash. Except for a few shoves, that one time he told Peter to meet him after school and that one time they arranged a boxing match (see what I mean when I say punching people in the face was an appropiate response? The teacher literally let them go into the ring and punch their mad off), Flash doesn’t seem to be physically agressive with Peter, although, to be fair, he does threaten him with violence often, and often the only reason they don’t fight is because Liz interrupts them. Like I said, though, this is from after Peter got his powers, and all those times he’s matching Flash step by step, so, maybe, he wouldn’t have dared to stand up to him before, so things wouldn’t have escalated as much (btw, this isn’t me blaming Peter, Flash is the one who keeps provoking him, Peter’s just... too damn easy to provoke after the bite). 

Here’s what I think it was like before the bite:

His main bully was Flash, the rest followed his lead. It is a take on the kind of power and responsabilities that come from being popular. Flash, who has his own problems at home, takes it out on Peter because 1) he’s different. The issue which triggered this whole rant, WoS #35, said that his medal, even six years after he won it, was the only science award his school had ever won. This means not only that it will make it easy to find something to mock about him which will get others to join in, it’s also 2) unlikely someone else will orbit to him, someone who might not be so different and might defend him, and convince other to do so as well. 3) Flash is jealous, (certainly) because of Peter’s good relationship with his “parents”, (later on) because Liz will prefer him over Flash, and (probably) of his aptitude for academics, which isn’t only good in and of itself, it also gets him in the good graces of their teachers (like, in ASM #26, after Peter claims to have been the one to start a fight, Flash confesses it was him and the principal is ACTUALLY GLAD. IMAGINE). This probably mixes up with 1), because both of them have to do with approval from adults, which is something he would especially crave because his dad is an abusive asshole and his mom won’t defend him, while he’s liked and/or feared enough to be the most popular guy in school. 

So, Flash picks Peter as his main target. Although he might get physically rough with him sometimes, when he thinks he’s stepping out of line (which for Flash would mean any and all attempts on Peter’s part to be included or liked, as shown in the pictures), I think that when he picked on Peter it was mostly verbally. However, it got out of hand because Flash was the most popular guy at school. He was the leader, so when he did something, people backed him up. Look at the first picture. The first guy innocently suggested that they ask Peter to join them in a dance, and Flash cuts him down immediately (granted, he’s probably right) and Liz, who’s the most popular girl, backs him up. No one’s going to go against them. Like, people have the right to dislike others, even if they’re not bad people, and Flash and Liz do, too. It’s just that, because they have social power, people will follow their lead, and Flash especially will usually go out of his way to pick on Peter.

Flash forward, however, and people start being nice to him. What happened? Well, they grew up (as much as a 15-17 yo is expected to grow). There is a group of guys who back Flash’s bullying to the end, but some others stop following him like sheep even before Liz decides Peter’s not that bad. So, some will be friendly to him, while some will still pick on him. Seems all in all allright, right?

Except it comes a little too late, because when Peter got his powers, in his mind he overcame what they’d convinced him were his short-comings, so he actually starts seeing himself as better than all of them. Up until that moment, what he’d seen was that the power that counted rested in strength and in popularity, (Flash was powerful, because he was popular, because he was strong - like, at that moment he wasn’t even the one who had to struggle with finances, his only problem was that he was ostracized at school and lonely) so when he became Spider-Man, a sensation because of his powers, he thought he’d become more powerful than them. In a way, it freed him from them, he didn’t have to ask anything of them anymore. I think it’s well explained in this panel, from after the FF wrongly accused him of being a criminal because the press said so (guilty of crimes other than breaking and entering into the Baxter Building) (and mild battery, although everyone participated in a bit of that. Actually, and without taking away from the fact that getting into the BB like he did was so dumb oh my god Peter you don’t do that, he wasn’t even the one who threw the first punch, he was mostly avoiding the FF’s attacks. Like, the exact count was one punch or shove to the Thing and one webbed hand to Reed).

(WHY is it so big?)

... forgive him for being a drama queen, he’s fifteen, he’ll grow out of it, mostly.

But yeah, the first bubble? I suspect that, while it was all the negative press that pushed it out, he’s been thinking that about people for a long while. The second part, that came to be after he got bitten. He stopped seeking approval because he was convinced he could pave his own path, with his own power. However, he also stopped being receptive to approval, especially from certain people. 

So, thinking of Peter’s bullying in high school as a cycle is faulty, since the first evidence we have of him even talking back when someone’s picking on him, let alone push someone away when they’re being nice, instead of actively seeking friendship, is after the bite, when his ostracization had already started. Actually, my memory might be faulty, but the only time he rejects an invitation to a group outing and it’s not because he has to be Spider-Man (which includes “I can’t go  bc I have to do Spider-Man things” AND, as the ninth picture shows, “I actually came, but I have to leave now to do Spider-Man things”) is when Liz started crushing on him and invites him to party, and even Liz admits they had it coming. Actually, Liz is the only person shown to admit that their previous treatment of him was wrong, so she’s the only one (of the ones who actively mocked him, the rest were just doing their thing) who, in my opinion, deserved to be forgiven... and she was. 

*Seriously, interpretations about how his life in high school nowadays are basically “well, Peter, you didn’t give them a chance when they tried to approach after years of isolation, how do you expect them not to mock you, belittle you, avoid you and tell their friends to do the same???” to “everyone in that school will grow up to be a psycopath, poor Peter, he gets beat up everyday by everyone” which is... also not something I agree with.

P.S.:Also, something for fic writers, understanding that everyone can do what they want, this is just a pet peeve of mine and I have no authority to stop anyone from writing anything. Just... I read a fanfic the other day, a high school AU, in which Peter had the same characterization as he did in the comics when he was that age, (or maybe even worse, because he was rude to Aunt May, which is... something Peter would never do??? Lie to her? Guiltily, yes. Accidentally hurt her because he’s Spider-Man so he keeps secrets and isn’t as reliable as he was once? Yeah, it’s been known to happen, but talk back to her???) even though he’d had friends all his life and just... no. Anger IS a big part of Peter’s character, especially when he’s younger, but a lot if not all of that comes from the fact that he’s been a victim for so long with no support system aside from his Aunt and Uncle. He is explosive, yes, so a bad temper would not be out of place, but he’s not naturally an asshole. Actually, and I’ve seen enough to know this is an unpopular opinion, while Peter might overreact a lot, he won’t actually bite someone’s head off just for looking at him funny. He’s actually not even the kind of person who’ll punch the wall between his apartment and yours when you've been singing loudly and off-key for several nights and keeping him from sleeping. Except in extreme circumstances, and though he might blow things out of proportion, he’ll go off on you only if you’ve poked him. If he’s going through bad times, the kind of thing that really weight on your mind even when you’re not actively thinking about it, yes, he’s the worst. Especially because one bad thing will affect him enough that either because he’s distracted or because he’s on edge, he’ll mess up with something else, and things will keep piling up on his plate, partly because he has a truly tragic life and bad luck, partly because he’s too overwhelmed about the things that are going wrong to fix or avoid what could go wrong next, and he’ll be snappy and rude and push people away accidentally or because he thinks he’s helping them, which will make things even worse. But, like I said, this isn’t normal. This is Peter Parker at his very worst.

