#and getting comfortable with math is a lot about learning to go back and forth between the concrete and the abstract

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

another thing i constantly expect to be more helpful than at this point i have reason to believe it will ever be is telling kids to think about quarters when they multiply by 25. again to me this is a very intuitive leap and if you ask most kids older than like first grade (and even some first graders who've done a money unit) how much is like 7 quarters they can tell you. but they simply will not connect that to 7 x 25. they just won't.

[ruewrote]

𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡.

PAIRING: stiles stilinski x fem!reader WARNINGS: none GENRE: fluff SONG INSPIRATION: teenage dream by katy perry WORD COUNT: 1.2k

navigation | ask | stiles stilinski masterlist

it wasn't out of the blue for you and stiles to have a sleepover on fridays, actually it was a sort of unspoken rule between the two of you.

it first started when you said that you had never watched star wars before, which led to the both of you sitting on your couch with a big bowl of popcorn in between.

him explaining the little parts you'd get confused about or him just ranting about his favourite scenes. after that it was a back and forth of showing each other your favourite unseen movies.

when finishing said movie the following days you'd receive multiple memes from him about the specific films, it had become a recurring pattern that you'd come to love. it almost felt weird if he didn't.

tonight it was your turn to introduce him to the to all the boys i loved before trilogy since you'd been obsessed with the movies since they first came out.

he was on the fence about watching them since he wasn't a huge fan of romcoms, you somehow convinced him by saying "it's practice for watching them with your future girlfriend!" internally wincing at that.

every friday you felt more anxious before stiles showed, trying to fluff up your pillows and straighten out your blankets. wanting to make everything perfect.

you had a huge crush on stiles, how could you not after spending so much time together, learning all of his little quirks, his likes and his dislikes, the only thing you weren't sure about was the way he felt about you.

it was the one thing you wanted to know the most about him. did he think about you the same ways you thought about him? did he like the way cuddled when you'd watch these movies and shows with him?

you couldn't tell him though, what if he didn't feel the same way you did and it completely ruins the good friendship you have right now?

what would it take for you to finally tell him?

ding dong!

the doorbell ringing a couple times had you jogging down the stairs, opening the door with a warm smile to see hyper stiles.

"i'm so ready to get my movie night on! i had a math test today and let me tell you it sucked," he whines as he dramatically wraps his arms around your waist as he fake cries into your shoulder.

"well if it helps i have enough microwaveable popcorn to keep us going through the apocalypse soo you coming upstairs or what?"

with that said he zips past you up your stairs, falling up them in the process, making you giggle at his eagerness as you follow close behind him.

watching stiles practically swan dive onto your bed and aggressively sniff your pillow has you side eyeing him, "why is your bed so much comfier and smells so much nicer than mine? it's so not fair."

"it's a little thing called fabric softener and if you continuously jump into your bed the way you do mine, then i guess you've got your answer you dufus," you laugh at him burrowing himself deep under your duvet.

"plus i've slept in your bed it's plenty comfy, the key is lots of pillows and fluffy blankets." he hums as you settle yourself beside him before pressing play on the movie.

it was like ten minutes into the film when you could feel him slightly shuffle closer to you, keeping your eyes on the screen pretending it didn't happen. just patiently waiting until he felt comfortable enough to say something.

"can...can we cuddle?" you wordlessly lifted your arm, letting him slip himself under, his head on your chest, the rest of his body lightly pressed to your side.

it was like second nature to you two, whether either one of you had a bad week you'd take turns holding each other. you helped install healthy mannerisms that proved that it was okay for a man to be held because they deserve it too and that it was okay for guys to cry no matter who they're with.

so yes , when he had a rough day he'd often walk up to you and bury his face into your neck, his arms firmly wrapped around you as you cupped the back of his head and rubbed soft circles on his back just letting him know that you were there for him.

with everything he had gone through he deserved all the comfort he could get and if the source was you then so be it.

you would be lying if you said that your heart didn't speed up at the closeness and how his touch on your skin left goosebumps.

trying to be as casual as possible, you raise the hand that was currently wrapped around his shoulders to gently stroke his hair, feeling him physically melt into you calmed your nerves.

feeling your eyelids slowly droop, your hand movements become slower so your palm now laid on the back of his neck, fighting sleep felt so difficult when he was beside you. his presence was so peaceful, comforting even without him saying anything.

the early start of your day hitting even harder now. He won't mind if you rested your eyes for a little bit, right?

stiles noticed the similarities between the two characters to the both of you, but there's no way that you deliberately put this on as a sign? was he reading too deep into it?

when he went to question you about it, lifting his head he was met with you sleeping peacefully. his gaze softened at the sight, gently tucking the piece of hair that fell in front of your face.

"you are so goddamn beautiful and don't even know it, even when you sleep? like can you save some beauty for the rest of us?" he chuckles at his own joke.

"i don't know how long i can keep pretending that i'm not totally in love with you...there really isn't anything that i wouldn't do for you." he whispers and he studies your features.

"it's honestly crazy how i feel your absence in everything that i do when i'm alone, in every place i go without you." he sighs, going to go back to watching the tv.

"you really mean all of that?" you whisper, making him jump back.

"uh- i-i do, but i thought you were asleep?"

"no i was just resting my eyes, but i'm sorta glad that you thought i was for you to finally confess your feelings for me." you smirk at him.

his mouth opens and closes, utterly bewildered at what you just said, "what do you mean finally?"

"You realise that i like you too, right? that i have for the longest time?" stiles eyes now wide, looking even more lost than before.

"you like me? like like me like me?"

sitting up, grasping the back of his neck, "what are you..." pulling him closer, your lips brushing against his. it takes him a second to register the kiss before melting into it. leaning closer to deepen the kiss. his hands brushing over your hips as he laid you down, now hovering over you. your hand running through his hair, tugging at the roots.

you're both now smiling as you share a few more pecks before pulling away. "so you do like me!" he grins, "oh my god. dude yes!"

"ya know if you're gonna be my girlfriend, you're gonna have to calling me dude."

"would you prefer shnookums?"

"that's it!" he pulled away just enough to tickle you.

from that night forth you and stiles had become inseparable, practically connected at the hip. but you wouldn't want it any other way.

comments and reblogs are appreciated ♡

© ruewrote 2024.

[solarsleepless]

hello all

welcome back the kristy thomas autism analysis, where i'm rewatching the show and writing down her autistic traits as i see em (as well as noting any neurodiverse traits in the other girls). here's part one if you haven't seen it.

this ep is not narrated by kristy, so she is not the 'main character' in this episode, which basically means there's going to be a LOT shorter than before

without further ado, let's jump right in!

Episode 2

"did he ask you to the dance or not?!" autistic people often don't pick up on things when they're indirectly stated, and much prefer a direct way of speaking because we tend to not pick up on the double meaning, which is clearly showcased with how much value kristy gives on the exact phrasing here

"subtlety is not among her many talents" more examples of kristy's bluntness—she doesn't feel the need to sugarcoat anything she's saying, she's just stating what's true

kristy is extremely and visibly confused by the notion that him saying he'd "see her there" is him asking her out. again, more emphasis on how she needs directness

oh also good time to note: comfort clothes!!! autistic people tend to gravitate towards clothes that feel nice. from this point onwards we see kristy wearing a lot of hats, which can feel good pressure-wise or even texture-wise.

oh also also, kristy is pretty queercoded!!! research right now indicates that autistic people are much more likely to identify under the lgbtqia(+) umbrella

something i didn't have enough space to note last time is that kristy generally wears much more comfortable clothes than the rest of the bsc. not that they actively wear uncomfortable clothes, but she's the only one who really dresses plain, with sweatpants, jeans, and soft shirts.

stimming: fidgeting slightly with the twizzlers :)

even More issues with bluntness: she doesn't understand how rude it is to say that her friend's dad is crazy and so forth because of his being obssessive over aforementioned friend.

not much to say on her response to mary anne's "and what would you know about having a normal dad?!" (ouch, mary anne), it's perfectly understandable. the way she just ups and runs without saying anything can be read as autistic.

additional notes

as this episode is claudia centric, we get a much bigger view into what she's like at school and whatnot. almost straight away, she tells us that above everything, she's good at art—which isn't in and of itself a sign, but with everything else, it can be! people with adhd can like art for a variety of reasons: the ability to just sit back and focus your mind on just one thing you want to create, the fact that you can create as well is important, the textures you can use and feel, the way you just sort of disconnect your mind from everything else. she remarks that she also likes it because there's no homework or tests, things adhders are notoriously bad at keeping track of due to their executive dysfunction.

this episode showcases most of all how she struggles with school. especially if claudia is dyslexic/dyscalculiac as she's slightly implied to be, pair that with adhd, and she's not living the vida loca.

as well as showing the same traits listed in part 1, janine also mentions she has noise-canceling headphones, which are common party of autistic culture as sound generally affects us the most. adhd and autism are also often hereditary, so if janine is autistic, it's likely that claudia is similarly nd.

claudia is shown to not understand how the math works, even when stacey explains in depth. she asks "and how do you do that?" and dyscalculia impairs how easy is it to understand mathematics, even if they're regarded as "simple" to others. there's also a pretty high comorbidity rate between dyscalculia and adhd with 11% having dyscalculia. generally, it's common to see adhd paired with another learning disorder, with 45% of ppl with adhd also having a learning disorder

stimming: tapping her hands on the table and swaying her leg

mary anne sits cross-legged in her chair: autistic people tend to have a heightened proprioceptive sensory input, which is basically why we sit funky, and why it is physically uncomfortable to sit "normally", with both feet on the ground.

anxiety is very common in autism, which both mary anne and especially her dad display. her dad's very autistic coded as well, but we can get into that in later episodes.

[threeclans]

Hi! I hope all is well. Ive been in the wcrp community for a few years now and Im currently in the process of rebooting my own rp server. Ive tried several times and have been struggling with keeping them running/staying motivated because activity seems to die completely about a month or two after opening… I was wondering if you had any advice for running a long-term rp like this? Anything is appreciated.

Hi! Advice as far as group management goes is always something that will vary from group to group — what works for us might not be exactly what another group wants to follow for their own guidelines, depending on preferences and standards for how certain things like time and server setup are handled — but I'd be happy to go into some things that I think have led to ThreeClans seeing a lot of success through the 8 years we've been active!

We've had to do a lot of adapting and learning during this time, which is the first thing I'll make note of. When our group started, we were roleplaying on Skype, and our organization looked quite a bit different than it does now today! Still, we've kept a lot of things from our past too, like our commitment to keeping up with the pace that we've chosen for our group (which follows a real life time system, so that the flow of time progression proceeds naturally in tandem with the flow of time in real life — each day that goes by in real life is the equivalent of one roleplay day, so that you don't have to worry about doing any math to track how your characters should be aging or progressing) and our longstanding lore and rules for the sake of member comfort.

One thing to keep a group going that I've found beneficial in ThreeClans on the modding front is making management something you feel capable of handling! As a Mod, you're dedicating quite a bit of your free time to something that's a hobby, and if you aren't able to invest your time or passion into a group, it's easy for members to feel uninvested too. To make this smooth for everyone, set yourself up for success! One way we do this in ThreeClans is by making things comfortable for us. We like to keep our channel numbers low, for example, so that we're not constantly darting back and forth between hundreds of text chats trying to keep up with what's being said. We've also been told this helps members feel less overwhelmed in what would otherwise come off as a "large server" with many channels to drown in. As an example, I've attached a screenshot below to display what our setup looks like for three of our main categories for NettleClan, CreekClan, and JaggedClan and the amount of channels we have accessible for each one.

When these are kept open, I can see them all at once on my screen without scrolling. Any notifications, therefore, are visible, and I can keep a close eye on all activity! Some of these channels are also temporary, and therefore we're usually even a bit lower in number. One other thing to note here is organization in the way you name things. Being able to search your channels for relevant information using Discord's search feature makes modding tasks easy. Say you need to reference a roleplay done by a member: by knowing exactly what format of naming you use for the channels you have available, you'll know where to look when searching!

When it comes to motivation on both the behalf of Mods and members, it's definitely a delicate balance. Sometimes you just can't be sure who will "click" in a group or with a particular opening. In ThreeClans, we always try to prepare for our openings with the awareness that we may have members who join and then drop off in the early weeks of being in the server for one reason or another. They may not mesh with the server atmosphere, they may feel overwhelmed with the amount of history or the amount of people present, they may simply get too busy to be prepared to take on roleplaying at the time and may not have anticipated such a thing when applying! For whatever reason, sometimes things just don't work out. We'd advise, then, leaving some "extra room" when you open a roleplay for these occurrences. Accept enough applications so that even if a couple of members do decide to depart, you won't be out of your entire member base.

Of course, you don't want to resign yourself entirely to the idea of people leaving! Like I mentioned, feelings of being overwhelmed can sometimes crop up, or sometimes people may just be a bit shy. In this case, the best thing you can do is be prepared to include them. Go out of your way to say hello specifically to them as they join the server! Offer a compliment when you DM them to give them their invite. When setting up the server for new members, be sure to make sure that every person is included in conversations about character development and relationships. It's your job as a Mod to take note of who clusters together and who might be a little more quiet, and while you can't make anyone talk, you can reach out and let them know you'd love to roleplay with them when you have a chance! This is something you should also encourage members of your roleplay to do if you have a pre-existing server. In ThreeClans, I think part of the reason we see success in new openings is because our current member base is so actively welcoming and completely excited to say hello to any new participants when they do hop in to the server that it's easy to feel like you've made a friend from the start.

When people feel like they fit in, they're more likely to maintain engagement in a group. Let them feel like they can come to your Mod team with ideas, and you'll be able to bounce your own thoughts off of them and help generate further plotlines that fuel you past that initial thread of the 1-2 month period of excitement. Of course, sometimes it has to be up to you and your Mod team to take note of the unique traits of people and their characters and come up with pitches to present to them on your own. This can be exciting for members as they feel included in something that makes them want to keep moving along — in addition, I'd always suggest that when you start a group, you should have an idea of how your opening plot is going to slot in new additions.

All too often I think people tend to have a basis for lore / setting / staff characters and neglect to imagine the plot threads that will need filling in by new additions. This can mean creating a draft and reworking it a few times as you figure out who the characters that'll come to populate your roleplay server are, of course, but even having a loose idea of a plot such as "This opening will be based around the idea of a clan that has been stable for seasons upon seasons, but now with the introduction of a branch group claiming to be descendants of former clanmates who went missing years ago, they're forced to reckon with what they really know about their history and how it might impact the reality of their cozy lifestyle and current leadership," gives you something to work with. Member characters can fit into the role of characters comfortable with their normal lives (soon to be disturbed) or in the position of those about to shake things up, depending on where you choose to go with things.

Another thing to mention as far as activity goes is maintaining OOC connections! It might take some time with a fresh group, but part of what keeps ThreeClans together, in my opinion, is the bonds formed by our members and the fact that we all often get together to have fun outside of roleplay settings. Things like movie nights hosted on stream or casual gaming sessions / nights hosted by Mods or staff can really bring a community together and foster a sense of belonging which translates to an overall feeling of happiness in a server. You can choose to host OOC events that have an impact on the IC world too, like contests to make up parts of the lore of your server or to create things like clan icons or server specific resources with special rewards like character art given out to anyone who participates!

This is getting long, though I could go on for ages about all the things that can compliment a server and its continued activity. At the end of the day, sometimes you just have to keep trying! Your first attempt or your first few attempts might fall through, but if you show continued passion and find the right group of people to work with, you'll manage to make something that continues steadily along, I'm sure!

Mod Maya

[mrspasser]

Don’t tell mom

Matchablossom fanfiction

Kojiro planned to feed Kaoru, close up the restaurant, change his clothes and then head to S. He should've known that the kids don't care for his plans...

In which Reki calls for help, Kaoru has secret pockets in the sleeves of his kimono and there's improper use of a trash can.

"You want coffee before we go?" Kojiro asks as he takes the empty plate and wineglass away from where his last customer of the day sits at the bar.

Kaoru dabs at his lips with his napkin and hums thoughtfully. He crumples the cloth up and tosses it on the plate before Kojiro turns away. "Might as well."

"Thought you could use the caffeine," Kojiro offers. "You've had a long day. If you want to win any races tonight you're gonna need a double espresso." It's said with as much faux innocence as he can muster and it immediately makes the flint appear in Kaoru's eyes, just like he intended.

"I can win with my eyes closed when I'm racing you!" Kaoru is already up from his chair, leaning his hands on the bar.

"Because you cheat, letting your robot girlfriend take the wheel!" Kojiro calls back through the open kitchen hatch. He quickly cleans the plate and the glass in the sink, doing the last bit of clean up before he can close up for tonight. He already did the rest while Kaoru was eating, grumbling about his day. The master calligrapher had two workshops today and those always tire him out, mostly from having to socialise with lots of different people. If Kojiro wanted to tease him, he'd say he's tired from having to smile all day; straining muscles he never uses. That's not it, though, Kaoru smiles often enough. It's usually hidden behind a black mask, or only visible to those who have the privilege. Kojiro loves having that privilege.

Their bickering back and forth is enough to rile Kaoru up, make him forget about his earlier lethargy. Having a full stomach helps too. The man always forgets to eat when he's busy at his studio, so Kojiro was happy to feed him today when he showed up towards the end of dinner service. He's always happy to feed his friend; he likes having some company while he putters around the bar to clean up. His servers straighten out the front room and the kitchen staff does most of the cleaning in the back, leaving only the loose ends for their chef. They have a system and it works. Sometimes even Kaoru helps: lining up the centrepieces at the tables with the artworks on the wall, or something equally perfectionistic. He doesn't need to help to earn his meal, Kojiro mainly likes the comfort of having his best and oldest friend around.

When his phone buzzes in his pocket, Kojiro lifts a finger to stop Kaoru's angry rant. His friend glares at him, but obediently shuts his mouth. He checks to see who it is and then hits the speaker button. "Hey Reki, what's up?"

"Joe! I'm so happy you picked up! We uh... We kinda need your help."

"What did you do?" Kaoru arches an inquisitive eyebrow at his words, inching closer to where Kojiro rounds the bar so he can hear the conversation better.

Reki immediately gets defensive. "Who says I did something?" Kojiro and Kaoru exchange a meaningful glance at his tone. To be fair, it's a one in three chance that Reki was the one that caused the trouble. Langa and Miya should never be ruled out. "And why do you immediately assume something bad happened?"

Kojiro sighs and rolls his eyes. "Why else would you need help?"