We don’t see it much, because we’re reading only what will make a story, which is what has conflict, but a content Peter has been described as having a sunny disposition and being friendly as a puppy, and even when held and drugged against his will in a mental institution he’s (rightfully) suspicious of, his nurse describes him as gentle. Like, even if you want to say that it’s all tell and no show because it’s only what other characters have said of him, I’ll say 1) I said that we don’t see it often, not that we don’t see it at all and 2) a character is built by what they do, what they say and what others say of them.

There have been some huge misconceptions of the character, along the lines of MCU Peter Parker, but the course correction made it go too far to the other side.

[freevoidman]

Prompto Week ① DAY 1 (10/19): Favorite Scene ★ Brotherhood

Summary: Noctis has a new friend named Prompto, but is terrified to lose him once he’s vetted. He keeps his friendship a secret for as long as he can manage, but not everything can stay secret forever

Noctis knows the drill by now.

Whenever he finds a new friend, his father and some members of the Kingsglaive execute a stupidly extensive vetting process, and a personal ‘interview’ of sorts with Ignis. If they pass the vetting and Ignis sees no ill-will that can potentially be directed at Noctis, then they stay. If not, then Ignis does his best to intimidate them, and Noctis is expected to keep away. Since this process takes about two weeks (give or take a couple days, depending upon the person), he normally doesn’t get attached, and see a person’s true colors, so he’ll know when to get away.

He’s expected to immediately ‘report’ any new friend to Ignis. And, really, most of the time it just… happens. Ignis says, “Anything interesting today?” And Noctis will just tell him damn near anything under the sun, which teachers pissed him off, what homework was annoying, how the jocks embarrassed the nerds at lunch, and all the other cliches. Then Ignis reports to his dad, dad, in turn, to the Kingsglaive, and the process starts.

But then Prompto comes into the picture, and Noctis has to make a very uncomfortable choice.

See, Prompto is all honesty. Upfront, he’s kind and generous, and he never asks Noctis for anything. Even when Prompto eyes Noctis’ discarded lunch vegetables, he waits for permission to eat them.

Even then, he asks, “You’re sure?”

It takes another confirmation from Noctis before Prompto chows down the lettuce and tomatoes.

Prompto is quiet and loud at the same time. He doesn’t talk over Noctis, waiting for him to say his peace or end his rant. He anxiously asks for a photo at the end of the day, and even then it’s not a selfie—it’s just a photo of the Prince flicking his pencil up and down the desk. He agrees, and it’s hardly something that can be used for blackmail or sold to the Nifs for info: it’s a photo of the revered prince acting like, well, a bored student.

Noctis is the one that gives Prompto his phone number, telling him that they can talk later about the algebra homework. Neither of them really understands what’s happening in that class, and he hopes that the two of them can puzzle through most of the homework to get it right.

The reaction is not the one he expects. Prompto shakes his head halfway through and holds up his hands. “You don’t need to give me your number!”

“Uh…” Noctis takes a moment to process this. “Don’t you want my number?”

“No! I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that—you giving me your number, I mean, but wouldn’t your security or whatever be upset?”

Noctis shrugs. “I mean, I guess? They’re not going to look through my phone and hunt you down.”

Prompto laughs nervously, but he relents and exchanges numbers with Noctis. When the last bell rings, they pack up, and Prompto pats him on the back. It’s obvious by his expression that the action took a fair amount of courage, so Noctis laughs and punches Prompto’s arm in retaliation.

It feels… good. He doesn’t feel like a blue blood; he feels like a teen who’s finally been allowed to live his life.

And he doesn’t want to lose this feeling.

“Anything interesting today?” Ignis asks as Noct slides into the passenger’s seat.

“Nah, nothing really.” And they drive away.

~*^*~

He keeps it under wraps for about two months.

In that time, Noctis learns a lot about Prompto—more than he’s ever learned about someone… normal, he guesses. The summary is that they have a crazy amount in common: they both have similar tastes in comics, movies, and video games. Both have played through the Assassin’s Creed series and all of the King’s Knight console games. They have the mobile game, and quickly make a guild with each other, reaping the benefits of playing together.

Even the stuff they don’t share, they can appreciate. Noct looks at Prom’s photos and comments on each and every one, showering him in compliments (which he really, really deserves more of). Prompto listens to Noctis talk about fishing and asks him questions like, “What’s the best lure to attract the fish around here?” and, “What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever caught?”

He’s even managed to avoid Ignis’ watchful eye. Every time he stays over at Prompto’s house (the first visit happens around the end of the first month), he says he’s staying after school for a club. It helps that Prompto’s house is a five-minute walk away, if you cut through the back streets.

Prompto’s house is empty and feels vacant, and each time he tries to pry, Prom simply says that his parents are working, or just out for the time being. Most of the house is medically sterile, as if Prompto doesn’t want to disturb anything. It’s obvious that someone other than Prompto lives there, since the furniture doesn’t match Prompto’s personality at all. It puts Noctis on edge, to say the least.

He has seen pictures of Prompto’s parents framed in the hallway and there are a few more hanging in Prompto’s room. But they’re few and far between, compared to the innumerable shots of landscapes and random people. There’s a smiling woman with flowing blonde hair and a man who looks a bit rough around the edges, with a teasing glint in his eyes. They look happy.

The story at home is anything but.

So Noct makes an effort to talk to him more, to visit more, to text more, to show that he cares. He manages to get the date of Prompto’s birthday, and goes nuts trying to think of a present. He looks online for the best camera available in Insomnia, and purchases an incredibly expensive one, with features he barely comprehends.

Prompto’s face is absolutely priceless. His eyes are wet with tears as he says, “You didn’t have to do this!”

“But I wanted to.” Noctis playfully rolls his eyes. “C’mon, don’t make me have to explain to my dad why I got a wicked expensive camera out of the blue.”

Prompto accepts the box, holding it like it’s made of glass. He secures it in his locker and doesn’t open it for the rest of the day. Noctis follows him home, watching as Prompto fawns over the camera with a reverent gaze.

It’s easily the happiest he has ever seen Prompto, and it’s almost enough to make him cry.

Maybe Ignis takes note of his changed behavior, maybe not. Either way, he doesn’t comment about Noctis’ sudden fixation with the phone, or how he won’t talk about his day, or the occasional smile Noctis gets while staring off into space. Maybe he just takes it as Noctis being a moody teenager going through a phase.

All that he cares about is that Ignis never finds out, because he dreads abandoning Prompto. It’s his first real friend, one based on true camaraderie and no exploitation whatsoever, and he doesn’t want to lose that to a background check.

When it did crash down around him, though, it was in the worst way possible. He gets a text from Ignis halfway through last period, telling him that a series of meetings he had to attend had been moved, and that he would need to leave school early to attend. He curses, scrambling for his work, shouts an apology over his shoulder to the teacher, and sprints out of the school. He knows Ignis: that text means he’s waiting in front of the school, and if he doesn’t hurry, Ignis’ll be pissed.

So who can blame him if he forgets something in his haste? It happens.

And it just so happens that what he forgets is his phone, and that alone is a massive problem for obvious reasons. What makes it worse is that, when Ignis pulls away from the school, Prompto appears out of nowhere and throws himself in front of the car to stop it. There’s a dull thud as Prompto is hit. He falls to the ground with a grimace.

Ignis’ quick reflexes keep Prompto from being run over, and Noct is scrabbling for the door handle before he fully processes what’s happening. “Your highness—!”