"I could be needing help with my maths homework!"

"You would've called Cherry." Kojiro ignores the smug look from his pink haired friend. He did fine in school, but he likes working with his hands more. Besides, he's kinda lost touch with the non-practical side of the things they learned in school. Kaoru is better at it anyway. 'Nerd' he mouths at his friend, who elbows him in the side in retaliation.

"Fine," Reki relents. "But we could really use a hand. Can you come to the park?"

"Did one of you bail and need a ride to the hospital?" Kojiro's mind is suddenly filled with the images of blood and broken bones. There's a rail slide in the park that the kids like to practice on, but it's pretty challenging. He immediately feels around his pockets for his car keys, yet he's still in his work clothes and his car keys are in the apartment upstairs. Kaoru slides a hand up the sleeve of his kimono and shows him his own car keys instead, moving with him towards the door.

"No, no! No hospital needed." Reki hesitates for a second. "Just get here, alright? We'll explain it then. Or, I guess you can see for yourself."

"That doesn't bode well," Kaoru says when Kojiro disconnects the call after Reki oddly suggests he should bring some tools. "Come on, I've got tools in the back of my car."

"Maybe his board broke down?" Kojiro gets in on the passenger side of the small Toyota Kaoru drives.

"Reki could fix that himself."

The drive to the park isn't very far. It certainly doesn't give Kojiro enough time to think of valid reasons for why Reki needs his help. He's just thinking that maybe one of the kids climbed to the top of the jungle gym in the park and can't get down, when Kaoru stops the car by the entrance to the park. They immediately spot Reki and Langa, standing beneath a lamp post just inside the wrought iron gates that decorate the main entrance. The kids seem surprised that Kaoru gets out of the car too, eyeing his formal wear curiously.

"You brought Cherry?" Reki almost whines, self consciously rubbing a hand through his hair.

"Technically I brought Joe, seeing as I drove us here," Kaoru answers haughtily, folding his hands into the sleeves of his kimono and drawing up to his full height. He looks intimidating like that.

Reki makes a face and looks at Kojiro. "We were kinda hoping it would just be you."

"Why did you call me anyway?" Kojiro is puzzled: both Reki and Langa look no worse for wear and they both have their skateboards with them, still fully intact. "You both look fine, I don't see any problems. And why would you not want me to bring Cherry?"

Kaoru huffs. "Because they did something stupid and they thought a gorilla would understand."

"Hey!" Kojiro exclaims.

"See! You don't even know what we did and you're already mad!" Reki fidgets with the skateboard in his hands, looking far too guilty. Langa, next to him, has a blank look on his face, but that's kind of his default expression. His face doesn't emulate much in general, except when you put free food in front of him.

Kaoru assesses them with sharp eyes and then pans his gaze over their surroundings. Every few metres a lamppost lights up the darkness. He stops at the sight of a lonely skateboard, a little ways over. "Where is Miya?" The words are sharp, with a hint of worry.

"Yeah..." Reki draws out. "That's kinda the thing."

"He's in there," Langa interrupts, pointing in the direction of the skateboard with the purple x on it.

"In where?" Kojiro sees nothing but nicely trimmed rose bushes and yellow pavement. There's some benches at the edge of the square where they're standing, but that's about it. Last summer Kaoru did a calligraphy demonstration on this square. Kojiro remembers, because he got roped in to carry all his equipment.

The calligrapher in question, who made his way in the direction Langa pointed at, suddenly stops beside a large trash can. It's one of those models that always remind Kojiro somewhat of a robot: the large bucket sits up on two legs that run up the whole length of the trash can, holding up a raised lid that covers the top opening like an awning. The front of the bucket has a door so the city workers can empty the thing easily. Kaoru bends over slightly to peer into the top opening. When he turns back to the others his eyes are comically large. "What is Miya doing in a trash can?"

"What?" Kojiro makes it over in a few large strides. There appears to be a faint light coming from inside the trash can. The source reveals itself as Miya's Switch. The kid is sitting on the floor of the otherwise empty trash can with his knees folded up against his chest and his nose almost touching the screen of his game. Kojiro is dumbfounded. "What??"

"You see, we made a bet," Reki starts.

"We thought Miya wouldn't fit inside the trash can," Langa adds.

"The slimes dared me," finishes Miya from inside the trash can. His voice echoes slightly against the metal of his current housing.

"So you climbed inside a municipal trash can," Kaoru deadpans, disapproval clear in his tone.

"He went in willingly!" Reki hurries to say. "And the thing was empty anyway. It's not like we dared him to go sit in a bunch of trash."

Kojiro touches the raised lid, which doesn't budge. There's an opening on two sides, but they're too small for even Miya to fit through. The whole thing isn't even big enough for Miya to stand up in. "How the hell did you get in?"

"The door was open," Langa explains, gesturing towards the front of the bucket.

"With the emphasis on was," Kojiro quickly understands, as he tries but fails to pull the door open. There's a lock on the front, requiring a key that no one of them currently possesses. A quick check with Miya confirms that he indeed can't open the mechanism from inside, which explains why the kids had called for help. "I'll have to break it open."

"Are you crazy?" Kaoru interjects testily. "We have a slight inconvenience on our hands and your immediate reaction is to resort to vandalism?"

"Do you call this a slight inconvenience?"

"It kinda is," Langa shrugs. "At least until the battery of Miya's game runs out."

"How long has he been in there already?!" Kaoru demands before declaring he doesn't even want to know. He whips out his phone - again from a hidden pocket in his kimono sleeve - and points the torch light on the lock. "We could pick the lock," he offers after a short inspection.

"Already tried that," Reki says, brandishing a T-shaped tool from the pocket of his hoodie.

"You can't pick a lock with a skate tool." Kojiro fears Kaoru's eyes will get stuck in the back of his head if he rolls them any harder. "I'll go see what I can do."

A few minutes later Kaoru sits crouched in front of the trash can, trying to pry the look open with a screwdriver he had in his car. Kojiro and the others watch over his shoulder eagerly. "How did the door get locked anyway?" Kojiro asks, side eyeing the two teens.

"It just happened."

"It was an accident."

"Reki pushed the door closed behind me and the lock clicked into place," echoes Miya from inside. There's faint noises coming from his game. At least the kid is entertained.

Kaoru gets to his feet with an angry huff. "How could you kids be so stupid?" he bites out, which Kojiro knows to translate as "I can't get the lock to open." Kaoru will never admit he can't do something, he's too proud for that.

"It didn't work?" Reki asks, sounding disappointed.

"It's still locked, isn't it?" The kids flinch back at Kaoru's angry hiss. A lot of his friend's emotions come out as anger, Kojiro has learned over the years. Sadness, worry, frustration, disappointment. Reki and Langa will learn that too, if they stick around long enough.

Reki turns to Kojiro, sidling a bit further away from the angry Cherry Blossom. "Didn't you bring an angle grinder?"

"I'm a chef," Kojiro replies incredulously, "do I look like I use power tools in my kitchen?"

"We are not destroying municipal property." The kids protest, hell, even Kojiro argues, but Kaoru can't be swayed. "We're not vandals, nor are we delinquents."

"We skate at an abandoned mine every week," Reki counters. "That's pretty illegal. And you and Joe even founded the whole skating scene there!" He yelps in pain when he gets wacked on the head with a fan.

"Ko - Joe, don't you know someone at the Fire Department?" Kaoru asks over the heads of the two teens. He gives Kojiro a meaningful look that makes him think he really should know someone there. It dawns on him a moment later.

"Chief Edo!" The town council sometimes has lunch meetings at Sia La Luce and the fire chief is a big fan of Italian cuisine. So much so that he sometimes orders food to be brought to the fire station, even though the restaurant normally doesn't offer take out services.

"Are you calling 119?" Reki exclaims when Kojiro takes out his phone and taps the screen a few times.

"911?" Langa's face shows emotion for the first time that evening as he rounds on Reki. "Is Joe calling the police?!"

"No, the Fire Brigade," Reki corrects. "And it's 119, not 911."

"Pretty sure it's 911."

Kojiro ignores the boys squabbling over the correct emergency number. He's not calling that anyway, as they risk a fine or at least a bill if they call in the fire squad through official channels. Kaoru's idea is their best shot: Kojiro can probably call in a favour to rescue Miya from his predicament. Not that the kid seems to care much about being locked up inside a trash can, he's as cool as a cucumber in there. Or so it seems. Kaoru keeps a sharp eye on him anyway. He thanks his lucky stars when Chief Edo turns out to be on duty tonight. The older man is understanding and promises to send over some help quickly. While they wait for help to arrive, Kaoru lectures the boys sternly on their idiotic behaviour. He's noticeably more lenient towards Miya, going as far as speaking calmly with the still locked up kid. Kojiro suspects Miya isn't as laid-back about the situation as he tries to appear, so he herds the two other young boys to the other side of the square where they can toy around with their skateboards for a bit.

A red hatchback with the fire department logo on it appears by the entrance to the park, with two firemen stepping out. One of them is Chief Edo, who greets Kojiro with a jovial clap to his shoulder. "Now, where's the fire?" he jokes. Kojiro shows the two men the trash can with Miya inside and it turns out to be an easy job for one of the various master keys they have in their car. The door of the trash can opens on squeaking hinges and Miya half falls out, stumbling when he has to stretch his sore limbs to catch himself. Kaoru rights him with a hand underneath his arm, keeping the boy close even though he makes the kid bow to the firemen to thank them for their trouble.

"Thanks again," Kojiro says, walking the two firemen back to their car. "I'll make sure to bring by lunch for the crew tomorrow."

"Reki and Langa can do that," Kaoru suggests, only it's more of a command. "They can also wash the dishes afterwards." He still has a hand on Miya's shoulder, steering the kid towards his small Toyota. The thirteen year old is strangely subdued, evidence that his little adventure did not leave him unaffected.

"That's not fair! What about Miya?!" Reki cries out.

"I think sitting in a trash can for over an hour is punishment enough already," Kojiro interjects before Kaoru can react. His stern face matches Kaoru's thunderous expression, although his is mostly for show. Getting a friend stuck in a trash can is nothing compared to the shit he and Kaoru got up to when they were younger, but he does kinda want to teach them a lesson. After all, he could've been on his way to S right now, instead of standing here in an empty, dark park, still dressed in his chef's uniform. "I expect you boys to come by the restaurant tomorrow morning."

Both boys give him a reluctant nod and then they skate away, the wheels of their skateboards rolling noisily down the sidewalk.

Kaoru is waiting for him by the car, his hand on the opened car door. Miya is already sitting in the back, face glued to his game again. "Do you still want to go to S?" he asks quietly, his eyes following Kojiro as he walks around the car to the passenger side.

Kojiro sighs, his shoulders slumping as he leans his arms on top of the car. "I guess we better get the kid home first."

"He needs a bath," Kaoru confirms, his nose wrinkling slightly.

"It'll probably be too late for S after that." Kojiro considers going anyway, but he has to get up in time for lunch service tomorrow, so he didn't plan on staying at S for that long to begin with. It's not worth the hassle, he decides. They can always go tomorrow night.

"Wine and a movie?" Kaoru suggests instead, guessing his thoughts. He already moves to get behind the wheel, counting on the other to agree.

Kojiro nods and gets in too. "Sounds like a plan."

[potter-imagines]

Being Thor and Loki's Little Sister and Dating Peter Parker Would Include...

Notes: wow I haven't written a marvel one in a long time pls don't read too much into the timeline lol I know things overlap but just go with it (:

Warnings: none... I think ??

Word Count: 3.6k (sorry its a bit long for a write like this but I couldn't help myself)

You managed to do a decent job at keeping your relationship under wraps from your brothers for quite some time

Of course every other member on the team knew before the two of you even begun officially dating

Peter had spent three months ranting and raving to Tony Stark about how cute he thought you were and how much he liked you

Tony insisted time and time again he should tell you but Peter’s fear of rejection was much too large for him to find the courage for that

Unbeknownst to him,

You had spilled about your crush on Peter to Wanda and Nat almost a week after living in the compound

Being the only other girls there besides Pepper, it was easy to confide in them

Day after day you would wander to Wanda’s room and lay on her bed and gush about how handsome Peter was and how kind of a heart he had

Wanda found it adorable

And Bucky, Steve and Sam had placed the pieces together after days on end of watching Peter and yourself flirt like school kids in the gym during training

Even after being frozen for years, Steve recognized the look of smitten on Peter’s face when he talked to you

Bruce on the other hand had to sit through most of the kids talks with Tony in the lab so he figured it out fast

So when the two of you finally confessed your feelings for one another and Peter asked you out, there was only one road block holding the moment back from perfection

Your brothers

You and Peter shared the news with all the other team members expect the two, possibly most important in your case, members

You’ve been close to your brothers since you were brought into this world so it wasn’t like you didn’t want to tell them

It was more or less how overprotective they could be that made you bite your tongue

And as nervous as you are, Peter is 1,000% more worried about your brother’s finding out

Like honestly can you imagine how petrified Peter would be to tell Thor and Loki you two were dating

He’d purposely walk in the opposite direction every time he saw either of the two for the first week

Couldn’t stop fumbling with his words when he spoke to either of them

Like he was terrified

It’s sort of a cliché to have protective older brothers but older brothers who were also both Gods ????

Peter felt like a deadman walking

When the day finally came that you did tell your brothers about your relationship with Peter, it was absolutely cringe worthy

Peter had been coming home to the tower after a long day at Midtown High School when he spotted you the second he stepped foot out of the elevator

His excitement had clouded his judgement as he failed to check and see if the coast was clear

“Y/n! Hey!”

He nearly tumbled over his own feet as he rushed over to you

His face was gleaming with happiness and for a brief moment you felt a smile creep to your face until you were pulled back to reality by his hand reaching out to grasp yours

Your eyes widened in shock as you stared at Peter and before you could warn him to stop, he had planted a soft kiss on your cheek

That adorable smile was glowing from his face as he reached down for your hand only to fall once you pulled your hand away

He gave you a look of confusion, clearly surprised by your lack of response

But when an awkward cough sounded from behind him, he suddenly knew why

Peter didn’t have enough time to make any sort of a move when a husky, all too familiar voice spoke up,

“Hello, man of spiders. May I ask why you just kissed our little sister?” “Oh shit- I uh, well you see I…um...she had something on her face so I uh…”

Loki would snicker in amusement at seeing the boy squirm and prolong his torture “So you kissed her?” “Yeah…” “Hm, there something you’d like to share, little one?”

It wasn’t exactly the way you were hoping to break the news to your brothers

But it was certainly one way of doing it

The rest of the night was filled with awkward tension as you and Peter had to confess the truth to your brothers, who then made you share the news with the rest of the team

Thankfully, the rest of the team pretended they were just hearing about your new relationship for the first time, seeing as no one wanted to deal with an angry Thor

Now let’s get into your relationship with Peter

Peter Parker is the most caring person in the universe

Honestly

And dating him certainly came with it’s perks

You can expect to wake up every morning with a fresh coffee and a pastry on your nightstand, courtesy of Peter

He’ll also write you a sweet little ‘good morning’ note with a sketch of spider-man hanging from a web

(( he’s actually pretty talented in the doodling department ))

Makes cute sketches of him as spiderman and you as a princess ( vv fitting)

But also draws you as a total badass saving the galaxy bc… well you are

Count on him to be the first person to greet you when the sunrises and the last person to wish you a goodnight when it falls

Gets Mr. Stark to buy you an iphone so he can teach you how to use it

Has your name as “goddess” in his phone

The first thing he does is teach you about texting so he can pay you in imessage games

Refuses to play you in battleship since you somehow have crushed him every single time

Gets slightly annoyed with the overwhelming amount of random photos you snap of him

But he knows its all new to you and finds it irritatingly adorable

Loves it when you walk home with him from school

Will also keep reminding you that you shouldn’t have walked alone all the way to Midtown High School alone

Peter often forgets that you’re Asgardian and can protect yourself just fine

But it’s so cute how protective he is

He’s very observant and notices nearly everything

Like when you’re feeling a bit homesick

He picks up on it right away and will ask Thor and/or Loki for advice

Or when you start to become bored and tired at one of Star’s parties

Peter made his way over you before you even had the chance to turn and search for him

He’d escort you back to your room and lay with you until he was positive you had fallen asleep

Kisses to the top of your head

Is the boyfriend that will take your makeup off for you if you wear any

(( and sets yours lashes on the nightstand so neatly and labels which eye they were on cause the poor boy doesn’t understand ))

Spends weeks learning how to master the intricate braids that adorn your head

It’s so cute cause he’ll sit and look up Youtube videos and try to learn how to make the different braids and is just so confused but so determined

Taking Peter to visit Asgard

“Woah- this place looks like something from Lord of the Rings! It’s awesome!” “Lord of the Rings? I’ve never met that God.” “Uh, no, it’s a movie from Earth. We can watch it when we go back.” “To Midgard?” “Midgard? No, to New York.”

Loves it when your people refer to you as “Princess Y/n”

For some reason it makes him blush

Will tell everyone back on Earth that he’s dating a princess

I could def see Peter getting annoyed and frustrated with the Asgardian men trying to flirt and win your heart

Although that’s something that already belong to Peter

And even though Peter trusts you entirely

He’s still insecure from time to time

Especially when he sees how much taller and stronger Asgardian men look in comparison to him

But he finds reassurance in the feeling of your hand in his and the gleeful smile adorning your face as you show him around your homeland

Attempting to help Peter study

Although you’re not much help to Midgardian school work “Peter, darling, I don’t have a clue what a watergate is and I haven’t an idea how that could be scandalous.”

Maths however you excelled in

And Peter was thoroughly surprised to find you had the sequence of PI memorized to the one hundredth number- and in song form

Holding your hand 24/7

Endless cuddles on the couch

And when you’re walking around together, he does that thing where he swings your hands and back forth

Movie theater dates… at the tower b/c your brothers feel the need to be in close proximity the you guys at all times

Trying ice cream for the first time with Peter at two in the morning

One of Peter’s favorite things to do with you is take you through a walk in his world

At least three times a week Peter and you will walk around the city and find new things your Asgardian self has yet to experience

Like pizza

New York pizza to be exact

And hot chocolate

Ice skating at Rockefeller Center once the weather got cold

Loves to take you for drives in the more woodsy land of New York once fall set in and the leaves began to change

But by far his favorite thing is showing you Midgardian films and movies of all sorts

He loves that you don’t judge him for nerding out over his love for films

Not to mention you actually sit and watch Star Wars with him

(( maybe it was the whole space element but Peter was just thrilled you liked it ))

But then he shows you ‘Alien’

And it was an instant regret

It took him the rest of the night to convince you that the movie was fake

You made him sleep in your room just for reassurance

Your favorite out of the films Peter played was called ‘Toy Story’

Buzz Lightyear reminded you of Thor

In terms of TV shows

F.R.I.E.N.D.S. which quickly became your guys comfort show

Parks & Rec too “That Andy fellow looks an awful lot like Starlord, don’t you think?”