“It’s fine, Ignis.” Noctis calls over his shoulder, and he’s at Prompto’s side. The other teen is holding his knee and hissing, and Noctis feels a hot stab of guilt in his stomach. “Shit, Prom, you okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine.” Prompto manages to push himself up so that he’s sitting. “That’s gonna hurt tomorrow.”

“Why did you—?”

“Oh, yeah.” Prompto reaches for his blazer pocket and pulls out a familiar black phone with a moogle sticker coated phone case (courtesy of Iris). “You left your phone on your desk.”

He can feel his cheeks flush, and Noctis takes his phone with a small, “Thanks.”

A cough from behind makes Noctis turn his head. He meets Ignis’ steely gaze surprisingly well. Prompto, however, tenses on the ground. “Um…”

“Noctis,” Ignis chooses to ignore Prompto. “We need to go.”

He’s half tempted to snark back, say that the royal snobs at the Citadel can shove a broadsword up their asses because Prompto’s hurt, but he also knows that it’s an uphill battle. Instead, Noctis bites his tongue and nods, helping Prompto to his feet and to the sidewalk. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yep!” Comes Prompto’s cheery reply, and Noctis can’t help but smile back. “Text ya later?”

Noctis can feel Ignis drilling holes in the back of his head. “Yeah, I’ll text you first.”

He watches Prompto hobble back to the school building. He studiously ignores Ignis’ tense posture as he drives to the Citadel, his fingers twitching and gripping the wheel a bit too tightly.

Of course everything comes crashing down because of his stupid phone.

~*^*~

He waits until Ignis starts cooking dinner before pulling out his phone to text Prompto. He worries his lip as he thinks of what to say, planning paragraphs in his head before eventually settling on something short and to the point. A quick apology, and then he turns it off and puts it on the coffee table. He knows that Ignis will look through it later, to double check that no secrets have been wheedled out of him, so it’s best to apologize now and hope that nothing Prompto would say will raise any red flags.

He waits a minute for a reply, but quickly realizes that the lack of activity is bound to attract Ignis, so he pulls out his history homework and takes vague notes as he waits. When the phone does ding, he doesn’t look at it, instead feigning disinterest as he ‘works’.

He loses himself for a minute, thinking about what’s going to come next. It all depends upon what the Glaive finds and what Ignis thinks personally

“Noct.”

Plus, if he can convince Ignis that Prompto isn’t a threat, then the odds of getting him to hang around skyrocket.

“Coming.” He calls back and stands, grimacing at the vegetable-covered plate in front of his seat. “Really?”

“A fitting punishment, all things considered.” Ignis says as he settles down to eat, sticking the corner of his napkin underneath his shirt collar and picking up the appropriate kitchenware for eating a festive salad. “If you prefer something else, then by all means, the kitchen is yours.”

Noctis narrows his eyes and stalks into the kitchen. He grabs the kettle that he shoved into the corner some months ago and fills it with water before turning on the stove. He puts it on the stove with a touch more force than needed, and he considers Ignis’ flinch at the bang a victory. He grabs a Cup Noodle from the cabinet and a pair of chopsticks and waits for the kettle to whistle. “Nothing bad happened.”

“But it could’ve.” Ignis turned to look at him. “That could’ve simply been a ploy to get you out of the car. Anything could’ve happened, especially since you don’t have your weapon on hand and I was busy making sure no traffic would hit the car.”

“It’s Prompto. The day Prompto is an undercover Niff spy that was sent here to kill me is the day you take the stick out of your ass.”

“So his name is Prompto, then?”

Noctis throws his hands in the air. “He’s not a threat!”

“You don���t know that.”

“I think I would, considering how many other mooches have saddled up to me.”

Ignis’ jaw tenses, and they stare each other down. “I hope you’re aware of the repercussions of your actions.”

“I am.” The kettle whistles, and Noctis takes it off the stove before pouring it into his Cup Noodle. He grabs the flavor packet and chopsticks and stomps to his room. “And I don’t regret a damn thing.”

[jacksonmcb-blog]

16 GOING ON 29 ⇄ MCANDERMONT

WHO: Killian & Jackson McConnell-Beaumont, Lincoln Anderson

MENTIONS: None

WHEN: September 7, 2017, afternoon

WHERE: Brinkley hospital

NOTES: Killian finally wakes up, though it’s not quite what everyone expects

WARNINGS: amnesia, accident, head injury, hospitalization, more to probably come

Jackson-

Jackson sat beside Killian's bed where he'd been for the last few days, the weighty sixth book of the Harry Potter series resting in his lap as he read through the sixth chapter. It might have seemed stupid to other people, but Killian had asked him to read to him - so that's exactly what Jackson was going to do. It wasn't like he expected people to believe that Killian had come to him in a dream, but it had happened. Even if there was a possibility that Killian wouldn't remember it, Jackson would. He could still hear his husband's voice in his ear, telling him not to worry so much. Telling him how much he loved him, and how much seeing Jackson hurting was hurting him in turn. So Jackson had, instead, decided to focus on the positive things. Killian was alive. He was - for all intents and purposes - healthy. He just wasn't awake. But Jackson was going to do what he could to make his husband feel more comfortable in the hospital for when he did wake up; he'd even gone so far as to ask the nurses to extend the bed so Killian's 6'2" body could fit into it without feeling cramped.

Killian had asked for a brighter room, so Jackson had made sure to open up the windows a bit so there was more light in the room. Althea had brought a large bouquet of sunflowers when she came to visit, and Jackson had gone out and bought even more flowers. Stargazer lilies, lotuses, calla lilies. He'd bought multiple bouquets of both, and spread them throughout the room in an attempt to make the room a little brighter. He'd also made sure that the television stayed on cartoons or some kind of show on the Food Network. Whatever Killian wanted, Jackson was going to try his hardest to make sure that he got it.

Pausing in his reading for a moment, Jackson reached over to grab his water bottle from the small table in the room. He'd been reading for about an hour, and his throat was starting to get dry. As he put the bottle back down, though, he froze for a moment. He'd thought he'd seen movement, but the longer he watched - watching for another sign of movement - but he didn't see anything. Letting out a long sigh, he sat back in his chair. Looking up at Killian, he reached up to take his hand again before lifting it to his lips and pressing a light kiss to it. It had been two days since he'd seen Killian's eyes, since he'd heard his laugh, since he'd seen that smile - outside of a dream at least - and he was starting to go a little crazy. He needed his husband back.

Then he felt fingers gripping his, and he practically dropped the book to the floor. Sitting up once more, he moved closer to the bed before looking up at Killian's face. "K-Kil? Baby?" There was no response, but that didn't stop him from standing up and watching his face. "I saw his hand move. Then I felt his fingers gripping mine," he said, looking over at Link for a moment before looking back to Killian. "Come on, baby. Open your eyes. Come back to me," he whispered, reaching up to lightly card his fingers through Killian's hair.

Lincoln-

Lincoln was sitting in the chair he had called home for the last couple of days. He had his eyes closed as he listened to Jackson read. He loved Harry Potter and knew Killian did as well. So it was comforting to just listen to that instead of the beeping of Killian's monitors. He had gone out during dinner time to get some food for him and Jackson, bringing in some more flowers for Killian's room even though they were starting to run out of space since Cane had brought some up earlier too.

Lincoln opened his eyes as Jackson paused. He saw him get a drink and smiled a little at him. He knew Jackson's throat had to be killing him since all he had been doing was reading. While most people would think it's weird hearing Jackson talk about his dream and Killian coming to him it in, Link really didn't think it was all that strange. To him, anything was possible. Hell, he watched more paranormal shows than he cared to admit he watched. So to have something like this happen, Lincoln didn't really question it and instead went along with him.

Just as Link was about to close his eyes again, he heard Jackson mention Killian's name. He sat up a little listening to him, looking to the hand that Jackson had hold of. "I didn't see anything..." he said, keeping his eyes on Killian. Link scooted his chair a little closer to his best friend's bed, reaching out to take the other hand in his own hand to see if he could experience what Jackson had. "Dude, i swear if you're messing with us right now i'm going to kick your ass when we get out of here." He said jokingly, hoping it would get a reaction out of his friend.

Killian-

The first thing that Killian noticed was Jackson's voice. He was reading, but what? Obviously Harry Potter, but Killian didn't recognize the story; maybe it was fanfiction. Jackson was a nerd, after all. The second thing he noticed was that his head hurt. He felt like he had been hit by a truck. Killian groaned softly, his closed eyes shutting tighter. The groan brought something else to his attention. His mouth was dry. He coughed slightly, slowly blinking open his eyes. They weren't focused yet, but he knew his best friend was there. "Water," he croaked out. "Aspirin."

Jackson-

Jackson's eyes immediately started to water as he heard the groan coming from Killian. He should have felt bad - obviously the man was in pain - but at the same time, he was awake. That's all that mattered. "Oh my god," he said softly, a tear slipping down his cheek but a smile forming on his lips. "Y-You're awake," he said quietly, gripping Killian's hand a little tighter and trying not to lose it completely. Nodding a bit when he asked for water, Jackson chuckled softly at the request for Aspirin. "I'll see if the doctor's can get you something for your head," he said quietly, pressing another kiss to his hand before pressing a kiss to his head. He knew he should have gone to get the doctors or nurses now that Killian was awake, but now that he could see his husband's blue eyes he couldn't pull himself away. Reaching for the water bottle he'd been drinking from, he lifted it to Killian's lips so that he could drink. "I-I don't have a straw. So just be careful or you'll spill it everywhere," he said with a quiet laugh, tears still lining his eyes.

Lincoln-

Lincoln watched as Killian's eyes moved to close them tighter. A smile appeared on his face once he heard the groan. He knew Killian was going to be in pain considering how hard he hit his head on the pool on top of the stitches from closing said wound. Link looked up at Jackson, a huge smile on his face seeing the other male with tears in his eyes. As soon as he heard Killian's request, Lincoln nodded. He smiled at Jackson knowing he wasn't going to want to get up. "I'll get his doctor." Link said softly, not sure if loud noises were going to hurt even more. He made his way to the hallway to flag down a nurse to get the doctor to come check out Killian since he was awake. Lincoln made his way back in and took a seat back where he was. "I'm so glad you're awake, Kil. You've had us all worried sick."

Killian-

Killian slowly drank from the water bottle he was offered, before pulling back once he'd had enough. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light, noticing the flowers all around the room. "Damn, who died?" He groaned again, lifting up his arm slightly, intent on rubbing his head, before he felt a tug. He looked down at his arm, noticing the IV. That's when it sunk in. He was in the hospital. "Monty, what's going on? What the fuck happened, dude? Did you finally convince me to try out for football and it ended badly?" He managed a small smile, before finally looking at Jackson. "... Why do you look old? Are you on steroids? I know your dad is riding your ass, but damn."

Jackson-

Rolling his eyes a bit, Jackson laughed softly when Killian asked who died. "Well, you almost did if that counts for anything," he said with a shake of his head before leaning down to press another kiss to Killian's head before resting his forehead against his husband's. "I'm so glad you're okay," he said with a sigh. "You scared the fucking shit out of me, you asshole," he joked, chuckling lightly before leaning in to kiss him softly. Pulling back a bit at Killian's questions, Jackson couldn't help but raise a brow. Killian hadn't called him Monty in years, not since before he'd left for England, but he supposed that it wasn't that big of a deal. Then he started asking about football and saying that Jackson looked old or on steroids. "I'm not on ster-" He stopped in his tracks when Killian mentioned his dad. "M-My dad?" he remarked, standing up a bit. "What does my dad have to do with this?"

Lincoln-

Lincoln frowned a little, sitting back in his seat. He didn't know what else to say since it was as if he wasn't even there. After everything and Killian didn't even noticed he was there. He looked to Jackson, not really sure why Killian called him Monty or why he was bringing up his father. "Maybe I should just go..." he said finally, not really feeling like he belonged anymore.

Killian-

Killian finally noticed the other male in the room, furrowing his brow slightly. "Who are you? I mean, not that I mind. With your face, you can stay by my bedside as long as you want. Seriously, couldn't dream of you leaving." He managed a little wink, before looking back at Jackson. "Your dad, Monty. The reason you're a jock?" He rubbed his eyes, before shaking his head a bit. "I'm honestly so confused. You look, like, 30." He finally noticed his own hand, and looked even more confused. "Why am I so fucking tan? My skin looks like cancer. Did we --" His eyes traveled up a bit further. "Wh-When did I get muscles?" His eyes were wide; he was officially starting to freak out. "What the fuck is going on?!"

Jackson-

Jackson looked over at Link with a confused look on his face, even more so when Killian started flirting with Link. "Okay, funny Killian. Stop joking around. You know who he is. I'm not..." Jackson frowned a bit before letting go of Killian's hand and taking a few steps back. "I'll..I'll be right back. Stay with him, Link?" he asked, looking over at Lincoln before leaving the room to go find a doctor. Something was wrong.

Lincoln-

Lincoln looked at Killian with the most confused look on his face. He looked back to Jackson as Killian started flirting with him, completely confused as to what was going on. He nodded when Jackson said he would be right back. "Killian... it's me... your best friend? Lincoln?" he said, trying to get some sort of reaction from him that actually made sense.

Killian-

Killian looked at Link, shaking his head. "Uh. Monty is my best friend. I don't -- I don't know what's going on. I need to get out of here. I need to go."

Jackson-

Going to find one of the nurses, Jackson explained that they needed a doctor immediately. Something was wrong. Killian wasn't...Killian. He watched as the nurse called for a doctor before quickly making his way back to the room, catching the tail end of what Killian was saying. "You can't go anywhere yet, Kil," he said with a shake of his head. "You've been unconscious for over two days. The doctor needs to look at you. Just...calm down," he said with a concerned look on his face, moving back to his bedside.

Lincoln-

Link bit down on his bottom lip, not knowing what to say to his best friend telling him that they weren't best friends. He looked back as Jackson came back in, glad he wasn't going to have to say anything just yet while he tried to process everything.

Shortly after Jackson returned, the doctor made his way into Killian's room with his chart in hand. "Mr. McConnell-Beaumont." He said, looking from his chart as he made his way over. "Glad to see you're awake. Let's just get some of your vitals down and we'll talk about what's going on." He said, letting the nurse get Killian's pulse, blood pressure and temperature. "Your husband here says you've been mentioning things that don't exactly make sense. Can you tell me what year it currently is?" He asked.

Killian-

Killian stared at the doctor. "McConnell-Beaumont? Hus-Husband?" He looked at Jackson for a moment, before looking back at the doctor. "I don't -- what? It's - It's 2004, of course. Right?" He looked around the room. "Right?"