Peter refuses to let you watch Black Mirror

After the whole incident with Alien

Black Mirror didn’t seem like a good idea

Constantly teasing from the rest of the Avengers

Tony just can’t help it

He loves tormenting the two of you

Especially when Thor and/or Loki are around

“Hey Peter, I thought I saw you go into Y/n’s room last night but I didn’t see you leave until the morning. Heard a lot of noise too- thought Y/n was getting attacked. What was that about?”

Or

“Kid, I got you those condoms you asked for. How’d you manage to run out of that last box so quick? I just bought it for you a week ago!” “Messing with you, they’re just sugar packets- Thor put Peter down right now!”

Aunt May absolutely adores you

Always tells Peter how sweet you are and is constantly inviting you over for dinner

Lets you two have sleepovers in his room at her place

As long as the door stays open

Peter can’t stop laughing when you compliment May on her ability to make an amazing bowl of cereal

She thought it was a joke seeing as she burned dinner the night before to a crisp and laughs until she’s in tears

And you’re literally sitting there so confused, clearly not understanding the joke

Peter then takes you on a trip to a grocery store for the first time to show you a whole aisle full of cereal

It is then that you realize Aunt May didn’t hand make the fruity pebbles

She still laughs about it to this day

Befriending Ned and listening enthusiastically while he gives you a full speech on the franchise Star Wars

And his rant on how terrible Star Trek is in comparison

Is shocked when you ask questions out of genuine interest

Ned immediately takes a liking to you after that and asks Peter daily to invite you to hangout

Whenever Stark adds an upgrade to his suit, you’re the first person Peter shows it to

He shares quite literally everything with you

As do you to him

The rest of the Avengers love gossiping about you guys

Nat and Wanda have already started planning the wedding and Pepper has the perfect venue in mind, much to your brothers dismay

For some reason

Thor and Loki are always within reasonable distance, enough so they can keep an eye on you but also give some sense of privancy

Thor is def always the first one to step in

“Peter, please remove your hand from my sister’s behind.” “Oh uh, ye-yeah… sorry, Mr.Thor.”

Loki would find Peter amusing

He loves to mess with him whenever given the chance

“Ah, Peter. Good to see you. I’m sure Y/n informed you of our task today. Very impressed that you offered yourself as the sacrifice to the aliens-” “Wait, what? Y/n?!” “He’s kidding, Peter.”

Everyone in the Avenger’s tower knew Peter was lactose intolerant and knew the repercussions of the boy consuming any sort of dairy

(( he physically cannot leave the bathroom for a full day ))

Yet Loki regularly will swap Peter’s specially labeled almond milk with a jug of skim milk just for the hell of it

There’s something so hilarious to him about the look of panic and alarm that smacks abruptly across Peter’s face as he quickly stumbles out of the kitchen to his room

It keeps him laughing for days

You’ll just shoot your brother a look of disapproval, clearly certain it was his doing

“Loki, why did Peter run off?” “Not sure, darling sister, maybe he’s got one of those stomach bugs. I’ve heard Midgardians are prone to them…weak bodies and such.” "You switched out his milk again didn’t you.” “I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re accusing me of, little one.”

Thor is a bit more hesitant on accepting your relationship with his fellow Avenger

He trusts that Peter would never harm you

Although he did not trust that you would never be harmed because of Peter

It was risky enough that both your brothers were big names in space, as well on Earth, however

Thor knew Loki and himself were capable of protecting you but Peter?

He was just a kid, in Thor’s eyes

However the one thing that kept him from telling you this was seeing how happy Peter made you

As your older brother, Thor trusted your judgement and tried his best to be accepting of his little sister dating

And as much as he wanted to deny it, he saw crystal clear the care and love Peter gave to you and he wasn’t willing to break that for you

Still

Thor is the type of brother to barge into a room and shove himself between Peter and yourself without warning

This man does not care at all

At least Loki has the decency to give you two space as a couple

Thor does not

He is constantly third wheeling on your dates and will ‘accidentally’ walk into rooms he knows you two are in claiming he forgot something

Not that he ever grabs anything,

He’ll usually just stand and stare at the two of you until you either leave the room or ask him to leave

To which he always answers,

“No.”

But with a smile

A smug smile

PDA is something he will never be okay with

Thor will yank Peter back by the collar every time he sees his lips on yours and glare at him, “Man of spiders, I know you’re in love with my little sister but kissing her infront of me is too far.”

And Loki will physically gag just to piss you off

For the most part, your relationship with Peter is nearly perfect

It would be entirely perfect if you weren’t constantly worrying about him dying on a mission or getting hurt

But still, just like any couple, you had your moments

And when you did fight, it was typically over Peter’s safety or him not wanting you to tag along for a mission

Your common way of dealing with conflict was the silent treatment

Which is pure torture for Peter

Not only does he miss the sound of your voice

He misses having you around

Seeing your smile

Hearing you laugh from something he said

He felt terrible everytime

He’d go to Tony for advice and spend hours rambling on to him about how sorry he was for yelling at you and for adding to the fight

Tony would half listen while he worked away on a new system and suit, offering a ‘yeah’ and ‘hmm’ every few seconds which pleased Peter who thought his mentor was fully listening

And after almost two hours of his non-stop talking, Tony Stark had reached his limit

Setting his wrench down on the metal table with a thud he turned around to face the young boy

“Kid, why’re you saying all this to me and not her? I mean, I’m all ears but I’m also not Y/n. I know we’re both good looking so I can see why you mixed us up, but you should be talking to her right now.”

Similar to Peter you also had someone to confide in when the road got rocky

Loki had always been the one you shared all your secrets with

As children you were attached at the hip to both your brothers but Loki a smidgen more than Thor

Your father, Odin, had Thor at his side 24/7 growing up

While he was busy learning the ropes to ruling Asgard, Loki and yourself run amuck causing trouble left and right through the royal palace

Through the years of bonding Loki become your best friend, and you his

So when trouble struck in paradise, your older brother was the one you ran to

He’d welcome you with open arms and a questioning gaze

Loki is by far the best listener in your family

Instead of telling you what to do, he asks what you want, which is a refreshing change

After a long talk with Loki you’d search the tower high and low for Peter while ironically Peter was doing the same thing

When you did finally make-up, it felt like coming home

The apologies were so sincere and genuine

You’d end up having a sleepover in your room watching 80’s films that Peter claimed were ‘iconic’ and laying in his arms

And that’s where you felt complete

Fights never occurred often but bickering ???

DAILY

You two bickered playfully over everything under the sun

Like who’s the better superhero; Ironman or Captain American

Or

Debates between living in New York and living in Asgard

Loves to pull up Midgardian inventions and ask you to guess what it is “Princess, what do you think this is?” “Oh! Oh! I’ve seen this one! Tony has one in his kitchen!” “Okay, so what is it?” “Yes, it’s a chicken nugget maker!” “It’s actually an air fryer but we only ever make chicken nuggets in them so I’ll give you a half point.”

Peter sneaking out of your room at the crack of dawn and sprinting to his

As much as Thor and Loki liked him and supported the relationship

He was sure they’d both team up to murder him if they caught him sleeping in your bed

Steve and Tony, who seem to be incapable of sleep, have watched him tiptoe out of your room numerous times but they only share a look of amusement then go back to their previous discussion

Playing hide-n-go-seek and tag on rainy days at the tower

Cuddling in Peter’s bed while he asks you to tell him stories about Asgard

Loves hearing about your childhood and what it’s like to grow up with siblings

Is fascinated when you tell him about Heimdall

Stealing Peter’s hoodies

Especially his Midtown High School ones

They’re insanely soft

Sweet little kisses throughout the day

He's just so sweet and gentle

Loves getting to hold you and snuggle in his bed

Most weekends you spend lounging on the couch with Peter’s head in your lap while you play with his hair

Other times you’re sitting next to Peter on his bed watching him play some video game and asking a million questions “Who is that man, Peter?” “That’s me, he’s the main character of the game. That’s Mario, babe.” “You’re not Mario- you’re Peter.” “No, the main character of this game is Mario, I’m just playing him.” “Oh… and what is that green dinosaur creature?” “That’s Yoshi!” “Adorable.”

Making out between games

In terms of... y'know... sex

Neither of you were keen on rushing the process

You had tip toed on the line multiple times yet never fully crossed it

Until you had decided to make the first real move after being together for about five months

You trusted him with all your heart so it wasn't exactly scary, but rather exciting

He had a way of making you feel safe, comfortable, and loved all at once

Lets be honest, Peter nearly fainted the first time he saw you naked

And still, no matter how many times the two of you have sex,

He worships every inch of you like it was your first time all over again

You couldn't have asked for a better lover

Dating Peter means a new adventure everyday

You’re constantly learning new things about each other and from each other

Despite coming from two very different worlds

You’ve never felt more connected to a soul until Peter came along

[walviemort]

Fairy Godfather, part 2

Summary: The fairies have asked a monumental favor of Killian: be the surrogate for their babies—all nine of them. He’s been pregnant before, but this? This is a whole other level. What has he gotten himself into? And just how big will he get?

A/N: Another update! This is kind of consuming me so you’ll be getting these pretty often, I hope! thanks to @sancocnutclub for all her encouragement ;)

rated T / 2.2k words / part 1 / AO3

He didn’t wake until mid morning the next day, and was still fairly fatigued, but otherwise felt alright—just a bit tender about the middle. 

A shower helped dissolve most of the lingering soreness, and he took some time in front of the mirror to look for any changes. 

Given that his stomach had never returned to its previous hardened state, it was hard to notice any discernible change in shape, but when he poked around, there was definitely a rounded area that hadn’t been there before. 

He also took a moment to memorize his body as it was; it wouldn’t be long before the babes made their presence visibly known, and the changes that happened while pregnant with Hope were still fresh in his mind. He was both glad that Belle was keeping track of his stats, and already dreading it. 

But she was probably waiting for him, so he needed to get a move on—and something to eat; he was starting to feel peckish, but couldn’t tell whether or not it was more than usual. 

His normal jeans still fit comfortably, albeit a hair snug. It wouldn’t last long, but he’d relish it while it did. At least his shirts would last longer; he’d found a new appreciation for the forgiving cotton knits of this realm in his second trimester. 

Emma was already at the station when he got downstairs, but she’d left behind plenty of pancakes, and he ate a few more than normal; he wasn’t sure how to interpret that. 

Before heading to the library, he went to pick up Hope from her sleepover with her grandparents. David greeted him at the door, with tiny Ruth asleep on his chest.

“So, how’d it go?” he asked, hardly able to keep his eyes away from Killian’s midsection.

“Fine, as far as I could tell. Weird, but fine.”

“Did it hurt?”

“No, thankfully, but I’m sure there will be plenty of aches and pains later.”

David winced. “Man, am I glad they asked you and not me. This one was enough,” he said, patting Ruth’s back gently.

“I don’t disagree, but…”

“But you feel like you owe them,” David finished. 

“Aye.”

“Well, I think it’ll be the other way around by the end of this, but we’ll help you out as much as we can.”

“I appreciate it—and I’m sure we’ll need it with this one,” he replied, nodding at Hope, who was attempting to escape out a window.

She was easily wrangled, though, and happy to see him. He had no idea what fairy infants were like, but if they were half as charming as his daughter (who definitely took after her grandfather), this whole town would revolve around them.

As he thought, Belle was waiting for him, tape measure in hand. “Seriously?” he griped as he set Hope down next to Gideon in the playpen behind the circulation desk.

“You can’t possibly be surprised,” she threw back. “But if it’s any consolation, I won’t do it again until next week.”

“You only did it monthly last time around.”

“You were only carrying one babe.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

Though his waist measurement remained unchanged, his weight was slightly higher (more than could be expected by a few extra pancakes). “I can feel it,” he confirmed when she asked. “There’s definitely something in there, though I only notice it if I go looking for it.”

Belle made a note and then flipped back and forth between some pages. “That matches up with when you found out you were expecting Hope; so do your measurements, and that was, what 8 weeks?”

“Yeah, thereabouts.”

“Second pregnancies do show sooner, too.”

“Especially this one,” he grumbled. 

“Oh yeah,” she agreed.

The day continued normally, although his hand did gravitate to his stomach pretty often, without thinking about it. Even if it wasn’t noticeable, he still knew what was there, and his subconscious seemed to have already set out to protect it—that, or his hormones were already starting to affect him. 

Based on his reaction when Emma arrived that afternoon—particularly to his train of thought when she bent down to pick up a napping Hope—it was definitely hormones. His jeans felt a very different kind of tight then; something he acted on later that night, after a slightly larger than usual dinner. 

“Those hormones kicked in fast,” a sated Emma breathed as they came down from their shared high. “You haven’t been that voracious since we found out we were having a girl.”

“Are you complaining?” he panted. 

“Absolutely not.”

“Good.” And they went for another round. 

In fact, he was so insatiable the next couple of weeks that, despite his elevated appetite, no other discernible change in his weight was noticed; his waist actually went down a bit.

“Are you feeling alright? Keeping food down and everything?” Belle asked, worried, as she recorded his 2-week measurements, comparing them to his 10-week from his first pregnancy. “Last time, you couldn’t eat more than chicken rice about now.”

“Trust me—I feel more than fine,” he assured her. “Were it not for Emma’s implanted contraception, we’d likely need to be planning for a more traditional pregnancy.”

“That’s a very eloquent way of saying you can’t keep your hands off your wife.”

“I could have phrased it crudely—how many synonyms for ‘sex’ did you want Gideon to learn today?”

“None!” she exclaimed, covering her son’s impressionable ears. He was at the age when he repeated anything said around him—a fact they noticed when Gideon’s favorite phrase became “bloody hell.”

“What are uncles for, though?” he teased with a wink. 

Belle just groaned and threatened to teach Hope how to read with romance novels. Killian, however, was just glad she slept through the night so she didn’t interrupt the real thing. 

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

Where there had been some hubbub about town during Killian’s first pregnancy—and quite a lot of gawking—no one seemed as shocked this time around. They’d made no effort to keep it a secret, letting the Storybrooke rumor mill do its job, but either the town was more aware than Killian had been about fairy reproduction, or they had become jaded to such magical oddities (he assumed the latter).

That said—he had to assume the gawking would eventually return. 

Especially with the way Granny was feeding him. To be fair, she wasn’t letting him overindulge, but he’d noticed his portions were larger, and the amount of vegetables increased. He wondered if Blue had given her some nutritional instruction, or if it was just her innate grandmotherly instincts. 

The first time she slid an extra helping of broccoli over, he tried to protest, delicious as it looked. 

“Oh no—eat up, young man,” she commanded. “If my math is right, you’re eating for 10. I should probably be feeding you more, actually.”

Emma snickered next to him—they were on lunch break from the station—but he wasn’t sure if it was at Granny’s tutting or the fact that Killian had just realized the magnitude of…well, all of it. 

So when Granny slid some extra onion rings across the counter, he didn’t complain (but obviously shared them with his wife).

He wanted to blame it on those extra treats—onion rings, fries, pie, muffins—when they noticed an expansion in his waist measurement at 3 weeks, but it was definitely the babes; he could still wear his normal jeans, but was seeing some rounding behind his navel. 

And at 4 weeks—a month since the babes were transferred—it could finally be deemed a bump: there was a gentle curve to his whole stomach, from just under his pecs to his hips (which had been aching a bit as they widened some, likely in anticipation of the heavy load to come). Given the way he and Emma’s evening activities hadn’t slowed, he knew it was all the babies. 

Belle hummed as she compared the notes she’d just taken with those from last time. “Well, that’s interesting,” she commented.

“What is?” Emma asked; she’d joined them for that week’s check in, curious to see where things were.

“This week’s measurements match up with those from the end of the first trimester last time, which I suppose isn’t a huge surprise, but…”

“But I have a lot more to go than two trimesters,” he finished.

All eyes were on his stomach for a long while after that, likely all wondering the same thing: just how large would he get?

The only thing that took their attention away was the ringing of the bell over the door as someone arrived—Blue, it turned out. “Hi,” she greeted, clearly trying to be casual. “Just wanted to stop by and see how things were going.”

He wasn’t naive enough to believe she’d stay away from him for the duration of the pregnancy, although he had expected more subtle surveillance.

They chatted briefly about how he was feeling, and she studied his stomach with an outstretched hand, he assumed to do her own magical assessment. “Yes, they seem to be doing quite well; that’s good.”

“Did you think they weren’t?” Emma quipped.

“No, of course not,” Blue assured her. “Would it be odd to express my excitement?”

Well, they all understood that. “How long has it been since your last brood?” Belle had to ask.

“Over fifty years,” Blue answered. “They’re usually every five to ten, depending on the solstice.”

“And when you don’t have a series of curses in the way,” Emma added.

Blue glanced over Belle’s notes with interest. “That does seem to match up with past broods, though I don’t think anyone ever thought to take such detailed notes.”

“Are there any?” Belle asked. “I don’t have anything here, but if you had some back at the convent, it’d be great for comparison.”

“I’d have to check our library,” Blue answered. “There might be a few scrolls, but we’re not much for recorded history.”

“I can tell,” Belle complained.

After some more chatting, Blue excused herself, but did ask if it was alright if she checked in periodically.

“Of course,” Killian said. “It’s your brood. Plus, I’m certain we’ll need to take you up on the offer of help sooner rather than later, if this is where I’m already at after only 4 weeks,” he added, gesturing to his still-small bump.

“Absolutely,” Blue said. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She pulled her wand out of nowhere and twirled it at Killian’s midsection. His skin grew warm for a moment, but then returned to normal. “I’m not sure if the original spell will account for the size, as far as how it treats your skin; that should eliminate any damage.”

“No stretch marks?” he wondered.

“No—not any new ones, at least.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

She then left as quickly as she appeared.

“Guess that’s something we’ll have to get used to,” he sighed, and then they went about their day. But he was starting to grow very concerned about what lay ahead for him; he knew this wouldn’t be a small feat, but was worried it would be more than he could handle.