Jackson-

Jackson felt his heart drop as he listened to Killian talk. 2004. "Pl-Please tell me you're kidding," he said softly, swallowing hard as he looked between Killian and the doctor. This couldn't be happening. He shook his head a bit when Killian started looking around, asking if it really was 2004. "N...No. It's not," he said softly, feeling his knees starting to give out underneath him. Killian had told him in the dream that something felt off; like there was a wall in between himself and his body that he just couldn't get through. This wasn't happening. In 2004, Killian had only been sixteen years old, and he certainly hadn't had feelings for Jackson.

Lincoln-

The doctor looked back up from jotting some stuff down. "It's actually 2017. Other than this memory loss, everything else sounds like your accident didn't cause any permanent brain damage which is good." He said, setting the chart down by his side. "Traumatic Amnesia is common with head injuries and is usually temporary. I can't say how long these effects will last as everyone is different and it depends on just how severe the head injury was. As for how you can help, try to avoid loud noises and brighter lights. Rest is very important as it's a way for your brain to heal itself without having to worry about other things. Give little reminders of things that have happened from between where Killian is mentally right now and the present time. Things will start to slowly come back. Don't push it though, these things take time."

Killian-

"Am-Amnesia? 2017?" Killian asked softly, looking distraught. 13 years. He had lost 13 years of his life. He didn't understand, really. Well, he understood, he knew what amnesia was. But he was 16. He was 16 and certainly not married. To his best friend of all people. He rubbed a hand across his face, before looking at Jackson. "Explains why you look old, I guess..." He looked to Lincoln. "So you're... Lincoln, you said? Best friend, huh? And I'm married to Jackson..." He closed his eyes, shaking his head a bit. "What the hell happened to me?"

Jackson-

As the doctor spoke about the effects of the accident, Jackson quickly found himself collapsing into the chair beside Killian's bed. 13 years. Killian had lost 13 years of his life - of his memories. He didn't remember when they finally told each other how they felt. He didn't remember Jackson leaving for England - though, that was probably a good thing for now. He didn't remember getting back together. Or their marriage. Or anything. He didn't even remember the fact that he loved Jackson, let alone loved him enough to marry him. Putting his head in his hands for a moment while the doctor spoke about how to help Killian, he ran his hands across his face before letting out a quiet sigh. He could freak out on his own later. Killian needed him, that's what mattered. Shifting closer to Killian's bed, staying in the chair though - unsure if his legs would actually support him, he reached across to take Killian's hand again. That had never been unusual between the two of them, even before they'd been togehter. Hell, they had acted like a couple in some ways long before they actually became a couple. "You were in an accident, Kil," he said, trying to put on a brave face for his husband. His best friend. "You hit your head on the diving board at our house. Hard."

Lincoln-

As the doctor left, Lincoln looked back to Killian. He nodded a little, biting down on his bottom lip. "Yeah. We met around five years ago when I moved here from Pennsylvania." He explained to him softly. Link looked to Jackson, seeing the pain on the others face. 'It'll be fine' he mouthed to him to try and calm him down some. "It was a pretty bad accident. I um... I actually had to get you breathing again." He ran a hand through his hair. "That sounds bad. I should probably say I'm also a trained paramedic so it doesn't sound so weird."

Killian-

Killian opened his eyes, looking to Lincoln. "You saved my life, then? Thanks, dude. 'Preciate you. Honestly. Don't really want to die at 16." He paused suddenly, grimacing. "Or... 29, I guess?" He sighed heavily. "Alright, bros. Details. Lay them on me. Thirteen years is a long ass time."

Jackson-

Jackson looked across at Lincoln, nodding a bit even though he didn't know if he fully believed him. This was just fate's way of kicking his ass for thinking that things were finally in a good place. For once, not waiting for the other shoe to fall. For not being afraid of the future. This was fate's way of laughing at him. Jackson couldn't really bring himself to speak for a few moments, letting Lincoln talk. He didn't know what to think. What to say. If he'd been worried about losing his husband before, even if it was a baseless worry, now he actually had a valid reason to worry. Killian didn't remember their relationship, and it was highly unlikely he actually had feelings for him. "Um..." he shook his head a bit, not really sure where to start.

Lincoln-

Lincoln wasn't sure where to start from either. "Well, you're a kindergarten teacher and a damn good one too. The kids love you. You and I have been friends since I moved here basically. You actually had me as one of your groomsmen for your wedding." He said, looking back to Jackson at the mention of the wedding. "You really love him, Killian. Like, to the point where a good majority of the time I was to puke because you're so in love with each other."

Killian-

"Teacher?" Killian snorted a laugh. "Oh my god, really? Wow, that is... something else, honestly." He smiled softly at Lincoln's explanation. "I've never thought of him that way before, but... I mean, it doesn't surprise me. He's the most important person in my life. We already cuddle and hold hands and... honestly, act more like a couple than a lot of our couple friends do, now that I think about it. So, no, not a big stretch." He looked over at Jackson, grinning. "We have hot sex, right?" He honestly just wanted his best friend to smile; he looked so upset. Killian hated that.

Jackson-

Jackson looked up with genuine surprise as Killian started talking about how it wasn't too much of a stretch to believe that the two of them were married. He wasn't necessarily wrong, though. Jackson himself couldn't remember a whole lot from high school, especially when he was 16 - that was not a good year for him and he drank a lot more back then than he did now, honestly he wasn't sure how he managed to keep up good grades and his spot on the athletic teams that he did - but everything was still fresh for Killian. Now, at least. Jackson couldn't help but laugh, though, when Killian asked about their sex life. Glancing over at Lincoln, he figured he knew where this conversation was going to go. He was never one to be shy about his sex life with Killian, but he figured that Link wouldn't exactly want details like that. "Um, Link? You wanna go get us some food? He eats like a garbage disposal. Always has," he said with a laugh. A few minutes later, Lincoln was leaving the room with instructions to get two bacon double cheeseburgers, two large fries, a Big Mac, and some other snacks and whatever else Link himself might have wanted to eat. Once their friend was gone, Jackson finally turned his attention back to Killian before answering his question.  "Yes. We have hot sex. Very hot, actually," he remarked with a soft smile.

Killian-

Killian's mood seemed to immediately brighten at the prospect of food, his smile widening. Oh god yes, his stomach felt like he hadn't eaten in days. Actually, he figured, he probably hadn't. As Lincoln left, Killian turned back to Jackson, smirking. "Good. If I'm going to be stuck with one person for the rest of my life, I'm glad the sex is hot." His smirk fell slowly, and he bit his bottom lip. "I'm sorry I don't remember, Monty."

Jackson-

Jackson couldn't help but smile as he noticed that Killian perked up a bit more at the prospect of food. He had been nutritionalized through an IV for the last few days, but he hadn't actually had any solid food in that time. Jackson knew that Killian was probably starving - by his standards at least. He offered a small smile as Killian made a remark about being stuck with one person for the rest of his life, but Jackson figured if he was in Killian's shoes his reaction might have been the same. Marriage isn't necessarily someone thinks about at 16. "The sex is definitely hot. Like...sometimes can't walk for a day or so after hot," he laughed softly, shaking his head a bit as he noticed Killian's smile fall. "It's not your fault, Kil," he said. "I know you'd remember if you could."

Killian-

"Yeah, but... You're my best friend, you know? My world kind of revolves around you, honestly. And I... I don't want to be the reason you're hurting." Killian chewed on his bottom lip. "I don't remember ever being in love with anyone, honestly, but... I can only imagine that your husband waking up and not remembering any of your relationship together has to hurt. A lot. So I'm... I'm really sorry I'm causing you that pain."

Jackson-

Jackson shook his head again before getting up and moving to sit on the edge of the bed, holding Killian's hand as he did so. "Look. Yeah, it hurts a bit. I won't lie to you. I never have," he said with a light smile. "But I'd much rather you be awake and not remember anything than still in a coma. Or worse," he said with a light sigh. "At least you remember me at all. That's a plus," he said with a light laugh.

Killian-

"Always looking on the bright side, huh, Monty?" He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Part of why I love you." He suddenly paused, grimacing. "As a friend. Like, I guess more, but -- I don't - I don't remember that." He grimaced again. "I'm sorry. I'll stop while I'm behind."

Jackson-

Jackson just shook his head a little before shrugging a bit. "It's okay. Don't worry about it. I'm not expecting some huge overnight recovery. I mean, that would be nice, but it's not something that I see happening immediately, you know?" He paused for a moment before his brows furrowed together a bit. "Um, you mentioned my father. What's...what's the last thing you actually do remember?"

Killian-

Killian furrowed his brow, shrugging. "Uh -- I don't know? Homecoming, I think. Well, sort of. I remember you went with some cheerleader because you're a dumb jock -" He grinned, reaching over and shoving Jackson playfully, "-- and I got baked under the bleachers. After spiking the punch, of course."

Jackson-

Jackson laughed softly as Killian shoved him playfully. While Jackson had been forced out of the closet at 16, he hadn't been pushed out yet where Killian's memories were. In fact, he hadn't been discovered by his father until a few weeks before Christmas. That meant that Killian had no idea Jackson's father had kicked him out, and Jackson had - in turned - moved in with the McConnells until he graduated from high school. "Ah. Okay," he said with a laugh. "You getting baked under the bleachers wasn't necessarily an out of the ordinary thing, though," he teased, offering a wink in Killian's direction before shrugging a bit. He wasn't going to mention anything about getting kicked out if he could help it. The last thing he needed was Killian freaking out. Again. "Neither was spiking the punch, actually. You were quite the troublemaker, you know," he laughed.

Killian-

Killian shrugged. "What can I say? I like to have fun. And you know... I kind of hate that word. Troublemaker. I prefer... adventurous." He grinned. "Please say I'm still fun. That I'm not just an old guy who sits around being all domestic and shit. Please say I still have some excitement in my life."

Jackson-

Jackson laughed at the idea that Killian preferred to be known as adventurous rather than a troublemaker. "No. No. You were a troublemaker. You're not getting away with that one. You got me into so much trouble. Especially our Senior year," he said with a laugh. "It's not adventurous when you cut the principle's car in half, then weld it around the flag pole in the courtyard. Or when you create a slip n slide in the middle of not one, but three hallways, connecting them all together. No. You're a damn troublemaker," he said with a laugh. He paused for a moment when he thought about how to answer Killian's question. "I mean, you're not boring. You've never been boring or anything. You're still fun. But we do have a modicum of domesticity. It comes with the territory," he laughed a smile. "But I mean. You're still you, you know? You have your own room for video games and movies and all that jazz."

Killian-

Killian grinned at the few pranks that Jackson mentioned, letting out a laugh. He was glad that they played pranks together and he seemingly got Jackson to loosen up a little bit. "Oh man, sounds like we had a blast. I'm glad I still stuck with the pranks to the end." He scrunched up his nose a bit at Jackson's next words. "A -- I don't know what mo-- modi-whatever means, and two -- video game room sounds awesome, but do I still play pranks and party?"

Jackson-

Jackson laughed softly, nodding a bit in response. "We definitely did. There was one point where you managed to convince me to drill glory holes in the Senior bathroom stalls. Granted...we were high as fuck, but still. That was entertaining. That was an adventure. So I'll give you adventurous there," he laughed. "Modicum is...well it just means we are a little domesticated. But yes. You still play pranks. You have this tendancy to place rubber snakes or spiders in my office or in my coffee cups. You've also put kool aid in my shampoo. That's always fun. Though, it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it would bother you," he said with a laugh. "I don't mind the temporary change in hair color. You're that one that freaks out," he smirked. "You don't really party much anymore, though. I mean, you still smoke sometimes. We do. We were actually planning on smoking together soonish. But um, no you don't drink anymore," he said with a shake of his head.

Killian-

Killian couldn't help but laugh at the pranks he played on Jackson, especially the kool aid in Jackson's shampoo. "I freak out about my hair?" He raised his eyebrows. "But I literally just had a phase where I had green bangs! Well... Literally for me, at least." He looked down at his arms. "Then again, I seem to have taken an interest in my appearance." He thought for a moment, before grabbing the collar of his hospital gown and looking down, raising his eyebrows, looking surprised yet pleased. "Oh. I have abs. Nice." He furrowed his brow, looking at Jackson. "Is that why I don't drink? The calories? Am I health-conscious?"

Jackson-

Jackson couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes as Killian looked at his own body underneath his gown. "Yes. You have abs. They're one of my favorite things about you," he said with a laugh. "You have taken a larger interest in your appearance over the years, that's true. I mean, you've always dyed your hair, but you're more adamant about it now," he nodded. As Killian asked about why he didn't drink, Jackson shook his head a bit before sighing a little. "Um, no. I mean, you're kind of health-conscious? But you still eat like a preteen," he laughed. "You just work out more to make up for it." He was trying to avoid the fact that Killian had gone through rehab. He knew that would lead to why he'd gone to rehab, which would lead to why he'd started drinking.

Killian-

"The fact that I work out at all is mind blowing to me," Killian said with a snort. "The most working out that I remember doing is beating up the junior varsity quarterback. That was fun." He grinned. "Helped that he was shit faced, though. Then again, so was I..." He shrugged the thought away. "Anyway. That's cool, I guess. Kind of want to dye my hair blue, though." He looked to Jackson. "So, more details. Gimme."

Jackson-

Jackson laughed quietly. "You work out probably as much as I do," he said with a nod. "I work out for about an hour and a half every morning before I go to work, and then half an hour to an hour on the weekends. You work out on the weekdays for about half an hour, then an hour or two on the weekends. So yeah. You work out a lot," he said with a grin. Shaking his head a bit when Killian said he wanted to dye his hair blue, Jackson knew that when his husband got his memories back - choosing to be positive - Killian would kill him if Jackson allowed him to do that. When he was asked for more details, Jackson momentarily blanked on what to say. "Okay...what do you want to know?" he asked.

Killian-

Killian shrugged a bit. "I don't know. When did we get together? Who said 'I love you' first? Who proposed to who? What's our anniversary? What does our house look like? Do we have kids? Is that... is that even legal yet? I mean, if same sex marriage is legal, then I'd assume, but..." He shrugged again. "Or wait. Did we go out of state to get married? Is it even recognized here? ... We still live in Arkansas, right?" He glanced out the window. "We're not in California, right? Or New York? Oh my god, do we even still live in Cotton Plant?"