As time progressed, his bump steadily grew, though not unnaturally so. At 5 weeks, it was yet more noticeable; at 6, he finally had to concede defeat and dig out his maternity jeans, though they were still plenty roomy. By the end of the second month, he wasn’t quite where he’d been at the end of his second trimester, but it was definitely a baby bump—roughly where he’d been around 24 weeks with Hope, even though he was only at 8 with this one.

It was around then, though, that he noticed the first flutterings inside. He thought he’d noticed it the week before, but chalked it up to gas or something like that; Granny had been feeding him a lot of black beans lately. But late one night, after yet another glorious session of lovemaking, Emma’s hand had drifted to his belly and even she took notice.

“Wow, they’re actually starting to move in there, huh?”

“Seems like it. You don’t suppose they actually have wings already, do they?”

“Normal babies hardly have limbs at this stage, so probably not.”

They lay peacefully in the afterglow for a bit, before he asked quietly, “You are okay with this, right?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d ask, nor was it likely to be the last. But it was a large undertaking and though she hadn’t exactly protested, he knew it wasn’t something she’d have volunteered for.

“For the hundredth time, yes. Even if this was partly fueled by guilt, I know you probably would have agreed anyway, and that big heart is why I love you so much. And can I say something else?”

“What’s that, love?”

“I was so attracted to you with that baby bump last time, even when you thought you were massive. So as long as your libido holds out, I think we’re both going to be very happy.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm, I think I might need some convincing.”

“Then let me show you.” And oh, she did.

Gods, he prayed he’d be able to do that for a while. The next several months were going to be very interesting.

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

thanks for reading! tagging @wyntereyez @jennjenn615 @superadam54 @ashley-knightingale @justsomewhump @teamhook @88infinity88​ (let me know if you want a tag!)

[sleephyuns]

sana is a pre-school teacher and momo is the mother of one her students, mina. mina isn’t getting the numbers rights so momo asks sana if she could give mina tutoring, which she agrees. sana goes to momo’s house, and once the tutoring is over they stayed talking a bit, mina already in her room. the teacher and the mom found out they have a lot of things in common. “do you want to stay for dinner?”

Sana bounced back and forth on both feet as she waited for the door to open. She thought about ringing the doorbell again, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, she thought about the very reason she was here in the first place: Mina.

The younger girl was one of her most polite and patient students, always ready to learn. But she had a but of a problem when it came to addition and subtraction. She was only in preschool, but even simple math seemed to be a struggle. So, of course, her (very single and very attractive) mother had come in for a parent teacher meeting, asking her if she could maybe give her daughter and extra lesson or two. And, of course again, Sana agreed. Now here she was waiting for the door to be answered.

Just as she was about to say to hell with it and ring again, the door opened.

“Ms. Minatozaki! Sorry for the wait, I’m a bit busy in the kitchen,” Momo stepped aside, “come in, come in. Mina’s waiting for you in the living room.”

Sana stepped in, taking off her shoes. “Thank you for having me over Ms. Hirai.”

“Please, just call me Momo.” she waved Sana off as she walked back to the kitchen, and Sana took that as her cue to go see Mina.

She walked in to see the girl, sat at a little table in the corner of the living room, doodling on some plain paper with the small stack of some of her school work and practice problems next to her. As she got closer, Mina looked up from her colorful artwork to see her.

“Hi Ms. Sana,” Mina beamed. She often let the kids refer to her by her first name as long as they put ‘Ms.’ infront of it, just in case her last was too hard to pronounce.

“You look different Ms. Sana,” Mina said eyeing her up and down.

Sana just laughed, sitting down in the cramped little chair across from her. “Do I? Maybe it’s what I’m wearing.”

Mina looked at her harder, then nodded in agreeance. “You aren’t in your teacher outfit. But this is nice too.”

Sana laughed again, before eyeing the stack of papers. “Let’s start working on some of that math, and then you can go back to coloring later ok?”

She saw the hesitancy in Mina’s eyes, the little pout on her lips. “Come on now, it won’t be that hard when you practice. And just remember, you have me here to help you even more than in class.”

Finally, Mina nodded, putting down her crayons to grab a pencil and pull up the first worksheet. “Good,” Sana smiled, scooting her chair around the table to sit next to Mina, “now let’s start.”

And for the next hour or so, that was how Sana found herself trying her best to teach Mina. And it seemed to work a lot better than in a classroom setting, the girl more responsive to a more direct, one on one method of teaching. When they finished up, she was given permission to go to her room and play with her toys.

As soon as Mina ran down the hall, she looked over to Momo, who had just sent the kid on her way.

“Thank you, that seemed to go really well,” she spoke up, “I hope you don’t mind that I watched for a few minutes.”

“Not at all. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t.”

Momo sighed, “I’m just worried about her. I wish I could stay home more and not have to get my friends to pick her up from school or babysit. But I had to take up a few extra hours at my other job to pay off some bills.”

“Oh?” Sana was curious, “where do you work?”

Momo shrugged. “Nowhere special really. I’m a receptionist at a law firm, and I work extra hours at a dance studio when I can.”

Sana’s eyebrows raised at that. “Dance studio? That sounds interesting to me.”

Momo let out a little puff of a laugh. “It would be if I wasn’t just there to clean and take stock of things. I haven’t actually danced myself in a long while.”

Sana felt as if she didn’t quite have permission to pry into why that was, so she decided to share more about herself instead. “Well if you ever do get back to it, I’d love to talk about it. I like to dance too. Used to take lessons and all.”

Now it was Momo’s turn to be interested. “Really? How long ago? And what type did you take?”

“Well...” Sana started. And before she knew it, another hour had passed. Their conversation bounced from dancing to other hobbies to their day to day lives. It was comforting to unwind and talk like that. But it was getting late, and Momo still hadn’t eaten.

“Anyway, thank you again for helping.” Momo walked back into the kitchen, Sana following suit. “I’ll be sure to compensate for your time.”

Sana shook her head, “Oh no, I couldn’t. It was no trouble at all.”

“At least have some dinner with me then? Though I’ll have to reheat it, there’s enough for two.”

Sana eyed the array of foods in their pans and was incredibly tempted. But then she remembered someone else. “What about Mina? I shouldn’t take any away from her.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Momo laughed, “Mina eats dinner earlier than I do. She ate a few minutes before you arrived actually. She’s a bit of a picky so I have her meals ready first to make it easier.”

“I see...,” Sana replied, “then I guess I wouldn’t mind taking some of that food off your hands.”

Momo beamed at her, and Sana could definitely see where Mina got it from. “Perfect. I have some wine in the fridge if you’d like some of that too?”

And though Sana knew it might be crossing a line just a tad, she couldn’t really find it in her to say no. She had an inkling she’d run into a problem like this more in the future, the more she came over. But so be it.

Ms. Hirai seemed worth the risk.

[omoi-no-hoka]

Hello! I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but how do you become proficient at handling conversations in Japanese/handling grammar very well? I read your post on the JLPT, and it addressed issues I have been tip toe-ing around--indeed, passive actions such as listening or reading are easier than the active ones. How did you go about that? Did you write a bunch of sentences daily? Did you have a conversation partner? What would you rec. to someone who lives outside Japan? Thank you!

This is an excellent question, and one that I get asked a lot irl by Japanese people in particular. Let’s talk about gaining fluency and the ways we can go about it!

How to Gain Fluency in Japanese (and Other Languages)

Speaking Fluency versus Accuracy

Language proficiency is divided into two separate categories:

Fluency: Although there are no widely agreed-upon definitions or measures of language fluency, someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears fluid, or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use. In other words, fluency is often described as the ability to produce language on demand and be understood.

Accuracy: Correctness of language use, especially grammatical correctness and word choice.

By the above definitions, a “fluent” speaker may make grammatical mistakes, but they can speak without having to stop and think too much about conjugations, word choice, etc.

An “accurate” speaker can speak with nearly zero grammatical/word choice mistakes. However, the speed of their utterances isn’t generally taken into account, so it could take an “accurate” person twice as long to articulate the same idea as a “fluent” person. 

Ideally, you need to strike a good balance between these two qualities when speaking. I have a boss, God bless him, who is 100% fluency and 0% accuracy and…man is it hard to understand what he’s saying sometimes, but he can generally get his point across just barely. I have another coworker who is 100% accuracy and takes about 3 minutes to form a sentence because he wants it to be perfect. 

How to Increase Speaking/Writing Accuracy

First, let’s talk about the easiest thing to improve, which is accuracy. It’s also (in my opinion) the least fun thing to improve, because it means grammar books and vocabulary memorization. 

You can only use a language accurately if you know what is correct and what is incorrect, and you can only learn that by studying grammar and vocabulary (or if you’re a native speaker and picked it up innately, you lucky bastard).

So here’s some things you can do to increase your accuracy:

For example, if you’re having a hard time using the passive, you need to review that part of your textbook and find some exercises to drill it into your head. 

Say the correct thing aloud. Lots. Sometimes I just walk around my apartment and narrate everything I see/do like a crazy person, but that’s good practice. 

Write example sentences using the grammar you’re struggling with and say them aloud too. 

There’s a bunch of cool apps that connect you with native speakers that can help correct you too! I used to use HelloTalk, I think. 

If you’re a creative soul, when I was studying for the JLPT, I took 1 grammar point and 5 vocabulary words from my JLPT study books and used them to write a 2-page short story about the adventures of ネギ, a stray black cat that smelled like green onions because she napped in an onion field. Then I had a Japanese friend check it over for me and mark mistakes. I hand-wrote them to improve my abysmal handwriting at the same time. It was really fun! I sometimes think about doing it again just for funsies.

When someone corrects you, don’t feel like your entire life is over and you’re a failure and you’ll never get it right haha. I’ve seen people fall into that hopeless mindset, and that’s just nonsense. It’s a good opportunity for learning and nothing more! Say the correct thing you’ve just been taught out loud, then write it down if you can. And, if possible, find a chance to use it in conversation asap.

How to Increase Speaking/Writing Fluency

Now this is the hard one. Especially for those learners who do not have native speakers nearby. 

I’m going to be dead honest with you. I started formally studying Japanese at uni, and I had a Japanese roommate/best friend since year one. I had a 4.0 GPA in my Japanese classes (and only my Japanese classes lol) because I was and still am a MEGA NERD about it. 

...But it wasn’t until I studied abroad in Japan my 4th year of uni that I gained fluency. 

There are a lot of things that can hold us back from fluency. An interesting thing I’ve noted is that Foreign Language is perhaps the only subject in which a student’s personality can directly affect their progress. To gain fluency, you have to go forth and speak, but if you are naturally a shy person, that is going to hinder you. If you are the kind of person who takes mistakes/failures poorly, you will be less likely to take risks and try to say harder sentences. In contrast, you can get full marks in math regardless of the above personality traits. 

I’m not saying that you have to be an outgoing explosion of a human being in order to gain fluency. But what I am saying is that you have to be willing to seek out conversations, and you have to be willing to take chances. Get out of your comfort zone. Use that new word you picked up the other day. Try to explain something that is difficult for you. 

My problem was that, while I lived with a native speaker who would have happily taught me anything I asked, her English proficiency was much higher than my Japanese proficiency. And when I struggled to say something in Japanese, I’d fall back onto English. And when she told me something I didn’t understand in Japanese, she’d repeat it in English instead of Japanese, because that was easier for us both. The same thing happened when I was in Japanese class as well. I always had the assurance that I could fall back on English.

But when I elected to study abroad in Japan for 3 months, I knew that this was my big chance. So on the host family form in the “other requests” area, I wrote that I specifically wanted a host family that could not speak English. I was setting fire to my crutches, and I was scared but excited to see them burn. 

By the end of my three months in Japan, I had gone from “Chotto matte kudasai” and needing a minute to form my reply, to “Okay, yeah I see that movie too and I liked the action scenes, but I didn’t care for the story little.” (I’ve underlined mistakes that I would have made in Japanese, to show you that I sacrificed some accuracy to obtain higher fluency.)

So, in short, the easiest and quickest way to increase your spoken fluency is to throw away all the crutches you can and use the language as much as possible. Every single day. Even if you’re just having an imaginary conversation with yourself! And like I said, there are a bunch of cool apps that connect you with Japanese people who want to learn English and you can do language exchanges with them. I had a lot of fun with those in the past. 

As for increasing writing fluency...well. That’s a tough question with Japanese, because I can type Japanese at like 100 wpm, but my Japanese handwriting fluency is at a 10/100. I can read and type at the level of a native Japanese high school student, but I can only write the kanji that 7 year old can write. That’s no exaggeration.

The big reason for that dichotomy is that my work is paper-free. 100% of my work is done on screen, so about the only time I have to write out something is when I’m filling out a form, which includes my name (katakana), address, and maybe occupation. 

If you want to increase your Japanese handwriting speed, just keep on writing. Write those little short stories about ネギ like I did, or find some writing prompts (I just started a side-blog with writing prompts yesterday btw) or keep a little diary. Make opportunities to write. 

How to Have Nice Handwriting in Japanese

Okay, full disclaimer: I am the absolute LAST person qualified to talk about this, because I have awful handwriting in Japanese. 

Unless you have prior experience with a different language that uses kanji, or you lack the keen eye of an artist, you will likely struggle to develop neat handwriting. 

Personally, I really like using this app called Japanese Kanji Sensei. It’s on Android (not sure about iOS), and if you pay just a few bucks you can make your own kanji sets and stuff. Anyways, it will show you how to write the characters prettily. It gives you a good frame of reference for what nice, pencil/pen-written characters (versus calligraphy characters). It has hiragana and katakana on it too!

I get a stylus and write out the characters on this app for the muscle memory, so my hands remember the sensation of writing a certain character. (The muscle memory is different if you only use your fingertip.) This muscle memory and repetition is how Japanese people learn how to internalize kanji as well. I really enjoy and recommend this app. I’m sure that there are others out there like it too.

Summary

TL;DR: Review your textbooks, take risks, use every resource available or make your own, and just have fun with it! 💗

[louisapennyfeather2021]

Can you do a Jack Kelly sister x race or Albert (up to you) and Jack finds you guys kissing and is about to kill race or Albert. Then you all sit down and Jack gives the classic dad talk. This could be plantonic Jack/ race or Albert love. (You also don’t have to make it a sister I’m just a girl myself haha)

I finally made myself do this, mostly because I said I'd have it done by Friday and that's in less than four hours, but I'll(hopefully) make it happen!!! Have I finished my essay? Of course not, but I did finished my math tests! Planned procrastination is somewhat effective, right?

Anywho, here it is!

Relationships: Brother!Jack, Reader x Albert

Pronouns: She/Her as the person who asked did clarify that she is a girl :)

(psst... I can always make this with they/them pronouns if anyone would like that)

A/N: This is definitely not my best work, but it's not bad!!! I always feel awkward trying to write Dad Talks, but never enough to not write them at all!!! Maybe it'll help that I'm awkward with it so it'll be projected onto my work haha!

Warnings: some kissing, a bad word or two. That's about it? Oh, also, I'm really bad at writing kissing stuff lmao

Setting: 1899 Duane Street Lodging House

***

"No, Y/N, you gotta wear ya cap right or ya gonna look like ya ain't got hair." Jack snatches Y/N's hat from off her head before flipping it and placing it on her head correctly.

"Jack, cut it out! Ain'tcha got somethin' better t' do?" Y/N swats at her brother's hand, ducking to avoid his mother hen behavior.

"He ain't got nothin' t' do cause he's too busy hoverin'." Crutchie snorts from where he sits on the front steps of the lodging house. Jack throws a half-hearted glare at Crutchie, which gives Y/N enough time to sneak past Jack and hurry down the street towards Newsies Square.

"Hey, where d'ya think yer goin'?" Jack calls. Y/N huffs and shakes her head before looking over her shoulder. As soon as she does, she takes off sprinting down the street, Jack chasing her down. Y/N squeezes past some of the guys that are making their way down the street, successfully managing to not completely shove Jojo into a walk on accident.

It's not unusual for Jack to be so overbearing, specifically with Y/N. Sure, he's oddly protective over all the Newsies, but he practically turns into a bear with Y/N. Jack says it's because she's his "baby sista' 'nd nothin's ever gonna happen to no sister o' mine."

Y/N understands to an extent, of course, but it makes some things, well, difficult. Specifically hanging out with friends. Or maybe someone who's more than a friend.

"Someone's rushin' this mornin'." Racetrack Higgins snorts as Y/N hurries to duck behind him and Buttons. Both wait outside the gates for Weasel to come open them. Albert leans on the gate opposite of Race, raising an amused eyebrow at Y/N. She playfully narrows her eyes at him before breathing a sigh.

"Just my parasite of a brotha'. Again." Y/N grumbles. Jack treats her like she's still a kid, when really she's just a year and a half younger than him. To some folks, that's a lot, but when you're forced to grow up on the streets of New York, it's just numbers.

"Ain't like he's doin' it for nothin'." Race scoffs a laugh, sharing a knowing look with Buttons before glancing between Albert and Y/N where she's still hiding behind the two smirking boys.

"Oh, shuddup. Jack ain't gotta worry about what he don't know about." Y/N glares pointedly at both Race and Buttons.

"Don't worry, I've kept Racer from hawkin' yer secret t' all of Manhattan." Buttons shoves Race's shoulder. Race squawks in protest and he starts arguing with Buttons. Y/N laughs, knowing Race would keep her secret no matter what. It's just funny to see Buttons get a rise out of Race.

"Could be worse. Buttons could'a taken his cigar." Albert chuckles, although he absentmindedly rubs his upper arm. He's learned the hard way not to take the blond boy's comfort object. However, that doesn't keep him from occasionally stealing it.

"You'd know how that turns out." Y/N sneaks behind Race as he argued with Buttons and stands next to Albert. She doesn't stand too close, especially since Jack is probably on his way with the rest of the fellas.

The last thing Y/N needs is for Jack to get suspicious of her and her relationships.

So Y/N just leans on the gate near Albert, both laughing as Race and Buttons start on a tangent. Eventually the others gather around, Jack and Crutchie being the last to actually show up. As soon as he's at the gate, Jack starts fussing over Y/N's hat again. She smacks his hand away and glares at him, receiving a horribly hidden laugh from Albert.

"Would you stop swattin', I'm tryin' t' make ya not look like a hooligan." Jack huffs.

"You know we're a bunch'a kids that sell papes for a livin', right? Hooligan is the nicest thing folks can call us." Y/N rolls her eyes. Jack opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn't get the chance. Instead, the sound of the gates rattling and snarky comments fills the air. Y/N turns to see none other than Oscar and Morris Delancey hesitantly opening the gates.