Jackson-

Jackson nodded a bit at all of Killian's questions. It was understandable that he'd want to know everything he missed. "Okay. Well. We got together the first time just after our graduation party. Then we were apart for a few years. Then we got together again, for real, about six years ago. I said I love you first. You proposed to me, and it was really sweet," he said, the smile on his face growing more as he remembered it. "Our anniversary is June 24. Um," he paused a moment, trying to remember all the questions he had asked. "Our house is two stories. Huge. Three bedrooms. Two baths. A den for your video games and stuff. A large pool in the backyard with a slide you insisted on getting. It's really nice. It was a wedding gift from my mother, to be honest," he said with a nod. "No, we don't have kids. But we...we just started looking into surrogacy. Some-Someone who would carry the baby for us," he said, tripping over his words a bit at the idea that if Killian didn't get his memory back, they'd probably never have kids. "Yes, marriage is legal here," he laughed. "We're still in Cotton Plant, don't worry."

Killian-

"Surrogacy?" Killian asked, raising his eyebrows. "Huh. That's... really cool, actually. I guess we have a good marriage, if we're looking into having kids together." He frowned, looking down. He looked at his left hand, seeing the ring on his ring finger. He couldn't believe that he had married Jackson. Well, he could. But at the same time, he never thought about his best friend that way. However, that was probably because he always thought Jackson was into girls and only girls. He only recently found out that wasn't the case. If he had known the whole time they were friends... maybe that would have been different. He continued looking down, picking at a random thread on his blanket. "I'll say it again. I'm not surprised we ended up together. If I... If I really thought about it... It would honestly be so easy to fall in love with you."

Jackson-

"Our marriage is...I mean it's not perfect, but it's good. We're good. You're...you're honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I know that's a lot to take in, so...I won't get too mushy," he said with a quiet chuckle. "But we've definitely had in-depth conversations about what we want and all that," he added, nodding. He watched as Killian went quiet for a little bit, staring at his wedding ring for a few moments before talking again. Raising a brow at Killian's words, Jackson's brows furrowed together just a bit. He'd never thought he'd hear 16 year old Killian saying something like that. Honestly, even in high school, he never could have imagined that he'd ever find himself in a relationship with Killian. Sure, he'd been in love with Killian since he was sixteen, but that didn't mean he ever thought Killian would feel the same. "Really?" he asked, his voice a little softer but watching Killian's expression and movements.

Killian-

Killian nodded, furrowing his brow a bit. "I mean -- yeah. You're my best friend. I mean, that's not to say that I'd say anything about it. To you -- at 16. I mean... you're my best friend. The very best friend I've ever had. I don't have to pretend around you. I don't have to be someone I'm not. You're... the only person in the world I'm 100% real with. You're everything to me. And I just... I don't know. If I ever gained feelings for you, I think -- I think I'd be afraid of losing you if things went south, you know? I wouldn't want to get together because I wouldn't want to break up. Losing you would... would kill me, honestly. There's no one in the world like you." He smiled softly. "But I guess -- I guess I told you, huh? And we didn't break up. We got married. So that's... that's good." He rubbed the back of his head. "I think if you had come out to me sooner... I'd have probably already fallen for you."

Jackson-

Jackson swallowed hard as Killian spoke about how breaking up would have killed him, already feeling the guilt setting back in. He wanted to say something. Want to say that's why Killian didn't drink anymore, but at the same time he didn't want to bring that up. But then, he also didn't want to find Killian drinking one night, either. The more he listened, though, the stronger the urge was to just lean over and kiss him. He'd grown so used to being able to kiss Killian without thinking about it that he had to actually stop himself from just leaning forward. "Well...I mean, we...we did break up once. It...It definitely wasn't pretty," he said with a slight shake of his head, the pain of the memory still fresh in his mind. "But eventually we came back together. There's...there's never been anyone that could ever compare to you. I know this...this might be a bit much to hear, but you're the love of my life. That's...that's part of why I was so scared when you got hurt," he said, running his thumb over Killian's wedding ring. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you, to be honest." He paused for a moment, though, as Killian's words sank in. "I-I'm sorry that I didn't come out sooner then," he said with a quiet chuckle. "We could have had so much more time than we did..."

Killian-

Killian watched Jackson's thumb on his wedding ring, before finally looking up at the other male. "Hey, watch it, man. I just said that I probably wouldn't have said anything. And more time? You act like one of us is dying or something. Newsflash: I'm fine. Amnesia, sure, but fine. We have a whole lifetime together. And --  And I get that you're scared. Okay? I get that. I know you,  Monty. You're shitting your pants because you think I'm not gonna get my memory back and then -- boom, no husband. But you need to seriously chillax, okay? The doc said it's usually temporary, right? And it'll take time, sure, whatever. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to get them back. And you know what? So what if I don't? I fell in love with you once, I'm pretty sure it's likely to happen again. Especially with you being all sweet on me and stuff." He shrugged. "Don't sell yourself short. You're hot, you're smart, you're funny, you're caring and sweet and perfectly imperfect and -- and you're my best friend and I'm -- I'm open to the idea of us, okay? Is it weird? Yeah, a little. But I'm open. So just have faith, okay? Don't give up on me yet."(edited)

Jackson-

Jackson couldn't help but raise a brow when Killian told him to watch it, lifting his eyes to look at the other man once more. The thing was, though, that Killian was right. Every single thing he was saying was right on the money. He was terrified that Killian would never get his memory back, he'd fall in love with someone better than him - because he still couldn't see how someone as amazing as Killian would want a complete nerd like him - and then he'd be alone. That's what really scared him. He couldn't help the smile that started to grow on his lips, though, as Killian said that even if he didn't get his memories back he'd probably fall for him again. "How do you know me so well, even at 16?" he asked with a quiet laugh. "And-And I'm not...I'm not giving up on you," he said with a shake of his head. "I'll never give up on you. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You're not getting rid of me that easily," he said with a laugh. "No, when I said we could have had more time...I-I was talking about before our first break up," he admitted with a sigh. "I mean, granted, I don't think we've had enough time now either, but I'm not giving up on you. That'll never happen."

Killian-

"Good. Don't, okay? Ever. And I know you because... You're Jackson. You're my very best friend in the entire world and I spend way too much of my free time around you. Most of it, actually. My mom said we're glued at the hip, and I think she may be right." He let out a soft laugh. "There's no one in the world I'd rather spend every waking moment with. There's no one I'd rather cuddle with, or share my secrets with or --" He paused, letting out a laugh. "Wow, I sound like I have a crush. Never realized it until now. Maybe I do." He smiled softly, shaking his head, before he looked at Jackson for a few moments, his eyes soft. "Will you cuddle with me? I just... I kind of want you near me right now."

Jackson-

Jackson felt his heart skip a beat and his smile broadened as he listened to the way that Killian was talking. He did sound like he was describing a crush, but there was no way that Jackson was going to interrupt him. And he certainly wasn't about to complain. When he realized that Killian had lost his memory, he had thought that he'd lost his husband. But maybe not. Even if Killian didn't get his memories back - though, the stubborn side of him continued to remind him that he would - things could still work between them. Jackson wholeheartedly believed that their hearts would always find their way back to one another, and something like this was no exception. As Killian asked him to cuddle with him, Jackson nodded a bit before getting up out of the bed and then kicking his shoes off to crawl in underneath the covers beside him. "You don't have to ask me twice," he said with a soft laugh, wrapping an arm around his husband and leaning back against the bed.