"What, no hello?"

"Wake up on the wrong side'a the cave this mornin'?"

"Aw, did'ya not have someone t' tuck ya in last night?"

The jabs make Y/N's face go red to hide her laughs. The dramatic eye rolls and frowns on the Delancey Brothers' faces are pure gold. Y/N doesn't doubt that either brother would go after any Newsie if it wouldn't get them in some trouble. After all, good ol' Mr. Pulitzer needs someone to make money for him.

As some of the guys keeps teasing the brothers, Y/N sneaks past them with Buttons, Albert following not too far behind. The three line up to get their papers, waiting for Weasel to slither his way to the distribution stand.

"Alright, line it up!" As if hearing his name, the Weasel himself stands grumpily behind his money box.

"Mornin' Weasel! Long time, no see!" Y/N grins brightly. The annoyed twitch under Weasel's left eye is enough to make Y/N snort.

"Not long enough." He grumbles.

"Aw, don't be such'a grump." Y/N mock pouts. She pulls a dime from her pocket and flips it onto the money box before moving down to take a stack of papers. She's grateful when Morris hands her the stack, although he does it with a sneer. Nice to know he's not specifically angry at her, at least not angry enough to throw her papers at her like he'll likely do to Jack and definitely to Race.

Y/N waits by the gates for her selling partner, aka the one and only Albert DaSilva. Thankfully Jack hasn't picked up on the Y/N and Albert almost always being partners. They switched it up once and a while to throw off any suspicion, but they're usually selling together. After all, it's one of the only times they can be together without the worry of Jack seeing.

"Ain'tcha sweet for waitin' for me?" Albert teases as he reaches the gate, his head down as he organizes his stack of papers in his bag.

"We both know you'd get lost if I let'cha go alone." Y/N snorts a laugh. She successfully ducks a playful swat from Albert before she looks over his shoulder. She sees Jack taunting Weasel and she knows she has a few seconds to leave before her brother chases her down. "C'mon, best we get a head start on Jack."

"Well stop screwin' around then." Albert grins and hurries out of the square, Y/N right on his heels.

They hurry through the streets of Manhattan towards the Brooklyn bridge. They usually take up selling along the waterfront, sometimes a few blocks around the bridge. They mostly sell at the bridge because it's one of the furthest spots from where Jack sells. Meaning they can hang out once they finish selling morning papers in peace.

"Bet I can sell all my papes b'fore you can even hawk a headline." Albert elbows Y/N's arm as they reach the bridge, the area slowly coming to life as people hurry to get to work.

"You're on." Y/N smirks before hurrying across the street to start selling.

The two spend most of the morning selling, taking a few small breaks to hide in the shade of an alleyway from the July sun. Y/N manages to finish selling her last paper just a few minutes after Albert. The red head is all smirks when he notices Y/N finish after him.

"Don't come smirkin' at me, you bet that you could sell out before I even started. You didn't say nothin' about finishin' first." Y/N points a finger at Albert as they turn down one of the alleyways behind the produce market. Y/N holds an apple in hand and Albert has a pear.

"Should'a bet I'd win first, that way I'da got a free lunch." Albert sighs dramatically and takes a bite of his pear. Y/N rolls her eyes for what feels like the millionth time today before eating her apple.

"I still don't see how ya eat those things." Y/N mumbles.

"I don't see how you can't!" Albert scoffs before finishing his pear.

"Too sweet. And soft, they make a mess." Y/N shrugs and takes another bite of her apple.

"You just can't handle how sweet pears are cause you're so bitter." Albert laughs. Y/N's mouth drops open and she doesn't hesitate to throw the core of her apple at Albert, effectively hitting his neck. Albert gapes, although there's a slight upturn at the corner of his lips. "Low blow, Kelly!"

"Aw, did I hurt the your ego on accident?" Y/N can't hold back the laugh the bubbles up from deep in her stomach. Albert gives her a "seriously?" look before he jumps at her. Y/N accidentally let's out a panicked squeak before turning. She gets a few steps before Albert wraps his arms around her and squeezes her into a hug from behind. "No fair!"

"I think you should apologize." Albert hums, his chin on top of Y/N's head. She's not short, but the way she's standing makes it easy for Albert to rest his chin in top of her head.

"Do you realize how awkward this is?" Y/N squirms. Her feet are in front of her and she's practically leaning against Albert, it's almost like she's trying to sit down. "Seriously, I think you're gonna break my back."

"Apologize 'nd I'll let go." Albert starts swaying back and forth, making Y/N grip his arms and shuffle her feet to keep from completely slipping to the ground.

"Ain't got nothin' t' apologize for." Y/N finished the sentence in time for Albert to sway further and nearly drop Y/N on her bottom. She squeaks again, making the obnoxious red head laugh and try to keep a firm grip on her so she won't fall.

"You're ridiculous." Albert shuffles back and helps Y/N stand up, laughing when she huffs in annoyance. Albert moves around to stand in front of Y/N, his arms crossed as he meets her faux annoyed expression. "I still think you owe me 'n apology."

"I don't see no reason why." Y/N shrugs, although the corners of her mouth twitch up into a horribly suppressed smile.

"That's a lousy thing t' say." Albert pouts, receiving a raised eyebrow from Y/N. The girl takes a small step closer to Albert and shrugs her shoulders slightly.

"Lousy ain't always bad." Y/N jokingly winks. Albert shakes his head with a laugh before naturally gravitating closer to Y/N. She follows until her nose bumps Albert's, the two of them getting closer until Y/N closes her eyes and feels Albert's mouth lightly touch hers.

Y/N hums into the kiss as Albert reaches up and rests his hand on the side of her neck. She follows, her hand gently wrapping around Albert's wrist and her thumb rubbing the soft skin. She can't help but smile as she moves her mouth againsr Albert's. This is far from the first time they've kissed, but with how little time they get to spend together, every kiss feels like the first.

Y/N still gets butterflies in her stomach. She still gets that happy high afterwards.

But even the happy high can end in a snap.

"Oh, hell no." Y/N's eyes snap open and she quickly pulls away from Albert. Her wide eyes meet Jack's furious frown as he stands near the mouth of the alleyway. Behind him, Race stands with an apologetic expression, Crutchie next to him with a hand over his mouth like he's holding in a laugh.

"Oh boy." Y/N whispers. Albert turns around, his expression matching Y/N's.

"Hey, Jack..." Albert awkwardly waves at the fuming boy.

"You're dead, DaSilva." And that's all it takes for Albert to bolt down the other end of the alleyway, Jack right on his heels. Y/N just stares in shocked silence, hardly noticing Race and Crutchie come to a stop next to her.

"I swear, I tried to distract him." Race rushes, although Y/N doesn't seem to hear as she opens and closes her mouth in shock.

"You are so in for it." Crutchie busts out laughing.

I'm so dead, Y/N thinks.

***

"Jack, you need t' calm down!"

"Calm down?! He was suckin' my sista's face!"

"Oh, no, gross, that's definitely not what we were doin'."

"You stay out of this!"

"Okay, everyone shuddup!" Y/N yells from one corner of the rooftop of the lodging house. Crutchie leans against the fire escape, watching and occasionally throwing in a comment or two. Jack paces around the roof, eyes narrowed in on Albert. The red head stands near the edge of the roof, as if he's ready to make a break for it if need be. Y/N stands somewhat between Albert and her fuming brother, sort of like a last resort for a barrier between the two. Y/N faces her brother, her arms crossed under her chest and her mouth set in a thin line. "Jack, it was just'a kiss 'nd I like Albert. S'nothin' wrong with that."

"Nothin' wrong with that? Everything's wrong with that! You're my sista', Albert's s'posed t' be my pal! Seein you two lockin' lips is just-" Jack wiggles around and gags, his nose scrunching up.

"Oh, we are not having this conversation because the thought of your sister kissin' a boy makes ya uncomfy." Y/N rolls her eyes before planting her hands in her hips.

"She has a point." Crutchie comments. Jack whines and shuffles around like he's about ready to throw himself off the rooftop.

"That don't change the fact that it's gross and weird and just wrong. She's my sister." Jack stares down Albert and points at Y/N.

"Yeah, 'nd it just so happens I was kissin' someone you know and trust! S'not like I was kissin' a Delancey or nothin'." Y/N's comment makes the other three on the roof gag and squirm uncomfortably. "Oh, we all know it's true!"

"Doesn't mean we wanna hear it." Albert shivers in disgust.

"Alright alright alright." Jack exhales heavily. He paces a few more times, shakes his head and pursing his lips. Y/N waits in silence with Albert and Crutchie, all three knowing Jack needs a second. When he finally stops pacing, all the attention trains in on him. "Fine, okay, s'not the worst thing ever, I'm gonna set some ground rules."

"What?!"

"Seriously?" Y/N whines, something she unfortunately shares with her older parasite- um, brother.

"Yes. Now I d'know how long this has been goin' on, but I'm sayin' right now that we will not be havin' any littles-"

"I'm gonna be sick." Y/N gags, and it's unfortunately a legitimate gag that makes bile sting the back of her mouth. Albert must inhale sharply and start choking on his spit because he starts coughing obnoxiously. Even Crutchie, who had found the whole situation so hilarious, looks like he's going to be sick.

"Oh, quit it ya pansies." Jack huffs. He angles towards Albert, his eyes narrowed again. "'Nd you. If you hurt my sista' in any way, I swear you'll find yourself swimmin' in the East River in no time."

"I'm definitely not planning on it." Albert manages to say before coughing and clearing his throat, his eyes watery from coughing.

"Good." Jack nods in satisfaction. He looks at the sky and seems to ponder before signing. "Get'a move in, gonna have evenin' papes out soon."

Albert throws an anxious look at Y/N before hurrying to the fire escape. He disappears, Crutchie quickly following and leaving the Kelly siblings alone.

"Y'know, ya could'a told me." Jack's shoulders sag. Y/N kicks her foot awkwardly, her eyes trained in the ground.

"Not if it risked ya reactin' the way ya did t'day." Y/N mutters. She looks up to see Jack sigh and move closer to her.

"I can definitely tell ya I wouldn't have chased him down." Jack snorts.

"I guess that would've been a perk." Y/N hums. She meets Jack's gaze and suddenly the two start laughing. Jack reaches over and playfully shives Y/N's shoulder.

"C'mon, weirdo. We got papes t' sell." Jack shakes his head.

Y/N smiles and follows him off the roof.

That's one crisis averted.

Granted, they still have the rest if the day left.

[ninja-librarian]

More Facts about the Gearloose Three and Co.

Because I love to share about them...

To her vexation, Maria is the shortest of the three. Gyro is the tallest, but he’s a little self-conscious about it.

All three have horrible vision, but Natasha is the only one who will wear contact lenses.

Voice claim for Maria is Nicole Sullivan, who has played Shego on Kim Possible, Mira Nova on Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and Drew on The Secret Saturdays.

Voice claim for Natasha is Chelsea Peretti. Yes, that’s right. You can read her dialogue pieces and hear Gina Linetti from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Clara has a theme song! It’s “Try Everything” by Shakira from Zootopia.

Speaking of music, Natasha and Newton jam and dance to music together a lot. Newton can’t hear any of it, but he loves feeling the beat, especially when the volume is up. Unfortunately, Natasha may have taken slight advantage of the fact that he can only feel the music and can’t hear/understand lyrics, so some of Newton’s favorite songs are... not child-friendly.

Gyro got his name because he and Maria did a silly little kid thing together. Baby Gyro was painfully shy and very quiet, often preferring to sit still, but once he got wound-up and in a playful mood, he’d start running and jumping around and it’d take a long time for him to calm down again--usually in a bit of a crash, when he well and truly ran himself ragged from playing too hard and was now in desperate need of a nap. Maria, being a six year old genius with an impressive vocabulary and understanding of metaphors, once told him that he was like the gyroscope on their father’s desk: once he got started spinning, he didn’t stop for a long time. Gyro latched onto ‘gyro’ and started repeating it over and over. Maria mimicked him, and the two of them repeated the word over and over in various silly voices until they both were laughing so hard their stomachs hurt.

After that, if Gyro was starting to get upset over something, Maria would say ‘gyro’ and they’d just say the word back and forth to each other in silly voices and all would be well.

Then one day, Gyro got lost in a store and--because Maria had deemed grown-ups to be useless at a very young age--while the adults were trying to follow lost child protocol, Maria just marched around the store yelling “Gyro!” until finally she was crashed into by a sobbing toddler who would not let go. The name stuck, and Gyro’s been Gyro ever since.

At least, Gyro’s been Gyro to the Gearloose Three ever since. Natasha was about five when she learned that the name that their parents called him was actually the name given to him when he hatched and was utterly shocked, angry, and betrayed that Gyro’s birth name was not, in fact, Gyro. Natasha demanded that this be rectified immediately; needless to say, she was full of righteous indignation when her parents refused to change their nine-year-old’s name to satisfy their five-year-old.

Fast forward a few years later when Gyro, Natasha, Maria, Della, and Donald are having a brainstorming session over what to legally change Gyro’s name to, Natasha said “Just stick with Gyro.” “Are you suggesting that because you’re still angry that Mom and Dad wouldn’t do it after you found out that Gyro wasn’t my real name?” “...No?” (Translation: Yes.)

Gyro ended up going with it because he figured his sisters and friends were still going to call him Gyro anyways, because he was comfortable with the name and liked it, and, yes, because it made Natasha incredibly happy. When the paperwork went through, Natasha declared that all was officially right with the world.

The Gearloose Three have very distinct personalities and their own set of expressions and habits, but they look the most alike when something or someone has irked them. You do not want to be on the receiving end of all three Gearloose siblings silently judging you.

Clara has dyscalculia; it’s a learning disorder that affects her ability to do math and work with numbers/measurements. It’s part of why she has a complicated relationship with science, and learning in general.

Clara and Newton have a relationship that is more like Gyro and Natasha’s than Maria’s with either of her siblings. Probably because, unbeknownst to any of them and most definitely unconsciously, there is already someone who is perfect for Maria’s role in a sibling-like trio dynamic.

Just like their ages are separated in four years, the Gearloose Three’s birthdays are exactly four months apart. Natasha’s is February third, Gyro’s is June third, and Maria’s is October third. Oddly enough, Clara and Newton’s birthdays follow a similar pattern: Clara’s is July third, and Newton’s is November third. (Though there is another important “birthday” on March third.)

[flourgirl]

When We First Met

Part I of “The Unbelievers” series

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: You’re the new intern at Stark Industries and you’ve made it your mission to figure out just how Peter Parker became Mr. Stark’s favorite.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: A slow burn with a few curse words thrown around.

A/N: This fic helped drag me out of my writer’s block, so I really hope you guys like it! Happy reading <3

“Have you been talking for a million years? Did I go deaf because you're burnin' my ears? Spare the details, it's unnecessary I got places to be and people to see” -It’s Not All About You, Lawrence

The first time you met Peter Parker, he was actually tolerable. It was your first day at Stark Industries, and you had just gotten your job assignment as Pepper’s assistant’s assistant. In other words, you were about to spend your days making coffee runs and changing out ink cartridges. 

“Hey, uh, do you need some help?” he had asked as you struggled to carry two boxes of printer paper all the way to the copy room on the other side of the building.

“Yeah, for sure,” you huffed, not being able to see who your savior was over the stack of boxes. When he took both of the boxes out of your arms, you were met with his dopey grin and wavy, brown hair.

He’s cute, you thought. But all you dared to say was, “Thank you so much. I felt like I was about to die.”

The two of you shared a laugh at your dramatics before you continued walking.

“No problem. I was headed this way, anyway,” he replied nonchalantly. You caught yourself staring at how light he made the boxes seem. He must’ve been a lot stronger than his baggy, oversized sweatshirt made him look. “Are you new? I’ve never seen you around before.” 

Peter had to slow his pace down a lot to let you catch up to him. He wasn’t used to taking casual strolls around the office, always having to run over to wherever Mr. Stark was at a moment’s notice.

“It’s my first day, actually,” you admitted, offering him a weak smile. You weren’t much of a conversationalist, especially not when it came to cute guys who looked that good in sweatshirts with dorky math jokes printed across the front of them. “Are you an intern, too?”

“Yeah! I’ve been working here since I was fifteen,” he told you, leaning against the doorway of the copy room. “But I don’t do anything too important. Mostly just fly under the radar and do what Mr. Stark tells me to.”

Your eyes widened. “Whoa, you work directly with Mr. Stark? You must be one important guy.”

Peter blushed, not knowing how to backtrack out of the hole he had just dug for himself. “Uh, not really. We’re not like friends or anything. It’s just, Mr. Stark knows about all of my science fair projects and—”

“You aren’t making yourself sound any less impressive,” you interrupted, crossing your arms and narrowing your eyes at him as he set the boxes down on the counter. “So, Einstein, who are you?”

“Parker. Peter. Shit, sorry, it’s Peter Parker. I have to go now. Bye!” he blurted out, running from the room before you could even tell him your name.

A girl who looked about your age slipped into the copy room, startling you out of your confused state. “Were you just talking to Peter Parker?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?” you questioned, hoping she’d have some sort of explanation for why he acted the way he did.

“He’s basically Mr. Stark’s surrogate child,” she said, sipping one of the many coffees that she was carrying. “I’m Grace, by the way.”

“Y/N. What do you mean by ‘surrogate child?’”

“It’s like, everywhere Mr. Stark goes, so does Peter. That thing with you and him was basically the first time any of us had ever seen him next to a printer, and he’s only talked to a handful of us once or twice. Guess he’s just too busy being the golden boy to associate with the less important interns.”

Of course. The first chance at a cute office romance that you get is squashed by the fact that the guy you like is an antisocial jerk. But that’s not how he seemed to you, so why was his reputation with the other interns so bad?

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

It had been one week since you started working, and every day you learned more and more reasons why everyone hated Peter Parker. He didn’t make coffee runs and nobody had seen him at an intern meeting in the last year. And yet, somehow, he was the CEO’s favorite. It was annoying, to say the least.

You actually hadn’t seen Peter around ever since you had first met, which only helped to confirm the rumors that he’d rather eat lunch alone than be forced to talk to any of you. You hated that even when Grace or anyone else wasn’t dragging Peter through the mud, you were still thinking about his stupidly adorable Queens accent and whatever the hell he could be doing that was so important.