Killian-

Killian smiled almost shyly, cuddling into Jackson. He didn't know why his cheeks were turning pink, or why butterflies suddenly errupted in his stomach. He didn't know why his heart was beating a million miles a minute, or why goosebumps were suddenly popping up on his skin at Jackson's touch. His best friend had never affected him like this before. He suddenly felt like one of those lame girls in school with crushes on the cute boys. He had a crush on Jackson. He knew it, he totally knew it; he was stupid but he wasn't dumb. He went to wrap his legs around Jackson's -- something they commonly did as teenagers when they cuddled -- when he found out that it wasn't as easy anymore. Furrowing his brow, he removed the covers, looking at their legs. "Uh... When did I become a fucking giant? Liam's tall, sure! I guess it's a family thing because my dad is too, but I -- I'm not tall! And now I'm just -- a giant!"(edited)

Jackson-

Jackson had made himself comfortable on the bed, thankful to finally be able to cuddle up in his husband's arms or with his husband in his arms, and had just wrapped his arm around Killian when the other started to fuss a bit. Jackson couldn't help the laughter that burst from his lips when Killian threw the covers off of them, only to find that he was quite a bit taller than Jackson. "Honestly, you've been taller than me for so long that I forgot there was a time when that wasn't the case," he laughed, shaking his head a bit. "And I'm definitely going to remind you later that you called yourself a giant. Just so you know. It's a constant source of debate. Your giantism," he teased. "But to answer your question," he continued. "You hit a growth spurt around Christmas when you were...well, sixteen," he said with a nod. "I stayed the same height while you shot up into the clouds," he said, pouting a little. It was still a mild sore spot for him. "You're 6'2" and I'm 5'10 now."

Killian-

"Oh," Killian said, blinking a little. "Damn. I'm, like, Liam's height now. And my dad's. Four inches is a lot, Monty." He paused. "Now that I think about it, Monty is kind of a weird nickname now, isn't it? Because I'm a Beaumont too now. What do I call you? Jacky?" he asked, referring to the nickname he used not nearly as much.

Lincoln-

Lincoln walked out of the elevator trying to keep everything balanced in his arms. He looked up once he got to Killian's room and toed the door open. "Food time!" He said, using his foot to close the door again. "I ended up getting a little more than what you said but I figured neither of us really ate my these last few days, Jack." He said, setting the food down on the table. "Fuck that was heavy. So... what'd i miss?"

Jackson-

Jackson laughed softly at Killian's reaction to his new height. "It is, but it's another thing you can blame on your genes. Though, I happen to like your height. It means I get to be the little spoon most of the time," he smirked. He nodded a bit when Killian asked what he called him now, being that he was a Beaumont too. Jackson didn't like the fact that he was still a Beaumont, but the only reason he'd kept his last name was for his mother's sake. He wasn't mad at her. "Yeah. You call me Jacky most days," he said with a smile. Looking up as the door opened, Jackson smiled and laughed a bit when he saw all the food that Lincoln was carrying. "That's fine. You're not wrong. I haven't really ate much in the last few days, and I'm sure you haven't either. So. Extra food is probably a good thing," he said with a nod. Smirking when Link asked what he'd missed, Jackson shrugged a bit. "I mean, he called himself a giant. So. I'm never going to let that one go," he laughed.

Killian-

Killian raised his eyebrows at the amount of food Lincoln brought, already salivating at the thought of munching into something. His stomach felt far too empty for comfort. He furrowed his brow at Jackson's words, looking over at him. "But I am a giant. Is that not usually something I say or something? I'm confused." He had a feeling he'd be experiencing that a lot lately.

Lincoln-

Lincoln laughed a little hearing that Killian was calling himself a giant. He shook his head, passing out some burgers. "We actually had a little disagreement the other day about it. You don't think you're a giant and hate when we call you it." He said, opening his Big Mac box and took a bite into the food.

Jackson-

Taking the food from Link, he sat up a bit in the bed to make himself more comfortable before opening his own Big Mac and biting into it. "For some reason, you're really opposed to being called a giant. We were talking about Halloween costumes the other day, and one of us made an off-handed comment about you being a Jolly Green Giant, and you were not happy. I don't know why you hate it, to be honest," he said once his mouth wasn't full. "I love the fact that you're taller than me, to be honest. I'm pretty much the perfect height to fit in your arms so..." he trailed off a bit, shrugging slightly. There were other benefits, but he didn't want to dwell on it too much. "So...aside from confused and your head hurting, how do you feel?" He asked.

Killian-

Killian listened to the two of them, biting into his bacon double cheeseburger in almost a greed-like manner. He raised his eyebrows at the costume idea, shaking his head. He spoke when he had swallowed most of his food in his mouth, but some still remained. "Heck no, I want to be Gumby. Not some weird asparagus-looking freak. I don't want people to see me and think of a gross pee smell." At Jackson's question, he shrugged. "I dunno. Tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week, honestly."

Lincoln-

Lincoln laughed a little listening to Killian. "So you'd rather wear a huge green costume?" He asked curiously. Link looked back to Jackson at his question before Killian answered. "That's a normal feeling for someone who's hit their head as good as you did." He said, shrugging a little. "I wouldn't be surprised if you had a concussion on top of everything else."

Jackson-

Jackson couldn't stop the laugh that burst from his lips when Killian said he wanted to be Gumby. "Out of all the tall things in the world, you pick Gumby?" he asked with a grin, looking over at Killian with a look that said 'really?'. "I mean, you could have gone with The Hulk or Buddy the Elf or Jack Skeleton or something, and you pick Gumby," he shook his head a bit before taking another bite of his burger. Jackson nodded a bit at Lincoln's suggestion that he could have even had a concussion. "You probably could sleep for a week if you really wanted to. That sounds about right for most head injuries...and you in general," he laughed.

Killian-

"What's wrong with Gumby?" Killian asked, pouting a little bit. "Gumby is fucking awesome. I mean, sure, I could be Jack Skellington, and that'd be awesome as fuck, but... I dunno. Gumby is fun. I like fun! Jack is... well, he's kind of scary, to be honest. Love the movie, but it still freaks me out a little bit sometimes. I enjoy it more when I'm high." He grinned, shrugging. Killian took another bite of his burger, before letting out a yawn once the food was swallowed. "Fucking hell, I need a nap." He rubbed at his eyes, sinking back down in the bed and cuddling further into Jackson. He rubbed his head against his friend's chest, nuzzling into him.

Lincoln-

"It's just... it's not something I was expecting you to say is all." He said, taking another bite from his food. Link grabbed his drink and took a sip from it, setting it back on the table. "Take a nap, Kil. We're not going anywhere."

Jackson-

"I love how you just skip right over the most fun character in the others I mentioned. Buddy the Elf is fucking entertaining and fun as hell. You just get to run around screaming 'SANTA!' at old guys with beards. Like...seriously." Finishing his food a few minutes later, he sighed softly before laying back - watching Killian eat and listening to Lincoln talk. As Killian finished his food and laid back, cuddling into his side and nuzzling his chest, Jackson felt his stomach do flips. He honestly hadn't been sure Killian would still want to cuddle like that; part of him thought that Killian might have thought it would be too weird. Regardless, though, he easily wrapped an arm around Killian and held him close. "It's okay, Kil. Get some sleep," he said with a nod.

Killian-

Killian closed his eyes when both men told him to get some sleep, nodding a bit as he yawned again. "Maybe I could be Buddy," he said softly, already half asleep. "He sounds fun. We'll talk --" Yawn. "-- talk about it later." He nuzzled against Jackson again, before quickly drifting off to sleep.