Of course, the next time Peter decided to grace the cafeteria with his presence was when Mr. Stark had just arrived back from a business trip to Germany. Figures that he would take his favorite on the trip of a lifetime. Your bitterness grew as you imagined Peter relaxing in the company’s private jet, but it wasn’t until he held up the elevator that you really started to hate him.

“Hey,” he panted, slipping into the elevator just before the doors closed. Once again, your hands were full, this time with a stack of folders meant for Pepper to look over. “You’re that new girl. Sorry, I don’t think I got your name.”

“You didn’t,” you noted, turning to look away from him in the hopes that he’d get the message. You weren’t interested in giving him the time of day.

“Did I do something to upset you?” He rubbed the back of his neck while he waited for the answer that you didn’t plan on giving him.

The awkward silence between the two of you was starting to feel especially long when the worst thing possible happened. Loud creaking noises came from the elevator shaft, shaking the two of you as the cables screeched to a halt.

“You have got to be kidding me!” you groaned, setting the files down to press the emergency call button. You had luckily never actually had to use one of these things, but that also meant that you had no idea how to work it.

“Hi, I’m here with another intern and we’re currently stuck in the elevator on the west wing, between floors four and five. Could you send someone over to get us out, please?” You pleaded into the little phone, bitterness lacing your voice.

“What do you mean it’ll take two hours? What do you expect us to do, sit here and play checkers?” You could feel your face heating up as you panicked over the fact that you were going to be stuck in this metal death trap for a while.

Peter walked over to you, leaning against the wall of the elevator to take over the conversation before your attitude extended the wait to three hours. You begrudgingly handed the phone over to him.

“Hey, could you put Mr. Stark on the line?” You couldn’t hear what the person was saying, but you could guess that it wasn’t very positive.

“Well, tell him it’s Peter and…” He looked at you, mouthing for you to give your name.

“Y/N,” you muttered, continuing to pace back and forth as the tiny box that you two were stuffed in started to feel smaller and smaller with each minute that passed.

“Y/N. Five minutes? Alright, thank you so much, Alice! Have a great day.” You were irritated by his effortless charm with others, despite how awkward you knew him to be.

“Um… thank you.” You rubbed your arm awkwardly.

“Are you okay? You seem a little on edge.”

“I’m fine! I just… really need to get out of here.” You wanted to keep pacing back and forth, but you were too busy hyperventilating to think about moving your legs. Peter watched as your eyes started to water, not sure about what he could do to make you calm down.

He stepped closer towards you, which only made you feel even more anxious than you already were. You didn’t want him to see you like this.

“Y/N,” Peter whispered, wrapping his arms around you. You looked up at him in surprise, your eyes probably red and puffy from crying.

“What are you doing?” you sobbed, leaning in closer to him. It was comforting, but you were so embarrassed that you were crying in the arms of a complete stranger.

“Well, uh, I know that hugging someone can release endorphins, more specifically dopamine and serotonin, that calm them down. And it relaxes the muscles, and I know that when babies hear their mom’s heartbeats they feel better, so I just thought—”

“Peter.”

“Yeah?”

“Please stop talking.” You leaned into the hug, taking in the clean smell of his sweater and how warm he was. Little by little, your breathing slowed down.

“Okay,” he agreed, holding you tighter, one of his hands gently stroking your hair in the comfortable silence that had filled the elevator.

You almost forgot about where you were when the elevator jolted upwards, causing you to wriggle out of Peter’s grip and pick your files back up off the ground. When the doors opened, you scrambled out without a word.

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

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” Peter began, fiddling with one of the many decorations around Tony’s office. “I… I think that, maybe, I should be doing, you know, more intern-y things around here.”

Tony cocked an eyebrow, looking up from his computer screen. “Let me get this right, kid. You’re asking me to give you random tasks to do around the office?”

“Uh, yes?” Peter answered, unsure if he had just made a big mistake or not. His confidence was dwindling by the second.

“Now, why on earth would I do that? What if we need Spider-Man for a mission, but Peter Parker is too busy getting some jackass down in HR a peppermint mocha latte?”

“Well, I mean… I just… Some of the other interns are getting kind of mad that you don’t make me run errands or come to any of their meetings, and I’m just worried that they’re getting a little bit too suspicious that I’m always with you and—”

“If I say yes, will you please stop rambling?” Tony groaned, returning to finish typing whatever Peter had just interrupted.

“Yes,” Peter squeaked. For once in his life, his inability to stop talking had been beneficial.

“Fine. Here, go sit downstairs and take the staples out of these packets. And then re-staple them.”

Peter immediately perked up again, excited to be someone other than Spider-Man to Tony. “Right away, Mr. Stark. Thank you so much! Bye!” He quickly ran out of the office and downstairs to where he knew some of the interns liked to have their lunch breaks.

“Is that Peter?” you heard Grace ask in between bites of her panini. Your head perked up to see his head tilted down, making only his soft brown curls visible from where you were sitting.

You squinted, wondering what kind of task had him so engrossed, and why he was sitting over here. He never sat here, especially not while you were eating lunch. Carlos, who interned in accounting, glanced over at Peter before taking his seat across from you.

“Parker sure does seem interested in removing staples all of a sudden,” he laughed, unwrapping his tortilla wrap from its aluminum foil. 

You couldn’t believe it. He was just pretending to be doing something. “That’s it? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Before your friends could stop you, you were marching over to Peter’s table, tapping your foot as you waited for him to notice you.

You cleared your throat, finally catching his attention. “Hi, Y/N,” he grinned, looking back down to meticulously bend back the small metal arms of the staple, freeing the sheets of paper from each other.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Taking out staples.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Some weird way of you proving that Mr. Stark totally doesn’t give you special treatment or something?” Peter got nervous, realizing how quickly you had caught onto his ruse. He needed a way to distract you and fast.

“You, um, you look pretty today,” he told you, not even looking up to meet your cold stare.

A blush started to spread across your cheeks when you realized what he had said. Surely the quick glance he had just given you wasn’t enough for him to actually know what you looked like today.

“Nice try, Parker. You barely even looked at me. Showering me with false compliments isn’t going to stop me from figuring out what the hell you’re actually up to around here.” You countered, satisfied that his plan wasn’t working as well as he wanted it to.

“Didn’t need to look. You’re pretty every day,” Peter replied calmly. He didn’t even realize what he was saying until it had come out of his mouth. It was true. He thought you looked nice every time he saw you, but you didn’t seem to take his compliments very well, and so he never told you.

But you didn’t know that he actually meant it. He’s just messing with you, you reasoned, regaining your composure.

“Whatever,” you huffed. “Just some advice: next time, you should try to come up with something better than taking out the staples of packets that clearly never had any problems in the first place.” 

He peered up to see you turn on your heels and walk back to your friends, who had been carefully watching the two of you this entire time.

“Was that a lovers’ quarrel?” Carlos teased as you sat back down. You rolled your eyes at him, and Grace giggled at your insistence that nothing was going on between you and Peter.

“Yeah, it looked like things were getting a little hot and heavy,” she added.

“Shut up, you guys. We definitely are not lovers,” you assured them, digging back into your grilled cheese.

“Sure. So if there’s nothing going on, then why did Yuri tell me that he saw you guys making out in the elevator on the security cameras?” Carlos asked, making you snap your head at him mid-bite, your eyes widening.

Fucking Yuri. All of those security interns were just nosy and power-hungry, but you’d have to deal with him another time.

“We were not making out! We were just stuck in the elevator and—”

“You guys decided to have a romantic embrace?” Grace questioned, only further exasperating you. “Come on, Y/N, just admit it. You have a crush on Peter.”

“No, I don’t! I wouldn’t date Peter if he were the last guy on the planet,” you yelled, suddenly aware of how loud you had become. 

You looked around the room to see many confused faces staring back at you, including Peter’s, which had a frown on it.

You watched as he collected his stack of papers and walked out of the room, staring so hard at the floor that he almost ran into two women who were walking by.

“Geez, Y/N. We were only joking. It’s okay,” Carlos said, holding back a laugh at your little scene.

“You guys suck,” you huffed, settling down to hopefully enjoy the rest of your lunch break in peace. 

You needed to forget about the way that Peter had looked at you just a minute ago, full of hurt and disappointment. He didn’t actually care, you thought to yourself, even though you weren’t quite sure if that were true.

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

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[hold-my-hand-kuroo]

now that my notifs are back, take this word vomit. i’m not really sure what this is. also i’ve stopped being a bitch and have learned how to put things under a cut-

pairing: kuroo x reader

I.

Your first meeting with Kuroo isn’t exactly the ideal. Initially, you knew him as the tall guy in your first-year class with the terrible bedhead and the loud, cackle-like laugh. People called him the volleyball nerd, and you could understand it well. When he wasn’t fighting with his shorter friend, all you ever heard him talking about was volleyball this, volleyball that. It wasn’t that you were eavesdropping; he just happened to be your seat mate, and anybody that loud could be heard from the next room over.

By your first meeting, though, you knew him mostly as the pest. 

“Please, Yaku,” you hear the tall boy croon with a roll of his eyes. “Dogs are where it’s at. They actually react when you’re around.”

“The sheer silence and peace from cats are superior to whatever a dog can give you,” the shorter boy replies. So that’s Yaku, you think. 

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong,” Kuroo cackles, too focused on the conversation to realize that another student was walking toward him. 

Before he was able to even take a look at the area around him, the said student bumps into his arm, shaking the drink that he was holding with a loose hand. The next thing you know, you’re drenched in what smelled and seemed to be canned coffee. You hear both Kuroo and Yaku cuss, but you’re way too preoccupied with figuring out how to get the stain out. Leaving your desk immediately, you rush to the bathroom, taking off the wet jacket you were wearing and fruitlessly wringing it.

You spend nearly half an hour in the bathroom, and you’re definitely late to first period. Today sucked, and so did Kuroo. Walking out of the bathroom, fuming, you’re internally bracing yourself for the humiliation as to why you have a giant coffee stain on the shoulder of your white uniform shirt. It’s not subtle at all, and you didn’t even bring your gym clothes today, seeing that your gym periods were only on Thursdays and Fridays. 

Awkwardly opening the door to your classroom, you’re hunched over, walking quietly toward your desk; however, two things surprise you. The first is that your math teacher doesn’t chew you out like he usually does to late students. The second is the Nekoma jersey and note resting on your desk. Eyeing your seat mate, Kuroo gives you an apologetic smile and wave and points to the note on your desk.

“I’m really sorry about this morning. Take my jersey to cover up. It’s still clean. Also, don’t worry about the old man. I already explained it to him, and he really gave me an earful.”

Looking back and forth between him and the note, you feel a small smile creep up on your face. The jersey has sleeves long enough to cover your hands completely, so you have to do some folding, but it’s warm and smells uncharacteristically fruity for a guy like him. You almost want to write a note back and ask about the detergent his household uses.

When lunch break starts, both him and Yaku give you a formal apology and a juice box. You start to think that the spilt coffee was worth it; you’ve made two new friends and have come to the realization that you maybe don’t hate Kuroo. 

II. 

Second year is when things get wild for you once Kuroo introduces you to his “favorite best friend” Kenma Kozume. Within your friend group consisting of Yaku, Kuroo himself, and Kai (one of the newer editions), you thought that it’d be good to get closer to Kenma as well, seeing that he was already closer to the other three because of volleyball.

Talking about games was easy; you weren’t much of a gamer, but Kenma, although usually silent, talked most about strategy. Once you understood most of the mechanics, discussing grinding methods or ways to increase avoidance rates was no problem for you. You hadn’t thought it was strange when Kenma decided to talk to you more, though. Wasn’t it natural for someone to open up once they found a common ground?

Kuroo, on the other hand, was beyond shocked. Ecstatic even.

“You have to be our manager!” he pleads for almost a month straight before you actually agree on the account that he treated you to ice cream after every practice. Then it’d be a fair deal.

Being the Nekoma manager was tough work, especially considering the fact that there hadn’t been a manager before you. Sure, the third years tell you what to do from time to time, but you find them a little intimidating with their intensity and strictness. Nekomata and the second years helped you get started the most, and after a few weeks at the job, you have it down to a T. You’ve heard from some of the players that their time in the gym is a lot easier thanks to you and your attention to detail, but really, you’re only focused on you’re favorites.

Of course, that included you and your second year buddies, but you also have a soft spot for Kenma. He always seemed tired, and you’ve heard that he did consider quitting, but you think Kuroo would be devastated if that actually happened. It was such a shame to see him so miserable at practice, mostly at the cause of the third years; you figured that Kenma’s sharp game sense would give him praises, but it only brings him criticism for him to do even better.

It only motivates you to do better at your job; washing uniforms, keeping track of plays, and consistently refilling water bottles, you did your best so that you could support the others. Training camps were always hectic with the schedules you had to prepare. You even find yourself going to school earlier before practice started to help tutor those who needed it; exams were always important, and passing them was the only way to keep the team intact.

“You know, Y/N, I’m really glad you’re our manager,” Kuroo muses one day after practice. He walks over to the usual freezer where your preferred brand of ice cream sits and turns around in search of a Pocari sweat.

“You’re just saying that because you didn’t want to wash the sweaty jerseys anymore,” you quip dryly. “Oh, don’t forget an apple pie for Kenma.”

“How lucky of him to be spoiled by you,” Kuroo chuckles, glancing outside of the store window to look at Kenma sitting on a nearby bench while playing a game. “You should spoil me more. It’s not fair.”

“Why should I spoil you when you’re the one who got the both of us into this mess?” You roll your eyes and take your ice cream from him. He holds the store door open for you, following closely behind.

“Don’t say that when I know you’re having fun. Sometimes,” he laughs, sipping his drink. “But seriously, I’m glad you became our manager.”

“What’s with you getting sappy with me today?” you question, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. “What did you do-“

“I’m just saying. It’s been fun with you around. Kai and Yaku think so, too. And.” He pauses, looking at his childhood friend. “I think Kenma would’ve quit a long time ago if you weren’t around.”

“I’m sure he would’ve stayed for you,” you respond, thwacking Kuroo gently on the back. “Snap out of it. You’re gonna make me puke.”

And yet, you run those words through your head late at night, unable to sleep. Yeah, you think. It has been pretty fun.

III.

The third years graduate, and Kuroo steps up to be the team captain with Kai by his side as vice. You think it’s fitting and even laugh at the idea of the new second years calling Yaku the mother of the team. You’re still the manager all by your lonesome, but with a solid year of experience under your belt, you think you’ll be able to handle the work just fine.

That is, until Lev Haiba in his 6’ 5” glory comes bolting in. He’s a good kid, you think, but he’s quite the handful. Loud and always freaking Kenma out, Kuroo already has a hard enough time dealing with this new wannabe ace. You think he’s fun, though, since it used to be rare when Kuroo would snap. You suppose it’s what happens when you’re given new responsibility, and even people like Kuroo can be serious.

“It’s funny,” you comment, sitting next to the captain as you’re rewatching plays of your next opponent. It’s late, and the only people still in the gym are Kai, who’s cleaning up dutifully, and Kenma, gaming a few feet away. “To think that you’d finally snap. Now you get to have a taste of your own medicine.”

“There’s no way I was that annoying,” Kuroo groans, running a hand through his hair. “And anyways, I’m starting to see a pattern of you preferring all the underclassmen over me.”

“It’s not that hard,” you joke, taking down notes. “You’re super annoying. Right, Kenma?”

Without looking up from his game, Kenma makes a noise of agreement, causing Kuroo to scoff. You two put your attention back to the video playing in front of you, but you don’t notice how close he is until your shoulders brush. You almost flinch, but try your hardest to keep your cool. There’s no way that you’re going to let Kuroo make fun of you for that, so you wait for him to move instead.

Except he doesn’t. Rather than shifting away, the captain continues leaning on you, and you find his head resting peacefully on your shoulder. You don’t dare move, but instead choose to keep taking notes. Focus on writing, focus on the clip, but don’t focus on Kuroo, you think. He smells fruity, just like his jacket from two years ago and even after all the sweat from practice. The scent is so calming and nostalgic, and you almost catching yourself relaxing, but you don’t. You can’t.

“Can we go now?” Kenma says suddenly, breaking you out of your internal panic. “It’s almost eight, and Kai already left.”

“Sure thing,” Kuroo replies, shutting off the clip and getting up. He holds out a hand toward you. “Let’s clean up and get you that ice cream I owe you.” 

“And an apple pie,” Kenma adds, walking away, but not before sparing you and Kuroo a glance. He shrugs it off. “I’ll wait outside.” 

“Thanks,” you mumble, taking Kuroo’s hand. It’s calloused, yet warm and comforting, much like his scent. “I can’t believe we stayed so late. I still have a lab report to finish tonight-“

“That’s my bad, so FaceTime tonight again?” he offers, laughing. 

“Kuroo, we FaceTime every night.”

“Yeah, but this time, I’ll help you finish your paper, since it’s my fault for keeping you here,” he chuckles, finally letting go of your hand after what seemed to be an unusually long time. “And you can help me with literature-“

“I knew you needed something,” you tease, walking to get your belongings. Your skin feels all tingly, and you swear that the temperature has risen. “But, yeah, whatever. I don’t really care if you call or not, seeing that I won’t be sleeping early anyways.”

You hear him cackle before following you outside the two doors, and when you’re out in the open air, you finally feel as if you’re breathing easily again. Oh no, you think. It’s your third year and things have changed. Or rather, things have been changing.

IV.

None of you talk about university.

It’s the elephant in the room that no one dares to address, not until after you guys make it to Spring Nationals. Sure, the third years had group study sessions for college entrance exams every Saturday, and sure, you and Kuroo always studied late into the night through video call, but nobody wants to think about what happens after separation. Not yet, at least. It’s too distracting, and frankly, you think Yaku might cry if you bring it up.

During winter break, you, Kuroo, Yaku, and Kai all go to the shrine and pray for good luck. It’s meant for the upcoming tournament, but secretly, you know it’s about exams too. Sometimes, Yamamoto will ask about future plans, and all the answers are vague, “Oh, just going to university,” or, “Not sure, yet,” but the air becomes tense, and you hate it. There’s an unspoken pack between the four of you to leave details out, but you desperately want to know exactly how far your friends are going and for how long and what you’ll do without them. 

January rolls by, and the four of you head to your respective exams on your own. Even after they’re done, and results have been posted, nobody says anything about being accepted or rejected. There’s no celebration party, no consolations. Not when the spring is coming right around the corner. 

Even though every day seemed more stressful, more tiring, it also seemed shorter. Sometimes you’d find practice over in the blink of an eye. The match against Nohebi had you on the edge of your seat, practically making you pull out your hair, but even that one ends in a quick victory. Time was quickly running out. 

And then, Nekoma loses to Karasuno at nationals. You were so sure that you had the match, so sure that the determination and dedication your team had put in would pay off, but even in the end, you’re not sure how to feel about it. When Kuroo had first mentioned the Battle at the Garbage Dump to you during your first year, you had laughed and called it a dumb name. You weren’t a manager then, but even though you’re a manager now, you still think the name is dumb. Dumb, but a big deal for Kuroo and Nekoma, and therefore, a big deal to you.

There’s some crying on the bus ride home, but Kuroo sits next to you, uncharacteristically silent. When everyone gets off the bus, you see the captain struggle to show enthusiasm for one last motivational speech. It takes his entire will and more not to cry in front his teammates, the ones he had placed all his hopes in. He, like the rest of them, had wanted to go further.

You find him crying in the storage room once everyone’s gone, sitting in the ball against the wall in complete darkness. Not wanting to turn on the lights, you opt to leave the door open instead so that light flows in, illuminating the space around you. Shuffling over to his quivering position, you take a seat next to him, rubbing circles on his back.

“You look terrible,” you laugh bitterly. “So much for the tough guy act you put up ten minutes ago. Almost had me fooled.”

“I saw you tearing up on the bus,” he responds, voice raspy from the shouting. “I’ll keep your secret, and you’ll keep mine?”

“I think Yaku and Kai already knew that you were going to cry, but sure,” you respond. You take a minute to think. “What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking about all the blocks I missed,” he murmurs, quietly sobbing. “All the spikes I could’ve gotten, all the balls I could’ve saved-”

“Mhm,” you murmur, stroking the mess that was his hair. “That’s what I thought you would be thinking. But in the end, you got what you’ve been asking for since three years now, right? The trash can battle or something?”

“The Battle at the Garbage Dump,” he corrects, letting out a light chuckle. You hear some sniffling and offer him the tissues you brought, knowing well that he wasn’t going to take the loss in any other way. “It…It was everything I thought it’d be.”

“Satisfied?” you ask, lifting up his chin to dab away tears. 

“I should be,” he grumbles, looking at the floor. “After pushing everyone this much, I know I should be. But-“

“You wanted to go farther, right?” you answer knowingly. “I think we all feel the same.”

And like that, he grabs you straight into his arms, sobbing heavily into your shoulder. You almost wish it were like the other times that he has gotten close to you, the heart fluttering, skin tingling, heat inducing giddiness you felt whenever he leaned close to whisper in your ear or look at your answers for the homework. 

But it’s not. It’s heart-wrenching, it’s heavy, it’s something that can’t be done over. Neither of you have a next year to start all over from scratch, to welcome new underclassmen one more time, to try at nationals again one more time. There’s nothing left for you or Kuroo to do except to move on. It’s a little scary, you think. 

The next morning, he calls you, and you almost think about making fun of him for having to walk him home the night before, but he asks to meet you. He’s actually already outside your door with Yaku and Kai, and when you tell them that you’re not dressed to meet people, they don’t seem to care and keep ringing your doorbell. Your mother is more than happy to let them in, much to your dismay.

“Nationals are over,” Kuroo says slowly, solemnly, “so I think…we need to talk.”

The four of you talk about college, and like you had expected, Yaku’s the first to cry, followed by you. 

V.

Graduation comes at a quick and unrelenting pace. Before you know it, you’re on stage receiving your diploma. There are people crying, but you’ve already done your share weeks ago. You can’t afford to get your eyes puffy and wet, not when you were supposed to be taking pictures with all your friends and family. 

“Hey, Y/N!” a familiar, loud voice calls. You don’t even have to turn around to know who it is.

“Yes, Tetsu?” you call, feigning annoyance. “Even though I’m not a manager anymore, I feel like you keep calling me over.”

“It’s picture time,” he grins, pulling Yaku and Kai toward you. “Let’s make this a good one!”

Going between Kuroo and Yaku, you smile for the camera and quickly thank Yaku’s parents. After taking pictures, Yaku and Kai head off with their families to celebrate; the four of you would meet in a few days for a quick senior trip. Rather than heading back home with your own parents, however, you see them off first. Kuroo had asked for you to take a walk with home, and you didn’t need your family teasing you about it.

“So,” he says, waiting for you at the steps of Nekoma. He puts his hands in his pockets and stares pointedly at the pavement. “Uh, hey.”

“Yeah, hey,” you reply, rolling your eyes. You’d miss doing that. “Did you have something important to say or did you just want me to walk home?”

“Both,” he laughs. He throws his head back in amusement, and you realize that you’d miss that too. “But preferably with me.”

You don’t know how to answer. In the past, he also said playful, flirtatious lines that made your heart go crazy, but you never took them seriously. They were just jokes, and you’d laugh along. You don’t laugh along this time, because it doesn’t sound like a joke. He looks at you nervously.

“I mean, if that’s okay with you,” he continues, scratching his head. 

“We usually walk home together, so-“

“Well, not like usually,” he quickly interrupts. Then, he groans. “I mean like…we could hold hands while we do it this time.”

Cue stunned silence. You almost can’t believe he’s doing this in such a roundabout way. Sure you’re relieved, but you’re just so exhausted with him beating around the bush.

“Tetsu, just say it to me directly,” you say, chuckling slightly. At the sound of your laughter, confidence practically surges through the boy, and his shoulders straighten a little bit.

“Oh? I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” he teases, looking smug suddenly. You laugh again at the change in mood.Two could play at that game.

“You hate me never want to see me again after high school,” you mock. He gasps in feigned surprise. The two of you laugh for a while, exchanging jokes. It’s been a while since the mood has been so relaxed, and it’s only another thing that you realize that you’d miss.

“In all seriousness, how does a long-distance relationship sound?” he asks and winces slightly at his words. “I mean, if you don’t want to-“

“No, I do,” you reassure, looking at Kuroo straight in the eye. Taking his hands in yours, you take a deep breath. “It’ll be hard, but I want to try.”

“Yeah?” he mumbles and is slightly amused at himself for having it come out as a question. “I mean, yeah. That’s cool. And in reality, you’re only two hours away.”

“Only?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d travel two hours back and forth to see you whenever you’re feeling lonely,” Kuroo chuckles. Oh, you hated how smooth he was and how lovely he looked when he was happy and blushing. “Just give me a call, and I’ll be there before you know it. Hey, hey, hey, are you crying?”

“I’m not,” you sniffle and wipe away your tears. Leaning toward your face, Kuroo stares at you for a moment, silently asking for consent. When you nod, he presses a kiss on your cheek and gently wipes away a stray tear with his thumb. 

“Right, you sure aren’t,” he murmurs closely to your ear.

“Remember to text and call me a lot,” you manage to add, struggling between sobs. He struggles to find a handkerchief for you and opts to use his sleeve instead.

“Of course,” is his answer. He’s glad you’re crying and covering your face, because honestly, he’d hate for you to see him tearing up too.

[hydroponicjj]

what about protective joshua/ricky I feel like he’d be really touchy and always had a hand on you in front of other guys 👀

jealousy

pairing: ricky bowen x reader

word count: 1.3k

warnings: swearing

a/n: thank you so much for requesting! i took somewhat of a different approach, i hope that’s okay with you.

                            [ ·˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ♡ ]

“DO YOU REALIZE HOW UNHEALTHY THOSE THINGS ARE?” You started, taking a seat in between Ricky and Big Red at the lunch table closest to the courtyard.

“But they taste good,” Ricky pouted, resting his head on your shoulder.

“I can’t believe how big of a baby you are.” You joked, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

He lifted his head from your shoulder and wrapped his arms around your torso, giving you small kisses on the back of your neck.

“You guys are so gross,” Big Red gagged, rolling his eyes.

“We all know if Ashlyn wasn’t at home sick right now you two would be doing the same thing.” Ricky shot back.

“Are we really that bad?” He asked, leaning in.

“To be fair, you two are in the honeymoon stage.” You chimed in, looking back and forth between the two boys at your table.

Big Red had a look of pure shock plastered on his face while Ricky seemed to be enjoying his friend’s crisis.

“I’ve gotta call her,” Red frantically stood up from the table, taking his phone out of his back pocket and heading straight to the exit.

“Poor guy,” You chuckled, watching as he almost tripped over his feet while walking away.

“Do you wanna come over after school? We could order pizza and watch a movie?” Ricky suggested, he took a handful of fries and shoved them in his mouth.

“Sorry bubs but, someone signed up for tutoring this morning and I already said that we could meet in the library after school.” You explained, watching as the smile on his face slowly dissipated.

“You can’t ditch them, for me?” He asked, giving you the biggest puppy dog eyes known to man.

“Oh, how I wish I could.” The frown on his face got bigger and bigger with every second that passed but, it seemed as though he had finished trying to convince you to bail.

“Who is so adamant about tutoring anyway?” Ricky chuckled, taking a sip of his water.

“Benjamin,”

Ricky almost choked on his water. He began to cough very loudly, gaining the attention of many pupils in the cafeteria, giving him a face of disgust.

“Benjamin? As in Benjamin Caswell?” Ricky questioned, disbelief coursing through his veins. Would you really stand him up for a Caswell?

You nodded.

Benjamin Caswell, EJ’s younger brother. He was a junior, the same as the two of you. Ricky was positive that ever since you started dating that he was trying to drive a wedge between you two. He’d sign up for tutoring every single day that you were available, knowing that you were way too kind to refuse.

“I know that you don’t like him because he’s EJ’s younger brother but, he’s really struggling with math and I just want to help him pass the class.” You explained, wiping the grease off of the corner of his mouth.

“You know he’s failing the class on purpose, right?” Ricky deadpanned, raising his eyebrows.

“Why would he do that? Benjamin might not understand math but he’s not stupid” You smiled.

“Because he likes you, (y/n). Why else would he sign up for tutoring almost every day of the week?” Ricky was looking at you like you were stupid, which you weren’t.

“I’ve seen his test scores, he needs the help and I’m offering it. There is no need for you to be jealous.” You poked his side, making him giggle slightly before he covered his mouth, praying that you didn’t hear it.

“Walk me to my next class?” You asked, taking his hand as you stood from your seat.

A small smile appeared on his face as he took your hand. On the way to your third-period class, you spotted Benjamin in the hallway, giving him a smile and a wave as you passed. You could practically feel the heat radiating off of Ricky’s eyes. He was probably burning holes in Benjamin’s head as we speak, but that wouldn’t change the fact that you were his tutor.

                           [ ·˚ ༘♡ ·˚ ♡ ]

“Ease up a little, bubs.” You chuckled, pushing Ricky off of you.

“Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” He asked, looking you in the eyes, checking to make sure that you were okay.

“No, no. It’s just that were kinda making out on the lockers and we’ve never kissed this much in public.” You explained, interlocking your fingers behind his head.

“Oh, well we can stop if you want.” He suggested, grabbing his bookbag off of the floor.

“Who said anything about stopping?” You smiled, leaning in to begin kissing him again.

“Looks like you two have finally come up for air.”

“Of course, Benjamin Caswell had to interrupt.” Ricky thought to himself.

“Hey, Ben.” You greeted, smoothing your wrinkly shirt.

“We still on for this afternoon?” He questioned.

“Yeah, for sure. See you then.”

You couldn’t help but notice the look on your boyfriends face, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Another tutoring session? How desperate is he.” Ricky scoffed, watching as Benjamin walked away.

“C’mon, don’t be that way.” You scolded, lightly pushing his chest.

“Didn’t you two study yesterday?”

“Like I said, he’s having a lot of trouble.” You shrugged.

Ricky tried his hardest not to get mad. After all, it’s not his fault that Benjamin was trying to get with you.

“I trust you but, just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Of course, bubs.” You reassured, pecking him on the lips.

                           [ ➳♡゛]

“You did a really good job today, Ben. You’re really improving!” You exclaimed, putting your things in your car. You had just finished tutoring Benjamin and you could tell that he was making serious progress.

“Soon you’re not gonna need me.” You smiled.

“I don’t know about that.” He hissed.

“Okay, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Do you think we could have another session tomorrow?” He asked.

“I don’t think so. I promised Ricky that I’d come over after school.” You shrugged.

“C’mon, (y/n). Ditch him.” He had placed an arm on the roof of your car, past your head.

“I’m free next week, how about we schedule a session for then?” You suggested.

“That’s not going to work for me,” He whispered.

Silence fell between you two. “What the hell is he doing?” You thought.

“Uh, I’ve gotta go.” You awkwardly chuckled.

You tried to turn to get in your car but he closed his eyes and started to lean in.

Out of instinct, slapped him. You could faintly make out the imprint of your hand on the side of his face.

“What the fuck are you doing, Caswell?” You shouted.

“Trying to kiss you, I thought you felt the same?” He defended himself, rubbing the side of his face.

“I have a boyfriend. What the hell is your problem?” You rolled your eyes.

“Wait, does this mean you’re gonna tutor me?” He asked.

You scoffed, getting into your car, driving off as fast as humanly possible.

                          [ ➳♡゛]

“You were right,” You barged into Ricky’s room, he almost fell off of his bed.

“iwastutoringbenjaminandthenhetriedtokissmebutislappedhim.” You rambled, hyperventilating.

“Woah, slow down.” He consoled, instantly rushing to your side.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you, bubs. Benjamin tried to kiss me after tutoring today.” You explained

“He did what?” His eyes almost popped out of his head.

“I know, but I slapped him before he could do anything.” You clarified Ricky’s face seemed to relax a little after you said that.

“Do you want me to kill him? Cause I will.”

“No, no. I’ll do it myself.” You smiled, taking a seat on his bed, Ricky following suit.

“I’m so sorry that I didn’t listen to you. I really thought he was a good guy.” You apologized, resting your head on his shoulder.

“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you and I’m sorry.” He rested his head on top of yours.

“I think we both learned something from this.”

“And what was that?”

“That we’re both really smart and trustworthy.” You declared.

“Hey, we learned something else,” Ricky exclaimed.

“Hmm?”

“That I should kiss you in the hallways more often.”

[iamakiller]

heartless

Wordcount: 2400

Warnings: Murder. Violence.  Infidelity.  Divorce.  Reference to past abuse.

Notes:  They say that every tale has three different versions.  Mine, yours, and the truth.

This is the story of the death of a marriage, and what came after.

Henry is one.  

His first word is “Dada”, followed closely by “Mama”, so Nicole can’t sulk for too long.

These days, he sleeps through the night more often than not.  Some semblance of normality has finally fallen over the Barber household, after their rather chaotic beginning.  It is ... nice.

Nicole’s figure has almost reverted back to how it was before.  When Charlie reaches for her, she does not deny him. Her body is warm and welcoming, just as he remembers.

Now, if he stays out late sometimes, it is only to walk and think.  His blades are gathering dust.  He has remained faithful for over a year.

He cannot remember the last time he felt lonely.

Everything is perfect.

***

Henry is two.

Every other word out of his mouth is “No”.  He is irrational, defiant, and wonderful.

Nicole mentions L.A. once or twice in passing, but Charlie dismisses it as a fleeting fancy.  His career is going well, and New York is his home.

The attraction between them is still utterly magnetic.  Charlie recognizes every inch of her body almost as well as his own. The taste of her spit, her sweat, her cum are all imprinted on his mind indelibly. The feel of her flesh under his hands is familiar and satisfying, and he cannot seem to get enough of it, even after several years of marriage.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter that they never seem to talk.

Everything is good.

***

Henry is three.

His curiosity about the world around him is vast.  His capacity to ask questions is seemingly limitless, and often exhausting.

He also has no filter, which Charlie discovers to his utter mortification when Henry announces to the cashier at the supermarket checkout – and indeed to the entire queue, due to the volume of his innocent little voice - “My Daddy has a huge penis.”

Charlie claps his hand over Henry’s mouth, stammers his apologies, and retreats as soon as he has paid for his groceries.  But when he gets home and begins to unpack them, he notices that a phone number has been scribbled on the back of the receipt.  Interesting.

He puts it in his pocket.  Just in case.  It’s not like the cashier was extremely attractive.  It’s not like she looked at him in a way that Nicole hasn’t for a while now.  It’s not like he’s going to call her.

(But he does.  Of course, he does.)

Other than that, though …

Everything is fine.

***

Henry is four.

For some reason known only to him, he is going through a clingy phase.  He doesn’t want to go to day care anymore.  He only wants his Daddy.  He holds on to Charlie’s legs with a vice-like grip, and refuses to let go.  And Charlie cannot bring himself to force him.

So for two weeks, Henry becomes Charlie’s unofficial assistant director on his latest production.  If Charlie is seated, Henry is on his lap, face tucked against the crook of his shoulder.  If Charlie is standing, Henry is right beside him, holding onto his hand or the hem of his cardigan. When the more kindly members of the cast and crew try to engage with him, he peeks out at them from behind Charlie’s back, but as the days pass, he soon warms up to them, and soon everyone is quite distracted by his joyful presence.  He eats pizza for lunch every single day, and has all the paper and crayons that his heart could possibly desire.  When he’s tired, he naps on a makeshift bed of jackets in a quiet corner of the rehearsal space.  And finally, at the end of the second week, he asks Charlie when he’s going back to day care.

Nicole finds out about this little holiday after a phone call enquiring as to whether or not he’ll be attending the following week, and is furious. “You’re spoiling him!” she accuses, once Henry is in bed.  “He has to learn he can’t always get what he wants!”

He’s four, Charlie thinks. But also … The audacity!

Nicole grew up in the lap of luxury, with a father who gave her whatever she wanted, as she reminds him all too often when he denies her some outrageous request. She has no right to comment on anyone else being spoiled. When Charlie tells her as much, without any of his usual attempts to soften the harshness of his words, she reels away with a shocked look on her face, like his mother used to after his father struck her.

Suddenly, Charlie feels awful.  Like an utterly heartless bastard.  

He spends the rest of the evening apologizing.  The make up sex that occurs once she has forgiven him is so cathartic that afterwards, as they sprawl across the couch together, he finds himself telling her a few details about his past.  Not much, but more than he’s ever trusted anyone with before, except perhaps his dear cousin Pat.  

He wants her to understand him so badly.  She is his wife, after all.  The mother of his child.  His life partner. Til death do us part.

Nicole presses her lips together, and doesn’t say anything in response.  After a moment, she gets up, and goes to take a shower.

They never talk about it again.

Charlie openly embarks on a string of affairs, because why the hell not?  He dusts off his knives, and becomes the scourge of the city again.  Nicole doesn’t seem to notice that anything has changed.  Or maybe she just doesn’t care.

Everything is not okay.

***

Henry is five.

He is tall for his age, but not exceptionally so.  His report cards are full of praise for his positivity and kindness to others, though they do also mention how inattentive he is at times, especially when it comes to math.  He has a gaggle of girls who follow him around the playground with dazed expressions and starry eyes.  When Charlie asks him about them, Henry shrugs.  “They’re just my girlfriends,” he says.  Christ.

For the first time in his life, Charlie feels old. This is probably due to the permanent backache he has from sleeping on the couch on the nights he bothers to stay home.  Or maybe it’s because he’s acting like he’s still twenty-five, and fucking every woman who spares him a second glance.

His body count has increased exponentially of late.  Most of his victims won’t be missed, but enough of them are noticed that it draws NYPD’s attention, and he has to take a couple of weeks off to let it all blow over.

It works.  But everything else blows up.

Trapped in the apartment with Nicole, tensions rise, until finally his infidelities come to light.  In a hushed voice - so as not to wake Henry - she calls Charlie a narcissist, and a womanizer, and a drunk.

Charlie stands there and takes it stoically.  Just like he used to when he was younger, and it was his mother spitting venom at him.  The words wash over him, barely registering.  He doesn’t respond.

After a while, enraged by his lack of reaction, Nicole screws up her pretty face into a nasty sneer, and informs him that he’s a heartless bastard just like his father was. 

In spite of all he has done, it is a low blow to throw those secrets he trusted her with back at him like a weapon.  And it triggers him, like nothing she has ever said or done before.

Suddenly, he finds himself looming over her, with his fist raised, and the urge to strike almost overwhelming him.

But he is not like his father.  

He is not.  

HE IS NOT.

Biting back a howl of pain so as not to wake his sleeping son, he punches a hole in the wall next to her head instead.

Even though they have been trying to be quiet, the silence that comes next is deafening.

Charlie stares at the damaged wall.  At his hand.  At his wife.

As if in slow motion, he crumples to his hands and knees on the floor, and begins to sob.

For a moment, Nicole stares at him with her mouth open, and her eyes wide. Then she leaves the room.

That night, she packs a bag and leaves, taking Henry with her.

Charlie is alone again.

Everything is broken.

***

It ends, as it began, with a great deal of expense, more of an audience than Charlie is comfortable with, and the signing of several pieces of paper.

***

Henry is six.

According to Nicole, the teachers at his new school say he is doing very well.  Charlie speaks to him almost every day over Skype or on the phone, so there isn’t much about his life he doesn’t know, given Henry’s tendency to overshare.

But he misses the little things.  The boring, mundane activities he took for granted.  Helping with homework.  Reminding Henry to brush his teeth, and tuck his shirt in.  Quietly spending time together; Charlie absorbed in his writing, and Henry filling page after page with his colorful imaginings.  Charlie loves hearing about Henry’s life, he really does. But he misses living it with him.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s latest play – ironically enough about the breakup of a relationship – is receiving rave reviews.  

Even that one critic who panned him years ago has reached out via email to apologize after attending the preview, showering him with some gorgeous words of praise.  They have been conversing back and forth ever since, the messages growing more and more explicit.  He wonders if he will ask her for a review of his performance after he fucks her.  It would be fitting.  But he is so looking forward to killing her that he thinks he might not be able to wait.  Her apology was just meaningless, empty words, and she deserves his punishment. Charlie never forgives. And he never forgets.

By day, he is in great demand.  He works long hours, and doesn’t have even a moment of time to himself, so surrounded is he by others in his workplace.

But at night, he is alone.

So, at night, he drinks, and he fucks, and he kills.

He is relentless.  He is ruthless. He is reckless.  He is heartless.

He has nothing left to lose.

***

“Most men are just stone cold,” his mother told him years ago, bitter after a bad breakup with her latest beau.  Charlie must have been about twelve at the time.  “Heartless bastards, the lot of them.  Just like your father was.  Like you are.”

Her words were slurred and she could barely stand, although it was only three in the afternoon.  She was drunk, but Charlie didn’t doubt the truth of her words.  He never did.  She was his mother, so why would she lie to him?

Heartless.

Charlie thinks about it often, even now.  

Heartless bastard.

Late at night, when he’s being kept awake by an ache in his chest so intense that no amount of booze or cunt or blood ever seems to distract him from it, even for a single moment.

I am heartless, he thinks.

I am alone.

***

It is nearing the end of summer, but it is still far too hot and humid to be dressed to the nines for a black tie event.  Charlie has been sweating in his suit all evening, and it hasn’t improved one bit since he retreated to his air conditioned apartment.

In the kitchen, he removes his jacket and tie, draping them carefully over the back of one of the chairs that sit at the small table in the corner. He unfastens the top two buttons of his shirt, and rolls his sleeves up neatly.  That’s better.

After taking a few seconds to compose himself, he fills two glasses with ice water, and returns to the living room. Only a minute has passed at most since he left the room, but in this time his companion has traveled from the couch where he left her, to stand in front of the bookcase.  She appears to be examining the few photos Charlie has of himself and Henry, in happier times. 

His footsteps sound very loud as he approaches her.  The apartment is always so quiet, these days.  “That’s my son,” he says, quietly.  “He is seven. He lives with his mother in Los Angeles.”

His companion nods, but doesn’t say anything.  She doesn’t turn around, so he cannot see her expression.  He wonders what she is thinking.  Probably that he is damaged goods.  Which has always been true.

Charlie suddenly becomes aware of how close behind her he’s standing.  He can smell her perfume, combined with the scent of some expensive shampoo. There is a light sheen of perspiration on her bare shoulders, which glistens in the faint lamplight of the room.  He wonders what her sweat would taste like.  How her lips would feel like against his.  If her skin is really as soft and as smooth as it looks. He wonders how well it would bruise for him, and if she would enjoy it.

“Here,” he says, reaching around her with one of the glasses of water.  She takes it from him, and lifts it to her lips to take a sip, making a small sound of appreciation.  As he retracts his hand, he allows it to brush against her arm, so gently that it almost seems accidental.  She shivers, then goes very, very still.

“His name is Henry,” he continues, apropos of absolutely nothing.  “I miss him.  I don’t miss his mother.”  He can’t understand why he is blurting information out like this, to a stranger he met at an incredibly dull party only a few hours ago.  “It was a strange relationship, and I suppose I am still not really sure what even happened.”

His companion takes another sip of water, then places the glass on the bookshelf.  The lack of coaster underneath it makes Charlie cringe, but only for a moment.  His head empties itself of all coherent thought when she turns to look at him.  It feels like the breath has been punched out of his lungs.  It’s only been a couple of minutes since he last saw her face, but it feels like somehow he’d managed to forget just how lovely she is. Or perhaps his reaction is because he is only now able to truly appreciate her radiance, given their new proximity to each other.

“I understand,” she tells him, in a voice that sounds like the most beautiful music he has ever heard. Quite boldly, she takes the glass of water out of his hand, and places it next to the one he gave her.  Again without a coaster, but Charlie doesn’t even care.  “My last breakup was less than ideal.  It turned out my partner was rather heartless.  Or … perhaps I was.” Her tone is self-deprecating, and Charlie can sense some pain behind her words.

And there it is again.  Heartless.

That word that has haunted him for years.

I am heartless, he thinks.  I am alone.

And there is is again.  That ache inside his ribcage.  

But this time, it feels different.  This time, it is accompanied by a warmth that is spreading from the center of his chest, through his torso, and into his limbs.  How strange.

Unbidden, an odd thought floats into his mind, and takes up residence there.  Am I heartless?

Slowly, Charlie reaches out and takes her hand in his.  He brings it up to the middle of his chest and holds it there.  Even through her hand, he can feel the rapid thump of a heart that he has been told over and over again does not exist.

His beautiful companion blinks, and then her lips twitch into the faintest of smiles.  She understands, he realizes, right before her fingers curl around the hand that still hangs uselessly at his side, and she reciprocates the gesture.  

Her skin is soft and smooth under his palm, just like he thought it would be.  

Her heartbeat is perfectly in time with his own.

Oh.

Oh god.

Charlie takes a deep breath, and then leans in, until his lips are just the barest whisper away from hers.  “It seems you are not heartless,” he tells her, with a small smile.

“Neither are you,” she whispers.

Charlie closes his eyes, and he kisses her.

And he kisses her.

And he kisses her.

***

Much later, his bedmate sleeps quite soundly, tired out by hours of play. Charlie’s body is exhausted, but his mind remains frustratingly awake.  His thoughts are very loud, and the pounding in his chest is almost deafening.  

I am not heartless, he thinks incredulously, over and over again, trying desperately to process this new information.  

I am not heartless.

So maybe ...

Maybe ...

Next to him, his companion stirs, muttering something in her sleep.  Charlie pulls her to him, and strokes her hair until she has been lulled back into the depths of peaceful slumber once more.   

Earlier, she was so responsive to him.  So strong.  She gave him everything he asked for without a single whimper, and politely asked for more.

And ...

The way she looked at him afterwards, when he attempted to tend to her welts and bruises, even though he had never done it before ...

The way she smiled at him after she pulled on the old t-shirt he gave her to sleep in, and it swamped her ...

The way she gazed at him through heavy-lidded eyes right before she fell asleep ...

It was almost as if she liked him.

Charlie chews on the inside of his trembling lower lip, and squeezes his eyes shut.  Surely this is too good to be true.  He wouldn’t be surprised to wake up in the morning and realize that this whole thing has been yet another one of his fantasies.  It has been quite some time, after all, since he has bothered to take his medication.

But ... what it it’s not a hallucination?  What if it’s real?

His arms tighten around her.  She doesn’t wake, but she does snuggle closer to him, all soft and warm and sweet.  Charlie swallows thickly, and presses a tender kiss to the top of her head.

“If you stay,” he whispers, “I am going to call you Kitten.” 

Please stay.

[dragons-socks]

Baby Bumblebee chaptr 5

Bumblebee awoke in a strange house, on a strange bed. He scrambled up, trying to ignore his pounding head. It wasn’t until he noticed Sam passed out in his desk chair that he realized that this was Sam’s room.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Mikaela said, placing a hand on Bee’s shoulder and pushing him back down. “You’ve got a lot of people worried for you, Bee.”

Bee brought up his hands to sign his apologies, but stopped. They were wrapped up in white gauze. He studied them, trying to remember when he’d hurt them. The energy-blasts from last night hadn’t hurt. His hands should be fine, right?

“When Sam called Captain Lennox, he was still asleep, and hadn't even realized you had left. Do you know how bad he would have felt if Sam and I hadn’t woken up and you were just taken by the Cons?” She asked, voice hard and unmoving. Bee flinched away. “You know Ironhide will most likely just drive you to us even if Lennox isn’t there. He did it last week. So why isn’t Ironhide with you?”

‘Didn’t want to come here.’ Bee signed in stiff, aching movements.

“What do you mean?” Sam’s asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Instead of easing the tense atmosphere, he just added to it.

‘Wanted to go home.’ Bee said.

“You were already home, I don’t-” Mikaela put a hand up to stop her boyfriend.

“You wanted to go to Optimus? Lennox told you about their base-switching.” She asked. Bee nodded, looking up at the ceiling so he didn’t have to look at either of them.

“Stop it, Bee.” Sam sounded as tired as Bee felt. He sounded as if an age old ache finally settled completely into his bones, locking into place. “Optimus has already made his decision. He doesn’t want you near him or the other Autobots in this form. At least when you’re this small.”

“Sam!” Mikaela yelled, smacking her boyfriend over the head.

“What? He needs to hear it. He won’t stop chasing the Autobots until its said.” Sam defended.

“You could have said it with a lighter touch.”

“We’ve been trying to do that for a month, and look at where that got us? Bee ran away from the captain and almost got kidnapped by Decepticons.” Bee wanted the bed to collapse in half and eat him whole as the teen couple started to yell over him as if he weren’t in the room. He felt his eyes well up with tears as frustrations lodged in the middle of his throat, too thick to swallow.

Bee tried to get their attention after a while, but they were in their own world at this point. It wasn’t until Lennox slammed the door open that the teens stopped arguing. Lennox didn’t stop walking until Bee was in his arms.

“We’re getting you a phone, and a tracker. And you are so grounded.” Lennox didn’t sound angry, though. He sounded like he was about to cry, which for some reason had the floodgates on Bee burst.

“You know, for a being who didn’t have actual tear ducts for most of their life, Bee sure does cry a lot.” Sam laughed, only to punch in the stomach by Mikaela. “Ow.”

“Shut up, Sam.”

“I’m not comfortable with overly emotional situations.” Sam bemoaned.

“What happened to his hands?” Lennox asked, holding Bee’s hands in his own to inspect the bandages. Bee sat there looking disgruntled, but didn’t pull away.

Sam and Mikaela stumbled over each other as they tried to explain what happened from when they arrived. About the energon beam that shot from Bee’s hands. Lennox turned to Bee, who shrugged, just as new to this situation as the rest of them.

“An energon blast?” Lennox whistled, still not letting Bee from his side. He looked down at the soft blonde locks and piercing blue eyes that peered up at him. “How is that even possible?”

“Your guess is as good as ours.” Sam sunk back down in his desk chair. Bumblebee shuffled his hands out of Lennox’s grasp. He had a theory.

‘Breakdown said something about an energon signal emitting from me.’ Bee winced as his wounds pulled on some of the signs.

“If Bee is still emitting a signal like a Cybertronian, then that means he’s in trouble. Like real big trouble.” Sam realizes.

“And with Prime and his team having just cut ties its going to be a while before we reform contact with them.” Lennox rubbed at his temple.

“So what do we do?”

___________

“Hey, Bumblebee!” Raven ran up to Bee. “Why didn’t you go to school yesterday? And what happened to your hands? Can you sign now? Does it hurt?”

‘Hey, Raven.’ Bee signed.

“That was my name again, right?” Bee nodded. Raven smile grew wider. He lifted his hand in the sign for ‘F’ tapped his cheek and quickly pushed away. Bee was startled at the sign. It was the sign for ‘bee’, And also how Lennox, Sarah, Sam, and Mikaela have been signing his own name. If they remembered to sign as they talk. Not that they had to, because he wasn’t deaf, but it was good practice for them to understand him better. “My neighbor’s grandson is deaf so my mom said I could ask him to teach me how to sign so we can talk! He said that was how to say bee.”

Bumblebee nodded. He finger-spelt his name and then did the sign for ‘bee’, then he finger-spelt Raven’s name and did the sign for ‘Crow’, which was basically just signing ‘black bird’.

“That’s so cool! That’s all I know, but I super promise I’m going to learn all of it so we can actually talk!” Raven pumped his fist in the air.

‘You do that.’ Bee signed, nodding his head. He couldn’t get the smile off face. Raven was just so nice to him.

“So, why were you not at school?” Raven settled down.

Bee pulled out the small cellphone Lennox had bought for him yesterday. Raven gasped, going on another excited babble about the device and how cool it was that he had one even though he wasn’t in even in middle school. Bee mostly ignored his friend as he carefully typed out his explanation. He didn’t have to pass the phone over to Raven, who just read it over his shoulders as Bee typed.

“Oh, is Lennox your dad?” Raven asked. Bee gave a shrug, but then nodded. “You should just call him ‘dad’ then. It had less letters so it’d be easier to sign too.”

Bee shrugged. He didn’t see why he couldn’t do it.

“So you ran away two nights ago and some bad people tried to kidnap you and your dad wouldn’t let you go back to school before you got an actual way to contact him in case of emergencies and also signed you up for self defense classes and like martial arts and stuff?”

Bee shook his phone in Raven’s face. That’s what he just wrote out, so yeah, it’s what happened.

“Why did you run away?” Raven asked.

‘Complicated.’ Bee typed.

“I ran away once. My mom wouldn’t let me watch cartoons. I had to go home when it got dark though and when I did she grounded me and wouldn’t let me watch cartoons for even longer.” Raven shook his head. Bee decided to keep his thoughts to himself. For some reason there were times when it was harder to remember that he was actually ten thousand years older than everyone on this planet. And then there were times like these. “So what happened to your hands?”

Bee mimicked falling and scraping his hands on the ground. Raven went on another word dump of how he fell and scraped his knee so bad he had to get stitches. Back and forth they went. Raven asking a question, Bee answering in a few short words and then Raven going on for five minutes before the cycle commences. It was nice to be honest.

The school day continued. And like all the other days, Bee was bored. He knew how to speak English and he knew that the internet could answer all of these questions for him if he needed to look up what region the rocky mountains were located in America. He’s had to do it before. Math class was cool. He’s seen Ratchet and Wheeljack make cool things out of just strings of numbers.

His favorite class was after lunch. Technically, everyday they cycled through a few different subjects. Spanish was extra boring, because he couldn’t really participate because most of the class was talking and that was kind of hard when a giant mech rips out your vocal chords. Gym was fun, but no one wanted to be partners or on teams with the weird mute kid. Art was - it wasn’t his thing.

His favorite class was music. He didn’t care for the recorder he had to learn to use, but he did like when the teacher brought out his guitar. It looked so cool. He wanted to learn how to play that.

Bee found himself climbing into Ironhide after the last bell. Lennox waved at one of the teachers that were standing watch and pulled away, but not to the direction of their house. Bee sunk further into his seat, letting out a series of sighs and whines. He had thought Lennox was joking about signing him up for some human self defense/fighting classes.

“It’s for your own good. Ironhide is trying to get in contact with Optimus now to see what we should do, but its not going well. I don’t think you want to be shackled with a bodyguard for the rest of your life, and I don’t want to have to worry every time you leave the house.” If Epps or any of his men found out how much he’s been outright mothering Bee, Lennox would be teased for the rest of his days. That didn’t stop the jack hammering of his heart when he thinks about Bumblebee, his kid, getting captured by the decepticons.

“Chin up, kid. I’ll be sure to mention to Lennox’s crew that he’s a mother hen.” Ironhide promised.

“Saws the one who did the search for ‘the perfect gym’.” Lennox flicked the steering wheel. Ironhide slammed the driver’s seat back in retaliation. Bee couldn’t help but laugh as the human tried to fight the autobot. Which got the attention of both and they formed an alliance against the kid.

Bumblebee scrambled into the back seats of Ironhide, kicking Lennox away as the man came for him. He tucked himself in the corner right behind the driver seat, thinking himself safe. Only for the seat to slam back again.

They pulled into the gym not too long after.